29. Alba
TWENTY-NINE
ALBA
Vaughn hauled me onto his lap, his hands framing my hips. All it took for me to lean in and kiss him was slight pressure from his fingertips at the base of my spine. The car began to move and we swayed back into the leather seats, and Vaughn grinned against my lips when I yelped.
“This is dangerous. We’re not strapped in,” I said.
“Live a little, Alba,” Vaughn replied with a laugh, tangling his fingers into my hair as he dragged me closer for another kiss.
It was a fitting thing to say. I hadn’t really lived in so long.
Ever since my disownment, I’d been trying to survive.
And even before that, I wasn’t really living.
I’d been beaten into the box where I was supposed to exist and been told how to act, how to think.
Even the clothes I wore—clothes that had remained mostly unworn in my closet now—were in service to an image that no longer felt like me.
Yes, they were beautiful. Yes, I missed feeling beautiful.
But did I really want to wear them? What about all those times that my feet had hurt in heels that were too high, or the times I’d declined dessert because I was afraid I would stop fitting into my pants?
When had I ever lived? For me? For the sake of it? For the pleasure of it?
Vaughn’s lips tasted like freedom. He swept his tongue against mine and banded his arm around my back, his other hand still buried in my hair. I was caught in his arms, and I never wanted to find my way out of them. I kissed him back, hoping he’d hear everything I was too afraid to say.
That I was falling for him. That I wanted forever with him. That he had the power to destroy me.
This time, when I felt his hardness swell beneath me, I didn’t feel that uncomfortable itchiness under my skin that made my mind want to spin out. I didn’t feel like I needed to perform. I didn’t want to be told what to do.
This man was safe in a way I’d never experienced before. I rubbed my cheek against his as I lowered myself down on top of him, fully clothed, feeling like my chest was split open and my heart vulnerable to him. And that’s how I wanted it to stay.
He groaned, lips coasting across my jaw. “I should buy you dresses more often,” he said.
“It’s not the dress,” I replied, catching his lips for another kiss.
His arm pressed against my back, and I ground myself against him. The car started moving again—I hadn’t noticed it stopping—and turned. Our bodies swayed sideways, my shin on the seat stopping me from tipping over.
“What is it, then?” Vaughn asked, pulling away to look in my eyes.
I shook my head. I couldn’t put into words how he made me feel like a new person.
I didn’t know how to say it, other than admitting that I was in love with him.
And how could I say that, now, in the back of a car on the way to a tailor?
He already had the power to destroy me. Admitting that I had already fallen for him would be inviting him to do it.
“You deserve it, Alba,” Vaughn said softly, his thumb stroking my cheek. “You deserve that dress and a whole lot more. You hear me?”
My throat was tight. “I hear you,” I said, and then Vaughn took pity on me and kissed me.
It was a hungry kiss, one that didn’t leave space for words or thought.
A kiss that made my hands tighten on his shoulders, my knees clench against his hips.
Vaughn slid his hand across my back and gripped my hip, his head falling back with a sigh as I ground myself against him once more.
It didn’t matter that we were both fully clothed.
The heat sparking between us was explosive.
I could feel the steel-hard bar of his cock beneath the placket of his pants, and I rubbed myself against it with the kind of desperation that, with any other man, would’ve had my cheeks burning with shame.
Not with Vaughn—because Vaughn was right there with me, riding the edge of frenzy, gripping me like I was the only thing that mattered.
“I should’ve come up to your apartment and delivered that dress myself,” he growled, his lips near my ear, his breath hot on my neck. “I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do to you now.”
My hips bucked, and his hand spasmed as it gripped my side. I smiled. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Vaughn’s smile was a wild thing. It was the kind of expression that told me he understood what I was trying to tell him: that I was in this for good. That I was with him for good. That this was real, no matter how it had started.
His kiss was hard and demanding, both his hands dropping down to frame my hips.
He urged my movements on, guiding my hips to rock and buck against him.
My body buzzed. My blood turned to honey.
The friction of my underwear was almost too much.
Through the thin fabric of my leggings, I could feel the hard press of his thigh muscles, the warmth of his hands, the thickness of his erection.
“Want you,” I panted, my fingernails digging into his shoulders.
That savage smile reappeared. “I know, princess.”
Before I could snap back at him, his hand was shifting and his thumb was where I needed it most. He pressed against my clit, and it didn’t matter that there were layers of leggings and underwear separating us.
It didn’t matter that traffic rolled by outside the car windows.
It didn’t matter that the driver was just on the other side of a thin glass partition.
I gasped at the pressure of his thumb against my clit. I rocked against it, liquid heat building in the pit of my stomach.
For the first time since I could remember, an orgasm built inside me without the need for roleplaying and games. Without the need to get myself out of my head.
Because it was Vaughn sitting there, watching my face like he couldn’t wait to see my expression. It was Vaughn’s thumb catching the edge of my bud that he knew would send me over the edge. It was Vaughn’s breath coasting across my cheek.
This wasn’t transactional. I wasn’t being used. I wasn’t using.
This was something beautiful. It was the physical manifestation of my feelings for him. It was love.
“I—” The words stuck in my throat as a wave of pleasure crashed over me.
I gasped, and Vaughn urged me on with murmured praise and a frenzied look in his eyes.
I ducked my head in the crook of his neck and mouthed the words that wouldn’t come out as an orgasm made all my muscles clench: I love you I love you I love you ?—
The car slowed to a stop, and Vaughn caught my boneless body before I could fall off his lap. A strand of hair fell against my cheek, my breaths puffing out of my lungs in big gasps.
“We’re here,” he said.
I blinked, glancing out the window. The gold lettering on the front window of Koval’s shop stared back at me, and I fought to catch my breath. “Oh,” was the only response I managed, and then the door opened, and Vaughn’s driver stepped aside to let us exit.