Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
She could feel Alex smile against her skin. Smug ass. But that sure wouldn’t keep her from enjoying what he was doing to her body.
It was obvious he was in no rush. And although her body was craving his, she didn’t want to hurry this night either. Something told her that would shatter the bubble of trust surrounding them. It was that bubble, that hazy, lovely feeling that had compelled her to admit her feelings.
Besides, she wasn’t a liar. And keeping it inside any longer felt like a lie.
She didn’t want her relationship with this man built on anything but truth.
While he played and nipped at one breast, he cupped the other in his palm, teasing her nipple with a calloused thumb.
Greer let her eyes drift closed so she could savor the sensations of his skin, his mouth moving over her.
For such a harsh-looking man, he was proving he knew how to be a gentle lover.
She already knew he could be intense, demanding.
But this gentleness? It meant he felt something powerful for her too even if he wasn’t yet willing to admit it.
“I love your body,” he said, and skimmed his lips from her breastbone to her stomach, pausing at her belly button to nip at it.
It wasn’t a profession of love for her, but it was something. “My body’s pretty fond of you too.”
He cradled her hips in his solid, workingman hands and pressed a reverent kiss to her bikini line. “Open for me.”
God, she already was. She’d pretty much rolled over and presented him with her emotional belly. But she eased her legs apart, letting him in.
Alex spent forever drawing swirly designs on her hipbones, so long that she finally squeezed him with her knees. “Last time I checked, that wasn’t my main erogenous zone.”
“I like this part of you,” he said. “You have real woman hips.” He slid his hands under her butt and squeezed. “A bodacious butt.”
“Is that a euphemism for fat ass?”
“It means I want to see it in the air sometime when I slide inside you.”
Well, if every nerve between her legs wasn’t already restlessly anticipating a fiesta with Alex’s mouth, that little 411 would’ve sent them running for the crepe paper and a pinata.
But rather than flipping her to her stomach, Alex used his leverage to tilt up her hips and let out a satisfied humming noise. Greer wasn’t a full-wax girl, tending more toward the au naturale look. Apparently, he approved.
“Bonita,” he said. Pretty. The he curled his tongue around her clitoris.
All the bones in Greer’s legs melted like glass in a furnace. Pliable and open to however Alex might want to reshape them.
As he’d done all night, Alex took his time. Tortured her with languid, sweeping strokes of his tongue as if he wanted to learn every tiny bit of sensitive skin. Greer wrapped her hands around the metal bed frame and simply hung on.
His unhurried exploration had her hovering on the edge of orgasm, but every time she tightened her thighs around Alex in anticipation of the pleasure, he backed off, changed his strokes. Anything to pull her back from what she wanted.
A few men she’d been with over the years acted as if giving oral sex was a hoop they had to jump through before getting to the good stuff. Not Alex. And as sweet as that was, she was about to come out of her skin at his teasing. She couldn’t even tug on his hair to encourage him to move faster.
“Alex,” she said, rubbing the inked armor on his shoulder.
“Mm?” Damn man never looked up, never missed a stroke. In fact he did a little tongue parry that had Greer forgetting her name for a second.
“Tell me,” she eventually continued, “did you pack an overnight bag or a moving truck?”
Finally, he lifted his head, a preoccupied expression on his face. “What?”
“Because I’m pretty sure you’ve moved in down there.”
That was awarded with an eyebrow lift. “Are you trying to tell me you’re bored?”
“No, I’m dying of terminal turned-on-ness.”
He laughed. “Even I know that’s not a word.” A flash of white teeth in his darker face and he ducked his head again. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Then he went to work on her clitoris with his tongue with a speed and single-mindedness that secured Greer’s Promise Keeper XL a place in the trash can.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, pressing against him.
He shifted and pressed her thighs up so she was braced flatfooted against the mattress and spread wide open. Such a vulnerable position for a woman—under her lover, giving him access to everything without the means to defend herself, physically or emotionally.
And when Alex pushed two fingers inside her, sending all those nerve endings into overload, Greer would’ve given him anything. She couldn’t control her hips. Didn’t really try. She rode his hand with jerky thrusts while he continued to tongue her clit.
The pressure built between her legs, under her closed eyelids, around her heart.
When it all became too much, she clamped her thighs around him and let the orgasm take her.
Waves of red and green and violet and indigo streamed through her body.
A technicolor orgasm. That was one for the art history books.
As the wave slowly receded, Greer relaxed into the mattress, letting her boneless legs drop and her arms splay to either side.
Alex pressed a kiss first to one inner thigh and then the other. “You okay?”
The sound that came from Greer’s mouth wasn’t so much a word as it was a grunt, and Alex laughed. “I’m not sure how to take that.”
“I…I just orgasmed a rainbow.” She cracked her eyelids open to watch Alex lift up and brace his hands on either side of her head.
He smiled down at her. “Is that a good thing?”
“It was a rainbow, Alex. Rainbows are inherently good.”
“Was it just, you know, red and yellow or—”
“A complete ROYGBIV.”
“Damn—” his smile cranked up on one side, making him look smug and boyish at the same time, “—I’m an artist.”
He was an artist on so many levels. Greer wrapped her arms behind his neck, pulling him down into a deep, slow kiss. She sank into it—the power, the softness, the sweetness. When they finally broke apart, all her limp parts were ready to get back in the game, and Alex was breathing heavily.
She cupped his ass and lifted her hips. “You have to know I wasn’t one of those kids who was ever satisfied with an eight-pack of crayons.”
With a stretch that rubbed his hard parts against her soft parts, Alex yanked open a bedside drawer and grabbed a condom. “Oh,” he said, kneeling to roll on protection, “the first time I heard your voice, I knew you were a sixty-four-count kind of woman.”
“Sixty-four?” She urged him back down and wrapped her legs around his waist, aligning them perfectly. “Surely you’ve heard they make boxes of ninety-six.”
She lifted and he lowered, sliding sweet and hot into the heart of her.
They both stilled, adjusting to the feel, the perfect shock of two bodies becoming one.
Then, Alex began to rock, a slow, hypnotizing roll of his hips.
He whispered in her ear, “Mi cielo, this is nothing less than a hundred count.”
A hundred meant perfect. And in that moment, with their bodies and hearts pressed together, they were perfect.
The build was slower this time, a full-body experience that had Greer trembling from head to toe.
How could this man—this talented, antisocial, strangely patient man—be anything less than her soul mate? If her boots wanted to tell her something else, she’d throw the damn things in Honeywell Creek and let them float all the way to the Gulf.
As he continued to rock against her in a perfect rhythm, Alex framed her face in his hands. “No matter what happens, I want you to remember this night. This is how I feel about you, Greer.”
Her heart stuttered. Something about that sounded ominous even though it should’ve been sweet. Before she could ask what he meant, Alex covered her mouth with his and reached between their bodies to do a figure eight around her clitoris.
That was it. Her brain and body simply separated when the orgasm overtook her this time. He let her ride it out—aftershocks and all—before he picked up the pace and let go. He went deep, his body went rigid, and he groaned as he came.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he breathed as he relaxed on her. He dropped down and rolled, pulling her to his side. “That…that was…”
“Crimson,” she said. But as soon as she said it, she regretted it, because that lush shade was too close to black.
With Greer lying there with her head on his shoulder, absently stroking his nipple ring, peace tried its damnedest to settle over Alex, to allow him to pretend that he’d found his way back into a family. One that challenged him at times, but one he came to appreciate more and more each day.
Even the PTO picnic earlier had only been half as painful as he’d bitched it was.
And Greer’s brother? Well, Alex could respect his feelings for his sister. His need to protect her and look out for her even though she was a grown woman. Because, honestly, did your siblings ever grow up in your eyes?
They stayed perpetually children, just as Nicolás had in Alex’s eyes. Now Alex needed to face the reality that Nicolás wasn’t a child, although he was making decisions that could destroy the rest of his life.
And if that meant Alex had to give up his to save Nicolás’s, so be it.
Alex’s short taste of peace fled.
“How’s your competition entry coming along?” Greer asked, her words soft and sleepy.
“It’ll get there,” he said.
“They like you, you know that, right?”
“Who?”
“The people here in Prophecy.”
“Because I made fucking flan?”
“Because—” she drew little circles on his chest that made Alex’s heart ache with what he had to do, “—you’re actually a nice guy.
And—let’s face it—the women like you because you’re hot and now they know you can cook.
That’s as sexy as all get-out. As long as your design is as brilliant as the others I’ve seen so far, you’ll win. ”