Chapter 32 It’s Never Just a Kiss
IT’S NEVER JUST A KISS
Simone
At first, it was tentative. Searching. Matching the uncertainty that had literally dragged this man to the ground in his anxiety.
His lips found mine like a question, but as soon as my tongue touched his, his hesitation turned into blazing demand.
Our hands were everywhere, grabbing for collars, straps, his hair, my waist, searching for purchase that would keep us anchored in this sudden firestorm.
We couldn’t get close enough. Within seconds, I went from comforting him to mauling him right there on the floor like there wasn’t any possibility one of the several hundred partygoers might wander around the corner at any moment.
I couldn’t help myself.
All night—no, all month—he had been a buffet I’d had to stare at but not touch, despite the fact that I was starving. Now he’d practically begged me to dive in, and I couldn’t stop myself from gorging.
“Mmmph—fuck!” he hissed when my teeth found his bottom lip.
I paused, but before I could pull away, he took a handful of my hair and yanked me closer so he could devour me right back.
Then he was all motion, grabbing my thighs and lifting us both to standing, then flipping me against the wall so that his big body trapped mine against the wainscoting, urging my legs to wind around his back like vines around a tree trunk.
“Fuck.” His teeth dragged down my neck. “Baby, I’m not—Christ, this isn’t—I don’t want you to think—”
I took his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “Brendan. I don’t.”
His eyes flickered from my mouth back to my eyes, like he was fighting some animal instinct to consume me the way I desperately wanted to consume him. “Don’t what?”
“Think this is…part of the contract.”
And there it was. The suggestion that was always present when we were together. That had lingered whenever we crossed the imaginary line between fake and real.
Something in his expression softened. “Christ.” His voice was feather-soft. “You are an angel, do you know that? My angel.”
“Brendan—”
“Do you think,” he interrupted before I could voice any argument, “that we could take a break from the contract? Just for the night?
Such a sweet request following a kiss that was anything but. Almost gentle, though I could feel the ferocity of his desire against my stomach.
Camille and Patrice would be very, very jealous.
Still. Despite the fervor written all over his face, despite his tendency to take charge in every situation (including my jobs), Brendan Black was asking for permission when it mattered most.
And it only made me want him more.
I drew a line over his cheekbone, down to his jaw, then to his mouth. Obliging my curiosity, he opened it and bit my finger. Just slightly before he sucked on the tip.
I shivered from head to toe. “Consider us on hiatus for the evening.”
He closed his eyes. “Thank fuckin’ God.” When he opened them again, there was nothing but intent there. “We’re going to our room. As far as I’m concerned, the party is fuckin’ over.”
He carried me up a back stairwell likely designed for servants when the house was originally built.
Brendan clearly knew the place like the back of his hand as he darted down a few more corridors, stopping only to kiss me thoroughly against another wall or two, until we reached what he said was the east wing of the house.
There, he finally allowed my feet to drop to the ground so he could unlock a pair of double doors.
“What do you think people will say when they find my shoes abandoned in the hall?” I joked. “Will they go looking for Cinderella, do you think?”
“If they do, they’ll be shit out of luck. She already has a prince. Even if he is a villain too.”
“Room” wasn’t an adequate word to describe Brendan’s suite.
I followed him into a space that consisted of a sitting room, a walk-in closet in which our clothes had already been unpacked, a bathroom bigger than half my apartment in JP, and a bed the size of a small ship.
Windows looking out to the full moon hovering over the peacefully lapping Atlantic.
“Wow, look at that trim.” I pointed to the ornate plasterwork framing the ceiling and the spiraling medallion above yet another chandelier, albeit not as large as the ones hanging from twenty-foot ceilings downstairs.
“Simone.”
I turned to where Brendan still stood by the door, hands behind his back where they were still holding the doorknob. “Yes?”
“Do you really want to talk about interior design, baby? Or would you rather I strip your clothes and split you like peach until you scream my name?”
All thoughts of the room and its decor fled my mind. “I—um—”
Brendan tipped his head to one side. A different kind of darkness had returned to his expression—one that should have sent me running.
“The, um, the second one,” I managed. “I want that.”
My Black Prince grinned.
It was blinding.
“Good.” He crossed the suite, shucking his tuxedo jacket in harsh, efficient movements without taking his eyes off me.
I backed into the bedroom until my knees hit the edge of the mattress piled with snowy linens. I barely noticed. Because he was there, towering over me, hunger clouding his face. His hands found my waist as he pulled me forward and brushed his lips over mine.
Once, twice.
But it was just a tease before he released me to sit on the bed and stepped back.
I could barely conceal my mewl in response.
That mouth curved into a wicked smile. “Stay there, angel.”
And then I watched as Brendan Black, billionaire and CEO, performed a striptease. First came the bow tie, then the tuxedo shirt, revealing taut skin stretched tight across a broad chest and a washboard stomach.
I hiccupped.
Brendan paused. “What?”
“How—how do you look like that?” I demanded. “Don’t you work in an office all day long?”
Brendan looked down at his body, then back at me with a cheeky grin that made my stomach flip over. “Stress relief, sweetheart.” The endearment came out with a flattened r in his natural accent, the only sign that he was struggling with restraint as much as I was. “Boxing helps. So does a trainer.”
“You must be really stressed out.” I couldn’t stop staring. He looked like AI made him. “Did you work out today?”
His shirt fell to the floor. “No. But I’m about to.”
He toed off his shoes and socks before undoing his black tuxedo pants and letting them crumple next to his shirt. And then it was just him, all long legs and lean muscle, chest dusted with dark hair that narrowed down his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his black boxers.
He was beautiful.
There was no other word to describe him.
Somewhere between a classical god and a warrior, nobility mixed with the bloodlust of his past, the remnants of some ancient Spanish raider who had invaded his ancestors’ homelands in Ireland and planted the seed of the dark-haired prince now invading my space, pushing me back on the bed and trapping me in the billowing linens as his lips found mine again.
“Fuck, angel. I’ve been dying for this for weeks. You know that?”
“I—know.” I could barely get the words out. I needed that mouth, that tongue, that taste.
His hands slid down, then back up with my skirt, pulling me up to remove it so that there was nothing but a few bits of thin fabric between us: the scrap of lace that I wore as underwear and his simple black boxers.
I moaned as my legs wrapped around his waist again. It wasn’t nearly close enough. I wanted to sink into him, to melt into his skin, to know the exact size and shape of him inside me.
But it had been so long…
Did I even remember how to do this anymore?
“Brendan, please,” I whimpered, tugging at his waistband.
“Please what, angel?” The sweet words were still a growl as he nibbled down my neck.
“You. I need more of you.”
“Fuck more. I need all of you.”
His groan echoed around the room as he reached down and yanked his boxers down his legs so he could kick them aside.
How could one man’s kiss ruin every other thought, every sense of reality I had?
His mouth was so thorough that I barely noticed as his hands found their way down my body as if to memorize its curves, cupping my breasts, my hips, taking two handfuls of my ass so he could slide his considerable length between my thighs, guarded only by the scrap of lace that would be so easily torn…
“Rip them,” I murmured into that hot, searching mouth. “Please.”
“Since you’re asking so pretty.” His fingers hooked the lace, and the rip of lace cut through the room like a knife.
He sat up on his knees, eyes dilated even more as he took in the sight of me in nothing but my skin.
“Christ, Simone.” His words were labored, like he could barely manage to find them. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever fuckin’ seen.”
I sucked in a harsh breath. “I…I wanted to look good. For you.”
“Baby, you looked perfect to me the first time I saw you in that hospital room. You’d look good in a paper bag.
It’s you I want, angel. Not the clothes or the jewelry or anything else.
Just you.” His mouth quirked with a bit of humor as his gaze darted over my bare breasts and the pendant lying between them.
“Although I do like you in diamonds. And nothing else.”
He touched one finger to the pendant, then drew it slowly over my skin, down to one nipple, then dragging the back of his hand with a sweet pull of his nails over the other.
I sucked in a tight breath. “More, Brendan.”
Brendan leaned down and pressed another kiss to my lips, then to my cheeks, my jaw, and down my neck until he hovered over one of my nipples.
With unnervingly slow licks, he twirled his tongue around the pebbled nub, then sucked it to the back of his mouth with sudden intensity that had me arching off the bed.
“Oh!” I cried as he continued that delicious torture.
Just as quickly, he released me with a pop and sat up again, though his eyes glowed with need. “Patience, angel.”