Chapter 40
Forty
I woke to a trail of soft kisses being planted up my spine. They tip toed along the blades of my shoulders and up to my neck, where sharp teeth gripped my earlobe and gave it a gentle tug, causing me to shiver and writhe.
This was the best way to wake up.
My love sank into my body in one smooth thrust and made lazy morning love to me.
His body cocooned mine, his skin warm and soft, his strong, muscular arms forming a protective shield around me.
I nestled into him as he took his pleasure.
His smooth chest bore down on my back, pressing me into the soft sheets.
His pace quickened and I moaned my approval.
He rode my body, plunging through my sensitive tissues until he had me moaning my release around a mouthful of Egyptian cotton sheets. His own release came hard and I felt his warmth spread inside me, filling me up like syrup.
I turned my mouth up to be kissed and he didn’t disappoint, claiming my mouth with the ease of a man who knew he owned a woman, body and soul.
He smelt of the morning, of spring on the cusp of summer, of Egyptian cotton and sex.
He turned me so we were nose to nose, our bodies intertwined like tree roots.
His fingers led a light dance over my thigh, his touch affectionate.
We lay there for an age, absorbing each other.
I counted the silver flecks in his eyes, watched as the sternness, usually heavy in his brow, gave way to a tentative happiness.
I reached up and touched a finger to the thin scar that ran through his brow.
“How did this happen?” I asked, not for the first time.
“I fell out of a tree when I was a child.”
I tilted my head at him as if he were a trick image, the kind where if you can look at it just right, you’ll be able to see the real picture inside.
“Truly?”
“Yours truly.” He gave my thigh a squeeze and I couldn’t help but smile despite knowing what he was up to. Alfie Tell, Master Manipulator. The only man who can lie to me and I still end up smiling.
“You know I know you’re lying, right?”
Alfie sighed. “Are you going to push this?”
I pretended to think about it for a minute before shaking my head. Apparently his scar was a big secret too. I’d file it away with Charles, his parents, his business, and the Never Tell Club. So, basically, his whole life.
“Not right now, no.”
“Good, because I can think of much better things to do.” His free hand roamed over my hip before grabbing a handful of my backside and pulling me to him. His erection pressed up against my mound, hard and ready. The man was tireless.
“Again?”
“Again.” He rolled until he lay between my legs, and before I could speak his mouth claimed mine once more.
I moaned my approval at the invasion of his tongue, at the way he sucked and nipped my lower lip, at the groans emanating from him as he made a feast of my mouth.
I loved the way Alfie fucked me, but honestly, I loved the way he kissed me even more.
His kisses could mean so many things and none of them had ever failed to reduce me to a gibbering wreck.
His fingers found my entrance and he sunk two and then three in with ease.
He swirled them, easing me open further even though I’d taken him only minutes before.
There was no need for this and I wondered if he just enjoyed the act of doing it, of knowing how quickly my body readied itself for him, of feeling the copious wetness and knowing it was all his fault.
I knew how that felt. His erection, after all, was my fault, and I took great pleasure in knowing that.
I gasped for air as he finally released my mouth, and as his lips moved to my neck I let out a loud groan, my sensitive flesh rippling over his expert fingers.
“Fuck, Alfie!” I cried out as I began to peak.
“That’s it, baby.” He reared up, resting on one forearm as his other hand continued to work me. He was smiling at me, an arrogant grin. “Say my name,” he commanded. I held his gaze, my breathing heavy and laboured.
“Alfie,” I panted and his grin grew.
“Again.”
“Alfie.” My hand wrapped tight around his biceps as he worked me. I writhed under him and my mind writhed too as he reduced me to a skin suit of toe-curling pleasure.
“Again.”
“Alfie!” I cried out as I began to implode.
“That’s it, Lola. Scream my fucking name.”
His name became a mantra in my mouth, an epithet, a prayer for salvation as my body racked with a sanity-stealing orgasm, one of many that he dealt out like lollipops. He wrapped his arms around me, hushing me softly, whispering sinful somethings in my ear.
“I’m going to do that to you all over the planet, baby; Paris, Italy, Berlin…
everywhere.” His words were a careful mix of deadly romance.
The danger of them sent a ripple up my spine.
It set off an alarm in my brain too, and as the tide of my orgasm began to recede, the events of yesterday came crashing in on thunderstruck waves.
He thought I was leaving with him.
Oh shit.
“Alfie…”
“I know, baby. I’ve got you.” He nuzzled my neck and I felt him move into position, his erection hard and ready. I wriggled and pushed on his chest, all the while trying desperately to drag back coherent thought and speech from where he’d just blasted it into outer space.
“No, I…can we talk?”
He reared up on his forearms, confused and slightly distant, like his mind wasn’t entirely here. It wasn’t really. During sex, Alfie’s mind was definitely in a whole different zone altogether.
“Talk? Right now?”
“Yeah, I just…were you serious about that? About wanting me to go with you?” I asked.
His brow creased in exasperation. “Yes, I was serious. Can I fuck you now?”
“Yes. No!” I forced his mouth away from my breast where he was trying to tease a delicate nipple. “We need to talk about this, have an actual, real conversation.”
“Do we need to have it now ?” He sounded frustrated and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t give me a tiny bit of pleasure. He had no problem using sex to torture me, so why shouldn’t I try it too?
“Yes, we do.” I tried to push myself up. Having a conversation in this position felt a little ridiculous but he pushed me back down again and I hit the mattress with a huff.
“Lola, you’re killing me here.” He nodded down at himself to where his erection lay between us, throbbing and in desperate need of attention.
He shifted his hips slightly until suddenly his erection was poised at my entrance. I tried to close my legs, but with him firmly between them it was impossible, so I clamped a hand over myself instead, blocking his entry. Alfie’s eyes widened in a mixture of shocked surprise and childish outrage.
“I told you once that if you ever blocked yourself from me again you’d better be sure you meant it.”
“I mean it.”
He sighed and reared off me to sit back on his heels. His erection looked almost as angry as the man it belonged to. I shuffled up out of my missionary position and leaned back against the headboard, my knees pulled up to my chest.
“Fine,” he snapped, clearly wanting to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. “I can’t stay here and long distance would never work for us. I don’t understand the problem. You don’t exactly have anything keeping you here, do you?”
“I have my family.” Even to my own ears that sounded like a weak argument.
“You can visit. Why are we talking about this? You already agreed to it.”
“No I didn’t, Alfie. You fucked a half-screamed acquiescence out of me and took it as a yes. That isn’t the same as me agreeing to it.”
“In your opinion.”
“Don’t be childish, Alfie. An agreement gotten over a barrel isn’t worth anything. You’re a businessman, you should know that. This is a huge decision. You don’t think we should have at least a little conversation about it?”
He merely shrugged as if he was annoyed by the subject. “You said you wanted to travel.”
“I do.”
“And I’m giving you that opportunity, so what’s the problem?” His grey gaze whipped up to me, dissecting my expression, searching for signs and clues that might help him.
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I just need a few days to think. Can we at least agree to keep it between us until I decide? If everyone knows then there’ll be pressure to go through with it and I just can’t deal with that right now.”
“Fine,” he snapped, and without wasting another second he grabbed my ankles and yanked me down the bed, burying himself inside me before I had a chance to argue any further. “But that little stunt is going to cost you.”
By the time we arrived at the pub, Keira was already several vodkas down.
She squealed when she saw us, bursting free of a gaggle of girlfriends.
Her arms reached out for me and I dove into them.
I’d be losing her soon and, if Alfie had his way, it would probably be a long time before I saw her again.
Her too-tight dress was bright red and covered with polka dots. It was ugly as hell but somehow it suited her. My gorgeous friend had a knack for making ugly things beautiful.
“You came!”
I was about to say, ‘ Well, of course I did,’ until I realised she wasn’t talking to me but to the brooding man behind me.
She shoved me aside so that she could be air kissed and congratulated.
I imagined a sober Keira would have given Alfie an appraising eye.
She still hadn’t forgotten about the trackers he had on me, but a drunk Keira was a friend to everyone.
“Drinks!” she declared to the raucous applause of our friends.
“I’ll get them,” Alfie said grimly and they cheered again. He made his way to the bar and the girls turned their beady eyes on me. I smiled and entered the inquisition.