Chapter 33
OLIVER
“Ah, there you are!” A fourth joins us, Matt throwing his arm around Eve as we stand in the middle of the dance floor, Mitchell and I snarling and circling like dogs.
That bastard has his hands on her. He touched what he doesn’t deserve.
“I said let her go .” At my demand, Matt’s gaze drops to where Mitchell’s fingers make a manacle on Eve’s wrist. He frowns. He knows people are staring, knows the press is here. Painting on a sloppy smile, he drapes himself around her like this isn’t an altercation but a drunken conversation. In the middle of the dance floor. But I suppose the intoxicated rarely make sense.
“I bet he’s like a bus with no wheels,” Matt begins, his Irish accent thicker than I’ve ever heard it. “You get on, but it doesn’t take you where you want to go. And when it’s time to get off, he leaves you sorely disappointed.” Somehow, he slides between them, disconnecting Mitchell’s fingers. He whisks Eve to his side, and then the pair is gone.
The fist wrapped around my heart eases, the music seeming to pick up as, in the periphery of my vision, couples seem to whirl like dervishes.
“Come to save her?” he sneers.
“Not for the first time.”
“Fuck off. I know you were having her all along.” With his accusation, flecks of spittle fly from his thick lips.
“You really don’t know her at all.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“Not that I wouldn’t have, though your anger strikes me as ironic, given you’re the one in the wrong.” As far as Eve is concerned, at least.
“Bastard,” he growls, his accent betraying him, all round vowels.
I almost answer that we’re one and the same, but I’m not like him. I don’t have to be, I decide, as I turn away. I want Eve. I also desperately want to kick seven colors of shit out of the man, but I know that kind of satisfaction rarely lasts.
What does feel good is winning.
I have his fiancée.
I’m about to own Northaby House.
He’ll be seeing my face in his nightmares for decades.
“Fuck it,” he spits before I’ve taken a step. “What do I care if you want her? It was good pussy while it lasted. But then, so was Lucy. Easy come, easy go, if you know what I mean,” he adds with a wink.
I see red—bloodred—and swing around to smash my fist into the middle of his face. Violins and viola screech to a halt, and waves of people part like the Red Sea. Mitchell lies in the middle, splayed out on the floor. Blood oozes from a nose that’s probably broken, judging by the throb in my knuckles. My chest heaves as I stand over him. His eye is already swelling, and I want so badly to stamp my heel into his fucking face.
“Easy. Yes.” Breath rushes down my nose, and I swipe my hair back from my head. “You set the bar so low, you make it a cakewalk.” I’m surprised how calm my voice sounds as I kneel, ignoring his worried wince. “Let me give you a little advice,” I say, examining my swollen knuckles. “Sometime in the future, when you’re feeling lonely or nostalgic and pining for Eve, you might think about whipping out your pathetic cock to abuse yourself to some old memory.” Grabbing his lapels, I jerk him up from the floor, bringing us face to face. “But just remember, while you’re pretending, imagining, I’ll be the one fucking her mouth.” I push him away like the garbage he is, and he falls to his elbows. I stand and adjust my cuffs. “One other thing. If I ever see you near either Eve or Lucy again, I will fucking end you.”
I stalk away, ignoring looks and judgment. My blood runs alternatively hot and cold as I think about my actions. Punching him was out of character, but I have no regrets and will face any possible consequences with a grin, because it felt good. It felt necessary. Like a release.
But now I need to find Eve.
Ah, Eve. The shit I just said.
My heart sinks. I’m no better than him. She deserves so much more.
I make my way toward the pavilion, scanning faces and the backs of heads before I see them, a trio huddled furtively on the other side of the terrace. My legs eat up the space between us, and the reason for their huddle becomes apparent: a bottle of whisky, no doubt swiped from the bar. The wealthier Fin gets, the more brazen his light-fingeredness seems to become. It doesn’t matter that tonight is an open bar. It’s the challenge that calls to him.
I pause for a moment, partly to calm this raging bull inside me, but also to see what this lot is up to.
“Her?” Matt squints into the gardens.
“Yes, you should go and speak to her,” Eve says.
He tugs on his ear, then swings the bottle up to his lips. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he says, “She’s not my type.”
“But she’s gorgeous!” Taking the outstretched bottle, Eve takes a sip, then grimaces. “I don’t know why anyone would drink whisky.”
“Because what whisky will not cure, there is no cure for.”
“I’m more concerned for what it might break.” She gives in to a whole-body shiver. “You’re sure this stuff hasn’t ruined your eyesight? That girl is smoking hot.”
“My eyesight is grand. I’ve just seen more meat on a spider’s knuckle.”
Eve’s attention slices Fin’s way, but he can’t answer for laughing. “A spider’s what?” she says, turning back.
“I mean, she’s so skinny, one eye would do her. I’d probably break her,” he adds reluctantly.
With a tiny but incredulous shake of her head, Eve passes the bottle to Fin. “It’s official. Whisky made him blind.”
I find myself smiling. I don’t think my friends are much interested in Eve’s matchmaking skills, but they are keeping her mind occupied, because Matt likes women, period.
“Well, whatever tickles your pickle is a personal thing,” Fin says, pointing the bottle at our friend.
“You leave my pickle out of it.” Matt smirks. “Oliver’s already riled enough.”
“He looked so pissed.” Eve’s expression turns pensive.
“Don’t worry about it,” Matt puts in. “That gobshite’s face will look like he did the hundred-meter dash in a ninety-meter room right about now.”
“No, that’s not Oliver’s style,” Fin argues. “He’d say—”
“Rage is good, but revenge is better.” It looks as though Eve is chewing the inside of her lip.
“Sounds like something he’d say,” agrees Matt.
“Well, it seems I don’t know myself,” I begin, stepping into the trio’s line of sight.
“Oliver!” Eve takes two quick steps, then pauses, her actions suddenly tentative. Like her head and her heart have opposing opinions. I wonder which wins as she throws her arms around my neck. “I’ve been so worried.”
“That I might’ve killed him?”
“You wouldn’t do that, I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, because I didn’t bring peanut butter.” She takes my face between her hands and adds, “Because you’re too pretty to go to prison.”
My laughter rings out as my friends make their goodbyes, but I barely lift my head.
“You’re all right?” I ask, stepping away for the benefit of perspective without surrendering my hold on her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He was just ...” She rubs her fingers around her wrist. I lift her hand, and my stomach twists at the red marks I find there.
“That fucker.” Every ounce of me wants to tear him limb from limb. He touched what isn’t his—he touched what is dear to me.
“Oliver.” Her hands cup my face, bringing me out of that haze. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just relieved that it’s over.”
“Over?”
“Seeing him. It won’t matter if I see him again, because the worst is over. I should’ve faced him, gone for my stuff. I guess I didn’t want to face the truth.”
“Which is what?”
“I’m as responsible for that day as he is.”
I open my mouth to protest when she cuts me off.
“I don’t mean his infidelity. There’s no excusing that. But I was fooling myself. I knew it, but I didn’t want to face it.”
I gather her into my arms, hugging her tight, filled with a sudden relief. “I understand.” Finally. She really doesn’t give a fuck about him. I hate that he knew her first, that she almost married him, but beneath all that resentment and jealousy, there was real fear. The human psyche is a strange thing, because only now do I realize I’ve been fighting these thoughts, this terror that she might walk away with him.
She suddenly rears back, slapping my chest. “But a safari park? Are you kidding me?”
“Eve.” I graze my lips across her head. “Let’s get out of here.”
We skirt around the palace gardens, taking pains to avoid the entitled, noisy throng—those drunken revelers swigging champagne from the bottle and staggering into hedges.
“It seems to have gotten a little wild,” Eve says as high-pitched laughter cuts through the hedge.
“Yes,” I agree, my heart kicking up a notch as though that were a suggestion.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“Home.”
“Well, duh.” She laughs, her fingers tightening briefly on mine. I’m almost surprised she’s allowing me to hold her hand. “I meant, do you know where the car is?”
“Can’t be far.”
She falls quiet again, concentrating so her heels don’t sink too far into the damp evening grass. Since the sun has set, the air has taken on a distinctly cooler feel. It’s almost autumnal.
“So, tell me about this safari park,” she says with a carelessness that must cost her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Oliver.” My name sounds like disappointment. “I was so angry at you earlier, but I don’t have it in me to fight with you right now.”
I wheel around to face her so abruptly that she stumbles back a step. My heart hurts that she would, even for a split second, think that I might hurt her. But the truth is, I have. Perhaps not physically, but hurt is hurt.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“You’re not. Not really.” She gives a slow shake of her head. “I can’t do this, you know. I can’t in good conscience lie to that man about his animals.”
“I haven’t asked you to.”
Her trill of unhappy-sounding laughter fills the night air.
“Not directly,” I amend.
“You didn’t even tell me who I was meeting—you wouldn’t tell me the name of the house, and you certainly didn’t mention the estate housed the inhabitants of the Serengeti!”
“Because you would’ve asked questions I wasn’t ready to answer.”
She rears back as though slapped, but I don’t give her a chance to speak.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with that side of the place.”
“So why buy it?” She looks at me as though I’m suddenly alien. “You can’t expect me to believe it’s purely to spite him?”
“It’s also a sound business proposition,” I answer defensively. Words twist in my throat, though I force them back, swallowing over guilt and anger. “But there was a time I would’ve burned the place to the ground if I could.”
She looks away, horrified.
“Not with the animals in it, for God’s sake.”
Her expression falters. Is that pity I’m seeing? “You really hate him that much?”
“Yes, I hate him.” But perhaps not as much as I admire Eve. But that can’t be true, can it? “I hate him even more after tonight.” I take a step toward her, cupping my hand to her silky cheek. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, so sorry I—” She silences me, her forefinger pressed to my lips.
“Like I said, I needed to see him. I needed confirmation that I don’t truly know who he is.”
“I should’ve been with you.”
“Well, you weren’t.” She pulls away, begins to walk again. But then she turns her head over her shoulder, the tiniest of smiles playing on her face. “And then you were there.” I hang onto that smile, store it inside me as we walk in silence for a while. “The animals,” she begins again. “I know I can’t defend every cause, but I can’t help you if you’ve no concern for them.”
“Do you really see me that way?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re thinking from one minute to the next.” She folds her arms across her chest. Perhaps a defense? But the night is also cool. And that is a very thin dress.
“Right now, I’m thinking you look a little chilled,” I say as I slip off my jacket and drape it across her shoulders. “I’m also thinking you misunderstand me. Even without the weight of the law, I would never condone animal cruelty or mistreatment. I can’t honestly say what will happen to the park, but whatever the outcome, you have my word that their fate will be a good one.”
“I’m glad. I didn’t lie to Mandy, just so you know. I mostly skirted around the truth.”
But he would’ve made his own assumptions, and that was the whole point.
We fall quiet again, making me very conscious of her breath and the phantom swish of her dress.
“You looked so fierce.” At her sudden whisper, I glance down. “How did it feel, playing the hero?”
“Instead of the villain?”
“You aren’t all bad, Oliver.” Her words sound like consolation.
“Or even half-bad?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she replies, fighting a twitch to her lips.
Is it my mood or hers that I find so bewildering?
“Oliver Deubel.” She gives a slow shake of her head. “My hero.”
“You’re not meant to be flattered.” My words are hoarse, and my feet slow to a stop all by themselves. “Standing up for you should be nonnegotiable. A bare minimum.”
“I guess I wouldn’t know.”
“Because you don’t need anyone to look after you, do you?” I shouldn’t be sliding my hands through her hair. I should be frightening her off, because this feeling in my chest doesn’t belong to me. This need. This ... fear. What could’ve been.
“You’re the one who intervened.”
A noise stems from my throat. Not quite a scoff.
“The proof is in the pudding.” I suppose she thinks I’m being noble as she twists my hand, exposing my swollen knuckles. “But let me ask you this,” she adds soberly. “Did you do it for me or for Lucy?”
I’m not so noble, and her jealousy is unnecessary. I should tell her what happened, but I can’t bring myself to utter the truth. What I owe Lucy comes before my own happiness. What I owe Eve ...
“I did it because he deserved it.”
Not enough. Her gaze drops. “Well, that’s not flattery, but I’m not sure it’s the truth either.” She turns and makes to pass me. My fingers slide around her upper arm, stopping her in her tracks.
“I’m no one’s idea of a hero. If you knew the things I said to him, things no man should ever utter about any woman, let alone a woman he respects.” A woman he longs to kiss. “A woman he’s supposed to protect.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Perhaps it’s protection from yourself you need.”
“Why? What could you possibly have said?”
She shivers as I lean closer and bring my lips to within an inch of her ear. I can’t bring myself to tell her about Lucy, but I can frighten her off. For her own sake. For mine. Because I want her too much.
“I told him he should imagine you sucking my cock.” Her shoulders lift with her tiny inhale, not quite a gasp. “Because it’s the nearest he’ll ever get to having you again.”
“Nice.” She twists from my hold. “Thank you for putting those words out there.” Her eyes flash, her gaze slicing over her shoulder. “For putting that image in his head.”
“I’ve warned you time and again who I am.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m the idiot.” Her eyes flash with defiance, and she begins to move. I grab her elbow and step into her, my shoulders blocking the moonlight from her face as she lifts her chin with the hauteur of a queen.
“Eve, you see the good and the bad in me, and you’ve yet to look away.” Her lashes flutter as I press my thumb to her pulse, knowing full well I might never get this chance again.
“This is a very bad idea.” She whispers her only protest as I angle my head, ghosting my lips over hers. I’m not to be trusted, that much is true, but I don’t think she can trust herself either. “But then, bad ideas seem to be our specialty.”
“Eve Fairfax. The only woman I know who can slice me apart with one look, only to seduce me with the next.”
She gives a soft gasp as I suck over her pulse, her words less steady than she’d like, I’m sure. “Which do you deserve right now?”
“Only you can decide.” I’ll never deserve her, but fuck it, I would die trying.
Her lips are as clever as her comebacks when I press my mouth to hers. I kiss her deeper, my hands slipping under my jacket, making it slide from her shoulder in my quest to touch.
“Oliver, not here,” she rasps, catching the slide of fabric. “Getting arrested won’t help my visa.”
She’s right, but I’m not thinking straight. I just want her. No, I need her.
“I can’t wait.”
“And I can’t be arrested.”
My hand molds her hip, sliding higher, her breast a delightful weight against my palm. No bra. I swallow her groan as her nipple pebbles under my thumb. “Then it’s a pity your body is such a raging flirt.”
Her answer is the kind of noise that echoes at the base of my cock. Why must she be so small? Sweet like a peach, and so utterly beautiful. As though hearing my thoughts, her nails suddenly dig into the flesh of my arse, closing any space between us.
A thought drops into my head, and I take her hand, beginning to move us in the opposite direction. “Come on.” Once, a long time ago, I remember there being a building nearby. An old folly.
“Where are we going?” Her exhilaration is as clear as the flush in her cheeks.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Not as much as you’d like to think,” she says with a soft snicker.
I was right, anticipation tightening my skin as I spot the small structure though the trees. It’s a little off the beaten track and has perhaps been overlooked in security terms. I send out a silent prayer anyway.
“Ladies first.” I almost swing her ahead, only to wrench her back against me. A deep groan rises through my chest. I’m as hard and as hot as a poker, and her dress and underwear offer little in the way of protection. “Get your delectable arse in there.”
Eve swings around, her gaze dark but bright as she steps backward into the darkness, and I follow her.
The folly smells of damp grass and misuse, the ground underfoot chalky as I step closer. I wrap my arms around her back, dipping my knees to bring me against that hot, tight piece of heaven between her legs. The taste of her mouth and the feel of her in my arms are like stepping into a dream to find it real.
“Let me ...” I cradle my arm between her bare back and the cold, damp wall, my hand slipping between us. My fingers trailing the soft pout of her inner thigh, her breath a heated burst against my neck. “I pressed my teeth here, remember? God, I can still hear your whimper.” The noise she makes seems involuntary, swallowed back, lips closed around it.
She won’t close for me.
“And here.” I press my palm to her pussy, the heat of her enough to make a man lose brain cells. “Ah, Eve. I still dream of your taste.”
Her next sound is more guttural as her hands slide into my hair, pulling my head closer. I groan as she licks the salt from my neck, curse as she sucks.
“Touch me,” she demands. “Please.”
I slip my fingers under the gauzy excuse for underwear, a silky string thong. Twisting the fabric between my fingers, I give it a sharp tug. She gasps as the fabric gives, both sounds witness to our need.
“Two for two. You’re going to owe me.”
I don’t answer. Offer her no preliminaries, her own body showing no resistance as I press two fingers deep inside her. Her fingernails dig into my biceps, the lewd sounds of her pleasure and her sharp, needy breaths an aural aphrodisiac.
“Oh, darling, listen to how much you need this. To the mess you’re making of my fingers.”
“Stop,” she pants, beginning to ride my hand.
“Such a lovely girl. How sweetly you take my fingers.”
“Stop. Talking.” She buries her face in my neck. Her teeth scrape. Bite. I suffer the sensation through to my aching cock. “Yes. Yes! Less talk.”
Her breathy demand curls around me. Her resistance, her fuckable mouth, dialing my pleasure to a ten.
“So demanding,” I rasp, curling my fingers inside her. “But you know I don’t take orders.” Though I do love to hear her try, all the same.
“How about directions?” Her hand on my shoulder, she pushes. With my fingers still inside her, I shuffle back when she pushes again. Lust addled as I am, it takes me a moment to realize she’s moving with me, turning us until our positions are reversed. The length of my back pressed against the wall, my legs slightly splayed. Grabbing my face, she presses her mouth to mine, her words, like her kiss, hot and sweet. “Oh, yes. You’re a good boy. I see you can.”
My laughter echoes through the dark space. Maybe I do like Eve’s directions after all.
“Wait.” Her eyes glitter as they meet mine, as she makes to slide my hand from between her legs.
“No, let me—”
She shakes her head. “Don’t disappoint me, baby. It’s my turn now.”
As she slides down my body, every inch of my torso tingles in anticipation. Her movements are quick and rough as she pulls my shirt from my pants.
“Eve.” I’m not sure if her name is a warning or a plea for more as she rakes her nails lightly down my chest, but the look in her eyes as she slides my shirt higher is nothing but triumphant. I groan as her tongue circles my nipple, convulse as she covers it with her teeth.
“Hmm.” Lashes lowered, she hums, then licks her way down my chest. “I like it when you moan for me.”
“Eve.” A warning this time as I slide my hand into her hair.
“You want me to stop?” My answer is another garbled curse as her teeth scrape the side of my ribs. “What was that?” As her finger trails over my fly, my cock strains for attention.
“No.” My answer sounds all ache and gravel. “Please don’t.”
My God, her expression as she presses her smile to my abs. Her hands make quick work of my belt, her touch warm and sure as she lifts my cock free from the confines of my pants. The position is awkward, my thighs straining from this half squat, but I wouldn’t move for the world as her delicate fingers wrap my girth. Pale skin to ruddy, cool to red hot.
“Oh, darling boy, you’re leaking.” She pouts as she squeezes my aching cock, the bead at my crown pearly in the moonlight. I swallow back a curse at the mixture of emotions I suffer through. Elation, need, a sinfully wicked discomfort.
Her lashes are the sweep of an angel’s wing, her lips full and luscious as she presses them to my aching crown. The wet heat of her mouth as she swallows me down feels like heaven.
She swirls her tongue as she sucks me with a hum of pleasure.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck!” My body jerks, my thighs trembling.
“Pretty.” Her gaze makes a slow sweep up my body. “I love the way you’re shaking for me.”
Christ, I adore this look on her.
“Less talk, more cock sucking.” I apply the slightest pressure to her head, using some sense of her own words.
“So bossy,” she murmurs before she takes me in her mouth again.
“Sweetheart.” I swallow over the desire to take control, to hold her there, as I loosen my hands from the silky strands. Her tongue, her lips. This feels like sheer bliss. “God, yes. Like that.”
Her mouth comes off the head with a wet pop , her eyes sparkling in delight, in the knowledge of her power over me. Over the moment. “Now who’s giving orders?” she purrs, dragging her thumb across my glistening head.
“How about pleas?” Something inside me snaps as I take her beneath the arms and bring her mouth to mine. “I’d beg to be inside you.”
“I’d like to hear that.” Her smile pressed against mine, our mouths turn hot and messy, all gasping, broken breaths, kisses and half-formed words. My hands slide over her shoulder, thumbs slipping under the strap of her dress. We both groan as her breast is bared, her nipple hard against my palm. Down my hand travels, over the swell of her arse, two fingers spearing inside her.
She garbles a noise, her walls clenching.
“Let me taste you.” My fingers are wet as I take her wrist, moving her hand from my cock as I press up from the wall. I stagger like a drunken man in the shadows, knowing if anyone passes by, we’ll be spotted by virtue of my white shirt. But I can’t think of that now as I spin her around, my words a supplicant’s prayer in her ear. “Eve, let me, please.”
Her body answers, her fingers splaying against the wall, her bottom thrusting out. My hand falls to her hip, my other gathering her dress to reveal legs, thighs, the delicious roundness of her arse. She turns her head over her shoulder, and moonlight hits her just right, making an old master of her. Eve. Temptation in the Shadows.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m not waiting. I’m appreciating.” I press my lips to her shoulder, inhaling the scent and warmth of her. “Appreciating perfection.” I kiss my way down her spine, whispering my want of her, then press my face between her legs. She cries out, the sound raw and intoxicating as I lap, delicately at first. Then less so, until her thighs begin to tremble and her gasps are all vowel sounds.
Ah—Ah—Ah.
I feel like a king as her orgasm hits. Her legs begin to buckle, and I hold her there, growling into her very center.
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” Eve gasps, swallowing down air.
I pull myself to my feet, her arousal sticky and sweet between my lips. As I press my cock to her, we both gasp at the contact. Her body undulates, her heat brushing my throbbing crown. Heavenly. Torturous. Our breaths echoing in the dark space.
“Oh, fuck. Eve. Please, let me ...”
“Oliver?”
I swallow, force myself to still, my abs tightening, my nerves taut with the need to rut and fuck. If she doesn’t want this ...
“What you said earlier, about him watching?”
“Yes.” I swallow again, my muscles seizing. Waiting. Wanting. Aching.
“Watching me suck your cock.” Her lashes flutter, and she whimpers as I scrape my teeth across her jaw. “Am I wrong to want that?”
Relief feels so sweet. I groan with a quiet agony as her body surges, my bare cock slipping along the heavenly ribbon of her flesh.
“No, darling.” I tighten my grasp on both her dress and myself. “No worse than wanting to see him choke on peanut butter.”
Her laughter is soft, and it’s strange how he doesn’t matter to either of us anymore. With a tiny groan, I push forward. Her heat. Her sigh.
“I hope the image haunts him for the rest of his life.”
“Fuck, darling, yes.” She’s so slippery.
“Yes.” Her fingers splay wider, her sigh an invitation. “Please.”
“Oh, Eve, I’m going to ruin you.”
“I want that.”
We’ll call it payback , because you have plucked me apart at the seams.
There are no words to describe the sensation of her body accepting mine. Raw. Bare. My whole being aching and desperate, I pull back. My gaze falls to my cock, glistening and wet. Fuck. Screwing my eyes tight, I drive my way inside her. She cries out as our bodies meet, whimpers as I wrap my arms around her. I hold her there, my heart beating against her back as the pulse of her body makes me unspool.
“Oh, darling. I want my mouth on you, sucking at your sweetness if I could be two places—everywhere at once.” Such is my desperation for her.
“Your mouth,” she whispers with a slow undulation. “It’s so filthy.”
“You love it.” I pull back, then again take her to my hilt, her moan ragged and breathless. “Say it. Tell me you love my filthy mouth,” I demand, punctuating my words with my thrusts.
“I l—love . . .”
My heart expands, my body taking over.
“Your mouth on me.”
“Fuck.” I torture us both with shallow jabs and deep punches of my hips until we’re both panting and desperate. “Tell me you’ll stay,” I demand, my feelings too twisted to express any other way. “Eve, I need you.” I don’t deserve you, but I can’t let you go. I feel desperate, unhinged. Unable to get close enough, deep enough, feel enough of her. Of this.
She cries out, grinding against me as I whisper how good she feels, how close I am. I move my fingers to her clit as she peaks, her body beginning to milk me for all I’m worth. As it turns out, I’m not worth a great deal more as I pull out just in time, white heat spurting into my hand.
“Oh, God.” Eve slumps forward, her palms keeping her face from the stone. “I don’t think I can feel my legs.”
Swiping up my abandoned jacket, I pull out my pocket square and clean up as best I can. “Come here,” I whisper, pulling her away from the wall. “It’s probably damp.”
“You’re worried about my health?” She buries her nose into my chest, her skin dappled with gooseflesh now.
I worry more about her, about this, than I’m prepared to admit. I press my lips into her hair in lieu of an answer, draping my jacket over her shoulders again.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, pulling the sides closer. She gives an embarrassed giggle when I pull a handkerchief out from the pocket and swipe it under the hem of her dress, pressing it between her legs. “The full service, huh?”
“You deserve nothing less.” After what we’ve just done, should this feel so intimate?
“So you’re a two-handkerchief guy, like a Boy Scout.”
“One for show. One for blow.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She ducks her head with a soft laugh. “That is not a Boy Scout motto.”
“Depends on the boy. We’re not all created equal, you know.”
“That is true.” Pressing her head into my shoulder, she adds, “Some boys are so bad.”
“Some boys are trying to be better.”
“Oliver?” Her head lifts, her expression softening as her eyes find mine. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”
“Eve, just be with me,” I whisper, lifting her hand to my cheek. My heart pounds so hard, I wonder if she can hear it. “Be with me, not because I said so, but because you want me.” I turn my face and press a kiss to her palm. “I’m not asking you to promise me anything. Just be with me because you want to be. Because I want to be with you.”