Chapter 10
AVAH
I press my back against the bedroom door and try to remember how to breathe around the shivers running rampant through my body. It’s like Jeremy Winslow’s mouth rewired every nerve ending I have in one devastating kiss.
The taste of bourbon lingers on my tongue, and I may be a new convert to the dark liquor, because I want more.
Which is absolutely insane.
I’m fresh out of an abusive relationship, camped out in a villa I couldn’t begin to afford, and now I’m hiding in the guest room because I liked how he kisses way too much. What is wrong with me?
I wait for a knock or my name. Some indication that he’s going to push—the way Jon always did when I tried to set a boundary.
All I hear is silence as my racing pulse starts to slow.
Five minutes pass. Then ten. And I realize he’s not coming.
Is it relief or disappointment curving around my spine?
Both, maybe. The tangle of emotions is too knotted to separate into individual threads.
Time to go to sleep and pretend this never happened.
Tomorrow, I’ll make an awkward joke about it.
And in a few days, I’ll fly back to Colorado and never see Jeremy outside of events with his sister, where I can go back to ignoring him.
Good plan. Except my feet carry me to the door, need and want at a level I barely recognize spurring me on.
I find him on one of the lounge chairs by the pool, sitting forward with his elbow on his knees, a glass of bourbon dangling between those long fingers.
Yes, please, my body begs.
Charred cat piss, I remind it.
He’s staring at the liquor like it holds the answers to questions he might not be ready to ask. Join the club, dude.
“You don’t have to hide out here.”
His head turns, and in the soft glow coming from the underwater pool lights, his features appear even more piercing than normal. Couldn’t he at least have a sagging jaw or receding chin?
“Not hiding, sweetheart. I’m sulkily brooding. It’s what guys like me do.”
His words pull a laugh from me, and damn, there’s that husky undertone again. “I’ve never met a guy like you.”
“Lucky you.” He sets the glass down on the small table beside him and starts to stand. “I owe you an apology. I had no right to—”
“Do you want to fuck me?”
His body goes still, and the connection stretching between us is so charged, I can feel it press against my skin. What would possess me to ask that question? Oh, right. I refuse to hear an apology for the first kiss to make me feel alive in years.
“Since the moment I first saw you.”
At least I’m not the only one who sounds like I’m nursing a three-pack-a-day Marlboro habit.
“Passed out on the beach? So appealing.”
“Before.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I watch the muscles in his forearm flex. I might be obsessed with those forearms. Don’t judge.
“When Sloane first called to tell me about her leukemia, I flew to Colorado and drove to Skylark that same night.” His gaze shifts away from me to the pool’s smooth surface.
“But I was too much of a chickenshit to face her. Not after the horrible things I said during our last fight and letting one stupid argument turn into years of silence.”
“So instead you…”
“I watched her,” he admits with a self-deprecating laugh. “I parked outside the bookstore and watched her go about her day like some creeper in a low-budget Lifetime movie.”
“Don’t knock Lifetime, but definitely creeper coded.”
He laughs again, then finally looks at me, and the tenderness in his expression feels out of place with those granite angles.
“The two of you walked out of Cover to Cover together, laughing about something. You tossed your hair over your shoulder, and I thought...” His throat bobs as he swallows.
“I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. ”
My heart stutters when he continues.
“You reminded me of all the pretty girls who never gave me the time of day in high school. They looked right through me like I didn’t even exist. Or even worse, with pity for the sick computer geek.
” His jaw tightens. “I wanted you and hated you at the same time, because you were beautiful and part of my sister’s life in a way I wasn’t sure I ever would be again. ”
The breath whooshes out of my lungs. “I don’t think you can fault me because you were a dick to Sloane.” I try to sound flippant, but my voice comes out breathless.
“People with my kind of money typically do whatever we want.” He stands and closes the distance between us until he’s near enough that I can smell his cologne and the salty scent of his skin. “But that doesn’t make it right. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I wanted you to.”
His eyes search my face, and I watch him process what I’ve just admitted.
“Do you also want me to fuck you?” The question sounds sincere. Nothing like the demands Jon used to make, or the pressure that always came with his expectations.
“I want a memory of being with a man who isn’t my douchebag ex.” That’s the only part of the truth I’m willing to share right now. “I want to know it can be different.”
“A palette cleanser?” It sounds like he’s testing the words.
“Is that a problem?”
He studies me for a long moment, then shakes his head decisively. His hands come up to cup my face the way they did before, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with a reverence that makes my throat tight.
I pull back. “No more kissing on the mouth.”
His eyebrows rise. “Like that hooker movie?”
“Did you just call me a hooker?”
“No, I—”
I place a finger over his lips and feel him inhale sharply at the contact.
“This is not Pretty Woman, but no kissing on the mouth, Jeremy. And no...” I bite down on my lower lip, forcing myself to say the thing that makes me feel small and broken. “I don’t like it rough.”
The heat remains in his dark eyes, but it’s tempered now with an understanding that makes my eyes sting.
“Then I’ll worship you gently,” he says simply.
Before I can respond, he lifts me into his arms. I should protest. The other night notwithstanding, I’m not some fainting damsel who needs to be carried. But his arms are solid and sure. And the way he holds me—like I’m precious to him—makes me forget all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
He carries me into the villa, past the living room where we watched Mission Impossible and traded insults, and into the primary bedroom, which I haven’t seen before.
It’s a larger version of my room, with crisp white sheets and a view of the lagoon through floor-to-ceiling windows.
The bed seems massive, and he pulls back the cover and sheet, then lays me on it like I’m made of glass.
“Tell me what you want.” It sounds like a command, but he doesn’t move to touch me again. He’s giving me control, a gift Jon never thought to bestow.
“I want...” I trail off, not sure how to articulate the tangled mess of need and fear churning in my stomach.
He sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “How about I start, and you tell me if you want me to stop?”
I nod.
He moves onto his hands and knees above me and presses his lips to my collarbone, nearly grazing the neckline of my sundress. My whole body arches toward him involuntarily at the featherlight touch.
“Lips are off limits.” I hear the humor in his tone. “Other kissing okay?”
“Yes.” The word comes out in a whisper.
He trails kisses down my arm, pausing at the inside of my elbow, the pulse point of my wrist, and each fingertip. By the time he reaches my palm, I’m trembling.
“Still okay?”
“Jeremy.” His name is a plea. “Stop asking and just—”
He silences me by pressing his mouth to my hip bone through the thin fabric of my dress. I gasp, and feel him smile against me.
“You were saying?”
“You’re annoying.”
“I know.”
His hands find the hem of my dress, and he looks up at me with a question in his eyes.
I lift my hips in answer, and he slides the fabric up.
I straighten to pull it over my head, and he sits back as if he could spend all night just admiring the view, although, come on now.
He’s a hot billionaire, so women likely throw themselves at him on the daily.
The thought should bother me, but right now I’m too busy being grateful for that experience as his mouth keeps working its magic.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs against my skin. “Every inch.”
“Flattery will get you—” I forget the rest of the sentence when his fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear.
“Everywhere?” he finishes for me, and I can hear the grin in his voice.
I grab a fistful of his hair and tug. “Concentrate, you.”
His answering laugh rumbles through me, but when he moves lower, I stop being able to form words.
He drags my panties down slowly, but doesn’t rush when I’m bare to him.
He parts my legs with a soft pressure that makes my breath hitch, and his hot breath ghosts over my inner thighs before he finally settles his mouth against me.
The first lick is long and agonizingly slow, tracing from bottom to top until I’m clutching the crisp sheets beneath me.
He’s meticulous in his attention as he uses his tongue to find a spot that has me devolving into a mess of soft whimpers.
I might not be willing to let him kiss my mouth, but he seems satisfied to focus everything on the heat between my legs.
He reaches one hand up to find my breasts, deft fingers teasing my nipples while his mouth works its magic lower.
He slides two fingers inside me, mimicking the rhythm of his tongue, and I’m suddenly drowning in the unadulterated sensation of being wanted by a man like Jeremy. My hips buck as if seeking more of that friction, and he growls his approval.
“Tell me what you need.”
My thighs quiver as I gasp for breath. “Need you to stop talking.”