Chapter Fourteen #2
Ebony erases the distance between us until the swells of her breasts are pressed flush against the ridges of my chest, and I feel the rhythm of her heart pounding, her breaths growing shallow.
“What should I do?” She tucks her lower lip between her teeth, and suddenly, I understand. She’s not asking about these other dudes. She’s asking me how to start again—to pick up where we left off.
At least, that’s what I think is happening.
“Well, let’s take the guy from date one, for example,” I say. “What was so wrong with him?”
Tenderly, she drags the pads of her fingers along the back of my head, tracing along the nape of my neck, and it’s clear she’s stalling. But why?
“So far, I’ve heard you say he’s ‘not it.’” I chuckle. “On your post, you said no sparks, nothing to write home about, nada …”
A small sigh escapes her, and fire ignites in her eyes, turning them a vivid shade of whiskey.
“You really want to know?” Ebony asks, softly.
I nod, genuinely curious. What could be so bad that she can’t even lend a name to it?
“He looked like you,” she blurts out, cringing as she adds, “in a way…”
“Like me?”
Ebony squeezes her eyes closed, letting her chin drop to her chest. “Description-wise, twins!” She lifts her head with tears of laughter in her eyes.
“Oh, this ought to be good.” I tip her chin up to read her expression. “Don’t hold out now. I’m dying to know why I have—”
“An AI twin?” She stumbles back, almost losing her footing, but I grip her hips, steadying her.
Of course, I know this. I’ve got the gray-eyed Spades champ with the magic fingers cheat sheet, as Vincent put it. But I love hearing the words from her beautiful mouth as she tells me that she wants me.
“ Ugh. This is so embarrassing, but…I sort of told my dating concierge that I wanted a man who was tall and athletic, with deep brown skin, and that gray eyes wouldn’t hurt, and, well—”
“So, you described me?”
A blush spreads on Ebony’s cheeks. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Ebony Grace King Livingston, I see the way you look at me.” I smile, unable to take my eyes off her. “Have you been fantasizing about me?”
Then, suddenly, her bright hazel eyes focus on mine, her lips twitching guiltily before she deflates into me, and I’m only human.
I don’t have the resolve to resist.
Not now. Not when she’s put in an exact order for me with her dating concierge. Not when I can still feel her lips on mine from the last time we kissed.
I catch her mouth with mine, dragging my tongue over her lower lip then softly biting the fullness. “When did you start thinking about me? Since the kiss?”
Ebony’s breathless as she admits, “I haven’t been sleeping well…”
“And why not?” I ask. Her soft moan drives me crazy. “Why haven’t you been sleeping well?”
“Because thinking about you is keeping me awake.”
Jesus .
My heart stutters in my chest as I study her expression, looking for the lie. But it isn’t there. There’s nothing I love more than knowing she’s been in bed and turned on with me on her mind.
It drives me crazy.
“Tell me you want me. I need to know I’m who you want, Ebony.” I kiss her slow, gentle, savoring the sweet remnants of coffee on her tongue. “Or tell me to stop, and I’ll forget this happened. I’ll come to work every day and be the professional. Nothing has to change.”
Tell me I’m who you want.
“What if I don’t know? We’re both dating, figuring out what we want.”
I lift a hand to her cheek, grazing the delicate skin with my fingertips as I correct her, “ You’re figuring out what you want. I’ve always known since you showed up in the library with your history book.”
She kisses me.
A full-body, hands-on-my-face, whimpering kiss, like she’s done enough sampling and needs more.
“Can we just, like”—she peppers more kisses, licking and tasting, her heart drumming against my chest—“enjoy each other for now? It’s sort of hard to think straight with your lips…and you just smell so good.”
I laugh into the kiss then pull back slightly, nudging her chin higher to look her in the eye. “So, in other words, just shut up and kiss you, then?” I chuckle, squeezing her waist.
“Mm-hmm,” she moans, ghosting her lips along the column of my neck. Her warm breaths are like feathers, ever so lightly stirring me from the inside out as she guides my hands to her ass, granting me permission, possession. “I just need to feel your hands on me.”
Every muscle in my body hardens.
But then Ebony presses her pelvis into my aching hard-on. Arousal courses through me, and I lose the battle. I have no choice but to oblige, tugging her into my lap, her dress hem gliding up her smooth thighs until she’s straddling me with only the delicate fabric of her panties as a barrier.
My dick is painfully hard.
And as her mouth travels back to my lips, I tug her closer, loving her gasp as she no doubt feels what she’s doing to me.
My body moves in muscle memory. My hips pulse, and I’m grinding in a heady fog of euphoric lust. Our mouths tangle in soft moans and hungry whimpers, and I’m barely resisting the urge to remove every last barrier between us and bury myself deep inside her until the truth unravels on her parted lips.
Or until someone clears their throat behind us.
Vincent doesn’t even try to make an exit. No, he stands there, ramrod straight, the smug bastard. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…”
Yeah, you did.
Ebony slides off me and stumbles backward, her chest rising and falling, doing nothing to convince anyone that we weren’t just going at it in this billiard room with the door wide open and the walls paper thin.
“I was, uh…just checking on the progress with the chandelier crystals.” She nods—too many times, unnaturally—as she turns to me. “There’s a guy in Dawsonville, right, Linc?” She gives me a wide-eyed, pleading look.
“Right, yeah.” I start to stand, then settle back on the desk, dropping my hands into my lap.
“I’ve got a same-day service appointment to repair the chandelier, the weekend of the second,” I say, my voice rough and gravelly to my own ears.
“He’s supposedly an incredible artisan. Came highly recommended. ”
This is embarrassing.
“My, that sounds expensive …” Vincent gives a single, deliberate nod, clearly enjoying our discomfort, while reminding me beautiful things cost money .
“Maybe you can go with him, Ebony. We need that precious chandelier to be perfect for the reception, and someone should take care of that beauty while he drives,” he says, looking unmistakably at me.
Nice one, coach.
She swallows hard, her hands restless. “Uh, yeah, I’ll think about it.” And then she turns on her heel.
The moment she leaves, Vincent flashes me a downright sinister grin. “You’re welcome.”