Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dexter
I didn’t argue with women. I didn’t have the energy or the will. I’d never cared enough.
Hollie was different.
“Are we good?” I asked, following her into the kitchen where she was checking she hadn’t left anything on.
I wanted to make things better for her. I hated the idea that she felt she wouldn’t ever get to be the kind of woman who wore a Hermes scarf.
There were plenty of women who didn’t have half her heart or soul that wore head-to-toe Hermes.
It had been a confounding evening, but there was nowhere I’d rather be.
The last time I fought with a woman had to have been the last time Bridget and I argued.
I’d had things thrown at me a couple of times but I just didn’t engage.
And some women would sometimes go completely silent on me.
I just ignored it. I never cajoled them into talking about it or told them I didn’t want them to leave.
I hadn’t meant to be cruel. I just thought it was better if they cooled off in their own time.
And if they were so annoyed they didn’t want to hang out anymore—well, we lived in a free country. That was their choice.
“Yeah, we’re good,” she replied, looking at me over her shoulder from where she stood by the hob.
“Then can I kiss you?” I asked. I needed to know she was okay, not just hear her say it.
I didn’t want to lose her.
The realization hit me like a tree trunk to the forehead—I liked this woman. Really liked her. Liked her more than I could ever remember liking anyone.
Except Bridget of course. Although it had been such a long time since Bridget and I had been together.
Such a long time since I fell in love with her.
And although I would always love her, I wasn’t sure I was actually in love with her.
I wasn’t sure it was possible to be in love with a woman I hadn’t seen for fifteen years.
Not that I was in love with Hollie. I just really liked her, more than I’d liked anyone in a long time.
I hadn’t been looking for it. I hadn’t been looking for anything.
I’d just thought she was beautiful from the very moment I’d laid eyes on her.
And I wanted to make her laugh, buy her dinner, sleep with her.
But all those things had been true for other women who had been in my life since Bridget.
There was something different about Hollie from the start, but there hadn’t been any seismic shifting of tectonic plates under my feet until tonight.
Until I realized I didn’t want her to leave.
That I’d miss her if she did go. That I wanted us to talk through whatever was bothering her about the scarf because I didn’t want her to be upset—but more because I wanted to know her better.
I wanted to know how to soothe her, how to avoid upsetting her the next time.
It was as if I was standing under a waterfall of new feelings cascading over me.
“The answer to that question is always yes,” she replied. Streetlights shining in from the window lit her up, a halo of yellow light making her look even more beautiful than usual.
For how long would that be her answer? I wondered. At the moment it was always yes but what if we had another argument and she made it out of the door that time? What about when she went back to Oregon?
Before I could think too much, she came over to me and hiked herself up onto the kitchen island, sliding her hands up my arms. I sighed, instantly soothed by her, her touch some kind of hypnotic balm.
I cupped her face in my hands. She really did have the most astonishing eyes. And I pressed my lips to hers.
“Thank you for not leaving,” I said as I pulled away.
“Thank you for convincing me to stay,” she replied, slipping her fingers into the waistband of my trousers.
“We have some making up to do,” I said, undoing the shirt she’d just buttoned.
“Is that a promise?” she asked.
I unpeeled the white cotton and pulled off her bra to reveal her soft skin. Just like I’d wanted to know her mind and what she was thinking earlier in the evening, now I wanted to map her body with my tongue.
I wanted to know every part of her, inside and out.
I pushed her back onto the marble, smoothing my hands down her stomach, over the peaks and dips of her hips and down to her thighs.
“You’re touching me like you think I might not really be here,” she whispered.
I sighed and pressed a kiss just above her ankle bone and another on the inside of her knee.
Maybe she was on to something. Perhaps the woman in my bed wasn’t the one I’d been expecting all those weeks ago when I’d first spotted her at the launch of the competition.
She was now the woman I fought with. The woman I didn’t want to go home.
The woman I was going to bury myself in so she’d never leave.
I pressed open her legs and placed my tongue flat against her clit. Christ, she was delicious. She was almost instantly wet and I wanted to be surrounded by it. I slid my fingers inside her, and she began to twist away.
“Too much. I’ll come too soon,” she panted.
I placed my hand on her stomach, keeping her in place.
Yes, she’d come quickly. That’s what I wanted.
I wanted her to lose count of the number of times I made her climax tonight.
I wanted to leave a mark on her mind and body—make tonight unforgettable—not because we’d fought. But because we’d made up.
As I licked, Hollie gave a little wiggle of her hips as if trying to get my fingers deeper and my tongue harder.
I growled at the realization she wanted to belong to me as much as I wanted to possess her.
I pulled back, not to punish her for being so greedy but because she tasted so fucking delicious I wasn’t ready to give it up.
She moaned and I put my mouth on her again, this time letting my tongue trace her up and down, through her folds over and over.
Her back arched off the stone, and I pressed my fingers into her again, grinning as I watch the calm sedation pass over her—like she’d given up whatever she was holding back. Like she had surrendered.
To me. To us.
I used my fingers to explore and twist while my tongue just tasted and tasted and tasted. She flopped her arms over her head and spread her legs wider. She was mine. To do with what I pleased.
Her bulging clit began to pulse and my hardened cock reared in response. Fuck, being able to bring her to the edge so quickly made me feel like a fucking king.
“Dexter,” she cried out and reached for me. I grabbed her hand, pressing my lips onto her stomach, feeling the ripple of her orgasm against my skin as she came.
Her eyes still closed, my impatience to be inside her took over.
I wanted my cock coated in her wetness and my fingers digging into her flesh.
Just the thought had me as hard as wood, sweat starting to prickle at my neck.
I gathered her in my arms and took her over to the sofa, bending her over the back cushions and pulling a condom from my trouser pocket.
I stripped out of my clothes, rolled on the condom and rested my cock at her entrance. “Are you ready?” I asked. I was rushing. She rid me of the unflappable detachment that I had. I needed more of her. And each time she gave me what I craved, I got greedy and took more still.
I needed to take a moment. To breathe her in. To enjoy every second. But she undid my self-control.
“For you? Always.” I groaned and drove my cock into her, long, slow and deep. It was so good—so hot, tight and wet. I slid my hands under her arms and cupped her breasts. Her hard nipples pressed against my palms and she reached behind me, urging me deeper still.
I wanted to stay there, buried inside her until sunrise, but she shifted, and the pleasure that bloomed in my chest at the drag against my cock was nearly too much.
“Fuck, Hollie,” I said as I started to draw out and push back in, eeking out the pleasure, wanting to make each stroke last as long as possible.
Being here was so good. So fucking perfect.
Thank fuck she hadn’t left tonight. Thank fuck we had this.
All night. How lucky was I to have found this woman who could make me feel so fucking right?
It was as if for years I’d had a piece of my soul missing and she’d found it.
I felt more alive when I was fucking Hollie than I could ever remember.
I felt like I belonged. Like I could do anything as long as I could be with this woman.
Her hand coaxed mine from her breast and she interlaced my fingers with hers as I almost roared at the perfection of it.
How such a nonsexual movement could make my cock ache as much as it did.
But it was the intensity of the connection—the purity of it—that really got me.
It represented her and us and how I felt about her.
She began to tremble beneath me. Her legs started to shake, her entire body consumed by her climax.
She pushed down further on my cock and the shift in position had me driving deeper into her.
Her climax pulsed around me, squeezing my cock, making me pant and grunt and fuck harder and harder until I was almost blind with effort.
All I could do was feel. And all I felt was Hollie.
I exploded into her on a moan and pulled my arms tighter around her.
“You’re going to ruin me,” she whispered.
If I’d had any energy left, I’d have asked her what she meant. I’d have questioned whether she was talking about the scarf. But I’d given her every last drop of effort I had.
And I’d do it all again if she asked me.
At some point we made it to the bedroom, though it was long past dark when Hollie shifted out of my arms and crossed my room into the bathroom.
“Have I told you you’re beautiful?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me over her shoulder as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing. She shouldn’t be shocked. If she was, that was my fault. There should be no doubt in her mind that I thought she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Because that was the truth.
“Let me go to the loo,” she said and I grinned at her anglicization. She suited London. And she had a natural eye for what showed off stones, which was important if she was going to be in this business.
“You never told me if you actually liked the earrings,” I called out to her. She reappeared at the bathroom door, smiling as if she’d been waiting for me to bring it up. We weren’t supposed to talk about the office, but I wanted to know what she thought.
“Okay, let’s have a five minute time-out so we can talk about work.” She grabbed her mobile from beside the bed. “We have until six minutes to the hour.”
I grinned, enjoying her rules as much as her disapplication of them.
“You know what I thought?” she asked, tucking her hands under her cheek as we lay on our sides, facing each other.
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes as if I found her exasperating instead of sexy and completely fascinating.
She ignored me. “I thought they would go perfectly with your parents’ tiara.”
Her statement left me slightly winded. It wasn’t at all what I’d expected her to say. I’d thought she’d comment on the theme or technical innovation. What did my parents have to do with those earrings?
“You know,” she continued, “modern but classic. Innovative but still regal. And of course, they were beautiful,” she said.
“The theme is amazing and there’s the technical thing of getting them to hang straight without it looking too obvious that you’re using the snowflakes as the counter-balance.
I loved every part of them. It’s clear you’re the son of two incredibly talented people. ”
I didn’t have a response to that. It wasn’t sadness I felt when Hollie mentioned my parents, as it was when most people spoke of them.
I didn’t rush to quieten her or quickly change the subject.
I liked that she respected my connection to them still, fifteen years later.
And I wasn’t sure anyone had paid me such an incredible compliment.
I reached for her and pulled her toward me, needing her heat against me. Enjoying the closeness of her.
Whatever was between us wasn’t about easy company and regular, outstanding sex—although it was those things.
It was more than that. It was about hanging out with someone I found endlessly fascinating, feeling cared for and wanting to care for someone else.
It was wanting her to love what Daniels & Co produced.
And it was so much more than I’d ever felt in such a long time.