19. Chapter 19
nineteen
L ina turned the temperature of the shower a tad lower. She needed to cool down her overheating body, especially after what had just transpired between her and Curtis. She still couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her mouth.
Fuck me.
She shuddered, remembering how saying it made her feel. It might be crude, but no other term seemed to fit.
Make love to me just didn’t have the same ring to it, when she’d wanted—no, needed—to release all that adrenaline, fear, guilt, and everything she felt for him before she exploded. There had been an eruption, but at least it was the pleasurable in the most holy-motherfucker-do-that-to-me-again way.
But now what?
Lina realized she’d broken the professional code she’d lectured Curtis on. She’d been the initiator, and after she’d almost gotten him killed on the streets of Barcelona. She had some decisions to make. His safety was her number one priority before her feelings or whatever idiotic notion she’d imagined he might be to her.
He was a rock star. A fuck boy rock star. A sweet one, but still a fuck boy. He couldn’t be anything but a client to her.
But he ’ s different.
Lina’s heart tried to argue the hard logic part of her. After knowing him for four years, even in limited time, she couldn’t lump Curtis into one cliche.
Because he ’ s not that, despite his imperfections.
Oblivious to her internal argument, the man who was the subject of her struggle ran his soapy hands over her torso and breasts as he stood behind her in the snug shower.
“I think I was a cat in previous life,” Curtis said in between kissing her shoulder. “I feel life returning.”
Lina couldn’t help but chuckle at his ridiculous line. “Already?”
“Uh-huh.” He trailed his lips up her neck and nibbled on her lobe. “Unfortunately, we have to postpone my plan.”
“What plan is that?” she sighed.
“To have long, slow sex with you,” he said. “I was rough, and you deserve more than that.”
Lina turned to face him. “I wasn’t complaining.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to spend hours touching you?” He caressed her slippery back slowly. “Or kissing every inch of your skin?” He planted butterfly kisses along her jaw, then whispered in her ear, “And make you beg for another release after I gave you one of the greatest orgasms you ever had?”
Lina shivered as the image planted itself in her head. “Wow, you don’t have an ego at all, do you?”
Curtis grinned at her. “It has to wait since we’re out of condoms.”
“We don’t have time, either.” She forced herself back to reality. “We need to get out of here in the next hour.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll get the details later.”
Curtis nodded. “Thank you for saving me earlier.”
Lina swallowed the bitter bile threatening to come out at the reminder of her almost mistake. If she’d paid better attention to their surroundings rather than trying to soothe Curtis’ worry, she would’ve seen the assailants approaching. Instead, she’d missed them completely.
He was right. She would’ve been hurt if he hadn’t done what he did. She would’ve heard the man coming at the last second and handled him. But her instinct would’ve been to get Curtis out of the way first, and she would be vulnerable to the attack.
I almost got him killed .
A familiar heaviness filled Lina’s chest—of loss and guilt.
Lina looked at the smile on his face. I don ’ t deserve your gratitude.
“What’s wrong?” Curtis asked, as if he could hear her thoughts.
She quickly smiled and shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking of logistics. Let’s finish showering and—”
“Oh, no. I said I couldn’t do what I planned, but it doesn’t mean I’m done,” he said and started backing her up to the shower wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Fulfilling a promise.” He bent to capture her mouth and kissed her in a way that made her forget whatever it was she was about to say.
His tongue was apt enough at the game of mouth fencing to shut off Lina’s brain again. But he didn’t stop there. He left her mouth to continue his attack on her left nipple before moving on to the right, sending shivers straight down her spine to her core.
Taking his time, Curtis made his way down her defined midsection. Every inch of skin his tongue and lips touched made her muscles contract. And he kept going lower and lower, until he got to the top of her mound and was on one knee.
“What are you doing down there?” Lina stupidly asked with a squeaky voice.
“You know I missed dinner,” he looked up, with a wicked grin on his face.
Without further explanation, Curtis covered her with his mouth and sucked her clitoris so hard that Lina shrieked.
“Oh, god!”
His tongue soothed it next, gently lapping with an increasing tempo. In her state of high-out-of-her-mind in physical pleasure, Lina felt like she was one of his guitars that he expertly flicked, plucked, and strummed in varying tempos to create a melody that could lull her to oblivion one moment and send her rocketing to a crescendo in the next.
His mouth alone was creating havoc inside her, threatening a complete body meltdown. But then his fingers filled her and started pumping in and out of her, and she could hardly take much anymore.
“Curtis,” she hissed through her panting, “God, I’m…”
Before she could finish her sentence, she hit that crescendo note and fell apart. Her legs failed her for the second time that night, but she had Curtis to catch her. Again.
This time, with her body twice fulfilled, her heart ached for what she had to do next.