Chapter Nineteen #2
“I’m tired but I want you,” he whispers, and I understand because I feel the exact same way.
My body aches to fall asleep in his arms, but even as I think it his hand slides along my thigh, and I watch his eyes as I snag my bottom lip between my teeth.
I can see he needs this, needs me, and it’s intoxicating.
His breath hitches in his throat when I arch my back and press my ass down into his crotch, enjoying the way his seafoam eyes darken into fathomless oceans.
“I can’t think about anything but you,” he whispers. I’m not sure if the fact frustrates him or relieves him. Both probably, but right now I get the impression I’m a welcome visitor in his head. Either way, neither of us feels like sleeping anymore: Lust has well and truly taken the wheel.
“Am I still keeping you awake at night, Fletch?” I smile as I say his name, stroking his jaw, running the tip of my finger down the brow of his nose, outlining the generous curve of his mouth.
“You have no fucking idea,” he says, rough in his chest. “You’re living rent-free in my head. In my bed when I close my eyes, in my dreams when I sleep. I don’t want to wake up.”
It’s as if his difficult day has stripped him of his usual armor and wisecracks. He’s spilling his truths and secrets like a man on death row, and I’m two parts frightened and three parts wildly turned on.
His gaze drops to watch my fingers unpick the top few buttons of the nightgown to reveal the curves of my breasts.
“More,” he mutters, then takes over, unbuttoning it swiftly to my stomach and pulling it down my arms. I’m naked from the waist up, and I don’t need Britannia Lovell to tell me to straddle him.
I do it all on my own, my knees wedged into the chair on either side of his hips as he covers my breasts with his hands and then his hot, open mouth, his palms searing my spine as he pulls my body hard against his.
There’s a wildness to the slide of his tongue over my skin, an animal edge to the way he licks and sucks my nipples.
He’s a confident man, but there’s a distinct power shift between us tonight; he’s vulnerable and needs me to lead this, and I cradle his head, something territorial stirring as I watch his mouth move on me.
His restless hands roam my shoulder blades and the flare of my hips, then slide down to ruck the snowy nightgown up my thighs.
“I don’t know why people ever stopped wearing this kind of stuff,” he says. “It’s sexy as fuck.”
“I’ll start scouring eBay,” I say, reaching down to bunch it up around my waist.
His gaze falls between my legs, and I let him fill his eyes with the sight of my thighs spread over his straining crotch.
“Is this how I look in your dreams, Fletch?” I hear myself say. I don’t know who I even am right now; those words came out of my mouth as naturally as asking for more sugar on my pancakes.
He closes his eyes for a long second, as if the sight is actually too much for him to handle, then his eyes snap open again and he sits up and takes charge with a speed that makes me yelp with surprise.
His hand moves between my spread legs and he kisses me deeply, sliding his tongue into my mouth at the same time as he slides his fingers inside me, drawing tight circles on my clitoris with his thumb.
I go from seductive siren to scandalized virgin heading for a panicky-fast unstoppable orgasm in three seconds flat, because he knows exactly what he’s doing and I can’t hold on to my emotions.
His name is the only word I know, and mine is all he can say, whispering it over and over against my lips as I orgasm hard around his fingers.
It’s like magic and wonder and being filled with a galaxy of stars, too hot and too fast, not enough and then way too much, unstoppable and electric and out of control until I stare in his eyes and see how much pleasure my pleasure is giving him.
He’s drunk on me, cupping my face in his hand, and I surrender to the joy, kissing his palm as I half laugh and half cry with the relief of it.
He looks at me as if I’m an orgasmic goddess and then lowers his head to my breast and sucks my nipple gently inside his mouth.
I’m 100 percent sure he knows how crazy-sensitive my body is right now, that every touch is too much, yet his hand is still possessive between my legs, his thumb still moving on me in a way that is almost too much to bear.
I reach down and unfasten his jeans, enjoying his sharp intake of breath, and he looks up at me with a heartbreakingly sexy smile of relief when my fingers close around him.
We both look down, at his hand and mine touching each other.
It’s shockingly erotic. He reaches for his discarded jeans with his other hand and produces a condom, ripping the packet with his teeth in a way that somehow only makes things even hornier.
“Brandy the randy stripper’s got nothing on you,” he says, shuddering when I position myself over him.
“She’s fired, I want it to be you,” I murmur, staring into his ridiculously beautiful eyes as I slide myself all the way down onto him in one immensely satisfying push.
“Fuck,” he whispers, reverential.
I nod, wide-eyed. “It’s a lot,” I say, and he half laughs, half moans, his hips starting to move as his chest heaves.
It’s as natural as breathing, slow and then faster, his eyes nailed on mine.
His hands land on my hips, holding me down on him as he thrusts, and I crave him more than all the superheroes and all the marshmallows and all the candies.
I crave him more than an actual marshmallow mountain smothered in all the chocolate in Switzerland. More than a whole range of mountains.
“I want you more than the entire marshmallow Alps,” I gasp, and he pulls my nightdress clean over my head so I’m completely naked as his hips jerk, faster, losing control.
“The entire. Fucking. Pyrenees,” he pants, staring at my bouncing boobs as I clamp my thighs tight around him and watch his face when he finally, frantically comes. His eyes are bottomless green lakes I want to swim in, a lazy backstroke on a moonlit summer’s night.
“I can’t think of any other mountains,” I whisper, because my mind is a delirious, pleasure-drenched blank.
“All of them,” he whispers back, cupping my breasts, his eyes all over my body as if he’s committing me to memory. “Every mountain in every country on every continent.”
I don’t think either of us understands why we’re talking about mountains.
I think we both know we’re talking about something else entirely that neither of us has the words for, because in the cold light of day it usually feels as if there are actual mountains between us.
Volcanoes, always on the edge of danger.
Not tonight though. We’ve found a mountainside shelter and come in from the cold, lit the fire, and warmed each other’s bones.
I reach for my nightdress and he helps me back into it, his fingers gentle on the delicate buttons.
I curl into his lap and he pulls the blanket around us.
I don’t suggest we head up to bed because I’m blissfully comfortable and I don’t want to break the spell.
I lay my head on his chest instead and listen to his breathing, fast at first and then steady, and I hold him close to soothe him to sleep.
Something inside my twenty-seven-year-old heart shifts as I close my eyes and think about all of the things he told me earlier.
I feel the exact moment it happens, and Fletch seems to sense it too, because he rests his lips against my forehead, his warm breath fanning my skin.
“I’m glad you came tonight,” I murmur.
I feel the small ghost of his smile, and I know how close to sleep he is because he doesn’t go for the obvious joke.
He doesn’t say anything at all, just hushes me low in his throat, the sound of water washing over sand as he sweeps his gentle fingers down my face to close my eyes.
It’s the most intimate of lovers’ gestures; sleep now, I’ve got you. And he has.
“Is this a private slumber party or can anyone join in? Not that I imagine anyone would want to.”
I jolt awake at the sound of Leo’s sarcastic tone and open my eyes, disoriented.
I’m tucked up in Fletch’s arms on the armchair and he’s still fast asleep.
The blanket has slipped down onto the floor and I’m instantly aware of the heat of Fletch’s hand pressed against my bare thigh exposed by Britannia’s rucked-up nightdress.
His other hand is in my hair. God, are his jeans still around his ankles?
It takes me a good few moments to relive the last few minutes before I fell asleep last night, and I remember him fastening the shell buttons of my nightdress and hauling his jeans back up.
We’re both as dressed as when Fletch turned up, but my cheeks go hot at the memory of how unguarded we were with each other emotionally, and of how searingly intimate we were physically, and how damn comforting falling asleep in Fletch’s arms felt.
“Jesus, Leo,” I whisper, carefully sliding from Fletch’s lap and clambering to my feet. God, I’m stiff. “How did you get in here?”
I distinctly remember locking and bolting the door.
“The staff entrance around the back. The cook let us in.”
By us he means himself and the twins, who are looking at me and Fletch curiously from beneath matching army green berets. I feel like asking them if they’ve joined the resistance, but I don’t bother because I know it’ll go right over the top of their jauntily angled hats.
“Have you come especially early in the hope of catching me doing something you think I shouldn’t?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes as if I bore him.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he says, and I’m confused, because that sort of implies he doesn’t like seeing me with someone else. “My camera crew is coming, remember?”
I do remember, but I don’t want to say so because I’m pissed off that he’s caught me in yet another compromising position. Behind me, Fletch stirs and I turn as he opens his eyes and assesses the situation. He pauses, then looks my way.
“Morning, Ghostbuster.”
His voice has an early morning thickness that feels too private for anyone else’s ears but mine, so I turn and look at Leo.
“Could you give us a few minutes, please?”
He walks to the window. “I doubt it. The camera crew has just pulled up.”
I can see the wagon turning around in the driveway, and behind me, I feel Fletch get to his feet and stretch with a wake-up groan. “I ache,” he murmurs, dropping his arm over my shoulders. “We’ll get out of your way.” He’s curt with Leo, earning himself a glare.
I feel weird, as if I’ve been caught doing something far worse than just snoozing. I guess it was something more than that, but even I don’t know what it was.
“Actually, I wondered if I could have a word with you,” Leo says, looking at me, pointedly ignoring Fletch. I nod, acutely aware that I’m barefoot, bed-haired, and wearing a nightdress that makes me look like I’m up for a good ravishing. Or like I’ve just had one.
“Let me just go and get dressed. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Fletch follows me up the stairs, his hand warm on the small of my back. I roll my shoulders as we walk down the hallway toward our rooms, still unstiffening from a night spent curled in his arms on the chair.
“Stiff neck,” I mumble when we get to my door. Fletch reaches out and curves his hand around my neck to massage it. It feels much, much too good.
“Maybe we should have come up to bed last night,” he says quietly, and then he traces the tip of his index finger around the lace-edged scoop of my nightdress. He bites his top lip as his gaze follows his finger’s path across the swell of my skin, and I can barely breathe.
“And maybe we shouldn’t,” I say.
“Your skin feels like liquid fuckin’ gold.”
Aw, man. He’s doing that sexy swearing thing again and I want to rip this nightdress right off and let him touch me in all my shiny liquid-fuckin’-gold glory. How does he do that in so few words? Dear future husband, please talk dirty to me like Fletcher Gunn does.
Downstairs I can hear doors slamming and engines revving out on the drive, a bevy of voices and commotion. Leo’s heavy-booted crew is making itself known, and the last thing I want is a camera shoved in my face again while I’m in my nightgown being idly turned on by Fletch.
“I need to get dressed,” I say, feeling behind me for the doorknob.
“I know,” he says, playing with the straining top button of my bodice. His knuckles graze my skin. “Want some help? I’m good with buttons.”
Oh, I know he is, and I am 100 percent certain that he’ll have me out of this nightdress in three seconds flat if I let him come into my room with me.
“I don’t know if I’m coming or going with you, Fletch,” I say softly, because he perplexes, infuriates, and melts me in a way that has me in a constant tailspin. We are so unalike and mismatched, yet our mouths and our bodies insist on feeling like matching jigsaw pieces.
“Coming,” he says. “You’d definitely be coming. Again.” His mouth tips into a crooked smile and makes my nipples hard. He notices and I see his throat move when he swallows.
“Going would be more advisable, I think.” I push the door open behind me and step away from him. He drops his hand and studies my face, serious.
“We both know there will be a next time, Melody.”
I’m starting to think that this castle isn’t just haunted; it’s bewitched. I feel as if someone, Britannia bloody Lovell probably, has cast a spell over me and Fletch, causing a temporary glitch, a breakdown in hostilities.
It’s all very well sharing secrets and late-night armchair trysts, but that isn’t what he and I do best. We do snark and sizzle, and I kind of need it to stay like that, because my heart is off the table as far as Fletcher Gunn is concerned.
Oh, I want to be loved, and to love someone so much that my heart would stop if he’s in trouble, but that man needs to be someone who gets me, not someone who gets me so mad I’m likely to end up incarcerated.
That man needs to be someone I can trust with my crazy, someone who understands and champions and celebrates me. For a woman with my quirks and foibles that’s a pretty tall order, and for a fair chunk of my life, the only man who came close to ticking all of those boxes was Leo Dark.
Shit. Leo. He’s waiting for me downstairs. I hightail it to the shower so I can go and find out what on earth he needs to have a quiet word with me about.