Chapter 3
THREE
HUNGER
Wasp
Ah fuck. This was wrong. I told myself to stop, yet my lips moved with hunger, and I gripped two handfuls of Taylor’s bare backside.
Our tongues met in a battle, warring for dominance, sliding in and out with slick heat. Taylor tasted of wine and heaven, and I couldn’t get enough.
On my lap, she pressed into me, the shirt I’d given her riding up around her middle.
In the dark of the room, I was right back in a place I’d dreamed about far too often. The lass was a year older than me. When we’d met, she’d been the experienced one. Every time since then, I’d wanted to show her what I’d learned. To prove to her that I could match her.
Please her.
Best her.
She moaned and broke our lips apart. We both breathed heavily, staring at each other.
Then, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and started to lift it.
I hated myself. I hated the values I had instilled in my blood.
I fucking hated being the good guy.
“Stop,” I ground out. Gently, I took her fingers and held them, forcing myself not to look down at the soft skin revealed.
“Why?” Taylor’s blonde eyebrows pinched in.
“Ask me again in a minute when my cock isn’t battling for ownership of my thoughts.”
She gave a sparkling laugh. “I’ve missed your cock. Let me say hi.”
“Ah, stop.” I closed my eyes and rested my head back on the couch, my lips pulling in a grin.
“You want me.”
“I always have,” I murmured to the ceiling.
“Are you seriously turning me down?”
“Aye.”
“Did you get hit on the head since the last time I saw you?”
I burst out laughing now and grabbed her, swinging us around so she was on her back on the couch and I was on top of her.
Then I rubbed the tip of my nose against hers, because if I didn’t make this cute, I’d lose my willpower.
“You make me crazy. You always had the knack.” I kissed her softly then reached for the towel she’d dropped, covering her up.
“But this will only make things harder next time we see each other.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll visit Ella. Bring your new husband. Arranged or not, you’ll be part of a couple.” One that didn’t involve me. My chest ached again, and I shifted away. “We can’t keep doing this. If we stop now, we can learn to be friends instead.”
Taylor made a noise of frustration. “This might be my last chance of good sex. I might be a bitch but I’d never cheat. Even stuck in a marriage I hated.”
Argh. “Sorry.” Then my brain caught up. “You’re not a bitch.”
“I am. I’ve never been a nice person.”
“I disagree. I like ye.” I spared her a look.
She gazed back, wide-eyed and fucking gorgeous. Blonde hair spilling over the midnight-blue couch. “Including if we’re not sleeping together anymore?”
“Do ye think that’s the only reason I like ye?”
She blinked, appearing to consider the answer. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
Granted, we hadn’t spent much time together just talking, but her visits had usually been short and time with me limited. I gave her an outraged glare, and she giggled.
“So…” She put her feet on my lap. I took them in my hands, resisting massaging her. This was already hard enough. Quite literally. “We’re friends?” she continued. “What does that mean?”
“We see each other without wanting to have sex.”
Taylor blew out a breath. “I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. But if you want it, I’ll give it a go. What do we do now?”
“Fill me in on the past couple of years?”
“You start. Your Highlands life has always been more interesting than mine.”
For the next couple of hours, we talked.
While my photos uploaded for Josie to sell, I told Taylor about my family and home, about university, my last girlfriend who’d suggested for my career I move to the city permanently—something I wasn’t prepared to do—and Taylor gave me a few small details of her life.
Her dad’s political aspirations, her strained relationship with her mother.
The university degree she’d taken and aced but wasn’t using.
Then she fell silent, and I glanced over to find her head dropped to the side, and her breathing gentle in sleep.
We had to leave in forty minutes, but I didn’t move.
The chest pain I had worsened. I’d never told her, but years ago, when sex had been a mystery to which she’d given me the answers, I’d thought myself in love with her.
It had been puppy love, but powerful all the same.
I’d never felt anything like it since. I doubted I ever would again.
But Taylor wasn’t for me. Until the last possible moment, I just sat with her, letting her rest. Then I gently shook her awake, collected my bags, and straightened up the studio, leaving my hired suit and lenses for Josie’s assistant to return.
Then I took Taylor to her hotel. Red-eyed, she didn’t speak, but before she got out of the cab, she leaned over and kissed me.
Soft, now. None of the urgency of earlier.
She walked away in my shirt and bundled in my towel.
“It’s hard saying goodbye,” the cabbie told me, idling the car and letting me have my moment, staring across the grey pavement.
Strange. It felt like a sort of heartbreak, though that couldn’t be right. I needed to board a plane and go home. Get back to my life and put Taylor behind me.
“You have no idea,” I replied, and the cabbie drove me away.