4. Primrose
PRIMROSE
Why did it have to be him? Out of all the people who might’ve ventured down here, why did it have to be the man who made me feel so dismissed?
He probably thinks I’m trying to cop a feel because my hand is plastered flat to his chest. But it was shock—it must’ve landed there to stop my forward momentum. To keep our bodies from connecting.
My heart feels like it’s trying to break free from my ribs and I hate how he’s even more handsome up close.
Thick hair and piercing eyes, the light catching the strong angles of his face.
His square jaw. The hollows beneath his cheekbones.
The shadow below his full bottom lip. In the cool of the basement, heat seems to emanate from his skin, his cologne assaulting my senses in the most delicious way.
I mean, I hate it. He stinks. He might be big, hot, and brooding, but I bet he has a little dick.
“What are you doing down here?” He crooks his finger under my chin, his demeanor so different from the garden room.
Stick to English, my brain reminds me. Think—form words! Plant your flag in this patch of rocky ground. But this is what you do, my mind whispers. Shut down when boys are around. Except this is no boy. He’s all man.
“Help?” I give a nervous titter. “I’m totally lost. I wasn’t—”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed.”
My first instinct is to deny it, but keeping in character, I frown instead. His lashes are so long and sooty, and his gaze feels like a hook. And I’m the little fishy dangling on it.
“I should go back upstairs.” I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience as he strokes a wisp of hair from my cheek, gently sliding it behind my ear. “I came down here to find my friend but she… she isn’t here.”
“There’s no need to leave.”
“I can’t think where she might be.”
“Especially when they like to be watched.” His eyes flick momentarily behind me.
My mouth falls open, but no sound comes out. Those words I’m not supposed to understand seem to pound in the space between my legs.
“And you like to watch, I think.” I stiffen as his hand moves to my shoulder, his eyes softening. “No one here would judge. I’ll watch with you.”
The thought seems so shocking, but as the woman on the stage cries out, I find I’m already watching. Her hands flex by her sides, her body undulating with the blond’s touch, his hand barely concealed by her tiny knickers.
My heart shouldn’t be beating like this, and my breath shouldn’t match hers. And I shouldn’t allow my eyes to fall closed at a soft brush of a man’s breath across my neck.
“But the only person I’ll be watching is you.”
Oh…
My awareness of him feels so immense that I’m literally trembling. I notice I’m holding his forearm. Did I reach for it? Did he slide it around my waist? My fingers look so pale next to the fabric of his jacket, a snowy cuff and silver watch peeking out from under it.
“She’ll feel so hot against his fingers. So slippery.”
Somehow this sounds even more lurid in French. Something hot and wicked begins to swirl through my insides as though the woman’s excitement is somehow mine.
“Do you wish you were her?” His words shape themselves around my skin. “Do you wish I were him?”
Oh God, yes. Did I say that or think it? Did he notice how my knees almost became weak?
On stage, she begins to moan and writhe, the press of the blond’s arm the only thing keeping her upright.
She convulses, her hand tightening in his hair, her excitement intense.
I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for her to reach her peak almost as though it were mine.
But my partner would have dark, dark hair.
His touch would feel like possession and his whispers would feel like a caress.
My pulse pounds everywhere, my thighs pressed tight, overwhelmed by the desperate longing to slide my there. Instead, I grip his forearm harder and, as she comes undone, a gust of air pushes between my parted lips.
The aftermath is silence but for the sound of my pounding heart. But it doesn’t take long for reality and discomfort to set in. I force my stiff fingers to loosen from their death grip as I begin to mutter my excuses. “I’ve got to go.”
He catches my hand. “Don’t leave.”
I find myself turning, a denial already on my lips when the unexpected brush of his body blooms inside me like a secret delight. He’s hard.
“Come with me.” He pulls me along in his wake. I’m not reluctant, though maybe I should be, but this whole thing feels like a fever dream. My reactions are completely out of place. I’ve never felt this way before, never been so turned on that my core aches for more.
We enter a dimly lit hallway, the clip of my heels echoing along with the sound of his footsteps. I should be afraid, not excited, I tell myself. I should pull away.
But sometimes you want what’s best, and other times you crave things that are no good.
He spins to face me, his gaze spearing me to the spot. “What are you doing here?”
I frown—I can’t give up on my charade now.
Not in a dimly hallway with a man who seems to be suddenly very angry with me.
My blood surges as his eyes dip to my mouth as though he’s fighting the urge to kiss me.
Then my breath halts as it seems like he will.
I step back and he steps forward, like the moment is part of a choreographed dance.
“You look like you’re lost.”
My back meets a cold wall, and my heart begins to hammer in a place it has no business being. He looks he’d devour me given half the chance and my insides feel plump with the thought of it.
“Like you wandered in here accidentally.”
“I was looking for…” My words trail off as his hand rises between us and his thumb touches my bottom lip.
“You don’t look like anyone else here. Or anyone I’d like to share.”
My legs almost give out, my heart going haywire. There. I draw in a taut breath as he lowers his head, the moment unfolding frame by exquisite frame. The sweep of his lashes. The press of his fingers at my waist. The heady scent of his cologne and the soft press of his breath.
He doesn’t kiss me as his thumb slips from my mouth. Liquid heat floods my body as he brings it to his own. He’s tasting me.
“As I thought.” Still so close, his words feel like kisses blown across my lips. “You taste like trouble.”
Competent. Conscientious. Hardworking. Passably pretty. A good sister and friend. The accolades pale in comparison.
I’m not sure which of us is more surprised as my fingers wrap around his lapels, and I tip onto my toes.
My lips tremble as they brush over his, soft and featherlight.
His whole body stills and, for a moment, I think he might pull away.
But maybe his brain was playing catchup as he kisses me back.
I wind my fingers in his hair and, oh my, the low rumbling sound he makes as I pull on those silky strands.
I feel the power of it inside me, swallowing it deep into my center.
Between one breath and the next, he takes charge, kissing me like he’s a dying man and I’m air.
Overcome, I close my eyes, but the darkness only serves to sharpen every sensation.
The wine on his tongue and wild darkness beneath it.
The smooth brush of his cheek against mine and heat rising from his skin.
He smells of spice and cedar, and his mouth is lush and clever and—
He puts his strong thigh between my legs, and a breath stutters out of me.
The noise he makes as he swallows it down sounds mildly pornographic.
His fingers tug my blouse from my skirt, and skim teasingly above the waistband.
Heat and light pulse through me, blood sizzling in my veins, as such lurid images wash across my brain.
The press of his hand. The feel of his teeth.
Above me, inside me, the hard thrust claiming me deep.
His hand spans my side, sliding up my ribs where he cups the weight of my breast. When his thumb sweeps over my nipple, it seems to liquify my bones.
Thank God for the press of his thigh.
“So sweet.” His thumb circles the hardened bud as he watches my face, weighing my reactions.
The way I sigh. How my tongue darts out to moisten my lips.
I close my eyes overwhelmed by his attentions.
“Don’t hide from me, little one.” I’m not even little.
I’m average-sized. Height. Weight. In other ways.
But then he molds my breast and whispers how perfectly I fit into his hand.
The wall is cold at my back, yet I feel like my skin is on fire.
My breathing is so loud, I wonder distantly if I might be having an asthma attack as he pops the buttons on my blouse.
He flips the cup of my bra, releasing my nipple to the cool night air.
He gives a firm tug, and I make a broken sound.
His dark head dips to engulf my nipple, and I whimper as his teeth graze the already tight bud.
As he swirls and sucks and pulls, his gaze flicks upward, triumph and wickedness shining there.
This is what I’ve been missing—the reason I’ve never understood how otherwise sensible people could make rash decisions in the name of lust. The dopamine rush. The dizzying high of being desired. Some intoxicating chemical alchemy that lights up a brain like a pinball machine.
And God, I want it. Crave it. The press of skin against skin, oxytocin flooding my system.
But more than the rush, more than the chemistry, I want him.
“You’d let me have you right here.”
My whimper is hardly a denial; neither is the way I’m practically riding his thigh as I feel myself growing wetter by the second.
“You’d let me fuck you against this cold wall.” Along with his wicked whisper, his fingers trail a path up my thigh.
The answer is yes, but I’m not supposed to understand the question. This is positively Victorian compared with what’s going on upstairs…
“But not before I taste you.”
Before my mind can process, my dark-haired stranger drops to his knees, taking my panties with him. His breath brushes over me in a shiver-inducing warm caress.
“Pretty.” His thumb presses inside, his tongue darting a hot lick to where I’m exposed.
“Oh, my God!”
“Dieu, I have to taste you.” His half-growled words are barely audible as he buries his tongue inside me.
I dissolve. Melt. Am transported to a higher plane—a place where nothing matters but the deep thrust of his fingers and the questing slide of his tongue.
My hands knotted in his hair, I screw my eyes tight as his gaze flicks up to my face, but not before I see the lurid flick of his tongue as it lashes my clit.
“Oh God, yes, yes, yes!” My body arches from the wall, my hips meet his movements as he licks and laps. As his fingers loop my ankle, lifting it to his shoulder. As he promises to consume me, body and soul.
Sensation threatens to burst from my skin. It’s never happened like this before—I’ve never reached this precipice with the involvement of another person. I’m probably not going to now because—
“Mon dieu, I can’t get enough of you.”
My brain goes blank—a misfire in the cerebral wiring as my intellect disconnects. Poof! Gone. Oral and aural. Who knew there was such a thing?
His fingers curl deep inside me, his tongue licking into me like he’s enjoying the remains of ice cream in a bowl. And the sounds he makes—oh, God, the sounds. It’s unrestrained—a ravenous hunger. An uncensored pleasure.
He likes this—no, he loves this.
Every inch of me feels alive as he pleasures me with his mouth, fucks me with his tongue. As he laps and pets, stretching and twisting my orgasm into something so intense that my thighs begin to twitch, and I’m pretty sure my eyes roll to the back of my head.
“Oh, Jesus God in heaven, don’t stop. Please don’t stop!”
“Come for me. Let me drown in you.” He sucks my clit into his mouth, and I just…detonate. There is no other word for it. I go off like a rocket—I probably pull out half of his hair as I arch against his mouth’s heavenly assault.
“Holy…” The peak of my orgasm seems unceasing. I begin to fight against him, struggling to be free of his mouth.
“Keep still,” he growls in reprimand. And when he demands I come again, a hot sleekness rushes through me as I begins to convulse.
My insides continue to throb as I sink into my body again. The soft press of his lips to my thigh makes me squirm, hypersensitive, awkwardness quick to set in. Or so I thought until his arms come around me and he presses his head to my stomach.
“That was…” He sounds as dazed as I feel when he stands suddenly, his expression one of disbelief or astonishment. It’s hard to tell.
The light catches his face; his mouth smeared lewdly with my pleasure. A tempting beat starts up between my legs again.
His hand cups my cheek as he just stares at me, like I’m a treasure or a prize.
“Your hair,” I whisper, reaching up to run my fingers through the dark strands. “It looks like you’ve been electrocuted. And it sort of feels like I have.”
He smiles—and, oh my, he looks so heart-achingly lovely. Reaching for my hand, he kisses the back of my fingers before bringing them to his chest. My heart sinks like a rock in a pond when I notice the pale slice of skin where a wedding band would normally sit.
“You’re not—you’re not married, are you?”
I feel sick, really sick, as the warmth in his expression gutters like the flame. He drops my hand, looking anywhere but at me.
“I don’t…” know what to think. What to say or what to make of this moment when he suddenly pulls me close and presses his lips to my hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers fervently.
Behind me, metal grates against metal, and he steps closer. A beat later I realize closer isn’t his objective. He’s moving into me, using the slow, inexorable press of his body to usher me through the now-open door.
“What the…” My brain struggles to process what’s happening as he takes a step back, then swings the door shut. Leaving me wet and throbbing and confused and on the wrong side of it.