Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LEXI
How the hell am I supposed to resist this?
Well, clearly I’m not resisting it. Not even trying to resist it.
I am fully kissing Oliver right back. Giving myself to the sensation of him sucking and teasing my lips, of his tongue on mine, of the sweet taste of the chocolate mousse we had for dessert still lingering on him, of that fresh scent of his skin that makes him smell like he just stepped out of the ocean.
When we tear our lips apart to come up for air, Oliver tips his forehead against mine and pinches my chin. “You’re fucking amazing, Lexi. You know that?”
“I know that I don’t do things like this.” I rest my hand on his arm. “I need you to know this is not who I am.”
“What isn’t you? Making a man weak at the knees with these magic lips and this magic tongue?”
“Kissing the person I’m interviewing. I’ve never crossed this line. Never hovered anywhere near it. Never even thought about doing it. Would think it was shockingly unprofessional if anyone else told me they’d done it.”
“Well, I think I kind of like unprofessional Lexi.” He runs his fingers down the side of my neck, across my collarbone, and down the center of my chest, making my skin prickle with pleasure under his touch. He doesn’t stop until he hits the top button of my shirt.
“How about we make it a little more shocking?” He undoes the button, and my nipples instantly harden.
“Oliver, we can’t. It’s—” Whatever I was about to say flies out of my head when his lips meet the side of my neck, melting me into a puddle of goo that’s incapable of forming words.
His mouth and tongue on my skin set every inch of it thrumming with life. Like sunlight, he brings a bloom of warmth between my thighs and, dear God, who knew arousal could hit with the force of a flash flood?
“Would you like me to stop?” His words stroke the ultra-sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder as his hands move down to the next button.
“No.” I let him pull me down the bed and roll me onto my back as he leans over me. “I don’t want you to stop. I want you to very much keep going. But it doesn’t mean that’s a wise decision. Or that it’s right.”
“Oooh.” He kisses his way lower, toward my cleavage, his lips making contact with every new patch of skin revealed by each undone button. “Is the bad boy prince leading you astray?”
“I don’t think you’re as bad as you allow people to believe.” I push my fingers into the thick mass of sandy hair. God, I’ve been desperate to touch it since I met him that first day in his apartment.
He opens the final button. “How bad would you like me to be right now?” His breath tickles my belly before looking up at me, his eyes and voice heavy with desire.
My hands fall from his hair to his cheeks and encourage him up my body until his face hovers over mine.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I whisper.
But I’m going to. I know it’s wrong but, against all my principles, something compels me forward anyway.
“I know,” he whispers back, then drops his mouth to mine.
My lips part to greet the softness of his, and the stroke of his tongue sends heat flowing through me, like thick lava that runs through my veins and pools at my core.
I shiver when he brushes his fingers up my sides, his mouth never losing contact with mine, and reaches underneath me to unclasp my bra.
The release of tension feels like it’s not only my breasts that have been set free, but also some part of me that I’ve kept fastened for years.
A part of me that’s always focused on the career goal, only ever done things that move me toward it, that would never in a million years do anything to jeopardize it.
And yet, here I am—topless, lying under the British prince I’m supposed to be interviewing but am, very clearly, about to have sex with.
Oliver peels his lips away and tips his chin to his chest as he looks between us and down my body.
“You are absolutely fucking gorgeous, Lexi.” The seductive tone when he says my name and the gentle brush of his fingers under the curve of my bare breast make my clit throb with a strength of need I didn’t realize was possible.
I wiggle underneath him, trying to pull off my shirt and remove my bra so it’s not lying awkwardly undone across my chest.
“Here,” he says. “I’ll help.”
He pulls me up to sitting and slowly eases my shirt off one side, kissing my shoulder as he pushes it away, then repeats it on the other side before sliding down the bra straps.
“Are you chilly?” His fingers brush the goose bumps on my arms.
“A bit. But only on the outside.” Inside me he’s lit a raging fire. And the goose bumps are more from him than the drafty castle.
“Let’s get you warm.” He reaches under me to yank down the bed covers. “Because I intend for you to be very, very naked, very, very soon.”
I lift my legs to allow him to pull the covers lower.
“Not fair if it’s only me who’s very, very naked.
” I reach for the hem of the Boston Commoners sweatshirt he changed into the second we were back from the hospice.
His parents clearly disapproved of him not being “dressed” for dinner, but it was as if the suit and dress shirt were an unwelcome second skin he needed to shed as quickly as possible.
He doesn’t wait for me to remove it for him. Instead he grabs a fistful of it behind his neck and pulls it forward over his head.
His face pops out with a grin, his hair now even more sexily tousled.
“And the T-shirt.” I tug it out of his jeans as he discards the sweatshirt.
“Too fucking right.” He makes the same swift work of the crisp white shirt.
My God, look at him.
When he’s fully clothed, it’s obvious he works out. But shirtless—the rise of his pecs, the curve of his shoulders and biceps, the outline of his abs, the dusting of fair hairs over his chest and forearms—my eyes can’t get enough of him.
He wraps his muscular arms around me and lays me back onto the newly revealed cream sheet. “Let’s get you comfy again.”
The second his bare chest brushes my nipples, a gasp I have no control over flies from me.
He straddles me and leans lower to tickle the outline of my lips with the tip of his tongue before tracing the same path with soft kisses.
When his hands cup my breasts, I feel like I’m sinking into the bed and disappearing into another realm. The gentle massaging and the skim of his thumbs over my tight nipples fires sparks to my soaking-wet core.
Then his lips leave mine and he slides down my body.
His mouth lands exactly where I want it, right on my breast that’s desperate for the warm wetness of his tongue.
As he sucks and teases, I run my fingers over his back, the path undulating with the rise and fall of every muscle, until I reach his shoulders.
They’re so firm and square that, even though this is the most reckless thing I’ve ever done in my life, it feels like holding onto them could keep me safe forever.
With his mouth still on my breast, he reaches for the waistband of my pants, and before I know it, they’re undone and he’s sliding his hand inside.
“Oh God.” The promise of his imminent touch and the tantalizing lapping of his tongue make me lose myself in him completely.
I’m no longer the reporter only here for the obligation of the book I have to write to get the job I want. And he’s no longer the entitled royal prince I have to tolerate to get that job done.
I’m a woman who’s allowing herself to recognize that I’ve wanted this man since the moment he opened his front door to me and his eyes met mine.
A woman who’s been trying to deny the obvious connection we’ve had since that moment but is finally letting herself feel it.
A woman who wants this man inside her more than she wants anything else in the world right this second.
His hand slides all the way inside my underwear and between my legs until he’s cupping my heat.
I clench his shoulders.
Oliver responds by increasing the pressure and pace of his tongue on my nipple.
When his finger parts my flesh and dips between, we groan simultaneously, his breath warm against my damp skin.
“Christ, Lexi.” His face is over mine again now, his chest expanding and contracting with deep, heavy breaths. “You are soaking wet.”
Then he kisses me.
It’s lingering and intoxicating, and at the same time he teases my entrance with his finger, sending me higher on this plane of unreality before sliding inside me.
We sigh into each other’s mouths, the kissing more urgent now, my fingers gliding down his back and inside his jeans and boxers until I’m gripping his firm ass.
In response, he presses his hardness into my thigh, making me want him all the more.
He eases his mouth away from mine and kisses a line across my cheek to my ear, simultaneously slipping his finger out of me and sliding it toward my clit.
The moment he makes contact with my desperate, throbbing nub, the whole world turns black. All I’m aware of is his touch, the rocking of his hips into my leg, and his heavy breaths against my ear.
“I want you, Lexi. I want you so fucking much.”
As he increases the pressure on my clit and kisses his way down the side of my neck, I reach for his belt.
But before I can grab it, he’s moved back down my body, his hand out of my underwear, and is tugging at my pants.
“Oh God, yes.” I lift my hips so he can pull off my bottoms.
Then I’m lying here, completely naked, with his eyes roving my body in the half-light creeping in from the castle’s exterior lights, a smile of wonderment on the mouth that was just kissing me.
He parts my legs and kneels between them. “You are fucking beautiful. You are every fucking thing.”
When I reach for the bulge in his jeans and trace the outline, his head rolls back while his hands stretch forward for my shoulders.
They rest there for a second before he drags his fingers down my body, over my breasts, pausing to tease my nipples before continuing the journey down over my belly, around the outside of my hips and under my butt.