CHAPTER 10 ALEXIS
Dinner is over.
The others, including the lawyers, have all gone home or back to their lavish hotels. Including the creative team. Including the marketing department. Including the owner of Hush.
One assistant—Lake—stayed behind, but she’s retired to the guest house out back and gave us her number to use if we need anything. Security is positioned downstairs for the evening.
Gregory is taking a room a few doors down from mine. A bathroom and another bedroom—Danny’s bedroom—separate us.
And the moment Gregory closes his door behind him, Danny walks from his room to mine. I’m standing near the dresser as I pull some pins out of my hair the stylist from earlier left behind.
He closes the door and locks it.
He looks like he’s ready to pounce, and I’m ready for him to pounce, too.
But to my utter shock, he hedges a little before he says, “Can we talk?”
I nod. “Of course. Come on in.”
He doesn’t come in, but he leans against the door, setting his hands behind his back and leaning on them, too, as he lets out a deep sigh.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, pulling out the last pin and setting it on the dresser before turning around and leaning against it. I use my fingers to shake out my hair, rubbing my scalp a little where the pins held the style tightly in place.
“I’m still not okay with you being engaged to someone else.”
I glance down at my ring finger, slide the ring off, and set it on the dresser next to the pins. I let go of a heavy sigh, too. “I know this isn’t ideal.”
He doesn’t move from where he leans against the door. “I just…I’m falling for you, Lex. And it’s me against that other guy.”
“It’s not,” I say firmly as I walk over toward him.
His hands are still pinned behind him, and I run my fingertips along his eyebrow and down his cheek toward his jawline as I study his eyes.
He’s so handsome—so rugged and tough with the short hairs on his jawline and a little scar just below his right eye, but then those blue eyes fall onto me with so much warmth and something near adoration, and it somehow softens him into this man I feel like I can’t live without.
I lean forward and press a kiss to his chin, but he doesn’t move to grab me into his arms like I want him to.
Instead, he stiffens a little, and I back up a step.
“But it is. Publicly, you’re with him. Privately…
” He shrugs. “I don’t know if it’s enough.
My friends are already questioning what the hell I’m doing when they can see I’ve changed, and it’s getting harder and harder to answer them when I don’t even have the answers. ”
Alarms ring in my head that maybe he doesn’t want this the same way I do.
“I know. It’s hard for me, too, believe me. But we’ll figure this out, right? We have to because now that you’re here, now that we’ve gotten this deep, I can’t just…let you go.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He shakes his head as he finally moves his hands out from behind him. He grabs me into his arms, and he buries his face in my neck. “I’m in deep, Alexis. Okay? Deep. I saw you walk into that kitchen, and it clicked.” His words are hot against my skin.
“What clicked?” I whisper.
He lifts his head and his eyes burn into mine. He looks terrified as he says the words. “I’m falling in love with you.”
I open my mouth to say the words back, but he plows ahead before I get to.
“I’ve never been here before, and it’s scaring the hell out of me.
It’s changing me. It’s big and terrifying, and I wouldn’t know how to do this without completely fucking it up if we were under normal circumstances.
But we’re not, and I guess I just need to know that it won’t be a secret forever because I know I’ll have to share you with the world because of your talent and because of who you are, but I can’t take sharing you with another man. ”
Tears heat behind my eyes while he speaks, and my chest tightens as my stomach flips. I lift onto my tiptoes and catch his lips with mine. “I’m falling for you, too,” I say against his mouth.
God, it feels good to say that. It feels good to feel that.
“It won’t be forever,” I promise. “We just need some time to figure this out. I have to play it this way with my dad, but I'm walking away once the merger goes through. I’m getting a new agent. I’m taking control of my career…of my life. And that includes having you in it.”
His eyes search mine, and he must see the genuine promise I’m making. It’s not just for me, though—it’s for us. It has to be since he’s my future.
“How long?” he whispers.
“I don’t know. But you’ll be the first person I tell when I know.”
He studies my eyes some more, and then it’s like he makes a decision…and it’s the right one.
“Fuck, Lex. I’ve never wanted a woman like this before.”
His mouth crashes down to mine before I can tell him how I feel exactly the same, and he’s vicious tonight. Hungry. Needy.
Well…so am I.
His mouth brutalizes mine with this kiss, his relentless tongue exploring my mouth with an urgency I haven’t felt from him yet. He walks me backward until my legs hit the edge of the bed, and he pushes me back onto it as he moves on top of me.
We’re both fully clothed—including our shoes—and somehow, this is up there among the hottest moments of my life.
It’s not just the kiss or the way he’s shoving his hips against mine, but it’s the pure, unadulterated need with which he’s doing it, like he can’t get to me fast enough even though we both want to luxuriate in what we have—in what we’re doing.
His fingers dip into my hair, and he continues to kiss me like I’m giving him the very sustenance he needs to continue to breathe. He’s doing the same to me, giving me life here with his kiss, and I never want this feeling to end.
It’s need and want, but it’s also love and tenderness despite the harsh undertones of his actions.
He moves to the side, slips his hand under the dress the stylist gave me to wear tonight, and yanks my panties to the side before shoving a finger into me.
Even this is rough as he drives that finger in and adds another, push after harsh push, again and again as he kisses me.
My hips buck to meet his drives, and it’s the unhinged need between us that pushes me right over the edge into my first orgasm of the night as if my body was still teetering on the edge from the one he gave me last night and was just waiting for him to come back and take control of it.
I’ll give him all the control he wants over me if this is the result.
My moans gain volume as my legs squeeze together, and I scratch and claw at his back as I fight my way through pulse after pulse of glorious pleasure.
“Fuck, it’s hot when you come,” he murmurs against my ear once the pulses start to slow, and he sucks my earlobe into his mouth for a beat.
Why is that so damn hot?
Why is everything about this man so damn hot?
I don’t know if I’ll ever arrive at the answer, but I’d like to keep trying to figure it out for as long as I live.