“I have no idea what the Duke of Midnight reference alludes to, but the rest is essentially correct,” I admit with a shrug. I am very well aware of all of my shortcomings and of my character. The way my past experiences have shaped the way I build relationships. I see them as just part and parcel of who I am.
“Duke of Midnight … It’s the title of a book I read a few years ago. A historical romance where, by day, the duke is an autocratic and powerful member of parliament. By night, though, he was a sort of protector of the poor—Victorian England’s version of Batman. Anyway, no one would have guessed that his motivations were all about avenging his parents’ murders and not about being the most powerful duke in the world. It’s such a great book. And after yesterday, I think you’d be just like that if circumstances called for it.” She smiles.
I hear Dare’s voice in my head when she does exactly what he suggested I try—trusting how she feels and what I’ve shown her to decide if I’m worth knowing. I feel my first niggle of guilt about ordering that background check.
I swivel the small stack of delicate gold rings that adorn her middle finger.
She’s told me about losing her job. If there’s nothing more scandalous in her past than that, then it would be a good indicator that there won’t be anything scandalous in her future. After Renee, I won’t take any more chances with the women in my life. My responsibility is to make sure I pass on a legacy worth fighting for to the next generation. My personal desires come second to that.
My brothers have talked themselves blue in the face trying to convince me that I should date again. I’ve ignored them. They have the luxury of doing whatever they want. As long as I’m alive, it’s my responsibility to continue the family name. Have children, grow what we have—to continue funding medical research, continue investing in the city that made us who we are. And to steer us in the direction of being what we’ve always been. Leaders, contributors, powerful, and respected.
The tickle of her fingers tracing my knuckles draws me back to the moment. I glance up at her face to find her watching our joined hands, lost in an internal conversation of her own. I watch her unobserved and lose the ability to breathe.
She’s more beautiful than anyone has the right to be. And the longer I look at her, the more I’m sure she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her lush lips are coated in an obscenely sexy, slick, red lipstick. Her cheeks shimmer with what looks like gold dust. How fitting, since she looks like a very sexy fairy. Her dress is white lace confection that’s stark in contrast to the smooth tanned skin of her chest and arms. Her hair sits in a blonde knot that kisses the nape of her neck and I’m jealous of it. I imagine closing my lips over that spot and whirling my tongue over it before I sucked her hard enough to leave a mark.
She’s still staring at our hands and her lips lift in a quirk.
She traces the network of veins that cross the back of my hand.
“You’ve got such big hands,” she says absently.
“Yours are so small,” I respond.
I feel eyes on us, and when I look back at the table, their eyes all dart away like roaches when the lights come on. I should give them something to make their gossip worth it.
“Let’s dance,” I say.
“I thought you didn’t dance,” she says.
I answer by standing up and holding my hand out to her.
“May I?” I ask with a formal bow.
She giggles, but pouts and points down at her booted foot with a frown. The large plastic boot that’s holding her sprained ankle in place sticks out of the bottom of her long, flowing, white lace skirt.
“I can’t dance on it; walking is about as good as it gets.”
“You can if you’re standing on my feet,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen with surprise and her mouth drops open in a happy smile. She stands up, grabs my hands, and beams up at me.
“That’s the nicest thing, but I’m not exactly small and this boot—”
“You’re tiny,” I retort.
“I’m short, but I’m certainly more than a small handful.” She starts to sit back down, but I put a hand at her waist and pull her gently into my chest.
“Well, it’s a good thing I have these big hands, isn’t it?” I murmur in her ear. I lead her slowly onto the dance floor and point down at my feet.
“Climb on.” I hold out my upturned hands to her.
She gives me a slightly skeptical smile before she says, “Okay. But you better not let me fall,” she warns and then she puts one foot on top of mine.
“Never,” I say and tighten my grip on her waist.
The song starts to fade and the next one starts.
“Oh, my goodness, is this Elvis?” she asks as she places the ball of her silver ballet-slippered foot onto my other.
“He’s very popular in Europe,” I say and smile as the strains of the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” start to play. I look up to the ceiling of the tent and thank my dad for the sign.
I slip both of my arms around her waist and draw her into me. The bodice of her dress has a V down the front that stops a few inches above her belly button. The one in the back is just as deep and twice as wide. She looks like an entire meal tonight.
I slide one hand up the expanse of velvet skin of her back and wrap the other around her waist.
“Slip your arms around my neck,” I murmur. She does it slowly, her eyes on my mouth as her fingers link behind my neck.
Now, we’re chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and cheek to cheek. Elvis is crooning about wise men and fools. This unexpectedly wonderful woman amazes me. And I can’t help but nod in agreement when he sings, “some things are meant to be.”
I lean in, brush a kiss across her soft, pliant lips. The touch pulses. The air is vibrating with attraction and the pull between us is a living thing.
“Do you feel that?” she asks, her voice full of innocent wonder.
My short beard brushes the soft, sweetly fragrant skin of her cheek.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I think it’s the air and the water. It’s so beautiful here,” she says softly. She drops her head on my shoulder. I glare down and her eyes are closed. A small smile pulls at her lips.
“I think it’s us,” I whisper in her ear and drag my lips to that dimple and drop a kiss on it. “You’re beautiful.”
“So are you,” she replies with a drowsy smile, and I laugh dismissively. I step back and forth, my hand at her waist tightening to hold her flush against me.
“Not one single person has ever called me that before.” I laugh.
Her eyes pop open and cast a haze of desire that traps me in its azure net. My heart jerks in my chest, and the laughter dies in my throat.
“Then, they must not have been looking at you at all,” she whispers. Then, she takes my big hand into her much smaller, much prettier one, puts it to her delicious lips, and drags a kiss across my knuckles.
I’m moving in a small circle of slow two-steps. The music blends in with the rest of the background noise, and all I hear is the beating of my heart and the thud of my racing pulse in my ears.
There’s a storm brewing between us. It’s loud and it builds in a slow stream of tension that’s permeating the air.
I feel it in my racing pulse.
I feel it in the tingle at the base of my spine.
And when she sways into me, she feels it in the ardent pressure of my rock-hard dick between us.
“Oh my God,” she gasps, and twines her fingers into the hair at the base of my neck.
Without a single thought for propriety or gossip, I bend and slip my arm under her knees and lift her in my arms.
A loud cheer goes up in the crowd as I shoulder my way through the dance floor and out of the tent.
“Oh my Lord, what are you doing?” she asks in a whoop of laughter as she tightens her arms around my neck.
“I’m taking you to the closest room with a door. When we get there, I�
��m going to throw up that skirt and take off whatever’s underneath it and fuck you,” I growl before I kiss her hard and fast.
We step into the carpeted lobby of the villa and scan the room until I see a swinging door with the light off inside. I head straight for it.
“This is crazy,” she gasps into my neck. “I feel like I’m on fire, Hayes. I’ve never … I don’t know what it is.” She starts to squirm.
“I do. It’s whatever fucking pheromone you’re secreting. It makes me want to beat my fucking chest and rut with you while everyone watches,” I say and kick the door open. I set her down before I feel around for a light switch. The bright fluorescent bulb flickers a few times before it floods the room with light. It’s a utility closet with a waist high counter running down the middle.
“Perfect,” I whisper.
I wrap my arms around her waist and hoist her up, the voluminous layers of her skirt crushed in my hold. I stare at her face for just a second and I’ll never forget the way her eyes burned with need right before I took her mouth in a kiss I’d been thinking about for almost twenty-four hours.
She opens like the beautiful flower she is and my tongue slips into her sweet, warm mouth.
She’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.
She feels like mine.
So much like mine.
For tonight, at least, she will be.
I drop her onto the work bench and break our kiss. I shove her lace skirt up to her waist and her hand falls to my belt. I slide my hand up her thigh. “Your skin is so… soft. May I?” I ask.
She growls. “Please. Just touch me.”
I kiss her again and press my palm to the damp, heated slip of silk between her legs. I pull it so it slides between her lips. She moans into my mouth and unzips my pants.
“Please hurry. I want you inside me so badly, it hurts,” she moans.
I slip my hands back in between her splayed thighs, and I play with her pussy. I slip a finger inside her, rub her wetness up her slit and rub her clit. She lets loose a broken sob when I pinch it at the same time that I nip the tender skin on her throat.
“What are you doing to me?” She pants and throws her head back. It hits the wall behind her.
“I’m about to fuck you until you come so hard and loud that they’ll hear you in the other room.”
“Yes. God,” she groans and leans forward to wrap a hand around me. She strokes up, and I thrust up into her hand.
“I want you so badly,” I growl and grab a handful of her ass and squeeze it until I’m sure my fingers will leave an imprint.
She moans, and her legs spread even farther apart.
“Then fucking take me,” she says impatiently.
I pull her off the bench and turn her around.
I lift her skirt and expose her round, luscious ass. I slap it, and she jumps. But then her hips loosen.
“Let me fuck you how I know you need.” I slip my fingers around the soaked piece of fabric that’s drawn between her lips.
“Yes, please…”
“Why did you even bother wearing these?” I slip two fingers inside her and press up.
“Because, I imagined that you might want to rip them off,” she says and shoots a satisfied grin over her shoulder. I give the silk scrap of fabric a sharp tug, and they give up their hold on her body and fall into my hand. I stuff them into the pocket of my shirt. I push her legs even farther apart and thrust three fingers inside her. Her back arches and she groans into the table top.
“Your pussy is fucking unreal.” I swivel my hand and she pulses around my fingers and rotates her hips.
I pull out of her and fish a condom out of my pocket. I roll it on and spread her wetness from my fingers all over it.
“I want you so much,” she moans.
“Then, get your pussy on my dick, Tesoro,” I say and pull her back onto me. She thrusts back and starts fucking herself. I watch my dick glide in and out of her and wonder if I could build a shrine to her cunt. I grab her hips and slam up on her next downward slide. She screams, loud enough that it carries out into the hallway and mingles with the sounds of conversation on the other side of the door.
“Do you like that I’m fucking you where everyone can hear?” I whisper in her ear.
I slide the strap of her dress down and I pull down the bodice. Her round, full-as-fuck, pink-tipped breast spills out.
“Yes,” she pants in my ear.
“Why?” I rain kisses down her throat and bite her shoulder, nudging her entrance with the head of my cock.
“I want them to know I fucked my dream man tonight,” she croons, and I laugh.
“Dream man?”
She turns her head over her shoulder and holds me in the sweet snare of her azure gaze. “Yes. My dream man. Who looks like a king and fucks me like I’m his queen. Who is so fierce and so raw on the inside that he bleeds everything he’s feeling straight into his eyes,” she pants.
My heart stutters to a stop at how sure she sounds and how good it feels to be seen.
I lean down, press a kiss to her mouth, and start fucking her again. She breaks the kiss and presses her face into the table with a deep, satisfied moan.
I sweep her few errant curls off her shoulders and press my mouth into the slope where her shoulder meets her neck and press forward with hard, shallow thrusts.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” The feeling of being balls deep inside her is indescribable.
I feel like a fucking king.
I surge forward and drive her into the table. Her booted foot makes contact with my shin, and I ask, “Are you okay?” without slowing my rhythm. She nods. I fist my hand in her hair and pull a fist full of her hair back. I press our cheeks together.
“Jesus, you feel like a goddamn dream. I want to watch you come,” I pull out of her and turn her on her back. I thrust back into her in one long, hard push of my hips.
“Ahhhhh,” she wails and I get to watch the achingly beautiful expression on her face when my name pushes up her throat and out of her mouth in the sexiest whimper I’ve ever heard.
I push even deeper.
“Yes, sing for me, Tesoro,” I coax her. Her facial expression ebbs between ecstasy and pain, and then to bliss while I fuck her. My hand is grasping her thigh and her arms are flung wide on the table.
I pull the straps of her sleeves down so that both of her breasts are exposed to me. I bite down on one of her hard, pink-as-the-inside-of-a-seashell nipple and she starts to cry my name over and over. I focus on the satin fist her pussy is making around my cock. I lose myself in her cries and race toward the relief I need like I need air.
I already want her again.
I bury my face in her neck, hold her succulent ass with one hand and hold the other flat against the wall beside her head.
She presses her warm, soft lips to my ear and flicks her tongue along the shell of it. “There’s a hurricane swirling inside of me,” she whispers.
“That’s me,” I tell her between small nips at her throat.
“I’m coming apart,” she moans.
My breath hitches. I pull back and look into her limpid, breathtakingly bright eyes. She touches her open mouth to mine and kisses me softly.
“It feels so good, I don’t know what to do.” Her breath comes in short puffs.
“Like I’ve never …” She trails off.
“I know; it feels too good to be true, right?” I stare into her eyes and the naked desire in them, the honesty in her gaze, moves something inside of me.
Yes, I like her.
“Like … I’ll never, ever get enough,” she says in a low, but strong voice.
Her eyes light with a fierceness before her mouth is back on mine. She grips my neck, twines her fingers into my hair and pulls herself up my body.
Her legs tighten around my waist. I let go of her ass and press my other hand to the wall. “I want to make you come,” she groans just as she lifts up and slams back down on my cock.
She squeezes
me in rhythmic pulses that shoot pleasure straight to my balls. Like a slave following his master’s command, I start to come in a rush that blindsides me.
My knees buckle and I close my eyes against the suddenly unbearably bright light in the room. She rides me through my orgasm and slips a hand in between her legs. “I can’t come without my clit,” she pants before she starts rubbing between her legs.
“Let me,” I breathe and stand up. I take the condom off and toss it in the trash can next to the door. I spread her thighs and admire the sweet, wet, swollen pussy I just finished fucking. I bend and squat until my face is right where it wants to be. I lick her from the tender spot above her pucker all the way to her clit, and I pull it into my mouth. I suck hard, soft, flick my tongue, nip with my teeth until I know what she needs. And then, I eat her until she comes. Her hands fist in my hair even while she squirms away from my mouth. I press my palm to the center of her stomach and hold her in place and suck her clit until she screams my name. I want to beat my chest and throw her over my shoulder.
I stand up and stare down at her.
She’s slumped against the wall like a rag doll. Her hair is spilling free of the pins she used to put it up and now curling strands lay tousled all around her shoulders.
“That was …” She sighs and eyes me lazily out of half-open eyes.
“Yeah, it was … crazy,” I say and tuck my shirt back into my trousers and fasten them.
She pouts.
I tug her dress straps up over her shoulders and cover her breasts.
“You’re killing my dreams,” she complains, a frown puckering a swollen, sultry mouth.
“What dreams are those?”
“Ones where you’re not getting dressed and pulling my dress back in place,” she says in a sexy tone.
“It’s bad enough that I carried you off the dance floor and fucked you in a utility closet with a door that doesn’t close properly,” I remind her.
Her face flashes a hot red and she sits up and crosses her arms over her chest and looks over my shoulder at the door.
“Oh my God, it’s a swinging door, Hayes. What if someone saw us?” she asks.
Beach Reads Box Set Page 25