She nodded, excused herself to Charles, and headed out.
Kennedy turned wide eyes to Charles. “So…”
He chuckled.
“Am I screwed?”
He shook his head. “No. Definitely not. But I might be.”
“How are you going to be screwed?”
“If Bennett convinces you to move to Georgia, I lose you both.”
“Us both?” She was too surprised by his statement to correct the idea of her moving to Georgia. No way.
“I’m thinking you would be fantastic on my new task force looking at tourism in the state.”
Kennedy stared at him. “Me?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“What would that entail?”
“A few trips to Baton Rouge. Sitting at a table with a bunch of other people who know and care a lot about tourism in our state. Talking about ideas to make it all even better, things that are affecting you all, keeping you from doing all the things you want to do. To start with anyway.”
Kennedy’s mind started spinning. What? Her in Baton Rouge? “Seriously?”
“I saw you last night. You were excited and energized about sharing ideas and lobbying for what you know are needs.”
“Yeah, but…”
He nodded when she trailed off. “Yep, that’s how government works, Ms. Landry. It’s made up of the people who just want to make where they live a place they’re happy and safe and proud to be.”
“I never thought about it that way.” Autre was already all of those things to her. But she damned well wanted to keep it that way.
“Well, think about it now.” He saluted her with his coffee cup and then turned and left the kitchen.
Bennett knocked on the door to Kennedy’s bedroom. The other houseguests were down having lunch or lounging by the pool. They’d said she’d been invited and had agreed to join them, but they hadn’t seen her for about three hours.
She didn’t answer his knock. Was she sick? Had she gone back to bed?
He tried the door and found it unlocked. He pushed it open and peeked inside, not sure if he should wake her. But really wanting to. Or maybe he’d just crawl in beside her. He’d had a late night, too. Though he’d had a lot less alcohol than she had.
But her bed was empty. And made. As if she hadn’t been in it at all.
He stepped into the room. She wasn’t there and the door to the connecting bathroom was open and the light off.
Where was she?
He headed for his room. He needed to shower and change at least. He’d shoot her a text and—
She was propped up in his bed, his laptop open on her thighs.
She looked up. “Hi.” She gave him a big, bright smile that stopped him in his tracks.
She was so damned beautiful, and she seemed sincerely happy to see him.
“Hi.” He stalked toward the bed with a frown. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“The girls said you were going to meet them at the pool.”
Her gaze flew to the clock in the corner of the computer screen. “Oh, wow. I totally lost track of time.”
She shifted, and Bennett suddenly realized she was wrapped in a towel. There were black strings coming out of the towel that tied around her neck that he assumed were attached to a bathing suit.
He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt and climbed up from the bottom of the bed to stretch out beside her. “What have you been doing that you completely forgot about swimming?”
Kennedy’s eyes tracked over his shoulders and chest, making his cock stir.
But she said, “I just wanted to look a few things up and then I got sucked into all this reading. I had no idea I’d been up here for so long. I kept thinking I’d just read one more page.”
“What are you reading about?”
“Well, it started with reading about your foundation, actually. Then that led to articles about the loss of land along the coast,” she said. “I knew a lot of that but just wanted to read more in depth. Then that led to the engineering along the Mississippi. And that led to looking up Grant Peterson’s company. And then I started reading about how Louisiana state government is set up.”
Bennett stared at her. Then he looked at the computer. Then back to her. Finally he asked, “What?”
Kennedy set the computer on the bedside table and shifted to face him, crossing her legs and leaning in on her knees. The move caused the towel to loosen and fall, revealing that the bathing suit was actually a bikini. And she looked fucking hotter than hell in it.
“Last night, Teddy and Charles and I were talking. And I was thinking about everything all morning. I remembered meeting Grant when he came for a swamp boat tour. He works in Missouri, up where the Missouri River meets the Mississippi. I was thinking that maybe we could talk to him. He knows a lot about the rivers and maybe, I don’t know, someone could come up with a way to pick up the sediment that’s getting dumped away from the barrier islands and bring it over.”
Bennett felt as if she was speaking German to him. Except that everything she was saying sounded like the stuff that he talked to people about all the time. The Mississippi. The sediment. The barrier islands.
But he just was having a hard time processing that he and Kennedy were talking about it.
“I don’t understand.”
She leaned in, a gorgeous smile on her face. “Surely someone, somewhere, is smart enough and motivated enough to come up with something that would…I don’t know…act like a strainer. It could take the sediment out of the water as it goes through. Then they could bring it over to the barrier islands.”
He nodded. Then frowned. Then said, “What?” again.
“I want to help you. What you’re doing with the islands and the coast and the politics of it and your foundation—God, Bennett, it’s just all so…amazing.”
“Well…thanks. I mean…” He had no idea what he meant.
“I want to get involved,” she said. “All of this is really exciting. There are some really big things that need done and…” She took a deep breath. “It’s so fucking hot that you’re the one leading so much of this.”
Bennett felt his eyebrows rise. “It’s…hot?” His body liked hearing that even as his brain was still trying to catch up.
She laughed softly. “It really is. I thought I was all into big muscles that could build things and get rid of bats and stuff but, turns out, my kink is brainy guys who have so much charm they can get people to give them millions of dollars, which they then turn into these amazing things that are saving the planet.” She leaned in. “Saving my home. My family. Me.”
She put her hand on the back of his head and her lips against his. “I really want to give a blow job to the guy who’s going to save Louisiana.”
Well, saving all of Louisiana might be pushing it. But he could save a few birds and fish and maybe a village or two. And if the fucking government would get out of his fucking way, he could do a hell of a lot more…
Bennett reined in his thoughts. He had a half-naked woman that he wanted to his bones, offering him a blow job. What the fuck did he care about the nesting habits of the Least Tern right now? Except that he still kind of did. He could never completely shake all of that.
Damn. He wasn’t sure, Kennedy was really ready for him to be his all-out geek self. There was probably a balance between impassioned scientist who read legal briefs in his spare time and the guy she wanted to take her clothes off with.
He was reeling a bit from the idea that all of this was a turn-on for this girl who wore cutoff blue jeans and cussed like a shrimp boat captain and could absolutely get rid of bats all on her own.
He’d, admittedly, kept a lot of this from her because he’d figured she’d think it was all… Hell, he didn’t even know what to call it. Crazy? She wouldn’t have been the first to think the idea of building a barrier island was nuts. Boring maybe? He wouldn’t have guessed that water flow and river
sediment and the politics of environmental protections would be interesting to her, not to mention a turn-on.
But fuck…if it was? Then he was going to be able to rock her damned world. He could do that dorky-scientist-slash-politician thing all day.
“I have to admit, that’s a hell of an incentive to keep working in spite of the set-backs,” he told her.
She kissed him. “The idea of stripping you down and putting my mouth all over your body and having you breathing hard and panting my name, while there are people all over Georgia and Louisiana who are begging you to work with them and help them with things… God, I don’t know, but that just makes me hot and restless and wet.”
He slid his hand to the back of her neck. “You want me begging?”
“I really do.”
“And saying your name?”
Her pupils were dilated and she was breathing a little hard. “Definitely.”
He pulled on the tie on the back of her neck, undoing the bow and causing her bikini top to drop away from her breasts. He took in the sight, then put his lips against her neck.
“Kennedy, I’m begging you to let me make you come harder than you ever have.”
She tipped her head back. “Well…okay.”
He kissed his way to her collarbone, then lower, over the upper curve of her breast, and then down to her nipple. He flicked it with his tongue, taking in her gasp of air, then sucked. Hard.
Her fingers curled into his scalp and she arched closer.
Bennett pulled back. “Shower. Now.”
Kennedy opened her eyes, blinking at him, looking a little dazed. “Um.”
He reached behind her and untied the bottom strings of her bikini, whisking the top away from her. “Shower,” he repeated, pushing back off the bed and shedding his clothes. “Now.”
Her gaze tracked over his body as she slid off the bed and slipped out of her bikini bottoms.
Bennett blew out a breath. “Damn.”
She grinned as she started across the carpet toward the bathroom. She grabbed his hand as she passed him, tugging him with her. “I have been dreaming about that shower.”
“This is going to be the dirtiest shower you’ve ever had.”
“It better freaking be,” she tossed over her shoulder.
They stepped into the bathroom and Bennett went straight for the shower, starting the water and adjusting the temperature. He turned back and pulled her close. He took her face in his hands. “You are the most gorgeous, amazing, sexy, funny, sassy woman I’ve ever been with.”
She gripped his wrists, looking into his eyes with a grin that was definitely sassy. “And you’re…” But she trailed off and pressed her lips together. She swallowed hard and her grin faded into a sincere look. “You’re the first guy I’ve been with that I actually really, truly respect,” she said. She shook her head. “That sounds bad. I don’t mean that my other boyfriends have been dumb or jerks. They just haven’t been…” She pressed her lips together and took a breath.
Bennett stroked his thumbs over her cheeks. “Kennedy—”
“No, I want to say this,” she said, squeezing his wrists. “You are the first guy who’s actually been a challenge. And it’s not because you’re difficult to be with or anything. I mean, I love our back-and-forth stuff and the way I never know what to expect from you. But it makes me feel energized and makes me have to be sharper and more focused. In my usual day, I can just kind of coast through and do things that are so easy and so routine that it doesn’t take much brain power. Or heart. But with you, I find that I have to be more on my game and on my toes. And now, being here with you and really learning about the things you do, you’ve made me look at everything and think that maybe I could be doing more or trying harder or…just being more.”
Bennett felt his heart squeeze hard in his chest. Holy shit. He was way more than halfway in love with this woman.
“And,” she went on, her smile returning, “all of that makes me think that this sex is going to be the best of my life and I’ll never want it with anyone else ever again. So…no pressure. But I really need you to rock my world.”
He gave a little growl and put his hands on her ass, pulling her against him. “Get in that fucking shower and let me worship you.”
Her eyes widened and she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Definitely. Okay.”
He lifted a brow. “Kennedy.”
“Yeah?”
He tilted his head toward the shower.
She looked at it. “Oh. Right.”
She reached for the handle and as she pulled it open, he put his mouth against her ear. “Face that back wall, hands on the tile, legs apart.”
She blew out a breath. But did as she was told.
Bennett felt a surge of heat and triumph flood through him. Kennedy was not a woman who anyone bossed around. Unless she let them.
That meant something. She trusted him. She wanted him. She was willing to put her pleasure in his hands.
He intended to prove that was a very good idea.
He stepped in behind her. The water was coursing over her from the rainfall showerhead in the ceiling, wetting her hair and running in slick, shiny rivulets over her skin. She had her hands on the wall and her head tipped forward slightly.
Bennett lifted a hand and traced a single finger from the base of her neck down her spine, watching her skin pebble and her body shiver. He flattened both palms on her shoulders, gliding down her sides, his fingertips skimming the outsides of her breasts, to her hips. He squeezed there, then continued down the outsides of her thighs, loving the feel of her skin under his hands. And the way she just stood still and let him touch her. He moved his hands up and down her thighs, then slid around to the front, stroking up to her belly and then back and forth.
She arched her back, pressing her ass against his cock. He groaned at the contact and flattened his hands on her stomach, holding her still so he could rock into her for a moment. She moaned softly and he put his lips against the curve where her neck turned into her shoulder.
“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he told her.
Kennedy tipped her head back, letting the water run over her face, her eyes closed. “This is decadent,” she said. “I never want to leave this shower.”
He ran his lips over the side of her neck, then bit down gently on the top of her shoulder. “Well, you’re not going to be able to stay in here after I fuck you so good that your legs won’t hold you up.”
“Damn,” she said on a long, exhaled breath. “Yes.”
He ran his hands up, cupping her breasts, the hard tips pressing into his palms. He played with her nipples, tugging and rolling, as she circled her hips, moving her ass against his cock. He was aching and loving every second of this. Just having her in his arms, her body all his, to play with and pleasure, was heaven. It felt like he’d wanted her forever.
“Can I touch you?” she asked. “Please?”
Oh, hell yes. Having Kennedy Landry asking him permission for something, even adding a please on the end, was almost enough to push him over the edge. He grinned. “If you touch me with your mouth only.”
Yeah, he wanted to be dirty with her. Very dirty.
She suddenly spun to face him. “Yes,” she practically hissed.
“On your knees, darlin’,” he said, adding just a bit of drawl to his tone. He’d long ago gotten rid of his accent. His father had insisted that people had too many stereotypes against people who had southern accents. But Bennett could definitely turn it on when needed.
Kennedy got on her knees, but of course she made that something a little more, too. She slowly slid her body down his, the water making the move slippery and even hotter.
She knelt before him, her hands on the back of his thighs. Bennett braced his hands on the wall behind her, bending over, and keeping the water from hitting her directly.
She didn’t tease or even work up to anything once she was in front of his cock. She leaned in, dragging her tongue from the base to the tip
and then swirling around his head.
Bennett swore. He had to move his feet apart to steady himself and realized the slippery tile on the wall was going to be no help if his knees gave out.
“Suck me, Kennedy,” he ordered, his tone low and firm.
She did. Eagerly it seemed. She opened her mouth and took him in, sucking, then moving up and down his length. She teased him with just her tongue and mouth for several long, hellish but heavenly minutes. Bennett grit his teeth, watching her work up and down his cock. He took it for as long as he could. But he refused to end it all like this.
He wrapped his hand in her wet hair, gathering it back and tugging her mouth away from his aching shaft. He stared down at her, breathing hard. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes filled with lust. “Come here,” he said gruffly, urging her to her feet.
She stood and he pressed her into the wall, kissing her deeply. He tore his mouth away a few seconds later. “I need to fuck you.”
She just nodded.
He gave a low groan. He did love her submissive. “Do I need a condom? I’m totally clean. I haven’t been with anyone since I walked into the office in Autre and saw you for the first time. But I’ll do whatever you want.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she wet her lips. “I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you, either. I’m clean. And I take a shot for birth control.”
He didn’t pause to reiterate any of that. He turned her and shifted to the right. He reached past her and angled one of the nozzles to hit her inner thigh. He ran his hand down to cup her pussy. He pressed his middle finger deep, sliding easily into her wet, heat. He stroked her. “You ready?”
“So. Ready.” She pressed her hands flat against the wall.
Bennett stroked once more, trailing his finger over her clit, his cock hardening even further when she bucked against his hand.
He slid his hand to her right knee and lifted it, opening her legs and moving her in front of the wall nozzle so the water stream would hit her clit directly.
“Oh, God.” Her head fell back on his shoulder.
Bennett bent his knees and then slid home.
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