One Night Wife

by Ainslie Paton

  “Oh God, help me.” It was wild and right. “Yes.”

  His hands were on her back. He found the hidden zipper. “This dress is a feat of engineering, but it’s time to unveil the masterpiece beneath.” He put his lips in the space between her shoulder blades and kissed down her spine as he parted her dress. The zipper stopped at the edge of her red silk panties, which he tugged with his teeth. “These can stay because I don’t want to be accountable for what happens if they go.”

  She let the dress drop from under her arms and stepped out of it, turning to face him at last. He’d left his briefs on, but she didn’t need her imagination to see how turned on he was, or to realize that Cal out of his clothing was what it took to stick her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

  “It’s heated,” he said, and everything about that, his voice gone thick, the height and shape and width of him, the way he looked at her was exactly that. “I meant the pool. Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

  He held his hand out, and together they walked into the temperate water, and there was no Fin and no Cal then, only the exquisite warmth of skin against skin and the silken luxury of coming together in a cocoon of ease and a shock of buoyancy in each other’s arms.

  There were no more words, either, only sharp gasps and mindless moans of pleasure ripped from each other’s throats by rough grips and soft touches and a chemical reaction that made her vibrate with want. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He cradled her with an arm and a raised knee and they were effortlessly joined torso to torso, lip to hip with a new level of greed.

  It went from shockingly sexy to something more primal quickly. It went from insatiable to desperate and urgent and Fin was so hot she could boil the pool.

  “Cal, please.”

  He stood, scooped her up, and carried her out of the water, stopping for her to grab up their room key, leaving everything else behind like skins they’d shed and wouldn’t need again.

  When he locked them in their room and her back hit the bed and he pulled wet silk down her legs, she got her voice back. “It’s criminal how good you look.”

  He found that amusing, pausing from the kiss he placed on her knee to get rid of his briefs. Completely naked, he made her breath swoosh out and that amused him, too.

  “Don’t pass out on me, baby.”

  It was close. He made her brain forget how to manage her body. Cal undressed was dangerous and uncivilized. Hard muscled and furred. He hid his strength in well-cut clothing and his brutal, beautiful form in elegant manners. Stripped, his attraction wasn’t muted or tamed, polite and playboy smooth. It was sharp edged and starkly powerful. He was like a magic trick. One of those ones where an empty hat became a rabbit and you knew the rabbit had to be there the whole time, but you couldn’t see it, and then once you did, it was all you could see.

  And he was hers.

  Her piece of hidden magic. Her trick to learn the meaning of.

  He ran an open palm down her inner thigh to her hip flexor where he closed it over her leg. “Tell me what you like, while I give thanks for birth control and the fact we’ve both got a clean bill of health.”

  “What I like?”

  No one had ever asked. They gave, or she took, and on a good night, it went in turns, and there was a second round of that. There’d never been anything more to sex, and she had no complaints. But she’d never had foreplay like this. Months of it. Building, building. And she’d never had a man who looked like Cal, who seduced with his brand of mind-melding, body-melting, supremely confident glamor.

  “Hard, soft, slow, fast. What gets you off?”

  If he moved his hand— “A little to the left.” She was already so wet inside that might be all it took, his hand between her legs, friction she could slide against.

  He licked a rivulet of water from her shoulder. “You have no idea, no idea what you do to me.”

  She was starting to learn.

  She was shredding him, that much she could see. His eyes were killer dark, nostrils blown wide, mouth slack. His hands shook, and his shoulders were tight. His breathing was shallow, and he was as ready to come as she was.

  He moved his hand a little to the left, covered her pussy, and white stars popped like camera flashes behind her slammed closed eyes. “Oh, like that, like that.” She got her friction, she got a drag of his index finger through her folds and a circle of his knuckle over her clit.

  “So fucking pretty.”

  He sounded almost desperate. Another thrill. And then he made her shout, her head and shoulders shoot off the bed when he put his mouth over her, and she couldn’t process thoughts, only ride the stimulation. He pinned her thighs wide, on the verge of too wide, held too tightly, and licked till she must’ve been dripping, flicking his tongue, making it hard and soft and hard again. Everything inside her was drawn up, coiled, and twisted, and she squirmed and bucked and whimpered. Too much, not enough.

  “Go left.” Oh yes. “More.”

  The shock came when he sucked. Her jaw unhinged, her neck turned to rubber, her knees jerked, toes cramped in points, and the twist inside her spiraled out and shattered, making her shudder and twitch before her bones dissolved and her brain went completely offstage.

  It walked back on with Cal balanced above her, knees on each side of her hips. He wiped his mouth like a pirate after plundering some deep dark treasure and celebrating at a feast. “Don’t tell me I broke you.”

  What even were words?

  “I think we can agree that got you off,” he said. “How about we try this?”

  This involved the most delicious press of his weight, combined with a kiss she could’ve kept playing with all night, its taste rudely distinct. This involved a slow penetration, a lovely halting invasion as he entered her, his low pained groan, and the fact he shook and swore from the effort of letting her adjust to his girth. This made her arch and push against him as if it wasn’t enough when it was everything good and about to be better.

  He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. She gripped his biceps, nudged her face against his. “I wanted this for so long. This is the truth of us, Cal. No pretense. No holding back.”

  “I’ve got no manners left in me.” He pushed up to his hands. “Hold on while I make it nasty.”

  She hitched her knees to her sides when he thrust, and they both groaned, and as she braced her hands on the headboard, he let go. She wanted to watch him as he became more machine than man, feel him, own him in the moment, but she was swamped with sensation and could not keep her eyes open.

  One plus two was how many times he could make her come, hitting a pleasure spot inside her again and again, giving her wave after wave of teeth-clenching bliss before he lost his rhythm and emptied into her, coming to rest beside her and claiming her mouth.

  They kissed lazily as their bodies cooled and their hearts calmed, neither one of them finished for the night. She started laughing for no reason that was funny, but for the insane joy of having come together effortlessly after a tangled dance of emotions that’d often left her feeling wrong-footed and ungainly.

  Cal rolled her into his arms. “You could simply tell me I’m terrible in bed.”

  Entertained anew, she checked his expression. He was too self-aware to think what they’d done was anything but award winning.

  “Worst I’ve had.” It came out garbled because she was laughing too hard, and unable to keep looking at him, she’d buried her head in his shoulder.

  “The answer to your question is four,” he said.

  She’d long since forgotten the question but was reminded when he rolled them again, and the softness of the bed was replaced with the solidness of his chest as he pulled her on top of him, knees either side of his hips. He wasn’t hard again yet, but he was clearly confident he would be. Smug Cal had his advantages. He moved her hips where he wanted them and then centered her with a thumb to her clit. “Make an explosion, baby.”

  “All the colors,” she said, putting her hands to his ribs for bal
ance, rolling her hips, doing it again, again, feeling him stiffen underneath her. “Cal.”

  He tilted his pelvis and yanked her forward. “You’re fucking beautiful. But you’re a trap.” Oh, there it was the beginning of orgasm number four. “You’ll make it impossible to leave you.”

  “You gotta stay for the finale.”

  “Never leaving. I’m your biggest fan.”

  She laughed, head spinning, body wanting, when he said biggest, because everything was big, the shimmers rising in her belly, the thickness of his cock, the slickness between them, the aggressively hungry set to his jaw, and the way his eyes moved on her, as if he couldn’t decide what pleased him more and had to have it all at once.

  She took him inside easily this time, achingly ready, almost there already when he grunted and his belly hollowed out.

  “Fucking perfect trap,” he said, sounding like he resented it as much as he loved it.

  “I need—”

  He knew what she needed—more speed, more pressure, more wonder, right there—and gave it to her, pulling her down to his chest, pressing his heels to the bed and pistoning into her. She bit his neck when she came, not by choice, all reaction because the way he threw his head back in response to her pussy tightening around him made her want to be in that same place of extreme pleasure at the same time. He groaned, a filthy, gritty sound and grasped her head and her ass and held her in place till he’d ridden out the wave.

  She was the one trapped and not in the prison of his arms. Cal had detonated her world and shown her a stage she could tread triumphantly. She did shine because he’d given her the confidence to. He believed in her, and that was the real explosion.

  “Did I break you?” she said, as his arms went slack and dropped to the bed.

  “No, you’re terrible at sex.” His voice was endearingly creaky, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  “You’re an awful liar.”

  That got them open. That got her shifted up his body until he could lick across her lips. “No truer words.”

  For a second, she thought he sounded sad, so she made it up to him with kisses.

  They slept thoroughly entwined, waking just enough to tangle up in a newly comfortable way. Cal woke her when the room was beginning to lighten and coaxed her down to the beach where they swam, this time with suits on, and tangled up all over again, floating together out beyond the breakers, never ceasing to touch. Getting dumped by a wave because they were too busy watching each other to notice the sea.

  Back on the shore, he wrapped her in a towel and his arms and stood at her back while they watched the morning show up, clean and new and full of savagely beautiful possibilities.

  “I don’t want to share you with anyone today,” he said, whisker prickle on her cheek.

  “And tomorrow?” What would they be tomorrow? “You’re winding up the Everlasting deal.” She left the rest unsaid, that in terms of their partnership, he no longer needed the favor of a One Night Wife.

  “Monday. I have to work.”

  Oh, this shouldn’t hurt so much. It was the best sex she’d ever had, but it was just sex and oh, dammit, he’d been clear he liked her, wanted her, but he didn’t see a future for them, and he’d know she was upset if she didn’t rein it in. He’d know because he always knew how to read the secret clues she gave him as if he had the script of her heart.

  “You want to get a burger with me tomorrow night?”

  She could slap his handsome face with its sexy scruff for that. That was the way he was going to tell her they could be more. “Maybe. My underwear drawer is overdue for a tidy.”

  “I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of you having tidy underwear. It’s totally fine by me if you give up wearing it.”

  She reached up to scratch her nails lightly across his stubble. “Is that you telling me you want to see me again?”

  He tugged on her towel and turned her to face him. “Are you under any illusion last night was a trivial thing for me?” He had hold of the towel on each side of her; it bracketed her back. He pulled on it until she was forced to brace her hands on his chest. “Are you, for one second, questioning the fact I’ve broken all my rules for you and despite being a no-good schemer, a terrible fuck, and an awful liar, I want to be with you outside of our business arrangement?” He dropped one end of the towel and slapped a hand on her damp ass, making her jump. “Because if you’re harboring the false impression I’m going to go back to touching you like you’re the sainted maiden aunt I never had, then I really am a terrible fuck and you should take pity on me and teach me the error of my ways.”

  She composed herself, knowing she’d already shown her amazement but not able to resist teasing him because he was entirely serious, despite the joking tone. “I’m not sure you take instruction well. I don’t want to waste my time if you’re not going to commit.”

  “Get naked, and you can instruct me all you want.” He squeezed her ass. “How fast, how hard, how long, how many.” He kissed her, pulling away to say, “A little to the left,” and all her jaunty comebacks died.

  She’d graduated from One Night Wife to something more mundane. Girlfriend. And he’d said it couldn’t, wouldn’t happen. Salty kisses said it was on the agenda.

  Back at the pool house, they collected last night’s clothing, showered off the beach, enjoyed each other again, and packed. Cal wanted to clear out before they got caught in more party activities. But when they got back to the car it was to discover four flat tires.

  “A going away present from Alex,” he said. He didn’t seem shocked, only annoyed, but Fin could feel their day alone disappearing. They’d need to hang about and wait for a tow, fuss with the car.

  “Come on.” He led her through a door that went to the garage where a dozen luxury cars were parked. They gleamed as if this was a museum of the Astor family’s wealth.

  “I fancy that Lamborghini, but the classic roadster will be easier to hotwire,” he said.

  She put her bag down on a floor so clean you could eat a meal off it. “You’re going to boost a car.” She’d snarked at herself about stealing a golf getaway cart, but he wasn’t joking.

  “Borrow, without explicit permission,” he said. “It’s either that, or we lose a day messing about.”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “Wild and obnoxiously disreputable youth, remember?” He pointed at a panel on the wall. “Go see if you can open the garage door.”

  “You want me to be an accessory to car theft?”

  He stopped his investigation of a red BMW. “Alex expects this to inconvenience us. It doesn’t have to. He’ll get back whatever we take.”

  She looked at the panel. She looked at Cal. They could be gone before the rest of the guests finished dressing for breakfast. It wasn’t like any of the Astors would be without a ride, but it didn’t seem right.

  “The rich are different. Alex didn’t let the air out, he slashed the tires.”

  Alex was an entitled asshole who’d assaulted her. She pressed a button on the panel and the door began rolling open.

  “That’s my girl,” he said. He laughed when the door of a navy-blue Bugatti opened, and in a few seconds, he had the engine running. The keys had been left in it. Then, he stowed their bags and they drove out onto the forecourt, through the main gates, and onto the road.

  “We just stole a car.” She’d once shoplifted a T-shirt, and she’d essentially stolen from Win when she drank on his bar tab, but this was a much bigger deal. “What’s this car worth?”

  “Less than the Lamborghini. A couple of mill. Google Bugatti Veyron. This is a limited edition.”

  She dug out her phone and googled. Up it came. Three point four million. The T-shirt she’d stolen was probably worth a twenty. She’d only stolen it because the store wouldn’t give her a refund on a pair of cargoes that shrank in the wash. She’d never run up a tab of more than fifty dollars at a time on Win and not more than a couple of hundred overall. The amount sh
e felt he owed her for the clothes left at his place she never got back. She’d just helped Cal steal a three-point-four-million-dollar car.

  She was going to jail. The Astor family would legally bury her forever.

  “We have to go back.”

  He looked across at her. “Oh hell, you’re freaked out.” He took his phone from his pocket and dictated a text to Alex.

  The bug is a sweet ride.

  She wasn’t sure how that made anything better. A few seconds later his phone beeped. Alex had responded with, Asshole.

  “That’s it?” she said.

  “There were cameras in the garage. He knows we have his car. He knows why. I’ll return it when I get mine picked up.”

  Fin had skipped out on a restaurant check once because the service was lousy but felt so bad about it she’d gone back the next day and paid up. Maybe this was the rich person’s version of a skipped check.

  “But if you’re unhappy, we’ll go back.”

  Maybe she wasn’t that unhappy. Alex Astor was a premium jerk, an abusive, misogynistic dickhead who lived a charmed life and never had to suffer consequences.

  Cal wasn’t taking the same route they’d come. He’d turned off.

  “Where are we going?”

  Turns out, he knew a luxury hotel, and they were going to bed.

  And staying there all day, with only a long soak in the bath and room service to interrupt what was the most deliriously sensual experience of her life.

  Untethered Cal was in turn, voracious and demanding or heartbreakingly gentle. By the time the day was out, there was no way Fin could cling to the notion they were simply good chemistry. And no way he thought that, either.

  “Do I get an upgrade?” she joked while they were sprawled side by side, both of them sated and yet reluctant to shower and dress to go home.

  He nuzzled her shoulder. “There is nothing about you that needs an upgrade. Never was.”

  She rolled on her side to face him. She couldn’t get enough of looking at him when he was at ease and happy. He looked younger, strain she hadn’t realized he carried dissolved from around his eyes and mouth. “Not that kind of upgrade.”