He cups my face, closing his fingers around my hair. “We might be fucking, but this is not just fucking.” He drags me to him, kissing me hard, deep, roughly even, his hand on my lower back, molding me to him, moving to the center of my back to press our bodies together, the press of my naked breasts to his naked chest undoes us both. I rock against him, and he thrusts into me, and we are suddenly wild, frenzied, trying to get closer, trying to crawl into each other’s skin it seems. I tumble into the hotspot that is the edge of orgasm, my nails digging into his shoulders and then I’m there, my body spasming around the thick pulse of his erection.
“Oh fuck,” he murmurs, groaning as I drag him along with me, and I can feel the hot, wet heat of his release, the tension in his body going from intense to a softer, gentler place. I collapse against him, my face buried in his neck, the earthy wonderful scent of him all over me and around me. He holds me, his hand firmly on my back and my hip, neither of us moving, and I try not to think about the secrets he holds or the return to reality that comes next, but there is no escaping the dampness between my legs.
Reid must feel it too. He strokes my hair and whispers in my ear. “Hold on.” He shifts, and before I know his intent, he’s adjusting his pants that he never took off, and standing up with me in his arms.
He walks inside the cottage. “Where do you think the bathroom would be?” he murmurs.
I try to look, but I really can’t see anything. “The bedroom has to have one,” I say.
“And since I don’t know where that is, the kitchen it is.”
I laugh. “The kitchen?”
“Sure. There are paper towels, we hope, and we can fuck on the counter while we’re there.”
“Even you can’t be ready for that yet,” I tease.
“You underestimate me with you, baby, but I see a door that might be a bedroom. We’re going for it.”
He walks in whatever direction he walks and I just hold on, which works out well. Soon I’m being set on a pale gray and white swirled bathroom sink, and Reid is pressing a towel between us. It’s a few beats later, when I’ve tossed the towel in a hamper, and I’m sitting naked on that counter. With him still in his pants, I feel the absence of my clothes.
Reid presses his hands on the sink beside me. “If I wanted you to hate me, I would make you hate me and it wouldn’t be subtle, or by way of Elijah. I have that in me. You know that.”
I know instantly that he’s not trying to shock me or drive me away. He’s being honest in a way that is raw and real, which matters to me. He matters to me. “Yes,” I say, “I know, and no, it doesn’t scare me, or I wouldn’t be here. Neither does the Elijah confession.”
“It wasn’t a confession,” he corrects. “It was a statement of fact.”
“That you didn’t make from the beginning,” I counter. “That says you didn’t want to tell me.”
“Because I wasn’t after your hate, as you accused me when we got here.”
“There was no reason for you to hold that back. I need you to shoot straight with me and trust me to handle even the rough stuff. I’m not unreasonable. I’m not sensitive or emotional. You didn’t know she was married. I believe you.”
He studies me for several beats, his expression indiscernible, his jaw hard, before he says, “Let’s put on some comfortable clothes and take a walk on the beach.”
I know instantly that I’m not the only one who feels naked right now. The walk isn’t about romance or conversation. It’s about escape, but it’s not a shut door, or he wouldn’t be taking me with him. And I’m coming to believe that I’m about the only person Reid Maxwell hasn’t shut out of his life and I hope that one day soon, he’ll trust me enough to tell me why.
Chapter Forty-Two
Carrie
“A walk sounds good,” I say, and I swear I feel the relief wash over Reid. I’m right. He’s suffocating right now, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s about me. It feels like it’s an internal war he’s battling now, and perhaps for a long time. That I see it at all, matters. He’s letting me. I wouldn’t see it if he wasn’t letting me.
He kisses me and helps me to the floor, surprising me by grabbing a big towel from beside a huge, claw foot tub and wrapping it around my shoulders, but he doesn’t let it go, even when I grab hold of it. “I’ll grab our bags,” he says.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“For the towel.”
His eyes warm. “One of the few times I’ll ever cover you up, so don’t get used to it.” He releases me and walks out of the bathroom.
I follow him, entering the master bedroom, which is stunning, with the same black wood floors, and a massive bed with a unique navy-blue leather frame. Two blue leather chairs sit in front of a large patio with parted blue curtains. I stare at that window and I think about the lower level patio and replay that moment when I’d tried to drop to my knees and he’d stopped me: As many fantasies as I’ve had that involve your mouth on my body, now is not that time. This is about us, feeling us, not me feeling you. If there has been any moment with Reid where I felt like we were more than sex—ironically considering we were having sex at the time—it was that one.
He walks back into the room with the bags in hand and I swear when his eyes meet mine, I feel like I’m punched with emotions. He feels it, too. He pauses just a moment in the doorway, and it’s like the world stands still for us. Just us. I’m going to fall in love with him and I’ve never said that about any man ever and so soon, to top it off. I cut my gaze, afraid he can read this in me and I’ll freak him out because Lord only knows, I’m freaking myself out.
I start to walk toward the bathroom, and before I make it two steps, Reid catches my arm and turns me to him. He doesn’t speak. He just cups my head and kisses me, a deep, drugging, drive-everything-else-away kiss, before he says, “How about that walk?”
I think he knows what I was feeling, and I’m not sure what to make of his reaction. “I think that would be good,” I whisper.
“In more than a towel,” he teases, turning me toward the bed, where he’s set my suitcase. He unzips it for me and opens it before he steps to his suitcase right beside mine to do the same. Side by side, we go through our things and I pull out clothes while he tugs a snug black T-shirt over his head, and I’m reminded of how good he looks in pretty much everything. Feeling uncharacteristically shy, I grab my stack of clothes, walk to the bathroom, shut the door and I don’t give myself time to think. I quickly pull on boyfriend-style sweats and a tank top, minus a bra, that I cover up with a sweat jacket. My socks and sneakers are next, as is a quick trip to the bathroom. Once I’ve washed up, and am fully dressed, I press my hands to the sink and look in the mirror. “What are you doing, Carrie?” I breathe out, letting my chin fall to my chest. Reid’s not the guy a girl falls for, and yet I’m rolling right down a hill that has no bottom.
Reid knocks on the door and I inhale, I swear I can smell him everywhere, all around me, and on me. I love the way that man smells. I walk to the door and open it to find him standing immediately in front of me, big, broad and gorgeous in that snug shirt, and sweats, his hair mussed up, his jaw lightly shadowed. I like this Reid, the casual, real man. He rests his arm in the doorjamb above my head. “Everything okay?”
My hand dares to settle on his chest, and his heart thunders beneath my palm, suggesting the casualness of that question isn’t casual at all. “Yes,” I say. “Everything is great.”
“Yeah?” he presses, and I almost think I sense uncertainty in him. This confident, gorgeous, take-no-prisoners man feels insecure? It can’t be, but yet, I think—I think, yes.
“Yes,” I repeat again firmly. “Everything is great.”
His hand covers mine on his chest, and he closes his around it, dragging me closer, his hard body a warm shelter I find nowhere else, with no one else. “Let’s walk.”
“I’d like that very much,” I say, deciding not to let fear steal a moment I have with this man.
No matter what we are or what we become, I have now. I want now.
I push to my toes and kiss him, a quick peck on the mouth. “Yes. Let’s walk.”
He’s stiff for a moment as if he’s stunned in some way, or that’s what I feel since the man shows no exterior emotions. And then suddenly, he’s cupping my head and kissing me again, a deep, drugging wondering kiss, before he laces his fingers with mine and leads me forward. Together, we walk down the stairs through the cottage and exit the house where we’d made love earlier and of course, my bra is lying smack in the middle of the patio.
I tear my fingers from Reid’s and scoop it and the rest of our clothes up. Reid laughs. “It’s a private beach, baby. No one is going to see our patio.”
“Oh. No?”
“No.”
I drop our clothes onto the chair we’d occupied earlier, and Reid slides his arm over my shoulders and pulls me close. It’s intimate. It’s what a man does to his woman, and I’ve really never wanted to be that with any other man. I mentally reprimand myself, telling myself to enjoy the moment, live in the now. We’re conquering the world together but as we step onto the starlit beach, a full moon our lantern, Reid’s emotions beat at me. He need to escape, and yet somehow it takes me with him, suffocates me.
We walk to the shoreline and cut left, the ocean crashing on the shore, the rush of water filling the air, but our words do not. We don’t walk far though before Reid stops walking and motions to the ground. “Elijah’s wife knew I was his rival,” he says, breaking the silence. “That’s why she picked me.”
“That was between them, Reid,” I say, halting and stepping in front of him. “You know that, right?”
“Exactly,” he says, but he turns away from me, facing the ocean. “It was between them.” His hand drags through his hair, an act that is more out of control, than in control, when he is all about control.
I have this sense that he needs to ground his emotions, so I decide to help him do that in a literal way. I sit down and grab his hand urging him to join me, relieved when he does so with no hesitation. He not only sits next to me, he sits close, both of our knees in front of us, our hips all but touching. Seconds tick by and I don’t push him. “I didn’t care,” he says without looking at me. “I meant what I said to him. He should have treated her right. He should have pleased her. And it was easier to take that stance because he and I were rivals after a contract.”
I take this in, weighing his words and his mood. I decide that he’s not trying to make me hate him. That’s not what this is. I’m just not sure where he’s headed but I think he needs me to understand. I want to understand. “What are you trying to say, Reid?”
He looks at me then, and even in the shadows, I can see the torment in his eyes. “That letter my mother wrote my sister. The pain she felt over my father’s infidelities was deep.”
“I know that letter changed you. I feel that every time you talk about it.”
“I didn’t know I was fucking Elijah’s wife, but I dug that knife deeper, and now he’s coming for West Enterprises. You need to know that I told Royce to find a way to back him off, something I can use against him.”
“To ruin him?”
“I won’t ruin him unless he forces me to ruin him, but I won’t let West Enterprises go down because of a personal vendetta. Too many people lose too much, in too many ways, for that to happen, you included.”
This is that part of his job that he does well, that I fear that I can’t stomach. “A lot of people would lose a lot of money.”
“Yes. They would and I—we—have a responsibility to protect them. I could have handled this without telling you, but—”
“I’m glad you told me,” I say, taking his hand. “I needed to know. I told you, I can handle the truth, even when it’s bitter to swallow. I just have to know.”
“That statement you made earlier is why I’m telling you.” He reaches up and strokes the hair from my eyes. “I didn’t want you to know about Elijah. I have never cared what anyone thinks of my actions, or how they judge me, but I do with you. And I have never shared my decisions and explained myself to anyone but you, Carrie.”
“Why me, Reid?” I ask, not sure I’ve ever needed the answer to a question more.
“Why isn’t the question I’ve asked. How is the question.” His hand cups my face. “How did you do this to me?”
“How did I do what?”
“Become the one obsession I can’t beat.” He doesn’t give me a chance to reply or even process a reaction. He kisses me and takes me down on the sand with him.
Chapter Forty-Three
Carrie
Reid’s lips part mine, and we’re now lying in the sand, our bodies aligned, his leg hooked over one of mine. “How, Carrie?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“You’re obsessed with me?” he asks, caressing my cheek.
“Depends on how you define obsessed.”
“I can’t wake up and not think of you. I can’t go to bed and not think of you. I wanted to tell you about my settlement. You’re in my head, Carrie. I don’t even want to get you out anymore.”
“You couldn’t if you wanted to,” I tease, but there is a twist in my gut as I add, “Because we have Grayson to close and a board to satisfy.” I hate this convenient side of our relationship when that should be exactly what I revel in. It represents the freedom to live in the moment, to avoid emotional investment, and yet, I haven’t. It’s too late for that kind of thinking. I’m invested in all ways with Reid, and I roll to my back before he reads that in me.
Or I try to, but he doesn’t allow my escape.
He rolls with me, his leg still between mine, those blue eyes are staring down at me. “What just happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You think this is all about the company. That we’re here and now and gone when this is over.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s not about any of those things,” he says. “I told you, Carrie. I don’t want to share you. I’m obsessed with you and it’s not the kind of obsession that goes away. You’re with me now. I’m with you now. Say it.”
“Reid—”
He kisses me, a silky caress of his tongue before he orders, “Say it.”
I’m in deep with this man, so very deep because I do it. I say it. “I’m with you now and you’re with me.”
“Do you know how many women I’ve said that to?” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “None. No one but you. This isn’t about a deal or a company. This is about you and me and us. How many men have you said that to?”
“None. Just you. You know that. I told you my history.”
“I wanted to hear it again.” His hand slides under my shirt, settling warmly on my belly. “I do want to own you, Carrie. I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting to own you.”
“You’ll never own me, Reid, but as you said to me, you can try.”
His lips, those sexy lips, quirk on the sides. “And we’ll enjoy trying, now won’t we?” His hand slips under the back of my sweats. “Let me show you how much.”
I’m instantly aware of what Reid quickly discovers; I didn’t actually put on underwear. He breathes out heavily with the realization that his hand meets no resistance. “God, woman,” he says cupping my face, “you make me crazy.” His lips touch mine, his tongue stroking deeply, even as his fingers stroke a line down the wet seam of my body, and I moan with the sensations rippling through me. He answers that moan by deepening the kiss, and his fingers are doing this crazy wonderful thing to my clit and then they’re inside me and his thumb is in just the right spot. I’m lost in the sensations rolling through me, and almost embarrassed by how fast I’m headed to that sweet, sweet escape. So very fast that I tear my mouth from Reid’s and press my face to his chest, my fingers curling around his T-shirt as I fight what is too far gone to be stopped.
“Reid, I’m—I’m—” I tumble over into bliss and my entire body qu
akes. It comes over me hard and fast, and then it’s over and I’m panting. “That was—”
Reid cups my face and forces my gaze to this. “So damn sexy.” He kisses me again. “And for just a few minutes, I did own you.”
“Was it that long? I think you owned me pretty quickly.”
“I like that you were that turned on,” he promises. “I love it.”
Love.
That word.
It taunts me despite the context. Could I fall in love with this man? Am I headed there?
He lies back on the sand and pulls me close. For long minutes we just lie there, listening to the ocean, breathing together until he flexes fingers on my back and murmurs, “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
I smile without looking at him. “I can have an orgasm in about sixty seconds flat if you’re the one giving it to me.”
He gives a low, deep sexy laugh and kisses my forehead. “I said something I don’t know.”
I think of my father, and what I still don’t know, and how much I want to push him to tell me, but I don’t want to lose this time with Reid. He’s relaxed, and I don’t know if he’s often in this kind of casual way with anyone. “My favorite food is macaroni and cheese and I could take you to all the best places in New York City to get it.”
“It’s a date,” he says. “How many places?”
“Half a dozen.”
“Even better,” he says. “My favorite food is a hamburger and I can take you to all the best places. Another half dozen.”
“It’s a date,” I mimic his reply.
“Where in the world have you traveled?” he asks next.
“Asia and inside the United States,” I say, aware of Reid really trying to get to know me, as I want to know him. “Nowhere else.”
He glances down at me. “Your family had money. How is that even possible?”
“After my mom left, my father did trips for business and that’s all. What about you?”
“All over the place,” he says. “That you have not—we have to fix that.”
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