by Tessa Layne
The valet returns with our room key. “Sir, I’ve delivered your suitcases. You’ll find everything is as you requested.”
I tip him, and motion to Roxi. “You hungry?” I ask as I lead her up the grand staircase and down the hall to our suite.
“Famished, now that I think about it.”
I slip the key into the lock and turn the handle. “Good. I took the liberty of ordering in.”
She takes four steps into the suite and turns around, eyes wide, mouth dropped open. “Are you for real kidding me?”
A spot in my chest warms and spreads across my torso. “Do you like it?”
She gives me a look that can only be described as fucking duh. “Uhh… yeah. You’d have to be crazy not to love it.”
The suite is incredible. The focal point is a king-sized bed with a French blue bedspread and crisp white pillows. To the left as we enter is an enormous en suite, which I hope she’ll explore later. Across from the bed is a sitting area with a couch, coffee table and two wingbacks. But the piece de resistance are the French doors that open onto a wide balcony that overlooks row upon row of vines. Dinner has been laid out on the patio furniture, and in another hour the sun will be setting.
“Shall I pour wine?”
“Wait.” She bends and removes her holster, slipping it into a drawer. “I won’t be needing this.”
The warm spot in my chest flares as I offer her a glass of bubbly rosé.
She clinks her glass to mine. “Thank you. I already feel my blood pressure dropping.”
“The pleasure is all mine.” I pull out a seat for her, and for the next hour ply her with food and wine as the sun drops lower in the sky. The conversation is easy, relaxed. As if we were friends, not boss and employee fighting sexual tension every second of the day. The light is perfect — warm and golden, and her hair glows like a halo. “I never realized you had so much gold in your hair,” I blurt, unable to keep my observation to myself.
Her laugh is sweetly musical, and a shot of awareness rocks through me. “Are you flirting with me Danny?”
“Only a little,” I admit.
She drains the last of her wine. “Can I ask you something?”
“I figured I’d take the couch,” I offer, hoping to head off any awkward conversation.
She stares at me, an amused smile flirting with the corner of her mouth. “You think that’s what I wanted to talk about?”
My stomach drops, then jumps to my throat, then drops again. I recognize that seductive tone of voice. How could I forget it? It’s burned into my ears from our first night together. I swallow, unable to find my voice. “Unlucky guess,” I manage to rasp after a minute.
She shakes her head, making a funny noise in her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a snort. I’m taken aback by the look in her eyes when our gazes tangle. Her amber eyes glow with an intensity that’s arresting. Deeply arousing. My heart tries to punch a hole in my chest as it takes off to the races. The air between us feels heavy with unspoken words. “Why this?” she finally asks, gesturing in front of us.
I freeze, torn between a bullshit answer and the truth. The bullshit answer sits on my tongue, eager to fly from my mouth. It’s my stock answer, my bulletproof vest, so to speak. But I don’t want that. Not with Roxi. A wave of nausea sweeps through my stomach. I don’t confess my true feelings to anyone. It’s been so long, I can’t remember what it’s like. Heat races up my spine. I take her hand, twining my fingers with hers. “I wanted this to be special. For you to have something nice to remember. I…” My mouth is dry as ash, and my cheeks are flaming. “I wanted to spoil you.” For an awful second, I think I’m going to vomit, but hell if I’m going to let that happen. I gulp down the last of my wine. Fuck sipping it like a civilized person, I need to save face.
“Danny,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Will you look at me?”
Her eyes are soft when I meet her gaze. Shining. “You really are a big, sweet, gooey teddy bear, aren’t you?”
I bite back a laugh. “Absolutely not.”
“I’ll always know better.” She rises, pulling my hand around her back when I stand too. “When you said what happens in Napa stays in Napa…” Her eyelashes flutter down.
“Yes, what about it?” The air between us crackles. My cells buzz everywhere our bodies touch, from our thighs, to our hands, to her tits pressed against my chest. Every instinct shouts to kiss her, to devour her plump mouth and taste the wine I’m certain still lingers on her tongue. But I hold back, hoping… for what exactly, I don’t know. But the flame glows brightly in my chest as I hold my breath waiting for her next move.
“Does it have to stay in Napa?” Her voice cracks a little, as if she’s nervous in the asking.
The flame in my chest roars to life, as if gasoline were poured on it. Some dark, secret part of me has been waiting for this. Hoping. I drop my head and nip a trail from her ear to the hollow at the base of her neck. “We’d be breaking all sorts of rules.”
“I know.” Her voice is husky, breathless.
“People would talk.”
“I know.”
“You could get hurt.” And so could I.
She sighs heavily. “I know. But I can’t stop wanting you. Or dreaming about you. I… I don’t care about the consequences.”
“Are you sure? Because once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”
“I’m pretty sure we crossed this line the day we met,” she says in a breathless rush. “I want you, Danny. I want your hands on me, your mouth on me, and I want to make love to you all night long in a real bed.”
Chapter Twelve
I devour Roxi in the deepest kind of claiming kiss, a kiss that sets fire to our souls. I intend to take my time tasting every inch of her, but right now, I’m content with exploring her mouth, tasting the wine that remains on her tongue. She molds herself to me, and I lose myself in the sweet sensations swirling through my body. I’m light, and energy, heat and hope. In this moment everything, everything seems possible.
Somehow, we make our way through the French doors and to the bed, kicking off shoes and peeling off pants and shirts, then undergarments until we collapse onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. Roxi giggles, and the sound is like butterflies and angels and magic all wrapped into one. It takes a moment for me to recognize it as happiness. She’s happy. And the lightness buzzing inside me, tingling my toes, fluttering in my chest, that must be happiness too, because I sure as hell am not having an aneurysm.
I frame her face, threading my fingers through her hair, and I kiss the freckles splashed across her cheeks, her eyelids, the line of her jaw, until she whimpers and I return home to the wide, plump mouth that I could spend the rest of my life kissing.
I crawl over her, resting my knees on either side of her hips, and I stare down at her, marveling at the way her hair splays across the comforter, the way her eyes sparkle with delight and anticipation. I’ve never known a woman to embrace sex the way she does. “I’m not sure where to start,” I say. “I want to kiss all of you.”
“That depends,” she says with a coy smile. “Are you a dessert first, kind of man? Or an eat your vegetables first kind of man?”
I drop to my elbows and nip at her collarbone. “I’m a seven-course farm-to-fork meal with paired wines, a cheese plate, dessert, coffee and liqueur kind of man.”
My answer sends her into a paroxysm of giggles. “Sounds like you have a bit of a problem, then.” She says, gasping for air.
“I’ve got it,” I say, moving back so that I’m perched at her feet. “I’m a ‘this little piggy’ kind of guy,” I say with a wink, encasing her slender foot in my hand and bringing her toes to my mouth, where I gently kiss each tip. Next, I place a soft kiss at the arch of her foot. Her gasps of laughter quickly turn into moans of delight. Not wanting to ignore her other foot, I repeat myself before moving to her ankle, and caressing her calf. With my mouth, I trace the snake tattoo that winds up her leg, much like I did the first ni
ght we were together, but taking infinite care to not miss a spot. By the time I reach her apex, she’s panting and squirming, one hand braced against the headboard, the other fisting the comforter.
Roxi drops her knees open, putting herself on display. “You have the prettiest cunt,” I say reverently, lightly caressing her slick, swollen folds. “But that is most definitely dessert.”
She lets out a throaty groan of frustration as I lightly draw my fingers across the swell of her belly. To my surprise and shock, the words babymaking belly pop into my head. I sit with that fantasy a moment, the idea of spilling my seed into her, of creating a life, of watching this gentle curve swell. My cock likes the idea, too. My crown is slick with precome and my cock grows even thicker, bobbing between us. I table the thought for now. Whatever we have is still too new, too fragile to be thinking about children.
With the flat of my tongue I lick a line from her belly button to the valley between her luscious breasts. I take my time devouring each one, noting the slight differences in their shape, the way they fill my hand, the way her nipples pucker and draw up into tight little bullets. I flick my tongue around each areola, memorizing each ridge and bump before drawing a hardened peak into my mouth. She arches off the bed, offering herself up, and I tease and suck at her, marking each breast as my own, while drawing my cock back and forth through her wet folds, coating myself in her desire.
Touching her like this is the sweetest agony. I want it to go on forever. “Let me touch you, too.” She begs, scraping her fingernails across my chest, leaving behind a trail of fire.
“You’ll get to. I promise. But first you have to let me worship you.”
She rocks into my cock with a groan. “You say that like I’m a goddess.”
“You are, sweetheart. You are.” I kiss a trail back down, pausing to leave a bite mark on her hipbone, and another by the head of the snake. “You’re temptation incarnate.”
“And the sinning is so good,” she says as she sucks in a sharp breath.
“Indeed,” I murmur, as I seal my mouth over her mound and suck.
She arches with a guttural moan. “You make me feel so good.”
“I’m going to make you fly,” I declare before sliding my tongue down her slit and thrusting into her channel. I’m surrounded by the taste of her, the scent of her arousal, the tang of salt on her skin. I tongue her again, thrusting as deep as I can, then sliding up her seam to her clit. She grinds into my face seeking release, egging me on with hedonistic sighs and moans of appreciation. I feast, savoring every drop, licking her until she shatters with a keening cry, thighs gripping my head like a vice as she rocks and thrusts, riding wave after wave of ecstasy.
She hijacks my plans when her eyes fly open. “I want you inside me. Bare. I have an IUD.”
My cock twitches eagerly at the thought of being fully encased in her heat with nothing between us. “Are you sure?”
She nods. “I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you, Danny.”
“I’ve never not used a condom,” I confess, warmth spreading across my chest. I’m moved that she trusts me like this.
“Me either,” she says, eyes wide, pupils still blown from her orgasm. “I want this, if you do.”
“I do,” I say, lowering my head to take her mouth in a claiming kiss that leaves me dizzy, drunk on her taste and the emotions running high between us.
My cock is already slick from sliding through her folds, and I pause, teasing the head at her entrance. I can barely focus through the exquisite sensations shooting up my shaft. I shut my eyes, taking a moment to commit this to memory. Then I open my eyes, and catch her watching me through hooded eyes, a languid smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Ready?” I murmur.
She nods, smile spreading wide. I take her hand, threading our fingers together, as I slowly stroke into her. It’s fucking heaven, the wet, the heat. And it’s a million times better with nothing between us. Her eyes grow glazed as we continue to rock together, me angling my hips to slide against her clit, she tilting hers up to allow for deeper penetration. “I feel you so deep inside me,” she says, voice strangled.
“You’re pure magic, Roxi,” I murmur, not taking my eyes off her. The heat between us is so intense, the connection in our gaze, it might kill me if I looked away. Staring into her eyes as I slowly fuck in and out of her is the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced. Energy not only races up the back of my legs to pool at the base of my spine, it burns in my chest with the energy of the sun, building and spreading with each stroke, until my body is consumed in the white light of ecstatic fusion. “Do you feel it?” I ask, strokes becoming firmer, rocking deeper. “Do you feel this between us?” I rasp in a voice I don’t recognize.
“Yes. Oh god, yes.” Her whole body is writhing beneath me, meeting my thrusts with wriggles and squirms. “Oh, Danny, yes.” Her mouth opens into an O at the same time her body shudders and twitches, and her pussy clenches around my cock in waves so intense, I follow her right over the cliff into oblivion, body seizing as I drive into her as deep as I can, spilling my seed in the deepest part of her in heavy, hard spurts.
My mouth goes numb and I can’t feel my fingers. Or my toes. For a brief second, I marvel at the idea of all the blood in my body rushing to my cock. It sure as hell felt that way when my brain exploded with white light.
I collapse onto her, and her arms wrap around me, fingers lightly stroking up my spine. “That was… amazing,” she murmurs in a voice so relaxed it almost sounds sleepy. “When can we do that again?”
Chapter Thirteen
I’m not a ‘happy guy’ kind of laugher. Sure, I have a sense of humor, but it tends toward the dark, and I’m more often amused with sarcasm and irony. And I sure as fuck don’t laugh because I’m happy. I can’t even say I know what happiness feels like. The concept of happiness, of relaxing into a state of peace and contentment is as foreign to me as walking on Mars. So I’m surprised by the laughter that bubbles up from my belly at Roxi’s request for a do-over. And even more surprised by the lightness in my chest, the sensation of utter peace that’s descended upon me. The recognition of it makes my stomach do somersaults — like I’m standing at the edge of a high dive, or ready to jump out of a plane.
But as I roll to the side and she snuggles into my arm, resting her head on my chest, I push the fear away, because this feels so… good. “I like this,” she says with a happy sigh. She lifts her head, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the other stuff too, the naughty stuff, but this is… nice.”
Her eyes crinkle as she says it, and I can’t help but smile back at her. I nod my agreement. “We can be just as naughty in bed.”
“I’m counting on it,” she says with lift of her eyebrows.
Her enthusiasm is equal parts infectious and disconcerting. I trace a finger across her cheekbone. “You know what I admire most about you?”
“My hot bod?”
“Oh, I definitely admire that. But I admire your enthusiasm more. The way you jump into whatever’s at hand with both feet.”
Her gaze wavers and for a second her face crumples with something akin to grief. But I blink and it’s gone. “Thank you,” she says, voice dropping. I had a good teacher.”
“All I learned from the adults in my life was how to strike first and strike hard.”
Her gaze jerks to mine. “I can’t believe that. There’s too much good in you.”
I grunt my disagreement. “My great-grandfather was a notorious gangster who lived a double life. On the one hand, he was an upstanding citizen, with a wife and children and a big fancy house on Ward Parkway. On the other — he was a thug who would clip you at the knees, or worse, if you crossed him.”
“But that doesn’t mean that’s your destiny.”
“It’s hard to get away from.” A heavy sigh escapes me. How do I even begin to talk about the burden of carrying Tom’s name? “Kansas City… thinks of Tom as some kind of a modern-day Robin Hood w
ho saved us from the Great Depression, who helped the immigrant and the orphan. Fuck, who built the city. But they don’t think about the cost — to his family, to the people who disagreed with him… how many innocent people were victimized while he built his empire?”
“But you’re doing your part to right those wrongs,” she says, laying her palm on my chest. Her movement is meant to be comforting, but it does little to assuage the beast within. Because now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to shut my mouth. All the garbage I’ve kept inside for years, for my entire fucking life, all of it — the anger, the shame, the hurt, the disappointment, comes spewing out like some kind of a sulfur vent in the earth’s crust.
“He went to federal prison for fraud related to his enormous gambling debts. He died with nothing. And by the time I was born, we had less than nothing. The only thing we had was a name, and-and, questionable connections.” Vince flashes through my mind.
“I don’t follow.”
“My dad…” I pause, gut churning, memories flashing through my mind like pictures in a photo album. “Married my mother, thinking she could… help him be better. But she couldn’t, because he was already too far gone. And it cost her, cost us, everything.”
“What happened, Danny?”
I hear the concern in her voice, the compassion, and I’m not sure I deserve it, but I am grateful for it. I lay my hand over hers and squeeze. “Where to start?” I say with a half-laugh. “The gambling addiction like grampy? The drugs, booze, and other women?” I spit out the words with disgust. “How he seduced my mother with promises of a golden future, then kept her in a loveless prison of a marriage until he beat her to a pulp one night and almost killed her?