by T. K. Leigh
I pull away from Anderson, taking in my surroundings. Everything is rich wood, neutral tones, and iron accents. Natural light fills the space, thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows filling several of the walls. I move past the more formal sitting area, through an open-concept kitchen, and into another sitting area, walking up to the large glass doors. Anderson follows, pressing a button on the adjacent wall, the doors sliding open.
Mesmerized by the view of the setting sun, I step onto the balcony. A breeze blows around me, causing a chill to trickle down my spine, and I shiver. Anderson wraps his arms around me, pulling me back against him.
“This is stunning,” I exhale.
“If you’re into that sort of thing.”
I spin in his embrace, but he doesn’t release his hold. “You can’t stand there and say you don’t find this view spectacular.”
With strenuous patience, he gradually erases the space separating our mouths, covering mine in a soft kiss.
“Now I do.”
He increases the pressure, swiping his tongue along my lips. I part them, his kiss caressing, entwining, enticing. He pulls back, framing my face in his large hands.
“The view right here is much more spectacular than any boring sunset.” Then he returns his attention to the miles of ocean, turning me around, keeping me in his arms. “But the sunset’s not too bad to look at, either.”
“No, it’s not.”
Neither of us speaks as we watch the remnants of the day disappear over the horizon, the sky now a purple hue as night descends. I struggle to swallow through the lump building in my throat over the thought that we only have one more sunset together.
“Come on.” He links his fingers with mine and pulls me back inside, leading me toward a staircase off the entryway. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Then I’ll cook you dinner.”
“You…cook?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I quite enjoy cooking. It relaxes me.”
“You won’t hear any complaints out of me. It’ll be nice to have a home-cooked meal after these past few weeks of eating mostly diner food.”
“And to stay somewhere with soundproof walls.” He pulls me into a master bedroom that’s bigger than my entire apartment. A king-sized bed sits in the middle, a fireplace and sitting area tucked into the corner. As I fantasize about all the fun we’ll have on that bed, he leans toward me. “No one will be able to hear your screams.”
I whirl around, crossing my arms, and give him a playful look of disapproval. “That’s something serial killers say. How do I know this isn’t some five-star torture chamber?”
His eyes flame with desire as he drags me into his arms, pushing his arousal against me. “Oh, gorgeous, the only thing I plan on torturing you with is orgasm after orgasm.” Feather-light kisses fall along my neckline, causing my pulse to increase.
“Well, then, lock me up and throw away the key.”
With quick motions, he grabs both of my wrists and hoists them over my head. Holding them in one hand, he uses the other to lead me toward the bed. “That can be arranged.” He lowers me to the surface, covering my body with his.
“What happened to dinner?” I pant as he snakes down my frame, lifting the hem of my dress and yanking my panties off.
“I figured we could both enjoy a little amuse-bouche beforehand.” He licks his lips, his sinful eyes locking with mine. “A little something to whet our appetites.”
When he flicks his tongue against my clit, I moan, threading my fingers into his hair as I succumb to his touch, forgetting about Hunter’s ashes that now lay scattered across the country. About the uncertainty of what tomorrow may bring.
Our journey may be over, but I can’t shake the feeling that our adventure together is just beginning.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Anderson
The early morning glow filters into the room as the sun slowly creeps over the mountains, bathing LA with light. My thoughts are all jumbled, as seems to be the case with Nora. Maybe if I didn’t have this huge secret eating away at me, I’d be able to enjoy these last precious hours we have.
I should have stopped this charade days ago. But I couldn’t find the wherewithal to come clean and walk away, like she deserves. Now I’ve backed myself into a corner of my own making. There must be some way I can tell her the truth and keep the girl, too. And I have twenty-four hours to figure out how.
The clicking of the shutter echoes against the gentle sounds of Nora’s breathing, as well as the subtle ocean waves that can be heard through the crack in the sliding glass door, even a dozen stories up. I check the focus on the image in my viewfinder, then snap several more photos in quick succession.
Peace surrounds me as I admire Nora’s sleeping form. Her back toward me, her hair sprawled on the pillow comforting her. The white down comforter sits a breath below her waist, revealing a hint of her ass. That’s not what drove my need to photograph her from this angle, though. It’s the line of her spine and the way the rising sun casts a beam along her face. So serene. So tranquil. So beautiful.
She moans, rolling over, as if she’s a flower and I’m the sun, constantly seeking me out. Her eyelids flutter open, her gaze falling on me. “What are you doing?”
“Taking your photo,” I answer in a soft voice, not wanting to break the mood.
“Perv,” she jokes.
“No.” I shake my head, remaining in my reading chair. “I’m simply appreciating the masterpiece in front of me. Your body is a work of art, Nora, worthy of being admired and revered by all who see it.” I pause, smirking. “But I want to be the only one who’s lucky enough to do so.”
“You have free admission to the Museum of Nora any time you’d like.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” I smile, although it doesn’t reach my eyes. Once she learns the truth, she’ll retract that offer.
I tentatively return to taking her photo, waiting for her to tell me to stop, but she doesn’t. Her eyes lock with mine through the lens.
“How do you want me?” she murmurs seductively.
My pulse skyrockets, my dick hardening, throbbing against my thin shorts. When Nora steals a glance below my waist and grins, I know she notices how much she turns me on. She always has. But this… The idea of photographing her like this makes me ache for her even more.
I stand, not trying to hide my erection straining against my gym shorts, and walk to her. I push her hair out of her face, smoothing it behind her ear.
“Can I pose you?”
Stare trained on mine, she nods.
Silence fills the room as I place her the way I want, her body pliant and agreeable to my desires. I keep her on her side facing me, but take the arm beneath her and extend it, resting her head on it. When I pull the duvet off, she doesn’t protest, baring herself to me. I set one leg on top of the other, bending her knees slightly. Then I place her other arm along the silhouette of her body, encouraging it to mold to her hourglass figure.
I step back, admiring her frame in the tranquil light. I make a few minor adjustments to some angles before returning to my chair and checking the focus.
“You sure?”
She doesn’t say anything, only nods.
I continue snapping away, concentrating on different parts of her body with each frame, starting at her peaceful expression, making my way down to her supple breasts, the curve of her waist, her stunning legs.
“You can move now if you want.”
“Move?”
“Or we can stop. Whatever you’re comfortable with. I’ll follow your lead. Sometimes the best shots happen when you let the model do what she wants.”
Her pupils darken as she props herself up. “Do whatever I want?”
My pulse increases at the sensuality in her tone. I swallow hard. “Anything. No limits.”
“No limits,” she repeats, closing her eyes and returning to the same position I’d posed her in, remaining motionless for several moments.
Then the hand resting
along her silhouette moves, slowly, gradually, tentatively. It travels along her waist, caressing her stomach, before continuing up to her breast. When she squeezes, my breathing increases, echoing in the stillness of the room.
She levels her gaze on mine, a devilish glint within. “Shouldn’t you be snapping photos?”
I return my camera to my face and feverishly click away. When she rolls onto her back, I stand, skirting around the bed to shoot from a better angle.
A few weeks ago, I doubt Nora would have done anything like this, still trapped in whatever cage she’d locked herself in years ago. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have done this a few days ago. But I saw it the instant she dumped those ashes into the ocean. She’s finally free. And I want nothing more than to keep feeding this newfound freedom.
I squat at the end of the bed, shooting her from this low angle, the camera capturing how addictive her curves are, how beautiful she looks as she explores her own body, comfortable enough with me to do so in my presence.
She bends her knees, propping up her legs and spreading them, revealing herself to me. My jaw tenses, every inch of me frozen in place. I’m unable to move, to breathe, to think. This may be one of the most erotic moments of my life.
“Go ahead,” she whispers, her hand continuing its tortuously slow journey down her body. “Take your photos. These better not end up on the wall of some gallery, though.”
“Not a chance in hell am I sharing you like this,” I respond in a gruff tone. “These are for my own personal collection to jack-off to.”
“Glad to know I’m spank-bank material.”
“Oh, gorgeous, you’re more than spank-bank material,” I assure her.
She keeps her gaze trained on me for several protracted moments, the atmosphere shifting from light and playful to thick with sexual tension. Chewing on her bottom lip, she slides her hand past her waist.
When she toys with her folds, spreading her wetness around, it takes everything I have to not throw the camera to the side and bury my face in her, to be the one giving her the pleasure building on her expression as she rubs her clit. But even though I’m not touching her, I’m still the reason her breathing is ragged, her complexion flushed.
I raise myself to my full height, snapping a few photos of her from above, one hand squeezing her breast, the other between her legs as she pleasures herself.
“Pull your nipple,” I demand through a clenched jaw.
She focuses her eyes on mine before closing them once more and following my command. I hiss out a breath, struggling not to touch her. But this is infinitely more erotic. More…intimate.
Her chest heaves as she teases herself, pulling on her nipple as a finger slips inside her sex. When a tiny moan escapes, I can no longer control myself. I toss the camera onto the bed and free my erection from my shorts. Noticing the lack of a constant shutter clicking, Nora looks at me, watching me stroke my cock.
Spreading her legs wider, she removes her fingers, giving me permission to take their place, but I shake my head.
“No. Like this.” I continue pumping my dick with my hand. “I want us to get off like this.”
A shiver visibly rolls through her and she returns her fingers to where they were, her breathing becoming more erratic and uneven, matching my own.
“I won’t last much longer,” she warns.
“Trust me, gorgeous. Watching you like this? I won’t last long, period. You’re so fucking hot. So fucking beautiful. So fucking mine.”
With each word, her whimpers grow louder as she pulses her hips against her hand, desperately seeking release, until her body spasms, her cries reverberating against the walls.
“Fuck,” I grunt, increasing my motions. I step closer to her, running my free hand along her waist, then disappearing between her thighs, taking the place of her fingers. Her wet and greedy body pushes me closer to the edge. “I’m about to come.”
“Okay,” she breathes.
I look around for a towel, anything, but she grabs my forearm.
“On me.”
Fuck.
I kneel on the mattress, slipping my fingers back between her thighs, pumping my cock feverishly until I can’t control myself anymore and release onto her stomach, my body convulsing.
Unable to go another minute without feeling her lips against mine, I hover over her, slamming my mouth to hers, my tongue caressing, tangling, taking.
“Goddamn, baby,” I exhale when I pull back. “That may have been one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen in my life. You make it difficult for a man to walk away from you.”
“Good.” She captures my kiss once more as my phone chimes on the nightstand.
But I ignore it, kissing her deeper.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
“It’s not even seven in the morning,” I answer.
“Exactly. Might be important.”
I groan, reluctantly tearing my lips from hers. Glancing at the screen, I see my sister’s name. Normally, I’d let it go to voicemail, but I did call her in the middle of the night, desperate to talk to her about what to do now that I’m mere hours away from leaving Nora.
I place one last kiss on Nora’s mouth before standing. “I need a minute, then I’ll bring you some coffee.”
Grabbing my cell, I dash to the bathroom, retrieving a towel and handing it to Nora as I raise my phone up to my ear and tug on a pair of shorts.
“Hey, Esme.” I steal one more glance at Nora before disappearing out of the master bedroom, heading up to the office on the third floor, needing to have this conversation in private.
“Anders. I’m sorry I missed your call.”
“It’s okay. It was… What? Four in the morning your time when I called?”
“Something like that.” It’s silent while I close the door and sit behind the desk. “So how are you?”
I release a long sigh, scrubbing a hand over my face, unsure how to answer her question. This is my last full day with Nora. Tomorrow, we’ll board my chartered plane and fly to JFK, where we’ll go our separate ways. I’m just grateful I finally convinced her to cancel her coach seat on a commercial flight. Regardless, I still don’t know what I plan to tell her when we land. What kind of promises I’ll make. What kind of secrets I’ll reveal.
“That good, huh?” she retorts with a laugh.
“How can you tell?”
“Because I know you better than anyone. You may be thousands of miles away, but I can feel your turmoil. You’re caught between having a clear conscience and a broken heart.”
I don’t know how she does it, but Esme’s always had an uncanny ability to analyze things and boil them down to the most simplistic terms. This situation I’ve found myself in is as complex and convoluted as they come. But she’s right. What it all comes down to is deciding between leaving my conscience or my heart intact.
“All along I’ve said she deserves the truth.”
“I agree.” She pauses before continuing. “But I doubt she would have been ready to hear the truth a week ago, do you?”
I heave a sigh, reflecting back to who Nora was mere days ago. The nuts and bolts are still there, but the woman who just bared her body and soul to me, relinquishing her control and vulnerability, only remotely resembles the woman I first ran across in Chicago. She’s free, while my chains only grow heavier with every touch, every kiss, every devoted whisper.
“She needed to complete this journey,” I remark.
“But now the journey’s over, yet you’re no closer to figuring out what to do than you were when you realized the truth,” Esme states, reading me like a book.
“She deserves to know,” I say through the lump in my throat. “The truth about that night was kept from me for years. I can’t keep it from her, too. But doing so—”
“Destroys everything you’ve built with her,” she completes my thought.
“Even though it was all built on a foundation of lies.”
Esme’s quiet for a moment,
and I sense her brain spinning. “That’s not entirely true. I think you’d built a strong foundation before you ever learned the truth. It may have rattled things a little, but I like to think it can still survive. This is merely an earthquake.”
“A 7.2 magnitude earthquake.”
“It’s a tragedy, Anders. I’m not trying to downplay it. I’m simply trying to give you hope.”
“Hope?”
“Maybe if you show her you have the courage to let her go, she’ll find the strength to look past the biggest regret of your life. I think we both know there’s no other option here. Your conscience won’t allow you to say goodbye without telling her the truth.”
I bow my head. “You’re right.”
“No matter what happens, just know you’re doing the right thing.” Her voice wavers. “Mom would be proud.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. If there were a time I wished my mother were still alive, it’s now. She always had a way of giving us confidence when it was lacking. She never used her MS as an excuse for why she couldn’t do something. And I wasn’t going to do that now, either.
“Thanks, Esme.”
“Anytime. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That you’ll take that girl out tonight. Spoil her to the point where nothing else will matter. Maybe in the end, nothing else will.”
“Not even the finest jewels will make her overlook this…” I trail off.
The finest jewels…
“What is it?” Esme asks.
“Nothing.” I jump to my feet. “I have to go. I’ll phone you later.”
I end the call, then walk toward the wall safe. After inputting my code, I press my thumb against the scanner. The door clicks open and I pull it back, pushing aside boxes containing various necklaces and earrings I’d purchased for Kendall during our relationship. All worth a small fortune, but the memories of their previous owner make them priceless.
As I rummage through, I don’t immediately find what I’m looking for. When my hand skims against an envelope hidden toward the back of the safe, I grab it, pulling it out.