by Kat Cantrell
Jonas had to reel it back with Viv. Way back. There was no excuse for falling prey to baser urges and he definitely didn’t want to find out what happened next if he kept going down this path. That was one absolute he trusted—the less he let a woman get tangled up in his emotions, the better.
Resolute, Jonas returned to find his grandfather in deep discussion with Jonas’s chief financial officer, a man without whom Kim Electronics would suffer in the American market.
Perfect. This was an opportunity to guide the discussion to Jonas’s accomplishments as well as those of his staff, who were a reflection of his ability to run the Americas branch. Back on track, Jonas smiled at the two men and jumped into the conversation as if he hadn’t just had a minor freak-out over an incontrollable urge to drive straight home and bury himself in his wife.
That wasn’t happening. Boundaries needed to happen. Jonas didn’t have the luxury of letting his wife dig further under his skin. But when he got home later that night, it was to an empty house, and boundaries didn’t seem like such a fun plan.
More disappointed than he had a right to be, Jonas prowled around the enormous condo to be sure Viv hadn’t tucked herself away in a corner to read or watch TV. Nada. He glanced at his watch. It was well after seven. She must have gotten caught up at the shop. Totally her right to work late. They didn’t answer to each other.
For a half second, he contemplated walking the four blocks to Cupcaked. Strictly so he could give Viv her gift, of course. But that smacked of eagerness to see her that he had no intention of admitting to. So instead, he flopped on the couch and scrolled through his never-ending inbox on his phone, desperate for something to take his mind off the resounding silence in the condo. Wow, was it quiet. Why had he never noticed that before? The high ceilings and exposed beams usually created an echo that reminded him of a museum, but he’d have to be making noise for that echo to happen.
Viv had made a lot of noise last night, but he hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to whether the sounds of her gasps and sighs had filled the cavernous part of the loft. And now he was back to thinking about his wife, her gorgeous body and why she wasn’t currently naked in his lap.
He scowled. They’d done zero to establish how their relationship would progress after last night. They should have. He should have. Probably the smartest thing would have been to establish that last night was a onetime thing. He couldn’t keep having meltdowns at work or moon around over whether Viv planned to hang out with him at night.
He should find something else to do. Like... He glanced around the condo, suddenly at a loss. Prior to getting married, what had he done on a random Tuesday when he was bored?
Nothing. Because he was rarely bored. Usually he had work and other stuff to occupy him. Friends. Of course the answer was to ping his friends. But Warren didn’t respond to his text message and Hendrix was in New York on a business trip.
Viv’s key rattled in the lock. Finally. He vaulted off the couch to greet her, totally not okay with how his pulse quickened at the prospect of seeing her and completely unsure how to stop it.
As she came through the door, her smile widened as she spied Jonas standing in the hall, arms crossed, hip casually cocked out against the wall.
“Hi,” she said, halting just short of invading his space. “Were you waiting for me?”
No sprang to his lips before he thought better of it. Well, he couldn’t really deny that, now, could he? If he’d stayed sprawled on the couch and given her a casual “what’s up?” as she strolled through the door, he might have had a leg to stand on. Too late.
“Yeah,” he admitted, and held up the shiny blue foil bag clutched in his fingers. “I have something for you.”
Her eyes widened as she held out her hand to accept the bag. The most delicious smell wafted between them, a vanilla and Viv combo that made him think of frosting and sex and about a million other things that shouldn’t go together but did—like marriage and friendship.
Why couldn’t he greet his wife at the door if he felt like it? It wasn’t a crime. It didn’t mean anything.
The anticipation that graced her smile shouldn’t have pleased him so much. But he couldn’t deny that it whacked him inside in a wholly different way than the sultry smile she’d laid on him last night, right before she informed him that she had on yellow lingerie under her clothes.
Which was not up for a repeat tonight. Boundaries should be the first order of business. Viv had sucked him down a rabbit hole that he didn’t like. Well, he liked it. It just didn’t sit well with how unbelievably tempting she was. If she could tempt him into letting go of his professionalism, what other barriers could she knock down? The risk was not worth it.
But then she opened the box, and her startled gasp put heat in places that he should be able to control a hell of lot better.
“Jonas, this is too much,” she protested with a laugh and held out the box like she expected him to take it back or something.
“Not hardly. It’s exactly right.” Before she got ideas in her head about refusing the gift that had taken him thirty minutes to pick out, he plucked the diamond necklace from its velvet housing and undid the clasp so he could draw it around her neck. “Hush, and turn around.”
She did and that put him entirely too close to her sweet flesh. That curve where her shoulder flared out called to him. Except it was covered by her dress. That was a shame.
Dragging her hair out of the way, she waited for him to position the chain. He let the catch of the necklace go and the ten-carat diamond dropped to rest against her chest, just above the swell of her breasts. Which were also covered, but he knew precisely where they began.
His lips ached to taste that swell again. Among other things. Palms flat across her back, he smoothed the chain into place, but that was really just an excuse to touch her.
“If you’re sure,” she murmured, and she relaxed, letting her body sink backward until it met his and heat flared between them.
“Oh, I’m sure.” She’d meant about the diamond. Probably. But his mouth had already hit the bare spot she’d revealed when she’d swept her long brown hair aside and the taste of Viv exploded under his tongue.
Groaning, he let his hands skim down her waist until he found purchase and pulled until their bodies nested together tighter than spoons in a drawer. The soft flesh of her rear cradled the iron shaft in his pants, thickening his erection to the point of pain. He needed a repeat of last night. Now.
He licked the hollow of her collarbone, loving the texture under his tongue. More Viv needed. Her answering gasp encouraged him to keep going.
Gathering handfuls of her dress, he yanked it from between them and bunched it at her waist, pressing harder into the heat of her backside the moment he bared it. His clothes and a pair of thin panties lay between him and paradise, and he wanted all that extraneous fabric gone.
She arched against him as his fingers cruised along the hem of her drenched underwear and he took that as agreement, stripping them off in one motion. Then he nudged her legs wider, opening her sex, and indulged them both by running a fingertip down the length of her crease. Her hands flew out and smacked the wall and she used it to brace as she ground her pelvis into his.
Fire tore through his center and he needed to be inside her with an uncontrollable urge, but the condoms were clear across the cavernous living area in his bedside table. He couldn’t wait. Viv cried out his name as he plunged one then two fingers into her center, groaning at the slick, damp heat that greeted him. She was so wet, so perfect.
As he fingered her, she shuddered, circling her hips in a frenzied, friction-induced madness that pushed him to the brink. Her hot channel squeezed his fingers and that was nearly all she wrote. Did she have a clue how much he wanted to yank his zipper down, impale her and empty himself? Every muscle in his body fought him and his wi
ll crumbled away rapidly. Reaching between them, he eased open his belt.
But then she came apart in his arms, huffing out little noises that drove him insane as she climaxed. His own release roared to the forefront and all it would take was one tiny push to put him over the edge. Hell, he might not even need a push. Shutting his eyes against the strain, he drew out her release with long strokes that made her whimper.
She collapsed in his arms as she finished and he held her upright, murmuring nonsense to her as she caught her breath.
“Let me take you to bed,” he said, and she nodded, but it was more of a nuzzle as she turned her cheek into his.
To hell with boundaries.
He hustled her to his room, shed his clothes and hers without ripping anything this time—because he was in control—and finally she was naked. Sultry smile in place, she crawled onto the bed and rolled into a provocative position that begged him to get between her legs immediately and hammer after his own release. But despite being positive the only thing he could possibly do next was get inside her as fast as humanly possible, he paused, struck immobile all at once.
That was his wife decked out on the bed.
The sight bled through him, warming up places inside dangerously fast. Places that weren’t what he’d call normal erogenous zones. And that’s when he realized his gaze was on her smile. Not her body.
What was wrong with him? A naked woman was on display for his viewing pleasure. He forced his gaze to her breasts, gratified when the pert tips pebbled under his watchfulness. That was more like it. This was about sex and how good two people could make each other feel.
With a growl, he knelt on the bed and kissed his way up her thigh. He could absolutely keep his hands off her if he wanted to. He had total control over his desires, his emotions. There was nothing this woman could do to drive him to the point of desperation, not in bed and certainly not out of it. To prove it, he pushed her thighs open and buried his face between them.
She parted for him easily, her throaty cry washing over him as he plunged his tongue into her slickness. That wet heat was his. He’d done that to her and he lapped at it, groaning as her musky scent flooded his senses. The ache in his groin intensified into something so strong it was otherworldly. He needed to feel her tight, slick walls close around him, to watch her face as it happened. He needed it, but denied himself because she didn’t own his pleasure. He owned hers.
Her hips rolled and bucked. He shoved his mouth deeper into her center as she silently sought more, and he gave it to her. Over and over he worked his lips and tongue against her swollen flesh until she bowed up with a release that tensed her whole body. And then she collapsed against the mattress, spilling breathy, satisfied sighs all over him. Only then did he permit his own needs to surge to the surface.
Fingering on a condom that he’d retrieved from the drawer, he settled over her and indulged his intense desire to kiss her. She eagerly took his tongue, sucking it into her hot mouth, and he groaned as he transferred her own taste back to her. Their hips came together, legs tangling, and before he could fully register her intent, she gathered him up in her tight fist and guided him into the paradise at her core.
A strong urge to fill her swelled. But he held on by the scrabbly edge of his fingertips, refusing to slam into her as he ached to do. Slowly, so slowly that he nearly came apart, he pushed. Her slickness accepted him easily, wringing the most amazing bliss from a place he scarcely recognized. The deeper he sank, the better it felt.
Her gaze captured his and he fell into her depths. She filled him, not the other way around. How was that physically possible? He couldn’t fathom it, but neither could he deny it. Or halt the rush of Viviana through his veins as she streamed straight to his heart in a kill shot that flooded all four chambers at once.
And then there was nothing but her and the unbelievable feel of her skin against his, her desire soaking through his pores in an overwhelming deluge. He meant to hold back, determined to prove something that escaped him as she changed the angle. Somehow that allowed him to go deeper, push harder. Her cries spurred him on, and unbelievably, she took it higher, sucking him under into a maelstrom of sensation and heightened pleasure.
When her hips began pistoning in countermeasure to his, it nearly tore him in two. Delirious with the need to come, he grabbed one of her legs and pushed at the knee, opening her wider so he had plenty of room to finger her at the source of her pleasure. Two circular strokes and she climaxed, squeezing him so tight that it tripped the wire on his own release.
Bright pinpoints of light streamed behind his eyes as he came so hard that he would have easily believed he’d crossed over into an alternate dimension. In this new dimension, he could let all the things crowding through his chest spill out of his mouth. But those things shouldn’t exist in any universe.
If he didn’t acknowledge them, they didn’t exist. Then he wouldn’t be breaking his word.
As his vision cleared and his muscles relaxed, rendering him boneless, he collapsed to the mattress, rolling Viv into his arms.
The heavy diamond swung down from the chain he’d latched around her neck, whacking him on the shoulder. He fingered it back into place silently, weighing out whether he could actually speak or if that spectacular orgasm had in fact stolen his voice.
“I get the sense you’ve been saving up,” Viv commented huskily, her lips moving against his chest, where her face had landed after he’d nestled her close. Probably he shouldn’t have done that, but he liked coming down from a post-lovemaking high with her in his arms.
“It’s been a while,” he allowed. “I mean, other than last night, obviously.”
Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Both times were amazing. I could get used to this.”
He could, too. That was enough to get the panic really rolling. “We should probably talk about that.”
To soften the blow, he threaded some of her pretty, silky hair through his fingers. That felt so nice, he kept going, running all the way down her head to her neck and back again.
“Mmm,” she purred, pressing into his fingers, which were somehow massaging her with little strokes that she clearly liked. “I’m listening.”
“We’re still friends, right?” Pathetic. That hadn’t been what he’d intended to say at all, but now that it was out there...it was exactly what he wanted to know. He wanted to hear her say that having an amazing encounter that he’d felt to his soul hadn’t really affected her all that much. Then he could keep lying to himself about it and have zero qualms.
“Sure.”
She kissed his chest right above his nipple and then flicked her tongue across the flat disk. Flames erupted under his skin, fanning outward to engulf his whole body, including his brain, because he suddenly couldn’t recall what he’d been so convinced he needed to establish.
Then she slung a leg over his, nestling her thigh against the semi-erection that grew a lot less semi much faster than he would have credited, considering how empty he’d have sworn he was already.
“Geez, Viv.” He bit back the curse word that had sprung to his lips. “You’re insatiable.”
Not that he was complaining. Though he should be saying something that sounded a lot like “Let’s dial it back about one hundred and eighty degrees.”
“You make me that way,” she said throatily. “I’ve been celibate for like a billion years and that was totally okay, but all of a sudden, you kiss me and I can’t think. I just want to be naked with you 24/7.”
“Yeah?” he growled. That pretty much mirrored his thoughts perfectly. “That can be arranged.”
No. No, it could not.
He had a merger to manage. Reins to pick up from his grandfather. What was he talking about, letting Viv coerce him into a day-and-night screw fest? That sounded like a recipe for disaster, especially given how strong his reactio
ns to her were. They needed to cool it off.
“We can’t.” She sighed. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork and Josie requested the rest of the week off so she can study for final exams. As nice as this is, we should probably back off for a while. Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely not.” Wrong answer. Open your mouth and take it back. “We’re doing fine winging it. Aren’t we? There’s no pressure. If you come home from work hot and needy and want to strip down in the foyer to let me take care of you, I’m perfectly fine with that.”
In fact, he’d gladly etch that date on his planner with a diamond drill bit. Mental note: buy Viv more jewelry and more racy lingerie. If he really tried, he could space out the gifts, one a night for oh, at least two weeks.
She arched a brow. “Really? This isn’t feeling a little too real?”
His mood deflated. And now he was caught in a trap of his own making. He couldn’t lie to Viv, but neither could he admit that it had been feeling too real since the ceremony. The same one he’d tried to sell to Warren and Hendrix as a fake wedding when Warren had clued in immediately that there was nothing fake about any of this.
This was what he got for not nodding his head the second the words back off came out of her mouth.
“See, the thing is,” he began and would have sworn he’d been about to say that being friends with no benefits worked better for him. But that’s not what happened. “I need this to be real. I don’t have to pretend that I’m hot for you, because I am. We don’t have to sell that we’re burning up the sheets when we have dinner with your family on Friday. Why not keep going? The reasons we started this are still true. Unless I’ve dissatisfied you in some way?”
“Oh, God. No!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Not in the slightest. You’re the hottest lover I’ve ever had, bar none.”
That pleased him enormously. “Then stop talking about easing off. We can be casual about it. Sometimes you sleep in my bed. Sometimes you don’t. No rules. We’re just friends who’re having really great sex.”