“But if I’d been…I don’t know…better? Then he might not have…you know.” She glanced away, as if merely hinting about the idea of sex made her embarrassed.
“Cheated on you like a fucking dog?” Owen supplied, since he had no such shame.
“Felt the need to go elsewhere,” she said much more diplomatically, smoothing down the front of her blouse like she could smooth out the wrinkles in her life. He wanted to tell her she looked great as she was. That lived in was better than not lived at all.
There were about eight hundred things wrong with what Rose had just said, and Owen wouldn’t have minded sitting down with her to enumerate every single one of them, starting with, “That’s not the way this works,” and ending with, “That guy is a fucking moron.”
But all he did was smile. He looked at this beautiful woman that had been so wronged—yet was so quick to assume someone else’s bad behavior was her fault—and he smiled.
CUBE, his commission, those slick and sleazy ads…everything about the real world felt miles away.
“What?” she asked, her nose wrinkling self-consciously.
“Nothing,” he said.
“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
“Why on earth?” That face again.
“You need someone to show you everything you’ve been missing.”
And he’d be damned if he was going to let anyone else be that guy.
Chapter Ten
Owen took a step closer. And then another. Before Rose knew it, he was pressed against her. Right where they’d been before they were so rudely interrupted.
She tilted her head up, his words still drumming in her head. I’m her boyfriend. I’m her boyfriend.
She should have laughed in his face. Tossed him out along with Jason. It was crazy. And totally not true. She’d been one inhalation away from blurting out to Jason that it wasn’t like that. They’d only kissed—and, even then, barely. It wasn’t like they’d been on a date. Or even talked about it.
Would everyone at work kill her if they knew? Pump her for information? What exactly was the protocol here?
But those were questions for the Old Rose to care about. Even then, maybe they were the wrong questions. How could there be such a thing as protocol when it came to a man with calloused hands and hair in his eyes who showed up at her doorstep unannounced, who did whatever he wanted and said the first things that came into his head?
All she really needed to know was right in front of her.
Jason was gone. And Owen was there, filling her with the pine scent of his skin, the spice of fresh-cut wood. Would it really be so bad to let themselves give in?
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” he asked, touching the back of her neck the way he’d done right before they’d first kissed. “That was pretty intense. We don’t have to—”
She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “I thought you were my boyfriend,” she said.
She didn’t want him to give her an out. She might feel obligated to be good and take it.
“Then I guess I’d better act like it,” he said and finally kissed her again.
His lips were hot and insistent, his tongue searching hers. Not just wanting. No, it was more than that. Taking.
Owen took what he wanted. He didn’t stand back idly while Jason barged in. He didn’t let other people make the decisions for him. And he didn’t hold back when he was kissing her.
Rose could find a million ways to doubt herself. But there was no doubting his fingers in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, his body against hers. He wanted her. Badly.
And everything in her wanted him, too.
Firecrackers exploded in her veins as he walked her back toward the bed. The next thing she knew, she was falling onto the pillows with him on top.
It was like being a teenager. Or how she’d imagined being a teenager could have been, if she hadn’t been inside doing her homework for all those years like she was supposed to. All the time in the world to taste and touch and lose herself in someone else’s skin.
There was just so much. Of his body, large and solid against her. Of his hands that covered her skin. Of his lips, his tongue, the way he kissed.
She tried to bite back her groans, afraid to be caught running away with her desires. But Owen ground his erection hard between her thighs, and she pressed her hips right back into him. There was no use pretending she still had a shred of self-control.
“I’ve been wanting this since I first laid eyes on you,” he said, kissing his way across her clavicle.
“Since you woke up on the floor?” Her laugh tipped into a moan as his fingers made their way up her body, untucking her blouse and grazing hot against her skin.
“Mmhmm.” He pushed her blouse up. “I thought I was dreaming.”
“And now?” She gasped as his hand cupped her breast.
“I’d better not fucking wake up.”
He pulled up her shirt and skimmed his fingers over her bra before lifting her to tug the shirt over her head.
For a moment, she was caught with her arms still in the sleeves. She kissed him deeply, her body pressing close against him, her arms still raised. He moved even slower, inching the fabric up, holding her pinned.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured into her skin.
“Me at your mercy?” She was panting as he finally pulled the shirt all the way off.
“Don’t tempt me.”
Her breath shuddered. Her voice dropped to a tentative whisper. “Do you want the restraints?”
She hadn’t sold them yet. She hadn’t even wanted to look at them.
But somehow, with Owen on top of her, anything that had to do with Jason and Annabeth and her old life felt light years away, like it wasn’t even hers. So old that even the Old Rose couldn’t quite remember why it mattered.
To her surprise, Owen shook his head. “No,” he whispered then bit her earlobe. “I don’t want them.”
“That’s okay,” she said immediately. She didn’t want him to think she’d wanted to use them. That she’d be upset or something if they didn’t. It was better this way, anyway.
But then he shocked her again.
He nibbled from her ear down to the side of her neck. “This first time, I want to take my time with you.”
Rose swallowed. Holy. Shit.
Taking it slow was going to drive her out of her mind.
And she was pretty sure that was exactly what Owen wanted as he pressed his hips into hers and made sure she felt every inch of what she did to him.
What the hell did he mean by first time? There were going to be more times? How could he even know?
She wanted to object. Hit pause so they could sit up, straighten their clothes, and have a frank and mature conversation about what they were doing, what the parameters were before they got involved, and they understood that “boyfriend” didn’t really mean boyfriend—right?
But Owen whispered in her ear for her to hush.
“I didn’t say anything,” she said.
“You were thinking it. I don’t want you thinking while I’m inside you.”
He spread her thighs and slid his hand down the front of her dress pants, over her underwear. There was no hiding what Owen thought about touching her. His pleasure was betrayed in the thrust of his hips, the press of his fingers, the urgency of his breath in her ear.
He made his way under her underwear, pressing his finger inside. She felt the softness of her body unlocking. The strength of his hand. He moved it slow but steady, like he was rocking her, holding her completely.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Yes,” she panted. How many more ways were there to say it? With her voice, with her body. With her hands as she tugged him closer. With her lips as she kissed h
im and begged him some more.
“I don’t want to sleep with you just so you can get back at your ex,” he said.
Disappointment filled her, heavy and sharp. Was that what he thought?
“That’s not why I’m doing this.”
“Or jeopardize your career. Or mine, if I’m honest.”
“This”—she touched his lips—“isn’t going to show up in some ad.”
“I know,” he said. But he brought her hand away from his mouth and pulled his fingers from her pants.
“Then why—?”
“You’re thinking,” he said softly. “I can feel it, even if you won’t say it out loud. And I know you were upset just now, when he came over.”
“I had also already started to kiss you when he came over,” she reminded him.
He grinned. “I haven’t forgotten about that part.”
“Then—” Then what’s the hold up? But that would make her sound like the worst kind of horny fourteen-year-old boy. The kind of man women everywhere should run from. So she held her tongue even as the need throbbed between her legs, unsated without his fingers filling her anymore.
“I don’t want you to change your mind later and feel bad,” Owen said. “As soon as we’re done, or tomorrow, or next week, or whenever. I don’t want to be someone you ever feel bad about.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that was next week’s problem. Future Rose’s problem, not hers. But he was right. Goddamn him, he was right. She’d never done anything like this. A one-night stand. With someone she barely knew. After a breakup like the one she’d experienced. Especially when they should have been staying far away from one another.
Her heart was a sea of emotions, tossing and turning every which way.
“Don’t stop.” She couldn’t predict the future. But she sure as hell knew what she wanted right now. Present Rose was dying to feel him. No matter how many problems it might cause—for both of them.
“Okay,” he said, as though he finally believed her.
“Okay?”
He kissed her nose. “Okay.”
She had no idea what that meant. So were they having sex now or what?
He kissed his way down her body, pressing his lips to her sternum, her breasts, trailing his way down her stomach. He’d already unbuttoned her pants, and now he pulled the zipper the rest of the way down with his teeth, using his hands to spread the fabric and ease the pants down over her hips.
He cupped her ass in his palms and pulled her panties down. The next thing she knew, she was naked. Exposed. While he was still clothed.
She squirmed in the tangle of sheets. “This isn’t fair,” she said, tugging at his shirt. “I demand equality.”
“Life’s not fair,” he said as he drew her legs over the edge of the bed. He sat on his knees on the floor in front of her. “Get used to it and close your eyes.”
She didn’t.
He had his arms around her thighs, his face mere inches from where she wanted him. But he didn’t begin to lick her.
“No?” he asked, eyebrow raised in a way that said devilish rather than skeptical. Like there was a snowball’s chance in hell that he could think she didn’t want this.
She closed her eyes.
And fought against the temptation to open them as he pressed his tongue to her seam and made her slowly, petal by petal, begin to open.
He licked her softly at first. Then faster, firmer, sucking her clit into his mouth and teasing his tongue around it, circles and lashes and circles again, the rhythms driving her wild.
At first, it felt impossible. Should she keep her eyes closed? When should she open them? Why was he making her do this?
Did she look weird with her legs dangling off the edge of the bed? Would he want someone prettier? Someone taller? Or maybe he liked shorter girls.
Then he lay a palm on her stomach. And she realized that as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She was thinking too much.
If Owen liked shorter girls, he wouldn’t be literally on his knees tonguing her into oblivion. Insisting that he wasn’t going to fuck her—he was only going to make sure she came on his tongue.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be inside her.
It was that he wanted this instead. He wanted her legs spread, her fingers balling the sheets as her thighs tightened, her body convulsed, and she gasped, crying out into the darkness that had fallen.
She came so hard, nothing existed except her quivering limbs, the pulsing warmth inside her, and Owen’s caressing tongue.
She barely even had a body. She definitely didn’t have a mind.
He’d made her close her eyes so she could feel it—every ache and every tremble.
And she had.
She lay there, limp and gasping in the warm afterglow, as Owen began to stir. He kissed his way up her body, to the lids of her still-closed eyes.
She opened them.
He was hovering over her, propped up on his arms. And goddamn if he wasn’t massively, wondrously hard.
“You,” she murmured, barely able to form words.
“How was that?”
She made the kind of noise a person did when a warm, gooey chocolate cake came out of the oven smelling like perfection.
“Your turn,” she said, still feeling that delicious smile all over her face.
But he shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”
He had no idea. No clue of how hungry she was for this.
She pressed her palm to his hard-on and rubbed along the shaft through his jeans. When he didn’t object to that, she undid his button and pulled down the zipper. She brought his pants and his boxers down over his hips and wrapped her hand around his cock. It was thick, warm, and pulsing at her touch, slick with liquid at the tip.
“Don’t think you can walk away from here like that,” she said. She tugged up his shirt, exposing the hard plane of his rippling abs, and pulled it over his head. His pants wound up somewhere around his ankles but not quite off. She couldn’t stop touching him long enough to bother.
This time, there was no way she was closing her eyes. She didn’t want to miss the sight of his cock in her hand or the flex of his shoulder muscles as he held his body up.
And she certainly didn’t want to look away from his lips, parted with the quick, jagged intake of breath. Or from his blue eyes dazzling with need.
She stroked his balls, his shaft, running her fingers over the tip, finding all the places that made him shudder. A groan escaped his lips, throaty and raw.
“That’s it,” he said, and this time he was the one to pinch his eyes shut. His breath came sharper, harder. His groans increased. It made her stroke him firmer, faster, her own breath quickening with him. It was so hot to jerk him off like this. To see his every expression and respond to all his wants.
He may have been on top of her, and he may have been the one being touched right now. But he wasn’t the only one of them shot through with ecstasy. It gave her a heady hit of certainty to know that he was in her hands, literally. And she was going to make him come.
Nothing about Owen was shy or restrained. He didn’t try to hold back his sounds of pleasure or the thrust of his hips against her hand. He was an open book, honest and real. It was exhilarating to feel so free with him, to hear herself say, “Come on me,” when he told her he was close. She wondered who had uttered those words, and then she didn’t care. It was what she wanted. Why shouldn’t she say what she felt?
He shuddered, gave a deep and throaty groan, and then he was spurting on her hand, her stomach, gasping as he came all over her body. It was warm and wonderful, and she loved it. She absolutely loved it.
She kept stroking him until he was completely finished, drawing out the sensations, enjoying every moment that he came apart in her hands. Then she to
uched him softer, slower, teasing. Until he was done and collapsed beside her, his weight sinking heavy on the bed.
“Oh my God,” he said, breathing hard as he kicked his pants all the way off.
“Should I not have made you do that?” she teased.
“Oh my God,” he said again with a smile. He reached over her and grabbed a bunch of tissues from the box on her nightstand and began wiping up the mess he’d made. “Sorry about that,” he said.
She grinned and let him clean her up. “I’m not.”
He got up to throw the tissues away then came back to bed, lying on his side so he was facing her. “You’re so beautiful,” he said as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
From anyone else, it might have felt like a line. But Owen never talked like he was spouting off ad copy, something practiced and sure to please. She knew it was the thought that had popped into his head, and so he’d said it. Like there was no reason to hold it in.
What would it be like to go through life without a filter inside, something that polished all her words and actions to a shine before they could get out? She didn’t know if she could do it.
But she felt so relaxed lying there, she couldn’t help trying.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” she asked.
Then she bit her lip. If she was going to do this, she had to do it all the way. No holding back. She’d ask for the real thing she wanted. “Do you want to stay the night?”
Was it brave or stupid? Brave, she decided, still glowing from what they’d done.
He wavered, and she immediately changed her mind. Stupid. Definitely dumb.
“I wish I could,” he said. “But I’ve actually got to get going.”
“Oh,” she said, already wishing she hadn’t said a word.
She should have waited. Looked for some sign he was interested in anything more than what they’d just done. Owen could go around saying and doing what he wanted, but she should have kept her mouth shut.
“My dad’s at home,” he said. “He’s waiting for me.”
She nodded, not sure what else to do.
“He had a heart attack last year, and I need to make sure he gets enough dinner and takes his evening meds.”
Wrong Bed, Right Man Page 6