A Hint of Scandal

by Tara Pammi

  He dropped a kiss between her shoulders, and she shivered. He held her hands over them with one hand, while the other one drew a line down her spine, followed by his hot mouth and erotic tongue. He reached the indent above her buttocks and stopped. The mattress groaned as he shifted to switch on the bedside lamp, still holding her down. Only then did she realize that he was staring at her tattoo.

  She turned her head sideways, trying to get a look at him.

  A strip of color darkened his cheeks. Silence enveloped them as he ran the pad of his thumb over the butterfly tattoo, up and down, sending little sparks of need shooting through to the aching, wet spot between her legs, making her weak-kneed.

  She licked her lips. She hated herself for asking, for wanting his approval but did it, anyway. “Don’t you like tattoos?”

  Alexander looked up as Olivia’s tentative voice penetrated the red haze clouding his mind. A surge of emotion washed through him and he took a deep breath, trying to fight it down, to clamp down. To no avail. He ran his thumb over the alluring tattoo again, despising himself for the possessiveness that settled in his gut, jealousy an acidic taste on his tongue. “It’s very sensuous,” he murmured, clearing his throat.

  A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. Her chin tilted at a defiant angle, her eyes blazing. “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Meaning it suits you perfectly, Olivia,” he repeated, uncaring that a harsh note entered his tone. But then, it was the first time he was experiencing something so irrational, so elemental that he had no idea how to react to it. His reaction was petty, beneath him. Yet the fact that another man would have seen the tattoo, another man would have kissed the alluring flesh let loose a beast inside him.

  Things he had no right to ask, things he shouldn’t even want to know, gnawed at him. The women he’d dated had been intelligent, successful women who had no qualms about their sex life. Yet he had never felt this curious about their pasts, this irrational jealousy over men they had shared their bodies with. This was what she did to him, what she evoked in him, things no confident, decent man would think. She reduced him into nothing.

  Olivia didn’t know what had changed but something had and not for the good. A hardness entered Alexander’s gaze, transforming the tenor of the very air around them into something dark. “If you don’t like—”

  Her words were lost in her gasp as he plundered her mouth again. She moaned against his mouth and he swooped in, flicking her tongue with his, tasting and exploring every inch of her mouth until they were both moaning with ragged need, until she had no idea where he began and where she ended. Sliding between her parted lips, he stroked her to ecstasy with his tongue, darting in and out of her mouth, an erotic act in itself and she clenched her hands on his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. He was using every skill at his disposal to drive her crazy.

  He moved his free hand to the curls between her legs. But she wanted control this time, even if it lasted only a few minutes.

  She pushed his hand away and in a quick movement, surprised him until he lay on his back. There was only so much she could endure in his wicked hands. With a laugh, he folded his arms beneath his head. A dark flush highlighted his cheekbones as she laid her hand on his erection.

  She wrapped her hand around it and moved it slightly, loving the velvety feel of him. His shoulders and neck rigid with tension, he groaned. “Tell me what you were thinking just now,” she whispered, bending a little lower, her mouth an inch from the velvety tip of his erection.

  When he didn’t answer, she flicked her tongue over the erect tip. His abdomen under her hand hardened into a steel wall under immense pressure. Tension radiated from his every pore, the corded veins in his neck pulsing with life. “Is it simply that you don’t care for body art?”

  He shook his head.

  She smiled, pleased with his answer. Her mouth wide-open, she took him into her mouth ever so slowly. A fierce rush of wetness gathered between her legs at his guttural moan. His hands crawled into hair. She pulled her mouth from him, licking every inch of the tight skin. “Do you not care for butterflies, then?”

  He cursed as she blew at the soft head. “I have nothing against butterflies.”

  His words sounded far away, hoarse, drugged. She wrapped her hand around his erection again and moved it from base to the tip. A drop of moisture appeared at the rigid tip and she licked her lips in anticipation.

  Their gazes collided, raw need mirrored in his. “Damn it, Liv. Take me into your mouth again.”

  His words were a command fueled by raw need, need that set something inside her on a fire. She licked the bead of moisture at the tip and moaned. He hardened a little more, if that was possible. “Give me something, Alexander, anything,” she said, uncaring that her words were fueled by something far deeper than raw lust. And he knew it, because his mouth tightened into a line.

  “Fine,” she said, letting him go, even though every inch of her craved to stay.

  He reached up and tugged her closer until her mouth was an inch from his. “You’re a witch.” His blue gaze blazed with an unknown emotion. “You want to know what I feel when I see your tattoo? Jealousy,” he bit out. “For a minute, all I could think of was how many men had seen, touched and kissed that damn butterfly, like an uncivilized brute.”

  Olivia swallowed at the rawness in his tone. Her stomach clenched. She kissed the granite wall of his jaw, tugged his lower lip with her teeth. “I got it last month, so you’re the first man to see it. I’ve wanted to get one for a long time, but I—”

  She gasped as he pulled her on top of him and entered her. Arching her back, she felt pleasure like nothing she had felt before. Every inch of her skin tingled as they moved together to a wild rhythm, need spiraling higher and higher until she found release.

  Alexander raised his hips and surged into her with a last fierce thrust. Her muscles tightened around him with contractions until release claimed him, too, an indescribable pleasure coupled with something else he couldn’t recognize.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  OLIVIA MOANED, HALF-ASLEEP, arousal seeping into her blood as a hot mouth glided over her tattoo and every inch of her back. She kept her eyes closed, breathing in the intimately erotic scent of Alexander and sex that lingered around them.

  Her body ached, pleasantly, lethargic after he had kept her awake most of the night, after he had driven her to the edge and beyond so many times, drawing every inch of pleasure he could from her body.

  Turning onto her back, she reached out her hand and hard muscles met her fingers. She ran it over his chest, lower and lower. His erection hardened, lengthened in her hand, and he bit her shoulder with a groan. The most exquisite thrill of power shuddered through her.

  His hand snuck up to cover her breast, his mouth crushing her with his. She sunk her hands into his hair and hung on as his mouth moved lower over her jaw, to the pulse at her neck. She moaned as he licked the birthmark on the curve of her breast, the muscles in her lower belly tightening in anticipation.

  She grumbled when he tugged her hand upward and kissed her palm. Opening her eyes, she looked into his blue eyes. He grinned, and Olivia felt the impact of his smile all the way to her toes. Need and a desperate longing to speak her mind, to say what she was thinking slammed her awake. She had never learned to how to keep things to herself, and she trembled now, struggling to contain the biggest truth of her life. She wanted to shout it, she wanted to revel in it.

  “I don’t want to stop,” he whispered into her skin. “But if I have to leave for the Caribbean for a week, I have a lot of things to clear from my schedule.”

  “You are?” she mumbled, her hands stilling. She winced at the hint of dismay that crept into her voice.

  He got out of the bed, tangling the sheets. Her pulse skyrocketed at the sight of his tight butt. “We are.”

 
; It took her a moment to pull her mind away from the muscled expanse of his back to what he had just said.

  “I can’t go Alexander, I...” She licked her lips as he, without an ounce of modesty, tugged his boxers and then his trousers up, all the while waiting for her to finish her thought. “My job, I...just spent two weeks in Paris. I can’t take—”

  “So bring work. I understand from Daniel that the budgeting has already been approved,” he said, making dust of her excuse. He moved closer and pressed a kiss on her lips, a savage one that she felt all the way to her toes. “One week, Liv, after that we can go our—”

  She kneeled on the bed and kissed him back, unwilling to let him finish the thought. With every kiss, every touch, she felt as if she was falling deeper and deeper into a hole that could close in on her any second. But goodbye, she couldn’t say it already. Not just yet.

  A smile curved his lips, lighting up the blues of his eyes. He pressed a kiss to her temple and tugged her out of the bed.

  Standing on the other side of the bed, she dressed and threw some clothes into an overnight bag while he padded the small space of her apartment, glued to his cell, no doubt canceling his numerous engagements.

  As she maneuvered past him to get to the coffeemaker, he grinned, his phone still on. She yelped when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. His body against hers was a haven of warmth, a promise of pleasure. But it was his arms around her, his boyish smile as he kissed her that clawed at her.

  She wanted to turn around and hug him, she wanted to breathe the words that were clamoring inside her into his skin. But of course, she couldn’t. And she had just signed up for a week of this torment.

  As he picked up her bag and opened the door, she looked back. “Wait, I can’t leave like this. You broke the lock.”

  He grinned. “Already taken care of. By the time we come back, Carlos will arrange for someone to move all your stuff to a new apartment.”

  “New apartment? Alexander, I can’t afford it and I don’t want your—”

  “I knew you would say that. But you’re forgetting that you just landed a new contract for your agency. You’ll get a pay raise—”

  “Don’t do this, Alexander. I mean it, stay out of my...”

  For an infinitesimal second, the smile slipped from his face, and his jaw clamped down. She reached him and cupped his jaw. If a week was all he was going to give her, she didn’t want to spend it fighting with him. “I know you think I need someone to take care of me. But I don’t, okay? I couldn’t bear it if anyone...repeated or even speculated like that reporter. I—”

  He nodded and kissed her into silence in the dimly lit corridor. She laughed as he drew back with a groan. “The sooner I get you on the plane, the sooner I can ravish you all over again.”

  His words sent tingles over her skin. Within minutes, they were standing in front of her building. Dawn was just a few minutes away, and it streaked the sky orange. She shivered and pulled the lapels of her thin sweatshirt together and made a face at him.

  He pulled her into the warmth of his arms and checked the silver Rolex on his wrist. “Carlos will be here any minute and then we’ll be off.”

  She made a face like a petulant child. “I don’t understand why we have to leave so early.”

  “This way, we can leave before the wolves are out, before there’s even a chance of anyone—”

  She paled at his words and he tugged her even closer, forcing her to look at him. “I’m sorry, I wish there wasn’t any need to skulk around like this, I wish I could... But with things the way they are, I don’t want to risk anything. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Olivia nodded and burrowed into him, striving to compose herself, to keep the misery crawling up her throat locked tight. Here she was again, scuttling in the dark with a lover...

  Was she being selfish if she wanted an open relationship? One where she could just be herself, one where she could shout to the world that someone as honorable as Alexander wanted to be with her?

  What was she doing? Why was she prolonging the moment of utter agony? Was she really stupid enough to hope that something would change in a week? That Alexander would suddenly open up himself to what he felt about her?

  Her stomach fell endlessly at the thought of never seeing him again, never touching him.

  With every breath in her she wanted to go, she wanted to steal the week with him. But how could she settle for something less than she deserved? And this time, she wasn’t naive, stupid to believe that if she just went along, if she did everything right, maybe, then maybe her love would be returned.

  Alexander was never going to change his mind, never going to give things between them a chance.

  He had shown her everything she could be, everything she already was and he would walk away without a backward glance. Her stomach became a mass of pain. She wanted to cry, rage at him, at herself.

  And as much as she wished, she couldn’t revert back to type, she couldn’t reverse the knowledge that she deserved better.

  She couldn’t deceive herself, even for him.

  “Alexander.” She clasped the granite jaw with her hands, forcing the words past her throat, her body trembling with pain. Pain at what she was going to do. “I can’t do this, I can’t go with you.”

  Olivia’s words were barely a whisper, yet it shook everything within Alexander.

  “Look at me,” he said, frustration coursing through him. Why couldn’t she, for once, do as he said without argument?

  He thought she would resist but she didn’t. Her face was pale, and a sheen of tears glimmered in her gaze that knocked the breath out of him. “Damn it, Liv.”

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”

  He looked into her beautiful brown eyes, and the depth of emotion in hers sent a cold chill over his skin. His stomach churned with a viciousness he couldn’t stop. He moved his finger to her mouth, but she pushed it away and dropped a kiss into his palm. Because when had anything stopped Olivia?

  She wrapped her hand around his face and kissed him, the press of her lips against his soft and warm. A tiny smile, full of emotion curved her mouth. “I’m in love with you.”

  There was no recrimination in those words, no anguish, just simple acceptance. Yet they dealt a blow to his solar plexus, leaving him winded, battered. He pulled his hands from her face. What could he say to her? He’d come back, he’d stayed last night knowing that it was wrong. “Don’t do this, Liv. Don’t push this on me. I told you—”

  “I don’t want anything from you. Don’t you get it? I love you despite knowing that you’ll never admit to feeling something for me, knowing that you’ll never give us a chance, that at the end of this week, you’ll wipe me from your mind. I can’t help how I feel. I wish I could change that, I want to shut it down like you do because it hurts so much. But I am what I am.”

  In the back of his mind, he’d known all along it would come to this. Olivia did nothing in half measures, her heart engaged in everything she did. Yet he’d ignored what he’d known, because he’d been weak. And now he was going to break her heart.

  He felt like the lowest scum on earth. He wrenched the words from somewhere deep within, a place where he didn’t want to look at again. He turned away from her. “I have nothing to give you, Liv.”

  Her hands crept over his shoulder, kneading and pressing the muscles there. An all-too-familiar hunger rose in his belly as she pressed her forehead against his nape and kissed him. “You really don’t think it works like that, do you? There’s no way out of this for me.” Her hands wrapped around him, she pressed herself to him. Everything within him quaked, his gut clenched, rebelled.

  Her hug said it all, everything she was—giving, open— and everything he had trained himself to not want, to not need.

  “You’re so b
ent on not letting anything Isabella did to you linger, don’t you see you’re letting her win, letting her influence how you live your life?”

  “That’s not going to work on me.” He stiffened. It felt like needles had clawed under his skin, making every word hard to say, but he pushed it out. “I don’t want this, Olivia. I don’t want to feel anything, I can’t take it.”

  Anger flashed in her gaze. She pushed away his hands and wiped the tears from her face. “Then, leave now, when I still have the strength to push you away.”

  He wanted to argue, he wanted to shove her words from his mind. He dropped a kiss to her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. He crushed her mouth with his, her soft moan rumbling inside him. He couldn’t help himself. He’d already fallen in his own eyes, so what did it matter?

  He bent and kissed the pulse drumming at her neck, knowing that it would drive her crazy. Her moan fueled him, bringing down the last ounce of sanity within him.

  Something prickled at his nape, and he turned to the other side. A flash went on, a flare of light in the dark of dawn, blinding him.

  Fury pumped through him and he turned to shield Liv with his body, but it was too late. A rabid look in his eyes, the reporter clicked a few more times and then disappeared into the dark, before Alexander could even move. His reflexes were slow, as though his mind couldn’t comprehend the horror of what had happened.

  Silence had never seemed so deafening, so cold that his skin prickled. He felt her hand on his shoulder but he didn’t turn. If he did, he didn’t know what he would do. He swallowed past the mass of fury thrashing in his throat. He raked his hand through his hair, tension vibrating through every inch of him. His hands shook, his muscles burned with fury.

  He cursed, even though it did nothing to alleviate the fury coursing through him. Guilt coiled through him, gaining a foothold over his insides. He was responsible for this.

  He should’ve never forgotten her struggle yesterday with the paparazzi. He had stayed knowing he was putting everything he’d worked for over the past twelve years at risk and he’d done it, anyway.