by Diana Gardin
Frank simply stared at her triumphantly. He knew he had her.
“I’ll think about it,” Hope finally said, the sour taste of defeat and shame threatening to bring her lunch back up from her stomach.
“You should,” said Frank. “Not for too long, though. I think by your shift next weekend, you should be able to tell me something.”
Hope had only nodded.
The dark memory subsided as Reed pushed through the hotel room door, pulling a cart with their luggage.
He unloaded it, placed the cart in the hallway, and then joined her at the window. He put his arms around her from behind, and she sank back into his firm chest gratefully.
“Hey,” he said softly. He turned her around in his arms to face him. “You’re trembling. What’s wrong?”
She hadn’t realized her thoughts had resulted in tremors, and she tried to take a deep breath to get a hold of herself. She shook her head and tried to smile up at him. “I’m fine.”
It was a lie, and Reed knew it. “You’re not. We don’t have to share a room. We can go to dinner, and afterward I can grab another room for myself on this floor. There’s no pressure here, Hope.”
She took another deep breath to steel herself. It wasn’t fair to Reed, she knew. But next week, there was a good chance she was going to have to sell her soul to the devil himself. And if that was going to happen, she was going to live as fully as she could until every last ounce of her old self was gone. Starting now. Tonight. With Reed.
“I don’t want my own room, Reed. I’m glad I’m here with you. And I want you to know that what I said before, about us slowing things down, I’m done with it. I realize now that what we have isn’t just physical, that I can talk with you and laugh with you and tell you…things. Tonight, all my cards are on the table. And we can order dinner in.”
Eighteen
The muted, deeply buried sense of desperation in her voice was back. And if Reed were a better guy, he’d try harder to dig deeper, delve further beneath the surface to find out exactly what caused it and how they could overcome it together before he made any kind of move.
But I’m not a better guy. I’m just a guy.
And he had never wanted anything in his entire life like he wanted Hope at that moment.
The setting was perfect. The luxury hotel room was something out of a romance movie, and Hope couldn’t have picked a better moment, a better place, to let her walls come crumbling down around them.
He’d watched those walls. He’d waited for them to fall. He’d removed one small brick at a time, one painstaking block of distrust and prejudgment after the other in order to get to this moment.
The moment when she said yes.
Yes to him, yes to them, yes to what they could be.
His eyes were glued to her face, watching for some sign that she wasn’t really ready for this, that she was feeling pressure from him.
She stared right back, her steady, warm hazel eyes moist with promise and emotion.
“Are you—” Reed’s voice was barely there, dry and scratchy, as though he’d just walked ten miles through the desert without a drop to drink. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Are you sure? Because Hope, you know I want to—”
She cut him off with an impatient shake of her head. And with that one movement, he was silent. Silent and diminished, small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. Or large enough to rain thunder upon the hotel with only his voice because of what Hope Dawson was currently doing to him.
She ripped her shirt over her head with a movement so swift, he hadn’t even known it was coming. The beautiful piece of red fabric wrapping around her body beneath let Reed know that for Hope, this had always been a possibility. He’d come on this trip not even daring to dream she’d be ready for this kind of intimacy, but he’d been wrong.
Because now her hands were darting dangerously low, scraping against her flat, bronze belly, past the shining bar glittering softly at her navel and unbuttoning her jean shorts.
His eyes were riveted to her hands as they slowly slid down the zipper of the shorts and caught just a glimpse of the fire-colored panties beneath as she paused to kick off her Chucks. Which, he’d never told her, were the sexiest piece of footwear a woman like her could don in front of him.
When she had them off, her hands returned to her zipper, made quick work of it, and slipped steady fingers beneath the tops of the shorts to slip them down, down, down her curved hips and over her smooth thighs, and that was as far as Reed got before his mind snapped sharply into gear. He realized he’d been standing still the entire time she’d performed a not-so-subtle striptease in front of him, in his hotel room.
Their hotel room.
He moved, coming forward against her quickly enough to back her up, and he kept going until her skin was pressing against the cool glass of the window to the twinkling city beneath them. He was close enough to her that her breasts were pushing against his chest, her stomach flush against his midsection. Her eyes widened when he ground against her, letting her feel the erection that was struggling for freedom against his jeans.
“Hey, Hope?” he said, his voice low and dangerous now, where before it had been gentle and soft.
She looked up at him with big eyes, and he watched her tongue dance across her lips. He restrained himself from bending his head to capture that mouth, just for the time being.
“Yes?”
“I’m not the kind of man who lets a woman strip in front of him with no gratification of her own. You know that, right?”
She nodded quickly, and cleared her throat. “I just wanted to get the ball rolling.”
A flash of heat engulfed him in a burning flame of desire, and he fought against it. This was Hope, and he had to control it. He had to take it slow, give her every form of pleasure in the process that he could muster. Because after tonight, he wasn’t letting this woman go anywhere. Unless he was walking right beside her.
“It’s rolling,” he whispered beside her ear. He let his hands slip down her sides as he leaned closer and kissed the spot beneath her ear. She gasped, and a violent shiver rocked her body against the window. He smiled; usually sex was very…mechanical. He went in with the intention of getting the girl off and getting himself off and getting the hell out. Or getting her the hell out.
This was so totally different he almost needed a map to navigate the situation.
Almost.
Sliding farther down her body, he paused with his lips pressed against the swell of her breasts in order to enjoy the lushness of her sweet skin. He cupped their weight in his hands, and she arched her back, a moan escaping her parted lips. She tilted her head back against the window and closed her eyes.
“No,” he ordered gently, placing a kiss on her jaw. “Eyes on me, baby. You’re gonna wanna watch this.”
She snapped her head back up, and he drank in the sight of her glazed eyes attempting to focus on him. He smirked at her and moved his hands down to squeeze her backside. It was round and smooth and perfect, just like the rest of her.
Her scent was nearly driving him to the point of no return, although he was keeping the insanity under lock and key as he allowed his lips and his tongue to travel south. He stopped again at her navel, darting his tongue out of his mouth to delve into the center; he tasted the cool metal of the body jewelry.
“This new?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Didn’t know how you’d handle a piercing and my”—she moaned again as his tongue scraped against flesh—“tattoos.”
Now he stopped altogether and pulled back. Disbelieving, he said, “I’m sorry. Did you say tattoos? Plural?”
She crushed her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded. The discomfort on her face was clear; she wanted him to continue his journey, but she didn’t know how to request it.
So he smiled up at her and tugged the silver bar between his teeth and she jerked again with the pleasure of it. “Hope? Did you want me to stop here at this pretty pierc
ing, or do you want me to go further?”
She mumbled something unclear, and he shook his head. “I couldn’t hear that, beautiful.”
“Keep going,” she gasped.
Smiling, he moved his hands around her hips to grasp the crimson piece of fabric that was being used as a poor excuse for underwear and tugged downward.
Ah. There was surprise number two. A tiny drawing of a rising sun was inked on her supple skin just beneath her hip bone.
Reed swallowed. He was trying desperately to remain calm enough in this situation not to scare Hope off, but damn. And shit and fuck. Because that tiny tattoo tucked away in a place where only he could see it was causing his dick to throb harder inside his pants.
He kissed the ink, tracing it with his tongue, and Hope’s tiny whimper drew his eyes up to her face once more. Goddamn. Her skin is so damn sweet. Her eyes were focused on him, but just barely. She tugged a handful of his hair in each hand, and he kept eye contact with her as he traced a line around the sun with his tongue once more. She shivered, and his fingers dug roughly into her skin as he quelled his own reaction to her undeniable pleasure.
“Reed,” she rasped, her eyes silently begging.
“Yeah, baby,” he responded. “I know what you want. I’m getting there.”
She nodded and writhed her hips against his head, which nearly caused him to grab her in his arms and drag her onto the enormous bed, but he refrained. Because this time was about her.
Pulling the panties down and over her shapely legs, he allowed her to step out of them. He placed the material in his pocket.
“Hope,” he said, glancing up at her again. She looked down at him.
“I want you naked. Unhook your bra and drop it on the floor for me.”
She lazily reached up and did as she was told, and he watched intently as the gorgeous weight of her breasts popped free of their restraint. He swallowed thickly, wishing suddenly that he’d spent more time up there. But there was always later.
He used one hand to reach up and squeeze her right breast, rubbing a circle around her hardened nipple with his thumb. Then he used his other hand to trace a line from her tattoo to her dripping folds. His own personal playground.
“Oh, my God,” she cried as his fingers slid over her flesh. He released his own groan of need and want and fuck, pure, animalistic desire as her hips bucked against his face.
“Oh, so that’s it,” he said, his voice so strained it sounded foreign to even his own ears. “That’s what you want?”
She looked directly into his eyes and tugged on his hair just hard enough to let him know she was serious. “You know what I want, Reed.”
“Hell, yes, I do,” he said, his own need evident in the deep husk of his voice. “Let me give it to you.”
He pursed his lips and blew. His cool breath against her warm center wracked her body with delicious shivers and he held her tightly against him as he slowly dabbed her swollen clit with his tongue. She lost the use of her legs as her knees buckled beneath her, and his name was an almost incoherent whisper from her mouth.
He caught her by the waist, picked her up easily, and carried her to the bed. He saw her chest heave with a sigh of relief, but he chuckled and removed his T-shirt.
“No, baby,” he said. “I’m not done with you yet.”
The desire was crystal clear in her eyes as she watched him undress, sliding out of his shoes, jeans, and boxer-briefs easily before kneeling in front of the bed and pulling her by the thighs down to meet him.
“Lay back,” he demanded. She did, resting on her elbows.
“Please, Reed,” she whispered. Her breathing was ragged, and her hips kept twitching restlessly.
“You don’t have to beg, baby,” he answered. “You never have to beg.”
And he plunged his tongue deep inside of her, opening her up and sweeping across her center with an aggression that sent her hips rocketing for the ceiling and her fingers clawing at the down comforter. He risked a glance at her face; her eyes were rolled back and his name was falling freely from her parted lips. His erection throbbed impatiently; if he hadn’t been fully at attention before, he definitely was now.
“Reed, Reed, Reed,” panted Hope. “God, Reed.”
He wanted to drag her so close to the edge of reality that it would only take one thrust from him to send her reeling over the edge of it, and he could tell from her voice that’s exactly where she was. Shit, he was damn near there himself. He rose from his knees and climbed on top of her; she opened her eyes and stared at him pleadingly.
“Hold on, gorgeous,” he said, reaching for his jeans. “Let me get a condom.”
She caught hold of his hand as he reached down.
“No,” she said, shaking her head fervently. “I don’t want it.”
“Hope, we can’t—” he began, caught off guard.
“We can,” she cut him off. “I’m on the pill. We can.”
Reed hesitated. He hadn’t been with anyone since he met Hope, couldn’t even if he had tried. And he made it a regular part of his health routine to get checked out. He could read it in her eyes how much she wanted this.
“Why, Hope?” he asked.
“I don’t know when we’ll get the chance again,” she said softly, closing her eyes. “I want you. Just you.”
How could he argue? How was he ever going to be able to argue with the beautiful creature lying bare beneath him, with all of her beauty, and sorrow, and perfection?
“Okay,” he said, easing down on top of her. He wasn’t prepared for how her slick softness would feel against his own throbbing erection, and his groan of blissful delight as he rubbed against her was mingled with her sharp cry. He knew how close he’d brought her to ecstasy, and now the frenzy took over. He wanted so badly to watch her face when she fell apart.
“You ready for this?” he asked. He just needed to hear it one more time; that she wanted him, that she was ready, that this was going to happen and she was fully on board with the game plan.
Just like earlier, she didn’t answer with her voice, she answered with her actions.
She pushed her hips against Reed until just the tip of his erection was pressing into her entrance. His eyes drifted closed, and it was her turn to prompt him to keep them open. He did, focusing on her green-brown eyes and her cascades of dark hair splayed out against the pillow.
Angelic. That was the only word for how she looked at that moment. She needed him when he came into her life, needed him for her own survival at that moment. But somewhere along the way, the tables had turned, and now he needed her. Much more than she knew, he needed her. Maybe he’d saved her once, but she was saving him every day now, the closer they grew to becoming what he now knew they would one day be.
He was falling deeper into Hope, deeper than he’d ever been.
Now, at this precipice, he just needed to take the leap. Once he jumped, he would be hers. Whether they were ready for what was to come next or not, this one moment would change everything for them both. He knew it like he knew the color of the sky, or the letters in his name.
He jumped.
They shared a cry of joy, of the most painful pleasure either of them had ever endured as he filled her up completely with one measured stroke. He slid back out, and their matched exhalation mingled in the air around them. She was trembling. He was trembling, too, but he didn’t break eye contact. He couldn’t look away now even if he tried.
She clenched around him as he pushed back inside, deeper this time than the first time, and her voice escaped in a soft, pleading whimper. “Reed.”
A thin sheen of sweat covered them both, and their hips joined up perfectly as their bodies found a matched rhythm. His chest ached at how softly and sweetly she gasped his name against his shoulder, her hips rising up to meet his. His arms held him hovering above her, but the muscles began to shake as her tremors vibrated beneath him.
Her eyes burned the brightest shade of green they’d ever been, hardly any b
rown at all, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.
“Don’t do that, Hope,” he ordered. “If you want to scream my damn name loud enough for this entire Four Seasons Hotel to hear, then you damn well better do it. Because they all need to know that I’m here, and you’re mine.”
That was all it took to send her off spiraling toward the moon, and he watched her in wonder as she drifted back down to the earth from the heavens above, where he was starting to suspect she really belonged.
“Oh, fuck,” she moaned.
That was all it took for Reed. Hope uttering the word fuck out of her perfect mouth somehow sent him roaring out of control. He pumped harder, faster into her, over and over again until his own release mingled with hers inside of her. Tremors rocked him as he lowered himself on top of her, her name just a breath off of his lips as he finished.
It took everything he had, every single bit of self-possession, not to utter the very scariest, most terrifying, three little words in the universe into her ear.
He felt it, but saying it would break everything. He knew that. So he kissed her neck, her shoulder, and then her soft, red, luscious lips.
But he said nothing.
Nineteen
He had called her baby. She let Reed call her baby, something she never wanted any man before him to do.
And she liked it.
She’d had sex before, with a boy she dated in high school. But she’d obviously never made love. Because, as she watched Reed doze peacefully beside her in their beautiful hotel room bed, she was sure there was no other explanation for what they’d just done.
Twice.
Never in her entire life had she been worshipped the way Reed had just worshipped her. Never had she been savored, tasted, delivered soundly into orgasmic oblivion the way Reed just did to her. Her body was humming in pure delight, aching in the loveliest way, singing in perfect attunement with the beautiful man lying next to her.