Her caution melted away. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her hands hard against my skull, pulling me closer and closer. When my hands slipped under her t-shirt, she didn’t try to push them away. And when I lifted her shirt, she raised her arms, let me tug the thin material from her body, heat in her hooded eyes as she stared down at me for the second it took to remove the shirt. I bit her throat, nibbled at the soft skin that led down to her collarbone, my body aching to touch her, to taste her, everywhere.
Her bra was no obstacle, slipping from her breasts the moment the last hook was removed. Her nipple, hard and elongated, rolled perfectly between my tongue and teeth, making her moan softly. Her breasts were so full. They were beautiful breasts that were made to be touched, to be suckled, to be loved. I took my time, enjoying the taste and feel of them. Loving the soft sounds that fell from her lips.
And then I slowly began to make my way down the length of her, kissing her soft, rounded belly, teasing her navel with little licks of my tongue. She ran her fingers over my head, tugging at the back of my shirt, trying to lift it even as she lost herself in the pleasure my touch was sending through the length of her perfect body.
I lay her down against the couch cushions, tearing my shirt off my body as I lay with her, stealing her lips again. She welcomed me, her body wrapping around mine like a glove on a hand. I tugged at her pants, slipping a hand down the front of her tight little shorts, searching for her beautifully shaved cunt, the memory of it burned in my mind. Not many men could say their first sight of their woman was of her naked body sprawled on a huge bed with a camera capturing every movement. That was a sight I would never forget.
Was that why I wanted her so badly? Because I’d seen her that way? Because there was something in the back of my mind that felt the need to take what a whole demographic of men wanted but couldn’t have? Did it matter?
She lifted her hips, giving me access to her erotic body, moaning again when my fingertip brushed against her puffy lips. Her clit was so swollen, so thick, sticking out from her labia like the tip of a pencil eraser. I rolled it between my fingers and she cried out, arching hard up against me. I let it go in favor of sliding two fingers inside of her, pressing the ball of my hand against the gorgeous clit. She broke our kiss, breathing so hard that I thought for a minute she might come just from that simple touch.
She was pushing me toward that cliff, the one that tips men past their limit of control. I’d needed her before, but now it was a brush fire that was consuming everything inside of me. Being inside of her was my only focus now. I tugged at her shorts and tried to pull them out of the way, but they fit her curves a little too closely, a little too tightly. They wouldn’t budge.
“Slow,” she whispered, pressing a finger against my lips.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
She smiled, just briefly. There was something dark in that smile that put just a little bit of the fire out. I pulled back, sitting up again.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” She climbed into my lap, her hands moving almost affectionately over my face. “Please don’t apologize.”
She lifted her arms and tugged the elastic from her hair, letting her long hair fall around her face. It bounced like a yo-yo at the end of its string. I ran my fingers through it, careful not to tangle them in the curls. She smiled a more genuine smile, her fingers brushing my lips.
“Why you?” she asked, her thumb tracing the line of my bottom lip. “Why me?”
“I don’t know.” I tugged her down to me. “But I want you.”
“Me? Or that woman you saw in the studio?”
I could have lied. I could have told her what she wanted to hear. But I knew instinctively that that wasn’t what she wanted.
“Both.”
She looked me in the eye for a long second, then she kissed me again, biting my lip almost painfully.
“Then you’ll get both.”
She climbed off my lap and tugged her shorts from her hips, pushing them with this erotic little shimmy of her hips until they were sliding down her shapely thighs. And then her panties, these lacy, barely there, panties. In just a moment, she stood before me completely naked, her eyes turned away as she allowed me a few minutes to take in every inch.
I stood and took her face between my hands.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said, forcing her to look at me. “So fucking perfect.”
She tried to shake her head, but I wouldn’t let her.
“I don’t care about the past. I don’t care what you had to do to survive. All I care about is this moment. All I want is the woman who’s standing in front of me right now.”
I lifted her up and carried her down the hall to the bedroom she chose as her own. We fell to the bed, and I kissed her again, taking my sweet time, exploring every inch of her lovely mouth. Then I worked my way slowly down her body, running my fingertips over her ribs, her hips, urging her thighs apart and touching her clit, making her arch her back again. She tasted like honey, like vanilla and every other sweet, warm taste I’d ever had the pleasure of running over my tongue. She moved her hips and encouraged me to touch all the places that offered her the most, those deep places that made her groan deep in her throat. When her orgasm was close, when her fingers were buried against my skull, when her body was as tight as a string on a guitar, I slid up the length of her and pressed my hard cock against her sweet opening. She immediately loosened her hips, welcoming me to her like an old friend come for a long overdue visit.
She was tight…so much tighter than I’d expected. Her body took me in, her moisture helping with the friction, but there was so much friction. I had to close my eyes and count to ten, grasping for control with fingers that were quickly losing the ability to grasp. She lifted her hips and…oh, hell!
We lay still for a long moment. I don’t know who began to move first, but I was rocking my hips, and she was moaning, and it was intense. I lifted her ass to my hips and we rocked, finding a quick, easy rhythm. She wrapped her legs around me, her fingers digging into my flesh. We were both lost in the waves of pleasure that rushed through our bodies. I knew the instant she jumped, the moment she went over the cliff. Her movements stopped and her body stiffened, a silent scream slipping from her lips. Her cunt wrapped itself tight around me, her muscles moving in this slow, easy stroke that was almost more than my overtaxed mind could take. I lost it, exploding inside of her before I could catch my breath.
She buried her face against my shoulder as we both floated back to earth the way a feather falls from the sky. I felt the moisture of her tears, but I didn’t try to console her, and I didn’t ask what it was all about. I knew what it was about. And I knew—maybe I’d known all along—that this wasn’t temporary for her. This was new. It was an experience she’d never known before, the beginning of something better.
I smoothed my hand over her forehead and kissed her, stealing her lips again with less determination than before. But then the heat ignited again and the passion came back. She tightened her hold on me, her hands exploring the length of my back. We found our rhythm again, never speaking a single word to each other, never wondering if this was the right thing to do. It was right for now—and that was all that mattered.
We’d deal with the consequences later.
Chapter 9
Quinn
I woke to the sound of Olivia’s laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her laugh like that. I wanted to surround myself in the sound, but stay in the cocoon of the bed, Vincent’s smell still surrounding me, his fingerprints still on my skin.
This was what happiness must feel like.
I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, watching the sun chase the shadows across the room. My body was sore in places that had been sore before, but a dark sort of sore. This…this was a good kind of sore. This was the memory of pleasure like I’d never known before. The way his hands moved over my skin. The way his lips seemed to worship my flesh. No one
had ever taken their time with me like that before. No one had ever cared about my pleasure the way he had. This…finally I understood why women wanted this. Why they waited for their prince to come.
I knew Vincent wasn’t my prince. I wasn’t going to let one night of the unimaginable delude me into thinking he would be more than temporary. But at least I had a little taste of what existed outside of my little world of sex and lies and fetishes.
I slowly dragged myself out of bed and took a quick shower, regret rushing through me as his scent was replaced by the vanilla of my bodywash. I dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, tugging my hair back into a loose braid. When I stepped out onto the back deck, I saw that Vincent and Olivia were playing in the ocean, dancing with the waves that were washing over their ankles.
“Hey!”
Olivia waved, a huge grin on her face. Vincent paused to look at me, his hand lifted in a greeting that seemed hesitant. But then Olivia splashed him, and he went back to chasing her through the water.
There was fruit and coffee set out on the glass-topped table. I poured myself a cup and sat back, watching them play, pretending for a minute that we were a family and this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe someday I might actually find a man I could introduce to Olivia. Maybe we could be a family someday.
Maybe.
Vincent left his cell phone on the table, and it began to ring. I reached for it, but then pulled my hand away like it was radioactive and I’d just realized it. There was a woman’s face smiling on the screen, a beautiful brunette with dark eyes fringed by long, thick lashes. Callie calling, the phone announced.
Who was Callie?
Was I really jealous? I was. He’d been in my bed not three hours ago. I think I had a little bit of a right to be jealous.
The phone stopped ringing. I didn’t bother to call to him and let him know it had rung at all. But then it rang again and Megan’s face filled the screen. I picked it up and walked to the railing.
“Megan Bradford!”
Vincent untangled himself from Olivia and ran up to the railing, touching my fingers when he slipped the phone from my hand.
“Vulture,” I heard him say as he walked away, slipping around the side of the house.
Olivia stood in the water and watched him disappear. Then she slowly came up to the deck and fell into a chair, sinking so far down that she was barely on the seat at all.
“What’s the matter?”
“I want Vincent to play with me.”
“He’s on the phone.”
“I know. But can’t he ignore the phone for a little while? Who is Megan anyway? Is she his girlfriend?”
“No, baby. She’s his boss.”
Olivia’s eyes lit just a little. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Can cousins get married?”
I nearly spit the coffee I’d just sipped. I sat up straighter and stared at my daughter.
“What?”
“Can cousins get married?”
“Olivia—”
“I like Vincent. Do you think he likes me, too?”
“I think he adores you.”
“Do you think he’d wait for me? We could get married when I turn thirteen.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Or maybe I wanted to sob. I wasn’t quite sure.
“Vincent is a grown man, Olivia. And you’re a child.”
“But I won’t be a child forever.”
“No. But when you get older, you’ll find someone else, someone closer to your age.”
“But I want Vincent to stay. I want him to be my friend forever.”
“That might not be possible. But you don’t have to get married to be friends forever.”
Olivia sat up a little straighter. “Sara said her mom married her new husband because they were friends and they wanted to be friends forever.”
“That’s just Sara’s mom’s way of explaining why she divorced her dad.”
“Oh.” Olivia looked toward the side of the house where Vincent had disappeared. “How come we don’t have any other family? Vincent has a brother and two sisters and a mom and dad. But all I have is you.”
“Is that so bad?”
“No. But it would be cool if I had a brother to play with.”
“You want a brother? What about a sister?”
“That’d be cool, too.”
I laughed. “You are an interesting kid. You know that?”
“But seriously…”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, baby. It’s just the luck of the draw sometimes. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“What about my grandma and grandpa?”
We’d talked about this before, but it was several years ago. Olivia didn’t seem to remember what I’d told her. I wasn’t even sure what I’d told her.
“My dad left the family when I was young.”
“Like my dad?”
It was like someone had just emptied a pot of boiling water over my head. I could feel my cheeks flush, and I could feel heat prickling just under my scalp.
“Olivia…”
“Hey, where’d my swim partner run off to?”
Vincent suddenly asked, sneaking up behind Olivia and tickling her sides. She laughed, leaning back into him for a minute before jumping out of the chair and racing for the stairs.
“I’ll beat you!”
“Thank you,” I mouthed to him. He winked, then chased after Olivia.
I took the food and dishes into the kitchen and washed up, putting everything back to where we’d found it. Then I just sort of wandered around the house, wondering about the woman who owned the place. One of the production assistants recommended Dragon Security when she overheard me talking about the weird letters I was getting. She said that it was owned by a former Marine and that she hired only ex-military. She said that an actress she worked with a lot had gotten similar letters and they made the guy stop. But that, other than the fact that they had good reviews on Yelp and didn’t have any bad marks on the Better Business Bureau’s website, was all I knew about her when I first called them. Megan had explained the way her agency worked, but I knew nothing about her personal life.
Did she share this house with someone? Did she have someone to go to every night? Did she have children? Did she spend her holidays around a big family table? Did she know what love felt like?
There were few pictures in the house. Very little in the way of personal belongings. However, we had respected the master bedroom and stayed away from it. I was curious, but not enough to invade her personal space.
To be honest, I was curious because of how she looked yesterday morning when she came to the hotel. There was a weariness about her that was familiar. And the way she looked at Vincent as she explained the situation to him…there was something about it. A sadness that spoke to my experiences. It made me wonder how a woman who could afford a house like this could seem so unhappy.
But, again, I could afford this house—probably—and my life wasn’t exactly all champagne and chocolates.
I guess money didn’t automatically make everything better. It’d given me the opportunity to give Olivia the kind of life I’d wanted when I was a child, but it didn’t make life any easier. It didn’t make what I did for the money any easier to live with, but it made looking into my daughter’s eyes much easier.
To a certain degree.
Olivia came running into the house, laughing.
“Vincent is racing me to the showers. He said the first one who is clean and ready to go gets to pick where we have lunch.”
She was breathless and running so fast that she barely missed stubbing her toe on the doorframe. But she made it and she was in the shower before Vincent even appeared at the back door. He was wet, and there was sand stuck to one arm and most of his back.
“Did she come through here?”
“She did. And I think she won your little bet.”
He smiled, a cocky smile that said more than any w
ords he might have tried to give life to at that moment. And then his eyes moved slowly over me, and he quickly sobered.
“We’re going home?”
He nodded. “They put in the security system.”
“Good.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded me from under those impossibly long eyelashes. “They still don’t have a clue who did this. He didn’t leave a single fingerprint, and there were no shoe prints, or anything else that might help identify him. But Megan has a couple of guys working on it, and she hopes they’ll figure this out pretty soon.”
“As long as Olivia’s safe.”
“I’ll make sure.”
I knew I could trust him. The memory of his touch was still so warm in my mind. I knew he would protect Olivia no matter what happened. And that was all that really mattered to me.
Chapter 10
Vincent
We pulled up to a small diner along the side of the highway, Olivia bouncing on the seat behind us.
“They have sundaes, Mommy!”
“Okay, baby. But you have to have something halfway healthy first.”
“Like what?”
“Like a sandwich. A bowl of fruit, maybe.”
“Okay.”
We climbed out of the car, Olivia insinuating herself between Quinn and me as we walked to the front doors. But Quinn stopped short, chewing on her lips as she read something on the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes focusing on me as much as Olivia. “We can’t eat here.”
“Why not?” Olivia demanded, a little bit of a whine to her voice.
Quinn pointed to a sign on the door. “They use peanut oil. You know I’m allergic.”
“But can’t you just eat some fruit?”
“You know that the oil gets into everything, baby. We’ve had this conversation before.”
“But you have your medicine.”
“I don’t, actually.”
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