Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book

by Tracey Alvarez

Susie bit her lip and looked down. Had he been waiting for her to return?

  James casually hooked an elbow over the chair behind him and turned away to talk to Cassandra. Everything he did, Susie suddenly realized, was done with an air of control and ease, done with the need to hide. He’d hidden the fact that he’d been depressed from just about everyone, including his own family. What else had he been hiding? Did he truly regret what had passed between them all those years ago? And, if he did, what difference did it make to her now? She’d created a life for her and for Tom. Was she going to just sit back and allow it all to be taken away from her now?

  Then she made a mistake. As the conversation drifted on to other subjects, James looked at her and didn’t look away. She tried to breathe normally, she tried, really tried, to tear her eyes away from that hot, melting gaze, but her heart raced and her body reacted as if his hands were caressing her skin, as if his lips were on hers. How the hell was she going to keep her distance from him? She knew there was no long-term place for James in her life, she knew she simply couldn’t risk her and Tom’s livelihoods. And she also knew it was too late to risk her heart. They might not have tomorrow, but they had tonight.

  “Fancy a walk?”

  Susie shivered in anticipation at James’s whispered words, nodded and rose out of her chair. Dinner had seemed interminable despite the great company and wonderful food. Because with every passing moment, the tension within her twisted and tightened until she could hardly sit still in her chair, aware as she was of every movement, of every word James uttered. He’d been seated opposite her and their heated gaze had clashed with increasing frequency and intensity as the night continued, until the need to be alone with him had become overwhelming.

  He opened the door and she stepped outside and inhaled the fragrant, still warm, air. There was no sound of civilization to shatter the peace, only the occasional eerie call of an owl and the rustle of the leaves of the stately lime trees that lined the drive. “It’s so beautiful here. And quiet.”

  “You’re used to the ever-present sound of the sea, I guess,” said James putting his arm around her waist. “Come on, let’s explore.”

  They walked in silence around the pool, through a small gate, and crunched their way down shell paths that were bright under the solar lights that hung above them in the gently swaying trees. They stopped at the edge of the trees where the view opened out to a field of vines.

  James turned Susie within his arms. His dark hair and clothes blended into the dark trees and sky behind him but she could see his face and eyes, and she could see his expression—hungry and restrained at the same time. The breath left her body as if she’d been winded and she inhaled the warm night air, willing for calm, willing herself not to be drawn into him and devoured by him, not to lose herself in him.

  But her will dissolved as soon as his fingers splayed out around her hips and lower, and pulled her tight up against him. She didn’t pull away. His hands and body warmed hers with a heat she suddenly desperately wanted. She slipped her hands around his back—molding her palms to the contours of his body beneath the thin shirt—and breathed in his masculine scent. She brushed his collar to one side with her lips to inhale him more deeply. The movement of his hands over her body sent delicious sensations skittering erratically through her body. She shivered.

  “Cold?” He whispered against her hair.

  “Yes. No.” She sighed, shaking her head, bewildered. “I have no idea.”

  He laughed and pulled her closer to him. She nestled her head against his chest and his arms wrapped around her until she could feel every part of his body, hot against hers.

  “Were you waiting for me, James? At Glencoe. After you left university?”

  “Of course. I couldn’t find you and I knew how much you loved Glencoe. You’d always said your future was there. So I waited for you. But you never came.”

  The thought of him waiting, and her not knowing, devastated her. She turned her face against his chest and groaned, her hands moving onto his body, around the smooth texture of his shirt until they met at his back. “I didn’t know.” She looked up to him, and they were so close, breathing in each other’s scent, each other’s breath. He cupped her face and drew it tenderly closer to his. “Oh, James,” she whispered. “What a mess. What a waste.” Her heart ached for what might have been. Their eyes locked. All she could see was the need, her need, reflected in his eyes, lit by the twinkling lights in the trees overhead.

  “I’ve missed you, Susie.”

  He didn’t move but she stretched up and touched his lips with her own. “And I’ve missed you,” she whispered. Suddenly his mouth was upon hers, claiming it with a kiss that swept away the remnants of her doubts and transported her into a place she hadn’t dared dream about for ten long years.

  Everything around them receded into some distant place that held no significance beside the exquisite tenderness of his lips on hers. It was all she could feel, all she could taste and all her body needed, brought together in that one kiss. His tongue barely swept her own, his lips were soft. There was no taking in the kiss, only giving. Slowly he pulled away and brought her hands up to his lips. He kissed the tips of her fingers in turn and then kept them pressed against his lips as he looked into her eyes.

  “I need you, Susie.”

  She knew exactly what he meant because she felt it too. This wasn’t a time for words of love, for words of promises, for…words at all. There was only an essential need. And that, they both shared.

  He put his hand protectively around her shoulders and they began to walk away from where the family were congregated to the back of the house, to where the French windows of Susie’s bedroom could clearly be seen, open and welcoming.

  “James!” Cassandra’s voice floated out across the still night air.

  James winced. “It’s Cassandra. You go on and I’ll go and say goodnight to everyone. I’ll join you in a moment.”

  He kissed her lightly on the lips and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. She watched him disappear inside the high vaulted living room, whose windows were open onto the balmy night, before stepping inside her room.

  Chapter Nine

  Susie leaned against the window jamb, willing the slight breeze to cool her heated skin as she listened to the distant conversation, her ears discerning James’s low voice and thrilling to the sound.

  She tried to focus, tried to think clearly, tried to make herself move, to stop what was about to happen. But she couldn’t. All she could do was remember the heat of his lips pressed to hers and how good it felt. How right it felt. She raised her hand and touched her lips with her fingertips. Then she heard the prolonged noises of people shouting goodnight and doors banging. Then footsteps. She turned away from the window and watched the door.

  There was a quiet knock. She walked over and opened it. James stood there. No bottle of wine, no social prop to act as an excuse for being there. She took hold of his hand and pulled him inside.

  She pushed the door closed and slid her hands around his body, pressing her cheek against his chest. “James,” she whispered. She held herself tight against him, relishing the strength of his body against hers, his lips pressed against her hair.

  Then he lifted her chin with his finger so their eyes met. “Are you sure about this?”

  She swallowed and nodded. “For now. Yes. Only for now. I can’t give anything more. I can’t risk anything more.”

  His arms slid around her body and their lips found each other’s with a searing urgency that only ten years of separation could bring. As their lips, mouths and tongues tried to erase the years, Susie slid her hands under his shirt. Her fingers were tentative to begin with but, at the feel of his bare flesh, prickling with goose bumps despite the heat, her fingers pressed into his skin, easing over his muscle and sinew, wanting desperately to know all of him. But before her hands were satisfied, he suddenly stepped back and pulled down the figure-hugging dress, leaving he
r standing only in her plain white underwear.

  His gaze swept her body appreciatively as she stepped out of the dress. “Suse.” He shook his head. “Look at you. You are so beautiful. I’ve dreamed of seeing you like this but you’re more beautiful than I imagined.”

  “Come on, I’ve hardly got model looks.” She felt uncomfortably reminded that James was used to the company of glamorous women.

  He kissed her fiercely before standing back, stroking her cheekbones with his thumb, frowning. “You, Mrs. Henderson, are delusional. He nuzzled her neck and inhaled her scent. “God, you drive me crazy. I can see I’m going to have to show you how beautiful you are, if you can’t see it yourself.” Lazily, he looked her up and down, his hooded eyes revealing every indecent thought that entered his mind. Then he caught her gaze once more. “Where, I wonder, shall we begin?”

  His finger trailed down her neck and hooked under her bra strap. He continued to follow the line of her strap, dragging his finger against her skin, sending a rush of sensations deep inside her. He stopped when he reached her bra. He swept his thumb over the swell of her breasts as they rose and fell far too quickly. Then he looked up under lowered lids. “Here?”

  She licked her lips and nodded.

  He dipped his thumbs under the sheer lace of her bra and she caught her breath as his nail grazed her nipple. She clamped his hand against her chest. “Oh God, James!”

  He smiled, a sweet, soft smile and kissed away her exclamation. “I’ve waited ten years for this, I’m going to savor every moment.”

  She leaned in to him and kissed him, such a long, slow kiss that he was left in no doubt as to what she wanted and how quickly she wanted it. But it made no difference. James was in control. As he caressed her tongue, his hands moved slowly around her back, ratcheting up the tension inside her. She moaned and eased her hips against his, needing to feel his power and strength. He was hard and she wriggled against him, gasping at the intensity of the stimulation. She felt him smile against her lips as he lifted her up and laid her on the bed. He stepped back and she sat up.

  “Suse… lay down.”

  “But—”

  “I said I was going to take this slowly, show you how beautiful you are and I will. Even if it means I have to tell you what to do.”

  “Tell me.” She hardly recognized her own husky tones.

  “Lay down.”

  She lay down, feeling completely exposed. He came and sat on the edge of the bed, his hand briefly caressing her foot before trailing it up her leg with frustrating slowness, smoothing his thumb and index finger along her shin bone up, over her knee, until his fingers spread out around her thigh. She caught her breath as his fingers caressed the inside of her thigh. She shifted so he could reach where she wanted him to reach. His hand immediately pulled away.

  “Suse,” he said warningly. “Move back to where you were.”

  Her sex throbbed with need but she shifted.

  “That’s better.”

  She watched as his eyes followed the trail of his fingertips, up to the edge of the lacy elastic, with one finger straying to the soft fabric between her legs that she knew betrayed her need.

  “You’re wet,” he said, licking his lips, his gaze drifting up to hers. He narrowed his gaze. “You really do want me.”

  She pressed her head back against the pillow, trying in vain to quiet her thumping heart, her rapidly rising breasts and the desire that centered the other side of the damp fabric that he still stroked, teasing her with random, glancing caresses.

  “Oh God, yes.” She reached out for him and gripped his shoulders, urging him to come to her.

  “I said slowly, Suse. And slow it will be. We’ve waited a long time for this. You can wait a little longer.”

  She closed her eyes and gasped as he pushed a finger under her panties and curved round, sinking it deep into her soaking flesh. She gasped again and spread her legs wide. “James, come to me, now.”

  “No.” He withdrew his finger and climbed onto the bed above her. He drew in a ragged breath and tasted his finger, closing his eyes in appreciation. “You taste delicious.” Then, with a rapid movement he grasped either side of her panties and tore them off her, throwing them aside. His hands slid under her bare bottom and he knelt in front of her body. His hands were strong and sure as they held her in a tight grip from which she couldn’t have escaped, even if she’d wanted to.

  She looked at him from below heavy-lidded eyes, all feeling and thought on the same area he concentrated on: his eyes, then his fingers and then… she gasped as his mouth descended on her.

  She flung her arms open wide, gripping the sheets into tight balls as his tongue lapped her sex, tasting her, swallowing her, exploring the full length of her, before moving upwards. He pulled away, his fingers playing with her, opening her wider, before he plunged his tongue as far as he could go. He groaned and she shifted her foot so it caressed him, molding her foot to his hard form. He pressed down onto her momentarily before he lifted himself up, pushed back her legs flat against the bed.

  “Naughty, Suse. I said not to move. I’ll have to punish you now.”

  She tried to angle her sex up to him, but he kept his hands pressured on her knees as he lowered himself once more to her. Except this time he breathed on her clitoris, flicked it a few times with his tongue before sucking it hard, followed by quick, stabbing movements which caught her in bursts of near orgasms before stopping and starting again. By now she was in a state of constant, mind-obliterating arousal. She struggled in his arms, wanting him inside her. Not wanting to be so exposed, so manipulated, so kept on the edge of orgasm.

  “Christ, James, I want you, inside me, now.”

  Instead he shifted his hand to her mouth and covered it. She could smell herself on his hand, could feel her hard nub respond to the barrage of sensation as she gasped harder and harder against his hand. His hand pulled away and her mouth grasped his thumb sucking it, her hips shifting against his mouth, again and again until suddenly his other thumb pushed inside her, his palm cupping and pressing against her and she came, shouting out his name in a violent orgasm that continued to roll through her body as he continued to stimulate her.

  Then he made a mistake and looked up at her and in that moment she knew she had him. She wriggled from under his grasp and pulled down his fly, releasing him, and pushed down the trousers. She wrested him free of his clothes with both hands and smoothed her thumbs over his moist tip. He rolled onto his back and she sat astride him, hovering over him, taking her time to deliberately taste her thumbs, one after the other.

  “Tastes delicious.” She grinned as she echoed his words. If she’d thought she’d be in control now, she was wrong. So swiftly she was hardly aware of it, he’d gripped her hips and she slid straight onto him as if she was coming home. She cried out as he angled himself to give her another explosive orgasm. As the sensations rolled through her body she continued to move, short, sharp movements, up and down.

  “No, Suse.” He lifted her off him and strode away to fetch something from his jacket.

  Her mind wasn’t functioning. All she could think of was that he wasn’t where he should be. “James…what?” He turned and she saw he was rolling on a condom. “Oh… okay.” She grinned and lay back on the bed again.

  He opened her legs and pushed deep inside her, deeper than she’d felt before. Her hands slipped around his bottom and she felt the indentation of his taut muscles, the tension as he held himself deep inside her, claiming her, pushing as far as he could go, as far as she could take. He was pressing at the very core of her—physically and mentally—filling her body and mind with nothing but him.

  He pushed his hands up her body, unclipping her bra and sweeping his thumbs over her nipples, while he continued to thrust with a slow rhythm that took her to the edge with each deep thrust. While he moved slowly in and out, with devastating effect, his mouth gently claimed her face. First her forehead with a sweeping kiss, then each of her semi-closed e
yes, then her cheeks, her nose, down to the top of her lip and her chin. “Susie…” he breathed against her cheek before pulling away. She could see the increased tension in his face as if his body was being too rigidly controlled, as if was insisting on what it wanted.

  “James!” She exclaimed fiercely between gasps. With her legs now free, she wrapped them tightly around his waist, pressing her heels against him and his rhythm intensified until they both came together in a burst of intensity that annihilated everything except their connection.

  James scooped her up in his arms and they rolled over, side by side, Susie totally wrapped up in his arms, her legs entwined with his. He rested his hand on her breast and curled it underneath, his fingers stroking while his thumb rose and lifted with the fall and rise of her chest, slowing as her heartbeat calmed.

  And as her breathing returned to normal, so did her brain. What the hell had she just done? She squeezed her eyes shut. She must have been mad. She tried to move but his arms were tight around her. But he knew.

  “I hadn’t planned this, you know, Susie. I had no intentions of doing anything like this.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “But I can’t regret it.” There was a long pause. “Do you?”

  “I should do.” But how could she, lying in his arms, feeling so right? She shifted her head so she could see his face. He continued to play with a strand of her hair. “ But I don’t.”

  “Good.” His hand stretched down her belly and further, playing with her until she fell back against the bed, writhing under his caresses. “Because I intend to have a repeat performance. Except this time… I really will go more slowly.”

  “You go,” she said before inhaling sharply as his fingers found their target, “as slow as you like.”

  As the light began to creep in through the open windows, Susie shifted from under James’s embrace to see him better. He was fast asleep. God, he looked so young when he was asleep. Serious. And sweet. That was her James.