“You’re not so bad yourself.” I placed my napkin over my plate signifying that I was ready to leave, take this party somewhere more private. He’d been sending me sex-laced vibes all evening. I’d had enough.
When he’d paid the check and we stood, a brief moment of uncertainty came over me. This was the point where we moved forward or turned back. I’d wanted him to make that choice, not let my over-sexed mind make that decision. He led me to the street and handed his ticket to the valet.
I stood clutching my handbag and looked around, not sure what he intended. Would he take me home or want to go to his place? I knew I hadn’t read him wrong. The man wanted me. The bulge in his pants through most of dinner confirmed it.
Two hands came around my waist from behind and he pulled me back against his solid chest. “Penny for your thoughts, my Beauty.” His nickname for me was sweet. I found I rather enjoyed it, made me feel special somehow. Besides Tripp, the only other man who had ever given me an intimate pet name was James.
James. I pushed the thought of him to the furthest recesses of my mind. Nothing good would come of bringing up that wound now--especially when I was about to get me some of a hot Englishman.
“Just wondering what happens next?” My voice was smooth and strong, hiding the fact that I was actually somewhat nervous he’d reject me.
“We go back to my place where I plan to shag you for hours. Then I’ll make you breakfast come sun up.” He gripped me against him, my back to his front. The steel of his erection pressed against the heat of my ass.
“And what if I want you to take me home?” I teased, but in a serious tone to keep up the charade.
He growled into my ear, fingers digging into the flesh at my hips. “Then I’ll take you home and shag you for hours at your place where your roommate can hear how many times I make you scream. Then you’ll make me breakfast at sun up.”
“Your place, please,” I confirmed, though, it could have been mistaken for begging.
“Oh Beauty, the ways in which I’m going to make you come…I can hardly wait.” He thrust his rod against my ass. His heat left when the valet strolled around one of the most beautiful cars I’d ever seen and handed him the keys. It was a grayish blue Porsche. I knew that much. It had only two doors and he opened the door for me like a gentleman. I slid in, enjoying the feel of the cool dark gray leather against my fiery skin.
“This is a hot car.”
He looked at me, a sexy grin plastered on his handsome face. “Isn’t she?”
“She?”
“But, of course!” he continued excitedly. “All cars are female, that’s why men are so gob-smacked by them.”
“Gob-smacked? You come up with the most interesting choice of words.”
“That’s because I speak proper English, my Beauty.” His tone was light and filled with humor.
“And I don’t?”
“Not even close.” He laughed. I opened my mouth but he continued. “Actually, gob-smacked is a British slang term for amazing or astonishing.”
“See, I knew it!” We both laughed.
Collier was more than just a fine male specimen. He was funny, easy to be around and his British accent brought me to my knees. The moment we had in the restaurant worried me though. I’d not felt connected to a man on that level since James. It was confounding.
It’s that second when a man looks into your eyes and not only sees your soul, but identifies with it, a rare connection of two persons who were fated to meet, to know one another intimately. It dawned on me, I was so ready to jump into bed with him, not because I needed sex--I’d had it pretty recently with Dylan and never lacked for a willing participant. It wasn’t the physical contact that had me hanging on Collier’s every word or mindlessly touching him in subtle innocent ways. It was the buzzing and thrumming, the halo of light I felt moving in the air around him. It sucked me into its vortex and I wasn’t prepared to leave until I’d gotten my fill and understood why it had a hold on me.
“Having second thoughts?” Collier asked concern evident in his tone.
“What? Uh, no. Not at all. Just thinking about what happened in the restaurant. That doesn’t usually happen to me. Well, actually that’s not true. It happens all the time, me, being able to feel and empathize with others emotions, but it doesn’t usually mirror my own.”
He took a deep breath, ending it with a sigh. “Yeah, that was a bit peculiar but not altogether uncomfortable. At least for me, anyway. I’ve had a long time to accept the things that hurt me in my life. Now it’s just a matter of getting past them.”
“Is it too soon to ask who she was?”
He smiled and brushed his fingers though his hair. “It’s not too soon. It’s just not pleasant.”
“I understand if you don’t want to tell me.” Mentally, I chided myself. I shouldn’t have asked something so personal so quickly. Damn curiosity.
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s not a secret. I was married just out of college. Did everything I thought was right. Worked hard, tried to give her all she ever wanted. Started a company with my brother Nathaniel. You know him.” I nodded but didn’t want to interrupt for fear he wouldn’t continue. “I was loyal and I loved her. Probably more than a man should.” He stopped talking and shook his head.
“Then what happened?” My voice was soft and sympathetic.
“It wasn’t enough. She found someone with more money and more time. Left me for the bloke. Been about five years now.”
“I’m sorry.” There really wasn’t anything more I could say. The man had been cheated on by the woman he loved.
“It’s life. It is what it is.” He brought his hand to cover mine in my lap. Immediately the sizzle and thump of our connection leapt from my hand to my heart, filling it with something I couldn’t define. “What about you?” His voice was soft.
“What about me?”
“What sort of daft bastard would leave a bird as lovely as you?” He squeezed my hand reassuringly.
“He didn’t mean to leave me. He died.”
Normally when a man finds out I’m a widow at twenty six, he has a freak out moment, one in which he either decides the waters to this woman’s bed are too treacherous to wade, then bails. Or the alternative: offering me a sympathy fuck to make me feel better. Neither is desirable. After years of dating, I realized men just couldn’t deal with the fact that I didn’t choose to leave the man I married, nor did he choose to leave me. It was decided by an innocent but tragic accident which left me unwilling and incapable of loving another ever again. That part of me died when my husband died.
“I see,” he said.
Quietly we both chewed over the thoughts, a heavy brew based on the information we’d both shared. The air around us was thick with tension.
Finally he asked, “So what happened to your husband?”
I liked that he referred to James as my husband. It reinforced the importance of that relationship even though he was gone.
Collier had a way about him that put me at ease. Usually, I refrained from telling people about James. Tripp was constantly telling me I had to let it out, let the ghost of James rest. Maybe this would put me one step closer.
I took a deep, calming breath. Collier waited patiently, eyes glued to the road ahead. Not looking in his eyes made it easier to share somehow.
“It was raining out. The first rain of the year. The pungent scent of the newly wet roads in New York City was stifling. I remember the humidity being unbearable. James was driving home from work. His car was t-boned at a light. The driver lost control of the vehicle; bad tires with little tread didn’t stick on the slick oily streets. It catapulted the car into cross traffic.”
“Was the driver bombed?”
I shook my head. “No. He was sixteen. Just got his driver’s license. It was his first time on the road by himself. He was driving home from studying at a friend’s house. He didn’t have a drop to drink.”
“Was it instant?”
“Unfortunately, no. The
accident broke a lot of his bones, did a great amount of damage internally but all that could be cured. What couldn’t was his liver. He needed an immediate transplant, but one didn’t become available in time. He died within forty eight hours of arriving at the hospital.”
“In my experience, Beauty, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Our past makes us who we are today. I for one think you’re incredible.” He said it with all the conviction of a man who’d gone through it himself, which I now knew he had.
It was refreshing. Collier didn’t apologize for my loss. He didn’t tell me that everything would be okay or look at me as if I was a broken woman. His brown eyes gleamed with understanding. Like he’d said to me, when he recanted his tale, it is what it is and he truly believed that. We couldn’t change what the universe doled out to us, but what we could change was how we dealt with that experience.
“You’re a wise man, Collier Stone.”
“Indeed.” He waggled his eyebrows, breaking the serious mood. “You still want to stay the evening with this wise-arse, I mean wise man?” He chuckled and I laughed with him. He was good for me. At least for tonight he would be.
“More than anything.”
Chapter - 5
After parking the car and taking the lift to my flat, a bit of melancholy wafted in the air. Her admission about losing her husband had been tough on her. I wondered how many people she’d told the story to. By how she was responding now, not many.
She stood ramrod straight. Desire drove her to follow me, but the walls she’d dropped during dinner were firmly back up. It would be my duty to drive the wrecking ball through them and bring her back to the present. In order to do so, I was going to be bold. This woman demanded a hefty dose of truth. It wasn’t hard to tell that she dealt in honesty and no bullshit. She wasn’t expecting or wanting prophetic love declarations. Physical release was clearly the only item on the evening’s agenda.
For now, I was on board with that plan, knowing it would never do in the long run.
Recently, settling down again, stopping the vicious circle of bedding dozens of women, rarely ever the same woman twice, was what I was after. No longer was I interested in one night stands or women who were disposable. It hurt my pride even knowing how I’d treated too many lovely ladies as a mere shag, just a tool to get my jollies off. A change would occur now and regardless of what London said, she responded to me. Her body responded to me. Her mind responded to me. Now I’d work to get her soul to respond.
We entered my flat and she set her things down on the leather couch. Hands on hips, she turned her head, those gray-blue eyes assessing what little I had to offer in my living space. The apartment was large with a wall of windows that overlooked the city. There wasn’t anything hanging on the walls aside from a flat screen TV. The couches were black leather and barely used. I never entertained here. With all of the women I’d bedded, she was the first I brought home. Seeing her scope out the space almost made me regret the decision.
She turned around and her cool gaze held mine. That pink tongue slid along her lips, making them glisten enticingly. After taking a long look around she cocked her head to the side. “You need me.”
Those words were a powerful aphrodisiac, going straight to my cock. With both hands I shuffled my fingers through my hair, a nervous habit I’d picked up during long hours in law school. “Indeed.”
She glided toward me, one foot in front of the other, almost predatory. Without missing a stride, her fingers slipped under each tiny sparkling strap at her shoulders, pulled and then her sliver of a dress slipped to the floor as if a million tiny stars rained down from the sky all at once.
A guttural growl escaped my lungs as she stalked toward me in nothing but a strapless white bra and high cut panties. I bit the inside of my cheek to the point of pain, trying to keep my inner Neanderthal in check.
The desire to push her into a fireman’s over the shoulder hold, rush her to my bed and throw her down and make her mine was strong. Slow deep breaths. Get it under control I reminded myself, though I had a sneaking suspicion she wanted to catch me off guard. This woman liked being in charge. Maybe it had to do with losing her mate so suddenly and outside of her control.
“You need me in more ways than one,” she said, referring to my lack of creature comforts and the hardening shaft tenting my trousers. She trailed her index finger down my chest to the thick buckle at the top of my slacks.
I nodded and placed my hands on her barely existent waist. She was so tiny.
Nimble fingers loosened the tie around my neck. It fell to the floor in a wisp of fabric. With excruciating measures, she drew out the task of unbuttoning my shirt. Smooth lips trailed light kisses along each new expanse of skin she exposed. With a little effort, she tugged and pulled my shirt from the tuck in my trousers. Cool fingers slid against the bare skin of my abdomen, continuing their journey over my pecks and shoulders. The fabric seemed to float away and fall to the floor.
“You’re beautiful.” Her lust-filled eyes took in every inch of my skin. Her tongue retraced the same path.
“Isn’t that my line?” I laughed but it was cut off with a moan as her teeth bit down on the tender flesh of my nipple.
“Christ, Beauty,” I whispered as she twirled her tongue around the peak, soothing the ache. Tunneling my fingers into the hair at her nape, anchoring her chin with both thumbs, I lifted her head to mine. Unmasked desire shone bright in her blue eyes. “I want you,” I admitted, swiping my thumb against her plump bottom lip. She pulled the digit into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it.
A fresh wave of heat ripped through me, making the steel rod in my pants even harder. I thrust my hips against hers and she gasped.
“Then take me,” she challenged.
“Not here.”
She cringed at my words.
“I want to enjoy you. Gorge on this body until we’re both gasping for air and you’re begging for me to stop.”
Her eyes widened then closed. In one swoop, I scooped her up. She weighed next to nothing. Her mouth attached to the skin of my neck as I brought her to my room and laid her in the center of the bed.
She was stunning. A work of art. Her tanned skin against the stark white of her lace underthings was right out of a Rorschach inkblot test. The black waves of her hair fell dark as night against the gray of my duvet. Those eyes. Shite, those eyes of hers beckoned me as I slid off my belt and shoved the straining fabric of my trousers down. I stood at the edge of the bed and surveyed her gorgeous form in nothing but my jockeys.
She leaned up, her chest puffing out in a full-body inhale, breasts straining against the fabric. “Now that you have me here, what are you going to do with me?” The coy remark was playful yet needy.
“Ravish you. I want to become intimately familiar with every inch of your beautiful body, starting right…here.” I leaned over and picked up one dainty ankle. She had a tiny chain encircling the delicate bone. I ran my lips against the chain, tugging it with my teeth. Her eyes glowed in the low light of the room as she watched me trail my tongue along the side of her small foot. I nipped and kissed each one of her red tipped toes. Taking my time, I placed long drawn out kisses against the skin of her calf.
Her eyes fell closed and gooseflesh rose to the surface of her skin when I licked the crevice behind her knee, a sensitive spot I promised myself to explore more fully later. Repeating the process with the other leg, I continued my journey, rubbing my lips along the silky expanse of her toned thigh.
Her legs shook as I sucked and bit the fleshy patch of skin just under where the top of her thigh and her sex met. She mewled and shimmied her hips. Long fingers tunneled into my hair as I feasted on that spot. That cinnamon smell that was uniquely her swirled all around me as if I was bathing in the scent. It was so strong on her bare skin.
When I’d made a quarter sized cherry red mark in my spot, I happily moved on to the Promised Land. With great care, I slipped my finge
rs into the sides of her lacy knickers, dragged them down and off her legs.
Thank God I hadn’t removed them prior to enjoying her long legs and scrumptious hips. I’d have never completed. To my extreme pleasure, her mound was completely bare. Not a speck of hair tainted its surface. She restlessly moved her legs from side to side. I longed to see her, uncovered and open to me.
“Let me see.” Her eyes met mine in warning as I placed the palms of my hands on her knees. Something in her changed. She relaxed and with a firm grip, I massaged down the insides of her honey colored thighs until I had her spread before me. A veritable feast waiting to be devoured. I could feel her muscles strain against my hold, but I wasn’t having it.
This was honest. Her baring it all for me. The petals of her sex glistened with arousal. Her spicy scent was strong. The banquet before had me starved, salivating, ready to feast. With a well-placed tongue, I licked her from her pink rosette all the way to her hooded nub. It peeked out between her wet lips and I zeroed in on that spot as if shooting an arrow directly in the center of a bull’s-eye. Clamping my lips over it, I hollowed my cheeks and sucked. Hard. Relentless lashes from my tongue had her screaming as her first orgasm ripped through her.
“You’re enchanting,” I whispered against her thigh, kissing my mark on her skin as she calmed down. Once those beautiful eyes opened, half-hooded, she peered over the large mounds of her breasts. That’s when I started to enjoy her again.
Always was a greedy man, one taste wasn’t even close to enough.
She tugged on my hair and tried to pull me up, probably really sensitive. I didn’t care. I wanted her out of her mind. “Collier,” she said, breathing hard. “Oh, God…mmm.” I delved my tongue deep into her core. She tasted like the finest, sweetest creme. Her head fell back and her hands came up to cup and squeeze her breasts through her bra.
“Show me.”
She looked at me as I sat up, changing my position. Within seconds I was two fingers deep in her wet heat, my thumb circling the tight knot of her pleasure. She lifted on her elbows, her gaze focused between her legs. For a minute, she tipped her hips up and circled them around and around pressing against my hand, pushing me deeper into her body.
London Falling (The Falling Series) Page 6