Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

by Lauren Blakely

  Her gaze locked on his, watching the slow spread of his smile, the way it stretched across his whole face, how his blue eyes seemed to flicker with happiness.

  He kissed her cheek, whispering soft and sexy. “With me, you can have everything.”

  The sentiment made her shudder, and yet she wasn’t talking about more sex, per se. Or even more sex in the next few days. She pressed a hand to his naked chest, needing to make sure he understood exactly. “What I mean is…” She stopped to let a breath fill her lungs, fueling her admission. “I want to see you again. I don’t want this—whatever it is—to end when we leave New York.”

  His features froze. His lips were parted, his jaw was set, and his eyes were vulnerable. He didn’t move, as if he were slowly absorbing her request. Soon enough, though, he found words, his voice gravelly. His question came out as a scratch. “You do?”

  She nodded vigorously. “I do. Maybe that is crazy. Do you think it’s crazy?”

  He shook his head. “No!” flew off his tongue.

  The speed of his response emboldened her. That, combined with the endorphins still rushing through her system, drove her on. “I just,” she began, running her fingers through the fine hairs on his chest. “I just would be so sad to leave New York and not see you again. And I don’t have a plan, or an agenda, or anything beyond the here and now. All I know is I want to see more of you. Which probably sounds…” Her voice trailed away, lost in the noises of late-night New York floating through the window.

  “Sounds what?” he asked, prompting her.

  “You probably think it sounds too hard, since I’m in Paris and you’re in Las Vegas, and that’s how it was before,” she said, worried that they were facing the same obstacles, those very ones that had splintered them years before.

  That sexy smile returned, tugging at his lips as he shook his head. “No. It’s not crazy at all. We’re not the same as we were before. The distance—it’s not as daunting. We have the means to deal with it.”

  She nodded. “Yes, we do. And all I know is that I don’t want this to end.”

  He pulled her closer, held her tighter. “That’s enough for me to fly across an ocean for you.”

  He dusted her lips with his—a soft, sweet kiss that was both gentle and thrilling at once. On his lips, she swore she could taste his happiness, and she kissed more, taking some of it for herself.

  They chatted in bed, talking about friends and family, work and music, photographs and security. Every now and then a small shard of latent guilt stabbed at her, but she pushed past her nagging worries. She wanted to savor these moments with Michael. This time with him was the sweetest thing she’d experienced in a while, and she’d rather revel in it, especially after so long of having felt the opposite.

  Soon enough, their lips found each other again, and they kissed, slow and lazy, the kind of kiss that made her wetter and him harder, that led to fingers slipped between legs and dirty words like, Get on your hands and knees. I want to take you that way.

  She didn’t need to be asked twice. She wanted to be fucked that way by him, with her palms flat against the navy blue comforter, her knees sinking down, and her ass in the air. Michael ran a hand down her back, inch by torturously slow inch, each touch making her wriggle and writhe.

  “Mmm,” he murmured, his big palm tracing her flesh, pushing her spine low, forcing her to raise her ass higher. “Look at you. Look at my Annalise. So fucking wet. So fucking hot. So needy for me.”

  Like a sparkler igniting, those dirty words set off a fresh wave of desire. Heat pooled between her legs as she lowered herself to her elbows, her breath coming fast. “I do need you. I need you in me, Michael.”

  He dragged his fingers through her sex, and she moaned, closing her eyes, giving in to the fevered rush in her body, surrendering to her desire to be fucked.

  Sheets rustled behind her as he moved, straightened up on his knees, and positioned himself. When he rubbed the head of his cock against her pussy, a wild cry ripped from her throat. Mon dieu, who was this woman in her body? Inhabiting her, taking over her mind, using her mouth to speak such dirty things? “Fuck me. Hard. Take me. I’m yours.”

  He took, fucking her as she’d never experienced before—rough and beautifully cruel, fingers digging into flesh, hands gripping her breasts and pinching her nipples, teeth on her shoulders. Deeply buried inside her, he fucked her savagely. She moved with him, moaned with him, slammed her pelvis back on his cock, letting him know that the more he filled her, the hungrier she was. Sliding a hand up her backbone, he grabbed her hair, wrapping it around his fist. She gasped and her noise turned into a long, animalistic cry as he yanked.

  “Rougher. Harder,” she bit out.

  She wanted to be bruised, to feel used, to be fucked so hard she felt him for days. Michael Sloan was more than willing to give her all of himself, to plunder her body with his cock, to take her mercilessly until her hands grappled at the sheets, clutching and twisting as pleasure spiked then slammed into her.

  A shattering.

  No warning.

  Just a rapturous crash as her climax rattled her body, jarring her bones. It shocked her, the power of this kind of orgasm. It had a magnitude measurement as it thundered through her. With a final thrust, growling her name in her ear, he came. She’d never felt anyone go so deep inside her. Never felt so in tune with her body.

  But it was more than that. She’d never felt this kind of physical connection. Raw and hungry.

  And boundless, too.

  That may have been what surprised her the most—this endlessness of the pleasure. She supposed that was how any sort of new passion felt. Infatuation was the most powerful magician in any land, and it could trick you into thinking something was true and real. But there, in the dark of the night, in the middle of a city of millions, tucked away in a hotel room, she believed in its promise.

  She believed in fate, too.

  In second chances.

  As he spooned her, brushing soft kisses against the back of her neck, tonight seemed precisely why she’d landed a job in Vegas, exactly why she’d said yes to the New York gig. As if the cruel mistress of circumstances who had toyed with them and yanked them apart when they were younger was working in their favor now.

  Bringing them back together in a whole new way.

  After that rough, punishing sex that bruised her hips, and made her sore everywhere, she was sure she’d fall asleep sated. She did. For a bit.

  But sometime in the middle of the night, she woke. Not with a start, but with a slow, unhurried shift of her hips. His erection grazed her backside, and she wiggled her rear against him.

  “Mmm. That’s a nice way to wake up,” he said, all rough from sleep.

  “It’s not even time to get out of bed yet,” she whispered, rocking into him.

  “You mean it’s time for more of this,” he said, sliding his hand along the back of her thigh and shifting her knee to make room.

  “Yes. Please. You’ve made me insatiable.”

  “Good, I like you that way. Hungry for me,” he said against her neck as he eased inside her. He made it a lazy and luxurious coming together, as if they were two lovers who’d spent countless nights entwined. For a moment, she wondered if either of them could come like this, with this unhurried kind of love-making, but the question turned to dust as the warm pleasure in her hummed, tension coiling, and she climbed to the edge once again. She cried out his name, and then out of nowhere, a sob escaped her lips, mingling with her noises, obscuring the evidence of her pain.

  A tear slid down her cheek.

  She swallowed it quickly. Judging from the way he grunted and shoved deep in her, he didn’t notice. A storm of emotions swelled, gripping her chest, squeezing her heart like an invisible hand trying to choke up the mess brewing inside—guilt, joy, sadness, elation.

  She inhaled sharply, willing the air to spread through her lungs, to free her from this specter of remorse. She didn’t want to feel it. There w
as nothing wrong with having sex. Nothing at all.

  Yet her heart was fracturing at the same time as it was stitched back together. Sex with Michael was both wondrous and bittersweet.

  And she understood precisely why she felt so fucking good, and so fucking awful at the same time.

  “It’s so good with you, Annalise,” he said a minute later.

  “I know. It is. It’s so good.”

  It was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was better. It was the best.

  That was the problem.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The beautiful blonde stretched on her belly on the white duvet—heels kicking in the air, lips red and pouty, as seductive as she was real. Even when she was posing, there was nothing forced about her client’s beauty.

  Casey Sullivan had one of the best smiles Annalise had ever photographed. Fresh-faced and all-American, she possessed a gorgeous grin. The woman also knew how to give “come fuck me” eyes to the camera.

  She was thinking of her husband, Casey had said, so it was easy to gaze at the lens that way—like she loved him and wanted him at the same damn time. Now they were in the last series of shots at the boudoir studio space. Casey wore an emerald-green satin push-up bra and matching lace panties. “Nate always likes me in this shade of green,” she said.

  “I suspect your husband likes you in anything, everything, and nothing,” Annalise said as she finished shooting.

  Casey laughed. “Yes, that does describe him perfectly.”

  “Then he is going to be one very happy man when he sees these photos. He won’t know what to do with himself. His jaw will drop. Guaranteed,” Annalise said, as she showed her some of the pictures on the back of the camera.

  Casey shrugged into a robe and peered at the images, and she squealed with delight as they flipped through the frames. “These are amazing,” she said, then ran her hand over the outline of her belly. “You can’t even really tell I had a baby six months ago.”

  Annalise shook her head. “You look radiant, happy, and beautiful.”

  Casey blushed and waved a hand in the air. “Stop, you flatter me.”

  “No. I don’t have to. The camera loves you because you’re so happy and so in love.”

  Casey met her eyes. “You can really tell from how I look at the camera?”

  “Of course. It’s in your eyes. Everything is.”

  Casey narrowed hers, and studied Annalise. “Hmm. What’s in yours, then?” she asked playfully.

  A red flush crept across her cheeks.

  Sex, hot sex, more sex. Dinners, days, sleepless nights. Idle chats, deep conversations, sweet nothings, and so much coming together. The last three days and nights in Manhattan had passed in a blissful blur. She’d cancelled her hotel room and stayed with Michael. During the days she’d finished her shoot for Veronica’s while Michael had worked with clients, and in the evenings they’d gone to dinner, or to a club, and sometimes they hadn’t left the room at all.

  New York with Michael was a great escape from the past and the present.

  The only trouble was she couldn’t rid that nagging guilt that gnawed at her for having such an immeasurably lovely time. As if she shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy herself—at least, not this deeply, this quickly, this intensely. Most of the time she turned the volume down on that voice, but still it spoke up, worming its way around her heart like an insidious creature.

  “You’re happy, too.” The declaration came from Casey. Annalise’s heart skittered. The woman was so straightforward and so direct.

  “Of course I’m happy,” she said, in her best cheery tone, keeping things businesslike. “I love what I do.”

  “But something is holding you back?” Casey pressed on, undeterred.

  Annalise knit her brow together. “Hmm?”

  “From truly being happy,” Casey elaborated. “I can see a sadness in your eyes, too. Barely there, but it comes into focus now and then.”

  Annalise swallowed and fiddled with her camera. The woman was too astute, too observant. She didn’t answer.

  “If something holds you back from your happiness, you should try to move through it,” Casey said softly.

  Annalise looked up, her client’s gentle words threading into her. “Spoken from experience?”

  “Sort of. I had to get through my fear that my husband and I would lose our friendship if we became long-term lovers.”

  “And you didn’t, clearly.”

  “We didn’t but we had to walk through that fear. Live in it. Roll around in it for a while.”

  “And you think I need to roll around in something?”

  “I think whatever is making you sad, you should face it.”

  On the cab ride back to the hotel, Annalise lingered on her client’s advice. Rubbing her thumb against the outline of the lens in her camera bag, she wondered if Casey was right. She had to face this thing, this voice, this knot in her stomach that stood in the way.

  That night she dressed in jeans, heels, and a soft black sweater, and perched on the edge of the bed before they headed out for dinner. She waited for Michael to emerge from the shower, and when he did, her heart thundered. His hair was damp, and a white towel hung on his hips, revealing his flat, toned stomach and the trail of hair that led to her favorite place. God, she wanted him so badly, in ways that went beyond the physical.

  “I feel guilty for enjoying this,” she blurted out, ripping off the Band-Aid.

  He sat next to her on the bed, gesturing from him to her. “Us?”

  She nodded and inhaled deeply. This was the hard part. The deep and dark truth. “Because it’s so good with you.”

  His lips twitched and he looked down, then back up at her, schooling his expression. “The sex, you mean?”

  She nodded. “That. Yes. It’s amazing. It’s better than anything I’ve ever had.”

  He nodded, as if she’d said something as simple as “This salmon is delicious.” She hadn’t expected him to beat his chest at the compliment, or grin with masculine pride, but she was doubly glad for his tact. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t love him,” Michael said, as a droplet of water from his shower slid down his chest. “It just means we have good chemistry.”

  She shook her head vigorously, strands of her hair slapping her cheek. “It’s not just chemistry, Michael. You know that. We have so much more than simple chemistry. We have history, and now we have the present too.”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “That’s part of what scares me. The sex is amazing in and of itself, but it’s also incredible…” She slowed her words to run her fingers along the back of his neck and into the soft strands of his damp hair. “For other reasons.”

  A small smile slipped across his lips. “I feel those reasons, too.”

  “I don’t want to be sad about this,” she said, keeping her voice strong, as if announcing her intentions to move on would rid her of this hard stone inside her chest.

  “There’s no shortcut. You just have to let yourself feel,” he said, leaning his head back against her hand and closing his eyes, almost as if he were demonstrating how to feel again.

  How had he gotten to be so wise? Where was the carefree, easy guy she fell for decades ago? But of course, she knew the answer. He’d had to let go of who he was. He’d had to walk through all his own grief, too.

  As her fingers toyed with his hair, she asked, “Is that what you did? For your father?”

  “Yes. Most of all, once I stopped feeling so awful every day, I chose not to beat myself up for enjoying being alive. It gets to a point where you can’t miss a person every second. Or even every day. And you stop getting mad at yourself if you dare to laugh, or joke, or even just do something mundane, like have fun watching an episode of CSI.”

  She latched onto that last one. “Are you saying we should watch TV?”

  He laughed and opened his eyes, shaking his head. “Hell no. But I learned to just have a good time hanging out with family. Enjoy work. A
good hard run. That’s the only way through everything. Keep on living—keep on feeling.”

  “I want to be there. I want to feel.” But as soon as she spoke, she wondered if she was further along than she thought. Hadn’t she done all that? Let herself feel everything? She hadn’t shied away from grief. She’d faced it head on, experiencing every tear, every ounce of heartbreak, every moment of missing him. She’d gone all in when it came to remembering, and longing. Maybe it was time to do the same for moving on.

  Go all in.

  So when she went to dinner with him that night, she chose to relish every ounce of the happiness, to lose herself in the joy of being with this man she cared for so deeply. When they returned to his room for their last night together, she knew there was one more thing to do. One more way to give her whole heart to moving on.

  “Take my picture,” she said. He scrunched up his brow as she handed him her camera. “I’m always the one behind the camera. I’m always the one with something in front of my eyes. I want to be the subject, and I want you to photograph me getting naked for you. That’s what I want to feel tonight. What it’s like to give myself to you.”

  His eyes blazed darkly, shining with desire, and something else—something she’d wanted desperately when she was younger. Something that scared the hell out of her now. But maybe if she was on the other side of the camera, she could handle everything she saw in him, and let him see the parts of her no one else was privy to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He wasn’t a photographer, but he didn’t need to be to know she was a breathtaking subject. Gorgeous, real, and heartbreaking. Written in her eyes was a mix of emotions—trepidation, courage, excitement, determination…. He tried to capture them all as she tugged her black sweater over her head, then unbuttoned her jeans.

  She didn’t pose or mug for the camera. She simply did, and he simply shot.

  She reached for the zipper of her jeans and worked it open.

  “Mmm. It’s getting harder to concentrate,” he murmured as he snapped a shot of her undressing.