“That’s what you’re doing? Initiating foreplay?” she asked, barely able to get the question out.
Slade pushed the elevator button on “stop” and then smiled at her and said, “I’ll let you decide.”
He advanced on her and she backed up even more. “But what if others want to use this elevator?” she asked.
“What others? This is a private elevator that only goes to the tenth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth floors. Most of the people living on those floors are older, more settled couples who wouldn’t be caught out this time of night.”
She glanced up and looked around. “What about security cameras? A lot of buildings install them in their elevators.”
“We didn’t. Remember, Blade and I built this building.”
“But…”
He heard whatever she was saying, but had once again gone into the not-listening mode. Desire, a degree he’d never encountered before, was pulsing everywhere, but especially heavily in his groin. He had taken off his jacket, but what he should have done first was release the zipper of his pants to take off some of the pressure; however, politeness demanded that he not be that bold. Any other time he might he considered a slow burn, but tonight with Skye he was a fast burn. It wouldn’t take much for him to go up in smoke.
“Come here, Skye.”
His eyes never left hers and he knew the exact moment she decided to go along with his I-can’t-wait-any-longer approach. Instead of retreating any farther, she took a couple of steps forward. As soon as she was within arm’s reach, he sneaked out his hand, curled his fingers around her waist, and pulled her body close to his. He heard her breath hitch when she realized just how aroused he was. He wanted her to know just what she was capable of doing to him.
“Open your mouth and take me in,” he leaned forward and whispered against her mouth. Her lips parted immediately and he swooped his mouth over hers. While his tongue was mating deliciously with hers, he decided to use his hands to get reacquainted with the feel of her body by caressing all her curves and the firmness of her backside.
He broke off the kiss to murmur against his moist lips, “You’re perfect.”
The stark desire in the eyes looking at Skye had heat blazing through all parts of her body. She had a feeling that he wasn’t through with her yet. This kiss was just the beginning. The dark, heated look in his eyes promised as much.
The corners of his lips turned up as he took a couple of steps forward, backing her up against the elevator wall. She felt cornered. She felt hot. She felt ready to take him on and do whatever crossed his mind. Tonight she wasn’t Skye Barclay, the woman who only did what she was told to do. She was Skye Barclay, the woman who wanted to be as daring tonight as she could be.
Daring with Slade.
His arms went around her waist and gently lifted her feet off the floor. “Wrap your legs around me, Skye.”
She did and he bunched the dress up to her waist while bracing her back against the paneled wall. He stuck his hand underneath it to poke a little hole in the seat of her silken panty hose. Then he inserted his fingers and smiled when he didn’t encounter any panties.
“You don’t have to wear them if you wear hosiery with the panties made in them,” she quickly explained, not wanting him to think she made a habit of not wearing underthings.
He smiled. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said softly. “In fact, it makes what I need to do a lot easier.”
She heard him ease down his zipper, and when he tunneled his fingers back through her ripped panty hose, he had something else with them. Evidently he intended to do more than initiate foreplay. It seems that he was going to go straight for the gusto.
She felt the firm head of his hot shaft brush against her thigh, and she literally moaned out an anxious breath. And when he found the spot he wanted, took aim, and pushed in, sinking deep into the warm wetness of her, she groaned deep within her throat.
“You mentioned that other time we made love that you were on the pill. Nothing has changed, has it?” he asked, barely able to get the words out.
She shook her head. “Nothing has changed,” she said, not sure she was speaking coherently. Although they had used condoms the first couple of times before, once she’d told him she was on the pill they had stopped, preferring the intimate feel of being skin to skin, heat to heat.
“Good.”
And then he began his thrusting motion, driving back and forth, in and out, deep inside of her. Pleasure, as keen as it could get, rammed through her whenever he withdrew, then plunged back in. And his rhythm was relentless, achingly accurate. Never had she been made love to this way, and it produced sensations that had her entire body trembling.
She purred out his name, and then he leaned forward and captured her lips. She felt the moment an orgasm struck him, and he increased the pace and tightened his hold on her lips, plunging in deeper. He then broke off the kiss to throw his head back while sucking in a deep breath.
“Skye!”
She then felt ecstasy hit her the moment he cried out her name, shattering her body into tiny sensuous pieces. She felt hot, tingly, filled to capacity all the way to her womb. Sensations hammered through her and he covered her mouth in time to stop her from screaming. He gave her one ravenous kiss and the arms she had twined around his neck tightened as he continued to grind his shaft inside of her, making sure she got it all. Her internal muscles clenched him to make doubly sure as well.
Moments later, when he eased her back on her feet, she could barely keep her balance. He kissed her again before starting the elevator back up. He reached down and picked up his coat and tie before reaching out and sweeping her off her feet and into his arms.
“Slade! I can walk.”
He smiled down at her. “I bet you won’t say that in the morning.”
Diana moved toward the door the moment she heard the knock. It was almost three in the morning, but like she’d told Ned, she was still awake. She had undressed, taken a shower, and slipped into a long, flowing robe that she felt was appropriate enough to greet a male caller, even at this hour. Besides, she was curious as to what he wanted to ask her.
She opened the door and smiled. He had changed out of his tux and was wearing a pair of jeans and a chambray shirt. He looked just as good in casual clothes as he did in the expensive business suits that he wore. “Come in,” she said, stepping aside.
“Thanks, and again I want to apologize for coming so late, but it’s something I need to discuss with you.”
She nodded as she led him into the sitting room. She sat on the sofa while he sat in a chair. “So what’s this burning question?” she asked, glancing over at him and leaning forward in her seat, giving him her full attention.
He hesitated for a moment and then he said, “I’m leaving early Wednesday for Savannah. I bought some investment property there a few years ago and I’m thinking about expanding my interest, and need to go there for a few days to check on a few things.”
He paused for a moment and then said, “I’ll be gone through the weekend, probably returning sometime on Sunday, and I would like to take you with me.”
Diana blinked. Was he inviting her on an out-of-town trip with him? She needed further clarification. “Will you be attending some important function where you’ll need an escort?”
He chuckled. “No. It’s strictly a personal trip. The reason I’m asking you to go is because I want to spend some time with you.”
She wasn’t going to let him get off that easily. “Why?”
He inhaled deeply and then said, “Do you really have to ask me that, Diana?”
She lifted a brow at the incredulity in his voice. Was she missing something? Was there something she was supposed to know? “Yes, I think that I really do have to ask that, because evidently I’m missing something here.”
Their eyes held for a second, and then as if he’d made up his mind about something, he stood and crossed the room and when she scooted over he sat down beside
her on the sofa. He took her hand in his and studied it for a moment before saying, “For the longest time I’ve considered you one of my very best friends.”
“You no longer do?”
He chuckled. “Oh yes, I still do. In that regard I think we share a very unique and special relationship.”
She had to agree with him on that. “And how do you define it?” she asked.
He thought about her question for a minute before saying, “I define it as a relationship where there’s mutual trust, respect, and admiration. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, and I believe there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me.”
“Yes, that’s true. But it still doesn’t explain what you meant earlier, Ned.”
He sighed deeply. “I recently discovered something…and in truth it wasn’t all that recent…. I just decided to finally acknowledge it and act on it.”
“Acknowledge and act on what?”
He gazed into her eyes for several long moments before saying, “That I’ve fallen in love with you, Diana.”
She blinked. She moved her lips but found herself unable to speak. Her voice actually felt trapped within her throat. She swallowed, tried again. Her hands tightened around the hand that still held hers. “Oh, Ned. That is the most beautiful thing you could ever say to me, because I love you, too.”
He shook his head, thinking she really didn’t understand what he meant. “No, Diana, I’m talking about real love, here. Not best-friend love. What I’m saying is that I love you the way a man loves a woman.”
She nodded, clearly understanding. Her heart was almost bursting with happiness. “I know what you meant because I love you, too, the way a woman loves a man.”
He stared at her for a moment, as if at a loss for words. Then he asked, “For how long?”
She chuckled softly. “For quite some time.”
He was surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She raised a dark brow as a smile touched the corners of her lips. “I’m going to ask that same question. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He managed a tight smile. “Because I didn’t think you’d want to become involved with someone as deeply into politics as I was.”
“Oh, Ned, every time you called and asked me to accompany you to some political function or whatever, I became involved.”
“But the media could be cruel.”
“I know. I see what they try doing to Sterling and Colby and Diamond and Jake at every turn. Their job is to create sensationalism to sell papers. I think it was in last week’s tabloids that Jake supposedly asked Diamond for a divorce to marry Tyra Banks.”
Ned laughed. “So I heard.”
“You need to have a strong relationship or marriage to endure such garbage.”
“And I agree,” he said.
“You didn’t think we had that?”
He inhaled deeply. “I didn’t know what we had because I was too afraid to find out. I didn’t want to ruin what we shared if you didn’t feel the same way I did.”
“And I had taken that same position,” she softly admitted.
Nedwyn’s heart felt like it was ready to burst in his chest; he was filled with elation. “So this trip to Savannah will be sort of like a beginning for us. The start of a different type of relationship.”
Diana nodded in agreement. “Yes, it will be.” If this was a dream, then she wasn’t ready to wake up yet. It seemed that Marilyn had been right. She had detected more than friendship in Ned’s eyes.
“You know what I want to do more than anything, Diana?” he asked, his voice going husky and deep.
She saw his face inching closer to hers and automatically she moved her face toward his mouth. When his lips latched onto hers, she released a sigh of pleasure from deep within her throat. This was the kiss she’d dreamed of sharing with Ned so many times, the kiss she thought would never take place between them. And now it was happening.
Her muscles began to quake, her entire body began to ache, and the air surrounding them seem to crackle. She couldn’t recall the last time she had shared a kiss with a man, but it hadn’t been anything like this. She had forgotten how it felt to be French-kissed by a man, to have your mouth devoured like you were the best thing he’d tasted since gingerbread.
Moments later he slowly pulled back, releasing her lips, but that didn’t stop him from trailing a few kisses down her throat. “Are you sure you want to spend five days with me, Diana, knowing I’m in love with you and that I want you?”
“I could ask you the same thing about me, you know,” was her soft response.
He pulled back, looked at her, and smiled. “This should be an interesting trip.”
“And I think it will be.”
He then leaned in and kissed her again, just as thorough and deep. Then he pulled back and stood. “I’d better go before I get us both in trouble. But be forewarned, Diana Madaris, in Savannah I’ll only stop when and if you tell me to.”
Her voice was filled with both anticipation and desire when she said, “I’ll remember that. And I’ll also hold you to it.”
And before she could say anything else, he turned and quickly walked out the door.
Wayne came awake when the phone rang. He glanced at the illuminated digital clock on his nightstand. For crying out loud, it was three in the morning. Who would be calling him at this hour? He reached out and grabbed it and barked into it. “Hello!”
“Get your ass in gear and do something! You told me you could control her and I paid you a lot of money to do just that; now start earning it!”
Wayne recognized the voice and sat up in bed, rubbing a hand down his face. “I told you I had matters under control. When she returns from Texas, I—”
“She plans to hire some private investigator to find her father, and you know how I feel about that.”
Yes, Wayne did know.
The person continued talking. “I will not lose all I’ve gained if she decides to go snooping. I’m willing to double what I was offering you before if you marry her. But not only marry her, you have to keep her under control and rid such foolishness out of her head about ever finding her biological father.”
There was a pause and then the caller said, “And there’s something else you might need to know.”
Wayne sighed as he moved to sit on the side of the bed, feeling annoyed. Skye was beginning to be more trouble than she was worth. “What?”
“Getting her to marry you might not be as easy as you think, because there’s a possibility that she’s falling for someone she met in Houston. A man by the name of Slade Madaris. He’s a cousin to her brother. So it will be to your advantage to do something now.”
The caller then hung up.
CHAPTER 22
“Had enough yet, sweetheart?”
Before Skye could respond to Slade’s question, he lowered his head and captured a swollen tip of her breast in his mouth, sucking on it, licking it, torturing it as she released groans of pleasure.
He then glided his tongue to the other one, perked and firm as it could be, as if waiting for his mouth to give it the same treatment it had given its twin. Then there were his hands that refused to stay still. They were busy, stirring and brewing the wet heat pooling between her thighs, sharpening her awareness of him, increasing her need. Making the desire building once again inside of her almost unbearable.
She closed her eyes and moaned, inhaled the scent of sex that filled the room. They had made love almost non-stop once they’d made it to his condo. First in the living room several times before finally making it to the bedroom. Each time she and Slade made love, he not only touched her body, he touched her heart as well. He had the ability to awaken every sensation she possessed, and with the way his tongue was gliding across her breasts, making her gasp, squirm, and moan, she knew he had her just where he wanted her and just where she wanted to be.
“You like that, don’t you?” he asked huskily.
She didn’t know why he was asking whe
n he knew she did. She liked everything he did to her, and with an intensity that overwhelmed her. “Yes, I like—”
Before she could get out the final word, he had lifted his mouth from her breasts and captured her lips, swallowing up whatever word she was going to say. His tongue tangled with hers in a way that had her heart pounding while mirroring her innermost emotions, fantasies, and dreams. But then this was also a taste of reality, and the realism was that she was just where she wanted to be, in Slade’s arms. In his bed.
Now if she could only wiggle into a part of his heart.
She loved him, but other than knowing he enjoyed what they were sharing, she didn’t know how he actually felt about her. She refused to entertain the unwanted notion that this summer was all he wanted for them. She had to believe that deep down he wanted more like she did.
He released her mouth. “Open your eyes and look at me, Skye.”
She did what he asked, and the intensity of the dark eyes looking down at her almost took her breath away.
“Now tell me what you see,” he requested softly as he shifted his body in position over hers.
She gazed into his eyes for a long moment and then said, “I see a deeply aroused man. A man who wants me as much as I want him. A man who’s shown me the meaning of being desired to the utmost and not holding anything back, and a man who has introduced me to so many incredible experiences.”
He reached down and gently brushed a twisted curl from her cheek and she shivered, an automatic reaction from his touch. “What about love, Skye? Do you see a man who loves you?”
She stared at him and she did see it now. It was there, shining in the dark depths of his eyes, and it was so profound it made tears form in her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she said in a broken whisper. “All I knew was that I had fallen in love with you, Slade. I had no idea you loved me, too.”
Slow Burn (A Madaris Family Novel) Page 21