“No,” she tried again. “I don’t want to stop. I want to touch you. Everywhere. Is that okay?”
His tone and demeanor shifted to complete and total authority and the change sent a shiver down her spine. “Touch me.”
That was all she needed to hear. She reached a hand out tentatively towards his cut abs. The second they made contact his skin jumped beneath her touch and his erection swelled and twitched before her eyes. Loving that she could affect him like that, her hand spread and her touch grew bolder. She took her time, wanting an indelible imprint of him in her brain that she could see forever. In the future, when she accessed her mental file labeled “Naked Ace,” she wanted to be able to call it up in breathtaking detail with no hesitation whatsoever.
Shifting up on her knees she continued her exploration up and over his chest. She ran her hands lightly across his shoulders, then up and down his arms, loving the feel of his large, strong muscles.
He has protector arms. He has arms that are made to save people. Arms made to take care of me.
She shook her head, shutting down that line of thinking immediately. This wasn’t about him protecting her, as much as she felt sheltered by him every time they were together. This wasn’t about him saving her, as much as she felt like she was rescued every time she was with him. And this wasn’t about him taking care of her, even though he took better care of her than anyone she’d ever met. Thinking like that would only lead to her depending on him, and that was out of the question. This was about sex. Pure and simple.
One night of hot, wild sex with the hottest man I’ve ever met. No strings. No complications. Don’t make it any more than that. Don’t overthink things. Keep it simple.
Getting back into pure animal lust territory was actually easier than she thought it would be when her wandering hands moved down over and past his six-pack abs to his rock-hard erection. Her fingers wrapped around it and she began to stroke him up and down, first slowly and then faster and more intensely. She reveled in the velvety feel of his skin over the steel hardness underneath. It stirred lust in her that she knew there was only one way to satiate. So, since she was on such a ‘say what you want’ roll, she leaned up to his ear and rasped, “I want you inside me. Now.”
She didn’t have to ask him twice. With agility and speed that made her head spin, he had lowered her back down to the couch, retrieved a condom from his wallet on the coffee table, ripped open the package and slid it on, and then positioned himself over her. With one thrust, he would be inside her. Her core trembled in anticipation of the very thought of it.
Instead of taking the lead and entering her, though, he paused. Every muscle in his body stilled as he looked into her eyes, sincerity shining through to her. “Are you sure?” he asked softly. “This is what you want?”
Tears started to fill her eyelids and she shut them before he could see. How was she ever going to keep her emotions out of the mix when he said things like that? What guy would check in with her like that? Not wanting to dwell on that too much out of fear that she might start crying and really ruin the mood, she began nodding and managed to say, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Before the second “yes” escaped her lips, he pushed into her opening, causing that last “yes” to morph into a gasp of pleasure. Her fingernails dug into his back as she wrapped her legs around him. He took his time sinking deeper and deeper into her. She writhed beneath him, loving the feeling of him entering her inch by inch. When he filled her completely, he pulled out and started the process again, repeating it over and over.
She opened her eyes and watched his face as he delivered smooth, measured strokes. The concentration, the intensity, the waves of pleasure that she could see run across his features and contort them. She loved every moment of this, every part of it. She ran her hands up and down his back as he pumped in and out of her, memorizing the feel of his ropy muscles under her palms as they worked.
His body was a masterpiece. She could spend ten lifetimes exploring it and never uncover all of its perfect secrets. Never uncovering all of the amazing delights it had to offer. But she wouldn’t have ten lifetimes. She wouldn’t even have ten nights. She had this one night, and that…wasn’t so bad. She refused to let sadness overtake her because of it. A lot of people never even got one perfect night—she had this one. And she would do everything within her power to stay in the moment and freaking enjoy it.
His hand moved to her hip and pulled her leg up slightly. His fingers dug into her skin, holding her body in place. The new angle caused him to drive even deeper into her. His rhythm increased and with each thrust she grew wetter as her inner walls clamped tightly around his rock-hard length. A delicious pressure began building low in her belly. Tingling waves of pleasure began crashing inside of her. Her body started to shake with release and she let out a silent cry.
When she did he buried himself to the brim and his body stiffened. He wrapped his arm around her back, holding her tightly. She wound her arms and legs around him. She loved being like this, pressed against him skin-to-skin, belly-to-belly, her head buried in his neck. She loved feeling his weight on her. Every inch of her body could feel his muscles tensing and releasing as he experienced that ultimate pleasure, and she’d never felt anything more powerful—not only physically, but emotionally, too.
Too bad he’s leaving in the morning.
As they both caught their breath, she whispered, “Thank you, Ace. Thank you for giving me one perfect night.”
He drew his head back to look at her and smiled. “Don’t thank me yet. We’re just getting started. We haven’t even made it to the bedroom yet,” he assured her, tracing her jawline with his thumb.
Her heart jumped at his words and his tender caress, but she reminded herself, he’s just talking about tonight. Not the future. Just the night.
Chapter 11
Stephanie was half asleep when she rolled to her right side and reached for her body pillow. When she didn’t feel it, her semi-conscious brain deducted that it’d fallen off the side of the bed. She was fairly active in her nocturnal state. She didn’t just talk in her sleep, she held conversations. Simone used to use that fact to her advantage to try to find out what her Christmas presents were. Her activity wasn’t only verbal in nature. During the night she twisted more than Chubby Checkers. There were a lot of nights that she would wake up to find all of her pillows and her comforter on the floor.
As much as she wished she could drift back into a blissful slumber she knew that she wouldn’t be able to unless she had the pillow to tuck between her legs and hold tightly. It was the only way she could sleep soundly which meant she needed to retrieve it. A trick she’d learned long ago was to keep her eyes closed during this process, if not, falling back to sleep was near impossible. Opening her eyes signaled her brain that it was time to start the day and at that point it was game over. Once the on switch was flipped and her mind started reeling, there was no shutting it off.
Eyes still shut tight, her arm flopped over the mattress in a search and rescue mission. She began blindly patting the air for her fluffy sleep aid. When her efforts came up short, she stretched to expand her reach. The motion caused her face to rub against the sheet and she inhaled a very distinct scent of masculine musk. When the aroma registered, the realization that she wasn’t in her own bed and the memory of her night of debauchery washed over her.
Needless to say her eyes flew open. The room was dim, the only light coming from the slit in the drapes that were pulled shut. She remembered that Ace had mentioned he had an early flight.
Was it early? What time was it? Was he gone? Was he here?
Pushing up on her elbows she peeked beside her and only saw empty space. Next she checked the clock on the nightstand. It read eight fifteen. A vague memory that his flight left at eight o’clock surfaced in her consciousness, which meant that he was in the air. She didn’t know where he was going or when he’d be back, but he was gone.
This whole thing felt so surreal. Yest
erday morning at this time he’d caught her returning his trashcan. They’d been virtual strangers. And now, here she was alone in his house, naked, after a night that…well, there were no words to describe what last night had been.
The last twenty-four hours were like a dream. If she hadn’t woken up in Ace’s bed she’d doubt whether or not any of it had even happened. But it had. She’d had her magical night at the ball and it was way past the stroke of midnight.
Back to reality.
She started to stand but hesitated. The fact that she was naked shouldn’t matter considering she was alone and even if Ace was still here, he’d seen, kissed, touched and licked practically every inch of her body. Modesty would be kind of a moot point. But considering she never walked around in her birthday suit in her own house, it didn’t surprise her that she was uncomfortable at the thought of doing it here.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to. Beside the bed, neatly folded on a chair, were her sweats, shirt, bra and underwear. The sight filled her with a giddiness that she’d only ever felt for boy bands and Ryan Gosling. Ace had that effect on her. One look, one touch, one sweet gesture when he wasn’t even present sent her floating on a cloud of bliss.
She couldn’t stop smiling as she quickly dressed. But that light, happy, weightless feeling that only Ace inspired was gone the moment she realized that she didn’t have her phone. It was at home.
Panic replaced her euphoric high as she ran out of the bedroom. She’d been unreachable for hours. What if Scott had needed her? What if he’d had an episode? What if Simone had had trouble with the car? What if she’d been stranded on the side of the road with no one to call?
In her hurry she stumbled down the hallway. If she weren’t so distressed she would’ve appreciated the humor in the fact that she looked like Bambi trying to walk on ice as she navigated the narrow space. She was used to being on her feet for extended periods of time, but she wasn’t used to dancing or the other activities that she’d participated in last night. She was sore in muscles she didn’t even know she had.
Somehow she managed to get to the front door. Her eyes squinted at the bright sunlight as she dashed from Ace’s condo to her own. Frantically she looked for her phone. It wasn’t on the kitchen counter, the table, the couch, the coffee table, or the bathroom. Each second that she couldn’t find it the panic levels in her body increased like a pressure cooker.
She envisioned the worst-case scenarios, picturing Simone on the side of the road stranded and alone. Scott scared, sick and alone.
How could she have been so irresponsible? She was their “in case of emergency.” What if they’d had an emergency?
She was almost to her bedroom when a buzzing sound froze her in her tracks. Holding her breath, she tried to discern where the noise was coming from. It sounded like the couch, but she’d already looked there. The vibrating alert stopped on her way back to the living room but she continued that direction.
Upon a more thorough investigation, which consisted of checking between the cushions, she located her phone. Her body was flushed with relief when she saw that she hadn’t missed any calls from Brookside or Simone. Then her body flushed with an entirely different emotion when she saw that she did have a text from Ace, who must’ve programmed her number into his phone, and a missed call from a number she didn’t recognize.
First she opened the text. Hey darlin’. I didn’t want to wake you this morning because you were sleeping so soundly. I’m about to get on the plane and can’t stop thinking about you. Don’t forget, dinner when I get back. See you soon.
A simple message from him was all it took for the now familiar dizzying delight to spread through her again. Stephanie had never been particularly romantic. With Mason, things never felt reckless and whimsical. They’d been nice. Safe. Steady. Well, at least they were until they weren’t. It’s what she’d always believed she wanted in a relationship. But one day with Ace and she was starting to rethink her position.
“Where were you last night?”
Simone’s voice startled her and her phone flew out of her hand. She fumbled to try to grab it, but that only sent it soaring further away. It landed at her sister’s feet.
“What? Where were you?” Stephanie challenged her sister defensively.
Before she could reach it, Simone bent down to pick it up and turned it over, so that the screen was facing her. “I was home. Asleep in your bed, which is why I know you weren’t.”
When Stephanie saw the knowing grin that spread across her sister’s face, she was certain there was no longer any question in her mind as to exactly where she’d been last night.
Simone handed it back, her smile only growing larger as she said, “You might hold the distance record for the shortest walk of shame.”
Stephanie’s cheeks heated as she snatched the phone back from her sister. They were both adults and she knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about, but that didn’t change the fact that she was. Not because she thought there was anything wrong with what she’d done last night. She didn’t. It was just not something she really felt like discussing with her sister, or anyone for that matter.
Stephanie hoped that a subject change to her sister’s favorite topic, herself, would do the trick. “Did you have fun last night?”
“Not as much fun as you had.”
I walked right into that one.
Stephanie realized that she wasn’t firing on all cylinders because of her lack of coffee sustenance. She needed to rectify that ASAP. She walked over to the coffee maker and started it as she ignored her sister’s descriptive comments detailing what she’d thought had transpired last night and pleas to “tell her everything.”
As the glorious sounds of percolating and the smell of java filled the air, she continued to ignore her sister and pressed play on the voicemail that had been left by the number she didn’t know, then lifted the phone to her ear. Simone was still talking in the background, demanding that Stephanie “not spare a single detail.”
She only caught every other word and the message didn’t make any sense.
“Shhhh,” she hushed her sister as she replayed the voicemail.
A woman’s voice she didn’t recognize played. “Hello, my name is Rory Lancing and I’m trying to reach a Miss Stephanie Holland. I am the attorney for Jasper Holland’s estate. My number is…”
Jasper Holland’s estate. Her father’s estate?
She tuned back just in time to hear, “Please call me immediately. Thank you.”
Stephanie went numb as she lowered the phone and stared at the screen that displayed the number of the attorney for her father’s estate.
“What’s wrong? Is it Scottie?” Simone rushed to her side, fear tingeing her voice. “Is he okay?”
Stephanie nodded. “He’s fine. Scott’s fine.”
“What is it? What’s wrong? You look like you saw a ghost.”
That’s what she felt like.
“Who was it? Who was on the phone?” her sister demanded. “What did they say?”
“It was an attorney. She says she represents Jasper Holland’s estate.”
“Jasper Holland’s estate?” Simone repeated back. “Our dad…? Is he…?”
“I don’t know.” Stephanie knew there was only one way to find out. She pressed the number and called it back.
Her sister stood silently in front of her as Stephanie spoke with the attorney.
The moment she said goodbye, before she’d even disconnected the call, her sister asked again, “Is he…?”
Stephanie nodded. “He had a heart attack on the golf course two days ago. By the time the paramedics arrived, he was gone.”
“Oh.” Simone said quietly as she stared blankly at Stephanie. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, are you okay?” The twins had no memories of their father, they were both so young when he left, but that didn’t mean that the news would be any less devastating.
“I think so.” Simone shrugged.
Before
last night, Stephanie hadn’t thought about the man that had deserted her family for months, maybe even years. Then she’d talked to Ace about him and now he was gone. He’d been gone when she’d told him about her childhood. An uneasy feeling rose in her like floodwaters in a torrential downpour.
She had a sudden urge to call Ace. More than anything else she wanted to tell Ace what had happened. She needed to have him wrap his arms around her and hold her. She wanted to feel safe.
Somehow, in the span of twenty-four hours he had become her safe place. And it was gone. He was gone. And her father was gone.
Her father hadn’t been in her life in over twenty years, and Ace had only been in her life for twenty-four hours…so why did the fact that they were both gone suddenly make her feel so alone?
Chapter 12
The back of Ace’s knuckles absently tapped against the small window beside him as the memory of feeling silky soft skin brushing against him as he slipped off Stephanie’s sweats flashed in his mind. He watched the world passing by below and his chest tightened as he flew farther and farther away from the one place he wanted to be: in bed with Stephanie in his arms. Leaving her, sound asleep, wrapped in his sheets was hands down the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
To make matters worse, everything around him reminded him of the night before. Not that he’d needed reminding, it was all he could think about. When he’d arrived at the airport he’d spoken to a couple that were on their way to Amsterdam, in North Holland, and Holland was Stephanie’s last name. When he’d gone through the security checkpoint the woman in front of him had been wearing the same Cubs shirt that Stephanie had stripped out of in his living room. While waiting to board, “Crossing Hearts” was playing in the waiting area, the same Virginia Valentine song they’d slow danced to last night.
All He Needs – Ace & Stephanie (Crossroads Book 10) Page 10