“Did something happen?” Jamie threw a surveying look around his father’s study. No bra. No lace panties. Not even lipstick marks on Grant’s collarbone. “Why’re you drinking so early in the morning?”
“I’m having woman problems.” Grant clapped his legs together under the imposing rosewood desk.
“Woman problems,” Jamie repeated, in disbelief.
“Her name’s Eve. And before you make assumptions, let me tell you that she’s neither young, nor blonde, but I’m very serious about her.”
Unexpectedly, Grant broke out his prized A.H. Hirsch Reserve sixteen-year-old bourbon from the cabinet bookended between two legs of his desk. Glass clamored, before he set another crystal glass on the table. Tawny liquid eased into it, drop by precious drop, followed by ice cubes Grant procured from the mini-fridge in the room.
“She’s the one who works at Star Studios, isn’t she?” Circling the glass, Jamie felt the coolness of condensing ice against the inside of his palm.
“Mmmm. Although I think she might quit soon.”
Jamie folded his legs and collapsed onto a mauve wing chair diagonally opposite from Grant. “She’s very different from the women you usually go for.”
Not that there was anything wrong with that. Heaven knew, Grant needed someone mature and sensible by his side instead of another bimbo.
“Hence the problems.” The intensity in Grant’s eyes sharpened. He let a cool sip of bourbon run down his throat. “She has kids. Two of them.”
“So do you. One.” Removing the whiskey from his hand, Jamie set it down on a carved table adjacent the chair. “Is that the problem? Her kids?”
“Part of it.” Absently, Grant fingered the papers on his desk. “J, do you know the feeling of loving someone who’s out of your league, but the world thinks she’s not?”
“Eve’s not out of your league,” Jamie reassured.
“See, that’s where you and the rest of the world are wrong.” Screwing his eyes shut, Grant hung his head. “She’s totally out of my league. I don’t know how to impress a woman like her. The regular rules don’t apply. She has her own rules. Damn, she’s frustrating.”
Grant sounded really frustrated.
“Why does she matter so much?”
A low groan vibrated in his father’s throat. “You know, there may have been countless women in my life, but I only ever loved two of them. Your mother, I married. Eve, I was hoping to marry someday.”
Jamie tipped his chin down. “You’re really serious about this woman.”
Grant’s breath whistled. “Dead serious. I’m fighting with myself over her. I’m fighting with who I want to be, who I used to be and who I can never be. I hope I win, though, because if I don’t, she will. And if she wins, she’ll bail.”
“Sounds complicated.”
Grant rubbed his lined forehead. “I hate being in my head these days. It was always a simple place, but now it’s worse than the civil war in Syria.”
In other words, Grant was experiencing the angst of being in love. Must be a novel experience for him.
“You could return to the women you had. They always made you feel good.” Terrible advice, but what else did one say to Grant Star?
“Women don’t help anymore. Whiskey does, though.” Grant smiled at his glass. “Buy me a bottle next time you come. When’ll that be? Next year?”
Jamie stood. “I’ve decided to stay in New York for a while longer.”
“That’s wonderful, J. I’m really pleased to hear that.” There was genuine joy in Grant’s tone. “Did you find something here?”
Jamie lowered his head. “Yeah.”
He’d found love.
*
Candles. Tens of them. Lit up and curving around the room in curly rows.
That was the first thing Bella guessed Jamie would see when he trundled into her studio.
And she was right.
“Why—what the fuck are so many candles doing here?”
Suspiciously, he sniffed the air, which was laced with the scent of sandalwood. Terrified blue eyes roamed over the expanse of her redecorated studio, that had been sprinkled with roses and lit with dozens of aromatic candles.
When they came to a stop on her body, she swore he lost so much air from his lungs that his chest looked concave.
“Holy fuck.”
Not the greatest compliment, but it would do.
The candle’s glow flickered over the outline of the tight lump in his throat, which grew bigger as he studied what she was wearing.
Bella counted the fact that he didn’t raise an eyebrow at what she was wearing as a nod to her taste. His taste, actually.
After all, he’d been the one who’d purchased this slinky black, see-through bodysuit.
Allowing her own gaze to roam suggestively over her barely concealed flesh, she bit her lip as the tips of her rosy nipples budded. “I found it in your cupboard while looking for aspirin the other day. Thought I’d use it.”
There was a twitch in Jamie’s jaw. “And you’re not going to ask me who I bought that for?”
“I know who you bought it for.” Seductively throwing her hips side to side, Bella glided to him and twined her fingers with his. Then she sketched a wet line across his smoothly shaved neck with the tip of her tongue. “36D. It fits perfectly. Pity I couldn’t wear it that day and play teacher with you.”
“You were 36D?” His uncomfortable pucker slid right off his face, replaced by a wash of color. Pulling at his spikes of hair, he hissed out a breath. “I should’ve known.”
“You didn’t?” Working his buttons, Bella untucked his shirt, her impatient breaths playing against his chest.
“No, I forgot all about it. But I’m glad it was you.” Jamie grinned. “Then again, it couldn’t have been anyone else. We…have a certain chemistry.”
Tucking one finger under the flimsy neckline, he eased it down between her breasts. Skimmed her taut bud. Then skittered down to the other aching bud between her legs and nipped it.
The thin slip of mesh shivered under his probing. So did Bella’s pulse.
“I didn’t expect to see you naked with the lights on.”
Delicately, she murmured into the crook of his neck. “I...decided to give it a try.”
The truth was that doing something out of her comfort zone was her week’s assignment for the sexual confidence course that she was taking. And since the entire reason she’d taken that course was so that she’d be able to have sex with the lights on, this had seemed like a good idea.
Better not mention that, though. She didn’t want him to think she was trying too hard.
“I’m glad you did. You look ravishing.” His voice rung with passion as he placed his hand on the small of her back.
I feel safe around you, she wanted to say, but that would give him the wrong idea, so she swallowed her words.
Exerting great willpower, Bella led his hand away.
“Lie down on the bed,” she instructed, almost pushing him along.
Today was for his pleasure only.
She didn’t intend to take anything from him tonight. Only give everything that she could.
“Why?” Two thick, bushy eyebrows moved up in puzzlement.
Her groomed nails, painted red for the occasion, dug into his biceps. “I’m going to give you a massage.”
Over the last few weeks, he’d been working on his computer constantly, churning out some script or the other. Often, she’d caught him complaining about muscle pain and pinching his shoulders. So she’d decided to help him out a bit.
“A massage,” Jamie articulated, in terse tones.
“Yes. A massage.” Bella stripped him gradually—dealing with his belt buckle, peeling away his jeans, then everything underneath. Until he was buck naked.
“What kind of massage is this?” Jamie questioned, angling his chin up as he stepped away from the puddle his clothes had formed on the ground.
“You’ll know.” Making him l
ie belly-down on her bed, Bella brought up the blankets to cover the lower half of his body, while she concentrated on the upper half.
Anointing her hands with aromatic oil, she pressed the heels of her palms in circles on both sides of his spine and spread it generously.
His body sighed in relaxation under her kneading fingertips, growing limp. Easing muscles allowed her to plough into them a little deeper.
“Why did you suddenly decide I need a massage, anyway? Not that I’m complaining.” He elongated his arms to either side of him, stretching.
“You’ve been whining about neck pain all week.” Patting two fists into the network of knotty muscles under his glass-smooth skin, Bella put her back into it.
“You were listening to that?” Briefly, she spotted the tension in his jaw. Then it faded. “You know; you’d be a good mother. You’re so caring.”
He tossed it out casually, but it hit her somewhere deep. Her fingers lost their gusto and drifted around tepidly for a bit. Bella felt her throat close. The hard bud of longing inside her itched.
Impervious to the change in her mood, Jamie bolted his eyes shut and sighed softly against the layers of bedding under him. “Yeah, baby. Right there.”
Moments later, she found the air in her lungs again. “How does it feel?”
Chin sinking into a deep valley in the pillow, he said, “Good. But it’d feel better if you were straddling my back and pressing your hard nipples into me.”
Slapping him for his insolence, Bella continued poking into his skin with her fingertips. “If I do that, I might fracture your hip bone.”
His head bobbed up sharply. “Did you just slap me?”
“Um...sorry—”
“Do it again.” Folding his hands back, he struck himself on the spot where she had.
“Huh?”
He licked his lips in a sensual gesture. “Do it again. I liked it.”
She stilled. “This is a massage. Not foreplay.”
That one moment of her hands away from him was all Jamie needed to turn around to the front and flash her a willpower-destroying smile. “It could be both.”
A current of desire clouded her mind. His mouth beckoned. Before she knew it, he was pulling her close and she was swinging her legs down either side of his hips, swooping low to his lips. Her eyes drifted shut.
I want to be someone to you. That thought popped out of nowhere, but soon became swallowed up by the ferocious heat of the kiss.
Sensation touched every nerve ending on her lips when his tongue struck them. Under her, his steel hard erection was starting to creep up and scrape against the skin of her inner thighs.
Torrid kiss after torrid kiss, they went at each other like starved beasts, unwilling to let go of the intimate contact. They traded tongues, moans, and breaths. Tingling heat flowed from him to her, snaking its way down to her moistening core, which purred with longing and dampness.
His hand found its way to her folds, and he pushed the line of mesh covering her slick wetness to the side.
Instead of snapping awake when he skated over the rim of her inner lips, Bella surrendered to him completely. He was that once place in the world where she felt completely safe. Completely wanted.
Snatching a single crimson rose from the ones she’d put at the bedside, Jamie trailed it over her nipples and abdomen, and tickled her exposed pussy with it.
The clear blue pools of his eyes regarded her with challenge.
Blue eyed devil, she thought to herself as thrill spiked into her.
He continued to finger her, thrusting two fingers into her as his thumb pad played with her. Groaning and moaning, she attempted to perch on his shoulder bone to keep herself from tumbling back.
The pounding of an oncoming orgasm grew more inside her body. Blood rushed to her face, warming her cheeks and shortening her exhales. An unintended scream shot out of her throat, and at that instant, she came apart in every way she could.
Her voice disintegrated into whimpers. Her body into a zillion specks of stardust. Time halted to a single second—this second. The only reminder of reality was a whiff or two of sandalwood that she caught between shaky breaths.
The orgasm burned through her, hot and entirely satisfying. Her entire being luxuriated in the bliss. Folding her eyelids shut, Bella gave herself over to the powerful, all-consuming fall. And it was on his chest that she fell. His rock-solid comfortable chest.
“Love you,” she murmured into his chest, without even realizing what she was saying.
Love him? He’s leaving for LA in a month. You can’t love another happily-never-after.
His arm was stretched over to the bedside, where he was flicking buttons on his phone screen.
Pulling herself off his chest, Bella clubbed him in the head with a pillow. “You’re typing texts in the middle of our cuddle?”
“Ouch. Hey. Don’t.” He cupped the bottom of her head and yanked her back as she charged for a head-butt. “I wasn’t messaging. I was checking my recording.”
An evil grin fell on his lips and the sound of her aroused, pitchy scream enveloped the room.
Bella colored. “Oh God. You did not.”
“Wanna hear it again?”
“No. Never.” Reaching, Bella tried to steal his iPhone from him.
Jamie didn’t give it up, though. “But I do. I want to hear that sexy cry every morning and every night. Actually, I think I might make it my new ringtone.”
“You. Will. Not. Delete it this instant. Delete. Do you have any idea what’ll happen if someone finds out about it? Sex tapes get leaked online all the time. My career as a respectable academic will be ruined if this finds its way onto the internet.”
“Nobody will be able to tell it’s you.” Spooning by her side, Jamie winked. “After all...I’m the only one who’s made you come like this.”
More embarrassment flooded her. “Delete.”
Jamie paused for a heartbeat. “Ok. But only if you promise to give me a blow job.”
She carried a warning glower in her eyes as she said, “I’m not in a negotiating mood.”
“Then get into one.” Jamie dangled the phone in front of her eyes.
If she was a dragon, she’d be breathing fire from her nostrils. “Are you threatening me?”
“I believe I am.”
Hell. That cocky tone. She couldn’t win against that cocky tone. Ever.
She flailed her oil-soaked hands against his ribs. “You’re oily. We’ll have to wash you first.”
“You have my permission to do so.”
Peering into his eyes, sprinkled with golden specks of candlelight, Bella sighed. “Come on, then.”
Her bathroom was small, so they were literally squishing against each other in the bathtub. Not that she minded it. With the bodysuit gone, she had no reason to not press into him.
The showerhead rained hot water on them, and droplets dewed over their oily skins. Soaping up her hands, she rolled them over the flushed veins cording his shaft. He was erect, and her soapy slides only made him harder.
Bella kept the movements irregular and light. She didn’t want him coming before she could get him in her mouth.
Spreading the lathered foam to his balls, she dared to venture beyond them to his ass. She stroked him there.
“You’re going interesting places.” He smacked his lips together.
Instead, he turned to appraising her naked body. A sliver of insecurity returned. Floundering, she lost her balance and grasped the side of his arm.
“What are you looking at?” she asked, when his eyes didn’t leave her.
“Your beauty,” his wet lips uttered.
Spraying him with the showerhead, she washed away all the lather. “Then keep looking.”
A thin laugh kicked from his mouth. “I wish you were always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Confident. Bossy.”
“I’m always bossy.” Over the smooth metallic showerhead, her fingers soften
ed.
The confines of her chest were too small for her thundering heart. Assiduously, she locked her palm over the bottom of his cock.
Kneeling down, Bella licked the drops of water glistening on Jamie’s hard shaft. “I want you to come in my mouth.”
His fingers clenched around her hair. She took that as a yes.
As his cock hit the back of her mouth, Bella’s eyes burned a little.
She was afraid things would go horribly wrong, but not as much as she was afraid that they might go horribly right.
Because if they were to go right, she’d be stuck nursing a broken heart.
Regardless, she fended off her thoughts for the next few minutes, focusing exclusively on wringing out an orgasm from Jamie. Her tongue tickled the breadth of his cock, climbed up and down the rigid length. Opening her mouth, she gave his penis an ice-cream lick. And then she sucked. Fast, slow, hard, soft, in between, until she felt him responding.
The outline of Jamie’s knuckles almost tore through his skin as he clutched the curtain rod, his arousal throbbing with heat under the silken caress of her tongue. She could almost taste his cum. Almost.
Water from the shower was beating on her skull, but the rush of blood inside her head was much more potent. Keeping her rhythm, she massaged all around his dick.
She teased him, taunted him, made him wait, then finally gave it to him in aggressive, rhythmic stokes. He blew his load in her mouth. It went straight down her throat. She swallowed all of it. Every last salty drop. Licked him dry with her tongue until his tumescence waned.
Then she wiped her mouth and got to her legs.
“Are you deleting it now?”
He was too consumed in riding his orgasm. He simpered.
That had better be a yes.
Chapter 15
When Eve slid into his office on Monday evening, Grant’s heart almost dropped out of his chest.
Avoiding eye contact, she eased the door shut.
Grant’s chest contracted painfully as she strode towards his desk. She didn’t look happy.
For both their sakes, he hoped she wouldn’t tell him that she wanted to leave. Because he couldn’t bear it.
He missed her. He missed her laughter against his cheek, her sarcastic wisecracks, her warmth, her flushed skin under his hands. He missed kissing her, taking trips with her, expanding his horizons with her. He missed the light in his life that she brought.
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