His mouth was set, a muscle jumping in his jaw, which only made him sexier.
The two of them stood in silence a moment and the combination of the tingles still on her arm from his touch, the view, and the pleading look in his eye filled Janie with a yearning she hadn’t ever experienced. The silence spread and she searched for another question to ask, another excuse to not like the guy in front of her, but her body was intent on ignoring her. Her legs were ready to take a step forward, her arms aching to throw themselves around his neck. She tossed her hair and thrust her shoulders back trying to take up some of the space in the room, trying to regain some control, because as they stood there, the look between them shifted. He ran one long finger over the back of her hand and the oxygen all but left her lungs. Closing her eyes a moment, she focused on controlling her breath, and when she opened them again, he was still there, the shimmering light from the window behind him damn near like the outline of a bubble.
“You’re god-damned sexy when you’re asking the hard questions, you know that?”
“And you’re ridiculously hot. It’s entirely unfair. If it wasn’t such a stupid idea I’d be demanding you get your clothes off and make it up to me right now.” The words were out before she could stop them and in two steps he was right in front of her, one hand in her hair and the other at her waist.
“Say that again.”
Even while her body was singing hallelujah and holding out for a high five, Janie’s head tensed in uncertainty. This was new ground for her. Flings were not her style, as much as using someone’s crappy situation to make her blog sing weren’t. And yet, here she was, both possibilities offering themselves up to her. “I will do no such thing.”
“I heard it all the same. Tell me you don’t enjoy being with me, no matter my job and my history and I’ll leave you alone, work out a way to keep you away from the press while we go our separate ways. I know that’s not what you want, and it’s not what I want. You make me feel alive. Feel good about myself, feel confident that I can do all the stuff I’m planning on taking on.”
Janie looked at his gorgeous face, at the wicked plumpness of his lips, lips that he licked when he noticed her eyes on them. “And what do I get out of it?”
“Let me show you that not all men are like Two-Minute Tom. Pretend with me for a couple more days. Live the lie. Lap up the luxury. Make some memories to take home.”
He’s still there, and those lips are waiting. She nodded, and that was all the encouragement he needed.
The kiss was everything he promised, and when he peeled her shirt off she let herself attack his so that before she could back out of it the two of them were facing each other, naked. Real naked, because behind him was a wall of glass and then, the ocean, growing even darker now.
His hand trailed up from her hip, and when it covered her breast, warm palm to hot skin, she couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped. She was going to be stronger than that though; hell, she’d demanded this, so trying out the new her, she put her hand to his butt and pulled him closer.
“You are full of surprises, you know that?”
But that was the last thing he said before he tumbled her onto the bed and let his tongue explore every part of her, including the ones he’d missed earlier. As he wedged his thigh between hers she opened up gladly, wanting the oblivion, the rush of spontaneous irresponsibility. The pull of need flowing between her thighs was so strong she didn’t think she would have been able to stop herself if she tried anyway. And then there he was, his cock, hot and hard and ready, waiting at her entrance. She was so wet she thought she might slither off the bed and into the ocean any minute.
“Please.”
“Oh hell yes.” His voice was all hot grit and ready passion, and when she looked up into his face his eyes glittered like hard, sharp sapphires. She thought about asking him to take it slow, but seeing that look in his eye extinguished the thought immediately. He rolled on the condom he’d pulled from his wallet in record time, then, gripping her hips, sent his full hard length deep inside.
She squirmed, unprepared for how full she was, how intense the feeling of having him inside her was, but he held her firm, unmoving until she had stilled. Withdrawing till he was almost at her exit, he hovered, seeking out her eyes with his own and, when he had captured her gaze unwaveringly, he slid even further inside. She shuddered, the strength of his control sending her into spasms of worship. If she hadn’t already started a lust cult with him as its object of glorious veneration, she sure as heck had one now.
Taking first one arm then the other, he pulled them up over her head before pinning them both in one of his big hands. Captured and captivated, Janie wrapped her legs around his waist and arched her back to give him even better access. He took it, every inch, and as he slid out of her once more, excruciatingly slowly, she squeezed him tight so he couldn’t escape her.
“You’re so gloriously wet,” he said, dipping his head to her neck and biting her softly. “I’m trying to make this last, but you’re making it hard.”
Not quite so much with the control perhaps. “Thank Christ. Please, take me over the edge. Now. Hard.”
Bam, he released her arms and rolled her on top of him in one swift movement. Gripping her firmly around the waist, he pulled her hard onto him, grinding her clit as he did. Miss Muffin hollered with glee and Janie arched back, opening her legs wider till the hum began deep in her very center and the orgasm started spreading like oil in a tractor engine. She opened her eyes and saw him watching her, all predator, not prey, and she realized she would happily be eaten by this man if she let herself. So pushing herself back she straddled him, riding him so his cock hit her G-spot and shattered the last of her reserve. She put her hands on her breasts and pinched her nipples, throwing her head back and letting the wash of sensation begin its heady ascent over her entire body. He growled, and with his hands on her waist he started driving into her harder and harder till she tipped full-strength over the edge and exploded into climax. She couldn’t move, could hardly breathe, she was so caught up in the sensation, but he didn’t let up, pulling her onto him and rolling his hips as he thrust into her so the pleasure crashed around her higher and higher.
“Holy shit. Oh my God! Yes.”
Her scream melded with his yell as he came with her, his cock jerking and sending her into another round of spasms as it hit her in a spot she hadn’t even known existed.
They stayed locked together a long minute, until their breathing slowed to a matched calmer pace. She rolled off him and watched as he disposed of the condom in a tissue, then flopped beside him on the bed. “Like I said, you’re full of surprises,” he managed to say, eventually tucking her into his arm.
“Says the guy who is hardly an open book.”
“Touché.”
Janie let the swell of emotions roll off her. It would suck to be in the public eye, all day, every day. It was pretty much her idea of hell; that was the reason the blog had appealed—a big audience but with anonymity. And it wasn’t an accident that her job at the reptile sanctuary had her behind the scenes as much as she could possibly manage.
“Thank you for letting me spend time with you like a normal person.”
The snort came out before she could stop it. “You are not a normal person. Have you seen where you go on vacation?” She gestured around the room.
“Beats Glasgow on a winter day, I’ll give it that,” Blaine said with his characteristic drawl.
Damn him for being so charming and delightful and delicious and…
He trailed his hand down her face. “Smile again. It’s wonderful when you smile. Do you know how long it’s been since I laughed with anyone and meant it?”
“Shit.”
He shrugged. “It goes with the territory. Probably only get worse when I make it in the States. And I am going to make it in the States.”
As he made the statement, a hard, fast barb of reality struck her. She was going to do it. The truth spun aroun
d in her head a moment and she almost felt dizzy. Despite Tina’s advice, she was going to give up her chance of getting out of Little Acre for a few days with Blaine. She just couldn’t think about blogging about him, about this, and enjoy herself properly. And she couldn’t take him down when he had so much to fight for; it wasn’t who she was. So that was it. At the end of this, she was going back to Little Acre. Forever.
She must have stiffened because he turned her chin toward him.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Just thinking. Don’t worry about it.”
“This is your chance to not think for a while. You good with that?”
She nodded.
“Then could we maybe start over?” He untangled himself from her and propping himself on his side he proffered a hand. “I’m Blaine Galloway. Actor. But seeing as you don’t know me, can you pretend I’m, I don’t know, a builder, or a baker. Either way. Someone who is good with their hands.”
The innuendo wasn’t lost on her, and Janie changed positions as her body directed her to ignore everything except the promise that McDashing’s dick had just made good on. “Let’s not pretend you’re anything that you’re not. No more lies. No more half-truths even. Be straight up with me or we’re done, whether you’re a stupidly hot Scotsman or not.”
He gave her a look that warmed far more than it should have. “Fair call. I’m Blaine Galloway. I’m an actor and I’m hiding out. Will you hide out with me?”
She checked him up and down. His face was clear, without artifice, and his body language was open, his muscles loose, asking her to believe him.
Blaine Galloway seemed as sincere as they came. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Janie Milan.” She didn’t know what to add. There wasn’t a word that summed up her life as neatly as actor did for him. But she didn’t have time to ponder more on that as Blaine brought her hand up to his lips and turned it over to lay a kiss on her palm. As it had the first time he did it, the contact shot through her and made everything else irrelevant.
“If you were trying to seduce me again, you don’t have to work so hard. You had me at hello.” She tried to deflect how wide-open she was feeling. How her heart felt about a hundred sizes too big for her body.
“Hello?” He slid one hand down her side, trailing his fingers over the slope of her naked hip.
That’s your witty retort? “Okay, so I stole that line from a movie. You probably had me at, ‘och, lassie, get your hands off me.’”
He laughed, and the sound billowed around the room, buoying her up again. Janie smiled and looked back over her shoulder at the ocean. “I know you were being polite earlier when you said we had so much in common, but thanks anyway. It made me feel special.”
He tipped her chin up so she had to look him in the eye. “You have no idea how great it is to be around someone as unpretentious as you, do you?”
“Is that a nice way of saying I’m not front-page material?”
He frowned. “Don’t take that the wrong way. You heard it out of context. What do you think it means to not be front-page material?”
“Just that. I’m reserved and a bit boring.”
“You are anything but boring,” he said. “You saved me from a deadly snake in the middle of an isolated Thai cave.”
“It wasn’t deadly, and I hardly saved you,” she said, but he put a finger to her lips again. “Is that what Two-Minute Tom told you? That you were boring?”
Janie huffed her breath out her nose. “No. He told me I might be exciting to someone who wanted to settle down, get married and have kids, and have no aspirations on adventure of any sort, but that wasn’t him. And he got hitched the first chance he could with my best friend. After he cheated on me first.” That last part she’d had to find out from her aunt Alexia. Janie shuddered at the memory. Knowing that her aunt knew meant that the whole town knew. She shook herself. No need to beat herself up about it anymore; she’d moved on.
Blaine out blew a long whistle. “That sucks shite.”
“Indeed.”
“You are not boring.” He smirked and gave her ass a squeeze. “If you’re not careful I’ll have to show you how not-boring you are. Come, let’s get wet.”
Janie blushed, knowing full well that Miss Muffin already had that sorted. He let her go and she missed his warmth immediately as he walked over and opened a door down to the private beach.
“It’s dark.”
“So?” He led her down the stairs. With the sand oozing through her toes, she stole a glance at Blaine, reflected in the light from their room. What she wouldn’t give for him to be in her life full time. She shook her head. Time to just enjoy what was on offer, every last second of it.
“You are such a breath of fresh air,” he said.
“You think?”
He stroked her cheek with the back of his finger. “As fresh as the air coming in off the ocean.” He tried to mimic her accent and did a half-decent job, although he sounded more like he was from Boston than Little Acre.
“There.” He pointed to some rocks where she could just make out a bird diving for fish. It came up empty and hopped onto the rocks to let the water roll off its feathers. “You’re like that bird.”
Janie looked at the bird more closely. There was nothing remarkable or particularly beautiful about it. “I’m not sure that’s helping your argument. You’re saying I’m an ordinary bird?”
“Wait.”
She did, and the bird spread out its wings in an attempt to get the water off them. Janie gasped. “How did you know it was hiding that?” The underside of the bird’s wings had swirling circles of brilliant turquoise, visible even in the darkening light.
“I’ve seen pictures of them online and there’s one in the resort’s marketing brochure. The bird is a resident here and apparently the owners leave food for her as an offering. She doesn’t like to show off her beauty, and thinks it’s hidden, but everyone can see it if they spend a little time with her. And when they’ve seen it once, they can’t unsee it.”
Janie absorbed his words. “You think I hide my beauty?”
“I know you do, but I’ve seen what’s hidden under those clothes, under your skin. You are beautiful. And not an inch of you is ordinary or boring.”
Janie took a deep, shaky breath. “You’re killing me, you know that?”
“Killing you.” His face creased in worry. “How?”
“No, no.” She put her hand to his face. “This is just too much is all. You’re too much. It’s good in a way that you lied about who you were because otherwise you’d be so fantasy prince that a princess wouldn’t know what you do with you. Heck—” She took a deep breath. “You make the impossible seem possible.”
“In a good, trip-of-a-lifetime-way?”
“In the best way.”
“Okay.” And he untied the belt on his robe.
Kill me now. The world doesn’t get any better than this.
As if she’d laid down a challenge, he shucked the whole thing so it fell to the sand and he was standing there, naked, with only the darkness coating his skin.
Okay, I take it back. Now. You can kill me now.
He pulled her into him and slid his hands under her robe and up to caress the underside of her breasts.
She bit her lip. “I don’t have my swimsuit.”
“Who’s going to be out at night? And that’s the best bit about this resort anyway. Total privacy. They guarantee it.”
“You believe it?”
Blaine pointed to a row of buoys with what looked like poles on top out in the water, far enough away that Janie had to squint to see them.
“The resort is on a peninsula and there’s a shark net out there with a fence on top. Don’t ask me how it works, but they have staff that patrol it. Like I said, total privacy, they guarantee it. If it’s good enough for my agent, it’s good enough for me. I should have come here in the first place.”
Janie watched his face as it grimaced, and her heart gave a little s
tutter. He might have lied about who he was, but it had been to protect himself from the vultures in the media, not to hide anything he’d done to her as Two-Minute Tom had. “I’m glad you didn’t come here first.”
“So am I.”
Her breath hissed out in a rush with the words. “You have no idea how I’ve needed this. A fling is the perfect remedy for heartache, isn’t it? This”—she gestured around them—“you’re right, it makes me feel beautiful.”
“Perhaps because no one has taken the time to make you see yourself the way I see you.”
Yep. Dead. Died. Done.
She let him untie her belt and suddenly her robe was open wide to the elements.
He growled deep in the back of his throat and put his hands on her bare hips even as she covered her breasts with her hands.
“You’re right, we shouldn’t take any chances. Let’s get in the water.” And he slid the robe off her shoulders before picking her up and carrying her to the edge of the water.
Okay, perhaps in a couple of hours. Or tomorrow. But not yet. No killing yet, please. Because if there was one thing Janie was absolutely certain of, she was going to enjoy whatever Blaine Galloway planned for her at this resort. And if she could manage it, she would make him do it over and over until her last dying breath.
Chapter Nine
Blaine set Janie down in the water, the warm tropical temperature perfect as it swirled around his waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her whole body against his. Her skin felt amazing. Beyond amazing—perfect. For a moment he simply enjoyed the buoyancy of the water, let it roll them around in its gloriously cooling hands.
Her Scottish Mistake (A Perfect Escape) Page 10