“Occupational hazard,” Sully managed. “I guess I’m rusty with a suit and tie now that I’ve crossed over to the dark side of being a chef.”
“No, no. You look…perfect.”
Her hands froze over his now flawlessly-knotted tie, and oh hell no. He wasn’t passing up this chance to tell her how he felt. “And you look…”
Sully was summarily cut off by the blinding pop of the photographer’s flash.
“That might be the shot of the night,” the photographer murmured, looking into the display on the back of the camera. “Here, let me get a few more of you two.” He turned to adjust the flash, and Sasha looked up at Sully warily, as if to tell him he really didn’t have to.
He ducked down to whisper teasingly in her ear. “Sorry. I was supposed to save you, but I think I just got you in deeper.” The photographer snapped another shot, which only made Sully laugh.
Sasha pressed her lips together before grinning up at him. “That’s okay. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be in deep with. Now smile.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
As Sasha sat down for the first time in six hours, she made a gut-clenching admission.
Love was in the air, and it wasn’t the worst thing in the universe.
Despite the chilly spring night outside, warmth radiated throughout the spacious banquet room in the Willow Cove church hall as guests milled about. Tiny white lights hung from the solid wood beams of the historic building, dripping down from the ceiling with an illuminating glow. Just about every available surface in the room held candles in glass votives or hurricanes, from the small tables tucked away in private nooks to the larger ones grouped closer to the makeshift dance floor. The whole room shimmered with soft light, so hypnotically beautiful that Sasha wished she could capture it in something other than her memory.
Soft jazz music played in the background as people enjoyed champagne and wedding cake. Sasha’s parents had stayed on opposite ends of the room for most of the night, the happiness of the wedding canceling out most of the usual animosity between them. Delaney was utterly stunning in a satin and tulle dress that appeared to have been snatched from Cinderella’s closet. Even Jace looked happy and handsome in his dark suit as he said goodnight to guests and paused for end-of-the-night pictures. This fairy tale might not have Sasha’s name on it, but she had to concede that the wedding hadn’t been nearly as sappy as she’d thought it would be. In fact, the whole event was rather breathtaking. And through the entire evening, Sully had been at her side.
Exactly where she wanted him. And instead of scaring the pants off of her, the thought sent her happiness into overdrive.
“Uh-oh.” Sully cut through her thoughts with a sexy half-smile. “That look on your face suggests you are up to no good.”
“I beg your pardon,” Sasha said, aiming for a disdainful expression even as a delicious smile claimed her mouth. “I’m up to tons of good. In fact—” She paused to put her empty champagne flute on a nearby side table. “I think you should dance with me.”
Sully’s brows winged upward, but still he let her lead him to the dance floor, which was dotted with lingering couples. He swung her around gently, and she came to a slow stop in front of him before he twined his arms around her. “I take it back. You are up to tons of good.”
Sasha relaxed under Sully’s hands, melting into his body in a perfect fit. She boldly held him tighter, leaving no space between them as they swayed to the softly-toned saxophone and bass. It might be more than she’d ever dreamed of having, but there was no denying the super-heated current running between them.
She wanted Sully, plain and simple. Here. Home.
Endlessly.
“We could be up to more than good.” Sasha met his eyes for only a second before dropping her gaze to his mouth, her body trembling with desire and need. Sully’s eyes locked on her mouth in return, and he kissed her with a slant of his lips.
“The reception is winding down. Do you want to go?”
“No. I mean, yes,” she corrected as his forehead creased in confusion. “Yes, I want to go back to the room with you. But no. That’s not all I want.”
“It’s not?” Sully tensed in her grasp, but Sasha just looked at him with certainty.
“No. I want you starting tonight, Sully.”
He stared at her, hazel eyes wide. “Sasha, are you sure?”
Her heart fluttered, but her answer was automatic. “Yes. Now take me back to the room so I can show you how much.”
The walk across the street passed in a blur of hurried footsteps and absolute want, and it came to a culmination outside their bedroom door. Unable to wait another second after Sully pulled the key from the lock and replaced it in his pocket, she circled her arms around his shoulders, pressing her mouth over his in a swift, hard kiss.
“Sasha.” He gripped her hips with heated fists, walking her backward over the threshold and kicking the door shut. “I’ve wanted you like this all night.”
Oh God, his hands felt unbelievably hot wrapped around the curve of her backside, anchoring her lower body against his growing erection. “Then take me. Please, Sully, don’t wait. Take me to bed.”
Their mouths crashed together with need, and Sully lifted his hands to cradle the back of her neck. Knotting his fingers in her hair, he parted her lips, delving so deeply with his tongue that Sasha was helpless against the moan in her throat.
“That’s it.” He pulled from her mouth to trail a line of sinful, open-mouthed kisses down her neck. “I love how you sound.”
Sully slid the zipper on the back of her dress just enough to loosen it from her shoulders. With an excruciatingly slow glide, he lowered one side, Sasha’s pulse beating wildly as his lips followed the path of the soft-spun fabric. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin over her collarbone, his tongue taking their place as he traced his way to the divot below her throat. Every kiss, every lick and taste made her want the next one even more, until finally, Sasha had no choice but to cry out.
“You’re driving me crazy,” she said, the words layered over a sigh, and Sully drew back to look at her in the bright moonlight filtering past the curtains. Shadows outlined his features, defining the strong line of his jaw, sharpening the dark glint in his hazel stare. The way he looked at her, as if he’d wanted her forever, made Sasha’s legs start to shake.
“You drive me crazy all the time.” Sully lowered the zipper on her dress, letting it flutter into a pool of silk on the floorboards. “The way you say my name.” He cupped her breasts, skimming his thumbs over the hard peaks of her nipples through her bra until the word tumbled from her lips.
His eyes darkened further, and he raked a slow, searing gaze over her nearly naked body. “The way you always surprise me.” Slipping one breast free from the lacy, white demi-cup of her bra, Sully dropped his mouth to her nipple, and the friction of his swirling tongue sent a shockwave of heat between Sasha’s thighs. But rather than begging him for more, she flattened her palms over the front of his jacket to break the contact between them.
“Take this off,” she said, her voice husky with need, and one corner of Sully’s mouth lifted as if to reply, see?
He slipped his jacket from his shoulders, following with his shirt and tie before flashing his palms around her shoulder blades, lifting her from the dress at her feet to guide her back against the wall. “What drives me crazy the most is the way you fight what you want.”
“I want you,” she blurted, the words heating her face even though they were true.
“Then let me in.” His kiss was surprisingly soft, just a brush of his lips over hers. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” Sasha didn’t even think twice.
“Then let me show you how good this can be.”
Sully coaxed her mouth open with a gentle slide of his tongue, his kiss both deep and reverent. His hands pressed into the wall over her shoulders, his body caging hers, but she felt far from trapped.
She felt protected. Cared for.
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Perfect.
Need built, hot and demanding between Sasha’s thighs, and it took their kiss from sweet to suggestive in less than a breath. Sully’s hands traveled the length of her rib cage, resting for only a second at her waist before he gripped the curve of her ass to lift her off the floor entirely.
“Sully,” she moaned, wrapping her legs around the corded muscles of his waist as he notched his rock-hard cock against her core. Using both the angle and his strength as leverage, he thrust against her, pulling the straps of her bra from her shoulders to free her completely. Slow circles became harder, faster flicks of his fingers and tongue, and Sully rocked into the cradle of her hips with each pass over her tightly-beaded nipples.
She reached out, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to bring their bodies even closer. The want in her belly doubled into a demand, and the pulse of his fabric-clad cock dared her right up to the line where pleasure blurred with the deep ache of breaking apart.
“Oh, God, right there.” Sasha arched against the unyielding press of Sully’s hips, barely feeling the pressure of her shoulders digging into the wall behind her. Release spiraled down from her belly, cresting, threatening, building even brighter until—
“No.”
Sasha’s frustration flew out on a whimper at the same time Sully pulled her from the wall to break the contact between their hips.
“Sully, I—”
“No.” He lowered her to the floorboards, her heels finding purchase with a delicate click. “I want to be inside you when you come.”
Although the thought made the heat spark back to life between her legs, her fast, feisty nature refused to let her act on it. Rather than turning toward the bed to make good on Sully’s words, she dropped to her knees in front of him.
“If I have to wait, then so do you.”
With only a few precise ministrations, he was as undressed as she was, a pair of black boxer briefs the only barrier between his body and her touch. Sasha skimmed her fingers over the taut V of muscles leading into the low-slung waistband, guiding the cotton from Sully’s hips to leave him bare. God, he was beautiful, and she pressed a kiss over the crown of his cock with a murmur of appreciation.
“Sasha…Christ, you always surprise me.” His voice rasped with uncut desire, and Sasha wasted no time giving him what he clearly craved. Circling her fingers around the base of his cock, she parted her lips over the top, letting both meet in the middle as she took him all the way into her mouth. Sully froze with a low curse, knotting his fingers through her hair, but she didn’t stop. She repeated the motion, matching her touch to the rhythm of his ragged breath and the rock of his hips. Slow and sexy became fast and more focused with every pass of her mouth. The more urgent his movements became, the hotter Sasha grew to have him, until finally, Sully tore himself away on a hiss.
“Not waiting.” The condom was out of the side table drawer in a flash, and on in another. Before Sasha could catch the gasp stuck to her lungs, Sully pressed her to the bed, pulling her panties off to fill her in one hard thrust.
Sound ripped from Sasha’s throat without stopping to form a word, and she arched off the mattress even though Sully was buried all the way inside her. He angled over her body, splaying his palms across the small of her back to keep the depth of the connection, letting Sasha dictate the rhythm of their lovemaking as she thrust against his cock. Digging her heels into the quilt beneath them, her muscles squeezed around him, and she canted her hips again and again. The climax that had gone unfulfilled rebuilt between her legs, twice as powerful as before.
As if he could sense her need to come, Sully slipped a hand to the top of her core, his thumb finding the slick, sensitive spot above where they joined. He moved in slow circles as she thrust, bringing her closer at the same time he drew out her release.
“I’ve got you, Sasha,” he said, the promise twining with his exhale. “Come for me.”
Her orgasm crashed through her, release combining with pure pleasure in wave after wave. Only when every last gasp had fallen from her lips did Sully slip his hand from her center to pull her in close.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, still impossibly hard inside of her. But where he moved gently, Sasha arched up to meet him, wanting his release as much as she’d wanted her own.
“You said you didn’t want to wait.”
Sully cut out a groan as she began to rock her hips faster, harder. Still, he held back. “I don’t, but—”
“But nothing,” Sasha said, silencing him with another thrust. “I’ve got you right back. So if you want it, take it. I’m yours.”
Her words seemed to snap his last thread of control. Sully gripped her shoulders, filling her in urgent strokes, and she met every one. His body grew taut, but still she didn’t scale back, not even when his chest began to shudder over hers. She rode out his climax, wrapping her arms around him to keep him skin on skin and heart to heart, until finally, he shifted back to the bed, spent.
They lay together until reality came back in tiny increments, a breath here, a blink there. Sully slipped to the bathroom for only a minute, leaving the alcove light on as he returned to the bed to get under the covers and pull her snug against his side.
“Hey. I know things can get a little…heated when we’re between the sheets,” he said, but even in her ultra-blissed-out state, there was no way Sasha could keep her laugh at bay.
“That’s a hell of an understatement, but whatever blows your skirt up.”
“I think I’ve already established that I’d rather blow your skirt up,” Sully flipped back, although his smile erased any heat his teasing might have carried. “I just want to know if you really meant what you said.”
She arched a brow at him through the soft, golden light shining into the bedroom. “About the understatement? Absolutely.”
“No, Sasha. About starting with tonight. About being mine.”
Sasha’s heart pounded against her sternum, so hard she was certain Sully could feel it from where he lay next to her. Her defenses screamed at her to dish up yet another smart deflection, to make a cynical remark about relationships in order to cover up her fear. But this wasn’t just any guy. This was Sully, and she knew him. She wanted him.
And she trusted him enough to take the risk.
“Yes. I meant it. I know I told you a couple of days ago that I wanted something temporary, and I really know this is going to sound crazy considering how I looked at relationships until now.” Hell, the whole thing would sound crazy to her, except she wanted it too badly to fight it.
Sasha bit her lip, but still, she continued. “What we have feels different than that, though. I think we could make a relationship work between us…as long as you want to try.”
“Are you kidding?” Sully’s usual half-smile fell prey to a full-blown grin, and he leaned in to give her a quick, impulsive kiss. “I’ve wanted you since I saw you seven months ago. Of course I want to try.”
His words rang in her ears, and wait, she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “You…what?”
He closed his eyes for a long second, as if he’d heard the words he’d spoken on a five second delay, but then he looked at her with nothing but truth on his face and said, “I’ve wanted this since I met you, Sasha. And I came here to Ireland to get it.”
CHAPTER NINE
Sully’s gut dropped low enough to pink-slip his knees, but he stood his ground even though Sasha had gone utterly rigid beside him.
“Let me get this straight.” She jerked up to sitting, snatching at the quilt to cover her body. “You’ve wanted a relationship this whole time, but you never told me.”
Sully nodded. She deserved to know the truth, and what’s more, the words had been burning a hole in him all weekend long. “Yes. I know I should have said something, but when we first became station partners, you were seeing somebody else, and after that we were already friends. I just…I thought if I came here with you to Ireland, I could show you we can be more
.”
“So you lied.”
“What? No.” Sully blinked in confusion, his brain too slow on the uptake. “I might not have been upfront with my intentions, but Jesus, Sasha. I never lied to you.”
Her humorless laugh sliced through the room, and she scrambled from the bed with the quilt pulled tight beneath her arms. “Oh, so you’re telling me that coming to Ireland for my brother’s wedding wasn’t just a great big strategy you cooked up to get in my good graces, and oh by the way, my pants?”
“I didn’t do this to sleep with you,” he bit out, his pulse ratcheting harder through his veins. He slipped from the sheets long enough to pull on the basketball shorts he’d left by the side of the bed this morning, the ten-second action replacing a fraction of his calm. “You have to know I’d never do that.”
“I don’t know anything right now,” she countered, her blue eyes blazing. “I trusted you with my feelings. I told you things I never even told my own twin because I thought you were my friend. Turns out, all your charming smiles and sage words of relationship wisdom were all fucking strategy to get me to bite. I was just another check mark on your list of things to conquer.”
“Sasha, it’s not like that—”
“That’s exactly what it’s like! I’ve spent my whole life with parents who have tried to manipulate me into getting what they want, and it turns out you’re no different.” She shook her head, dark hair snapping around her shoulders. “God, I couldn’t have been more right about relationships. They all end in more heartache than they’re worth.”
Just like that, all the composure Sully had tried to hold onto disappeared in a single breath. “You’re not just a check mark on any goddamn list, and I sure as hell didn’t manipulate you like your parents do. Okay, yes.” He curled his hands at his sides, hard enough to make his knuckles ache at his idiocy. “I thought I could treat being with you like everything else I’ve ever wanted—with a strategy, a plan. But I was too stupid to see that relationships don’t work like that. You threw me for a loop every single time, and the only thing that worked was when I acted on what I felt, not what I’d planned. I know I should’ve been straight with you from the beginning. But it doesn’t change anything, Sasha.”
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