by Kim Karr
I covered the smirk I was wearing by pretending to scratch my jaw. “You should go home, too. Paris is having a good effect on you, and I’d like to see you not screw it up.”
The words sat on my tongue hot and hungry.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
And yet somehow I kept my temper at bay and said, “I think I’ll do just that.”
She didn’t need to know about the text.
Paris
I HADN’T PLANNED on having that much fun.
My hair was the same color but now there were at least four different shades of red in my shiny locks. I had to stop Patrick when he wanted to give me bangs. Gah . . . that would be just too much change for one day, especially when he said I’d look like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. Oh dear, right?
Satisfied with my new leather and lace look, I walked over to the mirror and gave myself another glance.
Memories floored me from so many years ago—that lost girl looking at herself in this very mirror at Tyler Holiday’s party.
Things had changed so much.
I’d found myself, now.
Soft, shimmering waves fell from the crown of my head. The frizzy hair was gone and the highlights were popping out. The length wasn’t much shorter, although the style was straighter, more tamed. More refined.
Then again, I’d never really had a style.
Running my fingers through the smooth, somewhat wavy strands, I liked how silky it felt between them.
I glanced at my outfit. It was one of five I had borrowed from Tabitha’s closet, and it was her favorite on me.
Now, you had to remember, Tabitha was three inches shorter than me, with bigger boobs and a smaller waist, so as you can imagine, the outfits fit me differently.
Shorter.
Tighter in the hips and bigger in the chest.
This particular figure-hugging black faux leather pencil skirt and cream-colored silk blouse with little lace cap sleeves was my favorite, too. It screamed smart, sophisticated working woman with power. Leather and lace.
Or the champagne we’d drank said it did.
Feeling flirtatious, I undid one more button, leaving a hint at my almost non-existent cleavage, but still, it was something.
Tabitha had put a touch of eyeliner on my eyes that made them look feline and then she insisted I top the entire outfit off by wearing her black Prada platform pumps.
Prada.
She had a closet full of Prada.
Full.
Of.
Prada.
It was crazy.
I laughed when I saw it because I knew then she was behind the Pradas Tyler had given me.
Smiling at my reflection in the mirror, I gave myself a nod of approval.
Who knew a makeover could make you feel like a new woman, or was Tyler doing that to me?
I honestly didn’t know.
Before I could ponder the idea, my phone went off with a text.
Him: Uber driver coming to pick you up. Be ready in five.
Me: Notice much? What if I’m not dressed?
Him: That’s perfect. Wrap a coat around that sexy body and hurry up. Tick-tock.
Me: Where am I going?
Him: Don’t worry about it. Just be ready. [hand emoji] [woman’s rear-end emoji]
Tyler Holiday did emojis?
And there was one of a woman’s rear-end?
I had no idea.
Paris
I STARED AT the red walls.
“All we need is a whip and ball gag to set the scene,” he breathed as he carried me over the threshold. “I can’t believe Wilhelmina suggested this place.”
The laugh I let out was deep and throaty. The wine from the dinner we’d shared downstairs making me feel relaxed and at ease. “To be fair, she told me she comes here all the time because the Blue Lounge has a great coffee bar.”
Tyler glanced around, and then strode over toward the bed. “God, I hope that’s all she does here. Champagne?”
“Yes, please,” I told him. “You know you could give her a break once in a while.”
“Nah, that would make life way too boring.” In his three-piece light gray suit that made him look like a GQ Model, he headed over to the ice bucket he’d obviously had delivered before our arrival.
The luxurious bed with its majestic four posts and high mattress caused a flutter of nerves to wake in my belly. “On second thought,” I said, “I think I drank enough at dinner. Maybe we could pop the cork a bit later?”
“Sure,” he said, placing the bottle back in the silver bucket. It wasn’t just me that was nervous. He was, too. I could see it in the way he was shoving his hands in his pockets.
I walked over to the glass and pressed my palms to it, looking out over the sparkling lake that cut between two valleys.
The iconic Mount View Hotel & Spa was located centrally on Calistoga’s Lincoln Avenue. Its red walls were actually representative of the Art Deco style.
His footfalls were light, but I could his presence before I felt the blazing heat of his body press against my back. “Did I tell you that you look hotter than fuck?”
The fabric of my skirt tightened across my hips as he tugged on the zipper. “Only a hundred times or so.”
His fingertips coasted along my rear as he brought the zipper down and his breath whispered across the back of my neck. “Probably not enough.”
Sure, we’d had sex more times than I could count, but this seemed different. More meaningful, I supposed because it had been planned.
When the unzipping was done, Tyler slowly eased my skirt down my hips. I stepped out of it, my breath catching as I did.
He glided his hands around to my front and he unbuttoned my blouse with skilled fingers. One. Two. Three. And that was all it took until he slid the fabric down my arms and tossed the blouse on a nearby chair.
With my back to him, I stood in my underwear and heels, feeling so very wanted by him like I did so many years ago.
Tyler’s growl of appreciation only enforced that though, and then he gripped my hips and gently pulled me against him. Oh, God. He was so hard. Hard enough that I could feel the rigid length of his cock.
Goose bumps rose all over my skin. The thrill of us being together taking on a whole new meaning.
He swept my hair off to the side of my neck and his hot mouth found my ear. “What changed your mind?” he asked in a whisper.
I knew what he meant. How had I gone from insisting on no sex to inviting him to a kink session? And the truth was with me right now. I glanced over my shoulder and into his half-lidded lustful stare. “You did, Tyler. You did.”
As if in appreciation, kisses were peppered down my neck. “I think I’ll save that spanking for another night, Love, but know, when it comes, you earned it.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Tyler Holiday.” I laughed.
He ground his erection against me. “Good, Love, because tonight I’m really going to show you what I’m made of.”
Desire swam through me, making me instantly wet between my thighs.
Whirling me around, he pushed my back to the cool glass. Everything was hot and cold and lust and desire.
His hands slid up to my neck and beneath my hair, and then his thumb hooked under my jaw and forced me to look at him. “You’re mine, Paris, you always were.”
I nodded, my pulse beating like a drum at the base of my throat.
The hold he had on me remained the same. His thumbs at my jaw, his strong fingers at the nape of my neck, tipping my head back to stare at me. “I’m shit with emotions, you know that. And I’m not sure about anything in this world other than you. Do you understand me?”
I did.
I did understand him. When we were together, I felt the unyielding connection between us. I nodded again, meeting the intensity of his stare with my own.
Slowly, he leaned in. I stopped breathing when his mouth brushed over mine with a feather-light touch.
Once.
&n
bsp; Twice.
Three times.
When I leaned into our kiss, he gripped my face and slammed his lips hard against mine.
In my heels, I felt myself swaying in a sweet, dizzying motion.
He inhaled, breathing me in.
Unable to hold back, I grabbed his wrists to grip him tighter as my knees went weak, and whispered around our hot kiss, “I love you, Tyler.”
It might have been foolish to say what I knew he couldn’t say back. Words I’d never heard from him but he’d heard from me. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from giving all of myself to him.
He’d had me all along.
Pulling back, he stared at me, his throat bobbing as if searching for the right response. Then he opened his mouth as if wanted to attempt to say the same thing but was unable to find his voice.
Scared.
He was scared.
My strong, beautiful man was afraid of those words, and I was okay with it.
Not wanting it to be a big deal out of his reaction, I leaned back in and found his lips. “Kiss me,” I told him and when he did, I released my hold on his wrists, so I could ran my hands up his hard chest to push at his suit coat. “I want you,” I told him and he shrugged out of it in two seconds flat.
Our mouths kept pulling at each other’s.
Nipping.
Licking.
Biting.
Tyler started moving us in the direction of the bed and our lips still didn’t part. When my knees hit the mattress, he lifted me and gently set me in the middle of the mattress.
“My shoes,” I told him.
“Leave them on,” he growled.
This was the wedding night we hadn’t had and I was glad we’d waited because I wasn’t ready before, but I was now.
I stared up at him, panting, my entire body a blaze of heat. He kept me trapped in his hot gaze as he toed his shoes off.
“You didn’t have to bring me here tonight,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I did. I need to get you out of that house.” He tugged off his shirt and carelessly tossed it on the ground.
All I could do was stare. I hated that house and he knew it. Not because it was broken down and in need of repair, because that was me too. But rather because of the bad memories it held. “Where do you want to go?”
He stripped out of his pants. “On Saturday, Julian, Christian, and Grayson are helping us move to Wilhelmina’s, but I promise it won’t be for long.”
“I don’t mind staying there.” I watched as he jerked his boxers down so I could see every inch of his hardness.
When he leaned down so we were eye to eye, he said, “I’ll do whatever makes you happy.”
The only response I had was to smile, which was good because after that there was no more talking, just his mouth closing over mine.
Hard, defined muscles rippled and jerked above me and I was greedy to touch him as I ran my hands all over his naked flesh.
Tyler groaned, quickly wedging his knee between my legs and forcing them apart. I cried out in anticipation when he pinned my arms over my head and his huge body eclipsed mine.
With his thigh between my legs, he started to lower himself.
Lower.
Lower.
Lower.
Pleasure knotted in my belly low and wild. “Oh, God,” I moaned as soon as I could feel the weight of his heavy sex at my entrance.
He ran his cock through my wetness, groaning when he did. “Fuck, you’re always so wet for me.”
I whimpered and pulled away from his mouth so I could look at him. “I want you,” I said.
His grin was cocky and for once I just didn’t care.
Easing back, he placed his feet on the floor to stand up. I licked my lips as his cock hung thick between his legs. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until his hands curled behind my knees and he yanked me down to the edge of the bed.
Gripping my thighs, he spread my legs open and kneeled between them. Then he gazed down at me. “I want you, too,” he said, his voice thick with that lust that whirled between us.
So fast, he pushed inside me. I watched his face, the way his lashes fluttered as he plunged down, the way his jaw tightened, the erotic look written all over him. And just like that my muscles started to contract around his length.
With a tenderness I’d never seen in his beautiful features, he looked at me, “Beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”
I knew it wasn’t just the improved hair and sexier clothes, he’d been sure to tell me over and over all night that he’d always thought I was beautiful, but now I was hot as fuck.
Romantic.
For Tyler Holiday—yes.
And I’d take it. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t take him in whichever way he was.
For some reason this tender look made all the air whoosh from of my lungs.
A moment later, his gaze shifted and he watched himself sliding in and out. Up and down. In and out. Up and down.
With each movement, he ramped up his speed. I found his rhythm and moved with him, watching, seeing what he saw.
Our union.
Our past.
And our future.
His grip on my legs tightened and he began to power harder, thrust deeper. The movement across my clit had me seeing stars and I writhed beneath him.
“Come for me, Love,” he demanded, fucking me madly.
“Oh, God,” I cried out.
His teeth gritted together as he held back his own climax. “Come for me. Fuck, you feel so good—”
I cried out again. To God, Jesus, to the entire world, to him.
His words trailed off as his own climax plowed into him.
“Oh, God! Tyler!” I screamed, arching my back and feeling my entire body tremble. The feeling was new. Like I was being turned inside out. A rush of euphoria and a splurge of adrenaline.
His cock drove into me over and over.
I went limp on the bed, my eyes on him, my chest rising and falling to the beat of his thrusts.
Even when the last of his release had left his body, he still fucked me as if he never wanted this to end, and then he stopped and looked at me. And I smiled at him, circling my arms around his shoulders so my nails could run up and down, lightly pressing into his flesh.
Tyler groaned and shuddered and pushed inside me one more time before collapsing on top of me, where he stayed. Like that, he slid his hands underneath me and pulled me tight to him.
“You’re mine, Paris Holiday,” he whispered.
My breath stuttered at the truth in his words.
I was no longer a Fairchild.
It was crazy I hadn’t thought of that.
And in that moment, I felt reborn.
Tyler
I CONSIDERED THE idea.
“It makes sense, Tyler, it really does.” Wilhelmina had already made her mind up, but I wasn’t sure.
Every year the local wine commission hosted an annual auction that lured big wine retailers, auction houses, and a large number of the very rich to Napa Valley.
I’d gone to party once or twice.
Wilhelmina thought we should enter some of the bottles of wine from my grandfather’s private collection to get a head start on the funds we needed. Selling what he’d saved, though, just didn’t sit well with.
It seemed desperate.
Then again, we were. There wasn’t much left in the business accounts and I refused to allow Wilhelmina to touch her own savings. There was also the fact that my trust fund money was depleting quickly between the wedding and everything else. But I wasn’t going to skimp when it came to Paris. She’d been skimped on her entire life, so whatever I had I would give to her, and when I had no more, I’d find a way.
The sale of my penthouse would be complete by the month’s end, and the money would buy us the use of the winemaker and the prepping of both California Jane’s vineyards and Highway 128’s, but sadly not much more.
We needed to get the production line up and running, bottle the
wine, package it, distribute it, market it. And sell it.
Fuck, we needed a lot.
Head start wasn’t the right word, jumpstart sounded more like it.
“Last year,” Wilhelmina droned, “a bottle of California Cabernet Sauvignon from Clyde Wendell’s collection sold for one-hundred and fifty thousand, and I know for a fact your grandfather has at least three of that very same vintage in his private cellar.”
I turned back to the keyboard and resumed the review of the file I’d opened. “You mean my wine and my cellar.”
It was a dick thing to say but hey, it was mine.
Her sigh was filled with exasperation. “Sometimes, Tyler, I have no idea who raised you.”
I tossed her a grin. “Come on now, granny, you know you did.”
The narrowed gaze she gave me told me I was walking a thin line. Then again, I was fairly certain she knew I liked to live on that edge. “Will you ever grow up?”
Yeah, she was so easy to stir.
In order to move past her momentary flair of anger, I proceeded to help ease her mind. “I think you have a valid point. On Sunday, we’ll go through the wines and pick out the ones that are likely to yield the most. But we will only sell enough bottles to get us through the first run of production. Besides, I need to get in that storage room down there, anyway and look for that survey I told him about.”
She cleared her throat. “It’s the weekend.”
Amused, I tilted my head to the side. “And?”
She fidgeted in her seat and that blush was back. “I have plans.”
“With Buck Wallaby?” I teased, already knowing the answer.
“As a matter-of-fact, yes. We’re taking a long weekend away in Tahoe and won’t be back until Tuesday night.”
I closed the spreadsheet I had opened and crossed my arms over my chest. “Taking personal time?”
Her spine straightened as her lips pursed. “Yes, two days, and it’s well-deserved for he and I. Buck has been working around the clock to get things up and running. We will both be back here bright and early on Wednesday. Do you think you can manage while I’m gone?”
I didn’t have time to be annoyed. “I’ll call you if I can’t.” I grinned nice and wide.
“The cell service is terrible, so call 9–1-1 if things get too out of control.”