Before she fully registered what was happening, Adrian was backing away again. He took a long breath and let her go, taking a step back. She looked up into his eyes, stormy and intense.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, slowly shaking his head. “Ruby Bisset, you are going to be the death of me.”
Then he swiped a hand over his face and pulled his sunglasses back out of his pocket, slipping them on. “Now where the hell are those sea turtles?”
CHAPTER NINE
ADRIAN HAD REACHED his breaking point. This craving for Ruby Bisset was wrong. James had asked him to play decoy this week because he was sure Adrian would never touch Ruby. Yet he’d done it last night, telling himself it was just for her pleasure, telling himself he’d stop there. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about giving in. All the way. It was still just as wrong as before, but it was better than what happened on that dinghy: he’d hurt her. Enough that she’d called him an asshole and meant it. He’d treated Ruby Bisset like an asshole, and he was finding that it bothered him, really bothered him.
As the boat raced along the shore, back toward the resort, he felt the last threads of his self-control slip. They were under the boat’s canopy, just out of the afternoon sun, and her shoulder brushed against his with each bounce of the boat. Adrian looked down at his hand, resting high on Ruby’s thigh again, but this time it wasn’t a message for Dan. It was just for her. Her skin was soft and salty from the ocean, and his mouth watered as he imagined licking it.
Adrian took a deep breath and tried to focus on something else. Ruby was looking through the photos she’d taken on her phone, enlarging them on the screen, deleting some, and turning the phone in his direction when she found one she liked. Images from their day scrolled across her screen, and each one she chose was uploaded to a site. She copied and pasted texts full of hashtags, adding sentences with details from the beach, then scheduled the post.
It was strange to think of the pictures as a fake day in James and Cristina’s life since each one held a memory of Adrian’s. His feet buried in the sand with Ruby’s, the sea turtle climbing onto the beach, the lunch spread in the shade of the boat’s canopy. The more he watched what she was doing through her eyes, the more impressed he was. It was no wonder that James and Cristina had hired her right out of college. She was good, really good, and even though he still considered social media a waste of his personal time, he respected her work. Ruby approached it as an art, even if social media didn’t deserve her skills.
The boat pulled up to the dock, and Dan tied them off. Ruby climbed off, her hair blowing in the breeze around her shoulders in mesmerizing ripples. Adrian stood off to the side, arms crossed, trying not to stare. He let her handle the rest of the talking.
“I’m glad we found that pod of dolphins, Mrs. Santos,” Kiran said. “If you’d like to go back out to do some snorkeling, just let us know.”
“Thank you. We will.”
Adrian shook hands with both guides, and they headed up the hill back toward the cabin...where he and Ruby would finally be alone. The afternoon sun warmed his back, and Ruby was uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way along the path through the resort.
They passed a couple holding hands, both men fit and tanned, maybe in their early forties. They looked so...at ease, so comfortable together. That was what he wanted.
Instead, he’d spent the night awake on a couch, fighting yet another hard-on for his much-too-young coworker, and then he’d spent the day playing her fake husband. Pretty much the opposite of comfortable. How could he get out from under this incessant craving for Ruby? It wasn’t helping that she seemed more than ready to indulge.
They passed the restaurant and the pools and then finally, finally, they were back at the cabin. As they turned down their private walkway, Ruby’s steps slowed. She took off her sunglasses, and he did, too. Next came her hat. Adrian hung back, watching as she shook out her long hair, powerless against the anticipation that was building inside him. He really shouldn’t. Fuck. He was probably going to do it anyway.
Ruby waved the key card in front of the lock, and they walked into the quiet cabin. The Christmas lights shone in the living room, twinkling in the daylight. Ruby was so close, looking up at him, a smile playing at her lips.
Adrian dropped his bag on the floor. He set his sunglasses on the table, then took Ruby’s out of her hand and put them next to his. Ruby watched him.
“What comes next?” she asked.
Fragments of erotic dreams flashed through his mind. Sitting at his office desk, with Ruby in front of him in that cheerleader skirt. Adrian swallowed.
Ruby waited for his answer, looking up at him. Her long lashes fluttered, and her cheeks were flushed pink. She looked so young and trusting, making this feel even more wrong. And even more tempting. What would happen if he gave in? Maybe this fascination with her would fade...or maybe in a few days, when they returned, he’d be back in his empty apartment, his mind echoing with every detail of her and that aching loneliness even worse than before. It had started this way with Victoria, and she had learned to use it against him, to manipulate him by withholding, rewarding, fighting, and making up. But Ruby wasn’t calculating the way Victoria had been. It was his own hunger that made him wary.
He stared into her eyes, mesmerized by the way she watched him, not hiding her own want. It was almost irresistible. But even if he was willing to risk repeating all his old mistakes with Victoria, holding onto something that couldn’t work, he still couldn’t get around the fact that he was an executive and Ruby was an employee, no matter how far they were from New York.
“This is wrong,” he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Deliciously wrong.”
His cock gave a hard jolt. “I already have a reputation as the biggest asshole in the company,” he said gruffly.
Her soft laugh. “I’m aware of that.”
“I’m not interested in living up to it, not in this way.” Adrian made an effort to soften his expression. “We work together. I sit much higher in the organization than you do. And no amount of pleasure is worth risking your livelihood.”
It was painful to think about in such stark terms—that he could put her at risk.
But Ruby just shrugged. “The only people who know we’re here are Cristina and James. They had to be sure you wouldn’t take advantage of your position if they sent us here.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked out at the ocean, like she was thinking this through. “I suppose this puts you at risk, too. I could claim sexual harassment. So fooling around could make both of us vulnerable. In the end, this takes some trust that neither of us are going to take advantage of our positions. That we’ll both respect each other here in Hawaii and then let it go when we leave.”
He blinked. She had summed their situation up so neatly, and he was a little embarrassed that he was so impressed. Then he shook his head. “I don’t ‘fool around,’ Ruby.”
“Of course not,” she said, mimicking his tone with a little smirk.
He blew out a breath. After years of their back-and-forth in the office, of course she was going to tease and torment him. Her pulse was ticking fast at the base of her neck, like she was anticipating this as much as he was. “These are things I should never say to someone I work with.”
“I can’t wait.”
Then she licked her lips. He had been trying to ignore the jolt of his cock each time it ran through him, but this time, he couldn’t.
“I’ve thought about it,” she continued. “What would it be like if all the times we argued ended a different way?”
What kind of endings had she wanted? Before he thought to ask, Ruby turned, heading for the bedroom.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said over her shoulder. “By the way, I’m on birth control. And clean.”
The sentences connected in his mind
, setting him on fire as he watched her disappear into the bedroom. Ruby had just invited him in for sex. Without a condom. It was reckless for her not to wait for his answer, not to demand it. She was putting way too much trust in him to do the right thing.
He hadn’t been with anyone in a long time—his dating rules had left him celibate...and horny as hell. Damn, how long had it been? Definitely long before his last doctor’s appointment, so his most recent tests were still valid and he was clean. And soon, Ruby would be naked and wet. If he went in to tell her how irresponsible trusting him was, she’d probably just laugh and invite him in. He wasn’t going to be able to resist this.
He lingered in the living room, then wandered into the bedroom, trying to calm the fuck down. But the room was filled with reminders of Ruby everywhere, so he headed for the bathroom, resting his hand on the door handle. Inside was his biggest fantasy. One that could lead him down a path he couldn’t come back from. Still, he opened the door and walked in.
The bathroom was covered in gray tile, and the shower was large and enclosed in glass. Inside, there was a bench on one side and two showerheads, but right now, it was all just a backdrop for Ruby.
She stood in the middle of the shower, her eyes closed, water running down her gloriously naked body. She didn’t seem to hear him. She ran her hands over her water-slicked hair, squeezing the ends, like she was rinsing out the shampoo.
Adrian watched, mesmerized, taking in each movement, his gaze lingering on her breasts. He could’ve stood there, just looking at her, for hours. He probably would have, too, just stared at her with his hand over his cock, if she hadn’t opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“You’re still dressed,” she said, then turned around and grabbed a small bottle from the bench, giving him a perfect view of her ass. She unscrewed the top and poured the liquid into her hand. Then she set down the bottle and massaged the liquid into her hair. The smell of coconut wafted through the steamy room. Oh, hell, this was the scent. He had caught it enough times that it had become her scent in his mind. Which meant he’d tried to avoid it.
Finally, he could let go. Adrian let three years’ worth of pleasure course through him. Her hands were over her head, her breasts bouncing, and then she stepped under the water, rinsing her long hair again. It was almost too much to resist.
Adrian crossed his arms. “You’re not going to ask if I’m clean?”
“I trust you to do the right thing.” Her voice echoed off the tile and glass, the sound of her surrounding him.
“You shouldn’t,” he said, his voice rough. “My cock is hard from watching you naked in the shower. And I’m an executive where you work. I don’t do the right thing.”
She turned to look at him. “I trust you.”
A rush of some unfamiliar emotion flowed through him, and he didn’t bother to examine it. He pulled off his shirt in one quick motion over his head. Unlacing his swim shorts, he eased them over his straining erection. He folded his clothes and set them on the countertop. In three quick strides, he was at the glass door. He stepped in, and finally, Ruby was within reach.
She shut off the shower. The bathroom was quiet, just the dripping of water and the sound of her body moving. She glanced at the counter and smiled. “You fold your clothes even when you’re about to have sex?”
“That’s what you want to discuss right now?” The words came out dry and impatient, and he froze. For one, quick breath, he thought he’d messed it all up. But Ruby let out the sexiest laugh, low and full of desire, and his heart took off, pounding in his chest.
Adrian inhaled deeply, focusing on her. Her eyes raked down his body in one long stroke. He took another step toward her, and she took a step back, still looking over him like she was trying to get a better view. But he followed her. Step, step, slowly they moved until her back was against the wall. He didn’t stop until he was right in front of her, almost touching. He inhaled the scent of coconut, and his whole body shuddered with pleasure.
“I’ve never seen you naked,” she whispered. “Let me look.”
He shook his head. “Not the best use of our time right now.”
* * *
Adrian rested his forearm on the tile and leaned over her. His eyelids were heavy, and his breathing was rapid.
Ruby was about to combust. Never had she been so turned on just by the way a man looked at her. But there was no just with Adrian. He put every ounce of his attention into each thing he did. Right now, that attention was on her, and oh, my, it felt amazing.
He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. “Do you know how hard I’ve been for you? How long I’ve thought about this?” His voice was rough, strained. “The very first day you walked in, I couldn’t stop staring at you.”
A smile tugged the corners of her mouth. “More like you couldn’t stop scowling at me.”
“Because I was mad as hell that I had the biggest hard-on of my life for someone who looked like jailbait.”
His cock jumped between them, pressing against her belly. His words were like a drug, pumping through her, and she never wanted them to stop. “But you also liked it.”
Adrian groaned. “It was torture.” His mouth moved to her neck, hungry. “I tried to fight it. Fuck, I tried. But it never went away.”
Ruby lifted a hand to his stomach, tracing the ripple of his abs, down, then up again. He let out another groan, this one louder, so she continued her exploration. He had the body of an older man, defined and toned, all hints of softness gone. The patch of dark hair sweeping his chest brushed against her, and with her hand, she followed the trail of coarse hair down his stomach. Her fingers brushed against his erection, and a hiss escaped from his mouth.
His biceps flexed, so close, supporting him as he leaned in closer. “You want to see what this feels like for real?”
Oh, yes, she did. Ruby wrapped her hand around his cock, feeling its weight, the strain of it against her fingers.
His jaw clenched, his lips in a tight line, and his eyes were stormy. “You want to know how good I can make you feel?”
His voice was raw, and her body was alive with anticipation. “I want to make you feel good, too.”
His cock jolted in her hand. “Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath. “Everything about this feels good. Everything about you is perfect.”
This was the side of him she wanted to explore. She had seen his grumpy Greek statue side, the aloof hothole CFO of NY Creatives Media. This was different. Not a statue at all but a man with wants and needs, focused completely on her. Every compliment out of his mouth rang like a bell inside her.
His other hand was resting on her hip and he brought it lower, over her ass, moving his big hand in slow explorations. He took a harsh breath, and his hand moved over her hip again, then down her leg. He teased one thigh, moving his hand higher, playing but never reaching the place she needed the most.
“Touch me,” she moaned.
Her legs wobbled as his hand stroked closer, closer, until finally, his fingers brushed over her clit. Pleasure shot through her, leaving her a trembling mess. Ruby let go of his cock and grabbed onto his shoulders for support.
“You’re so young,” he rasped, “and I bet you’re so tight.”
He circled his fingers over her clit again, his strokes firm this time, and bursts of heat rushed through her.
“I’ve been thinking about how tight you must be for three years now, Ruby.” Adrian’s mouth moved down her neck, sucking on her skin. “I’m ready to find out.”
His finger slipped over her clit one more time and moved lower, further, until he finally found the place that ached for him the most. He took an audible breath and slipped his fingers inside. His groan rumbled in her ear as she cried out. Oh, this was the most delicious paradox of relief and tension, and Adrian was the one who was giving it to her.
“You like that, Ruby?” His v
oice was taut, ready to snap at any moment. “Because my cock is a lot bigger than my finger.”
“Show me.”
His hand was gone, and before she could miss it, he was kissing her. His mouth made demands, and she answered yes, yes, over and over again. She had gotten a taste of his hunger, but this was something more. He was claiming her with his mouth, searing her with his need, and she responded, bringing her hands to his cheeks, touching him as she stroked his tongue with hers. Nothing else existed, just this kiss, all-consuming. It tapped into a deep, dark, well of want, buried inside her.
His hand moved around her ass, and he pulled her tight against his rock-hard erection. His other hand moved over her wet hair, stroking her almost reverently.
Take care of me.
The thought cut into Ruby’s haze of lust, and she pulled back. What the hell was she thinking?
Adrian’s touch gentled, and he shifted back so their eyes met. “Is this okay?”
God, yes. It was so much more than okay. And the last thing she wanted was to stop.
“So much better, Adrian,” she said, standing on her toes to press her lips against his.
He was still, his gaze locked on hers, his eyes bright flames. She could dissolve in those flames, burn down to ashes and not even care. He seemed to be waiting for her to make the next move. It was too much to look in his eyes, to see the way he was looking down at her. Slowly, she turned around in his arms, adjusting herself so her ass was up against his cock. She looked over her shoulder at him and whispered, “I’m ready.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, his hands low on her hips. He stepped back, tugging her hips so that she bent over at an angle. She rested her hands against the wall, and closed her eyes, losing herself in his voice, in his touch.
“You want my cock inside this tight, wet pussy?” he rasped. “Do you need to be fucked by me, Ruby?”
“Yes. Please, yes.” She barely recognized her own voice, begging for him. She barely recognized herself.
Pure Satisfaction--A Hot Holiday Romance Page 9