by J. Saman
“A woman who is driving me absolutely insane with the way I want you.” His fingers find the ends of my hair and I feel him wrap one of the long strands around his fist. “I love your hair.” He leans down by my ear to whisper. “I always have. The color, I think, is what I first noticed about you. It’s like a brick red. Deep and rich and beautiful as hell.”
“Oliver. What are you—”
Only my words cut off as his lips meet the base of my neck. He takes a deep inhale of my skin, groaning into me, trailing up to my ear. I shudder in his arms, my teeth sawing a path of destruction on my bottom lip so I don’t moan.
Swallowing hard, I grip his shoulders, praying I don’t collapse right here on the dance floor. What on earth is he doing? Is this real or an act? I can’t tell, I just know how it feels.
“We’re in love, remember?” he murmurs into me. “Engaged. So wild about each other we can’t keep our hands to ourselves.”
Oh my god. What have I done?
And how will I ever recover from having Oliver Fritz’s lips on me when tonight’s over? I’ll be going through batteries like mad with all the self-play I’ll have to do. Good thing Costco sells them in bulk.
Another inhale, another kiss, and I just about lose my mind.
“Damn,” he hisses into me. “I’ll admit, this was certainly not how I expected this night to go, but I’m definitely not complaining. You smell like sweet candy and taste even better. I wonder if you’re this sweet everywhere.”
Jesus. My eyes roll back in my head.
He pulls back, the intensity in his gaze making my stomach flip with nerves. With excitement. Hell, with so much arousal, my panties are most definitely wet. Trembling hands find the nape of his neck, my fingers twirling into the ends of his hair as we continue to sway gently to some slow song I’ve never heard before. His eyes lock on my lips, holding there. Mine do the same to his, desperate for him to close the small distance between us and kiss me.
Kiss me.
I can’t go home with him. Can I? I’ve never left Layla alone all night. She’s only just fourteen, but the look in his eyes tells me that even though this was not how he expected this night to go, he has a very real vision of how he wants it to end.
With me in his bed.
Eyes on mine, his head inches in, dipping down, getting closer, testing me out. My heart rate skyrockets as my thoughts scatter.
This is a fantasy.
A fantasy I’m going to wake up from any second.
Oliver’s bourbon-tinted breath hits my lips, and right before I succumb to wherever this night will lead us, the fire alarm blares through the room, jolting both of us apart and snapping me back to reality.
I guess this means it’s officially midnight and the ball is over.
4
OLIVER
The blare of the fire alarm almost feels personal. Like someone pulled it just to stop me from kissing Amelia.
The overhead lights flicker out just as flood lamps above the exit doors flash on, creating an eerie glow in the room. All around us, people start screaming and running, trying to get out, though there are no obvious signs of smoke or fire in the room. The music sharply cuts off and the DJ’s voice breaks through, asking everyone to quickly and calmly head for the exit just as Amelia’s body starts to slip away from mine.
My gaze snaps away from the chaos of the room back down to Amelia. Her back is to me, her hands in front of her body as she wiggles around, struggling to do something I can’t figure out.
Looping my hand through her elbow, I spin her back around to face me. “We need to get out of here.”
She lets out a hopeless sigh, her hands dropping to her sides. “I think the ring is stuck.”
I shake my head. “We can worry about that later. Come on.”
Before she can protest, I drag her along until we’re funneling out of the ballroom, through the building that is now overflowing with hotel guests, all looking stunned and curious when everything around us appears fine.
I wonder if someone pulled the fire alarm as a prank or something else and again, my thoughts flicker to Amelia, to our almost kiss.
The front doors part with a mechanical hum, and I immediately march us over to the side where the valet guys are standing listlessly. “Hey, can one of you get my car for me?”
They exchange glances like they’re not sure what they’re supposed to do. “Uh. I guess we could.”
Fantastic. I hand one of them the blue slip and he stares at it for a second before pulling my keys from a hook. “Oh. Hey, man. We kept your ride out front. We do that with the nicer cars. Makes the place look good, right?” He points behind him toward the circular drive where there is a line of expensive cars. “Do you want me to get it for you?”
I grab my keys and hand him a hundred. “I’ve got it. Have a good night.”
“Yeah. You, too. Wow, thanks for the tip, man.”
Amelia has been silent this entire time, but that doesn’t mean her mind is. I can see it all over her face. I don’t know Amelia all that well, but I don’t have to to know she’s excessively cautious and, unfortunately for right now, an overthinker. Especially as I open the passenger side door for her, and she hesitates.
“Oliver, I don’t think—”
“Come home with me tonight,” I interrupt.
She gawks, speechless. I don’t think she expected me to just blurt it out like that, but if I don’t, she’ll run. She already tried when we were upstairs, and the alarm went off. I saw it. It’s why she had her back to me. Why she was trying to tear the ring from her finger.
I can’t let that happen.
“How were you going to get home?” I ask when she doesn’t answer, changing tactics because there is no way this woman is ending the night anywhere other than in my bed.
She shifts in her heels, staring out into the dark night and away from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice they’re ushering everyone back inside, but the reunion is done as far as I’m concerned. We did what we intended in spectacular form. She faced the assholes of her past and I faced Nora. Deed done; we can check all that shit off our bucket list.
Past dealt with. Check.
“The bus,” she finally replies so softly I have to strain to hear her.
Oh, hell no.
“Come home with me, Amelia,” I repeat.
Hands fall to her hips as she shakes her head, a burst of a humorless laugh escaping her lungs. Her head falls back, her long hair with it, and she stares up at the night sky as if she doesn’t know what to say or what to do with my second proposal of the night.
My heart beats painfully in my chest as I watch her, desperate for her to say yes. I want more time with her. Real time. Not fake. Even if nothing happens tonight, I want her to come home with me. I’m not done with her yet.
Then I inwardly laugh. What am I doing? This is insane. It makes no sense. I don’t bring women home with me just to spend more time with them.
I should let her go home. Just drive her there and leave it at that. Let the night end and wake up tomorrow and go to my parents’ compound for Sunday dinner and deal with that. I have enough going on in my life and the last thing I need is to get entangled with someone like Amelia. She’s not a fling. The opposite of casual material.
I don’t have to know her to know that about her.
I’d be doing us both a favor by ending this now. But…
She angles in toward me. Not a lot. Just a couple of inches, but it’s enough to drag me in with her. A magnet helpless against her pull, I reach out, covering her hand with my own and it’s like that action snaps her back to me. Her chin drops and her eyes fall upon mine.
“Oliver.”
And that’s all it takes. My name slipping through her lips in that sexy rasp whirls through my head like a spell. Before I can second guess myself, I’m combing my fingers through her hair, adjusting her face until it’s lined up perfectly. Then my lips meet hers, similar to the way they did earlier. I rest
them there for a beat, giving her the chance to push me away, breathing in her taste, but it’s so goddamn sweet I instantly lose control.
“God, you’re fucking sexy.”
My lips meld to hers, pressing in deeply. The hand that was covering hers wraps around her waist, drawing her firmly against me. My other grips her hair, tightening my hold as I open her lips with mine. Our tongues meet and she whimpers hungrily into my mouth like this is exactly what she’s been waiting on all night.
Like she can’t get enough of the way I taste either.
“I want you so bad,” I murmur into her.
Her hands skirt up, cupping my cheeks, her fingertips tickling the stubble along my jaw, making my skin tingle with an electric current. What was meant to be something of an introduction—a tease with a taunt of more to come—quickly turns heated as I devour her, my mouth scraping down her neck, sucking and licking, my hands all over the silky skin of her back.
She shudders against me, my name pushed out on a breath compelling a growl to sear past my lips only to have me jarred away from her for the second time tonight when yet another alarm goes off. This one belonging to a car.
Goddammit! Can’t a man catch a break here?
Only with that alarm do I realize we’re still in the parking lot, my car door open, waiting for Amelia to make her decision. She’s breathing heavily, her lips red and swollen, some of her lipstick smeared, very likely across my own face.
My forehead drops to hers, my thumb wiping away the streak of red from her chin. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She nods on a resigned breath.
In a flash, I tuck Amelia into my car, shutting the door behind her and racing around to my side. Starting up the car, we pull away from the hotel and out into the Boston night. It doesn’t take long to get back to my place and since Amelia didn’t say a word about driving her home or where she lives or the fact that I was very obviously driving her here, I’m taking that as my green light and going with it.
Still, I’m not sure how I feel about her silence when she’s been nothing short of verbose, speaking her mind at every turn all night.
“Good evening, Dr. Fritz.”
“’Evening, Gerald.”
The doorman opens the door for Amelia, helping her out.
“Thank you,” she says demurely.
He tips his hat at her. “My pleasure. Enjoy your evening, ma’am.”
I grab her hand, holding on tight. She was quiet on the ride here. Too quiet. And for once, I didn’t know how to fill the silence. I knew she was contemplating all the ways this is a bad idea. I knew she was trying to talk herself both into and out of coming home with me.
Her face isn’t hard to read.
And maybe part of me was hoping we’d pull up, and she’d say, you know what, never mind, just take me home. But she didn’t. She let Gerald help her out of my car. She’s holding my hand now. We’re walking side by side toward the elevator that will lead us up to my place.
“You live in the Ritz.”
She’s so deadpan I half-chuckle, blowing out a breath I had no idea I was holding. “I do. It’s the residences, but we get hotel amenities. Why, you interested in a spa treatment?”
“Oliver, in my entire life, I’ve never had a spa treatment. What am I doing here?”
I frown before I can stop it. This woman has never had anything special, has she?
It fills me with the weirdest of sensations. Things I cannot understand float through my mind. I’ve gone out with dozens of women. And I never cared. I mean, not really. Not since Nora. I made sure of it. And I don’t exactly know Amelia. It’s been a decade since I’ve seen her and it’s not like we were besties back then either.
So why do I care that she’s never had a spa treatment or feels out of place in my place? Why do I care that I want the Noras and the Christas of the word to see her the way I see her? Like a goddess.
I don’t know her.
I just want her. That’s all this is, I convince myself.
I press her body against the elevator wall, leaning in and hovering over her. “You’re here to be with me. Tell me how to pleasure you and I will spend the entire night doing just that.”
Her breath catches. She grins, almost as if she thinks I’m kidding. I’m not. Not even a little. I want to eat her pussy till it drips all over my chin. I want to have her hands rip at my hair while I do it. I want to fuck her until she’s screaming out my name and the name of whatever god she prays to. I want her breath. Her cries. Her words. Her pleasure.
All of it. All of her.
And after I’ve done all that, I want to do it again. Slower. While possibly looking into her eyes because that gray, man. It knocks me out at the knees. Especially up close like this. And her hair is this red. This really pretty red. A red I want wrapped around my hands and all over my bed.
“Oliver.”
My name again. Only this time, instead of filled with lust, it’s indecisive. It’s unsure. But it’s my fucking name on her lips and no one else’s.
“Do you want me to stop?” I breathe against her only to get silence in return. “If you want me to stop, you have to tell me, Amelia. There will be no misunderstandings between us. Tell me you understand.”
She swallows thickly and nods.
“Do you want me to stop?”
A headshake this time, and that’s my go.
I step in front of her in this elevator because it’s slow as shit and for the first time ever, I’m glad for it. My face dives into her neck, inhaling deeply. She gasps, making some kind of squawking noise as she jerks back into the wall.
“Oliver.”
Again, with my name. This one has a lot more reprimand to it. Lucky for her, that turns me on. My hand slides up her dress, bunching it up over her panties, hips, and ass. Then my fingers dig into those soft globes, guiding her out of the elevator as the doors part. I knead her, staring down and watching myself work.
And fuck, she’s hot. I mean, this ass is just perfect.
It has me unzipping her dress right here in the hallway, knowing there are no cameras or eyes watching. A strangled gulp hits the air just as my fingers slide the barely-there straps on her shoulders down but not off. No bra, so my hands come around, finding her full breasts and hard nipples. But it’s not enough. I want to see what my hands are feeling. I want to taste what my fingers are teasing.
I whisper, “You feel good in my hands,” into the shell of her ear.
“I don’t do this.” Her voice trembles with nerves.
“I know. But you will tonight.”
She moans, her ass pressing into my straining cock as I unlock my door for us, all the while my hands greedily explore her body within the confines of her dress. But the second the door shuts behind me, I’m done with being nice.
Spinning her in my hands, I rip the top from her shoulders, falling to my knees and sucking on her tits because they’re right here. She’s short and I’m tall, and it’s fucking perfect like this. My hands go nuts, unable to be controlled as they squeeze and lift and pinch and claim. My lips and tongue too. For such a small-framed woman, she has surprisingly large breasts and I think I want to fuck them. Not tonight. Next time for sure.
But for now…
The hem of her dress glides higher and higher, the perfect peep show attraction as I bunch it around her waist, and suddenly I’m face to face with black panties. My hands reach around, grabbing her ass, thrusting her into my face. Her breath hitches, fingers getting lost in my hair. I peek up. Into those eyes that slay me every damn time.
A foreign sensation squeezes my chest, making it hard to breathe and for the longest moment, I can’t do anything other than gaze at her.
Her lips twitch. “Problem down there? You’re staring awfully hard.”
I clear my throat, the sensation along with it. “Just enjoying the view. It’s quite something from where I’m kneeling.”
I kiss her mound over her panties and her body jerks
forward, nearly toppling us both over, my hands somehow managing to stabilize her hips.
“Wow,” she exclaims on a breathy laugh. “Okay. I can’t do this standing up.”
In a flash, I’m on my feet, scooping her up in my arms bride style—because she’s still my fiancée for at least the next few hours—and then I march down the hall in the direction of my bedroom.
“Thank god. My knees were killing me.”
She laughs and it’s the sweetest sound. Light and playful and… happy. It has me grinning from ear to ear in return like a triumphant warrior while I inwardly fist pump the air. I not only made her almost fall over by barely touching her, but I made her laugh too.
Her first genuine laugh of the night, I think.
I set her down on the bed and immediately strip her dress off. Her panties next. And when she’s totally naked before me, sprawled out, I take a moment to appreciate just how fucking stunning she is like this. Her hair all wild and splashed across the duvet. Her full beautiful breasts begging for attention. The landing strip of red hair directing me to the paradise between her legs.
Maybe it’s been too long since I’ve been with someone. I was slowing down the amount I was screwing around. Or maybe it’s just her. Amelia. Because I can’t stop staring at her like a man on the verge of coming undone.
She doesn’t cover herself despite the flush taking hold of her chest and face. Instead, she quietly observes me ogling her. The dark lusty fire in her eyes no doubt matching my own. Then something catches my eye. The diamond on her hand. My diamond. Weird how that doesn’t make me want to throw up.
Bizarre how that only seems to make my dick harder for her.
Before I can think too deeply on that, I climb on the bed, prowling toward her on all fours, spread her legs open wide, and then dive in. Her fingers instantly find my hair, pulling and tugging as my lips and tongue French kiss the hell out of her pussy. Desire crashes over me as I ravage her, my lips growing hungrier and wetter the louder her cries get.
“Oliver.”