‘So do you...’ And then she looked at the cushions, the candles, her free hand waving over the entire set-up as she sighed softly. ‘And so does this.’
‘You going to talk about it being like a movie set again?’
She laughed, walking with him as he led her to the cushions. ‘Well, it is.’
‘I prefer dreamlike.’
He released her hand as she lowered herself down, her hands sinking into the pillowy softness either side of her as she leaned back and looked up at him. ‘Why?’
Because dreamlike meant that he would wake up safe, unaffected, his life wouldn’t have changed, his heart wouldn’t...
He said nothing. In truth, breathing was proving difficult enough as he took in the sight of her reclined back, her legs curled to the side, a small slit in the dress revealing a tantalising glimpse of thigh, her creamy skin striking against the red of the pillows, her dress, her hair...
He wished he had a camera to capture the moment, to capture it and keep it...and that was way too sentimental!
‘What is it?’ She cocked her head to the side. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
He tried to swallow past the dryness in his mouth and shook his head. ‘You are stunning, it feels like this backdrop was made for you, made for your unique beauty, your smile, your eyes, your hair.’
Her brows pinched together. ‘Have you been drinking already?’
He knew what he sounded like. He knew it because he felt it. Punch drunk. But not from alcohol. From her. All her. His Jasmine. His Red.
Only she wasn’t his any more. She had ceased being his ten years ago and by her own choosing. He should be keeping that in mind, using it to protect himself now. Along with the knowledge that by their agreement she was his, for six more days, and every cloud...
‘Can I not compliment my date when the mood takes me?’
She relaxed back, her smile enchanting. ‘Well, when you put it like that...’
‘Champagne?’
He needed something to do with his freed hands before he hunched down beside her and pulled her to him and whispered all the sweet nothings that were searing his brain, his heart. Each too loving, too real, and far from temporary.
‘Please.’
He lifted the champagne out of the ice, throwing his concentration into unwrapping the foil.
‘So-o-o,’ she drawled, ‘why a dream?’
He studied the metal holding the cork in place, started to unravel it as he gave her enough of the truth. ‘Because a dream feels so very real, despite the fact it’s temporary, that when you wake up it’s over and there’s no going back.’
He looked at her, his eyes delivering the message he needed to not only believe in himself but needed her to understand too. He gripped the cork and twisted the bottle. It released, its pop filling the silence that felt far too heavy thanks to his explanation. Silently, he cursed. He didn’t want to ruin the moment. He wanted them focusing on what they had now.
‘We can enjoy it while we’re in it, though.’ He smiled and placed the detritus on the table next to the glasses and took up a flute. ‘I propose a toast...’
He filled the glass and offered it to her, forcing himself to hold her eye with confidence and positivity. She took it from him, her smile and eyes both curious.
‘Another toast—are you incapable of drinking fizz without one?’
He knew she was referring to his toast the previous evening. How had he phrased it, a toast to their cruel twist of fate? He forced back the rising tide within him and poured a glass for himself. ‘Are you objecting to another?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Good.’ He placed the bottle back in its bed of ice and lifted his glass to her. ‘To our dream.’
Her lashes fluttered, her eyes shone with...with sadness, and he felt winded.
‘Our dream...’ she whispered, shaking her hair out a little as she lifted her chin. ‘And then we move on.’
‘And then we move on,’ he repeated.
Because moving on was the right thing to do. He clinked his glass to hers, threw back a gulp...but if it was so right, why did it feel so wrong?
She lowered her gaze, releasing him from its pull as she stroked the cushion beside her. ‘Are you going to join me?’
He sat where her hand had been. Hunched forward, his elbows on his knees, his gaze lost in the bubbles rising in his glass, the gold of the drink enhanced by the flickering light of the lanterns and the tea lights.
‘Do you wish it had been someone else M had matched you with?’ She leaned towards him, her arm brushing against his, the directness of her question so unlike the Red of their youth. Younger Red would have shied away from it and he would have had to press and press until she’d had no choice but to give up the question that was on her mind. Not this Red, though. Not the one that had gained in confidence over the years and built a company from the ground up, a mover and shaker in the tech world, an entrepreneur with both brains and looks and who still had the very kind heart that he’d fallen for.
‘I mean, I know you came without the true intent of finding love,’ she carried on, unaware of the emotional rollercoaster underway inside him. Or maybe she was aware and pressed on anyway. ‘But now that you know M is so good at what they do, wouldn’t you have liked to meet the person they would have picked if I’d not been on their books?’
‘No.’ He didn’t need to think about it. He turned to look at her, really look at her. ‘It doesn’t matter what my intent had been when I came here, I am happy to see you Jas. I’m more than happy. M couldn’t have called it any better.’
A smile flickered on her lips. ‘Your parents will have a hissy fit.’
He grimaced. ‘Please, can we not talk about them?’
‘You were the one that said this week away was to pacify them, convince them that you were hunting for an appropriate bride. If they find out that M threw me in your path...’ She turned away, sipped at her champagne. ‘What will you tell them?’
‘The truth.’
Her head snapped round, her eyes wide. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I am. I didn’t care what they thought then, and I couldn’t care less now.’
Her eyes blazed. ‘Don’t say that, Freddie. You do care, you always cared. And so you should. They’re your mum and dad, they only want what’s best for you.’
‘And what I want is what’s best for me. I told you that then, and I’m telling you again now.’
He watched her drag in a shaky breath, watched the emotions passing rapidly over her face, and he couldn’t bear it any more. Having her so close and not...
He reached forward, his hand sinking into her hair as he held her close.
‘And what I want right now, is you, Red.’ He looked into her eyes and leaned in, any sign, any rejection and he would have stopped. ‘I want you.’
She tilted her head back, her lips parting softly. ‘You do?’
‘I do.’
And then he was there, capturing her mouth with his, the contact lighting up his core. She tasted of champagne. Champagne and something else. Something that was all her. He groaned as he lost himself in it, heard her own little whimper through the blood pounding in his ears. She forked a hand through his hair and clung to him, deepening the kiss.
It was everything and not enough at once, the heat consuming him, driving him to want so much more, regardless of their surroundings and the champagne flutes still clutched in their hands.
He broke away, pressed his forehead to hers as he sucked in a breath.
‘I want you, Red.’ He was repeating himself, but he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. ‘Tell me that you want me too?’
‘More than anything.’ He saw the assurance in her eyes, heard it in her breathless words. He closed his eyes, let it sink in, felt its warmth surround his heart, fill
his head. ‘Tonight? Come back to my room after dinner?’
She nodded, bit into her lip.
‘You will?’
‘Yes, Freddie.’
He pulled back before he went too far, before his body took over and he took all that she was offering in her gaze. Because although they were cocooned by the line of palms and luscious vegetation, their sounds masked by the wildlife, he knew Monique and her team would be along to check on them shortly.
‘Appetiser?’ He reached out for the loaded tray and offered it to her, knowing full well nothing would beat the taste of her.
She picked one up, her eyes fixed on him and full of spark. ‘I know what I’d rather be tasting...’
She parted her lips and slipped the delicacy inside, drawing the entire movement out, and he gritted his teeth against the lustful heat that threatened to have him throwing both the tray and his caution to the wind.
‘You’ve become impatient in your old age.’
She swallowed, her smile one of absolute tease. ‘Says you.’
He grinned. Red of old wouldn’t have flirted with him so brazenly either, but he found the confidence of her now even more tantalising than the veiled flirtation of before.
And it should have had the alarm bells ringing ever louder, ever clearer, only they were dull, drowned out by the thud of lust in his bloodstream and the all-consuming rush for her.
Jas. Jasmine. Red.
All her.
Now he wished Monique and her discreet staff would hurry up and disappear again because he wasn’t so sure he wanted to wait until they got back to his room...
Red, lying back on the cushions, bare to the moon and his gaze, was far too tantalising an image to resist.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JASMINE THOUGHT THE food was delicious. It had to be. A place as exclusive as this wouldn’t dare serve anything less, but...
She hardly tasted it. Everything about her was attuned to him. His scent, his presence, the sight of his throat bobbing as he swallowed, the muscles in his forearms flexing each time he reached across her...like he was doing right now.
He took up the bottle of dessert wine and offered to top up her glass.
She nodded, her voice disappearing with the moisture in her mouth. She wanted to kiss him again and the way his eyes kept connecting with hers it was clear she wasn’t alone in her desire. His eyes were as dark as the night, projecting such fire, and her insides were molten with it, her limbs taut with growing need.
She sipped at the glass he’d refilled, but really she wanted to be sipping from his lips. The taste he’d given, the sampling of his mouth against hers had been far too brief and far too wicked. The slight graze of his tongue against hers, the way his body had trembled and her own had come alive... Now all she could do was press her thighs together to nurse the budding ache and wish away the rest of the food so she could feast on him.
‘Are you no longer hungry?’
She gave a small smile, a shake of the head. If she’d still been high on their kiss, confident with it, she’d tell him exactly what she was hungry for.
‘Not even for the last strawberry?’ He picked it up and raised it between them.
Her smile grew. She didn’t care how clichéd it was, whether he’d meant the offering innocently or not, she was using it to take what she truly wanted. Him.
She placed her glass down and leaned into him on one palm, her free hand coming up to gently clasp his wrist. She pulled him closer, held his eyes as she did so.
‘Now, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.’
She surrounded the plump ripe fruit with her lips, purposefully brushing them against the tips of his fingers. She savoured the sensation, caught how his eyes flared and his lips parted. Her smile was one of both satisfaction and tease as she bit off a piece and devoured it. Freddie plus strawberry...a true taste explosion.
‘Nice?’ It rasped out of him, filled with the very lust she was struggling to keep at bay.
‘Very.’
His grin was slow, his eyes heated as they watched her mouth. ‘Would you like the rest of it?’
Her stomach clenched tightly as she nodded. There was only one way to get the rest... She surrounded his fingers with her lips and dragged her teeth along them, taking the sweet, ripe fruit with her. She pressed a kiss to his fingertips as her mouth closed around it.
‘I think Monique and her team are long gone for the evening.’ He was so very close now, his scent wrapping around her, engulfing her, drawing her in. ‘What do you think?’
All she was thinking was how much she wanted him to kiss her...how much she wanted to kiss him...
She swallowed and subtly licked her lips. ‘Yes, I think they’re leaving us to it.’
He reached out, his fingers soft in her hair, caressing the sensitive skin of her scalp, and she smiled, her head rolling back into his touch. ‘You always knew just how to touch me.’
She didn’t care about the many wondrous and varied ways he could take that statement, because every debauched one of them was true.
‘Is that so?’
She hummed her agreement as he encouraged her closer.
‘Care to elaborate?’ he whispered against her mouth, anticipation making her entire body tremble.
She gave a soft laugh. ‘The way you would toy with my hair...the way you would kiss my neck, my collarbone, my...’ her breath hitched a little ‘...breasts.’
He inhaled sharply, his nose flaring. Her boldness had surprised him—good.
‘What else?’ he rasped.
She reached out to fork her hands through his hair. It was time to show him more of that boldness, more of the woman she was now.
‘The way your fingers would play over my skin while your teeth would nip.’ She brushed her nose very lightly against his, let her lashes fall. ‘The way you kissed my lips like you wanted to reach every part of me, like you wanted to possess me, brand me...claim me.’
He growled low in his throat and tugged her to him, his lips crushing hers. Hard and demanding. Making up for the last ten years of absence and she was delirious on it. The force of it, the desperate pressure of his mouth, of hers.
She shifted her body closer, dragged him back with her as she dropped to the cushions, forcing him to cover her.
He shook his head, broke the kiss. ‘I’ll crush you...’
He tried to take his weight onto his elbows, and she tugged him back against her. ‘You won’t.’ She wanted to feel all of him, top to toe. His hot, hard heat covering her own. ‘I want you, all of you.’
‘You have no idea how it feels to hear you say that.’ Both his body and his words shook with his sincerity and hope fluttered alive deep inside her, the hope for a future, the kind of hope that could destroy her if she let it in.
She tried to stamp it out, to laugh it off. ‘You’ve been working on your platitudes.’
‘I’ve had years to perfect them.’
An icy shard pierced her heart, a stab of jealousy towards the faceless women over the years. She clutched at it like a life raft, used it keep her afloat and hope at bay. Threw her focus into his mouth, his body, his touch.
He traced hot kisses from her mouth to her ear, flicking her lobe with his tongue, scraping it with his teeth. ‘How I missed you, Red.’
His words teased along her ear canal straight to her heart, straight to the hope she was trying so hard to suppress. That they could find a way to make it work, to be together and have all they had achieved...
She gripped his head closer, bit into her lip as his teeth nipped the sensitive pulse point at her throat, and she arched into him.
‘I missed you too.’ It rasped out of her, broken up by her desire, choked up by her fear. She hooked her legs around his, holding him to her. She never wanted to let him go.
He groaned as his strai
ning erection pulsed against the very heart of her, delivering pressure to the small cluster of nerves begging for his touch, and she moved against him, desperate, her own cry telling him she needed more. His mouth was back on hers, fierce, eager. She rolled her hips, and he pressed against her, a rhythm that she dictated, working her desire to fever pitch and taking him right along with her.
He sucked in a ragged breath, lifted his head to look down into her eyes, his own filled with something akin to wonder. He looked so incredibly sexy. All mussed up by her hands, his cheeks streaked with colour.
‘I want to taste all of you, Red. I want to remember every inch of you.’ He rested his elbow into the pillow, gazing down at her as he stroked her hair back from her face. ‘I want to learn what’s changed and what has stayed the same.’
He lowered his hand to the locket around her neck, a sudden shadow falling over his features, and an overwhelming sadness clawed at her throat. No. She didn’t want his focus there. On the past. On Mum. She didn’t want to remember how he hadn’t been there. How she hadn’t been able to go to him. To lean on him. And, oh, how she’d wanted to.
‘Kiss me, Freddie.’ Her desperate plea called his attention back to her face. A second’s hesitation and then he was there, kissing her with the same desperation she felt inside. The desperation to be rid of the past, the pain, to be consumed by the present.
She clawed at his shirt, raking it up his back, tugging until their kiss prevented it from going any further and he leaned back. She ripped it off, threw it aside before bringing her palms back against him. His chest contracted under her touch and she marvelled at his heat, his strength, both her fingers and eyes taking in every ridge as she clamped her bottom lip in her teeth. And then he was there, nudging her head back, replacing her teeth with his, a sharp tug. Punishing. Carnal.
‘You’re driving me crazy, Red.’
She raked her nails down his back in answer, arching her body and feeling his heat scorch her breasts through the light fabric of her dress. She wanted it gone, she wanted no more barriers between them, and even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t just the physical barriers she wanted gone. It was the wall around his heart—she wanted it to crumble just like her own, against all of her better judgement. She whimpered, both pleasure and pain forcing the noise to the surface, and he broke away from her lips, dragged kisses along her angled jaw, her arching neck and down further, his fingers easing beneath one skinny strap of her dress.
Surprise Reunion with His Cinderella Page 8