Читать книгу Burn Me Once / Boardroom Sins - Clare Connelly - Страница 15

CHAPTER FOUR

IN AND OUT. In and out. I breathe slowly, trying to calm my racing pulse, my raging nervous system, but still my body is part electrical current, part hurricane.

‘Okay,’ I murmur softly, more to myself than anything else. I’m processing it. Or trying to.

What just happened?

He pushes up onto one elbow so that he can look down into my eyes and I spy the galaxy in his.

‘Okay.’ He grins. ‘That was...’

‘Perfect,’ I supply, lazily tracing a drop of sweat as it runs down his chest. He leans forward to kiss my fingertip and his dick, still strong inside me, makes me groan anew.

So far as exorcisms go, I think we might have nailed it.

‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘It was.’

He kisses me again, but this time it’s slow. Gentle. A kiss of curiosity that I welcome. Damn it. I’m back at those paths, looking at each of them, wondering, wondering, and uncertainty is making my knees weak.

Do I want his curiosity? Do I welcome it? Or does it speak too strongly of wanting other things than this bed, this man, this night?

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Hungry?’ I blink, the question not at all what I expected.

He nods against my lips, then braces his forehead against mine. ‘Yeah. You know, that thing people get? It generally involves needing food. Eating. Maybe conversation.’

‘I’m familiar with the concept.’

My own little divot forges between my brows and his eyes lift to it. His grins, and that makes me smile, erasing the similarity.

He rolls his hips luxuriantly, slowly throbbing warmth through me, and desire surges like a wave at high tide, rolling inwards towards the shore. I lift my hips to meet it, to welcome it.

‘Room Service,’ he murmurs. ‘Definitely Room Service.’

Still inside me, he stretches, reaching for the phone on the bedside table, and my whole body stretches with his, reluctant to relinquish even a hint of connection.

He brings his mouth back to mine, the phone hooked casually under one ear.

‘Ethan Ash,’ he says, and my eyes lift to his, surprised until I realise he’s speaking to someone else.

That surprise, though, is nothing compared to what shoots through me when he pulls out of me, leaving me instantly bereft, before inserting a finger deep into my core. I can’t help the moan that escapes my mouth. It falls out like a waterfall, slumberous and urgent at the same time.

His finger swirls around already-over-sensitised nerve-endings and I arch my back as he brings his mouth to my breast at the same time.

‘Two crab linguine. Some fruit.’

‘A peach,’ I whisper.

‘A peach,’ he repeats, then drags his mouth across my chest, his stubbled jaw making the raw, aching, sensitive flesh tremble beneath him.

His mouth is an instant relief. And as he rolls my nipple with his tongue he speaks into the phone. The words are husky against me. I feel his voice a baritone on my skin. And he feels me inside.feels my heart and my core.

‘Definitely champagne. Lots of champagne.’ He draws his lips lower, to my navel, and then, still with the phone under his chin, to my clit.

‘Oh, my God!’ I squawk as his tongue finds the cluster of nerves and flicks it punishingly.

‘Ice cream,’ he adds, his fingers curling around my ankles and pushing my legs apart on the bed.

There is a tiny part of me that is embarrassed by this intimacy—but only a tiny part. The rest of me is way up on cloud nine, wondering if any woman has ever felt this good. If any person has ever known this pleasure.

I presume he’s done ordering, because he drops the phone to the ground. The cord is still stretched across the bed but I don’t ask him to hang up. Nor do I attempt to do so. I’m not moving, and I’m not going to encourage him to do anything that might bring an end to this sweet, sensual invasion.

‘A peach, huh?’ he murmurs against me.

I dig my nails into the bed, trying to breathe, trying not to fall apart.

‘Yeah.’

‘A favourite?’

‘Mmm, yes...’ I don’t think I’m talking about fruit any more.

‘You taste fucking amazing.’

Even that doesn’t embarrass me. I groan in response, reaching above me for a pillow, which I drag down, holding it over my face as I cry out and he continues to run his tongue over me with the kind of skill that should win him a gold medal. Seriously. If oral sex were a competitive sport then this guy could hang up his microphone. He’s that good.

His hands lift up, finding my breasts, and he knows what I love already. He’s learned fast. He tweaks my nipples and palms the roundness of my flesh, and his mouth lifts me up and carries me away until I can stand it no longer, and I give in to the euphoric relief that has been building and bursting.

I feel it drop over me and whimper into the pillow. Which is no help, actually, because it smells intoxicatingly like him. So like him that I want to take it with me. Uh-oh. Another road opens up before me. I resolutely shut all paths out and surrender to the sensations of this. This very, very, very delightful everything.

He slows down as he feels me come apart, still touching me, tasting me, but no longer driving me to insane heights. I have exploded and now I am recovering. I am trying to catch my breath. He stays close and I’m comforted by his closeness—until he pulls back and stands in one fluid moment.

He’s still wearing the condom—but not for long. He rolls it off and wraps it in a tissue, tossing it carelessly into a wastepaper basket before reaching for the phone and replacing it on the cradle. Then, hands on hips, gloriously naked, he stares down at me, where I’m hiding behind an organic Italian cotton pillow.

‘Alicia?’

I can’t speak. Maybe not ever again. It is quite possible that he’s erased my voice, like some kind of kinky Little Mermaid scenario.

‘Come here.’

I can’t speak, but I can move, and I will move as he demands because he’s offering me a whole new world of pleasure and I am anxious to enjoy it, and with it to erase Jeremy’s significance in my life.

I stand. My legs shake and my skin is raw—pale pink, I see, as I look down at my breasts. The sight of his marks on my body makes me soar. An ancient feminine power rocks me to the core. He did this to me. His passion did it to both of us. And the passion was bigger than either of us could control.

‘You never answered my question.’

‘What question?’

He links his fingers through mine and pulls me gently away from the bed. For the first moment since entering the suite I notice the view.

‘Holy shit.’ I stand completely still—naked, uncaring. ‘Wow...’

Manhattan glistens before me. It is high-rises and high dreams, lights and lives, lows and loves.

‘Yeah.’

His voice is hoarse and it draws my attention. I stare at his profile again, and it’s so different now. I see all his lines and marks and strengths, and somehow I feel that I know him so much better than even an hour ago.

‘I’ve always loved the contradictions of New York,’ I say.

I am drawn to the view and step towards the window, relinquishing his hand without realising it. I press my palm to the glass. It is darkly tinted and I am confident in the privacy it affords.

‘So much beauty...so much despair.’ My smile is crooked as our eyes latch on to each other in the reflection. ‘Nowhere in the world can you find such wealth and poverty in the same city block.’

‘It’s a unique place,’ he agrees. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Wisconsin, originally. I moved here five years ago—right out of college.’

‘What did you study?’

‘Fine art and art history.’

I’ve surprised him. I see the way he nods, but it’s speculative. Funny, because I’m well-known and well-respected in my field, and it’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone who doesn’t know what I do.

‘You’re an artist?’

‘I wish...’ I sigh wistfully, turning to face him with mock sadness on my face. ‘I always wanted to be. My mom says I spent so much time clutching paintbrushes I practically deformed my fingers.’

I lift my hand up and we both stare at it in the silence of the room. They’re normal to look at now, but I remember the claw-like grip they manifested after days and days spent hunched at a canvas.

‘But...?’

‘Can’t paint to save my life.’ I grimace. ‘I’m a buyer now. And an appraiser by appointment.’

‘So you take other people’s cash to choose fashionable art?’

I shrug. ‘Fashionable, abstract, classic. I spend a lot of time with my clients and in the spaces the art will inhabit, making sure it’s going to work.’

‘That’s a job?’

‘Hell, yeah.’ I gesture to the room we’re standing in. ‘This whole hotel is fitted with contemporary American masterpieces—testaments to the modernist movement. You look around and you see the art and maybe you don’t realise the effect it creates. But we’re standing in a movement, Ethan!’

I hear the enthusiasm and passion in my own voice and wince. I adore my job. That’s a good thing, but it can be a bit bizarre to people who don’t feel the same way.

‘I know what you mean.’

I exhale. ‘You do?’

‘Well, not exactly...’

He turns and cuts through the suite, disappearing through a door. I follow.

‘But the first time I recorded at Abbey Road I just about shit myself. I mean...’ He shakes his head as he reaches for the faucet and turns on the water. The bath is around the corner, half hidden by a dark wood-panelled wall. ‘The history is thick in the air at that place. The microphones, the carpet, the pictures. Legends—so many, a list as long as my arm. Not just the Beatles—though that’s everything. But all the bands, musicians, songwriters. It’s impossible to explain—except I guess it’s like you just said. I was in the middle of something so much bigger than me. It took me three tracks to get the jitters out of my voice.’

‘The jitters?’

Oh, no. There goes my heart, flopping just like my tummy has been all night, squeezing with something a lot like affection at the sweetness of that word. Jitters. Twenty-eight, sexy as sin, and a gold medallist at pleasure-giving and he uses words like ‘jitters’. He gives me the jitters.

‘Yeah. You know. The heebie-jeebies.’

‘Stop.’ I burst out laughing and hold a hand up at the same time. ‘You need to stop using language like that.’

‘Like heebie-jeebies?’

‘Yeah. It’s too...’ Cute. Adorable. Sweet. Lovely.

‘I’m sorry, Ally, there’s no other word for it. I had medically diagnosed heebie-jeebies.’

But he grabs the hand I’ve held out and pulls it—and me—towards him. Our bodies meld together and his eyes lock to mine. Breath snags in my throat like a piece of thread that won’t give. I stare up at him, waiting, transfixed, my heart throbbing.

He kisses my forehead lightly, softly, gently, and a moan is trapped in my throat. Yes. This. All of this. The paths are back in my mind, opening up and inviting me to choose one.

There’s a sound from outside and he reaches for a towel, breaking the sense of magic that was enveloping me. ‘Hop in. I’ll join you in a minute.’

‘The bath?’

‘Why not?’

He wraps a towel around his waist, low-slung so that—if it’s possible—he looks even sexier than when he was all gloriously golden and butt-naked.

‘You got somewhere else you need to be?’

The paths look at me.

He looks at me.

I expel a long, slow sigh as I shake my head. ‘Not right now, I don’t.’

‘Good. Then you’re all mine.’ He kisses me quickly on the cheek. ‘And I’m going to make the most of it. I’ll be right back.’

He disappears from the bathroom but I move to the door and watch him. I watch him because I seem unable to help it. Because I am pulled to him like a bee to honey.

* * *

Her eyes are shut when I step back into the bathroom, bowl in hand. The water swirls around her, and her breasts are two perfect peaks floating on the surface. She’s added some of the shower lotion, and the bubbled top creates a frustrating visual barrier to the rest of her body.

A body I now yearn to see again.

To make completely my own.

It is a primal need to possess her, and I’m more surprised by that than I should be. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman. And things between Sienna and me were shit at the end. For a long time before the end, actually.

But I don’t want to think about her now.

I don’t want Sienna in my head, ruining this for me.

‘You look good enough to eat.’

Her eyes ping open, searing me with awareness. ‘You should know.’

‘Uh-huh.’

I grin as I step into the bath, relieved as all fuck when my legs brush against hers. I like touching her. I like it a lot.

Maybe it’s just the newness of this. The freshness of being with a woman I barely know.

‘Definitely something I want seconds of.’

Her cheeks flush bright pink—God, I love how she blushes, and I can’t resist teasing her more.

‘And thirds...and fourths.’

Darker pink glistens on her cheeks. I settle myself against the head of the bath and scoop some ice cream onto a spoon, holding it out to her. She keeps her eyes locked to mine as she takes a bite. A dribble of vanilla escapes down one side of her chin and I watch its progress. She makes no effort to check it, and after a moment it falls to her décolletage and slips down to where her breast meets the water.

Shit.

She’s perfection.

‘You know...’ I continue, hell-bent now on my mission to make her whole body glow red with knowledge and awareness. ‘You make the sweetest noises when you’re coming.’

Mission accomplished. She lights up like a Christmas tree, her eyes not meeting mine.

‘Why are we eating ice cream?’

It is the most goddamned clunky conversation-change I’ve ever heard—and I’m often around women who are nervous as all hell.

I laugh, the noise soft in the quietness of the bathroom, and I lift a spoonful of the confection out of the bowl. ‘I’ll show you.’

I place it in my mouth and then move through the water, finding one of her breasts, which I’m already thinking of as my breasts. I know how she loves them to be played with—how much it drives her crazy.

For the smallest moment Sienna is in my head again. And she’s pissed off as all hell at what I’m doing.

Anger briefly flares in my gut, followed by satisfaction. I’m glad she’s pissed off. She can join the club.

Sienna always was jealous. Jealous of the women who’d get backstage at my concerts. Women the band would introduce me to. Women who’d find out where I was staying and make their way to the hotel and wait outside my room. Women who emailed and Tweeted me their most obscene fantasies in the hopes I’d turn them into lyrics...or reality.

Well, no sense crying over spilled milk or unsown oats. Here, in this enormous bath with Ally, I’ve got every opportunity to make up for lost time. And I intend to use it.

She’s so hot. Like the sex gods recognised my deprivation and decided to reward me with an actual bona fide angel.

I slide the ice cream over her perfect peach nipple, my hands braced on her hips beneath the water so I feel the way she sucks in a hard breath of surprise at the ice-cold invasion. The frozen heat—such a contradiction.

She shifts underwater, dragging her breath lower. I make a ‘tsking’ sound of disapproval. ‘You don’t like it?’

‘Oh, I like it,’ she mutters, without meeting my eyes. ‘What I don’t like is how easily you can drive me crazy. It’s not fair.’

‘Not fair?’ I shake my head. ‘Believe me, I get as much out of your pleasure as you do.’

And to prove my point I nudge my dick against her, so she can feel how hard I am for her already. How no relief could erase the need I feel for her.

‘That’s reassuring,’ she murmurs.

I laugh. ‘I’m glad you’re reassured, Alicia.’

Something serious flickers in her eyes and she moves forward in the bath, making a small wave that ripples around me and crashes to the edges. She reaches for the ice cream spoon and takes a bite before bringing her mouth to mine. The kiss is hot and cold and I groan into her mouth, my hands seeking first her hair, tangling in its lengths, before dragging themselves down to her hips and squeezing her flesh, loving the feeling of her as she moves over me.

She’s so close I want to take her then and there.

Thank God she’s still got room for thought. She shakes her head, keeping herself just far enough away from me to inspire a sort of madness. ‘No condom,’ she murmurs.

I swear, if it hadn’t been for that I’d be taking her now, driving into her again.

She kisses me and I move closer and closer to bursting. She rolls her hips against my waist, teasing me, inviting me, even when we both know we can’t do this. She’s tilting her pelvis, simulating sex, and my temperature is skyrocketing. I’m harder than granite and there’s only one cure.

While I want her, I want more of this, too. More of feeling like I’m about to explode, like I’m close but far away. I wanted to get blind drunk tonight, but instead I met Ally and I’m drunk on something besides alcohol. Is this just deprivation talking? Just the fact I haven’t been able to do this for a really long time?

Flesh on flesh...her under my fingertips.

Fuuuuck.

‘What would you say about getting out of the bath?’ All I can think about is taking her again. Driving into her like she’s my new home.

‘Can we bring the ice cream?’

‘Hell, yeah, we can bring the ice cream.’

She’s so graceful. Even as she pushes up to standing and moves out of the bath it’s like a ballet performance. She’s lithe and lean and, though I’m aching to follow, I take a moment just to watch her. To watch as she pulls her wet hair over her shoulder and squeezes it into a towel, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She drops the towel to her body and pats herself dry in what is my new definition of sexiness. Then she turns back to me and she looks like Mona Lisa might have if she’d just rolled out of bed.

Enigmatic. Hot. Desirable.

‘Ready?’

‘Yeah.’ Is that my voice? So gruff and hoarse?

She reaches for the ice cream and once more spoons it into her mouth, but she holds the spoon there, her eyes holding mine. Just for a second. A beat. But it’s enough. Enough for me to imagine it’s me in her mouth.

I would be some kind of animal if I didn’t feel guilty for what I’m doing. Four months ago I thought Sienna and I would work through our shit and probably one day get married. Four months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of being with someone else.

And now I’m fucking this beautiful, sexy Ally.

Am I doing it to hurt Sienna?

Am I doing it to fuck Sienna right out of my head?

Am I doing it because Sienna deserves that?

Hell, yeah. But I’m also doing it because Ally seems to have robbed me of any ability to walk away. She has drawn me into something I cannot fight.

And I don’t want to fight it anyway.