“I told you I’d help, Luke,” I say, and I pray my voice doesn’t sound as funny or strained to him as it does to my own ears. “I’m not going to back out on you now.” I squeeze his hand once, and release him, my fingertips tingling where we just touched. “Besides, you promised me some five-star meals. I’m not about to miss out on those.”
He laughs and puts the car in gear. “Good to know what kind of things can tempt you, Celia. Food, wine… anything else on your list of irresistible temptations?”
I bite my tongue over the urge to reply, You. “You’ve got the main ones down,” I say instead, and roll down my window to enjoy the spring breeze as we head out of the city toward the shore.
The drive is beautiful, all the more so because of all the glances I’m able to steal of Luke while he drives. With his focus on the road, I can enjoy drinking him in more than I’d usually dare. He’s smiling, relaxed, and chatty as we go. He tells me all about Paul—an old friend from college who’s a partner at a huge law firm in New York now. He tells me about the beach and the hotel. About how much he needs a break.
“But you’re the one who really deserves it,” he adds, just before he bends forward to point through the windshield. “How’s she look?”
My eyes widen as I take in the veritable castle we’re driving up to. It’s set on a cliff high above the Pacific, the waves crashing onto white sand beaches far below. Up here, the hotel sprawls into four wings, looking more like a palace that belongs in Europe than here in SoCal. But I’m not complaining.
We pull up to the main drive, and a valet opens the door for me, then offers a hand to help me out of the car. Before I can lift a finger, another hotel valet has opened the trunk to remove our bags.
“We’ll bring these to your room, Mr. Rossfield,” he says, already hustling inside. I move to follow, but Luke stops me with one hand on my elbow.
“I almost forgot.” He draws a small box out of his pocket, and my heart does a painful skip in my chest.
Is that…?
“We have to make this convincing, don’t we?” With a grin, he pops the lid and offers up one of the most beautiful diamonds I’ve ever seen.
I inhale sharply, mostly to try and keep my composure. It’s a princess cut, with a white gold band. It’s everything I ever imagined, and in my wildest dreams, my own wedding ring might look like it one day. At least I can say I had it for a few days, I think, as Luke slides it onto my finger, his eyes on my face to gauge my reaction.
I’m grinning like an idiot. I try to tamp it down, but there’s no disguising this. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
He leans in to kiss my cheek, his lips lingering against my skin for the barest breath of a second. “Only the best for my wife.” Then he presses a hand lightly against the small of my back to guide me forward, into the hotel.
It takes me a second to remember how to walk. If this weekend didn’t feel like a dream already, now it definitely does. I suppress a shiver and cross the hotel lobby, trying my best not to look at the ring on my finger. Trying not to let myself fall for the lie. It’s just a bet. One weekend.
But damn, what a weekend it’s going to be.
The bellhops see us straight into the elevator, but inside, they just push the floor for us and step back out again, leaving us alone as the door slides shut. Luke turns to grin at me. “We should practice, you know. Before we have to perform for an audience.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Practice what, exactly?”
His smile remains fixed in place, but there’s something new in his eyes now, a spark that wasn’t there before. A heat. “Kissing,” he says, and before I can react, he’s reaching up to cup my cheek and tilting my face toward his.
I’ve imagined this moment a hundred times before. But I never imagined it quite like this—how warm his palm would feel cupping my cheek, or how I would catch his scent beforehand for a second, a hint of smoke and spice. My eyes drop to his lips, and I have just enough time to let them flutter closed before his lips find mine.
The kiss is soft at first. Hesitant. He kisses me like I’m delicate, breakable. But then I reach up to twine my arms around his neck and kiss him back. The moment I do, his free hand slides around my waist, pulling me against him, and his lips part as he deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping past mine to claim me, completely.
I can’t help it. He tastes even better than I imagined, feels so much more real than I ever pictured. All my fantasies, all my fanfiction stories, they pale in comparison to the reality of his warm, muscular body pressed against mine. This is Luke, I remind myself. This is really happening. It feels like I just wandered into a dream.
His hand slides down my waist to my hip, his fingers digging into me through the fabric of my thin sundress. I arch one leg around his, and I can feel the hard press of his cock against my belly, thick and throbbing through his pants. I moan into his mouth, unable to help it, because fuck he feels so good.
The moment I do that, though, he pulls back, chuckling softly, those searing blue eyes of his fixed on me as he laughs. “Maybe you don’t need any practice after all, Celia.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, one that escaped as we kissed. His hand lingers against my cheek. “You’ve got the horny newlywed act down perfect.”
My cheeks flush bright red, and his grin deepens, like he knows exactly how wild he’s driving me. But before I can respond, the elevator reaches our floor, and he takes my hand to lead me out of it, down the hallway, toward the suite that we’re sharing.
My heart races in my chest, my whole body still tingling. It feels like my lips are on fire from his kiss, my hips still seared by his touch. I can’t help it. I risk a glance down at my fingers, where the ring he gave me sits, right where it would if this were all real. If he really were my husband.
I decide that, just for this weekend, it will be all right to let myself believe it. I know it will only make everything harder once this is over and we’re back at the office once this fantasy inevitably ends. But… I can’t shake the look in his eyes when he kissed me, either.
So I decide, just for the weekend, I’ll throw caution to the wind.
4
The first thing that catches my eye when we cross into our room is the welcome note the hotel staff left on our bed. There’s a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice on a stand beside the bed, and in front of it, a short letter welcoming “Mr. and Mrs. Rossfield.” Just the sight of those words, a casual listing of me with his last name, like it’s normal, like we’re greeted that way every day, sends a thrill through me. How many times have I written fanfiction where that happened? How many times have I daydreamed about how good Celia Rossfield sounds?
My whole body tingles. Especially when I glance up at the rest of the room, with its huge windows overlooking the grounds below, a balcony outside, and a jacuzzi-style hot tub in our enormous en suite bathroom. “Did you actually book the honeymoon suite?” I ask, grinning.
“Of course.” Luke winks and steps closer to me, his gaze fixed on mine, that hungry expression in his eye again. “In a way, this weekend is like our honeymoon, isn’t it?”
I force a laugh, because I hope it will disguise the fact that my heart is racing, my pulse pounding. “Our pretend one, of course.” But I can’t keep my voice even, or my eyes off his lips. All I can think about is how he tasted when he kissed me in the elevator. How he’d taste if he kissed me again, right here, right now.
When I glance back up at his eyes, forcing myself to stop staring at his mouth, I notice his gaze doing the same thing. Jumping back to my face as if he wasn’t just checking out my lips, my body. My cheeks flush with heat, but he’s already turning away to survey the room.
I do the same, walking across to the balcony and sliding open the doors. It’s a beautiful day outside, the weather just right, warm not too hot. I step out onto the balcony and breathe in the fresh air, the scent of flowers growing along one side of the hotel. From up here, I can see the pool, hu
ge and luxurious, with full beds around it rather than lounge chairs, and massage stations set up nearby, along with a swim-up bar. Farther away, I spot what look like outdoor hot tubs, and little wooden shacks beside them that must be steam rooms or saunas. Beyond those, a series of flower gardens.
In the other direction is a scenic clifftop overlooking white sand beaches and the ocean far below, crashing against the rocks. The view is beautiful, breathtaking. It will be even more so at sunset tonight, I’m sure. The thought of coming back to this room with Luke tonight has my pulse racing and my mind leaping toward dirty thoughts.
I didn’t think, when I agreed to this, that anything would happen between us necessarily. It seemed like too much to hope for. But after that kiss in the elevator, I can’t help wondering if he has more in mind than just playacting.
When I turn back into the room to call Luke over, I catch him staring at me, that unreadable look in his eyes once more. “You look beautiful,” he says, his voice so low I’m not sure I heard him right. He walks toward me, and I step back into the room to meet him, my heart racing.
“Thank you.” My cheeks are still flushed from earlier, and the heat flows back into them now, especially when I watch the way his gaze drips over my body, like he’s drinking me in. “You look… great, too.” My voice faltered before I could say what I was really thinking. You look hot enough to set me on fire.
Luke winks in response. “There is one catch, though, Celia.” He lifts a hand to trail along the wall closest to our bed. Luke taps lightly. “My friend Paul booked a room just on the other side, right next to us.”
“Oh.” My eyes dance from the wall to Luke and back again. “What does that mean?”
He grins and walks toward me, to where I’m standing in between the open windows of the balcony. “I’m very competitive, you know.”
I have to suppress a real smirk at that. “Oh really? I didn’t notice—how many times did you make the whole office play that card game Carl taught us, until you finally got good enough to win every single round?”
He smirks back. “Pretty sure I started winning by the end of the first night.”
I narrow my eyes. “Still. What about your competitiveness?”
He tilts a head back toward the wall, nodding at it casually. “Well. I’m competitive about my marriage, too.”
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t have brought me all the way out here just to win a bet.”
He loops an arm around my waist and pulls me against him, startling me. I suck in a breath, my eyes locked on his, which are suddenly just inches from my own. His face is so close I can feel his breath caress my cheek. My lips burn all over again, longing for his once more. “I don’t just want to win this bet, Celia, I want to dominate it.” The way he says dominate makes me clench my thighs together, suddenly all too aware of the heat between them, and how wet I’m starting to get just at the thought of that. “I’ve already got a smoking hot wife. But I’ll need Paul to hear just how hot our marriage is, too.”
“H-hear… what, exactly?” I manage, proud of myself for only stammering a little bit. My heart trips in my throat.
“How hot our sex life is, of course.” His hand slides down my curves, tracing the line of my waist to my hips. My heart beats faster, especially when he pulls me against him again. This time there’s no mistaking the hard press of his cock against my belly, still as hard as he was before. It sends a thrill through me, and makes my thighs clench harder, my pussy already dripping at the thought. Just knowing that I have this effect on him, that I make him this hard, makes me feel powerful, seductive. Sexy as hell. “I’m going to have to make you moan tonight, Celia.” He trails a single finger up the edge of my jaw, tilting my face toward his. Our lips are barely a breath apart now. I can hardly think; he makes my head swim so much. “I want our neighbors to hear you screaming my name with pleasure. So everyone who hears knows you’re my sex-kitten of a wife.” His fingertip reaches my neck, and he slides his hand around the nape of my neck, cupping me tightly. “So they know you worship your husband’s cock.”
I catch my breath, my eyes on his mouth. I couldn’t look away now if I tried. “Well… if that’s what we’re going for…” I summon my nerve and meet his eyes, my own gaze probably hot enough to start a fire right about now. I want him so fucking badly. I have for months. For a whole goddamn year. “Maybe we’d better start practicing again,” I say, my throat almost closing over the words, over how bold that feels.
But to my relief, Luke doesn’t balk at the thought, or back down. Instead, his smile just widens, sharpening around the edges. “You read my mind, Celia.”
He kisses me again, and this time it’s not tentative or hesitant. His lips sear into mine, and he walks me back one step, two, until I back up against the window next to the balcony doors. He flattens me against it, just before he pulls his mouth off mine. I gasp in protest, but he doesn’t go far. He just tilts my head back, his lips tracing a trail down the front of my throat, his tongue darting into the indentation of my clavicle like he’s tasting me. A full-body shiver goes through me, starting at the top of my head and working all the way down to my toes.
“God, Celia,” he breathes against my skin, his breath even hotter than his tongue. I moan a little, parting my legs at a touch from his palm. He slides one hand between my legs, all the way up to cup my pussy through the fabric of my sundress, his fingers curling against me so strongly that even with panties on, I can feel their heat, and I can feel how wet I’ve become too.
“Are you as hungry for me as I am for you, Celia?” he whispers.
My clit feels swollen and heavy with want. All I want is for him to keep touching me, up until he spreads my legs and fucks me. But his hand slides away, back up my waist until he reaches my breasts. One hand cups my breast tightly, massaging, as his thumb runs over my nipple. Even underneath my bra, I can feel myself starting to harden. “Fuck yes,” I breathe.
“Tell me,” he says, before he goes back to kissing me again, licking and nipping and sucking at the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. He’s biting hard enough that it will leave a mark, I know, but I don’t care. At this point, all I can think is how badly I want his mark on me, like a claim on my skin.
“I want…” I almost lose my train of thought, as he nips at me again. I catch my breath. “I want to feel your cock inside me. I want you, Luke, I want you to fuck me.”
He pulls back, a single eyebrow arched. “I want to fuck my wife. Who do you want to fuck?”
I realize what he wants, and it makes my heart beat faster, my pulse pounding in my throat. I lock eyes with him, unable to look away. “My husband,” I say. “I want my husband to fuck me, right here, right now.”
His grin widens when I answer correctly. “Good girl.” He reaches down to catch my dress in one hand, and draws it up over my head, slowly enough to make me shiver as the breeze through the open balcony hits my bare skin. He pulls it off and drops it in a heap beside us, before he presses my back against the glass window once more. It’s cool against my back, almost as cool as his hands are searing hot against my front. He unclasps my bra and lets it fall next, before leaning down to suck my nipple into his mouth. My breath catches in my throat and I arch against him, pressing closer as his tongue swirls around my hardening nipple.
“Fuck.” I slide my hands up to bury them in his hair, my nails running over his scalp. He shivers, so I do it again, scratching him as he tongues my nipple, one after the next, his hands wandering down to my panties at the same time.
It takes me a moment to recover my senses, but when I do, my hands already know what I want. I reach for his shirt and draw it up and over his head, before tossing it on the floor beside us. Fuck. I always suspected he was built. After sending out enough of his clothes for tailoring, I know his measurements by heart. But knowing his numbers and seeing his body with my own eyes are two very different things.
Never mind touching him…
“God you’re so fucki
ng hot,” I murmur as I run my hands over his sculpted pecs, his washboard abs. He catches my eye, his own narrowed, and I realize my error. “Husband,” I add, putting a subtle emphasis on the word that makes him grin.
“Like I said earlier.” He glances down, just as he hooks one thumb under the side of my panties. I wore simple white lace ones today, just in case. He tugs them down and off in one movement, and they puddle around my feet at once. I shiver, standing before him completely naked. “Only the best for my sexy as hell wife.” He leans back in to kiss me again, and I melt into his lips, even as I reach down to grasp the clasp of his pants and carefully undo the button.
He stops me with one hand and steps back for a second, gaze roaming across me.
“Wait,” he says. “I want to look at my wife for a moment.”
I shiver, feeling his gaze almost like a physical touch on my skin, it’s so hot. He doesn’t bother to disguise the naked lust and hunger in his eyes as he drinks me in. It hits me all over again how surreal this is. That it’s Luke, that it’s finally happening. The moment I’ve wanted ever since I first stepped into his office to interview for my position with him, and knew I was completely fucked.
This is the first time I’ll actually get fucked. Finally. Months of tension feel built up in me. A whole year’s worth. Deep down, somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I ought to be worried about this. About sleeping with my boss, for God’s sake. But I can’t bring myself to care. Not when it’s Luke.
Not when he smiles with pleasure and evident approval, and reaches down to undo his pants, pushing them down and letting me see the huge bulge in his boxers, springing free at last. “God you are perfect,” he tells me. He steps close again, and I push his boxers down, feeling like I’m unwrapping a present for the first time.
His cock is fucking magnificent. Huge and thick, veined a little along the shaft, with a thick, spongy tip and a base so wide I need both hands to wrap my fingers around him. Which I do, stepping close so I can feel the velvety smooth skin of his shaft against my belly even as I start to stroke him.
Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection Page 18
