by Jill Shalvis
almost cried. She tightened her hands into his hair and tried to direct him but he just gave a low knowing laugh.
He knew what he was doing, and then to prove it, he did it again, taking her to the very edge before pulling back.
“I hate you,” she finally gasped.
“No, you don’t. I’m heroic and gentlemanly,” he said, giving her back her own words.
Not that there was anything gentlemanly about what he was doing to her with his mouth. And especially when the more desperate she became, the more patient he became. He’d memorized her body, or so it seemed. He knew exactly where and how to touch her to make her putty in his hands. And where to not touch, apparently determined to make her beg to be finished off. “Son of a bumblebee, you’re missing on purpose!”
With a deep laugh, he dragged his mouth along her body again, slow, hot, deliberate kisses, his systematic torment of her body leaving her writhing against him until finally he let her go, let her come apart at the seams, shattering into a million pieces.
While she was still panting and staring up at the ceiling in shock at how out of control he’d had her, he crawled up her body and brought his lips back to hers.
“You still coherent?” he asked, pushing her hair off her damp forehead.
“No,” she said, gasping for air. “But don’t let that stop you.”
At some point he’d found a condom. Then the mouth that had just taken her to heaven slowly curved as he made himself at home between her legs, the question in his eyes.
Because she couldn’t speak, she nodded and tightened her grip on him. “Yes.” God, yes. Now. Yesterday. Tomorrow.
Always . . .
Shoving that thought deep, she gathered him into her arms, arching up to meet him halfway. He didn’t close his eyes and neither did she, so they stared at each other, their breath blending as he entered her.
“How about now,” he murmured. “Still with me now?”
“Stop asking questions and move!”
His shoulders shook with laughter, but he did as she asked. He moved. And sweet mother of pearl, how the man moved. In a shockingly short time, he had her crying out for him, sensation and emotions slamming blissfully together as their bodies did the same. And this time when she lost control, he finally did too.
After, when he went to shift his weight off her, she tightened her grip on him, not ready to let go yet. With a wordless comforting murmur, he slid an arm beneath her, rolling until he was on his back and she was all but poured over him.
Get up and go downstairs to your place, her brain said. Before you get used to this.
Oh please just one more minute, her body said.
And her body won.
Chapter 20
#SonOfABumblebee
Spence opened his eyes when Colbie’s phone went off with multiple texts in quick succession.
Facedown on his bed, sated and still panting, she just groaned. “I’m going to kill them,” she muttered into the mattress. “Unless they’re in jail. If they’re in jail, I’m going to leave them there.” She sighed. “But I really hope they’re not in jail.”
“Hey.” He turned her face to him, not liking the worry and guilt in her eyes. “They’re legal adults. For that matter, so is your mom. You’re not responsible for them.”
“I know. But it’s the life I’ve made. I take care of them. Always have.”
Ever since her dad had left. It was her ugly past rearing its head and oh how he understood that.
“Maybe it’s time to make a life for you,” he said.
She shrugged. “The thing is, when the writing’s good, I’m happy. I really don’t need much more than that. The truth is, I’m fine with my life because I’m naturally introverted and actually pretty boring.”
“Introverted, maybe a little. But boring?” Spence gently tugged on a loose wayward strand of her silky hair, dipping a little to look into her eyes. “Never.”
“I am,” she said on a laugh.
“Honey, the woman in my bed is the furthest thing from boring I’ve ever seen.”
She blushed a little. It was cute. She snorted too. Also cute. “That was all you,” she said, poking him in the chest.
“No.” He caught her hand. “I’ve been with just me.” He shook his head and laughed. “Trust me. You’re the necessary ingredient and wild card.” Utterly true. And something else he hadn’t seen coming—she’d distracted the hell out of him but he’d still managed to work, disproving his theory that he was all work and no play.
Which wasn’t even the biggest problem. Nope, that honor went to the fact that she was leaving soon, something he wasn’t ready to face.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “As it turns out,” she said softly, “you’re my necessary ingredient too. I’ve been writing like I haven’t been able to in . . . forever. You unblocked me.”
He smiled and lifted her onto his lap so that she was straddling him. “So I’m your muse, huh?”
She slid her fingers into his hair and he nearly purred like a cat. “It would seem,” she murmured.
“Well then, by all means feel free to use me anytime you need, creatively or otherwise,” he said.
She wriggled a little, giving out a soft hum of what he hoped was pleasure as she felt him harden beneath her. “Now?” she whispered, the excitement unmistakable in her voice.
“Now.”
Spence was wrapped in warm, sated woman and feeling pretty damn good about the evening as he dozed off, when suddenly Colbie stirred and murmured his name.
It was one a.m. and she’d been out for at least thirty minutes. He’d put her into a pleasure coma and it’d made him feel more than a little smug. He stroked a hand down her back. “You okay?”
“Who’s Brandon?” she asked, voice thick with sleep. “I meant to ask that before but you distracted me.”
“He’s an old college roommate.”
“And . . .?” she asked, running a finger over his chest, an unbelievably soothing touch.
“. . . And,” he said, “he’s also someone I stupidly gave an interview to when he asked.”
“Hmm . . .” Her fingers danced lightly over his ribs and abs, which he liked way too much. “I take it that the interview didn’t go well,” she said.
“He works for a tech magazine and he needed a story. I agreed, as long as the article was business only, nothing personal. He promised.”
“And then . . . he broke the promise?” she asked, her hand stilling.
“He gave my life story,” Spence said. “Most of it pieced together from what he knew of me in college, the rest from gossip he’d dug up.”
“Ah,” she said. “And the next thing you knew, you were on San Fran’s most eligible bachelor list, getting marriage proposals via texts with NSFW pics to go with,” she guessed.
He groaned, which got a smile out of his bedmate. “Well you are pretty eligible . . .” she teased.
He sighed and she laughed, but it faded as she slid her hand up his chest to cup his jaw, her eyes sympathetic now and full of understanding. “I get it,” she said. “No one’s built for this kind of public scrutiny.”
The thought that she understood him should’ve been comforting, but it wasn’t.
Because in one week she’d be gone . . .
“He had no right to do that,” she said, “to play on your friendship. I haven’t known you very long, but even I know that your privacy is super important to you. He shouldn’t have asked you for the interview in the first place.”
“And now he wants a follow-up interview.”
“I hope you told him where he could put it,” she said, voice tight with anger for him.
That she was worked up over this for him was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He covered her hand on his chest with his own. “I did tell him.”
“But it still sucks,” she guessed. “So . . . how can I make you feel better?”
He slowly nudged her hand southbound.
Colbie lau
ghed. Her eyes were that dark jade green they got when she was unbearably aroused and she reared up so that her mouth could brush against his, her lips soft and sweet. When her tongue touched his, his control snapped and he moved his hand to the back of her neck, closing his mouth over hers, drinking her in.
He should’ve been sated, but the kiss was deep and going deeper by the second. Her hands were running over his body, stopping at all his favorite parts. Ripping his mouth free, he rested his forehead against hers for a few seconds, listening to the both of them breathe like lunatics.
“This is a little bit insane,” she whispered.
“Completely insane.”
“I think about you too much,” she admitted.
“Yeah?” He buried his fingers in her hair and met her gaze. “What do you think about?”
“This. You.”
His heart skipped a few beats at the longing he saw in her face. He pressed her into the bed, needing to feel as much of his body covering hers as possible. He shuddered as her long legs wrapped around him, and he captured her lips in another mind-bending kiss, drinking in the little noises she made deep in her throat.
Then she pulled back, studying him, and he wondered what the hell she saw when she looked at him like that, like maybe he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Which was gratifying since he was starting to come to terms with the fact that he felt the same. She was definitely the best thing to ever happen to him.
Something he thought about every morning when he dragged himself out of her bed and left her before she woke and saw it all over his face.
As he thought this and let it sink in, it suddenly took everything he had to not tell her. But he wanted her to be the one to make the decision about where to take things next, if they took things anywhere at all. He was starting to realize what his feelings were, but she needed to do the same—in her own time.
He thought maybe he’d see it in her eyes, but he wanted the words, and then, as if she could read his mind, she opened her mouth—but what came out wasn’t anything he expected.
“Oh my God, wait!” she gasped and wriggled out from beneath him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot!” She sat up. “I forgot to tell you something. I can’t believe I forgot but there were the brownies and then you naked . . .” She tugged the sheet up to her chin. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Since her voice was very serious and also very panicked and he couldn’t see enough in the dark room to suit him, he reached across her and turned on the small lamp by his bed.
She’d been wearing a soft, warm glow when she’d first drifted off but right now her eyes were wide, dark, and full of haunting secrets.
Shit.
With his gut sinking hard, he watched her slide out of bed and grab the first thing she came to on the floor.
His shirt.
It looked good on her, falling to her thighs, open to expose a strip of creamy skin he knew tasted like heaven. He caught a glimpse of some whisker burn between her breasts and low on her belly before she yanked the shirt closed and started buttoning herself in.
“I’m really so very sorry,” she said, head bowed to her task, her fingers fumbling. “I meant to tell you before we . . .”
Because her fingers were shaking, he got up and moved her hands aside, first undoing what she’d done since she’d lined the buttons up to the wrong holes, before starting anew. As the backs of his knuckles brushed over her flesh, she trembled.
Which killed him. What the ever-loving hell?
When she was buttoned from throat to thigh, he let out a breath and stepped back and pulled on his jeans. “What is it?” he asked quietly.
She chewed her bottom lip. A tell. She did it whenever she was trying to hide an emotion, be it humor, arousal, or in this case, dismay.
“Okay,” she said. “But I want you to know that I promised myself I’d tell you before we . . . we were intimate again. I was going to tell you tonight at dinner, only . . .”
“You ate brownies instead, got high, and then jumped my bones.”
He meant for her to smile, but she didn’t. She looked unsure of herself, kind of the same way she’d looked right after Daisy Duke had sent her swimming. It’d melted his damn heart then, and it did so now, even if he didn’t want it to.
“I may have left you with the wrong impression of who I am and what I do,” she said and hugged herself.
He stared at her and then sank to the bed. “Tell me you’re not a reporter.”
“No.” She paused. “It’s . . . worse.”
Shit. Elle had been right, and oh how she was going to love that. “I need a minute.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head and got to his feet, walking out of his bedroom. Only there wasn’t enough air in the living room either, so he went out the front door with the intention of going up to the roof, where he could sit in peace and quiet on the ledge and stare out at the world until he felt his blood pressure come back down from stroke level.
But he’d forgotten his keys.
Instead of going back inside his place, he pounded the elevator button with enough force to hurt his finger. It opened immediately. He stepped on and hit the basement floor.
Twenty seconds later, he walked into the large room and halted an ongoing poker game. Sitting at the table were Elle, Caleb, Joe, Archer, Finn, and Pru.
They were all smoking cigars, the ones that Luis—Trudy’s three-time husband—had brought back from his trip to Cuba.
The entire table froze at the sight of Spence. Finally, Archer pulled the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it at Finn, sitting across from him. “Hey, remember the time you came out of the dumbwaiter with that same look on your face?” He jerked a thumb at the wall behind him, where the dumbwaiter door was currently closed. “Only you were in just your skivvies.”
Pru grimaced. “That was my bad. I shoved him in the dumbwaiter after we—”
Finn grinned when she broke off. “Oh, do finish that sentence,” he told her. “But make sure and tell them how I rocked your world—”
“I just needed a minute to think,” Pru said, blushing. “I never thought you’d end up down here. And besides, this is about Spence, hello! He’s standing there in just his jeans. Where are the rest of his clothes?”
All heads swiveled back to Spence.
“Tell me you just got some,” Joe said.
Elle went brows up in question.
Spence ignored them both. “It’s freezing down here. Someone give me a jacket.”
“Maybe you’re freezing because your button fly’s undone,” Pru said casually and laid out her cards. “Flush.”
“I’ve got a royal flush,” Elle said.
Everyone groaned while Spence buttoned up his Levi’s.
Pru sighed at her loss. “Damn. Well, back to Spence. Does he have another hickey?”
Spence slapped a hand to his neck.
“Bite marks, because sometimes it’s important to mark your territory,” Archer said.
Elle smiled and blew him a kiss as she gathered up her winnings. She scooped it all into her bag before pushing back from the table and moving across the floor to the far end of the room. Next to the washers and dryers was a closet. She pulled it open and rifled around in there before coming back toward Spence, holding out something pink.
“From the lost and found,” she said. “It’s only a medium, but that’s the best I’ve got.”
