by A. C. Arthur
Gage chuckled. “Yes what?”
She nipped his lip with her teeth and then sucked it into her mouth, before thrusting her tongue inside to dance along with his.
“Yes, this is a date,” she said when they finally broke for air.
He nodded and then bent to pick her up. When she was in his arms, Gage leaned in, brushing his lips over hers again. “Good. Because I’m ready for the touching and tasting to begin.”
Chapter 8
He did just what he said he would, and Ava was profoundly grateful.
She was also more aroused than she’d ever been before.
Gage had carried her across the deck and down a spiral set of stairs. The bed was huge on this luxurious vessel. She hadn’t expected anything less. From the moment she’d received his message to meet him at the docks and then stepped out of her car at the parking lot across the street, she’d known the Seraphine was going to be like nothing she’d ever experienced. She’d never been on a yacht before, the whole not-knowing-how-to-swim thing holding her back from cruises of any sort. Tonight, she was glad she’d pushed that anxiety aside.
He gently laid her on the king-size bed and first removed her boots. Propped up on her elbows now, Ava looked around briefly. The walls were dark, a mixture of blue and gray in a textured paper that reminded her of a deep blue sea. A crystal-covered lamp was on each nightstand, and beige carpet covered the floor. Gage’s hands moved slowly up her bare calves and farther, until his fingers grazed the sensitive skin between her thighs.
Her attention solely on him now, she watched with anticipation as he pushed at the material of her tunic dress. He looked up at her and winked just before hooking his fingers in the band of her panties and tugging. Ava lifted her hips, allowing him to remove the white silk underwear she’d worn without question. Her scarf went next, and then he was pulling the dress up and over her head.
She was sitting up now, Gage kneeling with one knee between her spread legs, the other on the opposite side of her thigh. He leaned in, reached around her back and unsnapped her matching bra. Cool air hit her nipples, and they hardened seconds before his fingers brushed over them. She sucked in a breath and thought he may have done the same, before he pulled his hands away.
Backing off the bed now, Gage began to undress. She’d seen him naked before so that wasn’t the reason for the immediate pounding of her heart. They’d had sex before, so the anticipation of that act was not making her anxious. It was the slowness with which he moved that had her skin tingling. Her eyes were riveted to his every move.
His long fingers moved precisely over each button on his shirt and continued to work steadily to undo his belt and then the snap and zipper of his pants. The shirt and the undershirt he’d worn beneath were removed first, so that when he bent down to tend to his shoes, Ava saw the muscles of his shoulders leading down to his back. He stood when his shoes were off and pushed his pants and boxer briefs down his muscled legs. Ava didn’t move, even though a wicked storm of desire was brewing inside her.
“I want to touch you,” Gage said as he kneeled on the bed once more. “Lie back and let me touch you, Ava.”
She did as he said, hadn’t even thought of not complying. His voice was low, so much so that she almost strained over the pounding of her heart to hear him.
He lifted each of her feet, kissing the arch and then the tips of her toes. He rubbed her calves once again, taking each leg in his hands and kissing behind her knee. Her fingers clenched the duvet beneath her as prickles of pleasure soared from each spot he touched throughout her body. When he came to her thighs, they’d begun to shake. She couldn’t help the movement, nor could she contain the moan when his lips touched her inner thigh.
“So soft,” he whispered.
Ava closed her eyes as her entire body began to tremble.
He kissed up the inside of one thigh, stopping just shy of her juncture before pulling away. She wanted to scream, but instead bit her bottom lip.
“Sexy Ava,” he said as he went to the other thigh. “You’ve been tempting me since day one with your voice, your scent, your body.”
She was going to explode. She wasn’t going to be able to stop it. He was licking little circles over the skin of her inner thigh, moving upward once more until she wanted to lift her hips off the bed and offer herself to him.
“Gage,” she whimpered, when he was just inches away from the plump folds of her center. “Please.”
He did not oblige. Damn him.
Instead he blew his warm breath over her bare mound, causing her to shiver and groan.
“You’re going to be sweet and warm,” he grumbled. “I know it before I even taste you. My sweet and sexy Ava.”
Oh no, this was taking too long. Ava released the duvet from her death grip and clapped her hands to the back of Gage’s head.
He chuckled as he held back from her. “I’m hungry for you, too,” he told her. “But we’ve got all night.”
Ava didn’t think she was going to last that long.
And she didn’t.
The second Gage touched her tender folds, she almost bolted up off the bed. He placed one hand on her hip and used the other to spread her open before licking her up and down. Ava moaned deep and long, her thighs shaking around his head. Gage continued, licking, sucking and praising her sweetness until seconds later her release tore through her body like an earthquake, and she screamed his name.
He only gave her a minute to recuperate before he was moving upward, kissing her abdomen, licking up her torso and then covering one nipple with his mouth, holding the other breast in his hand. Ava arched her back and felt herself climbing steadily toward another climax.
The moment he pulled away to get a condom, she seriously considered screaming for him to come back immediately. That should have been the second clue that she was sinking fast where Gage Taylor was concerned. She never thought about dismissing safe sex.
Sheathed and coming over her like a gorgeous African god, Gage lifted Ava’s legs, propped her ankles on his shoulders and speared into her with one swift motion. His name tumbled from her lips again and again as he moved expertly in and out of her. She felt like she was drowning. The pleasure was so deep, going far beyond anything in her wildest imagination, touching a part of her she’d thought did not exist.
“Look at me, Ava,” he said.
She thought she’d opened her eyes, but he was asking her again, “Ava, sweetness, please look at me.”
Her lids fluttered open. He released her legs, but stayed buried deep inside her, his elbows coming to rest on either side of her head as his thumbs caressed her cheeks.
“You are beautiful and you are enough,” he whispered as he began to move inside her once more. “You are more than enough for me.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his back, and moved with him.
“Gage,” she whispered. “More. More than I ever expected.”
“Yes,” he replied. “So much more.”
He was moving too slowly, going too deep, hitting her every spot just right and then some. He was too much. This was too much. But when they both trembled and fell together, Ava realized with startling clarity that it wasn’t enough. Nothing she’d had with Gage so far was enough.
And wanting more was going to crush her.
* * *
“I didn’t think I was going to like it here in Temptation,” Gage told her as they lay in his bed once more.
After making love, they’d showered and had the dinner Ms. Pearl prepared for them while sitting in the center of the bed. It had felt like those nights when the boys and girls in his house would meet up in the kitchen for a late-night snack. Olivia did not like them eating upstairs in their room, so the siblings had to sneak and decided it was safer if they went into one room. Those were some of the best nights of Gage’s life.
<
br /> Now he could add tonight to that list.
“Then why’d you come back?” Ava asked.
They’d enjoyed the delicious, if a bit cold, food and cleaned up, only to lie back in the bed as if they did not have this spacious yacht to lounge upon.
“Responsibilities that I’d put off for way too long. And to see Gray and meet his new family,” he said.
“Your brother has a beautiful family,” she replied.
They were both lying on their sides, facing each other. Her arm was tucked under her head and her knees pulled up so that she looked almost like a child. Except Gage knew that beneath his New York Yankees T-shirt she now wore, Ava was all woman.
“I didn’t think he would get that chance,” Gage admitted. “Truth be told, I wasn’t sure any of us would want to start a family after what we’d been through.”
“Was it really that bad?” Ava asked. “I know your parents split up, but listening to you and Gray talk about your mother, it sounds like she loved each of you with all her heart. And that she gave you a good life.”
“She was a great mother. A wonderful woman who deserved more than to end up raising six children on her own.”
“Your father didn’t help?”
“He sent money and gifts, if that’s what you mean by help.” Gage grit his teeth and then thought of his conversation with Gray at the hospital. He took a deep breath and released it. “I guess he did what he could. A person can only be who they are, not who or what someone else wants them to be.”
She nodded at his words, and Gage hoped that she was retaining them for her own use, as well.
“My mother was the nurturer. She was meant to be a mother. Gemma is that way, too. I hope she finds love and builds a family of her own one day. Gen is tough, so for any man to crack her shell he might need to be a magician.” He chuckled at the thought of his older sister.
“Gia has a soft heart. She trusts and sees the best in everyone. Too soon and usually to her detriment, but I think she’ll be a great mother one day, too.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Will you be a good father one day?”
Gage let the uneasy feeling that immediately filled his chest settle before replying.
“My father left his children everything he had. His company, real estate and money. I wasn’t shocked by how much his estate had been worth or how quickly Gray managed to divide everything up equally amongst us. Gray has always been a good leader. The other money that Gray found did surprise me a bit, and then the pictures. I’m still trying to figure out why he left them for me.”
When he caught her looking a little confused, Gage realized what he’d just told her. He couldn’t take it back, and he didn’t really want to. He hadn’t planned on sharing his thoughts and feelings about his father with anyone, but he had. With Ava.
She reached her free hand across the bed to take his. “What were the pictures of?”
“Us,” he replied after lacing his fingers through hers. “A four-month sonogram photo of each of us, and one of us after we were born with my parents.”
“Maybe he wanted to show you that he’d always loved you. Regardless of what happened, he’d never stopped loving his children or his wife.”
“He cheated on her,” Gage snapped. “He had an affair with a production assistant and then decided he’d rather be with her than with his family.”
His words were cold and stung as he spoke them. He hadn’t realized how much animosity he still held inside because of them.
“My father didn’t leave us for another woman. He drank,” Ava said. “So much that sometimes I don’t even think he saw me. He was a partner at a prestigious law firm in LA. He represented so many stars, and sometimes a studio would call on him for contractual work. He had money, houses, cars, everything, and he drank so much that one day he drove his car right off a cliff and into the ocean.”
“Dammit, Ava. I’m sorry,” Gage said, immediately feeling like scum as he complained about his father.
She smiled. “Don’t be. He lived the life he wanted to live, and he drank because of some problem he couldn’t figure out how to solve. I wish he had been able to overcome his issues, but I don’t hate him for how it ended. And you shouldn’t hate your father for things that, in the end, he could not change.”
She was right. Gage knew that. And so did Gray. It was time to move past all that hurt he’d clung to, which was why he’d told Gray he didn’t think they should continue to pay those investigators to try to figure out where the Grand Cayman money had come from. The money was divided between the children just like everything else Theodor Taylor owned, and that was that.
“Thank you for saying that,” he told her. “And for joining me tonight. I know you came here to write. That’s why I try not to bother you every second of every day.”
But he’d wanted to. He could admit that to himself. During the hours he spent at the hospital, or when he was walking through town or having dinner at some restaurant, he thought about her.
“Oh, it wouldn’t be a bother,” she said. “I write better in the early-morning hours anyway. By midday I’m already beginning to fade, unless it’s crunch time.”
“So you’re writing new scripts for the next season of the show?”
“Actually, no, I’m writing something new and totally different.”
He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Well, it’ll be great whatever it is.”
“Yes,” she said after a few minutes. “I think it will be great. But right now—”
She paused and leaned over until she could reach the nightstand drawer. She’d seen him retrieve a condom from there earlier, and she pulled a packet from the box now. When she returned to him, it was to push him over onto his back.
“Now it’s my turn to touch and taste,” she told him as she grabbed his shirt and lifted it up and over his head.
When Gage lay back on the pillow, she straddled him. And when her warm tongue touched his pectoral muscle, he groaned.
She could take her turn...as many times as she wanted.
* * *
“Is that how you Hollywood people do the walk of shame?” Millie said the moment Ava stepped off the dock and onto the cement walkway.
The sun was barely up, shimmering over the water in hazy orange-and-red rays when she’d crept off the yacht. Seagulls flew low, bellowing a choking call to whoever else was up this early.
“Good morning, Ms. Millie,” she said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster.
The woman had stepped right up to her so that Ava struggled to keep from telling her that she was invading her personal space. Millie’s hair was perfectly styled as it had been on each occasion that Ava had seen her. Her makeup was likewise flawless, Millie’s red-painted lips drawn in a thin line.
“I was coming to tell Gage Taylor he needs to take this monstrosity back to wherever it was before now. It’s bringing unwanted attention down here to the docks where simple folk are trying to make a living.”
Ava looked around, even though she was certain there was no one out here right now but her and Millie. To the woman’s credit, there were a couple of smaller boats already out to sail not too far from the dock with what Ava guessed were fishermen on board.
“I don’t think the yacht is a disturbance,” Ava said, taking a chance at responding. “It seems the people who need to go to work are doing just that.”
Except for busybody Millie, that was.
“Don’t get sassy with me. You’re not in California with your snooty friends,” Millie snapped.
Ava was certain she didn’t have snooty friends. In fact, she could count on one hand how many actual friends she had.
“Well, it was nice seeing you, Ms. Millie, but I have to get going.”
“Where to at
this time of morning? Because I know you didn’t spend the evening on that boat with Gage Taylor writing. I want to know why you’re really here, Ms. Cannon. If it has something to do with this town, I have a right to know.”
“My work is my business,” Ava said, squaring her shoulders. She had been trying to be polite, but she wasn’t going to be bullied by this woman a second time.
“Not if it’s taking place in my town. I don’t believe for one minute you’re just on a writing retreat. Seems too fishy that you and Gage show up at the same time. And you’re in the TV business, too. Oh, no, too suspicious.” Millie was shaking her head.
Ava smiled. “Ma’am, you can make what you want out of it, but I’ve told you all that I plan to. Now, you can have a nice day.”
Ava skirted around the primly dressed woman and did everything short of breaking out into a run to get to her car. Once behind the wheel and pulling out of the parking lot, Ava thought the first call she was going to make when she returned to the B and B was to Jenner.
The Taylor Reunion reality show was not going to come to fruition, at least not the way he wanted it to.
Chapter 9
Santa Monica, California
Two weeks later
Were they really ready for this?
As the limo rode through the streets, taking them to this year’s location for the Critics’ Choice Awards, Ava thought over the last six weeks of her life. She was in a different place now, somewhere she’d never thought she would be.
“Nervous?” Gage asked.
He was sitting beside her, holding her hand. Dressed in a black Tom Ford suit, his shirt and pocket square crisp white, and sporting shined Ferragamo oxford cap-toe shoes, he looked stylish and delicious even without the help of a stylist. But when they’d arrived at her LA condo two days ago, Saraya had already called on Ava’s friend Landry Norris to get her and Gage ready for the awards show. Now married to the Crown Prince Kristian DeSaunters of Grand Serenity Island, Landry’s family still lived in California, and she frequently came home for visits.
“A little,” Ava admitted to Gage.
