He drank in the buffet of pale smoothness that was her body, his gaze falling on a bare, shaved pussy. Maddy’s fingers danced over pink flesh. It was a pretty thing, a beautiful thing, really, her pointer and middle fingers wedged between her lips and furiously rubbing, back and forth, left to right. She had no shyness or hesitation. She owned her sexuality in a way he’d never before witnessed, and it destroyed him in the best way possible. His mouth fell open, his breath came harder, and he had to stop himself from whimpering aloud. He shoved his hand against his mouth to capture any runaway groans before they clued her into his presence.
She worked herself harder until another moan drizzled from her lips. Her legs parted, wider, one to either side of the chaise, and her hips jerked. One of her arms reached back, grabbing the top of the wooden chaise and gripping before her body erupted in a series of pulses that left her humping the air and gasping. Her legs lifted and slammed together, trapping her hand between them as she came, a flush stretching from her neck to her cheeks. Her ivory tones were rose kissed, and after a whole minute of frenzied undulation on the chaise, she collapsed, spent, cooing and giggling with satisfaction.
He shouldn’t have watched. He knew as he’d absorbed those illicit moments he should have walked away from the door and . . . done what? Showered to drown out her moans? His doctor didn’t want him showering for at least a week, but maybe he could have turned on the faucet and let it run? Or banged things around to drown out her voice? No, that would have been too obvious, too.
Nothing would have kept the sounds out of my ears . . .
He certainly didn’t have to steal a peek, but she was such a beautiful woman and she was right there. Hell, she might have wanted him to hear—had intended all along for him to witness it. She could have pleasured herself in that monstrosity of a bed of hers, behind closed doors, but she’d selected the veranda right next to his doors and gone to town. Maybe this was her way of escalating their interactions, or trying to? He was the one who didn’t do casual, not her. She practically advertised her willingness.
I don’t know what to do.
Part of his brain felt guilty for looking, but the other part couldn’t help but replay how her legs quivered in the moments before she orgasmed. The way her lips parted to let loose with those soft moans. The soft squishing of her fingers as they roamed over her cunt. He was so hard he thought his cock would burst, and he backed away from the veranda, his hand fumbling with the zipper on his jeans as he stumbled toward the bathroom. It didn’t take long—less than a minute of hard strokes. The whole time he thought about what she looked like and what she sounded like, and he realized with little surprise he desperately wanted to know what she smelled, tasted, and felt like, too.
I need to fuck her.
The thought preceded him blowing a hot, sticky load into a tissue, each spurt making him shudder and hunch, his body oversensitized.
He stood over the bathroom sink, propped on his right arm, staring down at the soiled tissue. His forehead glistened with sweat. His breathing came in short pants. Serial monogamer or not, he’d never met a woman like Madeline Roussoux before, and maybe, just maybe, he needed a change of pace. Investing in long-term relationships hadn’t gotten him anywhere other than a restraining order, an arm in a sling, and a lot of fear he could live without. Not putting so much pressure on himself, just going with the flow for a while could be what the doctor ordered. He was already flirting with her, had laid that groundwork without meaning to. She’d brought out the bondage leather, and it was obvious she intended to demonstrate, but turning the table on her, clipping her had been . . .
Interesting. Intriguing. He’d never been into the scene before, but that had been fun.
It’s okay to go with it, you know. With Maddy. Kelly is out there, yes, and things went badly with her, but there’s a lot of ocean between us, and Maddy is not Kelly.
He wadded up the tissue, threw it in the trash, and washed, frowning all the while. He didn’t want Kelly invading his thoughts immediately following a glorious dual wank with the beautiful woman next door, but he had a feeling Kelly would be in his shadow for a while longer.
But I don’t think about her so much when Maddy’s around.
The answer, it seemed, was to keep Maddy around.
NINE
IT’D BEEN TERRIBLY naughty, really. He was right there, a room away. She’d told herself he was sleeping, he wouldn’t know, but his nearness, the threat of being caught, made it more delicious. She had no intention of throwing herself at him any more than she already had—she was an asshole, but she wasn’t that much of an asshole—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge her imagination. And her imagination wanted that big, beautiful man doing big, beautiful things to her body.
I want him to wear me like a hat.
Imagining herself straddling his face, her knees next to his ears, his arm looped around her back to hold her to his mouth, made her purr. Then it made her giggle. She stretched in the sun like a sated cat before abandoning the chaise and traipsing inside. She tossed the caftan onto the bed and climbed into the shower to scrub the sex from her thighs. And there was a lot of sex. Darren Sanders got her all worked up.
She toweled off, donned a silk fuchsia robe that cut off midthigh, and threw herself onto her bed with its layers of soft down and softer Egyptian cotton. She reached for her fire-engine-red nail polish, about to indulge in yet another DIY pedicure, when her phone rang. The ringtone told her who it was without her having to look, and she snagged the cell without hesitation, her tone sweeter than honey when she said, “Temperance.”
“I hate when you call me that, and yet here we are. Again.”
Tempy sounded surly, but Tempy always sounded surly—it was part of her charm. Six feet tall, brown skin, and black hair she’d recently buzzed down to her scalp, she was a Harvard alum lawyer who rocked a power suit like no other. She smoked cigars not cigarettes, played professional poker on the weekends, and swapped out her girlfriends like she swapped out her shoes. Maddy had hired her ten years ago as her personal lawyer and somewhere along the line they’d become friends. In fact, they were such good friends Maddy kept trying to sleep with her, but Tempy would have none of it.
“I don’t mix business with pleasure,” she’d say.
“I’ll make it worth your whiiile.”
“I am ten years older than you. I’d wear you out and not have the decency to scratch myself afterward. No.”
Tempy’s perpetual shutdowns were part of a tried-and-true rigmarole that neither of them saw fit to change, and so it was that all calls were like the calls that preceded them: full of laughter, snark, one-sided flirting, and an occasional snippet of business.
Sol once remarked Tempy was to Maddy what Cylan, his accountant, was to him, only gayer.
Tempy had told him to shit in his hat. It’d been glorious.
“You’re avoiding me,” Tempy chided. “I need the papers signed for the McGillis merger.”
“Oh. Right. That. I got distracted.”
“What now? A rainbow Corvette? An albino python? Or what was it last time? Oh, that’s right. A wooden cock some Viking shoved up his ass.”
“If you ask me those are all legitimate reasons to not pick up a phone, especially the Viking dildo. It’s the oldest in my collection. No, this was much less fun. The man I was eating brunch with got shot. He was two feet away from me, I was covered in blood, it was gross.”
Tempy’s tone shifted immediately. “What happened.”
It wasn’t a request, and so Maddy laid out the details: about Darren, the murderous teenager, Kelly Adams Roberts, the restraining order, and finally Maddy’s impromptu trip to New Orleans with Darren aboard the Capulet.
“Ugh. You’re going there again? To see dipshit, I’m assuming.”
Tempy had never liked Sol. Hadn’t since his opening line meeting her had been, “
How do you feel about me stealing your girlfriend?” He’d apologized when she got mad, but not earnestly enough, and so Tempy had decided that Sol DuMont was an irredeemable fuckface.
She wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Yes, dipshit is very much still there, and he’s not alone anymore. He has a potential Mrs. Dipshit. She’s a lovely girl. Round and squishy, like a cream puff. She’s the Barrington heiress—Arianna?”
Tempy snorted. “She looks dumb.”
“Tempy! She’s very bright. She’s just . . .” Maddy struggled for a word. Arianna Barrington did look like the stereotypical vacuous blonde, complete with the big blue doe eyes, the buoyant sweater puppies, and Barbie-pink lipstick, but she had a master’s in social work, or something like that, and when she spoke, it was with authority.
Even if it was an octave higher than Maddy’s own speaking voice.
She’s like a fuckable cartoon character.
“She’s a fierce little girl,” Maddy settled on. “Blackmailed her own mother, and we know what a viper that woman is. It’s the deceptive small package.”
“Whatever. All you white people look the same to me anyway. Except for that piece-of-shit string bean in New Orleans. If she’s so great, I hope she figures out what a douchebag Sol is.”
Maddy snickered and—after removing her old polish—reached for the foamy toe separator thing, the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder so she could polish and talk at the same time. “Touché, sweetheart. Touché. Anyway, send me the paperwork again? I’ll get it to you by the end of the day.”
“Perfect. And if your friend there needs legal counsel, send him my way. I’ll do it for free.”
Maddy twisted the cap off her polish. “Free? What is this word ‘free’? I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you say it before.”
“Some crazy bitch almost shot my highest-profile client. Can’t have that. I’m investing in my future,” Tempy said. “Seriously, though. You all right? I know with your father—”
“I’m fine,” Maddy interrupted, not wanting to talk about that just then, or potentially ever again. She’d spent too many hours on too many therapists’ couches discussing her feelings, her coping mechanisms, her triggers, to want to get into it for the eight millionth time with her friends, too. “I had a moment, but it was nothing some Klonopin and a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix. I’ll be fine.”
“All right, but if you need me, let me know? And if your friend needs me, have him call me.”
“Will do, dove. Ta.”
“Tonight on those documents,” Tempy snuck in before she hung up.
“Of course.”
Maddy finished her toes, humming to herself as she put the second layer of polish in place. She had no intention of moving anytime soon, content to sprawl on her bed and maybe curl up with a smutty romance novel, but then a knock sounded on her door. She eyed the clock. Darren had gone down an hour ago. It was possible—likely even—that it was him. Besides, Patrice would have knocked twice, waited five seconds to see if Maddy called her off, and then used her badge to let herself into the suite if she needed something. Most of her staff subscribed to that procedure.
“Mr. Darren, is that you?” Maddy called out.
“Yes, ma’am. Knock knock,” he said behind the door.
She grinned and climbed off her bed, shuffling across the room so she wouldn’t smudge her toenails.
She adjusted the belt on the short robe and pulled open the door. There he was, tall and buff and looking amazing in a fresh orange T-shirt and jeans, his feet bare, his hair disheveled like he’d raked a hand through it after waking up and not bothered with anything else. It didn’t detract any, mostly because he was smiling at her like he’d gotten the devil inside of him during his nap. She didn’t mind the look, the cocksure grin and the single arched brow, but then, she liked arrogant men. And arrogant women. And arrogant people. There was something so appealing about latching on to that confidence and pretending there was nothing in the world to worry about while you were in their presence.
Of course, it was an illusion. Most people were broken-up jigsaw puzzles at their core, but the early part, before the reality set in, was nice. Maddy could cleave to Darren’s tangible smugness and not have to think about things like stalkers or blood spray or McGillis merger paperwork.
“I said, ‘Knock knock,’ ” he repeated.
“Oh, right. Who’s there?”
He stepped into the room, swallowing the space separating them. She had to crane her head back to maintain eye contact, her smile matching his own. She let the door go and it thudded closed behind him.
“A one-armed man,” he said.
“ ‘A one-armed man’ who?”
“A one-armed man who wants to kiss you.”
She had a moment to process that this wasn’t a joke at all before his head was dipping and he was coming for her. It was a slow, insistent approach, giving her plenty of time to escape if she wanted or needed to, but why on earth would she do that? The opportunity to meet his lips with hers? To get a taste of the perfect man? Yes, please, and she wrapped her arms around his warm, thick neck, mindful of the sling across his front and not pressing into him as their mouths touched.
She expected something soft, something sweet and polite and very nice Texas boy with his ma’ams and dad jokes, but what she got was heat. Their lips sealed, his working at hers, brushing, roaming, soft against soft before he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and nipped it. She groaned, a tingle of pleasure blossoming at the base of her skull and rippling down her spine. She leaned into him more, gently, but he was having none of that. He looped his free arm around her hips and pulled her in, anchoring her, his fingers bunching in the thin silk of her robe and hiking it up dangerously high, so the undersides of her ass cheeks were exposed. She whimpered at the cold air hitting her bottom, and he responded by flicking his tongue at her and teasing her until she opened her mouth for him.
He tasted good. He felt good. It was wet but not too wet. It was intense, but he wasn’t devouring her face, either. He let out a low, appreciative moan when her tongue grazed his, but then he quickly chased hers back into her mouth. He owned that kiss, directed it, as his fingers stroked over the curve of her hip. Another kiss and another, each feeding the next, a soft, wet sucking sound echoing as he nudged her head back, taking what she offered and then a little more.
And more and more and more.
She was hot all over and trembling. Her thighs pressed together, toes curling into the soft carpet beneath her feet—
And smudging my toenail polish?
—as he thoroughly mouth-fucked her. One of her hands slid up into his silky hair, fisting in it, pulling it at the roots in a blatant demand for more. He complied for another minute, two minutes, three, until he forced himself to tear away from her, his face flushed.
She stared at him, her lips raw, her heart rate somewhere around a zillion. She wanted to say something—anything—but her brain was a pile of sludge in her skull.
Horny sludge, but sludge all the same.
How are my legs still working?
“Gotta tell you something,” he whispered before pressing a much gentler kiss to her. She nodded, the fuck haze there but clearing enough to let her get her bearings. His grip on the robe loosened and the silk dropped down, gliding over her ass and sending another small thrill of pleasure through her body.
“Mmm? What’s that, dove?”
“I saw you on the deck.” He looked away, his brow creased with worry. “Heard a noise, followed it, and I saw you.”
“All right,” she said, the warmth riding her body threatening to kindle into an inferno. “I don’t mind,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and pulling him down so she could capture his earlobe between her teeth.
He groaned, indulging her tugs and sucks, his palm rubbing circles over he
r lower back before he gently disengaged. “It wasn’t an accident. I knew what you were doing, I looked anyway. And then I kept looking because it was so beautiful. Sexy. I’m sorry, babe. Madeline. If it was wrong, I . . .” The sentence trailed. She tutted and moved her hands from his neck to his cheeks, cradling them in her palms. Her thumbs glided over his so-fine bone structure and she tilted his face down, forcing him to look at her.
“I love that you saw me,” she admitted, her voice raspy because how does anyone breathe after such a beautiful man kisses you? “That’s what I was thinking about. You seeing me. It’s all I wanted when I came.”
“Fuck me, that’s hot.” He closed his eyes and leaned forward until their brows touched. Her hands raked through the hair at his temples and then stroked all the way around to the back of his neck. They trailed over his shoulders, and she rubbed at his taut muscles while he breathed deeply and heavily, his pulse jumping at the base of his throat. A part of her wanted to push the envelope, to pull him back to her bed, to kiss him and grope him and climb on him until they were sweaty and screaming, but he was too still, too tense. He was a coiled spring ready to pop.
He needs more time. I wish he didn’t, but I respect it.
“When you’re ready, darling,” she said quietly. “And not a moment before then.”
“Ready?”
The Queen of Dauphine Street Page 7
