Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

by Lauren Blakely

  She laughed, and he caught that on film, too. “Harder. Ha ha,” she said with a flirty smile. That was captured for posterity, also—her playful side shining through. He caught every moment of her getting ready for him.

  Her eyes met the lens, as if she were able to peer behind it to see him. Even though he was the one with the camera, somehow he felt studied at the same damn time. She was so fucking knowing, observant through her bones, down to her marrow, even when being photographed. Those green irises held him captive as she gazed at him, taking her time undressing, pushing the denim of her jeans down one hip, then the other, giving him a strip show.

  She wiggled her eyebrows. Licked her lips.

  His chest rumbled as his dick hardened. “That’s what I was talking about earlier. You enjoying yourself.”

  “I am.”

  “I want you to enjoy yourself with me.”

  “I do.” She let her jeans fall to the floor. She stood in her black bra and panties, and he snapped an image of that, too, as his skin grew hotter and desire flashed inside him.

  “You like it when I take your picture?”

  She nodded.

  “Then lie back on the bed. Hair on the pillow. That’s one of my favorite looks of yours. All those crazy red strands spilling across the white pillowcase.”

  “Tell me why you like that,” she said, scooting back on the bed, assuming the pose.

  “Because you’re vulnerable and raw. Because you look real, and sexy, and you look like you want me.”

  She swallowed, and he snapped quickly, cataloguing her reactions. “I do want you.”

  “Let yourself want me,” he said quietly, capturing more as she reached to unhook her bra, then more as her breasts spilled free.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, his erection straining against his jeans. “So fucking turned on. Can’t concentrate on the picture.”

  “Don’t concentrate. Just shoot,” she said, as she tucked her thumbs into her underwear, and he hit the button again, his length thickening as a heavy need thrummed in him. The need to have her. To take her.

  She pushed down her panties, revealing the soft auburn landing strip. His mouth watered. He wanted to rub his face against it, to feel her slickness on his jaw. To taste her heat on his tongue. He groaned but somehow managed to click again and again, as she skimmed off her panties and lay naked on a hotel bed.

  “Open your legs,” he instructed.

  She raised her knees, and let them fall open.

  Gripping the camera harder, he swallowed thickly. Her pussy was so fucking pretty, so goddamn ready for him. “Don’t let anyone else ever take your picture like this,” he said, as possessiveness stormed through him. He hated the thought of anyone ever seeing these photos, let alone seeing her naked. Thank God the pictures were on her camera, which meant they’d be safe where they belonged.

  “Never,” she said in a heated whisper. “No one ever has,” she added. “This is only for you.”

  He inhaled sharply, her meaning registering. She was giving him something her husband had never had. Something that was a first.

  Now.

  Fucking now.

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  In a flash, he set the camera on the bureau, and unbuttoned his shirt.

  With her index finger, she beckoned him. He recorded that image in his mind—her calling him to her side. Him heeding her wish. He’d play those few seconds over and over again. The story of his heart, given long ago, only to her. “Come to me,” she said. “Join me. Fuck me like you wanted to when you were taking the pictures.”

  He shoved off his jeans. “On your stomach then,” he said, and didn’t take his eyes off her as she flipped to her belly. With her cheek pressed to the pillow, she watched him. Watched him as he stripped off his boxers and as he reached to stroke his cock, hissing in a breath because it felt so fucking good to touch himself as she stared, her eyes flaming with lust. But something else, too. Longing, desire, and also a new kind of freedom, it seemed. Like she was finally letting herself feel everything.

  She lifted her rear, inviting him home.

  “You,” he gritted out as he climbed on the bed and brought his dick to her ass, rubbing it against the soft flesh of her rear. She moaned, rising up into him as his hard length slid between her cheeks, like a filthy tease of what he wanted to do to her someday. She pushed back, and he filed that reaction away in the dirty vault to bring out again when they were both ready. For now, he moved lower, gliding the head of his dick against her heat. Fuck, she was slick and wet, and so damn ready for him. Her soft velvet folds were like a beacon, and his dick pointed its way home.

  “I want you so much. I love wanting you. It feels so good,” she said, her eyes on his, and he fell even harder for her as she let herself open up to him, and to pleasure, and to this chance to feel again, to live again, and hell, he hoped maybe, just maybe, to love again. He covered her with his body, and she let out the sexiest purr, then the most intoxicating moan as he pushed the head of his dick into her slippery sweet entrance. He sank inside in one slow, deep, decadent move. So snug—so fucking perfect for him. They moaned in unison. She fit him deliciously, and he couldn’t imagine not having her like this.

  “Did you like it when I took your picture?” he asked once he was fully nestled in her.

  “God, yes,” she panted.

  He pushed deeper. “Why? Why did you like it so much?”

  She moaned. “Because I love being naked with you. I love being with you. You make me feel so good.”

  “Just let me make you feel this way. Let me.”

  “I will. I am. Oh God, please.”

  As he fucked her like that, slow and unhurried, she moved with him, shifting her hips, aligning her body, sliding against him. He cupped her tits, squeezing, then pinched the nipples.

  She gasped as he tugged at them, and that drove him. Burying himself deeper in her, he gripped her hair in his hand.

  “Yes,” she said, urging him on, and he knew she meant both the fucking and the tugging. He wrapped those gorgeous red strands around his fist. “Hard. Pull hard.”

  Yanking her hair, he pulled her head back, raising it off the pillow.

  “Oh God, yes, like that, like that.”

  “You like it rough?”

  “With you, I do. So rough.”

  He gave it to her the way she wanted. Driving in deep. Gripping her hard. Fucking her relentlessly.

  With each thrust, she cried in pleasure. With each pinch, she groaned his name. With every nip of his teeth, she gushed.

  And he was consumed. Utterly consumed.

  Sex with her was a revelation. It was as if he’d discovered life on another planet, to know that it was possible to have this kind of sex. Savage yet tender. Cruel but gentle. To know she wanted it the same way. Her sounds told him she wanted to feel it everywhere. In her body. On her skin. In her heart. Oh God, he fucking hoped she wanted him in her heart. So deep in her heart that he could never be removed. Always. Like he was the end of the line for her. Just like she was for him.

  Love me, he wanted to say. Just fucking love me.

  But he couldn’t say that. Not now. Not yet. Instead, with her hair tight in his hand, and her throat exposed, he gripped her shoulder, digging his thumb into her collarbone.

  “Like that, just like that,” she cried out, this time in French, in that heated way she spoke when she was close to the edge. Her pussy clenched around his shaft, so tight, so fucking perfect.

  “And this?” he asked, biting down on her shoulder. Love me.

  “Oh God.”

  He thrust harder. Brought his lips to the shell of her ear. Spoke harshly. “Do you want me to leave marks? Ones that say you’re mine? You’re fucking mine. I want to fuck you till you’re mine.”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” she urged, and he let himself believe she was answering his greatest wish. I’m yours.

  He pressed his lips hard to her neck, his teeth biting down, digging in as she
went crazy beneath him, rocking and thrusting and losing all control as she cried out and came undone in a fevered frenzy.

  Then his balls tightened, and his vision blurred. The rarest pleasure, the kind that came from total carnal bliss, surged in his bones, igniting him until he came long and deep inside the woman he loved.

  He just fucking loved her.

  And it was so goddamn hard not to tell her, in her language or his. He tried to swallow the words, to choke them down, but the moment got the better of him. “I’m so mad about you. So completely crazy for you. All the time. I can’t stop this feeling,” he whispered, barely scratching the surface of how he felt.

  She tensed all over. Then she scooted out from under him, her hands on his chest, her eyes meeting his. “You speak French. You speak perfect French.”

  Fuck.

  He hadn’t meant to say it in French. He hadn’t meant to let on he’d understood everything he’d heard her say in her native tongue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sixteen years ago

  As he rounded the corner of the long hallway in the languages building, he opened the note yet again. The one he’d found scattered in his driveway, wreckage from his father’s wallet. Like a treasure hunter, Michael had salvaged it, clutched it in his hand, gripped it tight that night, like a precious thing. And it was. He’d held onto it ever since. He probably always would.

  He folded the note and tucked it back into his wallet when he reached room 403.

  Freshman year French.

  He wrapped his hand around the knob, opened the door, and roamed his eyes across the sea of desks. Nerves whipped through him. He wasn’t a natural at languages. He was good at business, at strategy. Those were his skills. But he’d taken a night class during his senior year of high school, and he was committed to seeing this through. He wasn’t so romantic that he believed his father had left a dying wish. His dad had no notion that he was going to be killed and surely if he had, he wouldn’t have left such a practical note.

  Michael was wise enough to understand what the note was—one of the many reminders his father had left for himself. Get milk. Pick up Shannon at 6:15. Remind Michael to study for math.

  But even so, this reminder was bigger. More important than a day-to-day item on the to-do list. This note was part of the plan—the plan he’d discussed and hatched with his dad. The plan to apply to school in France, to be with Annalise, to make a life with her.

  He hadn’t been able to get into college in France, and she’d had no luck in the United States.

  But he could keep trying. Because…there was always a someday.

  “Reminder: Tell Michael he’s signed up for French classes in the evening. A gift to him. He needs to learn the language for when he goes to school there. He needs to learn French for Annalise. So he can find his way back to her.”

  That was it. That was all. But that was enough. His father’s wish for him. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter. Michael would fulfill it.

  He stepped into the classroom, daunted but ready, and started working his ass off to learn another language.

  Six years later, at age twenty-four, he was fluent. During those six years, he and Annalise had lost touch, but by the time he was done with school, on his own, serving his country, he was ready to find his way back to her.

  He tracked her down and sent her the letter. Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer.

  He didn’t have to turn to Google to translate his heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  She sat up in bed, staring at him like he’d skydived in from another planet and landed kaput on her bed.

  “Michael?” She raised an eyebrow.

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Yeah?”

  “Did you just have a conversation with me in French?”

  His shoulders tightened, and he silently cursed himself. There was no denying it. He’d done nothing wrong, but he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t said those things. Not just the whole I’m crazy for you declaration, but after she’d said, “Yes, like that, just like that,” every single word that tumbled from his lips had been in French.

  “Not a whole conversation. Just a few words,” he said, desperately trying to sidestep.

  “How did you know what to say?”

  His heart slammed against his chest. He didn’t want to tell her. Not yet. He didn’t want to expose himself like this. He didn’t want to reveal the full extent of what he’d done for her. That his desire to find her again, to be with her again, had driven him to learn a whole new language. “Just a few words. That’s all,” he said, then glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “You have an early flight. Let’s get some sleep.”

  “Okay,” she said in a strained voice.

  He turned out the light. “Come here. Come closer,” he murmured, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m already close.”

  She snuggled into him, giving in on this count.

  “Closer still,” he said.

  “Michael,” she said, her tone pleading as she pressed her warm body to his, skin to skin.

  He kissed her hair. “Not now.”

  “I want to know.”

  “Just let me hold you.”

  She sighed, relenting as she wriggled closer, giving in. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “For taking my picture.”

  He smiled into her neck and kissed her there, inhaling her scent. Tonight she was rain and sex and him. “I want you to be happy. Tell me you won’t regret this. Or me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t regret you. I could never regret you. But I want to know—”

  He whispered into her hair. “Shhh…”

  He just couldn’t go there tonight. He would break.

  * * *

  His breathing evened out, and soon he was asleep. She stared at the bright green letters on the hotel clock. After midnight. She had a five a.m. wake-up call, and the world’s earliest flight to Paris.

  Back home.

  Her chest ached. She missed him already.

  She hadn’t realized when she sought him out how much she needed this. Contact. Emotion. Passion. She’d been so shut down, but one flip of the switch from him, and the electricity was powered on, bright and shining, lighting up a whole city.

  Perhaps that was why she’d searched for him when she went to Vegas. Yes, she had neatly tucked him away when she’d married Julien. She hadn’t thought about Michael at all while she was another man’s wife. But with that bond severed, she was free to roam, to return to wondering what if. To her first love.

  Such a big love.

  Maybe she’d always been destined to find her way to him again. She’d told herself he was safe, but she wasn’t looking for safety, as she’d quickly learned in a few short days with him. She was on the hunt for connection, for that sliver of a thread between two people. She may not have realized it that afternoon at the Bellagio, but she knew it now, and she had unearthed the mother lode with him.

  But tonight she had something new to noodle on. A twist. A surprise.

  Something she hadn’t expected.

  His sudden fluency.

  It perplexed her that he’d talked to her in French, then tried to deny it. There was nothing wrong with him knowing her language, but she was so damn curious for details. How he’d learned it. Why he’d hidden it. Admittedly, it was odd that he hadn’t told her. They’d had so many conversations—especially the one about yogurt—when it would have been natural to say something. Especially since he’d told her years ago that he started taking classes in college. Never had she imagined he’d gone all the way.

  But the clock told her it was too late to press.

  * * *

  The next morning, she showered, stuffed her toiletries into her suitcase, and checked that her car service was on the way. But she couldn’t seem to let go of Michael’s newfound language proficiency.

  Perhaps it was the former journalist in her, the part of her that chase
d answers, that hunted for truths.

  Even as he kissed her hard against the wall of the hotel room, whispering hotly in her ear, “I want to make love to you once more, and to fuck you at the same time. So you won’t forget me while we’re apart.”

  She liked that he used both fuck and make love, because she’d learned that was exactly what she wanted from him. Both. Especially right now. “You have to know it’s that way for me too. And I would never forget you,” she said.

  “Let’s just be sure of that,” he said, low and dirty, as he pulled down her panties, hooked her leg around his hip, and slid inside her.

  He was tender, touching her with a sort of adoration that she longed for. But he was also willing and ready to manhandle her in a way she’d hadn’t experienced before. It seemed to awaken her, to remind her that her body was designed to feel good, and sometimes good meant sore and bruised and used. She let go for one last time with him as he took her against the wall, and they came together.

  They straightened up, adjusting hair and clothes. She checked her watch. Ten more minutes. She couldn’t wait.

  She blurted out, “Why did you hide from me that you know French? It’s driving me crazy. I want to know.”

  He scoffed and looked away as he grabbed the handle of her suitcase. “I hardly know it.”

  “But you spoke French to me last night.” He was quiet as he rolled her bag to the door. She followed him, shouldering her purse. “You always told me you wanted to learn it. You told me you wanted to be able to speak to me in French.”

  “I don’t really know it well.”

  But he looked away from her as he reached for the door handle, his cool blue eyes glancing anywhere but her face.

  That was her answer, but she wanted the confirmation. She stopped him from opening the door. She placed her hand on his arm, then ran her fingers up to his hair. She turned him to face her. Pressed her forehead to his. And spoke to him in French, rapid-fire. “You’re amazing, and I adore you. I want to see you over and over. I want you to do everything to me, and with me, and on me. You make me feel happy again, and when you come to Paris I will show you everything, and you can have me in alleys and staircases, and we can fuck in museums and in restaurant bathrooms, and then you can make love to me in bed. You can talk dirty to me and tell me how much you want me, and I will tell you the same because I do. So much I ache for you now.”