Don't Tell

by Violet Paige

  I heard a knock at the door and practically skipped to let Vaughn in.

  “Hi.” His sexiness was devastating.

  He pulled me in for a kiss.

  “Hi.” I smiled, reeling from the way his lips felt. I knew if he let go I might slip off balance.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded. “I’ve never been to a winery, so I wasn’t sure what to pack.” I walked to my bedroom to retrieve my suitcase. “I don’t need anything dressy, do I? I think I packed enough, but…”

  “It’s casual. Out in the country,” he explained. “Clothes are always optional.”

  Vaughn tugged on the handle before I could reach for it. He lifted it from the bed and walked toward the apartment door.

  “Coming?” He turned to wait for me.

  I grabbed the keys, my purse, and locked the door behind us.

  “Is this your car?” It was simple and non-descript. I pictured him driving something sleek, not a four-door sedan.

  I waited on the curb while he placed my suitcase in the trunk. It had already started getting dark.

  “No. I rented one for the weekend.”

  “Oh.”

  He held the door for me and I climbed into the passenger seat.

  I watched his confident strides as he walked in front of the headlights. Once Vaughn was behind the wheel I let my shoulders relax.

  “Hard day?” he asked. He must have noticed the change in my posture.

  Everything about the trip felt surreal. I didn’t realize until now that I had been holding my breath, waiting for something to happen. Something that would keep us from leaving. Garrett. Work. Vaughn deciding this was too much too soon. I hadn’t let myself fully believe we would go away together until I sat in the car. It hit me, all the anxiety had been a useless waste of time.

  Vaughn started the car and led us away from the row of brownstones. I frowned when I saw the endless line of taillights ahead of us. Everyone was trying to get out of D.C. for the weekend.

  “How long did you say it takes to get there?” I asked.

  “Longer with the traffic, but we should be there in a couple of hours.” He squeezed my knee.

  Country lanes or city lights—I didn’t care. I was ok with a long car ride. I was ok with being stuck in a traffic jam. I was ok because I was with Vaughn. My hand slid over top of his and I sat back for the trip.

  When we pulled up in front of the inn, I looked around for other cars.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  Vaughn hopped from his side and walked around to let me out of the car.

  “Must still be in traffic,” he suggested.

  I followed him inside. The door creaked as he opened it. But the house was full of charm. I loved it. The weathered beams overhead. The worn hardwood floors. It was gorgeous.

  “Wait here,” he directed. “I’ll check us in.”

  I stood by the door as he exchanged information with the man behind the desk and received the key.

  “We’re ready.” He dangled it in front of me. “Why don’t you go upstairs and I’ll get the bags?”

  “I can help you.”

  He shook me off. “No. Go on up. I’ll be there in a minute. There isn’t much to carry.”

  I reluctantly turned from him, taking the key, and walking up the staircase that extended from the center of the foyer.

  It felt good to stretch my legs. Our room was at the end of the hall on the second floor. I turned the key in the lock. There was a monstrous four-poster bed. Across from it was a fireplace. There was a small fire burning. I walked toward it, feeling the gentle waves of heat floating in the air.

  The flames crackled and popped, licking the logs in the grate. I wondered if Vaughn had called ahead to make all these arrangements.

  It was easy to feel as if we had escaped the city and all the complications that lived there. It might be for only a weekend, but I could pretend Vaughn had rescued me. H was keeping me safe and protected where the only thing we had to worry about was each other.

  A few minutes later I heard the handle click as he pushed it open, dragging the suitcases with him.

  “Let me help.” I rushed to take my bag from him. I hadn’t over packed, but I wanted to make sure I had everything I might need.

  “What do you think about the room?” His eyes darted from me to the bed.

  “It has everything.” My heart did this strange flutter step. The room had everything because Vaughn was standing in it.

  “Did you pack anything in there for me?”

  My hand froze on the zipper. “Why would you think that?”

  Vaughn strolled to a tray of wine and food. He poured two glasses of dark red wine.

  “Put it on.” His voice was firm.

  The thrill ran through my core. I didn’t hesitate. I gathered the black lace from the bottom of the suitcase and walked to the bathroom, quietly closing the door to redress.

  When I emerged, the only light was from the fire.

  Vaughn’s eyes landed on mine before trailing my throat and the clear path the deep-V cut to my navel. The sheer fabric stretched between my legs, creating a thong that was attached by a satin ribbon. I’d never bought a piece of lingerie so expensive or so seductive in my life. From his reaction, I knew it was worth it.

  “Damn, Em,” he growled, sitting on the end of the bed.

  “You like it?” I asked coyly. My nipples hardened under his stare. I knew he could see my every reaction. It made every motion I made feel more alluring.

  His hands cupped my face, drawing me toward him.

  His mouth covered mine as he held me in the kiss. Our breath was ragged and erratic.

  “You wore this for me to fuck you in, didn’t you?” he whispered.

  I nodded. God, yes.

  “Good,” he growled.

  He pulled me into his lap, his hands canvassing my body. His tongue lashed at my neck before licking through the fabric over my nipple. I gasped, my head thrown back in ecstasy.

  His fingers climbed my spine, massaging my back with hungry pressure. I leaned into his arms, knowing he had me. He wouldn’t let me fall to the floor. He bit and sucked at my breast, coaxing moans from my mouth while I lingered in his hold, my back arched in full extension like a ballerina. Offering him my body. Giving him everything he wanted.

  I felt the warmth of his breath on my skin. He reeled me up to sitting, so I faced him.

  “Did you see this bed?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I swallowed.

  He moved to stand, sliding my thigh away from his waist, and depositing me on the bed. He unzipped his pants, dropping them to the floor.

  “You didn’t think I brought you here for a wine tour did you?” he asked wickedly.

  I bit my lip. I didn’t care about wine. I cared about this. About spending the weekend in bed with Vaughn. About making him happy. About taking everything he gave.

  His boxer briefs hit the floor next. The lust crept through me for him. I rolled onto my back, aligning my head with the end of the bed.

  “This is why you’re so fucking perfect, Em.”

  He drew one knee next to my shoulder and then the other. His cock bobbed in front of my lips and I whimpered for it. I curled my tongue forward to lick the glistening bead of dew. He tasted salty and sweet. I swallowed with a smile before latching onto the silky skin of his thickness.

  “Shit,” he groaned.

  I moved quickly, proud of how I could satisfy him this way. He began to sink his cock deeper into my mouth as I opened my throat for him. I sucked and swirled my tongue over the rigid lines of his erection. My hips began to rock gently as he pumped in and out of my mouth and that’s when I felt his tongue slide under my lingerie and lash at my clit.

  I almost sputtered with the surprise. He sank deep in my throat as he pushed a finger inside me and his teeth grazed over my nub.

  I couldn’t escape the fullness of it. My mouth was his. My clit was his, and my heat. I clutched and squeezed
at his fingers, whimpering as he slid in and out of me from all angles. My orgasm was building, faster than I could control it.

  I thought I had him. I thought I had led him to the cliff of ecstasy, but I was wrong. He had pushed me off the ledge when I wasn’t looking.

  He was relentless, stroking my walls while his tongue circled, building the kind of cataclysmic sensation I didn’t know how to experience. And just when I thought the fullness would push me into an abyss, I felt something new. Something so erotic I bucked with shock. It was taboo. It was off-limits. But the instant Vaughn’s thumb pressed against the forbidden entrance with the promise of breaching it, it was enough to throw my orgasm into another dimension. My body was wracked with pleasure.

  His fingers moved deep in me, spreading wider. His cock filled my mouth. His mouth sucked on my clit and his thumb never let up, slipping farther until every part of my body welcomed him. Begged for him. Existed with pleasure because of him.

  My release came in epic shattering force, catapulting me into darkness where I could only feel. Nothing existed in those few seconds but pure rapture. And Vaughn had given it to me.

  As my breathing slowed, he withdrew his body from me and pivoted on the bed to face me. He pressed a kiss on my lips, sliding his tongue against mine.

  His hand slipped under my back and I felt the release of the satin ribbon. He withdrew it and held it up.

  “Do you trust me, Em?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I would trust him with my life, but tonight he wasn’t asking for that. He was promising a closeness I had never desired. Pure and total surrender.

  “Don’t move.”

  He stepped onto the floor and walked to the end of the bed. He lifted me until I was close to the end post of the bed. He reached for my wrists and I watched in silence as he made two loops around them with the ribbon and then secured them to the post with a knot.

  “Are you ok with this?” he asked.

  I was already dripping wet. My body ached for him. I had been launched into a sphere of my sexuality I didn’t know existed. I wanted to try more. To do more. To do all of it with Vaughn. I nodded slowly.

  He lovingly brushed my hair off my shoulder and kissed the bare skin as he climbed behind me.

  His hands traced my back, stopping to squeeze and massage my breasts. He coasted over my waist and along my hips, before lifting my ass in the air.

  He pressed a kiss onto my back. I held the post. My eyes closed as he spread my legs.

  He nudged himself between my legs and with a powerful thrust, he surged inside my body. I screamed out with pleasure, rocking into him.

  He moved in and out of me with slow strokes. Each one slower than the last. I begged for more.

  “Vaughn, please,” I pleaded. The pressure was intense. His cock thick inside me.

  “I don’t want it to end.” His words almost sounded haunted.

  He hilted himself inside me and I hissed, pulling against the tie on the bed. I was at his mercy. Like I had been only minutes before. That had been about filling me with everything he had. This was about timing. Accepting the pleasure. Lingering in it. Discovering the slowness. The rawness of his hot flesh sliding into mine.

  “I don’t either,” I moaned. “I don’t.”

  My body arched and quivered. Every time he pushed inside me I felt something new and different. As if we were being tied together. Sewn into each other’s skin.

  The fire crackled across the room. Vaughn circled his arms around me, landing on the ribbon he tied. He pulled on the end, loosening the knot until it fell from my wrists.

  He pulled his cock from me and I whimpered from the emptiness.

  But just as quickly he lifted me from the bed and laid me on the floor in front of the fire.

  My body burned for him. I thought I would burst into flames from the inside out, but he pushed my knees aside as he began to sink his cock inside me.

  His mouth landed on mine and he pushed inside. I groaned. I clawed and grasped at him. Our bodies crawled over each other. We rode each other. We kissed and fucked. Our bodies were slick with sweat. He pushed inside me, sending me to dark and carnal places. He flipped me on my stomach, taking me from behind. Before he neared his orgasm, he rolled on his back, tugging me to straddle him backward. I knew he was watching my every thrust as I slid over his shaft up and down. His hands splayed across my ass, inching closer to the forbidden zone. I didn’t know if I wanted it again or not, only that I loved fucking him like this. I was in control of the speed and the angles. We moved in rhythm. We lost our breath. We lost our minds.

  My hands caressed my breasts, massaging over my nipples.

  “You drive me fucking insane when you do that, Em.”

  “Good,” I teased.

  I rubbed my palms over my hips before traveling back to my tits.

  “Fuck it,” he growled.

  He reared up, sending me forward.

  “Oh God,” I squealed. His cock popped from my entrance before he spread my knees wide. I was mesmerized by the flames in front of me.

  The blue and dancing light jumping between the logs. Searing and blistering as the fire licked and billowed in the grate. Just then the head of Vaughn’s shaft slid inside me as I struggled to find something to grasp. He was at a new level of animalistic intensity. It felt so incredible I hummed as my breathing turned to ragged pants.

  “Oh fuck me, Vaughn. Fuck me,” I begged.

  He sent a powerful stroke between my legs and I trembled with dizziness.

  “Like that?” he groaned.

  “Yes. Again. Please.”

  “I can’t fucking stop.”

  I stayed on my hands and knees as Vaughn fucked me one last time. I couldn’t last any longer. I was exhausted. I shook with weariness as he pinched and squeezed my nipple as it draped the pile of blankets and pillows we had brought with us to the floor.

  “You fucking belong to me, Em,” he growled.

  I bucked under him. Another orgasm was about to claim me.

  “Only if you belong to me,” I whispered back to him.

  “Shit,” he groaned. He pumped inside me, spilling his release in my walls. His body molded to mine.

  We collapsed in a heap on the floor. The fire was down to a pile of orange coals.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  I rolled on my back. I wasn’t cold. Far from it. I was exhausted and sated at the same time. Vaughn stood to throw another log on the fire.

  I watched his body in amazement. Every line of him was perfect. Every muscle. Every limb.

  He took a few steps to the tray of food and brought it to the floor.

  “I forgot we had food in here.” I sat up to take few bites.

  “We have it all weekend.” He winked. “I didn’t really plan on leaving. I ordered the necessities: food, wine, and wood.”

  I smiled. “Then why come all the way out here?” I asked. “We could have done this at my place.”

  “I don’t remember you having a four-poster bed.”

  I looked at the bed over his shoulder. “True. I don’t.” I took a bite of cheese and cracker and greedily gulped the wine he offered. “Do you think there’s more use for it?”

  Vaughn picked up a strawberry. “At least a hundred more.” He said it with such seriousness I almost laughed.

  13

  Vaughn wasn’t completely serious about not leaving the room. The next morning, we had breakfast in bed. Room service delivered a full cart of pastries, fruit, and coffee. After we ate we took a shower, allowing the steam to billow around us.

  “What do you want to do today?” Vaughn asked.

  “What are my choices?” I dabbed shampoo in the center of my palm and ran it through my hair.

  “Drive through the country side.” He counted off the options on his fingers. “Search for Civil War battlefields.”

  “Really?” I eyed him.

  “I did download a new crossword app.” The corners of his mouth twitched.


  I rinsed my hair before pressing into the hard planes of his chest.

  He laughed. “Or we could take in the winery. It’s right outside.”

  I grinned. “And turn down grassy fields of ancient battles?” I scrunched my nose.

  “If you insist on wine.” He gripped my bottom, sliding me against him. “Such a smartass.”

  I bit my lip, peering into his eyes. The water dripped from his lashes. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble on his cheeks was irresistibly handsome on him. I sighed as his lips moved against mine with tender passion.

  After the shower I pulled on a pair of jeans and a button-up blue plaid shirt.

  The crisp air hit my nostrils when we ventured outside. We walked through the rows of grapes.

  “Try this one.” Vaughn plucked a reddish grape from the vine.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.” I looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

  “Open your mouth.” He grinned.

  “You are so very bad,” I whispered.

  “You like bad.”

  He touched the grape to my lips. My lips parted as he fed me. I bit into the fruit as his mouth crashed into mine.

  He wrapped his arms around me, lifting me from the ground. I hooked my boots against his waist. There was fever in the kiss. Hunger. Want. Thirst for more of last night.

  The world had tilted off its axis. Vaughn’s hands snaked up the back of my shirt. I struggled to find air in between kisses.

  There was a restlessness between us. I didn’t know if the vineyard could hold us. If the inn could. If there was a place that could contain what we had set on fire.

  My feet finally touched the soil again and I tried to find my balance. I looked in his eyes.

  “The wine tasting?” I nodded in the direction of one of the tasting barns. I’d read in one of the brochures in the lobby that there were three here.

  “Right.” He started in that direction. “Wine tasting.”

  I settled into a stride next to him.

  “Have you done this before?” I asked.

  “No. First tasting.”

  “I’ve done some, but not at a winery. It’s beautiful here.”

  “It’s good to get away from D.C.”