by Camryn Rhys
Paul reached across and cut a nice, juicy piece of her tenderloin and forked it toward her mouth. Her lips opened to receive the bite and he watched, mesmerized, as she chewed it. “Damn. I could get used to this.” He moved to cut another piece and she picked up her fork with a giggle.
“I can cut my own steak.” She proved him right by taking another bite.
“Oh, I believe you. I never knew I wanted to feed a woman. But that was….” He paused, considering the ramifications of admitting the blood already flowed south of the border when she’d only had two bites. But the look on her face when she ate turned him on almost as much as the one that consumed her when she came.
“Revelatory?” she asked, blinking at him over her steak.
Paul shook himself. “Apparently.” He studied her body, from the tips of her toes, up those long, gorgeous legs—which looked even better out of the leggings. He noticed she still covered her core. The bathrobe hung open from knee to thigh and navel to neck. She must have noticed him watching, because she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.
“Don’t ruminate too much, buddy. I have plans.”
“You keep saying that.” Paul ate some of the world’s best mashed potatoes. They had some kind of extra flavor mixed in he couldn’t name. His sister’s boyfriend could have picked out every flavor and probably recreated them in ten minutes. But Paul was lucky if he’d be able to name potatoes with his eyes closed. Still, he did know the taste of good food. And this food floored him. From the sauce on the steak to the doneness to the fancy side dishes. To the girl who ate with him.
Damn. What a bad one-night stand this was turning out to be. Every time his mind sat unguarded, he imagined Sylvie in all sorts of after-tomorrow positions. From her sexy, long legs hanging over the corral back at the ranch in Wyoming, to her pert breasts hovering over his face while they lay in the meadow behind his house, to him fucking her against the wall of his bedroom. Or cooking half-naked in his kitchen. Or just eating steak.
“What might those plans be?” he wondered, half-nonchalant.
She smirked and perused her half-naked body, then glanced back up at him. “Well, they include us both being naked. But not eating.”
“You don’t like eating?”
What he’d meant as a benignly teasing jab appeared to strike home. The frightened-little-girl look materialized again. He didn’t like that look.
“You don’t have to answer that.” He finished the last of his steak with relish. “But I would like to ask you a kinda personal question if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
He sank down onto one elbow and watched her eat, loving the sheer pleasure accompanying each bite of food.
“You know why I did… the one-night stand thing.” He nodded in her direction. “And I’m still grateful for the introduction, by the way. But Madame Eve never said why you wanted one.”
“I’ve asked her not to give out information about me. It makes them easier.”
Something pricked his senses. “You’ve done this before, then?”
“Once a year.” She loaded her fork with a little of each element from the plate and sucked it off with the appreciation of a food critic at a five-star restaurant. “And it’s only the third time I’ve done it.”
“Let me guess.” He studied her as she lingered over the dessert platter. “You live with your parents and you don’t have a boyfriend because… you work too much. So you’ve found Madame Eve discreet, and your partners to not require anything of you.”
Sylvie’s lips pursed and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Close.”
“The last part was right on, though.” Paul could feel it in his heart when he saw her reactions. Maybe too close to home.
“You’re the first cowboy.” She smiled. “I’ve liked that.”
“Well, you’re gorgeous.” Paul sat up and gave the dessert tray a once-over. “And I’ve had two one night-stands before, as well, so I’m not one to judge another person’s choices.”
She put a finger in the whipped cream brownie confection like a little girl afraid of getting caught in the cookie jar and swiped it into her mouth. The furtive gesture made Paul’s blood warm, thinking about having her mouth in other places.
“I appreciate the non-judgmentalism.” She picked up a fork. “Truth be told, you’re the only one I will miss.”
He stopped her hand as she reached for the dessert plate. There was that look again, like he might scold her. Instead, he pulled her next to him and settled her into his lap, so she gazed up at him with those gorgeous, deep blue eyes. The bathrobe fell open at her waist, and she pulled one leg over the other, closing herself to him.
Paul took the fork from her hand and picked up a bite of the chocolate cake. “What do you mean, you’ll miss me?” He placed the cake in her mouth and waited for bliss to fully capture her features.
She mewled in appreciation and closed her eyes. “Oh, wow. Now that’s worth it.”
“Worth what?”
Those blue pools appeared again, almost hazy with pleasure. “Worth the extra five miles I’m gonna have to run tomorrow morning before I fly back to New York.”
“Five miles?” He filled the fork with a caramel-covered pastry-looking thing, less flaky and more cake-y than he expected. When he put the bite in her mouth, a dollop of caramel landed on her chin. He ducked his head and licked it off, which garnered him a noise he hadn’t heard yet. Definitely pleasure, but not food pleasure, or sex pleasure. Something else.
“I’m anticipating five miles,” she said around her caramel bite. “If you keep at this, anyway.”
Paul forked a bit of the chocolate and whipped cream from the brownie-looking dessert and dappled her right breast, then fed her the rest. While her nipple hardened under the temperature change, no doubt, it sizzled to a diamond point when he latched onto it. He lapped at it, loving how the sticky, chocolate syrup darkened her nipple as it swayed in the air. His mouth covered it one last time and suckled the remainder of the sugar from it. She groaned and the blood racing to his groin picked up speed.
“The crème brûlée,” she begged. When he pulled back enough to watch her, he noticed her pupils had dilated, and she started to reach the hazy place he loved. The place where her barriers came down.
He dipped his finger into the dish of crème brûlée and cracked the hard surface. He scooped a generous bit of the cream into his fingers, making sure to get some of the crust as well, and dropped some on her other breast. The rest, he fed to her, and she sucked his fingers with such fervor, he couldn’t help but attack her breast, a little, in his enthusiasm.
She called out his name, and he forgot whatever game they’d been playing. His cock had hardened enough that he could put on a condom, and would soon be hard as granite if she kept making noise. He pulled Sylvie back over his body and cocooned her against him as he captured and plundered her mouth.
He reached for the end of the bed and his pants, and fished around for a condom while Sylvie slunk out of her bathrobe and threw it across the room. He bit the package open and reached between them to sheath himself.
She put her arms around him and rolled them from the sideways position to have him on top of her. He finally got the condom on and raised himself up on his hands.
“Tell me you want me more than the crème brûlée,” he said, his own gaze turning hazy. He heard the lust in his voice. This wasn’t just about Sylvie, or about wanting to have sex. He’d seen the abject desire on her face when she asked for the bite. He wanted to be wanted like that. Some raw part of him buckled at the realization.
“Please, fuck me.” Sylvie shifted her hips and a swath of blonde hair fell, opening up her face. There. Desire.
“Tell me you want me.”
“I want you.” She clawed at him, trying to pull him closer, but he held back.
“Look at me, Sylvie.”
She met his eyes and he could have sworn the electricity cracked in the whole room. She hungered f
or him. He held his cock as it slid inside her, then bent to find her mouth. She still tasted of the sweet desserts, and he savored each taste as he plunged into her, over and over.
She opened her legs wider, cradling him with her knees, and rewarded his work with the sounds of ecstasy he loved to hear from her. He found her clit with blind fingers and tried to work her up to orgasm as fast as he could, because he was almost ready to explode.
As he came, he lost all ability to think or move, and the last thought he captured with any coherence was the certainty she wouldn’t be able to walk away from this in the morning. Because he sure as hell wouldn’t.
Chapter Six
Sylvie curled her body into Paul’s as he came. He shouted her name and she warmed all over when he collapsed on top of her, gasping. She held him tight, loving the feeling of his weight pressing her into the bed.
He didn’t move or speak for so long, she had to remind herself he’d been breathing the whole time, and remained alive. Even though he lay motionless, it felt like cuddling. So different from her other one-night stands. While each one maintained both discretion and sexual enthusiasm, and also came from backgrounds similar to her own, there had always been something that, at the end of their time, made it okay to let them go.
Paul sucked in a breath and she waited for him to roll off, but he just exhaled, and Sylvie smiled, holding him tighter.
It wouldn’t matter, anyway. She couldn’t take Paul back to her house in North Hampton. Or to her father, the fashion mogul. Or to her toddler daughter. She felt a momentary pang of guilt, thinking about Bianca. Sylvie couldn’t believe she’d been so caught up in the night, she hadn’t even checked her phone, let alone called home.
Granted, Bianca’s bedtime had passed before she’d even met Paul at the party. Still. As much as she tried to compartmentalize these one-night stands, she’d never forgotten her daughter before.
But the cowboy had so consumed her from moment one, for a nice change. She hated that she needed to escape from her life, but between the demands her father put on her, the responsibility of being a single parent, and her work, she couldn’t do something like this at home. And she needed the release.
Paul groaned and leaned back to look at her. She smiled and fingered his hairline. Such short, tight-cut hair, and yet so soft under her fingertips. She wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and couldn’t help kissing him. This must be what a real relationship would be like, where you could have silence, or talk, or have sex, or just lie there. Where life didn’t have to revolve around what everyone expected.
Paul didn’t seem to expect anything from her, and managed surprise at most of what she did. It endeared him to her.
“You okay?” she finally asked when the silence overwhelmed her.
He didn’t answer, but the extreme satisfaction on his face spoke more than words. With a wry smile, he bent to kiss her. “You’re gonna wear me out, girl.”
“We’re wearing each other out.” Sylvie kissed him back, relishing the electric thrill when he covered her mouth with his and rolled them both onto one side.
A bit of a cocky grin unfurled across his lips and he leaned on his elbow, watching her. “You are unlike any woman I’ve met before.”
Her face burned under his scrutiny. “You’re not so bad yourself.” She turned onto her back and a massive yawn started in her belly and made her stretch like a cat after a nap. “Oh, wow. I’m still on East Coast time, I think.”
Sylvie stared up at the leather-tiled ceiling and blinked. Her eyelids had that nice, heavy feeling, signaling her body wanted to shut down for the night.
“Well, it’s not even midnight yet.” The disappointment in Paul’s voice made her heart sink. Walking away from the cowboy would be harder than she’d anticipated.
“You have it in you to go again?” Sylvie kept her voice suggestive, but tried not to touch him. They’d finished, and she knew it. Trying to keep something going would make it more painful. Better to fall asleep and deal with this in the morning.
***
But Paul wasn’t having any distant, dismissive shit. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upright. “And what if I did want to go again?”
Sylvie gave him a rueful smile. “You’re tired. I’m tired.” She covered her heart with a delicate hand. “Let’s not ruin a good thing.”
He should have seen this coming. Like Malcolm and the rest of the guys on the circuit. He wasn’t rich or poor; not quite white and not quite black; no one knew what to do with him. But one thing for sure, they didn’t want him around.
“Tell me something, Sylvie.” He crossed his arms and pulled a good distance away. “Why can’t you take me home?”
She mirrored his posture, her bottom lip curling out. “I don’t know if I should answer.”
“Indulge me.” He tried to keep his voice even and fisted the blanket. “Tell me. Is it because I’m biracial? Or do you not let anyone into your gated life?”
Sylvie’s pretty face twisted into a wince. “I don’t care what you look like, or who your parents are, and if you thought for one minute I would be so shallow as to care about any of that….”
“But you obviously care about other things.” Steadier now, he found better footing. His anger served only to alienate her more. He didn’t want to push her away. He wanted her to… well… fall. Fall into his arms, and his life. See where it took them. God, he wanted her. “Something has you in knots, and dammit, how do you expect me to slay the dragons I don’t even know exist?”
Her big eyes stared, half filling with tears. “What?” she choked.
“You know.” He got to his knees and bent toward her. “Those dragons every woman wants her man to slay. Your dad is too hard on you or you have a wooden leg or you want to lose weight or whatever it is you want us to disagree with or dispel. How can I fight them if I don’t know what they are?”
She sat for a long moment, hugging her breasts tight to her body. Something deep in Paul’s heart called out to her, and he gathered her into his arms. He leaned back against the headboard, plush with pillows, and let her sob into his chest.
“You don’t know me,” she wheezed. “I don’t have an easy life.”
“No one does, darlin’. We all adjust.” He stroked her back, reveling in the pressure of her breasts against his chest and the way she fit so perfectly in his arms. “Look, I’m not saying let’s get married or anything. But I need you to know something.”
Her bottom lip quivered when he stared into her eyes and a warmth overtook him so completely, he thought he might swallow her whole. Instead, he kissed that lip, and then kissed her thoroughly until she mewled in his arms.
When he pulled away, her brimming eyes locked onto his. “What do you need me to know?” she asked.
Paul took her face in his hands and looked back and forth between those two blue pools of the Pacific. “More than I have ever wanted another day with another person, I want to have a tomorrow with you, Sylvie. Please, give me another day.”
The tears soaked her cheeks, but she didn’t pull back, didn’t shy away. She just held his gaze and cried. “But we are supposed to go back to our lives,” she insisted. “You’ve got Alan Pike tomorrow, and I need to go home.”
“We can still do both of those things.” He kissed her nose. “And then you call me tomorrow night when I get back to Wyoming and we have some great phone sex.”
She giggled and punched his side with her elbow.
“After which,” he continued, “we start to get to know each other.”
The uncertainty on her face almost broke his heart. He’d seen the connection she felt with him. It etched into her face when she came. She got lost in it.
He felt it, too.
And he never wanted it to stop. But in order to get her there, he needed tomorrow. And then tomorrow. And then maybe, as they figured it out, the walls would continue to come down.
Sylvie leaned against his chest, the tears subsiding. “I suppose we c
ould just have tomorrow,” she managed, kissing his neck.
Paul growled and found her mouth. He deepened the kiss to remind her what they’d shared here. It wasn’t a fluke, and it certainly wasn’t a one-night stand. Something began there. What it began, of course, only time would tell. But he wouldn’t let it end.
“You give me tomorrow,” he said, tracing the path of a tear down her cheek with the rough pad of his finger, “and I’ll handle the rest.”
She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and Paul knew he’d gotten his tomorrow. And if he had anything to say about it, many tomorrows after that.
~About the Author~
Camryn Rhys is a former chef with a writing degree who thought there would be no better combination of all her previous jobs than to turn them into romance novels. She loves Florentines and light bulbs, she teaches classes on food writing; she is incredibly humble for an Aquarius and loves to watch cooking shows and Shahs of Sunset when she’s not writing. She also loves to hear from her fans.
You can visit Camryn at:
www.camrynrhys.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
~About the Author~
