by Jamie Pope
“I could think of a couple worse things.”
Elias sighed. “I really like my sister’s husband. He’s exactly who I would have picked for her.”
“But?”
“We’re twins. We went to the same college. We lived next door to each other until she sold her town house. She used to call me every day. We were close.”
“You’re not anymore?”
“We are, but it’s different. Her husband comes first, which he should. But I kind of miss being the first person she tells all her stupid crap to. It used to annoy the hell out of me when she called me just to chat, but it was a part of my day. Now it feels like something is missing.”
She smoothed her hand down his back, and he looked down at her with a sheepish grin.
“If you ever tell anyone I said that, I might be forced to kill you.”
“Got it. Men break out in hives whenever they think someone might know they have a feeling.”
“I’m a manly man,” he said, deepening his already-deep voice. “I snapped my wrist and went in to work the next day with duct tape wrapped around it.”
“You didn’t.”
“No. It hurt like hell. I’m pretty sure I started crying and passed out.”
She laughed. “I don’t believe that, either.”
“I just remember my brother cursing and saying something about our mother flying to the States to kill him.”
“Your mother doesn’t live here?”
“Costa Rica. She moved there after my father passed away.”
“Oh.” She went quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s been many years now.”
They continued to walk on in silence until they came up to a set of houses that were directly on the beach. “My house is right up there.”
“Is it?” He looked at the house and then back at her. “It’s nice.”
“It is nice. Would you like to see it?” She was inviting him inside. She didn’t want this night to end. It had been surreal and comfortable and wonderful, and it wasn’t even 8:00 p.m. yet.
“Yes, I very much would.”
Her heart beat faster as they walked quietly up the path that led to her beachfront home. She had never done this before. She had never met a man who she was this attracted to, who she wanted to spend so much time with. First dates had always been horrible for her. Awkward. Panic inducing. But she had met Elias by chance. There was no time for her to get worked up, to overthink, and tonight she wasn’t allowing herself to think at all. She was living in the moment. Doing what made her feel good.
“Whoa,” he said when she let them in.
Her home was beautiful, a gift from her parents, but Cricket really knew it had been her father’s idea to give her this house when she finished her second doctorate. It was an overly generous present, but her father adored her and knew how much she loved this island and cherished the summers she had spent there as a child. It was nothing to him to give her this gift, even though her mother was against it.
Cricket, after all, was the heiress to one of the largest tech fortunes in the world.
“I know it’s a little sparse right now. I haven’t spent much time here until recently.”
“Where were you?” he asked, looking around.
“My lab was based in Boston, but I traveled a great deal.”
“I heard you say something about research. What kind of research do you do?”
She hesitated for a moment. There was nothing romantic or sexy about her job, but she was proud of her work. Her mother told her she should never be embarrassed of showing off her brain. But the older she got, the more she realized that men didn’t necessarily want to date a woman with a bunch of fancy letters after her name. “I’m a medical scientist.”
“A PhD?” he asked, stepping closer.
“Yes, I’m afraid I have two of them.”
A devastatingly sexy smile crossed his lips. He then grabbed her bag and tossed it aside before he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again. His lips were open, his mouth wet, his tongue warm. She immediately went slack, and he brought her body closer to his. Large, hard, hot. Those were the only words she could think of to describe him. He smelled so good, like ocean air and aftershave and soft-serve vanilla ice cream. She could get drunk off his scent.
“Tell me to go home,” he said into her mouth. “Right now. Tell me to leave.”
“I can’t. You leaving is the very last thing I want.”
“I was hoping you would say that.” He pulled her cardigan off and kissed that little curve that connected her shoulder to her neck.
A moan escaped her as his hands slipped up her dress to skim the backs of her thighs. “You’re so beautiful,” he told her as he hooked his thumbs into her underwear and slid them down. “I want you so damn much.”
She sought his mouth again, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him with a heat that she had never experienced before. She felt his erection against her belly, and it caused her to grow wetter, even more aroused than she was when he had started all of this. She’d had only one serious boyfriend, one sweet, lovely man whom she would have happily spent the rest of her life with, but he’d never made her feel this way. He never wanted her with as much hunger as Elias possessed.
“Take me to your bedroom.”
She took his hand without thinking, and he winced.
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be. You can kiss it better.” He lightly pressed his lips to hers.
“When’s the last time you took anything for your hand?”
“This morning. But I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I am worried. I need you to touch me all over my body, and for that to happen I need to know you’re not in pain.”
“If you take me to bed, I promise you the only kind of pain I’ll be in is the good kind.”
She smiled at him and took his other hand, leading him into her en suite bathroom. It was a luxurious bathroom by anyone’s standards, with a huge jetted tub and a rainfall shower. There was a view of the ocean from the window.
“This bathroom is bigger than my bedroom,” he said to her in a low voice. “I would like to spend some time in here if we can.”
“We can.” She went to her medicine cabinet and opened it up in search for a bottle of pain reliever. Some of the contents came spilling out, including her birth control.
“I guess I don’t have to wonder about that,” he said and then unzipped her dress. She had on the ugliest underwear. A beige strapless bra. Her white cotton panties had been left on the floor somewhere near her front door. She had never thought she would be here in a million years. She didn’t even own sexy underwear, but Elias didn’t seem to mind at all. He unhooked her bra and with his uninjured hand cupped her breast, squeezing it ever so slightly as his thumb stroked over her nipple.
She swallowed hard, almost forgetting what she was supposed to be doing. But then she remembered she wanted him to have two pain-free hands so that she could experience even more of his pleasure. She picked up the bottle and closed the door to the medicine cabinet only to come face-to-face with herself in the mirror. Only she didn’t recognize herself. Her hair was windblown and wild, her mouth was slightly open, her lips pouty and kiss swollen. She was completely naked, and a large fully dressed man was looking at her with such open appreciation that it made her knees weak.
But the most marked change was the look in her eyes. There was arousal there, pure and naked lust. She hadn’t thought it was possible to look like that. It didn’t mesh with the image she had of herself in her mind.
“Do you see how sexy you are?” he asked as he pulled her nipple between his fingers. She bit her lip as the pleasure took over her. “I can’t wait to be inside you. To feel you wrapped around me. I ca
n’t help but feel that you are what I need right now.”
She trembled. The power of his words alone made her tremble. She took a small step away from him and filled a glass with water and handed it to him.
“Pills now.”
“Open the bottle for me.”
She complied, but she did it as she walked back into her bedroom, feeling freer and more confident in her body than she had in all her twenty-nine years. “Sit down,” she ordered. He did so with a sexy grin that she was growing to love more by the minute. “Take these.” She handed him the pills and began to work at the small buttons on his shirt. She knew his body was in spectacular shape, because she felt every hard-muscled line when she was pressed against him. But now she could see him in all his glory. Beautiful brown skin covering tight abs and a powerfully built chest.
“I like bossy women,” he said and set his glass of water on the nightstand before he pulled her closer. “Have I mentioned how incredible your behind is?” He cupped it, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“No, but a lady always loves a compliment.” She pulled off his shirt and then pushed him back on the bed. She unzipped his pants and gave him a silent signal to lift his hips. She was growing wetter and wetter with each piece of skin she had revealed. It was something special to have a gorgeous naked man in her bed, one who she knew wanted her, one who was so aroused that she was afraid he wasn’t going to fit inside her.
He pulled her on top of him, their naked bodies colliding. He groaned as her breasts rubbed against him. “Beautiful girl...” His voice was husky and breathy. He ran his hand down the length of her back. “Everything you do turns me on. We need to slow this down before I embarrass myself.”
“I promise you,” she started but trailed off when his lips looked too kissable to pass up, “that you never have to be embarrassed with me.”
He rolled over so that he was on top, his body pressing hers into the mattress. “I want to touch you.” She felt his heavy erection between her legs. She had wanted to run her hands over it, her lips, feel the weight of him.
“I really want this to last.” He kissed her slowly and so deeply that she felt like she was falling. “Talk to me. Tell me something about yourself.”
“As a child I had a cat named Sophie. She was fat and orange and I loved her to pieces. Your turn.”
“My older brother played baseball his entire life, but I find the sport kind of boring and have only watched the games that he played in.” He kissed behind her ear and ran his hand over her hip. “That was a deep, dark secret that you can never tell another soul.”
“Juicy. Perfect for blackmailing.”
“Tell me something else,” he said as she felt him press against her opening, running his head down the length of her lips.
“Deep and dark?” she panted.
“The deeper the better.”
She suddenly got overwhelmingly nervous. This had felt like a dream up until now, but he was in her bed, nearly inside her, and she had never thought this would happen. She had all but given up on men. “I have something big to tell you.”
He must have heard the panic in her voice, because he stopped what he was doing and rolled them to their sides. “You’re married. You share this house with your husband, and he’s about to burst in here with a shotgun.”
“No! Of course not.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Strike two.”
“You’re not going to tell me you’re a man.” He touched her between her legs, slipping a finger inside her to stroke her. “I can tell.”
She cried out. “No. I’m a virgin.”
* * *
“Excuse me?” She was lying to him. She had to be lying to him. Cricket was definitely an enigma. She was odd and brainy and probably leaps and bounds smarter than he was. But she was so damn funny and sweet, and she had the body of a video vixen hidden beneath her cute sundress and prim cardigan.
She was a sex goddess and he was lucky enough to be taken to her bed, and she was telling him that she had never been with a man before? He just didn’t believe it.
“You don’t kiss like a virgin.”
“I’m only one in the technical sense.”
“Explain.”
“I was with a man for over five years who was born with a defect and couldn’t...you know. It was fine, because sex wasn’t terribly important to me, and he did other...intimate things to make up for it. But we broke up three years ago and I haven’t made it this far with a man since.”
“Have you tried? All you have to do is look at a man and he’ll want you.”
“I want you.” She slid her hand up his cheek and kissed him softly.
He wanted her, too, and this revelation should have shaken him, but he was surprised to find that he wanted her even more. To be the first man inside her, to be the first man to have her body like this. “I’m glad you told me.”
“You aren’t going to walk away right now. It will kill me if you did.”
“I’m not walking away. I can’t, and I don’t want to.”
She let out a sigh of relief. He was surprised by her more and more each moment. She didn’t see herself the way he saw her. Thick and delicious. So incredibly sexy that it made his teeth hurt. Being with her wasn’t just a want, it was a need. For the first time since he had snapped his wrist, he wasn’t feeling so damn empty. He stroked between her legs as he kissed her. She moved against his hand, her hips moving in a way that made it hard for him to believe that she was a virgin. He felt bad for her. She was clearly a sexual person with needs that had gone unfulfilled for so long. He felt even worse for that poor slob of a boyfriend. It must be torture to be this close to perfection without being able to have it.
He was going to have her tonight. Things had heated up so quickly between them. He liked to take his time with women. To seduce them. But he was too far gone. He had never wanted another woman so much. He was more than hungry for her. He felt like if he didn’t have her, he would die.
Without giving it another thought, he slipped inside her. The noise that escaped him was primal. She was so wet and so hot and squeezing around him so tightly, putting him in extreme danger of coming before he even started.
He forced himself to hold back and not plunge inside her like he so desperately wanted. “Am I hurting you?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Oh, God, no.” She wrapped her legs around him even tighter, taking him deeper inside. “I need more.”
He slid a little harder into her, which caused her to cry out his name. He kept his rhythm controlled and firm. He gave her deep kisses as he pumped away; he kneaded her flesh between his fingers, paid careful attention to her body, to what she liked. He kept his eyes open so that he could look down into her face. He wanted to remember this night, every single ounce of it, because he was sure he would never be able to have another night so damn perfect again.
“Elias...” She dug her nails into his back and squeezed around him so tightly that he lost all his control. She was trembling beneath him, her orgasm coming on hard and fast. He came with her, pushing into her one last time before he spilled himself inside her.
“Thank you for this, Elias,” she said a few minutes later. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for letting me be the man to do it.” He kissed the side of her neck before he lifted his head to look down at her. She was flushed and glowing with perspiration and smiling. He had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life, and he didn’t want to get out of bed to leave her. “Can I stay here with you tonight?”
“Yes. I would like that. There is nothing in the world that I would like more.”
Chapter 3
“You look chipper today,” Ava, Elias’s twin, said the next evening as they sat on the porch of the house she and her husband shared.
> “Chipper?” He frowned at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word used before.”
“Well, it’s how you look. You’ve been down since you haven’t been working. I would say that I feel bad for you, but I like seeing you more often. When you’re working I get the exhausted zombie version of you.”
“Fourteen-hour surgeries will do that to you.”
“Did you have fun last night? You met up with some friends?”
“Yeah,” he lied, not knowing why he did. He told Ava nearly everything, but he didn’t want to share his night.
He hadn’t just hooked up with some random girl. He took someone’s virginity and spent the morning making love to her all over again. He really liked Cricket, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was in a weird headspace in that moment or if he just thought she was refreshing. If they had met in Miami, he probably wouldn’t have spared her a second look, but they hadn’t met in Miami, and this was no typical hookup.
He wanted to see her again, to be with her again. But this morning when he kissed her goodbye, he’d made no move to prolong their connection. He didn’t ask for her phone number; he didn’t suggest they meet up again. He had just walked away.
There hadn’t been hope in her eyes, no expectation. She’d just thanked him and kissed him softly and waved him off. He respected that about her. He might have been weirded out if she wanted to turn this one-night stand into a relationship.
But she didn’t seem to want to, and he wasn’t looking for a relationship, either, but he wasn’t sure he could just leave it at one night with her.
“I’m glad you went out. Are you planning to see them again?”
“I was just thinking about that myself. I might head over to Carlos’s and stay with him for a few days.”
“You getting sick of me already?”
“No...kind of. Yeah, actually. You and your husband kiss so much I wonder how your lips haven’t fallen off. Though Carlos and Virginia aren’t much better.”
“They aren’t.” Ava smiled. “When you fall in love, really fall in love, you’ll find yourself being the gross person you never thought you would be.”
