I shrugged non-committedly.
“I did, didn’t I?” she laughed, drawing both Owen and Arabella’s attention our way. I enjoyed the flare in those green eyes I’d become fascinated with as my girl noticed who was in the chair next to mine. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.
“You might have,” I admitted as I got to my feet. I was a man of action. If a celebrity chef could bag his woman that quickly, then I damn well could too.
5
Arabella
“What were you and Sienna talking about?” I voiced the question I’d told myself I wouldn’t ask. I didn’t even last until the dressing room door closed behind us. So much for my willpower.
“You and me. Her and Owen. Quick moving relationships.”
“Oh.” And now I felt like an idiot since their topic of conversation was us. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that Sienna was madly in love with Owen, but that hadn’t stopped me from feeling off my stride as I’d watched them chat from across the room. Luckily, after my demonstration was over, we had moved to a part of taping where the camera was focused on the contestants more than the judges, so I didn’t need to fake a smile for too long at a time. Then as the remaining contestants finished their final challenge, I got wrapped up in the moment, and my smile became genuine once again.
I tried to duck my head as heat filled my cheeks, but he didn’t let me look away. With my chin captured in one hand and my body tugged close to his with the other arm, he kicked the door shut behind us and backed me against a wall. “You don’t have any reason to be jealous, sweetheart. I could be in a room full of people, and you’re the only one I’d see. And you can be damn sure that there isn’t another woman who’s going to capture my attention—whether you’re around or not. I’ve had two years for that fact to be driven home to me. Now that I’ve got you in my arms, I’m not going to do anything to risk losing this.”
If I’d had any doubts about sleeping with a man I’d only known for less than twenty-four hours, his heartfelt confession would have wiped them away. But oddly enough, I’d already been confident in my decision. Those two years had apparently driven the same lesson home to me too. So I rose up on my tiptoes as his head lowered, and our mouths crashed together. We kissed like we couldn’t get enough of each other, but also as though we’d been doing it forever. There wasn’t any of the awkwardness a newer couple might have felt—and yeah, I was already thinking of us in those terms—but all of the passion that came at the start of a relationship.
I whimpered when he tore his lips from mine. “More.”
“You sure, sweetheart? If I keep going, it’ll be hell to stop later.”
His dark eyes burned into mine as he waited for my answer, and it gave me the courage to do something completely out of character. I reached down and cupped his hard length as it pressed against his zipper. “Who said anything about stopping?”
It must have been all the encouragement he needed because he lowered his head again to kiss me senseless. His hands drifted to my chest to cup my breasts, his thumbs brushing against my pebbled nipples. When he rolled them between his fingers and tugged, I felt it all the way to my core and moaned into his mouth.
“You wet for me?” he breathed against my lips, pushing my skirt up and pressing his palm against my damp panties. Sliding his fingers up and down the soaked material, he ripped his mouth from mine. “Fuck, yeah. You are.”
I lifted up higher and shifted my hips to rub against his hand. “Please.”
“I’ve got you, sweetheart.” And he did, giving me exactly what I needed as he pushed my panties to one side and slid his index finger through my wetness. His finger grazed my clit before sliding lower, and I shuddered. “You feel better than I dreamed.”
“Did you really dream about me?” I panted.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jacked off to thoughts of you. In my fantasies, I’ve licked, sucked, and fucked every inch of you. I’ve dreamed about your tight little pussy more times than I can count. To the point that I was sorely tempted to hack into airport security to try to figure out who you were, even if it landed me on a terrorist watch list or brought Interpol to my door.”
If I didn’t have the wall against my back and Gaige at my front, I would have slid to the floor. “You’d have gone that far?”
“Of course.” There was no doubting the sincerity of his answer. “If I hadn’t been there for Vaughn and Carissa’s wedding, I would have turned around and gotten right back onto a plane to followed you wherever you were going.”
Talk about ironic. If I hadn’t needed to leave for LA before the wedding, we would have met back then. “You would have followed me right where we were now; just two years later.”
“And we’re going to make up for all that lost time,” he promised. Then he placed wet, open-mouthed kisses along the column of my throat.
“Yes,” I hissed, throwing my head back to give him better access.
His teeth scraped against my skin, and his hips rocked against me. “Damn, sweetheart. You feel good with your hot little pussy cradling my cock. It feels like a perfect fit. I can’t wait to feel you wrapped around me, sucking me into you.”
His dirty words reverberated through me, making me hotter—and wetter. All over his hand.
“My sweetheart wants that as much as I do, doesn’t she?” he asked as he yanked my panties down my thighs.
“I—I do,” I stuttered, kicking my panties off when they hit the floor. While he undid the buttons on my blouse, I attacked the zipper of his pants.
“White lace,” he groaned. “You wear shit like this all the time?”
“Pretty much.” My sassy smile was wiped off my face when I encountered nothing as I slid my hand inside his pants. Wrapping my fist around his hard on, I stroked up and down. “Do you usually go without underwear?”
“If I didn’t, I sure as shit would from now on because it makes it easier for me to do this.” He shoved his pants down his legs before he unhooked my bra and pulled it down my shoulders. I gasped when he lightly tweaked my nipples before latching onto one distended bud. I trembled at each wet pull of his mouth, arching into his body as his fingers toyed with the other breast.
When he lifted his head and his hands moved to my ass, plastering me against his hard on as he rocked against me, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. It didn’t take much for him to work me into a frenzy. Then he dragged his cock through my wetness, and my head banged back against the wall.
“Careful, sweetheart. I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” he cautioned, keeping one hand on my ass while he brought the other up to wrap it against the back of my skull.
“But it’s okay for you to get hurt?”
“My hand can take a little banging against the wall,” he assured me.
“So can I.” I lifted one leg and wrapped it around his hip to make it clear exactly what I meant. In that position, his cock nudged against my entrance. He pressed the tip inside and oh-so-slowly brought me down his length.
“More,” I whimpered even though there was a twinge of pain because I was tight and he was so damn big. That stinging sensation was a small price to pay to feel him inside of me.
He pulled my head closer and dropped his forehead against mine, staring deeply into my eyes as he sank all the way in. “Holy fuck, I could stay like this forever.”
“Yes,” I panted. “But after you make me come. Please.”
“Hold on,” he commanded, making my walls clench around his thick cock. It had been too long since I’d come, months ago when I’d last masturbated—to thoughts of my mystery airport man. It paled in comparison to the feel of his body around, and inside, of me.
I clutched his shoulders tightly as he rocked in and out, picking up speed until my head was banging against the hand that was protecting me from the wall. The only sound in the room was our grunts and the slap of our skin as our bodies crashed together. As my orgasm built, I bit down on my lip to try to hold my scream ins
ide. The walls between dressing rooms weren’t thick enough for privacy.
“Give it to me, Arabella,” he growled. “I want you to come all over my cock before I lose control.”
That was all it took to send me over the edge. Shoving my face in his chest to stifle my cry. Then I held on tight as he powered in and out of me until his body tightened and he groaned out his release.
“Wow,” I gasped when I caught my breath again. “Can we do that again?”
“As many times as you want,” he chuckled. “But I want to take you on a bed the next time, so we’d better go check into the new hotel.”
6
Gaige
We got lucky the next day, and Arabella’s taping wrapped up in the early afternoon even though she expected it to take another day. Considering how little sleep Arabella had gotten the night before, it was a good thing. The loss of a contestant who’d been kicked off the show for sleeping with the original producer had speeded up the process of picking a winner. Her responsibilities were fulfilled, which meant I could get her out of town and to a safer place.
“If I’d known there was a chance you’d be done today, I might have just switched rooms instead of checking into a new hotel last night,” I grumbled as I loaded her suitcases into my rental car for the second time in as many days.
“We could just stay here another night,” she suggested.
“It’s too late for that,” I chuckled. “Your bags are already in the car, and I’ve made reservations for the ferry and rented us a cottage.”
“A ferry and a cottage?” she echoed. “Where are we going?”
I helped her into the car as I answered, “Santa Catalina Island.”
“Really?” She looked at me hopefully, clapping her hands together as I slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ve never been there before.”
“Yes, really.” I flashed her a smile. “It’s close enough to LA that I can easily come back if I get a solid lead and need to interview someone in person.”
“Wouldn’t it be hard for us to escape an island if we needed to get out of there quickly? I thought the ferry across takes like an hour.”
Her voice trembled, and knowing that someone out there had scared her so much that she didn’t feel safe pissed me the fuck off. When I found them, they were going to pay—and depending on what they had in mind for Arabella, the way they did so might be permanent. I’d killed before for my country; I had no doubt that I’d be able to do so for my woman if it came down to it. I didn’t want to do anything to change the way Arabella looked at me, but her safety would come first for me. Always.
“I’m good at what I do, sweetheart. Even if you weren’t mine, I wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks,” I reassured her, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. If it had been anyone but her, I never would have thought about going to the island. Holing up in any old place would have been fine. But I wanted to do better—be better—for her. “I figured since you had a month off, you could look at this as a vacation instead of just hiding out. I was able to snag us an ocean-view cottage, so we’ll have some privacy. And if the need to leave quickly arises, we’ll go by helicopter instead of the ferry.”
“Thank you for that.” Her green eyes were damp as she looked at me like I’d hung the moon. “Yes, please, take me to Santa Catalina Island.”
I softened my voice because I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but it needed to be said. “Just so long as you understand that I wasn’t asking for your permission. When it comes to your safety, the decisions are mine to make.”
“Considering the situation, I can live with that.”
“It’ll be the same after this is over. That part of me isn’t going to change.”
She flipped her hand over and twined her fingers with mine. “I already told you that I could handle your bossy as long as you can deal with my girly girl stuff.”
I heaved out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “You know I was just giving you hell when I complained about the suitcases, right? Because I’ll gladly take all your girly shit since you come with it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She had a mischievous gleam in her eyes, and it made me smile. I liked this playful side of hers. “Bring it on, sweetheart.”
“Oh, yes. This is going to be good,” she laughed, rubbing her hands together in excitement. “Do we have enough time to stop for lunch?”
I was hungry, so it sounded like a good idea to me. “Yeah.”
“Perfect! I want to pick where we go.”
“As long as it isn’t somewhere you’ve been before, that’s fine by me,” I agreed.
“It’s a newer place that I was hoping to be able to visit before I left LA, but I haven’t made it there yet.”
She gave me the address, without mentioning the name of the restaurant. When I pulled up in front, I realized that I should have asked more questions. “A tea shop? Remind me to check to see where the closest In-N-Out Burger is so we can hit the drive-through on our way to the ferry.”
“You did say you could handle my girliness,” she reminded me. “And there’s nothing more girly than high tea at a shop that looks like you’ve stepped into a fancy set for Alice in Wonderland.”
“I probably shouldn’t have made it so obvious this early in our relationship that I’d do just about anything to make you happy,” I grumbled after I found a parking spot and helped her out of the car.
She reached up and kissed me on the cheek, whispering in my ear, “Except it means the world to me that you did.”
Fuck if that didn’t make it all worthwhile. Arabella was a reward worth any sacrifice.
“I might have to turn in my man card after this,” I sighed as we walked into the shop. I pulled her chair out for her and cringed when I sat in mine, waiting for it to break under my weight. It held, and I was pleasantly surprised when the waitress brought the teas we ordered. My woman had just as much of a sweet tooth as I did, which wasn’t much of a surprise considering she was a pastry chef. She got the whoopee pie tie, and I picked the kettle corn. We’d asked for two of their tea for two specials since Arabella wanted to try everything and I was starving.
It didn’t take long before the waitress dropped off two towers, each with sandwiches on the bottom and sweets on the top. I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed the food, devouring deviled egg salad, avocado, prosciutto, caramelized onion and mushroom, and smoked salmon sandwiches. And the sweets...the only time I’d tasted better was the cake Arabella had made for Vaughn and Carissa’s wedding. There was a great selection on both of the trays—macaroons, fruit tarts, brownie bites, mini berry cheesecakes, scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, and homemade jam.
“I’ll take some of those brownies to go with it,” I told our waitress when she cleared the table and asked if we each wanted an iced tea to take with us since we’d ordered two of the specials.
“What happened to the In-N-Out plan?” Arabella teased me as we walked out.
“I don’t think I could choke down a burger after everything we ate at the tea shop,” I admitted wryly.
“See!” she cried. “You liked it more than you thought you would.”
“No, I just flat-out liked it.” I earned myself another one of her glowing smiles with that.
“I knew you would,” she gloated. “How about you leave most of the food decisions to me since I’m the expert?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” I handed her the paper bag with the extra brownies after she slid into the passenger seat of the rental. Then I patted my stomach in satisfaction as I walked around the car and climbed inside. “I guess now’s as good time as any to tell you that I had the kitchen at the cottage stocked by the local grocery store.”
“Is that your way of asking if I’ll cook for us while we’re there?”
“I’m not going to say no if you’re offering, that’s for sure.” She laughed lightly and shifted in her seat to face me. “But I also got some stuff to throw on the gr
ill, so you won’t have to do all our meals.”
“That was thoughtful of you, but I’m more than happy to take charge of our meals. It’s been awhile since I’ve cooked for someone other than myself, except for in a professional capacity. The kitchen’s my domain, and I’m looking forward to showing off for you. I have a feeling it’s going to be very satisfying to cook for my man.”
It felt fucking great to have her call me that and see how excited she was. It was also easy to picture her in a different kitchen—the one in my home in Atlanta...barefoot and pregnant.
7
Arabella
When Gaige had said he’d booked a cottage for us, I was picturing something small and quaint. Not a full-fledged house with an ocean view. “Three bedrooms? Does that mean you’re planning on us not sharing?”
I meant to say it as a joke, but there was also an underlying vulnerability that came out as I spoke. After spending the last couple of nights with Gaige—with him sleeping while fully dressed over the covers that first night because I wasn’t about to let him sleep on the couch, and then wrapped in his arms with both of us completely naked for the limited amount of sleep we’d gotten between bouts of sex the second night—I wasn’t sure how I’d feel if he actually said yes.
“No,” he growled, tugging me into his arms. “It means I wanted us to have the privacy that the hotels and bed and breakfasts couldn’t provide. The room with a king sized bed is ours, although you could easily talk me into breaking in the queen and both twin beds, too, if you’d like.”
I gave him a considering look. “What about the table, couch, floor?” I rattled off every flat surface I could think of.
“The shower, beach, patio,” he added.
“Yes to the shower. No to the beach and patio.” I wagged my finger at him. “I’d be too worried about getting caught.”
“You’re underestimating me if you think that you’ll be paying attention to anything but me and what I’m doing to you.”
Passion, Vows & Babies: Feed Your Soul (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 3
