“Do you approve?” He gives my hand a squeeze, and it’s only then I note he’s still holding it.
“I more than approve. I take it you don’t spend much time in here, though. It’s a waste if you ask me.” I scowl over at the appliances as if they’ve just personally offended me.
Axel leans in with the side of his face pressed to my neck as he makes his way to my ear. “They’ve been waiting for you.”
The scent of his cologne sets my senses on fire, and my eyes close initially as I tilt my head back. The world spins in a blissful way I haven’t felt in oh so long, and for a brief moment I never want to open my eyes again. I never want this feeling to end. His arms find their way around my waist as he spins me into him, his stubbled cheek lies flush to mine and feels surprisingly soft, his breath warms my lips as his mouth inches ever so close.
My heart drums within me at unsafe speeds, my blood pressure skyrockets as fight-or-flight kicks in. Axel presses me close to him by the small of my back, my body adhering to his rock-hard chest, and I can make out each chiseled detail with my flesh. My thighs begin to shake and quiver, my breathing quickens, and suddenly everything about this scenario has me lightheaded.
“Lex,” Axel groans as his lips brush over mine, and my entire body jolts from their touch.
My hands slap over his chest, and I push him away in one swift move. “Cheese and rice, what have I done?” I jump back, suddenly aware of my surroundings as if I had somehow teleported here instead of striding right in on my own volition.
“Wait, Lex.” Axel reaches for my hand, but I pull away in fear I won’t be able to resist his charms if he gets ahold of me one more time.
“Don’t you wait Lex me! Wine plus Raven equals stupid, stupid decisions! I played right into both your grubby little hands.” I spin on my heels, slapping my palm over my forehead. “How could I have fallen so far so fast?”
Axel pops up and wraps his arms back around my body as if they belonged there—as if I wasn’t about to pluck them off at the shoulder.
“Keep your hands where they are and I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your days brushing your teeth with your feet.”
Those blessed by God features openly frown at me, those dimples depress, and something about those watery gray eyes pinches my stomach. There are only a handful of people who have that effect on me. There are only a few people in general whom I’ve ever wanted anything to do with, and once upon a time Axel Collins was one of them.
He holds his arms up in surrender but doesn’t bother to widen the gap between us. “I like my hands right where God put them. How about a drink?”
“A drink?” I lean in until we’re just about nose-to-nose. “I bet you’d just love that, wouldn’t you?” I poke my finger hard in his chest. “Me—staggering drunk, begging you to have me, doing a strip tease on your coffee table, dropping to my knees and biting you in all the right places!” He winces when I say it. “Ha!” I laugh right over his lips, and he sheds an annoying smile that shakes me to my core with rage. “How dare you laugh at me. How dare you think you have the upper hand in this relationship.”
“Is that what we have? A relationship?” His forefinger caresses my cheek, and a chill runs down my spine, tingling all the way to my toes. My God, just one night. What could it hurt? Wait—what am I saying? Why am I suddenly so confused? I’m Lex the Ice Queen Maxfield. Things happen when and where I dictate them. This won’t happen to me. This will happen for me.
“I know you, Lex,” he rumbles so deep the words resonate like thunder deep down in my bones. “You want us back just as much as I do.”
“The hell I do.”
His eyes widen with the expletive.
“The only thing I want is this.” I press my lips to his, my entire body wrapping around him like a vine. Those cushion soft lips of his open and I fall right in, our tongues touching for the first time in so long my entire body swims with relief. I want this. I need this. And I hate Axel Collins for making me feel both of those things.
His tongue does a hungry revolution around my mouth, and we both expel a hearty groan at the very same time. A dull chuckle rattles both of our chests, but we don’t break our stride, our mouths still very much fused as this kiss permeates every last part of my being. It’s as if I had been holding my breath for all these years, and this, the first perfect breath I’ve craved for so long, is healing something deep inside of me.
But he’s not. The only thing this mouth to mouth will produce is more confusion, and if there’s anything I hate more than Axel Collins it’s confusion.
“Stop.” I pull back and crash my open palm over that sexy stubbled cheek, and the action alone makes me smile.
“Geez!” His fingers dance over ground zero as he gives a stunned, wild-eyed look.
“I’m not doing this with you!” I slap my hands over his chest and send him flying back a good three feet. “We are over, Collins! Get that through your bright-eyed, bushy-tailed brain! All of your nefarious intentions for the evening have come to naught.” I pounce over and smack my hands over his chest once again. “Take that!” I pound my fists over that granite he’s housing under his shirt even though I realize the effort is futile. Axel is built like a brick wall. “You may not stomp all over me one more time. I’m not some silly little plaything that falls in and out of your bed whenever the heck you feel like it.” I slam my fist into his stomach in a ridiculous attempt to hurt him, and his body doesn’t flinch. I look up to meet with his eyes, a raging fire exuding from my own.
“Feel better?” He’s somewhere between stern and bored, and it’s all I can do not to scream in his face. Oh, what the hell.
“Aarrrghhhh!”
He gives a hard blink before his lips curve at the tips as if they lived to undermine my emotions. “Are you done?”
“Yes.” My chest pulsates in and out, and I’m hardly able to contain my breathing. Not in any of my fantasies combined did I ever release that much fury in one quick burst.
“Good.” He steps in and leashes his hand behind my neck, pulling me toward him as his mouth latches over mine once again, and a scream rises and falls in my throat. But this time, instead of throttling him into tomorrow, I tear off his sports coat and give his tie a hard tug, quick and stiff enough to lynch him. But Axel is equally as unrelenting. He secures me to him with a death grip. His hands ride down to my bare thighs as he rakes his fingers up toward my thighs, bringing my dress up past my hips. I grip him by the hair at his temples and pull him back with a violent aggression.
“I hate you, Axel Collins.” I bear hard into those lucent colored eyes. “I hate everything about you.” My mouth crashes back over his with a vengeance, my tongue searing over his, ravenous to have him this way.
Axel lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he sails us through the penthouse. That oh so happy to see me protrusion in his boxers rubs hard against me as we move through time and space to what I can only guess would be his bedroom, but Axel stops in the hall and pulls a condom out of his wallet before tossing the boxy piece of leather over his shoulder.
“I need you, Lex.” He lunges at me with a wet, hostile kiss that exhilarates me from my hair to the tips of my toes. He runs his heated lips over my cheek, his heavy breathing loud in my ear. “I’ve always needed you.” He pulls back, his violent breathing just as deafening as my own. I can feel him working on the condom at record speed.
An earth-shattering groan evicts itself from my throat as he lands his mouth over mine as if making me swallow it back down.
Axel lands his body right where it needs to be. After six long years, it’s safe to say I had regressed back to a virginal state, and I can testify to this fact by the burn he’s incited in me. He moves his body over mine and we both let out an aggressive moan in tandem.
“Crap,” he hisses as he takes a quick bite from my neck. Axel pins me to the wall, his kisses running rampant over my lips, my cheeks, my neck, and shoulder. His hands secure themselves ove
r my hips, and he takes my body with a marked aggression. This is years of worked-up aggression coming to a head, a multitude of fantasies all playing out at once. It’s an explosion in the fireworks factory, with every last glorified cherry bomb going off at once. I’ve never known this heightened level of ecstasy was possible. Sure, Axel and I always brought passion to the table, but this is off the charts, illegal in most parts of the world, I’m sure. This is bona fide nirvana, something just outside the grasp of ordinary people. Axel and I had never been ordinary. We were special, and that was the gift we both brought to the table and the bedroom.
“Lex,” he pants hard into my ear as he grabs my hips with superhuman strength and crashes my lips over his for a brief, hungry kiss. Axel lets out a mighty roar loud enough to rattle the walls as he holds me down. His chest pounds hard over mine, detonating like a series of eardrum-shattering sonic booms. Axel stills, burying his face in my neck, warming me with his breath. For a moment, I’m worried he’ll say something I’m not ready to hear—that I may never want to hear. The last thing I want are words exchanged between the two of us—at least not anything decent.
“Come on.” He pulls out and secures my legs around his waist as he shuttles us into a dark, cavernous room. The lights pop on as we head to an enormous bed with a thick tweed comforter neatly draped over it. “It’s time for that dessert you promised me.”
Axel lands me on my back, his dark head writhing over my belly then further down, and I do the only thing left to do—scream with ecstasy so unearthly loud it has the power to shatter every window in a three-state radius.
And then I scream again because I never want this feeling to end.
I never want us to end.
Axel
“I love it when you scream for me,” I whisper the words into her ear through heavy breathing.
I pull down the covers with a violent yank and land us both on the cool sheets. Our bodies are putting out enough heat to set the room ablaze. Lex pants, staring up at the ceiling with a dead gaze, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to ask her how she’s feeling just yet. I know for damn sure she loved what just happened. Her body shook so hard for a second I thought she was having a seizure. And judging by the way she struggled to pluck my hair out at the temples, the way her knees clamped down over my head assured me of a job well done. In truth, I didn’t want it to end. If there was an option to make it last forever, I would have locked in on it a long time ago. I missed this. I missed her. I missed those noises she makes, those throaty whimpers that drive me wild. And now I’ve got everything back if only for a night.
I pull her up and strip off her dress, unhook her bra, and send it sailing across the room. Lex pulls her arms over her chest in a weak attempt to cover herself before growling at me and relaxing back on the bed.
“Take off your clothes,” she barks out the command, and I’m quick to comply. I unbutton my shirt laboriously slow, taking it off as if it were my job. She gives my boxers a yank as if to say move it along, and I slip them off and strip down to my birthday suit.
“Recognize anything you like?”
“I see that my ex-boyfriend has adhered to a prison-worthy workout. Nice abs, Collins.” Her eyes flit down to my crotch for a moment. “And it looks as if your man parts finally caught up with your ego.”
“I didn’t realize you thought so little of me.” I land next to her, my face next to her chest, still heaving, and my gaze latches onto her chest.
“My eyes are up here.”
“I don’t care where your eyes are, sweetheart.” My mouth adheres to her flesh as it works its way down her torso. Lex has always needed me to feed her caustic words. The more I volleyed her sarcasm right back at her, the more she opened up to me—the more it solidified who we were. Lex needs those words to come back curt, dismissive, and as much as I’ve always thought of them like a game, I think in this new reincarnation of our relationship we should evolve, progress to that next level—to sweet words, the tender words I’ve craved to say to her for as far back as the day we met.
I love her like that with my mouth, taking my time over her honeyed flesh. I make a game of it as I reach her belly button, and she writhes and gasps below me. I inch down her thighs, each one as if they were dipped in sugar. I make love to her knees, her perfectly smooth legs before making my way to her feet. Lex jumps and giggles—nothing she’s proud of, I’m sure. Giggling has always been somewhat beneath her, and it’s something I’ve secretly enjoyed about her. Her toes are painted bright pink like candy, and I take a healthy bite of each of them before sucking them down.
“Oh, gross. Would you knock that off? Leave my feet alone.” She does her best to kick my shoulder with her knee. “Is the foot fetish something new? Because it’s not an improvement.” I run my tongue over the back of her sole, and she lets out a hearty groan. She slides her other foot beside me. “In the least don’t make this one feel like an orphan.”
A laugh thunders through my chest as I oblige her. I take my time making my way back up, dotting a line of kisses from her belly to her shoulders. There’s not a thing in the world that should be rushed with this girl.
I reach up and take a gentle bite of her ear. “I was born to worship you. I’m positive about that.”
She averts her gaze as if the thought nauseated her on some level. “You put in quite the performance tonight.”
My arms circle her warm body as I pull her close to me and we lie side by side. “I didn’t have to try. It came naturally to me.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you turn pro. About how many women did it take for that to happen?”
A soft laugh rumbles through us both.
“Aha, laughter.” I dot her nose with a kiss. “Finally, a crack in the armor.”
“I’ll deny it in the light of day.” Her eyes spark as if they were readying to ignite. “I’ll deny all of this.” Lex has always had the ability to look like a porcelain doll, albeit one you might be a little afraid of, but there is an innocence to her beauty. And that hair. I dig my fingers into the back of her mane. Her hair has been a silent third entity in our relationship since the beginning. Those dark crimson curls have always shook themselves my way, teasing me, taunting me, making me want her on an entirely different level.
“That’s okay. You keep lighting up my nights and I’ll let you deny it all you want.”
Lex bites down over her lip with those glowing white teeth. “I suggest you brace yourself for the fall because this was a one-off that I have no intention of repeating.”
I grunt at the thought. “That’s funny. I don’t see you bolting out of my bedroom.” My hands swivel down her back before I dig my fingers into her luscious soft hips. The last thing I want to do is incite her to collect her things and take off.
“That’s because I’m not done tormenting you.” Her finger glides down my nose before tracing out my lips. “I’ll have you beg once I’m ready.”
“Sounds like a solid plan.” I’m up for begging. Hell, I’m up for barking like a dog if she wants me to. There is nothing I won’t do for another round with the love of my life. That’s what I really want to tell her. That, and the words I love you. I need her to hear it before she leaves no matter where it might lead us. I remember where it led us the last time.
“What should we do while we wait?” I pull her in closer and bury a kiss on her neck. “Spoon? Snuggle?”
Lex belts out a laugh, and her chest pressed tight against mine, springing me right back to life.
“Easy, Collins.” She grazes me with her knee. “We’re going to talk.” She pulls back a notch as her expression grows increasingly serious. “I want you to tell me.” Her eyes turn glassy, and I’m half-afraid we’ve made a turn we might not recover from. “What happened to Emilia?”
“Emilia.” I tip my head back as I say my sister’s name with relief for the first time in months. A hard breath expires from me as that tragic accident bounces through my mind. “We lost her just after Chr
istmas. It’s been really tough.” My torso hiccups with grief, and now it’s Lex pulling me in close.
“I’m so very sorry. I can’t imagine the pain you and your family must have gone through. I’m sure it was unbearable.” Lex is transformed by her own grief. Her bottom lip quivers between us, and I lean in and press a simple kiss over her just to quell the pain.
“Still is most days,” I whisper. A sense of tragic sadness weighs me down. Here it was, Emilia’s death that has brought on the first serious conversation between Lex and me.
“May I ask what happened? I mean, I don’t want to pry or gouge open any wounds, but I cared about her.” Lex covers her face and vibrates with quiet tears.
“Hey, it’s okay. I know she cared about you, too. If it makes you feel better, she didn’t talk to me for a month after we split up. I think she may have liked you a little more than me.”
A tiny laugh trails through her. “She was smart.” Lex pulls back with black muddy trails tracking down her cheeks. “What happened to my beautiful friend?”
My heart warms as she says it. Lex has always been a self-proclaimed hermit who only had a heart for blood relations and then only some of those. She once told me that Emilia was her first real friend and she wore that like a badge. She loved my sister. I knew that. I still do.
“She fell.” I shrug because there is no other explanation really. “She went on a hike with her boyfriend—a walking tour about a mile beyond the overlook in Hollow Brook. It had just finished raining, and her foot caught on a branch. She tripped and sailed over a steep embankment—about twenty-five feet. That’s all. Hit her temple on a sharp rock, closed her eyes, and never opened them again. I was at the office with my father and Shep—got a hysterical phone call from Teagan. Tom, her boyfriend, didn’t really have any of our numbers. He was pretty new to the scene. But Teagan had sent Emilia and him a group text—a picture of her headed to a winter dance at school so he knew to call. We took off for the hospital, but she was already gone. Life turned inside out, and it was hell.” I close my eyes, and Lex presses my face to hers by the back of my neck.
Summer Breeze Kisses Page 91
