One Night, White Lies

by Jessica Lemmon

  “You wouldn’t deny a desperate man his fantasy, would you, love?” He gave her his best puppy eyes.

  She shook her head. She doubted he spent many, if any, nights lonely. He said all the right things. Looked the right way. Life’s greatest pleasures must show up gift-wrapped on his doorstep.

  Tonight, for example, she’d served herself up on a platter. And yet still he’d worked to seduce her. Not that there was any need. She’d been seduced by him years ago—the moment Gage stepped into their house for dinner and Reid walked in behind him. At the time she hadn’t fully comprehended what that pinch in her gut was telling her. She’d stared, and when he’d waved hello in introduction, she’d hidden behind her hair and then run to her room. She hadn’t had a single conversation alone with him, choosing to talk to her friends or her brother on the rare occasions she had seen Reid. Even on her eighteenth birthday, she’d climbed out of the swimming pool the moment he’d dived in. He was so out of her league, so unattainable, she hadn’t even had the confidence to converse with him.

  She noticed he’d been careful to mention that he didn’t expect anything from her beyond what they shared physically. Probably he was used to delivering the bad news—that while he was glad to spend the night with a woman, he couldn’t offer more.

  But Drew had entered this situation knowing her time with Reid had an expiration date. Her eyes were wide open, her heart under firm direction to stay out of it. She was spending these precious moments with him to carpe diem, not because she expected forever. Besides, once he figured out who she was, this would be over faster than she could say the words “expiration date.”

  Lowering her lips to his for another kiss, she promised herself that after she made love with him tonight she’d tell him who she was in the morning. It wasn’t right to continue to lie to him. Though she could forgive herself this indulgence, she thought as she opened the button and zipper of his pants. Telling him now would mean ruining everyone’s fun. They might as well enjoy themselves.

  “Your wish is my command.” She offered her best saucy wink, raked her fingers over his bare chest and then scooted lower on his legs to pull down his boxer briefs. His erection sprang from the barrier, thick and inviting. “Oh God.”

  She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it couldn’t be helped. She’d never seen one quite this...substantial. Devin’s was slightly above average—or what she’d come to think of as average. Reid’s penis made others pale in comparison.

  “Something the matter?” her cheeky Brit asked, his grin confident and sure.

  “It’s... You’re beautiful. Everywhere I look. Every part I uncover.” That was as honest as she’d ever been, but she wasn’t going to do tonight halfway. She’d wanted Reid for so long there was only one way to be with him. Completely.

  Before she’d gotten her fill of his nakedness, he sat up and pulled her to him. His arms banded at her back, pressing her breasts flat to his chest as he kissed the underside of her chin.

  “No, beautiful is my word for you. Beautiful describes these breasts I can’t get enough of.” He rubbed his chest against hers. “Beautiful describes the way you fit up against me, and the perfectly mind-numbing way I’ll notch into you as soon as I’m done tasting you.”

  “T-tasting me?” She blinked at him, speechless and excited for that possibility.

  “Mmm-hmm.” He dragged his tongue in a slow line from her jaw to her throat before kissing her pulse point. “I’m going to bring you to orgasm with my mouth, and then I’m going to enter you and bring you that way, too. We’ll throw in a few more during and after if you like. But I’m starting with my mouth here.” He cupped her center, the pressure from his fingers teasing her clitoris. “Depending on how well you react depends on how long I stay down there. But be forewarned, I am very good.”

  A giggle bubbled out of her, a result of nerves and shock, or maybe the cocky, confident way he spoke. “Are you now?”

  “Try me. We’ll find out together.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he stood and lifted her, his hands molding her butt. She held on as he walked her to the bedroom. Being carried to a bedroom by Reid Singleton ticked another box on her sexy bucket list.

  Not that he could ever be reduced to an item on a list, but...well...he sort of could. He was an experience. One she was going to enjoy.

  He plopped her onto the bedspread and shucked his pants, socks and shoes. The curtains were open, the star-pocked sky throwing meager light into the room. Just enough to highlight the dips and bumps of his chest and abs. She stood by her “beautiful” declaration. He was a sight to behold.

  Especially when he lowered to his knees, his forearms resting on the bed near her feet. He lifted and inspected one high heel, the fire in his eyes evident even in the darkened room. He parted her legs gently and, gripping each ankle, dragged her down the bedspread toward him. Her skirt rucked up around her thighs, the pooling material bunching at her back.

  Reid’s hands disappeared beneath her skirt, smoothing the skin of her thighs and then, finding her satiny matching panties, dragged them off.

  “Much as I want to see these on...” He didn’t finish his thought, tossing the garment over his shoulders and returning his hands to her thighs. Broad, warm hands. His fingers gripped her flesh, and admittedly there was more there than she preferred. Drew might have drastically changed her body, but she was far from perfect.

  But this is my perfect, she reminded herself.

  He was.

  “It’s too dark in here. I have to see you. I’m sorry.” He moved to stand and Drew slapped her hands over his and pushed them high on her thighs again.

  “No! I need you now. Besides, it’s sexier in the dark.” And she was so, so close to having him.

  She needed to share this with him, and it didn’t matter what he thought her name was—she was giving Reid the real Drew. He was experiencing her physically and emotionally. She’d never fake that.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “I can’t resist that plea, love.” He eased to his knees and with another rough tug, pulled her to the edge of the bed. Tossing her legs over his shoulders, he lowered his face to her center and dragged his tongue slowly over her.

  With a gasp, she dropped her head to the bed, her fists bunching the bedspread helplessly as he repeated the motion. His tongue delved and teased, fast then slow. He’d barely touched her and already she was dissolving.

  “Please.” She gave herself over to the sensations of his flicking tongue and attentive hands. Those hands climbed her body as he continued devouring her, and when he gave her nipples a light pinch, she came on contact.

  Writhing, twisting, she belatedly realized she still wore her pointed-heeled shoes. It took some restraint not to accidentally skewer him.

  Before she caught her breath, he declared, “One,” and then lowered his face again, doing his best to turn her into mush. She entered the veil willingly, giving herself over to him and coming again in record time. He didn’t count aloud this time, didn’t give her a chance to recover before he renewed his efforts and took her over the brink for number three.

  Three orgasms.

  Never in her life had she tumbled over back-to-back-to-back. His hands were resting on her breasts, and she pushed up on her elbows. The pleased smile on his face framed by her parted thighs wasn’t a picture she’d soon forget.

  “Don’t brag,” she huffed. “It’s ungentlemanly.”

  They both laughed at that one.

  He kissed the insides of each of her legs and then vanished from sight before returning again with a foil packet in his hand. He climbed over her body, every inch of him bare and beautiful. “I’d say you’re more than ready for this part, love. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  She did love when he called her “love.” She’d originally made the request to keep him from calling her “Chr
istina,” but “love” was working for Drew just fine, thank you very much.

  “You’re not wrong.” She tugged him to her and kissed him thoroughly, stroking his hard-as-steel member once, twice before moving her hand so he could roll the condom on.

  “Skirt off,” he commanded.

  She lifted her hips and allowed him to slide the layers of material from her legs. “Shoes, too?”

  “Never.”

  She smiled what was probably a big dopey smile, and he returned it with one of his own. Then he cocked his head to one side, his lips pursing like he might say something. Perhaps something like, “Drew Fleming, is that you?”

  Fear rattled through her like a roller coaster on an unstable track.

  You’re so close. Don’t give up now.

  “I need you.” She wrapped her ankles around his ass, crossed them and tugged. The moment his cock brushed against her, the blip of concern erased from his face like it’d never been there. He shifted, nestling closer as he kissed her thoroughly. In between the heady slide of his tongue on hers, he shifted his hips and slid home.

  She pulled her lips from his to yell, “Yes!” but her voice was no more than a strangled breath. A breath she lost when he slid out and then in again.

  He fit, filling her, surrounding her. His scent, the rough, satisfied sounds coming from his throat—the entire experience of Reid—was better than she’d imagined. A growl rumbled in his chest as she smoothed her hands over his firm pectorals.

  She’d never done this before—gone home with someone for one night. She never would’ve shared anything this intimate with someone she didn’t know. She didn’t know Reid that well, and yet there was something undeniably familiar about him.

  “Ready for another?” he murmured against her lips. Their sweat-slicked bodies were smooth and damp against each other.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” His smirk was too much.

  “Yes...sir?”

  “I was going for ‘please,’ but ‘sir’ will do.” He tucked his arm beneath her knee and propped her calf on his shoulder. He drove deep, and that was the angle that sent her tumbling over for a fourth time. Before she could revel in the miracle of Big O Number 4, Reid gave in to his own hard-earned release. A guttural growl preceded a triumphant shout of completion.

  She held on to him as the last of his orgasm shook his wide shoulders. He dropped his forehead to hers, panting out his release. When he let go of her leg, it drooped to the bed with the rest of her useless limbs. He gave her his weight, pressing her deeper into the bed, and resting his stubbled cheek on her shoulder. Satisfied and more than little sleepy, she tangled her fingers in his wavy hair.

  She’d tell him the truth in the morning. After they both came down from cloud nine, or heaven, or wherever that last orgasm had taken her.

  For now, she allowed her eyes to grow heavy. The radioactive hum in her body faded into a low buzz, and sleep’s tendrils wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She became aware of Reid kissing her breast, her collarbone, her cheek. Of the bed shifting as he stood and shuffled into the bathroom.

  The final words she recalled hearing were “Rest up, beautiful girl.”

  Seven

  Reid listened to Christina’s deep breaths in the dark, watched the rise and fall of the sheet he’d tucked her under, and smiled to himself. He’d been trying to fall asleep for a while. Four a.m. was an unholy hour to wake anyone. But as he brushed his fingers along her arm, the memory of touching her came crashing back, and parts of him refused to lie dormant.

  They’d only just met and oddly enough, she felt familiar. It’d been a while since he’d connected—truly connected—with another person in bed. Sex was about satisfying a physical need, and yes, connection had happened before...on a purely physical level. With Christina, there was more than his body responding to her body. It was as if...his very soul responded to hers.

  That was...that was...

  Well, it was insane was what it was.

  He blamed the hour, or maybe it was the lack of sleep. He couldn’t possibly have a “soul” connection with someone he’d just met. It could’ve been due to the amazing sexual experience that had eclipsed any other from his past. He couldn’t remember wanting anyone as badly as he’d wanted the woman lying next to him.

  Not that it would change anything. Flynn’s and Gage’s recent betrothals weren’t contagious. Reid had long beat the “I’m never marrying” drum, and now those drumbeats were more distant than ever. As much as turning over his heart as well as his bollocks scared him, thoughts of having a family sometimes intruded. Though that was definitely not in his best interest. Reid had lost his other half long ago, but still felt that loss as if it’d happened yesterday.

  Physical connection was something Reid sought out and needed desperately, and tonight, when a beautiful stranger approached him, he hadn’t had to think twice about throwing himself into an encounter with her. It was as simple as that. There was no sense in letting his past intrude in the present or in making this “connection” bigger than what it was:

  Pure undiluted sexual attraction.

  Christina hummed in her sleep and shifted, kicking the sheet off her body and baring her smooth back to him. She stuffed her hand beneath her pillow and revealed the side of her right breast and a splotch of color just behind it.

  Familiarity prickled him. He had the strangest sense of having seen it before...

  Then he realized he had.

  Reid’s brain skipped like a vinyl record. His eyes strained in the meager moonlight before he reached up to touch that spot, a distant memory warring with the present.

  He traced the shape of the birthmark: the shape of the continent of Australia, and if he turned on the bedside lamp, he’d bet he’d see that it was grape jelly in color.

  His body went cold as a flash of memory slapped itself onto the screen of his mind. Reid had gone at Gage’s parents’ house for a birthday party for his younger sister, Drew. She was turning eighteen, and Reid had brought a gift, though he had no memory of what it was now—and while he was flirting with the female bartender, Drew dropped her towel to reveal a black bikini. She’d scooped up her long blond—at the time—hair and tied it at the back of her head, clearly having embraced her curves enough to show them off at the privacy of her parents’ pool. She’d lost the baby face—the rounder cheeks that she’d had when he’d met her. Reid had noticed the birthmark peeking over the string securing the barely-there top before she’d leaped into the water and avoided him the rest of the party.

  He’d avoided her, as well.

  There was no room for attraction to Drew. She was too young. Reid wasn’t the boyfriend type. Plus, Gage’s younger sister deserved only the best life had to offer—forever and a big diamond ring had always been in her future. They had never been in his.

  Only now there was an attraction between them, wasn’t there? It may or may not have been there at that birthday party years ago, but it sure as hell had burned between them tonight.

  He snatched his hand away and scrambled out of bed, the mattress shaking as he did. Drew hummed once more but otherwise didn’t move a muscle.

  Hands fisted at his sides, he closed his eyes and prayed that when he opened them there’d be something in place of that splotch by her breast. An actual blob of grape jelly, or an illusion thanks to the shadows in the room.

  No such luck. It was there in living color.

  Drew Fleming was in his bed.

  He swiped his forehead, irritated and angry in equal measures. She’d slimmed down since her eighteenth birthday. Her waist was nipped, though her breasts were large and ripe and her hips substantial. He should know—he’d touched, licked or kissed every luscious part of her tonight.

  She was fit and strong, her hair no longer the blond with pink streaks he remembered but bold, sophisticated bro
wn. And Drew herself was different. Even in that bikini that summer, she’d walked with her shoulders curled, her hair hiding her face.

  It was the last time he’d seen her, so she hadn’t been on his mind. Why would she? Other than the occasional mention Gage made of her, he’d had no interaction with her. He’d had no way of knowing the woman he’d taken to bed was Drew, especially when she’d introduced herself as Christina.

  Reid’s left eye twitched as he became aware of how naked he was—of how naked she was. He’d had sex—great sex—with a woman he couldn’t easily disentangle himself from. It broke every rule he’d had for as long as he could remember.

  Not to mention Gage would draw and quarter him if he ever found out Reid bedded his little sister with zero intention of a relationship.

  Reid couldn’t return to his life and she to hers like this had never happened. He’d shagged his best friend’s sister while at a conference in California. He couldn’t justify or rationalize that he was a male with needs and had thought she was a beautiful stranger with those same needs. Not now that he knew the woman in his bed was fucking Drew Fleming.

  “Christ.”

  While Drew had undergone a radical physical transformation, Reid hadn’t. He looked virtually the same. Sure, he’d gained muscle and mass, dressed more professionally. His hair was shorter than he’d worn it then. But aside from the lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there in his twenties, he looked like himself. His hair hadn’t fallen out, his belly hadn’t grown fat and his accent hadn’t changed, which meant Drew had known exactly who he was when she’d flounced over to him at that mixer.

  He’d been so besotted by the beauty of the woman in gold, at the idea of charming her and getting her into his arms, that he’d overlooked that he bloody knew her.

  She’d taken advantage of his single-mindedness, blinding him to her true identity. She’d allowed him to seduce her, to kiss her, to go down on her, all while knowing he had no idea who she was.

  That not only made him feel completely daft, it pissed him off.