Inside Affair

by Ella Frank

  God, he felt amazing. Strong, powerful, and commanding. He was everything I needed and more, as I finally gave myself permission to really enjoy him.

  Sliding my fingers through his hair, I angled my mouth for a deeper connection, and when a low growl left Sean’s throat, my hips punched forward automatically.

  “Shit.” Sean tore his mouth free, his chest heaving against mine. He smoothed his hands down to my ass, and I knew exactly what he wanted.

  I rocked forward, grinding my erection up against his. When his eyes slammed shut and his head fell back, I ran my hands up his chest and did it again.

  “Fuck, that feels good.”

  It really did. Sean was hard all over, from his muscles to his cock, and as I continued to rub myself off on him, I was in real danger of never stopping. I slipped my hands underneath his shirt and began to inch it up. When I was just about halfway there, Sean’s eyes reopened.

  “You trying to get me naked, anchorman?”

  I was curious what he would do if I said yes. There was no way in hell I’d ever get naked out here on the terrace. Too many lights from surrounding buildings, and too many windows for people to see from. But then again, he didn’t have to get naked naked. Maybe just lose the shirt.

  I licked my lower lip and looked down at the strip of skin I had revealed, and my cock began to throb a little harder.

  “And if I said yes?”

  Sean flashed a crooked smile then drew his shirt up over his head and tossed it down by his feet. I drank in all the naked skin he’d just revealed, and though I’d seen him a handful of times without his shirt on, this was the first time I could truly take pleasure in what I was seeing.

  Wow, his body was so incredibly different from my own. Where I was tall and lean, and filled out my suits pretty nice, Sean had a rugged body, a rough-and-tumble, muscular body, with broad shoulders and built arms. He looked as though he could crash-tackle you to the ground after he’d chased you for miles. And suddenly all I could think about was how it would feel to be crash-tackled into bed.

  I rubbed a hand over my aching shaft, but when Sean’s hands went to the button of his cargo shorts, my brain quickly resurfaced.

  “Uh, I don’t think you should get naked out here. There’s lots of—”

  Sean laughed, and the sound was like stroking my very excited cock. “I’m not stripping.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that discovery or not. But when he flicked open the button of his shorts and said, “I’m just getting more…comfortable,” I took that as my cue to do the same.

  “Come here.” The order was given in that same authoritative tone Sean had used earlier, and then he reached for the hem of my shirt and drew me forward.

  I flattened my hands against his chest. His skin was warm to the touch, and when he shivered, I lowered my head and drew my tongue across his right pec.

  “Christ,” he whispered, and when I scraped my teeth along the path I’d just licked, he trembled again.

  Oh, I liked that. Somewhere, just beneath the surface, there was a vibrating tension that I couldn’t wait for Sean to unleash. But until then, I’d happily tease it to the forefront.

  I kissed my way up his neck, and then I reached down and rubbed the material covering his thick erection.

  “Ahh, Xander.”

  I nipped at his earlobe. “Want me to stop?”

  “Fuck no.”

  I chuckled and curled my fingers around him.

  A strained sound left his lips as he punched his hips into my hand. I raised my head to look him in the eye, and his fiery stare sent flames licking along my skin.

  That look was potent. It made me feel a little punch-drunk. “Tell me something you’ve noticed about me,” I said. “Tell me something new.”

  Sean shakily exhaled as I gave him another slow stroke. Then he licked along his lower lip and traced his fingers along my jaw line.

  “Your face. Jesus, Xander…it’s, like, blinding. I never realized how fucking stunning you are.”

  My entire body leaned in to his, the desire radiating from him calling to me in the most primal of ways. “And now that you’ve noticed?”

  Sean took my chin in hand and cocked his head to the side. “Now that I’ve noticed, you’re all I see.”

  38

  Sean

  WASN’T THAT THE damn truth?

  Ever since my brain and body had locked on to Xander and really seen him, I’d found it impossible to see anything else. Not how it used to be, not how it might be—I was in the here and now, and the one thing I knew with absolute certainty was that the man currently massaging my cock was the sexiest person I’d ever seen in my life.

  “I want you,” I said, and it felt good to finally say it out loud. “I’ve had dreams where I’ve already been with you.”

  “What?” Xander’s hand froze.

  “Shocked?”

  “Intrigued…”

  I leaned down and said against his lips, “In my dream, though, your hand was inside my pants.”

  A wicked grin curved Xander’s mouth as he let go and fingered my open shorts.

  “Is that an invitation?”

  I thrust my hips against him, making it clear that it was. Then I crushed my mouth down onto his, needing to taste him more than my next breath.

  The instant our lips met, my body moved into action. I shoved off the rail and walked him back across the terrace, and as his back came up against the brick wall, Xander slipped his fingers behind the elastic of my boxers and finally curved his hand around my cock.

  “Oh fuck yes,” I said as I tore my mouth free.

  “Of course you had to have a big cock.” He smirked as he tightened his fist and drew it up my length, and the pleasure was so intense my toes curled and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Do you like it slow and hard, like this? Or quick pulls?”

  I braced a hand on the bricks by his head, and once I was steady, I opened my eyes.

  “Slow and hard?” Xander asked again. “Or fast and quick?”

  I licked my lips, my dick pounding in his hand begging for some kind of release. “Any way you fucking want. Just don’t stop.”

  Xander nipped at my lower lip then gave me a nice, solid tug and shoved his tongue deep inside my mouth. I groaned and jacked my hips forward, driving my shaft through his viselike grip. When he twisted his hand around the head of my cock, I grabbed his arm and slammed my body into his.

  With every pump of my hips, Xander’s hand moved faster and my breathing became more labored. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d experienced pleasure this powerful. When he pulled his mouth free and kissed his way along my shoulder to the crook of my neck, I crowded in against him and began thrusting my hips as though I was deep inside him. A place I hadn’t realized, until now, that I was dying to be.

  “Xander…” I said, knowing I was really close to losing my shit. When he raised his head to respond, every single light in the near vicinity went out, and the world around us plunged into darkness.

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s the heat…” Xander whispered across my lips, then he brushed his thumb over the swollen head of my cock, making my legs shake. “It’s so hot that the grid short-circuited.”

  Oh fuck, if ever there’d been a more apt metaphor, I couldn’t think of it.

  I propelled my hips forward, grinding against the hand working me, and as my climax threatened, I burrowed my face into his neck. His scent—that same shampoo from the day before—flooded my senses, and as I kissed and sucked the warm skin, my hips picked up pace until I was fucking his hand.

  I could hear his heavy breathing as he rubbed his hard cock on my thigh, and as the rush of pure ecstasy crashed down over us, everything in our bodies tensed.

  “Xander—”

  “Sean…”

  My vision went blurry as blinding pleasure racked my body, and as we came right there on Xander’s terrace, I knew I’d never forget what
it was called again.

  As I drifted back down from such an incredible high, I raised my head to see how Xander was feeling. But it was difficult to make out his expression in the dark.

  He didn’t make me wait long, however. He pulled his hand free of my shorts and said, “Want to know what I’ve noticed about you most recently?”

  “What’s that?”

  Xander ran a finger down the center of my chest, then he whispered against my lips, “Just how sexy you are when you come. Who knew, Detective Dick? Who knew?”

  39

  Xander

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I brushed my fingers over the small purple bruise on my neck and thought back to the moment when Sean had given it to me. It’d been sometime before sunrise, the night had still been surrounding us where we lay on the couch in the great room, and I’d woken to his lips making their way up the side of my neck…

  Damn. The memory was as delicious as the act itself. I smoothed my hand down over my chest to my heart and was more than aware it was now pounding a little harder.

  I’d just spent the day making out with Sean. And as if he’d known I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around that fact, he’d left proof of his presence in the most basic of ways.

  I had no idea what was going on between us, and I’d stopped trying to guess. But somewhere during this nightmare of a situation, Sean had become my anchor. He’d become my port in the storm, and in some weird twist of fate, it appeared I had somehow become his.

  My life was all upside down, and the only thing that made any kind of sense was the man I’d left out in my living room.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “You okay in there?”

  Okay, scratch that. The man who was now standing outside my bathroom door.

  My lips curved, and all I could think was: when the hell did Sean become my reason to smile these days?

  I pulled open the door to find Sean, barefoot and bare-chested, with a hand braced on the frame. Holy hell, with the way he filled out those sweats, it wasn’t difficult to see why I’d given in and agreed to explore what we were feeling.

  “Hello. Did you want something?” I asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe, huh?” I trailed a hand down his ribs to the edge of his pants, and when he let go of the door to take hold of my wrist, I grinned. “Never took you for a liar.”

  Sean turned me so my back was up against the bathroom door and pinned my arm up against the wood. “I’m not lying. I do want something.” He kissed his way up my jaw to my ear and whispered, “Your company. But that’s not quite the way I was going to put it.”

  I turned my head, and our noses grazed. “Then how would you put it?”

  “I missed you.”

  My stomach flipped, and when Sean’s mouth found mine, I melted into his embrace. As I wound my arms around his neck, he deepened the kiss until a soft moan left me.

  God, I couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

  “Are you sure we have to go tonight?” Sean said after he pulled his mouth free.

  “Ah, okay. I understand now.”

  “You understand what?”

  “That you came in here to try distract me with your body, so I’d forget about the awards tonight.”

  “I mean, I wish I’d thought of that,” he said. “But there’s only one reason I came in here, and that’s because I woke up and you were gone.”

  I stared at his earnest expression then shook my head and sighed. “When did you learn to say all the right things?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Trust me.” I took his hands in mine. “You did.”

  Sean gave me a half-smile and took a step back to lean against the wall. “I’m still not getting out of this thing, am I?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, I suppose a date is kind of customary. I did let you get to second base, after all.”

  My mouth fell open. “Let me? I don’t think so. And I already took you on a date. The steakhouse, remember?”

  “Um, I paid, anchorman. So don’t even try get off the hook.”

  Shit, he was right. He did pay for that meal, and it was hardly a date anyway. I’d still been trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was attracted to him, and had been self-conscious all night—then there was the hit-and-run.

  It was hard to believe that had only been a few days ago when it felt like so much had changed. Well, when it came to Sean and me, that was.

  “Okay, you’re right. I guess I owe you a date, since I’ve all but stolen your virtue.”

  Sean trailed his eyes down my naked chest to my navy lounge pants. “Yeah, about that. You planning to actually let us do that at some point?”

  Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he meant that the way I was taking it. But judging from his heated look, I was starting to believe that Sean always dove in headfirst—hard and fast.

  When I finally regained function of my brain, I said, “I think we should probably work up to it.”

  “The stealing of virtues? Or mine in particular?”

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek to hold back my groan. Was he serious right now? “Would you stop saying it like that.”

  “Why? Do you not have any virtue left to steal?”

  “Oh my God.” I rubbed my face, and when Sean started to laugh, I glared at him, and he laughed even harder.

  “I’m just fucking with you—or in this case, not yet.”

  Oh great, now he was coming up with the sex jokes.

  “But you still owe me a date.”

  Deciding to ignore his “joke,” I pushed right on. “Fair enough. How about I take you to an awards dinner?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do.”

  “Good. Now, I’m going to grab a quick shower.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  I shook my head. “Definitely not. You’re going to go and have one in your room. I need to get ready, and that takes time.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t take that much time. You’re pretty fucking perfect to begin with.”

  There he went again, saying all the right things. “Go.”

  Sean smirked as he backed out of the bathroom, his eyes trailing down to the erection I had no hope of controlling.

  “You sure? I could help wash your…back.”

  My lips twitched, but I held on to my resolve and pointed to the door. “Get out.”

  Sean finally turned and strolled out of the en suite, and I found myself smiling again, all because of Sean Bailey.

  I FINISHED KNOTTING my tie and took a final look at myself in the mirror, wondering how Sean was doing in the room next to mine. I hadn’t heard a peep from him since he’d left me to shower, but as I did a final once-over and straightened the black bow tie, I had to admit I was eager to see how he had scrubbed up.

  I picked up my phone and wallet, slipped them into my pockets, and made my way across the room, and when I opened the door, I stopped in my tracks.

  Standing just outside his bedroom dressed in a perfectly fitted black tuxedo, Sean lounged casually against the doorframe with his legs crossed at the ankles, frowning at the cuff link he was trying to secure. His bow tie was hanging loose around his neck. When he heard me step out of the room and raised his head, my entire world came to a grinding halt.

  Sean was absolutely breathtaking, handsome in the most classic of ways. As he pushed off the frame and straightened to his full height, I had to remind myself to breathe.

  When I didn’t immediately speak, he glanced down his body and then back to me.

  “I look ridiculous, right?”

  I licked my suddenly dry lips and took a step forward. “That’s the last thing you look.”

  A smile slowly stretched his lips, and he went from handsome to devastating in a heartbeat.

  “Do you need some help?” I gestured to the cuff links he held. He opened his palm, and I took them from
him.

  I slipped the first one through its holes and fastened it, and Sean stood there silent and steady. Once the second one was in place, I raised my eyes to his. His look made my heart long for things that neither of us were ready for.

  Then he traced a thumb over my lips and said, “Blinding…I know I said it before but damn, Xander. You step into view and there’s nothing but you.”

  40

  Sean

  MY HAND SHOOK as I stared into Xander’s beautiful eyes, and all I could think was: I never want him to stop looking at me the way he is right now.

  “Thank you,” he whispered as color bloomed on his cheeks, but it did nothing to detract from the elegant picture he made in a tuxedo that looked as though someone had sewn it onto him.

  His bow tie was perfect, his suit jacket buttoned at the center, and his cuffs—unlike mine—were neat and fastened. He looked as at home in this outfit as he did in his shorts and shirt, and I’d never seen him look so stunning in all my life.

  He touched the ends of the tie hanging around my neck and smiled.

  “What?”

  Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Xander said, “Huh?”

  “You were smiling. Why?”

  Xander laughed softly and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s obviously something.”

  “Right. I was just thinking how instead of wanting to strangle you with this, I want to pull you to me and kiss the hell out of you instead.”

  “I wouldn’t object.”

  “Hmm.” His eyes fell to my lips. “I wouldn’t either. But we need to leave if we’re going to get there on time.”

  He began to tie the material, quickly and precisely, and once he was done, I buttoned my jacket over my holstered gun. “Ready?”

  A frown appeared before Xander could shake it, and just as I was about to say something about it, he said, “Ready.”