And then, despite the fake blue of her contacts, she met his gaze with a look so real, so full of wonderment as she gave in to the friction, her body tightening under his, clenching his cock. She was fucking beautiful, his KJ, and he tried to hold out, to still the rock of his hips, to let her have this moment all to herself, but then her orgasm hit full force, and the sound of his name on her lips as she came pulled him into the vortex with her, leaving him helpless to do anything but follow her into oblivion.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THERE WERE FEW things better than lying in bed next to a naked, drowsy woman.
“I don’t even know what you do for a living. That’s kind of weird, right?”
Check that. A naked, curious woman.
But her question made him pause.
It reminded him that despite knowing each other for so long, they were virtual strangers. In a lot of ways, he didn’t know her at all, and that was a bit disconcerting.
“I invest in good ideas.”
“Sorry, what?”
“People in the tech industry come to me when they have big ideas and no seed money. I help them fund their projects.”
She pushed up on an elbow so she could look down at him. “You’re an angel investor?”
“That so hard to believe?”
She glanced pointedly at him, and he watched her expressive eyes—God, he hated those fucking contacts—as she took stock of him.
“Let’s see...rock-star hair, hard-muscled body, and a devilishly wicked grin.” She shook her head. “You don’t look much like any investor I’ve ever seen. And the angel part seems highly unlikely,” she teased, leaning over for a slow, deep kiss.
He’d barely recovered from his earlier orgasm, and still the taste of her lips and cleverness of her tongue stoked the need in his belly.
He shifted on the mattress, hooking a hand beneath his head to stare at her. Sated from good sex and with a gorgeous woman stoking his ego, he grinned with pure male satisfaction. “I consider both of those compliments.”
Her lips curved in a smile that made him want to kiss her again. “That’s how I meant them.” Kaylee traced a finger along his chest. “So how did you get into that?”
“I like watching people innovate.”
She nodded, and her dark hair whispered across the sensitized skin of his chest. “Because of your dad?”
“Yeah, I guess so. He was never happier than when he was building something, whether it was a computer or a string of code. That statue downstairs? The horses with the flaming manes? He built his own 3-D printer and made that out of a drawing I did in high school.”
“That’s amazing. Max always spoke very highly of your dad.”
Aidan nodded. Max and John Beckett had always shared a connection. They both loved to take things apart, figure out how they worked. Aidan had learned a long time ago that it didn’t much matter how things worked, as long as they did. He’d stopped looking too closely at things after his mother’s diagnosis. Knowing the particulars didn’t change the outcome.
“Yeah. He was a good guy, my dad.” Aidan ignored the guilt that accompanied thoughts of his father. Especially here, where his legacy loomed large. He forced his muscles to relax when Kaylee shot him a questioning glance. “Mostly,” he added. That made his earlier statement less of a lie, he decided. Five years after his father’s death and covering for the man was still like breathing to Aidan.
“Hey, you okay?”
The concern on her face humbled him. Apparently, he’d lost some of his skills at hiding his true feelings. “I’m good. It’s my first time back here since he died. I thought the renos would make it feel different. But my old man’s still here.”
Kaylee glanced around the room. “What is this place?”
“It was my dad’s first workshop. It was just a garage back then. Full of ripped-apart computers. He used to let me come hang out here when I was little. Before my mom got sick.”
She angled her head on his shoulder so she could look at him, ran her palm soothingly along the planes of his chest.
He skated his fingers down the length of her arm, pulling her closer.
“After she got sick, this is where he came to drink.”
Her hand stilled. “What was she like?”
Shit.
Things were too fucking deep for this soon after an orgasm.
“She was a cardiothoracic surgeon.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Pretty cool job. But it meant she wasn’t home much. My dad and I spent a lot of time together. And I guess things were relatively normal. Until she was diagnosed when I was twelve. She was dead before my thirteenth birthday. By the time I turned fourteen, my father was a full-blown alcoholic. He’d pretty much given up on everything by then.”
Aidan shoved down the bitterness that still surfaced whenever he remembered taking care of his father as though they’d undergone some sort of role reversal during their grief.
“My mom’s dying wish was that no matter what, I got the best education, and she made me and my dad promise the money she left us would fund my education. And he did his best to make that happen, enrolled me in the fanciest school he could find.”
And still, here he was, naked and spilling his guts.
She smiled at that, and Aidan was glad he was masking the underlying anger in the memory. Finding out that, between booze and gambling, his dad had blown through a lot of the education fund his mother had set up for him.
“I didn’t bring anyone here, because my dad was hitting the bottle pretty hard back then. But Max wanted to see the place, so we snuck in once when I thought my dad was at work, and he and your brother really hit it off, geeking out on tech stuff. After that we came here a lot.”
“You didn’t geek out with them?”
“I didn’t feel left out, if that’s what you mean. Truth was, I liked the time we spent at your place better. I thought Max had it all. Fancy house, two parents, annoying little sister.”
She gave him a playful swat.
“Enough money that he didn’t have to worry about anything. I wanted what he had. I wanted to be like him. Your dad was this formidable guy who seemed so in charge of everything. I admired that.”
“Yeah, well. Appearances can be deceiving.”
He ran his fingers along the back of the hand she’d splayed on his chest, tracing the delicate ridge of her knuckles.
“They can. And I learned that lesson well enough. But at the time, my father was in a downward spiral. He lost his job because of the drinking and the gambling. Between that and the medical bills, we didn’t have as much money left over as he’d hoped. I did my best to take care of him. And then your dad gave him a job. We used what was left of my mom’s money to send him to rehab, and he managed to help me pay for college. He really got his life together. For a while, things were good.”
She’d still been away at university at the time, but she knew about the accident that had ended his father’s life, of course. “And then they weren’t.”
He nodded at the assessment, appreciating her tact. “I wish I’d...been around more. There are a lot of things I wish I’d told him.”
“I’m sure he knew,” she assured him, obviously assuming he meant heartwarming things, like how much he loved and respected John Beckett. Aidan didn’t bother to correct her. He preferred to keep his anger and resentment toward his father, toward the choices he’d made, buried as deeply as possible.
“I wish I could have met him.”
God, she was sweet. “He would have liked you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I like you.”
The compliment earned him a lazy kiss that didn’t last nearly long enough.
“Anyway, long story short I fixed this place up after he died, turned it into a living space so I’d have a p
lace to stay when I’m in town.”
“But you’re not in town much anymore?” she asked, and he didn’t like where the question was taking them. Because this was leading into a question about Max. And him. And he didn’t want to fuck up this thing he and Kaylee had going by getting into nitty-gritty details. Time for a subject change.
He picked up her hand, kissed her fingers.
“Your turn to spill. Last time I saw you, you were a ballerina. What changed?”
Kaylee shook her head. “I was never a ballerina, much to Sylvia’s dismay. But when I was in college, a group of friends dragged me to this burlesque workshop one weekend and I was enamored.”
There was a spark in her when she talked about it, Aidan noticed, still tracing a finger across her knuckles.
“It makes me feel in control of things. I pick the music, I pick the costume. It’s a way to be creative and a way to direct people’s attention however I want to. I can seduce them, tease them.”
“Sounds a lot like PR.”
She laughed at the observation. “I never really thought of it like that, but I guess it is.” She shrugged, propping her head up with her hand, and stared down at him. “It makes me feel sexy. I like having secrets. I always have. Knowing I’m doing something I shouldn’t be, something my mother would disapprove of, is a turn-on.”
An angel trying her hand at rebellion. It kind of worked for her. It definitely worked for him.
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded.
“Well, I know for a fact that your mom would hate it if you kissed me right now.”
Something sultry sparked at the implied dare, and she leaned down and pressed her mouth to his. Her nipples were tight beads when they pressed into his chest, and his body reacted to the stimulus with gut-clenching speed.
“And she’d really hate it if you put your hands on me.”
Her smile was dangerous to his equilibrium. “You think?”
Aidan nodded, stifling a groan as she tugged her fingers free of his and slid them across his chest. She teased his nipple before retreating so she could trace his sternum, down to his abs, lower, until they flirted with the Egyptian cotton that bisected his hips and did little to hide the effect she was having on him.
“What would she think if I did this?” she asked, shoving her hand under the sheet and palming the growing length of him. Her fingers were driving him crazy, and Aidan squeezed his eyes shut at the pleasure.
“Stern disapproval,” he ground out, even as she circled her thumb over the head of his cock. “No doubt about it.” God, he was desperate for her again. Just like that.
“Well, if she’s going to disapprove anyway, we might as well give her something to disapprove of,” she purred as she slid down his body, and Aidan half swore, half laughed as she bypassed further teasing and swallowed him deep.
It was soul destroying to have her mouth on him like this and the pain-edged pleasure of it built fast and hard. She alternated between licking and sucking until sensation turned sharp, undeniable, and he couldn’t keep his hips still.
“Jesus, Kaylee.” He reached down. Fisted his hand in her hair. To what end, he didn’t know. “You’re gonna make me come.”
She obviously took his words as a challenge, and Aidan groaned as she massaged his balls and sped the bob of her head.
“I can’t... You need to stop or I...”
He fucking lost it under the onslaught, his hips jerking as his climax pounded through him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KAYLEE STRETCHED LANGUOROUSLY, a slight smile curving her lips as the scent of coffee and the sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen woke her from sleep.
Someone wickedly sexy who’d kept her up all night driving her body to the edge of pleasure and beyond.
It had been the most incredible sex of her life, and she allowed herself a moment to savor her sore muscles and the erotic memories of the man who’d made them that way before she finally pushed off the covers and swung her legs over the side of Aidan’s bed.
Cool air rushed across her bare skin. The bag containing the change of clothes she always took with her to the club was downstairs, abandoned at some point between the thrilling motorcycle ride that had brought her here and the halcyon glow of lust and need that had blurred last night into this morning.
Her corset and pasties and the underwear he’d ripped off her—her stomach clenched at the delicious memory—were downstairs, too.
Left with no other option, Kaylee grabbed the gray T-shirt draped over the arm of the chair in the corner of the room and pulled it over her head. It smelled like Aidan, and she inhaled deeply as she padded across the floor. In the upstairs bathroom, she took a moment to smooth her sleep-tousled hair and remove her disposable colored contacts before staring at herself in the mirror.
Some tiny part of her, the part that had written Kaylee Beckett in various notebooks, was expecting to see a different person in the reflection. But she was still her, Kaylee Jayne Whitfield. Perhaps her smile held a sensual smugness now, but overall, nothing had changed, and she was relieved to see it. Because that meant there was nothing magical about what had happened last night. That girlish dreams and womanly desires could collide in several earth-shaking orgasms without requiring overanalyzing or second-guessing.
She’d had a sexy secret liaison with a wild, handsome man, and now life could go back to normal.
Kaylee headed back into the bedroom and caught sight of the clock next to the bed. She was due at the country club for her weekly brunch with her mother in an hour and a half, and she still had to get back to her car and then home to change. Apparently life would be going back to normal more quickly than she’d hoped.
She hurried down the metal stairs.
Clad in nothing but low-slung jeans, Aidan Beckett was a sight to behold. Add the fact that he was holding a mug of coffee in her direction, and she’d never seen a more perfect sight in her life. Kaylee accepted it gratefully, indulging in a sip of caffeinated heaven. She couldn’t help a little moan of contentment.
“This coffee is everything.”
“You think that’s good, you should try my world-famous omelet. You want one egg or two?”
Kaylee shook her head, taking a gulp of incredible java before setting her mug on the counter. “None. I can’t stay.” She stole a raspberry from the bowl to his right and popped it in her mouth.
Her answer made him frown. “What’s the rush?” He grabbed her hand and tugged her between his body and the edge of the counter, pinning her there with his hips.
“I have to go change before I meet my mother for brunch,” Kaylee told him, but despite her words, her hands migrated up his bare chest to twine around his neck. Her fingers toyed with the ends of his hair.
“Why? You look great.”
Kaylee glanced down at herself and laughed. Her mother would go apoplectic if she showed up at the club wearing anything as plebeian as a T-shirt, let alone just a T-shirt. “Sylvia Whitfield, though she has not yet seen me, disagrees vehemently with your assessment.”
“I love it when you use big words.” He grabbed her hips and hoisted her up onto the granite countertop, stepping between her legs.
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded, running his hands up her torso. “Apparently women with extensive vocabularies really turn me on.”
Kaylee gave a playful moue, injecting a little Marilyn Monroe into her voice. “Dodecahedron.”
Aidan shot her that sexy smirk of his, lifting his eyebrows. “Mmm. That’s the stuff,” he teased, leaning forward and burying his face in her neck. Her head lolled back, granting him unfettered access, and her exhalation was shaky as he dragged his lips along the underside of her jaw.
“Sesquipedalian,” she whispered.
“Yes, baby. Just like that.”
She wanted to laug
h, but the hot swipe of his tongue over her thudding pulse undid her, and despite the ticking clock of her looming brunch, Kaylee’s arms tightened around his neck, pulling him closer.
“Antidisestablishmentarianism.”
Aidan groaned as he finally gave her his mouth, and she sighed at the perfection of the endless, drugging kiss. Soft but with an edge of desperation, one that begged her to stay and see what happened next.
It took everything Kaylee had to pull back. “Hold that thought, for now I must embark on my peregrination.” She planted a final kiss on his lips, one that lasted several beats longer than she meant it to, and hopped down from the counter.
“Mean,” he chastised, and Kaylee giggled when Aidan’s big palm landed on her ass with a loud smack.
How he could be so sexy and so fun at the same time was a mystery to her. She realized suddenly that he’d always been a bright spot in her life. Max never teased her or commiserated with her. Her mother made the things she loved, like dance and music, feel like a heavily regimented burden. Her father casually doled out scraps of attention between bouts of ignoring her completely.
But Aidan had always made time for a quick greeting to let her know she wasn’t invisible. Whether it was a teasing wink, a sympathizing eye roll, or a story to distract her, he always seemed to know just how bring a smile to her face. It was one of the reasons she’d looked forward to his visits, hormones aside.
“Hey, you want backup?”
The softly worded offer snapped Kaylee’s spine straight, and she turned to find him leaning a hip against the counter, his arms crossed over his beautiful bronze chest. She searched his face for some sign that he was still kidding around.
His gaze was steady. Scrupulous. Serious.
Something quaked through her body, but unlike a few moments earlier, this wasn’t lust; it was fear. She tried to imagine her and Aidan arriving at the country club on his bike. Him sitting across from her mother in his jeans and T-shirt, looking defiant and bored and so sexy it made it hard to breathe.
Secret Pleasure Page 9
