FOURTEEN
RAIN PASSED OUT an hour later, practically midconversation. Theresa extricated herself from the warm, sweet-smelling girl sprawled across her body and snuck past the sleeping corgis. Out the door she went, taking the elevator down a floor and padding to her room. Rain was appeased for the time being, and any other disasters Theresa could and would handle to try to give her friend some much-deserved peace.
That is, if Alex let her help.
Wanker.
She had some busywork she had to catch up on—emails, wrapping Rain’s wedding present, texting one of her editors—but afterward, she planned to tour the hotel with her camera and capture some nice shots for the wedding album. Busy hands would keep her from stewing too long about Alex, their tryst, and his ultimate rejection.
She sat down at her desk, laptop open before her, her hair in a sloppy bun on top of her head and held in place by a plastic clip. She wore a baby blue tank top that didn’t quite contain her white bra straps and a pair of navy blue cotton pants that weren’t sweatpants, but they weren’t not-sweatpants, either. They were some hellbeast amalgam therein, completely unfashionable, and yet so comfortable she’d wear them around The Seaside anyway, to hell with the fashion police. When a knock on the door sounded, she pushed herself up from her desk chair and paused by her purse to grab a few bucks so she could thank housekeeping for their efforts but ultimately decline turndown service.
She pulled open the door only to offer her stack of bills to a bouquet as wide as the doorway. Lilies. Roses. Irises. There was baby’s breath and carnations and tulips and sprays of ferns for decorative greenery. It was a thing of beauty, and she stared at it in awe awhile before her brain computed that there was a person behind said flora and that person was also as wide as the door.
Her bewildered smile turned to a frown.
“I’m sorry,” he said from behind a hyacinth.
She said nothing as she swiveled away from him, not inviting him in, but not disinviting him, either. His foot shot out to catch the door before it closed so he could follow her inside, putting the enormous bouquet down on a bureau. He fluffed the flowers, patting at the sides a few times before stepping back and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his khakis.
“I didn’t mean to imply I didn’t want you with me earlier,” he said quietly. “It came out all wrong. It often does with me. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t want to hear his apology any more than she’d wanted to hear the one before that. “I suppose we can just assume you’ll be apologizing to me at least once a day until the wedding’s over? At what point do you mean it?” she shot back. “There’s diminishing returns, you know. The first one’s the most genuine and it all goes downhill after that. I learned that when my ex-fiancé apologized for his first affair, then his second, and then his third. I’m not so keen on them anymore.”
Alex looked at his feet. “Well, your ex-fiancé was a fool, but with all due respect, I’m not him. You . . . around you. I get . . .” He sucked in a breath and shrugged, a faint flush staining his cheeks when he lifted his eyes to look at her from beneath his brows. “I’ll keep my distance. I’m sure we can get through the next few days without squabbling. I hope, anyway. For Rain and my brother’s sakes. I am sorry, Theresa.”
“Yes. Fine. Do that. Stay away from me. Thanks for the flowers but I don’t want them.” She was so very angry with him, in part because he’d rejected her after they slept together, and in part because she honestly thought the bastard meant the apology and she wanted to accept it. The question was, at what point was she excusing inexcusable behavior because she wanted to believe the best, not because he was actually decent?
Scott taught me this, didn’t he?
My attraction to Alex is scrambling my brain.
“I’ll go,” he said quietly, turning on his heel.
“No!” She snarled it as she grabbed the vase of flowers and shoved them at him. “I don’t want these and I don’t want you. There, are you happy? Your conscience is clear. I don’t want you just as much as you don’t want me. Now you don’t have to feel guilty. About fucking me in the first place or anything that happened afterward. We’re mutually resolved to be done with each other. Go away, stay away.”
He took the flowers because he had to, but the furrows in his brow appeared. “Wait a minute . . .”
She stared at him, he stared back. He scowled at her between two tulips, but he must have realized how ridiculous that looked, because he put the flowers aside, back onto the bureau. She was half tempted to grab them and shove them at him again and insist he leave, but she contained herself, balling her fists by her sides and lifting her chin.
“What?” she demanded.
“I don’t . . . please,” he said. “The sex complicates things because of my faith, I’ll admit, but that’s not why I’m this way around you. You’re smart, funny. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He shook his head, frustrated. “The problem is how much I want you, not that I don’t want you at all.”
“You want me so much you keep rejecting me?”
Her decibel level was far, far too loud for the enclosed space, her voice bouncing off the walls and the refined clutter surrounding her. Alex winced, and she stepped in close, jabbing her finger into his chest so he winced a second time. “That’s nice, but your guilt was the reason you gave me first, at the hotel, and it’s left me feeling like a walking, talking mistake ever since. I’m going to draw certain conclusions when you proceed to disinvite me to plans we had.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a disinvite, and you’re not a mistake,” he said quietly, reaching for her wrist and squeezing it gently, probably so she wouldn’t bore a hole through his rib cage with her poking.
“You treat me like one, though. You treat me like—”
“You’re not a mistake.” His voice was louder this time, rising to meet hers. “Stop saying it.”
“Then stop treating me like one!”
“Fine.”
She didn’t have time to escape. He hauled her close, his arm looping around her waist, fingers skimming over the elastic band of her terribly ugly pants before his mouth found hers. She growled at him, but when his free hand went up into her hair, plunging into the silky nest and cradling the back of her skull, she knew on some level it was all over, just like it had been over on the desk in Lake Charles. She gasped into his kiss, and he took advantage of that brief parting of her lips, his tongue sliding in to sweep over hers, not sweet and gentle, but fierce and possessive and carnal. Her body tingled, pleasure rippling down her spine as he twirled her around and shoved her against the wall, his hand still on the back of her head so he could protect her from the impact.
She gripped his biceps, her fingernails biting into the thin fabric of his polo shirt. He lewdly squeezed her ass, groping the springy flesh beneath the thin cotton. There was a quick, hard spank that made her squeak before he reached for her wrists again, grabbing them and wrenching them up, above her head. He held her pinned to the wall as he kissed her, pressing that big, hot, warm body into hers until there was no space between them at all. He rolled his hips at her, once, twice, thrice, humping her, their clothing an irritating divide between his skin and hers.
“I want you,” he said, tearing his mouth away. “All day.” He shoved against her again. “All night. I want you. I. Want. You.”
He followed the proclamation with a bite to the side of her neck. It was hard enough she flinched, but the ensuing lewd suck turned that momentary pain into lasting pleasure. Still he ground against her, and she shuddered before him, straining against his grip and enjoying that he didn’t let go, that he kept her still, in his thrall.
Dear God. Is this what I wanted all along?
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Alex stopped sucking on her throat and lifted his head. His eyes were big, intent. He still wore a flush, but it wasn’t the shame of before, but heat. His nose touched hers, nudging. Teasing. “Say yes,” he rasped.
Was it that simple? Say yes to him again? Start it all over and hope for no shame spiral this time?
I guess so.
I’m either stupid or an optimist.
“Yes,” she warbled, breathy and hot all over. He groaned and kissed her again, gathering her wrists together, her two hands clasped by his one. Now free to roam her body, his fingers glided down her bare arm and over the curve of her breast. He paused there, cupping her through her shirt before pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. It was the perfect touch—not too hard, not too soft—and her gaze locked on his. He smiled at her, a feral thing of too much teeth, as his hand abandoned her chest to wander down, over the softness of her stomach and to her cotton pants.
One tug. Two. He grabbed pants and panties together and forced them down over her hips, right side first, then left. Gravity sent them plummeting to her knees, and he lifted his foot to step on the crotch of the panties, forcing both articles of clothing the rest of the way to the floor. She wriggled free and he kicked everything aside, exposing her from the waist down, her bare ass pressed to the cold wall.
And I couldn’t be happier about it.
Fuck, I want him.
He dipped his head to kiss her again, sucking on her bottom lip before delivering a thorough mouth-fucking that left her burning. She was practically purring by the time he reached for the meat of her thigh to hike up her leg. She had to shift her balance, but she wasn’t afraid of falling. No, he was there, holding her up with all that broad muscle, and when he positioned his knee beneath her leg, she knew enough to wrap it around him, clinging in the only way he’d let her because he still held her wrists above her head.
He touched her, his palm cupping her cunt and squeezing. Discovering her pooling wetness, he stopped kissing her to suck in an appreciative breath. She was so ready so fast, because as much as she wanted to punch Alex DuMont, she wanted to fuck him, too, her body responding to him on every level. He dropped his face into her neck, breathing her in as his fingers spread her open, exposing her innermost heat to the coolness of the air-conditioned room. She sagged against the wall, letting him hold her upright as his fingers danced, finding first her sodden recess and then moving up, toward her clit. He wiggled between her lips to flick at the sensitive nub, milking her for a sigh as he pressed his pointer finger and middle finger against her hood and rubbed, back and forth, slowly. Steadily.
“Like this?” he whispered.
“Yes, yes. But harder. Harder,” she said, and so he pushed, increasing the pressure on that bundle of nerves. He didn’t go faster, though, instead giving her the opportunity to build. And build. And build. Her body was singing as he forced her pleasure to mount with slow insistence. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she breathed faster, her heart pounding heavy. He lifted his lips to her ear, snagging her lobe between his teeth and nibbling before giving it a suck.
“I’m going to fuck you,” he said, his voice low and quiet with that hint of Texas. “But not until you ask me to. I want you, Theresa.”
“Say it again?” she asked.
“I want you.”
It was filthy and wonderful and everything she’d hold dear later, when he started questioning what they’d done. She moaned his name, and he shifted his grip on her, his thumb pressing to her clit, two of his fingers slithering to her hole. They circled it. Teased it. He took his damned time slipping inside her; he had thick fingers, and he stretched her with the penetration, her slickness allowing him to nestle right in, deep, to the second knuckle. Her body bowed against the wall, but he maintained his hold on her wrists as he slowly rocked in and out of her. She felt deliciously full, moaning as he finger-fucked her, and cooing aloud when he raked over the sensitive patch along the top of her tunnel.
“I want . . . now,” she rasped.
“You want what, beautiful?”
His voice was as thick as hers, and she gritted her teeth, eager for more of him. All of him. She knew his cock, had felt it before, that hot girth so deep in her guts and raking her walls. Alex DuMont fit her perfectly. He fit her absolutely, and she was certain in that moment, pinned against the wall before him, his fingers sloppily thrusting in and out of her cunt with wet smacks, she’d die if she didn’t have him again.
“You. Fuck me. I want you. Please. Please.”