Chapter Forty-Three

Carrie

Reid’s lips part mine, and we’re now lying in the sand, our bodies aligned, his leg hooked over one of mine. “How, Carrie?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“You’re obsessed with me?” he asks, caressing my cheek.

“Depends on how you define obsessed.”

“I can’t wake up and not think of you. I can’t go to bed and not think of you. I wanted to tell you about my settlement. You’re in my head, Carrie. I don’t even want to get you out anymore.”

“You couldn’t if you wanted to,” I tease, but there is a twist in my gut as I add, “Because we have Grayson to close and a board to satisfy.” I hate this convenient side of our relationship when that should be exactly what I revel in. It represents the freedom to live in the moment, to avoid emotional investment, and yet, I haven’t. It’s too late for that kind of thinking. I’m invested in all ways with Reid, and I roll to my back before he reads that in me.

Or I try to, but he doesn’t allow my escape.

He rolls with me, his leg still between mine, those blue eyes are staring down at me. “What just happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“You think this is all about the company. That we’re here and now and gone when this is over.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s not about any of those things,” he says. “I told you, Carrie. I don’t want to share you. I’m obsessed with you and it’s not the kind of obsession that goes away. You’re with me now. I’m with you now. Say it.”

“Reid—”

He kisses me, a silky caress of his tongue before he orders, “Say it.”

I’m in deep with this man, so very deep because I do it. I say it. “I’m with you now and you’re with me.”

“Do you know how many women I’ve said that to?” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “None. No one but you. This isn’t about a deal or a company. This is about you and me and us. How many men have you said that to?”

“None. Just you. You know that. I told you my history.”

“I wanted to hear it again.” His hand slides under my shirt, settling warmly on my belly. “I do want to own you, Carrie. I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting to own you.”

“You’ll never own me, Reid, but as you said to me, you can try.”

His lips, those sexy lips, quirk on the sides. “And we’ll enjoy trying, now won’t we?” His hand slips under the back of my sweats. “Let me show you how much.”

I’m instantly aware of what Reid quickly discovers; I didn’t actually put on underwear. He breathes out heavily with the realization that his hand meets no resistance. “God, woman,” he says cupping my face, “you make me crazy.” His lips touch mine, his tongue stroking deeply, even as his fingers stroke a line down the wet seam of my body, and I moan with the sensations rippling through me. He answers that moan by deepening the kiss, and his fingers are doing this crazy wonderful thing to my clit and then they’re inside me and his thumb is in just the right spot. I’m lost in the sensations rolling through me, and almost embarrassed by how fast I’m headed to that sweet, sweet escape. So very fast that I tear my mouth from Reid’s and press my face to his chest, my fingers curling around his T-shirt as I fight what is too far gone to be stopped.

“Reid, I’m—I’m—” I tumble over into bliss and my entire body quakes. It comes over me hard and fast, and then it’s over and I’m panting. “That was—”

Reid cups my face and forces my gaze to this. “So damn sexy.” He kisses me again. “And for just a few minutes, I did own you.”

“Was it that long? I think you owned me pretty quickly.”

“I like that you were that turned on,” he promises. “I love it.”

Love.

That word.

It taunts me despite the context. Could I fall in love with this man? Am I headed there?

He lies back on the sand and pulls me close. For long minutes we just lie there, listening to the ocean, breathing together until he flexes fingers on my back and murmurs, “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

I smile without looking at him. “I can have an orgasm in about sixty seconds flat if you’re the one giving it to me.”

He gives a low, deep sexy laugh and kisses my forehead. “I said something I don’t know.”

I think of my father, and what I still don’t know, and how much I want to push him to tell me, but I don’t want to lose this time with Reid. He’s relaxed, and I don’t know if he’s often in this kind of casual way with anyone. “My favorite food is macaroni and cheese and I could take you to all the best places in New York City to get it.”

“It’s a date,” he says. “How many places?”

“Half a dozen.”

“Even better,” he says. “My favorite food is a hamburger and I can take you to all the best places. Another half dozen.”

“It’s a date,” I mimic his reply.

“Where in the world have you traveled?” he asks next.

“Asia and inside the United States,” I say, aware of Reid really trying to get to know me, as I want to know him. “Nowhere else.”

He glances down at me. “Your family had money. How is that even possible?”

“After my mom left, my father did trips for business and that’s all. What about you?”

“All over the place,” he says. “That you have not—we have to fix that.”

“We?” I ask, leaning up to look at him.

“Yes, we. Let’s go to Italy to celebrate your CEO promotion when it happens. You like pasta, I assume since you love macaroni and cheese. You’ll get lots of great pasta there.”

Italy. He wants me to go to Italy with him. My stomach twists a little with just how confusing and complicated this thing with us is getting. “Reid—”

“Don’t overthink it, Carrie,” he says. “Just live in the moment. Just say yes.”

Live in the moment, only Italy months from now isn’t in the moment. Just say yes. He makes it seem so simple. Is it? “If I even become CEO,” I say.

“You will,” he assures me. “Are you still going to sell your apartment?”

I sit up with a sudden twist in my belly, pulling my knees to my chest. “I want to sell it.”

Reid sits up and moves to sit in front of me, his hand settling on my knees, those blue eyes probing. “Why?”

“I don’t feel secure. I won’t for a long time after this mess with the company. And since I know what you’re thinking, yes, I’m aware that my need for security stems from my mother leaving, but it’s a need that exists to be fed. I’m going to feed it.”

“Don’t sell yet. I promise you, Carrie, promise you, that you’ll feel secure when this is over.”

“I won’t,” I repeat firmly. “Not for a long time.”

“You will, baby. Trust me.”

I want to trust him. I want to believe this man could hold my heart and my life in his hands and he wouldn’t crush them both. But Reid is not the guy I could take home to my non-existent mother, as he himself proclaimed quite adamantly. He’s the guy I will end up hating, and that is not a good thought right now.

“Let’s go back to the cottage,” he says, and when he tries to stand up and take me with him, I have this sudden need for control. I push him back and into the sand.

“You don’t get to get up yet,” I say, shoving him until he’s lying flat, and twisting to my knees beside him, my hand on that perfect, hard chest of his.

“And why is that?” he challenges.

“Because I’m not done with you here,” I say, and when I would kiss him, he wraps his arm around me and pulls me against him.

“What are you going to do with me now that I’m here?” he challenges.

“Wait and see,” I say, reaching down and stroking the satisfyingly thick ridge of his erection. I turn him on. I like that I turn him on. I like so many things with this man that I might even love those things, but not him. I’m not going to fall in love with Reid Maxwell. I’m going to enjoy every inch of his hard body with my hands and my tongue, and own him like he did me.

Inspired, I straddle him and lean down and kiss him. He tangles rough fingers in my hair, and I moan with the lick of his tongue, but I don’t let myself get lost. Not in the kiss. There’s too much more of this man for me to enjoy, to own. I push away from him and slide down his body, settling between his legs to shove up his shirt and kiss his stomach. “You want to know what I’m going to do, don’t you?”

“Show me,” he orders gruffly, affected, and the very idea that he’s aroused, that he wants this, turns me on. I’m wet. My nipples ache. My body burns for this man, but I want him to burn for me.

I slide lower, and kiss and lick the line above his waistband, my hand stroking his cock through his sweats. His lashes lower, his hard body harder with the tensing of his muscles, and I know how on edge he is, how much he wants my mouth on his body, and I want it there, too. I drag his pants the rest of the way down and then my hand is wrapping his shaft, and I look up at him as I lick the pooled liquid at the tip of his erection.

He jerks slightly and I’m inspired to do more. I drag my tongue around the soft head of his cock and then suckle him into my mouth. He moans and arches his hips, and I draw him deeper, sucking on him, my tongue working the underside of his cock. His hand comes down on my head and that’s what pushes me over the edge. That’s what has me wet and hot and sucking harder and deeper. He’s in need. He needs. I need his need. I want that burn I felt to burn him and it does. He starts pumping harder, pushing into the movement of my mouth, and when he murmurs, “Carrie, baby,” and releases my head, I suck him harder and deeper until his hand is back on my head, and he’s shuddering, shaking and groaning as the saltiness of his release fills my mouth and I don’t stop. I take it and him and go all the way, slowing as he slows, easing my mouth only when he’s collapsing into the sand. I give him one final lick and then drag his pants back into place.

“Carrie,” he whispers, dragging me up his body. “You know—”

“That I owed you. And never say I don’t pay my debt. I owned you and owed you.”

Suddenly I’m on my back and he’s on top of me, his hands on the sand on either side of me. “You owe me nothing, ever. That is not what we are. You never owe me. Say it.”

“Reid—”

“Say it, Carrie. That’s not who we are.”

“I don’t owe you. That’s not who we are.”

“Say it again.”

“Reid—”

“I’ll say it. We don’t owe each other. Ever. That’s not who we are. That’s not who I ever want us to be.”

This matters to him. Really matters and it makes me feel like we matter. It makes me fall harder for this man. He pushes to his feet and takes me with him, his hand under my hair on my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “And now, I vote we go to bed—together.”

And just like that, he owns me again.