Paris
I WASN’T A stupid girl.
Yet, I couldn’t stop my heart from stuttering. My defenses from going weak. I couldn’t believe how affected I was by him after all this time. I hated it and I wanted the feeling to vanish. For him to vanish.
He leaned in closer. “I’m going to make this easy for you, Paris. First, I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to kiss me back and then, well let’s see where it leads.”
His breath tickled my cheek. He was close. So close. “Don’t you dar—”
He stopped my protest by slamming his lips on mine. Oh God. Those lips. Just as I remembered. Warm and sweet and soft and so right.
At first, I resisted trying not to give into the temptation of his kiss, but he kept tugging and nipping at the soft plumpness of my lips and my mouth grew hungrier with each desperate pass.
Unable to fight the undeniable passion, or not really wanting to, I finally opened for him.
And we kissed.
Sweetly.
Tentatively.
Softly.
Slowly, he coaxed and prodded, letting me know he needed more. Begging for the kind of kiss we had once shared.
And I gave. Oh, how I gave.
My breaths turned ragged when he swept his tongue into the well of my mouth as if he couldn’t wait to taste me. It wasn’t long before he deepened the kiss. Taking more and more with each lick of his tongue.
Unrestrained.
Wild.
Out of control.
This kiss was carnal, deep, desperate, and I felt dizzy. Breathless. Lost. Reborn.
Whatever this was between us, it consumed me.
Blinding me.
Taking me to a higher place.
He pressed every rigid hard line of his body against all of my softness and the feel of him overwhelmed me.
He was stone and granite and sex and sublime bliss.
Arching in a way I hadn’t in years, I couldn’t stop myself from begging. “More,” I whimpered and sank my fingers into his shoulders.
His touch became just as desperate as mine. His hands coasted from my shoulders down my arms, to the waistband of my jeans, and then we were skin on skin.
The mere contact of his fingers against my waist was a flaming reminder of the passion we’d once shared. I sucked in a shattered breath when he unbuttoned my jeans.
“Are you wet for me, Love?” His voice was barely a gritted whisper.
“You wish,” I breathed, unable to hide the obvious fact that my body was a burning inferno for him.
With that devilish smirk he wore so well, he drove his hand down my jeans and panties, and thrust two fingers into me at once. “Fuck, you’re soaked, Love. I don’t have to wish anything, you’re so wet for me I don’t even think we need foreplay.”
“I just haven’t had sex in a while,” I admitted, like that trumped being wet for him.
Deliberately, he dragged his fingers up my belly and away from where I wanted them. “How long has it been?”
Ignoring his question, I reached for his slacks and cupped his balls.
He stopped me with a tsk-tsk and a shake of his head. “How long?”
“Too long,” I managed around gasps. “Way too long.”
His eyes held mine and he made sure I watched as he brought his fingers to his mouth and licked them clean, one by one, his lips quirking upward as he did. “I’ll take that answer, for now.”
I reached for his slacks again, going straight for his fly.
This time he stopped me by dropping to his knees. Oh, God, he really was kneeling before me.
It was like a landslide I couldn’t stop. All need and want. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was threading my fingers through his cashmere soft hair. I was unable to stop the pulsing sensations I felt in my entire body before he’d even put his face anywhere near my sex.
With a dark chuckle, he peeled my clothes from my lower body and I stepped out of them. Then he pressed his thumbs to the lips of my pussy, opening me wide, kissing me gently while still holding my heated gaze. “You are going to marry me, Paris Fairchild, and you’re going to be begging me to fuck you night and day, too. That I can promise you.”
I sighed in pleasure, his words a jumble of incoherency I couldn’t really process at that moment.
He peppered kisses all over my pussy before sliding his tongue inside me, flicking my clit with his thumb as he did, driving me wild. My hands flew from his head and my palms found the wall to steady myself when he spread my thighs even wider. He was licking me up and down, my clit, my ass, and everywhere in between. I couldn’t help but embrace the ecstasy.
“Please. I can’t . . . I need to come.”
There was a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Not yet, love. Not yet.”
I think I scowled at him but maybe I moaned in pleasure. I didn’t really know.
Either way, he continued to lap and suck me until there was no doubt I was pulsing under his tongue.
Excitement humming between us, he used his thumbs to hold me open so his tongue could pleasure me while his fingers wandered along the crease of my ass.
It felt so good.
This was a whole lot dirtier than what we’d used to do. I couldn’t stop the sounds of pleasure that seeped into the air, even if I knew I was only giving him more ammunition for gloating.
All of a sudden everything was gravity. My knees going weak and my heart erratic when he grabbed my thigh and draped it over his shoulder. In that position, he plunged his tongue deeper into me, thrusting it so hard I felt my thighs quivering.
There was a flash of blinding light and then my pussy tightened against his mouth. I moaned so loud I should have been embarrassed.
“Scream my name,” he ordered.
I shook my head no. I didn’t like being told what to do. Never did.
He halted his movement. “Scream my name, Paris or you won’t be coming.”
I lifted my arms and ran my fingers through my hair, arching my back and pressing myself into his face. As soon as I did, he didn’t hesitate to take control of my body. It wasn’t long before I did what he wanted. “Oh God, Tyler,” I cried out.
That’s when I knew he had lost all control, devouring me like I was his last meal. With each moment in time, I could feel my own reality slipping away. The burn of pleasure he incited with every lick of his tongue too much to fight.
Enemy.
Arch Nemesis.
What did it matter?
It didn’t, not right then, anyway. Not when he was rough and grueling and driving me wild. Taking me higher and higher toward a place where right and wrong no longer existed. Closing my eyes, a sound tore from my throat and I screamed his name, “Tyler!” That’s when everything burst into ribbons of light that flashed behind my eyes as pleasure exploded throughout my body.
Shattering.
Sweet rapture.
It swam along every nerve and awoke every cell.
When I started to float down, I slumped against the wall and attempted to catch my breath. Tyler didn’t waste a second. He rose to his full height, unbuttoning his slacks and ripping a condom open with his teeth at the same time.
“Still want to deny there’s no chemistry between us?” he murmured, all smug and arrogant.
Not quite even back on the ground yet, I wasn’t ready to spar with him, so I didn’t answer. I just let my hands fall from my head to his muscular shoulders and held him tight.
I guess that was my answer.
Without mercy, he thrust into me and pounded me against the wall, my head colliding with the drywall again and again. “Marry me, Paris,” he grunted, gripping my ass tightly and consuming me with his dominating thrusts.
“Never.”
With a single yank, he tore the shirt from my body. “I told you to stop saying that word.”
My palms were still on his broad shoulders, and I slid them down his shirt to do the same. Striping the cloth from his body in one yank, I was surprised to see the tattoo on his forearm.
I blinked a moment, recognizing the flower design from the California Jane label.
My gaze shifted to the silver dangling at his wide chest. I’d almost forgotten about the dog tags he’d never taken off, except one time. The ones that belonged to his grandfather.
Both naked and vulnerable, we stared at each other. “Then maybe you should stop asking.”
“Never,” he smirked, the jingle of his grandfather’s dog tags and our heavy breathing, the only noise between us.
I moaned, scraping at his bare, sweaty back. “Then you’ll be on your knees for a very long time.”
His gaze flashed down to where he’d been moment ago. “Not a bad place to be.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
There was no comeback to that. Instead, his finger prodded at my hole where his hand was still on my ass and he started drawing lazy circles around it. “I want this.”
The roar of desire that soared through my body was hard to ignore. I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
He pressed a single finger inside me right there. “Don’t tell me a party girl like you hasn’t been fucked that way?”
“Not because I haven’t been asked.”
“I’m sure you have. Just like I’m sure, I’ll be first once again.” He smirked, the lust churning in his baby blues making him look devilishly sinister. Then he fucked me harder, so much harder. As if he never wanted this to end but knew it would.
We both knew it would.
It had to.
Our history was too convoluted. Too damaged. Beyond repair. It wasn’t just broken. It was ruined.
There was no rewind for us.
“Enough talk,” he ordered and then slammed his lips to mine, his tongue flicking against mine and then sucking it hungrily.
My eyes rolled back, and I clenched from the inside out.
His fucks only deepened. We were barbaric. Like animals. A sweaty mess. Crazed. Fire. Flames. A bonfire out of control.
It wasn’t long before Tyler shuddered through a frantic thrust. “Fuck,” he growled, “you feel so good.”
He did, too.
He felt right.
Real.
Like I belonged to him.
Perfect.
“So do you,” I whispered, letting a piece of my spirit out I knew better than to let go of.
“You’re so fucking tight. I’m going to come.”
“So am I.”
The grin that quirked at the side of his mouth made my belly flutter, and that mouth didn’t stop. With his hand on my neck, he kissed me until I saw stars, and then losing all control, he drove deep.
Bliss spun in the air that surrounded us and I could feel myself letting go.
He hissed through the frantic rock of his hips. “You’re mine, Paris. You just don’t know it yet.”
The thing was, I did know it. I always knew it. I just couldn’t be.
He yanked my hair back, making me arch as he drove harder.
Faster.
Deeper.
“Oh God,” I cried out again.
“Feel good?” he growled.
“Yes.” My legs were quivering so bad, I thought I might fall to the ground.
“Do you want more?”
“Yes, I want more. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
This was too good.
Too much.
Too overwhelming.
Pleasure rushed through me in a way I thought would last forever. A never-ending rollercoaster ride. All the while, Tyler drove deep and hard and wild. His fingers sinking into my hips as he manipulated my body to meet each dominating thrust.
This man was coming undone and I was doing this to him. I felt powerful in a way I hadn’t in a long time.
When his head kicked back, he practically roared his release, coming in a jerk of pleasure.
Without a word, we both floated on this cloud of ecstasy. For a few moments, we remained where we were, his shoulders and chest heaving as he panted for air. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. Actually, he was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
Once we both recovered, he pulled back. “So I take it this means you’ll marry me.”
The arrogance of it all. It wasn’t even a question. Like sex was all it took to win me back. Well, not just sex. Good sex. Okay, great sex. But still. “No, it doesn’t and no, I won’t.”
Anger flashed in his eyes as he turned away and strode toward my bathroom.
Poking wasn’t a good idea, and yet I did. “I’m engaged to Henri and you know that,” I shouted.
The toilet flushed and the water ran.
When he came back into the room, the noise of his dog tags jingling was the only sound. He stopped at an old CD player I hadn’t touched in years on my desk and hit play. Fleetwood Mac’s, “Dream,” started to play and when I heard Stevie Nick’s voice booming, I remembered the time I thought I’d rule like a bird in flight.
I think he did, too, although he said nothing.
Still trembling and working on regulating my breaths, I tried to understand my physical reaction to him. The way my body craved his as it had no other.
When I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, I wondered if he wasn’t right. That marriage would mend both our companies . . . and who knew, maybe both of us.
Raising my gaze, I watched as he jerked his fly closed and pulled his shirt around his muscular torso, not caring one bit about the missing buttons. I was just about to ask him if he thought we could be happy, when he looked up with that blank stare I knew all too well.
It was then I could see it, that wall going right back up. I swear if I could see the bricks, I’d be able to watch, as layer by layer an insurmountable tower was formed.
And that’s when I knew. Knew I was stupid for letting him in. He was still emotionally isolated. Inaccessible as always. Nothing had changed.
He hadn’t that was for sure.
And who knew, maybe I hadn’t either.
Feeling extremely vulnerable in my naked state, I grabbed for a blanket from my bed and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Without a word, he walked toward the things I’d dropped to the floor when I first arrived and pulled my phone from my purse. He tapped the screen before looking up. “Now you have my number. Text me the location of your car and I’ll have it picked up. In the meantime, you can drive mine. I’ll have it dropped off.”
I stormed past him, flinging open my door. “I don’t want your help. Get out.”
Meeting me at the threshold, he pressed his palms to my face in a way that his thumbs circled around my sweaty neck and squeezed. “The next time we fuck, you’ll be the one on their knees, sucking my dick until I tell you to stop.”
“Then I guess we won’t be fucking again.” I swallowed against the pressure of his fingers, our eyes locked in a battle of wills.
He flashed me the most devilish grin. “Knees, Paris, remember that when you’re begging me to fuck your tight little pussy.”
Over the music, I demanded, “Get. Out!”
All his confidence shined bright when he released his hold on me and spoke his own demand. “Meet me at Solbar Friday night at six.”
Why did my first love have to turn into the hottest man to walk this earth? It made resisting him so very hard. “I’m not going on a date with you.”
“Good, because I wasn’t asking you out. This is business.”
“I’m busy.”
That cocky shake of his head he responded with was even a bigger turn-on. Damn him. “Make yourself unbusy, then. I have something to discuss with you. I just need a few days to get things in order first.”
Ignoring the sudden weakness in my knees, I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing left for us to discuss. I already said no.”
He tipped my chin up with his fingers and his fierce gaze penetrated me. “Oh, baby, you definitely did not say no.”
My own eyes narrowed.
His responding grin was heart-stopping. “Don’t worry your sweet panties, this is about something other than you becoming my wife. A topic I think you’ll find interesting enough that it might change your mind about our situation.”
Jerking away, curiosity nipped at me and I wanted to know what it was. “I’m not stepping foot in Calistoga.”
That was one way to put an end to this. He hated St. Helena as much as I hated Calistoga. It was where we’d drawn the line, after all. The one that severed the connection we’d once shared.
Striding out of the door with his hands in his pockets, he surprised me when he huffed, “Fine, then meet me at the Gatehouse in St. Helena. And Paris,” he drawled, “You’ll know when I ask you out.”
“Don’t bother,” I snapped.
“Oh, Love, wooing you just became my first priority.”
Swallowing at the very delicious thought of it, I slammed the door, not giving him an answer. Then again, I didn’t have to. We both knew I’d be there. Just like we both knew I’d be on my knees.
It was just a matter of time.