“Nice ‘breeding,’” he said with a half smile.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Then clearly I’m an astute human being.”
He sighed. “Alex, look me in the eye and tell me you think this was a good thing. I’m not looking for a relationship. This is going nowhere.”
His words slapped her, but she wouldn’t let him see it. She wouldn’t be the needy one while he tried to make light of something that had shaken her to her very foundations. So she took a page from his book…she lied. “What makes you think I’m looking for a future with you? Are you really that egotistical? Do you think one night in bed with you is enough to make a woman immediately start craving white picket fences? Start scribbling her name next to yours surrounded by lacy hearts?
“I’m a princess, Garrett. I may have run off for a holiday but I know what my duties are. I know what my life will be. God knows, it was planned for me practically from the moment I drew my first breath! And nowhere in that plan does it say fall in love with a Neanderthal, move to California and remain barefoot and pregnant.”
Her breath was coming fast, in and out of her lungs. Her heartbeat was racing and her blood was pumping. Being this close to him was feeding more than her anger. In spite of everything, she wanted him.
He was stupid and clueless and impossibly arrogant—and, he was the most intriguing man she had ever known. Even the fact that he had lied to her from the beginning wasn’t enough to cool off the fires licking at her insides. And Alex had the distinct feeling that thirty years from now, when he was nothing more than a hazy memory, she would still want him.
“Neanderthal?”
Her fury abated for the moment, she only asked, “How would you describe yourself at this moment?”
“Confused, angry—” he paused, tucked his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face, her eyes, up to his “—and more turned on than I was before.”
He felt it, too. That soul-deep stirring. He didn’t want it, either, but it seemed as though neither of them had a choice when it came to what lay sizzling between them. Arguments didn’t matter. Differences didn’t matter.
All that mattered was the next touch. The next kiss.
“Oh,” she admitted on a sigh, “me, too.”
He kissed her and the rest of the world fell away. Alex let go of her anger and gave herself up to the wonder of what he could make her feel.
His arms came around her as his mouth took hers. He carried her into the bedroom and laid her down atop the silk duvet. The slide of the cool fabric against her skin was just another sensation to pile onto the rest.
Sliding his hands up and down her body, Alex arched into him, allowing her mind to drift free so that she could concentrate solely on the moment. Every stroke was a benediction. Every caress a promise of more to come.
Her body felt alive in a way it never had before. His touch was magic…kindling sparks of flame at every spot he touched. He leaned over her, kissing her, then sliding along her body, nibbling his way down. Then he stopped, pulled back and slid off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“Right back,” he swore, his eyes fixed on hers.
True to his word, he was gone only moments and she saw that he had another condom with him, sheathing himself as he came closer.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You always carry those in your wallet?”
“I have since I met you,” he admitted, kneeling back on the bed, dropping his head for a quick kiss. “Just in case.”
“Always prepared?” she asked.
“Babe, those are the Boy Scouts. And trust me when I say I’m no Boy Scout.”
“No,” she whispered as he moved down the length of her body again, letting his mouth and tongue blaze the trail, “you’re really not.”
Alex sighed deeply and stared up at the ceiling. Moonlight poured through the windows, along with a chill ocean breeze that ruffled the white sheers and sent them into a sensual dance that mimicked her own movements beneath Garrett’s talented hands.
“You’re torturing me,” she whispered and arched into him as his lips crossed over her abdomen.
“That’s the plan,” Garrett assured her.
“You’re an evil man,” she said on a sigh. “Don’t stop.”
“Not a chance,” he promised.
Then he moved, shifting down to kneel between her thighs and Alex looked at him. Slowly he scooped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her from the bed. Everything in her tensed in expectation. Her gaze locked with his as he lowered his mouth to her center and—
She groaned at the first sweep of his tongue across a bud of flesh so sensitive it felt as if it had a life of its own. Electric-like jolts of sensation shot through her, coiling the tension within her even tighter. Alex moved into him, loving the feel of his mouth on her.
Reaching down, she pushed her fingers through his hair as he pushed her higher and faster than she had gone before. This intimacy was so overwhelming; her system was flooded with emotions tangling together. She felt so much, wanted so much, needed so much.
It was close. She felt it. The orgasm hovering just out of reach was almost on her and she wanted him inside her when it hit. “Garrett, please.”
Instantly, he pulled away from her, sat back on his thighs and lifted her onto his lap. Alex went up onto her knees and slowly, deliberately, lowered herself onto him. It was delicious. The tantalizingly slow slide of his hard thickness pushing into her depths. She gloried in every inch of him. She let her head fall back as she wrapped her arms around his neck and swiveled her h*ps against him, taking him even higher and deeper than she had before.
Until she was sure he was touching the tip of her heart.
“You feel so good,” he whispered, kissing the base of her throat, locking his lips against her pulse point. His breath hot against her skin, he whispered words she couldn’t hear—could only feel.
And then she moved on him and his hands settled at her hips, guiding her motions, helping her set a rhythm they both kept time with. Again and again, she rocked her body onto his, and, over and over, they tore apart and came together. They moved as one. Breathed as one.
And at last, they shattered as one.
Ten
In the dark, when it was quiet, reality crashed down on top of them again, and Alex was the first to feel its sharp tugs at the edges of her heart.
Grabbing up her short, blue silk robe, she slipped it on, then crossed her bedroom, opened the French doors leading to the balcony that wrapped around the entire penthouse suite and stepped outside. The stone floor was cool and damp beneath her feet and the wind off the ocean lifted her hair and teased her heated skin.