Page 141

The absence of sight intensified the scratch in his voice and the burn of his lips on her neck. He kicked her feet farther apart and his hands were everywhere, yanking her hips against him, squeezing her breasts, tugging on her clit. His torso, taut and smooth, glided over her back, flexing against her, controlling her movements.

He pinched her clit, and she sucked in a breath. His teeth sunk into her shoulder, and he pinched harder. The pressure was overpowering, demanding, pulling her in until nothing existed but the mounting stimulation.

She clenched her inner walls, tried to hold back the orgasm, to suspend the sensation, to savor the moment.

His tongue flicked across her skin between the brace of his teeth and his thrusts rolled and bucked. When his breath caught, she lost her self-control, her release pouring over her in powerful waves. “Ahhh, Jesus. Oh fuck.” Her body tingled, slumping in the clutch of his.

He rocked once, twice, and rammed to the hilt, grinding as he moaned a delicious cacophony of noises.

Hands slid over hers, and the shackles released. The blindfold followed, and she squinted against the brightness of the room. He scooped her up, arms behind her back and thighs, and tumbled them into bed. He positioned her on her side, tucked her chest into his, her head under his chin, and caressed a palm up and down her back. “Okay?”

“Mmm. More than.” She angled her head back and fell into his heavy-lidded eyes. “You used the pole to keep me guessing, didn’t you?”

His smile softened the strong lines of his gorgeous face. “If the threat isn’t there, if I neverhurtyou, you won’t anticipate.”

Hurt. The way he whispered that word reminded her of what it cost him. “Thank you.” She stretched her neck and covered his mouth with hers.

He parted his lips and rolled his tongue with hers. Tilting her head, he deepened the kiss, shifting her to her back and blanketing her with his body. His hands raked her hair, jaw working and tongue stoking a low burning fire.

When he slowed to a gentle slide of lips, she touched his cheek, smiled. “Good lord, you know how to kiss.” His head jerked back, and his eyebrows crawled together. She guessed he’d never tried to please a woman before, never needed to. But, holy shit, he was good at it. “What’s wrong?”

He rolled them to their sides, face to face, and smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. “When I kissed you in my room in New York—” he smiled, traced the shell of her ear “—that was my first kiss.”

Her heart gave a thump. He had intimacy issues, but surely he’d kissed someone at some point. “Ever?”

He shifted close, so close their noses touched. “Ever.”

73

Charlee emerged slowly from a content sleep. The bedside lamp shed a soft glow through the bedroom. She was alone in bed, but not alone. Jay’s silhouette reclined in a lounger on the veranda, the back of his head a smudgy shadow against the winking lights of the L.A. skyline.

The waning moon drifted beyond the open doors. She must have dozed off in his arms an hour or so earlier. She snagged one of his t-shirts from the closet in case of a chill in the evening air, shrugged into it, and swiped her cell phone from the desk on her way out.

A puff of smoke billowed above him. With his back to her, he seemed lost to a million thoughts, or perhaps just memorized by the view of the distant lights. He lowered a cigarette and scattered the ash to the breeze.

The smell of tobacco permeated, kicking in the urge to share it with him. “You smoke?”

He flinched, facing her, and fumbled for the ashtray, cigarette aimed to be squashed.

“No, no. Don’t put it out. Here.” She curled her fingers back and forth. “It smells delicious.”

He held it out, reluctance in his wide eyes. “You smoke?”

“I asked you first.” She plucked it from his fingers and climbed between his spread legs, back to his chest. Cigarette poised between two fingers, she swiped through the screens on her phone.Lebanese BlondebyThievery Corporation.Perfect. She set it to play on a low volume and placed the phone on the side table.

With a hand on her tummy, he pulled her close and leaned them back in the lounger. “No. I don’t smoke.” His tone was deep and teasing.

She pulled a drag through her lungs and exhaled. “Me neither, but over the past couple years, I’d get this lofty feeling of nostalgia and buy a pack.” She took another pull and passed it to him. “Ask me why.”

He accepted it, fingers lingering over hers. “Why?”

“You stayed after I inked your outline, smoking your cigarette, waiting for me. I didn’t give it much thought then.” There was so much on her mind that night. Marrying Noah. Running from Roy. She fought a shiver and caressed the denim-clad thighs bracing her, reveling in the strength of the man and his heart. “You liked me, and you weren’t ready to let me go. I figured that out months later. So I’d smoke and try to touch that moment in time. I’d imagine myself waiting with you. Waitingforyou.”

The cigarette butt skipped over the concrete patio. He flipped her, chest on chest, and stared into her eyes, his expression stripped bare. “I love you.”

“Mm. I can’t relate love to writing music or personal experience, but I have this terrifying and wonderful sensation flowing through me.” Making decisions for her, consuming her. “It’s more powerful than any label I could give it, but if I had to name it, I would call it love.”

He pulled her up his chest and buried his face in her neck. A comfortable silence whispered over them.