Page 9 of Notorious (Hollywood Heartthrobs #2)

CONNOR

W as it possible to lose your mind from a simple kiss?

It was a question I kept asking myself in the two weeks since Ollie had been in my bedroom.

The beautiful flush of desire along his cheeks and neck as my hands roamed over him, remembering the smooth skin against my roughened palms. And the kiss; the spark of connection I’d never found with any of the others I’d been intimate with, I couldn’t shake.

It kept replaying in the forefront of my mind during all my waking hours, taunting me.

Shit, and the last thing I wanted was to think about my past and the nameless men and women who I shared a bed with over the years to satiate my lust.

But as much as my mind wandered to… it, something else bothered me in the days that followed.

Ollie seemed to have erased from memory the intimate kiss we shared. He treated me like another friend; the way he did the triplets or Gracie. To him, maybe our kiss hadn’t meant a fraction of the way it had me.

But it wasn’t as if I stuck around long enough after to find out how he processed what we shared.

One look at his swollen lips and the bliss making him glow, and I wanted him.

To touch every inch of his body, find the areas that made him gasp as I took him apart.

Because of the unknown, my mind had no problems filling in the gaps with images of him arching, screaming out his orgasm, and feeling him clench around my cock.

The questions swirling around in my brain demanded to understand what the moment meant to him, tied with the ways I wanted to touch him, which led to scarier questions.

Could he picture building a life with me, sharing his thoughts and listening to mine? Did my past skew the way he saw me? Those and more wanted to push out of my throat after I experienced the hottest kiss in my entire existence.

But instead of asking him, or saying anything, I flushed when I recalled dashing out of the bedroom, finding the nearest bathroom, yanking down my pants, and coming on my hand after two throttling strokes.

A hunger consumed me before I had intimate knowledge of the way his lips pressed against mine and the pressure of his tongue as he explored.

I steered both of us to the brink of madness because whenever we were in a room together; I touched him as though he were already mine.

Instead of reining in my desire for him and helping him find a man to share his life with, I’d stolen a taste of him.

From a simple kiss, my world changed, and I found myself in a revolving cycle of fighting a craving I could never satiate and wishing away all the constant fantasies of mapping out his entire body with my lips before taking him apart until he shouted my name.

His nearness made my fingertips tingle, and whenever his fresh scent invaded my senses, I tightened my muscles to resist the urge to pounce on him and taste him, confirming that his addictive mouth and his responses to me weren’t an exaggeration in my memory.

It had even gotten to the point my family was giving me a wide berth. There was nothing wrong with me, but having Ollie glance my way without the affection glinting in his blue eyes hurt my heart.

But this was what I wanted. Wasn’t it?

The triplets followed me upstairs after I got home from meeting with my agent, and I was almost, but not quite, relieved I would have distance from the situation soon. Rather than breaking off and going into their own rooms, they strode into my bedroom after me and slammed the door behind them.

For a minute, three pairs of narrowed eyes glared at me before I cracked.

“What?”

“We love you. Most of the time you’re a wonderful brother, but I’m going to set that fact aside to tell you if you fuck this up…” Lyric growled, cutting off the last part of his threat.

Landon shook his head, but the thoughtful one continued.

“We’ll find a painful way of making you miserable every day for the rest of your existence.”

“Linus!”

Not answering me, he turned toward Landon when he laughed aloud before aiming his deadly gaze back at me.

“What did I do?” I asked.

Linus appeared to have more to say.

“For fuck’s sake, Con, you are the biggest fucking moron on the planet right now.

We know something happened between you and Ollie, and considering you’ve made it a point of emphasizing the fact you two are friends and only friends, I can also assume you are the one responsible for the sadness we catch in his blue eyes when Ollie doesn’t know we’re looking.

So, I’m going to ask again. What did you do? ”

Admitting only in the recesses of my mind, I feared my brothers when they were protective of someone other than me or the family.

But then, I was proud of Linus. He was the quiet and observant one, and I was seeing a new side to him, one as fierce and protective as Sam or Landon.

He was a great defender, and I would be more proud of him. Only if his disdain aimed elsewhere.

“I kissed him.”

The disgust marred each face as they threw their hands up and started talking in the fast-paced language they shared whenever they became upset or wanted to speak without others knowing what they were discussing.

I hadn’t heard it enough to interpret the times I’ve witnessed it, but their anger was toward me.

I breathed a sigh of relief at the text chime coming from my phone.

Spencer: Hey, Con? We’re getting together tonight at Kaid’s. You in?

Me: Who’s we?

Spencer: Lee, Kaid, Lewis. You should bring Ollie.

Me: Yeah, sounds fun. Let me ask Ollie, and I’ll text you on the way.

Shit, even my friends knew about whatever this was between me and Ollie, because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about him.

Yes, I’d talked about him nonstop since he moved in with us and raved about our closeness, but I sensed there was more to Spencer’s request, as though they were inviting us to Kaid’s for a specific reason.

With my explanation cut off as all of three of them glared at me when I tried to explain, it shut me up.

I abandoned my three brothers behind in my room as they plotted my death and followed the sound of the clicking and found Ollie at his desk, concentrating on the screen in front of him as his fingers flew over the keyboard.

Over the past few weeks, I’d read all of his books.

Despite not being in love or even being in a relationship during his lifetime, the man captured the raw feelings and scorching sex shared between two men in love, and I read through his books as fast as I could.

Even if the instalove was a little effusive for my tastes, I couldn’t wait to read his next one.

The knowledge of his next book containing traits of Thomas and my older brother’s relationship didn’t detract from my excitement at getting my hands on it as soon as possible.

I knocked on the doorframe and watched as Ollie’s hands stalled over his keyboard and he blinked, pulling himself back to reality, before glancing over to see me in the doorway. His smile punched me in the gut, leaving me breathless for a short time.

“Hey, Ollie, I know you’re busy, but do you want to meet some of my friends?” I asked.

Something about his hesitation dimmed the smile on his face, and I wanted to reassure him.

“It’ll be great. Lee, Spencer’s husband, will be there and Kaid hired a new chef because he’s building muscle for the movie he’s filming and Kaid sings his praises. What do you think?”

He searched my expression for several seconds before his smile lit up his face and he jumped to his feet.

There was a pause before he turned back to his computer, saving a backup of his work, then shutting everything down.

As he glanced down, a grimace wrinkled his mouth and displaying the laugh lines around his eyes.

I was smitten. There wasn’t a thing about Ollie that I hadn’t taken notice of and not found endearing.

“Do I have time for a quick shower? I… don’t remember if I took one this morning and I refuse to meet your friends as this mess. So, I’ll be out in fifteen, okay?”

Without waiting for my reply, he strode toward the bathroom and when it clicked shut, my body shivered as I thought about following him and seeing what we could get up to in there.

And that led to thoughts about his body wet as water sluiced over him, his eyes closed as he washed his hair… shit, and I was getting hard.

I glanced down and noticed the tee and jeans I had on and shrugged. It was hot, and I had no desire to change. Kaid wouldn’t have many people over to the house because of his limited tolerance with people.

Before long, we were in my Aston Martin DB12, speeding along the hills as we drove the short distance to Kaid’s. Because of Spencer’s problems with his old friend Mason we’d all witnessed first hand, the three of us bumped up security surrounding our properties, not taking a chance.

I pulled up to the gate and pressed the buzzer. As soon as the camera flashed on and a stoic Kaid spotted my face, he buzzed us in. I pulled up behind Spencer’s electric vehicle and turned toward Ollie.

“You doing okay?”

He nodded, and then his stomach growled. “I might be a little hungry.”

With such an honest reaction, my face hurt as a laugh escaped me, thrilled I’d met this man.

“I’m glad the universe threw us together,” I admitted.

His answering smile warmed my heart.

As we walked up the circular driveway surrounded by trees and bushes, the house emerged in all its spectacular form.

I wasn’t quite used to the odd, spaceship-like glass and steel structure.

More-so when Ollie observed the house, but didn’t comment on it.

Instead, he swallowed before he turned to me.

“Is what I’m wearing okay for the night? It’s not like a party or anything?”

I shook my head. “Nah, just a small get together for dinner. No need to be nervous.”

He mumbled something as I rang the doorbell, and I caught the tail end. “… easy for you to say, Mr. Hollywood.”