"No.” He opened the car door and sat me inside. He slid across the seat and ghosted his fingers along the back of my neck into my hair. “That was because I couldn’t keep my hands off you. Tonight will be because I want you to go to sleep knowing I’ve explored every single inch of your body with my fingers and my tongue. Tonight will be because I want you to go sleep knowing every part of you belongs to me in the most obsessive way possible.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.” I finished on a gasp. His fingers were snaking up the inside of my leg, dangerously close to hitting the apex of my thighs.
“You’re my obsession, Gina, and I won’t stop until I’m yours. I won’t give up until you belong to me the way I belong to you—wholly.” He traced his tongue along the seam of my lips and his finger along my panties. &ldq
I wanted to squirm my hips and clamp my thighs together, but that would be giving him what he wanted—the knowledge that I am ready for him. “Now you’re getting in this boat, and as we travel around the city, you can sit opposite me and wonder about all the ways I’m planning to make your body tremble beneath me tonight.” I closed my eyes as I took a seat. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. He was playing my body and my desire in a way that meant I can’t stay out of the game. Every step further into my lust brought me closer to loving him, and he knew that. He was impulsive and playful when he wanted to be, but when he wanted something, he planned so carefully I had no choice but to go along with it. He did it in Paris and he was doing it now. If I believe him, that his love never faded, then I have no doubt that this trip was to make me fall in love again.
My body responded to him instantly, easily. The desire that had been building all day consumed me, and the heady feeling made me lose myself in the sweet stroke of his tongue across mine.“Tan hermoso,” he murmured, his teeth grazing my bottom lip. He sat up and I moved to sink my fingers in his hair, but I was trapped.He had tied my wrists to the bed. With his tie.“I told you… Tonight is mine. I can’t explore you and pleasure you the way I want unless you’re not touching me.”I wanted to argue and fight with him, but the lust that filled his eyes as his gaze travelled across my nearly naked body stopped me. Instead of annoyance, red-hot desire wrapped around me and I gave in to him.My heart pounded at the slow, reverent way he kissed his way down my neck and across my collarbone. Everything about the way he was touching me was
But this was his car.But still.Oh God.I slapped my hand over my eyes. Shut the fuck up, Gina. Love obviously made me a little neurotic and a whole lot batshit crazy.The car pulled up outside a tall glass building proclaiming Stone Advertising above the large doors. George was standing in front of it, his eyes on the sleeve he was playing with. Some guy in a suit opened my door.Blue eyes met mine as I left the car, and I raised my eyebrow. “Care to explain why you’ve pulled me down to your office on short notice?”“I need your help to select some images.”“Are you kidding me?” I stopped in front of him and poked his solid chest. “You pulled me down here without any kind of message to pick some damn photos? Do you know how crazy I just went in the car?”Evidently, he didn’t care—not i
The lump in my throat was too big to swallow, and I tried several times before it went. I stepped away from Georfe when he reached for me and walked to the windows. “I pushed that aside because you asked me to, but no matter what happens, no matter how real this is, it’s only happening because I have to be here. We can’t ignore the fact I’m only here because you’re paying me to be.” “What if I stopped it? Called your agent and cancelled it? Would you stay, or would you go?” “Don’t ask me that,” I whispered. “Would you call her and leave? Stop doing it so you could stay?” “I said not to ask me that!” I snapped, turning. “I don’t know, George. I don’t know. What I do is my life. It’s all I have.” “You have me, Gina. You know you do.” I closed my eyes. “Because I’m paid to. That’s always going to be
“Why? I was just a crazy American girl amazed by the Tower, just like thousands of others that pass through here every year.”“I was as amazed by you as you were by the Tower. Just like you had to see it, I had to speak to you.”I touched my lips to his gently. “I’m glad you did. Most of the time, anyway.”“Most of the time?” He smirked when I shrugged in response then sighed. “Come on. I made reservations for dinner.”“I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.” I looked at my light blue dress.“You look perfect. No arguments.” He pulled me down a long, winding street, and I flashed back to our first date.The one after he replaced my coffee. The proper one.“George?” My smile crept into my voice. “Are you taking me to that little sandwich shop we found
I swallowee. “You planned this, didn’t you? That’s why…” You bought me. I paused, unable to say the words. “Six weeks, not five. You knew all along this would happen.”“No, Gina. I didn’t know. I hoped, but I never assumed. Not a single day has passed that I haven’t hoped to look in your eyes and see what I feel reflected back again.”I turned and wrapped my arms around his waist. He embraced me swiftly, his face in my hair, breathing me in, his arms tight around my body. I sniffed.“You’re a real pain in my ass, Stone, ya know that?”“You’ve been a pain in my ass since you ruined my sweater by wiping coffee off your shirt.” He kissed my head and released me.“Oh, don’t even go there!”***I stretched out my
Air filled my lungs with one short, sharp inhale, and I fell into him. The Post-its scattered on the floor around us, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was burying my face into the chest of this man I’ve loved since I knew what love was and wondering what the fucking hell I was going to do.I clinged to the back of his robe. “Why didn’t I find them? Why?”“I wanted you to look,” he whispered into my neck. “I wanted you to look for something that was so glaringly obvious to me. Something you were oblivious to.”“How was I supposed to find them if I never knew?”“I don’t know. Jesus.” He cupped the back of my head. “I’ve done a whole lot of fucking hoping since you walked into that goddamn booth, Gina. I hoped every morning you’d find them, and when each night you hadn’t,
“Here,” he said and bent down.I frowned at him from the end of the bridge. There was no way he could find it. There was absolutely no fucking way he knew where it was.“Here,” he repeated with more conviction, a padlock in his hands. He turned to face me. “It’s here.”“There are thousands on padlocks on this bridge. You honestly think I believe you know the exact place ours is?”“Twenty-eight steps in, roughly.”“Are you kidding me?”“Kind of halfway down because you had a freak-out about it not being even.”“I don’t believe you.”“Silver and gold. We scratched our initials in with a penknife we found in my suite.”So much emotion rose in me at that memory. The moment I realized forever would never happen with the guy I loved
