Wrong for You (Before You #3)(24)
She nodded, circling her arms around his shoulders, pulling him toward her. “Right now, I just want you to be you. That’s good enough for me.”
He kissed her again then, a long, indecent kiss that curled her toes and made her feel like a goddess born to be worshipped by him. She could get used to this…to him. His lips drifted from hers to her jaw line and then her neck as his hands skated down the sides of her breasts in slow motion as though he had nothing better to do than touch every inch of her.
When his hands reached her waist, he lifted her onto the tiled countertop, pushed her knees apart, and without hesitation he stepped in between her legs, his lips coming down hard on hers again. His lips moving expertly against hers, he forced her gray cotton skirt up around her waist, exposing her boring white underwear. Crap, she should have thought that through this morning after he left and worn something a little more appealing.
Not even bothering to look, he yanked her panties down her legs with one hard pull and she started to have second thoughts. This was real. This wasn’t some crazy dream without consequences. She couldn’t take this back. “Alec…wait,” she blurted out and then his fingers slid along her entrance.
“Wait for what?” His finger slipped inside of her, teasing her with the perfect angle, rhythm and tempo. “Ah,” she groaned and she felt his smile against her neck.
A sensual fog wrapped around her and she couldn’t focus. She should probably have all those responsible conversations she lectured the kids at the Foundation about when they wanted to take a relationship to the next level, like number of sexual partners, sexual history and expectations, but what Alec was doing to her left little room for rational thought.
He lifted her hand and placed it on his chunky silver belt buckle and she knew he wanted her to take the next step and unbuckle it—show him that she wanted what he wanted. “I’m not sure if I’m ready,” she finally confessed, because as much as her body said go, go, go, her mind wasn’t ready for this. As much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, she wasn’t a one night stand type of girl. She didn’t know what Alec wanted beyond tonight, and even if he wanted something, he planned to go back to LA in two weeks.
He slid his finger out of her, balled his hands into fists before he rested his hands on the top of her bare thighs. Leaning back, he looked at the ceiling for a few awkward seconds. “You want me to stop?” His dark blue eyes were more hooded than usual as his gaze turned to her. With his impenetrable mask back in place, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
She rubbed her hands along the sides of her face thinking, contemplating, and trying to make responsible decisions. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I just don’t know if this is right…yet.”
He sucked his lip into his mouth, his inscrutable gaze, telling her nothing as second after second ticked by in absolute silence. “I don’t know what you mean by right. Right for this second? Right for some elusive long term plan?”
Her eyes wandered around the room, trying to separate her mind from the intensity of this moment so she could make an intelligent decision. “I don’t know enough about you to take this step. I’m always telling the kids at the Foundation to be responsible and not to act impulsively. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
He snapped his hands off her thighs and stuffed his hands in pockets. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know…how many sexual partners have you had?”
“Enough,” he answered, his voice harsh and she flinched.
“What’s enough? One, ten, fifty?”
He took a few steps backward and she wanted to pull him back, but she knew she just hit a hot button and whatever was happening between them was definitely over. “Fuck, Violet. I don’t know. I don’t keep count. I’ve never cared. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.” He raked his hands through his tousled dark hair. “Probably too many, but I’m always safe,” he added.
She nodded absently. “Okay. Thanks for being honest.”
“And what does my honesty get me?”
She smiled faintly. “Nothing tonight.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“It’s not a no forever, just tonight,” she said, sliding off the countertop and pulling her shirt over her head. She needed some armor in the form of clothing to continue their conversation.
His eyes narrowed as his gaze took in every inch of her disheveled clothing and the heated blush creeping up her neck. “Okay. Little Violet, I’ll let you go…for now.”
She nodded her head, already accepting that she wouldn’t escape again. Who was she kidding? She didn’t want to escape at all. She liked his hands touching her too much. She just needed to get her mind in the right place before she took the next step.
“Bye,” he said, brushing her hair from her face, then kissing her on top her head, and before she knew it, she heard her front door close. It took every bit of control she had to stop herself from running after him and telling him she changed her mind.
Chapter Eleven
Frustrated. Relieved. Those were the only two words he could find to describe the emotions rolling through him as he turned the corner of Violet’s house to the entrance of his temporary basement apartment and that’s when he saw her. Fucking hell. His day just got a thousand times worse.