The Last Eligible Billionaire(67)

“You want to hear me talk.”

He settles onto the blanket, long legs bent, sheds his suit coat, pulls his tie the rest of the way off, then removes his shoes.

It’s the shoes that do me in.

I don’t know why.

I just know that watching him take his fancy shoes off, here on a picnic blanket under the moonlight, is some kind of catnip to my inner schoolgirl fantasies about saving Prince Charming.

It’s like he’s removing all of his armor and letting me see him.

All of him. The tender parts and the tired parts and the insecure parts. The simple parts, the basic man under all the billionaire luster who needs nothing more than to know that someone sees him for who he is and loves him for that with no ulterior motives.

Too soon, I tell myself. Too soon.

“Is this for you, or is it for me?” I ask as I settle back on my heels beside him, Marshmallow flopping to the ground on top of his shoes. I don’t need light to know that my dog is gazing at Hayes as though he invented cheese-filled hotdogs.

Hayes turns to look at me, that lock of unruly hair falling across his broad forehead, his eyes hooded and serious, lips barely parted. “For both of us, I had hoped. You seem to enjoy picnics, and I…I enjoy you.”

This man.

He makes me wish we’d met another year from now, when I’ve fully found myself again, shaken Chad all the way off, learned to stand up to my mother and taught her how to listen to me when I tell her what I want and need, even when she doesn’t understand it.

“Is someone listening?” I whisper. “Are there more camera people hiding in the woods?”

He flinches.

And I freeze. “Oh.”

“Begonia. No.” He grips my hand. “The photographers on Oysterberry Bay—I apologize. I don’t—you are correct. I don’t trust easily, and I thought it necessary. But here, we’re alone. You have my word. This is not for the world. This is for me. And, I hope, you.”

We’re alone. For me.

“I enjoy you too,” I whisper.

“You shouldn’t. I’m very disagreeable.”

I put a finger to his lips.

He captures that hand too, and he pulls it to his mouth, pressing soft kisses to my finger, turning my hand to kiss my knuckles, then turning it again to kiss my palm, my wrist, and up my forearm to the crook of my elbow, holding my gaze in the moonlight and making me feel not like the last woman in the world, but like the only woman in his world.

“Hayes,” I whisper.

“I would very much like to make love to you under the moonlight, Ms. Fairchild.”

My heart tumbles out of my chest and offers itself to him on a clay platter. It’s not fancy. Not diamond-encrusted. Not even very pretty sometimes.

But it’s what I have, and it’s his for the taking.

Even though I know better.

“With my eyes open,” he continues, still pressing soft kisses to the bare flesh on my arm, his eyes still holding me captive, “fully aware that I’m with you, with you fully aware that you’re with me.”

Butterflies swirl to life in my chest.

This could be a massive mistake. I know better than to get attached right now. And while my brain says this is temporary, my heart says too late.

But what’s life if not for living? “No fires tonight,” I whisper.

His eyes rake over me in the moonlight. “On the contrary, I hope to set you on fire.”

Well, then.

My panties won’t be in the way. They’ve self-ignited in a cloud of poof, floating away into the night. My breasts tingle. My vagina aches.

I want him. Naked or in a suit, though this tieless, shoeless, top two buttons of his dress shirt undone thing is exceptionally attractive.

He brushes his thumb over my jawline, shifting on the ground and making my dog grunt between us. “Move, Marshmallow.”

The poor pup grunts again.

“I’m going to do unspeakably filthy things to your mother,” Hayes informs him, his hand moving to stroke my thigh.

Marshmallow whimpers softly and slinks away, and now I’m laughing.

I’m so turned on I can’t think, and I’m laughing.

But only briefly, because the tiger formerly known as Hayes is pouncing, expertly sliding his hands under my shirt and pulling it over my head as he lowers me to the thick, plush blanket.

I part my legs, and he settles between them, the hard ridge of his erection pressing against my center through our clothes, his mouth capturing mine, his hands sliding beneath me while I blindly tackle the buttons on his dress shirt.

My bra suddenly goes loose, the cool air enveloping me a stark contrast to the heat in his gaze and his touch. He tugs one strap down my arm, his fingertips trailing over my skin and stirring my nerve endings like a sandy wind on a warm tropical morning.

I love being touched.

And kissed.

And adored.

I even love that I’m so clumsy right now that I can’t get Hayes’s shirt buttons undone.

The way he’s teasing and licking and nipping at my neck is driving me wild, and I finally give up and yank, sending his buttons flying.

He chuckles into the crook of my neck as his thick, heavy length pulses against me. “Just when I thought you couldn’t possibly get any more attractive, bluebell…”

“Want me to do the same to your pants?”