Loving the Secret Billionaire (Love at Last #1)(20)

Those words ramped me right back up.

“So you want this? It’s not just the heat of the moment talking?”

“No. I mean, no, it’s not the heat of the moment.” She sounded breathy and excited. “I don’t usually… I’ve never… I’m not a big dirty talker. I’m not so…” She huffed out a self-deprecating sound, struggling for the right word.

“Brazen?” I supplied, and she laughed.

“Exactly. I usually skirt around the issue of sex. Until it just kind of happens.”

Inside I’m a freaking caveman, thumping my chest. She wants me. Nobody else.

“What’s different here?”

“Everything.” She pauses, maybe hesitant. “What’s different for you?”

How could I explain this? The sensation of being around her, talking to her? The way she made me feel? Like my life existed outside these walls. Like I could do things I’d never imagined possible.

I cleared my throat and tried for humor. “Don’t get out much. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“So you…go for the one person to visit you?”

“No. No, I don’t mean that.” The door was hard and we were standing here and I wished we were someplace soft, where I could lean in and touch her face, feel her expression, not just hear it. “I mean, we were never super sociable, me and my granddad. But after he passed, I stopped going out as much. And then a couple years ago… All the sounds and people and smells. It was too much for my brain. Overwhelm or overload or something. I have friends. I mean, people do visit occasionally and I’ve got people online, but, this way, it’s on my terms.”

She made a little I’m listening noise in her throat, which I assumed meant she wanted more. I forgot how much women needed to dissect things.

“When you showed up, every bit of you sort of slotted in. Or made sense, or fit me, I guess. Like everything else is pain and dissonance and you walked in and you’re this perfect, sweet melody. You get that?”

Her loud inhale should have told me what she was thinking, but I was clueless until she spoke.

“Yeah, Zach.” The backs of her fingers made a raspy sound as she stroked my jaw.

“Shoulda shaved.”

“No.” The word was faint, almost whispered. With a smile, maybe. “No, this is perfect. You’re perfect.” She cupped my chin, leaned in, and whispered into my ear, “And I need you inside me. Tonight. Now.”

With her musical laughter egging me on, I slung her over my shoulder, wanting to run up the stairs. Instead, I used restraint and walked.

“Wait!” she giggled from where she hung against my back. “The condoms.”

“Oh, I’ve got condoms.” I grabbed her ass hard in one hand and she let out a happy squeal. “We’ll come down if we use ’em all.”



* * *



Veronica



* * *



Yes. God, yes, he was doing it right.

He hauled me up the steps like a fireman. Or a caveman. And I loved it.

Down a dark hall, into a dark room, where he set me on the bed, opened a drawer and pulled out a box.

It took a second or two for me to realize he wasn’t moving, but just stood beside me, box in hand, breathing hard.

“You okay?”

“You know how many times I’ve imagined this?” He gave a gruff little growl. “Fuck. Can’t believe I’ve never actually done what comes next. I want to make it good for you.”

I was almost afraid to ask, “What do you picture or how do you…” I shook my head and scooted up the bed to his pillows. “What do you imagine?”

“It’s surreal, I guess, now that I think about it.” I could make out his grin in the dark, so I relaxed a tiny bit. “There’s no clothing. I’m just naked. And hands come out.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It’s been your hands, the past few times.”

Oh, I felt that in my belly. Following whatever instinct that was, I went to him, pried the condoms from his grasp, and put them on the bedside table, then stood on tip-toes, moved in close, and whispered against his ear. “Let’s get your shirt off.”

He didn’t help me, really, besides shifting aside, nor did he get in my way as I unbuttoned the shirt, yanked it off, and threw it on the floor.

I moved my hands to his waist and he stopped them with his. “Let’s do your dress,” he said, sending a trail of goose bumps from my neck down my arm, to my fingers where they touched his skin.

“Okay.” I lifted my arms and waited for him to undress me.

“Definitely Dupioni silk.”

My giggle was abruptly cut off when he threw the dress over a chair and turned to rub his hand down my side and back up, his thumb brushing my breast.

“Want me to get my bra?”

“I hear they’re complicated,” he said with that wide, superhero smile. “If in doubt, just yank it up, right?”

The memory of him doing that the other night shot straight to my pussy, making me clench hard.

“Undoing them’s a pain in the ass.” I hardly recognized my voice, it was so tense.

“Show me.”

“All right.” And then, because he’d want to know, I told him. “I like it when you order me around a little. Like when you hauled me up the stairs.”