Scandalized(78)

I make a muffled sound of shock from behind the hand I’ve clapped over my mouth. He’s been here this whole time. Of course. Alec wouldn’t leave for London if Sunny was headed to LA. Sunny wouldn’t come to LA if Alec was headed to London.

And Yael would never leave either of them hanging like that.

Can you imagine if our planes actually crossed paths midair? He would never stop lecturing me.

“You were never on the plane!”

“I— Whoa,” he says, immediately distracted by my outfit. “What are you—”

I hurtle myself into his arms, knocking the flowers to the ground and making him take a few steadying steps backward to catch me. He’s here. I squeeze him so tight, eyes closed, sacrificing every wish I might get from here on out in gratitude for having him here on my doorstep.

His arms go all the way around me, holding me tight, and he lets out the quietest groan into my neck. He feels so good against me I can’t breathe. Everything inside seems to gather at the center of my chest and then explode outward in a pulse of relief and longing so that I feel my heartbeat as ten pulses in my fingers, ten pulses in my toes. He is solid and warm. He smells like soap and the soft citrus of his shaving cream. His laugh vibrates against my face where I’m pressed to his neck.

I never would have been able to get over him.

“Gigi,” he says, his voice a deep vibration, “look at me.”

I can’t. I press my lips to his neck, his jaw, and then kiss like a madwoman all over his face.

Alec laughs at the onslaught, carrying me inside like I’m a rag doll hanging from his shoulders, and shuts the door behind us. Reaching down, he adjusts his grip around my waist and lifts me up, carrying me to my bedroom.

Once there, he lets me slide down his body until my feet hit the floor, and then he bends, cupping my face and setting his lips on mine, kissing me with a passion that obliterates my ability to think about anything other than the feel of him. I make fists in his shirt, pulling him right up against me.

But Alec finds my hands, coaxing my fingers open. “Let me see you,” he says against my kiss, and then steps back.

He reaches out, adjusting the collar of his shirt on me, dragging his gaze down the length of my body and back up. Fire follows the path of his eyes and I feel it like sweet, tiny pinpricks all along my skin.

His neck flushes red.

“Do you blush like that when you come?” I ask, throwing his own teasing words back at him.

His laugh is a distracted, forceful exhale. I reach up, unbuttoning the shirt, watching the inky black of his pupils expand into the deep brown of his irises. The shirt falls to the floor and he reaches up, rubbing a finger over his bottom lip. “I like your underwear.”

“Thanks.” I slide a thumb under the elastic at the waist, snap it. “Yael got them for me.”

He coughs out a laugh, eyes bolting to my face. “You’re going to give her credit?”

“She picked them out.”

“They were my idea.”

This reminds me, and I hold up an index finger. “I have an important question for you.”

His attention has drifted to my breasts. “My answer is yes.”

“You have my red dress, don’t you?”

He nods, distractedly. “Stole it. Never planned to return it.”

Laughing, I reach for his hand, placing it on my hip and guiding it up my body, over my breast. My smile fades as longing spreads like steam through my veins. His fingers immediately mold to the curve, his eyes falling closed. Back and forth his thumb strokes across the peak. I need his pinch, his tongue and teeth. Arching, I press into his hand.

He swallows before speaking. “I really thought this weekend—this morning—that I might never touch you again.”

When he opens his eyes, I’m already watching him, and the way his expression clears at the eye contact is so pure, his expression so ardent, I feel myself falling deeper into love as if it’s a physical movement. It isn’t just a feeling of passion and tenderness and admiration; it’s feeling like the Gigi in love with Alec exists in an entirely new plane.

Alec slides his hand up my neck and steps to me.

My heart drops in my chest when his mouth touches mine again. A single kiss and then another, and the patience he takes seducing me with his lips tells me he knows we have a world of time to devour.

But, as usual, my body doesn’t care.

I send both hands into his hair, coming right up against him. The pressed fabric of his dress shirt provides maddening friction against my skin. A cool button presses into my breast. Once again, I am almost naked, and he is fully dressed.

His tongue feels like sex in my mouth, tiny flicks and tastes, teeth dragging against my lips, tugging. I would tease him like this if I could, but I can only chase. I’m forever the frantic greed to his focused patience.

“Are you going to tease me for hours?” I ask, urging him with me toward the bed.

“I’m sure going to try.”

At these words we both go still, eyes meeting as the painful echo rings between us. With his hands on my hips, he walks me the last few steps to the bed, coaxing me down, coming over me. The fabric of his dress pants is soft against my thighs, but he holds his hips away, hovering carefully above me.

“I’m not proud of how I acted on Friday,” he says.

“I just didn’t know what to do,” I tell him. “I wanted to apologize, to fix it, to be there for you, but you gave me absolutely no way in.”