“You get this, hey?” he asked softly.
“We can…we can…we can call it all off,” I offered.
His brows snapped together, the room burst into flames (not literally, but it felt like it), and he growled, “We can?”
“No,” I said swiftly, feeling that was the only safe answer.
“Yeah,” he murmured, his eyes roaming my face, my hair, settling on my lips. “No. That dress. That hair. My mom I know is right now planning the weekend menu. Josh’s probably already been ordered to clear his schedule. My phone rings, it’ll be Hailey, because she’ll be all over that Elsa bullshit.” His face dipped closer. “In case you missed it, Alex honey, we just got in this for a lot longer fuckin’ haul.”
I was hearing his words.
I was even, in a way, processing them.
The problem with that was, I was watching his lips, from close, forming them.
And he had really beautiful lips.
So when he was done, this registered in some primal part of my brain that might be primal, but it was still polite, because I didn’t interrupt.
But when he stopped, the coast was now clear.
And he was right there.
And my nipples were brushing his chest.
So, obviously, I jumped him.
Our lips crashed together, smushing against our teeth, Rix emitted a pained grunt, and my sanity returned.
It evacuated entirely when he suddenly had two handfuls of my ass, his fingers squeezing a message I didn’t hesitate to respond to by hopping up.
I had my legs around his hips a nanosecond before I had my back to the couch and Rix’s weight on me.
Ohmigod.
Heaven.
Though his body was on me, it was my tongue in his mouth.
He’d had a beer.
I tasted that.
But other than that, it was heat and strength and musk and Rix.
In other words, I couldn’t get enough.
I’d never get enough.
But in that moment, I gave that effort my all.
This effort lasted so long, my hands were up his tee discovering the wonderland of the muscles of his back, and his hand was up my skirt and down my panties, skin-to-skin on my behind.
Abruptly, my body was jerked, he was seated, I was straddling his lap, his hand was still on my ass, but his other one had forced my mouth from his to the side of his neck.
His was on the side of mine as he growled, “Jesus, fuck.”
As those two words slithered down my spine, I realized I was panting.
I tried to stop doing that.
I failed when I felt the result of my kiss pressing between my legs.
Rix was hard.
And I’d made him that way.
My stomach did a somersault.
My brain panicked.
I began to move.
He clamped down with both hands.
He also whispered, “Please.”
That was it.
That was all he said.
I stilled.
Slowly, gently, he slid his hand out of my panties, out from under my skirt, and wrapped that arm around my lower back, letting go of the pressure he had on my neck.
Slowly, mortified, I lifted my head.
Mortification fled at the molten caramel heat in his eyes.
Heat.
For me.
“You’re a fuckin’ great kisser, honey,” he whispered, eyes to my lips.
Well, there you go.
Rumor verified.
“Thanks,” I whispered back.
His gaze came to mine. “As awesome as that was, maybe we need to go a lot slower when it comes to that.”
My mind thought that was probably a good idea.
Other parts of my body ardently disagreed.
However, I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Though, to make things clear, I want that from you,” he declared.
My heart skipped fifteen beats.
“You hear me?” he asked.
“I heard you, Rix,” I answered.
“Your call. Always, baby. Hey?”
“Hey,” I replied softly.
“Have you met the queen?”
Even if his eyes were maybe two inches away, I looked anywhere but at them and mumbled, “Ummmmmmm…”
His “Shit” was both amused and uncertain.
I looked right at him.
The time being nigh had passed.
So now it couldn’t be avoided.
Thus, I stopped doing that.
“I have a thirty-five million dollar trust fund. I won’t inherit anything of the Norton estate. Since Mum’s an only child, that’ll go to Blake, but more, her firstborn son, including the seat in the House of Lords. Though there are certain pieces of jewelry that have been earmarked for me. That said, I’m not allowed to sell them or bequeath them out of the family, and neither are my children. As you can tell from this, clinically, which is how my family operates, Blake and I have been fully informed of the arrangements. A hint of these, since Blake’s inheriting Mum’s flat in New York, I get Dad’s brownstone. Blake gets the house in the Hamptons and the apartment in Paris. I get the 80-foot yacht in Miami and the compound on Mustique. My grandmother took a shine to me, that’s Dad’s mom, and left me her jewels, furs and gowns. All of them. And there are a lot of them. Blake was livid. Right now, for safe keeping, they’re in a high security, temperature-controlled vault in Dad’s brownstone.”
I shut up.
“Go on,” he encouraged gently.
I took a big breath.
And went on.
“Even before they got divorced, I spent almost all my summers in England.”
“Why you call your mom ‘mum.’”
I nodded. “That, and she wouldn’t allow us to call her anything else.”
“Okay.”
“I liked it there. In England, it’s a way of life to be outdoors. When it’s nice weather, when it isn’t. Folks hit the beaches. Bodies cover parks. People walk places. The footpaths are ancient. They’re also public. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, if you have a footpath going through your property, you can’t stop anyone from using it.”
“That’s cool,” he muttered.
“I know,” I agreed. “I wandered a lot when I was out there. That’s what they call it. Wandering. I like that too. That it’s called wandering. There’s obviously intent when you go out and do it, but it’s also just doing it. Like, it’s so peaceful. You’re going nowhere, and you have all the time in the world to get there.”
He started stroking my back.
His hand still at my neck started stroking my jaw.
Both felt nicer than I’d imagined they’d feel, and I’d had my fair share of daydreams about Rix and what it would feel like if he was mine, so that was saying something.
I kept talking.
“I honestly have no idea if my father and mother ever loved each other. Even their wedding pictures, earlier shots of them at parties or out on boats or on the beach, they’re all posed. For Mum, not a hair out of place, lipstick always perfect. For Dad, it’s like he thinks people won’t take him seriously if he gets caught smiling, so he just doesn’t do it very often. Dad being taken seriously is a big thing for him. He was taught he has to prove himself, because my grandfather had to prove himself, and my great grandfather, and so on. They came into vast wealth, and it wouldn’t do for a man who’s less than a man to inherit it.”