He tasted like heat and spices, a combination so addictive I could easily spend the rest of my life consuming him and only him.
A sting of pain sharpened the pleasure when he nipped my bottom lip and smiled at my surprised gasp.
“You asked for a kiss, Stella.” Christian’s rough voice scattered tingles through my stomach. “This is how I kiss.”
The words touched my skin like open flames.
I drew his bottom lip between my teeth. Gently tugged. And released.
“Just the way I like it,” I said.
His resulting groan brought a smile to my face. I normally wasn’t this bold, but I loved the idea that I could make Christian Harper lose control.
“You’re going to be the death of me.” He lifted one hand and rubbed a thumb over my cheek, his eyes darkening as the shadows rose to the surface. “You never should’ve let me kiss you, Stella. Because one taste isn’t fucking enough.”
His words and the touch of his gaze warmed me more than the tropical sun. “Who says it has to be one?”
He let out another groan before he kissed me again, hungrily and thoroughly, like a man starved.
The delicious slide of his tongue against mine renewed the ache between my legs, and everything fell away except for the heat of his skin, the race of my heart, and the firmness of his touch.
I’d never wanted someone as much as I did Christian, and the press of my bare breasts against his torso made me all too aware of the choice I’d made when I dropped my arms for him.
Risk over safety. Desire over comfort.
No regrets.
It wasn’t the dirty words or sinful desires. It wasn’t the way he’d fucked me with his fingers or wrapped his hand around my throat.
It was the kiss and the way it made me feel, like I could be the truest version of myself.
I sighed with pleasure at the skilled command of Christian’s mouth.
I could’ve stayed there forever, wrapped up in his arms on a secluded beach, but the air eventually cooled and the setting sun cast long shadows over our bodies.
“What time is the wrap party?” he murmured.
The question penetrated the fog in my mind.
Shoot. I’d almost forgotten about the Delamonte wrap party that night. “Um…” I searched for the answer through the haze. “Eight.”
“It’s almost seven.” Christian stroked his thumb over my hip. “We should head back soon.”
“Right.” I tried to hide my disappointment as he set me on my feet.
“You must love that dress,” he said as I pulled on my swimsuit and threw the dress I’d worn to the shoot over it. The white lemon-print cotton piece was one of my favorites. “You’ve worn it five times since spring began.”
My breath fluttered in my chest before it whooshed out in a surprised exhale. “I didn’t realize you noticed what I was wearing.”
“I notice everything about you.”
There were no fluttering breaths this time. There were no breaths at all, only a smile that couldn’t be contained and a light-headed giddiness that would’ve lifted me straight off the ground had Christian’s presence not tethered me to his side.
I didn’t respond, but the high followed me back to our hotel.
However, once I started getting ready for the wrap party, the giddiness gradually dissipated, leaving a void for my doubts to crawl in like scavenging insects.
I’d kissed Christian.
Christian, my fake boyfriend.
Christian, the man who’d told me straight out he didn’t believe in love.
Christian, who set my heart on fire even as a voice in my head warned that the fire could destroy me from the inside out if I wasn’t careful.
Not only had I kissed him, I’d asked him to kiss me after I let him bring me to orgasm on a beach during a work trip.
What have I done?
This was why I shouldn’t be left alone with my thoughts. I ruined every good moment by overanalyzing it to death.
I put on my earrings.
It’s fine. Everything will be fine.
“You look beautiful.”
My heart skipped a beat. I turned my head, and my doubts retreated into the shadows once again when I saw Christian leaning against the doorframe, watching me get ready.
The slumberous heat in his eyes lit a trail of tiny fires across my skin while the memory of what we did earlier pulsed between us like a living thing.
If we hadn’t needed to leave the beach…
“Thank you.” My voice came out huskier than normal. I turned back to the mirror and lifted my hair off my neck. “Zip me up?”
The soft falls of his footsteps matched the thuds of my pulse.
“I love this dress on you.” His gaze slid over my silk dress in an electric caress.
Breathe.
“I thought you don’t believe in love,” I teased.
“You’re right. That was the wrong word.” Christian touched the small of my back while his eyes met mine in the mirror.
“Because love is ordinary. Mundane. And you, Stella…” The soft rasp of the zipper filled the air as he dragged it up my spine in one exquisitely, torturously slow glide.
My breath left my lungs at both the sensuality of the movement and the raw intimacy of his next words.
“You’re extraordinary.”
32
STELLA
Delamonte’s wrap party should’ve been the crowning highlight of my trip, a celebration of everything we’d accomplished over the past three days.
Instead, I spent the entirety of it replaying that afternoon in my head.
The memory of my kiss with Christian stayed with me through dessert, as did the phantom brush of his touch. With one zip of my dress, he’d awoken more heat in me than any of my previous partners had with actual sex.
I’d suppressed it during dinner, but the heat blossomed again as the bedroom door closed behind us.
We hadn’t spoken since dinner ended, but the mere anticipation of what could happen rasped against my skin as surely as a calloused touch.
The air hummed with breathlessness as Christian walked to the dresser, his lean, powerful form slicing through the darkness like a freshly honed blade through silk.
Blood roared in my ears and drowned out everything except my heartbeats and the soft rustle of his movements.
“You don’t have any other commitments tonight, I presume.” His tone was relaxed, but when he turned, his eyes smoldered with so much heat I thought I would combust from the sheer intensity of it.
An electric current tied our gazes together as he removed his cufflinks with a slow, deliberate preciseness that made my mouth go dry.
Rough hands. Whiskey eyes. Control.
“No.”
The whisper drifted down and tightened my nipples into hard, aching points.
My lungs barely expanded with my attempts to inhale and exhale.
“Good.” Clink. Clink. The sounds of his cufflinks hitting the silver tray echoed in the dark and throbbed low in my belly. “Take off your dress, Stella.”
His deceptively soft command burned up all the oxygen in the room and set every molecule of my body ablaze.
My breaths shallowed.
This was it.
The fork in the road.
I could stick with the safe path and tell him no, or I could throw caution to the wind and do what my heart and body were screaming at me to do.