He adjusted his hand under his head, not responding.
“Would love to block the image out of my head,” I grumbled, flashes of her coming out of his room, mussed, cheeks glowing from being thoroughly fucked, returning like a bad rerun.
“I don’t do regrets anymore. It was a promise I made to myself after that dark time. But if I could only take back one, it would be that one.”
“Really? Why that one? Have you seen Hazel?”
He shifted uncomfortably, staring out the windows.
“No lies between us now.” I tipped my head to the side, staring down on him.
“I wasn’t going to lie. I’m just not sure the truth will help.”
“Try me.”
He rubbed at his cheek, sucking in. “Besides doing the one thing I told myself I’d never do, sleep with someone associated with my job, I already told you I slept with her because I couldn’t be with you. But there was another thing you didn’t know. She knew. Called me out.”
“Huh?” My eyes widened.
His forehead wrinkled. “The night in the club…it took everything I had not to kiss you. I mean everything, but I knew you weren’t in your right mind. Whatever was between us even then couldn’t be hidden. Hazel noticed.”
Holy crap, Hazel knew? Recalling her now, I remembered certain looks, certain things she said, which confirm that.
“When we got back, and I got you up to your room? You almost broke me.”
“Broke you?”
“My willpower was already paper-thin. You started to undress, dancing around your bedroom. Badly, may I add. Tripping and stumbling, but it was so fuckin’ adorable. And still hot as hell. But what almost toppled me over was the fact you said my name every time you looked in my eyes. I knew you didn’t see Theo, and that almost destroyed my resolve. But I walked away, knowing it was for the best. She confronted me in the hallway, warned me of all I had to lose. She suggested we use each other.” Lennox shrugged. “I had no hope of having you, so I took her up on it.” He huffed. “Didn’t help me at all.”
“No?” My eyebrows curved up. “Hazel is like every man’s fantasy.”
Lennox’s head jerked to me, his irises heating as he sat up, flattening my back onto the bed.
“Clearly not mine.” He crawled over me, settling between my legs. “She’s a lovely girl, but I like them awkward, blunt, unpredictable, defiant, and stubborn as hell.” He claimed my mouth, his hips rolling into mine, instantly igniting flames down my spine.
His hand traveled down, pushing my knickers to the side, his fingers sliding through me.
“Oh, god.” My back arched.
“I was supposed to let you sleep.” He dove in deeper, pumping in and out. “But I can’t seem to stop myself when I’m around you anymore. You finally broke me.”
I couldn’t get any words out, my breath heaving as I moved against him.
“I can’t get enough of you.” He pushed up the shirt, his mouth taking in my breast, flicking at my nipple, creating a noise deep in my chest. “There’s one of the moans I love.” He moved to the other breast. “Let me see how loud I can get them.” He nipped and licked down my stomach, sliding down my underwear, his tongue spreading through me.
Loud and unfiltered, a cry broke from my lips, my nails raking through his hair.
“You taste so fuckin’ good.” He slid his hands under my arse, holding me against him as he devoured and took.
Cries, moans, and screams of his name purged from my mouth like I was possessed before I exploded with pleasure, reaching a place I never knew existed.
When he entered me, our bodies moving together, it was so sensual, so slow and deep, I could no longer differentiate between us. He had claimed me in every way. I knew my heart was a goner.
There would be no coming back from this.
No matter what lay ahead.
Frothy morning light seeped through the spitting clouds, quietly waking me up. Rain tapped lightly against the glass as wisps of fog snaked over the river and street below. People rushed down the pavement to the train for work or school, bundled up against the cold.
Lennox’s naked body encased me in warmth. His steady breathing against my neck made me smile happily. After one of the most intense orgasms of my life, we both passed out, exhaustion giving me over to slumber without one nightmare. I hadn’t slept so soundly in months, probably since moving into the palace, making me see how long I hadn’t been relaxed or comfortable.
Lennox stirred behind me, a low hum vibrating from his chest. “You’re here,” he muttered into my hair, his arms circling me, shifting up my bare stomach.
“You have the coffee, where did you think I’d go?”
He snorted. “Several times I bolted awake, thinking I had just dreamed you being here.” He growled, his erection pushing against my arse, forcing me to bite my lip.
“You know, under all those gruff layers, you are actually very sweet.” I grinned to myself, knowing that would totally needle him.
“I’m not sweet.” He huffed, pinning my back to the bed, rolling on me, a snarl wrinkling his nose.
“Ah, come on, you are a softy,” I teased, loving the feel of his weight on me. I wanted to stay like this all day.
“Does that feel soft to you?” He shifted his hips into me, cutting off my argument with a sharp gasp. His mouth came down on mine, devouring me with hunger. “And what I want to do to you is anything but sweet.”
Our mouths veered quickly to frantic, my legs wrapping around him, my head spinning with the feel of him sliding through me. “Lennox…” I moaned, my nails raking up his firm arse, pulling him into me with desperation, needing him inside me more than air. I never wanted to stop touching, hearing his voice, seeing his smile. His smell, his body, his fingers caressed my skin. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. If the world was burning up, flipped over, and razed to rubble, there still would be nothing to stop me from getting to the man next to me.
He was right. This was going to be a problem.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
A pounding on the door boomed through the space, jolting us, our heads twisting to the door.
“What the fuck?” Lennox muttered under his breath.
“Lennox, my boy? You there?” A man’s voice came through the door, thick with a northern Victorian accent. “Your doorman let me up.”
“Shite.” Lennox scrambled off me, grabbing the briefs on the floor while tossing me the t-shirt he had torn off me last night, both of us rushing to cover up as the doorknob jangled, unlocking.
This person had a key?
“Hold on!” Lennox yanked up his boxers, sprinting for the door.
I yanked down the shirt, scuttling out of the bed, searching. “Where are my knickers?” I hissed.
He shook his head, having no idea where in the tangled sheets he tossed them.
“Lennox?” The man tapped again.
Lennox’s lids squeezed together for a moment. Taking in a deep breath, he straightened up before tugging the door open.
“Arthur,” he said on an exhale, his jaw twitching. “Now is not a good—”
Arthur.
I had heard that name…oh, feck me sideways…