Bella Andre - Just To Be With You

“You were shaking when Smith first spoke to you and I thought something bad had happened. But now you’re laughing. Tell me what he said, Tatiana.”

“It wasn’t bad news. It was great news. Shocking news.”

She laughed again, and he wanted to shake her for not telling him what the news was already. But even more than that, he wished he could laugh with her, wished he were the kind of man who could pull her back into his arms and dance with her without knowing better than to give a woman such easy affection.

“I just can’t believe it,” she finally added.

“Believe what? ” His question came out rougher, and louder, than he’d intended, but at least it seemed to startle her into realizing that she hadn’t yet told him the news. “I still don’t know what happened.”

She gripped his hands even more tightly and he honestly didn’t think she had a clue that she’d put them between her breasts as she finally told him, “Smith was nominated for an Oscar this morning. And so was I.” She pressed in even closer to his hands, as if only he had the power to help slow the incredibly rapid beating of her heart. “For Best Actress,” she whispered.

Her happiness was such a living, breathing thing between them that all Ian knew in that moment was that he would do anything he could, give everything he had, to keep her looking like this. Which was why it was the most natural thing in the world to say, “I’m so proud of you,” then pull her back into his arms and swing her around and around while she laughed again.

Her cheeks were flushed as she looked up at him, and he had to stroke her face, had to get closer to the brightest, warmest sunlight he’d felt in a very, very long time.

She was still laughing when she pressed her mouth to his. A kiss of pure happiness, pure joy. Stunned by the beauty, the sweetness of her unexpected kiss, he didn’t even have a chance to kiss her back by the time she pulled away.

Her eyes were wide with surprise, and when she looked at him, and said, “Oh my God, I just kissed you,” he knew for sure that nothing about the kiss had been planned. She had simply been so happy, so excited, so expressive in her joy, that hugging him, dancing with him, even kissing him, was the way she’d needed to express herself.

Just as he now needed—more than anything he’d ever needed in his life—to crush her mouth to his again. He could still taste her joy in their second kiss, but within the span of several heartbeats, desire and desperate need quickly edged their way in.

With Tatiana in his arms and her mouth pressed against his, Ian momentarily forgot all the rules, all the restrictions he’d put on his life and his heart. He couldn’t do anything but feel, couldn’t stop himself from taking another kiss, and then another and another, dragging her closer with each one, falling deeper under her spell with every breath he stole from her lungs, with every gasp of pleasure she made against his lips.

He’d known it would be like this with her, hadn’t he? So powerfully sensual, and so addictive as she opened for him so that he could stroke his tongue against hers and she could taste him just as intimately.

On and on their kiss went, her response utterly unrestrained, but it wasn’t until he heard her moaning softly against his mouth that he realized his hands had slid up from her waist to cup her breasts, her nipples pebbling against his thumbs as he stroked her.

What the hell was he doing?

And now that they’d kissed, now that he knew just how good they could be together, how could he possibly go back?

Ian tried to think straight. Tried to remember all the reasons why they shouldn’t do this, even as she told him, “I’ve never wanted anyone, or anything, as much as I want you, Ian.”

And in that moment, when it felt to Ian as though everything he’d ever wanted was right there in front of him, even though he knew better, he simply didn’t have it in him to move away from her.

But despite the hungry way she’d kissed him, he also instinctively knew that for all the lovers she’d already had, none could have needed her as badly as he did...or would demand as much of her unfettered sensuality as he would. Grasping at straws now, he decided the only chance—and the very last one—that he had of getting them to stop this madness before it slid all the way out of their control, would be if he could scare her with the force, the depth, the wildness of his need.

He slid his hand around to the nape of her neck, then fisted his hands in her hair and roughly tilted back her head so that he could scrape his stubble across the sensitive skin of her neck. “If you don’t leave right now,” he warned her in a voice made harsh with the inner conflict that rode him, “there’s no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back. Not now.” She shivered against him. “Not ever.”

“I won’t be gentle.” He had one last chance to try to do whatever he could to get her to run, because he sure as hell couldn’t figure out a way to let her go. “If you stay, I’m going to take what I want from you, Tatiana. Everything I want. Everything you’ve been offering to me since the moment we met.”

But instead of running, all she said was, “Yes.” And then again, even more emphatically, “Yes. I don’t want gentle. I just want you.”

And then she lifted her mouth to his again...and he was lost.

As Ian kissed her, for the first time in her life Tatiana knew—really knew—what passion was.

This was the kind of passion that people wrote songs and books and movies about.

This was the kind of moment that people waited an entire lifetime for.

She’d acted out passion a dozen times on screen to the best of her professional ability, but she’d never truly felt it before. No one but Ian had ever kissed her like this, touched her like this. Touching not just her body, but her heart and soul, too.

She hadn’t meant to leap into his arms to kiss him like that, but she’d been so excited about being an Oscar nominee that it had been pure instinct to share her joy with him any way she could. They’d hugged, they’d danced, and then, before she knew it, she was kissing him.

Just a few moments of her lips against his—and yet it had been unlike any kiss she’d ever had, with warmth and arousal instantly swamping her system.

Feeling as if she’d just been struck by lightning, she’d drawn back, but before she could do more than exclaim her surprise at what she’d done, Ian was crushing her against him, his mouth devouring hers. And as he kissed her breathless, she forgot all about the nomination, forgot about everything except how badly, how desperately, she wanted him.

She heard it first—the sound of fabric ripping—before she realized he’d torn open the bodice of her silk dress with one tug of his hand on the fabric at her neck, leaving her standing before him in her bra, also in blue silk.

“You’re even more beautiful than I dreamed you’d be.”

The raw timbre of his words, and the fierce need in his eyes, sent shivers through her, along with a ravenous hunger for more of his dangerous passion. She didn’t want him in his clothes any more than he seemed to want her in hers, so in yet another impulsive move, she shoved his jacket open and onto to the floor, then reached for the buttons on his shirt and yanked them open.

His tie still held the top of his shirt in place, but she’d pulled it open enough to bare a patch of his chest. Oh, how she wanted to feel his heat, his strength! She was just putting her hands on his chest when he tugged her hair back, his mouth diving for the pulse point in her neck. With his free hand, he cupped one breast through the silk of her bra, and she both heard and felt his aroused groan against her neck.