Clare Connelly - Burn Me Once / Boardroom Sins

While I want her , I want more of this, too. More of feeling like I’m about to explode, like I’m close but far away. I wanted to get blind drunk tonight, but instead I met Ally and I’m drunk on something besides alcohol. Is this just deprivation talking? Just the fact I haven’t been able to do this for a really long time?

Flesh on flesh...her under my fingertips.

Fuuuuck.

‘What would you say about getting out of the bath?’ All I can think about is taking her again. Driving into her like she’s my new home.

‘Can we bring the ice cream?’

‘Hell, yeah , we can bring the ice cream.’

She’s so graceful. Even as she pushes up to standing and moves out of the bath it’s like a ballet performance. She’s lithe and lean and, though I’m aching to follow, I take a moment just to watch her. To watch as she pulls her wet hair over her shoulder and squeezes it into a towel, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She drops the towel to her body and pats herself dry in what is my new definition of sexiness. Then she turns back to me and she looks like Mona Lisa might have if she’d just rolled out of bed.

Enigmatic. Hot. Desirable.

‘Ready?’

‘Yeah.’ Is that my voice? So gruff and hoarse?

She reaches for the ice cream and once more spoons it into her mouth, but she holds the spoon there, her eyes holding mine. Just for a second. A beat. But it’s enough. Enough for me to imagine it’s me in her mouth.

I would be some kind of animal if I didn’t feel guilty for what I’m doing. Four months ago I thought Sienna and I would work through our shit and probably one day get married. Four months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of being with someone else.

And now I’m fucking this beautiful, sexy Ally.

Am I doing it to hurt Sienna?

Am I doing it to fuck Sienna right out of my head?

Am I doing it because Sienna deserves that?

Hell, yeah. But I’m also doing it because Ally seems to have robbed me of any ability to walk away. She has drawn me into something I cannot fight.

And I don’t want to fight it anyway.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE SUN IS WEAK, straining to break through the sensuality that has formed a deep fog in his room. I squint and stifle a yawn, arching my back until I ram against him. A feline smile curves slowly over my lips. I reach for him on autopilot, turning at the same time as his lips seek mine, crushing against them.

I haven’t spent the night in a stranger’s bed in a long time, and whenever I have in the past there has been the inevitable dawning of awkwardness the next morning. A raising of self-consciousness along with the new day. A desire to begin the forgetting—forgetting what I’ve done and with whom.

I do not feel that now.

I lose myself in the kiss and my body seeks his, hungrily, urgently, naturally. He groans into my mouth and it is an answer to my feral needs, my wildness and abandon. For a brief second he is distant, turning away from me, and then I roll with him, straddling him even as he laughs and extends an arm to the side table. He knocks a glass of water to the carpeted floor but doesn’t react.

Nor do I. I’m already seeking him, wanting to take him deep inside again. I need him more than I can express.

He laughs. A throaty sound of agreement. And then he swears. ‘Hang on.’

I don’t want to hang on, yet I pause, just long enough to frown and follow his fumbling hand. Oh, shit. A condom—of course. Had I really almost forgotten? Colour flushes my cheeks, but embarrassment is quickly swallowed by something else. Something far more primal.

Even before he’s ripped the packet open I’m bending my head forward and my mouth is taking him in the way the rest of me wants to. I curve my lips around him until he reaches the back of my throat and he swears again. I feel the curse reverberate through his body and into mine.

I don’t stop.

His fingers push through my hair, tangling in its length, and I move my mouth upwards, then take him all the way in again, over and over.

‘Fuuuck.’

He drops his fingers to my shoulders and pushes me up. I stare past his cock, beautiful as it is, up his toned chest, to a face that really is the stuff of dreams. God, he’s hot. Seriously hot.

The kind of guy a girl could lose her mind for.

And her heart too?

Not me—not my heart. My heart is staying boxed in my chest, right where it belongs. But my mind...? Yes, I’d happily be mindless for this rock god.

‘I want you.’ He rips the condom out and slides it over his dick.

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ I laugh, and then his hands are beneath my arms, pulling me up even as I crawl higher over his body and straddle him, taking him and moaning as he thrusts into me.

I tilt backwards and stare at the ceiling as all the walls of my world implode.

I am lost.

* * *

‘You know...’ He runs a fingertip down my spine and I shiver, my body still in paroxysms of desire even now, ten minutes after we’ve both crested that glorious wave and felt the complete delight that follows absolute surrender to pleasure. ‘You’re very good for my ego.’

I smile against his chest, listening to his heart thumping solidly. ‘Shouldn’t that be the other way around? It’s not every day I get seduced by a superstar.’

He runs his finger lower, curving it over the roundness of my ass.

‘Is that what I am?’

‘Uh-huh. Apparently.’

‘I’m not sure I seduced you, though.’

I laugh. ‘Seriously?’

‘You were staring at me all night...’

‘Was not!’

I push up onto my elbows and my hair falls over his chest, tumbling across his tanned skin. I drop my lips to the ridge between his pecs and kiss him slowly, tasting the tang of his sweat and the masculinity of his body.

My insides clench. He is warm; he is hot. I could stay here all day.

The very thought is a dangerous electrical current I must immediately subdue.

I don’t do that. I won’t do that. Sex is fine, but anything more is where things get tricky. I swallow, pretty sure confusion is in my smile as I pull away from him.

‘Anyway, Mr Rock Star, I think this is where our time must end.’ I sigh dramatically, doing my best impersonation of a Shakespearean actress, and stand up.

My clothes are spread like confetti over the carpet. I feel his eyes on me as I move through the room, watching me scoop the garments off the floor.

‘Mind if I grab a quick shower?’

He doesn’t answer straight away. His expression is vague, like he’s not concentrating, or perhaps he hasn’t even heard.

‘Ethan?’

‘Sorry—yeah. Right. Go ahead.’ He nods towards the bathroom.

My body feels like it’s been stripped raw. Every nerve-ending vibrates as I rub myself with a loofah, spreading suds across my skin and rinsing them away. In the past, whenever I had one-night stands, I used to feel the after-shower was almost ceremonial. A wiping away of what I’d done.

I don’t feel that now.

Or, if I do, I feel it with regret.

I don’t want to walk away from him. And that’s a serious problem. I’ve only ever felt that one time in my life and it led to a verified disaster.

Jeremy almost broke me. Almost? I forgot how to function for months after it ended.

Following desire to the point of stupidity was almost the end of me.

I will never make that mistake again.

I flick the taps off and stand in the steamy cubicle for a moment, steadying myself for what comes next.

Goodbyes are never nice, are they?

I brace myself for the inevitable swapping of numbers as I dress. The promise to call. The certainty that neither of us will.