I’m torn. Part of me wants to push him away completely, and the other part of me wants nothing more than to totally melt into him. It wants me to lose myself in the heady passion that’s engulfing me from the inside out.
I struggle with it as his tongue sweeps around mine, and it isn’t until I hear a soft moan from my own throat that I decide I have to stop him. I push my palms against his chest and twist my face away from his, trying to catch my breath.
“Astor don’t! I’m not going to do this with you.” I try to sound more adamant than I feel, but my words break on him like an ocean wave on a jetty, relentless but ignored. He only trails his burning lips across my cheek and down my throat as his hands leave my face and move across my back, pulling me hard against him.
“I don’t want Victoria,” he grumbles against my skin breathlessly. “I want you! I’ve always wanted you since you came here, and I’m not going to sit by anymore and watch Blair and Wills have all the best of you while I’m stuck with her. I don’t even want to hear her name … nothing about her. I only want you right now. I want nothing but you. All of you.”
I want to yell at him. I want to stop him from everything he’s doing, but more than that, I want him to hold me. I want to feel his lips on me. I want to feel everything he’s doing, and it’s overwhelming me completely.
“Astor …” I try weakly, feeling a heady rush as his fingers slip beneath my tank top.
“I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed feeling you close to me like this. Haven’t you missed me? Haven’t you missed how it feels to be this close to me?” He takes my face in his hands, breathless and hungry for me, and he stares into my eyes.
I feel my throat tighten slightly as tears sting at the back of my own eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” I whisper back to him. He brings his mouth to mine again and kisses me so deeply that the rest of the entire world vanishes.
“Then let’s share this time together. Let’s not lose this. We’ve lost enough today.” He murmurs, his lips brushing mine. I can’t say no to him, and in his ever-cocky way, he knows it. I’ve never seen him so ravenous, so passionate before, and it ignites a fire so strong that it engulfs me.
“Let me have you tonight.” He breathes into my ear as his hands move up my bare back beneath my tank top. “Say yes. Please … say yes.”
I can feel myself falling over the edge of a waterfall of desire. “Astor!” I plead once more, not really meaning no, but sort of wishing that I could.
“Say it …” His hands move around my waist and come so close to moving up to a danger zone.
I can’t deny him. I want him too much. “Yes,” I barely manage to speak.
I hear Astor groan deeply and it makes my blood rush as he pulls me to my bed and slides my clothes off of me like he’s opening his best gift on Christmas morning. He touches me everywhere, like he can’t get enough of me. I have never felt so wanted, so desired in my life. I lose myself in the intense feel of it, and of becoming one with him. It’s so unlike anything that I’ve known with either of my other boys, and I just can’t get enough of him.
Astor takes his time with me, savoring every single moment of it, and I know it’s because we’ve both wanted it and had to wait so long for it. He is letting down every wall he’s had up between the two of us, letting me in completely, to places in him that he has never let me see or know before.
I’m learning so much about him, and he is doing the same with me, with every touch, with every kiss, with every moment that we hold so tightly to one another.
It’s a long, long time before we tremble together in our release, and when we can finally breathe peacefully again, laying in each other’s arms, he stares at me and traces his hand over my cheek and lips.
“I can’t believe that this finally happened. I’ve wanted this for so long,” he says to me.
I answer him by leaning in close to kiss him softly for a moment before I look at him again. I should just let the moment stretch, no words, no complications … but I’m no good at holding my tongue.
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” I tell him earnestly, opening my heart up to him. “What changed it for you? What was it that made you finally give up on her and come to me?”
I have to know. He made it clear that he doesn’t want to talk with me about her, but everything is different now between us, and I want to know how we got here. It matters to me.
Astor smiles and weaves his fingers into mine, holding my hand as he gazes at me. “It’s who you are, Teddy. It’s all changed now.”
Confusion kind of freezes me for a moment and I give him a funny look. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, who I am?”
Astor brings my fingers to his lips and kisses them lightly and then smiles happily at me. “Everyone knows, Teddy. As soon as Eli Hamilton talked about it at the funeral this morning, word spread like wildfire. You’re Paul White’s daughter. We all knew him, or at least, of him. The man is a billionaire. Or was … I guess. I’m sorry that he’s gone.” He looks at me with some sympathy, and everything in my mind locks onto a sickening realization.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I pull my hand free of his and lean up on one elbow, my eyes steady on his.
Astor looks at me as if I should already understand what he’s saying. “You were nobody before. No money. No family. Now it’s different. It’s changed. Now you belong in my world. We can be together and no one will care.”
He reaches out to me to stroke the side of my face, but I pull back. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
My brain feels like it’s on fire, and my heart is blazing as well, but not with th
e heat of passion anymore. No. It’s burning with anger and injustice. I sit up straight and look down at him as I pull the sheet up over my body to shield myself from him