He nodded thoughtfully. “The property in Australia.”
“Right.”
“Then we have a deal.”
She furrowed her brow. “What did we just agree to?”
He grinned. “To go with the flow, and let this play out.” He moved closer to her, so close their bodies were brushing and faces were just a couple of inches apart. “And to walk away, at the end of three months, without a backwards glance or a second thought.”
Her breath hitched in her throat but it was an excellent reminder of what they both wanted from this. “Deal,” she tilted her face towards his, stars forming in her eyes. “Shall we shake on it?”
“I’ve got a better idea.” And before she could guess what he meant, his head was dropping, his lips claiming hers, kissing her just like he had in the club the night before, but with more intensity, more hunger, more desperation, so her nerves skittled, and she fell apart at the seams, abandoning herself completely to his skillful mastery.
She’d wanted to control this. She’d tried to do exactly that by having this conversation, but some things were bigger than rational thought and this, she feared, was going to be one of them.
Her back swayed forward, pushing her into him, and this time, without the restraint of the crowd, without the newness of the kiss throwing her off kilter, it overtook Skye completely and absolutely, so her blood pumped for one reason only: to be near to him, to be touching him, to be touched by him. There was no one, nothing, to interrupt them.
He deepened the kiss as if she’d spoken the thought aloud, his hand lifting to her head, cradling it again, drawing her head back, angling her face so he could plunder her mouth completely, his body so much bigger than hers forming a frame to hers, every part of him stronger and larger so she was devoured by him.
She clung to him not out of desperation so much out of need—need for something solid to tether her to this world. His tongue flicked hers, then he moved, shifting his kiss to her cheek, the flesh beneath her ear, lower to the pulse point there, and then moving the neckline of her t-shirt aside, so he could run his stubbled jaw over her decolletage, sending her wild with the intimacy and magnitude of that contact. The hand that wasn’t cradling her head lifted to one of her breasts, holding it in the palm of his hand. She wasn’t completely inexperienced but the way he touched her was new. It was as though he wanted to imprint himself on every piece of her.
Skye whimpered against his mouth, wanting this and more, heat burning low in her abdomen and sparking through her entire body, filling her with sparks like fireworks.
“I never thought we could ignore this,” he said roughly, lifting her easily and pressing her to the bench, standing in the apex formed by her legs, returning his mouth to hers, kissing her with renewed vigour. “But I thought we could resist it for longer.”
She tilted her head back, trying to gasp for air, but despite the fact she was on dry land, her lungs wouldn’t cooperate. He was overwhelming every single one of her senses. “I can’t believe you really want me like this,” she said with a shake of her head, even when he cupped her bottom and drew her to the edge of the kitchen bench, holding her against his arousal.
“Too many damned clothes,” she muttered, shaking her head in frustration.
He didn’t need to verbalize his agreement; instead, he lifted her shirt and tossed it across the room, not bothering to unclip her bra. Instead, he lifted her breasts from the soft cotton cups, dropping his mouth and taking one of her nipples in his mouth while his arousal pressed to her core and she ached for so much more. Shards of pleasure broke off, the heat of his mouth against her cool breasts sent her into a downward spiral of utter, undeniable desire.
“It’s never felt like this for me,” she groaned, desperately yearning to keep some kind of hold on reality.
“Hasn’t it?”
He transferred his attention to her other breast, flicking it with his tongue first, before taking it deep in his mouth and sucking, rolling it with his tongue. She couldn’t think straight, yet she shook her head, the vague answer seeming like the right thing to give.
“Why not?”
Skye could no longer think straight; answering was beyond her. “I—,” she shook her head, giving up on conversation. “Just don’t stop,” she moaned.
He laughed, a graveled, hoarse sound that somehow conveyed to her the depth of his own mindless needs, and then he was kissing her again, her breasts bereft even as her mouth rejoiced in his return. His body pressed to hers, the cotton of his shirt soft against her breasts, but her nipples were so over-stimulated that the light pressure was almost painful. She arched her back, craving more, wanting more, her hands curling around his neck, toying with the hair at his nape before dropping lower, moving around his back, pushing up his shirt so she could connect with warm, bare flesh. She exulted in the contact, her fingertips trembling as they explored him, and even more so when she felt his wracked breath against her mouth.
While she knew this was some kind of temporary insanity, she couldn’t rally herself to care, nor to fight for a modicum of sense. This had been inevitable. From that first meeting in the vineyard, she’d wanted this.
Besides, it would just add a degree of reality to their acting when they got to his grandparents’. Far easier to play the part of a happy couple if you’d actually had sex, right? So long as they were both on the same page—which they were—about the constraints of this.
Her hands dropped lower, to his butt, cupping it, holding him hard against her, but then her hand was quivering, trembling unstoppably and she drew back, frowning, lifting her hand and then smiling. “You’re ringing.” The words emerged as a whisper of complaint.
“What?”
“Your phone. Back pocket. It’s ringing.”
“Fuck it. Who cares?”
She smiled but when he moved, she was no longer smiling, she was gasping—he pressed her backwards, so she lay on the cold, stone kitchen bench, and his body pressed down on hers, the weight of his chest on her breasts now flattening her against the surface, his kiss sensual and demanding and utterly irresistible. His phone rang again, the sound of the vibration mixing with their breathing.
He ignored it, his fingers latching to hers, lifting her hands above her head and pinning them there. One of his hands trapped her wrists, holding her hostage to passion as he continued to ravage her mouth, demanding everything from her she was willing to give up. When she tried to jerk her wrists free, purely out of need to touch him, he made a growling sound and held her right where she was, dropping his head to her breasts and savouring them one by one again until she was a writhing, out-of-control mess.