RapturousGoogle Read online

  “You promised you wouldn’t hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you because we had sex.”

  “But you do hate me.”

  “I hate the way you treated me afterward, as if I don’t matter at all, as if I’m just another of your random bimbos.”

  “You’re neither of those things.”

  “And yet your silence told me I was both. You see my dilemma?”

  “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  The roses have begun to get heavy, so I take them inside and put them on the kitchen counter. I slide open the door to my deck, which overlooks the Pacific, letting in the fresh air and buying myself another minute to prepare to deal with him.

  I turn to find him standing directly behind me. His hands land on my shoulders, and I want to shake him off, to tell him he doesn’t have the right to touch me like that, but I’m frozen. When I see the stark, naked desire in his heated gaze, I can’t seem to breathe, let alone speak.

  “I’m an asshole, Addie. You knew that before.”

  Shaking my head, I say, “No,” in the softest possible whisper.

  “Yes, you did. You know me.”

  “Not like this. I didn’t know you this way before.”

  His hands frame my face, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. “I never meant to hurt you. I promised Flynn I wouldn’t, and then I did. Because I’m a selfish asshole who has no idea how to do something like this.”

  “Something like this?”

  “Something real. Something that matters.”

  I can’t hear this if he doesn’t mean it or if he means to end it. As tears flood my eyes, I start to shake my head, but he tightens his hold on my face, keeping me from moving and anchoring me for a soft, sweet, devastating kiss. I want to tell him to stop, that he can’t do this to me, but then my arms are around his neck and my mouth is open to his tongue, and I’m lost in him all over again, as if the last two torturous days never happened.

  He kisses me as if I’m the most precious thing in his world, and for that moment, I allow myself to believe that maybe I am. That’s the only way I can silence the frantic protests coming from my better judgment. I can either lose myself in the fantasy or go crazy wondering what it all means.

  His hands fall from my face to grip my ass as he lifts me without breaking the kiss. Then we’re moving through my dark condo, the same way we did the other morning, only everything is different now. He is different. We come down on the bed, still kissing deeply, but it’s not like before. This time he’s softer, sweeter, gentler. There’s none of the frantic urgency that had us ripping clothes off each other’s bodies the first time.

  All he’s done is kiss me, and I already know that if he disappears again after this, it’ll ruin me. Still, I don’t put a stop to it. Not then and not when he begins to undress me while continuing to kiss me with deep thrusts of his tongue. My breasts are freed from my bra, and his hands cover them, singeing my skin with his heat. I want to beg him to hurry, to kiss and suck and bite my nipples the way he did the last time, but he’s not in that mood tonight.

  He breaks the kiss and moves down, dragging the tip of his tongue over my throat and chest to the valley between breasts.

  I arch and stretch, trying to get him to notice the way my nipples have tightened for him. He notices, but he doesn’t immediately give me the relief I need so desperately.

  “Addie,” he whispers, “you’re soft and sweet and beautiful. You need someone better than me.”

  “No.” I’m left stunned by the shock of pain that ricochets through me at the thought of anyone but him touching me this way ever again. “I need you. I’ve always needed you.”

  Bending his head over my belly, he leaves a trail of fire on the way to the waistband of my skirt. “Not good enough for you.”

  The despair I hear in his voice has me blinking back new tears. I want to soothe and calm him. I want to fix whatever he thinks is so wrong with him. Seeing his vulnerability—hearing it in his words—I fall more deeply into the kind of love that lasts far longer than one lifetime.

  He turns me over to unbutton and unzip the pencil skirt I wore to work, easing it down over my hips, leaving me wearing only a red thong. His hands cup and shape my ass, his tongue sliding over my back, straight down the center of me, leaving no part of me untouched. Again, I’m shocked by the erotic thrill of his tongue in a place no one but him has touched. And he doesn’t just touch me, he worships me, until I’m crying and screaming and begging for sweet relief from the sharp, aching need.

  He holds me wide open for his fingers and tongue, and when he sucks hard on my clit, he sends me into orbit. I come so hard that I lose all sense of place and time. I forget how much I hated him earlier. The love is all I feel, all I know, all I want. He is all I want.

  I’m marginally aware of him moving behind me, the rustle of clothing, the pillow he shoves under me, the knees that push my legs wider apart, the hands that grasp my hips and the searing pain when he pushes his cock into me. I cry out, and he stops.

  “Ah, fuck, you’re hurting, aren’t you?”

  “Please, don’t stop. Please.”

  “We’ll go slow.”

  I’m so wet that I take the first part easily, but then the battle begins anew, a push-pull of want and need and ache and astonishing pleasure that only comes after the struggle to take him.

  For a long time after he finally enters me fully, he stays still, pulsing and throbbing and expanding within me. His big body covers me, his hands grasping mine tightly as he waits for me to catch up. I’m so surrounded by him, so overwhelmed by his distinctive scent, the feel of his chest hair against my back, the tight grip of his hands on mine, and a wild, desperate need for more. I can’t move or speak to tell him what I want or need, but he knows.

  He flexes his hips, surging deeper into me, touching a spot that only he has ever found. I’ve barely moved, and I detonate, coming in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible before he showed me what I’m capable of. I don’t have the time or capacity to process that discovery, because he starts to move, riding the waves of my orgasm, keeping with the slow and tender theme that’s ruined me from the first second he touched me tonight.

  Unlike the first time, which went on forever, tonight he shows me some mercy. He gathers me up, his arms tight around me when he gives in and takes his own pleasure, flooding me with the heat of his release. Afterward, he holds me so tightly I can barely breathe, but it doesn’t occur to me to tell him so. Nothing in my life has ever felt better than being surrounded and possessed by Hayden.

  I grasp his arm, hoping to keep him there as long as I can, because I’m afraid of what happens next. Will he run away like he did before, or will he reluctantly try to give me what he thinks I need? Neither option works for me, but I don’t know how to make him want me the same way I want him.

  “Do you forgive me?” His voice is gruff, and the heat of his breath against my ear makes my skin tingle with goose bumps.

  “I want to.”

  “You really, really should. I can’t handle you hating me.”

  “How do you know I hated you?”

  “I know you. I know your death stare. I’ve seen you use it often enough on people who try to go around you to get to Flynn.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “I didn’t know how to handle something like this. I still don’t.”

  Not that I want him to move, but I need to see his face for this conversation, so I give him a little nudge.

  He takes the hint and withdraws his still-hard cock—and how exactly is that possible?—and turns onto his back.

  I push myself up onto my elbows and study the face that is at once so familiar and still so mysterious at the same time. “Something like this? What does that mean?”

  He seems to force himself to look at me. “Something that matters. You matter, Addie. You matter way more than you should.”<
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  That, I realize, is the closest he’ll probably come to telling me he cares about me, but it’s enough to give me hope. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “It is. For you. And for me, too, if the last couple of days are any indication.”

  “What happened the last couple of days?”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, about what we did and how soft your skin is and your taste…

  I swallow hard, moved beyond measure by his heartfelt words. “What about it?”

  “I couldn’t get the taste of you off my tongue, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to remember it and savor it because I knew I’d be lucky to ever get this close to you again.”

  Hearing him say such things, I need to touch him, so I snuggle up to him, making myself at home with my head on his chest and my hand on his upper abdomen, just above the head of his cock.

  His arm comes around me, bringing me in even closer to him, and I exhale a long deep breath. At least he’s not running. Not yet, anyway. “Why do you expect it to be such a bad thing?”

  “I don’t do this stuff, Addie. I don’t do relationships or feelings or romance or any of that shit, and that’s what you deserve. You need a guy who’ll go all-out for you. That’s not me.”

  “Maybe I need you more than I need that stuff. Has that occurred to you?”

  He shakes his head. “No, it hasn’t. You shouldn’t need me. I’m not capable of what you want.” His hand slides from my shoulder down to grip my ass. “This, right here, is what I’m capable of. Wanting more than this isn’t wise.”

  “If you’ve never done it, how do you know you can’t?”

  “You’ll have to take my word on that. There’re things about me you don’t know, and if you did… Well, you wouldn’t want me the way you do.”

  “Haven’t we always been friends? From the first time my dad brought me to work with him on one of your films, haven’t we been friends?”

  “Not always,” he says with a low chuckle. “At first, you used to annoy the shit out of me with your ten million questions and endless curiosity about what I was doing and why. I wanted to muzzle you.”

  I laugh at that, as I always do whenever he reminds me of what a pain I was on that first set. I was seventeen, he was twenty-four, and I was desperately in love with him from the first time I laid eyes on him in all his exquisite male beauty, not that he knows that. In the ensuing years, we did become friends, even as I dated other guys and he “dated” every vagina in Hollywood—or that’s how it seemed to me.

  “I grew up, you grew up, and we did become friends. Admit it.”

  “Of course we’re friends, Addie. We’re close friends, which is what puts you off-limits to me. There’s so much at stake, not just for us but for people we care about. People we love.”

  “You mean Flynn.”

  “Among others. He’s not comfortable with me seeing you, because he knows you deserve better than me.”

  “He’s your best friend. Why would he say such a thing about you?”

  “Because it’s true,” he says with a sigh. “I never should’ve touched you the first time, and I certainly shouldn’t have done it again.”

  “You say that as if it was totally up to you, as if I had no say in it.”

  “You definitely had a say, but as amazing as it is to be with you this way, it can’t happen again.”

  My heart shatters into a million tiny pieces that can never be put back together. It takes every bit of the skill I’ve picked up from being around actors all my life not to show him how devastated I am to hear him say that. What’s so wrong with me that he’s unwilling to take a risk with me? So what if it’s complicated because of Flynn and our other mutual friends? We’re all adults. Or I thought we were.

  Though he’s drawn his line in the sand, he makes no move to leave. If he doesn’t want me or this, part of me wishes he’d just go already and leave me alone. But the other part of me, the part that has loved him for so long, wants to hold on tight and never let him go now that I have him in my bed.

  If this is all we’re ever going to have, I want more, damn it. I curl my hand around his cock, loving the sharp gasp of his inhale.

  “Addie—”

  “Shut up, Hayden. If you’re telling me this is all we’re going to have, then let’s do it up in style, shall we? Let’s do everything.”

  She has no idea what’s she saying or who she’s saying it to. The words “let’s do everything” are to me what a red flag would be to a bull. During both encounters with her, I’ve kept in mind who she is to me and who she isn’t. She’s not my submissive, as much as I might wish otherwise. My dominant side has no place in her bed. But when she says those three little words, my inner Dom roars to life, and all bets are off.

  “Put your hands over your head. Hold on to the headboard.”

  Her expressive eyes widen ever so slightly, her lips part and her nipples tighten. Holy fuck, does she like being told what to do in bed? No, no, no. Just no. It doesn’t matter if she likes it. It doesn’t matter if she’s the world’s most willing submissive. She can never be my submissive. I can’t go there with her. Anyone but precious, beautiful Addie. The thought of marking her soft skin or torturing her with my kink is beyond my ability to comprehend.

  I can do those things with other women because I don’t love them. This woman… She has my heart and my soul and my love and, if I were capable, everything I have to give, except my dominance. But she asked for more. I can give her that without giving her everything.

  Eyeing me with trepidation that makes me harder than I already was, she does what I’ve asked, slowly raising her hands up and over her head to grasp the wrought iron rails of her headboard. The movement puts her spectacular breasts on prominent display. I wish I had my clamps with me. I wish I had my floggers, ropes and plugs.

  I’m out of my mind with lust at the thought of doing those things with her, even though I never will. But I can give her more without taking everything she has to give.

  “Do you have lube?”

  Her face flushes with the sweetest blush I’ve ever seen. “In the drawer.”

  Fuck, I hoped she’d say no, so I wouldn’t be tempted. But she didn’t say no, and I’m sorely tempted. She liked when I licked and fingered her there. I’m experienced enough to know when anal play turns off a partner, and Addie was incredibly turned on by it. Wait until she sees what “more” entails.

  You just told her you can’t do this anymore, and you’re going to do that? I actively hate the inner voice inside my mind that calls me out on my mixed messages. This is the last time I’m ever going to touch her, and yes, I’m going to do that because she’ll love it and so will I. It’s one of my favorite things to do in bed, and why shouldn’t I do it with her when she’s already shown how much she likes to be touched there?

  Stop rationalizing and just do it, will you? The devil in me always wins out over the angel. Always. Propped up on one hand, I reach for her bedside drawer and find the lube along with a box of condoms and a rabbit vibrator. I grab all three and drop them on the bed.

  Her breathing becomes more rapid when she starts to figure out what I have in mind.

  “You still want more?” I ask her as I roll on a condom and take the lid off the lube.

  She eyes the lube and the vibe, and then she looks up at me with those big, bottomless eyes and nods.

  “Words, Addie. Give me words.”

  “Yes, Hayden, I still want more.”

  “And you know this is it, right? No more after this.”

  “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”

  I can deal with my conscience tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to give her an experience—and an orgasm—she’ll never forget. And then I’ll let her go because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what I want. No, if I could have anything in this world that I want, it would be her. However, I’m a realist, and I know how things work in the world I live in. I can’t have her and stil
l be me, too. I can’t drag her into the dreck that is my life, my family or my kink. She’s so clean and lovely and sweet. I can’t be responsible for causing the inner light that shines so brightly within her to dim with disappointment and regret.

  Her body is on high alert for immediate attack, so I surprise her with softness and sensuality. I start with her lovely pink nipples, which I lave with my tongue until she’s squirming beneath me, her hips rising, seeking my cock. I add suction and the gentle pinch of my teeth, and she cries out. Moving down, I keep my fingers wrapped around her left nipple, keeping up the tension as I focus on her core. I tongue her clit in soft, persuasive strokes until the first orgasm rolls through her, making her gasp and pant, among other noises that I commit to memory for all the nights I’ll have to spend without her.

  I drive two fingers of my free hand into her pussy, which pulses with the aftershocks of her orgasm. Then I feel her hands in my hair, tugging and pulling. I withdraw from her to deliver a short, sharp spank to her right ass cheek that startles her.

  “Hands over your head.”

  I notice her hands are now trembling when she returns them to the iron rods. Rubbing the spot where my hand marked her tender flesh, I turn the pain to pleasure.

  “Hayden…”

  “Shhh. No talking. Just feel. If you want to stop, say the word ‘red,’ and everything comes to a halt, okay?”

  She nods rapidly.

  “Words, Addie. Give me the words.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Unless I ask you a question, the only word you’re allowed to say is red. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now relax, and enjoy.”

  Her small laugh tells me she’s a long way from relaxed, but I’m determined to make sure she enjoys this. In my perfect world, I would’ve prepared her with plugs and repeated sessions that work up to what I’m about to do. But my world with Addie is not perfect, and if this is all we’re ever going to have, I want her ass. I’ve obsessed about her ass to the point of madness. And when she offers me everything, goddamn it, I’m going to take it. See what I mean about being a selfish bastard?