All the Pretty Poses (16 page)

I have a few weeks to show her some goodness
in life before we part ways, a few weeks to put to bed old flames.
To exorcise old demons.

I walk to the side of the bed nearest her,
stopping to stare down into the face that’s even more beautiful
than I remember. More beautiful than it was yesterday.

“Let me make it up to you.”

She starts shaking her head immediately. “No,
Reese. That’s not what I wanted. That’s not why I told you.”

“I don’t care. I want to. All you have to do
is let me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX- Kennedy

A small part of my brain is wondering if this
whole scenario is even real. I just spilled my guts to the guy who
broke my heart and shattered my world all those years ago. And he
just gave me a little peek into his. And now he’s offering…what? I
don’t really know.

More importantly, I can’t believe I’m
considering it. But the truth is, I never stopped loving Reese.
Like scars and bad memories, some things never go away.

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Reese insists, dropping down
onto the bed beside me. “You can be with me. You can let me be with
you. You can let me give you the happiness that you deserve.”

My heart thrills at what he’s suggesting,
even though I know he doesn’t have forever in mind. I’m not sure
I’d trust him to give it to me at this point anyway. But he’s
offering me right now.

Only…

“Reese, I work for you. Can’t you understand
that it feels…dirty? Like I’m a…a…prostitute? Like you’re paying me
to…”

That heart-stopping smile that has haunted me
for years spreads across his mouth, bearing the edges of his
straight, white teeth. It’s lopsided and sexy and it turns my
stomach to mush.

“Oh, I won’t be paying you for
that.
You’ll be off the clock for anything more…intimate.” As if he
senses my hesitation, he adds, “
If
you decide that’s what
you want, that is.”

He’s already giving in a little. A day ago,
he wouldn’t have left it at
if.
He would’ve said
when.

“But Reese—”

“But nothing,” he interrupts urgently.
“Please, Kennedy. Do this with me. Don’t make me beg.” His eyes
search mine until a teasing light enters them again. “Unless that’s
what you’re into.”

I can’t help but smile. “God! Reese!” I
exclaim, slapping his arm. He flinches like I hit him with a
taser.

“Okay, so you’re into the rough stuff. I can
do that, too.”

I laugh outright this time, rolling my eyes
at his melodrama.

“I don’t know. I just…”

Reese takes my hand and brings it to his
mouth, rubbing his lips across my knuckles as he watches me over
the top of them. “Then let me show you. Just give me a chance. I
can give you some of the best weeks of your life. Trust me.”

It’s my turn to flinch as he touches my one
raw nerve. “I don’t trust anybody.”

“But you can trust me. I’m not the boy I once
was, Kennedy. I’ll give you nothing but the truth. Nothing.”

I bite my lip nervously, one reservation
still preventing me from diving headlong into everything that Reese
is offering.

He must sense my reluctance. “What?” he asks.
“What is it?”

“I don’t want to be another of your cruise
flings, Reese.”

“You’re not. You could never be.”

I raise my eyes to meet his. “I don’t believe
you.”

“Then do it anyway and let me prove it to
you. You’re nothing like them and nothing I’ve said or done should
tell you otherwise.”

“But Reese—”

“Look, you sleep on it. Just give me
tomorrow. And by the end of the day, you won’t even
want
to
say ‘no’.”

I’m tired of arguing, tired of trying to
fight it. Tired of trying to fight this, fight
him.
“Okay,”
I agree, relief loosening every taut muscle in my body. I don’t
think I was fully aware of how very hard it has been to feign
indifference to Reese, to pretend that I want nothing to do with
him.

His smile is brilliant and I have the sudden
urge to reach over and drag him down on top of me.

Reese gives me some sort of pleased man-growl
kind of thing as he leans in toward me. Slowly. Closer and closer.
I don’t move away. I just watch his luminous eyes draw near,
letting myself get lost in them. For just a moment.

“God, I can’t wait for morning,” he says, his
lips so close to mine, I can feel his warm breath fanning them. But
Reese doesn’t kiss me. As much as I want him to, he brushes his
mouth over my cheek then nuzzles it before pulling away. “Get some
sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a beautiful day.”

I nod as Reese rises and walks toward the
door. When he’s half out in the hallway, he stops and looks back at
me. He smiles again and winks before he disappears, closing the
door behind him.

********

I’m awakened by the tickle of lips and the
light scratch of short scruff as someone kisses the curve of my
neck. The warmth that floods my body has nothing to do with the
heat radiating from the hard, masculine form at my back.

I open my bleary eyes to glance at the
bedside clock. Not even 6:00 AM yet. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Not when this is waiting for me in the next
room. Do you feel like working out?”

I take a moment to do a quick
self-assessment. No nausea, no lightheadedness, and the boat seems
to be more stable this morning. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Good,” Reese says, biting my earlobe and
then smacking my butt through the covers before he scoots off the
bed. “I brought you some tantalizing clothes to wear. I’ll give you
a minute to change and then we’ll go.”

“Wait, I’ll need some things from my room,” I
tell him, leaning up onto my elbow.

“I brought your toiletries. Anything else?”
Reese looks awfully proud of himself.

“I…uh…I guess not.”

“Five minutes,” he says, opening the door.
Before he exits, he glances back at me, his lagoon-colored eyes
twinkling. “Unless you need some help getting dressed. In that
case—”

“No, I don’t,” I tell him, trying not to
smile. “I’ll be out in five minutes.”

I can hear his dejected sigh all the way
across the room before he shuts the door, muttering, “I don’t know
why you’d turn down a perfectly good offer of help.”

I shake my head as I crawl from the warmth of
the plush duvet and head for the en-suite bathroom. My guts are a
jittery mess knowing that Reese is waiting for me and that today
he’s going to be turning up the charm (and likely the heat) big
time.

For one heartbeat, the bitter skeptic in me
starts to speak up, but I smother her with my happiness until I
don’t hear her at all anymore. Five minutes later, I’m opening the
stateroom door to find Reese leaning up against the wall, arms and
ankles crossed, waiting for me.

His eyes rake me from head to toe, taking in
the skintight leggings and snug cap-sleeved tee that he brought me.
I stop and let him look his fill. Then, since I’m feeling happy and
plucky, I decide to give him the same treatment.

I start at Reese’s white sneakers, working my
way up the loose black running pants that hang just right on his
slim hips to the flat stomach that’s so perfectly defined beneath
his dark purple fitted tank top. His well-developed pecs are
clearly discernible beneath the fabric, his wide shoulders and
muscular arms left open to my roving gaze.

When I skim his tanned throat and reach his
face, his expression has turned from playful to fiery. His eyes are
dark and his jaw is clenched. “I should warn you,” he says softly,
pushing away from the wall and walking to within an inch of me. He
stops, looming over me until I have to crane my neck to maintain
eye contact. “If you do that again, I’ll haul your perfect little
ass back into that room and give you the spanking you deserve for
teasing me like that. Got it?”

A thrill races along my nerve endings,
bringing my skin to tingling life at his nearness. “Got it.”

“Wanna try it again and see if I’m telling
the truth?”

He leans in ever so slightly, his chest
brushing mine, my nipples hardening in response. He’s teasing me
and, for some reason, it’s making me feel light and playful rather
than defensive. Light and playful
and daring
. I arch my back
the tiniest bit, rubbing my breasts against him in an almost
imperceptible way. In exotic dancing, I learned all sorts of subtle
ways to move my body to titillate and entice. I’ve just never used
them on a man up close before.

“Holy shit, woman. You didn’t tell me you
liked to play with fire,” he growls.

“What would be the fun in warning you?” I ask
with a grin.

“I’m gonna count to three. One…two…”

Before he can get to three, I slide out from
between him and the wall and, with a tiny squeal, move quickly down
the hall. When I glance back over my shoulder, his eyes are glued
to my butt. Giving it an extra little swing, I turn my head and
smile.

Reese might be right. This might be the best
few weeks of my life.

Until it’s over.

********

When we reach the gym, it’s empty. “I guess
we beat Brian this morning,” I say as Reese opens the door for
me.

“Nope. He won’t be working you out anymore,”
he admits, making his way to the stereo to turn on the music.

“What? Why?”

He doesn’t answer until he’s finished and
back standing right in front of me. “Because. I told him I’d do
it.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I ask,
feeling the twitter of butterflies in my belly.

“I’ve watched every single thing he’s done to
you until I can’t watch it one more time. I don’t want to see any
hands on you unless they’re mine.”

“Brian’s hardly—” I stop myself before I
accidentally spill Brian’s secret.

“I don’t care if he’s gay or straight. I
don’t like it.”

I have to hide my pleased smile. “Then you’d
better make this worth my while,” I taunt.

Reese says nothing, merely raises one dark
brow as he takes my hand and leads me to the mats on the floor.
“Let’s start with stretching.”

As I lie down on the floor at Reese’s feet,
the heavy, sensual thump of
Closer
by Nine Inch Nails drifts
into the room, bouncing off the walls and enveloping me in the
tension that buzzes between us. His eyes are locked on mine as he
spreads his legs in front of me and takes my foot in his hand.
Still watching me, he runs his palm up my calf to the back of my
knee, bending it as he leans down and in toward me, pressing my
thigh slowly toward my chest. He eases up and then leans in again,
pushing a little harder and extending my stretch in a long,
languorous pulse.

The words to the song are resonating in my
head and Reese’s touch is resonating through my body as he reaches
down to spread his hands over my hips, stabilizing them as he tucks
his shoulder under my knee and presses harder. I feel the sting of
the stretch in my butt, but I feel the throb of something else more
toward my center. The throb of something deeper. Something
hotter.

“Can you feel that?” he asks, his voice a low
rumble.

I’m practically panting already. “Yes. I can
feel that perfectly.”

“Mmmm, good. Let’s do the other side.” Reese
releases my left leg and shifts to give the right the same
treatment. When he eases in and gives me that first deep pulse, he
grunts and warmth gushes through me.

As he nears the end of my right leg stretch,
I feel my heart start to race. If he follows Brian’s routine, I
know what’s coming next. Sure enough, Reese doesn’t release my leg;
he straightens it, running his palm down the inside of my thigh as
he scoots into the center of my body to stretch my groin.

Automatically, I lift my other leg and Reese
presses a hand to the low inside of it as well, pushing outward,
causing my legs to fall out into a split. He leans in, using a
small portion of his body weight to exert pressure. Reese runs his
hands up the insides of my legs to my ankles to hold them out
straight as he eases forward against me to keep my stretch.

Oh, god!

I curl my fingers into tight fists where they
rest at my sides. I want to beg him to kiss me and touch me, but I
won’t. I squeeze my eyes shut, not because it hurts, but because I
can feel his belly rubbing between my legs.

“Look at me,” Reese commands gruffly.

I do as he asks. The expression on his face
is a mirror, reflecting everything that I’m feeling on the
inside.

“Reese…”

He leans in even closer, his body grazing the
flattened V of my spread legs. I can barely hear him when he
whispers, “Are your panties wet?”

“No,” I say automatically.

“Liar,” he says with a wicked gleam in his
eye.

I say nothing. I don’t know what to say,
other than to beg him to put out the flames that are consuming me
right now, which I won’t do.

“If I pulled them down right now and put my
fingers inside you, you’d come, wouldn’t you?”

I can’t deny it. I probably would.

“I could make you feel so good, Kennedy,” he
says, leaning further into me, “but I won’t. I won’t until you ask
me to.”

I want to scream and moan and beg, but I do
none of that. I simply let his eyes eat me up from the inside and I
hold my tongue, determined not to give in so easily. This has
become more than just me resisting Reese; this has become a battle
of wills. He wants to make me beg, but
I
want to make
him
work for it.

“Can you wait that long?” I ask, rotating my
hips under him the tiniest bit.

I know he felt it. I hear the air hiss
through his teeth. “I promised you the truth, and the truth is I
don’t know how long I can wait.”

I smile. I can’t help it. I love that he
would admit that to me. “Then maybe just a little bit longer,” I
say, tugging my ankles free of his grasp to wrap them around his
waist.