All the Pretty Poses (22 page)

I feel every warm breath he exhales as he
drags his mouth up the inside of my thigh, using his hands to open
my legs wider and wider until I feel the cool air hit the moisture
there. With the barest shake of his head, Reese nuzzles me with his
lips. The scruff of his stubble scrapes me just barely, robbing me
of air and causing my muscles to contract in readiness.

But Reese is only ready to play, not to ease
the perpetual ache that resides within me, an ache that burns
solely for him. With one fingertip, Reese teases my folds, running
it up and down, side to side, all the while swirling his tongue
over me with the lightest of touches.

He plays until I feel near screaming, until
my level of frustration is near unbearable. But then, as if sensing
my threshold, Reese’s touch becomes more insistent, firmer. He
licks with purpose. He probes with intent. It’s when he sucks my
clit into his mouth and drives his fingers deep inside me that I
feel the implosion in my core.

Penetrating me with his fingers, Reese flicks
his tongue over me until I feel the gush of heat and wetness pour
through me. Then he’s cupping my ass. He’s holding me to his mouth.
He’s moving his lips over me like a man starved of this needful
nourishment. And when the tide that washes through me settles into
a slow lapping, Reese buries his tongue inside me and licks me
until there’s nothing left.

When he releases me and reaches for my hands
to pull me into a sitting position, he slowly sweeps his tongue
through the inside of my mouth.

“You taste like every dream I’ve had since I
was nineteen years old,” he says huskily. “I’ve looked for this all
over the world and I couldn’t find it anywhere but here.”

Reese licks at my mouth and bites at my lips
as he unzips his pants. When he pulls me into his arms, my legs
wrap automatically around his waist. I can feel his erection
touching my butt as he moves to sit on the piano bench.

“I want to watch your face as you come in the
sunshine,” he whispers, teasing me with the head of his shaft.
Already, I feel my passion for him returning, I feel the trickle of
liquid as my body prepares for what’s to come. “I want to wet my
cock in you by the moonlight.” With every word that comes out of
his mouth, my body reacts, clutching desperately at him. “And I
want to make love to you at a piano,” he says, raising me up to
impale me on his long, broad length.

We both grunt at the same time and then Reese
pauses, buried to the balls inside me, and we savor the exquisite
fullness of the moment, the feeling of him stretching my body to
its maximum.

“There will never be anything but this, but
us. You’re mine, Kennedy Moore. All. Mine.”

Like the flip of a switch, Reese becomes
urgent, feral. He slams me down on him over and over, pulling my
hair, biting my neck. He growls in my ear, telling me again and
again that I’m all his, no one else’s.

My orgasm has come and gone again, but Reese
is still frantic when he stands. With me still wrapped around him,
he leans me into the piano, pounding into me as hard as he can.

“Look at me,” he finally says, his voice a
hoarse croak.

I do as he asks, watching that angrily
possessive light flicker in his eyes. He groans one word as he
comes inside me, mutters it over and over again as he pumps hot
liquid into me. “Mine.”

When we’ve both regained our breath, Reese
sets me on my feet in front of him and helps me into my panties,
straightening my dress before he stands to sweep me into his arms.
He gives me the gentlest kiss before carrying me back to my room.
That night, he makes love to me time and time again, like he’s
trying to memorize me and the way my body feels under his. It’s the
most perfect night of my life.

Right up until a woman bursts into my room
the next morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE- Reese

“How could you?” Claire Norton rails when she
flings open the door. I don’t have a lot of patience to deal with
her when I’m wide awake, much less first thing in the morning.

“Hello, Claire,” I say, rubbing a hand across
my face. “You’re looking well.” And she is. With her rich black
hair and equally black eyes, she looks like a million bucks, which
is probably what she spent to get that way.

“You need to kick your latest floozy out
right this minute. We have to talk,” she fumes.

“Claire,” I begin, my temper spiked instantly
by her derogatory reference to Kennedy. However, my angry retort is
squashed by a small voice.

“Reese, who is this?” Kennedy asks. I turn to
find her sitting up in the bed, holding the sheet up to cover her
all the way to her chin.

Before I can answer or explain it like it
needs to be explained, Claire hisses, “I’m his fiancée, sweetie. Or
didn’t he tell you about me?”

Oh shit.

I release a heavy sigh. This is not how I
wanted to tell her.

I see the color drain from Kennedy’s face
and, with it, any trust I’ve managed to build over the past
weeks.

“It’s not what you think,” I assure her,
reaching for her hand beneath the covers. She pulls away.

“So she’s not your fiancée?” she asks. I can
hear the hopeful note in her voice and it kills me to have to
listen to it die. I know what she’ll think.

“It’s a long story. Just…just give me a
minute and I’ll explain.”

I fling back the covers and stalk bare-assed
to get my pants where they’re folded over the vanity chair, jerking
them on angrily. Claire’s timing could
not
be any worse.

Half dressed, I stomp across the room to grab
Claire by the arm and haul her out of Kennedy’s room, closing the
door behind me. I release her and yank open the door to my room,
waiting for her to come inside before I slam it shut.

“I don’t appreciate that kind of entrance,
Claire.”

“Why?” she asks waspishly, her eyes flashing
furiously. “Afraid it might ruin your fun?”

I sigh. I don’t have time for this. “What do
you want?”

“You promised Daddy no more boats until this
deal went through. You promised.”

She has to be referring to Sempre.

“I didn’t have to touch any money promised to
your father to purchase it. I agreed to take on an investor. He’s
in for forty percent,” I snap.

I see some of her indignation flee. “Oh.
Well, Daddy doesn’t know that.”

“Then maybe
Daddy
should’ve asked
before sending his daughter halfway across the world.”

“I was vacationing in Fiji, thank you. I
thought we could spend some time together when you got into port.
As a surprise. But it seems like that isn’t going to happen.”

“Not when you spring it on me like this, it
won’t.”

Like the last five minutes never happened, a
smile curves Claire’s glossy mouth and her voice turns to a purr
rather than a screech. “This morning was just a misunderstanding,
obviously. There’s no reason we can’t still enjoy the rest of our
stay.” She closes the distance between us, dragging the backs of
her fingers down my cheek. “Especially once you wash off the stink
of your latest victim.”

I grab her wrist in an iron grip and pull it
away from me. “She’s not my latest anything, Claire. And no, we
won’t be spending any time together this trip.”

Her bottom lip juts out in a pout. “What a
shame. Your father
did
warn me that you like to slum it,
though.”

I grit my teeth, reminding myself that Claire
is, in fact, a woman, therefore I can’t physically hurt her. No
matter how much I’d like to.

“The best thing you could do right now,
Claire, is to get the hell off my boat, get the hell off Fiji and
give me some time to cool off.”

I walk to the door and hold it open for her.
She hesitates only for a few seconds before she glides out into the
hall in her beauty-pageant gait.

She continues a few steps before stopping
right in front of Kennedy’s door, saying loudly enough for
practically anyone to hear, including Kennedy, “See you in a few
weeks, lover.” The smile she gives me before she walks away assures
me that she did that very much on purpose.

I wait until I hear the click of her heels on
the floors of the lounge above before I go back into Kennedy’s
room. She’s still sitting exactly where I left her, still pale as a
ghost, still looking like I cut out her heart and threw it into the
ocean.

“God, what an awful way to wake up. Can we
just go back to sleep and try that again?” I ask, hoping to diffuse
the situation rather than trying to explain it when she’s
upset.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asks.

It was worth a try.

“Of course,” I tell her, swallowing my sigh
as I sit on the end of the bed. Something tells me she won’t want
me very close until we get this straightened out.

“Who
was that,
Reese?”

“That was Claire Norton. She’s the daughter
of a business associate of mine and my father’s.”

“I don’t care about any of that. You know
what I’m asking. Was she telling the truth? Is she your
fiancée?”

Her voice cracks on the last word, as though
she almost choked on it as it came out.

“She is, but it’s never been anything more
than a business transaction, trust me.”

“Trust you?” she whispers. And then more
loudly. “Trust you?” Her laugh is bitter and I can see tears
glistening in her eyes. “How in the world can you even ask that?
We’ve spent nearly every waking moment together for weeks and
you’ve somehow neglected to mention a tiny detail like the fact
that you’re
engaged.
Of course I can’t trust you, Reese.”
She gets up and paces to the bathroom door, stunning in her nudity.
It’s hard for me to ignore, but now is not the time to be
appreciating her physical attributes.

“If it were important, I would’ve told you
sooner, but it’s just…not. In fact, I haven’t given Claire a single
thought since I saw you dancing that first night in Chicago. That’s
how
not a big deal
this actually is.”

“Reese! How can you say that? You. Are.
Engaged.” She pauses, the breath
whooshing
out of her as if
the notion just struck her all over again, a physical punch. “To be
married. How could this not be a big deal?”

“Kennedy,” I say gently, getting up to go to
her. Carefully, I place my hands on her shoulders. “It is a
business arrangement. Nothing else. There is no love between us.
She will never interfere with us. In fact, you’ll probably never
even
see
her again.”

“So your plan is to…to…what? Have us both?
Marry her and have me on the side?”

“It’s not like that, Kennedy. I’ll be married
to her in name only. It’s just business. Nothing more. She will
never mean any more than that to me. She will never mean even a
tiny bit as much as what you mean to me.”

Her mouth is hanging open and she’s staring
at me incredulously. “And that doesn’t sound the least bit scummy
to you?”

“Kennedy, what does it matter if a piece of
paper ties my family to hers when it’s
you
that has my
heart?”

“Reese, you can’t give someone your heart and
then marry someone else. It just doesn’t work that way.”

“But why not? Why
can’t it
work that
way?”

A dark cloud rolls over her beautiful
features. “It could
never
work that way with me, Reese.
Never. I won’t share you.”

“You won’t be sharing me.”

“So you’ve never slept with her?”

“I didn’t say that, but I can tell you that I
will never be sleeping with her again. You’re the only one I want,
Kennedy. Can’t you see that?”

“How could I? You’ve never told me that, and
now, when you finally do, it’s because your fiancée showed up. What
do you expect me to think, Reese? How do you expect me to
feel?”

“I had hoped you felt the same way about me
that I feel about you.”

“Obviously that’s not the case. I could
never…
would never…
marry someone else if my heart wasn’t in
it.”

“It’s just business, Kennedy,” I repeat in
exasperation. “Stuff like this happens all the time.”

“Not in my world it doesn’t.”

“But my world
is
your world now. We
can be together. I promise you that Claire won’t be a problem.”

For the longest time Kennedy says nothing. I
watch the anger and indignation leave her face as an incredible
sadness sweeps in. It causes my heart to freeze right inside my
chest. I know before she opens her mouth that she’ll be saying
goodbye.

“I told you I’m a simple girl, Reese. I don’t
need diamonds or expensive perfumes. I don’t need to travel all
around the world and eat food that costs more than my rent. All I
need is someone to trust. If you can’t see that Claire is
already
a problem for me, then you’re not the man I thought
you were.”

When she turns to walk away, fading into the
bathroom and closing the door behind her, I know our time has come
to an end.

I also know that I can’t let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR- Kennedy

An unbearable explosion is happening in my
chest. It threatens my wholeness. As soon as the bathroom door is
closed, I fold over, wrapping my arms around myself to hold
together the jagged pieces of what used to be me.

I stay like that until my legs start to
tingle with numbness. When I rise and stumble to the sink, I see
the tear-stained face of a fifteen year old girl who made the
mistake of trusting the wrong man fourteen years ago, the
same
man. As bad as that hurt, it now seems insignificant in
comparison.

A sob strains against my throat. Stubbornly,
I refuse to let it loose. Instead, I turn on the shower in hopes of
hiding my grief in the steamy mist and then letting the drain carry
it away forever.

Over an hour later, when my face is so red
from hot water that tear tracks can no longer be seen, I wrap
myself in a towel and march bravely into the next room for my
clothes. My heart trips over itself at the renewed pain of seeing
Reese sitting on the edge of my bed, his hands clasped between his
knees, his eyes pleading.