Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4) (21 page)

“What do you mean—”

“Maybe calling him a boyfriend isn’t exactly right,” she said, tilting her head on the pillow as she considered her words. “We went out a few times and he wanted sex before I did. He got his way.”

When I understood what she was telling me, my heart seemed to try to claw its way up my throat, so my words came out strangled. “He
hurt
you?” As I looked down at her thin frame, her delicate jaw, full lips, and wide, honest eyes, a fire-red tempo took over inside my chest; I was consumed by a rush of anger and vengeance I’d never experienced.

She shrugged. “A little. It wasn’t very dramatic or violent, just unpleasant. It wasn’t my first time, but . . .”

My brow lifted in understanding. “It hurt anyway.”

She nodded, focusing her attention on my chin again. “Yeah. So, you asked about demons. I guess that’s mine.”

I was at a loss. I felt my mouth open, and close again. I wanted to punch a wall, wrap her up in my arms, and cover her body with mine. And then I pulled my hand back from her ribs, instinctively worried.

“Stop,” she said through an uncomfortable laugh. “That’s why I don’t like talking about it. It was a bad night, but one of the many benefits of having
good psychologists
for parents is that you learn to talk about things, which helped me out with this.”

Ruby seemed so wholly healthy, so composed, weathering my fits and starts easily. That said, it was all well and good to embrace the idea of being adventurous sexually with someone, but it made me regard her a bit more earnestly as someone with good and bad experiences, who not only wanted to handle me carefully, but also required careful handling of her own.

“Just ask me,” she said, correctly reading my expression. “If we’re going to do this”—she gestured between us—“then you need to know these things about me.”

“You’re not . . .” I began, feeling awkward, like I was trying on a child’s glove. I swallowed, and then swallowed again, coughing.

“Niall,” she said, stretching to kiss me, letting her lips linger at the corner of my mouth. “
Ask
.”

“Sex . . . isn’t an issue for you.” It wasn’t a question, and I wanted to close my eyes and vanish when I felt the hot flush of embarrassment rise over my skin. She was just so open, so comfortable being sexual.

She didn’t seem to notice, and didn’t even seem bothered by my blunt words. “It was at first,” she began. “I mean, maybe it still is sometimes. For the first year or so after I was a little . . . freaked-out. I slept with a bunch of guys, almost like, ‘Hey, universe, I choose to do this. And
this
, and
this
.’ But my therapist helped. What Paul did wasn’t really about sex. He was a mess. The times I’ve been with guys after him weren’t anything like that. I don’t feel like he broke me, but he did show me that some people are just . . . bad.”

“Do you think of it often?”

She smiled up at me and touching my lips with her index finger in a gesture that was at once sweet and maddeningly seductive. “I guess. It depends on what’s going on in my life, really.”

I felt myself instinctively pulling back.

“But especially times like now, where I’m worried it’s going to make you careful with me, or hesitant to let go . . .” Her eyes searched mine, pleading. “Promise me you won’t be.”

I wanted to promise her this, but what she’d told me simply reinforced my desire to take this
slowly. “I—”

We were interrupted by a knock at the door: our food had arrived. I stood, slipping on and buttoning my shirt to let a man with a rolling food-laden table into the room. He placed it beside the bed as I signed the ticket. The room ticked in the silence; the remnants of our conversation seemed to dissolve out of the air.

Ruby sat on the mattress, curling her legs beneath her as she lifted the silver domes off our plates. The door closed behind the waiter, and I sat beside her at the table.

“Hungry?”

“Starving,” she mumbled, pouring ketchup on her plate. She leaned over, kissing my cheek. She was relentlessly right-minded. “Thanks for dinner, hottie.”

And as she tucked into her meal, it was clear that, for the time being, our conversation had moved on.

Ruby fell back against the mattress with a satisfied groan. “Whatever happens tonight, just know you’re in competition with that cheeseburger for best in show.”

“I fear Burger Joint has a bit more experience with cheeseburgers than I do.”

“Then bring your mad seduction skills, Mr. Stella,” she teased.

Dinner had been good, but I hadn’t paid much attention, moving mostly on autopilot. I knew without a doubt that I didn’t want to move too fast, and given her honesty with
me tonight, I wanted to be particularly careful with her emotions, too.

I moved the table away from the side of the bed and returned to her, maneuvering so that I lay beside her, hovering above.

“Good start,” she whispered, hands moving to begin unbuttoning my dress shirt. Again.

My fingers played with the button at the top of her silk shirt.

“Are you having second thoughts?” she asked, perhaps after I lingered too long on my action.

I shook my head, thinking. Her green eyes scanned my face, patient but intense.

“I suppose I just want it to be clear what we’re doing tonight,” I admitted at length. “I’m a bit thrown by what you’ve told me.”

Her forehead relaxed in understanding and she pushed her head back into the pillow a bit to see me better. “About Paul.”

“And your reaction after of running headlong into sexual relationships.”

A flash of hurt crossed her face but she hid it away quickly. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”

I smiled at this. She was twenty-three.
A long time
was such a relative thing. “I’m not trying to judge you, Ruby. Perhaps it’s a good reminder for me, as well, to take this slow.”

“No sex, you mean.”

Looking into her eyes, I nodded. “I’m old-fashioned, I realize, but that’s something I do want to do only when I’m in love.”

Her face registered some unrecognizable emotion and she looked like she was going to say something but instead, she simply nodded.

I wanted to clarify my words, knowing how she may have interpreted them—that ours wasn’t that kind of relationship, that we weren’t headed in that direction—but how was I to know whether or not we would? In my lucid moments near her, it occurred to me that all of this seemed so impossibly easy. I wanted to enjoy her for whatever this was, and not expect too much. My default always seemed to be so bloody
sincere
about it all. Maybe this was just meant to be something lovely, and easy but, ultimately, primarily sexual.

And temporary.

Most people had several relationships in their lives; I liked the idea that Ruby could be something more permanent, but I’d known her just two weeks.

“I can practically hear you thinking,” she whispered, pulling my head down so she could kiss me once, sweetly. “Why does being alone with me in this hotel trip your panic button? No one is labeling this.” It was as if she read my thoughts. “I like you. I want to be close to you, whatever that means right now.”

Whatever that means right now
.

The words liberated me, and I leaned into her touch, relishing the feel of her hands sliding up my neck and into my
hair. I loved the tugging, the nails scratching. I loved the signs of passion that had always been absent from my romantic life.

Ruby’s lips were full, and warm, tasting of Sprite and the little chocolate mint that had been placed beside our dinner plates. Her mouth opened, tongue sliding out across her lips to mine, dipping into my mouth and letting me feel the small, sweet vibrations of her moan.

I
was
thinking too much; I was always thinking too bloody much. I slid my hand up her ribs, over her breasts, and back to the button that had made my entire brain hit pause.

I slipped the first one free, and then the next, and the next, until Ruby was shrugging out of her shirt and lying beneath me in a pale yellow bra.

Sweet Lord, I could lay my face on that skin and never need for anything more.

“You have the most perfect breasts I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

She stilled beneath me and then brought her hands to her face, hiding.

I stared down at her. What had I said? That she had perfect breasts? Were we meant to do this without comment?

“Ruby?”

“I’m having a moment, just give me a second,” she said, her voice muffled by her palms.

“Was I too forward?”

“No,” she said, dropping her hands and looking up at me with these crazy, beautiful eyes. “I just had an out-of-body
experience. Niall Stella just took off my shirt and admired my chest.”

“Do you need to text someone?” I said, stifling a laugh.

“I just need to remember to add it to my spreadsheet of Niall Stella Moments,” she joked, and reached for my head again, pulling me down.

I traced the straight line of her collarbone, across to the middle and over to the other shoulder.

She arched beneath me. “
Niall
.”

I made a faint tsking sound before saying, “Patience.”

Her bra strap was silky and thin, a wisp of fabric holding up such plump, perfect breasts. I almost didn’t want to reveal them; the anticipation was too sublime.

“You’ve seen me completely naked,” she reminded me.

“But I haven’t
touched
you when you were completely naked.” Looking up at her face, I smiled. “I have never been directly responsible for
making
you completely naked.”

She gave me a playfully exasperated look, but behind her eyes I could see her urgency and it set a fire inside me. “Can you make me completely naked
now
?”

“You aren’t something to rush through.” I bent, smelling her neck. “Your skin is meant to be savored. Your pleasure is meant to be drawn out, stretched thin, seduced from within you.” Looking up at her I told her, “I’m not making love to you tonight with anything but my hands—but I want you to come so violently on my fingers that you’ll wake in the middle of the night, desperate to re-create it . . .” I kissed her shoulder, murmuring,
“only to fail.”

Her mouth fell open.

“You won’t have the right angle, you see.” I ran a finger along her jaw. “Or the right size of finger, or depth. But mostly you’ll fail at making yourself feel as good as I will because you won’t be
patient
.”

She growled, digging her hands into my hair and pulling.

I drew my finger down from the hollow of her throat to her breastbone. “You won’t want to linger at these perfect spots: the warm skin here, the sole freckle on your torso just there. You won’t be able to kiss your own rib.”

I bent kissing her just beneath her bra before sliding my hand beneath her, releasing the clasp and leaving it there to loosen as she arched for me, as she wiggled and whined on the bed. The left strap fell from her shoulder, looping down over her bicep, and I kissed the tiny new spot it revealed.

“Take it off?” she whispered, back lifted from the mattress.

“Not yet.”

She paused, breathing heavily while I sucked at the skin just beneath her breast, my hand working to unbutton her skirt, to slide it down her hips. “Niall?”

“Hmm?”

“I
ache
.”

My laugh came out as a small breath on her skin. “Do you?”

“You can
linger
all you want just put your
hand
on me.”

“I’ll put my hands all over you when I’m ready. Trust me.” I’d never been able to take my time like this, to enjoy
and relish and taste. Compared to my time with Ruby, my sexual experience to date felt like digital code entered bleakly into a program.

I bent, sucking at the top swell of her breast. So full and firm. I pressed my teeth into the skin, groaning. I wanted to bite and suck and
consume
. Her breasts made me want to turn savage, groping and biting and . . . Christ, just
fucking
. I imagined myself crawling up her body, pressing her breasts around my cock, and shifting over her, selfishly chasing the pleasure I craved being this close to her skin, her scent, her hoarse, gasping noises.

A small part of me curled instinctively at such a crude, bare thought, but Ruby’s voice in my mind was louder:
Let go
, she said.
Show me what you need. Take what you want
.

With a growl, I climbed over her, cupping her breasts over her bra and pressing them together, sucking at the skin where they met, sliding my tongue in and around the delicious crevasse.

Beneath me she gasped, arching, her hands working their way back into my hair, her legs wrapping around me, pulling my hips to hers so she could rock up into me.

I pulled her bra straps down her arm, tossing the garment aside before returning to her. Her nipples were the same warm pink as her lips, and without thinking—without even a moment of hesitation—I bent, pulling one into my mouth, sucking hungrily while my palm gripped her other breast.

Ruby arched from the mattress, crying out and pulling so
hard at my hair that the sensation teetered between pleasure and pain. “Niall,” she gasped. “Oh, God. Oh,
God
.”

The intensity of her response threw me;
I
was causing this simply by licking her breast and covering her body with mine. I wanted to own this reaction, wrapping it carefully and hiding it away. My thoughts shifted away from relieving my own ache, to giving her more of this pleasure. I needed to feed on her reactions until she was sweaty and screaming beneath me.

Her skin seemed to glow under my touch; my lips followed the fit lines of her abdomen, the perfect circle of her belly button, the sharp spike of her hipbone. I drew my teeth over each of these discoveries, following with my fingertips, hungry to know every inch. Pushing my hips into the mattress, I grew desperate for relief.

Beneath me, Ruby rocked up into my hands, mindless and begging; a fine sweat had broken out on her chest. My hair was a mess from her hands, tugging fingers and scratching nails.