Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (120 page)

“Slut?
 
Me?”
 
He shook his head, pretending to be
annoyed.
 
“How dare you?”

“Did Kate Hudson ever eat this?”

“No.”

She threw a few other famous actresses
and models at him.

He kept shaking his head no, clearly
embarrassed.
 
Nicole just laughed,
she honestly didn’t care whether or not he’d used his cooking skills to impress
other women.
 
She liked seeing him
squirm, though.
 

When the meal was over, Red took the
dishes and washed them, put the pot in the fridge for leftovers.
 
It was interesting watching him work,
Nicole thought.

In their brief time together, they’d
always been served by others; housekeepers, waiters and world-class chefs.
 
But she could tell that Red was perfectly
capable of taking care of himself, and he even seemed to enjoy doing it.
 
He was diligent with everything he
did.
 
Red Jameson liked to do things
the right way, she decided.
 
It
didn’t matter if he was cleaning up pasta sauce or putting together a multi-million
dollar ad campaign—he paid attention to details.

She really admired that about him.

And he also really seemed to enjoy taking
care of her.
 
Immediately after
dinner, he checked her foot again, made sure it was comfortable and
elevated.
 
He sat on the edge of the
couch and held her hand, looked into her eyes and told her how glad he was that
she’d came to the cabin. “You coming here was like God smacking me upside the
head and telling me what an idiot I’ve been,” he said.
  

“I wanted to smack you upside the head a
few times lately,” she replied.

“I’m sorry.
 
I’ve realized that I can’t let my past
haunt me anymore.”
 
His eyes grew
distant as he said it.
 

“That’s my only concern,” she said,
squeezing his hand.
 
“I just don’t
want it to happen ever again.”

He seemed to come back to himself.
 
His gaze grew sharp and he nodded.
 
“I understand why you’d be worried, you
need to be able to trust that I won’t go crazy again.”

“Can I?”

“Yes.
 
But the only thing that’s going to
convince you is time passing, and me being a steady presence in your life.
 
My words aren’t going to cut it.”

“I do believe you,” she said.
 
“I believe that something shifted for
you.”

“We’re a family now,” he said, touching
her stomach and smiling.

***

Not long after, both of them agreed it
was time to go to sleep for the night.

“I’m worried about hurting your ankle if
we try and sleep together in this tiny bed,” he told her.
 

“I need to be close to you tonight.”
 
She sat up on the couch and swung her
leg to the floor.
 
The ankle didn’t
even hurt that much anymore, although it was incredibly stiff and awkward to
move on.
 
“I’m going to run to the
bathroom—or hobble, I guess—and get changed.”

“Let me help you,” he said, coming to her
side and supporting her as she stood up.
 
“How does it feel?
 
Can you
put your weight on it?”

She tried.
 
It hurt.
 
But it didn’t hurt badly enough to make
her want to stop walking—she just needed to be careful.
 
“I’m okay.
 
I’m just going to lean on you.”

“I love it when you lean on me,
baby.”
 
Red’s arm was slung around
her waist, her arm over his shoulder, but he had to stoop down because he was taller.

Finally they made it across the cabin to
the door to the bathroom.
 

“Grab my bag for me?” she said.

Red had brought it in from the car
earlier, and now he grabbed it and carried it to where she stood.
 
“You came prepared.”

“I wasn’t going home without seeing you.”

“How did you find me here, anyway?
 
Almost nobody knows this place exists.”

She leaned on the wall.
 
“Well I tried the house, but the
security guard wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.”

“Good,” he said.

She gave him a look.

“It means they’re doing their job,” he
explained.

“Yeah, if that job is to keep you apart
from your fiancé.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I was at my wits end.
 
So finally I called your brother at his
practice.”

“Jeb?” he said, his eyebrows rising in
surprise.

“How else do you think I would have
figured this out?”

“I don’t know,” he said, contemplating
it.
 
“I was so happy to see you and
overwhelmed with the whole thing—I didn’t really care how you figured out
where I was.”

“Do you care now?
 
Are you upset with me for calling
him?”
 
Nicole watched him closely.

She could tell that there was a kind of
battle going on inside of him.
 
The
old Red would have been annoyed—frustrated at least—that she’d
gotten in touch with Jeb after the falling out the two brothers had had.
 
Nicole hoped he wouldn’t let his temper
ruin what had been a nearly perfect day until this point.

“I totally get why you called him,” he
said, after a long moment.
 
“You
needed to try every avenue to find me and I’d made myself completely
unavailable to you.
 
I’m ashamed
that I did that to you, Nicole.
 
Forgive me?”

“Of course I forgive you.”
 
She kissed him.
 
“Now I need to change.”

He smiled.
 
“I’d rather you came back out with
nothing on.”

 
“That can be arranged.”

“Oh?”

“We’ll see.”
 
She gave him a wicked grin and then
hobbled into the bathroom.
 
The
ankle was ruining any chance she had at a sexy exit, but oh well.
 
She did the best she could.

Nicole decided to meet Red halfway.
 
After a few minutes of primping and
readying herself, she appeared again wearing nothing but a t-shirt that came to
her upper thighs.

“Oh boy,” he muttered, when she opened
the door and he got a look at her.

She batted her eyelashes at him.
 
“Can a girl get a helping hand around
here?”

“Anytime,” he said.
 
And then he picked her up in his arms as
if she weighed no more than a feather.
 
Red carried her to the little twin bed against the wall and laid her
down on it.

“Cozy,” she said, even though it was
anything but.

“That thing?” he said.
 
“It’s about as cozy as sleeping on a pile
of rocks.”

“It’s more like sleeping on a thin
mattress on a pile of rocks,” Nicole corrected him.
 
“And I don’t care, as long as you’re in
here with me.”
 
She patted the bed
next to her.

“There’s hardly any room.”

“You’re used to sleeping in gigantic beds.
 
This is better.
 
I want to change our bed in the master
bedroom to one that’s this size.
 
Maybe we can swap them for one another.”

Red laughed at that.
 
“You’re nuts,” he said, climbing into
bed with her.
 
“Your ankle?”

“I’m fine.
 
Just don’t sit on it and we’re good.”

“I’ll do my best not to sit on it.”

“Good.”
 
She spun so that her back was to him and
he wrapped his strong arms around her, pressing his entire body close to hers.

Instantly, Nicole was warm and happy, as
content as she’d ever been.
 
“This
is nice,” she purred.

“It’s a lot better than nice.”
 
His mouth brushed against the back of
her neck and she felt his member stiffening against her from inside his
shorts.
 
He was wearing boxers and a
tight t-shirt.

She had nothing on under her t-shirt, and
he could probably tell right about now.
 
“I want to stay like this forever,” she murmured, as his hands cupped
her breasts over her shirt.
 
Nicole’s nipples stiffened—as always, she responded
instantaneously to his touch.

“We’re going to be like this forever.
 
You’re my soul mate,” he said, kissing
her neck again and again.

“Do you believe in that?
 
Do you believe we’re really soul
mates?”
 
She looked back at him.

“Yeah.
 
Yeah, I do.
 
I guess maybe in the past I dismissed
the idea, but now that we met I know what that term really means.
 
There’s nobody else in the world who
gets me the way that you do.”

“And you get me,” she said, pushing her
butt against him and wiggling.
 
He
pressed closer to her.
 
She could
feel the tip of his hard cock pushing against her, sending waves of pleasure
through her lower half.
 
Nicole was
suddenly wet, wanting him like she’d never wanted anything in her life.

“I get all of you,” he said.
 
“Don’t I?”
 
His hands cupped her breasts more firmly
now, his fingers making circles around her nipples.

“All of me.
 
Any part of me.
 
Every part of me.”

“Tell me what I get,” he said, his voice
growing husky as his hands worked over her breasts.
 

“You get my lips,” she said.

“And I can make those lips do anything,
can’t I?” It was more of a statement than a question.

Nicole grew more aroused at the sudden
image of her lips sliding up and down his shaft.
 
He was rocking against her now, the tip
of him sliding around the edges of her from behind. She moaned and laid her
head back against him, as his hot lips brushed across her neck, nibbled and
sucked her earlobe.

“I’ll do anything you say,” she finally
responded, almost breathless from excitement.

“What other parts of you do I get?”

“My tits.”

“And?”

“My pussy.”

“What about the rest of your body?”

“Everything I have is yours,” she said.

In response to this, his hands moved down
and reached beneath her shirt.
 
His
hands were large and warm, so familiar but also unpredictable.
 
Depending on his mood, Red could be
gentle and softer than soft, or he could be as rough and aggressive as a man
just let out of prison after twenty years.

Tonight, he seemed to be a perfect mix of
gentle and aggressive.
 
Nicole liked
it when he was rough, she liked the constant push and pull of his sexual
desires.
 
He was at once dark and
light, soft and hard, loving and ruthless.

She wanted all of him.
 
She loved all of him—even the
difficult parts.

His hands slid across her belly,
remaining there just long enough to show her that he was still very much aware
of what was at stake now.
 
There was
a life growing inside of her, and sooner than either of them could imagine, it
would be born into this world and needing two strong parents to protect it.

But Nicole felt deep inside her heart and
soul that Red would be there—he would be there for the both of them, even
if he had to fight tooth and nail to do it.

Despite all the hardships and all the
fighting and miscommunication, neither of them could or would give up on what
they shared.
 
She knew that now.

He caressed the tops of her thighs,
leaving a trail of heat everywhere he went.
 
Soon he’d just touched the place where
her thigh met with her hip, sliding closer and closer to the hottest spot, and
she dripped for him.
 
Her teeth
clenched.

Please just let him touch me there so I
can release everything that’s been pent up, she thought.
 
I need him so badly.
 
Please.

But Nicole knew better than to ask.
 
Red did everything in his own time, and
when it came to her, he took his time.