Living in Secret: Living In..., Book 3 (12 page)

She arched a brow. “Tight enough for you?”

“It’ll do.” He stood aside. “Come in.”

A strange awkwardness descended as she stepped into the hallway and he shut the door behind her. She didn’t quite know what to do with her hands or with the briefcase she was holding.

“Go into the lounge,” Connor said.

She did so, aware of his presence behind her as she walked down the hallway and into the white, featureless lounge. She’d never been so conscious of another person in all her life. Of his heat. The fresh scent of his aftershave. The sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor.

His hand brushed hers where she held her briefcase as he took it from her and she nearly jumped at the contact. Trying to calm her racing heart, she turned. “I can do that myself.”

“I’ve got it.” He was already taking the briefcase and putting it down on the glass coffee table, where she always used to put it when she came home from work.

She could still feel the brush of his fingers against her skin. The heat lingered like a burn. “So,” she began, her voice unsteady despite her best efforts. “Where do you want me?”

He straightened, his gaze like a laser sweeping over her. It made her dry mouthed with want. “Go and sit in that armchair.”

“What? Chair sex again? Can’t we have something different this time?” She’d meant it to sound ironic, a way to ease her unexpected awkwardness, but it only came out sounding like a stupid attempt at humor.

Connor said nothing, staring at her. Then he came toward her and for some insane reason, she felt like running again. “What’s wrong?” he asked abruptly.

She wasn’t expecting the question and it took her off guard. Enough that her usual
nothing’s wrong
reflex didn’t kick in. “I… I’m just tired. I’ve been handing over my clients to other people and it’s been…difficult.” Not so much for the clients as for herself. She liked her job and even though she was going somewhere better, leaving it was going to be tough.

A slight crease appeared between Connor’s dark brows, the intensity in his eyes wavering. “Leaving is always hard.”

There were so many layers in those words. So many meanings whether he’d meant them or not. Either way, she couldn’t face them or the type of conversation that would involve.

“So…” She turned toward the armchair. “You want me to sit here?”

Without waiting for a reply, Victoria went over to the armchair they’d made love in the night before and sat, smoothing down her skirt in a habitual motion.

He watched her a moment more, the expression on his face typically unreadable. Then he moved over to where she sat, standing in front of the chair looking down at her. “I don’t want you to do anything,” he said after a second. “It’s my turn to do some…exploration.”

Her breathing had sped up at the sound of his slight pause. Exploration sounded…

Good. It sounds pretty damn good.

The palms of her hands were damp. She put them on the arms of the chair, resisting the urge to wipe them on her skirt. “Well, don’t let me hold you up. I’m expecting dinner at some point.”

Connor’s gaze drifted down, stopping at her hips, her lap. “Oh you’ll get dinner. But this time I’m getting to eat first.”

If his words hadn’t been clear, the look in his eyes certainly was.

Victoria’s heartbeat was a steady, pulsing beat in her ears, almost a match for the pulse between her thighs. The strange awkwardness was beginning to fade, yet the emotion taking its place wasn’t much better. A snaking thread of fear. And it grew as Connor sank slowly to his knees in front of her. As he took the hem of her skirt in his fingers and began to ease it up.

She lowered her gaze, not wanting him to see the trepidation in her eyes, but he must have sensed it anyway because his hands paused.

Dammit.

“Do you need five minutes?” His voice was deep, the edge of it frayed as if he was already deep in the grip of the desire smoldering between them.

“No.”

“Victoria.”

“I thought it was all ‘When I want. Where I want’.” She steeled herself then lifted her head, meeting his gaze. “What happened to that?”

His long, sensual mouth tightened. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, yes? And what’s that?”

“You’re distancing yourself.” The look in his eyes was uncompromising. “You’re trying not to feel anything.”

“And how would you know?”

His palms were on her bare thighs, the heat from his touch moving up her legs, spreading out. “What do you think I was trying to do last night when you had your mouth around my cock?”

Her throat closed, remembering that searing instant of connection when she’d looked up at him from her knees on the floor, seeing the desire in his gaze. Naked. Unguarded. The intensity of it.

“It didn’t work, Victoria,” he went on quietly. “I couldn’t do it. So I had to trust you. And now it’s your turn to trust me. I told you that you could, remember?”

She wanted to deny it again, pretend she wasn’t scared. Revealing any of her feelings to him was so difficult. But what would be the point in hiding? When he knew anyway? The time for denial was past.

Connor’s thumbs moved slowly on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, a gentle caress that was somehow even more devastating than the rough lovemaking the night before had been.

“You’ve never done this before,” she said faintly, as if that made any kind of difference.

“Not to you, no.”

“But you have…” She stopped, unable to continue.

“Before I married you, yes.” His gaze searched hers, studying her. “Because, in case you were wondering, I haven’t been with anyone else since we split up.”

The confession was a shock. But not as shocking as her response to it, a wave of complete and intense satisfaction. As if it mattered to her. She swallowed. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he said flatly. “I didn’t meet anyone I wanted.”

Part of her found that disappointing. As if she was waiting for more. Waiting for the
real
reason.

Because I only wanted you.

No, she couldn’t let herself want that. She couldn’t even let herself think it. Yet the ghost of her need to hear those words lingered all the same.

“That doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said, as if saying that would exorcise it.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.” Yet his hands didn’t stop stroking as they moved slightly higher. And his gaze held hers as if
did
mean something after all.

“Connor,” she began, her throat utterly dry.

He didn’t answer, only pushing the hem of her skirt right up to her waist in a sharp, decisive movement. Then gripping the lacy edge of her panties, he pulled them down and off her.

A fine tremor moved over her skin, the gentle shake before the major earthquake.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to watch his fingers as they trailed between her thighs. Her breath hissed then caught as he slid a hand beneath her knee and lifted her leg over the arm of the chair, before doing the same with her other leg, spreading her out, warm and wet and open.

There was no anger in his face now, no wariness. “We missed out,” he murmured. “All those years together and we never did this. I never got to taste you.”

She didn’t want to look at him because the expression in his eyes made that pain twist inside her. Regret. Longing. Loneliness. Hunger. A scalpel so sharp and precise it could slice her open and she’d probably never feel the cut until it was too late.

And then he put his fingers on her, holding open the folds of her sex, bending his head between her thighs.

She could feel his breath on her skin, a warm caress all by itself, and she had to shut her eyes because she didn’t want to see the inky black of his hair between her legs, or his long, tanned fingers on the vulnerable flesh of her inner thighs. Because it was intimate in a way none of their other encounters had been. Too intimate.

This was an unselfish act. One for her pleasure. And that felt…too much.

She bit her lip hard to stop from crying out when his mouth covered her, the shock of sensation like being plugged into a light socket, and tried to hold out against the wicked pleasure as his tongue slowly licked in long, deep strokes.

But it was like holding back a tidal wave.

The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth, her thighs trembling. His hands slid beneath her buttocks, cupping her like she was a bowl he was drinking from, a guttural sound of approval escaping him. And then his tongue pushed into her, a long, deep slide. Breaking her open.

A moan burst from her, the linen of the armchair giving slightly under the press of her nails as she gripped the arms. Her back arched.

“Yes,” he whispered roughly against her. “I want to hear that again, dirty girl. Moan for me, scream for me. Let me know how it feels to have my tongue in that hungry little cunt of yours.”

She shuddered as the words worked their magic, undermining her control, her determination to not give in. Oh God, he was going to expose her again. Strip her back to her essence. And leave her with nothing and nowhere to hide.

Was this how he’d felt last night when she’d sucked him off? This naked? This raw?

Helplessly, her eyes opened and she looked down.

And met the deep indigo of his gaze staring back.

A bubble of air stuck in her throat at the expression on his face. At the understanding there.

If there had been any doubt he’d felt the way same last night, it was gone. He had. And he knew exactly what she was feeling now.

His hands moved, as his thumb began a slow, maddening circle around her clit. While he watched her with a hungry, focused look as if he was cataloguing every tiny alteration in her expression.

She couldn’t look away. Even when he bent his head, his tongue once again beginning a slow, thorough exploration of her sex. And she kept on looking as his thumb continued to make that maddening movement, his tongue pushing deep inside her.

The sight of his thumb on her, of his mouth against her skin was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.

Pleasure grew sharp thorns, digging into her. Making her shake. She couldn’t keep still, shifting her hips beneath his mouth and the push of his tongue, desperate for the release he seemed hell bent on withholding. Her fingers found the black softness of his hair and she held on tight, short, hard gasps escaping her.

It was too much. She couldn’t deal with it. And even though it was suspiciously like begging, she forced it out anyway. “C-Connor. Please…I…now…”

He must have understood because he did something with his tongue and suddenly the bright star of pleasure gathering inside her exploded. And as the shockwave hit, locking her muscles and tearing a hoarse cry from her throat, the blue of his eyes was all she saw. And for the first time, she let herself drown in them.

He kept his cheek pressed to the softness of her inner thigh, the scent and taste of her filling him. Soft heat and musk and salt. A delicate, feminine flavor he knew would haunt his dreams for probably the rest of his life. As would the sight of her watching him as he ate her out. Wide black eyes. Flushed olive skin. Full red lips. The sounds of her ragged breathing. Her husky cries.

She was delicious. He wanted to keep doing this all night. Especially if it meant her falling apart so beautifully for him, the way she’d done just now. It was a rush. A heady power trip. And it felt so good to know he had the same effect on her when he had his mouth on her as she’d had on him the night before.

It was true that oral sex hadn’t been what he’d been planning initially. But when she’d come in the door, she’d looked tired. Drawn. And her admission of the fact leaving was going to be difficult felt like she’d given him something, a little piece of herself he hadn’t had before.

For the past two nights this had been about him. And as long as she’d gotten off too, he hadn’t much cared how selfish that was of him. But when she’d come in this evening, he’d found he did care. That he wanted to give her something, make up for the difficult phone conversation they’d had earlier that day.

Oh, he wasn’t entirely altruistic. It wasn’t as if he’d never thought about what she would taste like. Plus that power trip…yes, he’d liked that too. And he did have certain plans for this evening involving her relieving the raging hard-on that had his cock pushing against the zipper of his trousers.

But he’d found that fantasies and power trips weren’t enough. He’d wanted more. He wanted her to trust him the way he’d trusted her the night before. To know she could fall apart and it would be okay. That she didn’t need to leave. That he would keep her safe.

He really didn’t know quite why that was important to him, maybe just to give back what she’d given him, but it was important nonetheless.

The glaze of orgasm faded had from her eyes, her breathing slowing.

He rose up on his knees and gently lifted her legs from the arms of the chair, lowering them back down onto the seat. She made no move to help or even to cover herself up, her gaze locked on his face.

“Why did you do that?” she asked in a cracked voice.

“Why did I do what?”

“The…oral sex.”

“Because I thought you deserved something for yourself.”

“Oh.”

He hesitated then added, “And because I’ve always wanted to know what you taste like.”

There was an expression in her eyes, he couldn’t name. “But you never have.”

“No.” He reached down for her panties he’d discarded on the floor.

“Why not?”

The question hit him unexpectedly hard, in the same way her questions about their marriage had earlier in the day had. Because there were traps there. Snares that would catch him if he wasn’t careful.

Slowly he reached up and began to smooth her skirt down, using the movement to gather his thoughts. She didn’t stop him, but he could feel her watching him.

I couldn’t touch you because I’m afraid of my desire for you. Because control is the only thing that stops me from being an animal like my father.

“Because you didn’t seem to want it,” he said aloud.