Wrong For You (Before You Series Book 3) (16 page)

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his body and he brushed his lips against the top of her head, inhaling her clean, fresh scent. “Now I am. I don’t know why I decided to meet him. I feel even more conflicted than before. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I want him in my life, but he said I have brothers—I think I want to meet them. What he did or didn’t do shouldn’t impact whether I talk to my brothers.”

She nodded as she ran her hands up and down his back. “You don’t have to decide today.”

“I know, but I’m so tired of being angry at him, at my mom, and at life.” He’d closed the door on Brad the day his wife slammed the door in his face. He didn’t think he was ready to open that door anytime soon. Maybe never, but he didn’t want to be angry anymore.

“Then let it go. You don’t have to see any of them if you don’t want to, but you don’t need the anger eating at you. Just accept what happened and make the best of what you have.”

He tangled his fingers through Violet’s light blonde hair, letting it float through his fingertips. “Thanks for being here for me today, Violet.”

“I couldn’t be anywhere else,” she replied simply.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of her car.

“Back to my house.”

“What about the Foundation?”

“I was already taking a couple weeks off to visit my parents. I moved it up a couple days and you already resigned, so we’re free to do whatever we want for the rest of the week.”

“How’d you swing that?”

“I convinced some of the ex-employees to come back.”

“And they agreed?”

She laughed as she pulled away from the curb. “After I showed them the Foundation’s updated financial statement.”

“Money makes the world go around.”

“I guess so.”

“And you don’t mind being away for a couple weeks?”

“I haven’t had a vacation in a year. I think I’m entitled to a few weeks of freedom.” She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. “What time are you leaving on Friday?”

“As early as I can get out the door. I need to be in LA before the end of the day on Saturday, preferably while it’s still light out.”

“How long is the drive?”

“Around seventeen hours, so I’ll drive twelve hours on Friday and I’ll have a relatively short day on Saturday.”

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the road.

He didn’t like the way Violet avoided his eyes. He wanted them to enjoy their last few days together, and if he were honest with himself, he didn’t want to walk out of her life forever on Friday.

“Do you think you’ll go to UCLA to visit the campus before you apply to law school?”

“Probably.”

“You could stay with me when you’re there.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Are you serious?”

He squeezed her thigh briefly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because this was supposed to be a finite relationship. Remember? Two weeks. No strings. No promises.” She stopped in the driveway of her home.

“Is that supposed to be the polite way of telling me you’re not interested in anything after Friday?”

She shifted in her seat. “Tell me this. Two weeks ago, you said you couldn’t do a relationship, and now, if I’m reading you correctly, you’re telling me you can. Why?”

He grabbed her shoulders, letting his thumbs trace the sides of her neck. “My whole life I’ve felt alone. My mom spit venom at me every chance she could. I felt like my careless words stole my sister’s father. Did I tell you I’ve never told Taylor that Brad is my dad or that her dad ran out that day because I couldn’t shut my mouth?”

With her eyes wide, she shook her head.

“Well, she doesn’t know any of it because I’ve always been afraid she’d hate me too if she knew the truth. So I’ve spent the last sixteen years of my life isolating myself and never fully revealing myself to my friends or my sister and I’ve been so damn lonely. Nobody knows me, or at least not the real me with all my faults and the ugly parts of my childhood, not even my sister, who I love more than anyone in the world. Until you. You know me, or at least I want you to, and I hope I’m not wrong, but I think you accept me, all of me, not just the good parts.”

Leaning across the middle console, he brushed his lips on hers once, twice, and then held them there, frozen, not moving, just allowing the connection between them to simmer and build. Then he pulled back just a few inches. “That’s why I don’t want this to end on Friday. I don’t want to walk away from this, from you. I want to see where this goes. Are you open to that?”

Her hand came up over her mouth and for a moment he feared she’d reject him. He was in uncharted waters. He’d never wanted a woman for more than a night and certainly nothing beyond a superficial joining of two people. The minute he met Violet, he knew she was different, special even, and now, he knew he’d do anything to keep her in his life for as long as she’d have him.

“I want that more than anything,” she whispered. Climbing into his lap, her lips collided with his as she molded her body against him.

He pulled back. There was so much he wanted—no needed—to tell her. “Before you decide, there’s something you need to know about me. It could change your mind about me…about us. I’m not—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, cutting him off. “Alec. No more confessions for today. You’ve had an intense day and whatever you want to say right now won’t change the way I feel about you or who you are. I know you, Alec. I don’t know every detail or dirty little fact, or even every beautiful thing about you, but I do know you, and that’s all that matters.”

Maybe it made him a jackass, but he wanted to take the out she gave him, at least for today. Being with her made him feel alive, and in that fragment of time, he didn’t want to risk losing her yet. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, like Violet suggested, because everything between them came down to one thing. He felt the words shape on his tongue and held back for a moment, weighing them, but in the end, he wanted her to know how he felt about her, only her. “I love you.”

Her mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ and anxiety and uncertainty filled him, but he wanted her to hear what he had to say, and if she didn’t feel the same way, that was fine. He’d spend every day trying to change her mind. “I know neither of us went into this relationship wanting more than a few weeks, but somewhere along the way, I realized I wanted more, and that more was you. I love you. You’re it for me.”

She touched his face, her fingertips barely grazing his skin. “I love you, too.”

“You do?” He smiled, opening the car door and carrying her toward her house, one arm around her shoulder and the other beneath her knees.

“Faults and all. What are we going to do now?”

He set her down and she opened her door.

“To start, I’m going to kiss you here.” His lips whispered across hers. “And then here.” His lips skimmed the length of her neck. “And I’m going to touch you here.” His hands slipped under the bottom of her shirt and he felt a shiver race through her body. Damn, he loved this girl.

Chapter Twenty-One

She gasped as Alec draped her on top of her bed.

“Are you sure you don’t need to check in on the Foundation?” he asked, kneeling on the bed next to her, his fingers trailing softly up and down her legs.

“They won’t miss me, and Eve worked with me for a year before she quit. She knows what to do.” She twisted her hands into his t-shirt, trying to pull him closer.

“You’re wrong. I think the kids will miss you.”

“Well, they’ll have to fend for themselves for a few days because I want to spend time with you.”

“Think of Dean. I’m sure seeing you every afternoon is the best part of his day.”

“Hm,” she murmured, bracing herself on her elbows. “Are you really jealous of a seventeen-year-old?”

“Not even close.” He chuckled. “Well, maybe a little. I was seventeen once and I know what kind of thoughts are running through his mind.”

“So are you saying you don’t have those types of thoughts anymore?”

“Only with you, Little Violet.” His fingertips caressed the side of her face.

She couldn’t help it. Her whole body melted in response to the intensity burning from his eyes. His mercurial, deep blue eyes changed from intense to sinful in seconds. There were a million things they needed to discuss in order for this to work between them, but she didn’t want to spend the rest of the day dwelling on the unforeseen obstacles to having a committed, long distance relationship with him. She wanted today to be about the two of them and that moment in time where the look on his face made her believe they had a chance to make this work.

“I like that thought.” Leaning forward, she nibbled on his lip ring before sucking it into her mouth.

He groaned, shoving his hands into her hair, lightly tugging at the roots. The look on his face made her desperate for him. “You want me to share some of my thoughts?” he said, abducting both her mouth and her common sense with one of his mind-wilting kisses that were a little dark, always wild, and utterly consuming. She couldn’t get enough. Would she always feel this way? If the way she felt since she first saw him was any indication, she probably would. With every little piece of him he revealed, she only wanted him more.

“No,” she answered when he released her lips and her mind circled back to his question. “But maybe you could show me. That might be better. I’ve always been a hands on, get my hands dirty kind of girl.”

“I like the sound of that,” he said right before his mouth slammed against hers one more time, taking everything she had to give and more.

Devouring her like she was his last meal, he shifted from her lips to her jaw and then down her neck, pausing to score her skin with his teeth and then soothing the pulsing heat with his cool, minty breath.

Then, without warning or a single word, he ripped her shirt over her head and his mouth was back on her within seconds. Kissing, nibbling, licking, while his hands traced every inch of her skin before pushing her bra down and flicking his tongue over each sensitive and highly inflamed nipple.

She felt his erection against the inside of her thigh, hard, thick and teasing her with every subtle movement or twitch and she wanted him inside of her again.

“Alec,” she half-moaned, half-whispered, arching her hips and spreading her legs, desperately trying to focus all of his attention on her throbbing center.

One of his hands slid under her hips, angling her up as he pulled her skirt and panties down her legs. She sighed in relief as his lips trailed down her body, moving closer and closer, but not close enough. Every swirl of his tongue tortured her until her body physically ached with the need to be touched, and when he paused, looking up at her as his tongue stroked the little stretch of skin where her thigh met her pelvis, she realized he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Where you do want me, baby?” His eyes hinted at desire, but his dilated pupils didn’t hide the mischievous glint lurking beneath the surface.

“Inside me,” she breathed, barely recognizing the sex vixen voice that came out of her mouth.

“What part of me do you want inside of you?”

“Anything…I’m not picky.”

“How about my finger?” he said as his finger glided back and forth, never penetrating, just slipping along the surface with enough pressure to drive her crazy, both good and bad. He planted kisses along her neck as he continued his maddening game and her nerve endings felt as though they might spontaneously combust at any moment.

“More,” she said, wrapping her hand around his wrist.

He chuckled, slipping his hand out of her grasp. “Maybe you’d prefer to have my tongue inside?” His warm breath fanned her skin and she was even wetter than two seconds earlier. How was that even possible?

“God, yes,” she moaned.

“Lie back and put your hands against the headboard.”

Exhaling a fragile breath, she did as he asked without question. Rubbing his hands up and down her legs, he lifted her legs and draped them over his shoulders.

His silky black hair brushed against the inside of her thighs as he bent forward, blowing a cool breath along her entrance directly between her legs.

“Agh,” she said, releasing her hands from the headboard, burying her hands in his hair.

“No.” He pulled back. “Hands on the headboard.”

“But I want to touch you,” she whined like a moody teenager, but she couldn’t help it. The anticipation was killing her.

“Later, baby. Now it’s my turn.”

The minute her hands wrapped around the cool metal of her iron headboard, his tongue slid along her entrance in one long, firm stroke, back to front. She released a harsh jagged breath, arching against his mouth, seeking more…and then he buried his mouth against her and his tongue plunged inside of her and she couldn’t even think if she tried.

Licking, sucking, nibbling and she didn’t even know what else. She lost track. All she knew was the pleasure was too deep, too raw, too massive to comprehend. No longer able to focus on any particular thing except the feelings ripping through her, her vision blurred. Sensations screamed through her nerve endings as she rode the pleasure-pain edge to completion and just when she thought she’d die if he didn’t let her orgasm, he thrust a finger or two inside of her and she gasped, screaming his name and a hundred other incomprehensible words as he coaxed every last ripple of pleasure from her body.

“Holy crap,” she whispered as he lifted his head, searing her with his all too intense stare.

Standing up, he pulled his shirt over his head and made quick work of his pants until he stood in front of her completely naked and what a fucking amazing site it was. In her mind, nobody could ever compete with him.

He pulled a condom out of his wallet and tore it open.

“We don’t need that,” she said, grabbing it from his hand.

“Are you sure?” he asked, twirling the package between his fingers.

“Yes. I want to feel you again, skin to skin, just us with nothing between.”

The corners of his lips curled up. “I like how you think.”

She pulled his hand until he was on top of her, their bodies perfectly aligned. Angling her hips up, he lurched forward, entering her in one firm stroke. He didn’t move again and she opened her eyes.

“Nice, baby. Keep them open so I can see you.”

She barely nodded when he thrust inside of her again and again, faster, harder, deeper.

“That feels so good,” she moaned as the sensations started building deep inside of her again. She moved her hips to meet every one of his thrusts in a perfect pounding rhythm.

“Good, because we’ll need every minute of the time we have to make sure you don’t forget why you’re with me after I leave.”

She’d never forget him, regardless of how they spent their last few days together, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She wanted to concentrate on him as they moved together and the little time they had left.

She watched the flex and pull of the muscles of his perfectly sculpted arms as they balanced his upper body over hers, never getting close enough to smother her, but close enough that every thrust of his hips coincided with a brush of his naked chest against her breasts, enhancing the bliss beginning to spiral inside of her body.

“Alec,” she moaned again, her nipples tightening as he held her steady against his punishing yet possessive strokes.

She curled into him, licking his neck as he flexed his hips over and over until tidal wave after tidal wave of pleasure crashed through her body. All the while, his eyes never strayed from hers as he watched her unravel beneath him. He pumped his hips hard into her three more times, his hands still biting into her hips, until a loud groan escaped his lips and he shuddered against her.

Rolling onto his back, he collapsed on her bed, his fingers roaming over her flat stomach.

She felt sticky and a little self-conscious now that they were no longer in the heat of the moment and she rolled over to go to the bathroom. With her other boyfriends, she never acted like that. Then again, they never made her orgasm like that. On occasion, she’d felt something, but nothing that made her want to scream, beg, and stay in bed all day.

“No. Stay,” he said, snaking his arms around her waist and kissing the sensitive skin where her shoulder met her neck.

“I need to shower,” she said weakly.

“Not yet. We have all day for that. Right now I want to hold you.” He curled his body around hers, kissing her slow and deep, carving the future she wanted with him into reality with every brush of his lips and stroke of his heated fingertips. Her body felt tender and sublimely used, but she loved it. It was a physical reminder of him.