They were finally let out on Main Street.
“Hope you don’t mind if I don’t drive down your lane,” the man said. “A bit too narrow for my taste.”
Jared and Alix got out, thanked them all profusely, and breathed a sigh of relief when they drove away.
“Summer people?” Alix asked.
Jared took her hand. “What gave it away?”
She laughed. “Kingsley Lane is quite wide compared to some I’ve seen on the island.”
“Downright spacious.”
As soon as they turned the corner and saw Lexie and Toby’s house, Alix felt at home—a far cry from what she’d been feeling a few hours before. It was a quiet, tree-lined street with elegant old houses, and the best of them was theirs. No, she thought, not “theirs.” Not yet. But then she’d spent little time in the house without Jared so it did feel like it belonged to both of them.
When she looked up at him, the thought of what was to come sent a little thrill through her.
Jared must have felt it too because he stopped. When he turned to her, his eyes were on fire. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Not sweet as before but showing his longing and desire for her.
She had to stand on tiptoes to reach him and his body felt good against hers, but they broke apart and again started walking. On the way to the house, Alix began to get nervous. She and Jared had been friends, coworkers, but now … The truth was, she didn’t know what to expect when they reached the house. Until today, touching had been taboo. And then there was the fact that he was an intellectual. He traveled in such lofty circles. Some of the richest people in the world wanted him to design their houses.
They went to the back door of Kingsley House—which was usually unlocked—and went inside.
Alix turned to look at him. “I guess I better change—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because Jared picked her up, his mouth on hers, her legs around his waist, and held her up against a wall. In seconds they were both nude from the waist down.
Passion, she thought. It’s what she wanted … needed from this man.
When he entered her she started to scream, but he put his mouth over hers.
For all the frantic need between them, he took his time so that the sensation began building in Alix and increasing. Rising.
He put her on the kitchen table, salt and pepper shakers tumbling to the floor, and she clung to him as his slow, even strokes increased in strength.
She put her arms out, her hands against the back of the bench, as he entered her again and again. Her eyes were closed, and she gave herself over to the sensation of this man and this moment.
When she thought she could stand no more, he picked her up and pulled her to him, holding her against his body. They had on shirts but the heat of their skin blazed through.
When she felt herself reaching the peak, Alix put her head back, but Jared drew her to him closer and closer until the shudders came, both of them clinging together, silent, fulfilled. It was minutes before either of them moved.
“Kingsley,” Alix said.
“That’s me.” Jared had his mouth on her ear.
“Good, because I was a little nervous about Montgomery.”
He laughed as he stepped away from her, picked up his trousers, and pulled them on. Alix stayed on the table, her shirttail falling between her legs.
“You’ve stolen Daris’s title,” he said, smiling.
At first she didn’t know what he meant but then remembered that he’d said Daris had the best legs on the island.
“Lots of leg presses,” she said. When he walked to her, she slipped her hand under his shirt to run over his hard, flat stomach. “What about you? Go to the gym a lot?”
“I reel in two-hundred-pound tunas,” he said as he picked her clothes up off the floor and handed them to her. Considering the way relatives walked in and out of the house, she knew it was better not to leave them lying around. She started to put on her trousers but Jared halted her.
“I like to see beauty.” He put his arm under her legs and lifted her. “Aunt Addy or your mom?” he asked.