Lost In You (Swanson Court 3)

“Yes, but…” I sigh, wondering what I was going to say. I don’t want her around you? I don’t like her? She still wants you? They were all ‘jealous girlfriend’ things to say, and I didn’t want to play the jealous girlfriend, not when… Not at this point in our relationship.

I search his face. If she asked to see him, then it wouldn’t have made sense to turn her away, not when she wanted to talk about the hotel he bought from her family. And yet, I can’t forget the things she told me in San Francisco, her certainty that Landon would always come back to her.

“I thought she lived in San Francisco,” I mutter.

“She does.”

“Then why do we keep running into her here?”

Landon lifts my chin, so I’m looking at him. “Forget Ava. She’s a part of my past that doesn’t matter at all.”

I look into his face. He loves me. That was what mattered, more than anything Ava Sinclair had said to me.

“I was about to have lunch,” he says, dropping a small kiss on the top of my lip before releasing my chin. “Will you join me?”

“Of course.” I force Ava out of my mind and smile. “What are you having?”

THAT evening, I leave my office early and get to the apartment before Landon. I couldn’t stay long after having lunch with him because I had to get back to work. He’d let me go with promises to ‘make me moan’ as soon as he got me alone again.

As I let myself in, I realize how much I’m looking forward to the fulfillment of that promise. I’ll never get enough of him, of his touch, of his love.

I order dinner before going upstairs to change. I’ve become so used to being here, in his apartment, that it has started to feel like home. It’s almost disloyal, how much I don’t miss my own apartment. No matter what my misgivings were about moving in with Landon, I can’t deny even to myself, that there was everything to love about the idea, especially knowing without any doubt that every day, I would come home to him, or him to me.

I fall asleep on the living room sofa, my ereader in my hand. When I wake up, it’s to Landon’s lips on mine in a tender kiss that goes straight from my lips to my heart.

“Hey, sexy,” I whisper, my nose filling with his scent.

“Hey, baby.” He’s squatting beside the couch, his eyes on my face. He’s still wearing his suit, though he has loosened his tie, and the top buttons of his shirt are open.

The endearment gives me a strange urge to curl up in his arms. “I dozed off,” I say softly, reaching up to touch his cheek.

He kisses me again, and his lips are soft and warm. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“No, but I ordered dinner.” I glance at my watch. “It should be here soon.”

Rising to his feet, he shrugs off his jacket then sits beside me on the sofa. His firm muscles stretch out the crisp white shirt he’s wearing, and I wriggle onto his lap so I can run my hands over his arms and feel the hardness beneath. “You’re so hot.”

He laughs. “For you.”

Take that! Ava Sinclair, I think triumphantly, lowering my head to cover his lips with mine. Our kiss is soft and sweet, and much too short. The arrival of the food interrupts us and I moan my annoyance before wriggling off Landon’s lap to take the delivery.

Later, when we’re in bed, naked and he’s kissing a path down from my neck, over my breasts, and down to my navel, his lips linger on the sensitive skin of my lower belly and he raises his head to look at me, his gaze strangely troubled.

“Do you still have doubts?” he asks. “About me?”

I shake my head. “No,” I whisper softly.

His eyes stay on my face. “If you hadn’t come by the office, I would have told you as soon as I saw you tonight that I met with Ava. You have no reason to be suspicious.”

I sigh. I wasn’t suspicious of him, but Ava was another story. How could I explain to him that regardless of my best intentions, every woman, especially one like Ava, who had so obviously expressed her interest in him, became a reason to worry. Wasn’t that normal, when one was in love?

“I’m no longer thinking about Ava,” I reassure him, unwilling to let her ruin the rest of our night.

He seems to accept that, lowering his head and resuming the slow trail of his lips down to the juncture of my thighs. Once his tongue touches me there, I stop thinking at all. He uses it with a wicked expertise that borders on diabolical. Soon, I’m mindless, sweaty, moaning, and calling out his name.

After he makes me come with his fingers and tongue, he rears up over me, kneeling between my thighs as he lifts one of my legs over his shoulder. I’m wet and slick from my orgasm, and he enters me easily, stretching me with a sweetness that brings tears to my eyes.

“Landon,” I moan his name, almost breathless with pleasure.