Panting, limp, and brain dead, Olivia let her arm slide off his shoulders. Let her body melt against the table. Let her forearm fall across her eyes. And muttered, “C’ést incroyable.”
Tate dropped his sweaty forehead to her shoulder and lowered to his forearms. Their heavy breathing filled the silence. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing it as she searched her mind for the source of the knot lingering in her chest. A vague tension that was both familiar, yet unidentifiable in the moment. Which was probably because Tate Donovan had just fucked the living stuffing out of her.
She laughed. Turned her head away from Tate’s, lowered her forearm from her eyes to her mouth and laughed again.
“What were you saying?” he asked.
That wasn’t the question she expected. “When?”
He lifted his head and looked at her. His face was relaxed, his eyes sparkling again, and a little smile tipped his beautiful mouth. “What do you mean, when?”
She grinned and thought back. “Ummm… Hard to say. I sort of think in several languages now. Sometimes I don’t know which one’s in my head and which one’s coming out of my mouth. Can you sing a few bars for me?”
He broke into laughter and laid his head against her shoulder again. She brought her hands to his head and her fingers to his hair. His laughter faded and he heaved a deep, satisfied sigh. Then tipped his head and pressed a kiss to her throat.
“Holy shit, Liv…” he whispered against her skin. “That was…”
“C’ést incroyable?”
He lifted his head and the smile on his face, both happy and sweet, tightened her throat. “It sounds so much better when you say it.”
He dropped a soft, lingering kiss to her lips, and joy ballooned inside of her. But as soon as she felt it, she knew what she’d feared moments ago. And right on cue, Tate pushed up on his hands. He was going to pull away and leave her body. The perfect distraction was over. Olivia now had to deal with reality.
She braced for the void. The cold. The emptiness.
Tate made the familiar requisite moves and Olivia used her hands to push herself up. She let her legs fall free of Tate’s hips and he stepped into to the kitchen for cleanup while Olivia straightened her dress and picked up her panties from the floor.
As she straightened, Olivia looked out the dining room windows onto the gardens, silent and beautiful in the middle of the night. And she realized that instead of leaving a nagging ache inside her, Tate had given her a sense of… Of what? Calm? Peace? Wholeness?
All she knew was that when he stepped up behind her, wrapped her in his arms and lowered his head to kiss her neck, Olivia’s heart felt light, when it usually felt heavy.
“What do you think?” he murmured. “Do you want to stay with me tonight? If it’s too much,” his voice dipped, “I… I understand.”
Olivia was still waiting for the hole at the center of her body to open. With any other man—every other man—regardless of who he was, how much she liked him as a person, how much he liked her, how great the sex was, the loneliness after sex had been almost instantaneous. But she wasn’t feeling that now. What she was feeling was the stirring heat between her legs when she thought of Tate Donovan owning her for the rest of the night.
She tilted her head back, kissed his jaw and told him, “If that’s what happens when we’re still fully clothed, I want to see what happens when we get naked.”
4
A chime drew Tate from sleep. He reached out blindly, slapping at the nightstand to silence his alarm. But his hand hit the mattress.
Disoriented he opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of the bed. Sprawled diagonally on his stomach. Naked. Confusion hurt his head. He hadn’t slept naked since…
Almost before his mind touched on Lisa, it veered toward Olivia.
Instantly awake, he pushed up and looked around. He pulled in a breath to call her name, hoping she’d changed her mind about leaving in the early morning hours. But then he saw her sparkly heels missing from the floor—all she’d had on by the time they’d made it upstairs—and let the air leak from his lungs in disappointment.
He rolled to grab his phone and turn off is alarm, and his body ached in that deliciously well-used way that spurred wicked memories. Groaning, he dropped his forearm across his eyes. Last night had been—hands down—the best night of his life with a woman. And that included his wedding night.
“How fuckin’ sad is that?” he muttered.
Even sadder, she’d stuck hard to what he’d discovered was her personal rule with men—one and done. Nothing he’d done had enticed her to entertain the idea of seeing him again—not withholding orgasms until her nails dug into his headboard and his sweat dripped on her chest. Not the foot or back massages. Not talking and laughing in the dark. Not finding utter bliss curled around each other as they fell asleep, arms and legs twined, bodies fused.
Nothing.
And he’d still never give it back.
Best. Fucking. Night. Of his life.