A Million Dirty Secrets (Million Dollar Duet 1)

All I could see was the way she’d looked as she stepped down those stairs earlier in the night. The way her hips had swayed and the slit of her dress had parted to reveal the creamy smoothness of her leg. How soft her skin had been when I’d put that necklace on her. The way she’d tasted when she brushed her lips against mine in gratitude. And I could still smell her. Jesus, the mere memory of it all gave me a hard-on. I wished things could’ve been different. I wished that instead of standing there, wallowing in my own guilt, I could have been holding her and she could have been holding me.

But I’d ruined it. I’d ruined her, and I’d ruined me.

In the darkness, my disoriented mind actually began to play tricks on me. I swear I felt her hands wrap around my chest from behind, and a gentle kiss being placed on the center of my back. And to make the mindfuckery even worse, her scent settled around me again, heavy and more potent in the hot steam. My cock naturally reacted to the presence that wasn’t there, and I wondered how long it would take before he and I got over her.

“Please turn around.” I would have thought she was actually there, except her voice sounded so meek and unsure. That was when I knew it had to be an illusion of her that I had only created in my mind. “Noah, please? You can’t run away from me after ignoring me for days, making me think I’d done something wrong, and then telling me something like that.”

Yeah, that was definitely Delaine. The only reason that she could possibly be there was to snap my dick off and shove it up my ass for snooping in her business. There was no running from her. I had to face her wrath because she had me cornered. And I deserved every single bit of what she was about to say and do to me.

I slowly turned around, my eyes having finally adjusted to the darkness, but no amount of adjustment was going to allow me to see her when there was absolutely no light source in the bathroom to begin with.

“I know, and I’m sor—”

I didn’t even get a chance to finish my apology before I felt her body pressed against mine, and fuck me, she was naked. I might have expected that, because that was absolutely something she would have done, but I didn’t expect that kiss. Her lips began to caress my own—delicate, tender, un-fucking-believable. It was the sweetest damn kiss I believe I’d ever received.

I threaded my fingers through her hair, deepening the connection and memorizing the way she tasted, the way she felt, the way she smelled, because I had no way of knowing if I’d ever get the chance to experience any of it again.

Christ, I loved her.

Her hands were all over me, her fingertips pressing into the skin of my chest, my back, my arms. It was like she was leaving permanent impressions everywhere she touched me. And at the same time she was trying to get closer. If it were possible, I would have opened up my goddamn chest and let her crawl inside, sealing her away and carrying her with me always.

The fucked-up thing was that I just didn’t get why she was doing it.

And then she broke the kiss. I could feel her chest rising and falling, heard her labored breaths, felt the warmth of them against my wet skin.

She laid her head on the spot over my heart. “Make love to me, Noah. Just once, let me know what it feels like to be loved by you.”

I knew I should’ve refused, but behind the façade I was a weak man—only for her—and I wanted her to know the truth of my words. But not in a damn shower, and not where I couldn’t see her face.

I kissed the top of her head before nudging her back so that I could lift her chin for a soft kiss to her supple lips. Then I shut off the water, slid my hands over the curve of her ass, and lifted her to straddle my waist. Delaine linked her fingers behind my neck and pressed her forehead to mine as I stepped out of the shower and carried her into our room.

Her eyes never left mine as I walked her to the bed. It was still dark, but the storm outside had ceased and the clouds were sparse enough to allow her creamy skin to be bathed in the moonlight that filtered in through the windows. As I laid her upon the bed, I realized that she had so much in common with that heavenly body that hung so prominently in the pitch-black sky. She, alone, stood out amongst a sea of stars, outshining even the brightest of them. She was right there, but try as I might, I couldn’t really reach her. I’d been given this one chance, this one rocket ship into outer space, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

My heart pounded in my ears so loudly that I knew she could hear it. I was terrified, afraid that she would see me for the coward I really was and not the self-assured man I’d worked so hard to become. To give her what she wanted, I’d have to bare it all, strip down to nothing and leave myself completely vulnerable. And I would do it … for her. Hell, I would have given her anything that she asked for. If she wanted my arm, she could take it. My leg? She could have it. My heart? My soul? They were already hers.

As I crawled into the bed and lay on my side next to her, I stroked her cheek, letting my finger drift down the side of her neck. She shivered under my touch and I realized that I’d left her wet, like the moron that I was, and she was cold. When I reached for the sheets to cover her body, she stopped me with a hand to my forearm.

“It’s not from the cold,” she whispered with a delicate smile. My heart did a flip-flop in my chest.

I captured Delaine’s lips with mine as I hovered over her, careful to rest my weight on my elbow. The back of my hand continued its journey over her shoulder, sweeping past the curve of her breast and then down her side before coming to rest on her hip. Every dip, every curve reminded me of how truly precious she was, or at least should have been. She deserved to be worshipped, to be revered.

I covered her right thigh with mine, slipping my knee between her legs as she angled herself toward me. The palm of her hand slid over my ribs and she urged me closer as my tongue swept across her bottom lip, asking for entrance. She didn’t hesitate. The tip of her tongue came out and greeted mine, like a woman embracing her lover after oceans and years of separation.

My knuckles ghosted over the soft skin of her stomach, traveling further upward to skim one hardened peak of her full breasts. She moaned into my mouth and arched her back, begging for more.

I broke from the kiss, my lips forging a trail over her delicate jaw line and down her slender neck to her collarbone where I sucked at her skin gently, because this wasn’t about marking her. She wasn’t my territory or my plaything. This was about loving her the way she deserved to be loved.