Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Bastard 1)

Finally, I looked up.

He nodded and slipped his fingers beneath the undershirt, running his hands slowly from my hips to my waist.

“Why?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, shook his head once. “I haven’t wanted anyone else.”

I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Did he mean he hadn’t met anyone he wanted but was open to it? “Are you usually monogamous if you’re sleeping with someone?”

He shrugged. “If that’s the expectation.”

Bennett kissed along my shoulder, to my collarbone and up my neck. I reached around him, grabbing the complimentary bottle of water on the nightstand and taking a sip before handing it to him. He finished it in a few long swallows.

“Thirsty?”

“I was. Feeling a little hungry now.”

“Not surprising, we haven’t eaten in like—” I stopped as he wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.

I rolled my eyes, but they fell closed as he leaned forward and kissed me once, sweetly, on the lips.

“Is monogamy the expectation here?” I asked.

“After what happened last night, I think you need to tell me.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I wasn’t even sure I could be with him like this, let alone be monogamous about it. The idea of how that would work made my head spin. Would we actually be . . . friendly? Would he say, “Good morning,” and mean it? Would he feel safe criticizing my work?

He spread his fingers over my lower back, pressing me into his side and pulling me out of my rambling thoughts. “Never take this off,” he whispered.

“Deal.” I leaned back to give his mouth better access to my throat. “I’ll wear this and nothing else down to the poster session this morning.”

His laugh was low and playful. “Like hell you will.”

“What time is it?” I asked, trying to see behind him to the clock.

“Don’t give a shit.” His fingertips found my breast, and slipped back and forth over the soft underside.

But in the process of leaning away from him, I’d exposed the skin just above his hip. What the hell?

Was that a tattoo?

“What is—?” I could barely form the words. Pushing him away slightly, I looked up to meet his eyes before returning them to the mark. Right below his hipbone was a string of black ink, words written in what I guessed was French. How the hell had I missed that? I thought back briefly to all the times we’d been together. We’d always been rushed, or in the dark, or in only a state of semiundress.

“It’s a tattoo,” he said, bemused, pulling back a bit and trailing his fingers over my navel.

“I know it’s a tattoo, but . . . what does it say?” Mr. Serious Business had a f**king tattoo. Another piece of the man I thought I knew fell away.

“It says, ‘Je ne regrette rien.’”

My eyes flew to his, my blood heating at the sound of his voice dissolving into a perfect French accent. “What did you say?”

He definitely smirked. “Je ne regrette rien.” He spoke each word slowly, emphasizing every syllable. It had to be the sexiest f**king thing I’d ever heard. Between that and the tattoo and the fact that he was completely naked under me, I was going to spontaneously combust.

“Isn’t that a song?”

He nodded. “It’s a song, yes.” Laughing quietly he said, “You might think I’d regret that one drunken night in Paris, thousands of miles from home, without a single friend in the city, I decide to go get a tattoo. But no, I don’t even regret that.”

“Say it again,” I whispered.

He moved closer, hips rolling against mine, his breath hot in my ear, and whispered it again. “Je ne regrette rien. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Say something else.” My br**sts were heaving with each labored breath, my sensitive ni**les grazing against the cotton of his shirt.

Bending slightly, he kissed my ear, saying, “Je suis à toi.” His voice was strained and gravelly as he held himself up for me and I put us both out of our misery, sinking down over him with a groan, and loving the depth of this position again. He whispered a single, profane syllable over and over, staring up at me. Instead of clutching my hips, his hands fisted the shirt at my sides.

It was so easy, so natural between us, that it somehow just added to the space of uneasiness that I couldn’t seem to shake. Instead of focusing on that, I focused on his quiet grunts into my mouth. I focused on the way he sat us up abruptly and sucked on my br**sts through his shirt, exposing the pink beneath. I got lost in his urgent fingers on my hips and thighs, his forehead pressed to my collarbone as he got closer. I got lost in the feel of his thighs under me, his hips moving faster and harder to meet every one of my movements.

Flipping me over, he spread his hand flat on my chest, hips stilling. “Your heart is pounding. Tell me how f**king good this feels.”

Instinctively, I relaxed when I looked up at his cocky grin. Did he know I needed some reminder of who we’d been less than a day ago? “You’re doing that talking thing again. Stop.”

His smile widened. “You love my talking. You especially love it when it coincides with my dick being in you.”

I rolled my eyes. “What gave that away? The orgasms? The way I ask you for it? Good sleuthing.”

He winked, pulling my foot up to his shoulder and kissing the inside of my ankle.

“Have you always been this way?” I asked, tugging uselessly on his hips. I hated to admit it, but I wanted him moving. When he was still, it teased, it was sore, it felt incomplete. When he moved I just wanted time to freeze. “I pity the females whose discarded egos litter the path.”