Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

Nothing.

Max was curled up behind me when the sun barely began to light the sky. He looked amazing. Rumpled hair, and the warmth of his arms and legs wrapped all around me. He was hard and pressing against me; hungry and honest and asking for friction even before his mind was awake.

He didn’t say a single word once he realized I was watching him. He just rubbed his face, looked at my lips, and reached for the bottle of water we’d left on the nightstand. He offered it to me and then took some, before putting it aside so he could run his hands up and over my br**sts.

And I was immediately lost in the feel of him as he rolled onto me and rocked forward, holding there, kissing my lips good morning. I was sleepy and he was sleepy, moving down my body and sucking at flesh and ribs and hip bones. I slid my arms and legs around him, wanting to be smothered in his inches and inches of smooth skin. I wanted him naked on top, and his face between my legs, and his fingers everywhere.

His hands were calm and deliberate; he teased. What he started to build under my skin was a slow burn. He kissed me everywhere, giving pleasure with his hands and mouth and words; asking me what I liked as if we hadn’t done this so many times before. But I understood: it was different here, in my bed. Everything had crashed last night, and I couldn’t see anything beyond how it felt to finally open my heart to him.

Sixteen

I looked down at her in the late-morning sun, all sleep-warm and cheek pressed into the pillow, her smooth hair a tangled mess around her head. My eyes moved over her body, along the side of her bare breast and down the curve of her spine, to where the sheet rested just at her hips.

There’s a list of things you learn about someone the first time you spend the night together: whether they steal the blankets, whether they snore, if they’re a cuddler.

Sara was a sprawler: all limp arms and legs, her whole body draped over me like a starfish.

We’d made love again when the sky started to lighten, soft and pink and blue smudging its edges. She’d collapsed on me, boneless and grinning, and immediately fallen back asleep.

It was half ten now and I trailed my finger down her arm, not wanting to wake her, certainly not wanting to leave. My camera still sat on the nightstand and I reached for it, sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress as I began scrolling through the photos. I’d taken hundreds of her last night, some of her undressing but even more of her desperate and arched below me. The sounds of our bodies moving together and her soft cries broken by the click of the shutter would forever be branded into my brain.

I went back to the pictures of the beginning of the night and stared at the photos of her expression as I’d admitted I loved her. She’d let me take so many pictures of her face last night; I relished the memory of the moment she’d brought it up. Our last rule, broken. Her permission said more than words ever could. As I clicked through the series, she went from desperate at first, to relieved, and then to mischievous in rapid succession.

And the photos from later, on her bed, looked just as intimate and carnal as I’d remembered feeling.

I stood quietly, crossed the room, and retrieved my laptop. It took only a moment to boot up and I removed the SD card from my camera, fitting it into the attachment for my computer. I logged into my favorite photo site, a small, discreet company that specialized in printing professional photos. I uploaded the ones I wanted and then erased the files from my hard drive, removing the card and stowing it safely in my bag.

With everything but my camera packed away, I leaned over her, whispering, “I have to go,” against the shell of her ear. Goose bumps broke out along her skin and she stirred. “I’ve a flight to catch.”

She mumbled, then stretched, and I watched as her eyelids slowly fluttered open.

“Don’t want you to,” she said, rolling to look up at me. Her voice was thick and raspy with sleep, and I immediately thought of a thousand things I wanted her to say.

She was too f**king tempting, eyes still tired and pillow creases lining her face, but it was her naked br**sts that had my full attention. I braced my hand on either side of her head and hovered above her.

“You look f**king phenomenal in the morning. Did you know that?” I asked.

I reached down and ran my thumb across her bare breast, and had to take a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the immediate and almost suffocating closeness of her, how she seemed to fill up every space inside my chest.

“Yeah?” She smiled, arching a brow and brushing her thumb across my bottom lip. I wanted to suck on it, bite it. Her expression seemed to sober and she blinked up at me, eyes searching mine. “Did last night really happen?”

“You mean did I f**k you senseless and admit that you basically own me? Yes.”

“What does ‘I love you’ even mean? It’s weird how different three words can feel. I mean, I’ve said it before but it’s never felt so . . . big, you know? I’m not sure it meant the same thing then. Like, I was too young to get it. Is that insane? You think I’m insane. But I’m not. I’m just . . . new to this, I think. Honestly, I think I’m new to this.”

“I know you’re saying something profound, but it’s hard to focus when your tits are out.”

Sara rolled her eyes and tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t have it. Instead, I leaned in and kissed her, swallowing her protest as I tried to shape every wild and unhinged feeling I had and fit it into that kiss.

I could hear the sound of a summer rainstorm as water began to pelt the windows and thunder bellowed in the distance. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought briefly of wet roads and everyone hailing a cab at once, and how much more time it would take to get to the airport. But as she wrapped a leg around the back of my thigh and pulled me fully on top of her, talk of the weather evaporated from my mind.

Her lips moved from my mouth to my ear and I tried to remember why I’d needed to leave in the first place.

“I’m sore in a really good way,” she said, rocking her hips against mine. “I want more.”

Any blood left in my brain evacuated and headed straight for my dick. “That is probably the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Sara pushed against my chest and I practically whimpered as she rolled me to my back. “Don’t go,” she said, moving on top of me. The sheet fell away and I gripped her torso, my thumbs brushing the undersides of her br**sts. She reached for my camera and held it up, looking down at me through the viewfinder. “I want to take pictures of your pretty face between my legs.”