Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard 4)

“This is what I’ve wanted,” he whispered. “What I think about. What I thought about last night. I thought about your soft tongue, how you would feel just here. What it would feel like to slip into your body, your mouth. I think about it nearly to the point of obsession.”

I pushed back into the door, wanting to escape the increasing urgency of his touch, or needing the support it offered me, I wasn’t sure. I only knew that I was lost, only a breath away from falling apart so completely he might never be able to put me back together.

“Inside,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Want to come with you inside me.”

“When you speak this way . . .” he said, but did as I asked. He pushed one finger into me, and then two, pumping deeply. “Bloody hell . . .”

Sensation built, making my legs weak and my kisses distracted and wet all over his lips, his chin. My desperate sounds carried only so far as his mouth before he consumed them. His thumb circled, firm and sure, as fingers slid in and out. I could swear he was pushing deeper with every stroke, reaching something inside me that was wild and untouched.

And then, the feeling built until it was spilling over and I came, my body arching into his hand. His mouth found mine again, and he whispered things I only barely understood.

“Give me your sounds,” he said. “Let me keep them to think about tonight.”

But we had all night together, I remembered. No meetings and no dinners planned with anyone from the conference. Nobody that would interrupt us. I wondered if he knew that, too. Maybe doing this here was easier, with the distant sounds of office life coming from the other rooms around us, reminding us both that we couldn’t take it too far. Maybe—

“I can’t believe I’m the one saying this,” he said, rubbing his nose along mine, “but stop thinking.”

“Just . . . wow,” I said, wanting to slip like warm honey down to the floor. Regretfully, he pulled his hand from my skirt and wrapped his arms around me, keeping me upright.

“ ‘Wow’ is good. I’ll take ‘wow.’ ”

“We should do that again,” I said, feeling my stupid grin.

“Just seeing how quickly you fell apart in my arms . . .”

“No kidding.”

He glanced at the door, his expression falling the smallest bit. “But we’ve been gone for some time; we should join the others.”

“You—” I started, eyes flickering down to his cock.

He was still hard—impressively so—but he stilled my hand when I reached for his belt. “Quite used to it by now, I can assure you.”

I frowned. “But I can—”

As if on cue, a voice called out from the other end of the hall. Time was up.

For now, I thought. We had an entire night, and I planned on enjoying every second of it.

TEN

Niall

I could sense from the way Ruby kept glancing at me that she was up to something.

“What?” I mouthed when she’d trapped that full pink bottom lip between her teeth and finally looked up at my face after staring at my neck, my arms, my hands.

She shrugged. “Nothing,” she mouthed back, her tongue peeking out between her teeth with the single word.

She knew. She had to know what that tongue did to me. So soft and pink and teasing.

I tore my eyes from her and back to the woman leading today’s discussion on hurricane disaster relief budgeting. All around the room, eyelids drooped or hands doodled on notepads. For my part, I’d found the meetings all week predictably intense but fascinating. I loved my job, loved the topic of disaster preparedness and the details we had come together to scrutinize. I enjoyed work in a way I suspected many of my colleagues didn’t: it was my escape, my passion. So it threw me somewhat when I found my eyes wandering to the clock, my mind drifting to Ruby and what would happen between us tonight.

We had no meetings, no social obligations. From 1700 until the following morning, we had nothing but time . . . together.

With Portia, we’d had all the time in the world, eleven years’ worth. And yet, even in the beginning, more time in each other’s company was never something either of us particularly yearned for. Everything felt more important than having lunch together; even something as simple as a few hours side by side watching television was always passed up in favor of working independently or catching up on odd projects. But Ruby seemed to practically vibrate at the prospect of a handful of hours alone—with me.

Clearly what had happened over lunch was an admission that we both needed to move forward, away from the flirtatious games we enjoyed during the day into something more personal and intimate at night.