Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard 4)

I swallowed thickly, staring down at her slightly parted lips. They were shiny from her drink and from her habit of licking them often, and I was immediately reminded of the way they looked around my cock the only time she’d done that, swollen and slick.

“I’d rather like to watch you suck something else entirely,” I admitted, feeling a heated flush run down my chest, adrenaline pumping to the tips of my fingers, adding, “Again.”

While she stared at me, I heard a woman’s voice mutter just behind her, “Right? I bet they have sex every fucking day.”

Ruby’s eyes widened, a smile spreading over her face as she tilted her head slightly to listen.

“I bet she lives with his dick inside her.”

Her brows shot up and I blinked away for just a moment to keep from laughing. Ruby was still grinning when I looked back. “Are they talking about us?” she mouthed.

I nodded. They were definitely talking about us.

She looked down the length of her body and then up to me, whispering. “Nope. Not inside me right now.”

I slid her hand down my stomach and over the shape of my cock. “Not right now, no.”

But Lord, there were few things I wanted more just then.

* * *

The opening band filed out onto the stage and a portion of the crowd immediately began migrating away from the bar. Ruby grabbed my hand, downing half of her drink in a few swallows and motioning for me to do the same. As she watched, I finished it, set the glass down, and raised an eyebrow at her. With a tiny shake of her head, she tilted her drink back and downed it, wincing as she slammed the glass down on the bar.

When Ruby tugged my hand, I held her back from moving to the front, enjoying our time together too much to end it yet. “My condition on this evening is that you spend this opening set talking to me, back here.”

She tilted her head, smiling mysteriously up at me. “It’s funny that you don’t think you’re a flirt,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

Signaling to the bartender that we would each like another drink, I asked her, “What do you mean?”

“ ‘Are you imagining how far I could work my tongue inside you,’ ” she quoted in a British accent, “ ‘or how many of my fingers would fit?’ ” Resting her chin on my chest and gazing up at me, she said, “That, my darling, is perhaps the flirtiest and filthiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

I held her gaze as I slid another twenty onto the bar to cover the drinks, saying, “Aw, dove, you can’t have a go at me for asking a simple question.”

She laughed pulling away and playfully thumping my chest. “Don’t play innocent with me. I’m onto your act. The calm stoic man in public, and behind closed doors, you’re wicked.”

I stilled, looking down at her. Was this how she saw me? I reflected back on the past week with her in this new, easy relationship and had to admit my behavior was so far out of character for me I could hardly recognize myself. And at the same time, falling into the role with her had felt nothing but natural.

“When you let yourself enjoy it?” she started, her voice quieter now as the crowd hushed to watch the band assemble up front. “You’re almost too much for me to take. I didn’t think men like you really existed.” Reaching down to wrap her fingers through my free hand, she said, “Tell me what you’re thinking right this second.”

I blinked away, swallowing my reflex to inwardly recoil at this type of question and reminding myself how important it was to her that we were open with each other. “I’m glad you made me come here tonight.”

She waited, clearly hoping for more.

“Honesty, yeah?”

Nodding, she said, “Of course.”

“The last week, since we’ve settled into each other, has been lovely. Part of me worried initially that you viewed this relationship as only sexual.”

“I want a lot of sexual things from you,” she admitted, “but I want that because I want you, and this. Not because sex is the most important thing or I’m working through something.” She looked away, out over the crowd and to the stage.

It took me a moment to realize I’d tested her patience, that what I’d said had actually hurt her feelings.

“I don’t question that you genuinely care for me,” I told her. “I hope you feel the same keen fondness from me.”

She laughed, stretching to kiss my jaw. “You are so adorably proper, I can’t handle it.”

We drank our second round only a touch slower than the first, and by the time I ordered our third drink, I could feel the warm flush of alcohol in my blood. Ruby’s cheeks were pink, her laugh bursting readily from her lips as I told her stories of my childhood in Leeds: Max running home trouserless at fifteen after getting caught shagging the daughter of the chief executive of Leeds City Council in the middle of Pudsey Park, my oldest sister Lizzy’s wedding, where her chief bridesmaid spilled a full glass of red wine on her wedding dress and Uncle Philip got so pissed he fell into the wedding cake, my other sister Karen’s famous temper and her high school reputation as the best (unofficial) boxer in Leeds.