The Secret (Single in Seattle 1)

“Right.” She giggles and flops down onto the big couch. “I don’t think anyone was paying me much attention.”

“You’d be wrong about that.” I sit next to her and reach for the remote. “You underestimate how gorgeous you are, Olivia.”

“I come from beautiful people,” she says slowly. “My parents are a striking couple. My siblings and I are all pretty. It’s just genetics, Vaughn. But when I’m in a room with the likes of you and Jennifer Aniston and Michael B. Jordan, I’m just…me. And that’s okay. But I’m so glad that you think I’m extraordinary.”

“I do.” I cuddle her to me and turn on the TV. I’d envisioned coming home and tearing that dress off her, getting her naked, and pounding her into my mattress.

But this works, too. This quiet time together, decompressing from a stimulating night around a lot of people that I barely know, and she didn’t know at all.

She lays her head on my shoulder and drapes a leg over my lap, sighing contentedly.

Yes, this works just fine.

It’s early. Light has just barely begun to creep through the bedroom’s window blinds. Olivia is wrapped around me, sleeping soundly with her head on my chest and her arm draped over my stomach.

After we watched an old comedy and laughed on the couch, Liv washed her face, and then we fell into bed, exhausted. We were asleep in seconds.

But now that I’m coming awake, I want her with everything in me.

I gently roll Liv to her back and kiss her lips softly. My mouth drifts over her cheek, her closed eyelids, and her forehead.

She shifts beneath me and mumbles, her eyelashes fluttering as she opens those green eyes and sleepily smiles up at me.

My hands are already gently roaming over her warm, naked body, pulling her from slumber into sexy wakefulness.

I roll back to my side, and Liv hitches her leg over my hip. Face to face, I kiss her, then nudge my way inside her.

Christ.

It never fails to amaze me that it never feels quite the same, no matter how many times I’ve had her. She’s warm and wet, yes, but this time, it’s…softer. Slower.

Sleepy.

Her leg hitches higher, and I reach down to cup her ass in my hand, pulling her more tightly against me with every stroke. Every thrust.

“Vaughn,” she whispers before sinking her teeth into my shoulder.

“Yes, baby. God, yes.”

I roll her to her back and move faster, just a little harder, driven by something so fucking primal and so basic, it’s as though I lose myself in her.

Every time.

The room is quiet but for our sighs of pleasure, and when she tightens around me, when she lifts her hips and arches her neck, succumbing to her climax, I bury my face in her neck and fall over with her.

“Did you just purr?” I ask quietly when I can breathe again.

“Mm,” she confirms and kisses my chest.

When I move away from her, she rolls over onto her side and curls up. I swear she falls right back to sleep.

God, she’s amazing.

I roll out of bed and walk to the restroom to clean myself up, then make my way to the kitchen for coffee. It’s the ass crack of dawn, but we have to be at the airport to take the plane back to Seattle in a few hours.

We have time for her to rest, and I don’t mind lingering over a cup of coffee while she does.

Once my coffee finishes, I pad back to the bedroom and stand in the doorway, watching her. She’s turned onto her back, her right hand up by her face. Her long, dark hair is fanned out on the pillow, and her perfect mouth is parted just so in sleep.

I rub my suddenly aching chest and take a deep breath.

Is this what it feels like to fall in love? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.

Lust? Sure, I’ve been there plenty.

But this sweetness? This tender feeling that makes me want to protect and cherish her? This is new.

I’m crazy about her; I know that much. She makes me laugh, and she makes me want to be better.

God, it’s true. I’m gone over her. And I know it’s irreversible. Now that I’ve found her, I don’t plan to ever let her go.

“Why are you hovering?” she asks softly.

“Am I?” I walk over to the bed and sit next to her. “I was just watching you sleep.”

“That’s kind of sweet. Is that coffee for me?”

“Sure.” Hell, I’ll give her anything she wants. I pass it to her as she sits up and tucks the sheet around her.

“Where’s yours?”

“You’re holding it.”

She sips and watches me with sleepy, green eyes. “You said it was for me.”

“It is now. I’ll go make some more.”

“We can share.” She passes the mug back to me, and I take a sip. “We have to go soon, right?”