Just Until Morning

C H A P T E R   S E V E N

Holli

The sheets aren’t just white.

They’re wedding night white.

On a bed right out in the center of the room.

No, not just in the center. A centerpiece.

Dark wood. Carved.

Probably delivered here from some castle in a country like Slovenia, Romania, or Moldova. One of those vampire romance sort of countries.

God, I feel like I’m on the verge of another orgasm already, and he’s not even in the stinking room with me.

Vases, tall and short, stand everywhere around the room, the intoxicating scent of what must be hundreds of white roses adding to the sense that I’m floating. Disconnected. Somehow apart from whatever life came before this night.

Before I entered this room.

I’ve never seen so many flowers. I shake my head at the ease with which he arranged for such an extravagant gesture.

Just after we left the penthouse building and once Lincoln had settled me into his car, he excused himself for a moment, politely, like a gentleman in a Victorian novel, and softly shut my door. Then I watched as he brought his phone to his ear and spoke to someone for a few minutes before he climbed in and we pulled away.

When we arrived at his estate, a white delivery van appeared from the back of the house and passed us by, “Secret Garden Floral Delivery” emblazoned in script across the back doors.

But all this white is making me feel all virginal.

I won’t proclaim to be as pure as these sheets or the roses, but I’m far from what I’d call experienced. And I’ve never come close to this sort of crazy gravity I feel for Lincoln.

Or anyone, for that matter.

But even though I might like to pretend otherwise sometimes, I’m smart. I know that, and it’s not pride speaking. I mean, I’m both book-smart and street-smart. I don’t get taken in, and if I do, it’s generally because I’m a sucker for a sob story, not because I don’t know what I’m getting into.

But what have I gotten myself into now? Because, here I am. In the bedroom of Lincoln Kirk, a man I only met a few hours ago and know nothing about beyond his reputation.

And I’m naked.

Literally no one knows I’m here.

Anything could happen, and I’d be all on my own.

This business isn’t for the faint of heart. Who knows what Lincoln wants or could do to me tonight.

For a moment, I remember the way he toyed with my breathing as his hand clenched my throat. As his fingers danced between my legs. How he kept me in check, under his control, choking me just until the first twitches of fear danced in my brain before he would ease off.

I’m beginning to wonder if that was just the pre-show, whether maybe the finale will end up with me blue-lipped and toe-tagged.

I’m trapped in a cage of fear and trust. An odd combination that has me taking shallow breaths and trying to remind myself of the longing and care I saw in Lincoln’s eyes. The warmth of his voice in the car as we drove here. The way he touched me as though I was his most prized possession.

Goose bumps tease at every inch of skin that is exposed to the air. My back tingles as my hair hangs down nearly to my waist, brushing against flesh that is begging to be explored. Explored by him. While my hands fist the softest, whitest sheets ever woven, I absently pull the fabric up against my chest.

Why I’m so shy all of a sudden, I’m not sure.

I mean, the man’s seen my girl parts up close and very personal already.

I mean, Jesus, that man’s tongue did things to me I’m not sure are even legal in most Bible Belt states.

You’d have thought I would have negotiated this deal a little harder. Instead, there I was, just over forty-five minutes ago, following behind him out of the penthouse like some shelter puppy as he led me to his waiting Lincoln.

Of coursehis car is a Lincoln.

On the ride over, he held my hand, and for some reason, I didn’t object. Not once. It just felt right with his big, warm, firm man-hand making me feel like I could trust him to keep me safe, protected. I twined my fingers into his and ran a fingertip over the perfectly trimmed nails, realizing how different our worlds are—but how much I wanted to get to know his.

It was the sort of hand-holding that tells you something about a person. It told me that whatever this is I’m feeling, he’s feeling it as well. Not just for the sex, but the connection. I don’t know how deep it goes—how could I possibly be sure?—but I do know that it’s something real.

Besides that, we just talked. Just two regular people who don’t know each other but want to find out more. A normal conversation.

I told him about my shitty roommate. How she’s the only one who seems to be able to intimidate me.

He asked how I knew Cruzer. And asked about my family. Both my parents are gone. Nothing dramatic. Just bad luck. Mom to breast cancer when I was eighteen and Dad to a stroke when I was twelve.

Our chat started out with the little things, the trivial details that nobody cares about. But somehow, I ended up opening up more and more, telling him things I haven’t discussed with anyone else. Even when I realized what I was doing and didn’t want to carry on, I did anyway.

But, he didn’t just ask me questions about myself.

He looked right at me, asked, then shut the hell up and waited for my answer.

It was the kind of silence that compels you to be honest.

Something about him makes me want to tell him things.

And that very feeling scares the crap out of me. Because trusting him raises a thousand flapping, red flags in every long-forgotten part of my defensive brain, and yet here I am. Wrapped in his sheet. On the edge of an orgasm just from the anticipation of his arrival back into his bedroom.

Which brings me to the other thing. Winding our way through his palatial house, I couldn’t help but notice the moving boxes. In nearly every room, in various states of being filled, closed, taped, and carefully labeled.

It’s hard to believe he could possibly be trading up as far as his domicile is concerned.

I mean, Jesus, his house is one of those deals with stone pillars the size of Sequoia trunks at the end of the driveway, with monstrous, black, twisted-iron gates standing strong between, pointing skyward, electronically controlled, sending a definite message: keep the fuck out.

And I took note when he mentioned on the ride over that besides the staff that sometimes stay in the quarters on the third floor, he lives alone.

The stone and brick exterior of the house itself is accented, as if by plan, with ivy that crawls upward to the chimneys standing like sentinels atop the three stories.

So why the moving boxes? Where could he possibly want to go from here? And why, dear God, does it make me fall for him even more to know that, like me, his life is in some state of transition? The coincidence should be irritating, but instead, it just makes me trust him more.

Trust.

Him.

It’s so quiet in here, yet it’s as though my ears are pressed up against a conch shell.

Cramps begin to twitch the muscle of my legs that are tucked tightly under me. There’s a slick gathering of perspiration in the tight crook behind my knees as I shift under the sheet and shake my foot to keep it from falling asleep.

Inside my head, there’s a soft ticking as well. My inner clock counting down the seconds to whatever bomb is about to detonate in my life.

When I hear the click of the door latch, I nearly jump out of my skin. He didn’t tell me exactly what would be happening tonight, and the anticipation is killing me.

All I know is that my instructions were to be naked and settled in the bed by the time he returned.

Oh, and what we’ve both agreed:

I’m not fucking him.

Although, at this point, it wouldn’t take much to put that line item up for renegotiation.

When he steps through the doorway, that orgasm that previously teased me topples over.

I’ll call it a beforeshock sort of climax. Those ones that sneak up on you and make you do a hard Kegel workout, eliciting an involuntary noise from deep in your core as though someone’s just surprised you with a pool cue to the diaphragm.

“You are, by far, the most stunning woman my eyes have ever had the privilege of gazing upon.” His words are careful, measured, unhurried, and it makes me swoon.

Before I can think of any sort of reply, my face and my stupid ears light up like the red-light district. I’ve never blushed before that I remember. I mean, when we were in Lincoln’s office, there was heat on my face, on my neck, on my chest. He made me warm when he pulled down my jeans and worked his finger magic on me.

The first, immature reply I think of spills from my lips.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

Apparently, all that’s left in my brain is humiliating clichés.

Lincoln’s orange silk tie is loosened a bit at the neck now. The way his left eyebrow arches a little higher than his right is more pronounced than before. His eyes look tired, used, and there is a rawness about him that wasn’t there when he left me here.

He’s just different somehow than when he left me here in this room. The look in his golden-brown eyes reminds me of a tiger I once saw at one of those horrible roadside zoos somewhere deep in Texas: a wild animal behind bars for too long. There’s a longing so fierce you could almost touch it. A desire so primal and natural, it has a sadness about it. Like that tiger, there is a need there, a longing to set free a wild and untamed beast.

“So...” My nerves spring to life as Lincoln walks toward the edge of the bed. The way he moves is pure masculinity. His steps are effortless, and yet there is a single-minded sort of purpose to each and every one.

He drags a hand down his face, his fingers squeezing his lips as he regards me for a long moment.

As he does, the damp between my legs turns to liquid heat. Streaming down the inside of one thigh and seeping into the fabric below.

“I’m not fucking you,” I mutter on a shallow breath, absolutely unsure as to the accuracy of my statement. “We agreed,” I whisper.

He centers his lips on my forehead, pressing in, warm and possessive for one eternal moment.

I empty my lungs with a long exhale.

He’s sexy, yes.

But it’s so much more. He’s a man.

In every sense of the word. There is nothing of the boy about him, nothing soft or insecure, and that fact only turns my swoon meter up into the red.

And then, for the first time, he says what I’ve been thinking all along.

“You may not be fucking me, Kick. But I never said I wouldn’t be fucking you.”

A flock of hummingbirds flaps around inside my stomach as Lincoln brings his lips to mine.

His long, manly fingers grab a fistful of the hair at the base of my skull and tighten until I can’t help but gasp into his open mouth, breathing into the kiss that threatens to make real his ownership of me.

Our tongues wind and dance until he draws back, his golden eyes dilated to black orbs as he grips my hair and pulls hard, clutching tight, his face twisted with obsession and seething danger.

“Let go of that sheet, Kick. It’s time to repay your debt.”