Page 24 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
Now.
Now.
Now.
Now.
I dip my head down to take one nipple and it tastes like salt and velvet, like my fingerprints and her secrets. She arches up, a simple gesture that asks for more, and I’m grateful again. Fire courses through me, sweat making the slick friction between our skin even easier, the glide of body against body allowing for the insatiable build-up between us sparked by each stroke.
Amanda reaches up, one hand on my ass, her fingertips digging into me, her mouth on mine, tongue searching for more connection. We’re as close as two bodies can get, her hands clinging to me, her breasts smashed against my chest, and I know this tell, too. When she tightens her hold and her touch becomes damn near frantic, she’s about to come, and I pause. Just for a second, just long enough to honor what’s inside me without interrupting what she needs.
Because in that pause, I feel all the emotions at once, thousands of feelings connected to her sighs, our kisses, the strokes and caresses, the push of being in her, the warm softness of being enveloped, the wet moans and worshipful sighs and eager urgency that all rolls into a whirlwind of energy and emotion that is the tornado within.
And then we roar together.
A crack of lightning makes us both startle and jump, the rhythm interrupted, the cacophony of a sudden, explosive rainstorm outside changing the air, ozone and salt on the tip of my tongue, replacing the taste of her from moments ago.
“You timed that, didn’t you?” she says, laughing under me, the push of muscle nearly evacuating me from her body, but we shift, holding closer, and I stay inside her.
The pounding rain makes it hard to hear. She reaches up and pushes the hair from my forehead using the same hand that was in those strands moments ago, urging me.
“Even I can’t orchestrate that,” I say with a laugh, picking up the rhythm, her eyes closing, breath quickening. We’ve lost what we had but we’ll find it again.
That’s the beauty of knowing.
You’ll always find each other again.
My throat tightens as we crest together, caught up in the crazy storm of arousal and climax, of pleasure and desire, of the mix of the squall outside and the tornado within, whirling and whirling until there is no more Amanda, no more Andrew, just a tight clinging to each other that comes from certainty. From trust.
From some feeling deeper than love, threaded together by those thousands of emotions I felt in that single pause.
The storm outside becomes louder, and suddenly I feel wetness on my back.
“Is it raining on the bed?” Amanda squeals.
I jump up, almost mournful as our bodies separate and I pull out of her, the feeling of separation like a prison sentence, and I remove myself from the unnamed half of the wholeness I feel when I’m in her. I turn into just Andrew, a naked guy in his waterfront loft who faces a stinging wall of ocean rain and wind.
I shut the balcony door and turn around to find Amanda giggling, then snickering, and finally snorting with laughter.
I am soaked.
“You look like a wet squirrel.”
“That’s not the spirit animal I would pick for myself. How about a bear? A wolf? Give me some credit here, Amanda. I would be a big, alpha animal.”
She scrunches up her face in contemplation, her eyes relaxed and happy, her body loose and half-exposed between the twisted sheets. “Ferret?”
“Hmph. How about a nice, big hug?” I say, not giving her the chance to reply in the negative, jumping on the bed and covering her with wet kisses.
She screams, wriggling under me, and damn if I’m not getting hard again.
“You’re salty!” she says with a laugh. “My lips are stinging.” I’m kissing her, face coated in rain, and she slowly stops her giggles and lets them dissolve into little sighs.
There we go.
The storm outside can rage on, but the one in here has its own tempo, too.
“I love you,” I whisper, kissing her neck.
“Love you, too,” she says with a little sound of contentment. “But I need coffee.”
“You need coffee more than me?”
“Only sometimes. Especially at 6:17 a.m. on a Friday.”
I squint at the clock. Oh, hell. “You’re as bad as Shannon.” But I let her go, enjoying the view as she stands and walks to the door, grabbing my robe. Watching her put it on gives me a sense of pride. Possession. The robe swallows her. The gesture is domestic. Casual. Understated and assumed.
Wifely.
“If I’m as bad as Shannon, will you buy me my own coffee chain?”
“You have to marry me to get that. Dec bought it for her as a wedding gift.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Every part of the room tilts. My blood stops pumping. My mind stops racing. The crazy rain outside sounds like white noise. A ringing forms in my ears, and it’s like I’m watching her through clear, transparent molasses.
Wife. Marry. Wedding.
Those words make an appearance again.
Bzzz.
She groans. “Your phone? Again? Can’t you just turn it off?”
“Between Dad’s inability to turn over the CEO role to me in full, and now Declan’s resignation, work is crazier than ever. I only have so many hours in a day.”
“Some of them should be for me!”
“What do you call what we just did?”
“Seventeen minutes.”
“You timed it?”
“I happened to look at the clock right as you woke me up, and then, uh, after.”
Seventeen minutes, huh?
I can do better.
I will do better. I reach for her, cupping her sweet, creamy breast, the curve of it so—
Bzzz.
But not now, apparently.
I grab the phone and check texts, fingers flying as Amanda sighs, gets up, and walks out of my bedroom, removing the robe and walking into my bathroom. I hear the shower turn on.
What a difference a few weeks makes. The first time she spent the night, she was more shy, more inhibited, and clearly working to figure out the lay of the land—physically and emotionally.
We’re more comfortable with each other now.
Which is why I can ignore her and work.
The glow of my phone screen is all I need as the storm rages outside. Sitting upright, under the covers, I crawl into the phone, tapping and answering texts from Dad, Gina, Grace, my IT guy, and a host of other people. I try to keep it simple, but within ten minutes my laptop’s on a pillow in front of me, email open and my phone cradled between my shoulder and jaw just as Amanda walks into the room, now hair wet and freshly combed, framing her face in a dark wall, carrying two cups of coffee.
I get an epic eye roll from her.
“Get off that damn phone!” she hisses. “It’s like Shannon’s vibrator!”
“What?” I drop the phone onto the bed, horrified by the comparison.
“Declan calls Edward Cullen her secret lover.” I now know way too much about my sister-in law.
“You’re comparing my working on my phone to my sister-in-law’s electronic substitute for my brother?” Flashing her a smile that I hope makes up for this work episode, I take the coffee, grateful.
Truly.
“Yes. Both are things you turn to when you’re frustrated and need to feel a sense of accomplishment.”
I open my mouth to respond. Women must view orgasms very, very differently than men.
Accomplishment? No.
Therapeutic? Yes.
Amanda grabs my phone from my neck and shoves it down the front of the robe.
“What are you doing?”
“Hiding your phone.”
“And you think I’m not going to find it there?”
“If it’s out of reach, you can’t be on it constantly.”
I grin. “I have no problem playing hide and seek.” Her breasts rise and fall as her anger intensifies.
“And then what? Will you text over my shoulder in the middle of sex? What’s next, Andrew—an emoji instead of a groan?”
“Would that turn you on?”
She takes an angry sip of coffee. Where’s the ire coming from? I always squeeze in work between every other part of life. Amanda should be used to it.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” she asks, faltering, the anger draining out of her. “Dating you means accepting that you live your job.” A crack of lightning punctuates her words as she bends down for a sip, suddenly contemplative.
“I—”
“Shannon told me it’s like this with Declan. Said she comes second most of the time.” Amanda blinks rapidly, her face a series of tiny muscles under the surface that seem to rotate through scores of emotions, trying one on for size and discarding it over and over. “I’ve been sympathetic for the past few years, but now I see I never really understood.”
My hands stop over the keys, mid-stroke, eyes stuck on the screen. Our chief financial officer has a report on a huge lawsuit we’re currently losing, and the financial fallout could hurt our quarterly projections.
But not paying full attention to Amanda right now would hurt even more.
I close the laptop and set it aside. My mind’s in work mode, so this is harder than you’d think.
Much harder.
Compartmentalizing means that Sex Brain Andrew, once satisfied, is ready to move into the CEO Andrew box, and once I’m in that compartment, going into Relationship Andrew is harder than you’d think.
Like learning to play piano while unicycling.
“Talk to me,” I say, unable to find the right words to even start. I drink my cup of coffee and the image of all those unread emails taunts me, each line etched into my mind. The curse of having a photographic memory.
