Page 99 of Love Me Tomorrow

Third time is a charm.

As soon as I’m in the house, I kick my sandals to the side. Fling my bikini top onto the floor. It lands on the slate tile with a wet slapping sound. My bottoms are halfway down my thighs when the sound of my phone going off snaps my attention toward the direction of my discarded purse.

Dammit.

I don’t want to answer but it might be Amelie or, potentially, another emergency. I answer without looking at the Caller ID.

“Hello?” I ask breathlessly as I wriggle my damp bottoms down my calves.

“Savannah, hey.”

My back snaps straight at the familiar voice—a voice I haven’t heard in months.Dominic DaSilva. He’d reached out to me over email around the time that I returned to New Orleans, wanting my input for an article he planned to write about how the paparazzi were hounding him and his new girlfriend, Aspen, and her son. I gave him my blessing, then. If he’d asked me in the last two weeks, I would have given it to him ten times over. “Oh! Dom. I didn’t expect you to call.”

Behind me, the front door slams shut, and I turn, my past in my ear with my present and future closing the distance between us. Pablo scurries off to do whatever cat things it is that he does, but my sole focus is concentrated on the Prince of Darkness. He strips off his T-shirt. Throws it to the side with a confident flick of his wrist. Inked fingers descend to the waistband of his board shorts, but instead of pushing them down over his hips, he flashes me a predatory grin that has me clutching my phone tighter.

I’m wet.

Truly, truly wet.

In my ear, Dominic keeps talking: “I know. Sorry, this is probably bad timing. You might be busy.”

Black eyes flit to my phone, and oh boy, I donotlike the look on his face right now.

Strutting toward me with all the grace of a panther on the hunt, Owen doesn’t stop until he’s all up in my space and his hands are on my ass and his mouth is—Oh. My. God—closing around one of my nipples.

The man knows it won’t be possible for me to carry on a conversation when he’s doingthat, but he squeezes my butt anyway, like he’s challenging me to go ahead and give it a try.

I’m going to kill him—but not before he makes me come.

Priorities.

“No!” I exclaim to Dominic. “No, of course not. Not busy at all.”

Owen’s teeth scrape my nipple, tugging the bud sharply into his warm mouth. My knees threaten to give out, and it’s a complete miracle that I manage to pull myself together at all to listen to my sort-of ex-boyfriend on the phone.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “You sound like . . .”

Think, Rose, think!Inspiration strikes with a classic, age-old excuse. “I’m on the treadmill!” The words fly out of me just as Owen sinks down to his knees, putting him at eye level with my stomach. It’s official: I am not going to survive this. I will never, ever challenge him again because facts are facts—I’m a hot, quivering mess in his hands. Swallowing roughly, I force a perkiness to my voice that’s verging on a squeal. “Yup, totally on the treadmill. What’s going on? Did the article go live?”

Without warning, my right leg is lifted directly onto Owen’s broad shoulder. Immediately, my free hand seeks him out, trying to find balance. But I should have known better than to think he would ever let me fall. With one arm banded around my left thigh, Owen tips his head back to look me in the eye, before mouthing, “Hold tight.”

I whimper without shame, then bite back another as Dominic says, “It’s live and rolling. I just wanted to say thank you again, for giving me the go-ahead with this. I don’t want to make things harder for you, but I—”

“You’re looking out for Aspen and Topher. How are they—okay?”

Owen kisses my stomach, directly below my belly button. I suck it all in, feeling exposed but beautiful under the intensity of his gaze. I squeeze his shoulder, then slide my hand up to the spot where his neck and shoulder meet. Another kiss, this one lower, over my pelvic bone.

“They’re good, yeah,” Dominic tells me, and my treadmill excuse must be working because he doesn’t seem to suspect a thing.Thank you, thank you, thank you. “Thank you for asking. And I’m sorry, again, for being that asshole no one wants on the show. I know you said before that it’s okay—I just really want you to know how sorry I am. It was a shit thing for me to do. I regret it, taking the money . . . and going on the show in the first place.”

I appreciate the words, even though it’s hard to absorb them fully when Owen is working devil magic on making my knees as weak as possible. “It’s all under the bridge, I promise! Listen, Dom, I have to—”

Owen nips my skin, at the top of my thighs, and it’s so ticklish that a girlish giggle erupts from my mouth.

“Savannah, you good over there?”

“Yes, totally good!” I squeak, but the man on his knees before me has other plans, because he nips me again before soothing the sting with his tongue. I lower my voice, trying to whisper when I hiss, “Owen, stop!”

The smile he gives me is downright sinful. “Get off the phone,” he mouths, tracing his fingers from my thigh to just above my clit, “by the count of three.”

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