Page 27 of The Bourbon Bride

I think of the bulge in Hayes’s pants, how hard it feels against me when I cling to him, and how he readily admitted his desire for me without moving further. My fingers circle slowly, pressing harder on the little bundle of nerves, already primed like a trigger, waiting for me to pull it and set off my need for Hayes.

I remember our kiss in the kitchen—my very first, and what a first kiss it was. The force of it was breathtaking. His skilled tongue moved against my hesitant one, guiding me, taking me, demanding I take as much as he was.

I gasp quietly, my fingers switching direction as I allow my mind to wander through possibilities I don’t have firsthand experience with, but can imagine nonetheless. I move one of my hands back to my breast and squeeze through the sheer lace, the scratch of the material just the right texture I need to have my legs clamping together as my release surges over me. I roll to my belly and grind out the waves of pleasure against my fist, my hair sticking to my sweaty face as I let the pillow absorb my low moans and the one name that forces its way out of my mouth.

“Hayes!”

It’s a plea and a low moan and a hiss all at once. I stop moving and breathe into the pillow, my breath coming hot and labored after what could be the most explosive orgasm of my life. Or of the few I have coaxed from my body, at least.

Smiling, I roll to my back, brushing hair off my sweaty face, content and finally free of that all-consuming need. Movement in the dim room catches my eye, and I look to the doorway. I sit up like I’ve been hit with a hot poker and gather the duvet against my chest. Hayes is framed in the doorway and I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there.Did he just see… all of that?

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, the words given a physical weight as they wash over me in the dark room.

I expect him to stalk to the bed and kiss me savagely, maybe more, but instead, he walks quickly through the bedroom to the bathroom. I catch his bare torso and red athletic shorts when he flips on the light, but he closes the door behind him and his body is lost to me.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper in mortification, my hands covering my face.

Hayes just caught me touching myself in his bed. What must he think of me? If I’m lucky, he wants me just as badly as I want him. It’s just as likely I did something wrong, and he is far more aware of my inexperience and inability to do anything that will be what he wants in bed. Either way, how he can have the patience of a saint with looks that burn like the devil, and not touch me, is beyond comprehension.

I need to explain myself, somehow. Tell him I’m dying to feel his touch where no man has touched me before, but I’m so caught up in my own head about the expectations, the mechanics, even, that I’m holding back. It’s so frustrating. I don’t know when I’ll be ready, but I hope he is still waiting when I get there.

The shower turns on in the bathroom. A part of me, okay, a really big part, wants to walk through that door and give myself to him right now, inexperienced or not. The hesitant side is growing smaller, and the arguments not to, weaker. I don’t know what compulsion takes hold of me, but I slide out of bed and tiptoe to the door, resting my forehead against it as my heart pounds. Am I brave enough, bold enough, to open it? What happens if I do? Without logical answers, my hand turns the knob and slowly opens the door. I keep my eyes shut tightly until the first breath of steam meets my face. When I open my eyes, my mouth drops and I can’t look away.

Hayes has his naked back to me, thick legs spread, one arm braced against the wall as the other works himself roughly at his front. Water from several shower heads pelts him as steam gathers and swirls through the big glass enclosure. His muffled groan is primal, his exquisite behind clenching as his hand slows the motion at his hidden front. His head drops forward, his shoulders rising with his breaths through the last pump of his fist, his release washed away by the shower.

As he straightens, I back out and softly close the door, running to the bed and jumping in like monsters are after me in the dark. I nearly scream when Cerberus jumps on the bed and settles in next to me, his great head resting delicately on the pillow beside mine while my heart hammers against my ribs.

“Your daddy is sinfully hot and he’s going to make sweet love to me, someday,” I tell him, knowing it’s one hundred percent true.

I lie in bed, too amped up to fall back asleep even though it’s early, and listen to Hayes in the bathroom. When he comes back into the bedroom fully dressed, I feel the need to apologize. I sit up, Cerberus’s head rising at my movements.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t normally do that. I’ll wash your sheets today.”

Hayes slowly walks toward the big bed, clasping a watch to his wrist. He sits on the edge of the bed, angled toward me.

“Don’t you ever apologize for doing something that feels good. Not anything.”

He doesn’t ask for my acknowledgment, but I still nod.

“I should be apologizing for invading your privacy by watching you. I’m sorry for not being able to look away.”

My cheeks heat, but I have to come clean to him now, even if I have to admit it in a whisper and feel the shame wash over me in cold torrents.

“I watched you, a few minutes ago in the shower. I guess we’re even.”

His head tilts and the ghost of a smile crosses his mouth. “You watched me in the shower? What did you see?”

I look away and swallow. It’s time to speak now or forever hold my peace. “You were… pleasuring yourself,” I whisper. I can’t get out the words that would accurately describe the brutal power of his body and the sounds he made that caused my stomach to drop and my body to tighten with need again.

“Honey, that was punishment, not pleasure. You don’t want to know the things that were going through my head at that moment, that I was working out of my system.”

“I do want to know,” I admit in a rush. And it’s true. I want to know the thoughts he had that pushed him to release so quickly, and if it was thoughts of me that did it.

“If I start talking about it now, I’ll need another shower. Just know I had very dirty thoughts of what I wanted to do to see you feel that good again.”

I smile in triumph and look down at my hands clutching the duvet. The feeling of success overrides any embarrassment I felt. I was the one who nearly brought him to his knees, even if only in his thoughts.

“You like that I was touching myself, thinking about you.”

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