Page 73 of Chasing Paradise

“You were a fucking badass today, duchess,” he said, turning to press a sweet kiss to my temple.

“You tried to come back to save me,” I said, listening to the steady thump of his heart against my ear.

“I’ll always come back for you.”

My heart squeezed at that.

“I’m glad you chased me into the jungle.”

“Sure you are,” I drawled, rolling my eyes even though he couldn’t see me.

“I mean it.”

“I’m slowing you down.”

“You’re making this a lot more tolerable.”

“You’d probably already be dead without me,” I said, pushing up to smile down at him.

“There’s that too,” he agreed. “It might currently be a pretty fucked-up life, but I’m glad to still be living it.”

“Do you really think that the charges will be dropped now that you have pictures that show just the one bean?”

“I think the chances are decent. There are some things I need to put together back in the States. But once I do that, I think the proof will be undeniable that my uncle, and the company as a whole, were the ones defrauding the market.”

“And, you know, laundering dirty money.”

“That too.”

His fingers were drifting softly across my lower back, the sensation meant to be comforting, but it was creating little sparks of need that were becoming harder and harder to ignore with each passing second.

“Why are you so hellbent on proving it?” I asked.

“To clear my name.”

“But you’re free now. You could disappear. Live the rest of your life in luxury on all that money you have stashed away…”

He didn’t have any family to go back to, save for his uncle and two cousins that had some nasty things to say about Wick when he’d been arrested.

It wasn’t like he had loved ones he would miss connecting with.

“I want to be free. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder. Or living my life stuck in extradition-free countries. Besides,” he went on, his fingers teasing softly up my side. “How am I going to get you coffee and tacos if I can’t come to the States with you?”

“And, I mean, you owe me half a million dollars now,” I reminded him, trying to keep my tone light as the sparks turned into a fire that was quickly spreading through me.

“You’ve more than earned it.”

His hand was fully under my shirt, fingers stroking so high up that the tips were grazing the side of my boob.

“Wick…”

His name whispered out of me, full of all the tension and longing growing inside me.

And maybe I shifted away just enough to allow his hand to close over my breast. His fingers tightened, dragging a little whimper out of me before his thumb started to tease around my nipple in achingly slow circles.

It wasn’t long before I was rolling off his chest so he could lean over me. Pulling up my shirt, his lips were on my nipple, sucking into his mouth, making me arch off of the hammock, a moan catching in my throat.

His hand was on my other breast—squeezing, circling, rolling, pinching. Until I was rocking and whimpering as the need became an aching pressure deep in my core.

---