Page 44 of Seducing Cinderella

Chapter Sixteen

Reid strodeinto the apartment and made a beeline to the fridge. He grabbed two bottles of beer, downed the first in seconds, and then cracked the second one open as he headed onto the balcony.

Since the place was dark, he figured Lucie was still at the bar with Vanessa, which was perfect because his mind was a jumble of things and he needed time to straighten it all out. He took a giant swig of the cold liquid and wished it could cool his emotions from the inside. Maybe he’d break his diet for one night and get stone drunk. Numb himself for a few hours so he didn’t have to think about his upcoming fight or the fact that he had to leave Lucie in a few short days.

Hell, he hadn’t even told her yet. Every time he tried his gut tightened and he ended up kissing her instead. And that sure as shit never led to a conversation. Not one of words anyway.

Lucie.

What the hell was he going to do about her? He’d never felt for any woman even a fraction of what he felt for her. He loved beingwithher, and he certainly loved her as a person…then again, he could say the same for Butch, but what he felt for her was a hell of a lot stronger than that of his trainer. But as far as beinginlove with her? Reid had no idea how he was supposed to know that.

He frowned and took another drink of his beer. Stone drunk was starting to sound better and better.

“You look way too serious for a beautiful night like this.”

Startled, he spun around, ready to berate her for sneaking up on him…when he got a look at the sexiest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

She stood in the open doorway to the balcony, hands braced on either side of the doorjamb, and one leg cocked up on the ball of her foot. Until that moment, if asked what he thought the sexiest thing a woman could wear would be, he would’ve said see-through lingerie.

But Lucie in nothing but one of his dress shirts that covered her from shoulders to midthigh blew away anything she could’ve picked from Victoria’s Secret. Her hair was loose and full like he’d already plowed his fingers through it, and she had a sparkle in those silvery eyes that spoke volumes.

“Speaking of beautiful,” he rasped.

She began to back away slowly but beckoned him to follow with a crook of her finger. Draining the last of his beer, he reentered the apartment and closed the sliding glass door without taking his eyes from her. When she disappeared around the corner toward the bedrooms, he set his empty bottle on the table, kicked his sport sandals off, and strode down the hall until he found her standing in front of her bed.

Just before he crossed the threshold, she held out her palm and said, “Wait,” effectively stopping him in his tracks. “You can come in here on one condition.”

He flexed and fisted his hands, trying to control his instinct to pounce. “And what’s that?”

“You do as I say. The minute you break my rules, everything stops.”

A slow smile stretched across his face. She was trying her hand at seduction. He inclined his head. “I agree.”For now, he added mentally.

“Then come here and kiss me.”

One slow, deliberate step at a time he stalked her, trying to see if he could get the upper hand right away with intimidation. He had no intention of making her first attempt at control a cakewalk. He was going to test her. Push her. See if she could keep him in line. Oh yeah, he thought as he reached her, this was going to be fun.

He slid a hand to her nape and wrapped his other arm around her middle just before he took her mouth. And man did he take it. Fisting her hair, he angled her head and thrust his tongue inside and consumed her. Her body melted into his and he wondered if her foray into the land of seduction wasn’t already over.

No sooner had the thought taken wing when she pushed on his chest enough to break his hold on her. They stared at each other, chests heaving with shallow breaths. Her ruby lips, properly swollen from his kiss, beckoned. She was mere inches away, and he wanted her so damn bad. The fighter in him yanked on the chains of restraint he’d agreed to, wanting to take back the upper hand, take back the control.

And yet he waited.

Waited until those bee-stung lips spread into the sexiest wicked smile. One that promised him rewards of the most lascivious kind, which just so happened to be his favorite. Maybe patience was a virtue after all.

She walked him around until his back was to the bed. Grabbing the hem of his T-shirt, she slowly pulled it up his body. Her knuckles barely grazed his skin and yet it felt like they shot bolts of electricity straight to his balls. Once she divested him of his shirt, she laid her hands on his shoulders and moved them over every inch of his torso, her fingers undulating over the ridges of his muscles as if committing them to memory.

Next they worked on his belt and the fly of his jeans. He’d been halfway hard just from seeing her in his shirt and kissing her senseless, but with her hands so close and the anticipation of events to come, it was now fully on board and straining to get out.

As she dragged his jeans down his legs, she knelt on the floor sending erotic snapshots to his brain of all sorts of possibilities with her in that position. Once his jeans were gone, her hands ran back up his thighs and her gaze raised to his. Her mouth was so close to his cock he could feel the warmth of her breath seep through the cotton of his boxer briefs, making him harder than he ever thought possible.

Her eyes never left his as she dragged her lower lip up the length of him and then used her teeth to lightly graze over the head. He growled in the back of his throat and his dick jerked in response. “Ah, fuck. You’re killing me,” he ground out.

She smiled up at him, clearly proud of herself, as well she should be. Either she was a natural who’d come out of her shell, or he was a better teacher than he thought.

Her fingers hooked his underwear and a second later he was standing before her, completely naked, his hard-on jutting out from his body to point directly at what it wanted. Her normally soft gray eyes were like molten silver, burning him as they visually groped his erection.

Lightly, she used the tips of her fingers to explore its contours from root to tip. The glide of her skin and soft graze of her nails as they trailed across the swollen head of his cock drove him to near insanity. Instinctually Reid’s hands wrapped themselves in her hair, ready to guide her sweet mouth over him.

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