Page 75 of Double or Nothing

I worry my lip between my teeth. As astonished by what I’m about to say as I am by how damn good he is at winning me over. “Can we skip dinner?”

“You want dessert first? Or do you want to throw it in my face?”

“You’re crazy if you think, for one second, that I would waste that dessert by smashing it in your face.”

The sweet, delectable dessert. My favorite. From a place far away. So far, I would have thought it impossible for him to have arranged this in the short time since I agreed to dinner.

He removes the napkin from his lap and drops it on the table.

“After you.”

When we arrive at his room, he opens the door, allowing me to enter first. The moment I step inside, I freeze. I take in the flowers, the candles, the cheesecake from the little hole-in-the-wall place, hours from here, we discovered on a random road trip. The dessert I haven’t eaten in over five years because it hurt too much to think about, let alone eat it. The memories of the food fight, licking the dessert off his body, the sex—it was too much. Only days later, he disappeared from my life.

When I look back at him, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes filled with hope, I cave. Every damn wall I built to keep this man out crumbles around me.

Going to him, my hands pull his face down to mine. Our lips meet, buried emotions fueling my desire for him, even more than his mere presence does. I slide my hands under his shirt. I don’t just want to kiss him. I want every piece of him.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks between kisses. His lips moved with mine, but his hands haven’t so much as touched me yet. If they do depends on my answer. If I say yes, all bets are off. Passion will ignite, restraint will be lost, and he will own me body and soul again. It won’t be sweet or tender, not that he isn’t those things, but five years—five long years without the one person who creates a spark in you, which you’ve never been able to remotely replicate—doesn’t leave much room for those things.

Sex isn’t the answer or the solution to our problems. If anything, it’s the easy way out. Still, at this moment, it’s what I need—the combination of the physical and the emotional. Sex with Sutton was always filled with emotion, the look in his eyes, the reverence of his touch. Sutton isn’t always good at verbal, but physical?

“I’m more than sure.”

“Fucking hell, Kat,” he groans out as his hands grip my hips and pull me against him.

Fucking hell is right.

Our kisses become more frenzied, filled with need, want, and a multitude of things I can’t describe, only feel. He moves us until my back is pressed against the wall, his lips making their way to my neck, over my breasts, down my body. Shoving up the skirt of my dress to my waist, he presses a searing kiss to my lower belly.

“Open for me, Kat.”

Parting my legs, I brace myself against the wall. The tips of his fingers run from my calf to my thigh, sending a shiver through my body. Lifting my leg, resting it on his shoulder, he moves his mouth farther south. His fingers slip between my body and the fabric of my panties, teasing my center, making me even more needy to feel him against me. I arch off the wall, my hips thrusting against him, begging him. Sutton is more than happy to oblige. The minute his mouth covers me, my eyes flutter shut, and my hands splay flush against the wall as a needy whimper escapes me. I feel his lips against me, curling into a smile I know is filled with arrogance at the way he can unravel me.

God, does the man unravel me.

“Purr for me, Kitty Kat.”

The aptness of his mouth and fingers against me, in me, consuming me, my hands thread through his hair, my walls tighten around his fingers, and my world spins off its axis as I crash like I’ve never crashed before. Waves of pleasure wash over me again and again as I scream out his name.

“Sexiest damn thing ever.”

My weak and sated body sags against the wall as I smile down at him. Placing my leg on the floor, his arm wraps around my waist as he stands to his full height. The intensity of the moment, the rushed need is gone. I’m a mess with my skirt around my waist and my hair mussed from my head rubbing against the wall.

His fingers intertwine with mine.

“Are you still sure?”

“Lead the way.”

“I always loved the way you looked when you were sexed-up and satisfied,” he whispers in my ear as he maneuvers us to the bedroom, our bodies pressed together.

“You loved knowing you were the only one who could make me look like that.”

“That, too.” He chuckles, then his face sobers, and his emotion-filled eyes meet mine. “You know I love you, Kat, I always have.”

Words I never thought I would speak again fall from my lips.

“I still love you, Sutton.”

---