All the Feels, page 26
His anger on her behalf was a comfort, but also a burden. Because of it, she now needed to defend her thought processes to him and herself, when she’d never had to bother before, and it was . . . uncomfortable.
“I’m mostly better now, I think.” The truth, although that wasn’t her main reason for considering a return. “And I feel like . . .”
How could she explain it in a way he’d accept?
Still fumbling for words, she tried again. “I feel like, if I’m physically and emotionally capable of it, I should go wherever I can do the most good. Wherever my particular skills are most urgently needed. And that would be the ER.”
“Even though working there makes you unhappy.” His tone was hard. Inexorable. “Even though it hurts you.”
Surely she could come up with a rebuttal to that statement.
She would, any time now.
“But you’d go back anyway.” He was nearly vibrating with emotion, his huge heart thudding against her cheek. “Because how you feel isn’t important. Because you’re not important.”
She jerked her head back to glare up at him. “That’s not true!”
It was an automatic, angry denial. And if some small part of her brain slotted his words away, saving them for future contemplation, he didn’t need to know.
“I don’t think I’m unimportant. I just . . . I just want to do the right thing. The same as you, Alex.” Her hands fisted against his back, her short nails stinging her palms. “Please try and understand.”
“Oh, I understand, Wren.” His jaw was a stony jut. “Trust me.”
Time for a subject change. Stat.
Luckily, Alex could rarely resist talking about himself. “You said you wanted to think through your own work options on this trip. Have you come to any conclusions?”
The duo of deep, vertical creases between his brows didn’t smooth.
“I know what you’re doing.” He gave her neck a squeeze. “Don’t think I don’t realize.”
She raised her own brows. “It’s a genuine question.”
Fortunately, genuine questions and attempts at distraction weren’t mutually exclusive.
“Fine. But our conversation about your job choices isn’t over. On our way back down the coast, expect some hard questions, Wren.” His lips quirked. “Among other hard items you might encounter.”
She waited for it.
“Specifically, my penis,” he clarified.
And there it was.
Even knowing what he’d say didn’t stop her from snickering. “It must have killed you to bite back your double entendres all those months.”
His usual brilliant, beaming grin returned, and her shoulders relaxed.
“That wasn’t a double entendre. Once you use the actual word penis, I feel certain you’ve reached single entendre territory.” His laugh was a deep rumble, shaking through her. “Anyway, yes, you have no idea how hard it was.”
Before she could respond, he raised a lofty finger. “And that, my dear Wren, is a double entendre.”
She laughed along with him, and they were in accord once more.
“I still don’t know what’s going to happen next as far as work.” His fingertips slid slowly up and down her spine, and she sucked in a hard breath at the teasing contact. “My agent will be at the wedding, since he represents my ex too. I’m meeting with him first thing tomorrow morning, and we’ll probably go over our options then. Last I heard, there were a couple of upcoming projects that hadn’t fired me yet. Then again, I blocked his number a few days ago and haven’t checked my emails, so . . .”
He shrugged, and she stared at him in disbelief.
“You blocked his number,” she said slowly. “Your agent’s number. At a time when your career is possibly imploding.”
“I told you. I needed time to think.” His teeth sank into his lower lip, and she couldn’t drag her eyes away. “Even if someone would cast me, I don’t know that I want to do another big-budget series. Now or ever. Not after my experience with Gates.”
What other options did he have? “What about movies?”
He lifted a shoulder again. “Maybe? I don’t know. I love being on camera, and I’d miss the camaraderie of working with a cast and crew, but I couldn’t handle a repeat of the Bruno Keene situation. And again, that’s assuming anyone would even hire me.”
Don’t feel guilty, she ordered herself. He told you not to feel guilty.
She drummed her fingers against his back, thinking. “Have you considered directing or producing something yourself?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “Too much organizational responsibility. My poor brain would explode. That said, it’s probably what Marcus will do. Maybe I can beg him to cast me.” His grin lit the cloudy afternoon. “At least he’ll know what to expect, right?”
If Marcus didn’t know by now, he never would. Alex sent his BFF a million complaining, all-caps, ridiculous texts per day.
“New topic,” Alex announced decisively, maneuvering them so they could both watch the gentle surf’s endless rush and retreat along the beach. “I love the ocean. And I love selkie AUs, so maybe we should act out that trope sometime. What do you think, Wren? You’ll be the fisherwoman, and I’ll be the naked seal-man lapping at your personal seashore?”
She had to laugh, even as a rush of lust weakened her knees.
No one else was within sight, so she employed her one sure means of shutting Alex up: her tongue in his mouth, her fingers fisted in the hair at his nape.
When she broke the kiss, they were both panting. And when he pinned her with his frank, hot stare, she deliberately licked her lips, leaving them obscenely wet.
“You’re the worst,” he told her again, rough and low, and she didn’t argue.
She just laughed again.
26
“IF YOU’RE NOT INTO THE SELKIE IDEA, WE CAN PRETEND I’m a werewolf instead.” Alex smirked at Lauren from across the table. “Clearly, I’m quite talented at making animal noises.”
When properly inspired, anyway. Or, rather, improperly inspired.
If Alex hadn’t already agreed to attend Stacia’s wedding, he wouldn’t have let Lauren out of that bed in Olema for days, because holy fuck, she was a goddamn goddess. An improbably short Venus, ripe and round and responsive, and luckily, much less prone to slapping him than his on-screen mother.
Huh. That was an idea.
He dug his phone from an inner pocket in his suit jacket and tapped out an addition to his ever-growing FIC TROPES TO MAKE DIRTY AF WITH WREN list. Ancient god falls in love with human. Preferably a sex god of some sort.
“On the contrary.” As he tucked away his phone, she pointed at him with her fork from across the table. “People weren’t certain whether you were a coyote or a lion, so I’d argue your skills are sorely lacking.”
A small, self-satisfied smile curving her wide mouth, she finished the last bite of her blueberry mousse cake.
They’d driven through the forests that afternoon to reach the luxury resort, which nestled amongst the redwoods and beside a lovely river, and had arrived in plenty of time for dinner at the elegant on-site restaurant.
The lighting there was dim and romantic, the tablecloths pristine, the seating generously sized and plushly upholstered in velvet. The forest-green-and-navy-blue color scheme highlighted her extraordinary eyes, and he couldn’t stop looking at her.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and enjoyed the way candlelight gilded the soft curve of her jaw. “You didn’t complain about my skills last night.”
Her cheeks went rosy, and she glanced around the room.
As far as he could tell, there were no cameras pointed in their direction, and he didn’t recognize any of the other diners. Even if a dozen cell phones had been trained on them, though, wielded by a platoon of producers, he wouldn’t have cared.
Let a hundred people see how much he wanted and adored her. Let a million.
“Alex.” Despite that familiar chiding tone, she tangled their feet together beneath the table. “So help me, you have the biggest mouth of anyone I’ve ever met.”
He opened that big mouth.
She held up a hand. “And before you say it, I will: It’s also the most skillful mouth I’ve ever encountered. By far.”
Her voice was husky and hot, and her bare foot—when had she slipped off her wedges?—stroked under the hem of his pants, and he nearly passed out from the surge of blood evacuating his brain to parts farther south.
He sucked in a breath of too-thin air. “Expect another encounter tonight. Soon.”
He nudged his own feet into the space between hers, hooking her ankles with his. Then he widened those ankles slowly. So slowly. And although he couldn’t watch her knees part and her thighs spread through the damn tablecloth, he could trace the flush moving down her neck and over the pale expanse of flesh exposed by the low, round neckline of the swing dress. He could see her lips part, and her tongue dart out to wet that wide mouth.
Which was, to be fair, also quite talented. He planned to tell her so. In detail. In private.
He really should have insisted on sitting right next to her, instead of across the table. That thick, opaque tablecloth could have been a boon, rather than a hindrance. A barrier between prying eyes and where exactly his hand had gone.
“Alex . . .” The word was a thread of sound, cautious and brave. “For our first time, I just want it to be us. You and me, without role-playing. But . . . I read some of your bookmarked fics, and maybe, for our second or third time, you could, uh . . .”
“I could what?”
A more patient man would have waited instead of prompting her, but a more patient man would have been alone in his L.A. mini-castle, waiting for Wren to contact him, rather than on a road trip and sharing a bed with her, so fuck patience, really.
Her mouth worked, and then she made herself say it. “Maybe . . . you could be a god? Or a demigod, like Cupid? And I’d be your helpless mortal? Until I turned the tables and took control?”
His eyebrows flew upward as his brain short-circuited once more.
As soon as he could string two synapses together, he raised his hand, gesturing to the nearest server for their check, because they were clearly done with dinner and onto the next part of their evening together, and thank fucking Christ for that.
As she watched his reaction, her caution turned to smugness and a wide, wicked grin.
It looked damn good on her.
“Wren,” he said, and he meant it with every atom in his reckless, needy heart, “you may be the worst, but you’re also the absolute best.”
LAUREN WASN’T A virgin, and as she’d told him the previous night, she wasn’t particularly shy. Just cautious.
But this meant something to her. He meant something to her.
To be honest, he meant everything to her, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Even though she knew—she knew—if she spoke that concern aloud, he would look at her in absolute befuddlement, because he seemed to think she was . . .
Well, the worst, obviously. But perfect too.
Maybe that seemed like a contradiction, but it wasn’t. Alex liked friction. He adored arguing. Breaking through barriers amused him. So if she was a wall, as he’d once accused, he enjoyed bouncing against her and testing her strength.
And he’d definitely loved toppling her. His coyote sounds were proof enough of that.
The bathroom door opened, and he padded out on long, bare feet.
His suit jacket had disappeared at some point. He now wore only dark, slim-fitting pants and a crisp white button-down. His sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, exposing those thick, strong forearms, and a vee of golden flesh peeked from his throat, where he’d undone two buttons.
He tossed a box of condoms onto the nightstand and stalked toward the bed.
That graceful, determined prowl was for her, to her. The high color glazing his perfect cheekbones and the incinerating heat in his gaze were because of her.
So was the erection pushing insistently against the front of those obscenely flattering pants, and the sight of it might as well have been a finger on her clit.
Her breath hitched, and then he was there. Directly in front of her.
“Need your mouth, Wren,” he rasped. “Need you.”
Bending low, he cupped her face and wound his fingers in her hair and yanked her mouth to his in open, unapologetic demand, and that naked want seduced her more thoroughly than restraint ever could.
His tongue didn’t tease this time. He forged inside her mouth and took possession.
She was moving somehow, they were moving, and she was too dizzy to understand how it happened, but he was sitting on the mattress now while she stood between his legs. The bed wasn’t overly high, and their faces were almost the same height. But his arms were much longer than hers, so he could easily reach the hem of her dress.
Yes. No more clothing between them.
She tore her mouth free. “You can take it—”
“I will,” he told her.
His mouth open and hot against her throat, he didn’t strip off her dress. Instead, he jerked down her panties and unerringly stroked her clit. Again. Again.
“Already so wet for me.” He sucked along her collarbone. “Can you take two fingers, Wren? Can I fuck you with them?”
Her legs shook, and she clutched his hard shoulders, the muscles moving beneath her hands as he circled her slit, spreading her slickness all over her pussy.
Before she’d even finished saying yes, please, his fingers were inside her, rubbing and twisting, his knuckles hitting somewhere she—
Oh, God.
His thumb pressed her clit hard, and she whimpered and teetered. He braced her with an unyielding arm along her back, licking a spot beneath her jaw that made her gasp.
She was beyond words, but Alex had enough for them both, murmurs as hot as the July sun, rough as boulders breaking waves on the shore.
“I wanted to do this at dinner.” His thumb flicked her clit, circled it, pressed again. “I wanted to put my hand up your skirt and finger-fuck you beneath that tablecloth and make you scream and come in full view of everyone in that goddamn room, helpless to stop yourself.”
She knew he’d never do anything she didn’t want, but—
Her body bucked at the image he’d painted, and she pushed frantically against his hand, spearing herself with those agile, twisting fingers, shoving his thumb harder against her clit, needing just a little bit—
His hand slipped out from under her skirt, and she was empty and shaking in near-orgasm, too weak to do anything but fall on the bed when he rose to his feet and pushed her onto the mattress.
“No,” she whined, and wasn’t even ashamed. “I was so close.”
“I know.” He didn’t sound apologetic. “Farther up the bed.”
It was an order, and she automatically obeyed, hitching herself higher as he tugged her panties down and threw them across the room.
In one fluid motion, he flipped her skirt up to her waist. His hot, hard palms pushed her knees high and spread her thighs wide, and he dove between them.
He was fucking her with his fingers again, rubbing insistently against what must be her G-spot, because holy shit, but she couldn’t even focus on that, because his tongue. His tongue.
She fisted his hair. Clawed at his shoulders. Spread her legs as far as they’d go.
Last night, he’d learned what she liked, and he used all of that knowledge to break her. His tongue swirled around and over her clit, and then he sucked and swirled, even as his fingers rotated and rubbed her mercilessly, and—
“Alex, I’m—” Her head tossed frantically. “Alex.”
She came with a loud cry, arching up and grinding against his face, against his tongue, against his fingers, taking what she needed from him. Her body disintegrated, shook, the spasms so hard they almost hurt.
“Good,” he said, kissing her inner thigh. “One more, and then you’re coming on my dick.”
That time, he slung her thighs over his shoulders and fucked her with his tongue before he returned his full attention to her clit, her legs jerking with every flick, every suck.
It took longer than the first orgasm, but when she came, she was moaning and tugging his hair, pressing his face into her spasming pussy.
Once she’d collapsed onto the mattress, he wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his hand and knelt between her limp, spread legs, his stare hot with lust and self-satisfaction.
Holy crap. He was still fully dressed.
For that matter, if she flipped her skirt back down, so was she. But doing so would take energy she didn’t currently possess, and since he’d just had that entire handsome face buried in her pussy, covering herself seemed somewhat pointless.
He stroked a possessive palm up one thigh. “Still up for more?”
She was sweaty and spent, but she wanted his cock inside her. The one straining at the placket of those fancy pants, the one she’d had stretching her mouth last night.
It was as hard and hot and perfect as he was.
Earlier, she’d imagined him above her for their first time. But that was before he’d taken her apart twice in the space of half an hour, and she intended to return the favor.
“I want on top.” She lifted herself up on one shaky elbow. “If that’s fine with you.”
He grinned wickedly, giving himself a firm stroke through his pants. “If you want to ride my cock, rest assured, Wren: You never have to ask.”
His smugness would cease once he was inside her. That was a vow.
“Take off your clothes, then.” Her fine motor skills weren’t the best right now, so she merely nodded in the direction of the nightstand. “And put on one of those condoms.”
He undressed slowly, tauntingly, one button at a time, his heavy-lidded gaze on her body.
Since she’d already come twice, she’d need some help getting there again, and he appeared entirely too calm. Raising her left knee and sliding her right leg to the side, she reached over the mound of her belly and stroked herself with two fingers.
