Sophie

WE ARE IN A HOTEL TONIGHT. My hands are shaking as I let myself into the suite. He’s waiting for me; I feel it in my bones.

The living room is empty, only a side lamp on, illuminating the buttery, cream leather chairs, glossy wood tables, and soft gray sofa. French doors flank one wall, a pair of them open, and the gauzy white curtains flutter in the warm night breeze.

The sound of a door opening comes from the bedroom. “Chatty girl?” A second later, Gabriel walks out.

And my mouth falls open, a faint squeak escaping. “Holy fucking hell.” He stops short, halfway into the room. “What’s wrong?”

Wrong? Nothing. Not a single thing. I swallow hard for fear my tongue is hanging out.

He’s taken off his shoes, socks, belt. The button of his fine slacks is undone, showing the black band of his briefs—I don’t know if they’re boxer briefs or regular. I want to know. As in, my fingers actually twitch with the urge tug his zipper down and explore.

But that’s not what has me dumbstruck, heat flaring along the backs of my thighs. No. His jacket and tie are gone, and his shirt is unbuttoned and open.

In all this time, I had yet to see Gabriel without a shirt. He hides his body like a pious Victorian, never letting me see anything other than him fully dressed and polished. Now I know why. Had he let me get a glimpse, I might never have been able to form a coherent thought around him.

This man’s chest is a work of art. It’s every fantasy I’ve had about a man’s body made real. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but I’m not about to complain. God, he looks touchable. Olive skin, tight little brownish nipples, a smattering of dark chest hair over the most incredibly honed—

“You’re staring.” His tone is dry.

“Yes, I am.” I drag my eyes up and find his expression bemused.

A thick brow lifts. I try to mimic the look and fail when both of my brows lift as one. His lips twitch in amusement.

He shifts his weight, causing his abs to clench. Good Lord. He’s not some overdeveloped gym worshiper, just solid and strong, that perfect balance between defined musculature and healthy male—

“You’re still staring, Sophie.”

“You think it’s easy looking away from all this splendor?” I ask his belly button, licking my lips when he huffs out a laugh and just a little bit more of his lower abs are revealed, slanting toward the thick bulge of his cock, which is lamentably hidden behind his slacks.

“You’re impossible,” he mutters, though there is humor in his voice. He strolls farther into the room and then practically kills me when he sits in one of the low-slung armchairs. That body, sprawled out on display, those thick, long thighs braced as if to take me in his lap—it’s too much.

I want to straddle him and lick my way from the hollow of his throat to the tip of his cock.

He eyes me as if he knows what I’m thinking, and the air thickens. So many things we left unsaid. I’m remembering his lips now, surprisingly soft, but strong with purpose.

From the way his lids lower, I wonder if he’s remembering things as well. But he doesn’t move. Tension glides over his body and snakes around the room. I feel it in my throat and down my spine. We’re closing up again, retreating.

Slowly, I toe off my shoes and set my gear down, never breaking eye contact. “I was being completely honest,” I tell him. “I see you like this and I want to stare forever.”

He snorts, shaking his head even as he rests his temple on his knuckles. “What do you mean ‘like this’?”

“Undone.”

He tenses. It does lovely things to that chest. I focus on his face, mainly to maintain some semblance of decorum.

“You think this is me undone?” he asks quietly.

“It’s a start.” I reach for my camera bag. “Will you let me photograph you?”

There is safety to be found with the camera between us. A way for both of us to hide until we’re comfortable around each other again.

“You’re serious?”

“You sound surprised.” Holding my camera, I sit in the sofa opposite him. “Don’t tell me no one has asked to take your picture before.”

“They’ve asked. I never saw the point.” He shrugs. “I’m not the story.”

You’re my story. You always were.

“This is just for me,” I say instead. “No one else.” His shrewd gaze pins me. “Why do you want this?”

So I can have a bit of you forever. “Pictures capture moments in time. I want this one—when you finally let me see a sliver of the man behind the clothes.”

His nostrils flare on an indrawn breath, and he slowly lets it out. When he speaks, his voice is a rasp. “Take the pictures.”

So I do, testing angles. The warm glow of the lamplight highlights the planes and hollows of his body. He sits still, a king lounging on his throne, granting me this small whim.

He doesn’t love this; his muscles tic with each click of the shutter. But he doesn’t stop me either, just watches as I work.

It’s too easy, taking shots of him. The camera loves him. But more than that, I have a valid excuse to look at him to my heart’s content.

“I feel like a bellend,” he grumps. “A what?”

High color paints his cheeks. “A prick head. An idiot. A poseur. Take your pick.”

I have to laugh. “So sensitive.”

“You try being on the other end of that thing.” He gestures toward the camera with his chin.

“I won’t apologize,” I tell him. “You are beautiful, Gabriel.”

His expression shutters. “It is only a veneer. Nothing of what I am on the inside.”

My fingers tighten around the smooth edges of the camera. “You think I don’t see you?”

He simply stares, blue eyes startling and intense beneath the dark sweep of his brows. I’ve never seen so much power in a man’s face; sheer grit and determination forge the lines and curves of his features.

I raise my camera, capture the image as I talk. “Your nose is big and hawkish.”

He visibly flinches, and I know I’ve hit a rare sore spot with him. I don’t stop, though.

“There’s a bump on the bridge, and it lists slightly to the side. I’ve often wondered if you broke it at some point.” I take another picture, noting the

way his brows lift in surprise.

“I was fifteen,” he says. “Three boys jumped me on the way back to my room.”

My heart gives a great thump. “Stubborn nose. You take hit after hit, but never back down. I’d bet good money you never let those boys break you.”

“I would not kneel,” he whispers. “That’s when they broke my nose.”

I take another picture, my focus narrowing on his eyes. Those glorious eyes that can appear like glacial ice or the Caribbean Sea, depending on his mood. They burn like blue flames now.

“Did they also give you the faint scar bisecting your left eyebrow?” “No. That was my dad.” He glares, as if daring me to pity him.

I don’t do that. But I do hurt for him.

“You have two permanent lines between your brows,” I tell him, moving on. “You frown when you read your phone, watch TV, or listen to others talk. It makes you appear stern and vaguely pissed off, but it’s really that you put the whole of your concentration into every task.”

His breath becomes agitated, the wide, muscled expanse of his chest lifting and falling.

“Your body.” A lump rises in my throat, my mouth going dry. Silence falls.

“My body?” he prompts, low and forceful. He’s reclined in his seat, spread out like a damn feast, but tension rides through his muscles, making them bunch.

“It is perfect. A work of art.” Lickable. I take a shuddering breath, lift my camera back up, and take a shot of his torso—defined abs, tight pecs, little nipples. Utterly lickable. “You work hard to maintain that body, which I’m sure some would think is due to vanity.”

“It’s not?” His voice has gone rough, agitated and thick.

“No. You use your body like a weapon, a perfect shell so no one bothers to look too closely at the real you.”

He shifts in his chair as if he’s fighting the urge to flee. I push on. “And you do it to be strong. Because you hate weakness.”

With a rush, his breath leaves him, and he sags in his chair. “Yes,” he rasps. “Only I believe you are my greatest weakness now, chatty girl.”

My camera lowers, and I stare at him, unwilling to hide my hurt. “You hate me?”

He blinks as if trying to break out of a fog. Color tints his cheeks, and his breath kicks up once more. “I think,” he says, “adore would be the better word.”

Oh. Hell.

Those intense eyes fixate on me, baring his soul. It is filled with pain and need. “You are my greatest weakness because I have no defense when it comes to you.”

Warmth rushes through me. I blink rapidly, my lips quivering, caught between wanting to smile wide and feeling the strange urge to cry. He’s split me wide open. And I know exactly how he feels, because suddenly I want to hide from this too.

Sex is one thing; what is before us is something more. I thought of him as my friend, a man I wanted to bed. But, if I let myself, I will completely lose my heart to him, a man who refuses to let himself commit to anyone.

I force myself to lift the camera, focus it on him, make my voice light. I probably fail, my hands are shaking, my voice is too breathy. “And yet you don’t want to fuck me.”

It’s supposed to be a tease. We both know it’s not. And I’m cursing myself for speaking because I know he’ll volley right back. I feel it in the air, and my heart starts to pound.

Gabriel smiles then. It’s the smile of a predator: a slow curl of the lips, his eyes narrowing on me. A deep rumble sounds in his chest. “You believe that, do you? Shall I tell you all the ways I want to fuck you, chatty girl?”

I make an incoherent sound, my insides swooping wildly. “Tell me.”

“You talk of scars,” he says. “You have one too. On the right side of your upper lip.”

“An Indiana Jones moment gone wrong when I was six.”

His eyes crinkle, but he doesn’t smile. His expression borders on pain. “I’ve wanted to suckle that little bump from the moment I noticed it on the plane. Every time you talk I want to tongue that lip, taste your soft mouth.”

I breathe harder, setting the camera aside.

“It drives me to distraction,” he says, “wanting to hunt you down at all hours of the day. Just to hear your voice, see those lips move.”

I can’t talk now, and my lips are parted, flush and wanting.

He doesn’t seem to mind my silence. His gaze moves over me like a hot hand. “The nights are the hardest. But I suspect you know that.”

“Yes.” It’s a strangled whimper.

“I lie there holding you, telling myself I will not roll you onto your back. I cannot push up those thin shirts that taunt me with the shape of you to finally find out if your nipples are pale pink or blush brown.”

He takes a deep breath, and his abs clench, drawing my eyes to the thick rise of his cock, growing visibly harder as he speaks.

“There are times I torture myself by thinking of those fantastic tits. Of how I’d lick them like ice cream, tasting every luscious curve. Slow, long licks.” His lids lower as he stares at my breasts, and my nipples stiffen painfully. “How would they taste? Would you like it best if I sucked those nipples hard? Or mouthed them so softly you barely feel it and have to beg for more?”

God. I’m squirming now, everything going deliciously tight.

He makes a low hum in the back of his throat, seeming to enjoy the show. “Some nights, it’s so bad I don’t want to bother with foreplay. I want to lift your leg, make room for myself between your thighs, and rut like a selfish, greedy bastard. I want to fuck the wetness into your sweet box, feel you grow slick around me.”

His rough voice is so disgruntled, I let out a breathless laugh—because my head is spinning, my skin so hot, I feel faint. “You think I’d object?”

His eyes snap with heat. “You want me to use your body for my pleasure?”

Fuck yes. “As hard as you can.”

A shudder wracks his frame, and he digs his fingers into the chair arms as if holding himself back.

I can’t have that. I slouch further on the couch, spreading my legs just at bit. The air feels cool against my heated skin.

His gaze goes immediately to the shadowy space beneath my skirt, and my thighs clench in response.

“But you wouldn’t have to fuck me wet,” I whisper, heart pounding. “Anytime I’m in bed with you, I’m wet.”

A low, strangled grunt leaves him.

“So fucking wet, Gabriel. Every night. All night.”

As his head lolls against the back of his chair, his gaze going somnolent, I give him a weak smile. “Why do you think I’m washing so many panties?”

It’s almost sleepy, the look he gives me, but I see the calculated gleam in his eyes. “Are they wet now?”

“They’ve been wet since you walked through that door.”

His nostrils flare as if he can draw in my scent from all the way over there. “Show me.”

My clit swells, pressing tight against the gusset of my panties. I’m so turned on, my stomach quakes. I spread my legs for him, the soft fabric of the skirt slithering up my skin. With shaking hands, I pull the skirt higher, present myself fully to his gaze.

Color floods his sharp cheeks, his lips parting. I picture myself, white panties darkened by a flood of need, outlining the rude shape of my swollen sex, and I whimper, canting my hips.

“More,” he rasps. “Give me a peek of that honey I’ve been craving.”

Oh, shit. I can’t breathe. My hand shakes as I hook a finger in my panties and almost shyly pull them aside. I feel so naughty, a dirty girl giving an illicit glimpse, that my skin flares white hot.

He groans, low and pained, his body tensing in the chair. His gaze stays locked on my exposed flesh as his hand slides over his hard abs and closes over the immense erection straining against his pants. He gives himself an impatient squeeze.

“Gorgeous,” he says, gripping himself tighter.

“Take it out,” I tell him, trembling. “I want to see you too.”

He doesn’t hesitate, just unzips and pushes his trousers and underwear down low on his thighs. His cock bobs free, rising to kiss the hollow of his navel.

Gabriel’s cock. For a second I can’t believe I’m actually looking at it. My gaze slides over the tender curve of his weighty balls, up to the meaty jut of his dick, so engorged it visibly pulses. As if it pains him, he strokes its long length. Just once.

I swallow hard. “I want to do that.”

He strokes again, a lazy glide. A tease. “If you get anywhere near this cock, it’s going to be fucking you.”

I want that so badly. I can almost feel him between my legs, pushing in hot and thick and strong. Somehow I find my voice.

“You should know, I can’t be a fling. Not with you. If you want me, you have to be all in.”

A frown knots his brows, and when he speaks, his voice is a rasp. “I’ve lived my whole life denying myself what I truly want. And yet I cannot turn from you. Haven’t you realized it yet? I am yours. I will always be yours, whether I touch you or not.”

Something inside of me snaps. I’m through waiting. In a daze, I rise from my seat. My skirt flutters around my legs, my skin so sensitive now,

the fabric tickles.

Gabriel watches me come to him. With each slow step I take, his breathing gets deeper, as if he’s struggling to draw in enough air.

I straddle his lap, and that first point of contact—my bare thighs sliding over his—has me whimpering. God, he feels good. His skin is hot, a sheen of sweat covering his chest, his body thrumming with tension. The length of his cock lies heavy and thick between us, pressing into my fluttering belly.

A grunt escapes him, and his big hand comes down on my butt, kneading it—as if he can’t help himself—before he hauls me closer. My breasts cushion on his hard chest. His other hand grips of my hair, holding me right where he wants me.

Our breath mingles as we stare at each other. Gabriel studies my mouth, a tremor running through him. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re filled with heat.

“I wasn’t prepared to need you this much. I don’t know who I am anymore if you aren’t with me.”

He trembles again, holding himself so stiffly.

“I need you too,” I whisper, stroking his shoulder. “So much it hurts.

Take the hurt away, Gabriel.”

“Sophie.” His grip in my hair tightens. But when his lips touch mine, they’re soft, a gentle brush. I’ve been waiting so long for this touch, it does something to me, sends my pulse skittering. My belly clenches sweetly, breath leaving me in a rush.

And he sighs, as if he too has been waiting for this. My eyes close, and I let myself just feel him, the way he slowly explores me—a nuzzle of my lower lip, a slow, delicate suck of my upper lip.

We’re locked tight, his cock pulsing between us, our hearts thudding so hard I can feel the answering beat of his against my chest. And yet he kisses me as if he’s memorizing this moment, our lips melding, then drifting away.

My head spins, my body becoming heavy. I kiss him with more intensity, needing, just needing. He feels so good; every time I touch him, my insides ease with relief and then tighten with greedy want.

The chair beneath us creaks. Gabriel’s other hand slides up my back to tangle in my hair. His kiss grows hungry, going deeper, wetter. He groans, and then he’s not so gentle or polite.

Whatever tether he’s had on himself snaps. He lurches up to devour me with a hot intensity that has my head spinning.

The sounds he makes, as if he’s so hungry, dying for it. There is no end, no beginning, only our mouths meeting, messy and uncoordinated.

More and more, I’m whimpering and impatient, needy and lustful. His mouth moves to my jaw and down my neck, where he finds a spot that curls my toes. Rough hands grab my ass, haul me closer.

The thick, round tip of his cock notches against my sex and pushes in, stopped by my panties. But he’s in me, that wide head pulsing and stretching my opening. I’m balanced there, unable to get more, unwilling to move off.

His teeth graze my bare shoulder, hands delving beneath my shirt to stroke my sides. “Off.”

He yanks my shirt over my head and sends it sailing across the room. He doesn’t bother removing my bra, but with a grunt, simply tugs down the cup. My breast pops free, and his hot mouth is on my nipple, sucking with greedy pulls.

“Oh, shit.” I clutch his hair and rock my hips on his cock. It pushes just a bit farther, straining against my panties. I need them off. I need him in me. Squeezing my ass, he gives a hard thrust as if he, too, is impatient. And then the world tilts as he stands, carrying me. My back meets the cool wall,

and his mouth is on my neck.

I’m pinned there, held by his hips against mine. With an impatient sound, he grabs the side of my panties. The elastic stretches tight and then

snaps. Another breath and he’s ripping the torn fabric out of his way.

He doesn’t wait, doesn’t ask. I’m so wet, the tip of him glides right in. But he’s a big man, thick and meaty. The delicious girth of him stretches me wide, owning every inch he takes. And he has to work for it, shoving and thrusting, using the wall as leverage. Breathless, I spread my thighs wider to make room for him.

And each time he thrusts, he grunts deep in his chest, his hips meeting mine with a hard slap. He’s fucking the hell out of me, and I love it, I love it.

I’m orgasming before I can even think, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt, this insane crescendo that keeps rising and rising. It’s so strong, it almost hurts, this pleasure. I can only slam back down on him, fuck myself against his cock, crying out with helpless need.

And the more I do, the harder he goes, as if he’s feeding off my desperation. The walls rattle with the force of our movements. A picture falls with a crash.

Gabriel strains against me, his cock so deep I feel it in my throat, down to my toes. He groans long and pained as he comes. Heat fills me, and I topple, sagging against the wall, my breath coming in disjointed pants.

Huffing out a breath, he leans into me, his mouth open and trembling on my shoulder. I look up at the ceiling and push a shaking hand through my damp hair. My heart beats like a snare drum.

Sweaty and shaking, we remain as we are. When he stirs, the movement sends a twinge through my aching sex.

“No condom,” he rasps. “I didn’t think.”

I feel the evidence trickling along my ass. A strangled laugh escapes me. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re both in the clear and I’m on birth control.”

His fingers flex, pushing into my upper thighs as if he can’t help himself. “You aren’t upset?”

“Can’t worry about barn doors when the horse has already bolted,” I say, still dazed. “Or however it goes.”

He lifts his head, and our eyes meet. A strange shyness flutters over me. Holy hell, I’ve never had sex like this, as if my life depended on riding cock. Sex that has me so mindless with lust I forget the basics of protection. Shit, I forgot my name, if I’m being honest. The heat building in his gaze tells me he knows this.

I feel him there, deep within me, still pulsing. I give a little wiggle, and he twitches, that long dick of his getting harder.

“No one else,” he says, his voice a thick rasp.

He doesn’t say if he means for me or for him. It doesn’t matter. It’s clear there is only us now.

Still, I lick my swollen lips and respond. “Only you.”