Pulse Page 13

  “I know.” She slides her hand up to my neck. Squeezes hard at my nape. “I know, mister. And I promise I won’t be stupid about things.”

  I pull away. Only a little. “Says the girl who just ordered champagne when we’ve got all of first class to ourselves?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I’m waylaid from answering her by Cosette’s return with our flutes of French bubbly. “Merci,” I murmur, smiling when Emma says the same with an impressive accent.

  “De rien,” the attendant replies. “I must prepare for the takeoff now, but is there anything I can get for you once we are airborne?”

  Emma’s features brighten. “Do you have any macarons?” she queries. To Cosette’s soft oui, she responds, “And how much extra do you charge for pink ones?”

  I can’t help my chest-deep laughter. Cosette, with bewilderment stamped across her face, flings a stare between us as if Emma just asked what the airline charges for toilet paper. Deciding to put both women out of their distress, I offer, “My love, they’ll get you pink macarons even if they have to bake them exclusively for you. And they’re not extra.”

  “But of course.” Cosette’s concurrence comes along with her pleased smile. Nothing makes the French more amenable than the promise of witnessing true love at work, whether it’s theirs to experience or not. Sometimes I wish the whole world were more like France.

  For now, I’m dedicated to enjoying my own version of those rose-colored glasses instead of dancing at the end of everyone else’s marionette strings. My strings are my own again, and for the moment, I want them occupied with a very short list of tasks.

  Enjoying this champagne.

  Reveling in having my woman to myself.

  Hoarding her goddess perfection of a face. Her blinding glory of a smile. Her temptress’s perfection of a body…

  And maybe, if the champagne does its job well enough, doing a little more than just gazing.

  It’s been an hour, but now that the possibility has entered my head, every electron in the rest of my system won’t let it go.

  We’re above the clouds now, with a second round of champagne and macarons before us, officially laughing about shit that has nothing to do with the world that’s now tens of thousands of feet below us. On the in-flight entertainment system, she’s managed to find episodes of a show called Reign, which is supposedly about Mary Queen of Scots, though beyond the names of the key players and the basic events, I’m having trouble believing anything I see. Then again, I’m a guy once known to the world as the Heir with the Hair who still hasn’t fully explained to the masses why my fingers sometimes turn into lightsabers and my “hangover eyes” resemble Miami hurricane skies.

  “Okay, you have to watch this part.” She points at the screen, half-filled glass in one hand and a macaron with a bite mark in the other.

  “Watching.” And completely lying. Her profile is ten times better than the girl on the screen, who’s wearing what looks like a complicated prom dress, resulting in my happiness that Emma’s in nothing but an A-line skirt and matching sweater set. And her legs… Holy shit, her legs. They’re bare and sheathed to the knee in high-heeled boots, which of course means I’ve had nonstop thoughts of jumping her since the second I saw them this morning…

  This morning.

  A lifetime ago.

  A world away.

  Thank fuck.

  “You are not watching.” She swipes at my jaw, trying to redirect my gaze. “And it’s getting to the good part.”

  I chuckle and swing my head back down. Before she can react, I capture one of her fingers between my teeth and get in a teasing bite. “But what if I’m already at the good part?”

  No. Better than good. Watching her is more exhilarating than the surge of the plane as the pilot guns the engines. More uplifting than our new rise in elevation. And much, much more amazing than visiting any of the world’s wonders. This woman is my personal Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, and El Caracol. She’s my Victoria Falls, Mount Everest, and Northern Lights. She’s a revelation at every second, an astonishment with every new glance. And yes, she’s all that even when nibbling on a little pink cookie.

  Especially then.

  Fuck, how she enchants me.

  Entrances me.

  Makes me so damn hungry for all kinds of sweet pink things…

  “Ohhhhh!” Her sigh modulates between octaves, adding to the perfection of my view because of the pink crumbs along her lips’ surfaces. “Look. Oh, my God. Bas loves her so much. Look, Reece!”

  “I am.”

  “You’re not.” Finally, she averts her gaze from the screen to me—and that’s it. The cocoon that’s all us is all ours again. Her adorable little gulp is more than enough confirmation for me. It’s followed by the hooded meaning beneath her gaze, now dripping down to take in my lips.

  Almost unconsciously, she finally licks the pink crumbs free from the succulent curves of her mouth.

  I growl low.

  She releases a shallow breath. “Reece?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You’re…ummm…”

  “What?” I press a thousand sensual “crumbs” of my own into the tone—mixing in a gaze through which I flow every drop of my complete carnal focus.

  “You’re letting me hog the macarons.” As soon as it’s emitted, she returns to cleaning up the cookie mess with her tongue.

  I turn my hum into a low growl while roaming my stare across her face. Let her shiver a little beneath my adoring scrutiny, lingering on every graceful angle and satin-soft curve, before centering my attention once more on the sweet dessert of her lips. “That I am.”

  Without veering my attention, I join my fingers with hers on the crescent of cookie she’s still holding. I rearrange it so one end points to her and the other to me. I lift the cookie, prodding it at her lips so she opens for a bite—at the same time I lean over, biting into my half.

  At once, our mouths meet. Lips and sugar and need are a warm, soft, enticing mix between us, mashing as we chew and then swallow, not waiting to devour each other as soon as the food is gone. Jesus, she tastes amazing—and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the cookie. It’s her, all woman and passion and freedom. It’s the person she turns me into—a man helplessly, giddily in love for the first time in my life.

  And the last.

  There will never be another woman like this for me. She’s it—for always. For forever.

  With that vow my new sugar rush, I lap her up without restraint or reserve. I suck all the remains of the frosting still on her tongue and then move outward to keep her chin encased in my grip as I lick the fresh array of sugary crumbs away from her parted, sighing lips.

  When I finally pull back, it’s only by an inch. “Delicious,” I grate, celebrating how her eyelashes stutter along her cheeks and her breaths pump in aroused rhythms in her chest.

  “Yesssss.” As she whispers back, she pulls my hair with one hand and the knot of my tie with the other.

  Letting her keep those possessive holds, I tell her softly, “I want to watch you enjoy your dessert more, Velvet. In better ways…”

  As the sibilance of my offer winds through the air between us, Emma’s gaze jerks back open. She crisscrosses the look over my face, emitting another gasp when I’ve apparently answered her wordless wondering.

  “Now?” she rasps. “Here?”

  I make her gape flare wider as I twitch my lips like the Big Bad Wolf. “Well, now that you mention it…”

  “Reece.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  Her words are tiny squeaks as I push Cosette’s call button. With her predictable agility, the attendant appears. The attentive service isn’t a shock, since I’ve likely given Cosette the easiest money she’s ever made over the Atlantic Ocean. Inside the next hour, I’m going to make that paycheck even easier.

  “Yes, monsieur?” she murmurs.

  “Mademoiselle Crist and I have
some complicated contracts to go over in the next hour. We’d prefer to be completely undisturbed.”

  “Oh, my God.” It’s just a whisper from Emma now.

  “Of course, monsieur.” If Cosette has put together an inkling of what I’m about, nothing about her demeanor betrays it. But this is definitely not the first time she’s seen a couple sprint for the mile-high club in her first-class cabin.

  Though never again will she witness it done by a couple deeper in love.

  That, I completely promise.

  Chapter Two

  Emma

  “Holy shit.”

  At least it’s not oh, my God again—not that it means anything different. Not that I’m taking in Reece’s face, so beautiful that even Cosette does a double-take at him before she disappears, as if she can hardly believe the hot, heavy need across his stark features is just for me.

  Hell. I can hardly believe it myself—even while beaming a bashful grin and demure blush up at her, communicating two messages at the same time. Yeah, he really means all of that and yeah, he’s really all mine, so don’t even think about secretly passing your digits, lady.

  Reece, catching the tail end of my move, kicks up a smirk. So the alpha likes his bunny morphing into she-wolf mode, hmmm?

  But before I can redress him about any further lupine grandeur, he’s already surging over and damn near atop me. Pushing in so that he’s fully kissing me. Plunging down to consume me, tongue and lips mashing and claiming me, until all I can taste is him again. Every breath I take is filled with his smoke and spice masculinity. Every thought I can generate is dominated by his energy, his force, his passion…his drive, his desire, his near-violent need…

  So good.

  Dear God, it’s always so damn good with him.

  And we’re only getting started…

  And just like that, I couldn’t care less if we were in a puddle jumper over the Amazon forest. But we’re not, thank God, and Reece is shoving the armrest back between our seats and sliding closer until he’s angled all the way over me, raking his hand up beneath my skirt, seeking my throbbing, excited core. I moan as he finds me, sending the sound into his mouth as he rubs his powerful thumb across the triangle of my panties, at once taking me to a realm that feels like we’ve catapulted out of the plane and into the clouds.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  He doesn’t relent, even now, and I gnash my teeth into my lower lip to abstain from crying out as he rolls my clit beneath his thumb until I’m trembling and undulating underneath him. “Ohhhhh!”

  “Yeah,” he snarls, his primal rumble vibrating against the base of my neck. “Yeah, sweetheart. That’s it. Exactly.”

  My lips fall open, though my teeth are locked and my breaths are brutal rasps. I dig my fingers into his flexing biceps and meet his silver-fire gaze with what must be a conflagration in my own.

  “I’m close.” Holy hell, I can hardly believe the revelation is here already. “I’m so close.”

  But I instantly regret my loose lips—as soon as the formidable hills of his take on the angles of wolfish cliffs.

  “Oh, Bunny,” he snarls softly. “You’re just getting started.”

  Shit, shit, triple shit.

  Sure enough, as I’m on the brink of crashing into my cataclysm, he backs off on the heavenly massage at my core. As he pulls away more, he hooks a couple of fingers around my panties, gliding them all the way down my legs and over my boots. With the garment free from my body, he raises the bunch of satin to his face. As he breathes in, his eyes grow heavy. As I gawk at him, mine do too.

  “Fuck.” The word is drenched in so much of his lust that it comes out more like a German version. Fukkkhhh. “Perfect, Velvet.” He pries his gaze open to watch my reaction, savoring my whole face. “You’re fucking perfect.”

  “Merci.” I attempt to be coquettish, but the intent of his stare, now darkened to the shade of shadows, sends me into silence again. Heart-halting, breath-stealing silence.

  He angles himself deeper toward me again. In a tone originating from the center of his chest, he corrects, “Merci…Mr. Richards.”

  Dutifully, almost as if a shy wallflower has taken over my being, I whisper, “Merci, Mr. Richards.”

  His growl, curling from the same place at his center, stirs inexplicable sensations through more than just my shivering pussy. I’m affected so much deeper, awash in emotion and warmth despite him borrowing a page from some Doc Savage novel. Perhaps, I even feel this way because of that. I’m admired. Coveted. Craved…

  “Very nice.” He intensifies the praise by inhaling the crotch of my panties again. The sight of the pale-pink fabric against his burnished, taut skin is so hot, I gush from the inside out again. Every inch of my sex is soaked. Both of my breasts are hard and pointed. All my extremities are tingling and alive. And why that torment is worsened as I watch him reach for the plate of my uneaten macarons, I have no damn idea…

  Until he growls at me again.

  “Say it again, just like that, and you can have more dessert.”

  Air stutters in and out of my chest. Without even stopping to think, I rush out, “Merci, Mr. Richards.”

  His eyes turn the color of diamonds.

  “Good girl.”

  My sex turns the texture of magma.

  “Now…dessert.”

  And heats up, even as he divides the halves of his murmur by lifting the hem of my skirt.

  My breath hitches with harder force. I’m bare and exposed, my skirt in puddles at the outsides of my thighs, yet all I think or care about is what the sight of my exposed crotch does to the depths of his gaze. I feel like that necklace the old lady tossed overboard at the end of Titanic, with my modern-day Moses who’s parted the sea to find me.

  “Reece.” Still, a girl’s got to make at least a bid for modesty, right? “Is this…I mean we’re…”

  “Ssshhh.” He imposes it while taking the cookie in his fingers—and sliding it directly through the wettest part of my panties. “And enjoy your dessert.”

  “But—ohhhh.” If Cosette’s listening now, I barely care. He lowers the cookie now, teasing its sugary curve against the lips of my entrance before rolling the thing up and over my slick folds.

  “Ohhhh…gaaahhh…”

  “Sssshhh.” His order is just that now—a full, guttural mandate—as he continues to work the cookie through my pulsing petals. “No words, my Emmalina. Just enjoy. And let me watch it all. Let me see it all.”

  We both start breathing hard. Then harder. With every new inhalation, I can smell the tang of my arousal with the warmth of fresh sugar. I clench my teeth, holding back moan after moan, but as soon as Reece slides the treat over my clit, the silence turns into anguish.

  “Good girl,” he praises.

  I nod frantically, though surrender to a long hiss. In desperation, I clamp a hand around the armrest he hasn’t lifted yet. With my other hand, I secure purchase around his neck, quivering in anticipation of how he’ll redefine “dessert” next.

  Our stares lock and tangle. The center of his eyes are liquid steel, reflecting the brilliant blue at the tips of the two fingers he extends, letting me watch as he grazes the edge of the cookie, softening the creamy middle into an erotic pink puddle.

  “Spread for me.” His voice, now rough and aroused, is a direct contrast to the cream he drips over me, coating my intimate flesh with liquid sugar. Every squeeze he gives the macaron gushes more of the frosting over me. It’s sticky and hot and decadent and nasty, equating to what is undoubtedly the wildest sexual adventure of my life. For him. Because of him.

  God, how I love him.

  He doesn’t stop. The glaze teases at every sensitive inch of me. Some of it even escapes and trickles between my legs, sliding sugary drops across the quivering rim of my back hole.

  “Holy…shit.”

  “No, baby.” He pries my fingers off the handrest, moving them down to the candied eddies between my thighs. “Just dessert.” He rolls my finge
rs over everything, stopping only when I cry out again. Dear God, that icing feels incredible on my cookie. “Make it the best one I’ve ever had.”

  If his words don’t get across his full command, the focus of his gaze does. He’s riveted on my pussy, and all the swirls of my fingers through it, during every second he takes to unhook and unzip his placket. After shifting around so both his hips are free, he jerks down the wool far enough that his cock can spring free, long and erect and offering beautiful beads of white frosting in his own right. Now, I’m just as transfixed with the sight of him. I lick my lips, yearning to feel his silken arousal on the tip of my tongue…

  And for once, I’m damn glad the man can read my mind.

  With an efficient swipe at the tip of his purple bulb—I swear, the man’s fingers atop his penis should be a vision for one of those office motivational posters—he’s got a sizable jewel of his precome captured.

  Without hesitation, he extends the digit to me.

  Without shame, I bite my lip as that hot bead approaches.

  Without another thought, I open my mouth and extend my tongue.

  Just an inch out, Reece holds his hand still. A rogue’s chuckle escapes him in answer to my needy growl. “You want this?” he taunts.

  “Yesssss.” My hiss is threaded half with lust and half with frustration. Damn the man when he wants play time!

  But there are shadows in his gaze, lots of them, that don’t play at all. That darkness informs the tone of his reply. “Then say that you do.” Once more a growl that’s all command—to which I’m all too happy to be his wanton, compliant slave.

  “I…I want it.” I huff when confronted by his disapproving scowl. “I want it, sir.”

  More dark nuances to his gaze. “Give me all the words, Velvet.”

  I give him a rougher sigh. Parts of me declare open war on each other. I’m not the dungeon dolly type and he knows it, but sections of my heart and soul adore his authoritative side, especially tonight. After all the insane, incredible, nearly unbelievable events that have led us to this moment. Since October, so many people have barged in on my life to take control of it—the thugs in the metro station, Angelique La Salle in her bad girl bitch phase, and just about every member of the entertainment press corps. All of it has led to a different Emma Crist, one not so willing to hand over control, even when the situation calls for it. I’m grateful that most people in my immediate world—the management team at Richards Reaches Out, my sister, my friends—not only see it but understand it. But that still doesn’t make it okay or even healthy.