Surprise Reunion with His Cinderella Read online

  He slipped it over her shoulder, down her arm, the slowness of the move at odds with the dizzying caress of his tongue, his teeth. Goosebumps erupted over her skin, her nipples straining against her dress, no bra to impede the friction as he ran it lower. She held her breath, heat rushing to every extremity, and choked on a whimper as he exposed one tingling peak. She lowered her gaze, watched as he dropped a kiss to the curve of her breast, the edge of her nipple and then...

  She hissed in a breath, bucked as his mouth surrounded her, taking her in deep. She clawed at his hair, cried to the heavens. He was ravenous, his tongue flicking over her, his teeth grazing, a crazy combination that had her writhing and begging and desperate for more.

  Her cries clashed with those of the wildlife, the waves, his deep and hungry growl. He slipped his fingers beneath the other strap, faster this time as he lowered the fabric to her waist and reared up. His eyes, dark and carnal, seared her skin as they travelled her length.

  She wanted to beg him, plead with him not to stop... She wriggled her hips, closed her thighs around his, telling him with her body what she wanted.

  ‘Please, Freddie!’

  ‘It’s been ten years, Red, I’m not rushing this. Seeing you like this, your hair splayed out like a halo, your skin so creamy soft against the red of the pillows.’ He dragged in a breath, his body straining above her. ‘Let me have this.’

  He fisted his hand in the skirt of her dress and gently tugged. ‘Let me see you.’

  ‘What if someone comes?’

  ‘They won’t. The beach is ours for the evening.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘Trust me, I know.’

  He was so certain, so sure, and she did trust him. She trusted him more than she knew was safe. But the time for reservations was long gone. She lifted her lower body, granting him permission to take her dress away, and then she was laid bare. Not just physically, her lace thong concealing nothing, but mentally. Her desires, her wants, her heart...it was all there in her face. There would be time for regrets later, much later...

  She bit into her lip, wanted to cover her eyes like it would in some way help, but instead she clamped them shut.

  ‘Red?’ His voice was a husky plea. ‘Look at me.’

  Slowly, she did as he asked, felt the colour burning her cheeks in the face of his impassioned smile. ‘You are beautiful, let me worship you like your body deserves.’

  She knew he’d misread her hesitation and was thankful for it. She didn’t want her emotions getting in the way of this. She wanted to forget them, and he had the power to take them away. Temporarily at least.

  She reached out and stroked his cheek, nodded her willingness and brought his head down to hers, kissed him with all the passion still swirling inside. She tried to angle her breasts into his chest, desperate for more friction, and he pulled back.

  ‘Patience.’ He brought his hand between them to trace circles over her skin, teasing at her puckered nipples, her navel, the tip of her thong.

  ‘Freddie...’ Her body pulsed into him and his fingers answered her plea, dipping inside the lace, parting her to circle over where she ached the most. Her eyes flared open, caught his looking back at her intently, drinking in her every response.

  He almost looked like he loved her. She could almost believe that he loved her. And her heart bloomed in her chest, the warmth spreading out from her core with the spiralling tension. She tried to reach between them, to take him in her hand, to give him the same pleasure he was so readily giving her, and he shook his head.

  ‘No, Red.’

  It was gruff, determined, and she hesitated, her frown telling him how she felt as she panted with her mounting climax. She wouldn’t last much longer, and she wanted him with her. She wanted him inside her, but...

  ‘I have no protection here,’ he whispered, sensing her continued hesitation. He kissed her deeply, his fingers keeping up their dizzying caress.

  ‘But I can still...’ she said against his lips.

  ‘There’s no rush, we have all night, and right now I have other ideas and every one of them involves pleasuring you.’

  Her entire body shuddered with the promise of it all, the wave of heat so strong it pushed her to the precipice.

  ‘Freddie, I can’t—I can’t...’ She clutched his body to her, her nails clawing into the taut muscles of his back, and she cried out into the night. She was gone, wave after wave racking her body as pleasure akin to that which he had delivered so many years before consumed her. And even then it hadn’t felt as all-consuming as this.

  He wrapped his arm beneath her, held her against him tightly until the rocking of her body dissipated and she was spent. He kissed her. So deeply and so thoroughly she thought she might expire from lack of oxygen.

  But expiring like this...with Freddie so hard and desperate for her...was a fate she would readily face. Because she truly was in paradise, and paradise was where she wanted to stay...as long as he was by her side.

  * * *

  The bedroom spun, his heart pounded, and he knew panic was setting in. Because outside he’d given her his all, had felt her come apart under his touch, his kiss, and he was already addicted to it. The need to pleasure her, to please her, to make her cry out his name, again and again. To cling to him and not let go.

  And now she was in his bed, naked and waiting. The locket, glinting in the low light of the room as it nestled between her breasts, exactly where he wanted to be.

  Only he wasn’t. And why?

  Because he was losing it. His control. His grip on reality. On what this was, and what it very much wasn’t.

  His entire body pulsed with his need for her. Ten years and he hadn’t wanted a woman as much as he did her. And he feared that giving in to it would not only strip him of his restraint but his last barrier against her, that this would tip him over from what was safe, what was manageable, into so much more.

  But it had been his idea that they do this. Let go for a week and walk away satisfied, the past laid to rest, the future no different.

  He’d been a fool, a blind fool. He hadn’t seen their connection for what it was, unstoppable, overpowering, impossible to resist. Barely twenty-four hours in, and he was as caught in her unique web as he’d ever been, unable to escape.

  ‘Are you going to stand there all night?’ She rolled onto her side, her palm smoothing over the space next to her, the space he should be filling.

  ‘No.’ He stalked towards her, breathed deep to get a handle on the heat within and lay down beside her. Took in her entirety stretched out beside him, her skin blushing from where he’d touched her, caressed her, kissed her... He reached out, his fingers gentle on her hip as he caressed the diamond-shaped scar there. Take it slow...just take it slow. ‘I remember when you got this.’

  She hooked her hands around his neck. ‘Well, you should do, since you rescued me.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I could have been devoured by the Highgrove dogs if not for you.’

  He grimaced as he pulled her naked body up against his own, breathed in the fresh scent of her hair and let the memory take over, soothe his core, calm his pulse. ‘Well, if you will go scaling walls in desperation to see your lover...’

  She nudged her body against him. ‘Well, if you will live in heavily guarded fortresses...’

  Now he laughed, the sound hearty and earnest and erupting far more frequently than he was used to. His easy grin too. He couldn’t remember the last time his cheeks had ached from it, like they did now.

  He buried his head into her neck and she laughed, wriggling as the move tickled her sweet spot.

  ‘I missed that sound too.’ It was out before he could stop it. The sentiment, the meaning, and she stilled, her fingers soft in his hair.

  ‘Make love to me, then.’ She urged his head up to look into his eyes. �
�Make me forget those ten years apart existed.’

  If only...

  He wanted nothing more than to do the same. To forget. To pretend that they’d moved seamlessly from their teenage love affair to now, where they were much older, much wiser and better prepared for reality. Only...

  He needed those ten years, he needed the fateful night she’d left him, to remember this wasn’t suddenly going to work out. They had different lives to lead, responsibilities that filled not only their weekday hours but their evenings and weekends too. He wasn’t blind to the fact that she worked as hard as he did. Even if her failed relationship with Tim hadn’t made that clear, her friends encouraging her on this crazy M date told him plenty.

  He kissed her, pushing out the voice of reason as he shucked the rest of his clothes, not once leaving her lips as she helped him.

  ‘You know,’ she murmured against his mouth, ‘it’s lucky no one saw you carrying me back to your room like this.’

  ‘I think if they had they wouldn’t have let on.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, I hope not.’ She leaned back, looked up at him, wide-eyed. ‘Do you think...?’

  ‘Shh...’ He bowed his head, pressed his lips to hers. ‘If they had, they would only have been pleased that their efforts were paying off.’

  She laughed and he treasured the sound all the more.

  ‘You are so beautiful, Red.’

  ‘You need to stop with the platitudes, or else it’ll be me struggling to get my head back into my room later.’

  He kissed her. ‘Why would you need your room again?’

  She laughed all the more, rubbing her nose against his. ‘Are you inviting me to stay in your room for the rest of our stay?’

  ‘That depends. Are you accepting?’

  She hooked her hands behind his neck and looked up into his eyes. A long drawn-out moment when he doubted everything and hoped for everything all the same.

  ‘Yes.’

  He didn’t dwell on how her agreement made him feel.

  ‘Good.’

  He kissed her again, purposefully losing his mind in her as he reached out blindly for the protection in his bedside drawer. Wishing it could protect him from so much more. He kept kissing her as he rolled it over himself, closed his eyes to push out the look in hers. There was so much going on there, so much emotion, so much...love?

  But it couldn’t be. They couldn’t go there. Not again.

  ‘Freddie?’ She pushed her hands through his hair, broke their kiss until he opened his eyes. ‘What is it? What are you thinking?’

  ‘Nothing, Red.’ He shook his head, positioned himself between her legs as she wrapped them around him. ‘Nothing’s more important than this.’

  Now he held her eye, stared down into her endless greens and asked the question that needed to be voiced, even though he knew the answer well enough, could see it in her eyes, feel it in the way she tried to encourage him against her. ‘Are you sure you want this?’

  She stared up at him. ‘How can you doubt it?’

  He didn’t doubt it for a second, but he wanted to hear her say it. Didn’t matter that she already had, he wanted to hear it from her lips again.

  ‘I want you, Freddie.’ She kept her eyes open and pressed a kiss to his lips. ‘If I’m honest, you’re the only man I’ve ever truly wanted.’

  She sounded so sincere, so much braver than him, and his heart pulsed in his chest, fire coursing through his veins as a long-forgotten possessive streak sprang to life and he couldn’t hold back any more. He sank himself inside her, his eyes locked on hers, and she clenched around him, taking his all.

  His chest tightened. It was too much, the sense of coming home, of being where he belonged. He shut his eyes, moved inside her, tried to override it all with lust.

  Sex was simple. It was just sex. They were where they wanted to be, where they needed to be at that moment.

  She clawed at his hair, whimpered and rocked, his name leaving her with every panted breath, and he couldn’t keep his eyes closed any more. He had to drink her in. Her flushed cheeks, her glazed eyes, her every endearment pushing him higher and higher.

  ‘Red, Red, my Red!’ It burst from him in a growl as ecstasy claimed him, sheer bliss shuddering through every limb and she tightened around him, her cry drowning out his own.

  Her body pulsed, her legs and arms locking him against her. He collapsed, shaken to the very core, his breaths ragged and merging with hers.

  Silence descended, their breathing slowed, her grip around him relaxing as her fingertips stroked against his skin, teasing at the goosebumps fresh in the aftermath.

  ‘Wow... Freddie,’ she murmured into his throat. ‘That was something else.’

  He couldn’t even look at her, fear of what she would see holding him back. He kept his head over her shoulder, his forehead pressed into the pillow, their combined scent filling up his senses.

  How could he get enough of her?

  One deep breath.

  There were five nights remaining. Could he really have his fill and let her go?

  Another breath.

  Could he really continue this and leave in one piece?

  ‘Freddie?’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Freddie?’

  Slowly, he lifted his head, tried to make himself immune, but her eyes...they shone, the golden light of his bedside lamp dancing in their emerald warmth and sucking him in.

  He took another breath, rolled onto his back and looked to the ceiling as he pulled her to him. Chicken.

  ‘Yes?’ he said over the mental gibe.

  ‘Do you think—?’ She broke off, her fingers trailing over his chest as she disappeared into her thoughts, but the damage was done, he had to know the rest.

  ‘Do I think...?’ He looked down at the top of her head, her blazing red hair all tangled by his hand, and lifted a finger to her chin, titled her head back to look at him.

  It was a bad move. Her hesitant green eyes tugged at him, chewed him up inside, but curiosity overrode caution.

  And then she blinked, shook her head as she lowered her gaze. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  His gut twisted—a crazy mix of disappointment and relief.

  Whatever she’d been about to say had run deep. Deep with the kind of feelings he was trying hard to avoid. He covered her fingers on his chest, stilling her caress and shutting down the inner torrent. ‘We should get some sleep, it will be a busy day tomorrow.’

  ‘It will?’

  ‘You really didn’t read the folder M prepared, did you?’

  ‘I did, I just—I keep forgetting.’

  ‘You never used to be this forgetful.’

  She gave a small shrug, snuggled in closer to his side. ‘You never used to be this distracting.’

  And just like that the mood lifted. ‘I don’t know if I should be flattered or let the younger me be offended.’

  ‘Flattered, definitely flattered.’ She pressed a kiss to his pec, her fingers circling over his chest once more. ‘So, remind me, what’s the plan for tomorrow?’

  ‘We’re kayaking in the morning, followed by an evening of cooking the creole way.’

  ‘Couples kayaking and cooking. M really know how to keep you together as much as possible.’

  ‘Is that you saying you’re tired of my company already?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  His lips curved up, her ardent confession warming him through...until he remembered why that was a very bad sign.

  A very bad sign indeed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  KAYAKING WAS MORE than an adventure activity, it was a scenic delight, the transparent kayaks making not only above sea level a sight to behold, but also below. And with Freddie right behind her, sharing the same kayak, it was a good job too, because she wasn’t just distracted by
Freddie, she was hooked on him. Dangerously, irresistibly so.

  No amount of entertaining chatter from their tour guide and instructor could hold her attention. Each time she turned her head and caught him in her peripheral vision, her body reacted with a fresh wave of heat. Just a glimpse of his skilled hands at the paddles or the broad, muscular expanse of his chest in the tight-fitting blue rash guard that he wore set her off.

  And that was before she even got to his grin, or his cerulean eyes, not to mention the sound of his voice, so close... They all just served as a reminder that he was a lover like no other...

  A lover like no other? Really, Jas—poetry?

  She wanted to roll her eyes, give herself a slap, anything to wake herself up from this Freddie-induced stupor.

  ‘Leaving me to do all the hard work, hey?’

  There went his voice again, making her smile and freak out in one, because he was the reason she’d stopped paddling. He was the reason her hands had gone limp around the paddles as she threw her all into getting a grip on her heart.

  Her heart that was getting too carried away with every second that passed.

  ‘As it happens...’ she angled her head to almost eye him, forced a grin as she kept her voice light and breezy ‘... I’m giving you the opportunity to wow me with your strength and prowess.’

  He chuckled, her body getting high on the deep, reverberating sound as she clamped her thighs together and fixed her grin in place.

  ‘I thought I did that last night.’

  ‘Freddie!’ She startled, her eyes darting to their guide, Philippe, who wasn’t that far ahead in his own kayak.

  ‘You weren’t half as bashful last night.’

  A laugh erupted from her, her body dizzy with the recollection, dizzy with him.

  ‘Just speaking the truth, Red.’