Dangerous Exes (Page 34)

“Is this what you want?” He filled me so hard and fast I saw stars. I gripped his biceps and tried to focus on his face as he leaned down and parted my lips with his tongue. “I want to punish you, but it seems punishing you”—he slowed his movements—“means I’m punishing myself.” I couldn’t get enough of that man’s tongue as it coaxed more and more moans out of me. “You feel perfect.”

It was sweet.

He was being sweet.

I almost wished he had said something dirty.

Something about how I was ready for him. How good it felt to be inside me.

Instead, he said I was perfect.

Me.

Tears filled my eyes before I could tell my emotions to stop reacting, and when he locked eyes with me, it wasn’t with punishment or teasing, it was with admiration and a little bit of respect.

He looked at me the way every woman wants to be looked at.

With awe.

Then he kissed me.

Breaking eye contact as his thrusts increased, he braced my head with his hands, controlling the kiss, controlling the pace, taking the control from my hands in a way that wasn’t controlling at all.

But to a girl like me? Complete surrender.

I let myself get lost in his kiss, in his movements, in the way he filled me up completely.

His hands moved to mine.

They tangled.

Our palms pressed against each other as his forehead touched mine. We locked eyes again, no words were said.

I didn’t want to look away.

I was afraid if I did, the moment would shatter.

His lips brushed my forehead as he slid a hand between our bodies, touching me, releasing me, beckoning more surrender, taking more control.

I moaned his name, then saw two of him for a few brief seconds as our bodies moved in perfect sync, as my mouth sought his.

I kissed him deep, hard.

He growled against my mouth, lips parted, breathing the same air.

“Don’t want to stop,” he said.

“Then don’t.” I would beg on my hands and knees.

He chuckled against my mouth. “I can’t last forever.”

“I thought athletes were known for their virility?”

“Isla?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.” He kissed me harder, digging his hands into my hair, twisting it around his fingers like he wanted to hold on. He tugged the pieces hard with one last thrust, sending me over the edge as he gripped the headboard and filled me harder.

My body arched up off the bed as I screamed his name.

I didn’t even realize I was closing my eyes until I opened them to see him staring at me with that same look on his face, and then he was kissing me again, his mouth never leaving mine.

And I wondered if that’s what the other half of the world felt like.

The happy ones.

The ones in relationships.

Because I’d never experienced sex in that way before.

With a man who once promised to destroy me.

But in that same voice, he cried out my name like it was the only word he ever wanted to pass his lips.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck as he slowly sat up and took me with him. “I’ve never wanted to call in sick so much my entire life.”

“Call in sick?” I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I’m a PI now. I have an ex to catch and an ex to beat the shit out of. Tell me he was bad in bed, tell me he didn’t touch you like I did—”

“He was selfish. Enough said.”

“I was selfish last night,” Jessie admitted.

“Right, but you were also drugged.”

Jessie pulled me in for another kiss. “I didn’t need drugs to convince me that you would be perfect—I just needed them as an excuse to strip you down.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Isla?”

“Hmm?”

“Today . . . wear red.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

JESSIE

The elevator was quiet.

I couldn’t stop touching her.

The tea had completely worn off. I could tell because I wasn’t walking around the hotel trying to hide the baseball bat in my pants. Then again, it’s not like I wasn’t still sporting something.

My hands grazed her arm so many times she had to know it was on purpose.

She wore red.

Red.

A color that would normally make my eyes burn was doing something else entirely. The dress hugged every curve, it was simple, elegant.

It was Isla.

She’d even curled her straight dark hair just enough to make me want to reach out and touch it. We were already running late to meet Colin and Blaire, so it was near impossible to grab her.

To run my hands down her ass.

To blurt out that I wanted her again.

I had no excuses this time, though.

No tea to lean back on.

And for once in my life I was curious where I stood with a woman, and maybe a bit anxious. Was I just a quick screw for her? Or was it more? Did I still want to destroy her? The anger that I’d always put front and center was now more of a lazy, simmering irritation with a heavy, sickening dose of fear.

Fear that I was jumping into something too soon.

Fear that she saw me the way my ex did.

My thoughts were causing another headache, and this time I couldn’t drug myself with some weird Chinese medicine.

Which is the only admission I got from Isla when I asked again this morning.

I cleared my throat to say something to her, to tell her that I wanted to hit the button to our floor and hide away in the room. To tell her to screw it, that I didn’t even care anymore about Vanessa.

But the truth was.

I still cared.

People don’t change overnight.

But I wanted to know how.

I was out of control last night.

And it felt good.

She was wearing red.

And I couldn’t stop staring.

Maybe change wasn’t so bad?

“Hey!” Blaire and Colin were waiting near the elevators. Blaire pulled Isla in for a quick hug while Colin gave me a once-over. It took him less than three seconds to smirk.

It took me less than two to flip him off without the girls seeing.

“Good morning, Jessie,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Sleep well? In your bed? Upstairs? In the room you’re sharing with Isla?”

Blaire looked between us.

Isla’s cheeks heated. “We did, thanks, too bad Jessie wasn’t feeling so well.”

“You got sick?” Blaire sounded skeptical.

“It was hard”—Isla just had to say hard—“on him.”

I looked toward the ceiling and mumbled a curse.

“I hate it when things are hard.” Colin nodded solemnly. “Maybe next time you’re dealing with a situation of hardness”—oh God, someone shut him the hell up!—“which you clearly were last evening, you just get a little help from . . . a friend.” He looked to Isla.

“Colin,” I said in a warning tone.

“After all”—he just wouldn’t stop!—“I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Blaire covered her laugh with a cough and then hit Colin on the chest.

He winked. “Alright, so now that you’re all . . . better, and by better I mean you’ve gotten laid and aren’t as cranky as you’ve been the past few weeks, let’s get started.”

Isla turned about ten shades of red.

“Are we doing this?” I rubbed my hands together and tried to deflect from my sex life and my best friend’s ability to read my smug expression, and the fact that I couldn’t stop stealing glances at Isla.