Shopping for a Billionaire 4(29)
Author: Julia Kent

Yes, with just one kiss. And then another. And another, until there is no separation between them. No divide, no marking point where one warm, soft sigh and brush of a tongue and an eager embrace begins and ends. They all blur together, like seconds blur into minutes, minutes into hours, hours and days into the woven cloth of a life well lived.

And loved.

He smells so nice, like Declan. His own branded scent, like tasting him in the air. Hot, eager hands pull me to him like he’s planning never to let me go, and the rush of being so close, so deliciously close to him doesn’t subside when it should.

If this were a movie, I’d pull back, smack his face, and he’d yank me close and kiss me again.

But this isn’t a movie. And he still has not answered my question.

I pull back, the kiss lingering on my mouth like a layer of silk as I ask, “You broke up with me because of your mother, didn’t you?”

Another kiss replaces his answer. I slide my hands around his waist and there is this one spot where his shirt has pulled up just enough from his waistband to give me a glorious inch of hot, taut skin to touch, my thumb caressing it, my palm wanting so much more. Bold now, my fingers track upwards along the ropy muscles that parallel his spine, feeling the power of his shoulders as his arms envelop me.

Damn it. He did it again.

Breathless, I pull away just as he steps forward, pushing me gently until the backs of my calves hit the bed. I want to bend. Oh, how my knees want to fold just enough to sink us both into the down-filled duvet, to wake up in the morning with pillow mint wrappers stuck in my hair, and not because I ate a bag of them alone while watching the first episode of Outlander repeatedly and crying about how there are no good men like Jamie.

“No,” I whisper, making him look at me. “Not yet. You can’t waltz in here like this and expect me to let you pick up where we left off, because you left off in a spectacularly crappy way.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and steps back, warm breath coming out in waves as he fights to control his panting. “Yes. You’re right.”

“That’s a good start,” I mumble. The United States of Shannon is a federation of states all working together, but a few parts of me—all below the waist—are calling constitutional conventions to discuss secession.

Traitors.

“Are you going to listen to me, or just crack wise?” Declan asks in a tight voice.

Record-scratch moment. Screech! Hold on.

“If you’re here because you want to get back together, you have some explaining to do,” I say, ignoring my clitoris, which is attempting to call the secession meeting to order for a vote. Man, is it banging that gavel. Hard.

“So do you.”

“Me? What do I have to explain? I tried to explain. No, I never wanted you for your money or for business contracts. No, I’m not a lesbian. Yes, I have a bee allergy. What else do you need to know? Those are all parts of the very real Shannon who is standing right in front of you.”

He points a finger at me.

“Don’t muddy the waters. The problem is that you took what could have been a simple situation and twisted it into Gordian knot-like complexity,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

I have no desire in this exact moment to admit that I have no idea what a Gordian knot is, so I say, “How did I make it complicated?”

“You caught Jessica’s attention. Anytime she tweets about someone it has to have triggered a rash of rumors so strong it gets back to her,” he declares.

“That’s my relationship crime? That my ex’s ex who is hot for your rod tweeted about my pretending to be g*y? You broke up with me for that?” I laugh. I’m genuinely not upset, because that explanation is so freaking lame that I know it’s not true.

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because you never bothered to tell me about your allergy.”

“It was our second date! Don’t you think you’re being a bit unreasonable? Allergies aren’t a second-date thing.”

“Second-date thing?”

“You know, kiss on the first date, show your student loan debt on the second, intercourse on the third. There’s a timetable for these things. Deathly anaphylactic bee allergy isn’t slated until date number seven, filed under Batpoop Crazy Relatives and Genetic Predispositions to Hammertoes.”

Peering intently at me, he ponders this. I can tell he’s debating, his eyes moving rapidly even open, his teeth sinking into the soft inner flesh of his lip. I’ve made a cogent point and he has to either react with reason or—

“Not good enough.”

Assholery.

“Not good enough? You get to unilaterally declare my explanation ‘not good enough’?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Sixteen

“No!” I blurt the word out and whip around, grabbing the mints on the pillow and unwrapping them. The erstwhile wrapper goes flying near the wastebasket, wafting down as I shove the chocolate in my mouth, fuming at him.

“Cute. We can argue and shout ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at each other all day, Shannon, but you have to admit to yourself that—”

“I remind you of your mother, who died from a wasp sting, and you can’t handle that.” In finishing his sentence for him I’ve chosen a path that leads either to the end of everything between us, or a real beginning.

Real.

“Who told you that?”

“Google.” I let the tension release from my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“What else did you read?” His voice is so tight he could string a guitar with it.

“There isn’t anything more,” I answer, bewildered. “No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dig anything else up. And Jessica was of no help.”

“Jessica?” His carefully constructed facade begins to crack, his face betraying him as he starts to show a few slivers of emotion beyond desire. “What the hell does Jessica have to do with my mother?”

The whole scheme sounds ridiculous now, but I figure I should share. “We thought because she’s a gossip girl, she might know what happened ten years ago, so I asked her. Got no response whatsoever. I guess she doesn’t know.”

“No. She knows what happened. Her non-reply is because she can’t stand you.”

Nice. At least he’s being truthful.

“Then why can’t you just tell me, Declan?” I ask in a quiet voice. “You’ve told Jessica. But not me? This obviously has a lot to do with us.”