Starfire (Peaches Monroe #3)(60)
Author: Mimi Strong

We pulled up to the resort, which had a grand entryway with tall wood pillars on either side of glass doors. The building itself looked like a golf club in Architectural Digest, with rich honey wood mixed with modern steel and glass. Inside, it smelled like wine—so much like wine, that I wondered if they brewed and stored the stuff right in the same building.

“Smells like wine in here,” my mother said to the woman checking us in at the front desk. “Do they make the wine right inside this building?”

The woman smiled politely. “This is a fully-functioning winery! You’ll notice when you turn on the taps in your room, that red and white comes out of the spigot.” She looked down at the computer. “Oh, there’s a note on here that you’d prefer hot and cold water, so I’ll just flip the switch.”

My father and mother turned slowly toward me, both of them with confused/amused smiles.

“Interesting place,” my father said.

The woman continued with some more joking information about the resort, including a bit about the frames of the beds being made from cork, in case of grape juice floods.

The resort wasn’t at all as formal as I’d expected.

As we walked toward our rooms, through beautiful hallways dotted with portholes in the floor that revealed glimpses of the working winery below, I silently awarded Dalton Deangelo ten points. Say what you will about the guy, he picked a great location for our families to meet.

My parents went into their suite, saying they needed two hours to “freshen up” before we were to meet for lunch in the dining room.

How they needed two hours to “freshen up” after a flight that was barely that long would have been anyone’s guess… if not for my mother’s giggles and not-so-subtle whispers to my father.

They went off to do old-married-people things, and I checked into my room, looking forward to having a nap.

As I opened the door, two things surprised me:

1. Vern was a genius butler and had somehow gotten my bag into my room ahead of me.

2. There was a shocking blood trail leading to the bed.

WAIT! No, it wasn’t a blood trail at all, but dark red flower petals. And I was not alone in the room.

CHAPTER 26

“Don’t be scared,” said the man reclining on the large bed. “It’s just me. Your soon-to-be husband. I wore your favorite shirt.”

He stuck his finger out through one of the holes of his gray T-shirt with the graffiti-style print.

“You look weird. Are you wearing eyeliner?”

He laughed and rubbed his eyelids. “It’s pronounced guyliner. Don’t you read In Style?”

I stood awkwardly next to my luggage, fiddling with the handle. Damn it, but just seeing Dalton Deangelo’s lean, sexy body sprawled out on the bed was causing a panic in my panties.

“Why are you over there?” he asked. “Don’t you want to see where the rose petals lead?”

The line of red petals ran from the door, around the bed. Unlike the fancy suite in San Francisco, this was a modest single room, with the bed in the middle of the room and a small sitting area over in the corner. I kicked off my shoes and walked along the plush carpet, over to the other side of the bed, where I found a red pile of stuff: more petals, and some fabric. I bent over and picked up the fabric, shaking it out.

“Boxers?”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice low and growly.

“I don’t get it.”

“You will.” He grabbed me and pulled me onto the bed with him.

Howling with laughter, I said, “Honestly, I don’t get it.”

He wrestled with me and pushed me onto my back. He grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and paused to look me in the eyes for one second, flashing a warning with his emerald green eyes, then he ripped the fabric, exposing my front.

“No, you didn’t!” I gasped.

He was smirking, still playing, but I didn’t find his ripping of my nice shirt nearly as amusing. He straddled me, resting his butt comfortably on the area about my hipbones.

I stuck my thumb and finger into the holes of his designer shirt, and gave him a little dose of his own medicine.

“Hotter,” he said.

I clawed at the neckline of his shirt and tried to rip there, but the fabric was too tough.

“Colder,” he said.

We were playing the hotter-colder game again? I had a pretty good idea now where the rose petals led.

I reached down and unfastened the button of his jeans. A damp clump of red rose petals fell out, revealing his bare skin and the smattering of hair that led down from his navel.

“You’re not wearing any underwear,” I said. That meant the boxers on the floor were his, and the rest of the rose petals were… falling out as I unzipped his jeans and loosened everything.

He was already quite hard from the squirming, and the touch of my fingertips quickly brought him to full attention.

“I bought you a dozen roses,” he whispered.

“And then, apparently, you f**ked them.”

He grinned, that devious vampire smirk making its first appearance of the day. The panic in my panties turned into a full-scale fire drill.

“That’s right,” he said. “I f**ked all your pretty roses, and now I’m going to do the same to you.”

I thumbed over the tip of his cock, the gleaming bead of liquid slick under my touch.

“You’ll have to settle for a hand job,” I said. “My parents are down the hall.”

“I’ve been up all night, working overtime on set. That’s why I still have a bit of eyeliner on. I took something to keep me awake, and now I can’t settle down until I get what I want.”

I wrapped my hand around his shaft and stroked up and down. “You can’t always get what you want.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away, then climbed off me to remove his jeans and what remained of his tattered shirt.

“Get your clothes off,” he commanded.

“No.” The panic in my panties had turned into a party, and I wanted him to f**k me. I wanted him with every nerve ending and every inch of skin, especially the inches that wrapped inside me, but… the word no kept coming out of my mouth. I liked how that word made him scowl.

He said, “What will it take to make you say yes?”

“A little conversation might be nice. You could ask how my flight was.”

He finished kicking off his own clothes and arranged himself on the bed, lying on his side next to me.

With one gorgeous, dark eyebrow raised, he growled, “How was your flight, my darling?”