His kisses gentled and then he pulled away. “I’ve wanted to taste you—I mean really taste you—since the minute I saw your disapproving look in the Foundation parking lot.”
“Then don’t stop now,” she said, shocking herself with her own words. She normally wasn’t so forward, but Alec made her want more because men like him who lit up the world, making everything seem bigger, brighter and more alive, didn’t walk into a woman’s life very often. And while it was only a matter of time before everything crashed and burned, she had every intention of seizing the moment before he slipped through her fingers and disappeared from her life, never to be seen again.
“Little Violet, I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, the tone of his voice self-assured, like a man who normally owned his reality, shaping and controlling it. She just lived hers, taking the ups and downs as they came and trying to enjoy the ride.
He pried her fingers away from his hips and pulled her shirt over her head. His white-hot gaze seeped into her pores, making her tremble. She reached out to pull him against her, but he wrapped his hands around her wrists, pinning her hands next to her hips on the kitchen counter. “Don’t move. Let me see you,” he said as his fingers whispered across the tops of her breasts so lightly her skin pebbled under his touch. “Do you know how sexy you are?”
“Not sexy,” she mumbled, because she didn’t think of herself that way. Cute, attractive, pretty maybe, but never sexy. Sexy was reserved for beautifully styled women on the cover of magazines with perfect clothes and hair. She didn’t have either and she really didn’t care before this moment. “Not compared to you.”
Alec chuckled as his lips twisted into a cocky grin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He reached around her back, unclasping her bra, sliding the straps down her shoulders with a reverential swipe of his fingers.
Her eyes fluttered as she arched forward. “You’re wrong. You’re so out of my league. We’re not even in the same hemisphere,” she said softly. She was the girl next door, whereas he was larger than life, living in LA, probably brushing up against stars, attending functions she couldn’t even fathom for his job at the agency. She wasn’t meant for that type of life.
His hands paused, no longer moving and she opened her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Don’t say that. It’s not true.”
She opened her mouth to object, but he placed his finger over her lips.
“If anyone isn’t good enough, it’s me.” Darkness flashed across his face. He had secrets, lots of them, she realized, and a tinge of unease slithered down her spine. “I’m not a good person, Violet, but when I look at you, I want to be.” He looked up at the ceiling momentarily. “Maybe that counts for something,” he mumbled, his voice almost inaudible.
She nodded, circling her arms around his shoulders, pulling him toward her. “Right now, I just want you to be you. That’s good enough for me.”
He kissed her again then, a long, indecent kiss that curled her toes and made her feel like a goddess born to be worshipped by him. She could get used to this…to him. His lips drifted from hers to her jaw line and then her neck as his hands skated down the sides of her breasts in slow motion as though he had nothing better to do than touch every inch of her.
When his hands reached her waist, he lifted her onto the tiled countertop, pushed her knees apart, and without hesitation he stepped in between her legs, his lips coming down hard on hers again. His lips moving expertly against hers, he forced her gray cotton skirt up around her waist, exposing her boring white underwear. Crap, she should have thought that through this morning after he left and worn something a little more appealing.
Not even bothering to look, he yanked her panties down her legs with one hard pull and she started to have second thoughts. This was real. This wasn’t some crazy dream without consequences. She couldn’t take this back. “Alec…wait,” she blurted out and then his fingers slid along her entrance.
“Wait for what?” His finger slipped inside of her, teasing her with the perfect angle, rhythm and tempo. “Ah,” she groaned and she felt his smile against her neck.
A sensual fog wrapped around her and she couldn’t focus. She should probably have all those responsible conversations she lectured the kids at the Foundation about when they wanted to take a relationship to the next level, like number of sexual partners, sexual history and expectations, but what Alec was doing to her left little room for rational thought.