The Wildcard

Chapter Sixteen

My vision returned just as his fingers started running through my hair – letting out the pins that weren’t really holding it in place anymore – not after the way he’d been hammering my entire body into the mattress. That’s not a complaint, just an observation. I smiled blissfully, closing my eyes and nudging my head against his hand like a kitten – lost in the feeling of his fingertips massaging my scalp – dear god, was there nothing that this man couldn’t do with those hands?

“You okay?”

I murmured in response, stretching blissfully with all that languid pleasure still tingling through my muscles. I felt deliciously relaxed – almost delirious with the sensation – and I could hear him laughing at me in a low, sexy chuckle.

“I’ve never seen anybody come that hard in my life,” he said in a decadent hush, “You’re about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life right now.”

I rolled my eyes at him – knowing the women he must’ve seen in his time would be better looking, better in bed, without inhibitions and shame and just plain bullshit beneath the belt – but it made me feel warm inside that he’d think to say something so sweet to me. I was going for cool, calm and collected – maybe even a little ironic – but it was tricky with the butterflies dancing in the pit of my stomach, sending out tiny little frissons of pleasure in the aftershock of the loudest orgasm I’d ever had in my life.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Never complimented a woman in my life before you,” he muttered, flipping over onto his back , stroking the skin at the bottom of my abdomen lazily, “Never had to. Now it feels like I’m doing it every second of every day. It’s a good job you keep on surprising me with new topics.”

“That’s me, full of surprises,” I said grimly – remembering how today’s hook-up had all started – my fucking mother. I breathed through the rising panic – my fingertips shaking against my scalp as I pushed back my hair in frustration – I really needed to talk with Ryan – I needed to know how she knew.

I needed her to disappear, to be honest – for that entire episode this morning never to have come up. And why it had to be dropped like an atom bomb into the centre of my already screwed up little life, I had no clue.

I’d been in London for no more than a few weeks, and it already felt like my new and improved life was about to crumble around my ears.

“Better?” he broke in gruffly, after a few minutes of a silence in turmoil – I’d almost forgotten that he was in the room with me – as much as you could forget six foot two of solid, bronzed, muscled masculinity in a shroud of cotton and a room that smelled of sex.

“Yeah,” I huffed out, making to get up, “I guess I should be ...”

“Stop making guesses,” I could practically hear his eyes rolling as he pulled my arm back and straddled me – his erection stirring against my stomach, “You’re going nowhere.”

“I’m not?” I ran my hands over the contours of rippling muscle in his chest – not wanting to let go of this sense of abandonment I’d found with him. It felt good to give myself over to him – not just sexually, although that had been one of the definite highlights of my evening – but here as well. I find myself so embroiled in all the politics after sex sometimes – so concerned with not saying anything that could be misconstrued – that it felt good just to relax and follow his lead.