Late Call (Volume 1) (17 page)

Aaron nods without hesitation and kisses me—hard—before waving the team over.

What the hell am I doing?

“Please stop looking at me like you want to dribble chocolate sauce all over my body,” I snap.

Derrick grins in a way that I’m sure is supposed to be sexy but does nothing for me. “We’re supposed to be lusting after each other.”

“I think you left the ‘supposed’ at home.” I close my mouth as Joel yells for him to thread his fingers through my hair, pull my head back, and kiss my neck.

Oy vey.

He does as instructed, and I try to play the part, to get into it, but I can’t. And when he kisses me a little too enthusiastically, I shove him off of me.

“Do that again and I’m gonna slap it right out of you!” I point in his direction.

“We’re done here!” Aaron yells, moving forward. Joel’s annoyed cries are drowned out by him. “There’s no chemistry. Derrick, you’ll be paid in full, but you can go. It’s not working with the two of you.”

Derrick shrugs, shoots me a wink, and saunters off. What a fucking jerk.

“What are we gonna do now?” Joel shouts. “Two models and a non-model and the only one left is the non-model!”

I put my hands on my hips. “Hey! You forced me into this.”

“And you are fuckin’ great, but not when you’re working with a dick like Derrick,” he responds. “I’m just wondering where the hell I’m getting a male model from now.”

“You don’t need one.” Aaron pulls his shirt over his head. “Do you have a second pair of those shorts?”

A girl from wardrobe nods and runs off.

“What the hell are you doin’?”

Aaron puts his arms out. “I’m being your model.”

“You’re the boss!” Joel and I reply in unison.

“You don’t model. You order them around,” I remind him.

He takes the shorts from the girl and walks to the house. “Don’t model. Not can’t. Don’t.”

Two minutes later, he appears, clad in the shorts the same style as Derrick’s, and approaches me. I give him my best ‘not impressed’ look.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you set this up.”

“Good thing you know better.” He takes my hands and pulls me toward the water. “And now you can relax with me.”

He’s right. Derrick had me wound so tight I was at risk of snapping, and all because of his asshole attitude.

“Right. Can we finish this shoot now?” Joel calls. “I want you two to be sexy. I want you to have lust—so much lust we’ll all leave here thinking you’ll be making out in the back of the car on the way back to Sydney.”

“I’ll do him one better,” Aaron mutters, pulling me close to him. “We’ll go for so much lust that there will be absolutely no doubt we’ll be fucking in the back of the car on the way to Sydney.”

The huskiness of his voice combined with his hand curving down my body tugs at every part of my body in sexual awareness.
No problem.
I hear quiet snaps from Joel’s camera as Aaron teases my body into various poses, each one sparking desire and need across my skin.

And when he gets onto one knee and slides me along his thigh and drops his lips to my neck, making me drop my head back and tangle my fingers in his hair, that desire goes deeper.

Every part of me hums with wanting him. My nipples harden inside my—thankfully—padded bikini top, and I’m grateful for the sea sweeping over my legs, drenching my bikini bottoms. God knows my core is aching so much, my clit throbbing so hard, my arousal would be evident in minutes.

“I love this,” Aaron whispers in my ear, leaning over me, all gorgeous and bronzed and powerful.

“Love what?” I breathe, gazing into his eyes.

He holds the connection for a moment and drops his forehead to mine. “Knowing you’re turned on right now in front of all these people. I love knowing I’ve done that to you, and that even though there are twenty sets of eyes on us, you still can’t hold it back.”

The sea washes over me, wetting my hair and coating my body in a salty sheen. Another wave comes up, and as it washes away again, Aaron pushes his lips against mine. My head falls back against the sand, my leg bending at his side, and I forget about the shoot.

Forget about the audience, the eyes on us, the expectations from this. All I can feel and see and hear are his lips on mine, his short breaths mingling with my own, and my heart pounding in my ears. I quietly moan into his mouth at the feel of his tongue sweeping across mine.

He pulls back and tugs me up, his breathing labored. My own is heavy and full of want. My body is on fire with needing him, and I have to wonder if he has a switch for it. I don’t know how easily he does it, but my nipples are begging for his tongue to circle them and my pussy is practically fucking screaming to be filled by him.

“Holy shit,” one of the wardrobe girls cries. “I think
I
need a make-out session in the back of a car. What do you say, Joel?”

Aaron smiles against my jaw.

“Anytime, Annabelle. Anytime,” Joel responds, coming closer with his camera. “You two are fucking magical. Ms. Luiz is going to be one happy lady when she sees this.”

I smile and rest my nose alongside Aaron’s. He opens his eyes and I get lost in a sea of blue, completely captivated in him in this moment. Still with desire humming through my veins.

He runs his thumb along my jaw, and my lips part. I curve my fingers around his neck, and I nearly forget we’re not alone.

“Perfect. Hold it there.”

I couldn’t move away if I tried.

“And we’re done.” Joel stands and claps once. “Unravel yourselves and come see.”

Everyone’s eyes are suddenly away from us, and Aaron helps me stand. “You’re a natural,” he murmurs, kissing me softly.

I smile and shake my head. A towel is handed to me and I wrap it around my body, leaving his arms to find Joel in the house.

He pats the stool next to him in the kitchen as he uploads the pictures to his laptop. One by one, pictures flick across the screen too quickly to see. By the time Aaron joins us, they’re all on there.

“Don’t need these,” Joel grumbles, deleting all the images of Derrick and Reah and Derrick and me. “Here we go. Let’s see what we have.”

A large image of me and Aaron fills the screen and my jaw drops. It’s not bad—far from it. It’s amazing. And every one after is even more so. We look so natural, so together, so desperate for one another.

Each hand is perfectly placed, our eyes are connected even when they’re closed, and pure, unadulterated lust is written all over our faces.

“Brilliant. These are brilliant.” Joel flicks through them. “It’s not often one gets to shoot their boss—in a photographical sense or otherwise—but this? This needs to happen again.” He shuts the top down and sighs happily. “You two. Magical. Amazing. Wow.”

“Thanks, Joel.” Aaron shakes his hand.

“I’m gonna pack up and go and find that Annabelle.” He winks and walks back through the beach.

Aaron and I sit in silence until everyone leaves. His eyes burn into me the whole time, doing nothing to expel the lingering arousal in my body. The fierceness in them makes me feel naked, completely exposed to him.

“Get dressed,” he orders me. “Our car is waiting.”

I take my clothes from him. “No one else is here, are they?”

“We’re alone.”

Good. I drop the towel and unclip the bra-style bikini top. My body heats at the way Aaron’s eyes roam over my body, and I crook my fingers in the sides of the bright bottoms.

“Turn around.”

I quirk an eyebrow but do as he says. My back is to him as I bend forward and shimmy the fabric down my legs. I step out of it and reach for my dress, stopping when I feel his hands on my hips.

He slides one around to my front and dips it between my legs. “Still so wet,” he murmurs into my neck.

I reach around and brush my fingers across his hard cock. He shudders, and I peel back the wet material clinging to him to touch him. “Still so hard,” I respond in kind.

He moves his hand so quickly a cold breeze caresses my sex. “Put your dress on and get in that car.”

I pull it over my head and tuck my underwear in my purse. “Sex in the back seat?”

Aaron buttons his pants, his shorts discarded on the floor, and follows me out. He doesn’t answer until he opens the door for me.

“No, a good hard fuck that will have you screaming my name by the time we reach the city. Several times over.”

I hold my breath until he joins me in the car and closes the partition. The engine rumbles as we pull away from the villa, and I look over at him.

“You left our stuff on the floor.”

“The villa belongs to me. They’ll be washed and returned tomorrow.”

He grabs my thighs and pulls me to him. I straddle his lap, sinking my fingers into his hair as his sink inside me. I exhale heavily at the feeling, our lips meeting.

“Should have you bare beneath all of your dresses,” he breathes. “I love how easy it is to touch you.”

“Only if you follow the same rule.”

He laughs, taking his fingers from me and releasing his erection. His swollen head rubs against me, and he teases my opening by dipping in partially then slipping up to nudge my clit.

“If you’ll take me this easily, I’ll forget pants every fucking day.” Our mouths meet in a feverish kiss and I whimper, pushing down against him.

“There’s nothing easy about this.”

He eases into me, going as deep as he can, drawing a breathy moan from me, and holds me against him. “This is easy, Dayton, but only because my need to be inside you is stronger than all else. I want to slide down this seat and lick you from below while you ride my tongue, and I want to tease you to your release with my fingers flicking between your nipples and your clit, but I
need
to fuck you.” He rocks our hips, stretching me and filling me so deeply there isn’t a part of his cock not inside me. “And savor it, because the next time I’ll be inside you will be in Italy, and I won’t be doing it this way. I’ll be spreading you on the bed and devouring every inch of you with every part of me, worshipping you, and I’ll be making love to you.”

“Oh…”

He kisses my neck, lifting my hips and dropping them back down. Our movements become more frantic, his grip tighter on my hips, mine tugging his hair.

“But right now…” He stares into my eyes, pushing himself right into me. “ Right now, I’m going to fuck you until your throat is sore from screaming my name.”

And he does. He pounds into me relentlessly until I tumble over the edge, his name leaving me in a series of desperate cries.

And he doesn’t stop.

And when he yells his own release, I go again, screaming until I’m sure everyone in Sydney can hear it.

Milan. A beautiful city in a country that values love above all else.

I walk around the extensive suite. The outside wall is exactly like the one in Vegas – where it’s wall-to-wall windows. I can stand against it, my body flattened against the coolness of the glass, and see the whole of the city. As the sun rises, I can run my eyes along the skyline and see every inch of the gorgeous, romanticized city that surrounds me.

And I do. I lean into the glass being warmed by the sun and flatten my hands, spreading my fingers wide. I breathe in deeply, as if the Italian air creeping in on a breeze through the bedroom window can clear my head. As if the incredible view before me can wash away all my thoughts and replace them with a sense of wonderment and awe. As if I can forget the
feelings
and just enjoy Italy.

If. If, if, if,
if
. Fucking if.

My life has been one big goddamn ‘if’ since Aaron Stone walked back into it. Everything I planned and everything I thought I knew would happen has been ripped away and torn into a thousand pieces. The certainty I prided myself on has been worn down, stripped back, destroyed. Now everything about me is uncertain.

How I’ll feel tonight, tomorrow, next week. What I’ll do when we get to Paris. What I’ll do when this trip is over. How I’ll feel. What I’ll want. Where I’ll go.

I know none of it and I can’t even begin to contemplate it. I never thought I’d see Aaron again, and when I did, pulling away that certainty, he made me his client. I let go of the freedom and ignored my gut. Then he didn’t want to be my client anymore, and in one traitorous beat of my heart, I agreed.

I agreed to be us. And that’s the problem. Us is so uncertain. Us always has been. Even the first time around, we were uncertain and impulsive and surprising. This time is no different. Each touch, kiss, whispered word… They’re all spur of the moment.

I don’t like spur of the moment.

A spur-of-the-moment phone call and job are what got me in this emotional fucking mess.

“Sometimes I look at you and wonder if you’re really here or if I’m imagining it again.”

I turn at the sound of his voice. “Again?”

He rubs his wet hair with a towel and paces to the kitchen. “Teenage girls aren’t the only ones who get lost in dreams and wake up wondering if they were real or not. I did that plenty of times after Paris.”

“You dreamed of me?” My lips twitch.

“Dreamed of you, saw you in places you weren’t, thought I was hearing your voice shout my name across the street.” His blue eyes pierce mine. “What? You never did that?”

“Never.”

“Liar.”

“I didn’t!”

He walks to me, his lips twisted in a smirk. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me.” I walk backward, holding my arms up. There’s a hint of mischief in his eyes, one I recognize, one that sends promises of forever flooding through my body like they were whispered yesterday. “Aaron.”

“Admit it.” He stalks me, coming closer.

“There’s nothing to admit.”

He grabs me and throws me on the sofa. I laugh as he lowers himself over me, eyes sparkling, mouth grinning. “Admit it, or I’ll tickle.”

“Tickle? Mr. Serious can tickle?”

He lays his fingers at my side in a threat. “Every part of you.”

I push at his chest through my laughter, and he makes good on that threat. I squeal and arch my body into him to make him let go. “Crap, stop! Aaron, stop it!”

“Only if you admit it.”

“You’re a…grown man,” I breathe, squirming. “You don’t need the validation from teenaged memories to prove our love was real!”

“Yes. I do.” He covers my mouth with his in one swift movement, plunging his tongue between my lips. His fingers still, and I bury mine in his hair as he continues a delicious assault of my mouth. “And ‘was’? No, Bambi. There’s no ‘was’ about it. When you have a love that runs as deep as ours, it’s always alive and very, very real. It doesn’t die just because time passes.”

I draw in a deep breath. I know this. Of course I do. The kind of love that spreads through your body, possessing and controlling it, doesn’t just die. It keeps living the way a broken heart keeps beating.

“Yes,” I whisper into his mouth. “I did it. I looked over my shoulder every day hoping you’d appear from behind a tree. I heard your voice whispering my name whenever there was silence, and I felt your touch when no one else was around. And I saw you everywhere. You were every tall guy with dark hair, and I called your name and waited for them to turn, each time hoping it was you.” I grip his hair tighter and squeeze my eyes shut.

“And then?”

“And then when everything changed, I stopped wanting to see you but kept living in a hopeful fear you’d walk around the next corner. I needed to see you, but I didn’t need you to see me the way I am.”

He brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Why?”

“Because out of the handful of people whose opinions mattered, yours was always the most important.”

“Then you rounded the corner and I saw you anyway.” He softly kisses me again , a touch filled with truth. “And all I see is what I saw then. A beautiful woman with dreams she doesn’t think she can fulfill.”

“That’s because happiness always comes with a price.”

He pulls me up and wraps his arms around me. “Lucky for you, I can pay it.”

I smile into his chest and shake my head.
You already are.

“And the price for today’s happiness is a coffee, and you’re paying.” He turns me in the direction of the kitchen area and pats my butt.

I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “What if I don’t want to pay?”

His blue eyes twinkle with a lusty mischief. “Then I’ll lock you in the suite.”

“What exactly will that achieve?”

“I have no idea, but the thought of you being locked in here all day is giving my cock ideas.”

I press the button on the machine and lean on the island, my arms squeezing my breasts together. His gaze flicks from them to my mouth and then to my eyes.

“And you can tell your cock its ideas are completely useless considering it’ll be with you in a meeting all day. You can lock me in this suite, Mr. Stone, but if any orgasms happen, you won’t be a participant. They’ll be of my own making.”

The mischief dissipates from his stare, morphing into a dark heat that sends shivers through my body. “Of your own making?”

I dip my finger into the sugar pot and lick it off. “I’m quite adept at providing my own orgasms. I’ve done it plenty of times. I know all the right spots.”

He crosses the room in a few quick strides. He flattens his hands against the counter and leans forward until we’re barely a breath apart. “Let’s get something clear, Dayton,” he rasps. “If anyone makes you come, it’ll be me. And if I decide you can do it yourself, you’ll be doing it while I watch you.”

The idea of his eyes fixed on me while I touch myself makes me ache.

“Are we clear?”

I lick my lips.

“I said”—he leans in closer, his lips moving against mine as he speaks—“are we clear?”

“Still a little murky.”

His fingers curl around my neck and he holds my face to his. He kisses me slowly. Deeply. Intensely. A ball of need coils low in my stomach, tightening until it’s at the very brink of exploding. It hovers there, growing as Aaron’s kiss teases and taunts me.

He pulls away briefly before returning to my mouth and dropping a long, lingering kiss there. “My coffee.”

I grab the side of the counter until my woozy, heady feeling from him passes.
Holy shit, the man can kiss.
The tongue strokes, the pressure, the twitch of his fingers on my skin…

“Is apparently yours.” He shoves his jacket on and pockets his phone. “You,” he murmurs, rounding the island and cupping my chin, “have distracted me, and now I’m going to be late.”

“Better late than never.”

“I told you you’re my biggest temptation.” One more kiss. “There’s a car waiting for you downstairs when you want it. Just call the concierge and they’ll bring it around.”

“Why on Earth do I want a car?” I frown, watching him cross to the door.

“I’m not locking you in here. Not today,” he adds with a wicked grin. “Go and explore. You have the whole day to yourself.”

“I don’t want it,” I respond. “The car. How can I explore if I’m stuck inside a fancy-ass car?”

“You have a point. By the way, I thought you’d say that, so I programmed the concierge’s number into your cell in case you get lost. He’ll arrange for you to be picked up wherever you are.”

“In case I get lost?” I raise an eyebrow.

He winks. “Have fun, Bambi. Oh, and keep your eyes to yourself. I know how you like concierges.”

“Gosh, no concierge, no touching myself… Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. Me. Tonight.” He opens the door and walks through it before I can respond.

I blink after him for a second then pour a cup of coffee. The clock reads eight a.m., and I should be tired from the flight, but I’m not. I never really adjusted to Australian time, so being in a time zone somewhat closer to home is sitting right with my body.

I hug the mug and stroll through the suite, my eyes gazing out of the windows. I have a city to explore.

The
Duomo di Milano
is by far the most incredible building I’ve ever laid eyes on. It stands proudly in the Square, ornately designed spires and window decorating the majestic cathedral. From the huge iron doors and carved archways over each window to the intricate patterns wrapping the building, it’s amazing. Just amazing.

It felt like I was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower again, wowed by one of man’s greatest creations. I felt the same rush of wonderment and excitement at what I was seeing, and it’s something I feel now as I sit outside a small café with the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

I couldn’t even go in and explore the inside of the
Duomo
. All I could do was stand in front of it and stare at it like a teen girl at a One Direction concert. I may even have wanted to scream in delight at one point, so completely overcome with the beauty of it.

Still, something was missing.

I sip my coffee and watch the Italian people breeze past on the sidewalk. Some are chatting hurriedly into cell phones pinned to their ears, others are linking arms and laughing, and a few are coaxing young children into following them. The fluid, relaxing language surrounds me, and I sigh.

He was missing.

The last time I felt the way I did while staring at the
Duomo
was the day I met Aaron. It was the day my wonderment at something manmade changed into amazement at someone naturally created. It was the day an all-consuming relationship began, although neither of us actually knew it.

I wrap my arms around my stomach and raise my face to the sun as I walk away from the café. How different my life would be if we’d never met… How empty it would be. I’d never have felt the heart-pounding warmth of real love or the heated breathlessness of heavy lust.

I’d never have felt the earth-shattering reality of heartbreak either.

And I wouldn’t be here, in Italy, wondering if the way my stomach flips when he walks into a room is a reaction to something I know. Something comfortable. Something familiar.

Or if it’s an automatic reaction that will always happen because my body recognizes something I choose to ignore.

I wander the streets in a contemplative haze, those thoughts spinning around and around in my head. Spinning and somersaulting and beating at the corners of my mind. Demanding to be listened to, demanding to be answered, demanding to be known.

The hustle and bustle of the outlet stores outside the
Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II
drags me back out of my own mind. Shiny shoes and purses and cut-priced dresses grab hold of my attention and I gravitate toward them. I might not have planned to go shopping, but the concierge recommended this as the best place, complete with the original Prada store.

And a girl can look. And touch. And dream.

Maybe even buy if it can be kept a secret…

I shake my head at the absurd thought. Aaron would have a fit and burst the seams of his suit if he found that out—and I have no doubt he would.