Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (20 page)

Once outside, Elias looked up and down the street. “Where’s your ride?”

“I’m going to call a cab,” I said, pulling out my phone. Liquor made my eyes blurry and I blinked a few times in order to pull up the app I used for cabs. “Two minutes away,” I said happily.

“I could have given you a ride.”

“After all that bourbon I watched you drink?” I gave him a skeptical raise of my eyebrow. “No way, dude.” I tried to put the phone in my pocket, but it popped right back out and fell to our feet. “Shit,” I muttered as I bent down.

Elias bent down with me, picking up the phone case that popped off. “Here,” he said, at my eye level with both of us crouched. He took the case from me and put the phone back inside of it in a second. As he handed it to me, his hand clutched mine. “Hey.” I looked away from our hands and into his eyes seconds before his lips descended onto mine.

I was suspended in a pause—my body unmoving as unfamiliar lips pressed against mine. He was warm and smelled of leather and spice and it took three seconds for me to realize that this was wrong.

“No.” I pulled my head back immediately and put a hand to my lips.

Holy shit, Elias had kissed me.

He didn’t apologize, even as I stumbled back away from him. Fucking stilettos, I thought. I held a hand up when he made a move like he was going to help me stand upright again.

“Nope, no way.” I shook my head and was sure I looked like an animal fighting off a predator.

The problem wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed Elias kissing me. In a tiny, dark place, I
had
enjoyed it, but not enough to go further. That quick, three second kiss had told me Elias was not enough for me.

But Nathan was.

Suddenly, I didn’t fucking care about our fighting. Nothing else seemed more important than being with Nathan. It took another man kissing me for me to figure out that baggage or not, I wanted Nathan.

What Scarlet had said about Nathan grieving alone had struck a chord within me. He’d been just as alone as I had. And I’d let my own hurt, my own pride, get in the way of us talking it out.

I needed Nathan.

Elias stood feet away from me, and seemed to take in the way everything played over my face.

“He doesn’t deserve you, you know?” he asked.

Elias didn’t even know me well enough to say that, but the fact that he had said it reminded me again of what Scarlet said about Nathan not having anyone for support after Diana died.

Fuck it. I’d paint some walls in that house. I’d tear down the wallpaper in the entryway. I’d buy new dishes from the thrift store—shit that didn’t look like it belonged on display in a china cabinet. I’d get a new couch, one meant for snuggling, and I’d buy a new table to do my studies at. I’d put up a hundred photos of us, in different frames.

All of that could be changed. But there was no substitute for Nathan.

“I don’t deserve him, either,” I told Elias as my cab pulled up to the curb. But I wanted him. Fuck everything and everyone else. My pride be damned, I wanted Nathan more than I wanted to be without him.

After climbing into the cab, I gave the driver Nathan’s address, instead of the train station. Ten minutes later, I was rushing out of the car, across the icy street, to a snow-covered sidewalk. And then I just stared, stunned.

In the middle of front yard, right where the grass met the sidewalk, was a large white sign.

I blinked, staring at it as the snow seeped into my stilettos, and then I walked into the yard, with snow up to my ankles, and touched the sign.

Immediately, the floodlights came on, making my presence visible to the entire neighborhood, and I lifted my head and met Nathan’s gaze through the front living room window. He stared at me, and the surprise in his eyes made my heart crack in two. All I wanted was to go to him. But, luckily—since my feet were about to fall off from the cold—he came to me, opening the front door and stepping out onto the patio.

“Adele?” he asked, and I nearly fell to my knees. His voice. It’d only been a week since I’d last heard it, but it felt like a hundred lifetimes. He looked so good, standing in front of the door with the light at his back. He looked like home.

I had a hundred things to tell him, but the first thing I blurted out was, “Elias kissed me.”

C
learly I had matured
in our time apart. First, I didn’t sling her over my shoulder and bring her inside for sex. It was far more important to hear the words out of her mouth, which brought me to my second point. When I actually processed those words, I didn’t sprint off to commit homicide.

“Adele,” I whispered, my eyes drinking her in. Standing in the snow like that, wearing leather and illogical shoes—if I had to guess based on how she was shivering—she looked wild. “Baby, let’s get you out of the snow.”

But she shook her head. “Didn’t you hear me?”

As slowly as I could manage with rampant adrenaline pouring through my veins at the mere sight of her, I walked down the steps and into the snow. White puffs of air fogged in front of me when I breathed, and it was the only proof I had that I was still alive. That I wasn’t imagining her.

Of course, if I
was
imagining her, she’d never have said what she did.

When I was an arm’s length away from her, I stopped, searching her face. The finely carved features were so precious to me. Something I’d stupidly taken for granted every single time she was in the same room.

Never again.

“I heard you,” I answered, my voice sounding like I was choking on glass.

Her eyes shimmered, the sheen of tears making me want to claw my guts out. “Then how the hell are you so calm?”

I lifted my hands, very slowly so that she could back away If she wanted. When she stayed in the same spot, I cupped her face. We both exhaled at the contact, her eyes falling shut for a moment. I kept mine open because I wasn’t willing to miss a millisecond of this.

“Because I’m fairly certain you aren’t happy about it—”

“I’m not,” she interrupted with a steely voice.

“—which is good,” I continued, stepping closer to her. “And it’s good that you’re not happy about it, because no man’s lips besides mine are
ever
touching you again.” Adele blinked and a tear tracked down her face until it absorbed into the skin of my hand. “Right?”

“Right.”

I deflated, wrapping her into my arms with the keenest sense of relief that I’d ever experienced in my entire life. Adele pressed her nose into the side of my neck and inhaled, humming when she let it out.

“I want to kiss you so badly, but I don’t dare let you go.” I tightened my arms, relishing the weight of her against me.

She laughed softly, pulling her head back to meet my eyes. There was so much adoration in that one look, so much love. Then she tilted her chin up and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. We rested there for a long moment, just testing the feel of each other’s lips.

For some reason, it felt like we hadn’t kissed just a week earlier. This felt new and sweet, the longest build-up to the most innocent kiss we’d ever shared.

Maybe we each thought the other person would deepen the kiss, but I was content to just feel her. I guess she was too.

I pulled back. “Can we go in now? My feet are fucking freezing.”

Adele smiled so widely that my heart stretched in a similar fashion. “Yes. I would like that.”

Instead of holding her hand, I turned and presented my back, crouching down so she could climb on. Adele hopped up, wrapping her arms around my neck while I weaved my arms under her knees to support her weight. She kissed the edge of my jaw as I carried her through the front yard and up onto the porch.

I didn’t stop when we cleared the door, only pausing so that she could turn the deadbolt behind us. I didn’t stop as we ascended the stairs up to the second floor. And I didn’t stop until we were in the master bedroom.

Adele slid off my back, and when I turned around, her face was a mask of shock. “Nathan…”

She turned in a slow circle, and I gave her a sheepish smile when she came to a stop. There were no pictures on the walls anymore, and the simple white bedding on the King size bed just next to us looked like something you’d find in a hotel.

“You took everything out?”

I shrugged. “Kind of. I didn’t buy a new duvet yet. I wanted to wait to pick something out until you were with me.”

She blinked, processing that. “And the sign in the yard?”

“It was one of the things on my list.” I slid my hand down her arm until I could weave my fingers in between hers. “The things you said to me last week hit me pretty hard. But I needed to hear it. I needed to hear all of it.” I pressed a thumb to her lips when she tried to say something, swallowing over the boulder of nerves lodged in my throat. It’s not like I’d known she was coming so I could practice what to say. So I looked in her eyes and spoke from my heart. “You were right about everything, Adele. I
hate
that I left you alone when you needed me. It feels like I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that. And I acted embarrassed at the party because I was afraid someone would figure out how our relationship started, and that was so damn wrong of me, baby. I fucked up
so many
things with you in the last few months. When I thought I was doing the right thing to provide a life for us, I was completely overlooking what you actually wanted. I
know
that I’m not smarter than you or better than you, and I definitely know that my opinion is the not most important one between the two of us.”

Since my thumb was still touching her lips, she pressed a soft kiss there with a smile in her eyes. I took my hand away and ran it over her hair, which was still cold from being outside.

“And when I came back here after you left, I was appalled. I was so ashamed that I never thought about how it might be for you to live in this house. I boxed up as much, and I started getting it ready for a real estate agent.” I pulled her closer so I could rest my forehead on hers. “I don’t care where we live. I just need
you
. I will never do anything like that to you again. I promise.”

Oh, Nathan.” Adele sniffed, the tears threatening in her eyes, but not falling over. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I said, just as our lips met again.

This was not sweet and innocent. Our tongues tangled and Adele went up on her tiptoes. I gripped her ass and rocked into her. The backs of her knees hit the bed and we toppled over, ripping at each other’s clothes with frantic hands.

My shirt came off first, then her pants. Her bra was shoved up over her tits so I could suck one into my mouth. My belt flew across the room, followed by my jeans. We didn’t even stop to remove my boxer briefs or her thong.

She shoved mine down under my ass while I wrenched hers to the side with two fingers.

“We can do this slowly the next time. Maybe in like twenty minutes,” I groaned when I slipped my fingers into her soaking wet cunt. “You feel too fucking good for me to be slow right now.”

“God,” she moaned, fisting my cock and trying to shove it in. “Quit talking and just
do it
. I’ve never been without an orgasm for this long and I think it’s fucking killing me.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and cupped the side of her face. At first she made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat, but when I brushed my thumb over her cheekbone, she stilled. Our eyes locked and she gave me a small smile. While we held like that, I slowly pushed forward until I couldn’t go any farther.

Heaven.

Pure fucking heaven.

I pulled back in one long, slow, tortuous motion and paused before hooking my hips back toward her. Adele’s arms wrapped around my neck and she brought her legs up to cross her ankles behind my back.

Pushing my face into her neck with an arm around her shoulders, I wrapped the other around her back. We were touching everything, so tightly wound that the only things we could move were our hips.

She met my slow thrusts perfectly, and I never hurried, despite my warning that I’d have a hair trigger. Every push and pull, every drag along the hot, wet walls of her pussy felt better than the last. Her nails dug into my back and I picked up speed, snapping my hips faster and faster.

Her tits were pressed so tightly against my chest that they didn’t bounce from the speed, but I could feel each shift of the firm, round flesh against me in a way that made me want to roar.

Adele whispered in my ear when I made one particularly hard thrust. “Only you, Nathan. It will only ever be you.”

“Too fucking right,” I ground out when I could feel the orgasm tighten my balls and roll around at the base of my spine. “God, Adele. You feel so fucking good.”

She tensed up around me, her pleasure folding around us like a physical presence. “Yes, Nathan. God, I’m so close. I’m … I’m so, fuck.”

I gripped the knee at my side and lifted her legs one by one until her shins were braced on my chest. She whimpered at the new angle and I cursed at the depth that it got me.

“Come on, baby,” I groaned when I felt it barreling down on me. Pleasure danced on my skin and she tightened around me. I snapped against her one more time and I felt it. She screamed my name as she came, tightening around me so tightly that it took my breath. I poured my release inside of her with clenched teeth, somehow having the presence of mind to roll to the side so I didn’t crush her.

Adele draped an arm over my chest and one leg over my waist. Strands of hair clung to her sweat-slicked face and I smiled before tucking them behind her ear.

“I missed you.”

She opened her eyes at my softly spoken words. “I could tell,” she said dryly.

I tickled her sides, loving the sound of her giggles. “Brat. That’s not what I meant. Though yes, of course I missed sex with you. But it was everything else. I just missed
you.
”

Lifting the hand that had been on my chest, she stroked the side of my face. “I missed you, too.”

I leaned forward to kiss her and pulled back after she touched her tongue to mine. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“What made you change your mind? It’s not like you could have known the things I was doing this week to try to change. To atone.”

She smiled. “You might not like my answer.”

“I can handle it.”

“Well, Elias kissing me was a big part of it.”

Fuck. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to use her smell as a calming agent to the way his name instantly raised my blood pressure. But I really did want to know, so I let out a long breath and turned my head to look at her again.

“How so?”

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise at my calm response. “The second he kissed me, I knew that you were it for me. No man could ever touch me again without it feeling wrong somehow. And that’s when I decided that no matter what we’d said to each other or what we’d done, we could fix it.”

“Then I suppose I should thank him.” Fuck, even saying that out loud made me want to punch his fucking face in again. Adele’s low chuckle made it worth it though.

“I don’t think we’ll see him again.”

“Good.” I kissed her, needing that after her admission. We kept the kisses slow and sweet, just small tilts of my head to change the angle. They restored me, reset everything inside of me that had been off-kilter since she walked out of the door.

“Oh!” she said and pulled back. “And it was Scarlet. She’s the other reason I changed my mind.”

I blinked at the rapid change in thought. “As in Leo’s girlfriend?”

Humming, Adele pecked my lips again and grinned. “Yup. That’s where I stayed. With Scarlet and her parents.”

The laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. “Isn’t her dad a preacher?”

Adele grinned and I tipped my head back, laughing even harder. One of her hands slid over my throat while I was doing it.

“God, your laugh makes me so hot.”

In the next breath, I rolled and pinned her by wrenching her hands above her head. “I fully plan on needing to hear some of your stories, you know. But later.” I dipped down and kissed her. “Much, much later.”

She lifted her head to kiss me back and then smiled up at me. “We have forever, Professor Easton.”

Yes. Yes, we fucking did.