Grounded (Up In The Air #3)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mr. Perfect

BIANCA

James rose, striding to the closet. He came back out in a pair of boxers. “Don’t move,” he told me. “I need to get something from the entryway real fast.”

I didn’t say anything, and he looked at me. He pointed, the twist to his mouth almost playful now. “I mean it. Don’t move.” With that, he strode out.

“Crazy bastard,” I muttered loud enough for him to hear, but I didn’t move. I heard him laugh as he walked down the hallway.

I let out my own laugh when he strode back into the room. He had the soft beige scarf from the photo shoot wrapped around his neck. He grinned a wicked kind of grin. I felt myself grow wet just from that look.

He was out of his boxers and back on the bed in a flash of naked golden skin. I couldn’t look away.

He straddled me, unwrapping the long scarf from his neck slowly, teasingly. It took forever the thing was so long.

I watched him, captivated. I felt like I was getting an X-rated strip tease from a glorious God. “You’re the most beautiful thing on the planet, James,” I told him.

At the bottom of my vision I saw his erection twitch, and he closed his eyes for a long moment. There was no denying that he was susceptible to flattery, but that wasn’t why I’d said it. I’d said it because I couldn’t look directly at the sun and not remark that it was blinding and brilliant.

Once the scarf was free, he covered my eyes with it, wrapping it twice around my head. He raised my arms above my head, stretching them taut, his hard length rubbing along my torso as he did so. His cock pushed hard into my sternum as he wrapped the scarf around my arms. I gasped.

He wrapped that soft length from my wrists to my elbows. It was a firm hold but not tight. When that was secure, he wrapped it over my collarbone, lining it even with my underarms. He barely jostled me as he wrapped it around me twice there before moving down to my breasts and then ribs. He wrapped it around and around with smooth sure motions, somehow managing to get it under my body while barely moving me. He wound it around my waist next, bringing it back up to wrap around both my eyes and arms, binding them together.

He had me well and truly caught when he pulled back, straddling my hips.

He said one word before he set to work on my body with his mouth. “Struggle.”

I tested my restraints rather hesitantly at first, not imagining that the scarf would pose any real challenge. It was so soft, so stretchy, but the man knew what he was doing. Always.

I gasped as he licked a path down my navel to my inner thighs. He sucked at a tender spot while I worked against the scarf, making no progress, just moving the wicked thing against my body deliciously while he did even more delicious things down below. He worked that clever mouth from my groin to that sensitive spot behind my knee and back again. I struggled hard, because it felt good, because I couldn’t believe that the ridiculous scarf could hold me so securely, and because I wanted my hands free to push that teasing mouth where I needed it to be.

I only succeeded in trapping myself more securely, and James took his sweet time moving that tongue just where I craved it.

I stopped struggling when he finally buried his face between my legs, thrusting his tongue inside of me before licking up to my *.

He lifted his head as I stilled. “Keep struggling,” he told me.

I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear the wicked smile in his voice.

He plunged two hard fingers inside of me, once, twice, and I came on a dime. He was kissing up my body, nudging aside the material where it covered a nipple. He sucked hard on my nipple as he plunged inside of me. I gasped and struggled harder against the soft bindings.

He was dragging his cock out of me, hitting every perfect nerve, when he uncovered my eyes. The rest he left imprisoned as he dug his elbows into the mattress on the sides of my breasts and drove into me again and again. His eyes showed me that the tender-lover was driving for this ride, though the warm smile in his voice as he tormented me had given me fair warning.

“Say it, Bianca,” he said, his voice more tender than demanding. Still, I knew it was an order.

“I’m yours, James,” I told him softly.

His eyelids fluttered briefly as he started to come inside of me. He bottomed out in me with the sexiest little moan, and I came.

“Cashmere f*cking,” he told me with a smile as we caught our breath.

I laughed. “So that’s what that was called. Good to know.”

He unwrapped me from the long scarf slowly, rubbing it along my body as he did so. I rubbed against him, always craving his touch, even as my eyes drifted closed and I fell into a hard sleep.

I had the dream again and woke up scrambling out of bed in the dark, disoriented and scared. Hard familiar arms caught me almost immediately, lifting me from behind, and carrying me into the bathroom. I had to shut my eyes tight as light flooded the room.

We were already naked so he just stepped into the tub, never letting me go as he turned on the water and leaned back against the edge of the huge tub. I turned into him, wrapping my arms around his neck, clinging as hard as I could. Soothing arms stroked my back, washing and comforting, soft whispers telling me everything would be fine.

“I can’t stand it. I know it’s a dream, but it feels so real,” I whispered. I didn’t break down, didn’t cry this time, though the dream had shaken me as badly as before. More so.

“Shhh, Love. Just breathe. The memories will fade. Nightmare memories always do.”

He said it like someone well acquainted with nightmares. I wasn’t surprised.

I lifted my head to look at him. He stroked my hair, meeting my eyes squarely. He could communicate so much to me with just those exquisite, tarnished eyes of his.

I swallowed hard. Residual fear from the dream still haunted me. The thought of losing him made me desperate and empty and filled me with despair darker than anything I’d ever known, and I was hardly a stranger to dark thoughts.

I pulled back enough to move up his body, straddling his hips in the rising water. I traced a finger over that smooth brow, the hollow in his cheek, that perfectly straight nose, those pretty lips, and then across that hard jaw.

I cupped his face in my hands, watching him steadily. He pressed his own hands over mine, giving me such a loving look that I melted.

“The thought of losing you makes me desperate,” I said, shifting our faces closer. My eyes were steady on his when I took the leap. “I love you, James,” I said, my voice just a whisper. “So much.”

His eyes closed for just an instant, and he took a deep breath. When he opened them again there was such a raw relief there that it made me shake.

“Thank you,” he said roughly. “I’ve been waiting for that, and wanting that, for so long.”

He stroked his hands over my hair, watching me, his eyes going to that soft loving place that I’d come to crave and depend on so quickly.

He was silent for so long, just watching me and touching me, that I lost our silent standoff.

“Do you…love me?” I asked him, my chest hurting.

“That’s a silly question,” he said, stroking my cheek. “An unnecessary question. I’ve never made a secret of my feelings, Bianca. I know you’re a skeptic, but you must have realized that I fell for you right away.”

I leaned my cheek into his hand. “Why haven’t you ever said the words, then?”

He bit his lip.

I watched that vulnerable action with rapt attention.

“I wanted you to say it first. Not for pride, and not for my ego, but for my heart. I haven’t said those words to anyone since my parents died, and I didn’t want the first time to be met with a rejection. I was afraid you would get spooked and run again. I preferred to give you time rather than break my own heart. Can you understand that?”

I nodded, feeling crushed under the weight of my own skepticism. I hated what my baggage had done to him, what it might do in the future, all of the pain it had caused him, because there was no cure-all for my issues. One big one was rearing its ugly head even as I had the thought.

“But why?” I asked him, my voice much smaller than I liked it to be. “That’s what I don’t understand.

His brows shot up, and he gave me a genuinely baffled look. “Why?”

“Why do you love me?”

His eyes got so soft, changed in an instant from confused and into that impossibly tender look that got me every time. “You want me to break it down for you?” he asked succinctly.

I nodded.

He traced a finger across my brow. “I can do that. I’d enjoy that actually. You’re my favorite subject, Love. I’ll start with your eyes. I fell in love with those first. One look was like a punch to the gut. You have these ageless eyes on such a young face. I just knew that you had seen bad things, lived bad things, and from the start, I knew that you could understand pain. Understand loneliness and despair. Understand feeling hopeless and helpless and alone. I fell in love with your eyes first because I looked into their depths and saw the other half of my soul.”

That got to me, and my eyes filled with those humiliating tears that I couldn’t seem to avoid lately.

He traced a tear down my face, giving me his fondest smile. “I freely admit that was enough to catch me, and you’re going to tell me I’m crazy, but I’ve been around the block too many times to count, and I was experienced enough to know, right from that first meeting, that I was falling for you. I didn’t understand it until after our first time together, wouldn’t have given it that name, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was lost from then on. But let’s get back to my favorite subject.”

He reached across the tub, turning the water off. He plunged that hand back into my hair to cup the back of my head.

“Next, I fell for that hard-won composure of yours, that steely self-control. When I got you to smile at me, or even to acknowledge my presence, it felt like an accomplishment. I’ve never needed the chase, never wanted it, really, but I relished it with you, even knowing that it was trouble for me, that you were trouble.”

“Next, hmm, let’s see, that’s harder to pin down, because that was a lot of things at once. I’ll lump it all together and say that I fell for your reaction to me next. Your submission. I’ve never felt anything like this kind of chemistry before. The way you trembled at my touch, that innocent response that you couldn’t hide, and that I couldn’t doubt. And then we made love. After that, I couldn’t call what I felt for you anything but love, not to myself, even knowing that you didn’t feel the same, at least not like I did—not yet.”


There was such an adoring sort of understanding in his eyes that I felt something raw heal inside of me. Yes, my natural skepticism had hurt him, but at least he seemed to get why I was this way. He seemed to get me.

He wasn’t done.

“And then there were your paintings. Those dreams in your eyes. The world cannot have been a beautiful place for you, but it becomes so beautiful through those paintings of yours. You put your soul into those paintings, and nothing in this world is more beautiful to me than that soul of yours.”

I had always been uncomfortable with praise, any kind of praise, and his outpouring was in a league of its own, as far as compliments that moved me went. I felt so overwhelmed that it was hard to keep looking directly at him, deep into those tarnished turquoise depths, but I managed it through sheer force of will, my whole body trembling with the effort.

He continued relentlessly. “And then there’s the fact that you’re stunningly beautiful, and you couldn’t care less about it. Your beauty devastates me, Bianca, yet you put less value on that beauty than any woman I’ve ever met. Even if you realized just how stunning you are, which I know you don’t, it wouldn’t matter to you, wouldn’t make any difference at all, and I find that so charming about you.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve made a muddle of it all,” he continued. “Like all I do is screw up, but I swear to you that I’m trying my best. I’m only terrible at this relationship thing because I’ve never done it before, but I promise I’ll keep working until I get it right. I’m nothing if not determined.”

The thought floored me. I spoke without thinking. “Now that’s a depressing thought, James, because if you’re terrible at this, there isn’t even a word to describe how much I suck at it.”

He threw back his head and laughed, and my mouth moved into a smile automatically. He brought his laughing lips close to mine. “Not true, Love. You’re doing perfect, as far as I’m concerned.”

His mouth was a whisper away from mine when I spoke. “You haven’t made a muddle of it, James. You couldn’t be terrible at anything, even if you tried. I think you’re perfect.”

He kissed me, a kiss that started out soft but as always our unquenchable hunger for each other quickly took it further. He was gripping my hair and plundering my mouth within hot, drugging moments. I rubbed my wet chest against his.

We made love slowly, leisurely, lovingly. I lay my cheek against his wet chest when we finished, kissing my crimson name on his pounding heart.

He stroked my hair for long minutes, still buried inside of me. He seemed in no hurry to pull out.

“I love you, Bianca,” he said very quietly. “There isn’t a thing about you that I don’t adore. Even the things that have made it hard for you to let me in hold a special place in my heart. I never thought I’d meet a woman that I couldn’t doubt, a person that I could so easily give my trust to, but I know your soul, and it is so pure and clear to me that I feel like I can see right into it.”

I didn’t know how he could say that. I felt so cynical sometimes. But I soaked up his words, loving the way they made me feel. I didn’t have to agree with the words to be touched by them.

“I love you,” I told him simply.

We were silent for long minutes, communicating only through stroking touches and soft kisses. Eventually, reluctantly, he pulled slowly out of me, pulling me flush against him right away.

“Can I tell you about my parents?” he asked finally.

“Of course,” I said quickly, surprised that he thought he had to ask. “I would love to hear about them. I love to learn about you.”

“You would have liked my mother. She was so passionate, so opinionated, but also kind. She didn’t come from my father’s world, but she didn’t put up with any of the nonsense that the high society set tried to throw her way. She hated luncheons and teas, hell, she hated all of the insufferable social functions that weren’t directly helping a charity, and the term ‘socialite’ made her see red.”

His words brought me a staggering sense of relief. If he had expected me to do what Jackie suggested and devote my life to a pointless string of unenjoyable social functions just for the sake of keeping up appearances, I would have been troubled, because that just wasn’t for me.

“She kept a few close friends very close, and devoted her time to her family and to her charities. She was so beautiful.”

He paused, stroking my cheek.

“My father was a reserved man, but he was loving. I do remember that. He worked a lot, but when he didn’t, he devoted his time to my mother and me. He worshipped the ground she walked on.” He stroked my hair when he said it, his eyes loving.

“They had a good marriage. I was young, but even I could see how devoted they were to each other. They would share these looks… Even as I child I knew that they had something special.”

“As I got older, long after they’d passed, I didn’t imagine I could ever find something similar for myself, that I could ever feel something like what they had. I honestly didn’t think I was capable of it…Until I met you, I didn’t know I had those kinds of feelings inside of me. Now I see clearly that with the right person, it’s so simple. Those feelings aren’t something one can force, and they aren’t something I could deny once I felt them. It still just floors me that I felt them so fast and so deep with you.”

“My father liked to claim that he fell in love with my mother at first sight. Even back then, I thought he was just waxing poetic, but I believe him now. I did exactly the same thing.”

I looked up at him. “You’re insane,” I told him. The idea of love at first sight was just so far-fetched, especially since it was me he was talking about. “But undeniably, terribly romantic,” I allowed.

He just smiled. “I know. But I’m honest, and that’s just how it was for me.”

I rubbed my cheek against his chest, feeling like this was all a dream. He was just too perfect to be real.