Her fingers moved up his spine, flirting with the hair at his neck. “I don’t know what to say to that except…how exactly do I inspire oysters?”
“You’re shaped like one.” Bottling the laugh blooming in his chest, he couldn’t see her face tucked below his chin and forced himself to wait for her reaction. When she didn’t say anything, didn’t even pull his hair where her fingers toyed, he said, “You’re smelly, too. And you definitely don’t have any feelings.”
She yanked his head back by the hairs on his nape and shoved his chest until his back hit the grass. As she followed him down, his horizon filled with her beautiful smile, his body tightening beneath her.
“And here I thought it had something to do with my hidden pearl.” Her voice was smoky, pure seduction. She licked her lips.
Eyes locked on the glide of her tongue, he swallowed. “That, too. I also like Shakespeare’s analogy. The world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. The oyster is wealth. Opportunity. Possibility. You’re my oyster.”
With her bent over him, her face so close, he could make out the pale dust of freckles on the arches of her cheekbones.
She traced his eyebrows, the curve of his nose, his lips. “And your tongue is the weapon in which you acquire the opportunity. Not just in the obvious sense. Your tongue, through music, acquires the oyster, doesn’t it?” Her lashes fluttered downward. “It had this oyster three years ago when Huntress replayed over and over in Roy’s penthouse.”
He lifted his head, used that weapon to part her mouth and delve inside. She welcomed every lick and nip with matching intensity. Their legs twined together and their thighs rubbed, her toes sliding down his jean-clad calf and digging into the leg opening. She clung to his shoulders and his fingers bit into her hips.
He cracked his eyes and hers were squeezed tight in concentration. She could kiss him with a passion that arched his back and wrenched him from his memories with the mere sound of her laughter.
It was a known fact that every great song slipped in a riff where the chords went to a unique, unexpected place. She was that song, those non-scale chords. Fuck, did he love this girl.
Too soon, she broke the kiss and pushed up on her elbows where they perched on his chest. “I triggered your memories, huh?”
He tucked a fiery lock of hair behind her ear, the soft ends slipping over his fingers. “I triggered them. You shut them off.”
She stroked the stubble on his chin, studied his face. Then her gaze turned inward and her nose scrunched.
“What are you thinking?”
She shook her head, eyes flicking away.
He curled up to a sitting position, adjusting her legs around him, groin to groin, chest to chest. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just throw you over my knees and spank it out of you.”
She straightened her back, eyes wide. “I think I just creamed those pretty white panties you picked out for me.”
It was his turn to squeeze his eyes shut. “Jesus, Charlee.” Could he take her right there? Lay her out between the hedges and slide between her legs? Who was manning the cameras? Could he block their view? He glared at her. “You’re distracting me. Tell me what had your face all scrunched up.”
An irritated hum vibrated in her throat and her little bounce in his lap didn’t help his swelling erection.
“Oh fine. I was wondering how many women it takes to get you off on a normal night. Maybe I just lucked out last night. Maybe you were thinking about orgies with big-boobied blondes while you fucked me.” She blew out a breath. “There it is. I said it.”
An onslaught of vertigo slammed into him. His cologne suddenly smelled pungent rather than exotic. His jeans cut into his groin, vulgar in their tightness. She wasn’t suggesting he was shallow and repulsive, but the feeling hit him with dizzying regret.
He searched for the right thing to say and couldn’t grasp it. An apology was just words. His anger with Felica would distress her. Action would prove his devotion, but that took time.
Gathering her against him, he nuzzled his face into her neck, breathed her in, memorized the soft curvy feel of her. There was one thing he could clear up. “You were blonde when I met you.” He let that sink in, felt her lift her hand and move it over her scalp, probably imagining the shorn blonde hair she wore that night in her tattoo shop.
“Oh.”
Not enough. He raised his head. When her eyes idled on his, he said, “I didn’t want intimacy with them. More than one…” Just say it, fuckhead. “More than one woman at one time guaranteed no intimacy. It’s a disgusting reason, but it’s the truth.”
As if in slow motion, a swallow bobbed in her throat, weighting the delay in her response. “I want intimacy.”
A surge of relief washed away some of his unsteadiness. “Me too. Only with you.”