It’s tempting. Incredibly tempting. I’m about to try when she finally speaks, her hands rubbing at her throat where my hand just was. “I need a minute,” she rasps. Her shoulders rise and fall in rapid succession. Mine do the same. That was the greatest workout of my life. I wouldn’t have to meet with my trainer ever again if I could just do cardio by fucking Pippa for the rest of my life.
Her body goes limp as her head falls against my shoulder. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me close. There are probably a thousand different health code violations we’re breaking, but I lean into her despite the mess between us.
“That was…” Her words trail off as she presses a kiss right on top of my racing heart. It races because that was the best sex of my life—but also because I’m imagining myself doing that with her for the rest of my life, and that’s a dangerous fantasy for two people who started out despising one another.
“Incredible. Mind-blowing…” I brush my hands through her hair as she presses another kiss to my beating heart. “Catastrophic,” I whisper.
She looks up at me with wide, curious eyes. My eyes can’t help it when they drift to the red mark around her throat for a moment. “Why catastrophic?” she asks.
I pull her into me, tugging her off the counter. She gladly wraps her legs around me. We’re perfectly lined up against one another again, the head of my cock brushing against her clit.
My hands cup her ass cheeks, keeping her in place as she rakes her eyes over my face. I want to know what she sees. Is it a different man than she first thought I was? Or deep down, does she have the same opinions of me that have always been there?
“Because I think I want to do that a lot more, for a long time, and I don’t even know if you like me, shortcake.”
Her thighs wrap tighter around me. “I think I’m starting to like you more,” she answers playfully, a wry smile on her lips.
“Are you only saying that because my cum is leaking out of you?”
She smiles even wider at my question. Dirty girl. I fucking love it. “No. I was thinking it before tonight, but the great sex did help your case.”
I playfully nip at her, clutching her to my chest. I want to keep her in my arms forever, to never let go. Maybe then, the real world would never catch up with us and remind us why a sweet small-town girl like her and a cold city guy like me aren’t meant to last. “I think a better adjective is needed. Great isn’t doing it for me.”
She slides down my body, and I hold on to her until her feet are firmly planted on the ground. Even then, she keeps her arms wrapped around my middle. I like it—too much. “What would you like to hear, then?”
“That it was the best sex of your life. That you’ll never let another man have you that way. That the rush of emotions coursing through you right now are as intense for you as they are for me.”
I like how comfortable she is standing in front of me, completely naked. She takes a step back, playing with strands of her hair as she watches me closely. “All of the above,” she whispers.
I don’t know if I’ve ever smiled as wide as I do at this very moment. It’s probably goofy and takes up too much of my face, but I can’t help it. I’m captivated by her, and I need to know it isn’t just me feeling this way.
My mind races with a million different things I could say back to her, but only one word comes to mind as I take a step closer to her and press a kiss to her forehead.
“Good.”
40
PIPPA
I’m busy plating our dinner when Camden casually looks up at me from across the island. I haven’t told him this, but he’s got a smear of flour across his forehead from when we were making the noodles. It’s too cute to have him wipe it away. I like the little imperfection across his face. It makes him look less cold and intimidating and more boyish.
He couldn’t look cold to me right now either way. Not with the way he’s looking at me. Everything about the way he’s watched me cook has been lit with passion. His stare isn’t cold. It’s hot, burning my skin even from across the room. I almost asked him to fuck me right in the middle of rolling out the dough for the noodles because the ripples of his forearms were turning me on too much. Even when I’d asked him to try the pasta sauce, his lips had sucked the sauce into his mouth so seductively that I’d imagined the other places his mouth had been. All the places along my skin he’s licked, kissed…bit.
A small laugh from deep in his throat pulls me from my dirty thoughts. I look down to find a little too much cheese grated on the dish in front of me.
“Shit,” I mutter, trying to pinch some of the cheese from this plate and putting it on the noodles from the other. It doesn’t look as good as it was supposed to, but it’ll do.
“You were licking your lips like you were having dirty thoughts about me, shortcake.”
“Maybe I was.”
He raises his eyebrows, pouring more wine into my glass at the table. We haven’t even eaten dinner yet, and tonight has been the best date of my life. The sex before the date really even started helped. But it was also the easy conversation as we prepared the three courses I’d planned for the night. He’d listened intently as I told him how to help prepare a salad and crab cakes. He was an excellent student as I taught him how to roll out the noodles and feed them through the noodle attachment on my mixer.
I thought things would get awkward after we finally had sex. Like maybe we’d both learn that our intense connection was only physical. Tonight taught us it isn’t. The more I’ve learned about him, and the more random conversations we had on what NFL team is the best—the Broncos, obviously—and what the best Adam Sandler movie is—his answer of Click shocked me—the more compatible we seem.
All of it is adding up to me falling for him little by little. I can easily imagine making him coffee in the morning before he lays me out and has me for breakfast.
“Are there security cameras in here?” Camden’s question brings me back from my daydream.
I cock my head, wiping a smear of sauce from the corner of the plate. “What?”
His eyes look to the ceiling, scanning the place. “Are there cameras in here?”
“How did you know we had cameras anywhere?”
“Because your employee, Lexi, caught me enjoying that perfect pussy of yours on camera.”
My hand drops in shock, hitting the corner of the plate and sending smears of pasta sauce all over. “Excuse me, what?” I shriek.
There’s no way Lexi saw us. Right? Oh my god. Has she seen my vagina?
The asshole doesn’t look embarrassed by it in the slightest. If anything, he looks proud as he continues to look around the room. “Yeah, I forgot to mention it to you. Figured it was best you didn’t know. But after tonight, I just needed to know if we just accidentally made an amateur porno.”
“Camden!” I yell, my face heating with embarrassment. Thank god there aren’t any cameras in here. I haven’t found it necessary—and haven’t really wanted to put the funds into getting an additional camera—so this and my office, which used to be a closet, don’t have cameras. “This isn’t funny,” I continue, thinking about whether I should text Lexi to apologize for whatever she saw.
He shrugs, his shoulders rising and falling. “I’m not laughing.” He coughs, totally lying because he’s absolutely laughing.
“Yes you are. My employee saw my bits! This is terrible. Is there some kind of law against this? Am I going to get sued?”
He brings my glass of wine over, handing it to me. I suck down a large gulp of it to try and ease my mortification. “She stopped it before she saw anything. She was only looking because you’d forgotten to lock the door, and she wanted to make sure no one broke in.”
I take another drink, squeezing my eyes shut as I pray to god that I didn’t ruin Lexi forever. I’m going to have to have a very awkward conversation with her and apologize for whatever she did end up seeing.
“God, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that. I’ll never be able to look at her the same.”
“It’s okay. She didn’t see anything. And even if she did, I bet my face covered anything intimate, anyway. I was very dedicated to making you…”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I interrupt, not wanting to picture it again. I don’t want to think too hard about everything she could’ve seen.
“So are there cameras in here?”