“I won’t take it personally when you leave.” Roland set Brien down on the floor and the cat sashayed out of the room, tail in the air, off no doubt to find his favorite sleeping spot.
“Never occurred to me Brien would still be around. That makes me happy,” she said, smiling contentedly.
“I saw your light on. Thought I should check on you. But you’re good so... I’ll go and let you sleep.”
“Wasn’t sleeping.” She spun her finger by her ear. “The hamster on the wheel in my brain is refusing to stop running,” she said. “I’m reading to him in the hopes he’ll conk out.” She held up her book, A Wrinkle in Time.
“I remember when we read that together,” he said.
“First night I spent here.” She held the book out to him and waved it. He took the bait.
He jerked his thumb, indicating she should move over to make room. He lay down next to her and propped himself up on the pillow. Unlike her, he hadn’t showered, and she smelled the sea air on his skin, salt and sweat. She wanted to press her nose to his neck and inhale but managed to control herself.
Roland opened the page and read the first sentence.
“‘It was a dark and stormy night,’” he read. After that one sentence, he stopped. He closed the book, sat up and turned around to face her.
“Roland?”
“I lied to you about something,” he said.
“What?” She rolled up. They were knee to knee on the bed, like they were kids again, telling stories and secrets. What had he lied about? Did he know who’d tried to get rid of her thirteen years ago? Did he lie about being a monk? Had he lied about his father’s medical condition? What was it that made his eyes so clouded and his face so solemn?
“I lied when I said I wasn’t glad you got dumped. I am,” he said.
“You are? Why?”
Roland kissed her.
Chapter 9
The kiss was quick, but so was lightning. And it struck Allison the way lightning strikes the beach, rendering sand into glass in an instant of natural alchemy. She counted one breath between the first kiss and the second. The first kiss was his. The breath was hers. The second kiss was hers, as well.
She wound her arms around his shoulders and dug her fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Before she knew it, he’d lifted her into his arms, into his lap. She wrapped her legs around his lower back and he wrapped his arms around her waist without breaking the kiss. She couldn’t break it. If she broke it, then one of them might come to their senses. Roland kissed her like he’d spent the last thirteen years waiting to have the chance again.
It was a powerful kiss, possessive and consuming. Tongues met and mingled over and over. His large hands dug into her hips, dragging her flush against him. This wasn’t a kiss anymore. She knew kisses. This was foreplay.
In an instant, she was that twelve-year-old girl again, feeling these strange, terrifying desires all for the first time. Her heart raced, her blood pumped; she ached between her legs and moved against him to ease the aching. It didn’t work. Thirteen years ago Roland had pushed her off him when she’d moved on him like that. Not this time. This time he rolled her back onto the bed. She’d been waiting for it from the moment their lips had met. With one arm around her waist, he lifted her and shifted her so that she lay directly underneath him. He bent his head and kissed her again, slowly lowering himself on top of her. She felt how hard he was against her and it was the shock she needed to snap out of the fog of lust that surrounded them.
“Roland...”
He lifted his head and looked down at her. When she didn’t say anything more, he twined a lock of her hair around his finger, brought it to his lips and kissed the tip. Then he let it go and touched her shoulder instead. He slid a finger under the strap of her camisole top and pulled it down her arm until he’d bared her breast. Allison’s whole body, inside and out, was beset with flutters. Heart flutters, stomach flutters—every nerve inside her fluttered.
Roland lowered his head and took her nipple in his mouth and sucked it deeply and slowly and for a very long time. She caught his hair in her hand again and held him to her chest. He’d been the object of her first fantasies and she’d wanted him to be her first. That hadn’t happened, but now she had the chance and the choice to let him be her second. She wanted that and he clearly did. Was it wrong? Maybe. But she wasn’t going to worry about that now. Plenty of time for second-guessing later.
Allison let him undress her completely and watched without comment as he took his clothes off. He had an impressive body—muscular arms, stomach, thighs. And if there was any part of her that still thought of him as a kid, it was long gone by the time he joined her on the bed again.
She reached for the lamp to turn it off and he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. It shocked her into awareness again, and she looked at him in confusion.
“Leave it on,” Roland said softly, though it was clearly an order and not a request. “I want to watch you.”
There was a world of difference between the statements “I want to see you” and “I want to watch you,” and Allison felt that difference right in her core. The first was flirtatious, a compliment. The second would scorch the earth to bare rock and the smoke would smolder for days if you let it. Allison let it.
Oh, no, they were definitely not kids anymore.
He parted her legs with his knees and pressed two fingers inside her. His hands were large, his fingers thick and long and rough from work. The slow penetration was pure erotic pleasure. As he explored inside her, stroking her carefully but deeply, her head fell back. She noticed for the first time that hanging from the ceiling was a green glass dragon, with its delicate wings spread wide. The window had been left open a crack and a cool breeze snuck inside and set the dragon to flying. Beautiful, it was all so beautiful.
“It feels so good inside you,” Roland said into her ear. “Too good. Makes me forget things.”
“Like you’re a Brother and I’m your sister?”
“Yeah,” he said. He almost smiled, but didn’t.
“I’ve already forgotten both.”
Though she knew she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help but compare him to McQueen. McQueen had sex the way other men went on morning jogs. It was physical. Exertion plus release equaled a happy, healthy Cooper McQueen. He paid for the use of her body the way other men paid for gym memberships and personal trainers. He used her; he used her well and often. His pleasure was paramount, hers was peripheral. She’d never minded, even enjoyed it if she were honest with herself. But it was different with Roland. The way Roland touched her, looked at her, held her... This was important to him. This mattered.
Roland moved over her slowly, kissing her breasts again and her stomach, before lying between her open legs to kiss her inside. He murmured a sound of approval at the first taste of her.
And he was in no hurry, either. He lingered between her thighs, licking and kissing and opening her until she was nearly out of her mind with impatience.
“Roland,” she said, and that was all it took. He rose up and crawled over her, nudging her legs wider with his knees until he rested into the cradle of her thighs. Slowly he pressed inside her, inching in, turning the tumblers one by one until they were locked together, locked and joined, joined and coupled. He pressed into her again and she wrapped her legs over his hard thighs. She lifted herself against him to tell him she wanted this as much as he did. As much and more.
For those first few taut moments of penetration, Roland didn’t kiss her. Allison lay back on the pillow and he held himself up on one arm over her, and they simply watched each other.
“You okay?” he asked. She nodded. “This isn’t too weird, is it?”