Anyone but Alex (The English Brothers Book 3) (19 page)

B
elonging to Alex was only temporary.

***

For the first time Alex could ever remember, instead of seeking instant gratification from his partner, he paused. He waited for her. Little by little her breathing slowed to normal, though aftershocks made her shiver and tremble in his arms as she came down from her high. She took a deep, shaky breath as her lashes fluttered before opening. Her eyes, dilated and black in the dim light, instantly found his staring back at her.

“Alex,” she whispered in a broken voice.

As he looked closer, he noticed the tears brightening her eyes. Smoothing a hand over her back, he leaned forward to kiss her gently. “Are you okay?”

“
Where do I go now
?” she asked in a quiet, devastated sob.

“You don’t go anywhere. You stay with me,” he said softly, not totally understanding her meaning, but sure of his answer all the same.

She swallowed, her breath still ragged and shallow as she gazed back at him. “I’ve never…I mean, I’ve never felt—”

“Neither have I,” he said, interrupting her before she could finish.

Alex knew what he felt, and he was pretty sure she felt the same, but he simply wasn’t ready to hear it or say it, and he hoped that was okay.

She managed a small smile for him, but he could see it didn’t go all the way to her eyes and that bothered him. 

“Are you okay?” he asked again.

“Mm-hm.”

He searched her face, his fingers kneading the soft skin of her hip as his erection strained between them. It was rock-hard and smooth, pressing against her with a hunger that Alex would usually act upon without consideration, but her eyes were sad and worried and more important to him than anything else.

“What do you need?”

Her eyes swam, bleak and frustrated, as she looked up at him. “You.”

He nodded, leaning forward to touch his lips to hers as she rolled to her back. Pulling his arm from under her, he rolled with her, settling the weight of his body on top of hers and kissing her gently with deep, sensual strokes of his tongue. She
tore her mouth from his, and her hands slid down his back, fingers curling into his ass.

She looked directly into his eyes
. “I want you to fuck me. Now.”

He flinched at her use of
the word “fuck.” He wasn’t uncomfortable with the word itself—in fact, he used it near-constantly with his other bedpartners—but he hated the way it sounded coming out of Jessie’s mouth.

He shook his head, staring at her
stricken face. Was it possible he had misjudged their growing feelings? Was it possible that like the others she only wanted one thing from him? A torrid night of hot sex and some Sunday morning brunch?

No
, his heart protested, clenching at the thought of her possible indifference.
Not her. She cares about you. She told you she was going to fall in love with you.

“
No. Jess, I—”

“Please, Alex. Just do it
,” she demanded, almost angrily, her nails biting into his skin again.

He rolled off her, panting as he lay on his back, his erection tenting the sheet.
He didn’t know what was going on, but
fucking
had no place between them. Later maybe, for fun, but not tonight. Not their first time together. 

“No,” he said softly.

“
Why not
?” she sobbed.

He leaned up on one elbow, looking down at her face, which was covered with wetness. She was crying. God, she was crying.

Alex had no idea what to do. The women who came to his bed were there for one thing. They didn’t expect anything of him. They only wanted his body—his tongue, his hands, his lips, his cock. Why was she crying? And what could he say to make her stop?

In the end, he opted for honesty, because he didn’t know what else to do.

“Because I can’t,” he whispered gently, tracing the trail of a tear with his fingertip.

“You
can’t
? That’s what you do! That’s who you are!”

He flinched again, from the anger and pain in her voice, from the frustration, from the way, he sensed, she wanted to h
urt him a little bit too. But instead of raising his hackles or triggering his flight instinct, her fraught words increased his tenderness and eliminated any urge to retreat. And suddenly the pieces all came together, and he knew what this was about: it was about protecting herself. It was about making sex less than the loving act it could and should and would be between them. It was about keeping it physical to keep herself safe. It was exactly what Alex had done his entire life.

Watching her struggle,
his heart surged with love for her, and he palmed her cheek, turning her to face him.

“I can’t,
” he repeated gently, but firmly. “That’s who I
was
.”

Tears poured out of her eyes as she stared back at him.

“That’s what I
used
to do. Before you.”

She sniffled
, taking a deep, ragged breath.

“I’m not going to fuck you, Jess
,” he said, swiping away a tear with his thumb. “When you’re ready, I’m going make love to you. That’s the only way it’s going to happen between us. I can’t do it another way. Not with you. I won’t.”

Her eyes fluttered closed
, and her neck bent forward in surrender as his hand slid back into her hair. He leaned forward, his lips touching down on hers, tentatively, seeking permission or agreement, waiting in that careful, terrifying silence to see if she’d kiss him back or turn him away.

And Jessica Winslow suddenly
stirred to life to take what was hers, pushing him to his back and throwing her leg over his body so that she was straddling him. Her tongue plunged into his mouth and Alex took it, sucking on it as his heart quickened into a gallop.

Her hands landed on his cheeks a
s she drew back from him. Her sadness wasn’t gone, but he’d managed to soothe it. She offered him a small smile, adding, with breathy certainty, “Then make love to me, Alex.”

It was all he needed to hear.

He flipped her over, kneeling between her legs, his blood surging like lava to his groin which flexed and throbbed for her. Reaching for a condom on his bedside table, he opened the foil envelope with his teeth and sheathed himself quickly, then leaned down to kiss her lips. Sliding his hands under her to pull her closer and tilt her pelvis up, he never dropped her eyes as he inched forward, rubbing the tip of his sex into the folds that he had tasted just a few moments earlier.

Her eyes fluttered closed
as she moaned.

“Look at me, Jessica,” he demanded.

Her eyes opened again, deep and dark, her mouth open as shallow breaths made her chest rise and fall with urgency. He shifted slightly, drawing back from her, still holding her at an angle.

“Guide me,” he whispered, because he wanted her as committed as he was. This wasn’t about just taking or just giving. This was about sharing, and he’d have her
with love, or he wouldn’t have her at all.

With Alex still supporting her, s
he sat up on his knees, straddling his waist, reaching between their bodies to wrap her hand around his straining flesh.

“Oh, Alex,” she murmured,
looking at him with surprised eyes, her fingers unable to quite touch as she fisted him.

“It’ll be okay
.”

His breathing was hitched and shallow
, her touch doing things to his heart he’d never experienced before. He’d never moved this slowly, this deliberately with anyone, and it was heightening everything about being with her, building up his desire, increasing his passion.

As she tightened her grip experimentally, he winced, clenching his eyes.

“Look at me, Alex,” she said softly, an echo of his earlier words.

His eyes flew open and his lips tilted up in a smile which made her do the same.

“I told you… you couldn’t handle me,” she said between pants of breath, leaning forward to brush her breasts against his chest as she positioned him at the entrance of her sex. And then—holding his eyes with the boldness he loved so much—she lowered her body down, taking every bit of his length into her waiting heat.

Alex
groaned as he surged up and into her, taking what she offered, giving her all of himself. He swelled bigger as the soft, wet ridges of muscle sucked him forward, trembling around him, her breathless cries making him harder.

“Alex,” she gasped when he was fully lodged inside of her. “
Oh, my God.”

She arched her back
, and he pushed into her again, watching her face as she breathed in sharp, ragged spurts, biting her lip and whimpering sounds of pleasure. Her arms entwined around his neck, and she lifted herself up a little, only to sink down onto him again. He groaned with the sharpest, deepest pleasure he’d ever known, anytime, with anyone.

Leaning forward,
he changed their position, urging her down on her back, hovering over her, resting his weight on his elbows. He drew back and thrust forward again, sliding his hands up her sides until he cupped her precious face, dropping his lips to her mouth. He kissed her gently, reverently, refusing to let himself forget—even for a millisecond—who it was beneath him, who was welcoming his undeserving body into hers, who was redeeming a lifetime of debauchery with this single act of love.

And suddenly her question—
Where do I go now?—
made perfect sense to him, because although their arrangement was temporary, any future that didn’t include Jess was barely worth imagining. A month with her wasn’t enough. A year wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough except maybe… forever.

L
ike a slideshow in his mind, he saw her as a small child, as a young girl, as an older girl leaving for London, who looked into his blue eyes and made him feel special. And suddenly he was watching her turn around and face him in the lobby of her brother’s apartment building, training her smile on him and filling his empty heart. She had raised her eyes to his, searching his face with such tenderness and surprise. Every look she gave him, every time she touched him, every gesture telegraphed her trust… and yes, her love. For him. For Alex English.

“You love me,” he breathed, the words swirling up the from place of light, the place of Jess, in his dark heart. “Don’t you?”

His eyes searched hers, and he saw the answer there before she even spoke the word.

“Yes,” she sobbed, gasping as he thrust into her again.

Her answer
was terrifying, and yet somehow so necessary for his very survival, his eyes shuddered closed for a moment in relief and gratitude. The sweetness of knowing how she felt about him made his impending climax, which bore down, huge and imminent, quicken to the point of no return.

Still deeply lodged within her, he
shifted to align his pelvis perfectly with hers and slowed his pace, rocking into her slowly, pressing against her clit with every deliberate upward stroke. Her neck arched back and he felt the almost immediate tightening around him, the way the walls of her sex flexed, the way her breathing changed from ragged to held, the way her head pressed urgently into the pillow and her hips thrusted softly upward to meet the short, tight movements of his cock massaging her, teasing her to the edge of control.

“Come with me
, Jess. Come now.”

He felt the moment her breath
held, her arms rigid and still, locked around him like iron… and then, and then, and then the sudden intense rush of release. Her fingers raked down his back as she screamed his name, pulsing in wild, arrhythmic waves around him.

S
omething inside of Alex, that kept his emotions protected and carefully in check during sex,
shattered
. His heart burst open with love for her. Fireworks exploded behind his eyes as he growled a guttural version of her name, pumping in violent, convulsive spurts before falling, limp and sated, across her beloved body.

***

Jessie’s eyes opened sometime later to find Alex still slumped against her, his breathing more even than before, exhaling in hot puffs against her damp neck.

Having sex with Alex wasn’t remotely like anything else she’d ever experienced before
. His body was a tool, a masterpiece of pleasure, knowing exactly what to do to pull the maximum pleasure from hers. She had wondered how they would fit together, and Jess had her answer now. They were made for each other, like missing pieces of a puzzle that should never, ever be separated again.

Her eyes burned as she heard his words in her head:
You love me, don’t you?
When she answered that she did, she had been out of her head, immersed in sensation, unable to weigh the timing of her assent. But even now, as she anticipated regret, she didn’t feel it. Did she love Alex? Of course.
Yes
was the only answer she could have given.