Gypsy Love: A Gypsy Beach Novel (7 page)

“Hey, I’m sorry I keep going back to this. Honestly, the only thing I seem capable of thinking about is kissing you. I’m trying to distract myself with work so you can at least finish your meal.” His confession was riddled with need and buffered shame. The combination was intoxicating.

“I think I’d really like the kissing thing, but if you want to talk about work, it’s okay.” The fevered heat settled in her pale cheeks once again.

Another sly grin accompanied his devastatingly sexy wink. “Don’t worry, baby doll. I plan to get to the kissing soon enough. I don’t have that much restraint. I was just wondering if you have any letters, emails, anything from your dad praising your work. That’s all it will take to debunk your aunt’s claim that you’re doing something he wouldn’t approve of.”

“Oh,” Arley willed her brain to re-engage. Her mind had offered her a very sexy scene, only this time she was the heroine and John was most certainly the hero. She shook herself slightly. “Uh, yes, I do. He helped me with my first few manuscripts before I sent them to publishers. We exchanged lots of emails about my work, and he always said how proud he was of me.” The haunting loss tripped and entangled itself in the memories. She drew a restorative sip of the most fantastic glass of wine she’d ever had, trying to get a grip on her mind and her body. Undeniable lust fought for dominance over the loss, and the possible answer to every issue she’d dealt with lately was sitting across the table from her, admitting that he wanted to kiss her.

She’d never talked with any guy that was so completely honest, as if he really didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. His freedom seemed to spring open the door to the cage that she’d been desperately trying to loose for the last decade of her life.

“Eat, sweetheart. I swear I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m not trying to rush you, but patience is definitely not my virtue.” His urgency continued to stir her body and ignite her blood. The fire in his eyes grew exponentially as he watched her slip the tongs of her fork out of her mouth obediently.

His command was met with a mischievous grin as she complied. The blood flow in his body had been slowly directing itself from his brain to his cock all evening. He’d offered up about as much law talk as he could muster. Those lips, pinked from the warmth of her pasta, and the timid light that sparkled in her eyes were just too damned distracting.
Slow down, Rowan! Geez! She’s been through hell and had her heart not only broken but trampled on by some motherfucking douchebag that didn’t deserve to even hold her coat.
His mutinous eyes tracked back to her mouth. She licked a little of the cream sauce from the bite she’d just taken off of her lower lip, and he fought not to groan aloud.

“You’re not rushing me. I wanted to kiss you this morning while we were talking on the beach, but I didn’t want you to think I was …”

“Hey, Arley, to me, you’re an extremely talented author. What could possibly be more difficult that capturing the emotions of human beings falling in love? Every thought I have about you is good. You’re a brilliant and beautiful woman that I’m extremely lucky to be having dinner with. Me wanting to kiss you has nothing to do with what you write and everything to do with wanting to get to know you better, the real you, the person you don’t let many people see. Are you really starting to believe that people that write Erotica are somehow sluts? Have you been told that so many times now that you believe it?”

The way he stripped away the nonsense of her life in one fell swoop left Arley short of words and breath. “No.” She shook her head and tried to slow her racing heart. “I think I just started to think that everyone thought that.”

“Well, not everyone does. I don’t think that at all.”

Yeah, you don’t, and yet somehow I know you’re not going to stick around either.
That reminder paralyzed just a little of her lust. Reminding herself that she was determined to see where this ended up, she rushed through the rest of her dinner anxious to see what might be coming after those kisses he kept promising her.

He apologized again for rushing her and then seemed to force himself to slow down, much to her chagrin. They walked hand in hand down the long pier out towards the water. The wind whipped her hair around her face and bombarded her senses with his intoxicating smell. Fresh cut grass, coffee, his cologne, and a musk that was all John filled her lungs. She inhaled deeply. Lost in thought, she was startled when he halted her progress down the wooden planks. There was a large walled and roofed structure near the end of the pier. The slight covering kept the wind at bay. Arley wasn’t certain what the purpose of the half-building was unless it was for unloading the fishing boats out of the sun, but a moment later John turned her and caged her body between himself and the wall.

Her breaths sped as he locked those gorgeous blue eyes on hers in the moonlight. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I suck at being patient.” His right hand traced her cheek and then cupped the nape of her neck as he drew her in. He brushed his lips over hers in a hesitant caress, as if he weren’t certain she wanted this. She parted her mouth in answer to his unspoken question as her eyes closed in expectant satisfaction.

A hungry, guttural groan echoed against the rush of the waves crashing into the shoreline. He turned his head, and their lips worked simultaneously. He dipped his tongue into her mouth. A quick, gasped sound of desperate pleasure escaped her. His body pressed closer, crowding her. Without thought, she ran her hands over his pecs and the up to his neck. All she knew in that moment was she needed more of him. She pulled him closer still.

His kiss devastated her every sense. It somehow burned away the shame she’d been living for so long it had left her feeling unworthy of anything so astoundingly good. Her body trembled against his, and he wrapped his arms around her, never breaking from her lips. He steadied her against him, holding her close enough to feel his cock prod against her abdomen. The hardened manliness of him mixed itself in heady juxtaposition with his tender care and the safety he offered her without end. Unable to help herself, she rocked against him.

Another moan thundered from his chest as he allowed her breath by tracking his kisses down her neck. His teeth grazed just above her collarbone, and she fought not to beg to be carried back to the Inn, taken to his bed, to complete the overwhelming sensations he brought her. Everything about that nip said he certainly knew a thing or two about how to pleasure a woman, and something about the way he held her in his powerful embrace said that he wasn’t asking for anything from her other than for her to be who she really was.

“Oh, God, please,” she finally whimpered in his ear. “Please.”

He lifted his head to stare in to her eyes. His jaw worked rhythmically. A storm of voracious need swirled in his eyes just before they closed and he tried to regain his breath. He turned his head and then tucked her face to his neck, caressing her hair and her body in equal measure. He seemed to regain his composure and then whispered, “Not tonight, baby doll. I need you to be sure, Arley, and you’ve been through a lot of shit lately. When I take you to bed, I plan to be there for hours worshipping your entire body head to toe. I plan to make you feel things you’ve never felt before. I’m not a man of half-measures, Arley. Once I get started, I need you to know that I’m who you want to let in like that. I don’t want you to have any doubts, sweetheart. We just met, and as bad as I want to know every single thing about your sexy little body, I’m willing to wait until you’re absolutely certain.”

Rejection took another vicious blow at her psyche. She’d been damming back tears for years now, but he’d just devastated all of her resolve. Her temper flared, and she tried to jerk away from him, but he held her with ease. “No, ma’am, but that’s precisely what I’m talking about. I don’t do jerking away from me once I have you. If I haven’t made you trust me enough to keep you from trying to escape then we have a long way to go before I take you to my bed.” He pressed his hips towards hers again. “I know you feel how hard I’m hung. That’s all you, baby doll. This has nothing to do with a lack of desire to own you thoroughly, but like I said, you need a little more time before we jump into bed. You’ve been through enough. You don’t even trust yourself anymore. I want you to trust me completely before we take this further.”

She’d never appreciated being told what she wanted or what she needed, but his voice rang with truth. He wasn’t lying to her. She could always tell when people lied. Charlotte’s constant lies about her books swam in the confusion that roiled in Arley’s gut. The falsifications that Charlotte was proud of her were somehow worse than her mother’s shame. At least her mother was being honest. Maybe she did need a little more time. Maybe he was right. She had been through a lot of shit lately, but the dominance that exuded from him and the fact that he knew precisely what he wanted made her longing to be with him grow exponentially with every ragged beat of her battered heart.

“I thought you sucked at patience.” She huffed and tried to will away the embarrassment of all but begging him to take her to bed and being summarily turned down.

“God, Arley, you have no idea how hard this is for me. I want you bad, baby, but I’m not taking you to bed until I know that it’s really what you want, too. Would it help you to know that I’m gonna be thinking about you in bed tonight, and I’m sure as hell not going to be sleeping?”

Another flush of heat worked its way up from her chest and settled in her cheeks. She was somehow giggling again. How had he just turned her down and then made her laugh by being so thoroughly honest? How was anyone this real?

“So, kissing is okay, but sex is off the table?” She sighed over his rules.

Chuckling he touched their foreheads together. “Truthfully, no. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that just yet, but I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you. All I’d been able to think about was how good your lips were going to taste. I’m sure as hell not a fucking saint. I’m just trying to do right by you.”

Relationships never lasted. It was ridiculous to think that they ever would. He saw evidence of their demise each and every day. He wanted to make certain that when they parted she never felt like he’d taken anything more from her than she was willing to give. It had to be equal so that when the lust dried up and their lives were easier apart than together they could walk away and still be friends. That was the only way relationships ever worked. She was beautiful, funny, brilliant, one hell of a conversationalist, but at some point, inevitably, life would get in the way. It always did.

“We have two weeks here, sweetheart, and if that goes as well as I think it’s going to go, I definitely do not mind weekending in Birmingham or keeping you tucked up in my condo so I can indulge myself in you endlessly, but let’s make sure that’s what you want, too.”

She gave him a sexy smirk and rolled those beautiful eyes. “Well, since you already broke your own stupid rules, can I have another kiss?”

“Stupid, huh?” He leaned in and took her lips with decadent greed. He drew her tongue into his mouth and sucked away her ability to argue with him. He robbed her of breath and all rational thought completely. His teeth nipped her bottom lip before he proceeded to suck away the shiver of desire that accompanied the heady sensation. His hands rasped down the sides of her breasts. Her nipples throbbed in agony against the lace of her bra. He felt the tightened beads of her press against his thin shirt. “So fucking tempting, baby. You’re going to be my undoing. I want to strip you down and suck those sweet nips until they feel better. I want to know what you taste like, but tonight, please, I just need to know that I didn’t push anything on you.”

She tried to protest. She didn’t need him to be a gentleman, but his worry over her wasn’t something she’d felt in so long her body drank in his care, just like she yearned for more of his devastating kisses.

At some point they managed to break free of the haze of lust that had consumed them on the pier. He wrapped his right arm over her and led her back to his car.

He refused to come into her room under the pretense that she was far too tempting. Arley highly doubted that, and she hated not understanding where he stood. Did he really think she was attractive? His straining erection while they’d made out did seem to be proof that he did.
So, I had to meet the most perfect guy in the world, and his mother turned him into a gentleman.

She told herself to stop complaining. What woman didn’t want that? He’d even talked about extending their whirlwind relationship beyond the next two weeks, but she was far more interested in that worshipping her body head to toe thing he’d mentioned. Frustration and the slight sting of rejection that continued to haunt her chaffed at the raw. Why did men get to call all of the shots anyway? Who did he think he was?

Without much thought beyond her own irritation, she sank down at the desk right beside the door and turned on her laptop. Miraculously, her fingers began to move. The beginnings of what might be a tapestry of words flowed out of her sexual frustration. A character, a new heroine with pluck, and grit, and bravado, took shape in her mind. Who cares if she ever published again? No one could stop her from writing for her. This book could go any way she wanted it to go. No editors, no publishers—she could do whatever she wanted. This was, after all, her book.

Terror that he somehow hadn’t really made Arley understand how badly he wanted to fuck her pitched and tossed in his gut. What if he’d just made her feel more rejection? He paced in his room and stared at the door with constant debate about flying back across that hall and showing her just how badly he wanted her.