Late Call (Volume 1) (20 page)

“He said I couldn’t see the price. Not that I couldn’t hear it.”
Sneaky, underhanded Dayton…

She briskly nods once and swiftly pulls the door closed behind her. I remove the cream dress and hang it back up before turning my attention to the red vision in front of me. I have no idea how to squeeze my ass into it—or even where I’ll wear it. Nope. No idea.

Still, I shimmy and shake until it’s hugging my curves. The zipper at my side slides up easily, and I flick my hair back from my face and look in the mirror.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Every woman has a dress—just like they have a wedding dress—where it’s it. It’s the real shebang. This dress is that for me. It’s my dress. Made for me, almost.

The sales girl knocks before entering the room. Her eyes widen as soon as she looks at me, and she covers her mouth with her hand. She nods repeatedly.

“
Si, si! Bella!
” She clasps her hands in front of her stomach.

“Thank you.” I smooth the material at my hip. “And the price?”

She reels off a number without picking up the tag, and I balk. What? Did I hear that right?

On a dress?

You fucking what?

“Are you kidding me?” I cry at Aaron, storming from the dressing room. “Really? Forty thousand fu—freaking dollars on a dress?”

He turns to face me so slowly that I see his expression transform. His lips part as his gaze runs down my body, eating me alive in the middle of this store. I feel every brush of his eyes across me as if he’s touching me. It’s so real, so intense, so desperately filled with awe, and my body heats despite the incredulous feeling flowing through it.

Those blue eyes filled with heat and amazement and never-ending tenderness find mine. “Bag everything on the ‘yes’ pile, and when Miss Black is changed, add this one too.”

“You are not buying this dress!” I protest as the girls on the floor all nod. They pause at my words.

“Non-negotiable,” he throws back.

“Aaron!”

His eyes harden briefly. “
Non-negotiable.
”

My chest heaves with my sharp breath. He’s not budging. I don’t want to argue, but I don’t want to give in either. This…whatever this is between us is the most infuriating and challenging thing ever.

If you don’t count trying
not
to fall in love with Aaron Stone.

“Fine.” The word leaves me between gritted teeth. “Fine.”

I reenter the dressing room and peel the dress off with more calm than I feel. A lot amicable and a little mad? A whole lot fucking mad is more like it. He just can’t help himself. He just can’t not piss me the hell off.

I stand by idly as he hands over his card without blinking. Forty thousand on a dress? No problem. He may as well have bought me a car for that.

I’d probably be less annoyed at that. At least that would get used regularly.

It’s not like this dress is fit for a run to Whole Foods, for the love of fucking God!

“So much for amicable.” Aaron grabs my hand and swings me into him when we leave the Rectangle of Gold.

“I was perfectly amicable until you pushed it. In fact, I was a fucking delight, complete with icing and a cherry on top.”

“That mouth will get you into trouble one day.”

“I’m lucky I’ve gone this long.”

He leans his face in, and his eyes search mine. “Just make sure it doesn’t get you in trouble with me.”

“What are you going to do? Spank me?”

“Don’t go giving me ideas, Dayton,” he says into my ear, his hot breath crawling across my neck. “The thought of the sound of my hand across your obstinate, tight little ass is far too tempting right now.”

I lick my lips. I didn’t expect him to say that, and my desire agrees. The thought of it is tempting. Very tempting.

“You only get to do that when you fuck me.”

His lips curl against my skin. “Then isn’t a great big fucking shame I plan on making love to you tonight?”

I pull back. “You told me the first time we had sex here would be making love. We already did that.”

“No.” He opens the car door and sits me inside. He slides across the seat and ghosts his fingers along the back of my neck into my hair. “That was because I couldn’t keep my hands off you. Tonight will be because I want you to go to sleep knowing I’ve explored every single inch of your body with my fingers and my tongue. Tonight will be because I want you to go sleep knowing every part of you belongs to me in the most obsessive way possible.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.” I finish on a gasp. His fingers are snaking up the inside of my leg, dangerously close to hitting the apex of my thighs.

“You’re my obsession, Dayton, and I won’t stop until I’m yours. I won’t give up until you belong to me the way I belong to you—wholly.” He traces his tongue along the seam of my lips and his finger along my panties. “I won’t give up until you believe every word of what you said to me this morning.”

“Why?” I whisper. “
Why?
”

His lips curve against mine like I should know the answer. “Anyone who makes me feel the way you do isn’t someone to give up on. She’s the person you chase until forever ends and keep even longer.”

A lump forms in my throat. How do you reply to that? I don’t know. Every coherent thought except ‘I don’t know’ has left my mind, and I press my lips to his.

I don’t need to ask how I make him feel because I know. I see it when he looks at me and when someone says my name, and fuck it all, I see the very same thing when I look in the mirror and think of it.

It’s that goddamn irresistible love we both carry for one another. The only difference is, he’s embracing it where I’m fighting it. He’s accepting it and basking in it and using it to spur him on. But me? I’m pushing back. I’m not giving in because I know how it hurts.

And I can definitively say I would not survive walking away from him a second time.

And we both know that’s what will happen when we touch back down in Seattle in three weeks.

I banish that thought and let him fold me into his arms. “Now what?”

“Now we go for dinner.”

Aaron stares at me across the table. His eyes are calculating yet soft at the same time, and the smirk teasing the corners of his lips is disconcerting.

Sometimes I can read him as easily as my favorite romance novel. Other times it’s like trying to get into a crime story where the only romance is the detective and his job. He guards his thoughts and emotions as easily as he lets me see them. I definitely prefer seeing them.

Especially when he looks at me this way. Stripping me bare with his gaze, tearing down any all resistance to him. Like it’s possible to fight for longer than a few days…if you’re lucky.

I’m not lucky.

“Stop looking at me like that.” I stare into my wine.

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About you. About us.” He takes my hand across the table and threads his fingers through mine. “About how very crazy you drive me.”

“Crazy good or crazy bad?” I raise an eyebrow, bringing my eyes back to his.

“Depends if you’re feeling amicable or not.”

“Kind of.”

“Then right now it’s crazy good.” He pulls my hand up and brushes his lips across my knuckles. “But we know how easily that will change.”

“I think we’re good. As long as you don’t piss me off again.” I shrug.

He laughs and helps me stand. His fingers brush some hair from my face with a gentle touch. “You are the only woman I know who hates having money spent on her.”

I smile. “That’s probably because the women you know are all under the impression they need a man to look after them.”

“And you don’t?” He holds my cardigan as I slip my arms into it.

“I don’t need a man, no.” I glance over my shoulder as we leave the restaurant.

He sweeps me into his arms in one long, elegant movement and tilts my head back with his fingers in my hair. “You need
this
man.”

“Need is a strong word,” I protest into his kiss. “Don’t go and say something that’ll ruin the crazy good, baby.”

His lips curve against mine as he dips me back. I open my mouth to protest but he covers it with his own, his lips taking me prisoner and making me swallow what I was going to say. He kisses me fully without a care for the fact we’re in the middle of the street and there are people around us. Passionate, tender, meaningful movements of his lips against mine make me grab the collar of his shirt and hold on for dear life.

He rights me slowly, sucking on my bottom lip with each peppered kiss against it. I clench my legs together. He knows that’s the sure way to turn me on. It’s like my bottom lip is connected to my core. Suck it, kiss it, graze it with your teeth and instant desire is ignited in me.

“Aaron,” I scold quietly, slightly out of breath. “We’re in the middle of the street!”

He smirks. “Look around you, Bambi. Do you see anyone pissed off?”

He’s right. There’s no eye-rolling or huffing as they move to the side. Just smile upon smile.

“This is Italy. They’re in love with love. I think it’s a requirement to kiss like that at least once every time you visit.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can make it one. It can be our own personal requirement.” He leads us through the streets and I roll my eyes.

“Of all the things you could pick, you pick that.”

“I already chose all the things you’re thinking of. I simply haven’t told you yet.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

He spins me into him. “Like tonight you’re mine, completely and utterly, and you still will be after you’re done screaming my name.”

“The screaming is a requirement?” My breath catches in my throat.

“It doesn’t matter if I require you to scream or not, Dayton. We both know you will anyway.”

“Confidence is a good look on you.”

“I’m a confident guy.” He pulls me in front of him and we walk, his hands on my hips. “So much so, I can guarantee if I dipped my fingers inside you right now you’d be ready and waiting for me.”

“There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, Mr. Stone.”

He breathes hotly into my ear. “I’m only arrogant when it’s the truth.”

I want to squirm my hips and clamp my thighs together, but that would be giving him what he wants—the knowledge that I
am
ready for him.

“Now you’re getting in this boat, and as we travel around the city, you can sit opposite me and wonder about all the ways I’m planning to make your body tremble beneath me tonight.”

I close my eyes as I take a seat. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me. He’s playing my body and my desire in a way that means I can’t stay out of the game. Every step further into my lust brings me closer to loving him, and he knows that. He’s impulsive and playful when he wants to be, but when he wants something, he plans so carefully I have no choice but to go along with it.

He did it in Paris and he’s doing it now. If I believe him, that his love never faded, then I have no doubt that this trip was to make me fall in love again.

And he’s using my body against me. My body, which responds to even the briefest ghost of a touch from him, is the pawn and my heart is the prize.

It works. Because I am sitting across from him, my eyes tracing the sharp line of his jaw and the curve of his gorgeous lips, wondering what he’s thinking. My skin is humming with the many possibilities of what he could do to me. He’s at his most seductive and determined tonight, and I know that whatever it is will take me to another dimension.

The last time we made love, we were young and crazy in love, guided by instinct and the thought that it would be the last time we’d ever see each other.

Now we’re both older, more experienced, and Aaron’s infinitely more skilled.

He leans forward. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m ready to go back to the hotel.”

My lips mirror the curving of his. “You’re impatient, aren’t you?”

“Hey.” I kiss his neck and let my mouth rest by his ear. “When you’re promising in not so many words to sink deep inside me and make me come so hard I see stars, how can I not be?”

“You’re putting words in my mouth, Dayton.” He wraps his hand around my neck and turns his face to mine. “And ideas in my head.”

“Did you not say that? Oops.”

“If you want to see stars, sweetheart, all you have to do is look up.”

I meet his eyes, which are shining brightly in the dark. “They’re beautiful, but I prefer stars of your making.”

He trails his fingers down my cheek. “Then it’s a shame you can’t see what I see every time I look into your eyes.”

I kiss his fingers, and the words slip out. “I can,” I whisper. “I see the same thing in yours.”

Our lips linger together.

“
Mi scusi, signore? Si può fermare la barca, per favore?
” Aaron taps the guy controlling the boat on the shoulder. His eyes widen and they exchange a few sentences in fluent Italian before the boat stops.

Aaron gets out and lifts me onto the sidewalk, setting me down gently in front of him. “
Grazie,
” he says to the guy without taking his eyes from mine.

The car that took us into the Rectangle earlier today pulls up next to us, and I raise an eyebrow. The smirking man in front of me just winks and motions for me to get in.

“What did you say to him?”

He pulls the divider closed and hits me with a heated gaze. “I asked him if he would stop the boat. He asked me why—we still had half an hour left—and I told him I had a beautiful, irresistible woman waiting for me to take her back to our hotel and make love to her.”

My lips part. “Aaron! You didn’t!”

“We’re off the boat, aren’t we?”

“I can’t believe you—”

He silences me for a second time with his kiss. His large hands wrap around my waist and slide me across the seat to him, and he lifts me onto his lap. My head spins at the dizzying sensation of his tongue searching my mouth, his fingers probing my thighs, and his thumbs massaging circles up the insides of them.

Everything pools downwards, warming in my lower belly and settling into a desperate ache in my pussy. My hips rock against him and his erection rubs against me. I whimper into his mouth.

“As much as I’d love to pull my cock out and have you fuck me in this car, that’s not what we’re doing tonight.” My hips move again and he holds them down, away from his. “Easy, Day. When I’ve laid you out in front of me and rediscovered every part of your body with my mouth and made you come, then you can fuck me.”

“Holding you to that,” I mumble, climbing off him as we arrive at the hotel.

Aaron clasps my hand and guides me into the hotel with long, purposeful strides, and the concierge waves for his attention.

“
Signore
Stone!
Signore
Accorsi call for you.”

His efforts are dismissed with a waved hand. “He can wait. His call is not important tonight.” And he sweeps me into the elevator behind him before the concierge can say another word.

Tension and anticipation rocket between us. He doesn’t look at me, and the only part of our bodies that’s touching is our hands hanging between us. I take a deep breath and see the twitch of his lips from the corner of my eye.

I want to spin into him. Grab his collar and pull those damn smirking lips to mine and kiss the cockiness out of him. I want to rip off the shirt and run my fingers over his stomach to his pants then slide my hands inside and touch him.

The suite door slams with a deafening sound, and Aaron finally meets my eyes.

“Bedroom,” he demands in a husky voice. I throw my purse on the sofa and walk into the bedroom with him right behind me. “Stop.”

He clasps the top of my zipper and slides it down my back, and his fingertips brush my skin as they travel down. I shudder and exhale loudly and simultaneously, anticipation coiling in my stomach as he touches the bow on my underwear.

“I still prefer red,” he rasps into my neck, sliding my dress over my shoulders. His hands never leave me as they guide the dress down my body, gliding over my waist and hips and legs. He reaches around me and unclips my bra, pulling it off with the same gentleness he did with the dress. “Lie on the bed.”

I do as he says, my breathing increasing in speed and intensity, and prop myself up on my elbows when he bends in front of me. He kisses down my leg to my ankle and slides my shoe off before doing the same to the other side.

“
Sei così fottutamente bello che fa male.
” He takes my mouth softly with his and slowly guides me up the bed. When my head is on the pillows, he guides his hands along my arms to my wrists and holds them against the headboard above my head.

My body responds to him instantly, easily. The desire that’s been building all day consumes me, and the heady feeling makes me lose myself in the sweet stroke of his tongue across mine.

“
Così bella,
” he murmurs, his teeth grazing my bottom lip. He sits up and I move to sink my fingers in his hair, but I’m trapped.

He’s tied my wrists to the bed. With his tie.

“I told you… Tonight is mine. I can’t explore you and pleasure you the way I want unless you’re not touching me.”

I want to argue and fight with him, but the lust that fills his eyes as his gaze travels across my nearly naked body stops me. Instead of annoyance, red-hot desire wraps around me and I give in to him.

My heart pounds at the slow, reverent way he kisses his way down my neck and across my collarbone. Everything about the way he’s touching me is sending me into overdrive and making me push my body into him.

I don’t care if I can’t touch him or if he wants to take this slow.

I need him now.

His name falls from my lips as he leaves my breasts and kisses a pattern down my stomach. He slows down when he’s hovering above my panty line, and instead of continuing his descent, he kisses from hip to hip. His hands, flat on my stomach, prevent me from pushing myself into him.

“As long as you’re doing that, I’m not going further.”

The threat is real and I immediately still. He chuckles and brushes his nose across the lace covering me.

“I love the way you smell,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the top of my thigh. He peels the material down my legs and throws it to the side. “Bend your legs.”

I meet his gaze when he covers my knees with his hands and pushes my legs open. I watch as he drags his eyes from mine to my lips, over my breasts, and settles them on my exposed center.

He inhales sharply and leans down again, his arms circling my thighs and holding my legs apart.

“Please, Aaron.” I drop my head back, eyes closed, at the excited tensing of my muscles.

“And I love the way you taste. You taste fucking perfect.” He touches his tongue to me and explores slowly, leaving no part of my core undiscovered by him.

He licks and he tastes and he sucks, each glide and sweep lifting me higher and higher. I pull at the blue tie holding my wrists captive but it doesn’t work. I can’t move them, and I can’t push my hips into him the way I want to.

He has me here, still, completely at his mercy. I have no control, no power. All I have is pleasure and heat and—

An intense orgasm that has me writhing on the sheets, desperate to grab on to something, and a tongue working me feverishly through it. Then he’s gone and I’m aching for his touch all over again.