Lost in You (26 page)

‘Who else would lure you up here?’ He laughed, stepped out from behind the door. ‘I just wanted somewhere that no one else was. Just for a minute.’

I stepped inside. He took my hand, turned it over so that it was palm-up in his. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. The feel of his lips pressed to my skin turned me inside out. My body rippled with sadness and lust and need. I sighed.

‘You left this morning,’ I said. It was all I could think to say. I was stuck on it in my head. That moment when he’d turned away from me and left.

But not before he knew the dream had left you …

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

He pulled me very gently and I moved forward a step. Just a single step was all it took for me to be close enough for him to wrap his arms around me. He held me close and pressed his face into my hair, inhaling the scent of me. His body up against mine had me struggling to breathe. I felt his heartbeat, fast but steady, against my chest.

‘You deserved better than that. Me showing up there like that. Leaving you notes like a teenager. Passing out on your rug. Writing in lipstick on your mirror.’

‘Actually, it was cover-up,’ I said, laughing.

He kissed my forehead. I shut my eyes and willed him to stop being so stubborn and kiss my mouth.

‘Whatever, the very act of writing on your mirror means they should revoke my testicles.’

I looked up and gaped at him and then full-out snorted with laughter. I couldn’t help it. ‘Isn’t that a bit unfair?’ I asked. I put my arms around him. Felt him tense for a second, then relax.

‘No. It isn’t.’

‘We need to talk,’ I said.

‘You already broke up with me,’ he said. ‘I refuse to be scared by that statement.’

‘Why did you leave?’ I asked again.

I lied. I already love you …

He reared back to look at me and surprised me by sighing. He pushed his fingers into my hair, stroked my scalp, then held my head in his hands and kissed me softly. ‘Like I said, you deserve better than that, Clover.’

I didn’t let myself analyse it. I slid my hands down his back, stroked the soft leather of his belt and ran my hands back up the taut muscles of his shoulders. When he kissed me again, I kissed him back. My whole body rejoicing to be back in his arms. My mind supplied the selfie of him and Natalie, I pushed it away. We’d deal with that. I had told him to leave. I had run him off. We’d deal with that …

‘Explain.’

He touched my shoulders, ran his hands down my arms. He slid a finger into the waistband of my skirt and fire lit up my skin where he stroked. ‘That’s the kind of thing I’d have done when I was younger. Get drunk, make a giant embarrassing display.’ He laughed. ‘Then pass out and leave the emotional debris behind. That’s the kind of thing my father would have been disappointed in,’ he whispered.

‘I think you worry too much about your father,’ I said.

‘Maybe, but on this topic I’m right. You are worth so much more than that.’

‘So much more than what?’ I said again. I wanted to know what was going on in that head of his. I wanted to understand.

‘Better than that crap. It was the kind of stuff he hated about me. It was the stuff he frowned upon. Why he judged me.’ His face had taken on a tight and unyielding expression. Tension bunched his jaw. ‘Dorian didn’t get what Dorian wanted so he threw a tantrum. I know you think I’m selfish,’ he started. Then he shook his head, his eyes shining for a second like he might cry. ‘I
am
selfish.’

‘I don’t think that at all,’ I said. And I meant it.

He cupped my ass, kissed my neck. ‘Sorry, I can’t stop touching you now that you’re here. No matter how terribly I’ve behaved.’

I let him, didn’t even think to stop him. I wanted to feel his touch too badly at this point. Wanted the sensation of his hands on me. His fingers, his body, his mouth. ‘I don’t think you’ve behaved terribly. I’m not your father.’

‘Thank God …’ He chuckled. Then he popped the button of my skirt and pulled down the zipper. His dark eyes found me in the low light of the file room. ‘I apologise,’ he said, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Unless you stop me, I have to.’

He dropped small kisses along the length of my throat and I tossed my head back, baring my neck to him. Too lost in the feel of him to question his intentions – or mine. He began to unbutton my blouse and my nipples grew tight and sensitive in response. I had a brief fantasy of him sucking one into his mouth through the thin cotton of my shirt and the silk of my bra. Instead, he parted the unbuttoned sections and pushed down my bra cup. His mouth surrounded that tender flesh and my pussy grew wetter than it already was. My body was so eager for his that it robbed my mind of all of the words I might have said. I was reduced to sounds.

Dorian gripped my waist tighter, sucked my nipple more firmly, then captured it in his teeth. He made a noise deep in his throat that sent a shivering line of goose bumps from the nape of my neck up over my scalp.

‘The pictures …’ I said, holding his head as he pulled my shirt open and licked me from breast to navel. My belly muscles rippled and when he again hooked his fingertips into my waistband and tights and started to pull them down, excitement lit me up on the inside. Dorian sank to his knees and my mind threatened to go blank.

‘What picture?’ He dragged his teeth over my hipbones.

‘The selfies in the newspaper. The regular one and the …’ I forced myself to say it. ‘The
kissing
one. Credit was for –’ I gasped. He tongued my bare mound. I hadn’t worn panties because of wearing tights and a skirt. Both of which were now down around the middle of my thighs.

Dorian leaned back and studied me. Grunted. He parted my labia with his thumbs and blew softly over the tender, wet flesh he’d exposed. ‘Those stupid fucking pictures in the newspaper,’ he said, sounding thoroughly distracted.

‘Yes,’ I said, meaning yes to both the pictures and what he was doing. In my mind I was willing him – hard enough to make the spot between my eyes ache – to put his mouth on me.

‘She took them. We’d been told we were going home early. It’s the only reason I looked happy. I guess that predatory …
woman
saw her chance and took it. She knew I wasn’t there with her like that, but she took the pictures and sent them to the newspaper. I guess it was her chance to drive a knife into my side since I didn’t want to be there with her. If you’re wondering, Clover … I never touched her.’

He put his mouth over my mound. His tongue slithered between my outer lips and found my clit. A joyous burst of pleasure leaped inside me, but I grabbed the side of his head and stilled him.

I remembered the kiss. ‘But she was kissing you.’

‘Yes, she kissed me. She caught me off guard. I guess they printed it because it was cheap news.’ He laughed. ‘But I never touched her,’ he said again.

‘Then why were you there with her?’

He stopped licking and tilted his head back to look at me. ‘The truth?’

‘The truth,’ I said, stroking his hard stubbled chin.

‘I was hurt. I was lost. I thought running off to this thing would help. That putting distance between us could help me get my head on straight. You know, I had wanted to take you and I thought … I thought maybe if I went back to the way things were before you I’d be able to forget us. Since you clearly weren’t going to bend.’

I drew in a shivery sigh and watched him war with himself.

‘And I have to admit it, Clover. Part of me, for a brief moment, figured: fuck it. You didn’t want me, maybe I should go and be with someone who did. To shake you out of my system.’

‘Did it work?’ I asked, my throat tight. I had set it off. I felt that if he said yes I couldn’t cry about it.

‘Does it look like it worked?’ he asked. He grinned at me and my knees almost buckled. I loved him. I loved him and I couldn’t hide from that any more.

‘No.’

‘And Clover?’ His mouth had returned to me, his big strong hands curling possessively around my hips.

‘Yes?’ I gasped. Then laughing: ‘Yes, yes!’

He chuckled. ‘You’re not leaving this room until you come for me.’

‘Oh,’ I said and then my words turned to a low hum as he suckled at my clitoris. Spreading my own wetness around my pussy, adding his own.

He raised his head, shoved me back and I stumbled a little, laughing, crying out. My back hit a huge shelving unit and I clutched the irregular edges of paper files. I pressed my ass against the uneven surface. Dorian pushed his face back between my legs and my heart nearly stopped. His tongue was tentative at first, snaking out to find me. He licked at me softly and then, growing bolder, lapped at me in earnest. His big hands gripped my thighs. It wasn’t until he held me that way that I realised again how very large he was. How much bigger than me he truly was.

The smell of dust and paper filled my head like the finest perfume. I struggled for air but not from dust, from the desire to drop to the ground and drag his big body down on top of me.

He didn’t let me go, though. He grew more eager the more he ate me out. He grunted and I laughed softly. I stopped laughing when he speared my drenched slit with the tip of his hot tongue. He fucked me like that for a minute and gripped my upper thighs so tight I felt certain I’d wear his fingerprints for days.

That thought alone almost had me coming. Instead I shivered in that silver zone. Like twilight sleep. Not quite coming, but not losing the spectacular sensations.

My body pulsed with pleasure.

Dorian shoved me harder against the shelves and I gasped. Those manila folders bit at my ass and I flexed my hips to drive myself forward against his willing mouth.

‘You taste so good,’ he said, pausing to lick my inner thighs.

Feet on the marble steps. Barely audible but somehow we both heard it.

‘Guys?’ Marilyn coming to find me.

I tried to pull back but Dorian held me tight, his nearly painful grip making my insides flex tight.

‘No.’ He whispered it against my hipbone. ‘You don’t get let go until you come for me. So if that means she finds me with my tongue buried in your pussy, so be it.’

‘Guys?’ She was getting closer.

I tried to remember if I’d locked the door. Or if it automatically locked behind me in this area of the Rotunda.

He shoved a finger into me and my mind went utterly blank. He curled it to my G spot and I said his name. It escaped me on one fast breath. He sucked me hard and shoved another finger into me.

He covered my pussy with his mouth, the heat of him invading me. I felt him draw on me and the all-encompassing pressure made my knees weak. ‘Just imagine what they’d think, Clover. Just imagine. If they found us this way.’

I gasped as he licked me with his broad flat tongue.

‘Just think –’

When he nudged me with his tongue I came undone. I shoved the heel of my hand in my mouth so Marilyn wouldn’t hear me come.

I stuck my head out of the door of the suite just as Marilyn was fumbling for her list of security codes to enter.

‘Hey, there. What’s up?’

She blinked. ‘Oh! Clover, I was getting worried because Ed showed up and then I saw Mario and I wondered who –’ She really studied me, then I watched her cheeks flush. ‘I just wanted to make sure everything was … um …’

‘Everything is fine,’ I said. ‘There’s a … crack!’ I said as if I’d just won a game show. ‘There’s a crack in the ceiling that Dor– Mr Martin wanted to show me so I can see if we need to attend to it …’ She was smiling. ‘To the crack,’ I finished weakly.

‘Well, after you attend to that crack we have a minor emergency.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The painting for the dedication room is too wide to get through the archway.’

‘What?’

‘It’s about two feet longer than the dimensions given to us. Mario and the boys have it propped in the foyer to be taken in when we figure it out.’

‘I, um … OK. I’ll be down in just a few minutes.’

Marilyn outright laughed at me. ‘Yeah, OK. You deal with that crack. I’ll tell Ed and Mario you’ll be down shortly.’

I hurried back to Dorian. I had a head full of kissing and fucking. A chance to catch up on the time that had slipped away from us. It had taken a myriad things – seeing him with Natalie, and the date with Matt, and Dorian’s own drunken message of affection – for me to unclench my soul and admit my feelings.

He was standing, fully dressed, hip propped against a filing cabinet.

‘Hi,’ I said, my heart suddenly lodged in my throat.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘I … that was Marilyn. Minor emergency,’ I said. ‘It can wait.’

I reached for him. To touch his face or his broad shoulders or his chest. Anything, really. Any place I could touch him would make me happy and soothe the ache that had been steadily growing in me for what felt like ever.

He smirked at me. ‘You tell the boss this? It can wait?’ He was teasing me.

I reached for him again and he caught my wrist, turned my hand over and placed a kiss on my palm. ‘I need to talk to you.’

My heart dropped. It must have showed on my face because he swept some hair off my brow and kissed my palm again.

‘This isn’t a movie, Clover. I can’t convince you why you should choose me. I can’t do some great unveiling of my character that you haven’t seen. It’s not up to me to sway you. I can only be who I am – the man you’ve seen, spent time with – and tell you I love you. It’s up to you to choose me. If you want. I hope you do.’

I was confused and it also must have showed. He framed my face and kissed me tenderly. His mouth was soft and warm and tasted of me. I sucked his tongue gently when he thrust it past my lips. His hands held me close, cradling me at the waist for a too short moment. Then he pulled back.

‘But –’

Dorian shook his head. ‘I don’t want you to decide right now. I want you to think. I want you to … know. For certain. Because if I can’t have you all the way, I guess we have nothing left to talk about. I can’t have just half your heart. Not you. With you I want the whole thing.’

‘I –’