Once Upon a Rose (24 page)

“I didn’t make that one,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably. And even though he had her locked up by his looming body against a doorway and she was liking it, even from that position of intensely sexual power, even after all that evening with her, he still felt a little stupid and vulnerable to lift the rose he had picked on their walk to her door. And he still…he still wanted to brave the risk and see what she did with that vulnerability. “I made this one.” His voice came out rough again.

“Oh.” Her soft sound of pleasure rushed through his veins as she reached for it.

He held it away from her, and then pressed his knee into the door beside her so he could still angle his body in close to hers and keep her his as he used both hands to strip it carefully of all its thorns.

“You’re so
sweet
,” she said wonderingly, reaching for it again.

No, he wasn’t, damn it. He wasn’t sweet. It made him feel stripped naked in front of a crowd, bare as this poor little rose without its thorns, every time she said something like that.

Only…there was no crowd here. And he really, really wouldn’t mind if she reached for the buttons of his shirt and started genuinely stripping him naked.

Oh, no. The whole thought of the morning after, when he’d
wake up
naked, was scary, but right this second…he wouldn’t mind at all.

He pulled the rose away from her reaching fingers, watching her expression flicker in confusion and then this kind of trusting question, like she never for a second suspected him of messing with
her.

She was so damn cute. He touched the rose to her cheek and then trailed the petals down to those rosebud lips.

Which parted, on a little gasp. He smiled, playing the rose over them.

Her eyes drifted closed and her head sank back against the door. Power and pleasure rushed through him.
There you go. Yield yourself to me.

He stroked the rose down over her chin and then oh-so-gently and thoroughly over her exposed throat. Her breathing started to shatter into this short, fluttery thing, and his own breath grew deep and hot, his body trying to drive him forward. All that need to kiss her, bite her, thrust his hips up against her—he braced one arm over her in the doorway to hold it back. All his strength, his muscles clenching in their fight against each other as he kept that rose easy…so easy…trailing now into the hollow of her throat…down to her neckline.

It dipped so low, that neckline. Wickedly low.

“What does that feel like?” he whispered, as he toyed with the rose deep against her cleavage. “I’ll never be able to feel it myself.”

Never know what that silk-sweet rose felt like drawing over the breasts that her bra lifted and pressed together. Even if someone ever stroked a rose over his chest, which he couldn’t even imagine, his skin was tougher. It had hair to protect it from outside invasion. Her skin, just there, soft, its sun-rich color fading where it rarely saw the sun, was so fine
.

Her voice was hushed and fractured. “It feels good.”

“Tell me,” he insisted, playing the rose all along the dipping neckline.

“Oh.” The sound she made shot hungry power through him, made him want to bite and devour. “It’s so soft. It makes me feel as if I’m
beautiful.
”

“You’re gorgeous,” he said honestly. Absolutely irresistible, there against her door amid his fields of roses, all curly hair and vulnerability and utter yielding. He hardened his arm still more, keeping himself back.

She gave a tiny laugh of denial.

He bent his head to her ear. “Unzip your dress.”

She shivered. “Oh, God, if you growl like that…”

“Unzip it,” he growled.

Her eyes closed again, and she turned her head against the door. Her teeth played with her lips, nervous and sensual.

His own rose playing over her breasts hypnotized him. He loved the sight of it. But he wanted to do it more, do it everywhere. He wanted to skip straight past roses and just use his work-roughened hands.
No. Stick with the rose. She’ll like it better.
“I’ll take good care of you, Bouclettes
,
” he murmured. “I promise. Don’t be nervous.”
I’m nervous. I don’t know why, but I’m terrified.

Her eyes caught on his, searching, almost wondering. Slowly, she arched her back to allow her hands room to lower the zipper.

Shit
, the hunger that pressed through him at that position, at that act. Nerves were forgotten. His hand hurt against the stone around her door, ground into his palm. “Now lower it.”

She bit her lip harder, her breasts rising and falling fast.

“Shrug your shoulders, Bouclettes
.
” His growl grew more insistent. “Let it fall.”

She was panting now. But she still hesitated.

He tucked his jaw into the side of her throat, where it would rub when he growled in her ear. “I want to brush this over your nipples, through your bra, until you’re clawing at me. Do it, Layla.”

She gasped, arching her throat still more to him, and then let the dress slide down her shoulders. Already too big for her, it fell easily when she quit holding it up.

He stared down at that revealed body. Those breasts in black lace that she had just revealed
for
him, to him. Not confident that this would bring him to his knees. Vulnerable and shy, her eyes opening again fast to search his face, to see what he would think or do.

Merde
, he wanted to kiss her breasts so bad. The need throbbed in him, throbbed in his lips, made his tongue curl against his teeth. He turned his head and nipped at her shoulder suddenly, under the cruel pressure to let some of that need out.

She made a soft, hungry sound.

He slipped one hand down to pull up the fallen skirt and cover the juncture of her thighs because if he didn’t cover it with something, his damn dick was more than ready to drive against it.

A hot dampness was seeping through her panties. He rubbed that dampness, and she made another little whimpering sound.

Her hips pressed into his hand, her body arching, her breasts lifting to beg for him. Some of those corkscrew curls had fallen over her forehead, catching against her lower lip. The angle of her head, a little away and down, her lips parted, made her face look so vulnerable, so
his.

He brought that rose to one of those begging breasts and twirled it against the lace over her nipple.

All she could do was make little sounds. Her hands lifted to his shoulders, flexing and sliding, pulling at him and then growing weak again, as if he stole all her strength.

“Invite me in,” he breathed.

Her eyes flickered open, and then her head ducked. She tucked herself up suddenly against him, burying her face in his chest, and nodded.

Hell, yes.
Everything in him surged—that she was shy about this, that she tucked that shyness against him for safe-keeping, and that
she said yes.

“If you had your key tucked between your breasts, the turnabout from what you did to me for my key would be so much fun.” He squeezed her body into his, harder than he meant to.

“It’s too big,” she murmured, muffled, into his chest. “It’s in my purse.”

He stroked his hands over her butt anyway, en route to her little purse, found the big iron key easily, and opened her door.

She looked up at him as its solidity left her back, all that space opening behind her into a whole new adventure, a whole new place to get lost and fall without the backing of everything that was familiar. Her expression was nervous and hungry.

He picked her up.
I’ve got you. Shh. Don’t worry.

God, the light, gorgeous weight of her body in his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

Oh, her, too? She’d said that before. But why should she be scared? She was the one who had all the power here.

His arms tightened around her, lifting her more snugly against his chest. Strength expanded all through him at her need for it, deep from his center all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, this deep, sure strength. “Don’t be,” he said and carried her into the house. “I’ve got you.”

He was too sexy. It made a woman’s whole body want to explode with hunger and eagerness and this scrambling fear at how sexy he was. As if a whole cliff was giving out from under her, and she was going over. What was happening to her?

But he was so damn sexy. The muscles under her cheek, the strength of his arms, the careful, sure way he angled her on the stairs so she didn’t bump into a wall. Even through the borrowed tux, Layla could still swear she caught a hint of roses, or maybe it was the lemony, rich scent of the one he still carried in one hand, stem pressed against her skin. Her dress fell down around her waist, so that she was half-debauched already as he carried her, exposed except for those strong arms holding her tight.

He laid her on the bed and paused a second. She followed his gaze to the old jar she’d found in a cupboard and used to hold the rose he’d given her the day before, which sat on the heavy old stand by the side of her bed. “You took care of it.” His voice came out even rougher than usual, and he cleared his throat.

She took the fresh rose from his hand and slid it into the makeshift vase beside the first one.

“Hell,” he muttered and turned back to her. He gazed down at her a long moment, and then ran his hands down her body in a rush of warmth and calluses, slipping away the dress that was tangling her legs. He stepped away long enough to open her shutters, letting in the light of the full moon. A little laugh escaped him as he came down over her on the bed, having to work to find space for himself. “I’d forgotten how little the bed up here was.” He bent that black head to her in the moonlit darkness, with that low, sexy rumble. “We’ll have to see if you fit better in mine.”

Oh, God, they were going to do this
twice
? She still hadn’t survived
once.
She felt as if her skin was going to split with the itchy hunger to be petted and squeezed by hands rough with passion.

“Take off your jacket.” She pushed at it. She wanted to feel those muscles, holding his weight off her.

“I kind of like it like this.” He slid his clad thigh up between her bare ones.

She shook her head, crossing her arms over her breasts. “I don’t want to be all exposed while you’re dressed.”
I’m always like that. I’m always the one with her heart stripped naked and held up for the crowd that sits on the grass, watching and judging and totally safe.
She pushed at his jacket again. “Take it off.”

“You take it off,” he ordered, this low roughness that made her want to twist and arch with hunger. “You do it, Bouclettes
.
”

Funny, given how laughing and confident she had felt about threatening to help with his T-shirt out there in public, how shy and clumsy she felt now, to take off his jacket. “No, you.” She pressed her hands inside it against his chest. “Please?”

Braced close over her, he lifted a hand to her cheek, his thumb stroking as he searched her face. “All right.”

He kissed her once and then knelt back to strip the jacket off, watching her all the time as he worked the cufflinks, as he draped it over the post at the end of the bed. He was going to drive her out of her mind with how hot he was. How could any woman take this?

What the hell had happened to his previous girlfriends, had they just exploded? Their atoms dissipated out to the ether in one great glorious burst of arousal?

He came back over her, lifting her hand to the top button of his shirt. “You do this part.” His eyes held hers. “Please?” He gave that
please
back to her as if it was the first time it had ever been formed in his mouth.

So she did it, because no matter how clumsy and exposed it made her feel, she had to get that damn shirt out of her way. And she was definitely clumsy, fighting with those slippery silk-covered buttons. The panels parted slowly to reveal—oh, wow, wow, wow—too much strength and heat and flat hard stomach up so close to her now, where her fingers could touch it.

“I think I’m in over my head,” she whispered, her fingers itching, hovering over those muscles as if instinct kept insisting that so much heat, when touched, could really burn.

“I’ve got you,” he said again, and pressed her hand to his skin. A jerk ran through his body. “I’ve got you, Bouclettes
.
”

“
God
, you’re hot.” Her fingers spread over those hard muscles, pressing across the ripples of them.

“It’s you.” He covered one breast with that big hand, its heat crossing instantly through the fine lace of her bra.

It wasn’t, though. Her looks were ordinary, she knew that very well. People loved her for her music, and he had never heard her sing. His attraction to her was so confusing and so sweet—as if there was more to her that mattered than whether or not she could perform.

Her hands slid around to that smooth, strong back, and she shivered again at the privilege of touching it. “It’s definitely you.”

He shook his head a little, thumb hooking in under her bra cup, rubbing. “Allow me to be the judge of how hot you are, okay? I don’t think you have any clue.”

She arched up into the rub of his thumb involuntarily. “Are you going to take it off?” she whispered.

He bent his head to rub his jaw gently against her cheek until his lips were close to her ear. His thigh slid up between hers, pressing them apart. “I liked when you took off your dress for me,” he said, rough and low. His hips replaced his thigh, surging, his erection hard against her panties. “I liked that a lot.”

This close, in this intimate and dark a space, the vibrations in his voice were utterly irresistible. She wanted to capture that voice, turn it into a fur coat she could wrap around her body against any chill. She arched again, her hands sliding under her back to the catch of her bra. “I think you could get me to do anything you want when you use that voice.”

“Yeah?” His eyes were fixed on her breasts, as her bra cups started to loosen. “I’ll keep that in mind.
Merde
, Bouclettes, you’re so…you’re…you…”