All the Pretty Poses
Page 21

I can admit my situation to myself much more easily than what I would’ve imagined. I think the moment I agreed to give Reese a chance, I knew what would happen. In a way, I had to be okay with it before I ever took the first step. I knew then just like I know now that Reese nearly destroyed me once, and that he might do so again, but I’m helpless to stop it. I’ll love him until there’s nothing left. And then long after. It’s inevitable. He’s inevitable.
I turn away from my reflection and walk toward the door. There’s no place to go but forward. I learned a long time ago that I can never go back.
The wind is calm up on deck. The air is dry and warm, and it’s quiet but for the lively conversation drifting through the windows from the dining room. My heels make a soft clack on the deck boards as I head around toward the bow. When I take the final three steps that put me up on the platform, I see Reese leaning against the railing. The sea breeze is ruffling his dark hair and the orange blaze of the setting sun is illuminating half his handsome face, giving his eyes that pale, fathomless sparkle of these tropical waters.
Although he was already motionless, he seems to stop when he sees me, stop breathing even. Much like I have. His eyes roam me from the curls piled intricately atop my head to the red-painted toes peeking out from my dazzling shoes. It gives me time to adjust to seeing him in his finery. He looks more dashing than James Bond in his black suit and crisp white shirt, holding a glass in one hand and a box in the other.
“You take my breath away,” he rumbles when I stop a few inches from him.
My smile feels like it might outshine the sun when I admit, “I was hoping I would, but I forgot all about it when I saw you standing here.”
Like he doesn’t want to break me, Reese straightens and dips his head to brush his lips across mine. Even the light contact incites a zing of excitement, just like it always does. Reese—his presence, his attention, his touch—brings every molecule of my being into pinpoint focus on him. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. And I don’t want it to.
Reese reaches behind me to set his glass on a small, linen-draped table that I only just now noticed before he straightens and opens the box he’s holding.
“For you. Nothing half as beautiful as you are, but I wanted you to have it anyway.”
In the long, rectangular box lays a wide bracelet encrusted with the same jewels as my dress and shoes, although I suspect these might be real. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds and a few diamonds chase each other in row after row of glittering gemstones.
Reese takes it out of the box and winds it around my wrist, securing it before he brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “Thank you for coming with me this summer. I didn’t realize how much I needed you until you came back into my life.”
My heart is slamming against my ribs like head-bangers in a mosh pit. “Thank you for bringing me. I…I…”
Reese’s lips curve into that sexy, lopsided smile that I love. “No need to thank me. I assure you, you are one hundred percent my pleasure.”
Heat flares between us in an instant. It’s hard for me to keep my hands off him as he leads me to the table and pulls out my chair for me. I think he’s feeling the same way if the ravenous look in his eyes is any indication, but he wants this night for some reason. For me? For us? I don’t know, but I’ll go along with anything he wants to do. Anything, anytime anywhere.
Sven is our waiter again. He brings us course after course of the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted. Reese and I enjoy every bite of it, sometimes feeding each other, sometimes laughing about him using his fingers rather than his fork, sometimes just enjoying the amazing view and the even more amazing company. The whole scene is like something from a movie or a fairy tale. I squash down the niggling nugget of dread that has yet to vacate the very pit of my stomach, the one that is braced for the disaster that should come when any situation is this perfect.
After dinner, Reese and I have another glass of wine before he takes me to the showroom and leads me to a small table for two set near the stage. Together we enjoy the entertainment, including two increasingly risqué dances by Amber, followed by a beautiful piano being rolled out onto the stage.
I’m curious as to who plays when I see none other than Brian take a seat behind it. He plays several songs like a classically-trained pianist and it seems everyone appreciates it.
When it’s over, the lights come back on and everyone gets up to leave. Reese doesn’t move to get up, so I keep my seat until he’s ready. He sits in the chair to my left, just watching me, for at least five minutes after the room has completely emptied out. Finally, when the lights dim again, leaving only enough illumination for us to see the piano clearly, Reese stands, offering me his hand. I slide my fingers into his and let him guide me to the three steps that lead onto the stage.
Reese walks to the piano, stops and turns toward me, circling his hands around my waist to lift me onto it. He angles me toward the front as he takes a seat on the bench.
Gracefully, he runs his fingers over the keys, every bit as expertly as Brian had.
“You play?” I ask in surprise.
“I play,” he replies with a smile.
After a few bars, the notes begin to take on those of a song I recognize—Fever. The sensual tune seeps into the air like a drug and, immediately, I’m under the influence. I feel it in a physical way, like a touch, a touch that sizzles along the surface of my skin. Suddenly, the heat of the light is hotter, the black lacquer of the piano cooler. My skin is ultra-sensitive, and every cell of my being is waiting for Reese to reach for me. My body strains toward him, eager for that moment.
But then he starts to sing.
I’ve heard the song performed by a man before, but never has it sounded this good, never has it felt this good. His deep voice is like smooth, rich chocolate. Deliciously mesmerizing. Decadently tantalizing.
I watch Reese as he plays. And he watches me.
During the second verse, he stops playing, instead using his hands to grasp my h*ps and drag me closer to him. He takes off my shoes and sets them aside before gently resting my bare feet on the keys, all the while singing in his low voice. He never takes his eyes off mine as he runs his palms up my calves. When he gets to my knees, he presses against the insides of them, urging me to spread my legs. So I do, anticipation humming through my veins.
My breath is coming in shallow pants as Reese raises my dress with his forearms, stroking his fingers up my thighs. With excruciating slowness, he drags my panties off, brushing them across his mouth before he sets them aside.
When my lower body is bared to him, Reese stands. As he draws closer to me, the words of the song trail off until there’s nothing but silence and the sound of his breath colliding with mine.
When our lips meet, it turns into a slow tango of our tongues that turns my toes into ten tiny flames and my belly into a melting pot of the most all-consuming desire I’ve ever known.
Everything happens in slow motion, as though the song still plays in the background. Reese leans away and stares into my eyes for what seems an eternity before he runs his fingers down my throat and over my chest, pressing gently until I’m lying flat on my back on top of the piano.
I feel every warm breath he exhales as he drags his mouth up the inside of my thigh, using his hands to open my legs wider and wider until I feel the cool air hit the moisture there. With the barest shake of his head, Reese nuzzles me with his lips. The scruff of his stubble scrapes me just barely, robbing me of air and causing my muscles to contract in readiness.
But Reese is only ready to play, not to ease the perpetual ache that resides within me, an ache that burns solely for him. With one fingertip, Reese teases my folds, running it up and down, side to side, all the while swirling his tongue over me with the lightest of touches.
He plays until I feel near screaming, until my level of frustration is near unbearable. But then, as if sensing my threshold, Reese’s touch becomes more insistent, firmer. He licks with purpose. He probes with intent. It’s when he sucks my cl*tinto his mouth and drives his fingers deep inside me that I feel the implosion in my core.
Penetrating me with his fingers, Reese flicks his tongue over me until I feel the gush of heat and wetness pour through me. Then he’s cupping my ass. He’s holding me to his mouth. He’s moving his lips over me like a man starved of this needful nourishment. And when the tide that washes through me settles into a slow lapping, Reese buries his tongue inside me and licks me until there’s nothing left.
When he releases me and reaches for my hands to pull me into a sitting position, he slowly sweeps his tongue through the inside of my mouth.
“You taste like every dream I’ve had since I was nineteen years old,” he says huskily. “I’ve looked for this all over the world and I couldn’t find it anywhere but here.”
Reese licks at my mouth and bites at my lips as he unzips his pants. When he pulls me into his arms, my legs wrap automatically around his waist. I can feel his erection touching my butt as he moves to sit on the piano bench.
“I want to watch your face as you come in the sunshine,” he whispers, teasing me with the head of his shaft. Already, I feel my passion for him returning, I feel the trickle of liquid as my body prepares for what’s to come. “I want to wet my c**k in you by the moonlight.” With every word that comes out of his mouth, my body reacts, clutching desperately at him. “And I want to make love to you at a piano,” he says, raising me up to impale me on his long, broad length.
We both grunt at the same time and then Reese pauses, buried to the balls inside me, and we savor the exquisite fullness of the moment, the feeling of him stretching my body to its maximum.
“There will never be anything but this, but us. You’re mine, Kennedy Moore. All. Mine.”
Like the flip of a switch, Reese becomes urgent, feral. He slams me down on him over and over, pulling my hair, biting my neck. He growls in my ear, telling me again and again that I’m all his, no one else’s.
My orgasm has come and gone again, but Reese is still frantic when he stands. With me still wrapped around him, he leans me into the piano, pounding into me as hard as he can.
“Look at me,” he finally says, his voice a hoarse croak.
I do as he asks, watching that angrily possessive light flicker in his eyes. He groans one word as he comes inside me, mutters it over and over again as he pumps hot liquid into me. “Mine.”
When we’ve both regained our breath, Reese sets me on my feet in front of him and helps me into my panties, straightening my dress before he stands to sweep me into his arms. He gives me the gentlest kiss before carrying me back to my room. That night, he makes love to me time and time again, like he’s trying to memorize me and the way my body feels under his. It’s the most perfect night of my life.
Right up until a woman bursts into my room the next morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Reese
“How could you?” Claire Norton rails when she flings open the door. I don’t have a lot of patience to deal with her when I’m wide awake, much less first thing in the morning.
“Hello, Claire,” I say, rubbing a hand across my face. “You’re looking well.” And she is. With her rich black hair and equally black eyes, she looks like a million bucks, which is probably what she spent to get that way.
“You need to kick your latest floozy out right this minute. We have to talk,” she fumes.
“Claire,” I begin, my temper spiked instantly by her derogatory reference to Kennedy. However, my angry retort is squashed by a small voice.
“Reese, who is this?” Kennedy asks. I turn to find her sitting up in the bed, holding the sheet up to cover her all the way to her chin.
Before I can answer or explain it like it needs to be explained, Claire hisses, “I’m his fiancée, sweetie. Or didn’t he tell you about me?”
Oh shit.
I release a heavy sigh. This is not how I wanted to tell her.
I see the color drain from Kennedy’s face and, with it, any trust I’ve managed to build over the past weeks.
“It’s not what you think,” I assure her, reaching for her hand beneath the covers. She pulls away.
“So she’s not your fiancée?” she asks. I can hear the hopeful note in her voice and it kills me to have to listen to it die. I know what she’ll think.
“It’s a long story. Just…just give me a minute and I’ll explain.”
I fling back the covers and stalk bare-assed to get my pants where they’re folded over the vanity chair, jerking them on angrily. Claire’s timing could not be any worse.
Half dressed, I stomp across the room to grab Claire by the arm and haul her out of Kennedy’s room, closing the door behind me. I release her and yank open the door to my room, waiting for her to come inside before I slam it shut.
“I don’t appreciate that kind of entrance, Claire.”
“Why?” she asks waspishly, her eyes flashing furiously. “Afraid it might ruin your fun?”
I sigh. I don’t have time for this. “What do you want?”
“You promised Daddy no more boats until this deal went through. You promised.”
She has to be referring to Sempre.
“I didn’t have to touch any money promised to your father to purchase it. I agreed to take on an investor. He’s in for forty percent,” I snap.
I see some of her indignation flee. “Oh. Well, Daddy doesn’t know that.”
“Then maybe Daddy should’ve asked before sending his daughter halfway across the world.”
“I was vacationing in Fiji, thank you. I thought we could spend some time together when you got into port. As a surprise. But it seems like that isn’t going to happen.”