“I wouldn’t think so,” he conceded, and Vivienne swallowed as he drew closer still, so fucking hard for her. “Being around you always gets my temperature up.”
“That’s close enough,” she warned, flattening her palm against his chest, and the burn of skin on skin almost sent him to his knees.
His heart thudded hard on the other side of his ribcage. “Not by half.”
“Why?” She breathed the question and it rippled along his skin, raising goose bumps. Her fingers flexed against his skin. “Even after everything we’ve been through, why is it like this?”
Her elbow relaxed a fraction of an inch and he leaned into the concession.
“Because I still know your body. I know what you like. What you need.”
Her laugh held a note of desperation. “God, you’re so full of yourself.”
“That’s not bragging. It’s fact. I spent two years learning you. Studying you. Logging every catch of your breath, every clench of your muscles. I know what makes you shiver. I know what makes you wet.” He lowered his voice. “I know you’re wet for me right now.”
Her exhalation was a familiar breathy sigh that slid down his spine and wrapped around his balls. She’d made that sound before, in bed with him. Wes clenched his fists against the urge to touch her, to take too much too fast. Desire beat thick and heavy in his veins.
“And that’s after a six-year hiatus from you. Imagine how it could have been if I wasn’t so rusty.”
Viv shook her head against his words, against the persuasive heat pulsing between them, but her arm lost all rigidity, and her fingers slid down his sternum in an inadvertent caress that set his skin ablaze.
“This isn’t real.”
“Fuck real.”
His blunt rejoinder widened her eyes.
“You know what’s real? Two billion-dollar tech firms are out for my blood.” Anger got tangled up in the lust. “I’m out on bail, and one spectacle of a trial is all that stands between me and prison for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I have no money, no clothes, and no job. Not to mention, my reputation is in shreds.”
He was desperate for her, even if it couldn’t last.
“Maybe I’m not looking for real. And I know you didn’t come out here for a drink.”
Fuck real.
Vivienne let the sentiment quiet the inner turmoil that was raging in her gut.
She’d let herself be blackmailed and, as a result, an innocent man had gone to prison.
She’d quit her dream job in a desperate attempt to clear his name.
The odds of any of it working out were miniscule at best, and nonexistent at worst.
But right now, he wanted her. And she wanted him.
Tonight, that could be enough.
After everything, they deserved the illusion. Just for a moment, they could forget the rest. Pretend they were who they used to be.
And she might get there, if she disregarded the beard, dismissed the hardened glint in his blue eyes. If she ignored the million things that had gone wrong between them and the years that had intervened since.
She spread her fingers over his heart, his skin hot beneath her palm, his heartbeat strong and steady. His body shuddered when she stepped closer, lifted her chin.
“Viv.” He breathed the words against her lips a split second before his fingers slid into her hair, and the edge of pain as he tugged her head back made her gasp even as he claimed her mouth in a scorching kiss that sent pleasure surging through her. She clutched his shoulders, desperate to get closer.
His other hand fisted her T-shirt in the small of her back, lifting the hem and baring her thighs. Wes opened his mouth over hers again, kissing her, consuming her, as he walked her backward until the curve of her ass bumped up against the edge of the tabletop.
The chill of the marble was a shock against the heat of her skin, and her pelvis jerked in surprise. Wes growled as their hips collided, and the sound, combined with the brief, electric contact with his erection, had her all keyed up.
God, she’d forgotten how much she loved sex.
She gave him her prettiest pout, looking up from beneath her lashes. “It’s cold.”
His tiger smile revved her estrogen, and her belly clenched with a pulse of heat.
“Let’s get you warmed up then.”
He slid the T-shirt up her torso, and Vivienne bit back a moan. He hadn’t been wrong about her breasts. They were tight with need, her nipples hard and sensitive from the drag of the cotton as she lifted her arms so he could pull it over her head.
Her fingers toyed with the elastic waistband of his underwear as she pressed herself against him, flattening her breasts against his chest, burying her face in his shoulder so she could breathe in his skin. The scent of him was so familiar it made her ache, but she ignored the moment of weakness, bit his shoulder as she slid her hands inside his boxer briefs and palmed his ass.
Wes’s reaction was instantaneous, and there was a flurry of motion as he slipped her underwear down her thighs before stripping off his own. Then he was kissing her, lifting her onto the table, stepping between her legs.
It took a second for her to realize that she was sitting on his T-shirt, that he’d covered the cool marble surface before lifting her onto the table, and that funny little ache reared up again, trying to make this more than it was.
But Wes saved her from herself, sliding clever fingers through the slick heat of her, making her buck against his hand. She was drenched for him, and the rasp of his breath let her know that he’d noticed. That he was pleased. That he was on the edge.
And just like that, the slow glide of his fingers wasn’t enough anymore.
“No more teasing,” she ordered, reaching for his cock, taking him in her hand. Vivienne traced her thumb along the prominent vein that ran the length of his
