It’s all the warning I get. In the next instant, my feet leave the ground and I’m suddenly tossed over his shoulder in a caveman hold and he carries back out to the waiting bed.
26
JARED
Eventually, I did have to let Melanie escape from my bed and take her home for the evening.
My hunger for her has hardly abated by the next day as I wait in the lobby of the university building to pick her up after her morning class. I’m earlier than I’d planned, having spent the first part of the morning at the house, meeting with Alyssa about her court documents and all the other things the teenage mother-to-be will need to consider when it comes to mapping out a future for her and her child.
Not that I’m anyone who should be offering advice on life. My own has been fucked up for so long, I’m not even sure I know what a normal, happy future would look like. All I know is, right now, I want my days and nights filled with a certain fiery-haired, stubborn beauty who makes me feel more alive than I have at any other time in my whole existence.
My chest constricts at the sight of Melanie walking into the lobby from her class. She’s dressed in white jeans and sandals and an off-the-shoulder top, her hair tumbling loose in a coppery cascade down her back. She looks fresh and innocent, but everything male in me flares hot when I think about all the deliciously dirty ways we enjoyed each other less than twenty-four hours ago.
A small group of classmates surround her as they approach the lobby exit, all of them chatting and laughing over something one of them said. While the other young women are attractive enough, I only have eyes for the beauty at the center of the small gaggle. As her friends break off to go their separate ways, Melanie spots me and her entire face lights up with a bright smile.
Christ, she’s gorgeous.
The power of all that joy aimed at me is almost too much to bear. Still, I greedily soak it up, reveling in the way this woman can make me feel like a fucking god just by looking at me.
The bigger miracle is that she can make me feel that way in spite of the reality that I’m nothing if not physically, pathetically, human. She’s seen the weakness I’ve hidden from nearly everyone close to me, yet it hasn’t seemed to dim how she views me.
The affection in her eyes wraps around me like silk bonds, a connection I haven’t truly earned. Guilt over that fact still claws at me after everything we shared yesterday. It was selfish and cowardly to keep the truth from her in the beginning. All the worse to keep it from her yesterday, too. But no matter how I tried to frame the explanation she needs to hear, the words stayed jammed in my throat.
Even though I know delaying the inevitable will only make things worse, there is a part of me that would like nothing more than to put the entire matter of Daniel Hathaway behind me and forget I ever heard his name.
Melanie’s smile only grows as she nears me. “You’re early.”
“You’re beautiful.” I cup her nape and drag her to me for a kiss I’ve been waiting hours to claim. “Ready to go?”
She gazes up at me with her lip caught between her teeth. “More than ready.”
I take the book-laden tote off her shoulder and lead her out to my waiting car. When I open the Aston Martin’s passenger door for her, she peers into the backseat at the bags of fresh produce and meats I picked up on the way, then shoots me a quizzical look. “What’s all this?”
“Lunch.”
I drive us to a private airport nearby, where the small plane I’ve chartered is already fueled up with the pilot waiting for us. She doesn’t hide her surprise, nor her relief that we’ll be making the flight to my Hamptons house in something other than a helicopter.
“You didn’t do this for me, did you?”
“I did.” I kiss her again, groaning at the way my body throbs to be inside her. “Traveling by plane also shaves ten minutes off the flight, and that’s ten extra minutes I’d rather have to spend naked with you today.”
She laughs. “I can get on board with that plan.”
“Good.” I pass her a bag containing a couple loaves of warm French bread and vegetables for salads. “You take this one. I’ll grab the rest.”
An hour later, I’m flipping burgers on the big deck of the house in Sagaponack while Melanie’s got a feast set up for us on the table overlooking the beach and ocean. She carries out a big bowl of salad from the kitchen, then pours a couple of sparkling waters over ice and brings one to me at the grill.
Her kiss lands light and tender on my jaw. “This is amazing. Thank you for bringing me here again today.”
“Consider it a do-over.” Trading the bubbly water for the sexy woman standing beside me, I encircle Melanie in my arms. “I wanted to make this right.”
“It already is.” She sets her glass on the edge of the deck railing and gazes up at me, her eyes reaching inside me the way no one has ever done before. “I mean, come on. Sand, salty summer breeze off the water, a private lunch being served up by the hot, handsome man who made me come so many times yesterday I lost count? What more could I possibly want?”
I grunt, unable to curb my grin. “Just wait until you see what I’ve got in mind for dessert.”
She tips her head back and laughs, giving me a welcome excuse to run my mouth along the pretty curve of her throat. She sighs as I skim my lips and tongue down to the small hollow, a
