My cock is throbbing, heart beat dancing to Dubstep, yet somehow I’m balancing two bright yellow drinks and my sanity. In fact, I’ve never felt more sure of anything and I can’t pinpoint why. Maybe because when I met Leah I was a kid, barely out of high school. Back then I was modeling, thought looks were everything, until she and Will changed my mind over time.
I grew into a man who started his own charity and used his looks only to get people to listen to a message worth hearing, one that could help the future for everyone. My confidence I found through that — not through something as transitory as appearances. I was insecure as a model, used arrogance to cover it, because everything depended on my exterior which would change no matter what I did, as time raced on.
But my interior changed, too, of my own discipline and volition. That kind of change I wanted, and it made my appearance no longer important to me. Making money off it felt hollow. Loving a wife and son, helping people through my charity, speaking at colleges and conventions to spread the word — these things made a man of me.
Then grief smacked me down.
I didn’t know if I wanted to try.
Ever.
It wasn’t Tempest who brought me out of the darkness.
I resisted her until it was gone.
It wasn’t even Will, I’m sorry to say, because his need for me to get better made the pressure to, more great.
It was friends who reminded me who I really am, the man I’d become and was starting to walk away from.
It was Bennett’s persistence. His blunt refusal to let me drown. His call for Nax’s help.
It was Nax’s return to New York City, his non-judgmental guidance back into the light. His jokes. His ability to listen.
And finally, it was Christina’s need for help that reminded me of my purpose.
Hers was the final rope thrown, and I grabbed it, pulled myself out of depression’s quicksand once and for all.
So now I’m here.
A man in his own skin.
Wanting to touch a woman’s.
Wanting to travel with not just through the southern coast of Italy, but through life.
Tempest opens her door in an oversized T-shirt and nothing else, eyes cutting to the offered cocktails and back to me. “What’s this?”
I smirk, walking in, “Did you really think I’d choose to spend the night without you?”
Chapter 27
“Hold these.” Tempest takes the glasses from me, molten brown eyes searching mine before I kiss her, finding her lips soft, giving, tasting of mint toothpaste and relief.
I gently kick the door closed. Don’t want to slam it in a place like this, too much respect on too many levels.
Kissing us up against a wall, our bodies smash together as Tempest holds the cocktails away from us like liquid handcuffs. She gasps free. “I’m still having difficulty believing this is real.”
“Great,” I nod, stepping away. “Let’s talk.”
She blinks like one seeing an accident they wish they could stop but don’t know how. “No.”
I smirk, “That’s what I thought,” and pin her to the wall, cocktails sloshing over her fingers as she lifts her beauty, lips parted, eyes half-closed. We melt together, fabric disappearing as if we’ve taken it off, skin radiating with need. I trail kisses down her neck, bite it and suck as often as the mood hits, enjoying her taste, her shivers of pleasure.
Working my way up, I growl in the shell of her ear, “This feels real to me. How about you?”
She moans, writhes, and suddenly brings one of the glasses to her lips, taking a sip, quick to reassure me, “I don’t need to get drunk for this or anything. It…feels like it’s a hundred degrees all of a sudden. I’m parched!”
“Feed it to me.” I open my lips and Tempest pours the tart local delicacy into my mouth, suddenly crashing hers into mine as I swallow. I grin, touch her tongue with mine, matching lemon flavors, minus the mint for me.
Our kiss is hypnotic.
All encompassing.
My cock is rock hard, joggers doing nothing to hide it. Tempest rises on her tiptoes and presses the mound that protects her pussy against my erection, moaning into my mouth as I make a meal of her. Our bodies are moving on their own. Following the pleasure, and it’s in everything we touch, smell, taste. A primal ache consumes me and all I want is to unlock everything she is and bury myself inside of her.
Breaking the bond, panting, I jog my chin to the glass. She pours more into my mouth, pouring onto my lips, takes a generous sip for herself, our eyes locked as we swallow. With slippery sweetness we kiss, my groin a burning tide of urgency. “I need you.” I kiss my way down her neck until I relieve her of her handcuffs and plant them on a dresser as old as the one in my room, but not the same, this one lighter brown. Chestnut. I memorize it, all of it, because this night means everything to me now.
I crook my finger, voice deep. “Come here.”
She steps forward with a breathless, “Yes.”
I hold her sultry stare as I suck clean the spilt liquor, first one hand, each finger at a time, then the other. “Your nails match the drink.”
She smiles, “I hadn’t realized that.”
“I thought you always color-matched them.”
Tempest laughs the laugh of a woman who is seen. “Guess I was psychic because I had no idea you were coming tonight with those.”
“Lucky psychic.”
Our gazes drop to her bare legs, pussy concealed under the oversized shirt. Is she wearing panties? I need to see for myself.
“This what you’re sleeping in?”
“I was.”
“Take it off. I’ll watch.”
Eyelashes flutter, vulnerable brown eyes staring at me
