Bad Boy of Wall Street: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (21 page)

He chuckled for a moment, deep and amused. "I bet you weren't expecting the story to be quite so thrilling and dangerous, were you?"

"Not in the slightest," I admitted, shaking my head.

Leaning over towards me, Rob put his arm around me, and I felt another question welling up inside of me. "And then, you put your arm around me, just like that," I said softly, thinking back. Had it really just been a couple of weeks ago? It felt like it had been an eternity ago, in a whole other life.

"And you leaned in towards me," Rob said softly, as I did so again. "You turned and looked up at me-"

"-and then we ended up tumbling back onto the sand, because you weren't expecting me," I finished for him.

This time, we didn't tumble backwards. Instead, Rob slowly sank back, letting me come to lay on top of him, his warmth separating me from the cold sand beneath his back. He gazed up at my face, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

"Like this?" he asked, as his arms wrapped around me.

I nodded, feeling my breath coming shorter again - but this time, it wasn't out of fear or panic. "Just like this. And then we almost did something else-"

I didn't even get to finish the sentence before Rob slipped his hand around the back of my neck and guided my lips down to meet his.

For just a moment, I held out against the kiss, but I felt myself immediately melting into his embrace, his lips on mine seeming to drain away all of the stuffed-up fear and panic that had sat in my chest like an iron weight on my lungs. I put my arms around him, little grains of sand sliding through my fingers as I held him.

"I know why you came back," Rob whispered to me as the kiss ended, although he still held me close. "And that's okay. I knew that you would, somehow. I never doubted it."

"Rob, I-" I started, once again feeling frustration start to grow, but he kissed me again, briefly, just long enough to silence me.

"You don't need to say anything," he murmured. "Just stay here with me. We've still got a few more days together."

I kissed him back, feeling his body respond under me, arching up to press in against me. I met him, pushing back down, my legs sliding apart so that I could straddle him. His hand slid up my back, feeling where the strap of my bra formed a little ridge across the regular little bumps of my spine.

"What happens after those days are up?" I asked, still trying to fight against what my body wanted.

He just smiled up at me. "Then, we can decide on whatever we want to do next. Together, maybe, if you want."

I sensed him leaving it open, offering the choice up to me. For just an instant, I smiled down at him, almost laughing - the Bad Boy of Wall Street, this hard man, was offering himself up to me! Now, he was putting himself directly in a position of vulnerability, letting me make the choice.

I didn't need to stop and think about what I wanted. For once in my life, all the voices in my head were in agreement.

Take him.

I leaned in once again, pushing him down into the sand beneath his back as our bodies came together. This time, when our lips met, I pushed down so that his parted, letting me get the slightest little taste of him.

Rob immediately responded, one of his hands tightening around the back of my neck as he held me down against him. His other hand slid up from where it rested against my hip, and I felt the stir of cool night air across my bare skin as he pushed up my shirt. His hand slid up along my back until it found that little ridge of my bra strap - but that mountain ridge put up only an instant's resistance before his nimble fingers parted it, and I felt a sudden loosening of straps on my shoulders.

"Naughty," I whispered down to him, trying - and failing - to keep the aroused delight out of my voice.

"What else do you expect from the Bad Boy of Wall Street?" he whispered back, and I saw the sparkle in his eyes. His voice was husky, and I could feel his body aching beneath me.

More of our clothes fell away, ending up half-buried in the sand around us as we stripped away at each other. Cute little kisses turned into something more intense, more powerful, as we scrabbled at each other's clothes and pulled them away from skin that was suddenly too hot and flushed to be contained. Soon, we lay on the cool sand with nothing separating us but an inch of air, as I knelt above him and looked down at the shadows of his muscles, his tall and broad figure, his strength and arousal for me.

Rob slowly ran a finger along me, stroking down from my neckline to trace a circle with his thumb around one of my nipples, and I nearly passed out on top of him with pleasure. "Don't tease me like that," I warned him, trying to fight my smile.

"Or what?" he responded, challenging me with raised eyebrows. "You'll stop me?"

"I'll fight back," I answered, reaching down to run my own fingers into some very naughty and taboo areas. I felt the man's whole body stiffen as I wrapped my hand around his hard thickness, hard and warm against my palm.

I slowly guided him to my entrance - but paused, just letting him rub back and forth, not letting him enter. I grinned at Rob as he grunted with the effort of resisting, and then finally reached out for me when he realized that I was teasing him.

"Come here," he growled, and he pulled me down, taking me.

Oh god. It really had been far too long, and I wasn't prepared for this. At first, for a moment, I felt pain lancing out through me, sharp and splintering and piercing. I cried out a little, a soft wordless cry that I buried in his neck as I bent forward against him.

But Rob moved gently against me, rocking in time with me as his hands slid over me, so warm, moving across my breasts, my bare skin, over my back and running down my spine to leave little tingles behind in their wake. Soon, the pain drifted away, instead replaced with pleasure, breathless and building, growing ever closer to that plunging release that I both wanted to arrive and wanted to delay for as long as possible.

I kissed Rob again, seeking to distract myself with his body, with how he moved so assuredly against me. I couldn't deny it, however, couldn't hold it off for more than a few moments.

"Oh god, yes," I groaned into his ear as he sat up, pulling me against him, letting gravity rock my hips back and forth as he slid in and out of me, just inches above the cool sand. "God, Rob, I'm going to-"

"Do it," he whispered to me, commanding as he took me, and I couldn't fight it any longer.

I shattered with pleasure, the entire world going white as I clung to the one man who still existed, who filled me and marked me as his own and for whom I'd come back and risked death and dismemberment, just to save him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

*

"Wow," I breathed out, as I gazed up at the stars overhead. There wasn't a single cloud in the night sky, and out here, away from the lights of the city, I could pick out innumerable numbers of twinkling stars far above me.

"That about sums it up," Rob murmured next to me, his arm tightening a little around my shoulders as he pulled me in close. By the time that he finally groaned and let himself release, hitting his own orgasm and giving up control, I was practically senseless, definitely speechless, from what he'd already managed to do to me.

For a long time afterward, he'd just held me in his arms, both of us silent as we waited for our breathing to return to normal, looking into each other's eyes, exploring the lines and curves of each other's bodies.

I shivered, as much from the cold creeping into my muscles through my skin as from the sky above us. "We should probably go back, shouldn't we?"

He shrugged; I felt the muscles of his shoulders moving against my own bare skin. "If we go back, the moment ends," he said simply.

I'd been thinking along the same lines, although I couldn't have put it so clearly, so plainly. A part of me wanted to stay here forever, ignore the cold and hope that this moment could remain frozen and perfect. But I knew that it couldn't happen.

Finally, the cold won out over my temptation to snuggle up close to Rob and never move again. With a groan, I hauled myself up, reaching out and feeling around on the sand around us to locate my scattered clothes.

After a minute, Rob got up and joined me in the hunt. We found a couple items belonging to the other person, but managed to get most of the right clothes back on the right bodies after a couple minutes of fumbling around in the dark.

I gratefully accepted his hand as we headed back to the house. We slipped in through the kitchen door in the back of the little cottage, doing our best to keep quiet in case Diana was still awake. We didn't see any lights on in the house, however, so I guessed that she had gone to sleep already.

I started to head off to my bed, upstairs, but Rob held onto my hand, tugging me back. "Not up there," he whispered gently to me, moving towards his bedroom, off the main hallway on the first floor. "In here."

I thought of protesting - I felt worn out and exhausted, a little sweaty from the trek back to the house, and I had sand in my hair, as well as in several other areas that I really didn't want to mention to him. But Rob smiled at me, gently tugging at my hand, and all of my protests faded away into nothing but background noise.

I followed him into his room.

This time, undressing wasn't a sexy, hungry, needy act. I cast plenty of glances over at Rob's body, of course, and I felt his eyes lingering on me - but they were looks of softer, less hungry attraction. I wasn't focusing just on his muscles any longer, but on how he looked strong, able to protect me, confident and sure of himself.

We crawled into bed together. I thought for sure that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep, that I'd be up for hours thinking about everything that had happened to me today - but I was wrong. As soon as my head hit the pillow and my eyes closed in the darkness, I was out like a light.

I woke up the next morning and stretched out my arms, frowning when they bumped against something. Frowning a little, I turned to look over at this lump next to me, sitting on my bed and taking up half of my space.

"Morning," Rob murmured to me without opening his eyes, reaching over to drape one arm across me.

Oh yeah, that's right. I turned to look at him, and had to smile. Even just waking up, his hair mussy from the pillow and a little bit of stubble showing on his unshaven face, the man still looked amazing, like he belonged in a movie. I reached out and ran my fingers across his slightly rough cheek, just to confirm that he was real.

Rob opened his eyes at my touch, those deep blue irises focusing on me as he smiled. Had I really thought that they looked icy and cold when we first met? Now, although they were still light blue, they seemed full of warmth, like gazing into the calm shallows of the tropical ocean.

"Good morning," I replied, turning in the tangled sheets so that I faced him. His hand was draped over my shoulders and he tightened his grip, pulling me in closer against him. I wiggled my way in through the sheets against him, only remembering as our bodies came together that we'd both stripped off our dirty, sandy clothing last night before crawling into the bed.

Clearly, Rob took notice of that fact, as his grin broadened when I pressed up against him. "Well, now it is definitely a good morning." He leaned in for a kiss, and gods above, the man didn't even have morning breath. How the hell did he manage that?

"I should probably brush my teeth," I began, but Rob's arms closed around me and he pulled me to him.

"That can wait a few minutes."

"Just a few minutes?"

His lips paused as they kissed a trail down the line of my neck, headed for more intimate areas. "Perhaps twenty."

"Ooh, twenty. Ahh, yeah, focus on that part."

He nipped at me, sucking my skin into his lips before releasing it, making me draw in my breath sharply. "There are lots of parts that demand my attention."

"Over the next twenty minutes."

"Maybe thirty."

In fact, nearly forty-five minutes passed before we finally struggled out of bed, both of us flushed and gasping, the sheets left in a hopelessly sweat-soaked twist behind us. Rob gallantly let me use the bathroom first, and I risked taking a look at myself in the mirror.

Good lord, I thought to myself as I examined my reflection. Strands of brown hair sticking out in all directions, making me look like I'd just been touching one of those Tesla coils charged with all the static electricity. I didn't have any makeup on my cheeks, and the little bit of mascara that clung to my eyelids was smeared hopelessly, and my cheeks were flushed and pink as I sucked in deep breaths of air-

I looked alive, I thought with surprise. And even more than that; I felt alive, more alive than I'd felt in weeks, maybe months.

It was probably just the aftermath of all the danger-induced adrenaline from yesterday, I tried to tell myself. I definitely wasn't grinning like an idiot because of all the feelings rushing through me, swirling out of me and surrounding the man who still lay on top of the sweat-soaked bedsheets in the room outside.

I did my best to brush my hair back, only barely managing to make myself appear slightly presentable, and then headed back out to the bedroom.