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We stepped forward one by one to kiss her goodnight. We were carefree, with no international spotlight blinding us or paparazzi nosing in on our conversation, splattering our private moments all over the gossip rags. There didn’t seem to be any mountain of insurmountable problems waiting for us back home. For once, we were truly free.
The dancing grew dirtier as the music picked up the pace and the hour grew later. A tall man who doubled as a scuba instructor pulled a pair of bongos out of nowhere, and before long, there wasn’t a single person in the clearing who wasn’t leaping toward the stars, losing themselves to the beat.
My hair hung in damp tendrils down my back as James wrapped his hands around my hips and pulled me into his body.
“I love you,” he said with heartfelt emotion.
I cupped his face and stared into his eyes. “I love you too.”
We moved against each other slowly, seductively, lost in our own little paradise as the rest of the world continued on around us. His fingers slipped inside my dress, his forehead bowed to touch mine, and his lips pulled up with a little grin. “Do you want to get out of here?” he whispered.
I didn’t even stop to think. From the second he first pulled me into that dance, my mind had been completely consumed with that same thought, and what I was thinking about all that time was not exactly something we could do in public, paparazzi or not. “Hell yes. Let’s go,” I said.
We were off the next second, winding through the trees hand in hand as the noise from the party faded slowly into the darkness behind us. We tripped, stumbled, and fell, but every crooked footfall was punctuated with a burst of drunken laughter as we made our way gradually away from the compound and into the open wild.
I didn’t care if James had a particular place in mind. I didn’t even care if we had put enough distance between ourselves and the party. Suddenly, I blurted, “C’mere,” unable to wait for even another microsecond.
“What? Here?”
For an answer, I yanked him backward, shoved him up against a tree, and sank to my knees, taking his pants with me. His lips parted in surprise, but before he could protest, I wrapped my hands firmly around the backs of his legs and took him roughly into my mouth. He released a sharp cry and held on to the tree for support as I moved faster and faster, punishing and teasing him with sporadic bites and little flicks of my tongue.
“Fuck,” he panted, closing his eyes and moaning quietly. “Take off your clothes.”
All in good time.
Instead of doing as he commanded, I picked up my pace, releasing his legs so I could grip him with my hands as well. His fingers wound through my hair as his hips jutted gently toward me. The muscles in his stomach tensed, and his head fell back for him to stare at the star-speckled sky, all the velvety black cosmos bearing witness to his rapture.
“Della...” He tried again to move, but I held him firm. “Please!”
My teeth raked across his skin, and he cried out once more, fisting his hands in my hair and pulling me suddenly to my feet. His hand darted beneath my dress with perfect precision and ripped my panties right off, just as he had at the opera. The forest around us blurred into a single shadow as he spun around and smashed me against the same palm tree that so recently held him captive.
My body lifted, my legs wrapped around his waist, and just a moment later, he was ramming roughly into me, loving me rougher than anyone ever had before, yet exquisitely at the same
time. It was almost too much, almost, but I cried out with no restraint as he slammed into me, pinning against that bark with thrusts so fiercely intense that made me lose all control. My eyes snapped shut as he picked up speed, and I buried my face in his neck, half to keep my balance and half to muffle the sound of my ever-loudening moans as he brought me closer and closer to the edge.
“James,” I gasped, holding on to him for dear life, “I can’t—”
A second later, he was right there with me. His legs gave out beneath him, and we tumbled to the forest floor, panting, gasping, and clutching one another as we lay atop the foliage and debris that clung to our sweaty bodies.
It felt like forever before it was finally over, before the shockwaves subsided so I could breathe again. Without thinking, I rolled over on my side and slipped my hand into his. I kissed it once before hitching myself up onto an elbow so I could watch him.
He looked like some sort of tropical god, fucked to within an inch of his life. His eyes were closed, his heart was pounding, and there were shredded bits of purple and pink flowers strewn throughout his dark hair. He felt me watching him and opened his eyes to stare up at the stars, then fixed his gaze on me. “What’s going on inside that pretty head?”
I flushed with a smile, then sobered abruptly. “I’m thinking that I am going to hold you to that promise you made, Mr. Cross,” I said, staring deeply into his eyes. “Consider it an unbreakable contract.” Our fingers laced together, and I squeezed his hand. “Like you said, this is just the beginning for us.”
His eyes softened tenderly as he brushed his lips across my knuckles with a fleeting kiss. “Yes, just the beginning.”
Chapter 21
THE NEXT MORNING, I awoke to the sound of a television. I squinted groggily in the early sunlight before my eyes rested on the back of James’s head. He was standing in front of the TV with the volume low, almost mute, his masculine body blocking most of the screen. I could still detect a British news channel, two economic panelists in some sort of argument about the future of Cross Enterprises.
“Are you sure there’s nothing missing?” I asked.
He turned around in surprise and flipped the TV off as he spun. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Not at all.”
“Charlie left this morning. He said goodbye and you were sleeping. He said it was nice to meet you.”
