AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His kiss was warm butter on toast, so sweet and delicious, that she had no choice but to succumb to it. Her fingers were pushing, impatient and needy, at his shirt, ripping it from his body. She didn’t care when the buttons popped off and flew across the room. She simply wanted, no, needed, to see his naked form once more.
“You should have told me who you are.”
She closed her eyes. He was right. Or was he? Would he have wanted her? She couldn’t have said. “You should have known.”
Her accusation pressed something inside of him; a button that set off a wave of guilt. He should have known. He did know, on some level, surely. Her familiarity had been obvious, and yet he’d tried to ignore that tug of knowledge.
She pushed at his chest before he could respond, so that they tumbled to the floor, landing on the shagpile rug. She was on top of him, pulling at his belt, and pushing his pants down. This time, she remembered protection, slipping it on him before straddling him, to take him back inside her moist, desperate core.
She exclaimed; a wave of euphoric possession escaped her lips. She moaned, as he shifted his weight, moving further and deeper inside. How she needed this. How she needed him.
Needed him? It was ridiculous. Other than sexually, she needed nothing from him, or any other man.
Pleasure built up, like a wave. It radiated through her with fierce, undeniable intensity.
And Gael knew how to answer it. Every question her body posed, he met and obliterated. She ached afterwards, with satiated desire and shock. Shock that he, Gael Vivas, could be the one man who’d ever sent her body into this kind of tailspin.
She collapsed onto the rug beside him, her breathing ragged, her mind heavy with the fog of confusion.
Gael stared down at her. He had an incredibly tense gaze. A way of looking at her as though he could unravel all her secrets if he cared to. “You are so different, Carrie.”
Her expression shuttered, her blue eyes were closed to him. She was different. She was better. She was sophisticated and beautiful, and people listened when she talked, now. “I know,” her smile was sharp. “It’s been a long time since we last saw each other.”
“It is not the passing of time that’s changed you,” he denied instantly. “Yes, you were a teenager then, and now you’re a woman. A young woman,” he amended with a frown. The age gap between them was the same. The gulf in their life experience was still great. A yawning expanse of knowledge and understanding. What would she be? Twenty three. And he had just marked his thirty fifth birthday. “It’s more than that.”
She pushed up on her elbow, meeting his gaze at his level. “What is it?” She pushed, forcing him to say what was on his mind.
“You’re … just different.” His frown deepened.
She was. Different in every way. She hadn’t just lost weight and changed her hair. She’d changed her heart and soul. No more stupid Jane Austen. No more roses. No more singing with the birds. She was a successful businesswoman, not a weak-minded desperado waiting to be rescued by Prince Charming. She stood gracefully, and walked naked towards the stairs. At the bottom, she turned towards him, her blue eyes showing her hurt despite the fact she no longer wanted to feel that kind of emotional pain. “And you’re exactly the same.”
Gael followed. He was off kilter. Something about her threw him way off balance. It was an unfamiliar experience for him. “Am I?” He asked, just behind her. God, she was gorgeous. Walking upstairs behind her would fuel his fantasies for the next decade. She stopped at the top, forcing him to pause two steps lower.
“Sure. Appearances always mattered most to you, Gael. They obviously still do.”
His laugh was a sound of rich disbelief. “How dare you? You don’t know anything about me. How can you accuse me of being superficial?”
“Oh, I’m not just accusing you of being superficial,” she retorted angrily. “I’m accusing you of being a disgusting cheat and a bastard, too.”
“Woah, hang on a minute.” He held a hand up, and ran the other through his hair. “What exactly did I do to earn this appraisal from you? We hardly know each other.”
“On the contrary, I know you very well. I’ve had the dubious privilege of knowing lots of men just like you over the last few years.”
Lots of men like him? How many? And how well? A scowl marred his brow as, out of nowhere, he pictured her as she’d been that night six years ago. Bathed in the silver threads of the moonshine, face sweet, heart bursting.
“And what am I like? What is it about me that makes your beautiful mouth pucker indignantly?”
She lifted her fingers to her lips. “I do not pucker.” She ran her hands higher, to her hair. It was a tangled mess. What must she look like? Panic spread through her at the very thought of being seen by Gael Vivas without her mask in place. The mask she wore without fail, even when it was only her own reflection to see her.
“Excuse me,” she spoke sharply, pulling coldness around her like a shroud of protection. “I have nothing left to say to you.”
“Carrie,” he took the last two steps and followed behind her. At her bathroom, he paused. She held the door open just an inch.
“Go, Gael. I’ve had fun, but it’s over now.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I am not wearing yellow,” Carrie said with a flicker heavenward of her eyes. “Tell me you’re trying to give me a heart attack.”
