AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Well, he’s a partner in our Middle Eastern branch, but he’s also Prince of the country where we’re looking to extend.’
‘So he’s got both your interests at heart.’
He gave a wry laugh. ‘It makes better business sense to view him as screwing us out of millions than looking out for his people.’
‘Perhaps,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s nicer to think of it the other way around, though.’
‘I don’t play nice.’
‘You did today,’ Naomi said.
‘Today was an exception.’
Or rather today had for Abe been exceptional.
He felt as if he’d been born fighting. Keeping one eye out for Ethan and another on his mother. And later there had been no halcyon days to his youth. Just the weight of the Devereux name and the depraved reputation he upheld.
Today, in the midst of the darkest times, it had felt as if the world as he knew it had been put on hold.
He stopped walking, they both did, and turned and faced each other. Naomi looked down as he took her hands in his.
Finally.
Oh, they’d been blown on and thrust deep into pockets, and wrapped around hot pretzels and bags of nuts, and all day they had resisted this. So many times he had wanted to reach for hers, and all day her hands had felt as if they had secretly sought his.
Now they met and she watched his fingers wrap around hers and felt the warmth that came not just from his skin but from the surge in her heart.
She was here in New York to work, and usually Naomi did not do foolish things such as get involved with family, and she always guarded her heart, but all that faded when she met his eyes.
There was gentle snow and thereweresquirrels and there was a hush that descended over a noisy city as his mouth neared hers. His scent was close, not quite familiar yet, and she imprinted on her mind the heady notes as she breathed him in.
The first intimate touch sent a slight tremor through Naomi, but then came a flutter of relief as their mouths met, for it felt as if she had waited for ever to know this bliss.
She had.
Abe Devereux’s was her very first kiss, and the first time she had lowered the gates to her heart.
He sensed it.
Abe felt her slight jolt at the first contact, and then her untutored return to the caress of his mouth. And he fathomed only then that this kiss was her first. The magnitude of that had him hold back a fraction, his approach now more tender, lest he startle her again.
Kissing was usually a means to an end to Abe.
A mere precursor to bed.
He did not hold hands in public, let alone kiss in a park, yet there was no thought to his surroundings at that moment. Just that her lips were cold so he must warm them. He felt her hesitancy mingled with shivering want, and she reminded him of that little squirrel, nervous and cautious yet yearning.
Abe made her yearn.
The pressure of his lips was sublime. He dropped her hands and wrapped his arms around her, and winter disappeared as he pulled her closer into his strength and warmth and she was cradled in the arms of bliss. Her lips parted without thought, lost to his kiss, but then came the next shock, the feel of his tongue, which had her head pulling back, but his hand was exerting slight pressure there, and after a second she sank into the stupor of his deepening kiss and the feather-light strokes that stirred her inside.
Naomi gave in to the sweet and sensual pleasure of mouths mingling, tasting and exploring each other, and she savoured each sensation, from the surprising softness of his mouth to the slight scratch of his lightly stubbled jaw, which increased as he kissed her harder, their mouths more insistent, and she knew what to do now.
As pleasure and want merged, she moaned and he swallowed it, guiding her generous hips into his with the palm of his hand, and then held her in a sensual embrace.
She felt a new hunger, one she had never known before, unfurl inside her. And when he had kissed her so hard that she was breathless, when he had taken her from hesitant to urgent with the stroke of his tongue, he pulled back.
Abe had no choice but to do that for the feel of her in his arms dictated a need for more, and the strength of their kiss had to be severed, for decency’s sake.
