“Here,” he said somewhat gruffly, handing me a glass.
Our eyes met as we each took a sip of wine, and as I lowered my glass I told him solemnly, “I came here to thank you.”
Adam shook his hand. “Ellie, you don’t need to thank me.” His face darkened. “It was my pleasure, believe me.”
“Braden said he had a hard time pulling you off of Rich.”
“He f**ked with you, Els. I mean he really f**ked with you.”
“Literally,” I murmured and Adam stiffened.
“Don’t,” he warned me. “I’m this close to finishing the scumbag off.”
I felt a small thrill go through me at the sincerity in his voice. I loved that Adam cared this much. He might not be willing to see me as anything but Braden’s wee sister, but it was a nice consolation prize to know he had some feelings for me. “I should be reprimanding you.”
I reached for his free hand, using his wounds as an excuse to touch him, and lifted it closer to me for inspection. His knuckles weren’t just bruised, they were swollen, and the middle one had a small, healing gash in it. I hissed in a breath. “How many times did you hit him?”
Adam stepped closer, staring at his hand in mine. “I hit the wall next to his head as a warning shot. He didn’t heed the warning, said shit he really shouldn’t have, and I think I got in four really good hits before Braden pulled me off.”
I lifted my gaze to his face, no longer feeling the thrill. “Did you leave him conscious?”
“Barely.” Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Do you care?”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
His expression softened and he gently tugged his hand free from mine. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, according to sources I was nowhere near New Town or Rich last night. We’ve got a dozen witnesses who will all claim that I was at Bar Khol last night at the time of the said attack.”
I nodded but worried my top lip with my teeth.
“Els, how are you really?” Adam asked softly, tentatively.
Instead of answering right away, I turned around and slowly made my way toward his comfy sofa, listening to him follow behind me. I settled on the couch and Adam sat down close to me, relaxing his arm along the back of it. Finally, I met his gaze and shrugged. “I’m an idiot.”
Adam’s eyebrows puckered and his mouth got tight. “You’re not an idiot.”
“I’m an idiot,” I insisted. “I’m stupid and naïve and… humiliated.”
He slid closer to me, his fingers touching my wrist gently in comfort. “You have nothing to be humiliated about. He’s a prick who played you. He’s the idiot. He’s the stupid f**k who’s going to look back and realize that for five months he was the luckiest bastard on this planet to be with you. He’ll regret this, baby.”
Baby.
For a moment I forgot how to breathe. Adam had never called me “baby” before. There was something somehow intimate about the endearment. I liked it. I liked it a helluva lot.
I smiled at him. “You always know the exact right thing to say.”
“Because I only ever tell the truth. You’re one of a kind, Els. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
I gazed into his eyes feeling his words like a caress across my body and as I stared his gaze flickered over me again, surreptitiously checking me out before he took another sip of wine. It occurred to me that perhaps all Adam needed was a push. Yes, I was Braden’s wee sister, but I was also Ellie, the girl he apparently thought the world of and admitted he thought was beautiful. Blame it on the wine or the fact that he’d stood up for me once again, I wanted him and had decided impulsively that I was tired of hiding the fact.
I let Adam make me feel better as we finished off our glasses of wine. An hour had passed before I knew it and I had kicked off my Uggs and curled up on his sofa, sitting close to him.
His arm still rested along the back of the sofa and every time I laughed I touched his bicep or squeezed his knee. I was an affectionate person, tactile and open, but it was more than that, and Adam knew it. I could see it in his eyes as we chatted and I hoped my plan was working.
You would think hurt and betrayal would make me shy away from opening myself up and laying it all out there but I just didn’t have it in me to close myself off. It wasn’t who I was, and I definitely didn’t want to be that way with Adam.
As the hour drifted into two, I became more determined than ever that tonight things were going to change between me and Adam. I was sick of dating guys I couldn’t seem to fall in love with, and even sicker of being duped by them.
Adam was in the middle of telling me about the Skype chat he’d had with his mum a week ago and his parent’s plans to return to the UK for a few weeks in April, when I stretched my arms up, pretending to need to crack my back. The movement pulled the hemline of my top up, baring my flat stomach, and it also pushed my br**sts out. When I brought my head back down and relaxed, Adam had stopped talking and I could see a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Ellie, what the f**k are you doing?” he asked hoarsely, his voice quiet.
Although my face burned with the possibility of rejection I shrugged nonchalantly.
“Stretching.”
His gaze drifted down my body and I watched his own tense. “You know what I’m talking about. The touching, the flirting, the stretching…”
Heart pounding I shifted closer to him on the couch until my knees touched his outer thigh. I licked my lips, nervous but completely turned on just by the mere thought of him touching me back. “I think you know,” I whispered.
Our eyes met… and clung. The air thickened between us. Adam swallowed hard. “Ellie,”
he breathed.
Holding his gaze I reached a trembling hand out and placed it on his thigh and slowly I moved it up, caressing him. It had almost reached the heat of his crotch where to my utter satisfaction and delight I watched his erection strain against his zipper, when his strong hand grabbed mine tightly.
I’d barely let out a surprised gasp when he tugged on my wrist, yanking me against him. I collapsed on him and he used my momentary disorientation to his advantage— he gripped the nape of my neck and slammed my mouth hungrily down on his.
I melted against him. Just melted.
My fingers sank into his hair, and I rearranged my legs so I was straddling his lap. My body sank into his. My mouth sank into his.
It was everything and more than I’d always imagined.
My skin burned and my nerve endings sparked and I was tingling all over. Adam tasted of wine and heat and… home. I moaned into his mouth and Adam’s arms tightened around my waist, somehow drawing me even closer, the kiss changing from passionate to dirty in a nanosecond. It was suddenly biting and wet, our tongues tangling and licking and learning every inch of one another’s mouths.
It wasn’t close enough.
As we continued to kiss, everything lost in a fog of sexual chemistry so electric I would never again doubt romance novels, I felt his rough hands on my ankles, coasting along the skin of my calves, and up the back of my thighs as he drew my skirt free of our tangle and bunched it around my waist. Those hands of his caressed my bottom, giving me a squeeze that sent a streak of heat between my legs and made me gasp into his mouth.
Adam groaned and put pressure on my hips, pushing me down on his lap so his hard-on rubbed me directly between the legs, nothing between us but denim and the thin cotton of my underwear. I sought the delicious friction, riding him until our mouths parted in brief increments to catch our breaths.
Needing closer, needing him inside of me I sank down on him and dug my fingers into his shoulders as I rubbed harder.
Adam growled and broke away from me to tug my top off. I raised my arms, our movements hurried and frantic as he divested me of my top and then my bra. He cupped my br**sts in his hands and I arched my back into his touch.
“So perfect,” he murmured hoarsely, “So f**king perfect.” He captured my nipple into his hot mouth and I cried out at the rush of pleasure that coursed through me, pushing me closer and closer to orgasm.
My being so turned on seemed to fire Adam up. After I cried out I found myself flat on my back on the length of the couch and watched threw hazy, lust-blurred vision as Adam whipped off his shirt and pulled down my skirt and pants. The muscles of his ripped abs flexed deliciously and I felt another rush of wetness between my legs.
He was so goddamned beautiful it wasn’t fair.
Our lips met again as he braced himself over me, my hard n**ples brushing his nak*d chest, my legs spread to fit him between them. He still wore his jeans, and the coarseness of the denim was sensual torture against my nak*d skin.
As our kisses grew even more desperate I sought what I wanted from him, finding the button and zipper on his jeans and undoing it. I pushed at his boxers, my hand sliding inside to grasp him and tug him out. He was throbbing and hot and hard and I couldn’t believe this was actually finally happening. Now I knew everything about him.
“Fuck,” he groaned against my lips, his h*ps thrusting as I pressed the mushroomed head of him against my clit. I let go of him to grasp his lower back, tilting my own h*ps up as he teased me. He kissed me again, hard, and I felt his erection slide down… I spread my thighs wider and smoothed my hands down his muscular back to push his jeans further down. I grasped his buttocks and pulled him to me. “Adam, please,” I begged.
“Adam…”
He froze. Instantly. His name on my lips bringing him out of the magical sexual fog.
Our eyes met as he pulled his head up, his body hovering over mine, his muscles trembling with tension. While I imagined my expression was one of confusion, Adam’s was one of horror.
It was a look that made me want to crawl inside of myself.
It hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
He scrambled off of me, pulling his boxers and jeans up and then tossing my skirt at me to cover me somewhat. “Ellie, we can’t.” He shook his head and practically jumped off the couch, grabbing his T-shirt and yanking it back on.
I was feeling a mixture of things—confusion, hurt, sexual frustration—and so I was slow in sitting up.
“For fuck’s sake, Ellie, get dressed,” Adam snapped harshly and it took everything within me not to flinch… not to cry.
As I pulled on my clothes with trembling hands Adam exhaled. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” his voice was heavy with regret.
I didn’t say anything, I just straightened my clothes and reached for my Uggs, trying to hold myself together. I couldn’t fall apart in front of him. I just couldn’t.
“Ellie?”
Finally I looked at him as I stood. He looked as heartbroken as I felt. It was a small kind of consolation.
“Ellie, your Braden’s wee sister. I can’t… we can’t…” he gestured helplessly to the couch before running a hand through his hair.
And that’s when I realized something absolutely tragic. While I thought what was happening was something borne out of affection, attraction and, yes, love, to Adam what had almost happened was something borne out of lust. He didn’t want to make love to me. He wanted to screw me.