It wasn’t my imagination that we caught avid stares wherever we went. It made me extremely self-conscious, though the stares weren’t necessarily condemning. Mostly they were curious.
And who wouldn’t stare at Iris?
But it wasn’t only men that stared, it was women, and even children seemed taken with her. She was a sight—tan and healthy, buxom and happy.
And beautiful.
Above all, that.
It made it easier to tell myself that she was what drew most of the attention, but I knew that some of those fascinated eyes were also caught by the sight of a much older man, following her around, seeing through her clothes, and even, shamefully, looking down her shirt at every opportunity.
I couldn’t help it. It had been so long, and if I couldn’t touch, if I only got to look, I was going to look my fill.
“Did you think about me much?” Her voice shook me out of my reverie.
I flushed, pulling harder at the neck of my shirt. “God, I thought about you. You don’t even want to know how much or what I thought about. I f**king abused my cock, thinking about you.”
Why did I feel the need to tell her that?I mentally chastised myself.
But she cocked her head and smiled, and I knew why I’d told her.
I’d been positive it wouldn’t trouble her. On the contrary.
“You think that bothers me? I was counting on it, baby. Thinking about you thinking about me got me through some rough times these past few months.”
“What rough times? Is everything okay?”
She’d never made a comment like that before, about having it rough, but she’d thrown it out like it was common knowledge.
I found myself instantly troubled by it.
She didn’t answer, just leaned forward until all of her soft heat seemed to envelope me, the sweet flowery scent of her inundating my senses.
We were sitting side by side, only an inch apart, her lips hovering at my jaw.
“I’m glad you still have this scruff. You know how I love it,” she breathed against my skin, then rubbed her lips slowly back and forth across the edge of my jaw. Her lips were so soft, and I knew from experience they bruised easily. They were already red and swollen from the little bit of kissing we’d done earlier.
She didn’t kiss her way down so much as run her lips lightly to my throat. There, she kissed, finally letting her tongue play against my skin.
I gripped two hands into her hair and pulled her back enough to angle her for my mouth.
I started kissing her, rough, hungry kisses, where I tasted cinnamon and cream mixed with the sweetest, wildest flavor in the world.
Iris.
She moaned and pulled back.
I didn’t let her go easy, but when she said, a breath away from my lips, “Not in here. Let’s walk,” I let her pull back completely.
I followed her outside, watching her move, my c**k throbbing in time to her every swaying step. To say I was disappointed when she actually started walking again was like saying I was hard.
An understatement.
I was f**king solid rock.
“I’ve reread all of your books over the last few months.”
That drew me a bit out of my lust haze.
Her wording . . . It was off.
Reread implied she’d read them before, though I knew she hadn’t read them all before she’d left me.
“Are you saying you’d read my books before that? As in, before you met me?”
She glanced at me, her eyes amused but steady. “Would that bother you, Dair? Do you think I’m some crazy fan that’s been stalking you? Your tone tells me that you’d take that as something sinister. You think you and I are, what, the erotic version of Misery?”
She was too young to be so well referenced, but that was beside the point.
“You said before that you hadn’t read my books. I recall you were working on the first one. For the first time.”
“I never said that. You may have taken it that way, but I never said it. I said I was a hundred pages in, but I never specified that it was my first time reading it.”
“It was implied.”
“Perhaps. Does it matter? Back to my rereads. Something stood out to me. Well, something has always stood out to me, something about the way you write women.”
I tugged her hand to make her stop walking.
She really thought I was going to drop this at a subject change?
I needed some honest answers from her—for once.
“You still haven’t answered. Had you read my books before we met?”
She smirked, moving close. “Dair, I swear you always want to know the least interesting things about me. But I’ll give you the truth on this one. I started reading your books when I was thirteen, and I’ve read them all. Many times. There’s your answer. Now back to what I was saying. This has always, always fascinated me. In your books, the way you write your male/female dynamic, the women always hold all of the power. They always call the shots in the relationships. Why is that?”
My mind was a whirlwind of confused chaos at her revelation, but she’d managed to fascinate me with her question, which was just so Iris.
“Men are ruled by passion,” I told her. It was an easy answer, one I’d thought about before. “Women are more romantic, sure, but men are controlled by our desires, we’re slaves to it. I write women that hold all of the power, because you do. And if you don’t, you either don’t want to, or you’re doing it wrong.”
She seemed pleased by that answer, though I’d be damned if I knew why.
She must have known that already.
If there was any woman alive that could turn a man’s brain to putty with just one look, it was Iris.
CHAPTER THREE
I backed her into the nearest wall, pressing hard against her. She’d grown so quiet, and my need to feel her had been growing with every silent second.
Literally.
I took her mouth, took command, control of the moment, the way I’d needed to since I’d set eyes on her again.
There’d be no pulling back, no stopping now.
All of my questions could be put off, certainly her non-answers could.
My tongue invaded her mouth, and hers melted against it, as she submitted, every part of her softening against me, into me.
I tasted her and she sucked at my driving tongue.
I nestled my hardness against her, forcing her long legs to shift open, until I was rubbing myself unabashedly against her mound.
I fondled her soft tits, first over her clothes, then inside, one unruly hand plunging down her shirt, palming that perfect flesh.
I groaned and ran a hand down to the hem of her skirt, sliding it up the outside of her silky thigh to grip her ass.