The muttered words that he couldn’t decipher kept him going. He listened to the rate of her breath, the way she held it and pressed her hips forward.
Almost there . . . she was almost there.
Shannon cried out. The taste of her fueled every cell in his body.
She squirmed, pulling at his hair. “I can’t take it anymore . . .”
This was where he would have made her climax again, taking her . . .
“Good Lord,” she sighed, her body lax on the bed.
He looked up at the perfection of her body, past her thin stomach, over peaks of her nipples, and watched her smiling.
“You’re not even undressed,” she pointed out.
No. And he wasn’t going to get that way either.
“That was beautiful.” He dropped a kiss on the inside of her thigh. Told his body to behave and go back into the cave.
“You didn’t . . . I mean—”
He crawled beside her on the bed and lay on his side. Somewhere he’d managed to kick off his shoes, and his shirt was open. “Next time, I will.”
Shannon placed a lazy hand on his waist and traced the side of his rib cage. “Let me take care of you.”
He stopped her hand, cursed his resolve to let her be the one who left satisfied while he was kept wanting.
“Stopping now will probably rank up there as the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done in my life. Hopefully it will erase some of the asshole you thought I was.”
Her smile and chuckle ended with a shiver.
Victor reached over and pulled up the edge of the blanket and covered his view.
A damn shame that was.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
“As long as you don’t say you faked that.”
Her hand paused the soft petting thing she was doing. Shannon pinned him with a hard stare.
“You don’t really think—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “No. I don’t. Your cry made me feel like a god, so please don’t crush me now.”
There was her smile again. She relaxed and started moving her fingers. “I was going to say . . . I haven’t done this in a very long time. I thought maybe my body forgot how.”
“How to have an orgasm?”
She nodded.
“Not even with yourself?”
“Well . . .”
Victor wanted to swallow her coy smile. He propped his head on his arm. “I have something to tell you.”
“Oh?”
“Promise you won’t hold it against me?”
She sat up, her hair falling over her shoulder. “That sounds like it’s something I might hold against you.”
He closed his eyes, shrugged his shoulders. “If you don’t want to know—”
She pushed on his chest. “Victor.”
“Promise.”
“Fine.”
Fine for a woman was never fine, but he was taking all kinds of risks with her. “My room in Tulum was directly across from yours.”
He opened one eye, then the other, and saw her processing the information.
“The moon was very bright, and it seemed the stories of the sea and mermaids coming to life—”
“You watched us.” Her jaw dropped, but the amusement in her eyes let him know she wasn’t upset.
“I watched you. I’m pretty sure Avery was there, but I wasn’t interested in her.”
“You’re a voyeur.”
He touched the tip of her nose. “And you’re an exhibitionist.”
Shannon leaned back. “I guess that makes us even, then.”
“I think it’s a perfect combination.”
She sank into the crook of his shoulder, her nose to his chest. “How did we end up here?”
He shook his head, closed his eyes. “I don’t know. But I don’t want it to end.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Shannon walked the vast loft space with her mental checklist of what she wanted. Gary, the real estate agent she’d chosen for her new adventure, was highly regarded in his field, stood a half a foot shorter than she did, and used words like darling or sweetheart when he addressed her.
“I know you don’t want a dark space, but try and look past the brick walls and just take in all that natural light, darling.” Gary crossed to one of three arched windows that ran the length of the fifteen-foot ceilings. “You can cover the walls, or maybe just two of them.”
Shannon attempted to ignore the dust that had accumulated in the space since the previous tenants had been evicted.
Gary opened a set of blinds that hid some of the light and pushed open the double windows to let the air in. “And smell that fresh salt air. Isn’t it perfect? The view is to die for.”
Shannon walked to the window and smiled. This wasn’t anywhere near where she’d set roots down before. Santa Monica was a completely new and unexpected shift in her world. Just like Victor. Yet the more she considered the idea of jumping with both feet into a new direction with her photography, the clearer the thoughts became.
“All of this can go.” Gary waved his hands in the air regarding the partition walls put up by the previous tenant. “There is nineteen hundred square feet down here, and if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the best part.”
Shannon followed Gary across the room, her sensible heels making clicking noises as she went.
He pointed out a kitchen space that needed a good update before leading her to a stairway. Up the stairs she found a bedroom, flooded with light from outside, where the view just got better.
“Seven hundred square feet of bedroom space for you, Shannon. Even if you decide to buy something somewhere else, you can always use this space to crash after you’ve had one too many or want to find a new lover in town.”
She grinned, ran her hand down the curtains that weren’t all that bad. “Do you hide your lovers from each other, Gary?”
“Men are much more jealous than women, so yes.”
She already knew about Gary’s sexual orientation but found it refreshing to have someone she barely knew talk so openly about it.
“I’m not so sure. Women can be vicious.”
He waved her off, started toward the back of the bedroom to what she assumed was a bathroom. “Women scratch, men use their fists.” He paused. “Well, some, anyway.”
It was a bathroom, light gray slate and clean lines.
“A man must own this space.”
“Yes. But tasteful, don’t you think?”
She considered it with a tilt of her head. These kinds of decisions never came easy.
“It would take some renovations.”
Gary seemed to like her comment—his cheeky smile grew. “I know plenty of contractors.”
Shannon shook her head. She’d ask Liam for that advice. Avery’s husband was a contractor, and if he couldn’t do it, he would steer her in the direction of someone that could.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a lease option to buy, darling. The owners moved out of California ten years ago and they’re tired of owning rental property. You try it on for size and see how it fits, or make them an offer.”
Having an out felt safe.
Did she want safe?
What was safe doing for her?
“But let me caution you. If you renovate and make it exactly as you want it, the property will be worth more, and there is no guarantee the owners will accept the offer you could give now.”
He’d already presented her with leasing and ballpark purchasing numbers. All of which were within her budget. While she wouldn’t have to sell her home, she’d already made the decision to do so. That financial move would make her cash rich and real estate poor. Not something her financial manager would approve of.
Her phone rang. Victor’s name lit up her screen. Butterflies jolted within her chest, and the memory of his scent pushed away the stale air in the room.
It rang again.
“I’m going to take this,” she told Gary.
“Of course. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
She clicked on his call. “Good morning.”
“Mmmmm,” was his greeting. “Say that again.”
She bit her smile. “Good morning.”
“That’s sexy. It would be better if you were in my arms and we were just waking up, but I’ll take what I can get.”
It was Tuesday. Only two days since she’d seen him after waking up in his home and discovering she had a working vagina. True to his word, he hadn’t pressured her to have intercourse. They spent an insane amount of time talking, and an even more insane amount of time kissing and touching. It was almost as if she were back in high school and more was forbidden. Victor had been right, it did somehow erase several letters from the word asshole that she’d labeled him as when they met.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” she teased.
“I am. Where are you?”
“In Santa Monica, looking at loft space.”
“That was fast.”
She’d told him about her desire to switch directions over breakfast and the possibility of selling her home. He’d listened, but she wasn’t sure how much of what she said he’d actually heard.
“I’m just looking. I’m not good at these decisions.”
“Is this business space or living space?”
“Both . . . I think. Or it could be if I wanted it.” Although it wouldn’t work for a family, it did work for a single woman.
“My office isn’t far away. Have lunch with me and tell me about it.”
Her first instinct was to tell him no. Go back to the countdown of days. Again the word safe flashed in her head.
“What’s the address?”
“Let’s meet at a restaurant.”
“You don’t want your employees to see me?”
Victor laughed. “My employees know all about you. I’ve found no less than three copies of the magazine we managed to show up in scattered all over the break room, lobby, and boardroom. My receptionist has had to ask two pop feature writers to leave today. If you come here, my guess is they’ll snag more photographs and make up more lies.”