Bruno put his paw on my knee with a groan.
“Anthro—” Sebastian coughed into his fist, “—pomorphizing.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said to Bruno. “I know you understand.” Well, Bruno at least knew the word couch since Neal had screamed at him to get off of it enough times for Bruno to think he was in trouble. Guilt panged in my chest sending Bruno away. He’d only ever slept in the living room when I was out of town. Neal or Luciano would send me a picture of Bruno in the entryway, waiting for me to come home. But this was the only way Sebastian and I would get any privacy.
I led Bruno out by the collar and shut the door on him. Before I’d even turned around, Sebastian was at my back, lifting my hair off my neck to place it over my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll make it up to him. Promise.”
His fingertips brushed my skin and stole my response. He unclasped my necklace and set it on my dresser, then slipped my bangles off one by one. With his cheek against mine, he said, “I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you that morning in the coffee shop. I’ve had to wait weeks and weeks. I don’t want to wait that long to be inside you, Georgina.”
I held my breath as I shook my head. “I don’t want that.”
“Don’t want me inside you,” I felt his smirk near my ear, “or don’t want me to wait?”
I no longer had any reason to deny my feelings for Sebastian. I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d made his way into my heart, or I into his, but it didn’t matter anymore. “Wait,” I said. “I mean, don’t wait. Option two.”
“Say it, Georgina.”
I bit my bottom lip where his teeth had just done the same. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
20
Georgina
If Sebastian’s and my earlier kiss had been the first stop on a home run, our second kiss was a race to home plate. I turned, rose onto the balls of my feet, and brought his mouth to mine a second before he hoisted me up to press my back against the door. My legs circled his waist, our tongues meeting quickly, lashing and sparring like practiced enemies.
He gripped the outside of my thigh with one hand and slid the other up my nape. “When’s the last time you were properly kissed?” he asked.
He took a handful of my hair so I couldn’t move my head. He had me right where he wanted me. “If this is proper? Never.”
“This is how you should always be kissed at the end of a date . . .” He nudged his nose against my cheek and took my earlobe between his teeth. “Hard. Hungry.”
Pinching that small, soft flesh sent an electric current down between my legs. “Then we should go on more dates.”
He groaned and sucked the spot he’d just bitten. “You’re right, we should’ve done this earlier.”
My dress, partly unzipped, sagged to expose the nude, lacy line of my strapless bra. “That would’ve been difficult considering we could hardly stand to be in the same room.”
“That isn’t true, and you know it.” He pulled back to look me in the eye. “I’m just as turned on by you now as I was watching you around the office.”
I exhaled, all breathy desire. “You watched me?”
“How could I not? You took over, pacing in bare feet, always tugging the hem of your skirt down and your damn neckline up.” His hand moved beneath my dress, curving against the sensitive, neglected skin under my thigh. “As you’d lean over my desk to show me something and hold your blouse to your chest, depriving me a view of your gorgeous tits.”
“Oh . . .” Sebastian wasn’t exactly known for his restraint, but even when he’d taken aim, he’d always been polite about it. To hear his unfiltered thoughts made me lock my ankles and move against him.
“Yes, oh,” he teased, meeting my rhythm with his hips, making his erection known. “Oh, you know just how to get under my skin.”
“It’s not one sided.”
“No, it isn’t. I haven’t always been nice to you,” he said, dropping his voice until it was all gravel, “but I haven’t been mean, have I?”
I didn’t want to fight anymore, and at the same time, all I wanted to do was fight. To give him what he came for. “Not yet,” I said.
“Not yet?” He delivered a light slap on my ass. “How’s that for mean?”
I bit my lip. How did I tell him he didn’t have to be nice just because we were finally getting along? “Not bad.”
He dropped his eyes to my mouth. “You like it. I wish I’d known. I’ve wanted to discipline those buns on many occasions.”
I exhaled a laugh as I wiggled against him, his meanness as welcome as his teasing. He hissed, clasping my body flush to his as he took my mouth again. I pulled at the buttons of his shirt, my patience thin as he grew even harder between my legs. He traced the edge of my panties with a fingertip and caught my stuttered breath with his mouth.
“I want to see you,” he whispered, gripping my waist to lift me. “Don’t deprive me anymore.”
Reluctantly, I loosened my legs so he could set me on my feet. With a knuckle under my chin, he lifted my mouth, stooped, and pecked me. Before I could attempt to deepen the kiss, his lips moved to my throat. My collarbone.
I only had to shimmy to let my dress fall.
He groaned. Dropped to his knees. Looked up at me as he took my waist. “Here’s another should—I should not have called you anything as simple as beautiful. It’s too mild a word. You’re the stuff of dreams.”
“I’m not,” I said softly. “I’m real.” I should’ve been self-conscious baring myself to Sebastian—after all, he’d spent the last several weeks scrutinizing my weaknesses and flaws, as I’d done to him. He’d been with many women, and beautiful didn’t describe them, either. Sebastian’s own magazine used words like modelesque, lithe, angelic, and even gazelles of the human race. But I only saw truth and admiration in his upturned eyes, and I couldn’t help but doubt my own fears over his compliments. “You are beautiful,” I said.
“And you are pure torture. Show me, Georgina,” he pleaded. “Your bra barely holds them in, they’re so fucking perfect.”
As I undid the hook, he reached up and took the bra. Wetting his lips, he thumbed my nipples until they pressed, hard and resolute, into the pads of his fingers. “So pink. So full. And god, are you inviting.”
I missed the heat of his lips on mine, but I was soothed by a new kind of warmth—his mouth on my right breast, and then my left, teasing each nipple to make it rock hard, sucking until the sensation had brought me to the tips of my toes.
He kissed his way down my stomach and tugged the elastic band of my lacy boyshorts. “Did you wear these for me?”
“Mmm.” I was glad I’d gone for sexy over silly underwear. “Yes.”
“Please tell me these have something written across the butt too.”
“Sorry. All you’ll find back there are two buns in need of a hotdog.”
I’d meant to make him laugh, but instead his jaw set. He pushed his hands under the waistband and around to my backside, taking two handfuls. “Don’t tease me like that.”
“I have some cinnamon in my pantry if you want to sprinkle it on them.”
“Christ.” He dropped his forehead to my stomach, undeterred by my silent laughter. “Christ.”
I worked my hands through his hair to tousle it. Now that my restraint had broken, now that I no longer had to deny myself, I wanted to touch all of him. “Sebastian.”
“Am I going too slow?”
“No.”
He yanked down my underwear and I gasped. Shackled by my ankles, I was bared to his eyes, prisoner to his touch. “Too fast?” he asked.
Lazily, with my bottom lip clamped between my teeth, I shook my head. “It’s just right.”
“Okay, Goldilocks.” He pressed a soft kiss on my lower tummy and said with a warm exhale, “Then I’ll blow, blow your house down.”
I shivered. “You’re mixing childhood fables.”