“You never really answered me. About why you came to the condo this afternoon.”
She arched her eyebrows and dropped her arms, standing tall. “Why did you come here tonight?”
He stepped toward her.
It was like a wall of flames suddenly leapt up between them. She was scared of the heat. She was undeniably drawn to it. Something about his stare made her want to back away, but she held her ground. “Are you telling me the reason you came to the condo was the same reason I showed up here tonight?” He said it quietly, but it was a demand, somehow. A command for honesty.
“I came because I wanted to see you,” she admitted breathlessly after a pause.
“I came because I couldn’t stay away.”
He shook his head tensely and cursed under his breath.
“Asher—”
“I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for you to grow more beautiful, but you went and did it, didn’t you? You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
A whimper leaked out of her throat. He’d looked so naked, saying it, like her appearance pained him somehow. It made her want to cry. But then he was stepping into her, and she recognized that look on his face. That determination. That fire. He cupped her face in his hands possessively, but he needn’t have urged her. She was already lifting her face to meet his kiss.
He blistered her from the start, seizing her mouth with his and then parting her lips boldly with his tongue. He sank into her, and she felt that silky, bold caress all the way to her sex. His tongue had trained her in pleasure. Her body hadn’t forgotten those ecstatic lessons. Every cell in her body seemed to leap with joy at his touch. It felt so achingly familiar, yet so blessedly new. This was a man in his prime. He was so much . . . more than he had been once, and what he’d been at twenty-two had forever changed her.
The taste of him, the feel of him pounded into her chaotic awareness. Her arms surrounded him. Her hands and fingers moved in a desperate search to remember the familiar . . . to discover the differences. He dropped his hands to her hips and pulled her tight against him. He bent over her, making her back arch, his kiss becoming more demanding. Hotter. And she responded the only way she’d ever been able to with Asher.
Wholesale.
• • •
From his first glimpse of her standing there in that dressing room, Asher recognized it. He was defeated before he could even make a first move. Hers was the face to which he’d compared all others, and found them wanting. And the years had made her even more stunning. Like the way she’d grown into her sultry, resonant voice, she’d grown into her body. She’d filled out, and not just in the flesh. She owned her beauty now. Yes, she was clearly anxious about his unexpected arrival, but she stood straight and tall. Standing there with that robe draped around her slender, curving body, and her long, lustrous hair spilling around her shoulders, she looked like nothing less than a goddess. It made him bitter. His hunger for her was his helplessness; his need his Achilles’ heel.
But it was undeniable. Once he tasted her, he gave in to it with a fierce abandon.
She tasted of fruit and honey. She tasted like sex. He sank into her, drowning in her flavor like a starving man sitting down to a feast fit for a king. Her mouth fed him, and yet it made him so much hungrier. He spread his hands on her hips, feeling the taut curve of her naked skin beneath the thin covering of her robe. He rubbed her, his throat vibrating in a growl. His cock lurched at the sensation of her, and suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Jesus,” he rasped, nipping at her upturned, parted lips while his fingers found the belt of her robe. He leaned back slightly, looking down at her face as he jerked at the tie. He parted the fabric and stared down at her exposed body. His throat knotted. A pain went through him, one of pure lust and longing. Her breasts were a little fuller than he remembered, but still high and round and firm, the nipples small and mouthwateringly erect. She was paler than she had been during that sun-drenched summer so long ago, but her skin was still flawless and smooth, with a golden hue. Clenching his teeth, he pushed the robe off her shoulders. It slid down her back and legs to the floor. He touched both of her shoulders and trailed his hands down her beautiful arms.
Laila’s arms.
Bending his knees, he pulled her tight against his aroused body. He pressed his mouth to her biceps, feeling her silky skin against his lips. He gently scraped his teeth against the firm muscle and clamped his eyes tight against a surge of emotion. The sound of her hoarse whimper penetrated his awareness, and then she was digging her fingers into his hair and saying his name. He shifted his chin, finding a hard nipple. He latched onto it, shivers running beneath his skin at the feeling of her nails dragging against his scalp.
She started against him. He lifted his head, dazed. Had he hurt her? Her wide eyes and obvious anxiety penetrated the flash fire of his arousal. He heard the sound of footsteps in the far distance. Suddenly, Laila bent and scooped up her robe from the floor.
“That’s a bathroom,” Laila said in a low, hoarse voice. She pointed to a door. “Can you please go in there?”
“Am I hiding?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes,” she replied shortly, closing her robe and cinching the belt. The sound of footsteps approaching grew louder. “Please, Asher.”
“Okay, okay,” he
muttered, frowning. Jesus. Had nothing changed? They weren’t kids anymore. It was like they were nineteen and twenty-two all over again, and about to be caught red-handed by her parents. Someone knocked briskly on the dressing room door.
“Laila?” a man called.
“Yes?” she replied, her eyes broadcasting a silent plea to him. She nodded pointedly at the bathroom she’d indicated, her beautiful face tight with anxiety. “Just a second, Rafe.”
Asher moved, his feet dragging a little as he glanced behind him at Laila. He went into the dark bathroom. He shut the door but left it open a few inches. He watched through the crack as Laila did something similar to her dressing room door, opening it only a few inches.
“I’m in the middle of dressing,” she said breathlessly to the man on other side.