Bring the Heat, Margot Radcliffe [best novels to read to improve english .TXT] 📗

had a job offer of a lifetime, proven by the fact that you still love it, and I wasn’t going to stand in your way. If I could’ve gone to Colorado with you, I would have. You also didn’t ask, by the way. And anyway, my parents wanted me home and right now is the first time I’ve truly defied them in thirty years. My life wasn’t my own then, not really, anyway. If you hadn’t gotten that job, I’d planned to ask you to come to New York with me.” Gripping her closer to him, his thumb imprinted on her jaw as he made her meet his eyes when her gaze started to slide away. “But I remember everything about us together, Molly. Every fucking thing. And the number of nights, mornings and afternoons that I’ve fantasized about you with nothing but my own hand outnumbers the times I’ve been with other women, and that’s a fact.”

Her whole body went still in his arms and what happened next was on her, because he’d been prepared to wait. Even with her soft body tight against his, he would have let her go so they could remain friends until she was ready for more, but she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down to her.

His lips met her soft, plush mouth and he fell into a slow, searing burn. Molly had never been hesitant in bed and she wasn’t now, taking control of the kiss, her head slanting against his as her clever tongue found the seam of his lips. Groaning, both his hands came up to burrow into her hair, unsatisfying because it was pulled back in a ponytail, so he quickly tugged at the band and threw it to the floor, reveling in the mass of sandy-blond hair now cascading over his fingers and down to her breasts.

She came up on her tiptoes then, her arms sliding behind his neck, and he gripped her hair as their tongues tangled, licking and sucking and rediscovering. A mouth had never tasted so damned good and he bent his knees, his arms coming around her as he picked her up and set her on top of the railing, coming to stand between her spread legs.

Her breath sucked in at the contact, his hard length against the place he wanted to be most, and Oliver thanked the poor bastard who’d cheated on her because there was no way she was getting away from him now.

Sliding his arm around her, he held her close even though she was perfectly balanced and wasn’t going to fall into the water, but he wanted more of her. He left her mouth, pressing kisses over her jaw and down her neck as her head fell to the side, giving him more access.

“I wanted to be a gentleman and give you more time,” he murmured as he got closer to her ear, “but I guess I’m not the one in charge here.”

“Time for what?” she asked, her voice thready and light as her eyes struggled to stay open.

He pressed a long kiss to the cord of muscle in her neck, sucking there gently and then harder, not caring if he left a mark. “Time for you to heal,” he told her, tugging on a delicate earlobe, running a tongue over it at her whimper.

Molly’s brown eyes fluttered open, needing a moment before they focused on him. “I don’t need you to be a gentleman, Oliver,” she told him. “I just want you to be you.”

“Smart-ass,” he growled, sinking his teeth into her neck as his hand traveled up her abdomen to cup one of her breasts, his fingers finding the raised nipple through the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

Her gasp was followed by her legs wrapping around his back and for a moment he thought he might be getting light-headed from pleasure. It’d been so long since she’d been in his arms. To know that she’d missed him when they’d broken up, he was fucking enraged over all the lost time.

“And for the record, Molly,” he said, forcing her gaze to his again, “I stayed in yachting a year more than I’d intended so I could stay with you.”

Molly’s eyes widened and he kissed the disbelief right off her mouth. He was done with the past, theirs and the one she had with her ex. They’d made the wrong decisions back then, but now was the time for better ones, so his hand drifted under her shirt, his eyes closing as he felt the velvet of her skin under his. Finding her nipple, he tugged gently, rolling the small point between his fingers until she was squirming against him enough that he experienced a second of alarm that she really would fall into the water.

“Why were we so dumb?” she gasped, her body arching against him as her mouth slid along his jaw.

“Young, stupid, afraid,” he got out, teasing the other nipple now. “Pick one, pick them all. It doesn’t fucking matter because look where we are now, Molly. It’s just us. No rules, no expectations, no exes, nothing but the two of us, the ocean and this boat.”

“Did you invite me here with the intention of sleeping with me?” she asked, the journey her mouth was taking along his jawline slowing as she neared his ear.

“No. I know breakups are hard,” he assured her, even though he’d definitely hoped it would happen. “And I never would be doing this if you were still in love with your ex.”

She met his eyes then. “I think I fell out of love with him before I found out about the cheating.”

“Sounds like that was a good decision,” Oliver said, not at all interested, when his dick was nestled into her soft center, in talking about her ex.

“That’s why I feel so guilty, because the first thing I thought after I caught them was relief. Then of course, anger and heartbreak and the rest. I realized after I left