Well Groomed Excerpt

“Bedroom,” he repeated against her lips.

He’d reached the upstairs landing. “End of the hall,” she managed, without breaking the contact of mouth-on-mouth. “Um…double doors.”

“Got it.” He nudged one side open with his foot and stepped in. Instead of walking straight through and dropping her on the bed, he paused just inside the door and lifted his gaze, so she had to settle for raking her teeth along the angle of his jaw.

“Holy shit.”

“What?” She paused, mid-bite, and looked at him.

“Did you steal that bed from Cinderella’s castle?”

“So what if I did?” Despite her blithe reply, her cheeks heated. Yes, the upholstered sleigh bed had been a romantic indulgence, not to mention a budget buster, but every room needed a statement piece and the graceful curves of headboard and footboard, the pearl pink chenille, hell, the sheer dimensions of the thing certainly made one. Up until this moment, however, she hadn’t realized the statement was something along the lines of, I’m a princess.

“A bed like that taps into a very specific male fantasy. One you like?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His brows lifted. “That’s impossible. Not a single man you’ve brought up here has wanted to…” he paused and a muscle in his jaw clenched. “You know what? This is a stupid conversation. Never mind what I—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re the first man who’s seen it, okay?” The heat coming off her face could melt permafrost, at this point, but he already knew she’d been in a sexual desert, so it hardly mattered to confess, “I only bought the bed a few months ago.” When she’d been approached by Kiss the Bride for the capsule collection deal. “Whatever male fantasy it taps into is yours to demonstrate.”

“Given the sexual desert, tonight we should concentrate on tapping your fantasies. Work up to my fantasies.” His self-satisfied expression fired up an urge to defend her experience. “A sexual desert doesn’t turn me into a trembling virgin, East. Put me down and fucking…unleash the fantasy. I’ve got plenty of experience. Tame sex. Wild sex. Kinky sex—I dated a hedge fund manager for six months, and trust me, you cannot judge those guys by their Brooks Brothers suits. I know stuff. Whatever the fantasy, I can fulfill it.”

At the foot of the bed, he released her legs and slowly put her on her feet. That’s when she realized he stood there, fully clothed, smiling a cocky smile, while she stood there in her bare feet, sweaty from her first fast, hard orgasm, with her top askew and her skirt twisted so the back zipper ran down her right hip. Stunning. “No, really,” she insisted, pulling her top into place. “Your turn. Bring on the fantasy.”

He stepped closer, sobered. “If you don’t like it, you can tell me to stop.”

Something low in her stomach fluttered. “I’m not going to call you daddy.”

He laughed. “Jesus. No. Please don’t. This is all about you, and that bed, and a part of your anatomy I can promise every heterosexual male you’ve ever met between the ages of puberty and death has entertained fantasies about.”

She looked down at herself. “My boobs?” She had good boobs. Nothing spectacular, but decent.

“No.” But he swept her top off, tossed it over her head. “Your tits are beautiful, but they don’t star in this particular fantasy.”

Resisting the urge to cross an arm over herself, she moved closer to him, let her breasts touch his shirt, rest against his chest, gratified when his breath whooshed and his eyelids lowered.

“Are you sure?”

He inhaled, closed his hands around her upper arms and took a step back. “Positive.” Dropping his hands to her waist, he slid the zipper of her skirt down.

“Well, it’s definitely not my runway model height.”

“Small has its upsides, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s got nothing to do with your size.”

Remembering the proclivities of the hedge fund manager, giving due consideration to the bed, she took another guess. “My mouth?” As her skirt puddled around her feet, she put said mouth to work on his throat, suspecting he might have another use for it, uncharacteristically excited at the thought of East using it. A part of her had worried that hedge funder and his single-minded notion of foreplay had stolen all the excitement out of that activity, turned it into a predictable routine, but tonight proved her worries unfounded. Her mouth watered at the prospect of taking East in, cradling his cock, driving him out of his mind with her lips and tongue while he groaned her name. Inner muscles clenched, released, clenched harder, just imagining it.

Ready to turn imagination to reality, she let her knees relax and prepared to seduce her way down his body, removing his clothes as she went. But just as she skimmed her lips over his Adam’s apple, he grabbed her, spun her, and draped her over the foot of the bed.

Ohmigod. Tossing her hair out of her eyes, she got her forearms under her and levered her upper body off the comforter she’d landed face down on to stare back at him. He stood behind her, eyes dark and fixed on her…oh. Self-consciousness swept in. No woman liked her backside. Well, maybe Martine liked her tight little peach, but regular women with real bodies probably didn’t relish the thought of being ass up over a blush-pink princess sleigh bed. “Ha. Okay. Fun’s fun, but—”

He slid a hand between her thighs, rested the other at the small of her back. “The fun’s just getting started. My fantasy, remember? Unless this makes you uncomfortable?”

Shit. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the dove white, beribboned comforter bought on a whim because it looked like a bridal gown for her bed. When he flexed the fingers wedged between her thighs, she tried not to squirm. Exhaling unevenly, she parted them a little. “Right. Your fantasy. Carry on. I’m totally comfortable.”

“Are you?” Those long fingers stroked higher between her legs, grazing the nude, no-show cheeky bikinis that offered absolutely no protection. She jerked at the touch, a breathy moan snuck past her lips, along with a shaky, “What?”

His fingers lingered, stroked slower this time. “Comfortable? I don’t see how you could be. These are very wet.” Fingertips danced lightly between her thighs, along the strip of fabric nestled there. “Should I take them off?”

Oh, God. She couldn’t. Just couldn’t. Not like this.

The hand at the small of her back moved, and she braced for her least favorite part to be bared, but instead he uncurled her fingers from their death grip on the comforter. “Or I could leave them on,” he murmured. “It will still be the best fantasy you’ve ever had.”

“You.” This was his fantasy.

He uncurled her other hand, pressed her palm into the bedding. “That goes without saying.” He rested his hands at her waist, then slid them lazily over her hips and down her thighs. “But I’m sensing you don’t—yet—have the same appreciation for this perfect, heart-shaped, cock-tease of an ass.”

“I”—the hushed rustle of fabric and the pop of a knee joint told her he knelt behind her, eyes level with the object of his fantasies. She felt his gaze, like cool silk across heated flesh, like electricity under her skin. Her throat constricted. She had to start over. “I don’t…ah…no. That’s a definite no. Nobody’s ever played out this fantasy before.”

“That makes it more intense.” She couldn’t miss the satisfaction in his tone. “Let’s play it out together.”