Page 94 of Scandalous Lover

Naomi just shakes her head, keeping her gaze angled downward toward where my fingers curl into the flesh of her hip.

“Since the moment I looked up at that bar in Austin and found you looking back at me from across the table. I was expecting just another stranger I would have to introduce myself to, but instead I found you.” I never expected to be telling her the truth about that moment, but now that I've started, I can’t seem to stop. “And you know what I felt right then?”

She shakes her head again.

“Relief.”

I slide my other hand up her back until I reach her neck, pulling her long hair to the side to expose the creamy curve of it. I trail my lips across her shoulder and up, allowing my nose to graze the shell of her ear. Naomi responds by melting more of her weight into my arms.

“I thought to myself, this woman already knows me. I can just be myself. Which is crazy, because I’m not sure that’s even how I feel about people who know me. Sometimes when I’m around people who know me, all I want to do is hide my true self.”

“But you didn’t hide from me?” Her question is barely audible.

“I didn’t hide. You never made me feel like I needed to. I felt safe with you from the first second. You took me home, and I still felt safe, even if I was a little nervous.”

I can feel her cheek shift as she smiles.

“I don’t know what to do with these feelings, Naomi.”

“What do you want to do?”

I shrug, even though she can’t see me.

Even though I know damn well what the answer is.

“I didn’t come to this island for Dom, you know,” she says.

I let the meaning of her statement hit me. I’m just about to say something, anything, to keep her from saying what I know she’s about to, but I don’t get the words out in time.

“Dom isn’t exactly the person I would choose to run to when I’m in trouble. There were money issues when I pissed my dad off, but I could have managed for a while. I just felt like I needed to be near you. I came here for you. When my life was crumbling down around me, the only thing I could think about was how safe I would be with you.”

“Naomi…” My heart is breaking for all the ways I can’t give her what she needs.

What I need.

“I know. I know that’s a lot. I shouldn’t have said it. But it’s true.”

“I want this to be different. You know that.”

She takes a step back, forcing my hands to drop. They hit the sides of my body as she stares up at me, eyes glassy but still fierce. “I know.”

I wait for her to call me out as the coward that I am. To tell me that I’m failing her and that she knows I’m living a lie. But she doesn’t.

When my lips touch down on hers, it ignites a fire in me that I’ve felt before.

The last time I had this woman in my arms.

I press into her as she opens easily, taking me in and giving just as eagerly. My hands are everywhere now, no longer moving softly or slowly, but greedily trying to touch every inch of her naked body at once.

I’m lost in the taste of her, the feel of her, spinning in my own internal universe, when she pulls me back to the present moment with a lift of my shirt. I reach down and take the hem from her hand, pulling it off and tossingit to the side.

Naomi’s warm palms run down my chest and across my stomach, curling around my hip bones and under the waistband of my jeans.

I’m not ready to take them off.

Not ready for what any of this could mean.

But when has not being ready ever stopped life from unfolding?

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