Page 25 of Breaking the Rules
“Your lips are moving.”
“You really piss me off, Saint,” she snapped, shoving her free hand against his chest and shoving with all her might.
“Waverly, you’re not getting rid of me.”
“I don’t have to get rid of you, X. I just have to wait for you to get bored and walk out on me again.”
He pulled her against him. “I didn’t get bored, Angel. I got scared. I almost lost you because of a mistake I made.”
“Bullshit.” The word snapped out of her mouth. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You saved my life that night, and the only one who made a mistake was me in trusting you to stick around. Maybe you did get scared, but it wasn’t because of Les Ganim. It was because you couldn’t love me.”
He bared his teeth, and instead of fear, she felt desire, fierce and hot, spike inside her. “I never stopped loving you. I fell for you when you tossed me in the pool, and I have never, not even for a single second since, stopped loving you. You are it for me Waverly Sinner, and the sooner you face it, the easier it will be for both of us.”
His mouth crushed down on hers, sealing the words that she wanted to shout at him, the accusations that he deserved to hear. She pushed against him, but her traitorous fingers dug into his jacket and held. And when his tongue slipped between her parting lips, she lost her mind and stopped fighting him.
He consumed her, and she let him. Just for a moment she wanted to forget everything that was going on and just feel something, anything. And Xavier made her feel everything, the heat, the longing, the clawing need. There were still feelings there, still the ignition of chemistry, but that had never been their problem. Honesty had been. And nothing had changed there.
He tasted her as he lifted her up to wrap her legs around his waist.
“I can’t be around you and not touch you,” he murmured against her mouth. He settled her on the kitchen island, and she bit his lower lip, hard. Xavier growled into her. His hands were everywhere, stroking and teasing. She felt his palm slide under her sweater and cup her waist careful to avoid her wound. And when it moved higher to rest on her satin covered breast, she hissed against his mouth.
No one had ever made her feel the way Xavier Saint did. No one silenced her inner demons and broke through her defenses just to drag her to the jagged edge of pleasure, no one but Xavier.
His hand kneaded her breast, and she hitched her legs tighter around his waist, pulling him against her. She could feel his erection through her jeans and moaned at the friction he was causing.
“Angel, I need you. I need to touch you.” He flexed his hips against her, and her head fell back. He shoved at her sweater, and she reached down between their bodies to cup him through the pants of his suit. Xavier groaned at the contact. He found the front clasp of her bra with his fingers and released it. And when his palms skimmed up to hold both breasts, Waverly shuddered with pleasure.
“Do you remember?” he gritted out against her neck as she stroked the length of his shaft through his pants. “How it felt when I was inside you? How it felt when I moved in you?”
She gasped and felt tears burn her throat. She remembered, and she knew there was a price to pay for feeling like that. She didn’t want this heat, this need. But she was already tugging his zipper down. Waverly wanted to take him in her hand and make him beg for her.
The ringing cut through the haze of lust that threatened to suffocate them both, her phone, that ringtone.
Her fingers fumbled and then stilled.
“Angel?” He whispered the question against her frozen mouth.
“I…the phone. I have to take it,” she stammered out.
He swore softly but lifted her off the counter and let her slide to the floor against him, every inch of their bodies touching.
She stared up at him, dazed by the contact, swamped by the need. He broke eye contact with her, his gaze pinned to her chest. But when his fingers reached for something, she realized it wasn’t her breasts that held him captivated. Triumphantly, he held up the coin necklace he’d given her on a long ago night.
She waited for him to say something, to call her out on her reluctance to leave the past in the past as she’d told him she had. But he was silent. His eyes said it all. There was fire in those whiskey depths. Hope. Memories.
Embarrassed, Waverly pulled the pendant from his fingers and tucked it back inside her sweater.
“Your phone, Angel,” he reminded her.
Waverly extricated herself from the cage of his arms and scrambled for her bag on the thick-planked dining table between kitchen and living spaces. Her body was still on fire from Xavier’s touch. She didn’t understand how her heart could be so hardened against him yet her body melted for the man. Her heart needed to have a stern talk with her hormones.
She found her phone on the bottom of her bag. It had stopped ringing, but she had a text from the same number.
Tomorrow. Seven a.m. Palo Comado. Alone.
It looked like she’d stirred up the hornet’s nest as intended. She felt Xavier’s gaze weigh on her and deleted the text. She didn’t trust him not to snoop through her phone. It’s what she would do in his place.
“Problem?” he asked.
