The surprise of her orgasm barely had time to register before it hit full force. Her inner muscles tightened, squeezing him. She arched, cried out, vibrated with the intensity of satisfaction.
He caught her before she tumbled backward, tensing against her as he sought his own release. He pumped twice more and stilled. Panted. His fevered brow burrowed deeper into the crook of her neck, his breath hot against her jaw as he relaxed. He fell back against the mattress, bringing her with him to splay over him like a contented cat.
Content wasn’t even close to the term she’d use to describe what they’d just done, what she felt, but her body was too relaxed and sated to think of something more appropriate.
* * *
When they got their breathing under control, Alec lifted his head and pushed the hair away from Faith’s face. Her amber eyes were more honey-colored in the dim lamplight and mischief hinted at the corners.
Would he ever stop being surprised by her? Moreover, had sex ever been like that before? That good, that satisfying, that . . . complete? Not for him, it hadn’t.
A lazy smile lifted her mouth. “This might sound like a terrible cliché, and you might put me in writer jail for saying it, but that was amazing. I’d heard sex could be mind-blowing, but I figured that was just hype. My experience never brought me close to that.”
She used the term experience in its singular form and he had to wonder if that was a slip of the tongue or if she’d only had one lover before him. “My ego says thank you.”
Her smile turned into a grin. “Welcome.” Sighing, she rested her chin on his chest and stared at him. Drew lazy circles in his chest hair. After a beat, the grin slipped and her back tensed beneath his hand. “Do you regret it?”
“No regret.” Not in the way she was figuring. He was just starting to get a tangible thread of what was so . . . unique about the two of them together, and it made his heart pound.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“No regret,” he repeated, this time more firmly.
She must’ve read something in his expression, because she shook her head. Shame washed over her face, so quickly he had no time to react. She scooted off the foot of the bed and covered her breasts, searching for her clothes.
Damn her. Damn him.
He pressed his palms to his eyes, hating how she could fucking see right through him. This time she had it all wrong, though, and he didn’t know how to voice the feelings filling his chest. “It’s not . . . Please come back to bed.”
Slipping into her panties—and hell, yellow was his new favorite color—she hopped on one foot before catching her balance. If not for the hurt radiating in her eyes, he’d call her beautiful. Hair wild, skin flushed. She didn’t bother with the bra, but she did fetch a pair of pajamas out of her suitcase by the closet.
He gave her a minute to dress, thinking she needed the barrier, before he got up and slid into a pair of black running shorts. “Are you hungry?”
Hungry? Really, man?
“No, thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he repeated, at a loss. He didn’t know how to do this, the morning-after thing. And he had the sinking suspicion he’d not only hurt her feelings, but insulted her somehow. “Faith . . .”
“It’s late. I’m gonna go sleep on the couch. I’ll see you in the morning.” She looked down at herself and released a sigh of resignation.
He looked at her pajamas for the first time and blinked. The top was a sheer black number and the bottoms a silk boy brief. Very hot, but not her. “I like them.”
“Yeah, well . . . thank Lacey. For all the good they did.”
“What does that mean?”
She turned on her heel and strode out.
He followed and gripped her arm. Soft, soft skin. Focus, Winston. “Answer me.”
Her face turned a shade of adorable red. “Lacey took me shopping before we left.” She waved her hands at herself. “This is the result.”
“If you didn’t like them, why did you buy them?”
She glanced at the ceiling, the wall, the floor. “I thought maybe you’d . . . notice me in them. Lacey picked them, and when she and Mia gang up, they can be pretty persuasive.”
Hold the phone. “What do you mean, you thought I’d notice you?” He’d been doing nothing but noticing her since the day they met. For the life of him, he still couldn’t figure out what it was about her that made her so damn special compared to the rest. Why she made him . . . want. Feel.
Jerking her arm out of his hand, she marched down the hall. “This is humiliating enough, Alec.”
Humiliating? “Swear to God, Faith, one of these days you need to stop walking away from me or you’re going to find yourself handcuffed to me.” He stopped. Huh. Nice thought.
He strode after her. She’d laid down on the couch and was pulling a throw blanket over her head. He yanked it off, leaned down, and picked her up. God, she weighed nothing.
She squeaked in protest.
Depositing her on one of the bar stools by the island, he pointed a finger at her. “Stay.” He rounded the corner into the kitchen and leaned his forearms on the counter across from her. “I notice you just fine. Explain.”
Closing her eyes, she rubbed her forehead. “You wouldn’t have sex with me. In Wilmington.”
“I told you I was taking things slow . . .”
“There’s slow and then there’s stagnant.”
He forced his open jaw shut. Faith thought he didn’t want her. He almost laughed. “I’m very attracted to you, and rest assured, it was damn difficult keeping my hands to myself.”
The long column of her throat worked a swallow as she stared at her hands. “I was unsatisfactory, wasn’t I?”
He needed to start carrying a sign around that said, Bang head here. “You were so unsatisfactory that I left a bite mark on your neck trying to restrain myself and I’m still trembling from coming so hard.”
Her gaze jerked to his. Held.
Christ. She was really something. When they’d first met, he’d thought her ordinary. How stupid of him. Her amber eyes could ensnare him for a decade. The scattering of light freckles on her nose added a girlish charm. That thin, pouty mouth said the damnedest things. And her voice . . . God, that voice.
“I don’t know what this previous experience is that you speak of, Faith, but you rocked my world.” In bed and out of it. Maybe this sudden change of mood wasn’t such a bad thing. He wasn’t so brainless as to assume she’d be out of his system once he’d had her—because she wasn’t—but this was leading nowhere fast. He sighed and tried to steer the conversation off course. “How about an omelet? You barely ate at the party.”
Still looking a bit shell-shocked, she nodded slowly.
Alec got ingredients out of the fridge that he had asked his housekeeper to stock and a skillet out of the cabinet. He chopped green pepper, tomato, mushrooms, and onions while trying to figure out what the hell to do in this situation. For the first time in years, if not ever, he wanted more. But he couldn’t have that “more,” so why wish it? Faith deserved better than this, so he needed to figure out a way to back out without hurting her feelings. She was not a temporary kind of woman, and the fact that he’d tried to use her as his most recent plaything tore at his gut.
“You have the what-did-I-just-do look again,” Faith said, interrupting his thoughts.
Taking more care than necessary, he flipped the omelet and tried to formulate words that would make sense to her. “I don’t regret the sex, Faith. I don’t. I just . . .”
“Don’t want to do it again.”
Oh, how very, very wrong she was. “The problem is, I do want to do it again.” Until they died from starvation from not leaving the bedroom. “So I think the best thing to do is just end it.”