Page 35 of Dissonance

I press my lips to her ankle, the inside of her calf, her knee, moving slowly upward, feeling the way she responds under my hands, her soft, breathy sounds finding their way into my bloodstream.

I don’t do this. Normally, it’s simple. One night, a few hours tangled in each other’s bodies, then I’m out. Never lying around, room service, conversations about ambitions and family land, and what someone wants their life to look like. No wanting to know more than I already do about the woman in my bed.

But I’m still here, still wanting more.

“Give me the weekend.”

The words come out rough against the inside of her knee, and her fingers tighten on the sheets.

“The weekend?” she breathes.

“Aye.”

Clearly trying to work out if I’m serious, she studies me. “But we don’t even know each other’s names.”

“That bothering you?” I kiss the inside of her thigh, feeling the shiver under my mouth.

She lets out a half-laugh, half-huff as she shakes her head. “I don’t do this…”

My mouth curves against her skin. “Me neither.”

“I…kind of like it.”

“Aye?”

“No expectations,” she says, voice losing its steadiness as I move higher. “No awkward endings.”

I reach for her waist and tug until she’s flat on her back, dark hair fanning out across the pillow. She laughs, light and unguarded, the kind that softens her entire face. And, fuck, that might be more beautiful than anything else about her. I’ve spent the best part of twelve hours discovering things about her body, asked her for more time, and yet it’s this laugh that catches me off guard.

Slowly, I slide my hand up her chest, catching the top of the sheet and drawing it down, exposing more skin. Skin I want to take my time with. Skin I want to learn. Her back bows off the mattress as the cool hotel air washes over her, nipples hardening and begging for my mouth.

“You said expensive things are overrated,” I murmur, lowering until I can run my tongue over her pretty pink bud. “But I have a feeling men would bankrupt themselves for a taste of you.”

“Oh God,” she breathes, hips rolling up against me, her arousal coating my cock. “Okay. One— One weekend.”

I nod against her skin, lips tracing the swell of her breast, her ribs, her stomach, until they’re grazing the place where her thigh meets her hip, the scent of her skin heady and entirely hers.

“Aye,” I say, mouth brushing lower. “One weekend.”

She exhales as her hands slide into my hair, head pressing back into the pillow. “One weekend with a very attractive stranger.”

Chapter Fifteen

Thea

Present Day

The bed’s empty when I wake.

For one disoriented second, I think maybe I dreamed it—the car, his mouth on mine, the feel of him above me, inside me, the heat that still lingers on my skin—and my stomach drops.

Shifting under the sheets, everything aches in that familiar, delicious way, and I sigh, closing my eyes again. Nope. Definitely not a dream. Flopping onto the other side of the bed, I inhale deeply.

Even the pillow smells like him.

I sit up slowly, the sheet sliding down my bare skin, my feet finding the cool wood floor.

The ensuite door’s ajar and dark, nothing but silence. This is how it goes—has gone—in the times since Miami. Not as graceless as sneaking out, but the knowledge that whatever this is, only exists in the hours between one night and the next morning. Waking up alone is part of it. Sometimes.