Beyond Ordinary Love_A Journey's End Billionaire Romance Read online

  Samira cried out, wrung out with pleasure as Baptiste found his rhythm.

  Sharply in and slowly out.

  Sharply in. Slowly out.

  “Merde,” he whispered, dropping his face into the hollow between her neck and shoulder. “You’re so tight. So tight.”

  She would have answered with you’re so big, but there was no oxygen left in her lungs. She closed her eyes and drifted into pure sensation, arching her back and meeting him thrust for thrust as his hips began to swivel.

  Having this one man inside her was everything.

  It also wasn’t nearly enough.

  He picked up the pace, making her face twist with the gathering ecstasy.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  Lifting his head, he tapped her chin.

  She opened her leaden eyelids and discovered him watching her with rapt attention, exactly the way a grizzly bear watched for leaping salmon at dinnertime.

  He held her gaze as he licked her lips but didn’t fully kiss her. Then he bent his head to nuzzle her breasts again, sucking a nipple into his mouth and letting it pop out while he began to pull out of her body.

  She frowned, shifting restlessly. “Hey.”

  “I thought you said you were finished, madame.”

  In a sign of how far gone she was at that moment, his gleam of amusement didn’t bother her. At all.

  He wasn’t the only one around here with no pride tonight.

  “I was mistaken, monsieur.”

  A quick smile before he pulled all the way out, carefully eased her to her feet, turned her around and bent her over the console until her belly, arms and palms were laid flat against it.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned.

  She felt the apples of his cheeks plump up in a smile as he scraped his teeth down her spine. She shivered and laughed, at least until he bent over her from behind, used one of his legs to widen her stance, and rubbed his dick against the slick and waiting folds of her flesh.

  “I’m glad you’re not done, madame. Because we have a lot of fucking to do tonight.”

  With that, he thrust inside her again, going so deep and hitting a spot so hidden and raw that she stiffened, her shocked cry trapped in her throat. Luckily, he seemed to know he was steering her into uncharted waters and stopped moving to give her time to adjust.

  “You’ve never done it doggy style before, madame?”

  She laughed, the smooth wood cool against her cheek.

  “Evidently, I’ve never done it with the right person before, monsieur.”

  “You have no idea how happy that makes me,” he said, his voice a low rumble in her ear.

  With a soothing kiss to her nape, he reached around to cup her sex in his possessive grip.

  She did not need another increase in sensation.

  “Ah, God, Baptiste.”

  Was that her voice? Sounding like a porn star at an orgy?

  He ruthlessly held himself in check, his big body trembling all around her. “Ça va?”

  “Oui.” She swallowed back most of a sob to answer him. “Ça va.”

  He kissed her nape. Rested his head between her shoulder blades.

  And then, to her absolute astonishment, she felt his upper body heave as his ribs contracted.

  He tightened his hold on her, stealing what remained of her breath with his sudden tenderness as he nuzzled and kissed her, rubbing his face against her back.

  “Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  After several long beats, he raised his head again and spoke in a tear-roughened voice.

  “Where have you been this whole time, Samira? Didn’t you know how lonely I was? How much I needed you?”

  Her heart contracted, hard, and that was it for her.

  If she’d had one ounce of self-restraint left, or even one holdout brain cell that refused to believe that she’d fallen for this man, it disappeared with a tiny pop.

  So there was only one thing she could do.

  “Shhh.” She braced on one hand and reached for his cheek with the other, turning her head to receive his fevered kisses to her face. “I’m here now.”

  He took a shuddering breath. “And you’re not going anywhere?”

  As if. Please.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Unabashed cry from Baptiste, somewhere between victory and ecstasy.

  Then he began to move.

  Thrust after thrust… harder …deeper… each one punctuated by their bodies slapping together and her incoherent sounds of encouragement.

  Perfectly timed. Relentless. Breathtaking.

  The hand between her legs provided the steady pressure she needed, intensifying the pleasure. She shouted with it, nonsense words that made no sense in English, French or any language currently known to humankind. She didn’t care. Pride and dignity no longer had any place in her life.

  There was only this.

  Him.

  He was every bit as frantic, fueling her with phrases urgently whispered in French.

  She didn’t know what they meant.

  On the other hand, it was perfectly clear what they meant.

  They undid each other, she and Baptiste, and this was the most natural thing in the world.

  All the pleasure contracted to one tightening point deep inside her body until, with a shameless moan, she shattered into a million shimmering pieces. Inner muscles clenched. Her belly spasmed. It went on and on, ruining her for anyone or anything else, ever again. And when she was destroyed and exhausted, limp with sensation, his fingers flexed between her thighs, and there was more.

  Her only consolation?

  The way his body tensed, turning to stone while time stood still for several endless seconds.

  And then he shouted out her name, over and over again.

  Samira laid her head on the console and tried to regulate her heaving lungs as the last of the aftershocks rippled through her. Baptiste rested the top half of his body against her, his breath harsh in the relative silence.

  Neither of them moved.

  After a while, just as the console began to feel particularly hard and cold against her bare torso, Baptiste slowly levered himself up. The loss of his body warmth was a nasty jolt, as was the feeling when he pulled free, leaving a delicious ache between her thighs. He stepped back. Away. She heard the rustle of clothing as he adjusted his boxers and jeans, which he’d never taken all the way off.

  Samira also straightened, but kept a hand on the console. A woman who’d just been fucked into next year would be foolish to test her spaghetti legs at this particular moment.

  She turned, a scorching wave of heat roaring up her neck and across her cheekbones. Her complete nakedness (they were in the foyer; the foyer!), which had seemed so thrilling only a moment ago, suddenly left her feeling cold and excruciatingly exposed.

  Her right mind, meanwhile, had vacated the premises and still wasn’t back from break.

  The things she’d said! The noises she’d made! His absolute command of her body!

  This entire scene—hell, her entire life since she laid eyes on this man the other night—felt as foreign to her as the monetary system in Sri Lanka.

  When the silence grew excruciatingly long and awkward, she forced herself to look up at him, her mind empty of everything but this:

  Oh, God. What just happened here?

  He looked exactly the way she felt. Wild-haired and undone, with a vague flare of panic in his eyes as he watched her. Sweaty, his chest hair damp as it narrowed through the ladder rungs of his abs and disappeared to parts below his notched hips.

  He looked, in short, as though he’d just crossed the finish line at the Ironman Triathlon only to be told he now needed to compete in the Tour de France.

  What now?

  The longer he stared at her, the more her growing dismay took hold. What had gotten into her? This wasn’t her. None of this. Oh, sure, she might flirt with pretending she was as sexually uninhibited and sophisticated as one of
his European honeys, but when it came down to it? She wasn’t. She didn’t do things like getting fingered in his car in broad daylight or screwed against the console in her foyer.

  Bottom line?

  She couldn’t keep up with the big girls. This thing here, whatever it was between them, meant something to her, and she’d never be able to pretend otherwise.

  And to think she’d wanted to take things slow.

  What a joke.

  So where did that leave them? Would she become clingy despite all her best intentions to keep him at a safe distance? Yeah, probably. If and when she did, would that speed up his inevitable departure for France and the moment when yet another important person in her life walked out on her?

  She stared at him, waiting for some sign that everything was okay, her heart in her throat.

  He stared back.

  And then, finally, his eyes crinkled at the corners.

  “Well. I did warn you that we had a lot of fucking to do, madame.”

  She burst into laughter, and that swept away all the growing tightness in her chest and throat.

  “True,” she said. “If only you’d warned me we’d be doing it all at one time.”

  He laughed, and her sun came out again.

  “Come here,” he said, reaching for her.

  She went eagerly, snuggling against his bare chest and reveling in his musky warmth. He was so strong and this place here inside his arms felt so right. Why be so afraid all the time? Why not enjoy herself while she could?

  “Samira.” He pulled back enough to give her a long and penetrating look before kissing her forehead. “You just gave me the greatest gift I could ever ask for. You never need to be embarrassed or scared about that.”

  Just the reassurance she needed. All her demons slunk away into the darkness, putting their heads down to await another opportunity to attack.

  “Kindly stop reading my mind,” she said briskly. “You wouldn’t like it if I did it to you all the time.”

  “I’m more than happy to tell you what I was just thinking.” He gently stroked her back. “If you’re ready to hear it.”

  She looked up. Met his gaze, so bright and intent. So serious.

  A frisson of nerves ran through her as she thought about a couple of possible outcomes.

  If he told her he was falling in love with her, she would freak out.

  If he told her he was headed home tomorrow (next week; next month), she would freak out.

  Seeing no safe alternatives, she decided to punt the ball.

  “I’m not ready to hear it,” she said softly. “Why don’t we save a relationship milestone or two for our second week of knowing each other?”

  Disappointment flickered, but he kept his game face firmly in place.

  “It’s okay,” he said with another kiss to her forehead. “It will keep.”

  “Good.”

  “Meanwhile,” he said, letting her go to pick up her T-shirt and slip it over her head. “I’m going to the toilet.”

  Her gaze drifted lower. She’d been trying not to stare at his still condom-wrapped package, which was stuffed back inside his boxers and crammed behind the half-zipped fly of his jeans, but now she couldn’t help but wonder…

  “Oh, we’re not finished fucking for the night,” he said lazily. “Not even close.”

  His tone, naturally, sent a fresh surge of blood to her nether regions, but he didn’t need to know that.

  She hiked up her chin and pretended she wasn’t blushing furiously.

  “Remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  His brows shot up. “Another challenge. You Americans do like digging your own graves, don’t you?”

  “Maybe you French shouldn’t be so arrogant all the time.”

  They grinned at each other for a delicious moment or two, until their amusement faded and only raw heat remained.

  He swallowed hard. Hesitated.

  “Are you on the pill, Samira?”

  She blinked.

  “No. I stopped after the wedding got canceled. But I should probably start again.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m going to visit a clinic first thing Monday morning. I’ve always been very careful about using condoms, as I said, but I’m going to bring you proof that I’m clean. As I assume you are? Good. Then we won’t need to use condoms. Okay?”

  Her head spun with all these developments.

  And yet her self-protective instincts were, for once, strangely quiet.

  She tried to repress her smile. “What about the lifetime supply of condoms stuffed in your back pocket? Is that just money wasted?”

  He snorted. “With you? That won’t keep us until morning. And when I come back from the toilet, I want to see your lovely house.”

  “Oh, it’s not mine. It’s a rental. And don’t you want to get some sleep?”

  “Sleep?” A frown grooved down his forehead. “This is no time for sleeping. I’m too excited when we’re together.”

  “You need to pace yourself,” she said, laughing.

  He stared her in the face, all grim determination and sincerity.

  “I can’t. I want to learn everything about you.”

  7

  “Hey!” Grinning, Samira opened the door for Baptiste and gave him a big kiss as he passed through the foyer with his grocery bags and deposited them on the kitchen counter. “What’s all this?”

  “All this is dinner,” he said, hanging his jacket on the hook by her back door. His heart, which had been doing a remarkable impression of a kite flying in April winds, swooping and rising every chance it got, swelled at the sight of her.

  They’d been inseparable for the last couple of weeks, and his days had developed new benchmarks. Once, he’d careened from meeting to meeting, his cell phone glued to his hand and his plane’s pilot on standby to deliver him to some European city or other on winery business. To unwind, he’d have drinks with his colleagues or college friends (a motley collection of pretentious assholes, to be honest) and then sex with a woman of the moment.

  These days? Work was still fun, but it was no longer his raison d’être.

  That title now belonged to Samira.

  Oh, sure, he enjoyed drinks and bike riding with Daniel and Sean. Thrived on the renewed camaraderie, in fact. And if there was a more delightful small town to live in than Journey’s End, he had a tough time envisioning it. So he loved exploring all its hidden gems.

  But the best parts of his day all involved Samira. Waking up with her. Sneaking a kiss at the winery. Arriving at her cozy bungalow (she called it “country chic,” with its weathered tables, overstuffed chairs and framed posters of Monet’s water lilies) for dinner together after another long day working on merger details at the winery. Watching a movie (he’d finally watched and loved This Is Spinal Tap, on Daniel’s recommendation) or reading quietly on her sofa (he’d found the time to read again, starting with one of his beloved adventure novels, The Last of the Mohicans), a bowl of popcorn between them and a lit cinnamon candle on the mantel. Falling asleep buried deep inside her, then waking up in the night to make love to her again when she was drowsy and softly pliant.

  He lived for these points that demarcated the good parts of his day from the great, and he’d begun to regard his arrival here, where Samira and a good bottle of wine always awaited him, as his daily reward for a job well done.

  Which was why it was such a shock to take a closer look at her and realize she was dressed in her black knit T-shirt, shorts and blue belt for her Krav Maga Israeli martial arts class.

  “Dinner?” she asked brightly, peering into his bags. “I thought we’d order pizza later, but this looks so much better. Are you cooking now? What is this? Pasta? Shrimp?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, feeling a little sheepish now that his big moment had come. He’d had grandiose thoughts of them making dinner together, but that would have to wait. “Someone had the TV on in the break room this morning, and I saw a cooking segment about s
hrimp scampi.”

  She raised a brow. “I admire your ambition. But have you ever turned on a stove before? No offense.”

  “Offense taken.” Reeling her in, he kissed that irresistible spot on her neck, the one that always made her laugh and squirm. Ah, there it was. Delighted, he tightened his hold on her waist while she tried to break free. “While I was not allowed in Chef’s kitchen growing up—”

  “Not allowed?”

  “I’ll have you know that I learned all about stoves and ovens when I lived in Napa.”

  “And now you can make…?”

  He had to laugh at himself. “And now I can make grilled cheese and scrambled eggs like Julia Child. It’s quite impressive.”

  “I can hardly wait to experience your skills.” Her sultry gaze swept him up and down. “Or should I say more of your skills?”

  “Well played.” He leaned in for another kiss, one that left her breathless and flushed. Just the way he liked her. “How was your day today? How are things progressing for the gala? And have you heard back from the editors at Wine Snob yet?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back from my class. How was your day? How are the negotiations going with the distributors?”

  “Very well. I think I made one of them cry today.”

  She laughed. “Really? Do tell.”

  “It’s a thrilling tale with many details. And I want to use my Italian accent for you so you’ll feel like you were on the conference call.” More of her sparkling laughter. But much as he longed to wallow in it forever, he didn’t want to make her late. “But I see I’ve forgotten about your class tonight.”

  “I don’t have to leave just yet. And we can cook later, right?” Moving with her usual brisk efficiency, she put the shrimp and chardonnay in the refrigerator and set the rest of the groceries aside. “This’ll give you the chance to go back to the hotel and get some clothes and things for tomorrow.”

  The hotel.

  His guilty conscience squirmed.

  Shit.

  “That could work.” He tried to school his features so he didn’t look, as Daniel would say, shady. “Or…here’s an idea. I could stay here while you’re at class. Fix the dinner. Then have it ready when you get home.”

  Samira blinked.