“Only if you wear your birthday suit.”
“Fine by me.”
I laughed again. It was cute how he was joking about staying in my life. My heart cracked at the thought. I didn’t point out that after this trip we’d never see each other again, and instead I said, “Five is I’ve never had a one-night stand. At least not until tonight.”
He leaned in and kissed me on my lips slowly, gently. “You need to come up with a different fifth item because this isn’t a one-night stand.”
A silty warmth spread through my body at the thought that for the next few days I could swathe my soul in a fleeting romance with Andrew. It would hurt like hell when it was over, and I had hard work ahead of me to pick up all the shattered pieces of my heart, but that would come later. Right now I wanted to lose myself in the oblivion of being with him.
“Now it’s your turn to tell me five things about yourself that no one knows.”
Andrew blew a slow breath, running his fingers through his hair. “I saw this coming the second I asked you the question.”
“Of course, it’s the only fair way to play this game.”
He gave me a coy smile. “One. For a brief time, I wanted to become a vet. But when I took a biology lab at uni, I couldn’t stomach dissecting rat specimens. After a minute of staring at a dead animal, I excused myself and stumbled into a loo where I passed out in a stall.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh.
“Go ahead.” He rolled his eyes. “Laugh.”
“I’m sorry.” I chuckled. “You’re such a large man, I can’t picture you passing out from seeing a dead rat.”
Growing up, William and I had mice traps around our trailer because we couldn’t afford pest control services. We rotated whose turn it was to get rid of any new victims each week. Eventually, we got the situation under control—with Ms. Rudy’s help—but ever since, a dead rodent had always been the least scary thing in my life.
“I’m sorry, I’m being insensitive.” I got my giggles under control. “Please tell me your next four. I promise not to laugh.”
“Two. I can’t stand wearing socks. As soon as I have a chance to take them off, I do.”
I glanced at his bare feet, with their nice-looking toes and clean and neatly trimmed nails.
“Three. I lost my virginity when I was twenty-three.”
My jaw went slack, and my eyes widened. This was a doozy. How in the world had this Roman deity stayed a virgin that long? But then my eyebrows shifted together because I was sure his ex-fiancé knew about that. “Hey, we agreed on things that no one knows about you, and this?—”
“Brie doesn’t know.” He ran his hand over my arm and his eyes followed the movement. “I was embarrassed to admit it, and then it didn’t matter.”
“Nothing is embarrassing about that.” My fingers caught his, and I linked them. “It’s sweet.”
“Four.” His gaze swept over my face, and then he smiled. A sugary, timid smile. “I wanted to kiss you on the plane when you took my mind off the flight, and also, it was so hard to lie to you that I didn’t fancy your backside. You have the nicest one I’ve ever seen.”
My heart stuttered like it had then during our flight. What was he doing to me?
“That’s two things in one confession,” I said. “But thank you.”
“And five is,” his deep voice rumbled, “tonight was the most out-of-this-world, mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had in my life.”
I dropped my head on a pillow and covered my eyes with my hand. “Liar. It couldn’t have been your best sex. You did all the work. I just laid there.”
Andrew rolled me on my back, pinning my hands above my head, and letting his heavy, hard cock drag across my body, his weight deliciously pressing on me. His eyes were full of unexpected earnestness. I wished he would stop looking at me like that because it stirred up feelings inside me I wanted never to have again. “Just being with you made it that much better.” And he needed to stop saying things like that, too. He lowered his lips near my ear. “But you’re right. I’m a liar.” His breath on my skin drew moist from inside of me. “What’s about to happen next will be the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
We snuggled in his bed and talked for hours. We had sex again, and then, with my head in the crook of Andrew’s shoulder, his arms around me, we fell asleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, with the moonlight flooding the room with a bewitching light, we silently made slow, tender love. I wasn’t sure if either of us climaxed, but it was like a promise. The way Andrew held my gaze. The way he kissed me. It had a deeper purpose, much more meaningful than any previous time.
A crisp and clear dawn seeped softly through the window into the room. Andrew’s hand ran over my bare body as if he was memorizing every curve and nook. We laid sideways, my body molded into his, his hard length pressing against the small of my back.
“I should probably find William. Let him know I’m alive,” I whispered.
