Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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I've kissed a lot of women. An easy feat when you're a rich, good-looking guy with social status. That's not me bragging – it's simply a fact. Ask any athlete, movie star, politician, or musician and they'll tell you the same thing. When you have money, power, and status you can pretty much get whatever you want, whenever you want.
Most of them were great company. Things were easy because there was an understanding that our time together would never be more than physical. We had a good time, but none of them were Delaney. They didn't make me laugh the way she does or smile so big my cheeks hurt. They didn't keep me up at night thinking about them. They never made me want to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to wait in line at Starbucks with the rest of the world to order a ten-dollar coffee that immediately strips me of my man card the second the words 'with oat milk and extra caramel drizzle please' come out of my mouth.
They didn't bring out the protective instinct in me like Delaney does. I never worried about hurting their feelings when I'd call them an Uber after our time together was over. From the second I'd pick them out in a crowded room, there was never anything between us other than a sexual connection – for me anyway. I never got personal, or left time for conversation, or asked for their phone number. None of them ever made me want to open my heart and risk loving someone again.
Maybe that's because I've never taken the time to heal after Delaney and my break-up, or because I gave my heart to her when I was fourteen years old, and never took it back. Shit, maybe it's because I've already had perfection, so I know that no one will ever measure up. Either way, I was never willing to test the theory.
None of them had her heart-stopping smile – the one that stops me in my tracks and makes me say yes to whatever it is she's asking of me. Their noses didn't crinkle when they'd laugh, accentuating the freckles sprinkled across their skin. They didn't have her eyes – sparkling, sapphire blue pools I'll voluntarily drown in. None of them knew that I cry like a baby at those sad SPCA commercials, or when Shadow comes limping over that hill at the last second in the first Homeward Bound movie, and none of them knew that the way to calm me down when I'm upset is to put my head in their lap and run their fingers through my hair.
None of them made me feel safe and stable the way she does, or as happy as she does, or turn me on the way she does, and none of them ever kissed me the way she does. They didn't taste the way she does, and fuck does she taste good. Like peach pie, and bourbon, and some kind of fruity lip gloss – watermelon maybe. She's like one of those frozen cocktails you drink while sitting poolside at a fancy, Caribbean all-inclusive resort.
Great, now I'm thinking about her in a bikini, and though I'm standing in the freezing cold ocean, I have a semi.
I slide my hand up her jaw, gripping the back of her neck as I pull her against me, and wrap my arm around her lower back, lifting her just enough that her toes are just barely touching the water. She clutches my shoulders tightly, digging her fingernails into my skin, and wraps her legs around my waist, allowing me to feel the heat between her legs as she grinds against my torso. I put pressure on her mouth so she'll open up for me. I need more of her. I need all of her. She finally concedes, and the second I feel her lips part, I slip into her mouth, a gruff, needy moan rumbling in my throat as our tongues meet. She's gentle – her mouth working mine with mild intensity – but from the way she's digging into my skin and pressing herself against me, I know she's holding back.
