The Varlet and the Voyeur

  “It was—” I had to clear my throat to get the words out, “It was a mistake.”

  “What?”

  The doors to the elevator slid open, revealing the hallway to our floor. I half turned, placing my hand in the path of the doors, and gestured for Josey to exit. I couldn’t meet her eyes, because then she’d know, and then she’d leave me.

  Just the thought . . .

  She didn’t move for several seconds, and again I felt her gaze on my profile, searching.

  Eventually, she said, “After you.”

  Her words, especially the cool edge of her tone, had me glancing at her. Josey was glaring at me, her jaw set, her arms crossed. When it became clear she wouldn’t exit until I did, I sighed and stepped off, but kept my hand in place.

  She glared at me as she left the lift, she glared at me as the doors slid shut, and she glared at me as she walked past. Josey pulled her keys from her bag and unlocked the door, I heard their jangle as she tossed them into the basket and walked inside.

  I also heard Rocky’s excited sounds of greeting and her soothing sounds in return. I assumed—hoped—any conversation about Aideen or what I’d inadvertently confessed was now permanently shelved, that Josey was now happily distracted by Rocky and would just let it go.

  So I dropped my bag by the entrance, closed the door, locked it, and walked to the kitchen, seeking to subdue the burst of earlier panic. I opened the fridge, swallowing around a tight knot in my throat, and grabbed a vitamin water.

  But when I shut the fridge and turned, Josey was there. Her hands were on her hips, and she was once again glaring at me.

  “What was a mistake?” she demanded, her tone reminding me of how she’d sounded on the airplane during our flight back to Ireland.

  Again, I had to clear my throat before responding, my eyes moving beyond her to everything and nothing. “What I said.”

  “You’re being vague on purpose. What did you say, specifically, that was a mistake?” She took a step forward.

  I struggled to draw a complete breath.

  “Who are you in love with?” Another demand, another step forward.

  I shook my head, staring at the white wall over her shoulder. If she knows, she’ll leave.

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” She did not sound happy, and I winced, hot pins and needles rushing to the surface of my skin, resisting the powerful urge to fall to my knees and beg her to stay.

  Yet I couldn’t deny it.

  We stood there, her eyes on me while I fought and clawed and struggled to think of a way out of this mess, one where she didn’t leave me.

  But then she said, “Coward,” her voice catching.

  Startled, my eyes cut to her face just in time to witness a tear spill down her cheek. I blinked at the liquid emotion. I stared at it, dumbfounded.

  What . . .? “What?”

  Lifting my gaze to hers, I discovered with no small amount of wonder that Josey was not only pissed, she was sad. Tremendously sad.

  “You are such a coward!” Her face contorted as she charged at me, pushing against my chest.

  She didn’t knock me physically off-balance, but my head was spinning, and I caught her arms before she could move away.

  Greedy with hope, I examined her flushed face, her chin wobbling though she pressed her lips together admirably. More tears streamed down her face and she scowled at me accusingly.

  “Josey—”

  “Do you know, I cried so much after you broke things off that night, that I used all the tissue in the hotel room? All the Kleenex, all the toilet tissue. I used all the towels, and was tempted to use the edge of my sheet. My sheet! I had to call housekeeping to bring me more tissue and pillowcases and towels.” She pulled herself out of my grip, pointing at my chest much like she’d done on the airplane.

  My heart soared.

  She wasn’t finished. “And my face was red, my eyes were swollen, and there I was, negotiating the release of tissue with a very concerned member of the hospitality staff, fielding their sympathetic looks and offers for help, all because you were—no! You are too much of a coward to take a chance on something—something—”

  I reached for her again. “Josey—”

  She evaded me, darting around the kitchen counter and down the hall, shouting around her sobs. “Think of the trees, Will! And now I need more tissue, you selfish, cowardly coward! You’re killing trees!”

  Chasing her, I caught her just inside her bathroom, where she was pulling at the roll of toilet paper and crying in earnest.

  “Josey—”

  “Oh, sod off!” She covered her face, her shoulders shaking.

  I wrestled with my need to touch her, which raged against the quiet voice of common sense telling me to give her space. Unsurprisingly, baser instincts won, and I pulled her against my chest, holding her tightly in my arms.

  She let me, but she whispered, “Coward.”

  Which spurred me to blurt, “I love you,” my voice rough and my heart at a gallop. “I’m so in love with you.”

  “Yes. Thankyouverymuch. I already sorted that bit out.” She grabbed fistfuls of my shirt, her face against my chest. She seemed to be attempting to regulate her breathing.

  Cupping her cheek, I encouraged her to tilt her head back so I could look in her eyes. She was still clearly furious and sad, glaring at me between hiccupping sobs.

  I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Do you—”

  “You broke my heart!” she shouted, fidgeting a little, clenching her fists as though to beat them against my chest.

  It was absolutely the wrong moment to smile, but I did.

  Josey huffed, her scowl returning. “You don’t have to look so happy about it.”

  I held her tighter. “I’m not happy. I’m—”

  “You are happy. You wouldn’t have told me, would you? Unless I asked point blank, right? Were you embarrassed?” she accused, wiggling again, this time to break my hold.

  She succeeded, because I was so surprised by her question. “Embarrassed?”

  “Of me?”

  My smile fell. Is that what she thought?

  “God no!” I reached for her and she sidestepped, darting out of the bathroom, taking a length of toilet paper with her.

  Growling my aggravation, I followed her again, and found her clipping Rocky’s leash to his collar. She was fast, but I was faster, and I blocked the door before she could leave.

  Rocking back on her heels when she encountered the wall of my chest, she huffed again, crossing her arms and lifting her eyes no higher than my chin.

  “Move.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “Why?” Her reproachful gaze came to mine. “Because now, finally, you’re going to tell me the truth? First you say you want me to be your employee, then you say you want in my pants but nothing else, and now—

  “That’s not true. I wanted—want—to be with you. I wanted commitment.”

  Her eyes narrowed with obvious suspicion. “Did you, though? Did you really? Because the way I remember the conversation, you only wanted to ‘date me’”—she used her fingers to make quotations in the air—“if we were headed someplace serious, like marriage, which we both knew was a total joke. You didn’t really want a commitment or marriage with me. And then, BAM! A friends with benefits arrangement saves the day.”

  Shoving my fingers through my hair, I clenched and unclenched my jaw, because she was right about then, but wrong about now. “You’re right, I was relieved then when you said you didn’t want a commitment or something serious. I need, needed rules, defined expectations, set boundaries.”

  “You broke all the rules.” Her tone was flat. “You held my hand, everywhere. We had those dinners, just us.”

  “Those were your rules.”

  “You agreed to them!”

  “I hated them.” My attention dropped to her mouth, galvanized by the shape and color of her lips.

  “Then why did you agree?” Her voice cracked. “Why not ju
st date like a normal person? Why make it everything, or almost nothing?”

  “Because I thought. . .” Christ, I wanted to touch her, I burned with the need to hold her again. “I thought it would keep me from falling in love with you.”

  “What is so wrong with falling in love with me?” Her chin wobbled again, and new tears threatened.

  I couldn’t bare her sorrow. I reached for her.

  She twisted away. “No. Don’t touch me.”

  “Josey.” I stepped away from the door. “Listen—”

  “I’m done listening.” She held her hands up.

  Rocky danced around her feet, made anxious by her sadness, and sending me quick glares as though to ask, Are you responsible for this?

  “Please.” She didn’t want me to touch her, but I couldn’t stay away. I followed her as she backstepped around the couch, looking everywhere but at me.

  “You are a coward. You say you love me, but leaving me in Australia, using your safe word, returning in the middle of the night and then ending things instead of admitting the truth, instead of taking a risk. That’s not love.”

  “I couldn’t.” What if you didn’t love me back?

  How could I make her understand?

  “Why?” she said on a sob.

  “What if you didn’t feel the same way?”

  “So you said nothing?” Her voice cracked.

  “Yes,” I seethed, angry, and not able to pinpoint precisely why. “I didn’t want—”

  “Me?”

  “No! I wanted you. But in Australia, you always left me after we were together. I couldn’t read you, I had no idea what you were thinking. And since we’ve been back here, it’s like nothing fazes you, you acted like what happened in Sydney meant nothing.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Beg you to be with me? You’re the one who pushed me away.”

  “No, of course not. But I didn’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I didn’t want you to leave me.”

  “So . . .” she looked bewildered. “You pushed me away so you wouldn’t lose me?”

  Reaching my wit’s end, I turned Josey’s question back on her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Her eyes came to mine then, and she huffed an incredulous laugh.

  Before she could speak, I challenged again, “You claim I broke your heart, so why didn’t you say anything to me? Why didn’t you tell me? Why act like you wanted things to end that night? One word from you and I would have—”

  “You’re joking, right? You said yourself you were worried about an imbalance in power dynamics in any relationship. I’m nobody! I’m Nosey Josey, head full of posies, mug like a bug, uglier than a pug. You’re William fucking Moore!”

  “You’re not nobody.” I couldn’t keep the desperation from my voice, “You’re everything to me!”

  Abruptly, she ceased walking backward and held my stare, her lips parted in plain surprise, and I could see my last words had affected her. After a protracted moment, Josey broke eye contact and covered her face with a hand, swiping angrily at her tears.

  Balling my hands into fists so I wouldn’t touch her, I hazarded a step closer, then another.

  “Why wouldn’t you let me kiss you?”

  She snorted derisively through tears, throwing daggers at me with her disbelieving stare. “If you wanted to kiss me, you would have.”

  That stopped me, and it took me a full moment to respond. “And disrespect your boundaries?”

  She shook her head, her anger becoming something else, something anxious and vulnerable. “I don’t know, what I felt—feel—is chaotic. The rules made sense at the time, but I hated them too, and I just wanted you to . . . to . . .”

  “What?” I whispered, now within arm’s reach of her and Rocky, who was alternating between sitting and standing, his anxious gaze on his mistress.

  She seemed to deflate, her arms coming around her middle. “I didn’t want you to kiss me, if you didn’t love me.”

  Not hesitating even a half second, I reached for her jaw, stroking my palm against it, stepping closer, caressing the indent beneath her cheekbone with my thumb. “I love you, Josey Kavanagh.”

  “I’m so confused,” she confessed softly, brokenly, her words bewildered, but she curled a hand around my wrist and held on, her gaze moving between my mouth and my eyes until I was too close for her to focus on either.

  I slid my other hand around her waist.

  I closed my eyes.

  And, thank fuck, I finally, finally kissed her.

  Twenty-One

  @JoseyInHeels: After a fight, chimpanzees kiss each other to make up just like humans #funfacts

  @ECassChoosesPikachu to @JoseyInHeels: … what’s going on? Call me! I mean it this time!!

  JOSEY

  My arms flailed.

  My heart beat twice as fast.

  Pleasurable chills encapsulated my entire body.

  A galaxy of stars glittered behind my closed eyelids.

  All because William Moore was kissing me.

  Not a peck on the cheek. Not on top of my head, temple, or jaw. No, this was a spine-tingling, heart-stopping, toe-curling kiss on the mouth. This was a kiss that changed lives.

  It was certainly changing mine. The ramifications of our brief exchange were too monumental to process right now.

  You’re not nobody. You’re everything to me!

  I love you, Josey Kavanagh.

  The deep, masculine quality of Will’s declarations echoed in my head while he cupped my face in his strong hands. He slid his tongue deep into my mouth and drank me in—slowly, carefully—like he didn’t want to waste a single second. He savored me, and when I finally managed to snap to my senses, I savored him, too.

  The suddenness of it all had rendered me momentarily frozen, but now I kissed him back. After waiting so long, his mouth was on my mouth, his lips on my lips, his tongue against my tongue. And he tasted good. No, he tasted incredible.

  I whimpered when his hands left my face so that he could wrap his arms tight around my waist and pull me to him. Somewhere close by, Rocky was jumping into the air and barking, whether in happiness and glee at us finally kissing, or merely for attention, I wasn’t sure.

  Probably the latter.

  Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t available right now, because I was too lost in THE KISS. It felt like I’d been waiting my entire life for it. Rocky’s hyperactivity died down as he gave up and wandered off, leaving the humans to do human things, while I wrapped my arms around Will’s neck and gasped when he pressed his erection against my belly.

  He was rock-hard.

  A moan escaped me. He picked me up, and I squealed as the air went out from under me. A second later, he was kissing me again. It appeared he was an excellent multitasker as he carried me from the living room to his bedroom—okay, a passable multitasker since his shoulder bumped into the doorframe in the process. He swore into the kiss, which somehow made it sexier, then kicked the door shut with a slam behind us.

  We were alone.

  Will only broke away long enough to lay me down on his bed and shoot me a dark, sensual look. It said he had plans—dirty, sexy plans. I had no complaints as he crawled up my body, took my chin in his hand, and brought my mouth to his again. Right now, he seemed more interested in kissing than anything else, which was fine by me because we had a lot of lost kissing time to make up for.

  He was possessed, and I was more than willing to be the recipient of that possession, of the lust that shone in his eyes.

  He nibbled at my lips, kissed my chin, the underside of my jaw, before returning to my mouth. His tongue sank inside, caressing my tongue, licking into me with a need fiercer than a hundred-foot wave. Goosebumps covered every inch of my skin.

  Between my thighs, I ached. In my belly, I ached. Everywhere, I freaking ached.

  It had only been about a week since we’d been together, but it felt like an eternity.

  My body hummed, floated on a cloud of bliss, as it
finally got what it wanted.

  At long last William Moore was kissing me.

  I loved him.

  He loved me.

  I felt like I was dreaming.

  Wait, had I actually said it yet?

  His tongue did wondrous things to me as I backtracked through our conversation. No, I hadn’t.

  Will told me he loved me, and I hadn’t said it back. Sure, he knew I’d fallen for him, but saying the words was important. At least, it was to me.

  I brought my hands to his chest, trying to push him away long enough to break our kiss. His mouth slid across my lips and cheek to my ear, where he lazily sucked my earlobe, and my spine arched up in pleasure. He really was way too good with his tongue. His hand wandered to the hem of my skirt, pushed it up and caressed the back of my thigh. My sex clenched from the seductive whisper of his fingertips, so close yet so far.

  “Wait, wait,” I gasped, clenching his shirt in my fists. He drew away just slightly, but didn’t stop what he was doing. It made it hard to think straight. When his hand moved further up my thigh and slid past the seam of my underwear to caress my bottom, I let out a breathy whimper.

  “Please don’t tell me to stop,” Will whispered, begging. He was looking at me now, taking in my every reaction. His eyes absorbed my entire face, seeming to look everywhere at once.

  “I….” I heaved a breath. “I h-have something to say. That is, I…” His fingers wandered between my thighs and I squeezed my eyes shut, my voice turning breathy. “Oh my God.”

  Will let out a deep chuckle. “Is that what you wanted to say?”

  “No, no!”

  His fingers paused in their exploration. “No?”

  “No, I mean, yes. Please, don’t stop, I just need to tell you that I—”

  “Yes?” Will purred, circling my clit, licking my lips, and making me lose my ever-loving mind. I got the sense he was enjoying this, teasing me, making me flustered. He sucked my earlobe again and I considered giving up. But no, this needed to be said. He needed to hear it, needed to know I was serious about him. Just as serious as he was about me.

  I opened my eyes on a gasp. I was going to come and he’d barely even gotten started. Will’s gaze held mine as he paused his teasing of my clit to plunge two fingers inside me. I was so, so wet, and my spine arched again, needing more, welcoming whatever he wanted to give.