He leaned in and gently kissed her mouth one last time. “How’m I doing?”
“Hmm?” She blinked.
“At kissing?” He nipped at her lower lip, and loved it when she shivered again. “How am I doing so far?”
“Oh.” She licked her lips, her little tongue darting out to sweep over the taste of him on her mouth. It made his cock ache all over again. “I . . . I think there’s definite progress.”
He grinned. “But not perfect, right? So clearly we need to practice more.”
“Clearly,” she breathed, and raised her arms to go around his neck again.
He was all too happy to give her more.
Chapter 7
By the time they called the kissing session for the night, Greer staggered back out to her car, dazed, and was shocked to see that only an hour and a half had passed since she’d first stepped into the hotel room.
My goodness. She sat in the car, staring ahead of her, keys in the ignition and all but forgotten.
Okay, so that was kissing. Real kissing. Greer touched her mouth in wonder. It felt swollen and just a little bit raw from all the kissing she’d done. And . . . it felt wonderful. More than wonderful, it felt sexy and powerful and needy at the same time. All of her was needy, actually. Between her thighs, she throbbed with heat, and her nipples felt like they’d turned to stone, they were so hard. Her entire body felt liquid and delicious . . . and aching.
If the night in the gardens had been like this . . .
It was confusing, too. After the marathon kissing session? Where Asher had done nothing but kiss the hell out of her and ask her if he was doing it right?
It was clear that the man knew how to kiss. It was clear that he hadn’t picked it all up from her printouts or from watching a romantic movie or two.
Greer might have been naïve, but she wasn’t stupid. It was obvious that Asher was pretending to need to “practice” with her . . . but to what end? That was the part she kept coming back to. Did he want to be friends again? Friends didn’t give friends scorching tongue kisses. Friends didn’t suck on the earlobes of other friends and ask them if they liked it or if they wanted more.
Friends sure didn’t ask friends to give them their mouth.
And friends didn’t shove themselves against other friends like wanton hussies and demand those kisses.
She pressed a hand to her flushed cheeks. She’d known the moment he’d started to nip at her earlobe that this was an experienced man. She should have pulled away and demanded answers. Instead, he’d come close to kissing her, demanded that she ask for more, and what had she done? Thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him.
So she was complicit in this.
She was so, so confused.
She put her seat belt on, started the rental car, and drove back to her father’s mansion, her mind replaying the evening over and over again.
Kissing practice, of all things. More like an excuse to kiss her for the next few days. No, wait. The next week, and then they would move on—heaven help her—to more intense sessions. Her entire body prickled with awareness at the thought.
She should have been mad. She should have been furious that he’d clearly lied to her about his skill. Or rather, she’d told him he was terrible at it and he’d never corrected her. It had suited him to let her think that. But why get a month of sex practice out of her?
Out of her?
That was the part she kept coming back to. What was it about Greer that he wanted? She wasn’t so naïve that she thought he’d somehow fallen in love with her. And Vegas was full of women who would take their clothes off—or more—for the right amount of money. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford sex. Heck, she doubted he’d even have to pay someone. He could just flash his charming smile at them and they’d fall into his arms, just like she did.
It had to be something with the baby, then. A surge of protectiveness shot through her. It was her baby. He didn’t deserve to be in their lives, not after that night in the gardens. But . . . if it was the baby, why had he agreed to give up all parental rights? She’d seen the contracts sent by his lawyer and had sent them on to hers to look over one last time before she signed. All was in motion, and they were both upholding their parts of the bargain.
Could it be that he really didn’t think he was good at sex?
She was so confused.
She was intrigued, too, as much as she hated to admit it to herself. Tonight’s kissing had set her body on fire. It had made her want more. It had made her wish desperately that she had a vibrator to let off some of the tension in her body. So as much as she was frustrated with Asher and didn’t trust him?
She was going back to his hotel room tomorrow night for the next session and not saying a thing about figuring out his plan. If she kept her mouth shut, she got a month of sex “practice” with him—practice that involved him doing his best to please her and make her feel pleasure.
What was the harm in that? It wasn’t as if he could get her pregnant.
It was just harmless sex . . . and she was honest enough to admit that she was looking forward to more of everything.
By the time she pulled up into the long, winding driveway of the Dutchman castle, she was feeling a bit more like herself. Greer smoothed her hair, adjusted her glasses, and then plucked her purse out of the passenger seat and headed in via the staff entrance.
“That you, Greer?” Marta called from the kitchen the moment Greer shut the door behind her.
She winced. Sometimes it was really frustrating having the staff entrance be right off the kitchens. Marta liked to know everything that was going on, and this was one particular thing she wouldn’t have minded keeping a secret. She hesitated, then took a few steps forward and peeked into one of the kitchen doors. “It’s me. Just heading up to my room.”