Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,146

sucks. As we walk back toward the front door, Barrett warms an arm around me. He strokes my arm and gives me a quizzical look.

I smile. “I love this place,” I murmur.

His brows arch, and he nods. The walls already have mirrors and the floors are covered with those foamy mats whose vinyl scent takes me back to the Taekwondo studio where Rett and I learned. They only major thing we—Barrett, really—might want to do is busting out two walls to make the two rooms in the front of the space into one giant room.

Barrett drives us home: to his home, and as Kellan opens the front passenger side Bear leans into the back seat where Cleo and I are sitting. “Be right back,” he tells me quietly. “Just going to let them in.”

The three of them go up the stairs, and I wait, feeling slightly awkward and admiring Kellan’s car, which smells phenomenally new car-ish.

Cleo and Kellan disappear through Barrett’s front door, and I watch Barrett descend the stairs. I can see him smiling toward me even though I know he can’t see me through the windows’ heavy tinting. Still, I smile back.

I’m still smiling when he opens my door. “Over the river and through the woods?” he asks, nodding back toward my house. He gives me a little smile that makes a flock of birds swoop through my stomach.

“Sure.” We fall into step beside each other, weaving between pines and through the crackling leaves. “So are they leaving?”

“I invited them for dinner. At my house if that’s better.”

I shove him. “Psshh. My house. You and me, Bear. We’ll make something good for them. Are they just taking some alone time at the moment?”

He nods. “Kelly’s tired.”

“So what’s it like with him? Is he like…done with everything or…?”

“He takes some maintenance medicines, I think. Most of it for his heart.”

“His heart?”

Barrett holds a branch back for me, nodding.

“He has some damage from the chemo.”

“Really? He seems…so healthy.” I shake my head and laugh unhappily. “That’s a stupid thing to say, I guess.”

“No.” His hand brushes my lower back as the wind blows a strand of hair into my face. “He’s doing pretty well. And his heart is healing up, they think.”

“Still.” I exhale slowly. “That’s just… I hate that.”

“Because you have a soft heart.”

“INFJ Advocate here,” I say, in an exaggerated, Valley Girl voice.

Instead of chuckling like I think he will, Barrett leans over and brushes his lips across my forehead, then surprises me by wrapping an arm around me, pulling me back against him so I’m stopped there in the woods. His mouth finds my neck. He kisses up behind my ear, making me shiver as I latch onto his arm, around my waist.

He kisses my throat until my knees are shaking and I feel all warm and needy. Then he comes around in front of me and takes my face in his hands.

“They liked you, like I told you they would.”

His lips meet mine for a soft kiss.

His big hands stroke my hair out of my face. His gaze holds mine. I can feel him wanting to say something…but he doesn’t. Barrett just keeps kissing me until I’m clinging to him, and he picks me up and carries me to my door, to my room, and to the bed. There, he pulls my leggings down, spreads me gently, and feasts like I’m a succulent dessert and he’s starving.

When I come around again and open my eyes, I find Barrett’s are dark with lust, his long cock tenting his jeans.

Holy hell, I want him.

I lower my legs, so they’re hugging his sides, and stroke my hands up his triceps. “Come here,” I murmur. He crawls up my thighs, straddling me… stroking my hips and looking down on me with lust-dazed eyes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he rasps.

“You are…” I sit up a little, going for his fly. Barrett watches, hooking his thumbs at the waist of his pants; then, as I unzip the jeans, he shuts his eyes and drags his hand down, cupping his bulge.

“That’s so hot,” I whisper, working his jeans down his hips, so I can see the outline of him through his navy boxer briefs. I stroke him through the cotton. Barrett groans. I slide my palm up the inside of his thigh, stroking his warm skin, then delving into the leg of the briefs so I can cup his balls.

His hips jerk. “Gwen…”

His big hand covers my head. The sounds he makes as I peel