Guarding Temptation - Talia Hibbert Page 0,23

make you come. Let me.”

He studied her face for a moment before nodding. “If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”

Laughter bubbled up without permission. “Like it’s not what you want.”

His smile was sharp. “Anything I want becomes a thousand times better when you want it too, Nina. So if you want me to come down your throat—”

“Yes.”

“Do me a favour. Keep playing with that wet little pussy for me. Make sure you come.”

“Yes,” she breathed again, and went back to sucking greedily on his cock.

In the end, they came together. James with a shout and a shudder, gasping her name as he pumped hot and wet into her mouth. And Nina, moaning around his erection, was pushed over the edge by the sight of him.

When they were done, he pulled her back into his lap and held her tight and kissed her forehead, and for long, long moments, everything was absolutely perfect. She was dizzy with satisfaction, elated by it.

But then he kissed her head again, and sighed, and reached for her clothes. “You better go back to bed,” he said. “Or you’ll be knackered tomorrow. We both will.”

And just like that, everything was shit again.

Chapter Eight

There weren’t many people in her life that Nina considered accessible. Her brother was abroad being a tool of western imperialism, and her parents were retired dentists in Norfolk who scolded her for calling her brother a tool of western imperialism. (Really. It wasn’t as if she blamed the individuals involved; it was the historic system she had a problem with.) She didn’t like to bother her friends, almost as much as she hated to bother her family.

But she’d been forced to bother James, and it hadn’t even ended badly. He was… helping. Things were going well.

Except for the whole tragic, unrequited love thing. And the head-fuck orgasms he throws out every so often.

Whatever.

The point was, she’d bothered James—and now here she was, days after the post-Bounce Nation fiasco, badgering someone else. Funny, how it got easier—how it felt less like admitting defeat—every time.

James would probably call that growth.

“Rahul says we have to eat before we talk,” Jasmine Allen informed Nina over her glossy coffee table. “He says that to do otherwise would make us as wild and lawless as animals, and he absolutely will not have it.”

Across the open-plan living space, Jasmine’s boyfriend, Rahul, gave her a pointed look over the breakfast bar. “That’s not exactly how I phrased it, Jas.” His expression was severe, all smooth, brown skin over sharp, hawkish lines. But his eyes danced behind the frames of his glasses.

“That’s what you meant, though,” Jasmine insisted, throwing her bare legs over the arm of the corner sofa. “I could see it in your eyebrows!”

Nina choked down a laugh and snuck a sideways look at James. He was sitting next to her at the other end of the sofa, watching Jas and Rahul with a smile on his face. James was adorable when he smiled.

And wonderfully intimidating when he’s protecting you.

But Nina wasn’t supposed to think about the other night. Not the fear of that confrontation—or the dizzying, adrenaline-fuelled desire she’d grappled with afterwards.

She just couldn’t figure James out. And maybe that problem could be resolved with something as basic as, you know, talking… but for once in her life Nina couldn’t make her runaway mouth work. She didn’t dare to ask the difficult questions. She didn’t dare to ask James any questions, because if his response was something along the lines of “I can’t stop grabbing your arse because damn, girl, you eat your greens, but beyond that I feel nothing more than lust and friendship,” she would have to do something dramatic, like… cry.

So Nina had decided to ignore the entire issue. Even if that choice smacked of a cowardice she was unfamiliar with.

She curled her hands into lose fists and sat on them, just in case they took on a life of their own and decided to grab one of James’s delicious pecs. He was looking dangerously yummy in today’s mustard turtleneck and navy-blue braces. Plus, being around Jasmine and Rahul, with their mixture of easy affection and crackling intensity, was doing something terrible to Nina’s resolve.

“Jas and Rahul were friends for seven years,” she piped up suddenly, “before they got together. Did you know that?” Do you care? Does it make you think of us?

James stared at her for one heated, unreadable moment before turning a look of bland interest on the couple in question. “Bet that’s quite