The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,90

got issues and he has too much power in my life, but I still like him a lot and I want to see where it goes.

What do I like about him? No, I’m not dazzled by his position. You’d have to meet him to understand that it’s just a nonissue.

I like his dark brown eyes, which are kind and intelligent. I like the faint air of the geeky about him, in his wrists and big hands and the cute way he looks in glasses. I like his aura of power. I do like that. I like men who like themselves, who know where they are going and what they’re all about.

I like his daughter, and she’s part of the problem. I don’t want her feelings to be hurt. I don’t want her to feel like I’ve been nice to her just to get to her dad, because it isn’t true.

I like

Elena paused, thinking of his tongue, of his hands, of his—it had been so intense. So intense! He was like some thick nectar, dripping down her throat, slow and thick and sweet.

When he knocked at the door, she stayed where she was for a long, long moment. Little hot spots bloomed on her body, chin and inner wrists and the edge of her knees. She thought of his tongue, the golden depth of his mouth.

He knocked again. She stood up. She couldn’t leave Alvin out there.

For one more minute, walking down the stairs to open the door, she tried to tell herself that she was going to send him away. Her feet brushed over the carpet, the fibers sweeping her soles electrically, a feeling she’d never noticed before. The air parted, brushing her cheeks and arms and breasts.

She opened the door and Julian was there. Alvin wiggled his way in, brushing her legs, and she bent slightly and touched him, rubbed his ears, even as Julian was tangling her fingers in his hand, drawing her close, and she was pulling him into the room, pushing the door closed behind him. He captured her face in his hands and kissed her, whispering a soft oath as their bodies came together. “I can’t stay very long,” he said. “Portia is by herself.”

Elena nodded, drawing him into the room, up the stairs where it was softer and more comfortable, and she pushed his sweater up, touching his chest, kissing his nipples, and he tugged the blue wool over his head, the black tumble of curls falling around his face. He reached for her T-shirt and pulled the hem over her head, and pushed her back on the bed.

He drew her arms over her head and held them there with one strong hand, touching her with his other hand, his hand roving over her belly and breasts still clad in plain pink cotton, his penis pressed into her thigh, his mouth against her neck. He unfastened the clasp of her bra and her breasts tumbled out, and he halted to look, just look and bend and touch with the edge of his tongue the aroused tips. He licked them and suckled, and lifted her breasts, and she whimpered, “I need to touch you, too.”

“In a minute,” he said, holding her wrists firmly, kissing one nipple, then the other, then the hollow of her throat. He moved his chest against her naked breasts, erotically brushing hair over her skin. He suckled her lips. “I wish I had all night,” he whispered.

“Me too,” Elena said, and arched into him. “Please, Julian, I need to touch you as much as you want to touch me.”

He raised up a little. “What do you want to touch?” he asked. “I was thinking, before I came here, of your milk-white skin, and the milk chocolate of your nipples.” He released her wrists and drew his hand over the places he’d named.

“The licorice of your hair,” she said, smiling. She lifted her head and licked his mouth. “The honey of your lips. The…pickle of—”

He laughed. “Pickle!” He tugged her hand down. “Don’t you mean zucchini, baby?”

“Just give it to me,” she said, laughing.

“All yours.”

Afterward, they were naked and covered by the sheet and Elena offered him wine from her glass. “I know you have to go soon, but we do need to have a little bit of a conversation.”

He refused the wine and propped himself up on one elbow. “Which conversation?”

“The you-are-my-boss-and-that’s-a-bit-of-a-problem conversation.”

He smoothed a hand over the sheet. Elena just let the pause grow until he finally said, “All I