Tangled in Tulle: Tulle and Tulips, Book 1 by Nikki Duncan Page A

The hours they’d cuddled on the cushions had banished any lines. She was likely reminded of them again with their new arrangement. They’d met when he was hiring high-class escorts to attend business functions because they came with the benefit of zero drama and complications. Or they had until Lori. Rules and expectations fled where she was concerned.
    Brushing his lips against hers, tasting an intriguing mix of innocence and experience, he rediscovered some of what had called him to her from the beginning. “Do you remember our first date?”
    She dropped her head to the side as he trailed kisses along her neck. “We went to an awards dinner.”
    “And walked through the downtown art festival.” He nibbled on the lightly protruding line at the front of her neck, the tendon running from her collar bone to her neck, a spot he knew would make her shiver.
    “You kept a hand on my back.”
    “You appealed to me. Your intelligence.” He slid a hand behind her, flattening it at the small of her back and holding her close. “The way you tolerated the public part of my job.” She shook a little. “Touching you, even before I’d tasted you, filled a void in me I hadn’t noticed.”
    Lori sighed and moved deeper into him the way she had that first night walking, the way she had each time since. Whenever he’d touched her she’d shifted a fraction closer.
    “You made being with someone easy.” No woman had ever made a relationship easy. And none had seemed to enjoy him for him without seeing the zeroes in his checkbook. Lori may see the zeroes, but more from a desire to avoid them beyond their business deal.
    “You made me feel safe.” She whispered the admission almost reluctantly.
    Surprise trickled along the tails of rising arousal as he nudged her back into the corner of the sofa. The biggest surprise was that he finally indentified the void she’d filled. Safety. She’d made him feel safe, just as she said he had for her.
    He slipped the pearly buttons of her blouse free one at a time. “You remember the times we spent on this sofa?”
    She stiffened, which told him she did remember. Each time had begun on a night he’d paid for her companionship and though they’d meant a great deal to him he hadn’t been able to take her in his bed on those nights. “Tonight is nothing like those nights, Lori.”
    The smooth, lightly freckled skin peeking at him from between the part in her blouse prickled with gooseflesh. After placing a lingering kiss at the center of her breastbone, holding himself back from devouring her, he tugged her top open to uncover the silvery lace bra cupping her breasts.
    “You’ve chosen to be here.” His dick jerked within his trousers, but he wasn’t rushing. “There is no business between us tonight.”
    “No.” She sounded breathy, like she’d run three miles, uphill, in the cold. “No business.”
    Yet she wasn’t calling it intimacy or even personal and the shadows in her sad eyes said she equated the couch with painful intimacy. He took the small allowance she granted and tasted her breasts through the elegant lace.
    “I’m going to erase those memories, Lori.”
    Her lids drifted down. She dropped her head to the couch, simultaneously arching into him. “Please, Trevor. Please make me forget.”
    Her voice broke at the end of her plea. A tear leaked out the corner of her eye.
    His heart trembled, vibrated up his chest and throat. She’d never asked him for anything more important and he refused to let her down.
    He slid his hand up her back and popped her bra clasps before moving to ease the shirt off. She moaned and writhed, just little lifts of her pelvis and breasts as her body strained to be closer.
    His own body tensed and coiled.
    After stripping her of her bra and dropping it to the floor, he leaned back to admire her. Tracing his fingers over her, teasing and tempting, he familiarized himself again with her body. Curves and straight lines. Petite. Teasing