Best of Three (Counting on Love) (18 page)

She grinned now like she had then. “I figure the foreplay between us started then.”

He narrowed his eyes, remembering that night—and all the sassy comments she’d thrown at him since. “That was three years ago.” And even then he’d been captivated. Maybe even more by her knowledge of football than by her bright red curve-hugging dress and the red fuck-me heels that went with it.

“That’s a lot of foreplay,” she said, leaning close. “That’s a lot of time for me to wish I could have your hands on me.”

She kissed him, running her tongue over his bottom lip, but not moving inside. She lifted her head. “The chance to finally be in your bed is motivation enough to even put up with you playing dictator, Nate.”

“Then you’re not backing down? Going to prove you can keep up, huh?” he asked, running his hand higher on her thigh, his fingertips brushing the sensitive skin she kept bare and smooth.

She gasped. “Yes. Definitely.”

Without warning, without working up to it, he ran his middle finger along her cleft and over her clit.

She was hot and wet and his cock grew harder behind his zipper.

“Yes.” Her head fell forward, her hair swinging in front of her face. “More.”

He lifted his free hand, pulling her hair back. He wanted to see every bit of her expression. “You don’t get this I’m-in-charge thing do you?” he asked, circling her clit.

“I do,” she panted. “I get it.”

“No more bossing me, Emma,” he said, his finger sliding up and down over her slick flesh.

“Right. Got it. No problem.” She slipped her hand between them.

The first contact she made with his aching erection nearly shot him off the bench. And he almost dumped her on the ground.

“Dammit, Emma. No touching me,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Come on, Nate. You don’t want that.” She tried to kiss him.

He avoided her lips and reached up to grasp her chin. “Emma.”

She looked at him, blinking.

“No touching me.”

“Fine.” She didn’t look like it was fine, but she removed her hand from his fly.

Thankfully. He was about to explode as it was. When he did finally get inside her—

Nate shut that train of thought down immediately. He wasn’t going to get inside her. That was the bottom line. He was going to show her that she
didn’t
want to be involved with him, which would lead to her ending things long before it ever got to the point of him being inside her.

Which meant he should make the most of what he had right now.

He stroked over her clit. “Very good,” he praised, just to rub it in.

She opened her mouth to retort, but he slid his finger into the delicious heat that seemed to instantly pull him deeper.

Her eyes shut and she tipped her head back, pressing against his hand.

Fuck she felt good. He pressed deep and pulled out, pressing in again before she could take a breath, urging more sweet heat from her.

“Eyes open, Emma,” he said huskily. “Don’t let on that I’m about to make you come right here and now with all these people around.”

She shivered and her inner muscles clenched around his finger. Her head came up and she forced her eyes open, but her lips were parted with her quick breaths and her hands clenched the skirt of her dress.

“Relax,” he commanded softly. “I’ve got you. Give in.”

She wiggled her butt on his lap. “I’m close, Nate,” she whispered.

“I know.” He pressed his lips to her shoulder, breathing her scent in deeply, and added a second finger, stretching her, gliding along her inner walls, coaxing the ripples that he knew were inevitable.

He thought about all the nights he’d watched her dance and laugh and flirt with other men. All the times he’d heard her yelling from the stands at their games. All the times he’d seen her hug her sisters or tease her brother. She was gorgeous and sexy and yes, the jeans and the tank tops and the short skirts made him want to touch. But it was her smile when she was talking with her sisters, her laugh when she was playing her brother in pool—the moments when she didn’t have to work to be the center of attention, the times when she didn’t know anyone was watching—when she was in the moment, versus creating the moment, that made him want to drive her right over the edge.

He wanted to taste her. He wanted that delicious wetness all over his cock. He wanted her spread out on his bed where he could watch every inch of him disappear into her over and over. He wanted her screaming with pleasure. Screaming
his
name.

Damn, he wasn’t going to sleep well tonight either.

She lifted a hand to her breast and squeezed her eyes shut again.

This time he let it go because he felt the beginning tremors. And frankly he didn’t care if everyone in that park—in the
city
—knew he’d brought her to climax right here on this bench.

He flicked the pad of his thumb over her clit while pressing his fingers deep and she bucked against his hand twice and then her orgasm took over. Her muscles clamped down, her whole body shuddered, and she made a soft squeaking sound while trying to be quiet that he found adorable.

And when had he ever thought a woman’s orgasm was adorable?

He was screwed.

As she came down from the orgasm, she leaned into him, looped her arm around his neck and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “You are my favorite controlling asshole, you know that?”

And the fact that he wanted to be her favorite everything? Meant that he was
completely
and
totally
screwed.

“We’ll have to go to your place,” Emma said, pushing off of his lap and pulling her dress back into place. “Olivia’s home tonight.”

Emma had lived with her sister Isabelle up until the time Isabelle had moved in with Shane. Olivia had lived with their oldest sister Amanda until Amanda and Ryan had moved in together. Nate suspected that Ryan had already proposed to Amanda but that he wasn’t telling her brother yet. Ryan loved to mess with Conner, and shacking up with one of his sisters was a sure fire way to increase Conner’s blood pressure.

Nate also stretched to his feet. He wanted to take Emma home to his house and not resurface for several days. Forget his surgery schedule and his board meeting and spending time with his son.

And that was why he said, “No.”

She faced him, looking perturbed, but not particularly surprised. “You have an unhealthy attachment to that word.”

“I suspect it’s a word you haven’t heard a lot in your life.”

She looked gorgeous. Mussed and turned on and happy—in spite of looking put-out right now. And he’d done that to her. He was tempted to stick his fingers in his mouth and suck all of her sweet taste from them, but he tucked his hands into his pockets and worked on looking unaffected.

If scaring her off by giving her an orgasm in public wasn’t going to work, then maybe he could piss her off enough to get her to walk away.

Of course, they’d been pissing each other off for three years and she considered it foreplay.

Not that he could disagree.

“I haven’t heard a lot of no’s,” she conceded. “Especially from guys who’ve had their hands where yours have been.”

His fingers twitched in his pocket. “Then I’m making an impression.”

She put her hands on her hips. “And now I’m supposed to walk back to my car and go home. Alone?”

“And not use your vibrator—or your own fingers—for any kind of satisfaction,” he reminded her.

She bit her bottom lip, looking like she had something she wanted to say. In the end, she shrugged and dropped her hands. “At least walk me to my car. It’s getting dark.”

“Of course.” He’d parked beside her for that very reason.

They walked without touching or talking. At her car, he watched her unlock it with her key fob, then reached to open the door. “Keep your phone close,” he told her.

He wasn’t done with her.

He should be. No question about it. Their game was getting dangerous. But he wasn’t.

She started to step into the car, then pivoted to face him. “When are we going to sleep together?”

His entire body reacted—his heart flipped, his gut clenched, his erection swelled and his nerve endings tingled. Fuck.

Never. That was the right answer. The one he should give her. He couldn’t get involved with Emma. She wasn’t the type to take his controlling ways for long and the more time he spent with her, the more ways he got to know her and enjoyed her, the worse it would be when she got fed up.

He’d done the head-over-heels thing before. Twice. It sucked when it was over and he wasn’t doing it again.

“When it’s time, I’ll give you the signal.”

“The signal? What is this magical signal?”

He had no idea. He wasn’t ever going to give her that signal. But if he did… “I promise you that you’ll know it when I give it.”

She gave him a you’re-kind-of-full-of-shit look. No one ever gave him that look. And damned if he didn’t like it from her.

“I’ll be holding my breath,” she told him.

He couldn’t help it—he gave her a quick, hard kiss, then nudged her into the car. Before he pressed her up against it and gave her a big, unmistakable signal right there in the parking lot.

There was something to be said for the endorphin high after a great orgasm. It was more intense than she’d realized. Because when Emma came down off of it, she came off of it hard.

She was bitchy and crabby and had consumed more chocolate covered pretzels since Sunday night than she had in all of the previous year combined.

She bit into another one with no remorse.

Nate had played her.

And won.

Fuck. How had she not seen that coming? How had she not been suspicious from minute one? Oh, that’s right—she’d been too caught up in how hot he made her and that sexy commanding thing.

But now, three days later, with no phone calls, texts or visits, she realized that their giant game of chicken had come to an end. And she was the big, gonna-be-fat-because-of-the-pretzels loser.

He’d teased and temped and gotten her exactly where he wanted her—craving him and admitting it.
Admitting it
. She’d said, more than once, that she wanted him badly.

Oh, and she couldn’t forget falling for his crap about noticing her smile and that she drank ginger ale. Brother—how had he gotten into her pants with
that
?

She was usually much better with men than this.

“What if we move that bookcase and turn it more toward the window?” Amanda asked Olivia.

Even though it was Emma’s bookcase in Emma’s living room facing Emma’s window.

“That would give a lot better light to the plants,” Isabelle said.

“We’ll have to move the sofa.”

All three turned to look at Emma in unison.

She regarded the three beautiful, wonderful sisters God had blessed her with. And frowned. Even now as they rearranged her living room, they were dressed in shorts and cute shirts, their hair and makeup were done and they were cheerful and dedicated to the job. She, on the other hand, sat on the couch in cut-off sweatpants, a T-shirt she was pretty sure she’d washed a few days ago and hair that she had definitely not washed in the past twenty-four hours, pouting and OD-ing on pretzels.

But her sisters were always more put together than she was—and not just in their appearances.

Amanda and Isabelle were both engaged to wonderful men. In fact, Isabelle had the king of the over-the-top-romantic-gesture wrapped around her little finger. Shane knew how to make a woman feel wanted and loved. He never shied away from showing Isabelle, and the whole world, how he felt about her. Emma could admit to some serious jealous moments when it came to Shane. Not because she wanted
him,
but his style of romance definitely appealed to her. And then there was Olivia. She wasn’t serious with anyone at the moment, but she had never—not even once—had a quickie or a one-night stand.

They were all more polished professionally too. Emma wore T-shirts and yoga pants to work, she opened the studio whenever she wanted to, and her day was consumed with decisions like which bottled water to stock for her clients next month and if she should make the couples’ yoga class twenty-five or thirty percent off for the weekend.

And here she was, surprised and offended, that a guy like Nate was blowing her off. Right. She was so not his type. Nate would be calling
any
of her sisters back—even if they had given in as easily as she had in the park.

Emma studied her sisters. Any of them would have gone for the fun in the park. None of them were angels. It was just that they were more…
something
than she was.

She’d spent a lot of time and energy being different from them. She hadn’t wanted to be lumped in with them. And she’d succeeded. She was different from them. Just in not so wonderful ways.

Suddenly she was incredibly irritated with these three perfect women who could easily date the man she was falling for if they wanted to. “
What
?” she demanded as they all continued to look at her expectantly.