Hitched (20 page)

The button and zipper on his jeans gave way and suddenly he realized he was still wearing what he’d been wearing to George’s farm.

“Ah, dammit.” He tried to pull back.

“What?” She reached for him. “I need you.”

“I’ve been at the farm.” Wow, she was really strong when she was wanted something.

“I don’t care.”

“I’m covered in mud and smell like cows.”

“I don’t
care
.” She leaned back enough to strip his shirt off and toss it away.

With her leaning like that he could see everything, and he lost his train of thought.

“I just need you, Gavin. I don’t care that you’ve been working.” She ran her hands up and down his naked chest, her eyes roaming over him. “In fact, it’s completely sexy. You’re sweaty and…” She stopped and looked down at herself. “Ugh.” She pulled her hands away and her legs dropped. “I’ve been working out.
I’m
sweaty and…”

He cupped her face and kissed her. When he lifted his head she was staring at him, effectively distracted. “You’re gorgeous. I love seeing your body work. Seeing you sweaty and breathing hard makes me think of all the other ways to get you that way.”

“But I’m…” She sighed. “I’m not feeling sexy now. Mood lost.”

No way. He had to do something for her and this was it. This was all he had at the moment.

“I can fix that.” He toed off his shoes and shucked out of his pants.

Allie swallowed as she took in the fact that he was naked. And very happy to see her.

“Yeah, that definitely helps,” she said.

He chuckled and turned to open the drain in the tub and pull the lever to start the shower.

“This will help too.” He gathered her close, slipping his hands under her butt and lifting her.

She gave a little shriek as he turned them and stepped into the shower with her. The shriek turned to a groan, though, as she slid a little and her hot, wet center came into contact with his erection.

“How we doing?” he asked huskily, hands splayed wide on her ass, moving her up and down against him again.

“Oh, yeah,” she groaned.

“Thought it might.” He slid her up and down again, her heat against his cock making him throb.

“More,” she gasped.

“Definitely,” he promised. “But I’ve got some more tasting and touching to do.”

He set her on her feet and turned until she was under the spray. She tipped her head so that her hair fell back from her face as it got wet, and closed her eyes. The water ran over her body, her nipples hardened and she sighed. The water flowing over her skin glistened and he felt his cock harden further. He skimmed his hands over her arms, her back, down over her breasts and stomach.

Her head came up, her eyes opening. Without looking, she reached for the soap on the ledge and rubbed it in her hands, then began smoothing it over his body, starting at his shoulders, spreading over his chest and down over his abdomen. Then lower. Dropping the soap, she took him in both hands, gliding up and down his length with just the right amount of pressure to nearly bring him to his knees.

“God, Allie,” he groaned.

“I just want to make sure that we get everything clean.”

She ran her hands up over his chest, taking the soap from his skin and then rubbing it over her breasts, then down her stomach before leaning so the water washed the bubbles from both of them.

He was panting by the time her fingers slid between her legs. She kept her eyes on his as she circled her clit. Finally she smiled. “You can look, Gavin.”

“Thank god.” He not only looked, he went to his knees to get an up-close view.

She started to pull her hand away, but he caught her wrist. “Oh, no, you don’t. Keep going.”

She did. She parted her legs and circled the pad of her middle finger over her clit again, nice and slow. Gavin ran his hands over the back of her thighs, gaze locked on her finger. She increased the rhythm and he glanced up to see her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, her eyes hot on him.

She slid her finger deep then, moaning softly as she did. Gavin felt his heart pound and he squeezed her thighs, dragging in a deep breath. Suddenly he had to be the one making her moan.

He came to his feet in one fluid motion, lifting one of her legs as he did it, spreading her open. He turned her back to the wall and pressed close.

“You okay?”

“God, yes.”

He thrust deep.

“Gavin!” she gasped.

“Allie,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to the wall over her shoulder and just pausing to feel. She was tight and hot and…all his. He moved his hips, eliciting a deep moan from her.

“Gavin.”

God, he loved hearing his name on her lips.

He moved again, pulling another groan from her. Then again. And again. Faster and deeper and harder.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders and her mouth went to his neck, where she sucked lightly, then licked, and he couldn’t get deep enough. He thrust three times, then kicked the curtain out of the way, lifted her and stepped out of the tub. He didn’t care that there was water spraying all over the bathroom, or that he was risking his neck by stepping out dripping wet. He had to be deep, as deep as he could get.

“Gavin?” she asked, just before he laid her down on the rug, knelt between her knees, spread her legs open and thrust again.

“Oh, yes,” she praised. “More.”

She looked so hot, spread out, dripping wet all over, begging him. He thrust fast and hard and deep and he could feel her inner muscles start to ripple. She grabbed the towel hanging from the rack over her head with both hands, using it to lift her upper body and press closer as he continued to drive into her. As her release built, she pulled harder on the towel, and the rack came loose. Gavin’s hand shot out and knocked it away before it hit her in the head as her orgasm swept over her.

She called out his name and gripped his hips with her thighs, and the way she milked him and the look of absolute bliss on her face sent him quickly over the edge.

He braced his arms, keeping his weight off of her for a moment, until he felt everything sweep over him and let go.

Then he slumped to the rug beside her with a heartfelt, absolutely contented sigh.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t think that she’d ever been more grateful to someone. And it was for sex.

But it was fantastic sex. With Gavin. It didn’t get better than that.

All of the tension and the sadness were gone. She was completely relaxed, sated, happy.

She hadn’t been any of those things, and certainly not all three together, in a really long time.

He chuckled. “I could say the same.”

She rolled toward him, breathing deep the scent of soap and man. “Seriously. Thank you for changing your mind about the rules. I
really
needed that.”

He didn’t say anything but she felt him stiffen slightly. And not in the good way.

Damn. “Gavin, I know you want this to be different…”

“It is different.”

But it wasn’t. He was her haven. As always. He’d made her feel all of the great things that he always made her feel, the great things that she was addicted to, that she needed in the midst of all the other crap.

It
couldn’t
be different. She
needed
it to be the same.

She propped herself onto one elbow. “What we’ve always had is really good, Gavin. It’s what I want. And need.”

“You don’t know what else it could be,” he said, finally looking at her. He stroked his hand over her hair. “You don’t know how much better it could be.”

Something in his voice, or his eyes, made her heart squeeze. She just wasn’t sure if it was love or panic.

Who would have guessed those two emotions could feel so similar? Heart pounding, hard to breathe, goose bumps all over.

She did love him. She always had. But he’d always panicked her too.

She knew almost from the beginning that they didn’t want the same lives. By their third date they talked about Promise Harbor, and he made it clear that he wasn’t going back. Ever. A smart woman would have just ended it then. At least, a smart women who knew she definitely was going back to the harbor. But by then, she was already in love and couldn’t walk away. Three dates and she was in deep.

So love and panic went hand in hand. She knew it would eventually end. She knew her heart would eventually break. She lived in fear of when that would happen.

Unless she didn’t think about it.

Her ability to shove her emotions down deep and ignore them had been practiced long before her mom got sick.

It was why she let him keep their relationship fun and sexy. He didn’t ask deep questions, he didn’t pry for information and she didn’t offer much up either. She’d figured it would help her keep some distance for her heart.

She’d been wrong, of course, but that had been her philosophy.

Interestingly, she didn’t need to bare her soul, or know everything he thought and felt, to fall for him. She’d fallen in love with how he’d wanted to take care of her, how he just wanted to be with her, not because he needed her like everyone else, but because he loved her. She also watched him take care of the animals he loved and how he was always there if someone needed to borrow money or needed a ride or needed to laugh. He didn’t do deep conversations or sage advice, but what he did do, he did very well. Gavin was honest and loyal and always did what he said he would do. In her eyes, that made him better than most people she knew, even if serious conversations about emotions gave him hives.

And now, his aversion to all things deep and serious was supposed to be working in her favor.

“Being with you, right now, is better than anything I’ve had for a really long time,” she told him honestly. Couldn’t that be enough?

“I know.”

His confidence was another thing that had always drawn her. That and his laid-back attitude.

“But I don’t just want to be better. I want to be the best.”

“You are—”

“No,” he said, pushing himself up off the rug. “But I will be. The best thing in your life, the best thing to ever happen to you.”

Okay. So the laid-back attitude had changed a little.

She scrambled to her feet too. “Gavin, I want you. I’m glad I’m here. Can’t we just—”

“We can get married.”

All of the oxygen in the room seemed to have disappeared. Allie felt her mouth drop open and her lungs try to expand, but nothing would happen.

He frowned at her. “Breathe.”

She tried. She really did.

Finally, he took her by the shoulders and leaned in, putting him on eye level with her. “Breathe.”

“Gav…”

“Jesus, did you hyperventilate when Josh proposed?”

Chapter Seven

That pulled her out of it. Allie sucked in a long breath and blinked. Dammit.

“I’m not hyperventilating,” she told him, feeling breathless no matter what he called it. “That’s technically breathing too fast.”

“Whatever.”Gavin was scowling at her. “Did Josh’s proposal affect your breathing?”

She pushed him back and frowned right back at him. “That doesn’t really matter now, does it?” She crossed her arms over her breasts.

He looked at her. “How’d he do it? How’d he propose?”

“Not naked on the bathroom floor out of the blue,” she snapped.

Gavin wanted to
marry
her? What? How was that going to work exactly? Should she have been expecting that?

Yeah, maybe.

“No, Josh wouldn’t do that, would he?” Gavin grabbed his pants and pulled them on.

Feeling even more exposed than she had in the midst of the hot sex, Allie grabbed the towel that had fallen when she pulled the towel rack down. She stared at the towel rack. Wow. She’d pulled it right off the wall.

“He asked me at dinner,” she said softly, wrapping the towel around her.

“I wasn’t talking about the proposal. I was talking about doing you on the bathroom floor.”

“I—” She snapped her mouth shut. Damn. No, there had never been wild sex on the floor with Josh. Or wild sex anywhere else. What sex there was had been nice. Just like Josh.

“But look at us—first time and we’re already going at it on the floor.” Gavin grabbed his shirt, boots and socks and stomped into the bedroom. “I sure didn’t hesitate to spread you out on the hard tile, did I?”

Allie scooped her clothes up and followed him. “I
liked
it, in case you couldn’t tell,” she said, exasperated. What was the problem here?

“So what else will I do that Josh won’t do?”

She stopped in the middle of the room, watching him strip out of his jeans again and toss them into the hamper. Distracted by the fact that he was naked again—and that naked was a really good look for him—she asked, “What do you mean?”

“I’m guessing Josh doesn’t go for a weekend watching a
Big Bang Theory
marathon and doing body shots off of each other.” Gavin yanked open a drawer and pulled a pair of sweatpants out.