Playing Dirty (17 page)

Turning her loose, he opened the door and climbed
from the car. One hand on the roof and the other holding the door ajar, he leaned back in. Gave her a look of sizzling intent. “Think about that.”

Think? Who the heck could
think?
As she tried to process the words swirling and spinning inside her brain, he shut the door and strode away. She leaned to watch through the side window until he disappeared inside his condo, then turned back in her seat and sat staring blindly through the windshield until a UPS truck honked for her to get out of the loading zone.

She pulled away from the curb but got only as far as the nearest parking lot a block and a half away. Slowing down as she approached, she saw it had available space and pulled in.

Then once again sat there. She couldn’t get over Cade’s revelation. God, she’d known him since they were, like, eight years old. She thought she knew exactly who he was. It couldn’t have been easy for him to admit how much he wanted her. And the thing about his father! That was almost harder to wrap her mind around. He’d always been good-looking, athletic and popular—it had never occurred to her to consider his relationship with his family. She’d simply assumed he was the same golden boy at home he was at school.

Even so.
“This is stupid. Not to mention a
big
ass mistake.”

She got out of her car anyhow, beeped it locked and strode back to Cade’s condominium. Falling in with a group of laughing twentysomethings going through the had-to-be-buzzed-in-or-have-a-key entry, she slid through in their wake without anyone challenging her. A minute later she was outside Cade’s door.

She tried again to talk herself out of this, but her
hand apparently had a mind of its own, for it rose to rap purposefully on the wooden door.

It took what felt like an age before the door swung back and Cade stood in its opening, looking at her in surprise. “Hey. You forget something?”

“Lost, more like it,” she muttered.

“You lost something?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

His dark brows furrowed. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense, Spencer. What did you lose?”

“My freaking mind,” she said. And launched herself at him.

C
ADE STAGGERED
back a step, unprepared as he found himself the sudden recipient of a hundred and fifty pounds of hot-blooded, velvet-skinned, willing woman. But when Ava wrapped her arms around his neck and aligned all those gorgeous curves against him until they were welded together from chest to knees, he took it like a man.

Sliding his hands inside her coat to grip her hips, he stared down at her for a moment, enjoying the supple give of her warm body against the harder planes of his own. Her cheeks blazed with color, her eyes were frankly sexual, her mouth, with its pearlescent hint of teeth gleaming beneath her plush upper lip, was a moist and rosy siren call. And she was in his arms.

It was like holding the winning lottery ticket. He didn’t know why she’d changed her mind and given him a second chance, but he didn’t really care as long as she didn’t change it back again. All he could think was
thank God.

Just looking at her wasn’t enough for him, however, so he did what he’d wanted to do every time she’d sashayed within touching distance. He slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her, his mind emptying as his
mouth turned hot and rough against the pliant fullness of hers. Maybe her decision to be with him was set in stone. But it could also be that he only had seconds before she recanted it. He intended to make every instant count.

It was unnerving, though, how quickly his control slipped away. His heart tried to hammer its way through his rib cage, his breath went ragged and a proprietary sound rumbled low in his throat. But, God, he loved kissing her. He’d never kissed another with lips so luxuriant. Ava’s were plump and moist, inciting thoughts of both combustible nights and day-in, day-out cushy-comfort. They also promptly opened beneath his unspoken demand, imbuing the noise in his throat with a rough note of approval. Slipping his tongue over her teeth’s serrations, he stroked into the hot, wet interior of her mouth.

One of the things he admired about Ava was her emotional honesty. As long as he’d known her, she had never been one to play coy. And thank God she didn’t start now. Her tongue, firm and agile, rose to counter the claim he was staking, and as it tangled with his, she made a low, gritty, purrlike sound that caused his cock to jump.

Holding her close, he backed deeper into his condo’s tiny hallway, kicked the door shut and swiftly reversed his backward locomotion to crowd her against its wooden panels. His kiss rapidly grew wilder, and the force of it drove her head back as he tried to wrestle his leather coat off without relinquishing her mouth.

His unwillingness to turn her loose for the moment it would take to do the job properly led him to yank one of his sleeves inside out, and he had to shake the damn thing like a monkey with his fist in a jar to unlock its
death grip from around his left wrist. Then it flung free, and he went to work on hers. Rapidly he worked the buttons free, reached up to disentangle her fingers from behind his neck and peeled her coat off her shoulders and down her arms. Seconds later, the only thing preventing gravity from doing its job was the pressure of her back pinning the garment to the door.

He splayed his hands against the wooden panels on either side of her shoulders, intending to return to that beckoning mouth. But the press of her breasts against his diaphragm distracted him, and he instead strung damp, openmouthed kisses down her neck as one hand raced, as if it had a mind of its own, ahead of him. His fingers brushed the hollow of her throat and poked beneath the holey weave of her tunic to explore where her smooth chest gave way to the liberal hint of cleavage rising above her lingerie. His palm cupped her breast’s fascinatingly unstable weight.

He curled his fingers and pressed it upward to meet his descending mouth. More layers than he liked separated him from the close contact he craved, but even beneath her clothing he felt her nipple rise in search of more attention. Closing his teeth around it, he gave a tug. Ava’s pelvis tilted, and she made another of those gritty happy-kitty sounds.

Cade doubled his efforts.

It might have been one minute later or ten when one of her legs tried to climb the outside of his thigh. The narrow cut of her skirt restricted the movement, and with a frustrated sound, she dropped her foot back to the floor.

Slowly he raised his mouth from her now thoroughly dampened top, straightened from the half squat he’d assumed and looked down at her. Her pretty mouth was
swollen from his kisses. Bending his head to catch her lower lip between his teeth, he gently tugged on it as he reached behind her to smooth his palms down the curve of her ass. He scraped the edge of his teeth with glacial slowness over the slick inner membrane and outer plumpness as his fingers dexterously gathered the fabric of her skirt to the top of her thighs.

Ava promptly hooked a leg over his hip and gave a little hop. Grasping a full, firm, satin-covered cheek in each hand, Cade hiked her up, feeling her wrap her other leg around him to cross her ankles behind his back. She made a minute adjustment and his hard-on suddenly slid against plump folds that parted to caress its length. Simultaneously they stilled, eyes meeting, breaths sharply indrawn and held deep.

Then, her gaze still locked on his, Ava exhaled and dug her heels into his butt, those three-inch red stilettos mercifully pointing in the opposite direction. Her pelvis instigated a subtle undulation, and he thrust in shallow counterpart, his fly gathering moisture with each enthusiastic rub. He planted openmouthed kisses on her temple, her cheekbones, behind her ear. The tip of his tongue flicked the indentation of a dimple.

And with every taste he garnered, he rocked more emphatically.

He was ready and willing to blow off foreplay and skip straight to fucking her right where they stood. But as he was contemplating the logistics of getting her out of her clothes without actually letting her out of his arms, it flitted through his mind that the only other time he’d had with her he’d failed spectacularly to do her anything remotely smacking of justice. She deserved better than a quickie against the door.

So utilizing every drop of willpower at his command,
he forced his hips to stop moving. “I’ve got a bed,” he said, his voice husky from forcing it through a tight throat.

She blinked heavy-lidded eyes at him. “What?”

“There’s a bed right behind this wall.”

“Oh.” Her lips crooked up in a tiny smile. “A bed would be good. Although I gotta say, this ain’t too shabby.” She executed a small swivel that had him sucking for breath.

“Yeah, not shabby at all. But why stand when you can lie down, know what I mean?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not gonna go all lazy on me, are you? Because I gotta tell you, Gallari, I expect a lot better job from you tonight than the last time we did this.”

A laugh stuck in his throat. “Couldn’t do much worse,” he agreed.

She nodded. “That was my thought.”

Stepping back from the wall, he bounced her up, then caught her firm, round cheeks again in his hands. With a yelp, she tightened her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and pinned him with a chastising look.

Grinning at her, he shrugged. “I love your ass,” he admitted and about-faced to stride down the short hallway and around the wall that gave the queen-size bed its modicum of privacy, enjoying the feel of her sweet, full butt in his hands and the movement of her breasts against his chest with every step he took.

He set her on her feet at the end of the bed. “Let’s lose some of these clothes.”

“Yes,” she agreed and reached out to slide her hands beneath the hem of his sweater.

Okay, not exactly what he had in mind, but his abs
tightened as her long fingers traced their definition up to his chest, the soft cashmere dragging upward in their wake. “I meant your top, Spencer,” he said.

Then jerked like he’d been Tasered when she instead sank onto her fuck-me heels and pressed an openmouthed kiss just below his navel before releasing his sweater and going for the metal button on his waistband.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Squatting down to face her, he took her hands, which had fallen away with his movement, and held them between his own, trying his best to keep his gaze off the stripper spread of her legs and that little slice of damp mocha satin peeping between her creamy thighs thanks to the skirt rucked up around her hips. “This time’s gonna be even shorter than the last if you don’t cut me a little slack here. C’mon, Ava. Give me a chance to get you as primed as I am so we can at least start on a level playing field, okay?”

She licked her lips. Clamped her thighs together and wriggled in place. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“Aw, God, girl, you’re killing me here.” He rose to his feet, pulling her along with him. “Raise your arms,” he commanded.

She rolled her eyes, but did as she was bade.

He pulled her peekaboo tunic over her head and tossed it aside. “Keep ’em up there so I can get this whatayacallit off, too,” he said, his fingers gathering the fragile undergarment and sliding it up her diaphragm. He nodded toward her skirt. “Then you can lose that.”

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Forceful.” But she allowed him to strip the tank/chemise thing over her head and, without further prompting, tugged her skirt back in place and reached behind her for the zipper.

Cade felt his Adam’s apple take a slow slide up the length of his throat and back down again at the sight
of the generous freckled cleavage her action thrust forward. But when she raised her eyes to look at him, he slapped his best badass expression in place and responded to her crack. “You don’t have to call me Mister. But I am in charge here, baby.”

She snorted. “You just keep telling yourself that.” She unhooked her waistband and pulled down the zipper, then pushed the fabric past her curvy hips. Clearing them, it slid down her legs to pool around her feet. Daintily, she stepped out of the circle of silk-lined fabric.

And he was suddenly staring at sixty-nine inches of a creamy skinned, flame-haired woman clad only in a shimmery chocolate-colored panty-and-bra set and red stilettos.

“Now you.” She pointed an imperious finger at his jeans. “Drop ’em.”

“On the bed, on your back,” he counter-ordered with a jerk of his chin toward the mattress.

“Fine.” She kicked off her heels and flopped down upon the bed, lounging on her elbows. “But I expect a show.” She looked him up and down, her gaze lingering for a moment on his erection where it attempted to push through the tough denim of his fly. Pink tinged her cheeks, but she gave him her Ice Princess Meets the Peon expression and said haughtily, “And make it good.”

“How ’bout we go for speed instead?” Reaching over his shoulders, he grabbed two fistfuls of the back of his sweater, hauled it off over his head and tossed it aside.

“Um…that works, too.” Ava could barely push the words out of her throat, it had gone so dry. But, holy freakin’ hell. Cade’s shoulders had gotten wider, his biceps more muscled, his forearms more corded, than the last time she’d seen him without a shirt.

Which, okay, was more than a decade ago. Still, there was no denying he was more powerfully built these days. The boy had grown up
fine
. His chest was not only more strapping, but where he’d only had a patch of hair between his pecs back in the day, he now sported a fan of black from his collarbones to the bottom of his pectorals before it arrowed down an impressive six-pack, widened fractionally around his belly button, then narrowed again to disappear beneath the low-slung waistband of his jeans.

She watched as his lean fingers popped the metal button free of its waistband buttonhole and grasped the zipper tab. He pulled it down, exposing more firm skin in the widening V until a pair of navy-banded, silver-gray knit boxers interfered with the view. Burrowing his hands beneath the gaping denim, he started pushing both jeans and boxers down.

Then he stopped. Looked at her breasts rising from the demi cups of her bra. And licked his lips. “Take that off.”

She’d half expected to be nervous at the thought of exposing her body to Cade again, but his eyes were a blue blaze of raw, determined hunger, and without a qualm she sat up on the mattress and reached behind her to unclasp her bra. Its straps slid down and its cups fell away. She peeled it down her arms and dropped it over the side of the bed.

“Panties, too,” Cade said and pushed his clothes past his hips. His sex sprang free, and he stepped out of the puddle of denim and cotton around his ankles. Not taking his gaze off her, he stood on first one foot, then the other to pull off his socks.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, staring at his penis as it stood at rigid attention, removing her own undies on
automatic pilot. That bad boy was…beautiful, all long and hard, except for the soft standing veins twisting up its length. It bobbed as he walked toward her, and she rolled onto her hands and knees to prowl to the end of the mattress to meet him.

She wanted to touch it, taste it. Badly.

“Look at you,” Cade crooned, and she pulled her gaze away to find him doing just that: making a slow, thorough perusal of her naked body. “God. You’re my fantasy woman come to life.” Squatting in front of her, he reached out to cup her chin. “I just want to lick you all over.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “But I’ll settle for this.” And leaning in, he opened his mouth over hers.

Ava ignited. Scratching her nails across his scalp as she plunged her fingers into his hair, framing his temples with her thumbs, she held him to her as if he might make a break for it at any moment.

It wasn’t enough, however, and surging up onto her knees, she responded to his mobile mouth with avid lips and insistent tongue.

He reached around to grip her butt and yank her closer and finally—
finally
—she felt his bare skin, rough here, heartbreakingly smooth there, everywhere it touched hers. His hard-on pressed insistently against her stomach.

She’d barely registered the fact before he hiked her a little higher and rose to his feet, lifting her as effortlessly as she might a child. Once again she wrapped her legs around him, but found it gained a whole new dimension with no clothing between them. His chest hair abraded her tight nipples as he climbed onto the bed and knee-walked a short way up the mattress. She was wedging one hand between them, frantic to get it
on his penis, when he tipped her onto her back on the comforter and came down on top of her.