Ready To Burn (Due South Book 3) (29 page)

“Race you upstairs,” he said, after they finally came up for air.

Shaye smiled, a smile that seared him down to his Converse soles, a smile he wanted to drown in. A smile he couldn’t imagine not seeing every day at his side.

“Give a girl a head start?” she asked.

I’d give you anything, cupcake
. The words hovered on the tip of his tongue.
Anything and everything
.

But he swallowed them back and used his cocky, bad-boy smile, instead—so she wouldn’t guess his legs were just as weak, and this time he didn’t think he’d catch her.

***

Shaye climbed the stairs to her room with her happy-place wailing for attention like an air-raid siren. Behind her, the steps creaked with Del’s heavier weight, their shadows dancing across the wall.

In a few minutes, she’d be his. Completely his.

She could deny it out loud until someone pulled out the thumbscrews, but she couldn’t deny it to herself. Casual sex wasn’t listed on her menu. Neither would she give herself to a man with whom she didn’t feel a strong connection. And the connection drawing her to Del grew stronger daily.

Dammit.

She unlocked her door, and Del pressed in close, his warm breath tickling her neck. Making love with him would mean far more to her than it would to him. But having his intense, blue-eyed focus on her was worth the risk. Besides, with the non-stick shield protecting her heart, she’d be fine.

The door swung open, and they stepped into her room. Del turned in the soft glow of the nightstand lamp and locked the door behind them. She wrapped her arms around her middle, conscious of her bra-less breasts shifting under her top.

She hitched her shoulder toward the tiny bathroom. “You could shower first, since we’re all stick—”

Del covered the distance between them in two quick strides, lifting her up on tip-toe and fitting his mouth to hers.

Oh, God.

Hot, deep, wet, explosive kisses, tailor-made to flick all her erogenous zones to overdrive in one blast. She couldn’t get enough.

Shaye swept her hand over the solid slab of muscle spanning his shoulders, burying her fingers in the silky hair at his nape. His lips still tasted of tangy orange; each dance of his tongue into her mouth spun her senses, weakened what little resistance she had left. She’d never make frosting again without being transported through time to this night.

He backed her up to the bed, Del breaking the kiss to haul the covers off the mattress. “Worried about your clean sheets?”

“No.” Right now, she wouldn’t care if they were both covered head to toe in frosting.

“Good. ‘Cause we’re about to mess them up big time.” He wrenched off his shirt and let it drop to the floor.

God, he was beautifully made, a calendar man for “Sexy Chef” with his tanned pecs—though slightly orange-tinted—the ripped muscles of his arms, the dark smattering of hair below his flat stomach disappearing under black pants.

“Take off your top, Shaye. Let me see how beautiful you are.”

Shaye swept off her shirt, unable to squash a tiny ripple of self-consciousness at having her breasts exposed.

“Now the shorts.”

His words were rough with a hint of desperation, giving her a shot of confidence to unbutton and unzip her shorts, to wriggle them lower on her hips. She paused, drinking in the sight of him, hard as cast iron beneath his pants, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.

“You first, Hollywood. You used to like running around buck naked.”

“Maybe I still do.”

Del toed off his sneakers and hooked his fingers either side of his pants then yanked down both them and his boxers. His erection bobbed in front of him—thick, straining toward her, and at maximum arousal.

Some men had an inflated opinion of the attractiveness of their equipment—a fact she and her girlfriends had giggled about. Shaye had seen a few penises in her twenty-five years—none of which made her want to beg for a touch.

Until now.

Del’s hand drifted down to fist around himself, his eyes never leaving her face. She swallowed, her happy-place squeezing deliciously with barely restrained anticipation. Del clothed caused her pulse to skip erratically. Del naked and stroking himself was enough to trigger a cardiac incident.

Shaye shucked off her remaining clothes, each inhale of Del’s cologne mixed with citrus and the faint musky scent of their arousal amplifying her excitement. He crossed to her, and she reached for him, sliding her fingertips along his length.

Then he kissed her, lowering her to the bed. Feverish skin weighted with muscle bore her into the sheet, and her hips jerked up. There—oh God—she rubbed against him, a brief brush of her mound against his thigh. She wanted to hump his leg, and then him, until she couldn’t remember her own name.

Down girl, down.

With his tongue continuing to explore her mouth, Del spread her legs farther apart, settling his larger body over hers. He dotted lazy kisses along her jawline, sliding down until his lips closed wet and hot over her breast. His hand slipped between their bodies, parting her folds to circle her sensitive bud with his thumb, two long fingers entering her almost simultaneously. Her gasp became a guttural moan, pleasure so intense snapping through her that she bucked helplessly against his palm.

“Please.”

Please more? Please stop? Please now?
She couldn’t vocalize any request as his thumb settled on her, stroking, rubbing, driving her out of herself. She’d never been this close to the edge so quickly, so damn easily.

“Del!” The orgasm, with little warning other than a catastrophic increase of pressure, slammed into her.

Her muscles clamped around his fingers, and she writhed under his hands, sinking her teeth into the meat of his shoulder to keep from screaming out loud. After a moment, he leaned past her, dragged open the nightstand drawer, and removed a sealed box of condoms.

He pulled away from her to tear off the cellophane wrapping and remove a foil square.

She dropped her gaze to his chest. “It’s been a while.”

Nerves prickled along her skin as he sheathed himself. More than a while. So long that she’d bought supplies in Invercargill four days ago, figuring the last packet she owned had gone past its expiration date.

“I’ve probably lost the knack.” The pleasurable ripples spreading through her faded, overwhelmed by a dull weight in her stomach.

So stupid to be insecure, but twice now he’d given her indescribable pleasure—what if she couldn’t return the same? What if she’d forgotten how to do sex and sucked at it really, really bad?

Del rolled onto his back and dragged her to sit on top of him. He traced a finger in slow circles down her breastbone, around her nipple, past her bellybutton to feather at the soft curls covering her mound.

“Baby, you haven’t lost a thing. Let me show you. Let me be inside you.” Sucking her into the fierce vortex of his gaze, Del lifted her a few inches off his stomach.

She wriggled down, positioning the tip of him at her slick entrance. Her internal muscles clenched and released as she lowered herself onto his hard length. Inch by amazing inch, he stretched and filled her. Del held himself rigid, stroking her thighs, letting her adjust.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. You’re so fucking lovely.” He squeezed her bottom, rotating his hips as she sank a little deeper.

She leaned forward onto him, hissing at her body’s final acceptance. Her breasts brushed over his chest with the sweetest friction.

Del groaned against her throat as her internal muscles fisted him securely. Tilting her pelvis, he angled inside her deeper, the feeling of fullness, the sweet bliss of his body moving inside her overwhelming.

She whimpered his name again.

So. Damn. Good.

Del eased her upright, his thumb stroking down her slick folds, around where they were intimately joined, and then back to flick against her core.

“You set the pace, baby,” he said. “For now…”

Bracing her hands on his pecs, Shaye rocked her hips, controlling each torturous stroke. Breath seething out between his bared teeth, he stroked his thumb faster. Her rhythm picked up from a lazy glide into a faster tempo, each movement an exquisite lesson in sensation.

So close…so close…

Del gripped her wrists and tugged her off balance, using his larger frame to flip her over. “My turn, cupcake.”

He palmed her leg higher, angling her hips beneath him so every inch of him scraped along her sensitively charged walls. Too much. Their tongues dueled with the same frantic rhythm as his powerful thrusts. She couldn’t think now, couldn’t catch her breath as he took her faster, harder, higher. Each stroke fed the flames roaring within her, and she writhed under him, nails digging into the firm mounds of his butt.

“Come for me,” Del rasped in her ear.

She opened her mouth to argue that she couldn’t possibly come again and—a second orgasm, more powerful than the first, blasted rational thought into pretty colored lights that danced on her eyelids. Swept away, she surfaced long enough to hear Del’s coarse groan muffled against her neck, his big body shuddering in release. She pressed her lips to the sticky, orange-scented strands of his hair.

She hadn’t forgotten how to do amazing sex, after all.

Chapter 15

If he’d known sex with Shaye Harland would be so soul consuming and adrenalin pumping and ball-drainingly incredible, he’d have taken advantage of his afternoon break to have a power nap.

Del lay spread-eagle and sweaty on the bed, with an equally sweaty and sticky woman sprawled across him. Shaye’s arm rested on his chest, her bent knee limp on his thigh only a short distance from his cock—which was pretty damn sure it could go again in a few minutes.

But squinting at the glowing numbers of the digital clock on the nightstand, Del realized junior was outta luck. Nearly two in the morning and he still had work in the kitchen. He palmed the sweet curve of Shaye’s ass, and she snuggled closer, exhaling a breathy sigh into his neck that caused him to start hardening again.

Goddammit.

He kissed her forehead. “I gotta go.”

Shaye made a low noise of protest, fingers tightening on his biceps. He patted her butt then gently peeled her hand off his skin.

“You ruined my cookie dough, remember?”

She sighed and rolled over. “You deserved it.”

Del swung his legs to the mattress edge and stood. “Your aim is uncanny, woman. Think you missed your calling as a bowler for the Black Caps.”

He turned back to the bed. Shaye had pulled the sheet over herself, covering all her delicious flesh. The thought of not seeing it again caused a sharp gut twist. Raking a hand through his hair, he grimaced as his fingers caught in sticky snarls.

“I’ll have a quick shower. You go to sleep; it’s late.”

Del walked into the bathroom before he caved to temptation and returned to her bed. Water temperature dialed to barely lukewarm, he stepped under the spray. He needed to wake up, clear his head of the dangerous thoughts about spending the rest of the night making love. He’d sated his craving for her, and now he’d move on.

Closing his eyes against the water, he let the spray pelt his face, tiny needles that stung and called him a liar. He wasn’t fucking sated, and how he’d move on, he hadn’t figured out yet. Everything about her—the small birthmark under her left breast, the whimpering cries as she climaxed—was now hard-wired into his very being.

The shower door squeaked open, and arms slithered around his waist, two soft mounds pressing slickly to his back.

“Holy crapola! Are you trying to flash freeze us? Turn the heat up,” Shaye growled.

He angled his head out of the spray. “I told you to go to sleep.”

But like an obedient little lamb, Del adjusted the mixer so a blast of hot water came through. A sigh, a hum of approval, and she jiggled closer.

“I don’t take orders from you, Hollywood.”

Fingers splayed across his abs; her thumb traced slow circles on his skin. His cock twitched to life. Well, how could it not when the sexiest woman he’d ever known was rubbing her wet, naked body against him?

To hell with cookie dough.

Del turned and wrapped her in his arms. She looked anything but sleepy with her green eyes smoldering, her cheeks prettily flushed with color.

He grinned. “You were pretty damn compliant when I ordered you to come.”

She huffed out a laugh and slapped his butt. “Nobody likes a smartass.”

“You do.”

He bent and licked water droplets off her shoulder, flicking his tongue over the curve of her collar bone and up the slender column of her throat. One of her hands darted up and threaded through his hair, stopping him from reaching her lips.

“We have cookies to bake.”

“
We
do?”

She brushed a kiss over his mouth, cotton candy light and gone before he could claim anything deeper.