The Fifth Favor (38 page)

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The Fifth Favor

“Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you, Chris. Do you always get what you want?”

“Until I met you, I didn’t know what I wanted.” His tongue flicked over her bottom lip, dipped into her mouth just long enough to find hers. Then away again.

Billie moaned in frustration. “Kiss me.”

“I will.” He cupped her throat, holding her still for his delectation. “I’ll do whatever you ask.”

Liquid desire sluiced through her body and pooled in dark, aching places, taking her sadness with it. She wanted him naked, against her, inside her. He was a drug in her veins, a heady delight she couldn’t live without. “Anything?”

“Anything you want…in exchange.”

Billie was so enveloped in anticipating the hungry ravishing of his mouth, she didn’t respond right away. Then the words sank in and she opened her eyes.

And found his filled with tender humor.

“No…” She moaned and thunked a weary fist against his chest. “Come on.”

“A favor for a favor.” He slid a hand through her hair and brought her forehead against his throat. He was warm and sweet smelling and sexy and wonderful.

Torn between weak laughter and exasperation, she heaved a sigh. “Okay, let’s hear it.” Even as she spoke, her palms slipped beneath the banded hem of his sweatshirt to find the firm flesh of his back. “What is this, favor number five? What will I owe you?”

“Your forgiveness.”

“You already have it.”

He shivered beneath the feather-light stroke of her fingertips. “Then your promise.”

She drew back to look into his eyes, found them dark and shining with tender gravity. “What promise is that, Christopher Antoli?”

“That you’ll come back to me. Be with me. Fill the spot in my life that belongs to you.” Pleasure weighted his lashes as her caress slid around to his muscled abdomen.

“That feels so good. My God, I’ve been starved for you.”

Enraptured by her power over him, she caressed his chest, tracing his ribs and the goose bumps that blanketed his skin in response, counting the fervent beats of his heart until his breath came in harsh rasps against her lips.

Then he jerked her hands from beneath his sweatshirt and hauled her up against him in a burst of fierce emotion. “I love you, Billie. Give me the chance to make you happy. To show you who I really am—the man who can’t live without you. The man who deserves your heart.”

Joy swept through her soul, wiping away weeks of gray, replacing it with love for this man, all sides of him. Shadow and light. Adrian. Christopher. Hers.

“I could be persuaded,” she said huskily.

A provocative smile tipped his lips. “Tell me how.”

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Shelby Reed

“You can start by kissing me. Not a teasing touch, either. I mean down-and-dirty, lips and tongue—”

“I’ll do more than that,” he whispered, and opened his hot, hungry mouth over hers.

Then they were stumbling around the bedroom, tangled in each other and a slew of half-removed clothing, too ravenous for the contact of bare skin to take the time they deserved, but oh, Billie didn’t care. She held his head between her palms and drank from his kiss like a woman parched, forgetting about the movers and the empty room and the throaty, desperate groans that escaped her lips with each sinuous dip of his tongue inside her mouth.

Walking her backward to the door, Christopher kicked it shut and pinned her against it, pelvis to pelvis, stalwart male to resilient female. He fumbled with her belt, his fingers shaking too much—perhaps for the first time in his life—to undress a woman properly, until she finally pushed his hands away and loosened her belt for him. Her zipper followed, then his jeans. When she boldly reached inside his fly to wrap her fingers around his erection, he braced his palms on the door above her head and watched, his hips following the silky movement of her caress.

The terse, delicious moment passed in silence torn only by their strident breathing.

Then Christopher gently dislodged Billie’s touch and lifted her sweater above her breasts, pushed up his own sweatshirt and dragged his naked chest against her nipples.

Again. Again. Again. Until Billie whimpered, every nerve crying out for more. Until Christopher shook with the enormity of his desire.

“No sheets on the bed,” she managed when he swung her around in search of a place to land.

“I don’t care.” He swept her toward the forlorn double bed, and together they collapsed on the cold, bare mattress. Their bodies strained awkwardly, entangled, until he found his way between her bracketing thighs and arched against her, seeking heat and softness.

The bed frame squeaked and scooted a cadence along the naked floor without a rug to anchor it. Shoes hit the wooden floor,
thud, thud, thud
, his Docksiders, her Bucks.

Limbs meshed and hunger intensified, and bodies rose instinctively toward completion despite the too-many garments impeding them.

Braced on one strong arm, Christopher managed to get his jeans down around his thighs and then did the same for Billie, freeing one of her legs from her Levi’s so that she could wrap it around his naked hips. Wreathed by her intimate embrace, he leaned to kiss her mouth, took his erection in hand and parted her soft folds with the swollen tip, graceful even in his trembling impatience.

With a single slow thrust he filled her, took in her cry, withdrew and sank into her again, and Billie cried out again, with joy, with pleasure, with the rightness of it. She arched against him, her palms gliding away from his ribs and over the satiny quilted 210

The Fifth Favor

mattress in search of something to anchor her. There was nothing, only the hard, hot body driving against her, the most solid thing in a life that felt utterly dream-like.

Deeper.
Deeper
. She squirmed and bucked beneath him, nails digging into his buttocks, needing more of him. He drove harder, perspiration slicking his belly, binding their skin.

Then Christopher found her hands, threaded his fingers through hers and drew her arms up in a wide arc over her head, pinning her. His breath came in soft pants, his body hovering in wait for her capitulation. Her thrust for his thrust. She moved, he moved, following her lead. In this way the frantic mating slid into a more sinuous rhythm, a dance of give and take. Making love, with no secrets between them, at last.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Come for me, Billie.”

Billie closed her eyes and pictured the ocean lapping at the sand, surging, taking pieces of land with its force, replenishing it in return. The waves crashed and she climaxed with a single, sharp cry.

“
Christopher!
”

When she opened her eyes, she found his gaze, black and fathomless, locked on hers.

Neither spoke; no sentiment could be as eloquently expressed as the ever-quickening exchange their bodies shared. He moved faster now, like a piston as he slid through her wetness and into her tight, welcoming heat, his breath rushing from his chest in harsh pants. The bed frame, lost without its head and footboard, squeaked and scooted a humble accompaniment. Down in the rain-slicked street, traffic zoomed by, brakes screeched; the sound of male voices rose faintly from the sidewalk; somewhere in the hall outside the apartment, a door slammed.

Clinging to his graceful body, floating in the wake of her pleasure, Billie heard it all, the chorus of life beyond the measure of Christopher’s erratic breathing, and she reveled in it, her senses electrified. Their love had a place in the world after all, and the binding power of their coupling made it more than sexual; it was a validation. Life spun around them, and they belonged together. Here, in this protected place. Out there, where no promises were made except the ones they carried in their hearts.

“I’m going to come,” he whispered, lips against her ear. “Deep, deep inside you.”

The urge to cry rose like fire in her chest and she choked it back, the tears burning her throat, the hot pulse of his ejaculation burning her tender, aroused flesh.

Christopher shuddered with the force of his orgasm, struggled for silence and failed, granting grace to the sound of pleasure’s power as he cried out her name.

When the storm passed he sagged against her, sought her lips and kissed her again with unbearable tenderness.

“Billie.”

“Christopher.”

“Marry me.”

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Shelby Reed

“Oh, yes.” A sob squeezed her reply and she reached up to encircle his head with her arms, drawing him down to her, tightening herself around him while they both trembled with the enormity of their emotions.

Male voices floated through the apartment, wood floors squeaking beneath heavy feet.

“Oh, my God—” Billie jerked alive beneath him. “The movers!”

“Uh, Ms. Cort?” Frank called from the living room. “The company’s going to have to send a smaller truck out here to pick up the rest of this stuff tomorrow morning.

Rain’s really coming down now.” Pause. “Can you come out here and sign this form?”

“Okay,” she sang in breathless reply, her panicked gaze locked on Christopher’s sparkling one. “Just a minute.”

They moved like two parked teenagers caught in squad-car headlights and scrambled to straighten their clothing, laughing under their breath and hopelessly driven to touch each other in the process.

When they were both decent, Christopher walked to the door and calmly opened it to three startled, whiskered faces.

“Oh,” Frank said, averting his eyes. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s okay, Frank.” Billie wiped the dreamy pleasure from her face and stepped into the living room, catching Christopher’s fingers in hers as she went. She signed the movers’ form with her free hand, never relinquishing her hold on the man she loved.

Never again. “Thanks, Frank. You boys go on. Call it an evening.”

“At least you’ve got your bed tonight,” the burly man pointed out with a smile, and beside Billie came a rare, precious sound—Christopher’s laughter. He drew her into the circle of his arms.

“Thank God,” he said, hugging her tightly, “for small favors.”

The End

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About the author:

Writing romance comes naturally to Shelby Reed and has flavored most of her work since she first fell in love with Jane Austen’s stories years ago. She strives to write about real women with contemporary issues, who manage to find love despite the trials and tribulations of today’s single female. When not churning out fiction, Shelby utilizes her B.A. in Art as a portraitist, works part-time as an editor, and considers herself a full-time author since she recently quit her day job to throw herself headlong into writing.

She lives in the flavorful deep south with her husband, two rambunctious dogs, and a house full of manuscripts and artwork in various stages of completion.

Shelby welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.

Also by Shelby Reed:

A Fine Work of Art

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