Trouble When You Walked In (Contemporary Romance) (22 page)

“Well, considering that I had to go out on the back porch, run around the side of the house, get into the garage, sneak into the kitchen, and open the door there to get up the stairs, it was hard.”

“Oh, my!” She rewarded him with a lavish kiss.

He grabbed her butt, kneaded it while he kissed her back, and she tilted her lower belly into him, making him groan. But what was she going to do? Here she had the man she wanted to sleep with. They were both ready, but they were in the shower, and his parents—and Janelle—were downstairs.

It was hardly the ideal situation, yet somehow it couldn’t be more perfect. She was already tingling all over, and the water made the sensation more exquisite, like sweet torture.

But the best part was his nakedness, the beauty of his form, combined with the surety and elegance of his movements. He knew what he was doing, in other words, and when his mouth plucked and nibbled the nipple of her left breast …

Something had to give.

She whimpered.

“We have to keep going with this,” he said, and sucked hard, murmuring his delight.

“What if they hear?” She could barely speak, she was so blissed out.

He glanced up at her with an arched eyebrow. “Then that’s their problem. They shouldn’t have come to my house.”

His annoyance was plain. Yet she knew she needed to mollify him. Now wasn’t the time for him to confront his parents about anything. “But if you felt that way,” she said carefully, while he kissed her neck, “you would have walked up the front stairs, right? You don’t want to make your mother uncomfortable, and I don’t blame you.”

“I guess you’re right.” He ran a hand down her back and over her rear, pulling her even closer up against him. “But they deserve to be uncomfortable.”

“Maybe so. But today’s not the day.” She finally had the courage to reach low and cup him, then explore with tentative fingers.

The wonder of it!

He closed his eyes and released a slow breath. “You’re killing me.”

The water pelted them.

“Sorry.” Reluctantly, she pulled her hand away.

He steered it back. “Don’t be.” This time he wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed.

“Oh.” She smiled and continued her ministrations. His head fell back. It made her so happy to see him that way. She was disappointed when he grabbed her hand and made her stop.

“Later for me.” He shot her a sweet grin, and she knew he was trying very hard not to scare her or make her feel inadequate, which made her feel cared for.

And that was the most lovely feeling in the world—

Almost.

His skin on hers was the loveliest.

Their mouths met again.

Hunger, need, surged through her. Now it was her turn to let her head fall back while he explored her collarbone, the tender part of her neck behind her ears, and once again, her breasts—which he seemed to think were treasures from heaven—with his mouth. Inch by inch, he nudged her back in the cavernous space until her calves were pressed against the stone bench. With a small tug on her hand, he got her to sit.

She looked up at him, her hand in his. What was next?

“This,” he said out loud, and knelt before her, water pelting his back, running down his temples.

Heat shot from her belly, slowed in her chest, spread, and flowed up to her face. She knew what was about to happen, and she was excited, but it was all so intimate.

He’s seen you in the hot tub
.

But not like this.

“It’ll be all right,” he said lightly, and kissed her, their mouths releasing, coming together. Tongues twirling. Sucking.

His fingers splayed on her upper thighs, he applied just enough light pressure to encourage her to spread them wide. They kissed as he caressed the tender flesh on her inner thighs. She found herself spreading farther apart, wanting him
there
.

Finally. She inhaled a sharp breath as his thumb traveled softly back and forth across her sheath, grazing the pearl where all her desire lay pent up, desperate for release. She lifted her bottom, wanting more.

The rough pad of his thumb stopped exactly where she wanted it to, and he used it to nudge, circle, pulse. She was about to lose it right there, but he stopped.

Wicked man!

“Please keep going,” she whispered.

His pupils were small diamonds, possessive and sure in the way a tiger is of its prey. There was no turning back, his expression said. She was his at this moment.

His
.

Yet she felt like a queen on her throne with her own adoring cicisbeo when he dropped his head to kiss her lower belly. She smoothed his wet hair back, basked in watching him lick, bite, and kiss lower and lower until his lips discovered her very center. She almost slid off the bench.

No one had ever done this to her before.

“Heaven,” she said aloud, and had the strangest longing to let all her book heroines of old know that she was living a compelling story herself—compelling only to her, perhaps, but it was enough. More than enough. She was rich with sensation, glutted on glory, this godlike being showing her what her body was meant for, something so beyond what she knew and could reason out.

There was magic in this mingling.

He nuzzled between her legs at a leisurely pace. Still, she watched him, her hands kneading his shoulders, clasping his neck, raking into his hair. “I can’t bear much more,” she said, but she couldn’t let him go.

He had to stay. He had to stay there and never move.

He laughed against her sweet spot, and that was enough to make her arch and emit a cry.

He looked up. “Do you really think you can be quiet?” His tone was teasing.

“No, you evil man,” she whispered, and didn’t bother to hide a silly grin. “But I’m going to try.”

“I don’t think you can.” His expression—eyes lit with humor, his mouth open and curved upward—was so sexy and adorable in that moment, her crush deepened an almost painful degree. He was everything. She wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. Ever. It was he. All the time. In her thoughts, in her soul …

“Let’s bet,” she said, wriggling on the bench. They needed to stop talking. And she needed to stop pining, spiraling deeper.

Pleasure would be the antidote. Simple brute pleasure. He’d brought her to that in the hot tub, and she wanted it again.

“What does the winner get?” His finger penetrated her—
Oh!
—her upper back curved inward—and then, miracle of miracles, two fingers, probing, circling.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and squeezed reflexively against him. She wanted hard. She wanted thrust. She was getting impatient.

He chuckled again. “The winner gets whatever he or she wants.” There—one good thrust. “But whatever he or she wants”—he moved steadily in and out, and she hung with him, grabbing those fingers, clenching them back in—“has to take place in a certain gazebo in the middle of the night.”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I can do it. I can stay silent. I want to win.”

“Why?” His fingers kept up their work.

“Because I want you again. I-I do—”

“Sssh.” He took advantage of her lack of attention, grabbed her bottom, lifted her high while she held to the edge of the bench, and thrust his tongue inside.

She let out a little cry. “How silent is silent? I have to win.”

“Not a peep.” His face was serious and loveable all at once, and then he got back to business, adoring her with a passion that she still couldn’t believe was meant for her.

But it was. He could have had Janelle—Janelle had made that plain—but he was with her. “I don’t care if I win anymore.” Her voice was thin. She was gasping now. “Even if I lose, I win.”

He laughed again. “I’m a lucky man.” Fingers in, fingers out. Mouth sucking, nuzzling.

Water beating. Droplets sliding down the walls, his back, his hair. Steam everywhere, hiding him, revealing him.

“Do you trust me?” he said softly.

“Yes.” She did, too.

“Then I want you to let go. Let it all go. I’ve got you.”

“Okay.” It was more than okay. It was her dream … to be able to let go. To know she could let go and still be safe.

He reached up and kissed her mouth.

It was their pact. She was his. He would take her where he wanted her to go. He’d be there with her.

And then in another blossom of steam, he disappeared. His mouth possessed her core with a new urgency. It was right. So right. The freedom that came from trusting another with her most primal self—it was a high unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

He put two fingers inside her again—such a welcome intrusion. She craved three. But she was small. He was being careful.

Someday
, she dreamed. Someday they’d do it again, and she’d want that sweet stretch—she’d want
him
inside her.

She rode those fingers, claimed them, and then that thumb—the same wayward one—flirted like a feather with the pucker behind her core—such an unexpected, pleasurable shock!—and in an instant she came hard with his mouth still on her, her teeth biting the heel of her palm. She rode the crest over and over while he held tight to her.

Her head circled slowly as she returned to earth, and from her throat soft sounds of astonishment mingled with gratitude and an awareness that she was powerless before the roiling sweetness cradling them both in a cocoon of sexual energy.

He picked her up, pushed open the glass door. Set her gently down on her feet and lifted a towel off a hook on the wall. He patted her dry, then wrapped her tight. Still wet himself, he kissed her once, long and hard, then stepped back, grabbed his own towel, and slung it around his hips, where it didn’t sit smoothly for obvious reasons.

“No,” she said. “You’re not getting away this time.”

He didn’t object when she unwrapped his towel and let it fall to the ground.

“Oh, my.”

“Yours has to come off, too,” he said.

She smiled. “But you just put it on.”

“Mistake.” He tugged it off, pulled her close. “You naked is something I can’t get enough of.”

He kissed her, and she kissed him back, pulling away to kiss his chest, his flat, taut belly, and then sinking to her knees on the fleecy bathroom rug to take him in her mouth.

“Damn,” he whispered huskily.

In answer, she played with him with her tongue. Cradled the weight of him in the palms of her hands. He was glorious perfection, and it was such intense pleasure to feel his fingers curl in her hair, to hear him moan deep in his throat.

His butt flexed, hard as rock, and the length of him jutted, demanding release. She kept up with him, surprising him, she sensed, with her tenacity.

“Cissie,”
he uttered low.

She heard his desperate call for release and pulled away a few inches to look up at him. “This is a hot view.”

His gaze was half-lidded. With water trickling down his temples and a faint shadow of stubble on his chin, he looked wild. Untamed.

“Is this some sort of payback?” he rasped.

“Uh-huh. For all the torture you put me through.” She grinned.

But before he could say anything, she got back to business.

He was a force of nature. When he came, she was the sole witness to the mighty cataclysm.

She was speechless. And she had to admit—proud of herself, too.

He pulled her up beneath her arms.

Her knees trembled. “How was it?”

“Let’s just say you’ve got skills.” He lowered his chin, eyeing her in a way he never had, a way that made her toes curl deep into the rug. “I’m going to be thinking about that all night,” he said. “I’m going to be thinking about
you
.”

Her heart melted at that. “Good.”

He sent her a crooked smile. “I’ve got to go.” He took a step toward the door, then looked back. “You hungry?”

“Famished.” She was so caught in his spell.

“We’ve got some campaigning to do.” He paused. “Not just tonight, but for a couple more weeks.”

“I know. I haven’t forgotten.”

He looked like he was thinking. “We’re having fun.”

“Yes. Fun.”

He nodded. They stood silent another few seconds. What did it mean, this fun? At the moment, she didn’t care. Because it was fun. Fun wasn’t supposed to be dissected.

“I’ll see you in the kitchen.” He opened the door, winked at her, and left.

Slowly, she crouched on her haunches. Aw, shoot, she’d just sit her bum on the rug. Her knees still felt a little weak.

“Wow,” she said out loud, and laid her head on her propped legs. She wrapped her arms around her shins and wondered about nothing, for the first time in a long time. Her chest, her head, all empty of nudges and angles and frissons of fear.

In that moment, she knew everything she needed to know: Guy gets girl. Girl gets guy. Girl is happy.

Period.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Twenty minutes later, Boone was sitting at his desk and showing his dad his new laptop in his study—his mom and Janelle sat on the nearby couch—when Cissie came in, fresh as a daisy, prettier, actually, than he’d ever seen her.

He immediately hardened thinking of what had just transpired between them. How had he missed this woman right under his own nose all these years?

While his dad looked over his shoulder at the bells and whistles on the keyboard, Boone couldn’t help thinking back to that fourth grade boy who’d thought he’d only wanted a shy girl’s glasses. He could see now that he’d also wanted to be around the refreshing presence and steady comfort that was
Cissie
. When he got older and his hormones kicked in, he’d entirely lost track of noticing and admiring a girl simply for being who she was.

He’d forgotten about Cissie and been caught up in hookups instead … hookups that never went any deeper than casual friendships with a string of so-called girlfriends.

It was a bit revelatory for him to figure it out now: he’d always
liked
her. He’d simply never bothered to get to know her better, and now it felt like they were becoming friends, not just lovers, and it was weird.

Really weird.