When It's Right (6 page)

“You like that, don’t you?”

Her only response was a gasping nod as his lips traveled along her jaw to her neck and to a spot behind her ear that made her wild.

“I always wondered what this freckle tasted like.” He pressed a soft kiss there before sucking at the lobe, grinding into her harder and cupping her breast. “Always wondered what you tasted like.”

And there were too many questions, too many thoughts that made her hopeful heart lift at the same time her doubting one twisted. To silence him and all the voices in her head, she tugged his hair, pulled him back toward her lips. With her other hand, she undid the first button of his shirt. The others followed quickly, each revealing another inch of warm, bare skin. This afternoon, when she had seen him naked from the waist up, she had lusted for this skin. And now it was hers.

He helped her push the fabric from his body, and then his fingers were dancing under the hem of her top, tugging it up. Once it was past her breasts, he tore his mouth from hers and attached it to the swell of flesh above her bra. Pulled the cup down and sucked at her nipple.

The nerves there were on a livewire to her clit, and she gasped aloud as she bucked up into him. Fingers in his hair, she held him to her. “So good.”

“Yeah?” He took the other nipple between his fingers, rolling and squeezing until the pressure was just right.

God, but the man knew what to do with a woman’s body. Knew what to do with
her
body.

He switched breasts, tonguing and nipping, twisting and pinching until she thought she’d come from that alone. But just as the pleasure made her shake, he pulled away. Nudged her shirt up higher on her chest. Cassie couldn’t seem to move fast enough to help him pull it over her head, and in a snap, he had her bra unfastened and flung to the ground.

“Up,” she mumbled. She got just enough of his weight off her to reach for the bedspread and claw it out from underneath her. He caught on quick, stripping the bed down to clean, white sheets, and then he was over her again. She put her hand to his waist. Lower until it closed around the hardness between his hips.

“Jesus, Cassie.” He pushed into her palm and undid the button on her jeans with a flick of his wrist.

In a mad scramble of leather and denim and cotton and flesh, they shed pants and underwear, shoes and socks. When he was finally naked in front of her, she could do nothing but drink him in. His hips were trim, his thighs muscled and lightly haired. And between them… She swallowed hard. He was long and swollen, the head beaded with fluid, the flesh a shining rosy-red.

“You’re so wet.”

She jerked her gaze from his cock to his face to find his eyes focused intently on the apex of her thighs. Suddenly cognizant of her own nakedness, she moved to close her legs, but his hand was there, easing them apart again. Keeping her open to his touch as he slid a single finger up and down her sex.

“I can’t—” He stopped himself. Finally moved his gaze back to her face, and there was something pained to his expression. “I want this. So much. But—”

She wrapped her hand around him and reveled in the way the flesh twitched inside her palm. “No buts.”

He stilled her hand. “But will this change things?”

As if being naked hadn’t been bad enough. Feeling achingly vulnerable, like her ribcage was set to crack open, she bit the quiver from her lip. “Only as much as you want it to.”

He paused, but that seemed to satisfy him. Removing his hand from hers, he brought his own back to her slickened flesh. Dragged a finger over her clit before pressing it inside. His throat bobbed.

He shifted forward until his cock pressed to the juncture of her thigh and hip. This time, when his lips met hers, it was without the fervor of their first kisses. It was tender, and almost too much.

And she knew. Things would be forever changed. Even if he didn’t want them to.

“Cassie…I never thought this would happen. I never planned for it to.”

“Sometimes things take you by surprise.” She’d certainly never expected this.

Then softly, against her lips, he whispered, “I want you.”

She wrapped her legs around his hips. “Have me.”

Parting from her body just long enough to reach for his pants, he retrieved protection. Rolled it on. His fingers played in her liquid, testing and readying, and then his mouth was on hers. There was the blunt pressure. The retreat of his fingertips and the opening of her body.

He dropped his head to her neck and pulled her tightly into his arms as he sank inside. Inch by inch, he pressed, slow and steady until her body was so full of him and full of love. Until all she could do was hold on.

As his hips met hers, he exhaled out a long, aching groan. “You feel so good.”

She could only hold him tighter, place a hand on his jaw to urge him back to her. When his mouth met hers, his body deep inside, it was more than good. It was nothing she had ever felt before.

It was everything.

His every response was a match to hers, the rhythm of his thrusting slow at first, quickening when her palm met his ass, grinding hard against her clit with his hips as she arched her back. Again and again. Back and forth. When it was too much, he let loose, pushing into her hard and deep and
good
.

Against her mouth, he whispered, pained, “Close. Can you?”

She pulled her lips from his and nodded. Sank her teeth into his shoulder. His fingers found her nipple, and then there was just fullness and grinding pressure where she needed it.

Her eyes flew open. And he was looking at her. Right at her. Like he had never seen her before.

Maybe he hadn’t.

She cried out his name and closed her eyes. The pleasure slammed into her like a wave against the shore, pulling her under until there was nothing but the dark spasms of her body and the feel of him. He moaned, and he was in motion again, sharp snaps of his hips in a faltering rhythm, deep strokes and all of them intensifying until he broke.

“Cassie.”

She looked up just in time to see the tendons in his neck pull and strain, his whole torso bending back and the look on his face one of rapture. Then he was collapsing onto her, body pulsing thickly.

And she held him and he held her.

And she prayed.

She prayed and prayed and prayed this wasn’t wrong.

Chapter Seven

The first thing Nate heard was the sound of a key in a lock. He scrunched his face up in confusion and burrowed deeper into his pillow. The door to his condo didn’t sound like that. And even with his eyes closed, it was too bright. The sheets were starchy and they…

They smelled like Cassie.

There was the scrape of wood on wood. A door opening and a gust of frigid air. It brought him to his senses.

This bed smelled like
Cassie.
And it wasn’t his bed. And he was naked.

He clutched the covers close and sat up with a start, blinking hard at the sight of a motel room. Of his clothes scattered everywhere. The door slammed closed, and he jerked his gaze to the bundled figure standing in front of it. Cassie pulled her hat off and unwound her scarf from her neck. Shook her hair out and let the golden strands fall free.

He didn’t know if he’d ever seen anything more beautiful.

Except he had. Last night…

God
. He clenched his eyes shut tight and dug the heels of his hands into the sockets. Bursts of light shot across his darkened vision, but they were nothing to the brilliance of his memories. He could see everything now. He saw Cassie, naked and under him. Her breasts and thighs and lips. The deep wet and her body, so open and accepting and the feeling of being
inside
her. Of being inside his best friend.

He’d had sex with Cassie.

Bewildered, he looked up again to find her sitting in the lone chair in the corner, her hat and scarf in her hand and her coat open.

She shot him a guarded smile. “Good morning, sleepyhead.” The tightness in her voice made him frown. She rolled her eyes. “Though if you’d waited a little bit longer it would be good afternoon.”

It would? Nate turned to look to the side. Sure enough, the clock said it was already half past eleven. He hadn’t slept in this late since… Hell, he couldn’t even remember when. He lifted a hand to rub his eyes. They hadn’t gotten in until late, and they’d been exhausted.

And they’d had sex.

Jesus Christ.

After, he’d stayed up for the longest time, just holding her sleeping form. Holding her and wondering how and when his whole life had been turned on its head. Reliving every touch and every kiss, and wondering when they could do it all again.

At the time, he’d been hoping for this morning, but he glanced back at her and frowned. With her all bundled up and sitting on the other side of the room, that didn’t seem likely. Blinking, he studied her more closely. It wasn’t just her voice that was tight. Her whole posture spoke of putting distance between the two of them. Far from the pliant woman who had touched him and screamed his name through her climax, this Cassie…this was the girl who had refused to talk. The one who had collapsed onto a bed and groaned that everything was wrong.

This was Cassie when she was scared.

It probably would have been better to at least be dressed before they had this conversation, but that clearly wasn’t in the cards. Checking to make sure all the important bits were covered by the sheet, Nate leaned back against the headboard and dragged a hand through his hair, then over his face. “Cassie…”

Her voice was all false chipperness. “Aren’t you going to at least ask me what I’ve been up to this morning?”

Right. In the time when she should have been lying naked in his arms.

“Cass.”

“I picked up the rental car.”

“Cass.”

She kept talking right over him, leaving him no doubt she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. “So we should be all set to go.”

His fist came down on the mattress. She was going to pay attention to him, damn it.
“Cassandra.”

“I know!” She shocked him with her fierceness. With the bright glint to her wide eyes and with the force she used as she flung her hands against the arms of the chair. Less than a second later, she wrapped her arms back around herself, and her face fell, her gaze dropping. “I know, okay?”

All the words and all the demands he’d wanted to put on her dried up in his throat, leaving it parched and pinched.

She darted her eyes up before directing them back down. Shivered, even though she was still bundled up. “I know we need to talk. But I need some space, okay?” There was something pleading to her, and her voice broke. “I’m not ready.”

“I didn’t mean…” Only he didn’t know what he didn’t mean, and the rest of the sentence hung unspoken on the air. A thought occurred to him, and his ribs seemed to squeeze. “Do you regret it?”

“No.” She shook her head vehemently but then stopped. Bit her lip. “Not yet.”

This whole thing had happened so fast. It didn’t make any sense for it to
hurt
so much, the idea that she might regret it, or that she would someday. That she might not want this. Hell, the day before yesterday, he would have said he didn’t want it either, but now… Now the idea that she might reject him made it feel like something inside him wanted to die.

Minutes dragged on like hours, silence holding over the room, stifling in spite of the chill in the air. Finally, Cassie sighed. She looked up at him, and he recognized the expression on her face. It was the one she gave him when he’d done or said something stupid and she’d overreacted. The one she put on after the overreaction, when she was feeling bad about it. It was her “truce, please?” face.

She flashed him an apologetic smile. “Besides, there’s a pressing issue we need to deal with.”

More pressing than what the hell was going on between the two of them? Doubtful. Raising an eyebrow, he invited her to continue.

“We need to figure out what we want to do. Where we want to go.” She glanced at the window. Through the cracks in the blinds, he could see the silver gleam of a car that hadn’t been there the night before. “Follow your crazy idea and keep on going toward New York, or turn back.”

She wasn’t talking about the status of their relationship. He knew that. But when she put it like that, making it a choice between plowing ahead and turning around…

He dug his nails into his palms. The whole idea behind this trip had been about getting out of a rut. Trying something new. Well, this was new all right. New and exciting and…fantastic. And he didn’t want to go back.

Staring at her in that moment, he knew. He
couldn’t
go back. Not to the way things used to be, and not to his condo, alone. And he couldn’t deny it—soldiering on to New York meant an extra day when Cassie couldn’t avoid him, and that was all he needed to know to make up his mind.

Fixing her with his gaze, he said, “I say keep going.”

For the first time all morning, her smile looked real. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

For what had to be the eleventh time, the perfectly functional radio in the dashboard of the car rang out a crackly, musical chime, and a too-cheerful voice announced it was time once again for “traffic and weather together on the eights”.