Lucky Charmed

by Sharla Lovelace

  “You are so beautiful.” His voice was so low I could barely hear it, but its timbre sent ripples of heat over my skin. “Please come here.”

  I moved forward, but when he tried to touch me, I clicked my tongue in protest.

  “Me first,” I whispered, letting my nipples graze his chest. The pleasure was so dizzying, I nearly lost my resolve. “No touching till I say so.”

  Lowering myself slowly, I slid my body down his in a tease so maddening, he cursed my name. On my knees, I looked up at him, then ran my tongue up the length of his dick. Pure carnal pleasure glazed his eyes as he convulsed and grabbed my hair.

  “No, no,” I said. My tongue circled the tip as his balls filled my hands. “No touching.”

  He growled, his fingers clenched in my hair. The guttural sound almost undid me. It was heady; it was breathtaking; it was erotic as hell. And when I took him in my mouth and sucked as my hands worked him, his primal moans made my toes curl.

  “Please get up,” he finally said, his voice gruff and his eyes wild.

  I let go of him, raising up as teasingly as I’d gone down. He turned me around, palming my breasts in his hands as he pulled me back against him and planted rough kisses on my neck.

  “Mmm, Sully…” I stretched against him, my back arching in response.

  “Fuck, what you do to me,” he muttered against my spine, his hands pressing down my body, his fingers sliding under my thong and finding me. I jolted as he touched and then circled away. Touched again, and then away.

  “Do to you?” I gasped. “Oh God.”

  “Please lay on that bed,” he said against my neck. “I need to see that before I lose my shit completely.”

  It was all I could do to leave his touch. My little game had backfired in a most delicious way. Every sensation was electric. I didn’t want to leave his hands behind, but when I crawled onto the bed and turned to lie on my back, the reward was so worth it.

  His expression of pure male appreciation was overwhelming. The massive boulder he had ready for me was pretty overwhelming, too. Harder and bigger than I’d ever seen it, it almost looked painful. He didn’t look like he was in pain, however. He looked ready to bury himself inside his woman.

  His woman.

  Those words rang in my head as he moved my thong to one side and ran his fingers across me and inside me, making me gasp and beg before his mouth claimed it.

  I arched off the bed as he sucked me, grabbing the sheets into my fists and damn near pulling them off the bed as his tongue and lips drove me mad. I remembered the first time he’d done that. In the pond. His face buried in me as I floated on my back and held onto the dock, screaming his name and lost in the otherworldly sensations crashing over me.

  I was almost there when he yanked off my thong, then headed up, leaving me whimpering like a child until his mouth closed around my nipple, sucking and—oh God, he rolled us over, my breasts heavy against his face. He growled in satisfaction as he pressed them harder against his mouth and continued to suck.

  Another part of me was too close to euphoria to be denied. I pulled away from his mouth and slid down where the important parts could get reacquainted. Caressing myself along the length of his dick, I moved back and forth where he’d left off.

  “Jesus, Carmen,” he groaned, watching with crazed eyes as his fingers dug into my hips. “Fuck, I need you now.”

  I looked up at him, still moving. “What happened to making love?”

  He dragged his gaze up to mine. “I love you,” he said. “But if you don’t fuck me right this second, I’m gonna have a damn heart attack.”

  I smiled. “Your wish, love.”

  I lowered myself over him, inch by inch, as every muscle in his body tensed. He watched our union as I moved on him. Sliding up and down on the tip, then letting him fill me up completely, nearly losing it every time I did that. I was close. He had driven me to the point of delirium once already, and now the feel of him deep inside me as he held onto my breasts—it was all too much. Too good.

  And then he was up and I was on my back before I knew what hit me.

  “I need deeper, baby.” Sully’s mouth met mine in a kiss that stopped time. “Hold on.” He lifted my legs over his shoulders and plunged into me, moaning. “Oh God, yes.”

  With every stroke, he stretched me out. It felt like a baseball bat as he swelled bigger. Every muscle inside me burned and throbbed, tightening around him, needing the release.

  “Sully,” I cried.

  “Baby,” he pushed out, “You’re so tight. Shit—so good—I can’t hold back.”

  I couldn’t breathe, it was so intense, so hard, so—

  Then he touched me. He reached between us and found me with his thumb, and the volcano erupted.

  Everything that was trapped built up fast, tensing my whole body as it burst forth in a sea of screaming mind-blowing sensations. Over and over, the waves hit me, Sully joining me as he let go, eyes shut and face contorted with the most exquisite of pain.

  We rode the ride down in a tangle of limbs and whispered words, clinging to each other through the lessening waves. Finally, we pulled free of each other to lie side-by-side and gasp for air.

  He took my hand, intertwining his fingers in mine, and squeezed.

  “When I can move, I’m gonna come tell you that I love you,” he said between breaths.

  I squeezed back twice.

  “No rush,” I said, my lungs still searching for more. “I got the gist.”

  Sully laughed.

  “Shit, that was—I have no words.”

  “Words are overrated,” I wheezed. “How can you laugh? It takes oxygen to laugh.”

  He laughed harder and gripped his chest. “I need to start working out or something,” he said. “Do some cardio. Good God, woman, you kill me.”

  I turned to look at him. “Complaining already?”

  “Oh, hell no.” He rolled onto his side and blew out a breath. “In fact, you can kill me again in a little while.” He winked. “Give me thirty minutes.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Thirty minutes?”

  “Maybe an hour,” he amended.

  It was my turn to laugh, and I rolled onto my side with a groan. “Oh God, you need cardio and I need aerobics,” I said. “Maybe yoga. I feel like an old woman.”

  “I promise you,” he said, pulling my free hand to his lips. “You’re no old woman.” He let go and brushed a lock of hair from my face, his gaze going thoughtful. “So this is you all sexed and naked and satisfied and tousled in a bed.”

  I chuckled. “Given that some thought, have you?”

  “Oh, I used to fantasize about it big time,” he said. “Close out the sounds of thirty other trailers full of people around me, and picture you, just like this. Us, all by ourselves, in crumpled sheets.”

  I traced his jaw. I didn’t know how to even put into words how amazing it was for me, too. Seeing him in my bed, feeling his warmth. Feeling the longevity of it—that was the kicker. It wasn’t temporary.

  “Live up to the fantasy?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly. “So much better.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He leaned forward and kissed me softly. “Because I couldn’t do this,” he whispered against my lips. “And if I started kissing my hand, someone would have thrown something at me.”

  I laughed out loud and kissed him back, relishing the feel of his hands on me. Of him under mine. Lazy and unrushed.

  “This is…” I began, unable to find the words. “Amazing isn’t enough.”

  “Forever,” he said, touching the tattoo on my breast. “How about that one?”

  Unbidden tears came to my eyes, and I ran my hand over the matching one on his arm. Forever had burned me before. It was a hard thing for me to buy into.

  “Forever is a pretty word,” I said, smiling as I tried to blink back the tears. “But it’s not a guarantee.”

  “Waking up tomorrow isn’t a guarantee, either,” he said.
“Driving across town isn’t a guarantee. Life is life, love.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Forever is what we make it. And it’s an awesome thing to aim for.”

  I studied his face. The face I spent a lifetime trying to forget and never could. The face I still couldn’t completely believe was back here in front of me. That I could possibly wake up to every morning.

  “And if the Lucky Charm is a dud?” I asked.

  He frowned. “That’s sacrilege, you know.”

  “Just saying.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t just say it,” he said, passing a hand between our faces and making me laugh.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Carnies are superstitious people, babe,” he said. “You can’t curse me like that.”

  I laughed harder. “Curse you? I thought you didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo.”

  “I may not buy into all the heavy crap,” he said. “But fate is something else. You don’t tempt it by planning for things to go wrong.”

  I propped my head up on my elbow. “Fate is what we make it,” I said, echoing his words.

  A reluctant grin spread across his face, and his hand slid around my back, pulling me closer. “So it is,” he said.

  “Besides,” I said. “Lucky Hart is about more than this project,” I said. “The carnival has to be pretty profitable—well, except for your brother.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “Actually, it’s two separate entities now. Lucky Hart Carnivals and LH Industries are now unrelated.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “That’s what I was doing,” he said. “Severing ties.” Sadness mingled with relief passed through his eyes. “The carnival is now one hundred percent Aiden’s. I’m out of it. LH Industries is mine.”

  My jaw dropped. “Oh my God, Sully. What—why?”

  “It was time,” he said. “I can’t be responsible for him anymore. I can’t be his savior anymore, and keep bailing out the same boat he’s sinking. It’s on him, now.”

  “Are you—okay with that?” I asked.

  He nodded slowly. “Ironically, yes. Carnie’ll always be in my blood, but I’ve never felt so free as the moment I signed that paper.”

  “So the Lucky Charm—”

  “Has to succeed,” he said, chuckling. “Or I’ll be bussing tables at the Blue Banana.”

  I kissed him, feeling the weight of everything he’d turned upside-down to stay in Charmed. After I’d left, even. He did that not even knowing if I would come back. That was kind of major. But also didn’t leave him much reason to stay if things went south.

  “I love you,” I said, watching that land on him. “And I need to know that no one is bailing, just as much as you do.” I threaded my fingers into his hair.

  Sully looked into my eyes. Suddenly, it was like that long ago night, back at the carnival when he slid off the fence, locking eyes with me. That night, with just that one look, he left no doubt that I was it. That I was the only one in his world. This was that same look, telling me we were locked in. We were permanent.

  “Carmen Frost, no matter what happens from this day forward, what my company does, what we do, where we are, or when one of us has a name change—”

  My belly tingled at the hint, and nervous laughter fell out of my mouth.

  “You’re changing your name?” I asked. He pinched my ass. “Ow!”

  “It’s always been you and me,” he said. “Even when it wasn’t. I’m here. My home is wherever you are.”

  I smiled and kissed him. “Carmen and Sully’s Great Adventure, huh?”

  “Right here in Charmed,” he said, pulling me on top of him.

  I giggled. “I don’t think it’s been an hour yet, sir.”

  His hand came behind my head as he kissed me, grinning.

  “Carnie time.”

  Keep reading for a special preview of the next Charmed in Texas romance,

  Once a Charmer

  Coming in October 2017 from Lyrical Press!

  Chapter One

  “Damn it, Bash, get out of my head.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d muttered that sentence over my travel mug lately on the way to the diner, but it was the first time it had made me late.

  Actually, my teenaged daughter was the culprit on that, attempting a sick day and dragging the morning out, but the not hearing my alarm part was on me. Or on Bash. My best friend. My really hot best friend who I couldn’t quit having very vivid dreams about.

  Yes.

  Those kinds of dreams.

  About Sebastian Anderson doing things to me I had no business thinking about him doing. Thoughts you aren’t supposed to have about someone who’s been your rock, your buddy, your confidant, and who has literally had your back for everything for fifteen years. Until a few months ago, when I stupidly showed my hand in a moment of weakness. A really old, never-supposed-to-be-seen-again hand, that came out waving during a crisis and now spent the twilight hours slapping me silly with fantasies. Before leaving me tossing and turning in frustration until the alarm went off. Too many nights of that, and the alarm ceases to matter.

  I rolled my head on my shoulders as I walked through the front doors of the Blue Banana Grille, shaking off all the rest. I couldn’t think any more about sex dreams or Bash Anderson. This mattered right now, whatever was going on here. My diner. My legacy, passed to me by my father, and hopefully one day to my daughter, Angel. After she finished college, of course, and medical school, and joined the Peace Corps and saved the world. Maybe then she’d want to come back and relax and run a small-town diner in Charmed, Texas.

  Assuming she got off her phone long enough to finish high school and quit trying to play hooky.

  I smiled at Lanie McKane, Nick’s wife, who looked up from a crossword puzzle and cup of coffee to wave and mouth a Hey, Allie! at me. Nick McKane was my star head chef, and had patrons coming day after day to devour his creations. He was also easy on the eyes, so while his wife was most likely just waiting for him to take a break, I had a feeling she also liked making an appearance now and then. I didn’t blame her. Running a diner, I’d seen almost everything at one time or another, and if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that women can’t be trusted.

  No, I wasn’t selling out my people. I just called things as I saw them. And most of the women in this town had sold me out a long time ago.

  I nodded at a few of my regulars that came several times a week for Nick’s breakfast specials, and I picked up the napkin that had fallen from old Mr. Wilson’s lap for probably the twelfth time. Our ex-mayor, Dean Crestwell, sat by the window on the far end eating his eggs and looking like he wanted to hide under his jacket and beard. My every-morning-at-the-counter-for-coffee old salts were already perched on their stools, flannel shirts tucked in and white socks peering out from underneath trousers that were a little too short.

  I glanced to my right, and bam.

  Kick to the belly with all the tingling feels, as a certain pair of major blue eyes looked my way and did a little head nod. Bash sat there talking to another man. Shit! I was instantly transported back a few hours to a particularly lusty dream in which those same eyes were heated and dark and looking up at me from—

  “Oh my God,” I said under my breath, turning away immediately, my hand going directly to my messy bun—for what? To see if I looked okay? “Jesus, I’m pathetic,” I added, yanking my hand back down.

  I looked at them sideways after getting behind the bar and tying on my black apron. I didn’t recognize the other guy. Not that that was weird. Bash met with many people at the diner, as plenty of others did. It was a good central location for all kinds of meet-ups, plus the food couldn’t be beat. Bash Anderson was a major presence as the owner of the largest bee apiary in the area, and he could easily be talking to a new investor or client. Anderson’s Apiary kept the town and probably a quarter of Texas supplied with honey, beeswax products, and bee hives for hire. But while my not
knowing his breakfast partner over there wasn’t a stand-out moment, the guy himself practically glowed with I’m not from here.

  We were a pretty relaxed lot in Charmed. Casual was the basic dress plan, and stepping up—at least in my opinion—just meant nicer jeans and maybe some killer shoes. Guys didn’t even need the shoes. In stark contrast, this guy with Bash wore black slacks and a sweater, what appeared to be leather penny loafers on his feet, and he had too much hair gel making his locks shiny. He looked like he belonged in a J. Crew catalog from the nineties. More than that, he had a leather bag slung over the back of his chair like a purse.

  Definitely not from here.

  Kerri, a waitress I’d hired two months ago, who still hadn’t learned to memorize orders, came rushing over.

  “Miss Greene, Nick said to tell you he needs to talk to you ASAP,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, glancing through the open window section to the kitchen where Nick was cooking with a scowl on his face.

  “Also, that section over there by the ficus and the bookshelf?” she added, pointing.

  “Otherwise known as tables ten through fourteen?” I asked.

  Kerri nodded. “Yes. It’s leaking over them again. Has been ever since we turned on the heat.”

  Great. I made a mental note to call someone out to get up on the roof, or maybe Nick would do it later. I nodded toward J. Crew and lowered my voice.

  “Who’s that with Bash Anderson? Someone about the Lucky Charm?”

  Charmed was getting an overhaul in the form of an entertainment complex along our pond. The Lucky Charm was the baby of Sullivan Hart, an ex-carnie from the Lucky Hart carnival that had frequented our town for decades who had come to town a few months back. Restaurants and shopping and rides and a boardwalk—it was already partially underway with a few rides and shops, and the town was in a constant state of chaos. Contractors, investors, businesspeople wanting to expand or kick off startups, they were all as stirred up as an ant pile. For the diner, this was a good thing, as most all of them met up under my roof for a good meal.