Lord, what a mess. She rubbed her eyes.
“Did you get some sleep?” he asked behind her. She could just make out his reflection in the glass window. He was leaning against the wet bar, watching her. “You look better.”
So much for that legendary charm. She knew exactly what she looked like—cutoff shorts, a loose-fitting black tee and a Nashville Predators ball cap pulled over an extremely messy ponytail. She looked exactly like a woman who’d had a terrible night. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
Flash came to stand beside her, grinning wildly. He traced his fingers over her shoulder and down her arm until he laced his fingers with hers. She shivered at the touch and fought the urge to rest her head on his shoulder. “I could say that I’ve never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now, but we’re past flattery, don’t you think?” Leaning closer, his voice dropped to a deep whisper. “Here’s the thing, babe—I’m not going to lie to you. Never have and I’m not about to start.”
She blushed because she realized he was right. He’d told her up front about his arrest record. She was the one who’d kept secrets. “Okay. Yes. I, uh, I apologize again for not telling you about the baby.” When he didn’t answer right away, she asked, “Are you still mad at me?”
He squeezed her hand—and took his sweet time answering. The longer he was silent, the more her stomach sank. How was this going to work?
Finally, he said, “I’m still working on it. I want to trust you but...” He went on before she could interrupt, “I get that you did the best you could with the information you had.” He cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry I didn’t handle last night well. I won’t attempt to make decisions for you again.”
This was the Flash who’d been waiting for her behind the Bluebird Cafe, the one who said all the right things at all the right times. This was the Flash who made her want him.
This was not the Flash who had to walk out of a room before he lost his temper or hit cushions to keep control. This wasn’t the Flash who issued life-changing orders and just expected her to go along with them, no questions asked.
Which one was the real Flash Lawrence?
“Seriously, though—did you sleep?” The way he asked made it clear he really wanted to know. He wasn’t just making polite small talk.
At least, she hoped he wasn’t. “A few hours. No one sleeps well with a fussy four-month-old on their chest. Mom thinks he might be teething. Which is super early, but not unheard-of, apparently.”
He winced. “That’s going to suck. My niece is teething and it’s rough for all of them. I don’t want you to have to deal with that on your own.”
How was she supposed to interpret that? She’d made it clear she wasn’t marrying him—but was he implying that he’d be around to help share the load? Or he’d take Bean back to his place? Which was, presumably... Texas, maybe? Or did he mean he’d hire a nanny or something?
Before she could ask, the kettle beeped and he left her side to get the water. She absolutely wasn’t going to miss his warmth, for heaven’s sake. He was all of five feet away. It’s not like she couldn’t go five minutes without touching him. She’d managed a whole year without him!
But then he asked, “How much honey do you take with your tea?” and she knew she was in trouble because, seriously, this level of thoughtfulness was dangerous.
“You remembered I like honey?”
Flash paused midstride and then spun back to her, an almost predatory gleam in his eye. “Do you know,” he said, his voice suddenly that much lower and that much deeper, and her traitorous body vibrated like a tuning fork at exactly the right pitch, “that every time I kiss you, I taste honey on your sweet lips?”
“No,” she said breathlessly as he backed her against the window, his hard body making her soft with need.
“I do.” His breath caressed her lips as his hands came to her hips, pulling her against him. The hot length of his erection pushed against her and she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her. “I could get drunk on your kiss and never want for water again.”
Oh. Oh, my.
“Good line,” she whispered, tilting her head up for him.
“You can have it.” But he didn’t take the kiss she offered. He held himself back, which was probably a sign of maturity or something ridiculous like that. “Not gonna lie, Brooke—I want you so bad.” He thrust against her and she moaned. He made a matching sound of need, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel him against her, want him inside her.
Then he cruelly pulled away. Not far, but enough that he wasn’t pressing against her anymore. “Right now, we don’t have to do anything except talk.” His hand trailed up her side, over her ribs, skimming the edge of her breast before his fingers spread across her throat, and then he cupped her cheek in his palm, his thumb stroking over her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed and she let herself just feel.
No one else made her feel like Flash did.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Was it? That’s what she’d told herself last night, and then he’d given her an amazing orgasm against the door. She hadn’t been able to think until they’d gotten the sex out of the way.
She could’ve met him in public today, could’ve insisted on a chaperone. She could’ve made him come back out to the house and subjected him to her mother, made him change Bean’s diapers.
Instead, she’d come straight to his hotel room. He hadn’t had to convince her of anything. She was here willingly.
She was his willingly.
“No,” she whispered, lacing her fingers through his hair and pulling him down to her. “It’s not.”
Eleven
Hers. That’s the word that crossed her mind when she crushed her lips against his.
This man was hers.
He always had been, since the very first moment he’d taken her hand and bowed over it like some lordly duke. If nothing else, they had this.
“Bed?” Flash asked against her mouth, his hands skimming down her back, over her bottom.
“Bed,” she agreed.
She loved the hot, heavy sex against the door, but a window wasn’t quite as reassuring. Besides, she wanted the luxury of limbs twining together, his bare skin against hers.
The next thing she knew, Flash had bent over and swept her legs out from underneath her. “Whoa!” she squeaked, throwing her arms around his neck for balance.
“I’ve got you, babe.” Oh, she’d needed to hear that. “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?”
She leaned forward and kissed the side of his neck. His pulse beat wildly against her lips. “Tell me.”
“I want to feast on your body and make you scream my name when you come, and then I want to hold you afterwards until you’ve come back down to earth, and then I want to bury myself in your body until you break again, until I can’t take it anymore. I want to lay you out and spend the next two days making love to you,” he growled against her ear. Then he wrapped his lips around her lobe and tugged gently as he carried her back through the suite. “Then I want to do it again.”
Every muscle in her body clenched at his charged words and, given the wolfish grin he shot her, she knew he’d felt it, too. She’d done that once with him, that glorious night in Fort Worth when he’d swept her off her feet.
Once a year wasn’t enough.
Sadly, though, reality wasn’t on their side. “We—oh, Flash,” she moaned as he kissed her neck, “we don’t have that kind of time.” But Lord, it sounded wonderful, didn’t it? A few days to explore how deep this connection went. A few days to selfishly enjoy this man and his tremendous skills.
Because the man had skills.
“Then I’ll take the time I get with you.” He kicked open the door to the bedroom and then kicked it shut, all without missing a single stride.
> “Another good line,” she murmured as he set her down on the bed and pulled her hat from her head.
“I’m full of them.” Her hair tumbled wildly around her shoulders, the ponytail a distant memory. He paused, sucking in air. “God, Brooke—do you have any idea what you do to me?”
She leaned forward, stroking a hand over his obvious erection through his jeans. “I’m getting one.”
“You...” He swallowed as she rested her head against his stomach and began to work the buttons on his fly loose.
She shoved his jeans down, then hooked her fingers into the waistband of his blue boxer briefs, which hugged his narrow hips, his ass, his everything. Then she pulled and he sprung free.
“If you don’t want me to taste you, you let me know.”
Flash groaned, his fingers finding her hair as her hands found his hot length. “Please,” he got out through gritted teeth as she stroked him. “I want you to do what you want, Brooke,” he moaned when she gave him a little squeeze. “I won’t tell you what to do.”
“You did last night.”
There was something powerful about this moment. She had him in the palm of her hand—literally—and she could do what she wanted with him. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and then, slowly, pressed her lips to his tip. He shuddered, but before his hips could flex, she’d pulled away and ran the pad of her thumb over the area she’d kissed.
“A mistake. A huge one,” he groaned, his head falling back. “You’re killing me, babe.”
“Don’t mess up again,” she said, knowing it sounded like an order. But it wasn’t, not really. She was all but begging him.
She’d given him a second chance last night when he’d told her he’d sobered up and straightened himself out, only to have him struggle when she told him about Bean. Yeah, that was partly her fault because she’d broken the news in the absolute worst way possible. But she hadn’t forgotten the hard edge to his voice when he’d informed her that they were getting married as soon as possible. And that didn’t even take into account the awful moment when she’d thought he’d been attacking his brother-in-law.
She didn’t need a domineering, immature jerk in her life. She needed a man, one who did right by her and her son, one who stood up for her, not to her.
She needed Flash to be that man.
“You get one more chance,” she told him in all seriousness.
“I won’t fail you again.” His grip on her hair loosened and then was gone entirely as he tilted her head back. “You can count on me, Brooke—now and forever. No matter what we decide, we’re in this together.” Even through the haze of lust, she could see how serious he was.
“I know,” she whispered, emotion clogging up her throat.
He leaned down and kissed her, the kind of kiss that said as much as his words had. It wasn’t a kiss of frenzied passion, but one of heat and something richer, deeper.
Something that might even be love.
No, no—she wasn’t going to let love get hopelessly mixed up with lust. Especially not right now. This time with him right now—this was about satisfaction and then about planning. Neither of those two things had a damn thing to do with love.
They’d had so little time together that she hardly knew what this man looked like nude. One night together and a few stolen moments—plus several hard, awkward conversations.
“Take these all the way off,” she demanded, releasing her grip on him. “I want you naked.”
“God, yes.” He stumbled back, kicking out of his pants and yanking his shirt over his head. “I’ll always give you what you want. You know that, right?”
She nodded as she did away with what was left of her ponytail and started to pull her shirt off. Flash stopped her. “Just be honest with me, Brooke. Not just about sex—about everything. Be honest with yourself.”
Then he grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head. She’d gone with the pretty teal bra today, one of the only non-nursing bras she owned that still fit. Her boobs looked huge in it.
“Okay to touch?” he asked, stroking a finger down her chest.
She started to nod but then stopped. Last night had been about reclaiming a part of the girl she’d been before she’d become a mother. But this?
This was the first time Brooke felt like she was having sex as the woman she was now. And he had said he expected complete honesty, so... “Not right now. Let’s leave the bra on.”
Flash grinned widely as his hands skimmed up her skin and came to a rest on her shoulders, where he kneaded at the tight muscles there. Clearly, the request didn’t bother him in the least. “Can do.”
She reached for him again, gripping him firmly as she slid her tongue over his tip and took him into her mouth.
He groaned, a noise of pure desire that traveled down her body to where they were connected. She stroked him with her hands, licked him with her tongue. Suddenly, he pulled away.
“Nope,” he growled as he pushed her over.
“Nope?” She flung her hands out for balance as she rolled. His hands pressed between her shoulder blades, firm but not hard. “Did I do something wrong?”
He laughed, a noise that sounded almost unhinged as he gently pushed her onto her stomach. “Wrong? Hell, woman. I’ve never felt anything so right in my life. But you’re about to break me and I’m not going down like that. Not until...”
He stripped her shorts and panties off and Brooke let him. She grabbed handfuls of bedding as he nudged her legs apart and then his hands were between her legs, opening her.
“Woman,” he growled again, palming her bottom.
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked back at him. “Not until what?”
“Not until you come first.” He trailed his hands over the small of her back, but instead of reaching for that space between her legs that was already hot and heavy for him, he knelt on the bed and rested his hands on her shoulders. His strong hands began to massage her shoulders and she let her head drop as her muscles began to relax. “How much time do we have?”
“An hour, maybe.” Bean would wake up from his nap and he’d be hungry and she’d need to nurse him. And then there was dealing with Mom...
“Then we’ll make that hour count. Don’t think, babe,” he said, working at a particularly painful knot. “Just let me take care of you.”
His hands moved lower, smoothing over her ribs even as he skipped right over her bra strap. The calluses on his hands chafed at her skin, heightening the sensations, making her more and more aware of his every move, his every touch. She stiffened when he ran his hands over her hips. But then he said, “You are so beautiful,” in a voice that didn’t contain a trace of mockery or teasing in it.
“I’m not back to where I was before,” she said, cringing as he traced the stretch marks she’d earned with Bean.
“So?”
She half rolled and shot him a look. “Seriously? Do you know how many people tell me I need to get back to my prebaby weight? My mother, the record execs—they all say the same thing.” Her voice cracked a little on the end.
Flash’s eyes—well, they flashed. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, rolling her on to her back and pinning her to the bed. “I loved your body last year. I love your body now. But if you think all you are to me is your body and that any variation in your appearance is going to send me running, then you have sorely misjudged how much I need you. All of you.”
God, he really was going to make her cry. She tried to wiggle free, but he held her fast.
“So you’re not the same person you were then?” he went on, his erection hot and heavy against her thigh, “Well I’m not, either. We’ve both grown the hell up, Brooke. And, I think, we’ve both gotten better.” Then he released her wrists and moved lower until she felt his lips pressing against those stretch marks, reverently kissing each
and every stripe. “You are beautiful,” he repeated.
Brooke was glad he wasn’t staring into her eyes anymore because it wasn’t just the compliments. This wasn’t Flash being smooth or charming. This was Flash being fierce and proud—of her. This was the man she wanted in her corner, by her side, when record execs tried to railroad her. This was a man who’d fight for her, for their son, for their family.
How had she failed to realize that romance wasn’t just pretty words or a sweet song? Because this was romance. It was strong and determined and intense. Just like Flash.
Flash looked up from where he was between her legs. “I wanted you a year ago when we were wild kids looking for a good time,” he told her. “I want you now when you’ve had my son and made me a father. A year from now, five years from now, you won’t be the same person you are at this exact moment and I’ll still want you.”
Oh, Jesus, that was a hell of a good line, one that fit right into Don’t say something romantic. He rolled her over again, and this time she let herself relax into his touch. Then one hand slid between her legs, stroking over her sensitive flesh, and the lyrics fell away, only the melody drifting through her mind.
“Yeah, just like that,” he said, his voice husky as he touched her, rubbed her, kissed her back. “Don’t think. Just feel what I do to you.” With his other hand, he pushed her hair to the side and then gripped her neck, gently holding her down while he nipped at her shoulder with his teeth, his stubble scraping over her skin.
Then one finger was inside her and she shuddered at the touch. “Yeah, babe,” he breathed in her ear as he worked her body with more patience than she’d ever imagined. Until right now, every time with Flash had been hot and heavy, and neither of them had ever been able to hold back.
But now? Now he was holding himself back, overwhelming her senses and demanding her full attention. She gave it willingly. There was no room for PR plans or redemption stories or albums or should haves, could haves, would haves. There was only him and her and the music that wove their lives together.
His for One Night Page 10