“God, you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he rasped. Just looking at her made his hands shake. Greta’s gaze never left him while he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and wrestled the damn thing off his back. Her little pink tongue ran across her lips again. “Baby doll, I can’t think when you look at me like that.”
She husked out a wicked laugh as she watched him struggle with his zipper. The sound of the tick-tick-tick of the teeth as they released made his skin tighten around his flexing muscles. Once free from the constricting denim, he kicked off his jeans then crawled up her body.
The first brush of skin on skin made them both hiss in pleasure. Bracing himself on his good arm, Trey trailed his other hand down the smooth column of her throat then over her full breast. Her nipple beaded at his touch, begging for attention. It took all of his restraint to not fall all over her like a dog with a bone.
Greta arched her back when he took the hardened tip between his lips. With each pull of his mouth, her head thrashed back and forth on her pillow. He loved the way her hair billowed in a wild cloud around her. Her skin flushed a pretty pink in a visual thermometer of her arousal as he lashed the other peak with the tip of his tongue. Her hips moved against him, telling him where she wanted his touch the most.
He pressed soft kisses down her sternum and across her ribs. In the lamplight’s soft glow, silvery tracks crossed her belly, a physical reminder that she had carried their child. Not only had she carried him, but she had loved him with all of her heart and soul. A gift like that needed to be honored.
With his lips and tongue, he traced every line, worshipped every inch while her fingers cradled his head and massaged his scalp.
“Oh, Trey,” she sighed so softly, he almost missed the longing, the sound of reclaiming what once was lost, in her whisper. Almost.
With his callused hand, he smoothed the inside of her quivering thigh and found her wet and open for him. He pushed a thick finger inside, muscles suckling on the digit in greedy draws.
Damn, she was tight. He worked in a second finger to stretch and prepare her for his possession.
“I need to taste you, baby,” he mumbled as he shouldered her thighs further apart.
He placed his mouth against her liquid center and began to lick and suck on her little pearl. Her hips bucked and jerked in his grip. It seemed as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted to press closer or pull away. He loved the power he had over her writhing body. There was no second guessing there. No uncertainty. Instinctually he knew exactly how to please this woman. His heart filled with the knowledge that he could provide this for her all on his own.
Greta’s low and throaty sighs drove him to distraction. Occasionally, a deep, sexy moan escaped her lips, but otherwise she communicated all of her pleasure with breathy pants and the roll of her hips. The sound poured over him like warm honey, stroking him like a physical caress that made his body ache and his cock harder. He was so ready, cum dripped from the tip. Man, he wanted her now, but he needed to see her pushed to beyond all reason first.
“Please, Trey, please. I need you inside me,” she panted, tugging on his hair.
A third finger pushed deep. “Doesn’t this feel good?”
She actually had the temerity to glare down at him through her pleasure. “It’s fantastic, but I want you. I need your cock inside me. Deep.”
The cock in question jerked, pleased to be called upon. “Soon. Give me what I want, then I’ll give you what you want.”
She fell back with a groan that made him smile in triumph. He took her clit into his mouth again, and sucked hard as his fingers played her like a fine instrument. Seconds later she broke, bucking in his hold and filling his mouth with her sweet cream as he moaned through the orgasm with her. His eyes watered as she pulled on his hair, but he didn’t mind one bit. Hell, he didn’t care if she tore all of his hair out as long as she held on to him as if she’d drown without him.
“You are so sexy. So responsive.” He kept her hovering on the edge, sawing his fingers in and out of her sheath as she looked at him in a daze, her lips parted in wonder.
On wobbly knees, he knelt between her thighs and ran his wet hand over his erection to smear her cream all over the stiff flesh, then positioned the head at her entrance.
She shifted her hips away with a gasp. “Trey, condom.”
Her words barely penetrated the fog of sex surrounding him. A condom?
“No. No.” He shook his head and placed the tip of his shaft inside her. “Nothing between us. Ever. Just you and me.”
For a second, he thought he saw sadness flash in her eyes, but the ability to form any more thoughts ceased to exist as he pushed into her willing body. Damn, she was fist tight. And hot and so damn wet. He’d never felt anything better in his life. At only two inches in, his balls drew up tight, preparing to unload.
“God, Greta, you feel so good.” Sweat broke out across his face and chest as he worked his way in deeper. He was afraid he wasn’t going to last as he slid the last inch home.
It took all of his concentration not to move and give them both time to adjust, but Greta wasn’t having any of that.
“Trey, please. Please move,” she begged.
He couldn’t, he was too close. He didn’t want it to be over before it begun. Her fingernails scored down his back and over his ass. Fiery jolts trailed in their wake and made his hips jerk, pushing him deeper into her heat.
“Greta, don’t,” he warned. This was his show, and he wasn’t letting her take over.
“Take me,” she whispered before reaching between his legs to stroke his scrotum.
“Fuck.” He bucked hard and picked up his pace. The more he plunged, the more of his body she touched and caressed, stoking the flames burning him alive. By the smile hovering on her lips, he knew she pushed him on purpose.
“You like this, you little witch. Don’t you?” He punctuated his words with a sharp thrust of his hips. “Does your little pussy like it when I ride you hard?”
“Yes.” Her smile widened then she shifted her hips to take him deeper, hissing with glee as he struck home. This was the hellcat he knew she could be. The woman who worked him up just so he could show her who was boss in the bedroom.
A ripple of warning shot from his cock up his spine. “Where do you want me to come, baby?” Ripples rolled through her pussy and tugged at his length, readying for her own release.
“Inside me.”
“Tell me where,” he growled, getting closer. “I want to hear you say the word.”
“In my pussy,” she panted.
“Then you have to help pull the cum from me.” He threw his head back and pounded away. Her head tossed back and her spine arched off the mattress. She hung on to his surging hips as she came, her eyes wide in shock. Her pupils were so large, all hints of the brown of her irises had disappeared.
Her clenching pussy sucked on his cock in hard pulls and gave him that final shove off the edge. He fell so hard, so fast, the bottom of his world dropped out. His only anchor was where they were joined as one. Plunging as deep as he could go, he filled her full of his seed, reclaiming his place as her lover.
Long minutes passed while they stared at each other in wonder. Tremors racked both of them as he floated back down to earth. The adrenaline crash made him remember his injured shoulder that was screaming in pain, but he refused to withdraw from her loving embrace. Wrapping her in his arms, he rolled them over so that she could rest against his uninjured side.
Good lord. His lungs billowed as he waited for his vision to clear. Greta was everything he wanted in and out of bed. She was so responsive, so passionate. Yet even at her most vulnerable, he still felt her holding back.
His woman was in his arms, his body was sated, but his mind wouldn’t rest. Her earlier flash of sadness was a damper on his euphoria and reminded him there was a lot of history between them he couldn’t remember. Perhaps in his other life he’d rather cut off his right arm than disturb the
peace of the moment, but right now, he needed answers.
“Greta,” he rasped out from his dry throat. “How long has it been since we’ve been together like that?”
The way she froze in his arms told him that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
10
The sexual high Greta had been riding plummeted in the wake of Trey’s seemingly innocuous question. Tension invaded her bones, making her want to curl into a protective ball, but she fought the urge and forced her body to remain lax.
“What do you mean?” she asked, striving for casual confusion.
“How long has it been since we’ve made love?”
One year, three months, and seventeen days.
She remembered the night with devastating clarity. Luke’s death had obliterated the foundation of their world. When she needed the strength of her husband’s love to reassure her that they as a couple were all right, Trey had withdrawn, cutting her off from the one thing she had believed was infallible: his support.
Then one night Trey had come to her, taking her body with an urgency that matched her desperation to rebuild the connection they once shared. The fire of his kisses, the fervor in his touch banished the shadows of having her family torn asunder. Her husband had returned to her arms, and all was going to be just as it was.
Until the condom broke.
All of his warmth dissipated, once more leaving a cold shell that appeared to be more machine than man. He treated her as if she were made of spun sugar and likely to shatter with the slightest bump. Exactly twenty-eight days later he made her take a pregnancy test, then another, then another. After a week of negative results, he sighed an “amen” and never touched her again.
And now the man she married was back. She’d rather dive face first into a hot griddle before reminding him of that nightmare. It was painful enough to live through it the first time.
But Trey asked a question, and if he was truly getting back to his former self, he wasn’t going to let her go without answering.
“A while, I guess.” She shrugged. “You know, it’s been crazy lately.”
“Don’t lie to me, and don’t be coy. You were practically virgin tight, so I know it’s been longer than a while. How long?”
She ran her fingers through the soft hair that ran from his navel to his groin. “Why does it matter?”
He grabbed her wrist in a firm grip. “Because it does. How long, Greta?”
The sound of the clock ticking on the nightstand grew louder and louder with each heartbeat. Neither of them moved.
“March,” she lied. Hopefully, the fake date would appease his curiosity.
It didn’t.
“Fuck! Sorry,” he apologized when she flinched. “That was a fuck at me, not you.” He sat up to look down at her, confusion pulling at his brow. “Why so long?”
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to keep the frustration and hurt out of her voice. She felt as though she might crack with him hovering over her. She sat up as well and hunched her shoulders, drawing her knees in tight.
“What do you suspect?” he asked.
She sucked in a watery breath. Days of stress had her emotions rolling just under the skin, and controlling them was becoming as difficult as riding a bicycle across a tightrope. “I truly don’t know. One day you stopped touching me. At first I thought—” God, the things she imagined as she had tried to figure out what she had done to drive him away. “I thought you were having an affair, but then you rarely left the ranch, so I wasn’t sure. You pretty much cut yourself off from everyone. Mark, the other hands. No one knew why.”
“I’m sorry, Greta. It wasn’t you. It had nothing to do with you.” He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t say that.” She rounded on him in a spark of anger and flung his hand off her skin. The leash on her control strained to the breaking point. “You don’t know. You don’t remember what happened, so don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I just know that if I pushed you away, it wasn’t over anything you did.”
“You just know.” She smirked in disbelief. “Well, doesn’t that just explain everything, then? Are you trying to stay on my good side in hopes of another easy lay?” she sneered.
“Don’t,” he barked. “Don’t go there.”
What was she doing? Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? She should be seducing him, reminding him of the best of who they were, not dredging up the sordid details of their past. She thought she had worked through the pain of Trey’s withdrawal. Apparently, she was dead wrong on that front. All of the hurt and embarrassment she had endured was rolling through her like an unchecked pot of water. Boiling and spitting until she felt as if she were a hair’s breadth away from lashing out and destroying this tenuous connection. She had to get away from the pleading in his blue eyes before she ruined everything.
He caught her mid-leap as she tried to jump off the bed and panic set in. She pushed and thrashed in his hold, but who was she kidding? This was a man who wrestles cows for a living. She was no match for his strength, but still she struggled, fueled with the adrenaline of pure desperation.
“Greta, stop.” He grabbed her hair in one hand and wrapped his other around her jaw to force her to look at him. “Don’t make me hogtie you, because I will,” he warned. “You’re hurt and angry and I don’t blame you. But don’t go saying or assuming things you might regret. Can I remember the whys about anything I’ve done the past few years? No, but I have eyes and I can see. I’ve seen that hole of an office. I see how you don’t trust me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’ve been hiding. And I’m guessing that it started after Luke died.”
She gasped in surprise at his intuition. He released her jaw to stroke the back of his fingers over her cheek. “I really am sorry. Something that should have brought us closer together, I let drive us apart.”
One teardrop slipped from her eye and landed on his hand. When she turned away, he cuddled her closer and nuzzled her ear. “I have a feeling I’m gonna be apologizing for the rest of my life. But I’ll do it. You deserve the best from me.”
“How can you say that?” she whispered, her voice broken. “You don’t know who I am.”
“And I keep telling you that I do. I know that you’re smart, you’re talented. You love to laugh. I can see that when you love someone, you love them fiercely. Whatever memories are missing in my life, you fill that hole with the beauty that is you, Greta.”
At his words, a sob broke free. The hand in her hair kept her from pulling away, though she tried her best to look everywhere but at him. For so long, she had waited for him to say those words, but how could she trust them? Trey was reacting on instinct. He didn’t know their history. Would he feel the same way when he remembered?
“Look, magpie, whatever wrong happened between us, forget it. We’re starting over. I want out of the darkness. I want a life with you.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “No more hiding. Not for me and not for you.”
She nuzzled his jaw with her cheek. “I’m afraid,” she murmured against his skin.
“Me too, baby doll. But one day at a time, right?”
Her lips twitched as her words came back to her. “One day at a time.”
Could it be so easy? She was so afraid to trust, to hope. But in her heart she knew she needed to take that last step of faith. They were partners. It would only work if both of them were committed.
Resolve settled over her and she straightened. She leaned against him and pressed her lips to his. Her promise.
His fingertips skimmed along her jaw and down across her collarbone, sending chills along her flesh. She stroked his hair before smoothing her palms over his shoulders and down his rock-hard abs. Long minutes passed as they traded soft caresses and gentle kisses until the need to be joined with him again, be one with him, became too much to bear.
Trey leaned back against the headboard and encouraged her to straddle his lap. The hard jut of his cock curved
up to his belly, deliciously swollen and ready to be ridden. Her mouth watered, eager to lap at the juice leaking from the plum-shaped head, but her pussy was hungrier, ravenous for another taste of his salty seed.
She loved the way his eyelids grew heavy with desire and those baby blues flamed when she took a firm grasp of his shaft, stroking her thumb under the glands as she settled her pussy over his cock and began the slow descent. The slide in was much easier than the time before. They were both panting heavily by the time he filled her to bursting.
She was so wet, her thighs slick with cream and wetting them both. It was always like that with Trey. He was the only man to make her melt with just a simple touch and a husky moan. He lit a fire within her that he alone controlled. And when he turned it up full bore, the flames consumed her from the inside out until he doused the inferno with hot blasts of his release. She belonged to him, body and soul, and she had been afraid she’d never feel the burn again.
“Damn, baby, you feel so good. I don’t think it can get much better.”
“Is that a challenge?” She picked up the pace.
“No.” He stilled her hips with his hands. “Slow. Go slow. I want this to last all night.”
Her smile felt more like a grimace as she struggled with her rising desire. “I don’t think I can survive more.”
“I bet you can. Come on, see if you can outlast me,” he dared.
Challenge accepted. She swirled her hips and squeezed her inner muscles tight around his shaft.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he cursed. In retaliation, he cupped her breasts and tugged on her nipples.
She gritted her teeth. “Damn it, Trey.”
His laugh was filled with sin until she clamped down on him and turned it into a groan. She kept up the tortuous pace, slowly taking him deep until he bottomed out, then squeezing tight as she slid back up.
Sweat ran down their bodies and their muscles trembled with fatigue as they both fought being the first to break. A whimper broke free from her as her sheath rippled around his driving length and a storm gathered low in her belly. Triumph lit his features as he sensed her impending orgasm.
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 121