by Marie Force
“That would be perfect.”
Charley couldn’t believe he was doing this, but she absolutely loved knowing that Rufus would go to a good home. A great home, in fact. Here she’d wanted to do something for him, and he was clearly doing this for her. “You should go to your new daddy,” she whispered to the sleeping puppy. But as she started to hand him off to Tyler, Rufus snuggled deeper into her embrace.
“He wants you to be his mommy,” Tyler said with a sly grin.
“Are you using the baby to get to me?”
“Would I do that?”
“Yes, I believe you would. You absolutely would.”
“Charley,” he said in a teasingly disapproving tone. “You think so little of me.”
“That’s not true.” In fact, she was beginning to think far too much of him, and that scared her more than anything had in a very long time.
—
They spent an hour with Rufus and the others before leaving the shelter with promises to be back next week to pick him up. Tyler had filled out the required paperwork and withstood a grilling from Dawn about how he would care for the energetic puppy. In the end, she’d declared him the answer to their prayers for Rufus.
“You’ve lost your mind,” Charley declared when they were back in the Range Rover.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because! Who decides on the spur of the moment to adopt a puppy?”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a dog anyway. It can get awfully lonely up on that mountain, and it would be nice to have a companion. Now where else do you want to go before we head home?”
“I’d like to stop by my place.”
“Sure.” He drove into town and headed for her house like he’d been there before, which he hadn’t.
“How do you know where I live?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“Stalker perv.”
“Hardly,” he said with a laugh. “I pay attention to you. How does that make me a stalker perv?” He pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. “Are you going to invite me in?”
“I sort of have to. I’m on the third floor.”
“Ahhh, I love when you need me.” He got out of the car and came around to her side, opening the door for her.
“Hey, Tyler?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you so much for adopting Rufus. He needs a good home after being rejected twice before. I love him, and I’m so glad to know he’ll be with you.”
“Why, Charley Abbott,” he said, his eyes dancing with mirth. “Is that a compliment you’re giving me?”
She looked up at him and nodded. “He’ll be lucky to have you.”
Cupping her face in his big hands, he said, “You would be, too, you know.” He lowered his head to brush his lips over hers. “I’d take such good care of you in every possible way, Charley. If only you’d let me.”
He was chipping away at the wall she’d carefully built around her heart. One sweet moment at a time, he was making her forget all about why she’d tried to resist him.
“Ready to go in?” When she nodded, he helped her out of the car and carried her up two flights of stairs to her apartment.
“Don’t expect too much,” she said when he put her down on the third-floor landing. “This place is a mole hole compared to your house.”
“It’s your home, Charley. I can’t wait to see it.”
She used her key in the door and stepped into her apartment for the first time in weeks. “It smells musty in here.”
“It’s been closed up.” His gaze encompassed her small living room and the adjoining kitchen and dining area. “This place is so you.”
“How so?”
“It’s eclectic and colorful and girly. Just like you.”
She liked his description of her home. “The bedroom and bathroom are in there.” While she went through the junk mail that Ella had left on her table, he went to see the rest of her small apartment.
“Charley, you need to come in here.”
The way he said that had her thinking something was wrong. She hobbled across the living room to the doorway of her bedroom. He had removed his coat and was sitting on her bed. “What’s wrong?”
He reached out to her. “Nothing at all.”
Because she couldn’t resist him when he looked at her that way, she went to him.
He pulled the hat off her head, unwrapped her scarf and unzipped her coat, pushing it off her shoulders.
Becoming unsteady on her feet for reasons that had nothing to do with her leg, Charley braced her hands on his shoulders. “What’re you up to?”
Tyler wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “I needed this. Just this.”
Charley cradled his head against her chest, running her fingers through his thick dark hair. Standing in his embrace in the waning afternoon light, she thought of something she could do to thank him for all he’d done for her. “Lie back,” she said, her voice gruff with edgy desire that she no longer wished to deny. She wanted him physically. It was the rest she wasn’t sure about.
Releasing her, Tyler looked up with curiosity. “How come?”
“Just do it.”
He reclined on his elbows, propped up so he could see her.
Hoping her leg would support what she had in mind, she began unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans, working carefully around the hard column of flesh that became more rigid when he realized her intent. “Charley,” he said on a gasp when she freed him from his clothes. “You don’t have to . . . Ah, damn.” His elbows collapsed under him and his body arched, forcing him deeper into her throat.
Charley leaned over him, putting all her weight on her good leg and one arm, while she stroked him with her free hand.
“Holy Christ,” he whispered when she sucked on the head before going deep again. “Charley, Charley . . .” His fingers dug into her hair, fisting the strands as he tried to gain some control.
But she didn’t yield to him, taking him up nearly to the point of explosion before backing off and doing it again and again.
“Fuck, Charley . . .”
She loved the desperate, needy tone of his voice and decided to take mercy on him by cupping his balls and squeezing gently while she sucked him hard.
He came with a roar that echoed off the walls of her small bedroom and filled her with a feeling of feminine power she’d never experienced quite so intensely. She had owned this strong, capable, sexy man, and as wonderful as that had been, it had left her needy for more of him.
Pushing herself up on trembling legs, she pulled her sweater over her head and unclasped her bra. She removed her leg brace, unbuttoned her jeans and managed to fight her way out of them, her boots and her panties in the time it took him to open his eyes to see what she was doing.
She would never forget the way he devoured her with his eyes or how he rose up to remove his own sweater and kick off his jeans before bringing her, carefully, onto the bed with him.
“You never cease to surprise me, Charlotte.”
“How do I surprise you?”
“I keep waiting for you to tell me we’re done, and then you blow me to within an inch of my life before you get naked for me.”
“I’m not going to tell you we’re done. Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Not yet.”
After setting her injured leg on a throw pillow, he turned over so he was on top of her, settled between her legs, gazing down at her with those eyes that saw her so completely. And while that had once terrified her, she was beginning to find comfort in being seen by him.
“I want to be with you here in my home for a little while. Can we do that?”
“Yeah, honey. We can do that.” He brought his lips down on hers, devastating her with the desperation she tasted in his kiss. No on
e had ever wanted her the way he did, and she was captivated by the way he needed her. She opened her mouth to his tongue, sucking and biting and drawing a deep groan from him.
Then he got busy making her crazy with his hands, lips, tongue and teeth, kissing her everywhere except for the places that burned for him. Her nipples were so hard and so tight that they ached until he took first one and then the other into his mouth, turning the ache into an inferno of need. Her body ignited under his touch.
“Tyler . . .”
“Talk to me. Tell me what you feel.”
“You. I feel you. I’ve never . . . Not like this.”
“I know, baby. Me either. Not like this.” He kissed her belly and moved lower, opening her to his tongue and fingers. “Sweet Charlotte . . . I can’t get enough of you. I’ll never have enough.”
Just as he didn’t hold back with his words, neither did he hold back with the deep thrusts of his fingers or the suction on her clit.
Charley exploded. She cried out from the sensory overload that gripped every cell in her body. She’d never come like she did with him and was still in the throes of it when he pushed into her, entering her in one deep, thick stroke that started a second wave of indescribable pleasure.
His fingers dug into her shoulders as he surged into her, riding the waves of her release with deep, punishing thrusts of his hard cock.
Charley had never felt anything remotely like this. She came down from the incredible high to find him still hard and thick inside her.
“Hey,” he said, smiling down at her.
“Hey.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Really, really good.”
“That’s what I want to hear. Ready for some more?”
“How can there be more?”
“Oh, baby, there’s so much more.” His lips skimmed her jaw, finding a sensitive place behind her ear that made her shiver. “I want to do everything with you. I want to touch you everywhere. I want to make love to you for entire nights and then the whole next day, too. I want to live inside you.”
Charley trembled again, this time from the force of his words as much as the exquisite burn between her legs.
He began to move, slowly at first and then picking up the pace until he was surging into her and throwing his head back as he found his own release.
She held him tight against her, absorbing his aftershocks into her body.
“I’m too heavy,” he said after a long silence.
“You’re fine.”
“Mmm, so are you.” His hands found their way under her to squeeze her bottom. “I know I’m not allowed to say such things, but I’ve never in my entire life experienced anything that compares to making love with you.”
Charley dug deep, looking for the courage she needed to be truthful with him. Didn’t he deserve that much from her? “Neither have I,” she said softly, so softly it was nearly a whisper.
CHAPTER 18
Any goal worth achieving involves an element of risk.
—Dean Karnazes
Three little words . . . Other women had told Tyler they loved him, but never had three little words packed a greater wallop that that soft “Neither have I” did from Charley. He was making progress in convincing her that she belonged with him. But this was no time to get cocky. No, it was time to buckle down and get serious about the one thing he hadn’t yet had a chance to give her—romance.
His Charley was jaded when it came to men and romance. It was up to him to show her that not all men were selfish jerks who said whatever it took to get what they wanted from a woman and then moved on when they’d used her up. He’d never been that guy, even in college when he’d had friends who epitomized that guy.
They’d teased him then about being too serious and too focused, but that was how he’d been then and how he was now. He was a one-woman-at-a-time kind of guy, and if he had his way he’d be a one-woman-for-all-time kind of guy before too much longer.
When Charley shivered in his arms, he used his foot to grab the throw blanket from the end of her bed and covered them with it. She snuggled deeper into his embrace, which was exactly where he wanted her. He took advantage of the opportunity to run his hand over the warm, soft silk of her back, letting his fingers learn the grooves of her backbone. At the base of her spine were two enticing dimples. He couldn’t wait until she was able to move more freely so he could become intimate friends with those dimples.
His mouth watered at the thought of dipping his tongue into each tiny groove. And just that quickly, he was hard again. Christ on a stick, thinking about her got him hotter than actual sex ever had before her. When his cock hardened against her hip, she moaned. Naturally, that sound coming from her only added to the problem.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“You. That.” She bumped her hip against his erect cock, making him hiss from the thrill of the contact. “Again?”
Tyler laughed at the disgusted tone of her voice. “I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you again so soon after the last time.”
Her snort of laughter was his new favorite sound. Well, one of several new favorite sounds. She lifted her head off the pillow to look at him. “What’s got you all revved up again?”
He flattened his hand on her belly. “You do.”
“And what exactly did I do?”
“I believe you were breathing next to me while naked. That’s about all it takes.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of easy?”
“I’ve only ever been this easy with you.”
“Right . . .” She rolled her eyes for emphasis.
“Charlotte.”
Glancing up at him, she raised a brow.
“I’ve never wanted any woman the way I want you, which is pretty much all the time. Remember when I made you dance with me at the Grange?”
“How could I forget?”
“I had to leave after that because I was a walking, talking hard-on.” As he spoke, he moved back to his new favorite place—between her legs. “I had to go home and jerk off in the shower. All because I had the supremely sexy and exquisitely mouthy Charlotte Abbott pressed against me for five whole minutes.”
“You ought to see someone about that.”
“I am seeing someone.” He cupped her breast and toyed with her nipple until it stood up tall and tight. “I’m seeing the cause of all my problems, and she’s doing an excellent job of fixing what’s wrong with me.”
“What about all the things that are wrong with her? What’ll you do about them?”
“I’ll take them one at a time until she’s no longer convinced there’s a damned thing wrong with her. I think she’s absolutely perfect exactly the way she is.”
“You’re a sex-drunk stalker perv if you honestly believe that’s true.”
He pinched her nipple tightly between his thumb and index finger, making her gasp. “I’m totally sober, and I honestly believe that’s true.” Before she could come up with another reason why he was crazy to want her, he replaced his fingers with his lips and sucked hard on her nipple, dragging his tongue back and forth across the tight tip.
While he tended to one breast with his mouth, he gave the other equal time with his fingers. He could easily become obsessed with her gorgeous breasts and the pale pink nipples that darkened to a deep rose color when she was aroused. Tyler loved knowing that about her. He loved knowing that when he sucked on her nipple he rendered her mute except for mewling notes of pleasure that came from the back of her throat.
He loved the way she fisted handfuls of his hair and tried to direct him. Always so bossy, his Charley. She was his, even if she wasn’t yet willing to admit it to herself or to him. Though he knew she wanted him to move on, he kept up the sensual assault on her breasts until she w
as nearly sobbing from the unbearable tension that had her legs moving restlessly as she tried to seek relief.
“Tyler,” she gasped after he sucked hard on her left nipple. “Come on!”
“What’s wrong?”
Her broken laugh made him smile, but he hid that from her as he moved to the right side to continue “torturing” her.
“I want . . . I need . . .”
“Tell me,” he said without letting up on her poor nipple.
“More.”
“We’ll get there. Eventually.”
Her protracted groan made his cock ache from the desire to give her exactly what she wanted, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet. He tightened his teeth around her nipple while rocking his cock against her pelvis. Her wet heat coated his rigid flesh, which had him forgetting all about his plan to torture her.
Taking himself in hand, he surged into her with one smooth, deep stroke that made her come instantly. God almighty . . . Not only was she gorgeous and sexy and mouthy, but she was the most responsive woman he’d ever been with, too.
As her muscles clamped down on him, he lost his mind, hammering into her with no thought to her comfort or her injury or anything other than slaking the burning need she aroused in him every damned time he went near her.
When she came again, crying out from the pleasure, he went with her, drowning in her sweet sexiness.
“Ah, Charley . . . God, I’m sorry.”
Her hand on his back soothed him ever so slightly. “For what?”
“I . . .”
“Fucked my lights out?”
The unexpectedly saucy comment drew a shaky laugh from him. “Something like that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I loved it.”
“So did I, but I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said as relief flooded through him. The thought of hurting her in any way was unbearable to him.
“Can we stay here tonight?”
“What about your pain meds?”
“I have stuff I can take if I need it, but my knee is fine.”
“We can stay put if you want to.”
Her arms encircled his neck as her fingers continued to play with his hair. “I want to.”