by Lauren Dane
“It tastes as good as it looks.”
He sighted one more as he began to circle her. At her shoulder blade, near her spine, a small, curled up lizard. “I don’t remember anything about you loving reptiles.”
“It’s a chameleon.”
“Ah.” The name of her boutiques.
He came to face her again.
“A chameleon can hide in plain sight, all while still remaining essentially what it is. I guess I take some meaning from that.”
He wouldn’t have understood it as well if she’d told him when they were together before. Then again, she hadn’t had any ink when they’d been together.
“Some things have changed. I’m looking forward to seeing everything old and new.”
She looked down a moment. “Everything’s not, you know, where it was. Before having kids, I mean.”
Vaughan stepped back and took her in, shaking his head. He hadn’t seen her topless in eight years. It still rendered him speechless. At her striking five feet nine inches, she stood head and shoulders above most women. A tumble of honeyed gold framed her face and shoulders.
Long-as-sin legs led to strong thighs and the hips he’d held on to more than once as he thrust into her body. The flare at her hips was softer now than it had been when he’d met her, sure. She’d been twenty-two years old then! These days she was no less stunning. In fact, he found her even more beautiful. It could be the bare tits in front of him, but she dazzled him. Always had.
The problem was Kelly’s mom had done a number on her head. That stupid, horrible cow had beat it into Kelly that her entire life was how she looked. Rebecca had weighed her daily and if Kelly had gained even one pound her mother would put her on an even more restrictive diet than her normal one.
He was sorry she still had remnants of it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to let that pass without a reply.
“Without a doubt, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He shrugged. “Right here, right now. There’s not a single woman on the planet who could hold a candle to you.”
He cupped her breasts, taking them into his hands with a happy sigh before brushing his lips over hers.
Her eyes, deep blue, so big, held less wariness and a lot more willingness.
“I want to see the rest,” Vaughan urged.
She shoved her shorts and panties down and sent him a look of challenge. Relieved all her wariness was gone, he got naked, too.
She took his cock, squeezing at the base, and he nearly choked as he sucked in air.
“Still works, I see.”
“Oh, is that how it is? You’re all saucy now?” He stalked her backward through the room until she landed on her bed.
“I’m always saucy. It’s one of my finest qualities.”
He paused, his knee on the bed between hers. “I’ve missed this. You all spread out below me just waiting for me to get close. Your attention all on me.”
* * *
KELLY LOOKED UP into that face. This was one of her favorite ways to look at him. Right before he put his hands and mouth on her. The green of his eyes deepened, his lips swollen from kisses, framed by the beard he’d grown a few years back. She liked it.
His hair was a little too long. He’d just come off tour so he was a little shaggy all around. But it only made him hot lumberjack instead of scary hobo.
He’d grown into his handsomeness. He’d be more like his oldest brother, Ezra, and their father. That sort of handsome that deepened as the man aged.
The heat of the beard burn he’d left on her neck seemed to flow into the flush of desire. She was so wet she should have been embarrassed. Instead she wanted to toss him on his back and climb on top.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, lying next to her, his leg over hers as he kissed her shoulder and up her neck. He’d always made her feel this way. The center of everything. It had been amazing until she realized he showed it too rarely.
But now? She took it for what it was. And hoped it was more. But she didn’t count on it, because he hadn’t earned it yet.
But she wanted him to.
She could have said all that, but she didn’t want to talk. She wanted him in her. More than she’d wanted sex in a very long time. It didn’t matter that she’d been engaged to marry someone else just a week before.
She’d wanted this with Vaughan for so long. Guilt over messing up with Ross would return later.
“Fuck me. That’s pretty much it. Over and over.”
He laughed. “Oh, I will. I promise.”
“Less promising, more doing. I’m all about action, Vaughan.”
He kissed her long and slow. Tasting, taking his time. “You’ve always been bossy. In bed it’s a fantastic quality.” He paused the kissing to look her in the eye. “I haven’t seen you naked in a really long time. It’s as fine an experience as I remember. Don’t rush me.”
“I can tell you’ve never had sex in a house with two small children in it.” She scrambled atop his body like she’d wanted to and when she ground herself, hot, wet and ready, over his cock they both groaned.
“When they’re gone is the time for long, slow fucking.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.” He tried to keep his tone cocky, but she knew he was as hot for it as she was.
He slid a hand up her arm, caressing her shoulder. She shivered at the contact, at the reawakening of all that feeling she’d buried when they fell apart.
It rushed through her. Bittersweet. There was still so much between them. He seemed to fit her in a way she never found with anyone else. Like this, skin to skin, she trusted him. Their bodies remembered what they had before.
He knew just how hard to graze his teeth over her collarbone, rendering her shivering, a muted moan of pleasure sliding from her lips.
She dragged her fingernails down his chest, over nipples she knew were sensitive. Beneath her, his body shifted, muscles of flexing against her inner thighs. That sensual caress turned her inside out.
So much. He made her feel so much.
And then she’d never had it again. No matter how many hands touched her, even in the same way he did then. Only this man seemed to render her bare, every nerve on fire, supersensitive. He played her body, and her heart followed.
Even the way he fucked was like music. One of those slow, ragged rock-and-roll songs about desire and longing.
All that intensity he exposed left her utterly defenseless, not just to how he made her feel physically, but the deep and until last week, hopeless love she’d carried all these years.
“Come back to me,” Vaughan said as he tipped his body, reversing their positions as he knelt between her thighs.
And there she was, physically open to him, as well.
“There hasn’t been a single moment since you left that I haven’t wanted this.” His teasing sensuality had gone very primal. Regret was in his gaze, but so was resolve.
“That’s the same.” He petted down her body. His gaze following her hands. “I could never get enough of you.” His thumbs spread her wider and then together, squeezing her clit that way.
An intense ripple of pleasure hit and she gasped.
“That, too.” One corner of his mouth hitched up. “I’m going to be here tomorrow. And the next day. I’m here. That’s changed. I’m aware of how much I’ve lost. That I’ll never, ever get back.”
He continued to speak while he squeezed her clit over and over. It got hard to listen, but she fought against climax and kept her focus on him.
He’d told her what she wanted to hear. What she’d needed to hear. And she wasn’t the only one laid bare.
He was trusting her, too. She needed to let go of the past she’d been using as a shield against him. She already loved him. If he left s
he’d be hurt either way.
She nodded. “You’re here now.”
He bent to kiss her stupid and she wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer.
“I’m not done.” Vaughan kissed her again before moving down her neck, across her collarbone. Down her sides, against her ribs, feathering against her hip bones and then back up to her nipples.
That was certainly worth waiting for. Kelly arched into his mouth, her fingers digging into his biceps and finding a lot more muscle than before. Mmm.
* * *
HER SKIN WAS still so soft and tasty. The warmth of her scent when he’d breathed her in at that place her neck met her shoulder incited him. He wanted more.
He liked sex, yeah. A lot. But with her it had been far more intense than it had ever been with anyone else.
This was what it was to love the person you had sex with. In the to-my-very-bones-love sense. He’d been lying to himself that it was just amazing sexual chemistry.
It was love.
And a lot of sexual chemistry, no fucking lie.
She writhed beneath him as he tugged a nipple between his teeth.
“Good to know that still works,” he said before licking against the sting of the bite.
“Yep,” she squeaked out and it filled him with even more joy when he’d been pretty sure he was so happy it wasn’t possible to feel even more.
“I’m going to need to conduct a few tests.” He kissed his way down her belly, taking a long, slow lick once he reached her pussy.
So. So. Good.
It was the gentlemanly thing to do, to go down on your partner. Especially when you expected your partner to do the same. He didn’t resent it. He dug making his partner feel good. But this—with Kelly—it was so much more devastating. Intimate. The taste of her sang through him, settling in as if it had never been gone.
He didn’t stop until she trembled against him, her fingers knotted in his hair, her back arched, a hoarse whisper of his name on her lips as she came.
He kissed his way back up her body, resting some of his weight over her.
“That still works, too. Just in case that wasn’t clear.” Her voice had gone whiskey-rough.
“I’d forgotten you sounded like a torch singer every time you came.” He kissed her.
“Only with you.” Her smile was a little shy, a little surprised. He couldn’t tear his attention from her neck as she reached back, under her pillow, and held a condom aloft. “Show me if you still make that growling grunt right before you climax.”
He managed to tear the packet open and get the condom rolled down his cock and was back, teasing them both, pressing in just slightly and retreating. Getting deeper with each thrust but making it last.
Kids in the house or not, the door was locked and he meant to make this something special.
Even if he wanted to rut. To mark her as his so everyone could see it. But he had to earn that.
* * *
KELLY KEPT HER eyes closed as he thrust deep and slow. Over and over until he’d lodged himself to the root.
He kissed her closed lids and then over her cheeks. Touching her with so much tenderness she was crying before she could stop it.
He paused as she wiped her face on the back of a hand. “Am I hurting you?”
She took his face between her hands. “Not anymore.”
Wrapping her legs around his waist, she held on as he continued to keep his pace. Slow torture but it was the best kind.
And when he finally came—after making her come another time, too—he left her boneless as he went to deal with the condom and then came back to her, sliding in behind her body, tucking her close.
“Why did you cry?”
She turned in his arms. “Because you touched me tonight and made me feel something I wasn’t sure I even could again.”
He smiled, his worry past.
“Oh. I like that. I feel the same. It was right there. The way I am only with you. I just reached for it and it was ready.”
She knew exactly what he meant.
“I’m going to the ranch tomorrow morning after the girls get on the bus. I need to pack some more stuff. I’ll be back in time to have dinner with everyone. I figured I’d bring back some takeout.”
She nodded and tried not to think about him not coming back. About him getting to the ranch and his mother talking him out of getting back together with her.
“Have you told them yet? Your family?”
“Ezra knows. I talked to my dad the day you broke the engagement with Ross. I’m going to talk to my parents tomorrow. Do you want to come along? I don’t want to exclude you. Especially after the way things have been.”
“That would be negatory. Maybe one day I’ll feel as comfortable around her as the new crop of Hurley women, but for now, I think it could be really bad.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think... I was about to say I didn’t think it was that bad, but I guess it’s more like I didn’t think. I made the mess, though. She’s just reacting to what she thinks.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Your mother is not stupid. Or naive. Not even when her precious sons are concerned. She knows you and your tricks. She didn’t want to confront it. And I get that, too. But I’m not ready for that. Not yet.” Maybe not ever.
“All right. But I am coming back. We have dinner plans.”
“Okay. Oh, and I need Tuesday’s phone number so if you see Ezra tomorrow can you get it for me? I want to talk to her about the jewelry she makes.”
“You two seemed to get along pretty well when she was over here last weekend.”
“I liked her a lot.” Kelly really did click with Ezra’s new girlfriend. The other woman seemed to love clothes in the same way Kelly did. She had a fantastic sense of style and if her work was half as stylish as the rest of her, Kelly wanted to feature Tuesday’s designs in her boutiques.
“Do I have to go back to my lonely bed or can I sleep in here with you?” Vaughan asked.
“I want to be careful. This thing between you and me is complicated. But we’re adults. It’s their happiness I worry about. I have to trust you to keep your word. It’s not just my heart you’d be breaking, but theirs, too.” Being a grown-up sucked sometimes. But she wasn’t going to be like Rebecca.
If the girls saw him in here they’d assume things Kelly wasn’t ready to fully admit yet.
“I think for the time being we should sleep in our own rooms. Sometimes they come get in bed with me in the middle of the night. They’d be so ridiculously excited to find you here, no kidding. But I think taking it slow is good when it comes to them. But you certainly don’t have to go just yet.” She smiled.
He pulled her more tightly against him. “Sounds very good. Now. I think we should investigate round two.”
He pulled the blanket above them both and when his hands were everywhere at once, she readily agreed about round two.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONFUSED, VAUGHAN LOOKED over at Kensey, who’d just dissolved into a mass of tears on the floor next to where he stood.
He cast his glance Kelly’s way. She sat at the table, a bunch of spreadsheets in front of her. And she smirked behind her coffee cup, not moving to intervene.
“What’s the problem, Miss Kensey?” Vaughan asked.
She answered in a rush of gasping sobs and hiccups so of course he had no idea what she’d said.
“She says, what if the girls in her class say corduroy is dumb?” Maddie explained. “And she doesn’t like mustard on both pieces of bread.”
He had zero idea how to deal with the pants issue, though he got out another piece of bread, this time with no mustard on it. The week before she’d had school lunches so he hadn’t made her a lunch yet.
But Kelly
spoke, interrupting the process. “Kensey, get up off the floor immediately. Go upstairs and clean your face. You will have mustard on both slices of bread today. You will come down, apologize to your father for this behavior and get it together.”
Kelly’s tone caught his attention as quickly as it got Kensey’s. Not angry, but full of command and not an inch to be given.
Kensey sniffled, hauled herself up and ran out of the room.
Vaughan, undeniably impressed, finished up with sandwiches for both girls’ lunches. Maddie patted his arm once he handed her a lunch bag.
“She’s a handful, Dad. You gotta be tough with her.”
Kelly had to cough to hide the laughter Vaughan also fought against.
“You’re an artist. You know how you guys are. Temperamental. But she’s like a kitten.” Maddie turned to Kelly. “Right, Mom?”
Kelly blushed, shaking her head and giving in to her laughter. “Kensey likes shiny things. Sometimes you just kind of shake something pretty and it breaks the spell and she gets back on track.”
“Oh, and artists need to be handled that way?” he teased Maddie.
Maddie gave him a serious nod. “Yes. We’re all quite individualistic. We’re snowflakes, Mom says, but not special snowflakes because special snowflakes think the rules don’t apply.”
“Your mom is very wise.” And way better at this parent thing than he was.
Kensey came back down and her attitude had shifted. She hugged Vaughan and apologized. He would have told Kensey it wasn’t necessary to apologize, would have if they’d been at his house. But he didn’t countermand Kelly, knowing that would be a disastrous thing.
“Will you both walk us to the bus stop? It’s my first day back.” Maddie gave those eyes Vaughan had no idea how to refuse.
“I was thinking of driving you both. You’d rather go on the bus?” Kelly had gotten up to pin Kensey’s hair back from her face.
Maddie nodded. “My friends are on the bus. I won’t roughhouse or anything. I promise.”
The doctor had told them at the appointment just a few days before that Maddie would be fine to return to school by week’s end, and here they were. But she seemed so small. So fragile. Maybe she should be driven. What if she got jostled and hurt?