One-Click Buy: March 2009 Harlequin Blaze

by Alison Kent

  “I love that you’re always wet,” he whispered into her ear.

  “You make me wet,” she told him, an absolute truth. “It’s like I can’t wait for you. Every time. It’s never been like this before. I see you, and all I can think about is you touching me.”

  “That’s good to know, since touching you is just about my favorite thing.”

  “And here I thought all you liked touching was cars.”

  “I like touching what responds.”

  He’d been toying with her all this time, rubbing over her, stroking her, but now he slid a finger deep inside, and she arched her hips off the bed.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “Just like that.”

  “It’s hard not to respond when you do that,” she said, twitching a bit with the movement of his finger. “And when you do that.” When he put his thumb to work, she twitched harder. “And definitely when you do that.”

  “I can do a whole lot of other things,” he told her, his mouth on her neck, his lips kissing, his tongue wetting the skin before his teeth bit. “But most of them require you getting out of your clothes.”

  She wanted to get naked. She just didn’t want to move to do it and lose what he was doing to her. “I’ll get out of mine if you’ll get out of yours.”

  “That’s the plan, sweetheart,” he said, catching her earlobe and tugging, just before he turned away.

  While Trey was occupied kicking out of his boots, she scooted off the bed and ran for the shower to wash away the smell of burgers and fries. She was bare, and the water running by the time he joined her in the bathroom that was as small and compact as the rest of her place.

  He stood there unclothed in the tiny space, his shoulders broad, the muscles in his arms well-defined, as were those of his abdomen. His chest was covered with hair she knew to be silky soft. It was lighter in color than that on his head, and the thatch cushioning his penis was darker than both.

  His legs were long and strong, the perfect thickness for wedging between hers, for rubbing against her, for holding her braced against the trunk of a tree while he got her off. With an appreciative smile, she climbed into the tub, leaving him to pull the curtain closed behind them.

  While she adjusted the temperature of the water, he reached up and adjusted the angle of the spray. “What? I wasn’t making you wet enough?”

  She laughed. “I smell like a burger basket.”

  “You smell like you.”

  “And a burger basket.”

  “Here’s something else you need to know as my fiancée. I like smelling you. I like tasting you. Your sweat. The salt on your skin. I don’t need you to smell like a bar of soap or a field of flowers to be turned on.”

  He was a guy. She didn’t expect him to understand about girl things. She leaned back to wet her hair and face, then looked at him again. “What do you need?”

  “Nothing more than seeing you do that,” he said, and groaned.

  She laughed, reached for her body wash and her sponge. “Boy, you’re easy.”

  “It’s not my fault. I was born that way.”

  “Easy?”

  “With a dick.”

  “And a very nice one, I might add.” She handed him the sponge and spun away.

  “Ah, now the truth comes out,” he said as he started in on her shoulders, scrubbing up her nape then down her spine. “You’re just looking to get your back washed.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she said, her sex tingling and swelling as he slid his hand between the cheeks of her ass. “That’s not my back.”

  “Your back wasn’t dirty,” he replied, his fingers probing deeper between her legs.

  She widened her stance. “And you’re looking for a part of me that is?”

  He pushed his thumb inside of her. “I think I found it.”

  She wanted to play. She wanted to tease and flirt. She wanted to have fun like this forever. But she wanted that hard, thick cock he’d been born with even more. And so she wiggled to dislodge his hand, and bent over, bracing her hands on either side of the tub’s rim.

  Behind her, she heard Trey groan. “I don’t have a condom.”

  “I’m on the Pill, and the only thing I can give you is a good time. As long as you can promise me the same thing, I think we’re good here.”

  He ran both hands over her ass, his fingers delving into the crevices and folds between her legs. “I can promise part of it. You won’t catch anything from me. But as far as being on the Pill…”

  She wanted to laugh, but was too desperately ready for him. “Then fuck me, Trey. Please. I want you.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said, taking hold of her hips and entering her with excruciating slowness.

  She wedged her feet against the sides of the tub and came up on her toes, opening her knees to give him as much access as possible. Finally he was all the way inside, stretching her, throbbing there where he filled her. She felt his heat and his hardness as she gripped him tight.

  He began to move, sliding in and out, setting a rhythm that created the perfect storm of sensation in her body. There was friction, there was tingling, there was an aching, drawing need. It pulled at her, tugged at her womb, caused her breasts to grow heavy, her nipples to tighten.

  She ground against him, her clit pulsing, her opening gripping him as he drove in and out. It was everything she wanted, but it wasn’t enough. She brought up a hand to stimulate the places his cock could only skate over from this angle.

  He beat her to it, lacing their fingers and letting her show him how to play with her clit. She moaned when together they got it just right. And he growled like a rutting beast in answer. She rocked her hips, working his cock with her sex.

  And as she came, it hit her that she had always loved him, that she would love him until she died. She cried out, and he followed, the sounds he made bestial, possessive, a mating, a staking of a claim.

  They showered quickly then, washing hair and limbs and the parts of their bodies that were sticky. They rinsed. They grabbed towels, but didn’t use them. They returned to the bed wet and starving for more.

  And Cardin very happily in love.

  18

  AN EMPTY GLASS IN HIS HAND, Eddie stood at the sink in his kitchen, a jug of milk and a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup on the counter. Seeing through the window Cardin’s Mini Cooper parked out back had stopped him from pouring either.

  He wasn’t even a fan of chocolate milk. He couldn’t figure why he’d decided to mix up a glass. Well, he could figure. It was Cardin. Her not being here. Her sleeping with Whip Davis in her own home.

  Yeah, he was glad she was sleeping in a bed instead of on the floor, but she was still his little girl, and the idea that she wasn’t sleeping alone wasn’t easy to swallow.

  He wondered when that would change. If giving his daughter away at the altar, if the “I do’s” and the rings and the vows before God and the license legalizing the bond would make it easier to let her go.

  He’d enjoyed like hell having her home these last four months. It had taken him back to her days in high school when she’d scurried around between Darling practices and games and FFA meetings. It had taken him back to earlier times as well.

  Having her sit on the bench in the garage while he and Jeb tinkered with White Lightning. Reading her the newspaper, answering the questions she asked, soft-coating the stories too gritty for a five-year-old.

  The only downside to his daughter’s homecoming was that his wife wasn’t here to share it. So when Delta had walked through the door a few hours ago, told him she’d given up the apartment then gone upstairs to their daughter’s rooms, Eddie hadn’t known what to think.

  He still didn’t know what to think. But at least he was looking for answers in a glass of chocolate milk instead of one filled with Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey.

  “I knew about the milk and the Hershey’s.”

  Eddie stiffened at the sound of Delta’s voice, but he didn’t turn.

>   “I would hear her get up, and I’d watch from the kitchen door while you read to her.”

  He listened to his estranged wife come into the kitchen. “That was such a long time ago. Twenty years. It feels like nothing.”

  “Twenty years ago, is this where you thought you’d be?”

  “Still in Dahlia? Yes. Living in my father’s house? Maybe. Separated from my wife? No. Watching my daughter choose the man she wants to marry?” He shook his head; it felt so incredibly heavy. “Never.”

  “I think that’s what they call life, Eddie.” Delta came to stand beside him. He stared at their reflection in the window. “It happens to everyone.”

  “I’m not sure I like it as much when it doesn’t go my way.”

  “It wouldn’t be as interesting if it did,” she told him. “You’d get all soft and pudgy and lazy if you got your way all the time. And I can’t imagine you as any of those.”

  “Can you imagine me as old?”

  “Old? I don’t think so.” She pushed her hair from her forehead, held it back for a moment before letting it go. “We’re only a few months apart, and there’s no way I’m copping to being old.”

  Eddie wished he could share her attitude, but he hurt. He ached. He was weary. His body as well as his soul. He’d never felt this beat up. Or this alone. “I feel old. Worn out.”

  She draped her arm around his shoulders, leaned her head against him. He could see her sweet smile that he loved so much in the window and their reflected gazes met. “You’ve been depressed for months. You’ve been through three surgeries. You’ve taken more medicine than a lot of horses could handle. That’s enough to wear out the best of men.”

  She turned him then, forced him with her hands on his shoulders away from the window to face her. Her eyes were big and blue and damp, and her unshed tears hit him like a fist to the gut.

  “You, Eddie Worth. You are the best of men. I’ve known you more years than I haven’t. And however long it takes, I know you’ll bounce back. No one and nothing will ever convince me otherwise.”

  He wondered what he’d ever done to deserve this woman who had more faith in him than he did in himself. And after all he’d put her through this past year. “I’m glad one of us thinks I’ve still got something going for me.”

  “You talk like you have one foot in the grave.”

  “Most days? It feels pretty close.”

  She moved her hands from his shoulders to his face, studying him, making sure of something, then taking him by one hand and leading him to the kitchen table where they’d eaten so many meals as a family.

  They’d helped run Cardin through her spelling words here. Had talked about White Lightning’s performance in the latest race. Decided where to take their vacations. How best to spend the money they’d made.

  He sat in his usual chair, to the left of his father’s at the head, and she sat beside him, turning so their knees bumped. “I think you need to slow down, Eddie. Not because of your age, but because you never took enough time off. You went back to work too soon. You didn’t give yourself the mental recovery time you needed.”

  Staying home doing nothing had driven him crazy. He wasn’t cut out to stare at the walls, or a television screen, and the pages of a book only got him through so many hours before he needed to get up and move. “Everyone says that. Take time to heal. To recover. But the ones saying it aren’t the ones sitting on their butts going bonkers.”

  “You know, as patient as you’ve always been with me, with Cardin, even with your Dad, you’ve never been patient with yourself.”

  “Patience takes too long to get things done.”

  “And impatience burns you out.”

  She was right, but he was right, too. And he didn’t know where that left him. “If I cut back my hours at work, what am I supposed to do with my time?”

  “You could do anything you wanted to do.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. “I can’t take White Lightning down the track.”

  “No, but you could go back to working on the car with your father.”

  His father, who refused to open up and tell him the one thing he most needed to know.

  That was what Eddie had to come to terms with. Things would never be the same as they were before the accident. But if he wanted any kind of relationship with his family, he had to come to grips with the past.

  “So if I take some time, get my head together, work on things with Jeb, does that mean you’re going to come home?”

  Until now, Delta had been leaning toward him, pleading with him, touching him, her gaze imploring. Now she moved away to sit straight in her chair. “I love you, Eddie. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved.”

  “But?” he asked as fear clawed at him. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything if he didn’t have her with him. She was his other half, his better half. He would die for her. He would die without her.

  “I’m not going to desert you. But I have to know that things are going to turn around for you—for both of us—before I come back for good. I can’t handle going through another separation. When I come back, that’s it. I’m never leaving again.”

  He didn’t want her leaving again. He hated that he’d driven her away in the first place, but the idea of her not returning…“Does that mean you’re going to stay on at Cardin’s?”

  She shook her head. “Now that she’s there with Whip, I don’t think so. I might see about getting an apartment in the same complex, or if Cardin thinks that’s too close, a room at Bristol House.”

  Those places were too far away. “Or you could stay here. Upstairs. Like Cardin’s been doing.”

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea?” she asked, canting her head to one side and giving him a look that said she had his number.

  “I promise I won’t sneak up into your bed.”

  “I’m not so sure I won’t sneak downstairs into yours.”

  He wouldn’t say no if she did. He wanted her there. He needed her there. But hearing that she would never abandon him…

  He had to trust her. Even more so, he had to trust himself. He had to get where he needed to be under his own steam, by making his own decisions, carving out his own way.

  Needing a moment, he got up and returned the milk and the chocolate syrup to the fridge. He spoke before looking back at his wife, the change of subject a trick he hoped would work to take his mind off the hard journey ahead. “I guess we should talk about wedding gifts. A trip, some cash, a reason to settle down in Dahlia.”

  “If Whip’s going to be on the road, I don’t think there’s anything we can give Cardin to make her stay here, but if we had the money, I’d buy those five acres Ahsan Wazir has for sale east of town.”

  “I have the money,” Jeb said, walking into the kitchen and surprising Eddie and Delta both.

  Eddie wondered how long his father had been in the living room, if he’d heard their conversation. If this was his way of breaking the ice, making the first move Eddie hadn’t yet figured out how to do.

  “But there’s something else for sale I think would give them both more of a reason to stay.”

  “What’s that?” Eddie asked.

  His father glanced over, his eyes glinting with mischief. “The Dahlia Speedway.”

  19

  “I FORGOT TO TELL YOU YOUR GRANDFATHER wants to throw us a party.”

  “What?” Cardin rose up sharply from where she’d been cleaning out the cabinet beneath Trey’s kitchen sink. She bumped her head on the edge of the frame, frowning as she rubbed at the bruise. “What do you mean, he wants to throw us a party?”

  “That’s what he told me. An engagement party. He wants to celebrate us, and my Moonshine Run win at the same time.”

  A party at Headlights to celebrate White Lightning’s showing in the Moonshine Run was an annual event. But an engagement party? She sat back on her heels. “Don’t tell me he means to include gifts.”

  Trey kept his head down, studying notes scribbled
on yellow paper torn from a legal pad. “He didn’t say anything about gifts.”

  This was bad. Oh, this was bad. She got to her feet. “We can’t let people bring gifts, Trey. We just can’t.”

  “Then we’ll have to make sure that’s a stipulation.”

  She pulled a chair from under the table and sat, burying her face in her hands. “Ugh, what a mess.”

  “Lies can get messy,” he said, all wise and sagelike.

  “I know that. And I tried to think things through. But I never counted on an engagement party. I guess part of me figured everyone would know this was all pretend.” That sounded so stupid, she groaned. Twice. “Once we’re done with this one, I’m out of the lie business forever.”

  She finally looked over at Trey where he sat at the head of the table, paperwork from a huge file box of his father’s in stacks in front of him. They’d decided to take a break from the barn and spend a day in the house; they were having trouble out there staying on track.

  They’d had just as much trouble in here this morning. Her inner thighs ached. “We’ll have to make sure everyone knows we haven’t set a date, we don’t have a place of our own, we can’t store things, yadda, yadda. So no gifts. Absolutely no gifts.”

  He didn’t look up. “Lots of folks give cash, you know. They like to walk up and slip a few bills into the pockets of the bride and groom.”

  Uh-uh. “No cash, either. We can’t take cash.” Her chin in one hand, she drummed the fingers of the other on the tabletop. “I’ll just have to tell Jeb no party.”

  “No need to be hasty.”

  Hasty? “What?”

  “Well…we could go along with it, accept the gifts and the cash, and call the engagement real.”

  He still didn’t look at her. He was going through the papers one by one, placing them in the appropriate piles he’d made on the table—a filing system she was about to shove to the floor if that’s what it took to get his attention.