* * * *
Oh, God, he’s sucking my toes!
She slid straight down the wall. Who knew how she would have landed if Jace hadn’t caught her and lowered her the rest of the way into the tub. The deep, husky sound of his chuckle made her smile as he turned her over.
“I haven’t finished cleaning the front of you.”
“Forget about it,” Amanda murmured as she twined her arms around his neck and tried to bring his lips to hers.
He resisted. “I don’t want to.”
“Please, Jace.”
“No.” He unwound her arms and leaned back on his knees. “I told you I intended to explore this entire luscious body of yours, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
As he spoke, he pressed her back into the wall. Amanda didn’t have the strength to fight. Instead she slumped there, letting Jace spread her legs wide, revealing every intimate detail of her body to his gaze. He looked. No shame or guilt crossed Jace’s features as he took a slow tour of her body.
From the way his features tightened, his gaze darkened, Amanda could tell Jace liked what he saw. His gaze held the reality she hadn’t been able to accept coming from his lips. For all his tender words, the truth gleamed from Jace’s predatory smile. Amanda was his prey.
Fat droplets rained down from the showerhead, splashing over his head and shoulders, dripping down the ridges of his muscles, emphasizing their size and definition as she followed their path down toward the largest muscle he had. It was saluting her, assuring her that at the end of this night she’d find all the satisfaction she could stand, maybe even more.
She found herself suddenly feeling shy in the face of such focused power. She’d have closed her legs if Jace hadn’t already pulled her low enough to lodge himself between her knees. Licking her lips, she looked for another way to hide.
“Maybe we should turn off the shower and turn on the tub.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you’re blocking all the water. How will you wash the soap off?”
“I’m not going to let you hide from me, Amanda.” As he spoke, Jace lifted one of her legs, running his hands down her calves to rub over her ankles and lift her foot toward his lips.
“I wouldn’t let you hide anything. I want you to give it all to me. Your trust, pleasure, your honesty at all moments.” Jace brushed a kiss across the arch of her foot before pinning her with his gaze. “Can you give that to me?”
“You’re like a dream come true,” Amanda whispered, knowing that, like a dream, this would all fade to nothing in the bright light of the rising sun. For now, though, she lived in the moment, giving him exactly what he asked for.
“Then you must have some magical powers to have conjured me up, because I have never experienced anything like this in my life.”
Whether or not Amanda was truly special to Jace, he made her feel like she was. No man had ever made her feel this way, beautiful, irresistible, and desirable in a way that went beyond mere attraction of flesh.
Then he lifted her foot to his lips again and she couldn’t think at all. Who would have ever known feet were so sensitive? Every part of her felt sensitive under the tantalizing motions of his hands and the gentle caress of his lips. Slowly, almost painfully, he worked his way up her foot, around her ankles, along her calves, over her knees, and across her thighs to send a heated breath over where she most desperately needed his attention.
Closing her eyes tightly, Amanda waited for him to continue his sensual exploration. When instead her other foot lifted, her gaze flew open, catching on Jace’s smile. He had to know what he was doing to her, how he was driving her insane with his slow, steady explorations.
Amanda didn’t fault him for it. She appreciated the contrast from Cody’s hard-driven needs. Letting her eyes drift closed, Amanda gave herself over to Jace’s care. He treated her like a queen, like an angel, as he worshiped his way back up her body. Then he skipped over the part of her that ached for his attention so bad it hurt. She couldn’t help but vocalize a complaint.
“Jace?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t even lift his head from where he rested against her stomach.
“Please, stop teasing me now. I can’t take anymore.”
Murmuring between kisses, Jace made it hard for her to follow his words. “What is it you want, baby? Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”
“Make love to me.”
“I am, Amanda. I’m loving every inch of you.”
She moaned, rolling her head along the wall. “I need you inside me. I need to feel you deep inside.”
Finally he paused, lifting his head from her tummy to let her catch a breath. “But I haven’t even gotten to the good parts, baby.”
“I don’t care. Get to them later.”
“I want to get to them now. I want to learn everything about you, Amanda, every place you like to be touched, every way a man can please you. I want to know every secret to your desire.”
“Why? Why do you want that?”
“So I can always please you, baby.” Jace smiled, his gaze shining with something more than lust. “Every time I take you in my arms I want to give you more pleasure than any other man can. I want to be special to you.”
“You are.” Oh, God, was he?
Amanda would never forget this night. Never forget Jace. Whatever happened in the future, she’d hold this night close to her heart and cherish it.
“Let me have this, Amanda, and I will give you everything, anything you ever wanted.”
“Jace…” Amanda didn’t know the words to express what she felt.
“I need this Amanda. Don’t deny me.”
She couldn’t. Jace stole the ability from her. He didn’t rush, and Amanda didn’t push him as he worked his way up her torso. No protest came to her lips, not even when he skipped over her breasts with barely more than a teasing breath across her swollen tips, but it didn’t matter. Jace discovered all the hidden little places that made pleasure hum through her body. With his lips and hands, he worked her arousal up into a full-scale symphony of need.
By the time his hands covered her breasts, Amanda didn’t care whether he showed them any attention or not. Her attitude shifted as he began to massage the swollen globes, his fingers sweeping over her nipples in a never-ending cycle of teasing.
The first swipe of his tongue over one engorged nipple trumpeted the arrival of his kiss and a whole new level of need. Jace treated her puckered tip to the same loving exploration he’d shown the rest of her body. When the first tremors of her release started to quake through her body, Amanda didn’t have the mind left to realize Jace had pulled her orgasm forth with just his mouth on her breast.
It wasn’t the violent explosion of rapture she’d grown accustomed to under Cody’s tutelage. Like a mid-afternoon storm sweeping across the open plains, it started as the barest of breezes, slowly building in intensity. The pleasure multiplied as gentle waves cascaded over each other until they drowned her in a rush of pure, golden rapture.
Amanda didn’t even notice when Jace’s mouth dipped, following his hands. All she knew was he was there, breathing over the swollen folds of her pussy. With a thoroughness that guaranteed no end to her orgasm, Jace explored her delicate folds.
Amanda could no more stop the release flooding out of her body than she could the moans falling from her lips. Jace didn’t appear to mind. He tasted her with the same slow tenderness, licking his way along the slit of her cunt, dipping in to tease the skin hidden beneath, teaching her anew how sensitive she was in more places than just her clit.
Eventually his kiss settled over her hidden bud, sucking it past his teeth and into the warm cavern of his mouth. His tongue teased and tormented the little bundle of nerves, but never escalated the speed of seduction, stretching out her climax into an endless abyss she just kept falling through.
She was lost in the heated light of Utopia’s splendor. So beyond reason, Amanda could no longer distinguish one sens
ation from another as he lavished attention on her most sensitive flesh. Only the slight ease of the intense pleasure whispered through her when his head lifted.
The rough tickles of his coarse chest hair traced his movements as he came over her. The heavy weight of his muscles pinned her back into the cold side of the porcelain tub.
“Open your eyes, baby.” He followed the order with a quick series of gentle kisses across her closed lids. Amanda did as he asked, finding his gaze as warm and tender as his loving had been and just as hot.
“You’re so beautiful. I want to watch as I make you mine. And you are mine, aren’t you, Amanda?”
She couldn’t deny it any more than she could say it. If it hadn’t been for the longing she saw in Jace’s gaze, the love reflecting out, Amanda would have frozen at his words, at the fear they normally would have inspired in her.
Instead of being paralyzed with fear, she opened herself up to the hard nudge of his cock at the entrance to her body. Eyes wide and locked on his, she held nothing back as he slowly forged his way into her until he had seated his full length deep inside her body.
“It’s like coming home,” Jace whispered, and Amanda couldn’t argue.
“It’s never been like this before.” She’d never given any lover more than her body until now.
“That’s because this is perfection.”
And it was. The perfect harmony of two bodies, two souls merging into one. A seamless joining, it didn’t even break as he began to pull back out. In a rhythm as old as the tides, he took possession of everything Amanda was and she gave it willingly to him.
Smooth, easy strokes kept her drowning beneath the sea of rapture claiming her body. The windstorm had built to hard and fast now. There was no holding back the ravaging break that tore her soul from her body, leaving her writhing beneath him. Then it all snapped back to her, and she was in the vortex. It was a place of pure beauty, and it entranced her.
When Amanda finally wafted back down to reality, she became aware of a few things. Jace weighed a ton. He was still hard, buried deep inside her and Amanda was almost positive he hadn’t come.
“The water’s gotten cold,” he mumbled into her shoulder. Jace lifted his head, and Amanda could see in the tightness of his features how right she’d been.
“Why?”
Jace blinked and then scowled. “Why what, baby?”
“You didn’t come.”
“Oh, that.” Jace smiled slightly, probably the best he could do under the strain. “I wasn’t making love to you for the release, Amanda.”
“You weren’t?” She didn’t understand.
“No.” His arms shifted from her sides so he could cup her face. Gently, Jace’s fingers traced over her lips and cheeks. “It was about me showing you how beautiful you are, about how much you mean to me. Tomorrow, when the doubts set in, when you think back about what this night meant, remember this, Amanda. Your pleasure will always come first.”
She blinked back the tears burning in her eyes. Nobody ever put her first, had ever cared enough about her. Nobody until Jace.
“I can see it in your eyes. You understand now, don’t you, Amanda?”
“Yes.” She breathed out the word. “I understand.”
“Good.” Jace grinned, breaking the intensity of the moment. “Because this water really is cold, and I imagine Cody’s gotten quite hot by now.”
“Cody.”
She hadn’t even thought about him. Her eyes cut toward the door. He was waiting out there, stewing probably. There would be no escaping his wrath. Not after she’d pulled a gun on him.
“He’s going to punish me for earlier.”
“Probably.” Jace pulled back, leaving her cold. “But not tonight.”
“You’re not like him.” Amanda’s gaze switched back to Jace.
He spun the faucets, cutting off the water, before he turned back toward her. “No. I’m not into the whole domination scene, but I do like to be in control.”
“Is Knox…”
“Like Cody?” Jace offered Amanda a hand, helping her to her feet. Her legs wobbled and she leaned against the wall as Jace reached for the towels. “I’m surprised you even ask. I think it would be obvious.”
It was. Knox breathed domination. He didn’t know any other way. There would be no rules, no safe words, nothing but pleasure in Knox’s bed. As if she needed to hear it, Jace paused, towel in hand. “Cody plays, Knox doesn’t.”
Amanda allowed Jace to lift her over the edge of the tub and wrap her in a big towel. She clutched the edges close, wearing the terrycloth like armor. “If I agree to this…relationship, I’ll have to sleep with him? Knox?”
Jace didn’t answer at first, focusing instead on taking another towel to dry her hair. Finally he sighed and met her gaze head-on. She liked that about him. Even when he knew what he had to say might upset her, he faced her directly.
“You’re a free woman, Amanda. You don’t have to sleep with anybody you don’t want to. I’m just asking you to be open to the possibilities.”
“Knox hates me.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
Amanda shot him a disbelieving look. “You were there today. The only thing he might like about me is my body.”
“No,” Jace repeated adamantly. “That’s not the way Knox is.”
“Then what way is he?”
“Knox…” Jace lifted his eyes toward the ceiling as he searched for words. They appeared to be escaping him. “Knox’s issues are best left for you to discover on your own.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Issues. What crap.”
“Please, Amanda, just give him a chance. He’s not half the cold bastard he likes to portray himself as. Speaking of devils, you don’t really think you can hide from Cody in here all night, do you?”
Damn. Jace saw right through her attempts to stall the inevitable.
* * * *
Cody gave in to the aggression prowling through his body and paced around Amanda’s bedroom. He should never have let Jace go in there. Any blind idiot could see the strength of the bond developing between Jace and Amanda and what had Cody done? I facilitated it.
And just how stupid was that? Amanda is supposed to be mine first, just like Sharon. The sudden thought froze him, bringing him to a sudden stop. He didn’t want to think about her, not now, not here in Amanda’s bedroom.
It made Cody feel like a traitor. Worse, because the jealousy he felt over Jace reflected how fond his heart had grown of Amanda. Sharing Sharon with his brothers had been easy for Cody, because no matter what happened, Cody knew in his heart he was special. Sharon never looked at either of his brothers with the love she’d gazed at Cody with. Amanda wore the same expression, but her eyes went to Jace, not Cody.
Settling onto the edge of her bed, Cody gripped his head, trying to get it to stop thinking so much. Things were out of hand. He couldn’t deny Amanda from Jace, especially not when it meant betraying Sharon. In a glittering moment of late-night revelation, Cody could see now he really wasn’t jealous of Jace.
I’m jealous of what she and Jace have. Angry because I had it and lost it. That’s what cut so deep. Seeing the two of them together only aggravated the still raw wound in his heart. It was the punishment he deserved, but Cody couldn’t handle it. It might make him the biggest bastard in the world, but he couldn’t be here tonight.
Chapter 25
Monday, July 7th
“He left?”
Cindy’s eyes rounded, her hand freezing in mid lift. A French fry hung limply between her fingers and Amanda reached out to snatch it. Her own plate clean, Amanda eyed the rest of Cindy’s fries.
“Where did he go?”
Amanda shrugged, avoiding the question by glancing around at the lunch crowd. The Pit served up the county’s best barbeque. Smoke and rich scents of slow-roasted meats pumped out of the old-fashioned barbeque pits luring in the hungry midday crowd.
Cindy and she had snagged one of the booths, an exceptio
nally rare accomplishment. Most of the other patrons sat at one of the long running tables that stretched across the dining room.
They needed their privacy today as Amanda spilled every salacious detail of the past week, right up to walking out of the bathroom with Jace to find Cody missing. Without Will around to explain the male side of things, Amanda needed Cindy to help figure out what the woman was supposed to do.
“Amanda,” Cindy snapped. “If you didn’t want to talk about it, you shouldn’t have brought it up. Now where did Cody go?”
“I don’t know,” Amanda retorted, focusing in on her friend. “When I took Jace home this morning, Cody’s truck was already parked back at the ranch. So whatever happened, he obviously ended up at home, but that can’t be a good sign, can it?”
“Why are you asking me?” Cindy laughed. “I can handle questions about how to deal with a man, but not two. I don’t know anything about taking on two.”
Amanda’s shoulders slumped with the misery she’d been suffering all morning. It had been hard waiting for lunch to be able to escape the office and talk to somebody about what happened.
“You think I’m a slut.”
“Me?” Cindy shook her head. “You do know me, right?”
“Okay, I think I’m a slut,” Amanda corrected.
“I think you’re safe from wearing that title.” Cindy snorted, pulling her plate closer when Amanda tried to swipe another fry. “And food isn’t going to help you feel better. At least, not mine.”
“Sorry,” Amanda muttered.
“You know, the way I see it, this thing with the Reese brothers could be the greatest thing ever. Three rich, hot men, servicing your every need. Not a bad deal.”
“But?” Amanda knew one lurked in Cindy’s pause.
“It could also be Pandora’s Box.” Cindy shrugged. “I guess it just all depends on what you do next.”
Amanda had been asking herself the same thing all morning. Jace asked her to give him a chance, to give a relationship with all the brothers a chance, but if that’s what Cody wanted, then why did he flee? Certainly not because she’d drawn a gun on him. Defiance turned Cody on. So why did he leave?
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