“Hey, reschedule my afternoon. I’m heading home early.”
Cori didn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but he disconnected as they stopped at the corner to let a car pass.
“She’ll think you’re taking Ava home,” she said.
He paused, one foot off the curb, and turned to her. “She thought you were Ava when you stopped at the office?”
She nodded.
“And you didn’t correct her?”
“Of course not. Ava’s supposed to be making the pies,” she reminded him. “And it would be weird for your girlfriend’s sister to be seeking you out in the middle of the day.” She ignored the pang in her chest. Anyone who saw them together would be able to tell she was crazy about this man, but none of them would know it was her. It didn’t matter. She knew how she felt. Evan knew how she felt. At least mostly. The whole world didn’t have to know.
But she kind of wanted them to.
Evan just looked at her for several seconds. Then he said, “Go to the wedding with me this weekend.”
She hadn’t been expecting that. She’d been expecting it doesn’t matter what they think or just a few more months. Not an invitation.
“What wedding?”
“A friend’s from law school. He’s getting married in Great Bend. No one from here will be there.”
She thought about that. “I can be with you but be Cori?”
He lifted a hand to her face. “God, yes. Please.”
She gave him a bright smile. “Okay. Yes.”
He grabbed her hand again and they started across the street at a much faster pace this time. Cori was breathless by the time he tugged her up the front steps to his porch. She barely had time to take in the details of the yard or the wraparound porch or the huge picture window before he had the door open, her through it, and his bag tossed to the side.
“Clothes off,” he said as he ran a hand through his wet hair and toed off his shoes.
Cori set the piece of pie on the little table inside the door and turned a full circle, studying his house. It smelled like him. She took a huge deep breath as she made note of the living room to the right, with the big, stone fireplace, the dining room to the left and the door that had to lead to the kitchen. The staircase was almost directly in front of them and she assumed that led to the bedrooms. What was down the hallway just to the right of the stairs?
“Cori.”
Her name was low and firm and she turned to face him. He had his shirt unbuttoned and there was heat and amusement in his expression. And she decided she didn’t care about that hallway. Or anything else.
“Clothes off,” he repeated.
She balanced on one foot as she pulled off one of her boots, then the other, watching him watch her. She pitched them toward the door. Or she thought she did. She couldn’t look to see where they’d landed because Evan was walking toward her, definitely more heat than humor in his eyes now, and she couldn’t look away.
He stopped in front of her and reached for the zipper on her hoodie, drawing it down quickly and pushing the sweatshirt off her shoulders. It hit the floor at her feet leaving her in only her purple tank and her white denim skirt. His eyes lowered to her breasts and he breathed, “No bra. Thank God.”
Cori grinned at that. “I was—”
But she didn’t finish the thought as Evan whisked her shirt up and over her head.
“Fucking gorgeous,” he muttered, shrugging out of his own shirt as his gaze took her in.
And suddenly, she got nervous. She never got nervous about sex. Sex was something she was good at. And enjoyed. Sex and fun. She never doubted herself in those two categories. But since she’d come to Bliss, the fun had gotten complicated. She had to loop other people in, consider their opinions, plan ahead. The photo booth was over the top, her sisters weren’t into the kid pies, there were doubts about the park party. Cori had never had to think it all through before and she’d never had to run things past someone else. Either they were into what she was doing or they weren’t. But she couldn’t just go on without her sisters. And she couldn’t leave. And she sure as hell hoped Evan wasn’t going to leave right now. Of course it was his house, but…
“Do you have any whipped cream?” she asked, making her voice playful as she stepped forward to run her hand over his chest. His hot, hard, naked chest. She drew in a breath as lust rippled through her.
But Evan flattened his hand over hers, stopping the motion. “No, I don’t.” There was something in his eyes and voice that tightened her nerves even further.
She focused on his chin rather than his eyes. And thought about how his slight beard would feel rubbing over her breasts and stomach and inner thighs. Yeah, that was better. Concentrate on the sex. “How about chocolate sauce?” She forced playfulness into her voice.
“Cori.”
When she didn’t look up right away, he tipped her chin up with a finger. “We don’t need whipped cream and chocolate sauce.”
She gave him a smile that was only half-forced. “Whipped cream makes everything better.”
“It makes it different. Like sprinkles in coffee.”
Cori wet her lips and nodded. “Right.”
“Well, I don’t want this changed. I want this straight-up, you and me, all of the delicious stuff under the whipped cream.”
“The garnishes are what make one dish different from another,” she said quietly, also recalling that conversation with him in her kitchen. She wanted to be different for him. She wanted to stand out. And she only knew one way to do that—the same way she always tried to stand out—go over the top.
Evan ran his hand along her jaw to the back of her head. He pulled her close and leaned in, his voice husky. “You are the perfect combination of ingredients from the bottom to the top, Corrine Michelle Carmichael. I don’t need one extra thing.”
No one had ever said something like that to her. She doubted any of the other men she’d ever been with had ever thought something like that. She’d met one boyfriend camping. Another skiing. Another at a charity fundraiser. A couple at bars. But nearly everything they knew about her was about the things she did. The activities and the causes and the fun. Because they didn’t talk. They partied. But Evan knew so much more than that. And she’d been wearing rain boots and mud and he still wanted her.
Yeah, this was a different dish, no matter what condiments came to the bedroom with them.
She rose on tiptoe and kissed him, sliding her hand into his hair. That was, evidently, enough encouragement, because he turned her and started walking her backward, toward the stairs. His tongue was insistent against hers, his hand gripping her hair gently, his other hand at her hip, steering her. She glanced at the piece of pie on the table by the door. Maybe they should grab that and bring it along. Just in case…
He nudged her to take the first step up the staircase, and she took the first two backward before he stopped her. She was just high enough to put her breasts at mouth level for him and he leaned back to look.
“God, I love your nipples,” he said, almost reverently. Then he took one in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip, then sucking.
Heat and need blossomed in her core and she moaned.
He pulled back, reluctantly, his eyes on her breasts again as he said, “Okay, keep going. Second door on the left.”
Okay, they’d leave the pie. She walked backward up the steps, aware of every bounce her breasts made, the ache between her legs also climbing as she went.
Once they were in his room, Evan pointed at the bed. “Naked. Spread out. Now.”
A shiver of desire went through her and she could have sworn her nipples tightened even further. She did love that commanding voice of his.
She watched as Evan kicked off his jeans and dropped his boxers. She blew out a breath at the sight of him fully naked. He was gorgeous. Wide, defined shoulders, thick biceps, sculpted abs, tight ass, big, long fingers and feet. And a thick, hard cock that made her inner muscles
tighten and her belly heat.
“Too many skirts on,” Evan said huskily, taking his cock in hand and giving it a stroke.
Cori felt a little dizzy and wondered if her blood was all re-routing south the way men said theirs did. She swallowed and unbuttoned her skirt, letting it fall.
“Panties too, Miss Carmichael,” Evan said, taking a step toward her, a wicked, sexy smile curling one side of his mouth.
Miss Carmichael. Yes sir. She pushed her panties to the floor and kicked them away.
“Bed. Spread out. Wide.”
She did as she was told. She would have felt, strangely, a lot less exposed if she had some flavored body powder on or something. Not that it would have covered anything, but it would have been distracting, at least. The way Evan was looking at her, she didn’t think she’d have a freckle or a wrinkle unstudied. And she couldn’t help but think that this might be the first time she’d ever really been naked with a man.
There was no liquor, no toys, no dirty talk, no lingerie. They weren’t in a shower or on a table or in the back seat of a limo. There was nothing adding to the moment—or distracting from it being just the two of them in a bedroom on a plain old bed. And it made her feel more exposed than she’d ever been.
Evan climbed onto the bed beside her, just looking, his gaze roaming over her from head to toe. “Dammit, Cori, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her feelings of vulnerability increased. More so than being handcuffed to a bedframe, more so than the experiment with nipple clamps, more so than the time she and Brad—or was it Brian?—had done it on a pool table in a back room of a bar. No one had been around, but there had been the chance of getting caught.
Now with Evan, just the two of them, no garnish, no timeline, no leaving town tomorrow…and she didn’t just feel vulnerable. She was. Because he knew her. He knew things about her past that none of her other boyfriends ever had. He knew the ways she’d disappointed her father and family. He knew the things she wasn’t good at, the way she kept people at a distance, her insecurities.
And he liked her anyway.
He liked her, in part, because of the crazy ideas and things that she typically used to keep people at arm’s length.
And she was vulnerable because she was in love with him.
If she did this with him, her heart would be involved in a way that it had never been before.
And she was going to die if she didn’t do this with him.
“Touch me,” she finally said, her voice a little hoarse.
He lay down next to her, stretching out on his side. He lifted a hand and ran it over her hair. “Oh, I intend to. With my hands and my tongue and my lips. Every fucking inch.”
She swallowed. “Good.”
“But it’s going to take me a while. You just get comfortable.” He gave her a smile that shot straight through her, heating her blood and making her toes tingle.
She thought about reminding him of the twenty-minute time limit, but then he kissed her. And she forgot about time altogether.
12
He did exactly as he’d promised. He started with her face. His fingers tracing over each spot before his lips did. He kissed her eyebrows, her cheekbones, lingered on her lips and returned there often. He even kissed her earlobes. Then he moved down her neck, over her collar bones, and down the valley between her breasts. His fingers primed her nipples, rolling and plucking until she was writhing, then he lowered his mouth and licked and sucked until she was on the verge of an orgasm just from that.
His fingers continued down her body as his mouth was occupied higher. His fingers trailed over her stomach, making the muscles jump and tighten, then lower, stroking her thighs, and then finally her slick folds. Cori whimpered as he ran the pad of his middle finger over her clit. She arched up, trying to get closer to his touch.
“That’s it. Come and get it, darlin’,” he said gruffly against one nipple, giving it a flick of his tongue as he circled her clit.
She opened her legs farther and pressed against his hand as Evan continued kissing and licking his way down her body. He licked each rib on both sides as he continued to tease her clit. Cori gripped the comforter as he dragged his body down hers, the heat and friction of his hot skin on hers winding her tighter and tighter.
When he settled between her knees, his shoulders making her stretch even wider, he moved his hand out of the way of his tongue. But as his mouth settled over her clit, his fingers slid into her.
Cori gasped as sensations sparkled along her nerve endings. The sweet, deep thrusts of his fingers with the achingly perfect suction of his mouth started her climbing toward the crest of an orgasm.
“Evan!”
“Best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth,” he told her as he suddenly moved, turning her to her stomach. But his hand stayed between her legs, his fingers filling her.
“Oh, God,” she moaned as he began moving up her back, giving each vertebra a hot kiss.
“Every fucking inch,” he reminded her in a gravelly voice that made goose bumps trip down her spine.
When he got to her neck, he moved her hair to the side and placed his lips against her skin. His fingers miraculously still moved in long, slow thrusts right where she needed him, keeping her close to the brink of an orgasm, needy and wanting so much more, yet somehow feeling satisfied, like she’d never been touched like this and it was completely right. He kissed the back of her neck, then dragged his mouth up and down the side of her neck, his beard scraping deliciously. His body pressed into hers from behind, his cock against her ass, and she rocked back into him. The hot length of him combined with the deep groan that rumbled through her from his chest, and his fingers dancing skillfully over her clit, started the hot, glorious climb toward climax again. Cori pushed up onto her hands and knees, dropping her head forward.
“Holy shit, Cori,” he groaned.
She was completely at his mercy and wanton at this point, but she didn’t care that he’d gotten her here without a single bit of garnish. Just lips and hands and fingers and an incredible amount of…adoring. That’s how she felt. Adored. And that was way more powerful than any friction-heated-body-gel she’d ever encountered.
“Please, Evan, please,” she gasped.
“What? Tell me, Cori. I want to hear it.”
“I need you. Inside,” she managed. “Come with me.”
He muttered something under his breath—it sounded a little like rain boots and sprinkles—and the next thing she knew, he’d flipped her onto her back again.
“Like this,” he told her. “Good old missionary.” He moved between her legs, which she willingly spread. He looked down at her, drawing a deep breath in through his nose. Then he braced a hand beside her head and reached for the drawer in his bedside table. He had a condom on in seconds and then he moved over her. “Who needs vibrators and flavored massage lotion?” he asked, running one hand up her inner thigh.
She laughed breathlessly. “That’s what all this has been about? Not all that sweet nonsense about there being more under the whipped cream. You just wanted to prove that you’re good enough to not need that stuff?”
“Well,” he said, sliding his hand higher and brushing over her clit. “I am good enough to take you all the way without all of that stuff.”
She moaned quickly as he drew a lazy circle over her clit, his eyes locked on hers.
“But then again,” he said. “I knew that from the front seat of my truck the other night.”
It was hard to even be fake irritated with a guy who was slowly but surely winding you up toward an orgasm, but she tried to frown. “Sure, let’s bring up that embarrassing moment right now.”
His finger stopped and he dipped his head, putting them almost nose to nose. “Don’t you ever fucking be embarrassed about being the sexiest, sweetest, most amazing woman I’ve ever met. You coming for me in my lap, just like that…Cori, that was the hottest moment of my life. Until now.” He slowly slid one long finger
into her and Cori felt pleasure streak through her.
She caught her breath and had to clear her throat before she said, “It would have been even more amazing if you hadn’t tossed me out of the truck two seconds later.”
He curled his finger and she gasped.
“Yeah, well, I was freaked out by how much I wanted to keep you in my lap, with me buried deep, for about fifty years or so.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the words or the way he pumped his finger deep at the same time, but her head was spinning and she felt her orgasm building hot and fast. And all she could really concentrate on was that she needed him. All of him. Now.
“How about we go with that buried deep thing first?” she asked, pressing up against his hand and rotating her hips.
He groaned and gripped her hips, stopping the motion. Then, with his eyes on hers, he positioned himself and eased forward.
Slow and easy was nice. Being adored was wonderful. She could happily spend hours in this man’s arms. But right now, she needed…more. Cori wrapped her legs around his waist, put her heels into his butt, and pulled him close.
He sunk deep and they moaned together. He filled her perfectly, stretched her deliciously. Cori felt her whole body melting and molding around his.
Evan paused, for just a moment, dragging in air. Then he said, “Okay, darlin’, here we go.”
Hands on either side of her hips, he pulled back and plunged forward, thrusting hard and deep. He withdrew and thrust again, hitting a spot that made every nerve ending shout yes! Cori gripped his sides, lifting against him, meeting his strokes, and it was mere minutes before she was spiraling toward the climax she’d been chasing since he’d taken her hand in the park.
“Evan!”
“Best thing I’ve ever heard,” he ground out as he continued to move.
“Evan, please.” She sucked in a breath. “Yes, more. Please.”
He was such a nice guy. He picked up the pace and a minute later, the orgasm swept over her. Her whole went body hot and tingly and tight, followed by waves of softness and satisfaction and an overwhelming sense of…rightness.
Diamonds and Dirt Roads Page 24