He had told her he loved her that last night, and she’d told him she didn’t want his love. But if she only knew just how much he wanted hers. For him, love, wanting, and desire were tied into one. Each time he made love to her, he was loving her. Each time he kissed her, he was loving her. For him, love extended to the physical as well as the emotional.
And tonight he wanted to take the physical as far as he could. He wanted to make her want him as much as he wanted her. He wanted to make her love him as much as he loved her.
He told himself to slow down when he began removing her clothes, but he didn’t want to slow down. There was an urgency that was driving him, making him impatient, sexually aroused to the point where he had to be inside her. The hungry heat that was accumulating in his gut was almost driving him to the edge.
Once he had removed all her clothes, he tackled the chore of removing his own. In no time, he was standing by the bed totally naked. “Ready or not, baby, here I come,” he said huskily, climbing back on the bed.
“How many times…will you come?” she asked softly, stretching back, shifting her hips and giving him a good view of the area between her legs.
“I’ll come as many times as you want.”
“Promise?
“Hell yeah.” And then he leaned over and kissed her with wild abandon, a primitive need.
Cat kissed him back with the same urgency, desire, and exigency. It was as if something within her snapped, and with a strength she didn’t know she had, she lifted her body, shifted, and pushed him down in the bed beneath her. She looked down at him, saw his surprised expression, and gave him a heated grin.
“That was some move.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Mr. Dawkins.”
And then she leaned over and kissed him, in all the ways he had ever kissed her. She heard him moan. Or then again, it may have been a growl. Either one was acceptable, as her tongue continued to take charge of his. Deciding that her fingers weren’t busy enough, she reached down and grabbed hold of him and felt his entire body tense when she did so. But she intended to keep his mind occupied with their kiss and move things up a notch and let her tongue wallow in the wet heat of his mouth. And when she heard him moan again, she knew she had succeeded.
Now for taking care of what was down south, her fingers gripped his hardness, his bare flesh, and gently squeezed, loving the feel of the thick width, texture, and length of him. He shuddered in her mouth, and the sensations that act evoked made the womanhood between her legs pulse. But she knew her satisfaction would come later. Right now she just wanted to concentrate on his.
She released his mouth, kissed the side of his neck, then went to his chest and licked the flat nipples until they hardened. She heard the growl in his chest as she moved her mouth lower, wanting to do something to him that she had never done before.
When he realized what she was about to do, he grabbed hold of her shoulders to stop her. She lifted her head and smiled. “No, I want to do this. I need to do this. Let me.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then leaned upward and gave her a gentle kiss on her lips, and the moment his lips touched hers, she knew he was giving her his consent. She tightened her hold on him and smiled at his sudden sharp intake of breath.
Unbearable pleasure rose inside Cat as she began placing kisses on the hard plane of Rory’s stomach, slowly working her way lower. She felt his fingers tightly grip her shoulders when she moved closer and breathed on his rigid shaft. And when she took him into her mouth, she felt his body shift, his hips lift, and a low, primal sound escape his lips.
And then she let her mouth go to work, kissing him in a way she had never kissed another man, letting her mouth pleasure a part of him that had given her so much pleasure.
“You got to stop,” he whispered huskily.
She shook her head.
A tortured cry was wrung from him. “You’re killing me.”
She didn’t stop what she was doing. The erotic frisson of mouth and tongue had him moaning words she’d never heard out of him before.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” he forced out between choppy breaths.
She pulled back, licked her lips, and looked at him. Cat knew at that moment she had to tell him the truth. “Because I love you.”
He stared at her; the intensity of his gaze made her tremble, and before she could blink, he had leaned forward, flipped her over, shifted her body beneath his, and spread open her legs. And before she could draw her next breath, he thrust inside her.
“Rory!”
Her body shattered into a climax the moment he entered her, but he kept thrusting in and out, extracting another orgasm out of her. And then another. Spasm after spasm racked her body, and all she could do was tremble as wave after wave of pleasure hit her, took her under.
“Cat!”
It seemed those same waves were carrying Rory under, and with one final thrust, he exploded deep within her. And the one thing that stood out in his mind as his body rode the sensation was that the woman he loved had told him she loved him.
Several moments passed before Rory felt air fill his lungs again. Shifting his body off Cat, he rolled over to the side then leaned down and gave her a slow smile. “Did you mean what you said?”
She knew exactly what he was asking. “Yes, I meant it.”
He kissed her gently. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that. You’ve never said that before.”
She reached up and wiped sweat off his forehead with her fingertips and said, “Then maybe I should have. It would probably have saved me a lot of pain and heartache the past twelve months.”
“There’s something I need to say. Something you should know.”
Something inside Cat panicked. If he was going to tell her that he was sorry but he didn’t love her, she didn’t want to hear it right now. “Please, let’s not talk anymore. Could we just savor the moment? We can talk in the morning. I want tonight for action and not talking.”
He stared at her, and a smile creased his lips. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she said, pushing him back and crawling over him. “I want to be on top this time.”
Eight
Cat forced herself awake the next morning, finding the spot beside her in bed empty. She smiled, remembering vividly what she and Rory had done through most of the night.
She turned over on her back and stared at the ceiling. Making love with Rory was always a unique experience, and she was transformed into a sex kitten in bed. No, last night she had been more of a tiger.
She remembered the exact moment she had confessed that she loved him, and even now, when she wasn’t sure how he felt about her, she had no regrets in doing so. He had told her he loved her that night they broke up, but in anger she had told him where he should take his love and shove it. She had been a total fool.
Shifting in bed, she wondered where Rory had gone, and then she climbed out of bed and slipped into his oversize T-shirt that was thrown over a chair. Now that her confession of love was out of the way, she wanted to find him and tell him the rest of everything, including the fact that this weekend had been nothing but a setup, but one that had been well worth it.
She heard a sound outside and went to the window and glanced out. She saw Rory. He was sitting on the steps and staring into the distance. She sighed just from watching him. He was handsome, and the way the sun’s rays slanted across his features made him even more striking. A shadow darkened his chin, denoting that he needed a shave, which made him look even sexier.
She turned when she heard her cell phone ringing and rushed across the room to pick it up. “Yes?”
“He knew.”
Cat lifted her brow at hearing Lisa’s voice. “Who knew?”
“Rory. He knew everything.”
Cat took a deep breath, trying to grasp just what Lisa was telling her, hoping what her friend was claiming wasn’t true. “What are you saying, Lisa?”
“I�
��m saying that Rory knew you were coming to the cabin. Peyton and Rory. They set us up like we set them up.”
Cat shook her head. “But how could they have known?”
“That day in our office when you declared that you were placing Rory on your wish list, he heard you. He had come to the office to let me know Peyton was parked outside waiting on me. So Rory knew all about your plans to get him back…and he intended to teach you a lesson in the process.”
“How do you know this?” Cat asked, slowly remembering that Rory hadn’t really acted surprised to see her when she’d arrived at the cabin on Friday afternoon.
“Peyton let something slip out about you being at the cabin this weekend. I questioned him as to how he knew when no one had known of your plans but me and Mel. So I made him talk, which wasn’t easy, and although he wouldn’t tell me everything, he said that Rory knew about the wish list and your plan for the weekend and intended to teach you a lesson.”
“Teach me a lesson?” she repeated. She closed her eyes. Was this weekend about him teaching her a lesson and nothing more?
Cat was silent as she walked back to the window and looked out. Rory was still sitting in that same spot. “Thanks, Lisa, for letting me know what’s going on.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I’m leaving just as soon as I can pack my stuff, that’s what I plan to do. There’s no reason for me to stay any longer, since Rory has succeeded in getting out of me what he wanted.”
“Which was?”
“A confession that I loved him so he could throw it back in my face, use it against me, and hurt me the same way that I hurt him.”
“You don’t know that for certain, Cat. It may not be that way at all.”
“Yes, it is that way, Lisa. Otherwise, he would have told me the truth in the beginning.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Look, I’ll talk to you later.” Without giving Lisa a chance to say anything else, she disconnected the call.
Nine
“Where are you going?”
Cat didn’t pause in what she was doing. She continued packing as she hissed angry words over her shoulder. “I’m leaving so I hope you had plenty of fun using me the way you did.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Cat turned to glare at him, full of anger, fire, and humiliation. “I know everything, Rory. I know what you know. I also know that my showing up here wasn’t a surprise to you and that you wanted to teach me a lesson for what I did last year. Do you deny it?”
He crossed his hands over his chest and returned her glare. “No, I don’t deny it.”
His words hit her like a blow. “You bastard. I hope you enjoyed getting your pound of flesh.”
“I did. Every gorgeous inch of it. But what I really enjoyed was getting you to admit that you’re in love with me.”
“Why? So you can throw it in my face and use my love to hurt me the same way I hurt you last year?”
“No, I did it so I could be absolutely sure that my feelings for you were reciprocated and that you wanted me back for the right reason.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard you that day, Cat. I heard you declare that you needed a man. Not me, but ‘a man.’ Then you proceeded to place me on this damn wish list. I didn’t know whether you were doing so because you realized that you loved me or if you were just in need of a sexual fix.”
Cat raised both eyebrows. “How could you not know that I loved you?”
“And how could I know it? You’ve never told me, and after the way we split, did you actually think I would assume any such thing?” he demanded.
She stared at him for a long moment, and then slowly shook her head. No, after all the things she’d said that night, there was no way he would have assumed that. “So you concocted this plan of revenge?”
“Revenge had nothing to do with this weekend, Cat. After Peyton and I figured what you and Lisa were up to, I decided to see how far you would go. I needed to know the truth before risking my heart to you again.”
“But you claimed you only wanted a no strings attached, no expectations affair between us.”
“Yes, and I said that to see what your reaction would be to my offer. If the only thing on your mind was sex, then you would have gone for it. But if you loved me, and I mean truly loved me, there was no way you would have been satisfied with sharing that kind of relationship with me.”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Last night when you admitted that you loved me, I was prepared to tell you the truth—and I started to, but you stopped me and said we would talk in the morning.”
She remembered. At the time she had wanted him again and hadn’t wanted to spend time talking. Beside, she hadn’t been certain what he had wanted to say. “You could have made me listen.”
“No, I could not.”
She frowned. No, he could not. She had wanted him in a bad way last night, and once she had crawled on top of him, her mind had been on only one thing: riding him.
He took a few steps to stand in front of her. “I love you, Cat. I never stopped loving you. But I had to be sure that you loved me as well. What I told you the day you arrived was the truth. My life has been miserable this past year, but I couldn’t settle back into the type of relationship that we had before. My love for you demanded more, something beyond that. I’d known the moment I laid eyes on you at Peyton and Lisa’s wedding that I wanted a future with you—and that love, marriage, and babies would be part of the deal.”
He reached out and took her hand in his. “I knew about your goals, your dreams, and at no time did I ever want to take them away from you. I only wanted to enhance them. I knew my timing was off that night and that you weren’t ready and that I shouldn’t have tried pushing you into anything. But I never thought you would send me away and end things between us like you did. Your rejection hurt. Surely you can understand my not wanting to rush into a situation for you to hurt me all over again.”
She nodded. She had hurt him, which was something she hadn’t meant to do, but the thought of giving up everything she’d worked for scared her. It had taken her twelve months to realize loving Rory didn’t mean giving up anything, but was all about gaining everything.
“And something else you need to know,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.
“What?”
“There was never a Shari. She was someone I made up to save my pride. I didn’t want you to know that I couldn’t get over you, that I was still pining for you, that I was still so deeply in love with you that some days I couldn’t even think straight.”
She sighed deeply before saying, “And neither could I. I had been so sure that once you saw things my way you would come back. And when you didn’t, it forced me to realize just what I had lost, and just how much you meant to me.”
“Was it so hard to love me?” he asked, his lips curving in a wry smile.
She shook her head. “No, in fact, it was too easy. You’re wonderful, interesting, handsome, a perfect bed partner. I just didn’t think I was ready for what you wanted at the time.”
“And now?”
Her gaze remained steadfast on his when she answered by saying, “Being apart from you made me realize just how much you meant to me, Rory. It’s always good having goals in life, but I had to find out the hard way that that’s not the only thing a person should have in life. There is more to life than accomplishing major achievements, but I have to admit that when I added you to my wish list, I considered getting you to fall back in love with me again as my all-time major goal because my life would be nothing without you in it. And now if you were to ask me to share my life with you, you would definitely get a different answer from the one I gave you before.”
He smiled. “Okay, let’s just see about that.”
With her hand still firmly clasped in his, he got down on a bended knee and looked up at her. Cat blinked when she realized just what he was doing. She watched as he pulled
a small white box out of his jacket pocket.
“Cathleen Janelle McAlister, I love you, so very much. Will you make me a very happy man and marry me? Will you be my partner for life, the mother of my children, the joy of my life? Forever?”
Cat couldn’t help the tears that began streaming down her face. “Oh, Rory.”
He smiled up at her, his love shining in his eyes. “Sorry, but this is a yes-or-no question.”
She chuckled through her tears. “Then my answer is definitely yes. I would be honored to marry you.”
After placing the ring on her finger, he stood and pulled her into his arms. “I bought this ring for you eighteen months ago, but even after that night, I refused to believe that you wouldn’t eventually wear it one day. I had refused to give up on you, Cat.”
“But you never came around.”
“No, I was giving you the distance I thought you needed. But things between us were far from over—trust me.”
She smiled at her ring before taking a step forward and moving her hand up the back of his neck. “I do trust you. And I also love you.”
“Say it again.”
She met his intense stare. “I’ll say it as often as you like. I love you, Rory.”
“And I love you, Cat.”
“And I love you double, triple, a thousand times over.”
He swept her off her feet into his arms and quickly headed toward the bed, needing to have her close, as close as two people could get. And together they would get just what they most wanted and needed: extreme satisfaction.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Four hours after being presented as man and wife at their wedding, Rory and Cat arrived at their honeymoon cabin. As a wedding gift, his parents had surprised them and had the cabin restored. Rory didn’t care how the inside of the place looked, just so long as it had a bed.
Three months before the wedding, his Cat had declared her body off-limits. She wanted their wedding night to be like the first time for them, and no degree of persuasiveness on his part could change her mind. So here he was on his wedding day, horny as sin.
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