by Kari Gregg
Moments later, he pitched a flannel shirt to her from his bedroom. "Try that." She folded his leather jacket over a recliner piled high with garbage bags stuffed with blankets and sheets from his old house, his old life, when he'd had three beds—
three bedrooms—to supply instead of one. She pulled the shirt on and fumbled with the buttons.
He shook his head to clear it.
She looked . . . .
Stunning.
She shouldn't have.
He'd grabbed the shirt out of a box of clothes jammed in his closet. The blue checked pattern of the flannel had faded to dull gray, a pocket had torn free at one corner, and although Liv was almost as tall as he, she wasn't nearly as wide through the shoulders. The sleeves dwarfed her. The cuffs dangled past her fingertips and she, ridiculously, set to folding the frayed fabric to her wrists.
Not nice to give her one of his oldest and rattiest shirts, but his gut had told him he didn't want to know what she might look like in one of his everyday shirts. Nope. Given the tight fit at the crotch of his jeans, that didn't strike him as wise. So he'd reached inside the box that should've gone to the dumpster when he'd moved into the apartment half a year ago.
He rolled his tongue back into his mouth before she noticed him gaping and walked to his dresser to root a pair of socks out of the top drawer. She frowned at the shirt when he handed his socks to her. "A couple buttons are missing, but I guess this'll do."
The collar gaped wide, showcasing a knee-watering amount of cleavage revealed by her tank. Instead of covering her up, the damn shirt spotlighted the parts of her anatomy he'd become too aware of and was trying too hard to ignore. Mitch swore under his breath.
Marched back to his dresser.
He ripped his basketball sweatshirt from inside. He'd had it longer than he'd had two of his wives, had broken it in until the sweatshirt fit him like a second skin, but it would drape her like a gunnysack. No way would she make the spit dry up in his mouth wearing that. He'd burn it afterward if he had to.
Liv caught the sweatshirt he tossed to her, but only because she had good reflexes.
Eyes wide, she stood in the doorway, his favorite sweatshirt—sacrificial lamb to his greedy burst of testosterone—dangling from limp, negligent fingers.
"Is that suede?"
His bed.
Her dark gaze shifted to him, then back to stare in frank admiration at his bed. Mitch went from semi-aroused to cat-couldn't-scratch-it hard in the span of a heartbeat.
After spending his formative years sleeping on a dirty mattress on the floor, no one was more obsessed—or decadent—than Mitch was when it came to where he slept as an adult. He'd found the king-sized sleigh bed in a house his company had flipped half a year ago. Just in time for his divorce. Andrea had taken the house and most of the furniture inside it in the settlement, small price to pay to keep her claws off his share of the business. But without the four-poster that had carried him through his three marriages, he'd needed something new, something different. The sleigh bed had seemed like fate.
He'd stripped the paint some fool had blasphemed the oak with and restored the finish himself, though that had meant sleeping on the floor until the tedious job was done. Then he'd covered the mattress in creamy satin and a faux suede comforter as black as sin.
Sin was what that bed had been built for.
Sin was exactly what he had in mind.
To hell with it.
He'd probably fuck up his friendship with Liv, but why should this part of his life be any different?
Mitch let his mouth unfurl to a slow, wicked bow that had loosened many a woman's thighs. "Go ahead," he said, tipping his head to the bed. "Touch it." Her forehead furrowed.
The sweatshirt fisted in her hands.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
They'd both lived long enough to have been around the block a time or ten. They'd gone to the circus, seen the show. Liv was a survivor, same as him. She wasn't stupid. Maybe she hadn't noticed while he'd hidden his body's responses to her, but he wasn't hiding anything, not now.
She knew he wanted her.
"It's faux suede, not the real thing. A micro fiber blend that's softer, more pliable and durable than genuine suede. I had a place over on Winchester Road tailor the comforter to fit the size and design. So I'd get exactly what I wanted." He quirked a challenging eyebrow. "You should try it."
She bit her lip.
Her damned lip.
Her lush, pink, bottom lip.
His belly knotted.
Damn, this was gonna be fun.
But she shook her head.
He inched a smooth step toward her, heart thrumming in his chest because she didn't move away. "Why?"
"I told you." She studied him with wary eyes. "Not a good idea." The apartment was small; he smelled her shampoo with his next step. He could almost feel the heat coming off her. "I think it is. An excellent idea." He reached for her hand. She didn't pull back. He edged closer and then he could feel the warmth of her body, inches from his. "The best idea I've had since 1990." Her fingers twisted nervously in his grasp. "What happened in 1990?" He raised their clasped hands to his chest, bringing her flush against him. When her eyes darkened, he knew she felt him trembling.
This was going to be good.
So good.
"I pulled you through my bedroom window."
She gulped. "I don't want to talk about your bed anymore."
"No." His head dipped. "Let's talk about what I'm going to do to you in it." She angled her jaw, dodged his mouth; his lips brushed her smooth, silky cheek.
"We can't. The both of us are too screwed up to—" She gasped when his tongue licked at her ear lobe.
"That's what makes it so perfect, Liv. I know what makes you wake up in a cold sweat. You know me, too." He nuzzled her ear, loved, absolutely loved, the dizzying smell of her—fruity shampoo, wispy perfume, and undertones of fresh soap. "No need for telling our sad stories. No surprises. No reason not to please—or take pleasure in—
each other."
She sighed. "No tomorrows?" she said, her voice tremulous. With his lips, he skated along the line of her jaw. "Tomorrow, we'll both be back in those fucking trailers, trying to sort out the mess they made of us. Don't bring that here," he said, but his pulse thrummed a triumphant beat because she'd tipped her mouth toward his. "Stay with me."
Her lips were open and ready for his kiss.
He'd been right.
It was good. Hellaciously good and yet so much worse than he'd expected. Her mouth was supple, pliant, giving under his. She yielded. The tentative hand she lifted to his shoulder shook, but she yielded to him. And gasped when his tongue slid inside.
God, she was hot. Burning him up and they'd barely started. She tasted of the beer she hadn't wanted and underneath it, a spine-melting sweet, sweet flavor that had to be Liv. His mouth slanted over hers. He wanted it, the taste of her, wanted it all for himself. He licked at it. His tongue danced with hers.
His hand released hers to settle at her nape. His fingers threaded into her hair; he encountered her ponytail and worked the elastic band free.
Her lips moved more aggressively against his. Seeking him. Not just yielding but also demanding.
Oh yeah.
He tossed the ponytail holder away. Her hair swung free, brushed his fingers—
finger that he dug into her hips, used to pull her against him. With their height roughly equivalent, the hard ridge of his cock, outlined by soft denim, seated squarely against her heat. Startled, she jerked in his hands.
He walked her backward.
To his bed.
When the back of her knees kissed the side rails, she moaned into his mouth. Hot damn, was there anything better than a woman moaning into his mouth?
Giving herself up to him, giving him everything?
Mitch hadn't thought so.
Once.
He knew better.
Now.
That hea
rt-stuttering moment when he knew a woman was going to take him inside her, when he felt her melt and understood she was his for the taking . . . . That adrenaline surge of heat was nothing compared to the feelings that rocked him when that woman was Liv.
She'd seen what he'd come from. Had lived it, smelled it, tasted it. Shared it.
She knew the dark and primitive corners inside him.
He tugged at the buttons of the flannel shirt he'd given her.
Well, maybe she didn't know the feral parts of him, not yet, but they weren't kids anymore. Liv hadn't come through it unscathed any better than he had. Nobody had to tell her there were pieces of himself that he'd never get back, that he'd never reclaim. It'd changed him. Forever. As it had changed her.
She wanted him, anyway.
She'd open her body and take him inside her, anyway.
Mitch, suddenly impatient, ripped the shirt down her arms, shoved it away. His pulse resounded like canon fire in his ears. He yanked his mouth from hers, studied her dark eyes, glazed and glittering with arousal. His balls tightened. Wild satisfaction warmed his belly. Made him so hard his teeth hurt.
She was with him.
Right there, with him.
"Touch me," he said, his voice a guttural growl.
She tugged his turtleneck from his jeans and slid her hands underneath. Her fingers slid up his stomach. He jerked the shirt over his head to give her better access, stripped one arm out of a sleeve, then left it hanging so he could close his eyes, focus on the unbearably sweet glide of her hands over his chest. They slowed to skip a fingernail over the flat disk of his nipple and he wondered why the back of his skull didn't explode.
Maybe it had.
He couldn't think anymore. Didn't want to.
The need that fisted his gut felt too magnificently primal. Too right. His mouth came down on hers, his tongue diving deep.
He hooked his thumbs in her pajama bottoms and panties, eased both down her hips and down her thighs until he framed her neat thatch of tight black curls with pink cotton. He swallowed her whimper when his unerring fingers shifted to her exposed cunt. "Shh, Livvy. It's okay. I've got you."
Already, she was wet; and oh my God, wasn't that the most awesome sensation he'd ever experienced in his life? Liv panting into his mouth and slick with desire, for him?
Her nails dug into his shoulder.
Her chest heaved on a low groan.
His fingers explored her clit, learned her until he couldn't stand it anymore. He had to have her beneath him.
Now.
He pushed her back onto the mattress, followed her down.
He could kiss her for hours. Days. Decades. She ground her sopping pussy into his palm, letting him have her. Letting him take her. His world focused on her mouth and on her wet heat. Nothing else mattered.
He pushed a finger inside her.
She cried out.
He squeezed another finger into her, moved his mouth so he could feast on her neck. The soft, sloping curve where it met her shoulder. There was no place on Mitch's body like that. It fascinated him, every time, but with Liv? His entire body throbbed. He had to taste that curve, trace it with his lips, his teeth, his tongue. She called out his name.
"Look at me, babe." He reared up over her, braced himself so the only thing holding her to the bed were his fingers buried in her cunt. "Look at me," he said through clenched teeth, smiling when her glazed eyes focused on his. "Let go."
"Mitch," she moaned.
God, he loved how she said his name, her voice low and husky and so very, very needy. But he shook his head. "Let go, Liv. Let me watch it take you." He didn't leave her a choice.
Her eyes went blank.
Her mouth rounded to a shocked O.
Her body tightened, spine arching—
Wicked triumph streaked through him as she shuddered and quaked in the grip of an orgasm so sharp it seemed violent.
Before she'd collapsed back into the mattress, her eyes vacant and stunned, he wanted to see that shocked pleasure wash over her again.
Needed it.
She groaned when he eased his fingers out of her, slid them up her quivering stomach in a damp trail.
He pushed the tank top up and smiled when he saw the front clasp of her bra.
Chapter Three
Mitch deftly unfastened the bra and pushed one lacy cup aside, then the other so he could stare at her. His hot gaze traveled her trembling thighs, the glistening curls at their apex, the stretch of her belly, the rounded globes of her breasts tipped with nipples beaded cherry red. Higher still to her full lips, rosy now and bruised from his kisses. He'd have her mouth on him before the night was through. All over him. He swore it, then and there. He couldn't live without feeling that mouth going down on him. Finally, he focused on her eyes.
His lips curved to a predatory bow. "Keep saying my name. I like it. Especially when you come."
His fingers found her nipple, rubbed it.
Liv sucked in a sharp breath.
He laughed, dipped his head to skate his jaw along the curve of her tit. He was tempted to linger, but his body couldn't take much more of this; he moved down. He kissed her stomach as he pinched her nipples. He stabbed his tongue into the concave of her belly button.
When she speared her fingers into his hair, tried to tug him back up, he bit her. Not hard. Just hard enough. She stopped pulling and he slid lower, glided his tongue along her thigh.
She shook.
He was shaking, himself.
He paused to breathe in the scent of her sex. His mouth watered at the heady musk of her arousal, need sprinting through him in giddy abandon. She was ready for him. Wet. Primed by her first orgasm.
But he wanted to taste her.
His mouth descended.
He feasted.
The curve of her neck wasn't the only thing that captivated Mitch about a woman's body. This totally mesmerized him: her taste. The way she gave it up for him, every fricking time, and all he had to do was run his tongue right . . . there. Liv groaned.
He felt her sensuous shiver from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. He couldn't understand guys who wouldn't go down on a woman. Who wouldn't want this? Liv's thighs spread wide, leaving her pussy open and vulnerable to him. The way she gasped, panted, and sweated as he licked and sucked at her. The taste of her on his tongue when he shifted lower and stabbed it inside her. His outstretched hand stroked her tits, rubbed at her nipples to build the scorching heat he'd set to blaze inside her. She chanted his name, and oh God, how he loved that. He really, really loved it. He could listen to it all night. He could spend the whole night fucking her with his tongue and listening to her sob his name as she came. But her fingers in his hair jabbed into his scalp like talons.
He wouldn't put her off again, not this time.
Mitch skimmed up her body, took her mouth in a slow, drugging kiss. Let her taste her own musky flavor on his lips, and when he lifted his head, she smiled at him. She smiled and reached for his zipper.
Mitch had never been so happy to be so fucking doomed in his life. He cursed through gritted teeth when her hand slipped into his jeans and wrapped around his cock.
His eyes slammed shut.
This time, she laughed. He cut the sly sound off with a hard, urgent kiss, but she was drawing him out of his jeans. It was horrible. And yet so mind-shatteringly right to be cradled in her hand. She ran the tip of her finger up and down, gliding across the bulbous head. He could've howled. Instead, he ripped at her panties and pajama pants, stripped them down her legs.
Except her damned legs went on forever.
She wrapped her fingers around his dick and pumped.
His heart seized.
To hell with it.
He shucked her pants and panties off one ankle and groaned when she wrapped that long leg around him. Trailing pajamas and damp panties, the other hooked around his hip.
Oh God.
She sucked his lip into her mouth, light
ly bit it, and at the same time, used her legs to pull his cock forward. To her. Where she most wanted him to be. Mitch froze when the head of his dick rubbed against her drenched pussy lips. He jerked his mouth from hers as sanity-shredding horror crashed over him. "Oh, shit." Jaw clenched, he shook his head to try to clear it, but the desire rampaging inside was eating him alive. "Stop, Liv. Please. We have to stop."
"Fuck me, Mitch." She arched her hips, angled them to draw him inside. "Please, please fuck me."
He nearly wept.
He wished to God that it wasn't true. Maybe if he didn't say the words, it wouldn't be true. But there was no escaping it.
Reality.
His shoulders slumped.
His head fell to the crook of her neck.
"I don't have any rubbers, honey. We have to stop."
She stiffened beneath him.
He didn't blame her.
If he had a gun, he'd shoot his own self in the head, just to be done with it. Not driving inside her, when they were both so hot and ready, was that unthinkable. But fucking without a condom was equally unthinkable.
Mitch had screwed up a lot in his life, but he never played around with birth control or protection from STDs. Which was actually a good thing, considering how much all three of his wives had run around on him. But being careful didn't feel so frigging fantastic right now.
Liv's body relaxed under his. Her arms crept around his neck. Her understanding made it that much worse. He wanted her to scratch and claw and bite at him. So he could vent the frustration that burned his nerve endings like sulfuric acid.
"It's okay, Mitch. I'm on the pill."
His eyes flashed open.
He stared at her.
His jaw dropped.
"What?"
She bit her damned lip again.
Semen beaded on the head of his dick.
Damn it.
"I said, it's okay." Her voice sounded husky and warm. Still. He gaped at her. His heart leapt in his chest while wickedly feral impulses burst inside him. The sinful draw of forbidden fruit—doubly forbidden considering it was Liv underneath him. "I've never fucked a woman bare before." Not since he'd been sixteen, anyway. He'd had an army's worth of clean bills of health from doctors since. Just the idea of sliding into her without even the thin skin of latex between them, spilling into her, hot and wet, stretching her, filling her . . . . He shuddered. "God."