by Cari Quinn
The guy knew the direct path to her libido, because the minute he said those words, she couldn’t help writhing beneath his long, hard body. Hard all over, every inch. She wound her legs around his hips and arched against him, needing him to fill her the way she craved. Deep, fast, inescapable. She widened her thighs and bit down on the cords of his neck, loving the groan he released against her skin. That was another kind of music, one she hadn’t heard nearly enough of lately.
Time to correct that.
“I think you need to fuck me. Now,” she panted, not caring if she sounded more than a little desperate.
With him, she could be. She should be.
“So pushy. I think you need to remember who’s on top and wait until I’m good and ready.” He flexed his hips against her and she went still, more than ready for his cock. If pretending to be submissive long enough to get it would work, then hell, she was in.
“You’re on top.” Here if nowhere else, at least for this moment.
“That’s better.” He tightened his grip on her wrists and moved his mouth over her cleavage, sliding lower to take her nipple between his teeth. She bit her lip at his hot, hungry suction, helpless against her little impatient rocks against his erection.
He chuckled against her flesh and gave her one of those slow, sexy looks from under the fringe of his dark lashes, his gaze traveling over her flushed breasts up to her probably equally flushed face. Then he slid down her body, his mouth following a meandering path over her belly and past her navel.
She barely noticed when the tightness eased around her wrists, thanks to the insistent flick of his tongue over her mound and lower, along her lips and inside to where she was already so saturated for him. He used both hands to push her thighs wide and took his time looking his fill while she fought that niggling urge to cover herself. That voice was way quieter than it had been a year ago, but it was still there. No matter how much she hated it.
Until his mouth covered her and made her forget anything but him.
His fingers eased inside and his tongue and teeth created the most incredible havoc on all the pleasure centers in her system. Gently, he pulled on her clit and blew a light stream of air on her heated folds while he pressed his fingers deep, then deeper still. Making room for all he was intent on giving her. Two fingers to start, then three, while his lips maintained the suction on her clit. A curl of his magic fingers and she arched, ready to fly. She wanted him to make the trip with her, because as greedy as she was, nothing was quite as amazing as those rare times that they came together.
A whimper escaped and he lifted his head, pupils dilated, chin damp with her arousal. “You want it, don’t you?” he asked, his voice low, guttural.
Now and then she still wished she could hide her face—and her urgency—from him. But he wouldn’t allow it. Even if he had, she wouldn’t have allowed it from herself.
She’d come too far to take any steps backward.
“Yes, I want it.” She met his gaze squarely, warming under the love and desire in his golden eyes. It was like being stationed directly beneath a heat lamp and basking in its glow. “I want you. Always.”
He slipped his fingers out of her and crawled up her body to fist both hands in her hair. “Right answer,” he murmured, widening her thighs and settling the heavy weight of his length between them, flush with her center. It took everything she possessed not to wiggle closer to take him inside. “Almost as much as I want you.”
His mouth came down hard on hers, his lips smeared with her taste, and his hips lifted, making her brace for what was next. That first blissful blast of pressure, opening her up—
The plane jolted, hard. Once, twice. She gasped and lifted her head, bumping into his nose. He grunted and rolled off her, looking around bewilderedly as the plane continued to shimmy and heave. “Usually the earth doesn’t move before I come,” he muttered as she struggled to get the covers over her naked body.
A crackle and hiss of static popped across the loudspeaker. “Just a little turbulence, folks. Sorry about that. Looks like there’s some severe storms in New York and we may have to divert to another airport.”
Nick groaned. “Can’t I fuck before I die?”
“Shh!” She laughed, shoving him in the shoulder.
“We recommend you take your seats and put on your seatbelts, just as an extra added precaution. As soon as it’s safe to walk around, we’ll let you know.”
Nick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a rough kiss. “You’ll fucking sit on my lap with no panties on, so I can slide in the minute he says go.”
She wanted to act affronted at his caveman tactics. The tingle and pound of her clit proved she had no such boundaries left.
He’d left them in flames many months ago.
“Maybe.” She rolled out of bed and picked up her clothes. “We’ll negotiate,” she said silkily, pulling on her top sans bra—and her skirt sans panties. “I’ll skip the underwear and next time, you’ll skip the foreplay. Just fuck me.”
“That’s what you call negotiation? Sounds like a win-win to me.” He climbed out of bed and joined her to get dressed. He pulled on his shirt then leaned closer to nibble her neck. “Think I’ll just keep my fingers inside you the whole time, just to make sure you stay warmed up for me.”
She gripped his arm as the plane bucked again. He caught hold of her hips, holding her close while she pressed her face into his neck. For a second, it wasn’t just a little bit of air disturbance. Fear wound around her throat and she couldn’t find her voice. All she could do was hold on to him and know he was holding her back.
“Let’s get to our seats,” he said against her hair. From his hushed tone, she could tell he was unnerved too, though he would never say.
He would always be strong and protect her—whether or not she needed it. Anyone who didn’t know him the way she did would’ve laughed at her assessment, but it was sterling truth. The man he was when they were alone made her longing for something more permanent between them that much more acute.
Now simply wasn’t the time to think of any of that. All that mattered was getting through the next few minutes.
He laced his fingers through hers and they made their way back to their seats, stopping every few seconds to grab hold of the wall or the back of a chair. The second she was seated, he fumbled her belt into place before he dealt with his own. While he was bent over her, she caught his face in her hands and gave him a hard kiss. “I’ve got it.”
Ignoring her, he didn’t move back until she was safely belted in. He fell back into his own seat and put on his belt with a lot less haste than he’d shown with hers.
As the plane began to jostle and jolt once again, he extended his hand across the small space that separated them. Too much. She wanted to be in his lap, her arms around his neck, his cock inside her, his leather-and-smoke scent soaking into her skin.
She wanted to marry him and have his babies and live a totally impractical life made up of sex on planes and music and laughter and arguments over Mr. Lee’s Chinese food at 3 a.m. Somehow she saw all of those possibilities in his steady golden gaze.
All of it was on the tip of her tongue, even knowing he’d dismiss her ramblings as some end-of-the-world plane crash scenario. But they weren’t. She was just finally fully admitting to herself that she was ready to leap—with no parachute and no landing gear at all except his hand gripping hers.
Instead of all that, she whispered the one thing she knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—refute. “I love you.”
His smile was all she needed to exist in this world. “Not as much as I love you.”
5
Nick
Surviving a potential plane crash with blue balls was not the way Nick wanted to start his Christmas vacation.
Especially since he was supposed to be on his A-game for speaking to Fred Ronson, Lila’s father. And Laverne too, probably. The tradition said to ask the father for permission, but damn, that seemed old-fashione
d. Lila was a modern woman. Both her parents should be told in advance.
If she’s so modern, why are you asking them at all?
“It’s a ritual for a reason,” he said, striking a match and holding it up to his purloined cigarette. He only had three left in his dented pack, since he was supposed to have quit months ago. Mostly, he had. Only on days like this was he allowed to slip.
Near death and near marriage gave a man good cause to light up.
They’d survived their bumpy flight and touched down at a small, rarely used air-pad for the terminally rich ninety minutes from their original destination. After a cab ride to the rental car place, they’d made the rest of the trip via Chevy Suburban, the last large vehicle left at that particular lot. Lila had made noises about alternate arrangements, but he really didn’t give a fuck. If it had a steering wheel and a gas pedal, good enough.
Now he was in the kitchen at Happy Acres, a cig clamped between his teeth and the back door wedged open so the smoke didn’t hover in the room. Lila and her parents were out getting the main room ready for that night’s Christmas open house, whatever the heck that meant. Happy Acres was an orchard and store that was open all the time from late summer right through the holidays. How much more open could they get?
How much more panic babbling could he do in his head?
They’d left him to keep an eye on the pies. Him. Like he knew how to do anything other than throwing a couple steaks on the barbecue grill he’d insisted they buy for Lila’s high-class patio back in LA. She hadn’t been terribly enthused until he’d shown her what he could do with tongs and charcoal.
Otherwise, he was pretty much not meant for stepping foot into a kitchen. But this was supposed to be easy. Just wait until the little ding from the timer and then take out the steaming hot pies to stack on the stand on the counter.
Even he could handle that.
He had to admit they smelled incredible. Laverne had made noises about doing a full range of them, from peach-apple to blueberry-apple to cherry-rhubarb-apple. As a purist, his preference was plain old apple-apple, but that one wasn’t done yet. The only one that had come out so far was the peach-apple.
Another ding and Nick bit down on his cigarette as he grabbed the oversized oven mitts. He had to listen closely, because the second he heard approaching footsteps, his cig was going in the sink. He’d have to discreetly pry it out before anyone noticed, but it was his best option other than booking it out the back door.
He pulled open the oven door and stepped back, nearly bowled over by the orgasm-worthy plethora of scents. He groaned. His dick was still hard from earlier. He did not need to be getting aroused at some hot pie action.
A scuffle behind him made him start to turn, only to have the oven door clang shut. Gritting his teeth over his now mangled cigarette, he pried open the door again and withdrew the pie on top with the nicely browned crust. This oven was huge. He could practically take a nap inside it, for fuck’s sake. He carted the lattice-topped pie—a term he only knew because of Laverne’s explanation the last time they’d visited—to the counter to set it with the other pie. Except the cooling shelf that had held the peach-apple pie was empty.
Freaking empty.
He glanced around, frowning. The back door was still open, but not wide enough that someone could’ve come in to steal a pie without him noticing. He had heard a scuffling noise behind him, but who would sneak in to steal a pie and hightail it back out in the middle of a damn snowstorm?
Not that snowstorms were terribly rare in this part of New York. They seemed to have them six months out of the year, or roughly sixty percent of the time he and Lila came to visit Fred and Laverne. Still, it seemed like an awful lot of effort to go through to snag some baked goods.
Leaning forward over the sink, he gripped the hot pie in his hands and peered out the window. Snow, snow and more snow. Pine trees draped in white. Fences looped with Christmas lights. Mangy dog eating out of a shiny dish.
He frowned at the glint of silver in the snow. Didn’t it just figure? He tried to do his duty before he satisfied his growling stomach and he got scooped by a damn mutt.
His frown grew. Then again, maybe it was just a coincidence. Lola, Lila’s dog and the family pet, was around somewhere. Perhaps this dog was a friend of hers and that silver was its dish. Any good detective worth their salt knew you had to catch the perp in the act.
Well, he was no frigging Nancy Drew, but he’d give it his best shot.
Creeping back to the counter, he set down the pie. He turned toward the stove, pretending to be occupied with his cigarette and watching the timer. The same slight scuffle sounded behind him and he spun just in time to see the bedraggled dog oh so carefully prying the pie off the shelf, as painstakingly as he might pick up an injured dove. His eyes slid toward Nick, pie still between his jaws, and he scrambled backward, paws slipping on the snow he’d tracked in. But he still made it out the door before Nick could do more than lurch forward and grab a handful of his sodden golden fur.
Racing forward, he slipped in the same damp tracks and faceplanted on the floor, only a miracle saving his face from making painful contact with the lit end of his cigarette.
Goddammit.
Nick spit out the cig and without thinking, ground it out on the planked wooden floor. The inside door to the kitchen swung open, and Nick tried to get up, only to lose his footing again on the same damp spot. Of course he was still clutching the cigarette.
Which Lila’s father had just seen him extinguish on their nice kitchen floor.
Goodbye, marriage. Goodbye new father-in-law. Goodbye ever relieving the hard-on from hell.
“Need a hand there, son?”
Nick shut his eyes at Fred’s booming voice. He was just humoring him. He probably wanted him dead.
And he hadn’t even heard yet that his pies were in the belly of a mongrel dog.
“I’m good, thanks.” Nick tucked the cigarette into his palm, trying not to react at the still hot tip scorching his skin. He’d probably have a hole. One he deserved, but nonetheless.
Somehow he made it to his feet and brushed the hand not holding the burning embers over the knees of his jeans. He’d planned to talk to Lila’s parents as soon as possible, but he didn’t think right now was the best time. Besides, he needed to track down the damn mutt who had ruined his life.
“I’ve gotta go outside to—” What? He couldn’t admit that the dog had stolen the pies. What kind of dumbass couldn’t keep an eye on an inanimate object for five minutes? “Take a piss,” he finished as Fred raised his eyebrows.
At this point, his mouth was on autopilot, and that was never a good thing. He needed to get his ass out of the kitchen and away from where it could do any more damage.
Maybe he’d just go live in the forest with the mutt.
He spun away and toed the doorstop away from the cracked-open back door. Blessedly cold air wafted over his scalding face. He was probably blushing bright red.
“Wait, you don’t have your gloves,” Lila called out.
That was his girl. Always so delicate. What dude needed gloves to piss? Not that he was really going to pee. Though the more he thought about it, maybe he should. Might be the only action his sore dick saw for the rest of this vacation.
Waving her off, he slipped outside and let the door slap shut behind him. He lifted his face and let the relentless snow cool down his scorched skin. Then he scanned the snow-covered property for the dog, shielding his eyes against the barrage of flakes. It looked like another inch had come down just while he was being robbed of his baked goods.
The freaking mongrel was nowhere in sight.
Nick frowned. His night—and oh, maybe his life—was going right down the flusher.
Staring at the back door, Lila relived everything she’d just told her parents. Away from Nick’s earshot, of course.
So I might be rushing into things but a near plane crash does that to a girl. I want to be with Nick.
&
nbsp; You are with Nick, dear. Aren’t you?
I mean, with with.
You mean sexually? Don’t fib to your mama. I know that lock’s been turned a long time ago. I recognize a satisfied key when I see one, and that boy’s definitely satisfied with you.
Cue flush. But she’d forged on.
No, I mean like forever. We’re already living together.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
More forging on. I don’t know if he’s ready for more. For a while, I wasn’t sure I was either. You know, after Martin—
We know, and we support you in everything.
Her mother had hugged her then, and it hadn’t seemed like such a hard, scary choice to take a step forward with Nick. If he even wanted to take that step with her. Not when she had her parents—well, at least her mother, her father wasn’t so sure yet—behind her.
Really behind her, judging from their choice of bedroom assignments. Whoa. Her mother certainly didn’t let snow pile up under her feet.
Then there had been Nick’s watching of the pies, which hadn’t gone particularly well. And his cigarette dousing on the floor. Oh, and mustn’t forget his charming piss comment before he fled out the back door, though they had many suitable working toilets on the premises.
That is the man you want to marry and procreate with?
Um, yes, I think so. Probably.
She wouldn’t let his momentarily inappropriate behavior—hello, this was Nick, he was basically a walking billboard for inappropriateness—reduce her desire to take things to the next level. Or at least discuss it openly like mature adults. No more waiting and wondering and pretending she wasn’t having the thoughts she was having.
If he wasn’t in the same place yet, no problem. She’d just enjoy where they were. Just because she preferred to plan the route before she set off on a trip didn’t mean she couldn’t change. With him, she was learning a whole new style of being.