“Maybe you should come with me to secure that next lot of cash in my office safe.”
Which was a one-person job, but now he couldn’t for the life of him stop thinking about his office couch—and Natalie naked under him on it.
“And take the weight off your legs,” he added.
Her legs, lightly tanned and bare under the dress, called his gaze back to them with a siren’s song. He remembered too vividly the softness of her inner thighs as he’d run his lips over the silky skin.
“Hmm. The thought of stretching out on your couch for fifteen minutes is very tempting.” Nat snapped the plastic lid back on the cashbox and walked around the table to join him. “If we won’t be missed.”
Thankful for the tails of his button-down shirt draped over one helluva hard-on, Isaac signaled for Nat to wait and strode over to Rangi-Marie, dragging out his wallet as he walked. Once in front of her, he emptied every last coin from it into her cashbox.
“This’ll keep you going while I go make Nat a coffee inside.”
Rangi-Marie’s nose crinkled. “You’re always making her coffee. Like you’re her pet barista.”
Isaac was happy to be Nat’s pet anything, including her pet sex slave, but his little cousin didn’t need to know that. “How about I bring out a cold six-pack of Coke on the return trip?”
“Sweet as, cuzzy-bro.”
He allowed himself to be distracted for a second by the new ease with which he and Rangi-Marie now communicated. Olivia wasn’t the only one whose ’tude had softened toward him since he’d taken on the position of coach. And somehow he’d softened his ’tude toward them in return.
Isaac angled back toward Nat and they crossed the parking lot toward Kauri Whare’s staff entry in silence. The door swung open as they neared it and Uncle Manu stepped outside. He pinned the door open for them.
“Any baking left for me?” he asked and dug a hand in the hip pocket of his coveralls. “Think I’ve got a couple of dollars in here somewhere.”
“There’s plenty left,” Natalie said before Isaac could. “You just go and help yourself. Don’t worry about money, Mr. Ngata.”
Uncle Manu’s leathery brown face collapsed into a mass of wrinkles as he grinned at her. “Don’t you Mr. Ngata me, girl. You call me Uncle, or if this big makimaki doesn’t mind, you can call me anytime.”
“This big monkey pays your wages,” Isaac said.
“My nephew doesn’t want to share his beautiful wahine.” Uncle Manu winked. “Don’t blame him.”
Nat laughed, the sound fizzing through Isaac and arrowing straight to his aching groin. Was Natalie his beautiful woman? If the definition of ‘his’ meant he couldn’t imagine wanting any other woman as much as he wanted Nat, then, yeah. Natalie was his.
“Go stuff yourself with cake, Matua. On the house.” Isaac grabbed Nat’s hand and hustled her through the open doorway.
His uncle’s snickers followed them as they walked briskly down the hallway to Isaac’s office.
“No coffee?” Nat asked in a teasing tone as they passed the staff room. “I thought you told Rangi-Marie you were making me one.”
“I lied.” He dragged the keychain from his pocket and unlocked his office door.
He pushed the door open and went straight to the blinds covering the office windows, closing them. The soft click and pop of his office door shutting and locking came from behind him. He’d long suspected Nat had the uncanny ability to read his mind.
“So what were you planning to make me, if not coffee?”
He turned just as she tossed the plastic container of cash on his office chair. Then she leaned against the door, arms crossed under her breasts. Waiting.
Anticipation and arousal surged through him on a hot incoming tide.
“Well, for starters”—he closed the distance between them in three strides and braced his palms on the door either side of her shoulders—“how about I make you come hard enough to burn off at least a couple of thousand calories?”
She had time to inhale sharply and then his mouth was on hers. She did indeed taste of vanilla-y sweetness—sweet and hot, and inviting him to take everything he wanted. He leaned in, pressing hard to soft, and a whimper escaped her throat as her breasts crushed against him. Cupping her jaw, he changed the angle of the kiss, dancing his tongue along hers until the whimper turned into a moan and her hands snaked up his chest to twine around his neck. He got his free hand on her ass and she jumped into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his hips and her dress rode up her thighs, nothing between his straining cock and her except layers of cotton, denim, and some silky fabric he was about to tear off. Nat’s fingers tightened painfully in his hair as she squirmed in his arms, trying to get closer, trying to grind her hips and kiss the life from him in one desperate motion.
Good to know he wasn’t the only one starving. Good to have some semblance of control left to realize if he took her up against the door, odds were they’d end up crashing through it because gentle lovemaking was out of the question.
Nat nipped his lower lip as he broke the kiss, punishing him with another thrust of her hips. Shit yeah. Hard, merciless, thorough, but not gentle. He swung her away from the door and carried her to the couch. He sat with her straddling his lap and looking at him through her lashes.
“Take off your dress,” he said.
Her eyebrows rose in question.
“It’s pretty.” He let all the pent-up desire pumping through him show in his smile. “And I’d hate to have to tear it off you.”
Nat got hold of the dress’s hem and peeled it upward, revealing the scrap of black lace between her legs that remained pressed firmly against his cock, and a matching lacy bra that didn’t do a thing to disguise the jut of her nipples. By the time she’d dragged the garment over her head, Isaac had unhooked her bra. Her breasts swung forward at perfect mouth level, and he took advantage of it, leaning in to capture one perfect rosy nipple between his lips. He drew her deep into his mouth, her soft cries in his ears as he flicked his tongue against the stiffened tip, then encircled it with firm, sweeping strokes. After gliding his hands down her back, he reached the silky mounds of her bared cheeks and squeezed—thank God for whoever invented thongs—and he slipped a finger past the lace to find her wet and ready.
She rose up on her knees to give him better access, nails digging into his shoulder muscles. His fingers slid though her slickness to find the little bundle of nerves, swollen and demanding his attention. He made it his mission to keep his promise of making her come hard by giving it two hundred percent of his attention. Matching the rhythm of his flickering tongue on her nipples to his fingertips exploring her folds, Isaac teased and tormented her clit with firm strokes. He held her close even as she trembled and thrust against his hand. She came for him with a muffled cry, her mouth pressed against the side of his throat, her body quaking around the two fingers he’d slid inside her.
He gathered her up and pressed her down onto the couch, covering her with his body and kissing her until her nails raked down his spine to yank at the waistband of his jeans.
She ripped her mouth from his. “Off.” Her fingers scrambled under his shirt, trying to find a gap between them to reach around for his fly.
With her face flushed and eyes still a little unfocused, Isaac wasn’t sure stripping naked was the optimal usage of his time. He braced himself above her, going for the wallet in his back pocket while Nat’s hands shot to the button on his jeans. She’d unbuttoned and unzipped him by the time he’d dragged out his wallet and opened it one-handed, but he forgot about prying out his emergency condom when her hand dove under his knit boxer shorts and wrapped around his cock.
He arched into her touch and she continued to stroke him, head to root, her eyes fixed on his face, her breathing choppy. Their gazes linked in an intimacy that took animal lust out of the equation and replaced it with an emotional hollow in his gut that only Nat could fill.
“Isaac,” she said.
In her utterance of his name he heard how much she wanted him. The need she had for him to claim her, and the vulnerability that he wasn’t the only one with so much at stake.
He reached for his wallet which had slipped from his fingers to the floor, and tore into the condom wrapper. He drew Nat’s panties down her thighs and tossed them aside. Turning back to her, he did his best to imprint upon his memory the sight of her naked and relaxed on his couch, her legs parted ready for his bulk, arms spread wide to welcome him into her body.
How the hell had this booty call turned into something else?
Isaac shook it off and returned to her, easing between her thighs, grasping himself firmly to stroke the head of his cock through her slickness. She groaned and arched her back, fingers locked tight around his forearms as he nudged inside her. His teeth clicked together hard enough to shatter his jawbone as warm, tight wetness closed around him, drawing him farther inside. Sinking into her body was like slipping into a bliss coma, so many sensations clamoring through his system that it was all he could do to fight against the urge to rut like the prize bull on his dad’s farm. But once she locked her ankles across his ass and jerked her hips up to meet his, he lost the battle.
He reared back, then sheathed himself deep within her again. Nat cried out, releasing his forearms, and dragged her fingers up his back, scoring his flesh with her nails. He slammed into her again, pleasure and pain at war from the dig of her nails and the tightness of her body surrounding him. Another thrust, deep and true. Her eyes flew open, his name on her lips with a jagged inhale that was almost a plea. With his blood a rising thunder in his eardrums, he began to move with measured strokes, drawing out his pleasure—and hers—until she bowed beneath him. Her teeth dug fast into her lower lip as she quaked through her second climax.
His own release tightened in his balls, throbbed though every nerve and exploding brain cell as he surrendered to it with a growl and buried his face in her shoulder. For a drawn-out moment he wondered if the buzzing in his head was from the excess of sugar in his blood, or that Nat had somehow slipped beneath his guard and fizzed in his blood, more of a high, more addictive than an illegal drug.
Ten minutes later, and once again looking like the manager he was supposed to be—as opposed to a guy who’d just gotten very, very lucky—Isaac picked up a six-pack of Coke from the staff refrigerator and headed outside. Natalie had dressed and left five minutes ago to make a restroom stop, so she’d yet to appear when Isaac handed over the cans and rolls of one-and two-dollar coins to Rangi-Marie.
“Took you long enough.” Rangi-Marie spilled the coins into the cashbox. “Guess you’re not as good at making Nat coffee as you thought you were.”
A tap of heels sounded on the asphalt behind him, then Nat appeared in his peripheral vision as she ducked behind the bake sale table.
“Oh, he’s good,” she said to Rangi-Marie with a guileless smile. “I enjoyed Isaac’s coffee so much I had to have seconds.” Nat switched her smile to Isaac and it was no longer guileless but wicked with the satisfaction he’d hoped two orgasms had given her.
“It’s true,” he said. “I give good coffee.”
Rangi-Marie’s gaze switched between him and Nat, her nose crinkling. “You’ve really got to stop smiling so much. It’s creeping people out.”
Great sex—amazing fucking sex—would put a smile that big on any guy’s face. He gave Rangi-Marie an extra wide grin, and deliberately kept his face angled away from Nat. One glance at her in her clingy dress—minus her panties because he’d confiscated them with a promise that she’d come over to his place later in the week to collect them—and he’d be doing a Dukes of Hazard slide over the table to get his hands on her again.
“Hey, I’m a happy guy,” he said, and ignoring Rangi-Marie’s snort of disbelief, walked himself away from temptation.
Chapter 14
Isaac changed his shirt for the third time then stood in front of his bathroom mirror, debating on shaven versus unshaven. Somebody smack him upside the head because he was sweating like a pig at the thought of dinner with Nat and Olivia tonight. He rubbed his fingers along his jaw and scowled, then tugged a finger in the collar of his shirt.
Really? You wanna add a tie and a sports jacket to that ensemble, just to have homemade pizza? Shit.
He unbuttoned the top three buttons, decided he looked like a seventies porn star minus the gold chains, and did up one.
It wasn’t as if the invitation had come personally from Nat. It’d been Olivia who invited him to Saturday night pizza on the drive back from the Bay of Islands earlier. The girls had beaten Kerikeri High School eleven to five with Olivia getting her third try of the season. Nat hadn’t objected, and since the bake sale two weeks ago when they’d only managed to grab snatches of time together, Isaac wasn’t turning down any invitation to spend time with her. Even though he’d once again be returning to an empty bed.
Isaac collected his keys from a hook in the kitchen, glancing with new eyes around the empty countertops and the domestic version of a professional chef’s cooker which was completely wasted on him. Nothing personal adorned the walls, every surface was wiped clean—in fact, the only sign a real person actually used the kitchen was a breakfast bowl in the sink that he hadn’t had time to stack in the dishwasher. Plus the photos of friends and whānau stuck to his refrigerator door.
The space was nothing like the organized chaos of Nat’s kitchen with open recipe books left beside the cooker, some pages bearing blotches from accidental splashes, flowers dropping the odd petal on the dining table, and the comforting smell of baking that seemed to ooze from the cheery yellow walls. There was always music playing from the local station, and he’d gotten in the habit of turning on the radio and humming along while he made Nat coffee in the mornings three times a week before training.
His house breathed silence around him, but that silence no longer provided the peace it used to. He grabbed a six-pack of soda from his fridge and headed out to his truck. His heart ticked over like a bomb counting down as he drove through Bounty Bay.
It’s just a thrown-together, casual meal. Natalie’s words that she’d sent in a confirming text earlier. He’d offered to make excuses, but she’d told him Olivia was excited about making pizza for her coach.
Her coach. Isaac grimaced and parked in Nat’s driveway. Olivia’s coach, who also happened to be her mum’s friend. Because that’s the only label Nat would accept as a description between them with her daughter.
He got it. He did. The ball was completely in Natalie’s court when it came to the decision of when to tell Olivia that Isaac wasn’t just a friend. At least, he hoped it was a when and not an if. Because he wasn’t satisfied with stolen kisses in the sports equipment room after practice that made him crave more, or a quick screw in his office—or, in one instance, the back seat of his truck. It was akin to feeding a man on the brink of starvation cracker crumbs and telling him to be patient, he’d get chocolate gateau in a few weeks.
Isaac knocked on Nat’s door, peeling apart his lips in what he hoped was an easygoing, looking forward to pizza smile. Starving men couldn’t be choosy when they only had a taste for one woman.
The door swung open to warmth, the smell of dough and baked cheese, and Natalie looking delicious in an off-the-shoulder red sweater worn over black leggings. For a guy who usually didn’t give a crap about what he wore, he suddenly felt overdressed. Dammit. This wasn’t a workday or a date. He should’ve opted for the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt he’d tried on as option number two. And how pathetic was he? About to get his man-card privileges revoked by the Wussy Male Police.
“I brought something to drink,” he said, back to page one of stating the obvious in Communication for Dummies 101. He thrust the six-pack out in front of him.
Natalie took it with a small smile. “Thanks.”
She stepped back so he could enter and his nose twitched at the intoxicating scent of her. He checked her mouth—no lipstick
. Good. Nat turned back from shutting the door and he blocked her path. Something of his intentions must’ve shown on his face as her forehead crinkled.
“I’m a simple guy so all I need is pizza and you.” He cupped her face and brushed a whisper of a kiss across her mouth. “Not necessarily in that order.”
“Isaac…” She clutched the soda in front of her like a shield, the cans bumping against his stomach.
“I know,” he said, and then kissed her anyway.
She inhaled as his lips melded with hers, and for a moment he tensed ready for a protest. Then she released her breath, lips parting, her tongue flicking sweetly against his. Ten seconds, he’d told himself after scoping out her mouth. A ten-second kiss wouldn’t raise Olivia’s suspicions. Only he hadn’t calculated how much Nat needed him in return. The cans vanished from between them, their bodies pulled close together by an unstoppable magnetic field.
Ten seconds, twenty seconds, two minutes—Isaac lost track of everything but the feel of Nat’s passionate response, showing him without words that she’d missed him just as much as he’d missed her.
“Muuuum? Where’s the pizza wheel?”
Olivia’s shout from the kitchen stabbed into Isaac’s eardrums.
Natalie wrenched her mouth away. A split second later six cans dropped on the floor, just missing his toes, and he met her wild-eyed stare with a wince. She took a giant step backward, her hand flying to her mouth, which—his bad—looked a little puffy. Should’ve stopped to shave after all.
Nat sucked in a hitching breath, and blinked, as if for a moment she’d forgotten where her utensil drawer was. The thought made Isaac smile, because she wasn’t the only one struggling to get a head back in the game after that kiss.
“Bottom drawer,” she yelled with a hah, I didn’t forget expression on her face.
Mend Your Heart (Bounty Bay Book 4) Page 17