The kitchen was equally as uncared for as the rest of the house. Old appliances, ancient cabinets. He still remembered putting the boiling pot on the tile counter, cracking two squares. Stephie had yelled out, and he’d gone running, only to find she wanted to show him an elaborate LEGO she’d finished. Once upon a time, he’d been meaning to replace the cracked tiles.
“I only have tap water.” Besides, he didn’t want to open the fridge so she could see how pathetically bare it was.
“That’s fine.”
He poured and handed her a glass with a chip in it he hadn’t noticed. “So, you’ve got your water. Now, about Andrea and her mistreatment. Go on.”
What she’d said made sense. Being a child who took a backseat to her brother could explain the way Andrea seemed to ghost through Easy Cheesy almost without notice. She was used to being virtually invisible. It explained why she was willing to make excuses for people. Like him, a man who said awful things he didn’t mean. Her parents were probably guilty of the same thing. Parents were often guilty of atrocities.
Cole put a hand to his chest and breathed deeply to stop the flood of thought. It didn’t work.
Jami took a seat at his kitchen table. “That’s my point.”
What point? In the blink of an eye, he’d lost the gist and started thinking about Stephie.
A long time ago, he used to bother with putting a tablecloth on to cover the scars. Stephie liked to pick dandelions from the yard and put them in a jelly jar. As if dandelions weren’t simply a weed.
“Andrea isn’t being mistreated,” Jami went on.
“That’s good,” he answered, as if he were focused on the discussion instead of taking his own private, painful trip down memory lane. He wanted to focus on her. Up in the attic, she’d made him forget. He wanted to forget now.
“Here’s what we have to do.” She stopped, looked up at him. “Could you please sit down? Because you make me nervous towering over me that way. I mean, you’re tall enough as it is.”
If he remained standing, it would eventually force her to get up and leave. Yet Cole pulled out a chair and sat.
“Somehow”—she tucked her hair behind an ear—“I get the feeling you’re not really into this conversation.”
“I’m totally into it.” He was totally into her, focused on the strands of hair that brushed the swell of her breast. “You make me crazy,” he whispered, fully aware his eyes were fixed at chest central.
“I’m sorry. But you and Frank were the ones who started this whole thing with Andrea, freaking out that she’d thrown away her sketch pad.”
He had an out. He could let them both pretend he’d been referring to Andrea. He lifted his gaze to hers. She blinked. Her pupils were slightly dilated, and her breath a little more shallow. A pulse beat at her throat. She knew damn well he wasn’t talking about Andrea in any way, shape, or form.
Just let it go, Cole.
He hadn’t had a woman in his house in what felt like forever. He hadn’t smelled a woman this close. He hadn’t dreamed of caressing a woman’s skin, tasting her lips, tangling his fingers in her hair, or sinking deep inside her. Until Jami, he hadn’t even been alone with a woman.
As pathetic as it was, he simply wanted to feel her hair, touch the silk, bring it to his nose and drink in her scent. Yet he was afraid she’d reject him despite how willingly she’d kissed him the other night, then again in the attic.
Worse, he feared that once he had that one small thing, he’d crave it all. There’d be no stopping. And it would end badly.
Let it go, Cole.
All he knew was that he didn’t want her to leave. They sat in silence for so long, the very air seemed to pulse with it. Jami sipped her water. Cole simply sat there, his gaze on her lips, her hair, and yes, her breasts.
He couldn’t help himself, he said it again. “You make me crazy.” This time she would know he didn’t mean Andrea.
* * * * *
There were a lot of reasons why women made men crazy. Men couldn’t understand a woman’s thought processes. Women talked things out rather than thinking things through. Women had a million different ideas going on at the same time, and really, they could handle them all, while men weren’t multi-taskers. Women always wanted to know what a man meant by even the simplest sentence or action. For instance, why had Leo wanted to keep the coffee maker when he didn’t drink coffee? If Jami hadn’t been so devastated, she’d have realized he had a girlfriend who drank coffee. If a man sighed heavily, a woman thought she’d done something wrong. Hmm, in other words, women thought the world revolved around them, and everything a man did somehow had been caused by what she did.
“You make me crazy, too,” she whispered, as evidenced by her circling thoughts, which for some bizarre reason ended up back on the broken Leo record. For heaven’s sake, why now?
“I shouldn’t have come.” Should, shouldn’t. She hated those words. She had come here. But now she needed to leave. Setting her glass carefully on the table as if she didn’t have complete control of her motor functions, she stood. “We can finish our talk tomorrow, then Frank can get his two cents in as well.”
He got to his feet, too, and somehow they were right up close and personal. His fresh shower scent fogged her brain.
God help me how I miss
Your completely electric kiss.
When he kissed her the first time, even today, she hadn’t thought of the lines of his song—God only knew why because she’d listened to it obsessively—but she heard the words now. His kiss was completely electric.
She couldn’t leave without one more taste of him, while his music sang through her mind. “Kiss me.”
He didn’t even put up a fight.
Electricity arced through her as his lips touched hers. She opened and took his tongue. He gave a long teasing kiss, backing off, coming from another angle, his tongue tracing her lips, constant contact, his body wrapped around her. His height made her feel petite, his muscles made her seem delicate. Sliding down her back, he cupped her butt. She slipped a hand between their bodies and pinched his nipple. God only knew what had possessed her to do it the last time, but he’d loved it. He did now, too. Groaning, he pulled her higher, rubbed his cock against her.
“I want you. God, how I want you.” He buried his face in her hair.
She loved his voice. She loved his need. If she let this stop, she’d regret it forever. She had to admit this was what she’d needed all along, from the moment she’d heard his music. It wasn’t about wanting children or getting dumped or finding herself. It was about passion. She wanted to have him, hold him, be the woman of his dreams, the fantasy he sang about, and she wouldn’t allow him to pull back now.
Gliding down his body, she went to her knees on the kitchen floor and tugged at his belt buckle.
“Wait,” he said, his voice a rasp.
“Please.” She palmed him through his jeans, lifting her face as his head fell back, and a long, low growl of need and pleasure rose from his throat. “I need to taste you,” she whispered. She needed to make him see that he was hers, proving it in the most elemental of ways. “Please let me.” Then she unzipped him and pulled him free of his briefs.
He sank his fingers into her hair, holding her as he rubbed the tip of his cock against her lips. “God yes,” he agreed.
For this one moment in time, he belonged to her completely.
He was big, thick, hard, and beautiful. She licked straight up from the root to his crown, then clung to his thighs as she took the tip in her mouth. A drop of his essence escaped, and she savored it, swirling her tongue around, under, testing the texture of every ridge.
He rocked his hips gently to the rhythm of her mouth. Gathering her hair in his fist, he pulled it away from her face, watching every move. And he talked to her. “Yes... please... God... just like that... yeah... baby... I’m gonna come.” Then he pulled away. “No.”
She missed the taste of him. “I want you to. Please don’t make
me stop now.”
With a heavy sigh, he came down on his knees, brushed her hair back, then rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to come yet.” His lips grazed her cheek. “You first.”
“Me first?” It was easier to give than to receive.
“You come first, then I’ll come.” His words whispered across her temple, then he tucked a finger beneath her chin and made her look at him. “I don’t have a condom.”
“Neither do I.”
“There are so many ways to pleasure each other without needing one.”
Oh God. His words were seductive, and she wanted his touch right this minute, when moments before she’d feared he was going to end their interlude and throw her out on her butt. “Pleasure me,” she murmured.
“Not here on the kitchen floor.”
“The kitchen floor is okay, I swear.”
Laughing, he rose to his feet, pulling her with him, and fixed his jeans for the moment. “A bed is more comfortable.”
“But the trip down the hall to the bed might give you time to change your mind.”
He put her hand to the front of his pants, his zipper done up but the belt still loose. “Does this feel like I’m going to change my mind?”
“No.” Yet he always had this hesitancy about him. As if he were capable of letting himself get carried along in the moment, but when he had too much time to think...
“You gonna change yours?” he asked.
“No.”
Then he yanked her close, hoisted her up, pulled her thighs around his waist, and clasped his hands behind her back. “No more talk,” he said on barely a breath the moment before he put his lips to hers and sucked her tongue into his mouth.
Chapter Twenty
Her insight was uncanny. He’d thought about ending it, even when his cock was in her mouth. He knew there’d be consequences. She’d expect things from him. She’d want more. Hell, he’d want more than one night, too.
He couldn’t have it. He couldn’t have her, not for keeps. He didn’t deserve a woman like her. He didn’t even deserve this one time, but he couldn’t stop now. The sight of her on her knees, taking him, it was a beautiful thing. So damn beautiful he hadn’t wanted to stop. But a lady should always come first. He also feared the interlude would be over the moment he came in her mouth. He feared that more than he feared taking her to his bed.
Just tonight, he promised himself, never again. He’d die if he didn’t have this one moment with her.
Putting a knee on the bed, he fell with her to the mattress, bracing his arms so he didn’t crush her. She still clung to his neck, and he took her mouth again, closing his eyes. Her taste, mingled with his, and he remembered the feel of her mouth on him, the texture of her hair wrapped around his fist as he’d watched her.
Rising above her, his mouth still fused to hers, he popped the top snap of her jeans and unzipped. Then he looked. Her long-sleeved T-shirt had ridden up her belly, and the bedside lamp glowed on her skin. Her panties were pink with little red flowers stitched in the center.
He slid beneath the elastic until he found the soft curls, then he met her gaze. Her eyes were baby blue, and her hair spilled over the faded bedspread. “Are you wet?”
She nodded, her face flushed.
He delved deeper between her thighs. “Oh yeah, you’re wet.”
A sigh slipped from her as he stroked across her clitoris. Arching into his hand, she pushed her head back against the bed.
He needed her clothes off. Now. He went down by the bedside on his knees, pulling on her waistband while the panties stayed in place. Thong panties. Hell, he loved them, the way they rode high on her hip.
He threw her jeans across the room, then simply knelt between her legs and gazed at her. “You’re beautiful.”
She blushed. “It’s the lighting.”
He hooked his hands beneath her knees and pulled her closer to the edge. “No. It’s definitely you. I like the panties.”
With one finger he pulled aside the pink material until he could see the jewel beneath. “I like your pussy.”
She snorted, or laughed, an almost strangled sound. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Makes you nervous?”
“Could we just get it done without so much looking?”
It was in complete contrast to the woman who had gone down on her knees before him in the kitchen, begging him to let her taste him. Pinching his nipples, sucking him, yet shy when he looked at her, she was a mixture of fascinating contradictions, and he wanted her. He sure as hell wasn’t going to waste tonight by simply getting it done. He leaned down and drew in her scent, hot, aroused woman. “I’m going to take my own sweet time. And you’re going to come at least five times.”
She made that half strangled sound again. “I couldn’t possibly do that.”
He stroked lightly between her folds. “Oh yeah, you will.”
He’d forgotten how much he’d loved sex and the feel of a woman’s body, the scents, the unique tastes, how good it was to make her come over and over.
“Talk, talk, talk,” she muttered. But he knew she was covering embarrassment.
He tugged her panties, sliding them down her legs, and when he tossed them aside, she was totally exposed to him. He pushed her wider, then ran a finger down her center and inside. “God, you’re tight.”
She wriggled. She obviously wasn’t used to slow loving or sexy talk or a man looking at her body. The guy she’d been living with hadn’t appreciated the lady he had in his bed. A woman was a fine instrument. Keep her tuned, treat her with care, play her often, and she’d sing beautifully.
He couldn’t deny himself that first taste a moment longer. He savored her, her fingers in his hair as she moaned and pulled him close. He tortured every erogenous zone, sucked her into his mouth, teased, licked, circled until she cried out. He reveled in her climax, made her ride the edge until her whole body quivered, and she rolled to her side, pushing him away.
“Too much,” she whispered. Her breath came in short gasps, and when he gathered her into his arms, there was moisture beneath her eyes. She’d come so hard, she’d cried.
“Oh my God,” she murmured into his chest. “That was good.”
It was so damn good, he hurt.
She snuggled close, then slid her hand down to his pants. “We better do you now.”
“Rest awhile.” He just wanted to hold her a few minutes longer, wanted to memorize the feel of her in his arms the way he’d memorized her taste.
“I’m naked from the waist down.” Her breathing had evened out, and now she could notice her disadvantage.
He cupped her butt cheek. “Yeah, I know.”
“If I’m naked, you need to be naked.”
He kissed her lightly. “If I’m naked with you in my arms like this, then we definitely need a condom.”
“But neither of us has one.”
“Right. So just lay with me.”
“But—”
He shut her up with his mouth, taking her with his tongue. She’d taste herself; he wanted her to. Then he backed off, licking the seam of her lips, dropping a close-mouthed kiss on her, then trailing across her cheek to her ear.
She moaned. “I like the way you kiss.”
“I love the way you do.” Sliding down to her throat, he nipped her lightly, then kissed along the neckline of her T-shirt. “I didn’t even kiss your nipples.” He began to glide beneath the shirt bottom, but she tugged his hands away.
“Your turn.” Sitting up, she undid a couple of his buttons, revealing his chest.
“My turn?”
“That’s what we agreed,” she said.
“But I didn’t give you five orgasms.”
She put a finger to his lips. “I couldn’t take another one of those. That was worth ten of my own—” She cut herself off, and her eyes went wide in horror, as if she were suddenly, oddly self-conscious.
Cole pushed. “Now you’re really making me crazy, thinking about y
ou giving yourself orgasms.”
She blushed. The woman had so many sides to her personality. She’d lived with a man, yet she was somewhat naïve and innocent. As if she’d been taught as a teenager that masturbation made hair grow on your palms. Except that was only for guys.
“I want to watch you.” The thought made him hot and monumentally hard.
“Nooooh.”
“All right, next time.”
They both fell silent at that one. As if they each knew once was all they’d get.
* * * * *
Jami didn’t consider herself a prude. It was just that Leo had never been so verbal or asked her to do things for him. Jami’d had orgasms with him, but she had to admit that by herself, she often came harder than with him. Sometimes, well, he took so long trying to find the right spot that she faked it, something that had happened more and more often over the years.
God, this was the worst time to think about faking orgasms, when Cole had just turned her world inside out. That wasn’t a mere climax, it was a mind-altering event.
“Your turn,” she said again. She was going to make him beg for more. Once would never be enough. She’d make him so crazy that he’d have to come back again and again.
Except that Leo had eventually stopped wanting her and impregnated some other woman. Damn Leo for dropping in on her thoughts like this. She wasn’t inadequate. Cole said she made him crazy, and she’d experienced the orgasm of a lifetime. So screw Leo.
“Take off your shirt,” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am.” Cole sat up, tore it over his head without completely unbuttoning and tossed it aside.
She pushed him back down on the bed as her breath sighed from her lips. “You have a gorgeous chest.”
“My hair has a lot of gray.”
“Salt-and-pepper.” She rubbed her fingers all over it. “And so soft.” Then she tweaked a nipple.
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