by Cari Quinn
Big mistake. A dress like hers was pretty much a neon invitation for groping, and her usual fare of Beethoven and Rachmaninoff hadn’t seasoned her taste for screaming club jams. She conceded defeat after knocking back a purple haze which, to her surprise, was lip-smackingly good.
Her sloshy head made for quite the interesting walk back to her hotel, but since her plans consisted of a tepid bubble bath and snuggling into her massive bed to sleep off her vacation depression, she had no use for lucidity. Besides, she could handle her liquor. No one would ever catch her falling-down drunk, even if the amount of alcohol she’d consumed tonight equaled the sum total of what she’d imbibed so far this entire year.
Nope, she felt just fine. Or at least she did until she fumbled her key card out of her bag, slipped it into the door of her hotel suite, and had to jump out of the way of a familiar broad, tanned hand slapping the door open.
Rachel swallowed, her stomach suddenly sloshing as much as her head. Her gaze never lifted from the subtle swirl pattern in the door’s blond wood. “How’d you find me?”
“Oh, I have my ways.”
Not surprised in the slightest, she didn’t question Shawn further. She’d never been able to evade him in childhood games of hide-and-seek either, so why should this be any different?
He leaned down and slid his nose into her hair. Just when she was about to smack him for smelling her like she was some kind of baked good, he said, “Must’ve had a busy night. Been boozing it up, huh?”
“Hardly.” With a sniff, she turned, only to find herself uncomfortably wedged between her door and Shawn’s muscled torso. “You’re not invited in,” she added, though the hitch in her voice diminished the steel in her statement.
His spicy cologne was making her mouth water. What was the matter with her?
“Color me stunned.” He held out the McDonald’s cup in his hand and smiled, just smiled, until the ice around her heart began to crack. “Brought you a present. Come on, Rach. If you can tell me you really don’t want me here, I’ll go.”
Her nose quivered at the scent of strawberry as she accepted the cup. Damn her weaknesses. “And you’ll stay gone?”
“Sure.” His eyes darkened to the deep green of the malachite ring on her thumb. “If you’d honestly rather be alone…”
Of course she would. Between Shawn going sexually postal on her and finding out Ryan had invited her to New York for reasons that obviously didn’t jibe with hers, she’d decided alone was the only safe way to be.
“Well?”
Rachel sighed. Being with Shawn was practically as good as being alone, as long as he kept his talented tongue where it belonged. Meaning out of her mouth. “No funny business.” She waited for his nod before she waved him inside.
He let out a low whistle of appreciation and turned back to grin at her after she shut the door. “Some digs. You get a raise I didn’t know about?”
She kicked off her heels and padded across the luxurious black carpet to the dresser. “Something like that,” she said, setting down her shake after one long, delicious sip.
Yummy, as always. Whatever she could say about Shawn, he knew how to make her toes curl.
As she slid the posts off her earrings, she heard a metallic clink behind her, but she figured he was fiddling with her clock radio. He didn’t get electronics of any sort and even had trouble using the functions on his own cell phone --
Her thoughts skidded to a stop at the swath of entirely too much tanned skin that flashed in her mirror. What the hell was he up to now? But when she pivoted to face him, she never expected the vision that awaited her.
Skin was an understatement. How he’d stripped so fast she had no clue, but there he was, stretched out naked on her bed save for his black briefs -- thereby ending any questions she’d ever entertained about his status as a boxers or briefs man -- watching her as calmly, as coolly, as if she were the one who’d just flipped her wig.
That she could still breathe as her eyes took in what her mind couldn’t comprehend was one of the minor victories of her twenty-eight years. She had to grip her dresser to keep her balance.
“You’ve been drinking,” she whispered, praying it was true. Praying there was some explanation for her lifelong best friend’s mental break.
“I’m perfectly sober.” As serene as one of the flaxen, harp-toting angels he resembled, Shawn flashed her a blinding smile. Far as she was concerned, his straight, white teeth could’ve been a vampire’s fangs, just waiting to pierce her throat. “Much more so than you actually.”
“You can’t be.” She threw up her hands to shield her face. “There has to be some explanation.” Again hearing a clink, she dropped her hands. Slowly, haltingly, her gaze traveled from the gleaming silver handcuff up his sinewy forearm to where it hooked around the post of her bed. “God!”
He’d cuffed himself to her bed. Mostly naked.
Something was so wrong here, especially since her rioting belly wasn’t knotted from fear. Nope, the slinky, sensuous heat winding through her was all about another of the seven deadly sins.
Possibly two, because at the moment both greed and lust applied.
“Dammit, what’s wrong with you? Are you on drugs?” Unable to help herself, she scrambled forward to leap onto the bed, nearly tripping over her abandoned shoes on her flight toward her ailing friend. But his smile didn’t dim one iota. If anything, it broadened. “I can help you, Shawn.”
“Can you? True friendship.” He snagged her wrist, pulling her onto his chest, and silenced her protests by slipping his tongue silkily between her parted lips. She didn’t utter a sound, but her nails grappled for purchase on his bared, hair-roughened chest -- not to fight him off but to hold on.
Her head spun, threatening to whirl right off her shoulders as he thrust his tongue into her mouth. Suddenly, the room felt like a sauna, and her body dampened with perspiration as if the temperature weren’t a chilly sixty-two degrees.
The first drops of sweat gathered under her breasts and slid down her quivering stomach to her black lace panties. Panties that were wet for a different reason altogether.
Rachel shifted her mouth, intending to draw back, but he changed the angle of the kiss, driving deeper, harder. His hand fisted in the back of her dress. Air swept over her fevered skin as he tugged down the zipper, but she didn’t stop him. He’d flipped a switch inside her, and now he kept his finger on the button, playing her expertly.
But when the clasp of her bra gave way under his ministrations, she ripped her mouth free. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, her breath heaving hard. Sense, where are you? “If Ryan hadn’t invited me here, if you hadn’t known I intended to sleep with him, you never would’ve --”
“It’s not about him.” She closed her eyes at the gravelly quality of his voice, the sound as raw as if he’d swallowed glass. “It’s about you and me. About these four walls and this bed and this moment.” He cupped her cheek in his free hand, leaving her no option but to meet his gaze. “I know you wore that dress for him, that he’s probably had his hands on you.”
She started to argue, but he shook his head, once. “I don’t care where you’ve been. All I care about is that you’re here now. With me.”
Her eyes filmed, blurring his image. He’d always given her unconditional love: no questions asked, no explanations needed. Could that hold true here too?
“I’m at your mercy.” He jangled the cuff with a quick quirk of his lips. “Here to do with as you wish. You can stay or you can walk, baby, but it’s your choice.”
She risked a glance at his very obvious erection. “And if I walk, how long until you pull a stunt like this again?”
The teasing glint in his eyes vanished. “This isn’t a stunt. It’s proof of how serious I am.” His voice lowered. “Stay with me, Rach.”
Chapter Four
The thirty seconds Shawn spent waiting for her response was the longest half-minute of his life.
Wordless
ly, Rachel reached up to draw the spaghetti straps of her siren red dress over her tanned shoulders. Her miles of dense dark hair spilled forward as she pulled off her loose bra, tossing it aside as casually as if she did this kind of thing with him every day.
She had, in his mind.
He sucked in a breath as she tossed her hair back, leaving the curve of her shoulders, the delicate gold chain that flirted with her collarbone, and her gorgeous full breasts open to his perusal. Or he would’ve been free to peruse them, had she not chosen that moment to straddle him like a cowgirl taking her first frantic ride on a bronco at the county fair.
“What’s your rush?” he whispered before she seized his mouth, the pressure of her lips and tongue no longer slumberous but punishing.
“No talking.” She hiked her skirt up, bunching it around her waist as she settled herself directly on his cock, with only the thin material of her panties and his briefs separating them. Her arousal drenched the fabric, taunting him with the nearness of her pussy.
At his sharp inhale, she gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging in as she moved back and forth, up and down, until the friction made him reach up with his unchained hand to drag her mouth back for a desperate kiss.
She jerked in his hold, her thighs molding to his hips as he thrust against the wispy barrier between them. With her center inches away, he couldn’t think. How many times had he used his own hand to simulate what it would be like to be inside her? The insistent pressure, the heat, the wetness. He’d wanted to know her that way, every way. Leaving no secrets or boundaries between them.
And now it was happening. Finally.
Her heart hammered under his mouth as he licked the velvety skin between her breasts, but she didn’t make any sound at all when his lips captured one hard nipple.
Her silence ate at him, carving away the haze that came from finally being with her like this. For so long, he’d craved her taste, her scent, the wild roll of her hips as she rode him with abandon. But in his dreams, she hadn’t been silent, and her eyes hadn’t been closed, as if she didn’t want to know it was him she was with.
To compensate, he poured his ragged emotions into laving her breasts, gratified when she grasped his hair in her hands as he skimmed first one, then the other nipple with his teeth. He wasn’t gentle, because she didn’t seem to want him to be. But he didn’t rush, either, no matter how demandingly she pumped her hips against his.
“Easy,” Shawn murmured, wondering why she suddenly reminded him of a horse about to bolt from the stall.
Her head came up, her dark eyes shining like wet onyx. “My choice, remember?” Almost defiantly, she reached between them and rolled down his briefs until his cock sprang free. He couldn’t restrain the groan as her fingertips cradled him, dancing up and down his engorged length as a bead of moisture trickled down his shaft. “And I want hard.”
She didn’t pause in her onslaught, using the liquid to increase the pace of her strokes as her mouth again caught his. Each brutal twist of her fist matched the tempo of her tongue spearing into his mouth, as if she was daring him to keep up.
For a second, he saw her swinging at their elementary school, her loud giggles filling his head as she begged him to push her higher. “C’mon, Shawn, more, more, more!”
She’d always wanted more, and he’d always needed to give it to her.
Finally allowing the beast he’d kept on a short leash for so long to take control, he ripped off her panties. Spreading her thighs wide with his hand, he exposed her silken heat to his fingers and his hungry gaze before he delved deep to caress her quaking flesh.
Tight, slick. So ready for him.
Her back arched. Her lashes fluttered. But she didn’t moan.
He could make her come like this, with her head thrown back, her eyes slitted and her lips parted as if she didn’t even possess enough strength to close them. But he needed to feel her body convulse as he drove inside her, his name a mindless scream ripping from her throat. Ached for that connection between their flesh that went way past words.
She bore down against his hand, riding his questing fingers. He drew one away to circle her swollen clit, his head filling with images of taking it between his lips like a ripe cherry. Her pussy pulsed in warning around his flesh. Maybe she couldn’t acknowledge how he made her feel, but her body told the tale succinctly.
God, making her come would be the sweetest experience of his life.
“In me,” she panted.
It wasn’t a request, but a command. One he was only too happy to fulfill.
But he shook his head as he withdrew his hand from her, his throat tight as he skimmed the glistening pads of his fingertips over her dark red nipples. He’d branded her as his without her even knowing it, and the sight of her marked by his mouth shredded his control. His balls clenched tighter the longer he looked.
Before this trip was through, he intended to possess her just as she’d possessed him. He’d take her in all the ways he’d dreamed. And she’d want it, want all of it. Want him.
“Condom. Wallet.”
Her eyes clouded briefly before she nodded and swung off him, bending quickly to retrieve his pants from the floor. To lighten the moment -- and because the perfect round globes of her ass were simply too much -- he brought the flat of his hand down on her butt, only to be rewarded by her sexy grin as she pulled out a foil packet.
However he’d envisioned their first time, the maybe foolishly romantic candlelight and soft music he’d hoped for way back when, this was still Rachel. His Rachel. And if she wanted fast and hard, he’d give her the ride of her life.
Climbing back on top, she offered him one more tempting smile as she tested the strength of his handcuff. She sheathed him in latex in an instant and impaled herself on his rigid shaft before he could release so much as a groan.
“God, yes. Yes,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a moan, he acknowledged, his lids lowering in utter rapture. But it was damned close.
Heat swept over him in a blinding wave as she started to move. She felt like glory, snug and wet, and he fisted his hand in her hair so he could ravage her mouth while he surged inside her.
Stroke after stroke, thrust after thrust, he worked on destroying her, following the lead of her gasps. Her body gathered, her movements becoming frenetic. But she matched him in every way, raising and lowering her hips in a blur that managed to diminish even the relentless burn in his wrist.
His eyes locked on hers. Shawn knew he’d carry that mental snapshot of her lost in abandon -- her hair a wild tumble over her shoulders and sweat beading on her skin -- with him for the rest of his days.
Her nails raked down his arms as her orgasm hit her, but he welcomed the pain. His breath caught at the delirium that made her dark eyes enlarge for one stunned heartbeat. He didn’t pause when her head lolled forward on her shoulders, but instead pushed her for more, pumping into her pussy harder, deeper.
When he came, he didn’t hold back his shout. Her spasms prolonged the pleasure, dragging it on and on. Burying his face in her hair, he held on to her, milking her body for the last drop of his release.
He’d waited so long for this. For her. And he never intended to let her go.
Rachel didn’t know how she ended up sprawled on her belly, wearing her dress and no underwear, in the center of the bed. Didn’t know much of anything really. She knew they must have talked, because she’d unlocked his cuffs and raided the minibar for water before they’d fallen into a brief, exhausted sleep. But she didn’t remember what they’d said.
What conversation was appropriate after coming, repeatedly, due to the efforts of your lifelong pal, she didn’t know. But now that her eyes had opened warily to greet the dawn, she wanted to slip right back into unconsciousness.
God. How could she have done what she had with Shawn? They’d have to go back to Calvin Bay and face everyone after they’d become…lovers.
That’s what they were. Lovers.
Her parents would be overjoyed. So would his. As a matter of fact, roughly half the one thousand people in town would start planning their freaking wedding as soon as their vacation fling became public knowledge.
After all, they were perfect for each other. Hadn’t she been told that by most everyone she knew since before she’d been old enough to care?
As Rachel covered her face with her hand, she realized her lips still felt bruised. With the way they’d gone at each other, it was hardly surprising.
Even so, he’d kept hold of himself enough to remind her to use a condom when she’d been all for abandoning rationality. Not that it would’ve been unprotected sex -- she’d been on the pill since high school -- but he’d known she’d go ballistic the next day if she hadn’t taken every possible precaution. And he’d known that because he’d been by her side ten years ago, after she’d gotten pregnant even though she’d faithfully taken the pill.
Remembering the concerned expression on his face as he reminded her to get a condom was what made her shove up from the mattress. She had to get out of here, before she did something even more horrible.
Like wanting to have sex with him again.
She tried to ease out of bed, but the stinging pain in her ankle brought her up short. “You goddamned bastard,” she breathed, jerking her leg against the handcuff linking her to the footboard even as she flung a hateful glance over her shoulder.
With a sleepy yawn, Shawn rolled closer, the bed shifting and dipping under his weight. “Morning, darling,” he said, leaning up to kiss her shoulder.
Just that single brush of his lips brought back a flood of images and a rush of wetness between her thighs. Her pussy flexed with remembered want.
It would be easy, so easy, to give in to what she craved. She could just roll over and reach for the delicious morning hard-on that pressed into her back and use it to sate her own needs.