Lovers Unmasked

by Katee Robert

  Sucking on her tongue, he swiveled his hips, lifting her leg so that he could pump into her in an all-new way. Liquid spasms of heat pulsed through her center, consuming her whole. Her arousal eased his strokes and she knew if she touched her clit, just one rough stroke, she’d tumble over the edge again. Too soon. She wasn’t ready. This had to last.

  What if she never got to experience this with him again? She couldn’t let this end before she’d sampled every part of him. Twice. Those memories would keep her going even…after.

  Crying out, she ripped her mouth away from his to drag in air. Still wasn’t enough. She doubled over the counter, her teeth razoring over her own lip when he fisted her hair and impaled her again. She’d never been fucked like this before. Lovemaking was too tame of a term. He would settle for nothing less than total ownership of her body, and she couldn’t give him the deed quickly enough.

  Landon flattened his hand on her back, driving her down while he worked himself in and out of her slick sex. The heat in her core intensified. His untamed thrusts splintered apart her control and she gasped out everything she wanted, everything only he could give her. He fastened his lips on the back of the neck again, pulling sensuously, reaching around to thumb her clit while her climax stole over her and dragged him along for the ride.

  “Steff.” His carnal groan made her squeeze her eyes shut. “Oh God, baby, come with me again.”

  She pressed her cheek to the cold counter and reached back to grab a handful of his silky hair, using it to yank him closer the only way she could. His orgasm slammed through her like an avalanche of bricks and she dug her nails into his scalp, exalting in the sound of her name gasped brokenly into her ear. Then he kissed his way across her cheek until he found her mouth with his own, his lips pressing into hers with a tenderness she’d never known. In between kisses, he whispered her name again like a prayer.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked once their breathing had slowed.

  Even with her eyes still closed, she smiled at his hushed question. “In the best way possible.”

  His smile curved her own lips in response. “Let’s go to my office.”

  “Now?” Her mock groan made him laugh. “I think I’m paralyzed from the waist down.”

  Without saying anything further, he scooped her up in his arms and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll fix you. Promise.”

  Sleepily, she opened her eyes and brushed his hair away from his long-lashed green eyes. Already they’d begun to darken anew with arousal. She did that to him. Without the costume, without any fancy sex tricks. She’d never been one to make outlandish wishes, but it looked like she’d been granted one just the same.

  “I think you already have,” she murmured.

  …

  An unexpected phone call from one of Landon’s colleagues cut their time at the law firm shorter than Landon had hoped. They ended up leaving early, just in case the attorney returned to the office to gather the files he was looking for and got a view he never expected. But from the sexy grin she flashed before he helped her into his SUV, Steff didn’t have any complaints.

  Neither did he.

  Before their interlude in the office, most of his body had burned from fatigue. Now it just ached from exertion, which was a much better alternative. He’d gotten used to running on empty, in more ways than one. Amazing how Steff’s laughter and her kisses and her hazy blue eyes refueled him.

  They lapsed into easy silence on the way back to her place, their fingers lazily linked over the console in his truck. It felt completely natural not to speak. Even after having wild, totally uninhibited sex, she still managed to offer him a wordless, peaceful reassurance he’d never found anywhere else.

  The relaxed silence continued through their arrival at her house. They got undressed and snuggled in front of Letterman like an old married couple. It already felt like they’d gotten ready for bed together a million times, but this was only the first.

  When she curled up beside him in her bed and rested her cheek on his chest while her fingers traced lazy patterns over his heart, he wondered how he’d ever gotten through a single day without her in it.

  “Why did you switch to family law? You never really said.” Her voice rasped over his skin. She sounded husky from the screaming she’d done at his office.

  A satisfied grin tipped up his mouth. He couldn’t believe all the sides of her nature he’d missed over the years. Unwrapping them layer by layer would be incredibly fascinating—and hot.

  “I got tired of the grind of divorce law. It’s so bitter and acrimonious most of the time, and it started making me that way, too. Helping kids and making a difference in their lives is so rewarding.” He tugged her closer. “Like what you do. That’s good work.”

  “You’ve never been bitter.” Her lips slid over his nipple and his cock twitched, making her chuckle. “Down, boy.”

  “Your fault.” He brushed his thumb over her temple and absorbed her sultry smile. She still didn’t get how aroused she made him, despite everything that had happened between them. He relished the challenge of proving it to her. Repeatedly. “Actually, I did get bitter for a while, about a lot of things.”

  “Like hanging out with your stickin-the-mud best friend?”

  “I never thought of you that way. Not once.” He wound one of her curls around his finger. “Try that I wanted you on for size instead.”

  “Come again?”

  He laughed. “You ever need something so much you’re absolutely certain that you’re going to fuck it up and you’ll be even worse off than before?”

  At her silence, he glanced over to see her pulling at the sheet. Was she cold?

  “Yeah,” she said finally. “I know.”

  “That’s part of why I pushed you away. I didn’t think I was good enough for you. And if by some miracle you did take a chance on me, you’d only see my past and not realize I could be different. That I was different, with you. For so long I’d acted like a fuckwit, screwing everything in skirts.”

  Steff screwed up her mouth. “You can skip over that bit of the story, if you don’t mind.”

  He laughed and cupped her face, pulling her lips to his. Kissing her had to be the eighth, ninth, and tenth wonders of the world. “Babe, I’ve forgotten every one of them but you.”

  “Now you sound like Craig.”

  “He taught me everything I know,” he said somberly, letting out a laugh when she snatched the pillow from under his head and smacked him with it. “Okay, okay, no more lines.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll believe that when I hear it.”

  Grinning, he grabbed her wrists behind her back and rolled her beneath him to kiss away her pout. “God, I’ve missed you. Don’t ever leave me again.”

  Steff stiffened in his hold. “I didn’t leave you. You tossed me aside like last week’s tuna, remember? If Craig hadn’t bailed on Dads and Daughters day, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “I would’ve found my way back to you. Believe me, I was already on my way there.” He sucked on her lower lip, his gaze serious on hers. “It scared me how I felt about you.”

  She snorted in her delightfully Steff way. “Right.”

  “You think I’d lie to you?”

  Again she braced, though this time she turned her face away. Her taste lingering on his tongue made him want to do anything, promise anything, to get their closeness back. Already he’d become addicted to the amazing way it was between them. “I think you should give your feelings a chance to settle. You just had sex with your ex-best friend. That could screw with anyone’s head.”

  “Ex? Since fucking when?”

  She nudged him back and sat up, pulling the sheet over her breasts. Her hiding herself from his view seemed like a crime of nature. “People change, Lan. You expect me to assume—”

  “I expect you to know me better than that. Yeah, I shoved my head up my ass for a while. My feelings for you forced me to see some stuff I wasn’t ready to, but if you think that means you’re n
ot the best friend I’ve ever had—will ever have—you’re so wrong I may just have to have sex with you again to knock some sense into that gorgeous head.”

  She clamped her arms over her breasts. “Oh, really.”

  “Really.” Leaning up on his elbow, he caught her chin in his palm and nibbled on her mouth. “Let me in, vixen,” he murmured when her teeth stayed resolutely shut. “Or else I’ll have to find other things to lick.”

  But she didn’t laugh. Didn’t soften. “This isn’t funny. Do you have any clue what it did to me to lose you for the past year?”

  “It wasn’t a full year.”

  “Close enough. Even when I saw you, nothing was like it used to be between us. It’s not a joke. I thought you didn’t care about me anymore.” In the darkness, he couldn’t see her tears, but he felt them on his fingers as they tracked down her cheeks.

  His gut twisted. He hated knowing he was the cause of her pain. There was no excuse for his behavior, no way to tease her into believing he’d changed.

  No chance of them making it through this unless he bared his heart.

  “I knew I had feelings for you even before you started trying to nudge me away,” she continued softly, heartbreakingly. “I kept trying to get us closer and nothing worked. The whole situation fucked with my head. With my self-esteem. You can’t just expect me to forget the almost entire year you froze me out.”

  Swallowing hard, he nodded. “I know I have to earn your trust again.” His breath shuddered out against her cheek and he shut his eyes, dropping his forehead to hers. The words were right there, aching in his throat. He wanted to say them. To finally be honest, to share everything with her.

  But at the last second he turned off the road. “You matter so much to me, Steff. More than…anyone ever has. I hate myself for hurting you.” His guilt scalded his throat, his chest. He’d been cruel to her for the dumbest of reasons—he’d been attracted to her and he hadn’t had a clue how to handle it.

  So he’d run. As usual.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice thick with tears. “Give me the whole reason, not just the censored safe-for-consumption parts.”

  “Because I wanted you,” he said, his throat squeezing tight. “I didn’t fully realize it then, but I do now. It pissed me off, and confused me, so I disappeared instead of thanking you for finally making me feel.” He covered her mouth with his and this time, she gave way, gently stroking his tongue with hers. It took the last energy he had to pull back enough to whisper, “You make me feel so damn much.”

  She took a deep, unsteady breath. “Me, too. God, so much. I missed you.”

  “I missed you more, baby.” Pushing her back to the mattress, he caged his arms on either side of her head. Trapping them together. “Don’t shut me out, okay? Whatever it takes to get you back in my life for good, I’ll do it and more. I know I fucked up, and I know you’re going to need time to learn to trust me again. I can wait. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Her tremble set off an answering one in the depths of his stomach. “Promise me?”

  “I promise, Steff.” He would promise her anything.

  Everything.

  Chapter Eight

  Steff woke on her belly in the center of her bed, her face smushed into the pillow. She smiled and stretched, replaying the events that had led to her deep sleep. Dinner with Craig, Lan cutting in at the club, then whisking her away to his office to create new erotic memories for her scarily thin sexual exploit playbook.

  Best of all? This was just the beginning. She finally had a future to look forward to with Landon, and nothing had ever felt better.

  They hadn’t talked about anything beyond the present, and that was just fine with her. Taking their time was a smart idea. She couldn’t wait to get to know him better as a lover rather than a friend.

  And then, once she felt a little more confident of her position in his life, she’d come clean about that night at the party. If she picked her moment well, perhaps he’d be understanding. Maybe he’d even find it hot that she’d done something so shocking and even a little kinky. She still felt beyond guilty that she’d done something so shady, but she’d never intended the lie to go on this long.

  She would make this right. And then once she had, she’d happily get kinky with him every night for the rest of her life.

  Her smile spread. Nothing she’d come up with would beat the kinky factor of screaming through her orgasm while draped over the front desk. She’d come back to herself after her climax to find herself face-to-face with a picture of a smiling elderly couple, presumably the receptionist’s parents. Creepy.

  She rolled onto her back and grinned at the ceiling. She’d slept totally naked, and he’d slept naked, and God, had it been fabulous. That man nude was a work of freaking art.

  A quick glance at her alarm clock made her frown. Five thirty already? She needed to get dressed soon, and she’d been hoping to squeeze in another quickie, dammit.

  Oh, well. They’d have plenty of time for sex. Hopefully, an entire lifetime.

  “Good morning, mystery woman.”

  The smile from hearing Lan’s voice came immediately. She looked toward the door, already anticipating seeing him in some state of undress. Instead he wore a pair of dark slacks and a blue button-down shirt, which was not what he’d been wearing the night before. “Morning to you, too. Where’d you get the threads?”

  “Your closet.” His answering smile never reached his eyes. “I thought I’d left clothes over here the last time I spent the night during one of our marathon movie fests, and I was right. You threw out my old sports coat, though.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It was ratty. Craig said—”

  “Ah, Craig. Everything comes back to him, doesn’t it? Last night you attended dinner with him, something you do often, I’ve heard. Saturday before last, he was the one you invited to Dads and Daughters. And then there was the night before that.”

  Her hands went cold, but she shoved them through her tumbled hair to try to get the circulation going. Don’t panic. “What about it?”

  That same thin smile reappeared as he strolled into the room, hands casually tucked in his pockets. His wet hair curled more than usual, lying heavily over his forehead and waving over his ears. He must’ve showered while she slept. “He invited you to the party, didn’t he? You said you would come, then you backed out. Isn’t that right?”

  “Y-yes.” God, she was actually stuttering. She rose onto her knees and fought the urge to cross her arms over her breasts. She wasn’t used to being naked in front of guys—darkness and concealing nightwear were her friends for a reason—and she especially wasn’t used to it with Landon. But she wanted to be. She wanted to be exposed and bare to him in every way, and she hoped for the same in return.

  So why couldn’t she just say the words that would put an end to this interrogation once and for all?

  “You missed some party. I wasn’t going to tell you how hot things got, seeing as we banged each other last night, but best friends should always be honest with each other. Don’t you agree?”

  She gave in to the urge to lift her arms, though she banded them around her waist rather than used them to shield her breasts. At that moment she was more concerned about not being sick than to attempt any sort of belated modesty. He’d seemed to like them well enough the night before, anyway. “Yes, they should, but sometimes there are r-reasons that you can’t—”

  Again with the stuttering. Cripes, she needed to just say it. She couldn’t keep this charade going any longer.

  “Oh, right, reasons. Like what, exactly? I’m curious.” He rubbed his chin. “I didn’t tell you I fucked a gorgeous brunette in a fox costume at the party, because I realized nothing would come of it. At first I thought maybe I could find her, to see why she’d run away. Then I went to dinner with you and we came back here. After I tasted you, she hardly registered on my radar anymore.” He ripped off his tie, tossing it across the room with a violence sh
e’d never seen from him before. “But she still registered on yours, didn’t she?”

  Steff stared at him, barely breathing. “Please sit down.”

  “Sit down? That’s your answer? Like I’m one of your kids who needs a time-out?” He threw back his head and laughed harshly enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Sorry, babe, that won’t work on me. You’re lucky I’m even talking right now and not punching holes in the wall.”

  The first tear escaped, and she didn’t even bother trying to sniffle it back. “You never get mad, you just disappear. Isn’t that how you deal, Landon? You split.”

  He slanted her a look, his eyes so dark that she could scarcely differentiate the ring of green from his pupils. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to go?”

  “You promised you wouldn’t,” she whispered, chin shaking. This was not how she’d pictured this conversation going at all. For God’s sake, she wasn’t even dressed.

  Without replying, he crossed to the chair near her closet and picked up a long red object. Her eyes widened and her throat closed off as she realized what it was.

  Her freaking tail had narced on her. That would’ve been funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic.

  “I did,” he murmured, turning toward her, drawing the bushy tail through his hands. “I wanted to make other promises, too, stuff that I wasn’t entirely sure you were ready to hear. Glad I held off on those.” While her heart throbbed in her ears, he strode forward and jerked her chin up to his, coasting his thumb down her throat. “There they are. Almost gone, but still there. Your makeup hid them well.”

  “I’m sure there are more of them now.” She jerked out of his hold, earning another one of those pained laughs. His eyes seemed to soften as he looked at her before he visibly shored up his defenses again.

  “Now you don’t want me to touch you? After I put all these marks on your body? I admired them while you slept.” He slid his hand between her thighs, his fingers gentle as they traced the obvious stubble burn on the inside of her legs. “Looking at you naked and pink from my mouth made me so fucking hard. I wanted to slide into you while you were still asleep, so that the first thing you felt when you woke was my cock moving in and out of your sweet pussy. But I’d never presume to take away your options.” He tightened his jaw until it cracked. “Guess you don’t operate the same way, huh, Steff?”