Where There’s A Will

by Stacy Gail

  Chapter Eighteen

  Coe had never been more relieved to be interrupted by a delivery in his life.

  Holy hell.

  He’d thought he was one tough-minded son of a bitch, but he was a fumble-fingered amateur compared to Miranda. Hands down, she was the absolute master when it came to refusing to bow, bend or yield so much as an inch. Being strong-willed was all well and good—hell, it was necessary when it came to surviving the curveballs life liked to bean people with. But there had to be a fucking limit. The war was over; it died with her dad. But it was like she was so used to fighting she didn’t realize it. She just kept throwing herself into battle when there was no one left to defeat. Inwardly he shook his head. The way she was going, she was never going to know peace. All she was doing was tearing herself apart.

  No more, he thought, grimly. That shit wasn’t going to fly anymore. He wasn’t about to just stand there with his thumb up his ass while she did that to herself. Even if she wound up hating him for it, he had to help her. The only way he knew how to do that was to keep her close, remind her every other second that she didn’t need some bullshit evidence from him to make peace with the past, and push her for her own sake to forgive and forget.

  And if she could find forgiveness for her father, maybe she’d be generous enough to find some for him as well.

  He watched her wield chopsticks like a pro on a chunk of sweet-and-sour pork, while he used a fork to plow through a box of shrimp fried rice. She seemed comfortable with him now—enough, anyway, to share a meal with him without refusing it the way she’d refused the milk. That was progress. But he wasn’t fooling himself. He knew she still had it in her obsessive-compulsive brain that life would achieve magical perfection once the legal shit over the valve was settled. Her whole universe orbited around that one goal. Once it was achieved...

  You’ll never have to hear the Brookhaven name again.

  Swear to God, if she said that one more time he’d burst a blood vessel. Or at the very least tell her that hell would freeze over before he handed over even a scrap of evidence. No doubt that would open her eyes, and it would be for her own damn good. Deciding ownership over a stupid valve wasn’t going to bring her happiness, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to free her from the past. She was the only one who could do that, by finally kicking all that shit to the curb where it belonged.

  Should I tell her?

  Doubt shot through him, and his gut tightened on the rice he’d just eaten. More than his next breath he wanted to wipe out the pain he saw in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. Would that pain vanish once she got what she wanted?

  Every instinct he had when it came to dealing with ghosts from the past told him no. Nothing would vanish, except for Miranda. And she’d leave Bitterthorn just as scarred and fucked up as when she’d left it the first time around.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  He wouldn’t.

  “Is there something wrong with the fried rice?”

  He looked up to find Miranda watching him in concern, a piece of pickled pineapple caught in her chopsticks. She sat cross-legged on the floor with the couch at her back, her hair falling all over the place and her feet bare. God, she was beautiful. The most beautiful and alluring woman he’d ever seen. Just looking at her took not just his breath away, but even the memory of how to breathe normally.

  But that was cool. It was cool because he got to look at her. No other man in the world was as lucky as he was at that very moment.

  She leaned forward. “Coe? Are you choking?”

  Maybe. “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  About how you’re so beautiful it hurts me in a way I can’t get enough of. “I never learned how to use chopsticks.”

  She dropped the pineapple chunk to click the chopsticks at him like a bird’s beak. “Want to learn?”

  “Yeah.” He scooted over to her before she could move, and his chest felt light when she leaned her head against his shoulder as if to welcome his presence. He located a pair of chopsticks in the delivery bag and lifted a brow at her. “I’m all yours, Teach. Do with me what you will.”

  Her laugh played along his nervous system like a drug. “First off, break them apart.”

  He did so with a snap. “Cool. Now I feel ready to double-fist stab at things.”

  “Great, except that only happens in kung-fu movies from the seventies.”

  “I love that you know that.”

  “I live to impress.” Smiling, she put her hand over his to angle it, then tucked the thick end of a stick in the crook of his thumb. Her touch was as warm as sunshine. He almost sighed out loud as that warmth worked on liquefying everything beneath his skin. Talk about being putty in her hands. “It’s actually pretty easy. Think of the bottom stick as a building’s foundation. It doesn’t do anything except sit there, see? But there can’t be a building without a solid foundation, so it’s important.”

  “Foundation. Huh.” Foundation? What the hell was she talking about? It didn’t matter. As long as she kept touching him, she could say any damn thing she wanted.

  “The one on top does most of the work.”

  His whole body became engulfed in a sudden wave of heat. It was as though every inch of his skin blushed, to the point where he half believed he glowed with it. Yes, truly. The one on top usually did do most of the work. But if done correctly, it was highly enjoyable for both...

  “Here’s where the magic happens.”

  Oh, yes...

  “You then grip this between your thumb and fingers, and hold firmly.” She put the other chopstick in place. Her breath brushed his cheek, a gentle caress, like that of a lover. He closed his eyes to intensify the sensation, and the clean, flowery scent of her filled every corner of his soul. “Hold firmly, Coe.” Her fingers pressed his.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Then work it freely. Up and down. Up and down.”

  God, she was trying to kill him.

  What a great way to go...

  “Why don’t you give it a try?”

  The increasingly urgent pulse in his dick almost drowned out her words. There was an achy heaviness that grew exponentially with each breath, a demanding hunger he couldn’t deny. God help him, he’d never get enough of her. He’d be on his deathbed and he’d still have a hard-on for her. And he was so far gone he didn’t even see this as the bad thing he’d once thought it was. Wanting Miranda to the exclusion of everything else didn’t make him weak. That was an insecure kid’s way of thinking. The only thing it made him was a man—a man who knew he was lucky to have her in his life.

  Only an idiot would throw something like this under the bus.

  “Coe?”

  He opened his eyes, because in that moment all he wanted to do was look at her. “Yeah?”

  She wore a concerned frown. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I can honestly say I’ve never been better.”

  Though her expression remained unconvinced, she nodded at the sticks he held. “Well then...why not give those a try? Go for anything you want.”

  Aww. Wasn’t she sweet to offer. “Okay.”

  With great care, he caught her lower lip between the chopsticks. The startled widening of her eyes would have brought a saint to his knees.

  Good thing he wasn’t anywhere near being a saint.

  “What, Miranda?” With a smile, he leaned into her space. His space now. Wherever she was, that was where he needed to be. “You told me to go for anything I wanted. Your mouth definitely falls into that category.”

  He teased her lower lip with a glide of his tongue before replacing the chopsticks with his teeth. He felt her shiver, and it made his head swim. Then she twined her arms around his shoulders to bring him closer, and he almost lost
his mind. But the floor wasn’t good enough for his princess.

  He could do better.

  Savoring the softness of her mouth, he pulled her with him as he got to his feet. When she at last broke away, her eyes were heavy-lidded and dark, and the pure sexiness of that one look nearly broke him in two.

  “What?” As he walked her toward his bedroom, her breath sounded as disturbed as his own, and it excited him so much he had to grit his teeth to keep from groaning out loud. “What is it, Coe?”

  “We’re not kids anymore.” Helpless to stop himself, he raised her hand to his mouth and pressed a hungry kiss along her knuckles. There was just something about her that made him want to do all that sappy gesture. “We don’t have to sneak around, copping a quick feel for thrills or rushing through sex before someone comes along and discovers us, right?”

  “Right.” Her hand flipped over to cup his cheek, and the feel of it made his pulse stumble to a near-standstill. It was the craziest damn thing, how her touch against his face made him believe that she couldn’t get enough of the feel of him. “But that rush is...quite a rush.”

  “You won’t get an argument out of me.” As they entered his room, he left the light off while guiding her to his bed, happy to let the lights from the other room stream in a wedge through the open door. “But I’m in the mood for something...slower.” And with that, he tugged her tucked-in shirt from her pants.

  Despite his insistence on going slow, he quickly freed them of their clothing because he’d lose his damn mind if he didn’t get her skin under his hands. He settled next to her on the bed and kissed her long and deep, while her scent wrapped around him like a dream. Flowery and fragile—that was his Miranda. Even if they were in the dark with a hundred other people, he’d be able to single her out without fail.

  God, he loved her scent.

  Greedy for the feel and taste of her, he filled his hands with her hair and angled her head back to expose the length of her neck to his mouth.

  “I can never figure out which is my favorite part of you.” The words flowed out of him without permission. But once he heard them, he could only agree with their rightness. “I get so hard from just breathing you in, isn’t that insane? And my hands...it’s like they hurt if they’re not filled with you. I need to hear your voice breaking on my name and pleading for more. All I want to see is you—the moment you come, your mouth open and eyes closed and your whole body lost in what I give you.”

  A shiver rippled through her as goose bumps chased after his hand sweeping down over her hip. “Coe.”

  For a second he closed his eyes. There it was—his name on her lips. It was the sweetest fucking sound in the world. “What, babe?”

  “You don’t have to try and seduce me.” She pressed her naked breasts against his chest, as if she couldn’t stop herself from indulging in the sensation. When she shimmied a little to rub up against him, he thought he might die. “I’m seduced. Utterly. Completely.”

  “I wonder.” He moved down her body, worshiping the lush swells of her breasts by palming them in his hands and running his tongue along the deep valley between them. “You’re going to have to convince me that every part of you—mind, body and soul—belong to me.”

  If she had plans on responding, they never got realized as his mouth suckled first one dark-tipped peak, then the other. Her skin was velvety soft even as her nipple abraded his tongue, and he played with it mercilessly until her back arched and a broken whimper ripped from her. Her fingers clutched his hair, holding him to her in a wordless plea for more.

  No problem there.

  Trailing kisses past her belly button, he positioned her legs over his shoulders and pushed her thighs farther apart. For only a moment she flinched and tried to close her legs—understandable, since this was such a vulnerable position. But the reaction reminded him anew that when it came right down to it, Miranda had no real trust in him. A quickie or two was easy compared to this. One was just sex. This was making love. It pleased him no end that she understood what was happening, even if she wasn’t totally on board with it.

  Yet.

  “Coe...”

  “Yeah, babe?” With a practiced move he stroked a callused thumb along her damp channel, and smiled when her body jerked as if zapped with a live wire. “You wanted to say something?”

  “Ah...I...” It was clear she had something to say—probably either a protest or an attempt to hurry him along into another hit-and-run frenzy. Since there was no way he was going to let that happen, he bent his head to where his hand carefully spread the hot folds of her intimate flesh, and suckled her most sensitive point.

  Her broken cry was a symphony to his ears. Her bare heels dug into his back, pulling him harder into her in a wordless demand for more. Savage need ripped through him as he relentlessly stimulated the pulsating nub with his tongue and teeth. His rock-hard shaft swelled all the more at the sounds she made, and he clenched every muscle in his body to hold himself still. This was for her, all of it. And God help him, her pleasure was something he enjoyed even more than his own.

  Pleas and whimpers tumbled from her. He loved every last bit of it. Her whole body was alive, writhing against his mouth as he focused all his attention on that spot. The urge to touch himself was almost irresistible, but he knew that just one brush would make him lose it completely. So he kept his hands firmly on her hips, holding her as he worked his mouth on her. She ground herself harder against him, faster, faster...

  He felt her orgasm rip through her muscles even as a hoarse scream shattered through the silence. Explosions went off in his own brain, feverish and thrilled out of his mind at being the one who brought her such bliss. And as he watched her, he knew with absolute certainty that he’d never be able to get enough of this. There was no way. More than his next breath he wanted to keep her this shattered, this mindless. It was the greatest thing in the world, having her body respond like this when he touched her.

  And he wanted her to always crave this moment with him.

  Determination tightened the leash on his increasingly rabid need to bury himself inside her, and he refused to stop tormenting her even when the last of her helpless cries ebbed to shivering dry sobs.

  “Coe.” It was only a fractured breath even as her hips still pumped, but it was enough to bring his head up. “Coe. Oh, Coe. Please...”

  “Oh God, I love that so fucking much.” His chest clenched as she continued to whisper his name, as if it were the only word she knew. He left her just long enough to dig a condom out of the drawer in the bedside table, but grimly refused to put it on. Instead he squeezed his thighs tight for a moment to quell the raging need, and scrabbled for his crumbling inner will. “From now on whenever you say my name, even in public, all I’m going to be able to hear is you gasping my name as you come. Say it again.”

  “Coe. Coe, please...”

  He closed his eyes a moment before lowering his head once more. “Thank you, babe. Now, let’s do that again, and again. And maybe even again. Let’s see how long we can keep this up.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunlight filtered through Miranda’s closed lids. She turned her face into the pillow and did her best impression of an ostrich. Sun or not, it was way too early to be conscious. Sleep beckoned, misting her awareness around the edges until she drifted along with nothing more than the warm, masculine scent that was Coe to keep her company.

  Coe. She smiled into the softness around her. That man had the patience of a saint and an insatiable hunger for making her wild. Put those two traits together and it made up the most perfect lover the world had ever known. It seemed like it had been his mission in life to make her hyperventilate with pleasure, and she wasn’t sure she hadn’t passed out at one point. Had he been going for some sort of record when it came to pushing her to climax? Heaven knew that when it came to raw numbers, sh
e certainly had hit a personal best. Even if her muscles were now achy and heavy as wet noodles, she had no regrets.

  How could there be, when everything inside her was wearing a smile?

  Sleep had all but swallowed her whole once more when something jostled the bed. A moment later cool morning air touched her bareness a moment before something warm and wet spread along the small of her back.

  What the hell...?

  Confused, she began to push up, a pillow still half on her head.

  “No, don’t move.” A hand landed firmly between her shoulder blades and plastered her face down on the bed. “I don’t want it to get all over the place. I mean, it probably will, but I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “What?” Sleep locked her brain in neutral and she could barely make sense of the words. Wait. Whose words...? “Coe?”

  “Yeah, babe.” The hand at her back moved up and down over her spine before squeezing the muscles in her shoulder in a groan-worthy massage. “Good morning, and happy Thanksgiving. You’re still going with me to Lucy and Sully’s, right?”

  “Um.” Dimly she tried to recall if she’d agreed to that in the first place. Nothing came into focus. “I need coffee.”

  “Your wish is my command. I’ve got a pot brewing and I zapped some chocolate syrupy stuff Lucy pawned off on me. It was supposed to be ganache but it was a flop. Don’t tell her, but it actually tastes pretty good in coffee.” She felt the mattress move and the sudden glide of his tongue on the small of her back. “Mmm. And it tastes like heaven on your skin.”

  “Is that what that was?” The words came out wrapped around a huge yawn before she snuggled in deeper. That yawn took a lot of effort. “I thought I’d dreamed it.”

  “Nope.” He came to lay across her sheet-shrouded legs while leisurely bathing the chocolate from her with his mouth. The sensuality of his masculine weight pressing her into the mattress and his tongue against her skin seduced her senses until she tingled all over. “Though if this is a dream, with you here in my bed all warm and sleepy and chocolate-covered, I never want to wake up.”