Skin in the Game

by Jackie Barbosa

  He nodded. He did know. And he suddenly had a powerful urge to see the sunset from this perspective, too. If only to share it with her…

  Alone.

  ***

  Angie turned and looked out the window again, hoping he wouldn’t notice the flush heating her face.

  God, what must he think of her?

  First, she’d arrived wearing a dress that practically screamed “Fuck me” at the top of its lungs—and if the smoldering once-over Cade had given her when she came in was any indication, he’d gotten the message loud and clear. Then she’d all but begged to stay in his room instead of going out to a safe, public place for dinner. She couldn’t have made her intentions plainer if she’d stripped, headed for the bedroom, and asked where he kept the condoms.

  Her stomach churned. She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t want him to think she was some loose groupie who got off on sleeping with famous men, either. Not that it mattered to him one way or another as long as he got laid.

  Unfortunately, she found it did matter to her.

  “How about a glass of wine?” he asked from somewhere behind her.

  Angie looked over her shoulder to find him standing behind the extravagant wet bar.

  “Sure.”

  “Red or white?”

  “Red, please.”

  He disappeared behind the granite counter before reappearing with a bottle in his hand.

  “Good answer.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He chuckled as he twisted a corkscrew into the obviously expensive wine bottle. “You like your coffee without sugar and red wine? Definitely a woman after my own heart.”

  Her stomach pitched and dove. How was she supposed to take that? He couldn’t possibly mean for her to think he was serious. It was the kind of thing a man like him probably said to women all the time, right along with, “Of course, I’ll still respect you in the morning,” and, “I’ll call you.” Glib words that came easily and didn’t mean anything except, “I’m willing to pretend this is something more than a one-night-stand if it makes you feel better about having sex with a virtual stranger.”

  Once again, she was reminded of just how far she was stepping outside her comfort zone tonight, while he was well within his. He certainly seemed completely at ease.

  While she…she was a bundle of nerves.

  Fortunately, the cork came out of the bottle with an audible pop at just that moment, negating the need for a clever response. He poured two glasses and brought them out from behind the bar. She couldn’t help but admire the confident ease of his stride as he closed the distance between them, the cut of his dark blue dress slacks accentuating the defined musculature of his legs. Their fingers grazed as he placed the stem of the wineglass into her hand, sending a prickle of heated awareness up her arm to the back of her neck.

  Without speaking, he smiled and faced the window. The sinking sun tinged the horizon just above the tree line with a rich purplish-red and painted the undersides of the small clouds in shades of gold, pink, and orange. He swirled the wine in his glass before raising it to his lips and taking a swallow.

  Angie followed his lead, sipping her wine and watching in silence as brilliant color splashed across the sky. It was undoubtedly the most expensive and delicious wine she’d ever tasted, but the delightfully complex flavor was little more than a footnote in comparison to Cade’s presence beside her.

  Nothing had changed in sixteen years. Cade Reynolds still had the power to turn her into a trembling, tingling mass of hunger and need merely by being alive.

  “This was a great idea,” he said near her ear when the sky began to darken and the color to fade, bringing his free hand to rest at the small of her back, just below the low-cut opening of her dress. The warmth of his large, long-fingered palm radiated through the thin silk fabric, and the muscles in her belly and between her thighs tightened in response.

  The pressure of his hand carried a subtle yet unmistakable request. Turn toward me. Let me kiss you, touch you, have you.

  She wanted this…wanted him. Badly. And yet, she couldn’t stand for him to think she was into the whole casual sex thing. Somehow, that would cheapen the experience for her, even if it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to him.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she said, not turning to face him.

  “I know.”

  He did? How?

  “Like you said,” he continued, “you can’t see a proper sunset in Harper Falls.”

  Oh. She swallowed hard and looked down into her now nearly empty wineglass. Had she really downed it that fast? No wonder she was a little lightheaded. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “Mm,” he murmured, sliding his hand up to her waist. “What did you mean?”

  “Are you really going to make me spell it out?”

  He pressed his lips to her hair, just above her ear. Sweet and gentle and so good. “I think it’s best to start a relationship with complete honesty, don’t you?”

  Oh God. Angie closed her eyes and ignored the twinge of guilt that assaulted her.

  Sometimes, honesty was the best policy. Sometimes, it most definitely was not.

  Anyway, it wasn’t as though he was being completely honest, either. They both knew this was a hook-up, not a relationship.

  She took a steadying breath, looked up into Cade’s ridiculously handsome face, and spilled it. “I don’t normally sleep with men I just met.”

  Or even with men she’d known a long time, when it came right down to it. Angie Peterson’s sex life was decidedly unadventurous as a rule.

  A sexy little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Who said anything about sleeping?” He leaned in toward her, lowering his head, and—

  “I’m serious,” she protested, flattening her palm against his chest to stop his forward progress. “I know you do this all the time, but I—”

  “Wait a minute.” He pulled back, looking downright offended. “You think I sleep with women I just met on a regular basis?”

  “I just assumed—”

  Cade pressed a finger to her lips. “You know what they say about assuming. Just because I’m a guy and I travel a lot doesn’t mean my life is a string of one-night stands. I prefer to take my time and get to know a woman first.”

  “Oh.” She felt oddly deflated by this revelation. “Then I don’t understand…why did you invite me here tonight?”

  He moved his hand to cradle her jaw, his expression softening. “Because you’re smart, you’re beautiful, and for some weird reason, I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”

  Angie’s stomach twisted even as her blood heated at his touch. He didn’t remember her, not consciously, but on some level, he did know who she was. She ought to tell him the truth.

  Maybe he wouldn’t laugh and push her away when he realized she was klutzy, klunky Angie Petersen, the formerly four-eyed brain he and his friends had probably made fun of in the locker room.

  But he might.

  And if he did…then this would all be over, and he’d just called her smart and beautiful, and apparently she wasn’t just an easy lay to him.

  So she said, “It’s probably because I sound like home, what with my long Os and my Ya, sures.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted, brushing his thumb across her mouth, “but it feels like more than that. Besides, I don’t even think you’ve said ‘ya, sure’ to me yet.”

  Her heart beat erratically, and her knees felt soft and wobbly. She was really going to do this. Was really going to have sex with Cade Reynolds and, instinctively, she knew it was going to be the best sex of her life.

  It was now or never. Fish or cut bait.

  She turned and set her wineglass on the end table next to the sofa behind her. “We could change that,” she said.

  “Oh, really? What do you suggest?”

  “Ask if you can kiss me.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Hm, all right.” After setting his glass next to hers, he turned b
ack to her and asked, with a very straight face, “Can I kiss you?”

  “Ya, sure,” she drawled in her deepest, darkest Minnesota accent.

  He chuckled, a low, deep rumble of appreciation. “You’re right. You do sound like home.”

  Angie held her breath, waiting, but he didn’t immediately follow through. Instead, he traced his thumb up her jaw to the sensitive spot behind her ear and cupped the side of her face with his large palm. Tension built and sizzled under her skin as his hand found its way to the back of her head and his fingers threaded through her hair.

  She let out a thready little moan of pleasure as his fingers began to knead her scalp.

  Surely he would kiss her now. The anticipation was killing her. But no. His other hand slid around her waist and pressed into the small of her back, molding their bodies together. They fit like puzzle pieces, planes to angles, convex to concave. The stark evidence of his arousal, thick and long, rested against her belly.

  He wanted her. A lot.

  But still, he didn’t kiss her.

  Maddening.

  “Are you ever going to kiss me, then?” she asked, exasperated.

  His blue eyes glittered with mirth. “Oh, ya, sure,” he drawled.

  Her laugh was smothered by his mouth covering hers.

  It was the kiss she’d waited for all her life—an exquisite blend of give and take, of hard and soft, of sweet and dirty. Everything she’d ever dreamed a kiss could be, and yet nothing she’d ever imagined in her wildest fantasies.

  Lips meshed and mingled. Tongues stroked and tangled. Breath hitched and blended.

  Somehow, his hands found her bottom, cupping her buttocks through the thin fabric of her dress.

  He was fire and she was a forest, longing for the conflagration to sweep through her.

  His mouth left her lips, traveled to her throat. Her head dropped back, the muscles too weak to support its weight as Cade’s lips traced a path down her neck to her collarbone. She was vaguely aware of one sleeve of the dress peeling away, exposing the overheated skin of her shoulder to the cool air of the room.

  A sudden gust of air escaped her as Cade’s mouth closed over one bare nipple—how and when had that happened?—and suckled. Her sex grew damp and heavy with need as he teased the areola with his tongue, and she had to cling to his broad, muscled shoulders for support.

  “I knew it,” he muttered thickly against her breast.

  “Knew what?” Her voice was shaky, barely recognizable as her own.

  He glanced up at her through those insanely thick lashes, and she saw the intensity of her own desire reflected in his eyes, the dark blue of his irises nearly engulfed by the black of his dilated pupils. “That you’d have perfect breasts.”

  A thrill twirled through her midsection. No one had ever called her breasts perfect before.

  “How did you know?”

  He ran his hand over her naked shoulder. “No bra. Knew you weren’t wearing one when I first saw you.”

  She flushed. “I can’t with this dress.”

  “I wasn’t complaining.” He straightened and brushed his lips against her forehead.

  “Maybe we could slip into something a little more comfortable? Like the bed.”

  Her stomach pinched with nervous anticipation, but she nodded. She was about to turn and walk toward the bedroom when he swept her, literally, off her feet and into his arms.

  “Oh,” she said on a surprised whoosh.

  The muscles in his arms and chest corded as he held her, but he seemed to support her weight—which was hardly insubstantial—without effort. He felt warm and solid and deliciously male. Even better, he made her feel utterly female, almost small and delicate. She couldn’t help smiling to herself as she buried her face against his shoulder and inhaled his spicy, masculine scent. How often did a woman who was almost six feet tall and loved football as much as she did get to feel like…well, like a woman?

  When they reached the bedroom, he deposited her on the edge of the king-sized bed and kicked off his loafers. Her stomach did another nosedive when he knelt in front of her and slid his hands around her ankles and then up her calves.

  “The first thing I noticed about you was your legs, you know. Those pants you were wearing…” He let out a low, appreciative growl.

  Her thoughts were dangerously fragmented by the sensation of his palms against her bare skin, but she tried to recall what she’d been wearing. Just a T-shirt and her khaki capris. Knock-arounds, really.

  “They weren’t anything special,” she protested weakly as he reached her knees, spreading her legs further apart and hiking up the fabric of her dress.

  “Maybe not. But what was in them sure is.”

  His fingers trailed up to her inner thighs, making her gasp and raising goose bumps all the way to her panty line. He bent his head and kissed the dimpled flesh inside her knees. Every muscle in her lower abdomen clenched in response, though whether to intensify or alleviate the rising ache, she wasn’t sure.

  “You have great breasts,” he said, “but you have amazing legs.”

  How could he keep up such a conversational tone? With his hot breath caressing her as his mouth and hands continued their lazy trek up toward her pulsing, greedy core, she could scarcely string two words together in her head, much less utter them.

  “I’m really more of a leg man than a breast man,” he went on, “although there is one part of a woman I like even more.” His finger slid beneath the elastic band of her panties, just brushing her labia.

  “Oh, God.” All right, maybe she could string two words together after all. But only two.

  He nuzzled her clitoris through the thin fabric of her panties, inhaling deeply as if she smelled better than a gourmet meal. As if he wanted to savor her like one.

  And he was going to, she realized, her heart pounding furiously. He slipped his finger all the way inside her panties, drew aside the panel covering the soft flesh. Her limbs went warm and buttery at the knowledge that he was really going to do it—lick her there—and she scrabbled for purchase on the slippery bedspread, desperate to keep herself upright even as every muscle in her body demanded she collapse back onto the bed.

  “Mmmm,” he rumbled, a sound of exquisite pleasure, and then she felt the warmth of his tongue against her folds, delving into her slit in teasing little jabs that made her want to squirm.

  Not that she could. He had shifted his hands to grab her hips, holding her steady beneath the advancing onslaught of his tongue. Heat curled in her belly as he drew closer and closer to her clitoris but never quite touched it, the throbbing anticipation so intense, it bordered on pain.

  “Please,” she whispered when she was sure she would explode if she had to wait one second longer to feel him there.

  “Easy. Just have to taste you a little more and then I’ll give you what you want, love.”

  Love. She squeezed her eyes shut, her heart soaring at the word. Of course he didn’t mean it, not really, but her body didn’t care. Whether it was true or not, she felt adored—even worshipped. Never had a lover take such time, such care, such joy in her pleasure.

  He swiped his tongue more deeply between her folds now—in and out, up and down—until, at last, he reached the swollen, molten center of her need. The pressure inside her built and built as he concentrated his attentions on that one exquisitely sensitive and needy bit of flesh.

  Her breath came in short, sharp pants as her world became smaller and smaller, her whole being focused on what he was doing to her and how glorious he made her feel.

  More, more, more. Could there ever be too much?

  And then, before she was ready for it, there was too much, and everything inside her broke and came apart, hurtling her into a shattering climax. When it was over, she dropped back onto the bed, weak and breathless and utterly amazed.

  Not only had the ugly duckling become a swan; the swan had taken flight.

  Chapter Four

  Cade got to his feet an
d stood there a while, admiring his handiwork. Angela Petersen lay flat on her back, her incredible legs hanging over the side, her dress hiked up around her waist and one perfect breast exposed to his view. With her cheeks flushed and loose tendrils of blond hair clinging to her temples, she was simply the sexiest, most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Every red-blooded guy’s wet dream.

  And she was in his bed.

  Damn, he was one lucky bastard. If he’d left the coffee shop instead of sitting in the back corner, if he’d decided to read the paper or a book instead of people-watching, he would have missed her. Missed this.

  Her respiration began to ease from the short, shallow pants of a sprinter after a race to longer, more measured inhalations. He loved the way her breasts rose and fell as she breathed, one pebble-hard nipple bared to his view, the other clearly outlined by the thin knit fabric of her dress. The crotch of her panties was invitingly askew, revealing a light dusting of curls, their color a few shades darker than the hair on her head.

  As much as he wanted to take up that invitation, he wanted to savor imagining the moment when he slid inside her. She would be tight but yielding, slick with desire, pliant with the satisfaction he’d already given her. Her long legs would wrap around his hips, her taut nipples would brush against his chest, and she would make those erotic, throaty moans as he thrust inside her and made her come again.

  His cock throbbed at the picture he was conjuring, but still Cade didn’t move. There could be only one first time, and he wanted to make it last.

  Just in case it was the last.

  Angela cracked an eyelid and let out a little puff of exasperated laughter. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “Kidding? About what?”

  “Preferring to take your time.”

  “Ah, that.” He gave her a lascivious grin and waggled his eyebrows. “I wasn’t thinking so much about taking my time as enjoying the view. However,” he went on, popping open the first button of the ruby red silk dress shirt he’d donned in anticipation of their dinner date, “you know what they say.”

  Her gaze fastened on his chest as he continued unbuttoning. “Um, no. What do they say?”