by Judi Fennell
Bryan pulled his hands from his pockets and raked one of them through his hair. “Jesus, Beth. Did you have to say that?”
“You asked.”
“I know. But that was because I didn’t think the answer was going to be yes.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not following this discussion. Why are you here?”
“This. This is why I’m here.”
It took him two steps and he had her in his arms. Another second and he was kissing her. Half a second after that, she’d recovered her wits enough to lose them all over again when the kiss went from hello to hot in the next breath.
God, she wanted this. Needed it. Needed him.
“Beth, tell me to stop,” he groaned as he ran his hands over her back, down to her butt, then, ohthankyouJesus, under her T-shirt.
She shook her head, and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. She wasn’t telling him to stop. Not now. He shouldn’t have come if he hadn’t wanted this.
He pulled her up against him. Oh yeah, he wanted this.
“I want you, Beth. I know I said I shouldn’t, but I do, and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
The words were incredible and so were his hands and his lips and the scent and taste of him and thank God he couldn’t stop because she didn’t know what she’d do if he did.
Beth wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her aching breasts against him. God, she wanted him to touch her there. Needed him to. It’d been so incredibly long since she’d wanted someone’s hands on her. And lips and tongue . . .
“Bryan, touch me. Please.” She hadn’t wanted to beg, but that please sure sounded like begging and, funny, she didn’t care.
Bryan got it. He cupped the back of her head with both hands and brushed his nose against hers. “I will, Beth. I will. Among so many other things . . . if you’ll let me?”
His green eyes danced between hers, looking for an answer. Beth wasn’t quite sure of the question but she knew that whatever Bryan asked her to do tonight, she’d do. And tomorrow as well. Even Sunday, right up until the kids came home.
Now was not the time to think about the kids. It was time to think only about her and Bryan and what they could do for and to and with each other.
But Bryan stopped kissing her. “Beth. Sweetheart. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have—”
“I don’t want to hear it. You came here for a reason. What was it, Bryan?” She wasn’t playing games. She, more than most, knew how quickly life could be gone. She wasn’t going to waste one more minute of hers on should bes. It was time for could be, and she wanted a could be with Bryan.
She wrapped her fingers in his hair and tugged. “Tell me, Bryan. What had you leaving your movie set and coming back here? Tonight? At eleven o’clock? To your home town that’s so far from the bright lights of Hollywood?”
He searched her eyes once more, then took a deep breath and it was as if some big momentous decision had been made.
“You, Beth. I needed you. To see you. Be with you.” His voice lowered. “Touch you.”
“And now that you’re here? Now that you have me in your arms?” She stroked the back of his neck and if she wasn’t mistaken, she felt shivers go through him.
He cupped her cheek and tilted her chin up with his thumb. “I want you. You know that.” He pressed his lower half against her. “Hell, it’s not like it’s a big secret. Lady, you’ve got me so twisted up inside, I can think of nothing and no one but you.”
“Not even Carina Dempsey?” Okay, she shouldn’t have tossed the actress’s name in there. Bryan wasn’t asking her to marry him. Hell, she wasn’t quite sure what he was asking her, but Carina or any other woman didn’t factor into this.
“Who?” Bryan gave her that cocky half smile he was known for and it did to her what it did to millions of other women.
But millions of other women aren’t in his arms, so why in the world are you jabbering on about some actress when the man just told you he wants you?
“Never mind.” She brushed his gorgeous hair back from his face and let her fingers trace gently over his ear.
“Beth . . .” His voice was low. Almost a growl.
“Yes?”
“If you keep doing that . . .”
“This?” She traced the outer shell of his ear so lightly it was almost as if she wasn’t touching him. But she was. She knew it.
And so did he. He shivered again and pressed his lower half against her even more.
His cock swelled against her thigh. “Do you see what that does to me?” he whispered almost in agony. “There’s no Carina, no other actress. No other woman. Only you. And me. Here. Now.”
And that’s all it’ll be went unspoken, but Kara’s words also ran through her head. Take this time for you. Enjoy what Bryan’s offering just for the simple pleasure of it. There didn’t have to be long-term strings attached. No big, grandiose life plan. Just two people who wanted each other spending time exploring that desire.
“I want you, Bryan.” There. She’d said it. Ball was in his court.
He took it and ran with it. Or rather, he ran with her. He scooped her up in his arms like Jason had Maggie, but that’s where the similarities ended because the look in Bryan’s eyes said he most definitely didn’t see her as sister material.
“Your room okay?” he asked, striding to the front steps.
“Well, certainly not any of the kids’.”
He stopped at the base of the stairs and his smile faded as he searched her eyes yet again. “I just meant, since it was your and your husband’s room . . .”
If she didn’t already have feelings for him, that would have done it. She reached up to caress his cheek. “It’s okay, Bryan. Mike would be happy for me.”
“Then he’s a better man than I am, but I’m not going to be so noble as to turn you down.” He took the steps by twos and strode down the hallway, past each of the kids’ rooms, until at last, he reached her room.
Moonlight sifted through the French doors to the balcony and glittered across the bed. She’d chosen faceted door panels for just this reason; she loved the pattern the moonlight cast upon her bed, like something out of a fairytale.
Sort of like tonight.
Bryan set her on the bed, then sat beside her, the backs of his fingers stroking her cheek almost reverently. “You’re sure, Beth. I can’t make you many promises, but I can promise that I want you. That there’s no one else I’d rather be here with.”
“Shh, Bryan.” She ran her fingers over his lips, getting chills when he kissed them. “I’m not asking for the fairy tale. I’m just so glad you decided to come back. For however long you want to be here.”
His eyes roamed her face again and Beth was almost afraid to breathe, wondering if she’d scare him off. She wanted him so much, wanted this so much, it almost scared her off. She hadn’t planned on this. Hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t even really been thinking about it. All she’d wanted to do was help her kids get beyond the aftermath of Mike’s accident and move on with their lives. She hadn’t really thought about getting that same chance herself.
Bryan slid his hand into her hair and tugged her closer for another kiss. No words, no preamble, just a God’s-honest-truth, raw hunger sort of kiss.
Beth was so with him.
She lay back as he pressed against her, wanting—no needing—to feel him on top of her, and somehow managed to work her T-shirt up to just below her breasts. Her aching breasts that were just begging for his touch and his kiss and, ohdeargod, his tongue and his lips.
She’d settle for his hands so that when he drew them down her sides, Beth arched into him, wanting that sensation all over the rest of her.
“God, Beth, you’re so responsive.”
“That’s what you do to me, Bryan.” She gasped when his fingertips danced across her belly, the sensation making a beeline straight to her core, and Beth couldn’t help the tingles that suffused her and the goose bumps that broke out across her skin, maki
ng her shiver.
“Are you cold?” Bryan asked, stilling his fingers.
“I will be if you stop doing that.” She wiggled from side to side to make her point and, smart man that he was, he started stroking her again while his lips sought hers.
She could so get used to kissing Bryan Manley.
• • •
HE was kissing Beth.
Beth Hamilton.
Widowed mother of five.
The one he’d sworn he’d stay away from.
The press would have a field day with this if they got wind of it.
Mac would have a field day if she got wind of it.
She wasn’t going to. No one was going to. This was only about him and Beth and this incredible chemistry between them.
He inched her T-shirt up the smooth skin of her belly. Five kids and the woman didn’t look as if she’d carried one.
She gasped into his mouth when his thumb found her nipple and, holy hell, what that sound did to him. His cock went so hard so fast he was ready to be inside her now. This instant. Wanted to feel her around him, enveloping him, taking him into that most private part of her.
God, he wanted her.
Slow down, Manley. Enjoy it already. It’s gonna have to last you a lot of years because this shit ain’t happening on a daily—or weekly or even monthly—basis. You got plans, buddy. Big plans. And they don’t include six tag-alongs.
He shut the voice down. Way to kill the moment. He wasn’t asking Beth to spend the rest of her life with him—and she wasn’t asking him to ask her that—so why go down that path?
Because you do want to spend the rest of your life with her, you’re just too pig-headed to admit it.
Not pig-headed, smart. Driven. Focused. He had a plan. After living in near-poverty during his childhood and adolescence, Bryan would never do that again, and this job was the means to securing his future and his peace of mind. A couple mil in the bank and he’d finally be able to rest easier.
Beth shifted under him and Bryan pulled his head out of the future and back into the here and now. He had Beth Hamilton writhing on the bed beneath him. Her legs felt so good against his, and every flutter of her abdomen when she gasped stroked his cock in a way nothing else could.
He’d done this to her. He’d made her a gasping, panting, writhing woman who looked so utterly beautiful on the blue bedspread—he’d been right, blue was a good color on her.
He raised himself enough to take his lips from her and enjoy the sight of her opening her eyes to see why he’d stopped.
“What?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I wanted to look at you.”
She blushed. Amazing that after five kids and a healthy marriage, Beth still blushed. “Why?”
“Because you’re so beautiful, and I’ve fantasized about this so much that I can’t really believe I’m here. That this is going to happen.”
She reached up to cup his cheek again. God, he loved when she did that, her eyes all dark and intent—and intense—gazing into his. “Please don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.” Her thighs clenched on his. “I don’t think I could survive it if you do.”
If she clenched his hips that hard when he was inside her, he wouldn’t survive. Already his cock was so hard it was painful, and his fingers were itching to close over her breast.
So he let them. And was rewarded with the sexiest back-arching twisting move he’d never seen before. And Beth moaning, too. Well, a long aching moan interspersed by several gasping breaths as he ran his thumb over her nipple. “Like that?”
She bit her bottom lip and her eyes fluttered open. “Uh-huh.”
He flicked it again.
She whimpered and arched into his caress.
“I’m taking that as a yes.”
She looked at him then, the look in her eyes nailing him in place. “Oh God, Bryan, don’t stop.”
“This?” He flicked her nipple again.
“That, kissing me, touching me . . . anything else you want to do to me.”
He wanted to do so much more.
“Okay, Beth, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now slide down to the bottom of this bed and let me show you how it’s done.”
Chapter Thirty-four
HOLY moly, did Bryan show her how it was done.
The man could make a songbird weep.
He made parts of her weep. One very tingly, very aching part in particular.
“Oh my God, Bryan.” She gasped moans of sheer pleasure when Bryan lowered his mouth to her thighs. He wasn’t even at her center and already she was on fire. “Touch me. Please.”
“I will, baby. Don’t be so impatient.”
She managed a laugh. Two years. Let’s see him after two years of forced celibacy.
She managed yet another chuckle. She highly doubted Bryan had ever had even two minutes of forced celibacy.
He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and Beth felt moisture seep into them. She didn’t know how much foreplay she could take because she wanted Bryan too badly, but asking for a quick wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am was just so out of place on this, their first time together.
Next time, however . . .
“What are you smiling at?” he whispered with a sexy-as-all-get-out growl.
“You. There.”
He rocked back on his heels a bit and looked at her. All of her. “And look at you. There.” He tugged her panties down. “Now look at you.”
He slid them off her legs, then ran his palms up her thighs, over her hipbones, to the curve of her waist, lighting a fire beneath her skin that she hadn’t felt in two very long years.
“God, Beth, you’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”
“You imagined this?”
“This? No. I couldn’t come up with this. What I imagined doesn’t do you justice and if I’d known, really known, how beautiful you are, I would never have left.”
“But I asked you to.”
“And I should have tried to talk you out of it.”
She smiled. “But you didn’t because you left for the same reason I asked you to go.”
“A reason that hasn’t changed.” He took his hands from her. “Should I leave?”
She grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts. “Stop talking, Bryan. You’re here and the kids aren’t and we have tonight. And tomorrow if you want.”
“Tomorrow night?” He arched an eyebrow above that sideways grin.
Beth laughed. It felt so good to laugh. “Sure. Tomorrow night. If you think you’re up for it.”
They both looked at his groin. Oh yeah, he was up for it.
“That’s not an issue.”
“I can see that.” Beth sat up. “But not exactly the way I’d like to.” She undid the button on his shorts.
His abs contracted, giving her enough space to brush her fingers beneath the waistband.
“God, Beth, that’s amazing.”
“That’s nothing compared to what I plan to do to you.”
“I should never have left.”
She slid the zipper down. “Ssshhh. What’s done is done. We’re here now. Let’s enjoy it.”
He helped her shove his shorts down his hips. “I intend to.”
He kicked them off, then crawled up the bed, straddling her legs and grabbing her T-shirt with his teeth.
His five o’clock shadow scraped her belly, making her wiggle. “Bryan! That tickles!”
He stopped with the T-shirt between her breasts. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.” He waggled his eyebrows. And went right back to scraping her skin with his chin, back and forth over her breasts. And then her nipples.
Ohmygod, the sensation . . . Beth stopped wiggling. Instead she grabbed the sheets and held on for dear life because if he kept that up, she just might fly off the bed.
His lips replaced his chin.
Oh. My. God. Beth clenched her legs because the throbbing there was just insane.
He tugged on
her nipple, then released it. “Like that?”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. He’d taken her breath and her voice.
“Ah, I’ll take that as a yes, too.” Then he moved to the other one.
By the time he was ready to move on to her collarbone and her neck and her jaw and a whole host of other delicious spots, Beth could barely keep a grip on her sanity, never mind the sheets. Somehow, her fingers had migrated to his hair and she wasn’t letting go. Especially when he maddeningly refused to kiss her.
“Bryan.” She tugged his hair.
“Mmmmm.” He mouthed it against her throat, his lips and tongue and hot breath not driving her wild nearly as much as that vibration against her pulse.
“Bryan, kiss me.”
“I am.” He sucked on her neck.
“Hey!” She twisted. “No hickies!”
He rested on his elbows and looked at her. “Why not? Hickies are fun.”
“Except that everyone will know where I got mine. Or they’ll wonder and that’s almost as bad as them knowing.”
“Ah.” More waggling eyebrows. “You’re ashamed of me.”
“Don’t tease me, Bryan. I’m serious.”
His face lost that teasing look. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was just having some fun. I wasn’t going to give you a hickey.”
“Oh. Okay, then.”
“Well, at least not there.” He lowered his lips to the underside of her breast. “Not where everyone can see. But here . . .” He sucked her skin into his mouth . . . and kept sucking.
Oh God, the tug she felt low in her belly . . .
Desire flooded through her and she cradled his head against her. God, yes, she wanted him to mark her. Only they would know, and she’d have a physical reminder of tonight, if only for a little while.
He slid his thigh between hers and she clenched it. “Oh, Bryan . . .” She couldn’t keep from moaning his name. He just felt so damn good on top of her. Between her legs, kissing her, holding her.
“Say my name again, Beth. I love the way you say it.” He kissed her nipple again and worked his way back up to her neck, every skin-shivering inch he traveled making her gasp out his name.