She took his hand and wove her fingers through his. “Come on. Show me the rest of the house you grew up in.”
He got to his feet and tugged her up. “We’re still on the tour?”
“I booked the grand tour, Maguire. I want my money’s worth.”
“All right. Follow me.” He led them inside and down the hall, pausing by the house’s only full bath. “Bathroom,” he said, though the thing spoke for itself.
“Wow. Four people, one bathroom. That must have been challenging at times.”
“My parents had a half bath in their bedroom. Derek and I shared this one. Kind of the way two Rottweilers share a kennel, but we managed.”
“Savannah and I shared a bathroom, too. I don’t imagine yours looked like an Ulta pop-up shop.”
“Not so much. For a long time, the tub was basically an arsenal full of water guns and other weaponry designed to lure us into the bath. Once Derek hit puberty, the clutter migrated over there.” He pointed to the small counter surrounding the sink. “Hair product, zit gel, and some righteously foul cologne Derek used that smelled like vanilla wafers laced with Pine-Sol.”
Sinclair grimaced. “Strangely, I know exactly which one you’re talking about.”
“The first time Derek used it, Dad yelled, ‘What the fuck is that smell?’ This was all the way from the living room, mind you. Derek called back, ‘That’s the smell of me about to get lucky as fuck.’ The old man said, ‘You’ll be lucky somebody doesn’t hose you down with a power sprayer.’” A reluctant laugh bubbled up from his chest. “One of the few times I agreed with him.”
Memories swirling, he continued down the hall. The door to his parents’ bedroom hung open on the right, and to the left, his and Derek’s room. He gestured Sinclair inside and then stepped in behind her. Even empty, the cramped chamber was smaller than he remembered. Two twin beds, two nightstands, and an upright dresser had pretty much spoken for all the space. Curious, he wandered to the closet and ran his hand along the doorframe. A layer of paint had been applied sometime during the last ten years, but his fingertips felt out the ladder of short, thin indentations running up the frame. Sinclair traced one with her fingernail. “What’s this?”
“Derek and I measured ourselves every six months or so, and much to our mom’s dismay, marked our progress with a Swiss Army Knife our grandfather had given us.”
“How do you know which mark goes with which of you?”
“For most of this, Derek’s the higher mark.” He swept his hand up and stopped at shoulder level. “About here, I caught up, and then the marks switch.”
“That happened with me and Savannah, too. She’s still a little bent about not getting her fair share of the height genes.”
“Derek was pissed at first, but then he took to insisting he didn’t care because he had the bigger dick.”
Sinclair raised one dark eyebrow. “I can’t speak with certainty, but I find that hard to believe.”
He slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him. “I doubt a strict measurement would bear his claim out, but Derek definitely had the bigger mouth.”
“That, I believe.” She turned into him, resting her hands under shirt, along his abs. The feel of her palms on his skin was all it took to have his dick straining painfully against the rivets of his button fly. Her smile turned challenging. “Did you ever sneak a girl in here?”
“Once or twice.”
Her fingers hooked into the waist of his jeans, and she dropped to her knees. His head went light as the rest of the blood in his body flowed directly to his cock, causing it to swell to new dimensions.
“So, I wouldn’t be the first one to give you a blowjob here?”
“No, baby girl, ’fraid not.”
She undid the first button on his fly, then the next, and looked up at him again. “Who wins that distinction?”
His mind spun for a second, working hard to track the conversation, and then skated back almost fifteen years, to pretty, energetic, and, at the time, far more worldly Shannon Grieger. Kyle’s sister. He hadn’t thought of her in well over a decade. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
The earned him an eye roll, but she yanked open the remaining buttons. “I guess I’ll have to settle for being the last.”
“Holy…shit. And the best,” he managed. He hadn’t bothered with underwear, and she didn’t bother with any civilized decencies, either. She wrestled him out and deep-throated him like a pro. Like she’d spent the last six days hungering for him as much as he’d starved for her. Her warmth engulfed him. She cradled him there for a long, extraordinary moment, letting him pulse in the sweet, soft haven of her mouth, and then, keeping her lips sealed tight, she flicked her tongue along his shaft, moving steadily up, up, up to his tip. When she reached it, she cupped his balls and laved the blunt head, lulling him into a false sense of complacency before spearing the tip of her tongue into the agonizingly sensitive opening.
His body went up in flames. His breath exploded from his chest in a harsh grunt that echoed in the cave of a room. She slowly worked her way down, tugging gently, and then not too gently, on his balls as she went. His legs threatened to buckle. Another second of this and he was going to come on his knees in his childhood bedroom, without even understanding what had compelled her to bring him here. No good. He wanted inside her—inside her body and her mind—and getting there required conversation. He threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged her head back until his cock slid out of her mouth and bobbed heavily in the cool air. Little white lights danced around the fringes of his vision, but he blinked them away and brought her beautiful face into focus.
“Why here?” His voice sounded like a rusty hinge.
Her lips curved into the faintest of smiles. “So, the next time you feel like you don’t have roots, you remember two little sets of hand prints on a back porch, and height marks notched in a closet door. The next time Ricky or one of his cohorts calls you an outsider, you remember hours of PlayStation with the neighborhood kids, or three minutes of heaven while some slut who shall not be named went down on you in your boyhood bedroom.”
She was doing her best to keep things light, but his heart literally skipped a beat. He knelt until they were face-to-face. “You wanted to show me I have roots here?”
“Something along those lines.”
That she’d gone to the trouble left him at a loss for words. He considered his upbringing unimportant at best, and depressing at worst. Either way, it had nothing to do with her, but even so she’d taken these memories, dusted them off, handed them back to him, and told him to look again. This was where he came from, whether or not he appreciated the fact. Then she’d gotten down on her knees to show him she appreciated it.
“Thank you,” he finally managed. Thinking it was time he thanked her properly, he shoved his hand under the loose waist of her baggy jeans and into her panties A quick inhale greeted his touch.
“Well, I had selfish motives, too,” she admitted on a breathless exhale.
“Did you?” He eased a finger insider her, and her eyelids fluttered.
“Uh…huh. You’ve not only been inside my house, you’ve been in my childhood home—twice. Seen the embarrassing pictures. Heard the embarrassing stories.” She slid her hand into her pants and covered his. “I had to even the score.”
He moved his hand beneath hers, stroking her in the process, and then pushed deeper. Her body yielded, accepting two fingers this time. Over her gasp, he asked, “Are we even now?”
“Almost.” But then she surprised him by bringing her hand to his cheek and touching her lips to his in a tender kiss. “I wasn’t one of those friends who came over to play video games, or one of those girls who climbed through your window, so I never got to see this side of your life before. I wanted to. I wanted you to share the memories with me.”
“I’ll share anything you want. But to be honest”—he paused and circled his fingers—“I’m more interested in making new memories th
an revisiting the old ones.”
Sweat sheened her upper lip. Her tongue darted out to lick it away, and his cock throbbed at the very new memory of her tongue licking it from base to tip. “Did you ever sneak a girl in here and have sex?”
“You’re still hung up on the firsts?” He moved his hand again. Kneading her where she was soft. Stretching her where she was tight.
“I want this memory to be unique,” she moaned and rocked her hips. “Missionary?”
“Yes.” He pressed her mound with the heel of his hand. Her eyes went blurry. Her hips rocked against him.
“Okay. All right. Cowgirl?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Jesus, Shane.” She rocked again, finding a steady rhythm now, coating his palm with silky heat. “What haven’t you done here yet?”
“Is that what you’re offering me?”
“Yes.” She bit the word out and rocked with abandon.
“Are you going to ride my hand first?”
That stopped her in her tracks. “Do I need to?”
He wanted to laugh, but schooled his expression to give nothing away. “Kinda seems like you want to. Not a problem if you do. I’ll make you come again…one way or another.”
Those blue eyes went round and a shade wary, but she squared her chin. “First things first, Maguire.”
“Fine. Just remember, this was your idea.” He eased his hand out of her pants and tugged the buttons open. Then he turned her around and positioned her onto all fours. Next, he dragged her jeans and panties down and took his time arranging them before adjusting her knees a little wider. “Comfy?”
She laughed, sounding a little relieved. “Wow. Big, bad Shane Maguire never managed to talk a girl onto her hands and knees in here before now.”
“Oh, I did. You’re not going to be on your hands and knees.” He leaned over her, deliberately letting his cock settle into the valley bisecting her lush, yielding cheeks, and pushed her upper body down until she folded her forearms on the floor. Then, with his hand across the back of her neck, he lowered her forehead to rest on her wrists. Just as slowly, he straightened, closed his fist around his cock, and dragged it down the divide.
“Oh, God.” She stiffened and jerked her head up, trapping his cock mid-journey. “Anal?” She craned her neck and looked at him with wide blue eyes. “Really?” Skittish muscles tightened again, giving him another squeeze.
“If you keep doing that, it’s going to be me shooting six days’ worth of pent-up longing all over your spectacular ass.” And with that threat hanging in the air, he closed his eyes and mentally recited the oath of enlistment, taking that crucial five seconds to get himself under control. “Your suggestion would qualify as a first for me in this room, but no, that wasn’t what I had in mind.” Just to punish her a little for being such a stickler on this “first” business, he tacked on, “But if you want it to be…?”
“Uh, sure. I can’t get enough of that action.” She dropped her head back down to her wrists and with manufactured nonchalance that fell far short of the mark said, “Go for it.”
Yeah, right. No lube. No prep. Just go for it. Little miss voice-of-experience didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. He flexed his hips a millimeter, and when every muscle in her body braced, he worked his cock down those tight cheeks, bypassing the uninitiated territory her pride had offered up without consulting her common sense, and continued to his original destination. She trembled when he slid his head around her soft, slick folds—giving her enough to tease her clit and then pulling back almost all the way to the place she claimed couldn’t get enough attention. “You’ve never had it before, have you?”
“Umm…” She rocked her hips up, back, side to side, keeping up with his roaming cock. “Not in this room, no.”
“Not ever.”
“Okay, no.” Frustration got the better of her. “But I’m dying here. It’s been six days for me, too, Shane. Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it.”
“I appreciate the option, but…”—he sank into her softness—“you’ve got your favorite toy, and I’ve got mine. This is what I’ve been dreaming about for the last six days.”
She moaned her gratitude, and her internal muscles quickened around him in a flurry of welcome. He clamped his hands on her hips and started to move in slow, controlled strokes.
“Well, the offer stands, just so you kno…ooh…oh,” she gasped as he drove deep, letting her have every inch.
“Tell you what, Sinclair, when I take that particular virginity, I’ll do it just as carefully as I took the other. I’ll lay you down on a blanket under our tree. I’ll use my mouth first, and then my fingers, to get you primed, and ready. Once you’re there, I’ll sit you on my lap and let you take me in—as much as you can, as slowly as you need to. When you’re squirming around, when you can’t keep still, can’t think beyond finding some relief for yourself, I’ll put you on your knees, just like this.” He braced an arm by her elbow, skimmed his other hand down to cover her quivering sex, and increased the pace and force of his thrusts. “And give it to you good, just like this.” His hand became her backstop. She grinded against it every time he slammed into her. The breathless sounds she made when she was about to come punctuated each slap of their bodies. “I won’t stop until you press your face into the blanket and come so hard you cry tears of joy.”
She arched up, and her body went stiff an instant before her broken sob assured him he’d gotten her there. That’s all it took to send him over. The bedroom, the house, hell, the entire world receded to just one thing—him, moving inside her like lightning and then coming in a long, violent rush so profound he felt like he surrendered everything inside him. Body, and soul.
This was his. Not the town, or the house, but the woman. He loved her. Maybe he’d never really stopped loving her and he’d just allowed himself believe letting her go had been the right thing to do. This time around he wasn’t letting go. Nobody, including Ricky Pinkerton, could tell him he didn’t belong.
Chapter Fifteen
Sinclair took a sip of wine and glanced around Beau and Savannah’s apartment, well aware her sister was giving her the eye from across the table. Hoping to maintain control of the conversation, she pointed to the wall behind Savannah and said, “I love that painting you picked up on your honeymoon.” The small watercolor from Bora Bora fit in well with the eclectic mix of art in her sibling’s large and uniquely varied collection.
Savannah didn’t even bother glancing behind her. She nudged her dinner plate away, rested her elbows on the table, and propped her chin across her linked fingers.
The blown-glass pendant lights suspended overhead showered gold highlights in her blond curls and made her look like a younger version of their mother.
“Well, that about covers all your topics, right? We’ve talked about how the baby’s coming along, how your trade show went, and what you have lined up for the jewelry expo next week in New York. You’re up-to-date on Beau’s schedule—he’s sorry he’s missing tonight, by the way—”
“Me, too.” Something told her she was about to be really sorry, because Savannah shared more with their mother than looks. She would only be put off for so long. Sinclair had held her sister’s curiosity at bay for almost a month, thanks to her ability to dodge phone calls and keep her texts short and baby-focused.
“Now it’s my turn. For my topic, I choose you and Shane. You decided to give things a second chance, and it’s going well.”
“Um…is that a question?”
“Not really. Your face tells me as much.”
“What’s up with my face?”
Savannah laughed. “Have you seen yourself lately? Nobody glows like you unless they’re getting it good. I don’t care how well the trade show went.”
At one point in her life, she’d managed to keep a big secret for a pretty long time. When had she become such an open book? Seeking to stall, she got up and cleared their plates. “I can’t discuss this withou
t pie.”
Savannah pushed back from the table and stood, smoothing the flannel shirt she’d obviously stolen from Beau over her stomach and unconsciously giving Sinclair a glimpse of baby bump. “I’ll supply the pie.” She walked to the small, galley-style kitchen. “You supply the details.”
“There’s really not much to tell,” she demurred and put the dishes in the sink, while Savannah cut generous slices from a home-baked Dutch apple pie. She handed one to Sinclair, took one for herself, and led them back to the table.
“Your perma-smile says different.” She settled herself in her chair and waited until Sinclair did the same. “Soooo, what’s the deal?”
Sinclair raised a forkful of pie to her lips. “We’re taking a second chance. So far, so good.” There was really nothing else to add, so she took a bite of the warm, lattice-crusted treat. Savannah’s Dutch apple was her favorite.
“He’s staying in Magnolia Grove?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Interesting answer. Why not a simple, ‘Yes’?”
The pie turned to dust in her mouth. She wasn’t qualifying anything. Was she? “I don’t mean it that way.” She concentrated on scooping up another bite.
“You trust him?”
The second bite stuck in her throat. She put down her fork and managed to swallow. Just. “Ever since he’s been back, he’s done nothing but keep his word. He does exactly what he says he’s going to do…”
“But?”
She winced. The few bites of pie now sat like bricks in her stomach. “It’s not Shane I don’t trust. It’s fate. We both had the best intentions last time around, but first he couldn’t follow through, and then I couldn’t.”
“Sinclair…” Savannah spoke around a mouthful of pie. “You were teenagers last time around. Neither of you had the kind of control over the direction of your lives you have now, as adults. Do you love him?”
Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency) Page 16