Sadie plopped back on her haunches and cocked her head, her cute little black ears tilting up.
Pepper pulled a doggie snack from her pocket and held it out to her own dog. “Good girl,” she murmured.
George lunged on his leash, going up on his back legs and straining against his collar.
“Sit,” Pepper said.
George barked.
She shrugged. “Your loss. C’mon. Two more blocks, and we’re home.”
George barked again, then flopped to the ground, back legs splayed.
“Obviously your grandmother’s dog,” Tony mused.
She laughed, then treated George to a little snack too. “Now behave yourself.”
George lifted his head and pranced down the sidewalk. They all continued along their way, Sadie on Pepper’s other side, giving the poodle a wide berth.
Pepper slipped her hand into Tony’s. “Was it horrible?” she asked quietly.
“Having my leg humped by your grandmother’s dog?”
“The reception.”
“Been to worse.”
“Worse receptions? Or worse events in general?”
He squeezed her hand. “Both.”
“I locked myself in the bathroom at my aunt Wisty’s wedding when I was four. The manager had to physically remove the doorknob to get me out. Gran introduced the family to the Chicken Dance that year, and she accidentally gave the family priest a bloody nose with her elbow—he was sitting too close to the dance floor, and she got a little exuberant. The mother of the groom had too much to drink and flashed the entire dance floor. Rosemary was getting over the chicken pox, and nobody knew Ginger was coming down with them, so five days later, all of us were down with it. So pretty much every family wedding is measured against that one, and none have ever been as bad—or as memorable. Until possibly tonight.”
“This was pre-goat?” he asked.
She sighed. “Pre-goat.”
“You want a family?”
Her fingers twitched. “I want…not to be alone when I’m old.” She blew out a slow breath, her gaze shifting upward, but not at him. “You?”
“Used to.” There would always be a part of him that still did. He’d learned to minimize the desire, to rationalize away the need, but watching Pepper whisper with her nieces and dance with her nephew hadn’t helped. “Not part of the life plan anymore.”
“Life has its own plans sometimes.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
They turned onto her street, George still prancing proudly, Sadie doing her funny bunny-hop walk. Pepper didn’t say any more the rest of the way to her house, but she paused on her porch.
“Mom and Dad are driving Gran to look at a retirement home over in Willow Glen early tomorrow,” she said. “They’re keeping her at the hotel tonight.”
Interest stirred below his belt. “Yeah?”
George made a circle around him, wrapping his leash around Tony’s calves.
“Cinna and the twins are hitting the karaoke bar,” she added. “Since Tarra’s camped out in the honeymoon suite with Margie playing guard dog.”
He swallowed. “You gonna be okay here alone?”
Those beautiful emerald eyes had turned into shimmery pools of uncertainty and hope. “Maybe not just yet,” she whispered.
Sadie scratched at the door. George kept circling.
And Tony couldn’t believe he was actually giving this any thought. “Lucky likes having the house to herself.”
A smile blossomed on her pretty lips. “So she wouldn’t miss you if you stayed for a while?”
He shook his head.
Pepper settled her hands at his waist. “Would you like to come in?”
“If you insist.”
“I definitely insist.”
Her smile grew wider. “Good. Because I have something to show you.”
Yep.
He was all in.
* * *
Inside, Tony didn’t ask why Pepper wanted to take him downstairs.
He was too busy trying to tamp down his expectations at being invited in, and then having to wait while she slipped upstairs to change. But when he got downstairs, his hesitations changed to sheer happiness. “You have a Skee-Ball table.”
She smiled. Her basement smelled freshly painted, and the walls looked relatively new. A brown suede couch sat against one wall, a TV on a second, and the Skee-Ball table was against the wall beside the stairs. The chill of the linoleum floor seeped through his socks, but given the potential for water problems in this part of town, he wouldn’t have wanted to see carpet down here.
“And now you now know the real reason my sisters always want to stay with me when they come to town.”
He angled closer to the machine. “That’s vintage.”
“I have a thing about spotting good deals. It came from a ShowBiz Pizza that shut down when I was in high school. Haven’t had much time to play it in—well, months.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“And I can still set it up to make you have to pay a quarter to play.” Light had come back into her eyes, and there was nothing forced about her smile.
She was simply a woman happy to be showing him her toys.
Made him feel like a sixteen-year-old kid again. Hiding in the basement. Wanting to kiss a girl. Afraid he’d get it wrong.
She stepped beside him, still smiling. Scents of cookies and that unique floral bouquet she carried with her tickled his nose. He wrapped an arm around her, and she cuddled in close.
The feel of her breasts pressed against him caused more stirring below the belt.
Slow, he reminded himself. Easy. They had time.
He rubbed at the goose bumps trailing down her arms. Crazy woman should’ve put on a sweatshirt.
“I couldn’t date because I was doing a…project,” she whispered. “I failed.”
He frowned. Maybe she hadn’t been seeing a therapist. People didn’t usually say therapy failed, did they? She didn’t strike him as the type to try magic or old wives’ tales to change her love life, but then, normal people did weird things sometimes.
Although, if she’d been trying to change her love life with some kind of witch doctor, she probably wouldn’t be sitting on the couch with him right now.
Maybe she’d been working on something professionally.
Or maybe she’d been waiting for a man to leave his girlfriend or wife, and she really had just needed him as a decoy.
His fingers curled.
She wouldn’t. Not Pepper.
But he’d thought the same thing about Tabitha, hadn’t he?
He forced his jaw to unclench and made his shoulders relax. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Just…stay,” she whispered. “My family doesn’t know. The wedding—they’ve been busy. And I—I don’t fail. My love life might be awkward, but it’s not a failure. Not like…not like this is.”
He pulled her all the way against him. “So try again.”
She shivered. “I can’t. It doesn’t work that way. I know it’s supposed to make us stronger, but I don’t feel strong. I feel broken.”
She was so warm, so comfortable. And she needed him. She couldn’t be bad for him.
Could she?
The last woman he’d blindly trusted with his life had put his heart through the meat grinder. But Pepper wasn’t Tabitha. She was more.
The last week or so, he’d wondered if he could be more again. If he could still remember how.
Maybe, just for tonight, he could try.
* * *
If Pepper didn’t pull away from Tony, she was going to kiss him again.
Not a friendly peck on the cheek either.
And if she kissed him again, where she wanted to kiss him, she’d probably crawl into his lap and straddle him, and then who knew what creature would try to lick him, or which of her family members would decide to crash in and interrupt, or what body part of her own would malfunction.
Today had been fair
ly awful. And she didn’t want to make it worse with another awkward attempt at reacquainting herself with sex. But a kiss—a kiss could only make today better, couldn’t it?
Her heart bobbed.
Just being near him, with him holding her tight and warm and safe, was pretty fantastic. Why risk it?
She was about to pull away when his arms tightened around her. “Pepper?”
“Hm?”
“You’re the first friend I’ve trusted in a very long time. Those other women—they were decoys. Not friends.”
Her heart swelled and glowed even as a skitter of nerves shot through her body.
Finding out she couldn’t have babies had been devastating. But he’d been hurt too. Badly. When was the last time he had had meaningful human contact?
Did he crave it as much as she did?
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
He held her gaze with big, dark orbs of uncertainty. As if he were asking her to be gentle. Not to betray him. To understand what this was costing him after everything else he’d already done for her today.
His dark lashes slowly lowered. She touched hesitant fingers to the sandpaper darkening his jaw, then traced a small scar on his cheekbone. His lips were firm, not too thin, not too full, and when her fingers brushed over his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Her breath quickened as his chest rose and fell rapidly. Was his heart thundering as fast as hers? As hard as hers?
When had a simple kiss become such a monumental task?
Just one kiss.
No pressure. No expectations. No need for them to go any further.
She just wanted to know that she could have one perfect kiss. She wanted him to have one perfect kiss.
She was going to screw this up.
His lashes fluttered open, and his eyes connected with hers again.
Could he see her overthinking this? Or did he not want her to kiss him?
“I—” she started.
His solid, capable hand hooked around her neck. His thumb touched that sensitive spot behind her ear, and with the same fluid grace that he’d cooked her dinner the other night, he slanted his mouth over hers.
But unlike that first kiss, this kiss wasn’t desperate.
It was slow. Leisurely, even. A journey more important than the destination.
His lips were firm but gentle, sucking, teasing, exploring, gentle murmurs coming from him as they sank into the kiss. She gripped his forearm and let herself go. Just be. She parted her lips, letting him in more while her body hummed to life. Her toes wiggled and stretched. She arched her back, pushing her pelvis against his, never breaking contact with him, tasting his lips, learning the texture of his skin, falling into his kiss as easily as if she were falling into a dream.
His fingers threaded into her hair, massaging her scalp, holding her exactly where she wanted to be.
With him.
Not the Tony who made smart-ass comments to her sisters. Not the Tony who had a revolving string of women coming to his door and a crazy cat that scared her dog. But this Tony, the man who had gone to a wedding with her, the man who made her laugh, the man who cooked her dinner, the man who’d been hurt, but still wanted to be here.
Kissing her.
She licked his bottom lip. He groaned into her mouth and pressed closer to her. Not pushing her back, but holding her against him, deepening the kiss, exploring her mouth as though they had all the time in the world.
And they did, didn’t they?
The world was dark and frozen outside, and they were safe and warm and together here.
She drew her hands over his shoulders and down his back, the stiff fabric of his shirt too much of a barrier between her palms and his hot skin.
“More?” he whispered against her lips.
“More.” She tugged on him and pulled him across the room to the couch, kissing softly as they went. He followed her down, covering her with his solid body. Through his pants and her leggings, she felt his hard length settle between her thighs.
He lowered his mouth to hers again, caressing her cheek, holding her tight, safe, protected.
Whole.
His kisses, his touch, his body were all a salve to her wounds. More than the joy of knowing she could be physically intimate—that her body could still crave physical intimacy—was the joy of blossoming arousal. Being seduced with a kiss.
Being wanted.
She tilted her hips into him, and his breathing hitched even as he strained back against her. “Pepper—”
“Sshh. More kissing.”
“More everything.”
Everything.
Yes, tonight, she wanted everything.
He was bolder when he recaptured her lips. More frantic. Deeper. Rougher.
She tugged his shirt loose and stroked her hands up his back, the heat from his skin making her fingers tingle almost as much as the ridges of his muscles made her core ache.
His tongue slid against hers, and a rough, needy sound came from deep within in him. She matched him stroke for stroke. Her hips thrust against him, and she couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d wanted to.
Going slow was no longer an option. He pulled back and yanked his button-down off. She twisted on the couch and tugged at her own shirt, but ended up with her arms all cockamamie and caught in the fabric.
She groaned. “Not again.”
Sure, capable hands slid up her sides. “We’ve got this,” he said, and the amusement in his voice settled that momentary panic. “But wait. What’s this I see?”
She was still tangled in her sleeves when hot air penetrated her bra a moment before his mouth came down on the fabric over her nipple. A needy whimper swelled in her throat, and she thrust her breast higher for him.
“Delicious,” he murmured, and then he moved to her other nipple.
She dropped her arms over her head and panted. “You—can do—that more,” she panted. His teeth, the wet silk, his hot breath were all building waves in her core, pulling dormant, primal needs out of hibernation.
“Tell me when to stop,” he murmured.
“Never.”
He cupped her breasts through the bra and licked the sensitive skin between them.
Then he slowly licked a path lower, all the while turning her into a whimpering, needy, thrashing mess. Her arms were going numb, still tied up in her shirt, and she didn’t care, because the rest of her body was on fire. Alive. Perfect.
“I’m going to take your pants off,” he said.
“Thank God.”
She lifted her hips while he hooked his thumbs beneath her waistband and pulled. Cool air rushed around her hips and thighs. He’d taken her panties too.
She closed her eyes and breathed through the temporary panic at being laid bare. This hadn’t gone so well last time.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. And then his tongue touched her center, and she forgot she was naked. She forgot where she was. She almost forgot who she was.
All she knew was that her nerve endings were on fire all across her body, and he had the most talented mouth she’d ever met. He found that perfect spot. She gasped and moaned his name. Her arms finally came free, and she gripped his hair, holding him in place, there, right there, as the pressure mounted deep inside her, pulsing, aching, building. He slipped a finger inside her, and the dam broke, sending pleasure crashing through her veins and shattering her into a million satisfied pieces.
She couldn’t catch her breath, and she honestly didn’t care. Tony kissed his way up her belly, pausing on her still-covered breasts. His pants brushed her inner thighs, and she whimpered again. “Your pants have to go.”
His smile was half ego, half adorable. “Not satisfied yet?”
“You’re not satisfied yet.”
“Wouldn’t say that.”
But he reached for his button, and when he pushed his pants down, his stiff shaft suggested otherwise. Desire flared deep in her center again, colliding with her already overheated, sa
tisfied cells. She reached for him with lazy hands and squeezed the silky skin over his hard length. He hissed out a breath while his eyes squeezed shut.
“Too much?” she whispered.
“Too long.”
“Too—oh.”
He pulled a condom from his wallet—no sense in telling him it wasn’t necessary—and his grin was decidedly less cocky this time. “Go easy on me.”
She crooked a finger at him. “Dream on, pizza man.”
He settled over her again, brushing her entrance, but not taking any liberties while he pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “You were sexy all tied up,” he whispered.
She raked her fingers down his chest and angled her hips toward him. “And you weren’t very gentlemanly to not help me.”
Still, he didn’t take the hint and penetrate her. “I thought I was very gentlemanly.”
“Well, maybe a little.”
His smile made her heart swell again. He slowly pushed into her, and her breath caught at the feel of him filling her. She arched into him, wanting more, deeper, craving all of him, but he stilled.
“No laughing if I make a fool of myself here,” he said.
This man. Couldn’t he feel how badly she wanted him? Not just for her, but for him too? “Tony, take me. Now.”
He lifted a brow.
“Please,” she added on a laugh.
He slid in deeper, all the way, until he hit her other magic spot, and slowly pulled nearly all the way out, leaving her empty and needy and desperate. “More,” she said.
He obliged, his gaze fixed on her face, steady concentration drawing his brows together while he pushed in.
“You feel so good,” she whispered.
He didn’t feel good. He felt perfect. He fit as though he was meant to be hers. As if she’d been made to hold him. As if they’d been born for each other.
As if he could’ve been her one.
Except she couldn’t give him everything a woman should give a man.
Her breath caught, and that unwelcome intruder clawed up her ribs to clog her throat again.
No. No, not now. Not with Tony. Not after everything he’d done for her.
She shut her eyes and gripped his ass. “More,” she said.
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