by Lea Griffith
She’d gone still in his arms and he pulled back, searching her face and wondering why her eyes were bright with tears.
“You said the words.” Her voice was soft and shy.
“My body tells you everything you ever need to know, Daly. But if you need the words, it is my honor to give them to you,” he said at her lips.
She kissed him then, hot and deep, and everything was okay in that moment. She took the doubts she’d had over the last four hours and tossed them as far as the east was from the west. Her tongue was shy and he suckled on it, drawing it deeper into his own and giving her permission to do what she would.
It struck him then that their dynamic had morphed. They’d had more vanilla sex in the last week than they’d ever had three years ago. And it didn’t bother Copeland—he was actually reveling in it. Slow and soft, cherishing her body, and that she gave it to him alone was poignant. It rearranged the pieces of him that scattered when she left. It didn’t mean he wasn’t still dominant. It simply meant this time around they were even more.
Her hips shifted and her legs tightened. The heat between her legs was a siren’s call and he pressed forward as she pushed down. She groaned, and he threw back his head and laughed. She growled and uncrossed her legs from his waist. He let her fall to her feet slowly, making sure all her happy parts rubbed against all of his.
“You’re wearing my sweats?”
She smiled and reached up to undo his tie. “You are so observant, Mr. Copeland.”
He tightened his hands on her hips and slowly slipped them into the waistband, reaching around to cup her bare ass. He drew in a rough breath as his dick spiked against his suit pants. “I am observant, Ms. Edwards. And I can tell you aren’t wearing panties.”
She laughed, and the husky notes reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. Hard. “I’m not. I didn’t bring clothes for our spend-the-night party.”
He went stock-still. “You have clothes here, Daly.”
Her mouth dropped open.
He nodded. “Yeah. You missed several things when you left me.”
Her brown eyes clouded and her lips drew down into a delightful frown.
“Let’s see,” he said as walked to his bedroom. He made a beeline for the bureau that had been hers. Yeah, he’d kept it, going so far as to move it from the old place to this one. He reached in and pulled out a scrap of lace. “You left all the red things.”
He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of pain. How he’d hurt when she’d left! As he stood there, wrapped in the pain of the past, her arms settling around his waist, he realized just how much. Her hands found purchase on his chest and she pressed against his back. He felt her pain and his, a white-hot brand in the vicinity of his heart.
“I’ve always loved you in red, Day,” he said around the lump in his throat.
“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,” she whispered.
Just that quickly, his sadness disappeared, followed by the ache of a love too long buried and denied. “Robert Burns.”
She squeezed him tighter, and the press of her breasts on his back was a shot of lust to his balls. “I always give you the easy ones,” she said.
He heard the smile in her voice.
“Nothing has ever been easy with you, Ms. Edwards.”
“I can’t imagine. I’ve always been the soul of calm, mild and easy mannered.”
He turned then and wrapped his hands in her hair, tilting her head back and watching as her brown eyes flared with a light unique to Daly. “Probably not the way I would have phrased it, but to each her own.”
“And you, Jeremiah—are you my own?”
He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers, savoring the taste of her, berries, mint, chocolate, and sunlight. “I have never been anyone else’s.”
Her breath hissed in and she grabbed his head, holding him still for her kiss. His body was hot, demanding to be seated in the cradle of hers, and Jeremiah wanted her desperately. But there were things they needed to do. Their bodies never had a problem finding common ground. It was her heart he wanted and while she professed her love, she’d done that before and still left him.
He covered her hands and drew them down, placing them on his chest. “We should watch a movie.”
Her eyes widened, and a look of such total disbelief crossed her face that he laughed.
“A movie?”
“Yeah. Spend-the-night party, remember?”
She thunked her forehead against his breastbone. “Where’s my Valenza’s?”
“Closed.”
“Okay. Is there popcorn and ice cream?”
“There’s whatever you want, Day.”
She reached for his cock. “This is what I really want.”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, believe me, I really want you to have it. But first, a movie. Let me change real quick. Go pick something out and I’ll be out in a few.”
She stared at him hard then. Her gaze was piercing and he let her see all of him. He was a different man but still carried all of who he’d been under his shell. Everything he’d ever done had made him who he was. Just as everything he’d lost, including her, made the wall around his heart that much higher.
But she owned him. Nothing had changed. Daly pulled away slowly and smiled hesitantly, confusion a mask over her features. He couldn’t give her anymore right now. Tonight had been trying, to say the least, and sometime during the night he’d have to lay everything he knew out for her.
First, though, he wanted something eloquently simple. A night in front of a movie, watching her laugh as she ate popcorn and ice cream. Then he wanted to fuck her into a submission so deep she couldn’t possibly leave him. And maybe after that he’d make love to her, remind her he could be softer if she needed it.
“Okay, I’ll pick out a movie. I’m warning you, I’m in the mood for funny,” she said.
“I love to watch you laugh, so I’m game.”
Her eyes watered. “You destroy me, Jeremiah.”
“If you’ll trust me, I’ll build you back up,” he returned softly.
“If you’ll trust me, I just might let you.”
He nodded and she turned then, leaving him with his thoughts. He showered quickly, desperate to be back in her presence. He wondered if he’d be able to survive the boner he presently sported and pushed his lust down. It was about Daly tonight. Winning her and then telling her the truth. Because as Copeland had learned, he could not hold her unless he gave her all he was.
Chapter 24
Daly was pulling the popcorn out of the microwave when Jeremiah walked into the kitchen. She turned and almost lost her hold on the giant bag of extra-butter fluffy white manna of the gods.
Jeremiah, in nothing but worn jeans that rode very low on his hips, was by far the most delicious thing in the room. Her gaze was glued to the delightful V formed by his well-worked internal oblique muscles. Damn, her man was hot.
Her. Man.
She shook her head and forced her gaze upward. His head was cocked, an eyebrow raised. Daly smiled and blushed.
“You are fucking sexy as hell when you blush, Day,” he bit out.
All her lady parts stood up and applauded as he ran a hand over his black hair. “You’re fucking sexy as hell just standing there doing nothing,” she retorted.
He pointed to what she held in her hand. “Popcorn’s gonna get cold.”
“We’ll set it in my lap—that should keep it more than warm enough,” she said with a small laugh.
He smiled, and it was infinitely wicked. “Will make eating it interesting.”
“Eating—it?” Her breath deserted her. She couldn’t for the life of her continue her sentence. Hell, she couldn’t even remember what she’d been about to ask.
“The popcorn,” he said around a choked laugh.
“The pop—”
A long second of silence and Jeremiah crossed his arms over his massive chest. She wiped a finger across her mouth. Just in case some drool had
seeped out.
“Corn,” he finished and walked to her, taking the bag out of her hand and setting it on the granite countertop.
His smell, clean, masculine, and quintessentially Jeremiah, had her mouth watering even more and she opened it, afraid that if she drew his scent in too deep she’d lose her mind. Would there ever be a time when she didn’t want him?
No. The answer was simple. Far simpler than she ever would have made it before she’d headed to The Underground a week ago.
He pulled a huge bowl down from an upper cabinet and emptied the bag into it. He then pulled an enormous bag of M&Ms out and emptied it in too. “What are we watching?”
“Watching?”
He tapped her mouth closed and she raised her gaze to the dark blue-gray of his. So much was there, unspoken between them, but he’d given her the words earlier. He had never given her the words before. Even when she’d spent two years with him, loving him with everything she was, he had never returned those three words that meant more than she’d ever realized.
“Movie?” he asked as he grabbed her hand and led her out of the kitchen to the mammoth living room that had a sixty-inch wide-screen television and more gadgets attached to it than she’d known existed.
He knew what he was doing to her. She knew he knew it and strangely, it made her heart turn over in her chest that he wasn’t calling her on it. Daly was smitten with him. Absolutely, head-gone, over-the-moon smitten.
“I love you.” Three dangerous words, but her throat refused to call them back. Just sent them winging into the air between them.
Jeremiah’s head came up from his perusal of the remote control. His face went hard, cheeks going ruddy and mouth flattening, though his lower lip was so full she automatically wanted to lick across it.
“You’re going to make me fuck you before we have fun time,” he ground out.
“Fucking you is fun time, Jeremiah,” she said, and finally found a smile.
“Imp. You’re still begging for that paddling, aren’t you?”
Daly wondered if there was a big, old wet spot in the crotch of his light gray sweatpants. She hadn’t bothered to put on a pair of the panties she’d left behind. Those were the past. In fact, she was going to get rid of them as soon as possible. Not tonight. But soon.
“You keep promising and threatening, my man. I’m starting to think you’ve forgotten how to do it,” she teased him.
He grunted, but turned a look so full of heat and lust on her she almost glanced down to see if she was on fire. “Still trying to top from the bottom, I see,” he said with a grimace as he adjusted his hard cock in the confines of his jeans.
Daly put her hand on her hip and winked at him. “I know the lines, Sir. But what fun would it be if I didn’t push just a little?”
“You keep pushing and you won’t sit right for a week.” He walked to the couch and sat down, patting the space beside him. “Now what fucking movie are we watching?”
She sat down, desperate to feel his warmth surrounding her. She couldn’t remember a time when he’d allowed her to be so playful. Though even now, Daly recognized she was pushing a very dominant man. He’d make her pay, she was sure, and she’d love every single minute of it.
“We aren’t watching a fucking movie. I want to watch a comedy.”
He hauled her legs up and laid them over his lap. The hard ridge of his erection called to her. It was a hot, iron bar against her leg. Her insides somersaulted. She brushed her leg against him and he shot her a dark look. “Stop that,” he ordered.
When he used that tone, that hard-line, obey-me-now tone, Daly nearly lost her mind. She shifted, feeling the moisture from her pussy soak the fabric of his sweats, and she moaned when Jeremiah’s nostrils flared.
He knew.
“What. Movie.”
He was all hard demand now.
“Something. Funny.”
“I’m about to give you funny and it ain’t gonna be all ha-ha-ha up in here,” he snarled.
Daly leaned up then and pecked him on his lips, laughing, thoroughly enjoying how easily she disgruntled such a difficult man.
“How about Identity Thief?” she asked hopefully.
He shrugged, found the movie on the satellite, and turned on the surround sound. She watched him until he glanced at her questioningly. Then she turned her gaze to the screen and concentrated.
Comedy. She needed a laugh. But his hand drifting higher on her thigh was making laughing impossible. Daly picked his hand up and held it. He simply replaced the one she’d taken with his free hand and smiled knowingly.
She tried so damn hard. She really did, but it was all to no avail. The movie was supposed to be funny as hell. Her body didn’t care. Her legs fell open and before long, instead of laughing at the antics on the screen she was gasping at the magic of his hand, which was now in her pants and stroking her lightly.
Casually, and as if it were perfectly normal, he pulled his hand out and licked the fingers he’d been teasing her with, then reached into the bowl of popcorn and picked up a handful.
She growled. His gaze sliced to her and he smiled. “Want some?”
She lifted a brow and he laughed.
“Really, it’s great. The chocolate of the M&Ms and the salty popcorn—”
He grunted as she took the popcorn, set it on the table, and stood. She lowered the jogging pants and smiled when she heard him inhale. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the windows and the television. Long shadows were thrown, and Daly decided she loved the semi-darkness. There was something freeing in the muted light that taunted her inner hussy.
She removed her T-shirt—well, his T-shirt—and stood there, back to him, completely naked. Tension snaked in the room, wrapping velvet shackles around her body and puckering her nipples. She could feel his gaze and slowly Daly backed up until she sat on his lap, still facing away from him.
She spread her legs to either side of his body, and this left her core directly over his jean-covered cock. Daly leaned forward and balanced herself by placing her hands on his knees.
“You’re so beautiful, Daly,” he whispered.
His voice was loud in the silence of the room. He’d muted the TV.
His warm hand skimmed over her back, running over her skin in delightful swirls that made her shiver. Daly rolled her hips, letting the cotton of his jeans rub her clit. She moaned and reached between her legs as she lifted onto her knees.
It took her a minute to get his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, but once she did, his cock sprang out and she stroked it lovingly.
“We’re supposed to be having fun,” he said in a rough voice.
She rose, positioning him at her entrance, and lowered herself over him. His hands wrapped around her torso, cupping her breasts, thumbs pulling at her piercings.
“Oh, Jeremiah, it doesn’t get much more fun than this.”
He licked her neck and her head fell back on his shoulder. “Good thing it’s a spend-the-night party, huh?”
She tightened her inner muscles on him and his strangled groan had her smiling. “Yes. It’s a very good thing, baby.”
Her words lit a fire under him and it didn’t take long for him to take control, pulling her back and canting her hips so he could push into her from behind. He took her body like he owned it. He took her mind like a thief.
And before he was finished, there was no part of Daly that did not belong to Jeremiah Copeland.
* * *
“I remember the night I left you,” she said into the quiet of his bedroom.
His hand roamed along her side, caressing from her shoulder down the curve of her body to her hip and back again. “I remember it too.”
“No,” she said as she turned over and faced him, settling on her side and placing her hand over his heart. “I remember it like it just happened. The hurt is still vicious.”
“It’s in the past, Day. Leave it there.”
“I can’t, Jeremiah. If I do that, if we
do that, it’s like it never happened. And I need to explain to you …”
He veiled his gaze from her and panic slithered through her. “It happened, Daly. There’s nothing we can do to change it. The only thing we can do is acknowledge our mistakes and move forward.”
“But I never explained it to you and I need to do that,” she pleaded.
Something about her tone must have gotten through to him, because he raised his storm-tossed gaze to hers and nodded.
“When you received David’s ring three years ago and then decided you were going to help him, you never came to me. You never took the time to explain what was going on. All of the information I managed to gain was through my own methods.”
He remained silent, but his gaze was unwavering.
“You wouldn’t tell me so I went snooping, tapped into some contacts I’d made in school, and discovered David had managed to get himself involved with a drug dealer who was threatening to kill him if he didn’t get those drugs moved and get the dealer off. What I could never figure out was how you played into things.”
“Had David never come to me, I wouldn’t have,” he said, and his deep voice was full of remorse and a certain cautionary tone.
“But you never told me that. You never explained what the ring meant, how deep his trouble ran—hell, you never explained any of it. And there I was, left alone most nights while you went about doing whatever the fuck you were doing to save a brother who’d never done anything but cause problems.” She took a deep breath and willed her tears back. That pain was one she’d never known had run so deep. The abandonment she felt had been pushed to the wayside. “You never pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on and this is why I’m doing it.’ You just continued to come in at all hours of the night and day and you were secretive, Jeremiah. So damn secretive. I felt you pulling away from me and it hurt.”