As quickly as he’d lifted her to the countertop earlier, he unseated her, his arms around her until her feet found purchase on the hardwood floor. He moved with purpose, his muscles bunching and releasing as he reached for the button on her pants.
Her sex grew slick, even as her belly tightened at the renewed potential for vulnerability. But just as she’d been hypnotized by the sight of Owen’s mouth on her breasts, her heart quickly pounded in excitement at the prrrrrrp of her zipper, the way his pupils dilated at the slide of the fabric moving lower, lower. Cate kicked out of her sandals, then her pants, leaving her in nothing but the pale blue panties that had been in the far reaches of her top drawer for half a decade. Her eyes registered the imperfections—the starker-than-normal jut of her hip bones, the stretch marks, the faded scar that lined up with the top of the lace. But what she saw was Owen’s expression, and, in that moment, everything else fell away.
“Still sure?” he asked quietly.
She nodded before both words were all the way out. “Still sure.”
His mouth quirked with seductive intention. “Good,” he said.
And then he hit his knees.
“God, just look at you,” Owen murmured. His gaze lit over her panties, which were level with his line of sight, his breath hot on her skin. A whimper worked at Cate’s throat, ragged and needy, but she forced herself to swallow it, to feel everything about the moment she was in.
Owen didn’t make it difficult. He dragged a finger over the seam of her sex, the friction from the lace sending sparks across her vision, and her hips tilted, chasing his touch.
He did it again, then again, and oh, God, she was going to come before he got the damned things off her body.
“Owen,” she said, part plea, part curse.
“Don’t worry. I hear you.” Slipping his fingers under the strings at her hips, he pulled the lace all the way off, leaving her completely bare. “Keep those eyes on me, beautiful. I’ll show you everything.”
Then his mouth was on her, and Cate lost the ability to breathe, let alone see.
“Mmm.” Owen’s voice rumbled, heightening the tension deep between her hips. Her lips parted on a soundless gasp, her body arching into his touch, and he held nothing back. Angling his shoulders between her thighs, he explored her sex with his lips and tongue. His fingers joined the movements a minute later, gently testing, stroking, lighting her up. Cate’s clit pulsed with the demand to be touched, even as pleasure coursed through her from his other ministrations. Owen slid his tongue up, over her sex, and she rocked her hips to get him where she needed him to be.
“There,” Cate cried out, pleasure bursting through her first at the contact, then again at the sight of his wicked smile, buried between her legs. Owen didn’t balk at being given direction. Instead, he took full advantage, pressing his tongue against her clit for a hard glide that tore a moan from her throat.
And still, she watched.
Turning her chin against her chest, Cate fastened her eyes on him as he pleasured her, stroke by stroke. His strong hands bracketed her hips, one shoulder pushing up just enough on her inner thigh to lift her foot from the floor, and, oh. Oh, God, she’d never felt so good or needed so fucking much. He tasted and licked, his tongue thrusting inside once, then twice, before he returned to her clit. Uncut sensation sang in her veins, her need coiling and doubling and growing unbearably hot between her hips. Owen met it with every movement, and she lowered a hand to the back of his head, knotting her fingers in his hair. Release built, powerful and bright in Cate’s belly, yet still, she didn’t close her eyes.
She felt powerful. Sexy. Alive.
She felt everything.
Her orgasm ripped through her, bringing her breath to a standstill and her back to a full arch against the counter. Owen worked her through each wave, kissing and stroking every last tremble from her before softening his touch and eventually pulling back to look at her. For a minute that could have been two, or even twenty, they stared at each other, chests moving up and down, eyes wide. Then Owen stood, grabbed her hand, and turned toward the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Cate blurted, her brain trying desperately to function.
He shot her a glance over his shoulder. His wicked smile was back in all its glory, his gray eyes glinting with intention that had the heat between her legs rebuilding in an instant.
“After that? I’m taking you upstairs to my bed, where I can fuck you good and proper. Now, are you coming, or do I have to pick you up and carry you?”
“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “I’ll race you to the goddamned stairs.”
They moved through his hallway—thank God for curtains and remote country living—stopping a few times along the way for some slow kisses that made Cate’s heart race. They made it to his room in a tangle of arms and legs and mouths, and he led her to his bed, easing her over the dark blue quilt and settling between her thighs.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Palming his shoulders, Cate hooked a leg over his hip, switching their positions in a less than a breath.
Owen’s eyes flared. “Cate—”
“Shh.” She silenced him with a firm brush of her lips, shifting back until she straddled his thighs. “I want you, too, Owen. So shut up and let me have you.”
He stared at her, but only for a second before his hands lifted in concession. Cate’s pulse knocked at her throat, and, oh, she didn’t want to wait. Reaching out, she ran her fingers over the top of his jeans, the soft cotton a complete contradiction to the hard muscles beneath it. Owen’s stare followed her touch, and the intensity in his eyes made her even bolder. She undid the top button, undressing him in quick motions until they were both naked on his bed.
“Oh.” It was, of course, an understatement. Cate had thought the corded muscles shaping Owen’s midsection were sexy, but clearly, she hadn’t even known the definition of the word. His hips were lean, ridges and valleys of honey-colored skin suggesting latent power. A trail of dark hair arrowed from his navel downward, his cock jutting proudly over his lower belly, and, God, he was the hottest, most provocative thing she had ever seen.
She slid her fingers over his abs, her breath growing thicker in her lungs at the way his muscles jumped in reply. Arousal stirred, no longer a whisper in her core, and Cate moved lower, letting her hand find his cock.
Owen exhaled, his hands turning to fists at his sides. Still, his gaze didn’t waver. He watched as she wrapped her fingers around him, testing different movements and measuring the best ones by the sound of his breathing. His hips lifted off the mattress to guide her, but after less than a minute, he grabbed her wrist with a soft curse.
“Cate,” he said, shaking his head when she opened her mouth to protest. “We aren’t going to be here much longer if you don’t stop. And I’d really, really like to be here longer if that’s okay with you.”
The look on his face said he was actually asking, that if she argued in earnest, he’d give her what she wanted, exactly how she wanted it.
But she wanted more.
Cate let go and shifted forward to kiss him. “I want you, Owen. I don’t want to wait.”
He was out from beneath her in a heartbeat. Turning toward his bedside table, he grabbed a condom, putting it on with a quick, careful glide. She lay back on the quilt, letting Owen settle between her thighs. He ran a fingertip over her sex, lingering on her clit for just a stroke, then slipping inside her with ease. The sensation made her inner muscles squeeze, giving both the sense of fullness and the promise for more. The blunt head of his cock followed his finger, and Cate couldn’t wait. She angled her hips to take him deeper, but he was already there, pushing inside with one swift thrust.
“Holy…” Owen sent the word through his teeth, his hands gripping the quilt by her shoulders.
“I know,” she breathed. The pressure between her legs felt almost too much to bear, so intense and darkly good. She shifted, just a tiny movement back, and when he pressed forward to fill her a
gain, Cate cut out a moan.
“Just don’t stop.”
He didn’t. Drawing back, Owen balanced his weight between his hands and his knees, thrusting into her in slow, long movements. The back and forth became a rhythm, and Cate set her hands on his hips, rocking along with him to meet it. He leaned in, his chest providing just enough friction on her nipples to tempt her to scream.
“Cate,” he said, placing his forehead on hers, his lips just over her lips. “Watch. Watch how pretty you are when you come.”
Owen moved back, redistributing his weight to his knees. The change in angle let him find some hidden spot inside her core, his cock stroking it and daring her closer to release with every pump of his hips.
“Look.”
The word was rough-edged and covered in gravel, and Cate was powerless against it. Dipping her chin, she fixed her eyes on the spot where their bodies joined, and the primal intimacy of what she saw sent her over the edge. She came with a keening cry, bowing up to let Owen fill her over and over again. His movements grew more intense, his breath sawing past his lips.
“Ah, fuck,” he grunted, his jaw like granite. With one last thrust, he filled her to the hilt, his body shuddering as he buried himself deep and came.
Cate’s heartbeat was the first thing that registered, although how much later, she didn’t know. The soft press of it against her eardrums served as the soundtrack for everything else as her body came back online—breath, muscles, hearing. Owen shifted off of her, then into the bathroom for a minute. Emotions lurked in the periphery of her mind like shadows, and she wasn’t naïve enough to think she could keep them at bay.
A man like Owen Cross isn’t for you. Keep your stupid heart to yourself, for both your sakes.
But then Owen lay down bedside her, his body warm and his mouth on hers in a soft, sweet press, and even though Cate knew this feeling couldn’t last, she pushed the voice aside for just a little while longer.
19
Owen spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to say before he threw in the towel. He’d run through everything from “so, how about this weather we’ve been having?” to “that was the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had in my life”, and while the latter was startlingly true, he didn’t want to give Cate a reason to tack her guard back into place. Lying here with her, their bodies warm and spilled together in the evening shadows, felt as good as the sex they’d just shared, although in a different sort of way, and if he opened his gruff, graceless mouth, her willingness to let herself feel it might fade along with the daylight.
She shifted against him, her stomach letting out a healthy growl, and Owen gave up a soft, surprised laugh. “Are you hungry?”
“Maybe.” Cate laughed quietly back. “We did kind of skip dinner.”
It had been worth every second, but he stood by what he’d said earlier about her not tasting her food, and he damn sure still wanted to feed her. “I don’t mean to brag, but I have it on good authority that my spaghetti and meatballs are a bit of a religious experience.”
“Is that so?”
“It is,” he confirmed, making sure his smile hung in his voice. He might not know what to say or how to say it, but food? Now that, he could do.
But Cate didn’t move from her spot on his bed. “I need to be sure this is still no strings attached, Owen. I’m not…” She exhaled against his shoulder. “I promised you I’d stay, so I will, but I can’t give you anything other than this.”
A pang centered in his chest. The last thing he wanted was for her to gather up her clothes and run, but she’d given him the courtesy of uncut honesty. The least he could do was be truthful in return.
“Look. We had sex—”
“Great sex,” Cate corrected, and, despite the gravity of the topic, Owen had to smile.
“Definitely great sex,” he agreed. “And I do really want you to stay. But I’m not going to pressure you into it, or anything else. We still have that honesty policy, right?”
She nodded, her hair shushing against the bed sheets. “We do.”
“So, let’s use it. I like being with you, Cate. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. We can take each day as it dawns if that’s what you need. I just want this.”
After a heartbeat, then two, her body relaxed against his. “Well, then. With a promise like religious-experience spaghetti and meatballs, how can I refuse dinner?”
Since her clothes were still strewn all over his kitchen floor and a chill had crept into the nighttime air, Owen gave her a flannel shirt from his closet. The thing pretty much swallowed her, with the red and blue fabric covering her fingers and draping her body to mid-thigh, but she looked as comfortable in it as he felt in the jeans he’d just slid back over his hips. Deciding to forego a shirt—at least for now—he led the way back to the kitchen, flipping on enough lights to cast a warm, golden glow around what was probably his favorite room in the house.
“Can I do anything to help?” Cate asked after picking up her clothes, folding some and replacing others, most notably, the pale blue panties that he’d had to fight himself not to literally rip from her hips less than an hour ago.
Focus, jackass. “There’s not much to do,” he said, grabbing a stock pot from a cupboard beneath the island and beginning to fill it with water.
“I could set the table.” She shifted toward the spot where he kept the plates, but something indefinable made Owen step directly in her path.
“Or you could relax with your glass of wine and let me do it.”
A tiny shadow flickered over her whiskey-brown stare, but she tempered it with a bold enough smile that he almost didn’t see it. “I’m perfectly capable of setting the table, Owen.”
“You’re perfectly capable of a lot more than that,” he said. “But this is supposed to be about me feeding you, remember?”
“You really don’t need to do that.” Cate’s reply was automatic, both her smile and her shoulders growing tight. “I promise, I do eat every day.”
A burst of frustration sizzled in his chest, and he almost put it to words. But her guard was up in full force, and there was only one way he was going to get her to let it down.
“I was honest with you a few minutes ago when we were upstairs, right? And we agreed that’s how we’re going to do this?” he asked, turning off the kitchen faucet and turning to look at her with a no-nonsense stare.
She stared back. “Yes.”
“Then talk to me, Cate.” Owen’s legs took a step toward her even though his brain had thoroughly cautioned not to, but he wasn’t dumb enough to think his brain was actually in charge here. Not when his heart was slamming away like it was. “How come you don’t let yourself enjoy things?”
“I do,” she said. But her gaze slipped along with the argument, and Owen closed the rest of the space between them in two long strides of fuck it.
“You don’t. You make all of these incredible desserts and you only taste little bites to make sure they’re right. You won’t open yourself up to the possibility of starting a career doing something you clearly love—not even when an incredible opportunity is right in front of you. You keep everyone at arm’s length. I get that you don’t want to be hurt again, I really do. But why don’t you let yourself feel anything good?”
“I…”
Cate broke off, the fight in her protest falling hollow. Her eyes glittered, not so much with tears as pure emotion that tore at Owen’s chest.
But it was nothing in the face of what she said next.
“Because I was supposed to be in the car the day Brian and Lily died.”
Cate’s heart ricocheted around her rib cage, part from the shock of her admission and part from the truth itself. The words had flown out without her permission, as if they’d been some rabid, caged animal, mindless and desperate to be let loose.
“You…what?”
Her face flamed from the weight of her words. Of course, Owen was stunned. No one—not one living, breathing person—knew the
truth. The confession left an odd, jagged hole in her rib cage, but now that it had surfaced from the spot where she’d kept it buried for so long, the rest of the truth just rushed right out of her.
“We were supposed to go to the movies in Camden Valley, all three of us. There was a new Disney movie out, and Lily wanted to go. I was surprised she asked,” Cate continued, guilt stabbing through her at the memory, at the argument that had come after.
She’s nine now, Cate. We’re running out of time to have another baby. You already stay at home—I don’t understand what the problem is…
She stuffed the echo of Brian’s voice down, but still, her own words came, sharp in her mouth like shards of glass. “Lily had been outgrowing a lot of that little girl stuff. But she asked, and Brian never told her no.” Another source of contention, another slice of guilt over all the times she’d played the role of the stern parent and Brian had spoiled Lily rotten.
“Cate.”
Owen’s voice, notched just above a whisper, told her she didn’t have to say anything else, that if she wanted to yank her armor back into place and say “forget it”, he’d let her. But he wouldn’t forget—damn it, she felt so good when she was with him that she couldn’t forget—and she shook her head and continued.
“The trouble was, it was a Saturday afternoon. That was the only day I really got to lose myself in the kitchen, and I’d started making croissants from scratch. They’re a righteous pain in the ass, with all the folding and rising, and the timing is really tricky, so leaving the batch I’d been working on pretty much ensured they’d have been ruined.”
Owen nodded. He stood in front of her, completely unmoving, giving her enough space to talk, but staying close enough for her to feel his quiet steadiness.
“I told Lily I didn’t think the movie was such a great idea. I know it was selfish,” Cate added quickly. “But we’d had a long week with her school science fair project and the PTA’s fundraiser, and between that and all the household stuff like cooking and laundry and driving all the way to Camden Valley for both ballet lessons and Girl Scouts…well, I wanted some time in the kitchen.”
Crossing Promises (Cross Creek Book 3) Page 18