Asking for Trouble

by Amy Andrews

  There was another knock, and Molly looked at Della pointedly. All five women did. “Would you like me to get that?”

  Della shot up from the table as if she’d been tasered. That was a hell no. “I’ll go.”

  No one was supposed to know what they were doing, and surely him being on her doorstep this late at night would be suspicious. She’d just have to send him away without letting anyone inside know who was calling. Easy. Right?

  Ah…nope.

  She opened the door, and Tucker was standing there with a small dog in one arm, some kind of basket in the other, and a grin on his face. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that Tucker Daniels could get any sexier, but man, had she been wrong.

  Della was pretty sure Tucker Daniels holding a dog had just made her pregnant.

  “Say hello to your present,” he announced in a not-very-quiet voice as he passed the dog over.

  Totally forgetting about her guests, she gasped as she adjusted the bundle in her arms. Its coat was chestnut and white and so, so soft. It had a sweet face, long, floppy ears, and a button nose that was currently sniffing her neck. “Oh, Tucker.”

  “You said you wanted a dog.”

  The dog licked under her chin as Della stared at him. She’d mentioned it once. “I do.”

  “Who is it, dear?” Rosemary said. The older woman was suddenly at her elbow and had spotted the dog in the blink of an eyelid. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaimed, reaching out to pet the pooch. “Who do we have here?” She glanced at Tucker, apparently unsurprised by his presence. “Hey Tucker. This your dog?”

  Della chewed on her inner lip, worried for a beat or two that Tucker would be annoyed she had company. But he just grinned and greeted the older woman. “Hey, Mrs. Forbes. No, I got her for Della. As a housewarming gift.”

  “Well aren’t you sweet.” She scratched the dog under the chin for a beat or two before turning a beady eye on Tucker. “Don’t just stand on the doorstep. Come and say hi to everyone.” And she shuffled off.

  Tucker cocked an eyebrow at Della. “Everyone?” he mouthed.

  “Surprise,” she said with faux excitement. He chuckled, and she mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head, his fingers brushing down her cheek just as they’d done last night, and every cell in her body underwent a wild Pavlovian response. She was back against this very door again, being drugged into submission by his mouth. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start drooling all over her dog’s head.

  Forcing herself to stand aside as Tucker strode in, Della took in the varying degrees of surprise and male appreciation flitting across her friends’ faces.

  “Hey, Tucker.” Winona looked from him to Della and back to him again, a knowing kind of smile playing on her mouth. “You here for book club?”

  God, there was no way Della could sit through an erotic book club read with Tucker present and not want to instantly break rules one through three. “Tucker bought me a dog,” Della said, completely unnecessarily.

  “Oh my God, what a cutie.” Molly leapt up from her chair, Marley following close behind. “Is that a Cavalier King Charles?”

  He nodded. “It is.”

  “How old?” Molly continued.

  “She’s five.”

  “And does she have a name?” These were all excellent questions. None of which Della had even thought to ask.

  “Betty.”

  Della blinked. “Betty?”

  “What kind of a name is Betty for a dog?” Rosemary asked.

  Tucker shrugged as he placed the round basket on the floor near the couch. “I didn’t name her. The shelter said her first owners were Betty White fans.”

  “Oh.” Rosemary’s frown disappeared. “How wonderful. Betty kinda suits her, actually.”

  He chuckled at Rosemary’s swift change of mind. “I agree.”

  “Why was she in a shelter?” Ruth asked.

  “Her owners were moving into an apartment that didn’t allow animals.”

  “Oh…poor Betty.” Molly petted the dog soothingly.

  “Why don’t you join us,” Rosemary said. “We still have some wine left. Or Molly’s just made a pot of coffee.”

  “Oh no, that’s fine.” He glanced at Della, and she swore she could see regret swirling in his whiskey gaze as he petted Betty’s head. “I’ll leave you to your meeting.”

  The thought of Tucker departing set off a mild panic in Della’s chest, and she lifted her foot to take a step toward him but halted abruptly, hyperaware they had an audience.

  “Actually.” Winona stood. “I think we’re done here.” She looked pointedly around at the little crowd of onlookers. “It’s getting late, and you guys should get Betty settled into her new environment.”

  “Oh yes,” Rosemary said as she and Winona looked at each other for long moments, clearly indulging in some silent mind reading. “Way past my bedtime.”

  Della knew for a fact the older woman rarely went to sleep before midnight.

  “And we’ve got that eight a.m. hair and nails tomorrow,” Marley said to her sister.

  Molly and Marley’s beauty salon—Mirror, Mirror—had been a hit with Credence women and those from the surrounding areas.

  “And I’m on at six,” Ruth added.

  Before Della knew it, the women had grabbed their stuff and were heading for the door, apologizing for not staying to help clean up. Still holding Betty, Della murmured assurances about them not having to leave yet but was beyond relieved when they all filed past her wishing her a goodnight.

  “Just as well you have tomorrow off,” Rosemary said as she stopped to pet Betty’s head. “I’m sure this one is going to keep you up half the night.” She glanced at Tucker pointedly before returning her attention to Betty and saying, “Try to let her get some sleep, huh?”

  With one final pat to the head, she wished Della and Tucker a good night and departed, the door clicking shut behind her.

  Della stared at the closed door, slightly horrified. “I have a feeling they know.”

  Tucker quirked an eyebrow. “You think?”

  “I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t worry. I’ll follow up with them tomorrow and make sure they know not to gossip. They really wouldn’t anyway, I don’t think. God…I am sorry…this was totally impromptu, and I thought everyone would be gone by the time you arrived.”

  “It’s fine. I should have realized… I saw the cars on the street but assumed they were for next door.”

  “They really won’t say anything,” Della assured. She’d text everyone after Tucker left and swear them all to secrecy. “I want to keep this on the down low, too, you know?”

  “I know.” He smiled gently then and reached across to pet Betty’s head.

  Her stomach looped the loop as Della watched his long fingers scratching the dog at an obvious sweet spot just under her ear, if the look of ecstasy on Betty’s face was any indicator. The man clearly had a way with all females. “Thank you,” she said, rubbing her chin along the top of Betty’s head. “This is literally the best gift anyone’s ever given me. I love her.”

  He laughed. “You just got her.”

  Her eyes met his, and she shrugged. “When you know, you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  He smiled at her, and Della’s stomach flipped over at this man who was kind and thoughtful and so damn swoon-worthy. “C’mon,” he said, breaking their eye contact. “She’s apparently housebroken, but we probably should take her out to do her business, then let her explore her new surroundings for a while.”

  Betty gave a little bark and leaned in to give Tucker’s face a big lick. Della knew exactly how she felt.

  They spent the next half hour not in the way Della thought they would when she’d obsessively imagined tonight. But it was fun watching Betty sniff out her new digs, poking her
cute little nose into every crack and corner and barking happily as her paws sunk into grass when they took her outside. She ran excitedly around, sniffing at the ground, and took a particular interest in the gnomes that had been placed among the flower beds.

  It may not have been hot and heavy, but it was one of the nicest half hours of Della’s life, which they followed up with another half hour of sitting on the couch, watching Betty run around and around the furniture like the Energizer Bunny. She’d stop every now and then, leaping up onto their laps for a quick lick and a pet before jumping down again for another mad circular dash.

  Della laughed at Betty’s seemingly unflagging energy and reveled in Tucker’s gentleness and how tactile he was with the little canine bundle of energy. In fact, just sitting here with him tonight like this was so damn domesticated it started a yearning in her that almost rivaled the desire that had raged last night.

  This was what she wanted. Despite what she’d told Tucker about wanting to play the field and never settle down, she did want to share her life with a man. Someone to laugh with and talk with and raise a pet with—maybe even raise kids with. Someone who didn’t have her constantly on edge, someone who respected her, someone with whom she felt safe. Yes, she wanted to travel and go to college and do a bunch of other things with her life, but if she could only have one thing, it would be this.

  But it wasn’t an option for her. There were some things she just couldn’t shake from her past. Damage that might never be fixed. And she wasn’t going to burden anyone else with her baggage.

  Eventually Betty started to flag, and, after a few minutes of quietly sitting in Della’s lap, she hopped off and headed straight for her basket. Stepping onto the fluffy cushion, she turned around three times, lay down, and promptly fell asleep.

  “I think Betty may have a touch of narcolepsy,” Tucker said, his voice low.

  Della laughed as she stared at the snoozing pooch. “She’s the most perfect gift, Tuck.” She glanced up at him, her gaze on the hardness of his jaw beneath the layer of scruff. “Thank you.”

  He turned his head, his eyes seeking hers, and suddenly, just like that, the cozy, companionable, domesticated air evaporated. She was conscious of the way his gaze zeroed in on her mouth. The heat of his thigh pressed into her, the heat of his hip pressed into her, the heat of his arm pressed into her. The desire that had been banked from the moment he’d walked into her house full of people flared to life, and she could feel the burn of it in her marrow and her lungs.

  Feel the beat of it through her blood. Filling her head and her limbs and her chest.

  “Where do you want her?” he asked, tipping his head in Betty’s direction but not taking his eyes off Della.

  Confused for a moment, Della looked at the dog, who seemed pretty darn comfortable right there. “Where she is should be fine.”

  He shook his head slowly as her gaze returned to his, and the clear intent in his whiskey eyes rolled through her like a heat wave. “I think it might be a little too early in your relationship with Betty to expose her to our make-out session.”

  Della swallowed. The man made a very good point. “My bedroom.”

  He nodded. “Stay here.”

  She almost laughed out loud. Was he kidding? She couldn’t have moved had the couch been on fire. Which was a very distinct possibility, given the furnace roaring inside her panties.

  Della didn’t watch him leave with the dog. She was far too busy reliving last night’s passionate kiss at the door. She’d gone to bed and used The Suck-u-buzz, just like she’d sworn she would, and imagined his hands roaming her body, imagined it was his mouth on her clitoris.

  She’d come and come hard—twice—but it had left her empty afterward, and a little frustrated. She wanted the real thing. She wanted Tucker.

  “You want more wine?” he asked from somewhere behind her.

  “No.” She didn’t need wine—she was drunk enough on anticipation. Things were actually throbbing between her legs.

  She heard the faucet turn on in the kitchen briefly, then turn off, and she was excruciatingly aware of the tread of his footsteps as they got closer and closer until he was entering her peripheral vision, then standing in front of her. For a moment he just stared, his eyes roaming all over her body before he slid back in beside her, taking the place he’d vacated not long ago.

  “Alone at last,” he murmured, turning his head to look at her, and Della couldn’t not kiss him. His lips were so close, and they were so damn full and tempting, and she’d been craving them all day.

  She practically attacked them, her mouth slamming against his, her tongue sweeping into his mouth. He groaned at the contact, and it emboldened her. Della shifted, twisted, slid her leg over his lap until she was straddling him, settling the middle seam of her Levi’s over the middle seam of his Wranglers and the bulge beneath. She gasped at the contact, at the coarse rub of fabric against flesh so sensitive she wanted to scream.

  Her lips broke from his as she clutched at his shoulders, her hips restless, and she moaned in frustration, needing more, needing to be closer. “Tucker.”

  “Easy there,” he muttered, hushing her with a soothing voice as his hand clamped against the small of her back, stilling the agitated roaming of her hips, holding her in one very, very nice spot.

  His lips trekked down her throat, and Della’s head fell back, addicted to the fiery burn of his mouth and the tickle of his facial scruff. Goose bumps marched down her arms, and her nipples stiffened, begging to be touched.

  But he didn’t touch them. He didn’t touch her at all, other than his mouth at her neck and the press of his hand low on her back. “Tucker,” she said on a whimper this time.

  “Did you take care of things?” he asked, his breath hot as it whispered over the hollow at the base of her throat. “Last night. After I left?”

  The question rumbled out of his lips and was shocking and titillating all at once. How it was possible to be any more turned on, she didn’t know, but his intimate question took her to a whole new plane of arousal.

  “Did you?” His hot tongue flicked across her skin.

  Della panted, the walls of her sex clenching at the roughness of his voice. “Yes.”

  “How.”

  “Vibrator.” She hoped he wasn’t after the details of which one, because she wasn’t sure she could string enough words together to adequately explain The Suck-u-buzz.

  “Did you think about me while you were getting off?”

  Another roughened query as his teeth scraped the point where her neck met her shoulder, and Della felt the pull of it deep in the muscles of her pelvic floor. “Yes.”

  “Was my name on your lips when you came?”

  “Yes.” She stretched her neck as his mouth scorched a path to her ear.

  “How many times?” His silky question whispered straight into her ear canal as he sucked her lobe into the warm cavern of his mouth. “How many times did you call my name, Della?”

  God…her brain was buzzing with arousal. How was it possible to be even more turned on? “T…two.”

  “Yesss,” he hissed, nipping her earlobe as it slipped from his lips.

  The jolt zapped her nipples, which were taut and aching for his touch, and went all the way to her clitoris, where Tucker’s cock was a hard, steady presence, and she whimpered at the potent stimulus. She tried to move, rock her hips, but his hand clamped tighter.

  “Please…” She moaned. “Tucker.”

  “What, baby?” he asked, all low and rough. “What do you want?”

  Something. Anything. Her arousal was obliterating everything in its path, stoked by the constant press of him through their clothes. She wanted to come. She wanted to be naked. She wanted him naked. She wanted to touch him, to explore his body, to feel the hardness between his legs in her hand, to map the contours of that enticing bulge. She
wanted to know him.

  She wanted him to come.

  …

  Tucker was too far gone to register Della’s hand sliding between their bodies until it was almost too late. But finally the urgent messages punctured the thick hide of lust fogging his senses, and he grabbed for her wrist just before her hand reached its target. If she’d managed to hit pay dirt, Tucker wasn’t so sure he could be as chivalrous as his conscience demanded.

  She moaned crankily in protest, her mouth breaking away. Her lips were wet and crushed-looking, the blue of her eyes all hazy, and fuck if that didn’t make him want to kiss her again.

  Her brows beetled together as her chest rose and fell in an agitated rhythm. His breathing was in a similar state of agitation. “Please, Tuck. I need to touch you.”

  Tucker’s cock almost burst through his fly at the streak of desperation giving her softly spoken request the impact of a sledgehammer. It was completely in favor of Della’s wishes. Unfortunately for it—this was not a democracy. It didn’t get a vote.

  He’d stopped being ruled by that disruptive little fucker a long time ago.

  He understood the desperation she felt, because he needed to touch her, too. To learn every inch of her skin. To get to know every freckle and mole, explore every dip and rise. To catalogue every pant and moan and whimper.

  And God…he needed to know her inside as well.

  But there was time for all that. They’d agreed yesterday to take it slow, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to blow it. Slow and steady it was, even if they both wanted to jump ahead.

  And it was waaaay fucking harder than he thought it would be.

  Last night, against the door, it had taken all his willpower not to let his hands wander beneath her skirt. And, right now, God help him, the urge to buck and grind against the heat of her core, which was practically burning a hole in his fly, was overwhelming.

  Stopping her hand from going where she clearly wanted her hand to go was an act of self-denial that should earn him a fucking sainthood. Here lies St. Tuck. He died from exploding testicles.