One Lucky Deal (11 page)

She held on tighter. His lips were unrelenting. She was glad. He pulled away just to look at her face. She didn’t want him to stop. His lips were swollen and red. Her heart thudded hard when his stormy gaze slid down to her lips before lifting and searching her eyes, looking for something specific in them. He must have found it because his lips were back on hers just as quickly as he’d pulled them away.

He propelled her back against the wall that separated the kitchen from the entryway. His mouth trailed down her jaw to her neck, and she bit her lip to hold back the embarrassing squeak of pleasure that was threatening to come free.

“I’ve wanted this,” Tad admitted. It was those words that were exactly what stole Candace’s breath away.

She wanted to tell him how badly she wanted this too, but his hand came up from her hip to her breast and his thumb unerringly found her hard nipple, and she couldn’t think, let alone speak.

“God, Candy.” His mouth dipped lower to her shoulder where he had moved her straps aside to slink over her arms. “Stop me here.”

“No!” Candace’s breathing was ragged and so was her speech. She clutched his head and held him to her as he rained hot, openmouthed kisses and nips across her collarbone. “Don’t stop.”

“Thank God,” he whispered when her dress fell away from her breasts and would have dropped to the floor completely if Tad’s knee wasn’t strategically placed between her thighs.

He grabbed her black strapless bra in both of his hands, and Candace finally let that moan out she’d been fighting back. He tugged the cups down until her breasts spilled free. Tad swore and let out a half laugh, half grunt before he tipped his head and laved her with his tongue.

“Tad…” Candace panted. She lost her legs, giving her whole weight over to the wall at her back and Tad’s knee between her thighs. “Don’t stop,” she begged.

“I swear to God, Candy…” Tad groaned around her nipple as he kissed across her chest to her other one. “I’m not going to stop until you’re shaking.”

She was already damn close.

*

He moved his thigh away and let her dress pool at her ankles. He sucked in a tight breath as he stared down at her. She was different. So different. He reached behind her and with one quick pinch her bra fell away. He kissed down past her breasts to her stomach.

“Till you scream,” he promised as his tongue dipped into her belly button. She sucked in a sharp breath and her knees wobbled.

He kissed along her panty line and watched the little shivers of pleasure rising up across her stomach. He held her legs because they were shaking already and no other single thing had ever made him so aroused than seeing what he was doing to her right now.

He pulled her panties down her legs and groaned when she was bared to him. She looked good, smelled good, and he could see how wet she was. He kissed up her thigh as he tucked her leg over his shoulder. “Until you’re begging me to stop,” he whispered against her flesh.

Her hips came forward and he rubbed a hand over her slickened flesh. She whimpered and slumped against the wall. The view up at her was unbeatable. When he slid a finger inside her he bit her leg because they’d barely begun and she was wetter already than anyone he’d been with in a long time.

“Begging me to stop because you can’t take anymore…”

“I can take anything you’re dishing out. Now shut up and—” Her words were cut off when Tad slid his lips over her mound and found her center with his tongue. “Jesus Christ.” Candace moaned and clutched at his hair. “Tad.” Her legs were slipping. “Tad, Tad, Tad,” she begged him. “Lay me down.”

Tad moved away from her just long enough for her to slide down the wall. He repositioned her and himself before pushing her legs out of the way. He went right back to making love to her with his mouth. She fisted her hands into the collar of his shirt and then his hair. She raised her hips up with shaking legs.

She smelled good—good enough that he wanted to bury his nose inside her and breathe nothing but her for the rest of his life. She sounded good, she looked good, and she tasted even better.

*

Candace tipped her head back as a rush of pleasure smashed through her so hard and intense that it had her curling her toes into the carpet and crying out his name as she flooded his mouth. Her body shivered and shook. She clenched her eyes against the hot white lights. She was still shaking when he pulled away from her.

She sat up while her body quivered from the release. She caught him on his knees. She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt while she sampled her own orgasm from his tongue and his lips.

He cupped her cheeks in his hands as her shaky fingers forced the buttons loose on his shirt. She pushed the sleeves down his arms but they got caught on his biceps. He was so ripped it was ridiculous. He had to shrug them off himself. She was already pulling on his undershirt. “Goddamn, Tad.”

He laughed until it turned into a moan as her hand came down the waist of his pants to wrap around his hard flesh. She honestly didn’t remember him being so big. “How did you ever fit?” She was only marginally embarrassed as the words escaped her mouth.

“It took awhile,” he reminded her. “Several tries. I thought I was going to die that summer.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. “Of blue balls.”

She laughed breathlessly. “Let me make it up to you now.” She urged him to his back and he complied. She pulled his pants down his legs just far enough so that he sprung free. But he was thick and heavy and she had to lift it to her mouth.

Her lips parted and closed around the head of his cock. When Tad closed his eyes and really seemed to be enjoying it, Candace closed her eyes too. She couldn’t take him all. He hurt her jaw, and he was far too long. She eased her open mouth down to the base of his shaft.

She ducked and sucked a ball into her mouth and tongued him as his hands fisted into her hair. She switched and sucked the other into her mouth and laved it with plenty of attention. Then she licked her way back up the underbelly of his shaft all the way to the wet tip.

“Candace…” Tad groaned. His belly tightened along with his balls. He squirmed beneath her, and she closed her mouth around him again and rolled her tongue around and around while she stroked the length of him.

He pulled her mouth from him and stood, kicking his pants off and hauling her up against him. He kissed her hot and hard before pressing her back against the wall. “I want you,” he admitted. “God, how I want you.” He cupped her breast in his palm and ran a coarse thumb over her nipple.

“Take me,” Candace softly begged against his lips.

Tad cursed against her mouth. “When did you get so fucking sexy?”

Then she couldn’t answer because her mouth was occupied with his tongue.

When he pulled back she was whimpering. “Take me, Tad, please, please. Take me. Take me!” She urged him with a fist wrapped around as much of his shaft as her hand could fit.

“Your room or mine?” he asked, his forehead bent against hers, his breath stirring the hairs around her neck.

“Yours.” She pressed against him, trying to get him to move in that direction. “There are dogs in my bed and I don’t have any condoms your size.”

“How do you know?” Tad let Candace walk him backward toward his door.

“Tad.” She laughed and looked down between them at his impressive length leaning against his leg. “I know.”

They were apparently moving too slow for Tad because he hoisted her up, pushed inside his room, and tossed her onto his unmade bed. He was sheathed before he came to her on the mattress. The anticipation of watching him tear it open, roll it on, and then walk to her had her belly quivering with heat. She wanted him. Possibly more than she had ever wanted him—and definitely more than she had ever wanted anything or anyone else before.

He crawled up her body. “You should always be naked.” He spoke against her stomach as he kissed up to her breast and then ran the tip of his tongue from her nipple to her neck. He brushed his whiskers against her skin until she moaned.

“You too,” she cooed. “Your body is perfect.”

“No,” Tad whispered as he nudged against her. She forgot to breathe. “You’re perfect.”

“I want you now.” She cupped his face. “But easy—easy.” She sucked in a sharp breath as he slowly began stretching her.

“Baby, I got you.”

She sucked in a breath and opened her eyes at his term of endearment. She didn’t know how she could feel any more wanted, treasured, and safe if he tried to make her feel that way. He did have her too. It was snug at first but eventually he was tucked completely inside her and as he began moving his hips it became easier. She was still tight, and he was still huge, but nothing and nobody had ever felt so right.

He was holding back. She could tell. “Harder,” she asked of him. He thrust just a little deeper, just a little harder. “Hey.” Candace clenched her thighs against him. “We’re good now. You’re not going to break me.”

Apparently it was exactly what Tad had needed to hear because he let loose. She cushioned his each and every thrust. He pressed against every delicious spot inside of her. Even some place deep that no one else had ever reached—a spot that sent shots of pleasure up her spine.

“You’re so tight,” he whispered against her neck. “You feel so right.”

She sighed against his skin and then she bit. She wrapped her legs around him. The push and pull of their bodies coated them each in a glistening sheen of sweat. Candace couldn’t help but cling to him. Her nails dug into his back.

She wanted more. She just didn’t know what more he could give or what more she could take. She opened her legs wider to accommodate him as his thrusts became more urgent and wild. His brow was damp as he cradled it in the crook of her neck, his breath blowing down over her sweat-covered breasts.

She clutched the sheets in her fists and lifted her hips. A fire was building in her belly. He moved to bring a thumb to her center to find that tight little bud of nerves. She pushed his hand away. “No. Don’t.” She arched her back. “I don’t need it.”

“Candy…” he begged her. She knew that he was close, but so was she, and he didn’t need any help. He almost had her. One more thrust. One more. She held her breath and her toes began to curl and her legs shook uncontrollably against his sides. Candace bent forward to bite his shoulder as she tipped over the edge and exploded in his arms.

She ruptured and cried out. Tad captured her scream with his kiss as he grunted out his own release of pleasure. She was satisfied—more than satisfied, she was sated—complete. But she was still beyond disappointed when his hips finally stopped rocking against hers.

They said nothing but breathed for awhile together. Tad eventually pulled out of her and left a gaping hole in her soul. She didn’t like how her body felt without him. A cloud of regret washed over her. She wished it never had to end.

Tad headed across the hall to the bathroom to take care of the condom. Candace pulled her metaphorical big-girl panties on as she peeled herself off from the sheets that smelled so much like him. She left his room, and Tad caught her in the hallway.

“Where are you going?” he asked, and she refused to let her heart eat that up.

“My room. I don’t want you to have to send someone a two a.m. text to come pretend to be married to you to scare me out of your bed.” Candace forced a smile. She knew what it was like to be on both sides of that fence and she honestly couldn’t decide which she hated more.

*

Tad wanted to open his mouth and tell her she was different, but was she? He didn’t know what the hell they were doing. This was new territory for him. He didn’t know how he felt, let alone how she felt. Truthfully, he was afraid of both answers, so he wasn’t about to ask.

He tugged her against him, though, before he let her go. He rubbed his cheek against hers. He breathed her scent in deeply and kissed her neck before he let her walk away.

Chapter 9

Candace stood in the kitchen and pulled her legs up behind her, stretching them out before her run. She had started the coffeepot. She was leaving the dogs home this morning because she was going to run into town to get her vehicle and bring it back home.

“Good morning,” a sexy-as-hell gravelly voice said behind her.

Her heart jumped and her stomach knotted as she turned around. “Hi.” She left it at that since she wasn’t sure where they stood with each other.

“Where you going?” His shorts were slung dangerously low on his hips. His shoulders wide, broad and bare—he was perfection incarnate.

“For a run. I need to get my car.”

“Give me ten and I’ll come with you.” Tad stretched and yawned. She couldn’t explain it, but everything he did was sexier than the last. How a yawn could be sexy she had no idea. How many times had she seen him yawn? It must have just been the thought that she was the reason he was up half the night. That yawn was partially her doing. She was wet just thinking about it.

“All right.” She nodded. She waited for him to get ready. He was quick about it and he came out of his bedroom a while later with a shirt and his running shoes on. He’d grabbed the dog leashes. There it was—a little tug at her heart. It was adorable that he’d thought of them. So she didn’t bother telling him she hadn’t planned on bringing them.

“Just four?” she asked.

“Charlie’s legs are too short to keep up. We’ll take him for a walk later.” Tad handed her Rudy and Sara’s leashes. Rudy, because out of all of her dogs—and she did love them all—Rudy and Candace had a special connection. She got Sara because Tad was holding a grudge.

Tad took Zeke and Sasha and out the door they went. Running alongside Tad was a challenge because he pushed her, just by being beside her, to run a little harder than she was normally used to.

They took the same path as they had the night before. Running along the beach getting hit by spray and fresh morning air was amazing, but running on the beach was a workout. The dogs, though, were having a blast.

“Hey, about last night…” Candace felt the need to address it. Even though she was the one to avoid their kiss awhile back, she felt like a vise was constricting her chest about this.