Melt For Me (Against All Odds Book 3) (9 page)

“Do you have any idea why I went to see your mother, Ella?” Tate’s voice softened. “Why I’m here now?”

She swallowed hard. Couldn’t think. Could barely breathe. Couldn’t seem to form a word if her life depended on it. Managing one quick shake of her head, she leaned against the desk again and gripped the wood so her legs wouldn’t go out from under her.

“I’m here because two weeks ago I was sitting at my buddy Ryan’s table during this dinner party he and his wife were throwing, trying to feign interest in some boring conversation about rocks or dirt or some shit like that.”

She remembered him talking about Ryan Harrison that summer they’d spent together. He’d met Ryan and Ryan’s friend Mitch during his freshman year of college, when he’d joined the baseball team. They’d both been seniors and had taken him under their wings. And their friendship had lasted, long after Ryan and Mitch had graduated and moved on.

“I looked around that table,” Tate went on, “and realized I was totally out of my element. I mean, I love those people. Ryan and Mitch are great. And their wives are truly awesome. But the woman Ryan’s wife, Kate, had set me up with was some geology professor I didn’t have a single thing in common with. And as she droned on about rock fissures and tectonic plates, my eyes literally crossed and I had one of those ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ moments. Right there at the table. All I could think was…why the hell am I wasting my time on some chick I’m not even attracted to? That’s what I’ve been doing for nine stupid years. Looking for someone who could take your place.”

Ella’s heart pounded hard against her ribs as Tate moved a step closer.

“Thing is,” he said softly, reaching for a lock of her hair near her shoulder and twirling it with his fingers, “I realized right then that no one can. You are the only woman I want, Ella. The only one I’ve wanted since I was twenty-two. I know you think I’m some Casanova with the groupies, but I’m not. Ninety percent of the time, it’s all for the cameras. To spread gossip so we make it into the tabloids and keep people talking about the band. I usually kick them out of my room before anything happens. The rest I try to pretend are you. But they’re not. They never could be.”

Something inside her melted. Just cracked and turned to a warm, flowing liquid that swept toward nine years of heartache and regret.

“You told me that this wouldn’t last.” He tucked the hair behind her ear, sending tingles over her skin wherever his fingertips touched. “Do you remember that? When we were standing on the sidewalk in front of your house, the last time we talked? You said we’d each move on with our lives and never look back. But it has lasted. It hasn’t faded a bit for me. And unless you can tell me that it’s gone for y—”

She didn’t think. She reacted. Rose up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his, unable to hold back anymore.

He stiffened against her, and when she realized she’d shocked him, she dropped to her heels. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Heat rushed to her face, and she pressed her hands against her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just—”

His arms closed around her, and he hauled her up against all his tantalizing heat before she could get the flimsy excuse out of her mouth. Her hands landed on his chest. But it was his eyes she focused on. His sexy, blue, spellbinding eyes, locked only on her.

“Like hell you shouldn’t have,” he said in a husky voice. “Do it again, Ella. Do it again right now.”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
ate couldn’t believe this. Ella was kissing him. No, not just kissing him. She was all but devouring his mouth in a way that made him see stars.

Her tongue swept along his as her hands slid up his neck and her fingers tangled with his hair. Her body felt like heaven against him, her mouth tasted like salvation, and when her nails scraped his scalp and she groaned into his mouth, every muscle in his body went rock hard and ready.

She drew back long before he was ready to let her go, breathless and shaky, and lowered her heels to the floor while she rested her forehead against his chin. “I…this is crazy.”

No, it was perfect, and he wasn’t about to let her try to talk herself out of it, not when
she
was the one who’d kissed
him
crazy. “No, it’s right. Something’s finally right after nine years. Don’t you dare run away from it.”

She lifted her head and looked up at him. And in the low light, her brown eyes shimmered and sparkled the way he remembered from so long ago.

“I’m not,” she whispered. “I just…” She swallowed hard and looked down at the edge of his collar. “You were right. I have been hiding here in Holly. But not because of what happened to Kyle. I know that wasn’t my fault. It was just really bad luck. I only stayed here in the first place because it was safe. Because…after that concert, after I thought you’d forgotten all about me, I had to get away from anything that reminded me of you.”

“And a Christmas-themed village in the middle of nowhere was the one place you thought I’d never visit.”

Her gaze slowly lifted to his. “Yeah,” she whispered. “We never spent Christmas together. I don’t even know if you like the holidays.”

“I never did. Until now.”

Her eyes went all soft and dreamy, just the way he’d fantasized for so many years. “Oh, Tate.”

He tightened his arms around her. “I miss you, Ella. More than you kno—”

She pressed her lips to his once more, cutting off his words. Her reaction filled his heart with so much heat and joy and life, it spilled into his chest until he felt as if his lungs might just burst.

He slid his hands down over her sweet ass, pulled her in closer, then cupped and lifted her right off the floor. She pulled back enough to gasp and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Point me in the direction of your bedroom,” he managed.

“Oh. Um…I don’t have one.”

His brows drew together as he looked down at her. “You don’t have a bedroom?”

“I sleep on the couch.”

His gaze drifted past her and over the room, and he realized then that it was sparsely decorated. Her desk was positioned in front of a window. A doorway opened to a room that seemed to be filled with boxes. The small U-shaped kitchen, similar to the one upstairs in his loft, occupied the space to his left. The only other furniture in the room was an old dresser pushed up against the wall and a threadbare couch opposite a stone fireplace. where embers from a fire she’d started a while ago glowing red in the dim light. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Because it’s just me and I don’t need a lot of room. And because I don’t sleep all that much.”

“Why not?”

Her fingertips grazed the edge of his collar, and her gaze followed. “Because late at night is when I think about you.”

Something inside him combusted. Just burst with the need to touch her and kiss her and consume her. His mouth found hers, and she opened at the first touch, drew his tongue into her warmth and wetness with a throaty groan, and tightened her legs around his hips.

“Tate…” Her hands slid down his face, over his shoulders, and across his back while he tipped his head, while he kissed her deeper. Her fingers clenched in his shirt, then cool air swept over his lower back, the middle of his spine, and finally his shoulder blades.

She pulled back from his mouth, breathless and the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, and tugged at the back of his shirt. “I want this off.”

He took one step and dropped her butt on the edge of the rectangular desk, then reached back and pulled the shirt over his head. Excitement and heat and lust filled her eyes as she stared at his bare chest. He dropped his shirt on the floor and leaned down, but she eased away and twisted around before he could kiss her again.

“Wait.” Her hands swept over the surface of the desk, knocking pens, paper, her cell phone, and a small lamp to the floor with a crash. She shifted back to face him with flushed and gorgeous cheeks. “Okay, now.”

One side of his mouth turned up. “I think you just broke that lamp.”

“I don’t care.” She reached for his shoulders, pulling him down to her. “Kiss me again.”

He was powerless to do anything else. His hands found the hem of her white T-shirt, and he tugged it up, broke the kiss long enough to pull it over her head, and dropped it on the floor next to his as his mouth closed over hers once more. She groaned as his hands swept down her sides, opened her legs to pull him in closer. His fingertips found the hooks on the back of her bra, and he eased it free as her tongue tangled with his, then drew back and pulled the garment from her arms.

Her nipples immediately pebbled into hard little tips, and his mouth watered at the sight. “Lie back.”

“It’s cold in here, you know.” Her skin quivered as she leaned back until she was flat against the desk.

“I know. But I promise you won’t be cold for long. Put your feet on the edge of the desk here.” He lifted one foot and placed it where he wanted, then the other.

She shifted back. “What do you have in mind, Kendrick?”

“Everything.” Eyes locked on hers, he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her flannel sleep pants, then tugged them and her panties down her legs.

They fell to the floor with a rustle. Her stomach caved in. He moved one hand to her breast and squeezed before rolling the tip gently between his thumb and forefinger. And the way her head fell back, the way her eyes drifted closed and a groan slipped from between her lips, was all the encouragement he needed.

He pushed her knees open, leaned over her, and drew one succulent breast into his mouth. Her fingers drifted up into his hair. She groaned again and arched her back, offering more. His tongue circled and swirled. He drew her in and sucked, working over one breast, and then the other, until she was quivering. And when she was trembling, when she lifted her hips to rub her silky heat against whatever part of him she could reach, he moved lower, pressing a trail of soft, wet, hungry kisses down her torso until he reached the apex of her thighs.

The familiar scent of her filled his senses, made him light-headed. He lowered his knees to the ground, pushed her legs wider, and parted her flesh with his fingers. Then he leaned forward and tasted her, drawing his tongue up and over her most sensitive spot.

“Oh, Tate.” She lifted toward his mouth. “That feels so good.”

He did it again, laving her over and over until her hand fell from her hair and slapped against the side of the desk.

“Don’t…stop,” she panted.

He couldn’t. Needed to make her go over. Wanted to taste her coming apart in his mouth. Drawing his hand from her leg, he slid his fingertips through all her silky wetness until he found her opening, then pressed two fingers inside.

“Oooh…”

She lifted, lowered, drawing him deeper with her inner muscles while he continued to drive her wild with his mouth. He rubbed that special spot so far inside. Drew her clit between his lips and suckled. And the moment he did, she arched her back and cried out, tightening around his fingers in such a way, he almost came right there in his pants at just the thought of being inside her when she climaxed like that again.

She collapsed against the desk, a sweaty mess of absolute heaven.

Tate quickly pushed to his feet, pulled the wallet from his back pocket, and found a condom. “Don’t you dare fall asleep on me.”

Her eyelashes lifted, and her chocolate eyes shimmered as she looked up at him and smiled. “As if I could.”

She eased up to sitting as he made quick work of the button on his pants and ripped the foil package open. He dropped the tab on the floor as she slipped her hands inside his pants and pushed them and his boxers down his legs, freeing his erection. Cool air spread over his cock as it sprang up, hard and red. Fingers shaking, he tried to get the condom free of the wrapper, but warmth and wetness closed over the tip of his erection, instantly distracting him, and when he looked down to find Ella leaning forward, drawing him deep into her mouth, every other thought slipped right out of his mind.

The angle was odd. She couldn’t get very much of him. But her tongue brushing the underside nearly made him explode.

“Ella.” He gripped her shoulders, pushing her back with fingers he couldn’t quite keep from shaking. The condom fell against her lap. “Stop. I want you first.”

She pulled the condom free, then rolled it over his steely length and looked up with fiery eyes he never thought he’d be staring into like this again. “Then take me.”

He closed his mouth over hers, pushed her down to the desk, and moved between her legs. Her tongue tangled against his as she lined him up with all her sultry heat and lifted her hips. And as he sank inside her, she broke the kiss, dropped her head back, and groaned long and deep in a way that made his blood absolutely boil.

He braced both hands on the sides of the desk, drew out, then pressed in once more. She wrapped her legs around his hips. Gripped his forearms and held on while he drove into her. Her breasts jiggled. Her stomach quivered. And with every plunge, with every single groan, she grew wetter and tighter around him, pushing him closer to his climax and a moment he’d craved for far too long.

Sweat beaded on his skin. He watched her face. Drove deeper. Harder. Faster every time she moaned. She let go of his hips with her legs. Braced her bare feet on the edge of the desk again. Lifted to every thrust.