Playing Dirty (32 page)

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four,” Mattie counted before a loud boom of thunder rattled the enormous house. She sat on the white sofa in the formal living area, facing the floor to ceiling windows, convinced she was a safe enough distance away to watch the approaching storm

She sipped her third glass of champagne, trying to convince herself there was no difference between the Dom Perignon, or the much less costly versions, and couldn’t. “You better hurry,” she called to Ford who’d disappeared upstairs, promising he’d be right back. “You’re going to miss the storm.”

“We’re in Texas,” he said as he descended the staircase. “It’s not like there won’t be more storms.”

“You have a point,” she conceded. “But it’s not often you get to enjoy the show with a front row seat in a multi-million dollar home on Possum Kingdom Lake, sipping two-hundred dollar champagne.”

He sat beside her and slung his arm over the back of the sofa. “No, but it probably won’t be the last time we have a front row seat to a Texas thunderstorm, either.”
 

He took the champagne flute from her and set it on the glass cocktail table, then held up his left hand and presented her with a small box. A light blue box with a tiny white ribbon.

She looked at the package, wondering when he’d had time to sneak away to Dallas for a visit to Tiffany’s. “What’s this?”

He shrugged and gave her a sexy half-grin. “I missed a few birthdays and anniversaries.”
 

She couldn’t help but return his grin with one of her own. Special occasions were something he’d always done right. Depending on what their budget would allow, he’d taken her out for nice dinners at fancy restaurants, or short weekend trips, usually touristy stuff, depending on where they’d lived. When he’d been stationed in San Diego, one of her birthday trips had been north to Anaheim where they’d traipsed through the different amusement parks. For their anniversary later that same year, they’d taken the Pacific Coast Highway, all the way to Monterey and Carmel where they’d spent a romantic week, sightseeing and making love. She’d conceived Phoebe during that trip.
 

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he said. “Go ahead. Open it.”

Carefully, she lifted the Tiffany’s box from his hand and untied the ribbon. She lifted the lid and removed the pretty, little velvet container inside. She snapped it open and gasped at the sight of a diamond and platinum eternity band nestled between the velvet ring bar.
 

She looked at Ford, then back at the ring. “Oh my heavens,” she whispered as she pulled the ring free. “It’s stunning.”
 

The platinum band of floating diamonds had to be at least two and a half, maybe even three, carats total weight. “But, it’s too much. Tiffany’s? Really? Isn’t that a little out of our price range?” Not to mention way over their five-hundred dollar rule.

“Not really.” He took the ring from her. “If you add up all the things I would’ve given you for the past five anniversaries and birthdays, I think I got off cheap.”

“You’re still not buying a boat.” She admired the ring. “Well, at least not a big one.”

His deep laughter warmed her heart. “I don’t need a boat. Not so long as I have you.”

She grinned. “Charmer.”
 

He reached for her hand. The seriousness in his eyes quieted her. “I wanted to give you a gift to remind you that when I promised to love you forever, I meant it.”

Slowly, he slid the ring onto the third finger of her left hand, tucking it next to the bridal set he’d put on her finger a little over twelve years ago. “I’ll always come home to you.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the backs of her fingers. “Always.”

Tears immediately blurred her vision. Her heart melted. Whatever had been holding her back from saying the words, no longer existed. Ford was her husband, and she was all in as far as her commitment to him was concerned. She’d opened the vault where her secrets had been kept and had lain them out for him to see. He’d held her half the night as she’d told him everything she’d been afraid to share with him, the ugliness, the darkness, and her long, tortuous journey back into the light. He might have been stunned, even hurt, by the truth, but he loved her. And that was all she needed.

She leaned in and kissed him, slowly tasting his mouth, stroking her tongue over his. He didn’t push her, he didn’t touch her, and he allowed her to set the pace. When she finally ended the kiss, she cupped his cheek in her hand and looked into his eyes, saw the emotions crowding her own heart reflected in his gaze. “I love you,” she said. “I’ve always loved you.”

Something shifted in his eyes, as if a door had been opened and he was peering out for the first time since coming home. As if he were really seeing her. “I was wrong,” he said. He grasped both of her hands and held them tightly in his. “The way I reacted last night, I was wrong.”

“Forget about it,” she said. He’d already apologized plenty. There was no need to rehash the same argument. How could they write the next chapter of their lives together if they kept going over and over the previous ones?

“No,” he said. “Hear me out.”

“Ford, I get it. It couldn’t have been easy hearing what you did,” she said. “You apologized, and I accepted. We need to look forward, not back.”

He shook his head. “I know. But I need to say this,” he insisted. “You’re right. It wasn’t easy. And I
do
understand, but you need to understand something, too.”

She slid her hands from his. “What, exactly?” she asked cautiously.

“You are stronger than you give yourself credit for, Matt. Look at all you’ve survived. You’re the strongest person I know.” He slid his warm palms along her jaw, cupping her face in his work-roughened hands.
 

“Thank you.” His understanding meant the world to her. Not that she
needed
his approval, but that he finally grasped the truth about what she’d suffered had been important to her. “We’ve made it through a lot. We have the future. Together. Can’t that be our focus going forward?”
 

She was tired of beating the dead horse. She doubted they’d ever forget where they’d been, what they had gone through, both individually and as a couple struggling to find their way again, but they could, and would, look toward the future. Together. In her mind, it was the only option that made perfect sense.
 

“Yeah?” The hint of a smile tipped his mouth. “And how do you suggest we start?”

Hoping to lighten the mood, she said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I have a badass diamond eternity band that is worthy of a celebration all on its own.”
 

He laughed as she’d intended. She leaned in and kissed him again. He kissed her back, sweetly, tenderly, but she wasn’t in the mood for sweet and tender.
 

She broke the kiss as more lightening lit the room with strobe-like effect, followed by a loud crack and rumbles of heavy thunder. Rain came next, pelting the roof and windows. Texas storms could be fierce. They could blow over in a matter of minutes, or be slow moving and linger for hours. And that’s what she wanted. Wild, like the storm kicking up around them.

She slid off the sofa and faced him. “I am curious, though. Would you like your dessert in the living room?” she asked as she toyed with the thin strap of her dress, letting it slide off her shoulder. She definitely had his attention, because his gaze zeroed in on her newly exposed cleavage as she gave the other strap the same treatment. “Or served in bed?”

“Can’t I have both?”

She shrugged her shoulders with the sole intent of losing her dress. “I don’t know. Can you?” The gauzy fabric fell past her breasts and rested momentarily on her hips, until she did a little shimmy and the dress pooled at her feet, leaving her naked except for the silk thong, the scrap of material covered with ostrich plumes that spread enticingly over her waxed skin.
 

He reached for her, his fingers digging into her exposed bottom as he hauled her near for a closer inspection of her panties. “Were these expensive?” he asked. He smoothed his hands over her bared backside, his thumbs tangling in the thin straps of the thong.

“A little. Why?”

“Because they’re history,” he said and tore them off her.
 

She gasped when he pulled her down to the sofa and pushed her legs wide. “I’ll have my dessert here, and again later in the bedroom,” he said as he moved between her thighs. “And maybe out on the deck.” He dragged his hands down her legs, then settled her calves over his shoulders, leaving her open, vulnerable.
 

He held her gaze, his own heated with desire and a little bit of mischief. A slow, lazy smile moved over his mouth as he used his fingers to tease her already drenched sex, then with agonizing slowness, pushed two fingers inside her. “God, you’re fucking wet,” he said, his voice hoarse and husky. “I’m going to make you come right now, just so I can taste you.”

Her body clenched around his fingers as he stroked her. He continued to hold her gaze captive as he went deep, then turned his hand and sought that place he knew would send her over the edge. Using the pad of his thumb of his other hand, he ramped up the pressure by rubbing against her throbbing clit. She tried to rise up on her elbows so she could see his hands on her, but he had her in a position where she was trapped, spread open for his pleasure. He pressed harder, rubbed at her g-spot until a wave of pleasure slammed into her so hard and fast, she lost her breath. The shockwaves of the powerful orgasm consumed her, rocked her. Before she cooled, he changed tactics and stroked her again, going deep and retreating, then plunging into her again and again, until finally, he replaced his fingers with his mouth and tongue.
 

A wild moan of pure pleasure coalesced with the pounding storm outside. He licked, he kissed and teased. He drove her crazy.
 

He lifted his head and gave her a sexy smile. “Just as sweet as I remembered,” he said, then gently teased her overly-sensitive clit.

She nearly came off the sofa when he used his hands and his mouth to pleasure her a second time. “Ford,” she cried, but he ignored her and continued his assault, using his teeth and tongue in such delicious ways, she thought she would die from the increasing pressure building inside her again.
 

She tugged at his hair to stop him, because she was certain she was going to die, but he continued to ignore her as he feasted on every inch of her. She yanked on his hair, hard.

He looked up and cocked an eyebrow. “Do that again,” he warned, “and I’ll tie your hands behind your back.”

She didn’t believe it possible, but the thought of being completely at his mercy made her even hotter. A heaviness settled in her pelvis, her clit throbbed almost painfully. Her need for another release verged on desperation.
 

She let out a long, slow hiss of breath when his teeth lightly grazed her clit, followed by the whorl of his tongue around that bit of swollen flesh. Her nerve endings were close to exploding. “Ford, please,” she cried, her voice a hoarse whisper.
 

“Please what?”

“Please,” she begged again and reached for his hair, but when he hiked that eyebrow upward, she withdrew her questing fingers, unwilling to test those particular boundaries at the moment. “I need to come.”

That sexy as hell grin returned, full of arrogance and a hint of danger that thrilled her. He slid not two, but three fingers deep inside her and pumped.
 

“Do you?” he asked, stroking her, filling her, teasing her.

Her head fell back. “Yes,” she cried. Her legs trembled. “Now.
Please
.”

He pulled his fingers from deep within her and slid his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her higher. He teased the crease of her bottom as he held her suspended, then covered her pulsing sex with his mouth and sucked her, hard.
 

In an instant, she called out his name on a harsh, ragged cry as the overpowering orgasm ripped her apart. Her body bowed in his hands as the heart-stopping tremors cascaded over her, rushing through her blood, leaving her limp and spent.
 

As her heartbeat slowed, he lowered her to the sofa with great care, then began placing tender kisses on her abdomen, moving upward as he kissed a path over her heated flesh to her breasts. He gently squeezed and kneaded each one, then flicked his tongue over her taut nipples, first one, then the other. Eventually, he left her breasts and kissed his way up her neck, to her jaw, and finally, he claimed her mouth and kissed her long and slow.

She tasted herself on his tongue, and heaven help her, it excited her. He ended the kiss and brushed the hair from her face. “Stand up and bend over, because I’m going to fuck you until you scream my name this time.”
 

Her eyes widened, momentarily stunned by his words. They’d never been shy when it came to sex, But this more dominant side of him was definitely newer territory. She was instantly turned on by the rough way he spoke to her.
 

“You sure about that?” If he wanted to talk dirty to her, then he’d better be willing to accept equal measure from her. “I want you in my mouth.” Still spread eagle and naked before him, she held his gaze and dragged her tongue seductively over her lower lip. She swept her hand down her abdomen, resting her fingers at the top of her sex.