she gestured to the space between them, “—so I’m done denying the pull is there.”
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Lorelei James
“Is this ‘pull’ something you recently realized? A proximity thing? I’m a man, I’m here, I’m good enough to fuck for a few months?”
Jessie twisted her fingers together. “It’s more than that and you know it. After you made that pass at me, I convinced myself you were exactly like Luke—biding your time until your charm earned an invitation into my bed. You’d get your fill of me, work me out of your system and move on. And no, you can’t fault me for that mindset, because of my limited experience with men, and my experience with Luke in particular. Plus, I wasn’t so sure you wouldn’t be using me to settle a score with Luke.”
“You really think that lowly of me?” he bit off.
“You really think I’m a clichéd horny widow desperate to screw the first man who smiles at me?” She didn’t bother to bank the anger in her eyes when she met his glare head on. “If that was true, I wouldn’t have waited two goddamn years, would I? I wouldn’t be asking you to touch me, would I? I could’ve found another man to scratch that itch in the four months since we last saw each other. But I didn’t. Something held me back.”
“Again, nice sentiment, but spell it out for me.”
“I want no-strings sex for these four months we’re together. At the end of those four months, we’ll walk away.”
“Just like that?”
Be strong, be confident.
“Can’t we try it and see?”
“What do we tell people? Because you know my family, they’re gonna ask.”
“We are living together, even if it’s temporarily. People are already gonna assume we’re sleeping together, especially in the gossipy McKay family.”
“So if Skylar comes right out and asks you if you’re with me? Will you tell her that we’re just fuck buddies?”
She couldn’t confess that Skylar encouraged her to get naked with him. “What would you rather I told her? That we’re attracted to each other, but we’re keeping our hands off each other because it’d be like Luke was in bed with us?”
She’d struck a nerve with that. She hadn’t meant to but there was no sense in apologizing now.
“I’m not Luke.”
“Then stop acting like him,” she snapped. “Quit trying to tell
me
what I’m feeling is wrong. I’m being completely honest with you. I’m telling you this because I realized if we start this, I’d own my sexuality for the first time in my life. I want that. With you. Starting tonight.” Jessie took a breath, figuring she’d said enough. Too much probably.
He studied her more intently than she was used to. With an edgy stillness that seemed totally foreign to him.
The longer she stood before him, the more her paranoia built.
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Cowgirls Don’t Cry
Finally, Brandt pushed to his feet. His dark eyes remained on hers as he deftly skirted the coffee table and the pile of Landon’s toys. He stopped in front of her, his big hands clenched at his sides. “Starting tonight, but especially this first time, I call the shots. All of them.
I
own your sexuality. We clear?”
Talk about being the big, bad wolf. Jessie nodded.
“Say the word so there’s no misunderstanding between us.”
She swallowed and said, “Yes.”
Brandt slanted his mouth over hers. But he didn’t kiss her with lust-fueled passion. He drank her in—
with his eyes, with the short, choppy breaths he pulled into his lungs.
Although Jessie was pretty sure he wanted to take a possessive kiss, he didn’t, which indicated his monumental control.
His tongue darted out and slid along the plump inside curve of her bottom lip. A leisurely, sensuous glide across the sensitive flesh that caused her mouth to tremble even as her lips parted in invitation. But he didn’t dive in for a greedy, openmouthed kiss. He lightly swept his damp lips over hers. Repeatedly. Male hunger and hot breath, tempered with softness that was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
He gauged her responses and inched closer, but didn’t allow their bodies to touch. Heat shimmered between them.
Jessie actually felt dizzy from want. What would he do if she fisted her hands in his T-shirt and just took the kiss she craved? His warning,
This first time, I call the shots,
forced her to truly surrender to him.
And that’s when Brandt kissed her.
Holy mother of God did the man lay a kiss on her. His hands framed her face with utmost gentleness as his mouth conquered hers. Dominated. Destroyed. Ignited.
After several minutes of proving his mastery, Brandt changed the angle of his head, taking the kiss from fiery to flirty. Sucking on her tongue. Nibbling on the very edges of her lips. Kissing the corners of her smile.
“Jessie?” he murmured between kisses. “Can you do something for me?”
Her head buzzed. She had no idea how her body remained upright when he’d turned her inside out.
“Jess? Darlin’? Are you listening?”
“Umm. What?”
“Hang on.” His hands dropped from her face and he took her arm.
She thought he was taking her to bed, but he detoured to the couch. She blinked at him. “What are we—”
“I’m getting to it.” Brandt curled his hand around her jaw, feathering his thumb across her kiss swollen lower lip. “Take your clothes off.” Her eyes must’ve given away her confusion because he clarified, “I don’t need a striptease. I need you nekkid.”
93
Lorelei James
With shaking fingers, Jessie gripped the edges of her mock turtleneck and tugged it over her head.
He’d seen her naked before, but her whole body flushed with color anyway.
Brandt didn’t help with her clothing removal, besides the heat in his eyes urging her to hurry.
Next she unhooked her bra, tossing it on the floor. She yanked to release the button on her jeans.
Brandt’s hand shot out and held her shoulder as she shimmied the denim down her legs. She’d hooked a finger in each side of her black lace panties, when Brandt’s rough hand covered hers, forcing her to look at him.
“Those are mine.” He gently pushed her onto the couch.
The tweed fabric scratched her skin. Weird to think she’d never sat naked on this couch before now.
Leather probably would’ve been a better furniture choice.
This is not the time to contemplate home furnishing mistakes. Look at Brandt, dummy, not the weaving
pattern in the fabric.
“What are you thinkin’ about so hard?”
“Not thinking about anything but you, Brandt.”
“Such pretty words from such a pretty mouth.” He used the tip of his finger to trace the contours of her lips. “Do you have any idea how jealous I was that night at the lake? Seein’ you on your knees in front of that little fucking prick, Mike?”
“I don’t remember much from that part of the night.”
“I do, and I wanna erase that mental image of you with another man’s cock in your throat. All I want to remember is the image of
my
cock in your throat. Your mouth on
my
dick.” Brandt unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. Eased both to the floor without losing eye contact with her.
What a rush, seeing Brandt’s take-charge side. In the last week she’d been thinking a lot about the kind of lover he’d be. And thank God sugarcoating his demands wasn’t his style.
She barely got a peek at his cock before he commanded, “Hands on my thighs.” He grasped the base of his dick in his right hand and rubbed his cockhead across her lips. “Open.”
Jessie let her eyes drift shut in anticipation of tasting him, of pleasing him, of pleasing herself by admitting how much she wanted this, wanted him.
His gentleness during the slow glide across her lips, over her teeth and across her tongue, surprised her. As did the loving way he framed her face in his hands, sweeping his thumbs over her hollowed cheeks up to her temple. “Beautiful.”
The musky, salty, utterly masculine flavor filled her mouth and zoomed straight to her core.
His gentleness vanished without warning. He held her head tightly, angled her neck and rammed in fully so the base of his cock rested on her bottom teeth.
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Cowgirls Don’t Cry
She opened her throat against her immediate reaction to gag. She relaxed her jaw and sucked air in through her nose. The circumference of his dick was thick enough that her lips were stretched to the limit.
But man, she loved this. Giving in to him. Giving it all to him.
“Look at me.”
The only things she could move were her eyes. The satisfaction in Brandt’s caused her heart to jackhammer. Caused her pulse to pound between her thighs. In that moment, she knew there was no going back. Anything that happened between them would be so much more than sex.
“I’m gonna want you usin’ that mouth more. Swallow.”
She did, but it wasn’t easy.
“That’s it.” He withdrew, leaving just the head balanced on the edge of her teeth. “Use your tongue.
Good. Oh, yeah, I like that.” Then he flexed his hips and buried his length into her throat again, starting the rapid in and out thrusting that told her he was already close to the edge.
Mired in a sexual haze, Jessie listened to his play by play of what he wanted. Of how hot she looked.
How sexy she was. How much he’d wanted her. She lost herself in the deep cadence of his voice. In the heat of his cock driving into the wetness of her mouth. In the feeling of connectedness to him. In his tenacity.
He swore and stopped halfway in her mouth, until the tip rested on the back of her tongue. He said,
“Suck. Jesus. Suck hard. Fuck.” He grunted and hot semen burst against her soft palette.
She sucked and swallowed, tightening the seal on his spasming cock. Wanting to blow his mind.
Wanting to keep this bond as long as he allowed. Those big, wonderful hands went from gripping her head to tenderly caressing her hair to tapping her jaw so he could slide his spent cock free from her mouth.
Before he could get too far away or say anything, Jessie grabbed his butt. She pressed kisses to his left thigh, moving up to kiss his hipbone and over to rub her mouth across the trail of dark hair that started between his pectorals and ended right there. He twisted her hair between his fingers as she nuzzled this sexy part of him.
“Jess.”
“Hmm?” He smelled so good in this spot. She nuzzled again.
“Enough. Baby. You’re killin’ me.”
She froze mid-kiss, not daring to look at him. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it. But it’s my turn now.” He stepped back.
Jessie glanced up just as Brandt dropped to his knees. Oh man. He wasn’t looking at her face. At all.
A delicious curl of heat ebbed through her.
His hands circled her hips. He slid the lower half of her body off the couch cushion, practically ripping off her panties, uttering a terse, “Brace yourself.”
95
Lorelei James
She scrambled to lock her arms when Brandt’s rough-tipped fingers scraped the top of her thighs as he spread her knees apart.
A half snarl left his throat. He snagged an extra pillow and tapped her butt in a signal for her to raise her hips. The soft velvety fabric brushed her bare ass. Ooh. That felt nice.
But not as nice as Brandt’s soft, velvety tongue brushing her sex from bottom to top.
She gasped when he did it again. And again. And again.
His fingers opened her pussy completely, baring every wet inch, allowing Brandt to taste every wet inch. Thoroughly. Burrowing his tongue into her channel, retreating to delicately lick her folds. Using his mouth in ways that caused her body to twitch and tingle. In ways that had her making noises she’d never heard before.
No play by play this time. Brandt’s mouth was too busy driving her higher and higher until she feared she’d combust.
Almost embarrassing how short her fuse was. The zip down her spine of impending pleasure was a brief warning—a microsecond later, she exploded. Imploded. Went sailing headlong into bliss. She arched back and gasped. Her legs shook. Her arms shook. Her internal organs shook.
This man had the power to shake her to her very core.
After the trembling stopped, she peered down at him, expecting he’d be gazing at her with a cocky grin, because oh, yeah, he’d rocked her world. But Brandt’s dark head was pressed into her lower belly as he fought to level his breathing.
She smoothed her hands over the short hair on his scalp. The stubble on his head felt as funky and cool beneath her palms as it did between her thighs. Just touching him reinforced her feeling of rightness.
Of the sense of security and trust he gave her. Yet, he made her feel like a hot-bodied porn star. “You okay?”
“I should be askin’ you that,” he muttered against her skin.
“I’m excellent. That was—”
Suddenly, he pushed away from her and rolled to his feet. “Ah. I need to get something.” He yanked his duster on over his naked body, shoved his feet into his over boots and booked it out the door.
What the hell?
Panic seized her. Had she done something wrong? Why had he just up and left?
They always leave you. Haven’t you learned that by now?
This couldn’t be happening. Jessie was trying to process Brandt’s retreat when the door slammed. A muffled thump echoed to her as boots hit the carpet.
Then he stood in front of her. “Jess? What’s wrong?”
Startled, she tore her gaze from her feet. “I thought you left.”
“What? No! No way. I said I’d be right back, didn’t I?”
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Cowgirls Don’t Cry
“No, you didn’t.”
He crouched down and tilted her chin up. “I’d never do that to you. Never up and leave you. And it has nothin’ to do with you sitting here nekkid.”
He brought her mouth to his for a prolonged kiss that soothed as well as aroused. If he could read her so perfectly now, what would it be like after they really got to know each other intimately?