Authors: Regina Kyle
“Fine.” Sykes loosened his grip on the strap ever so slightly. “I’ll open some windows to air the place out and wait for you in the rig. Ivy, my offer still stands. Call me at the station if you’re craving something other than Chinese.”
“Thanks. I might just do that.”
As soon as Sykes was out of earshot, Cade turned his attention—and his anger—on Ivy. “What do you mean ‘you might just do that?’”
“Why not?” Ivy lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I’m single. He’s single. And we’ve both got to eat.”
“How can you even think about food after what happened here tonight?” Cade crossed his arms. His large frame, made even larger by the bulky turnout gear, seemed to take up all the space and all the oxygen in the tiny mudroom. “Do you realize you could have died?”
“Melodramatic much?”
“You don’t even have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, for Christ’s sake. And when was the last time you cleaned the stove?”
“It’s not my fault Holly and Nick don’t own a fire extinguisher. I’ll run right out and get one. Cross my heart.”
“I’m not joking, Ivy. Safety is serious business.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you telling me that as a firefighter or as a friend?”
“Both.”
Not the answer she wanted. She would have preferred something like, “I’m telling you as the man who’s always been secretly in love with you.” Or even, “I’m telling you as the man who wants to screw you senseless.”
No such luck.
“That’s what I thought.” She squeezed past him into the kitchen, trying hard to ignore the way her breasts tingled when she brushed against him.
“What did I say wrong now?” he asked, following her.
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.” Okay, it was juvenile. But she was way past giving a flying fig. She grabbed the ruined pot, dropped it into the sink and filled it with water.
“Then how am I supposed to fix it?” He leaned against the counter next to her, so close she could smell the citrusy scent of his aftershave even over the burned pasta.
“You’re not.” She picked up a sponge and moved back to the stove to put some distance between them. “You can’t. This is about me, not you.”
The radio on his belt sputtered. “Engine five, rescue one. Code three. Ten twenty-four at the intersection of Jefferson and Grand. Please respond.”
“Shit. I’ve got to go.”
“Code three, is that bad? Is it dangerous?”
Crap.
Why did she go there? She didn’t want him thinking she’d be up all night worrying about him. Even if it was true.
“Car fire.” He headed for the door.
“We’re not through here,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll call you later.”
“You do that,” she said to his back.
Maybe she’d pick up. Maybe she’d be busy with Sykes. Or maybe she’d just crawl under the covers with a good book, preferably something with a happily-ever-after, and escape from the real world.
Again.
I
T
WAS
PITCH
-
BLACK
when Cade went back to Nick and Holly’s place that night, hat in hand. Or, more accurately, fire extinguisher in hand, along with a whole host of home security essentials, including a flashlight, first-aid kit and fresh batteries for the smoke detectors.
Nothing said “I’m sorry” like fire safety equipment, even though he didn’t have a clue exactly what he was apologizing for. All he knew was he didn’t like the uncomfortable feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when Ivy was upset with him.
He turned off the ignition and hit the overhead light so he could look at his watch—10:25 p.m. Was that too late? He wasn’t privy to Ivy’s sleeping habits. He clicked off the overhead and stared at the semidark house, feeling a little like a crazed stalker, if crazed stalkers came bearing carbon monoxide alarms.
He was about to bail when a light flicked on in the bay window. So Ivy was awake. No excuse for chickening out now.
Juggling his Home Depot bags, Cade climbed out of his SUV and rang the doorbell. A second later, Ivy opened the door wearing a V-necked What the f/Stop T-shirt that clung to her obviously braless breasts and a pair of loose, pink-and-yellow plaid sleep pants that shouldn’t have been so sexy.
“A little late for a social call, isn’t it?” she asked, hanging on the half-open door.
He held up the bags. “Am I forgiven if I brought gifts?”
She eyed the bright orange Home Depot logo. “I take it it’s not flowers or candy.”
“Nope.” He smiled. “Something longer-lasting.”
“A hacksaw? Socket set? Cordless drill?”
“Let me in and you’ll see.”
“Okay.” She stood back and let him pass. “But only because I’m a sucker for power tools.”
He went into the kitchen, put the bags on the butcher-block counter and started pulling items out one by one. Setting them down with a flourish, he said, “Sorry, no power tools today. Maybe next time.”
Ivy scowled. “I told you I’d get my own fire extinguisher.”
“Hey.” He held up a hand, palm out. “This is a peace offering, not a declaration of war.”
“A peace offering implies we’re already at war.”
“Aren’t we?” He pulled out an eight-pack of AA batteries and leaned back, arms braced against the counter. “You’ve been freezing me out since the ball game.”
She slid to the floor, her back to the row of cabinets opposite him, and hugged her pink-and-yellow-clad legs to her chest. “About that...”
“Me first.” He sat down next to her, suppressing a smile at her slippers. Fluffy neon-green frogs with bulging eyes and broad smiles. She may have changed a little on the outside, but inside she was still the same funny, spunky, self-assured girl who had staged a sit-in when the school board tried to cut the high school jazz band.
Qualities he’d been too superficial to appreciate as a teen. But he wasn’t superficial now. So why was he resisting what she’d so willingly offered?
Because it wasn’t just her he stood to lose. It was Gabe. Holly. Noelle. Their parents. The closest thing to a real family he’d ever known.
Cade turned his head and met Ivy’s clear, gray-green gaze. “I know things have been awkward between us since our kiss.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Don’t you mean kisses?”
“If you want to get technical.”
“I do.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, still damp at the ends from the shower he’d taken when he got off duty. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
She shrugged. “You want easy, there’s always Sasha.”
He grimaced. “Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.”
Ivy laughed, and just like that the tension between them deflated.
“So are we okay?” Cade asked. “You gonna stop avoiding me?”
“I have not been avoiding you.”
“Bullshit.” He held out a hand. “Let me see your cell. Guaranteed there’s at least ten unanswered calls from me and probably twice that many texts you ignored.”
She smacked his hand away. “Fine. I’ll stop avoiding you. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Stop treating me like your best friend’s pain-in-the-ass sister.”
“You’re not a pain in the ass.”
She laughed again, a sweet, soft, musical sound that made his chest tighten. “Now who’s bullshitting?”
“You’re not,” he insisted. “But you
are
my best friend’s sister.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the cabinets and exposing the long line of her neck, a line he wanted to trace with his tongue from her ear to her collarbone. “Couldn’t you conveniently forget that for, like, an hour or so?”
“An hour?” Now it was his turn to chuckle. “You underestimate me.”
Her eyes shot open, pinning him with a heated stare. “Are you flirting with me?”
He shouldn’t be, dammit. His head knew it was a bad idea. But majority ruled, apparently, and the rest of him, especially the region south of his belt buckle, was screaming for him to quit stalling and give the lady what she wanted. “Maybe.”
“Don’t promise what you’re not willing to deliver.”
“Don’t ask for what you’re not willing to take.”
“So that’s how you want to play it.” Without warning, she kicked off her fuzzy slippers and climbed into his lap, straddling him. “I’ve never been the aggressor before, but there’s always a first time.”
He’d never been the aggressee before, either, but if she was game, so was he. Especially if it meant her crotch pressing into his stiffening cock and her breasts crushed against his chest, her nipples hardening to pinpoints under her T-shirt.
“What about Gabe?” he asked, half hoping that saying his friend’s name would snap him out of his lust-ridden stupor, half praying it wouldn’t.
“Gabe who?” Ivy leaned in to brush a kiss across his lips, and her red-brown curls tumbled over her face, teasing his cheeks. “I thought you were going to forget him for the next hour.”
“Or more.” Cade buried his nose in her hair and breathed her in. Damn, she smelled good. Like sunshine and sugar cookies and the air after a warm spring rainstorm.
“More?” She arched her neck, inviting him to lick the path he’d just fantasized about. It was an invitation he wasn’t strong enough to refuse, his relationship with her brother and the rest of her family be damned.
“Oh, yeah.” He groaned against the soft skin of her throat, well past the point of no return. “Much more.”
* * *
I
T
WAS
FINALLY
HAPPENING
. After sixteen years, Ivy was finally going to have Cade Hardesty exactly where she wanted him.
In her bed.
Or, if the way he was frantically grasping for the bottom of her T-shirt was any indication, right there in the kitchen. And that was fine by her. And if she was lucky and he really did intend this to be more than a wham-bam kind of thing, maybe she’d have him in her bed before the night was over, too.
“Here, let me do that.” She pulled her shirt over her head, leaving herself naked from the waist up and vulnerable. She was a far cry from the women she’d seen at his side in his Facebook photos. Her stomach wasn’t exactly flat or her breasts perky. Instead of tossing the shirt aside, she held it to her chest.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” He punctuated each word with a kiss to her temple, her jaw and finally her lips. “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to hide yours.”
“The Princess Bride.”
Slowly, she lowered the shirt. “You remembered.”
“Of course I remembered.” He pried the shirt from her hands and let it drop onto the tile floor beside him. “It was your favorite movie. You only made me watch it like once a week.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did—”
He silenced her with a hard, fast kiss. “I don’t want to argue. Not when I’ve got these to play with.”
He reached out and rubbed a finger over first one nipple then the other.
“No fair.” She moaned.
“What?” He cupped her breast and squeezed. “You don’t like this? Your nipples say otherwise.”
“I like it just fine.” She bit her lip, feeling suddenly shy. “But I’d like it even more if I could touch you, too.”
“Who’s stopping you?” His hand moved to her other breast, giving it the same treatment.
“Let me know if I’m doing something wrong,” she whispered, pulling his shirt out of his pants and sliding it up his torso.
“Babe, if it involves you removing my clothes, there’s no way it’s wrong.” He abandoned her breasts and she almost cried out in frustration until he raised his arms, allowing her to yank his shirt over his head, exposing the ripped pecs and abs that had been haunting her dreams since the calendar shoot.
She sucked in a breath and he gave her a self-satisfied smile. “Like what you see?”
“I’d have to be blind not to.” She trailed a finger down the line bisecting his chest. “And even then, I could feel my way around.”
He spread out his arms. “Help yourself.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She let her hands roam freely over his shoulders, his arms, his flat, hard stomach. She slipped them under his waistband and came dangerously close to the Promised Land until he grabbed her wrists and pinned them behind her back.
A frown wrinkled her forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“I told you, babe. Nothing you do could be wrong.”
“Then why did you stop me?”
“Because if you keep touching me like that, this will be over before it’s started.”
“Oh.” She felt her cheeks redden. She wasn’t a virgin by any means, but the sexual encounters she’d had were few and far between. And she sure as heck hadn’t had the effect on any of the men involved that she seemed to be having on Cade.
“Yeah.” He stared down at her, his blue eyes darkening almost to black, heavy with desire. “Oh.”
“So what now?”
He lifted her arms over her head and gently lowered her to the floor. “Now you relax and let me take over for a while.”
Relax?
Was he kidding? He expected her to relax while he was sliding down her body, slipping off her sleep pants, spreading her out before him?
“Damn.” He ran a finger around the bare folds of her pussy. “Smooth.”
She said a silent thank-you to the Namibian model who had introduced her waxing. Painful, sure. But the payoff...
She shuddered as Cade worked his finger inside her. “Please.”
“Please what?” He buried his finger to the knuckle then withdrew it almost completely.
“Don’t tease me.” She squirmed under him, lifting her hips to follow his retreating digit.
“Patience, sweet thing.” He splayed a hand across her abdomen, easing her back down. “You know what they say. Those who wait get to come good.”
Sixteen years wasn’t long enough?
“I think the expression is good things come to those who wait.”
“Close enough.” He lowered his head so that his lips hovered over her mound, his breath teasing the supersensitized flesh. “Now be a good girl and let me taste you.”
Ivy almost shot up off the floor at the first lick of his tongue. And he hadn’t even touched her clit. Instead, with the self-restraint of a goddamn saint, he honed in on her inner thighs, licking, sucking and nipping at the soft skin there. His finger continued to pulse inside her, thrusting once, twice, three times before he removed it, making her moan in protest.
“Patience,” he repeated, raising his head to give her his trademark bad-boy grin. Slowly, agonizingly, his eyes not leaving hers, he lifted two fingers to his mouth and wetted them.
Holy Christmas.
He wasn’t touching her, but the sight of his fingers sliding in and out of his mouth was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. She was practically ready to come just from watching him.
“Cade.” She raised herself up on her elbows to see better, not wanting to miss anything. She’d always preferred to close her eyes during sex, whether because she was afraid of what she’d see if she looked too deeply into her partner’s eyes, or because she couldn’t bear to look at herself naked, she wasn’t sure.
Leave it to Cade to get her to release her inner voyeur.
She stared, panting as he ran one moist finger down her equally moist center then spread her open. With an almost primal growl, he lowered his head and her body stiffened, anticipating that first, delectable lick.
It was like being struck by lightning. Electrifying. Invigorating.
Terrifying.
He swept his tongue over her clit and her hips jerked upward. She clutched helplessly at the cold, hard tile beneath her as he toyed with the sensitive peak, alternatively swirling around it with his tongue and suckling it into his mouth. With each swirl and suckle, he brought her closer to the brink, taking her higher and higher until she felt like she was about to splinter into a thousand delicious pieces.
She squirmed and strained under him, desperate for her release. Her moans mingled with the lapping of his tongue and the ticking of the clock above the stove for what seemed like an eternity as he worked her to the edge then back down again.
“Dammit, Cade,” she begged, past the point of politeness. “Let me come. I need to come.”
She pressed her lips together, not wanting to say more. Like how long it had been since she’d had an orgasm that wasn’t self-induced with a little help from her battery-operated boyfriend.
“Soon.” He chuckled and the sound vibrated over her, almost sending her spiraling. “You taste so damn sweet. I could do this all night.”
“But what about you?” Ivy asked on a gasp, her body shuddering. “Don’t you want to, you know, get off?”
“Don’t worry, baby.” He added his thumb to the mix, easing it inside her and stroking her gently. “I’ll get off. But ladies first.”
He delved back in, flicking her clit with his tongue while he slipped his thumb inside her once more. Her explosion was immediate and earth-shattering. Her hips bucked to meet him and her palms slapped the floor as she cried out his name.
When she’d drifted back to terra firma, he was looming over her, grinning like a happy puppy.