Triple Dare (7 page)

“I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be smiling,” she said, heat creeping up her cheeks. “You didn’t even—”

“Get off?” he said with a wink. “Not yet, but I got to watch you, and that was pretty damn enjoyable.”

“It was?”

“You have no idea.” He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “The look on your face when you came. Knowing I put it there.”

She gave his arm a playful push. “Egomaniac.”

“What can I say?” In one fast, smooth motion, no doubt born from years of firefighting, he scooped her up and hoisted her over his shoulder. “I take pride in my work.”

“Hey.” She stared down at his butt, hugged lovingly by his well-worn jeans. You could bounce a quarter off that thing. “What are you doing?”

“Moving this party to the bedroom.” He strode out of the kitchen and up the stairs that led to the second floor. “Any objection?”

“Just one.” His ass muscles bunched and flexed with each step under the faded denim, and she imagined peeling the fabric away and getting up close and personal. Maybe even bouncing that quarter. “We need to make a pit stop.”

“A pit stop?”

“Second door on the left.”

“What’s that?”

“The bathroom.” Ivy smiled at Cade’s back. “There’s condoms in the medicine cabinet.”

7

C
ADE
HAD
NARROWLY
escaped his share of burning buildings. But even with flames licking at his heels, he didn’t think he’d ever moved this fast. Probably because saving his own ass hadn’t seemed half as important as getting his hands on Ivy’s.

After a quick detour for the condoms, she directed him to a door at the end of the hallway.

“This one?” he asked.

She nodded, and he kicked it open.

“Hey,” she protested. “Be careful. Holly will kill me if we break anything.”

He dropped her onto the wrought-iron bed and toed off his Vans. “I don’t know. That thing doesn’t look too sturdy.”

She ran a hand over the patchwork quilt covering the mattress. “This was my great-grandmother’s bed. It’s been in the family for generations. I’m fairly certain it’s seen plenty of action through the years.”

He shucked off his socks and unbuttoned his jeans. “Trust me. It hasn’t seen anything yet.”

“Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Sure of us.” His pants and boxers joined his socks and shoes on the floor, and he stretched out next to her on the bed, both of them finally, blessedly naked. He wrapped his fingers around her ankle before sliding his hand up, over the slight swell of her belly, between her breasts, coming to rest in the hair at the nape of her neck, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake.

He took a minute to look at her before diving in. Her wider-than-wide gray-green eyes, flushed cheeks, full, begging-to-be kissed lips. She took a quick, sharp breath and he knew no matter what happened tomorrow, there, in that moment, she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“Are you just going to lie there or are you going to do something?” she asked, confirming his thoughts.

“Oh, I’m going to do something, all right.” He massaged her scalp while his other hand slid around to the small of her back. “I just wanted to look at you first. Get a good before picture.”

“Before what?”

Before I kiss every single inch of you. Before I make us both come so hard we forget our own names. Before everything changes between us.

“Before this.” He wanted to yank her to him and crush his mouth to hers, but instinct told him Ivy was a girl who appreciated a slow, steady seduction. So he took his time as long as his amped-up body would let him, nibbling at the corners of her mouth and coaxing her lips open with his tongue. The hand on her back rubbed small circles along her spine, and she folded into him, entangling her legs with his.

Her surrender shattered his control, and he rolled them over, pinning her to the bed. With one hand, he took her by the wrists and brought her arms up over her head so she could reach the headboard. “Grab on.”

“Bossy, aren’t we?” Her fists closed around the metal bars.

“Something like that.” He reached over her to grab one of the condoms she’d deposited on the nightstand, ripped open the packet and rolled it on.

“I’m at your mercy.” She flashed him a saucy smile and arched her back, thrusting her breasts up and inviting him to touch, taste and enjoy. “What now?”

“Now,” he whispered against her lips, his breath mingling with hers, “we both get off.”

Cade closed the slight distance between their mouths, and for the next few minutes there wasn’t a lot of talking with the exception of a few “pleases,” “mores” and “oh, Gods.” She writhed under him, her lush softness rubbing against his impossibly hard cock. Christ, it felt like he could pound nails. Fortunately, he had a much more pleasant alternative in mind, one Ivy’s frustrated movements said she was totally on board with.

He pried his mouth from hers. “Can’t wait.”

“Don’t want you to.” She tightened her grip on the headboard and spread her legs.

She was hot and wet and he was in her so fast he had to grit his teeth and run through the alarm codes to stop himself from coming immediately. Ten-one: call quarters. Ten-two: return to quarters. Ten-three: call dispatch...

“Cade,” she moaned, snapping him out of his mental catalog.

“Say it again,” he growled on another thrust.

“What?” She looked up at him, her eyes flaring, the pupils dark and shining.

“My name.” He plunged into her again, slower, deeper, and he felt her muscles flutter and clench around him, sucking him in even further, holding him tighter. “I like how you say it when I’m inside you.”

“Cade.” She knotted her legs around his back, rolling her hips to meet each slick, steady stroke. “Please. I’m going to come.”

“Do it.” He pressed his lips to the sleek column of her neck, planting openmouthed kisses from her jaw to the cleft between her breasts. She tasted like she smelled, sweet and sunny. For a brief, terrifying moment he wondered if he’d ever get enough of her.

She shook her head, scattering her wild curls. “Not alone.”

“You won’t.” He swiped a nipple with his tongue. Yep. Still sweet. Still sunny. Still not enough. “This time we go together.”

“Need to touch you.” She rattled the headboard, pleading with passion-filled eyes for him to give her permission to free her hands.

“Hell, yes,” he hissed, sending a puff of air over her damp nipple. It sprang to attention, and he took it between his teeth, flicking it hard and fast with his tongue.

She released her grip on the bars and circled his neck, her nails digging into his shoulders, pressing him to her chest. “So good.”

“Right there.”

“Like that.”

“I’ve got you.” He raised himself up from his elbows to his palms, the muscles of his arms and back straining as he continued to move within her. “Let go.”

“You, too.” Ivy’s voice came out on a tremble.

“God, yes.” His was equally shaky.

As if his admission was a trigger, her body went taught, arcing beneath him as she cried out his name. He followed her into sweet oblivion, his release overwhelming him, rushing through him with the power of a back draft.

Ivy squeezed him tighter, her arms and legs holding him in a vise grip as he erupted. When he was finally spent, he rolled to his back, wrapping his arms around her and taking her with him.

He lay there in stunned silence, unable to speak, not knowing what to say if he could. The enormity of it came at him with the same force as his orgasm.

He’d just had the most raw, intense, soul-melting sex of his life.

With his best friend’s sister.

And that fact left him with one burning question.

What now?

“Ivy.”

Cade whispered her name again and shook her shoulder, but his efforts were met with silence. She nestled into him, her eyes closed, the curve of her red-brown lashes resting against her pale cheeks, her breathing deep and even.

Asleep.

He tried not to be offended. She must be exhausted, and not just from the mind-numbing sex. It wasn’t every day she almost burned a house down and had to be rescued by the fire department.

His body relaxed and his arms curled protectively around her. There would be time enough for him to leave before morning. Right now she needed to sleep.

And he needed to figure out where the hell they went from here.

* * *

S
UNLIGHT
STREAMED
THROUGH
the window across Cade’s face and chest. He raised an arm to shield his eyes and met something soft, warm and yielding.

Something that felt suspiciously like a female breast.

A smile played around the corners of his lips as memories of the night before came rushing back. Ivy under him, over him, gasping, breasts heaving, auburn curls splayed out around her like a halo. Calling his name when she came—twice—in a way that made his heart twist.

Then it hit him. Sunlight.

He’d stayed the night.

He never stayed the night.

He wasn’t a complete jerk. He didn’t fuck and run. He was all for a good postorgasm cuddle and maybe even round two after he’d had time to recover. But he made it a rule to be gone before sunrise. Less drama that way. Fewer expectations. And no chance of commitment. No chance he’d wind up in a relationship like his parents, so absorbed in each other—or their research—that they barely had time to acknowledge the world around them, including their own child.

But with Ivy he’d stayed for the cuddle, round two and the morning after. He should be panicked, jumping out of bed, grabbing his clothes and bolting for the door.

But he wasn’t.

Instead, he was reaching for her again, the hand on her breast gently squeezing, his thumb brushing across her nipple.

What was wrong with him? Or was it that something was finally right?

“Mmm.” Ivy stirred, rolling toward him and draping one leg over his thigh.

“You awake?” he asked, his breath stirring the hair at her temple.

“Must be dreaming,” she murmured.

“No.” He smiled against her cheek. “No dream. I’m right here. In the flesh.”

He slid his mouth to hers and she shot upright, almost knocking him off the bed.

“What’s wrong?” He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at her through eyes still heavy with sleep.

“I need to brush my teeth,” she said, clapping a hand over her mouth and struggling to untangle herself from the sheets. “And my hair must look like a rat’s nest.”

“I like the way you look in the morning.” Natural. Glowing. Satiated. His chest puffed with pride at the thought that he was responsible for the satiated part. “And it’s not like I’m brushing my teeth, so don’t sweat it.”

He reached for her, but she rolled away.

“Two minutes.” She stood, giving him a nice view of her very shapely, very naked ass as she crossed the room. “I’ll be right back.”

His eyes narrowed and his cock twitched with appreciation as he watched her retreating backside. He would’ve taken her for a wrap-herself-up-in-the-bedsheets kind of girl. He’d never been so glad to be wrong in his life.

“I’ll be here.”

The words felt strange but at the same time comfortable. Cade flopped down, arms crossed behind his head, to wait not-so-patiently. He was debating whether to go after her and get things started with a little shower action when the familiar, tinny strains of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” sounded from somewhere on the floor near the side of the bed.

He rolled over, reached down and fumbled for his pants. Pulling his cell out of the back pocket, he swiped the screen, not bothering to look at the display.

“Hardesty.”

“Hey, man. You busy? I need a favor.”

Gabe. Shit. So much for the shower.

“What’s up?”

“I’m at my parents’. Devin and my mom are going over the wedding plans.”

“And this concerns me how?”

“You gotta rescue me. If I hear the words
place setting
,
nosegay
or
fondant
one more time, I’m going to scream. I should have listened to Devin when she wanted to elope to Vegas. But I knew it’d break my mother’s heart if her only son ran off and got married without her.”

“You want me to come over there and kidnap you?”

“Nothing that drastic. Just meet me at Maude’s for breakfast in ten. My treat.”

Cade groaned inwardly. The last thing he wanted to do was break bread with the guy whose sister he’d just spent the better part of the last twelve hours screwing. But that guy was also his best friend, and the bro code dictated that friends always had each other’s back. No exceptions.

Of course, the bro code also said you weren’t supposed to bang your best friend’s sister.

Looked like he was batting .500.

He threw off the sheet, sat up and groped for his boxers. “Make it thirty.”

“Thirty it is,” Gabe said, the relief in his voice coming through as clear as crystal. “Thanks, man.”

Ivy came back just as Cade was shrugging on his shirt. She’d tamed her hair—or tried to—and thrown on a robe, some of her modesty apparently returning in the harsh light of day. Her face fell at the sight of him almost fully dressed, making him feel like the biggest jerk on the face of the planet.

“You’re leaving,” she said simply.

He was tempted to lie and say it was work. But he’d never lied to her when they were friends, and he didn’t want to lie to her now that they were...whatever they were. “Yeah, sorry. I got this call...”

She waved him off. “You don’t have to explain. I knew what this was going in.”

“That makes one of us.” He dropped the sneaker in his hand and sat on the bed, his mission to bail out Gabe momentarily forgotten. “Tell me, what exactly do you think happened here last night?”

She went to the closet and rummaged through it, tossing aside clothes as she went. “We scratched an itch.”

Her voice was light and her movements casual, but he wasn’t buying it. He’d known her too long and too well to miss the signs. The too-broad smile trying unsuccessfully to hide the shadow behind her eyes.

She was hurting. And he was the one who’d hurt her.

Fuck.

“Ivy.”

A little black dress flew over her shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the image of it hugging her curves.

“Ivy.”

The dress was joined by a skirt.

Cade came up behind her, spun her around and plucked a blouse out of her hands. “Stop.”

“I told you, you don’t have to explain. I get it. We had our fun, but now it’s done.”

“Says who?”

“Huh?”

“Who says our fun has to be done?” He tossed the blouse onto the bed and reached out to cup her cheek, rubbing his thumb along her jawline. “What if I get another itch?”

She shrugged off his hand. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else to scratch it.”

“What if it’s an itch only you can scratch?”

“Stop messing with me.” She took a step back, and he followed, keeping her close.

“I’m not messing with you.” Cade put his hands on her hips, drawing her to him. “Look, I know you’re only here on loan. And pretty soon you’ll be back to your fabulous, jet-setting life. But we’re both adults, right? Why not enjoy each other while we can?”

Ivy bit her lip, hesitating, and for an agonizing minute Cade wondered if he’d made a colossal mistake. Then she relaxed against him, and he breathed a relieved sigh.