All I Ever Need Is You (6 page)

Making a woman who was always so controlled lose hold of it was the sexiest thing imaginable.

* * *

Kerry had never known such mind-bending pleasure. Had never actually thought anything so sweet, so sinful, could exist.

And if she had known it?

Well, she thought with a smile she couldn’t possibly contain, she would never have waited so long to experience all of the shockingly good benefits of tangling with a bad boy. Especially when both of them clearly knew that what they shared beneath the sheets—or outside of the sheets, she thought with another smile—would never leave their hotel suite.

Knowing no one would come to harm from tonight, or any other night they decided to play these wicked and wonderful games together, made it easy for her to reach for him as he kissed his way back up her naked body. And to say, “It’s my turn now.”

Adam was much bigger than she, but desire—and desperation to get him out of his clothes—made her strong. Strong enough to turn them over in the bed so that he was beneath her and she was pressing a kiss over each inch of his chest that she bared as she undid his shirt.

“You taste so good.” She licked out against the flexing muscles of his abdomen and they jumped beneath her tongue. “Amazingly good.” She lifted her eyes to his as she put her hand on his belt buckle and said, “I want to taste more.”

He groaned, and she felt him pulse against the palm she’d just laid flat over his erection. She could feel how big, how hard he was, had felt it as they’d kissed by the suite’s front door. But it wasn’t enough to feel him through fabric anymore—she needed him skin to skin.

Clearly wanting the same thing, he got the rest of his clothes off within seconds. Her brain scrambled as she looked at all those muscles, all that tanned skin, all that hunger for her. Jumbled enough that the only word she could think was
mine.

For tonight at least, Adam Sullivan, with his dark, intense eyes, with a mouth made for kissing, and with those magical, knowing hands, was all hers.

Hers.

And then there was no room for thinking, no space for anything but instinct. And pleasure. She lowered her mouth to his chest first, running her lips south with soft and teasing kisses until she couldn’t stand to tease either of them anymore as she ran her tongue over him. His hands tangled in her hair, her name falling from his lips again and again. Pleading and pleasured all at the same time. And then, finally, she took him inside on a hum of pleasure she couldn’t contain.

His growl echoed in the room as she found herself suddenly lying back against the mattress, Adam kissing her with ferocious passion. He drew back from her lips just far enough to say, “Now, Kerry. I need you
now
.”

She knew it was his way of asking her, yet again, if she was ready for this. Ready for him. Even after what they’d already done—their hands and mouths all over each other—he obviously needed to know that she was still okay with taking the final step.

If any part of her had still been cold, his concern would have warmed her up completely. But she was already there—
beyond
ready to be with him. So instead of answering with words, she reached for one of the condoms he’d put on the bedside table and together they sheathed him. By the time his mouth found hers again, she was already wrapping her legs around his hips. In one perfect upthrust of her hips, she took him all the way inside.

In a heartbeat, he was unleashed. No more reserve, no more worry. Just wicked, sinful passion.

She met him thrust for thrust, stroke for stroke, gasp for gasp. And just as she’d never known there could be pleasure this sweet, she’d also never realized that she could become part of someone else. That Adam’s heartbeat could mesh with her own. That his sweat could become hers. And that his pleasure would take her even higher than the very highest peak.

Together they climbed.

And together, wrapped in each other’s arms, they fell.

Kissing.

And kissing.

Then kissing some more.

Kerry drank in every one of Adam’s sweet kisses while his mouth never left hers. Her arms and legs were still wrapped all around him, his hands were tangled in her hair. And she had never felt so good in all her life.

Their post-sex make-out session kept her heart racing just as fast as it had when she was coming apart beneath him, her temperature just as high, her need just as desperate. There was no room, no space in their kisses for her to take a breath, but she didn’t want that room. Didn’t want that space. Not when everything felt so perfect, so right
.

So
beautiful
.

He was heavy over her, but she loved his weight pressing her down into the mattress. Loved how secure it made her feel to know that he was as close to her as another person could possibly be. And that he didn’t want to break their connection, either.

Finally, he lifted his mouth from hers, but only to rain kisses over her face. Again and again he’d press a half-dozen kisses over her cheek, or her eyelids, or the curve of her ear, or the tip of her chin, before returning to her mouth. And every time he came back, she was even hungrier for his lips against hers. For the slow stroke of his tongue over hers. For the nip of his teeth as sweet turned wild before turning breathlessly soft again. For the chance to drink in his groans of pleasure as she kissed him back just as passionately.

Forever. She could have kissed him like this forev—

Her phone rang, one of the two ring tones that she would never, ever ignore no matter what. Tonight, it was her sister’s that was chiming barely a few feet from where she and Adam were wrapped around each other on the bed.

By the second ring, all the heat had drained out of her, replaced immediately by worry.

“Kerry?” Adam had clearly felt her tense up.

“I have to get that.”

She could hear both the worry and the frustration in her own voice and knew that Adam wasn’t at all the kind of clueless male who would miss it. Because even though she should be glad that Colleen had just saved her from letting her post-sex emotions, and all of Adam’s amazingly passionate kisses, run away with her heart, she still couldn’t help but be upset that the moment was now completely ruined.

Adam moved to let her slide out from beneath him. When he’d been lying over her and she’d been wrapped around him, she’d been so warm. But now, as the cool air in the room rushed over her skin, she couldn’t repress a shiver.

He’d seen every inch of her tonight, but she still felt horribly exposed as she all but leapt off the bed to grab her phone before it went to voice mail. Because if her sister couldn’t reach her, who knew what she’d decide to do next? Or how bad it would end up being.

“Colleen? It’s Kerry—tell me what you need. Where are you?”

Her insides twisted as soon as she heard her sister’s voice while Colleen gave her the name of a bar in a really bad part of Seattle. Slurred. High. Either on the verge of laughing or crying or both in that manic way Colleen often had when she went out on Friday nights to try to numb her emotions.

“I’m coming right now to get you,” Kerry told her. “Don’t go anywhere with anyone. Promise me you’ll call me again if anyone tries anything.”

But instead of giving her that promise, her sister hung up on her.

Kerry grabbed for her clothes and began to yank them on, not even the slightest bit concerned about her nakedness anymore. “I have to go,” she told Adam, even though it had to have been obvious from him hearing her side of the conversation.

“I’ll go with you.”

He was already putting on his clothes as she told him, “Thanks, but I can handle this myself.”

“Kerry.” He was magnificent standing in front of her in only his pants, his chest bare. “The volume on your phone was up loud enough that I could hear the name of the bar you’re headed for to pick up your friend.”

“My sister.”

“I get that your sister needs you, but I don’t want you going to that part of town at all, let alone by yourself at this time of night.”

“I’ve been there plenty of times to get her,” she began, but even as she said it, she couldn’t help remembering how scary most of those times had been. Or how last week her sister had been so wasted that Kerry could barely get her over to the car.

A car she didn’t even have tonight, since she’d taken a taxi to the hotel.

She looked up into dark eyes that were comfortingly steady. “How fast can you drive?”

“As fast as you need me to go.”

* * *

Kerry was glad that Adam didn’t expect her to make conversation as they drove. He didn’t waste any time trying to find a parking spot, either, just turned on his hazards and left his car right out front. Any other guy with an expensive car would have been freaking out about leaving it here. Heck, every time she left her car in this neighborhood to go into a bar and get her sister, she’d been relieved that it was still there by the time they got back outside. But Adam simply put his hand on Kerry’s back as if to steady her while they walked through the crowd smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk.

“Colleen is taller and thinner than I am, with dark red hair to her shoulders.”

Her sister was a beautiful woman. At least she had been until she’d started drinking and partying so hard. Colleen was too old, and too smart, for places like this. Kerry knew Colleen was hurt by what had happened between her and her ex-boyfriend, but how could her sister think that this was any way to fix it?

“I don’t see her outside.”

Kerry was more than a little frantic.
Please
. She prayed Colleen hadn’t gotten into a car with some guy who would take advantage of her.

And as Kerry and Adam pushed through the crowd and into the bar, she was so thankful that he was there and that he’d insisted on coming with her. The sea of rough-looking men and women instinctively parted for him without him having to say or do anything threatening at all. Just from his sheer presence.

Thank God, it didn’t take them long to find her sister dancing and drinking, although the guy she was with looked more than a little scary. Over the pounding music screaming from the speakers on the ceiling, Kerry yelled, “Colleen, I’m ready to take you home now.”

Colleen’s eyes were blurry and red as she turned to look at Kerry. There was barely recognition there, let alone any thanks that Kerry had rushed over to get her. “Go away,” Colleen said as the song changed to one that allowed them all to hear. “I’m finally happy now with—”

“Zane.”

Colleen gave him a big, messy smile and ran her hands down his arms. “Mmm, Zane. Make my little jailor go away.”

Adam immediately stepped in and told the guy, “Colleen is going to have to take a rain check tonight.”

Colleen’s gaze shifted to Adam, at last. She tried to whistle, but she couldn’t control her lips quite well enough, so only air came out. “Where did you come from, gorgeous?” Zane was instantly forgotten as Colleen reached for Adam.

Kerry had never felt so mortified in all her life. She’d assumed her previously perfect night with Adam couldn’t get any worse.

She’d been wrong.

“Colleen, please,” Kerry begged, “let’s go home.”

Her sister turned on her then. “Not all of us want a cold bed. Just because you’re too uptight to know how to have a good time doesn’t mean that the rest of us don’t.” She turned back to Adam. “Right, baby? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Kerry knew her sister was too drunk to know what she was saying. But that didn’t make it any easier to blink back the tears that were threatening to spill.

Fortunately, Adam still had his wits perfectly about him. “It’s a nice night, Colleen. How about we go outside and get some fresh air?”

He didn’t speak to her sister as if she were a loser. There was no pity in his voice. No revulsion, either. And Kerry had never appreciated anyone more.

Colleen shot her a triumphant look over her shoulder as Adam put his arm around her and began to lead her out of the bar. And thank God he was holding her up, because she could barely walk, and certainly not in a straight line. Kerry got on her other side, and together she and Adam all but dragged her sister toward the exit. They hadn’t yet made it to the front door when Colleen let out a groan and went limp. Adam didn’t miss a beat, catching her and lifting her into his arms to carry her outside.

“I’m sorry,” Kerry said.

“Don’t be.”

And the crazy thing was that he really seemed to mean it. He didn’t seem the least bit shocked by what had just happened. He simply laid her sister down in the backseat and was so kind as he took off his jacket and tucked it around her that Kerry found herself almost in tears.

“Where to?” he asked.

“I have to take her back to my place to make sure she’s okay during the night.”

Given that it was the absolutely worst possible ending to what had been the best night of her life, Kerry couldn’t help but wonder if it was karmic punishment. Some sort of retribution for breaking her number-one rule: Don’t hook up with a man who didn’t have the potential to be
the one
.

Not that she would get the chance to make that mistake again, of course. Because she was absolutely certain that, apart from official wedding duties, she’d never see Adam again. Kerry had known their fling would end, of course, since that had always been the plan.

She just hadn’t known that it would end on the same night it began.

Adam parked in the downstairs lot of Kerry’s building, one of his favorite buildings in Seattle. He’d been honored to head up the historic restoration a decade ago, one of his first major projects.

The building fit Kerry well—classy and elegant, but not stuffy. Granted, he hadn’t been willing to see that the first time he’d met her. No, he’d wanted to take her at face value. The glossy swing of her hair, the impeccably tailored and pressed clothes, the perfect face that seemed to be carved out of marble by a master.

But if he hadn’t already learned just how wrong he was by now, tonight would have taken all of his assumptions and crushed them to bits. As soon as his hands had been tangled in her hair and her mouth had been beneath his, he’d realized that she was made up of more raw, elemental heat, more unfettered desire than any other woman he’d ever known. And after her sister had called, he’d realized just how hard Kerry had been working to project
perfect.
Only, it was clear her life wasn’t even close to perfect. Because if she had a sister who needed to be saved from herself on a regular basis, what else was lurking in Kerry’s shadows?

Before she could try to get her sister out of the backseat, he lifted Colleen into his arms.

“My place is just up on the second floor,” Kerry said, leading the way over to the elevator. As they waited for it to make its way down to the garage, she gently brushed a hand over her sister’s hair. Colleen didn’t open her eyes, but he noticed the way she leaned into Kerry’s touch.

Just the way he had tonight in their hotel suite.

Kerry’s face was still too pale, her green eyes too full of concern as she looked at her sister. Adam’s sister, Mia, had never been this much of a mess—not even close—but the handful of scrapes she had gotten into felt like they had taken years off his life. He couldn’t imagine how difficult this was for Kerry. Because while she clearly wanted to help her sister, he wasn’t sure just how interested Colleen was in being helped. Not if the disdain she’d heaped on Kerry in the bar was anything to go by.

“
Not all of us want a cold bed. Just because you’re too uptight to know how to have a good time, doesn’t mean that the rest of us don’t.”

Kerry had looked like she’d been slapped, and even in the crappy bar lighting he’d caught the tears glistening in her eyes. He’d wanted to tell Kerry she wasn’t at all cold. And that
uptight
was all wrong, too. But there hadn’t been time to do that, not when getting her sister out of that hellhole was priority one.

As they stepped into the elevator, Adam wished he had the right words to make her feel better. His brother Dylan would have known just what to say right now. Rafe probably would have, too. But Adam had always been one to comfort by action rather than words, just as he was doing right now. Still, he wanted to do more, wished there was some way he could take care of Colleen’s problems for Kerry.

No woman had ever made him feel so protective. And not because she was weak. Beneath the veneer of gloss and elegance, Adam believed Kerry Dromoland just might be the toughest woman he’d ever met. Not only did she run her business with perfect precision, but she also wasn’t the slightest bit afraid to head into the worst parts of town to help her sister.

They got off the elevator, and her front door was only a few steps away. At first glance, as she let them inside, the space wasn’t too different from her office—perfectly decorated, from the furniture to the artwork and even the patterns on the rugs. But unlike her office, there were little things throughout that gave away hints as to the real woman beneath the gorgeous veneer. The jar of candy on the counter. The sweatshirt thrown over the back of a dining room chair. And especially the pile of romance novels by the side of the couch.

“If you could bring my sister into my guest room, that would be great.”

Following Kerry down the hall, he’d only just stepped over the guest room’s threshold when Colleen suddenly groaned. He knew that sound, and it was never a good one.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

Kerry pointed, and he moved as fast as he could without jostling Colleen too much.

But just as he put Colleen down on her feet on the tiled bathroom floor, Kerry moved in to put her arms around her sister. “You’ve been amazing, but I can’t let you do any more for her tonight. You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

She’d barely finished her sentence when Colleen’s eyes fluttered open and she said, “I’m going to be sick.”

“Please, Adam,” Kerry said. “She’ll hate knowing you saw her like this.”

He shut the door behind him a beat before Colleen’s retching and crying started. Adam knew exactly how this was going to play out. Kerry would take care of her sister, then stay up all night watching over her.

But who would take care of Kerry?

By the time Adam made it out to her kitchen, he’d decided that
he
would.

No doubt Kerry would need coffee when she emerged from the bathroom. He sure as hell would in her position. Adam’s mother had made sure he and his brothers weren’t useless in the kitchen or around the house, so he easily knew his way around a pot of coffee.

As he found everything he needed to make it, he thought about family and all that came with it. He’d always been thankful for his, for the way they all stood by each other no matter what, and he liked knowing Kerry clearly felt the same about her family.

But from what he could see, there was a big difference between his family and hers—no one in his family had ever pretended to be perfect. His parents had never expected it from Adam and his siblings. They’d simply expected them to be kind, and hoped that any mistakes they made would be something to learn from. Adam hadn’t met Kerry’s mother, but from what she’d said at dinner about her mother doing spot checks on her “empire” all the time, he had a sense of just how much weight her mother expected Kerry to carry on her shoulders. And to do it effortlessly, as well.

An hour later, Kerry’s hair was damp and curling softly around her shoulders as she walked into her kitchen. She’d not only showered, but had also changed into leggings and an oversized University of Washington sweatshirt. She looked utterly unlike the perfectly polished woman he’d first met a week ago—and totally adorable. Even more beautiful, in fact, than he’d already thought she was.

She stopped in her tracks halfway into the room. “What are you still doing here?”

“I was thinking you could probably use a cup of coffee.”

He poured it for her and brought it over before she could tell him that she didn’t need it. He’d seen how hard she worked to take care of everything herself, but sometimes you needed support, whether you wanted to admit it or not.

“How did you know coffee was
exactly
what I needed right now?”

She took the cup from him and drank. Not dainty sips, but big, thirsty gulps.

Staying to make her coffee hadn’t been about sex—yes, they’d had an amazing night together, but after seeing what she was going through in helping her sister, he’d simply wanted to take care of her. Still, he wasn’t going to blame himself for enjoying the sight of her
perfect
walls falling away or for thinking she was even sexier behind those crumbling walls.

After Kerry had finished the cup and gone to pour herself a refill from the pot, she said, “You’re good at silence. At letting a person process their thoughts.”

“You can thank my father for that. He’s the best listener there is.”

She gave a faint little smile. “From everything Rafe and Brooke and you have told me, your parents sound really amazing. I can’t wait to meet them at the wedding.” But too soon, her smile fell away and she sighed as she picked up the coffee cup and took another sip.

He’d given her a little silence and coffee. Now he’d give her the chance to get some of tonight off her chest if that’s what she needed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sighed again. “I just feel really embarrassed about everything tonight and how it all turned out.”

“There’s nothing at all embarrassing about being there for your family and helping them when times are rough. Trust me, we’ve all been there.” He moved closer and put his hand on her cheek. “On both sides.”

For a moment, she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. He loved the feel of her soft skin against his palm, her eyelashes brushing over him. He also loved knowing that she felt she could rely on him for a little while.

When she finally drew back, she leaned against the kitchen counter, her expression bleak. “My sister thought the world revolved around her boyfriend. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do or give to him. But then it turned out he was lying and cheating and stealing from her. Pretty much everything you can imagine. And she just fell apart after that. I keep hoping she’ll stop treating herself like dirt over it, but...” She sighed again. “Maybe tonight will be the wake-up call she needs.”

Adam hoped it would be, too, although the way Colleen had behaved tonight didn’t have him holding his breath. Something told him her sister was still a ways from actually hitting bottom, no matter how bad tonight had been.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked.

Kerry scrunched up her nose, so cute and uninhibited that he found himself not only wanting her more, but liking her more, too.

“About three months.”

“You’ve been heading into dangerous neighborhoods to bring her home for three months?” He couldn’t mask the alarm in his voice, and he could see her shoulders stiffen as she reacted to it.

“I’ve been careful.”

He forced himself to bite his tongue, a very difficult task when he was worried as all hell for her. “I’m sure you have, but the next time she calls you for a late-night bar pickup, I’d really appreciate it if you’d call me to come with you.”

Kerry raised an eyebrow at that. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think you’d appreciate me calling in the middle of one of your dates to ask you to drop everything for Colleen.”

Not for Colleen, for
Kerry
. And not only was no one other woman on his horizon right now, but at this point he couldn’t honestly imagine being interested in anyone but Kerry.

“No,” he clarified, “what I wouldn’t appreciate is finding out you went back into one of those dangerous hellholes without me.”

He couldn’t quite read her expression as she said, “You’re stubborn.”

“So are you. But there’s a big difference between stubborn and foolish. And we both know you and Colleen have been lucky so far to get out of those places unscathed. I’d like to keep things that way.” He’d heard her ask her sister for a promise to be safe earlier that night. Now he decided to ask Kerry for the same thing. “Promise me you’ll call me if you ever feel that you need to.”

He watched her battle silently with herself, clearly caught between her belief that she needed to be self-sufficient at all times and the knowledge that she really
had
been lucky to get out of those neighborhoods in one piece so many times over the past three months.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I promise to call. But hopefully I won’t have to, because Colleen will decide it’s time to turn over a new leaf.” Kerry looked more than a little uncomfortable as she added, “Please don’t say anything about this to Rafe and Brooke. I’d hate for them to think I’m not one hundred percent there for them and their wedding, when I am.”

“They know you are,” he said softly. “And I can’t imagine anything would ever make them think differently. But what happened tonight is just between you and me.”

“All of it?” she confirmed.

“That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it?”

When Kerry nodded, though it should have been a relief to know that they were on the same page about having secret hot hookups with absolutely no relationship pressure, strangely, it wasn’t. Instead, he found that the idea of keeping the night they’d spent together a secret grated on him. Big time.

“Thank you again, Adam. Not just for helping me with Colleen, but for—”

He stopped her by threading his hands through her hair and pulling her close for a kiss. She didn’t need to thank him for anything, and he figured the best way to make her stop trying was to do what he’d been wanting to do ever since she’d walked into the kitchen sweet and fresh from the shower.

Kerry didn’t resist his kiss, but slicked her tongue out across his instead, as if she was still just as hungry for him as he still was for her. They’d been kissing when her sister called—kissing in a way that he’d never kissed another woman, a way that was so good it seemed to have no beginning and no end. Now, it was so tempting to continue where they’d left off. He could so easily lift her into his arms, carry her into her bedroom, strip her bare again, and drown in her sweet scent, her moans of pleasure, run his hands over every inch of her soft skin before finally giving them the release they both craved.

But moving things to her house hadn’t been in their original plan. And even more than he wanted to be with her again, he needed to know that she’d come through tonight’s ordeal in one piece.

Forcing himself to drag his mouth away from hers, he asked, “Do you need me to stay?”

She shook her head without so much as a pause. “No. You’ve already done too much.”

But even though that was his cue, he didn’t let go of her. Not yet. Not when her skin was so soft, so warm, so touchable. And not when all he could think about was kissing her again.

“Do you want me to stay?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Before he’d even realized the slight shift from
need
to
want
was coming. But even though a part of him wanted to take back the too-revealing question, he found that he wanted to know her answer more.

A flash of longing winged across her face—deep and intense—but it was gone so fast that if he hadn’t been watching her so intently, he might have missed it. It hadn’t been a fair question, he knew. Not when they had an agreement. An arrangement. One that was based on hot sex with no emotional strings.

Only, how could either of them deny that tonight had definitely tied some strings? And though he could have told himself that it was simply needing to band together to help her sister that made him feel this close to Kerry now, he couldn’t forget how close to her he’d felt while they’d been making love. Closer than he’d ever been to anyone else. Even hours later, the pleasure still lingered. Enough that he knew better than to ruin it by pushing for something in these too-early morning hours that they’d agreed neither of them wanted.