Soft and wild. That was Payton. It was the sound of the cry that escaped when he caught her lip between his teeth, held and tugged the slightest bit. The sultry moan when he gripped her bottom, dragged her closer and drove his tongue deep into her mouth. Rocked harder as the muscles of her lean thighs bracketed him, flexing and tensing to the rhythm he’d set—until their breath came in fevered bursts between them. Desperate draws cut short by their need for more contact—deeper contact.
“Please…please…oh, God.”
That’s right. Just like that.
His hands fisted at her hips, seizing the delicate waistband of the panties that kept him from where he wanted to be. Sweet perfection tangled with his tongue, curling around, licking over him, sucking every bit of restraint from a mind that hadn’t had much to begin with.
Control. That was what he was after. But her kiss stroked like a match-head over rough stone, igniting Nate in a flash flame. And there was no controlling the combustible desire when she opened to him, invited him in.
Tearing back from the kiss, he sucked air, tried to get a hold of himself. But all he could see were those soft wild curls swaying from side to side as Payton’s mouth devoured his neck, his ears, his jaw, and then more when her fingers got in on the game—working the buttons of his shirt, with her lips following down his chest. Each heated kiss punctuated by her breathy pleas and silky declarations, “Nate, oh, Nate. What you do to me…want you…need you… don’t stop…”
He couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.
Don’t ever stop.
His eyes opened. Had she said that? Or was it simply where his mind had taken him following his train of thought?
And then, somehow, she’d opened enough of the buttons to get the bulk of his chest free, and the little demon was licking at his nipple again. Her teeth grazing around it and then sucking with enough force the sensation pulled straight from his groin—where her deft fingers tugged at his straining fly and he was once again left panting through gritted teeth as he raced to keep up with her.
He was supposed to be holding the reins! It was Payton’s turn to say “when”.
“No.” Hands clamped on her shoulders, he set her back against the fuel tank.
Her brows pulled together in pained confusion. “Why?”
“No condom.” It was true, though only occurred to him as he’d grasped for an excuse to modify their positioning.
“I need to get on the pill,” she groaned. Her heart rending cry of distress over their predicament would have been comical if his groin hadn’t tightened to the point of pain at the forbidden memory of skin on silky smooth, wet skin. If he weren’t totally caught up in her parted, kiss-swollen lips and the warm pants escaping them at a rate that damn near matched his speeding pulse.
“Upstairs,” she urged, trying to sit up from her reclined position at the head of his bike.
Nate stopped her by running his hands up her splayed legs, still wrapped around him, and issuing a gruff, “Not yet.”
He had a point to make and then, once she got it, he’d take her to the privacy of his apartment and spend the next twelve hours making her scream. But first, he took her hands and then brought them up to the handlebars at either side of her head. “Hold on.”
Her eyes went wide and he waited for it, tasting the satisfaction of a success sure to come. This was where she told him “no”. Where common sense and self-preservation prevailed and she realized she needed to slow down. Be more careful. Only her knees didn’t pull closed, she didn’t put a hand out to stop him.
She did as he’d commanded. She held on.
A part of him let out a cheer at the opportunity to take this fantasy come to life a step further. She’d break soon enough, but for now…
Backing down the seat to make his intent perfectly clear, he fingered a bit of her skirt and then flipped it back to expose her panties.
Turquoise. Lace.
Damp.
“Nate,” she gasped.
Oh, yeah. Here it comes. “We should stop.” Only then, nothing but the anxious shifting of her thighs, the soft musk of her arousal driving him past sanity.
Fine. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Don’t worry,” he growled. “There isn’t much traffic up here. I doubt anyone will catch us.”
No way he could meet her eyes after that one—no one came up to his private garage level, ever—but he was all about pressing the advantage, so, eyes on those racy panties that should have come with a warning, he slid his arms beneath her legs.
This would do it.
He draped first one supple leg and then the other over his shoulders until he had her so erotically laid out he didn’t know if he could last. But it wouldn’t take much more. It couldn’t.
He was taking back control. Showing her who was in charge— Except then he felt it, the slight dig of those killer-heeled boots at his back. Pulling him in.
Payton, Payton.
His hands tightened around her thighs and, slipping the damp scrap of her panties aside, he sank into her sweetness, tasted her cry and the pulse of her body’s ready desire. It was insane and irrational, and yet—those stunned breathy gasps of pleasure, the widening of those deep brown eyes he couldn’t stop watching—suddenly, he didn’t want her to do anything but go with it.
She was desire mixed with an eager curiosity and sense of adventure that left him panting, straining, and demanded he step up to the challenge and make every damn minute they had before this ended the most exciting she’d ever experienced. He wanted her to let him take her as far as he possibly could.
He licked and kissed, circling outward until he felt her writhe beneath him and then working back in until he earned it again. Plumbing with deep thrusts of his tongue and nibbling with the softest graze of his teeth. He closed his mouth over that little bead and drew against her, tasting her cry on his tongue, increasing the strength of his pull with her escalating pleasure until her voice broke, her body quaked and spasmed and she came apart for him with the gift of her total abandon.
When she’d finished, he gathered her close. Ignoring the strain of his erection, he wound his fingers in the back of her hair. The hair that completely betrayed the wild woman inside. Hair that defied conformity, rebelling against every method of restraint imposed upon it. Escaping every bind. Sexy, beautiful, vibrant hair.
He unclasped the barrette she’d secured it with at the nape of her neck, releasing all that wild, soft rebellion into his hands. Sifting through the curls with his fingers as his tongue delved into the wet haven of her mouth.
So he couldn’t control everything.
So what. Maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe giving into Payton for a while was just what he needed. Holding back only made him want her more, and at the rate they were going, it would be years before he got her out of his system enough to give her up.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NATE pulled a suit from his closet and laid it over the end of the bed where Payton lazed beneath the blankets. “I’ll be back Wednesday evening. We can have a late dinner.”
A pair of shorts, track pants, tee shirts and socks were stacked haphazardly within his case. Straightening the lot, he caught the languid stretch of a pale arm by the headboard, the shifting of a slender leg. Considered shoving the whole packing mess to the floor and using the bed for the purpose it was intended.
“How is it I’ve gotten spoiled on you in only one month?” came the quiet purr from amid the sheets. “Five days is so long.”
Nate chuckled, taking her pout for the stroke to his ego it was. She’d miss him. They’d fallen into a habit of seeing each other every other day or so and this would be the longest they’d gone apart since their first night together. In all honesty, the break was probably overdue.
As good as being with Payton felt, something about all that rightness—the ease with which she fit into too many areas of his life—was making his skin itch. Making him tug at his tie and rebel against a confine without p
hysical properties. He needed some space. As she’d said, it had been over a month.
His motions slowed and he stood, frozen, holding a boxed shirt suspended above his case.
More than twenty-eight days.
He shot a glance at Payton, searching for an answer to a question he didn’t like.
He’d have known if she started her period.
No. No. He was being paranoid. She wasn’t pregnant. Couldn’t be. How many times had he heard some television or radio commercial touting on about each woman’s body being different. They just hadn’t been together long enough for him to know what kind of different to expect from hers.
Only suddenly he wanted to pilfer through her diary in search of those little circled numbers. Figure out exactly where she kept that critical information and make a note of it. Reassure himself he hadn’t somehow made the most monumental mistake of his life and then play a quiet game of keep away during those most fertile times of the month.
There was no way. A matter of days would confirm it. Only he’d be gone for the next five.
“Nate?” Payton pushed to her elbows and the sheet slipped low across the swell of her breast.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, balled his fists and tried for casual. “Why don’t you come with me?”
He’d wanted the space, and at that moment was nearly gasping for breathing room, but the idea of not knowing, not being sure—it was intolerable. He’d set up another trip in a week or two.
She sat straighter. “What?”
“I’m going to be busy with work. Meetings. Drinks and dinners. But eventually I’ll have to sleep. And if I have a woman back in my room, they won’t try taking me out to some seedy strip club this time. Besides, the shopping is supposed to be top-notch.”
Silence rang through the room, bouncing around the slate walls, allowing his agitation to grow.
“Um, that’s nice, and I wish I could,” she offered at last, “but I take vacations over school breaks.”
His jaw set, his focus narrowed. “Call in sick.”
She began smoothing one corner of the sheet between her fingers. “I’ve got plans with my family.”
“You could see them anytime.”
Her gaze slid away, the turn of her head shutting him out. She looked uncomfortable. As if whatever she was thinking wasn’t something she wanted to share. And he was hanging every hope on it being some neurotic hang-up about discussing her menstrual cycle.
“I—well—”
This was ridiculous. He was railroading her into a trip he didn’t want her to come on rather than just asking. Man up. “Your period?”
“What?”
“Are you expecting it? Is that why you don’t want to come?”
Shifting to sit akimbo, Payton cocked her head in a way where Nate could almost see her calculating dates. Whatever excuse she’d been ready to offer, that wasn’t it. Just as well she had a reason to stay behind, particularly since he’d broached the subject and had her on the right track now.
“Actually, yes. In the next few days.” Then she squinted an eye at him. “Awfully intuitive. Do you have any hang-ups at all?”
He laughed as if she’d made some great joke, covering the relief that washed through him with tsunami force. “Not about that kind of thing. It’s a period. Big deal. Women get them.”
It was when they didn’t get them, you had something to worry about.
She wrinkled her nose. “But you grew up in a house with just your father. No sisters. And yet, you’re miles beyond what Brandt or Clint could handle.”
Nate shrugged, feeling lighter than he had in days. “It’s probably as much to do with my dad as anything else. Being the educator, he wasn’t really one to shy away from a topic because it happened to apply more specifically to the other gender. And because my mom wasn’t around to give the female perspective, he invariably felt an obligation to be as forthright as possible. The man was a chronic over-compensator.”
Payton laughed and held out her hand. “Tee shirt?”
Nate pulled one from his bag and handed it over.
“You know, you’ve never really told me about your mom. She was gone by the time we met. But beyond that…”
And here he thought things were turning around. “What do you want to know?”
She had a right to ask. It wasn’t any big deal, just not his favorite topic.
“What happened to her?”
“She took off when I was five. Life with Dad and me wasn’t right for her. She wanted something different, I guess. Hell, I don’t know, something else.”
A little line crinkled between her brows, suggesting she didn’t like where the story was going. But she needn’t have worried, there wasn’t much more than what he’d already said.
Leaning across the bed, he dropped a kiss on her knee. “It wasn’t too bad. She’d checked out long before she actually left, so it wasn’t like we’d suddenly lost something we didn’t know how to live without.”
“But what did she do? Where did she go?” He could all but see the unspoken question painted across her face. “How could she leave you?”
“I don’t know where she ended up. Dad did, for a while at least—he made sure she was okay. You know how he is. But for me, once she left, that was it.”
“But she’s your mother. She knew you. Loved you.”
A vision of a pretty smile and distracted eyes slipped through his memory. Soft hair and a nice smell. Remote. Unavailable. Watching her stare out the window, the door… down the road.
Nate zipped the bag and hefted it to the floor before meeting Payton’s waiting eyes. She hurt for him. He could see it there, but she didn’t need to. “Payton, some people aren’t cut out to have a family. I don’t think my mom was a bad person, I think she just didn’t understand the way she was until it was too late.” Deficient. Same as him.
Payton couldn’t imagine it. Giving a child five years of attachment and then ripping it away. What did that do to a little boy? What did it do to the man he became? “Is that why you don’t—?”
“Does it really matter?”
Maybe it did. Her lips parted to press the question, but the quick shake of Nate’s head and hardening of his eyes told her not to.
Ignoring the pinch in her heart, she pushed a smile to lips rebelling against it and tried for the make-light conversation that always smoothed over those sticky moments. “So you’ve got everything you need for the trip? Razor, toothbrush, stack of singles for the strip club?”
Nate barked out a laugh, his head hang-dog low. “What kind of man do you think I am?” Then, turning that impish blue glint of mischief on her, he grabbed her ankle and pulled her to him. “It’s a stack of fives, baby.”
“So bad,” she murmured, pulling him down to her mouth for a kiss. And like that they were fine. Casual and easy. “And, I know, I like it.” She loved it. As she knew she loved him, even though she wasn’t supposed to.
Two nights later, Payton curled into the corner of the sofa, phone held to her ear as Nate recounted his botched attempt to evade the strip club the evening before. Eyes closed, she listened to his voice, missing the feel of his arms around her. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t come with me.”
She sighed. “Poor Nate. The things you suffer for the love of your business.”
“She mocks.”
“She does. But only a little.” She smiled at Nate’s low chuckle. “I miss you.”
“You, too. When’s dinner with your mom and Brandt?”
“Tomorrow night. I’ll drive out after school.” She pulled the throw higher and tucked her legs beneath her. “It’s still strange going home, knowing my father won’t be there. You’d think after a year I’d be used to it.”
“I think it’s perfectly normal. You grew up in that house with him. In your heart, he’s a part of it. I’m sorry it hurts, though.”
She nodded, simply wishing Nate could be there with her before she thought better of it. Br
andt would love that, particularly since this would be the first time she actually had to face him since her relationship began. She took a deep breath, knowing it was time for the call to come to an end. She was getting wistful and both of them needed to get up early the next morning. “Well,” she sighed, stretching across the cushions where she’d gone lax under the spell of his voice. “I better let you go.”
“Hey, Payton, one more thing?”
“Mmm-hmm?” God, she missed him.
“What we were talking about the other morning,” he began, the soothing tone of his voice taking on an efficient businesslike edge. “Your period—did you get it?”
She blinked, mildly surprised by his question. “Um, yes, I did. Today actually.”
“Good.” A long breath filtered through the line, and she pulled the phone from her ear, staring at the receiver. A moment of insecurity touched her with the nagging sensation that last question had been the purpose of the whole call. But then she thought of the circumstances that had brought them together. A pregnancy. A child. Six months of the cruelest uncertainty.
She couldn’t blame him for being concerned and suddenly felt immensely grateful this wasn’t one of those months she simply missed her period altogether.
“Don’t worry, Nate. Everything’s fine.”
“Have some ice cream or binge on something disgusting or whatever you women do. I’ll see you in a few days.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“MOM, Brandt’s pulling up,” Payton called, watching from the front window as the black Escalade pulled into the circular drive. It had been weeks since she’d seen Brandt and, aside from the one brusque call she’d received about the folly of getting involved with a man like Nate, he’d been unusually quiet as of late, burying himself deep in the running of Liss Industries. Doing well. Her father would have been proud.
Heading to the foyer, she heard the thud of a car door and then stalled mid-step at the sound of another.