She wanted to stay like that forever, with him buried so thick and deep within her that she felt his every breath and heartbeat in the most intimate, erotic way—something Garrett seemed to be in agreement with as he held himself on straightened arms, staring down into her eyes with a look that made her feel like the sunset he’d waited years to see.
Without thought her hands went to his face, the light stubble a tender scrape beneath her fingers. “You’re every fantasy I never dared to dream.”
Garrett’s smile was satisfied and wanting all at once. “I don’t think you have enough fantasies, sweetheart.”
“Then maybe you’ll give me some more.”
His hips began to move and his eyes took on an intensity she never could have fathomed. “Starting now, Nichole.”
* * *
Nichole collapsed on the bed. Her limbs weak and useless. Her mind spinning over the events of the last few hours.
Even now her belly curled in and on to itself at the memory. So. Unbelievably. Good.
The kind of good a girl could get used to. Spoiled by. Caught up in.
Summoning all her strength, she turned her head on her pillow to look at Garrett, who’d collapsed beside her. He was staring at the ceiling, his breath working in and out of his chest in ragged draws.
He really had done most of the work.
She thought back to the chair. Maybe seventy-five percent.
The hallway. Okay, eighty-five. God, that had been so good.
And she must have purred her approval too, because Garrett’s brows edged up as he looked over at her, that arrogantly satisfied smile stamped across his mouth. “Something on your mind?”
No sense in denying it. “The hall.”
His lids went to half-mast. His voice even lower. “The hall.”
And then he was reaching for her, pulling her in with arms so big and strong she felt as though she were thin as a wisp and lighter than air rather than the flesh-and-blood real woman she was. Another decadent sensation.
Leaning in to taste her lips once, then once more, but this time slow and lingering with a low, rumbling groan finish, Garrett looked deeply into her eyes.
“So there’s something I’d like to try, if you’re up for it. You know—feeling...experimental and all.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “It’s something I’ve never done before.”
Nichole blinked, thoughts of the last handful of hours running through her mind like a PowerPoint presentation for Experimental 101.
Something even Garrett hadn’t tried?
Her heart skipped and a flutter of genuine nerves pulled her too-loose limbs back into working order. “Um...I’m not saying no...yet. But...um...Garrett, what exactly are you talking about...exactly?”
He pulled her closer still, so she ended up lying on top of him, and let out a long breath. “Seriously, only if you’re into it, Nichole. Only if you really think you can handle it.”
She swallowed. “Just tell me.”
Garrett drew her head toward his and whispered in her ear, “I’d like to spend the night. Stay. Sleep here with you.”
Nichole reared back, planting her hands over his wide chest and tucking her knees at either side of his ribs.
“You!” She laughed on a rush of breath. “I can’t believe you—you know what—” But then all she could do was laugh, looking down into Mr. All-Innocence’s smirking face. “You’re bad.”
Hands coasting up her bare legs, over her hips and back down again, he answered, “Like there was ever any question... But maybe not quite as bad as you assumed.”
“No. Not at all.” The teasing fell away and reality settled around her. He was asking her for something serious, disguising it behind laughter and games.
“You’ve really never slept over at a woman’s place before?”
“No.”
This time it wasn’t nerves running through her but something else. Something warmer. Something she was certain was still just this side of okay in terms of the whole caring-while-keeping-it-casual deal they’d struck.
Leaning forward, so this time she was the one whispering in his ear, she said, “Don’t worry. Since this is your first time I promise to be gentle.”
TEN
Garrett leaned back against Nichole’s kitchen counter, the sound and smell of brewing coffee filling the air around him. He’d woken at five, like he normally did, only to discover there was nothing normal about this morning.
He wasn’t in his apartment. And not crashed out on one of his sisters’ couches or spare beds either. But still in the delectable Nichole’s bed and completely wrapped around her.
And, damn, if that hadn’t felt good.
A little too good, based on the way he’d been pressed hard against her back.
He’d entertained a handful of fun-and-games kind of wake-up scenarios, most of which involved getting his tongue all over her before she quite knew what was doing. But they’d only actually gone to sleep about three hours before. And, while his internal alarm wouldn’t cut him any slack, if Nichole could catch the extra Zs she should.
He didn’t want her nodding off at the wheel or letting her body wear down.
Figuring he’d pass on worrying about all the what-ifs of Nichole not getting enough rest, he’d climbed out of bed—mindful of the woman still sleeping there.
Now he was milling around her kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew...making a mental list of repairs the place needed. The hinge on the cabinet door. The track on the silverware drawer.
He’d be willing to bet she’d like a new counter. One of those granite slabs to replace the tile she had.
And then there was the fact that he didn’t need to be taking over the maintenance of Nichole’s place. What was he doing?
She didn’t need this from him. And he didn’t need—
“Hey.”
Garrett turned around and all thoughts about replacing a segment of the baseboard or not were temporarily shelved as he looked to where Nichole stood on the threshold of the kitchen, wrapped up in one of those stretchy thin robes that didn’t actually look all that warm...and, so far as he could tell, nothing else.
“Hey, yourself. Hope you don’t mind I started a pot?”
Her mouth pulled to one side as she finger-combed a few wild curls from her face. “You’re asking me if I mind that you made coffee, but not that you’ve pried up a piece of my floor?”
He looked down at where his Swiss Army knife was wedged between the wall and—and hell. Looking back at Nichole, he offered the only defense he had. “I’m good at fixing things. And it’s just the baseboard. The floor beneath looks fine.”
Shuffling into the kitchen, Nichole just nodded at him, looking adorably exhausted as she folded herself into a kitchen chair and then tried to cover an enormous yawn with her small hand.
“Okay, but your kind is notorious for taking things apart and leaving them that way. Indefinitely. Anything you touch in this place gets put back to rights within the week.” She slanted a look at him. “Regardless of whether this thing with us has run its course.”
Giving them less than a week to run their course? Grumpy, grumpy. She didn’t need to worry about his taking her place apart piece by piece. It was a habit, but one he intended to kick. With Nichole, he didn’t want to be the guy who had to fix everything.
Okay, he’d fix the baseboard...because now that he’d seen it, the damn thing would nag at the back of his mind until he knew it was taken care of. But that was it.
Garrett looked between Nichole and the coffee. After the baseboard, the only thing he’d fix for Nichole was a hot cup of joe. Grabbing a mug from the tree beside the pot, he poured her a cup. “Cream? Sugar?”
A smile flickered at the corner of her mouth as she looked him up and down. ?
??Whipped cream.”
With a shrug, he turned for the fridge, but Nichole was already up and walking over. “Thank you, Garrett, but I’ll get it dressed up. I’m kind of particular.”
“Sure.” Even better.
He watched her navigating her space, seeing a routine he never would have thought to imagine, liking the look of her in the morning in this environment that so few would have the opportunity to experience.
Possessive satisfaction swelled within him at the thought, urging him into closer contact. His fingers played through her hair as she topped off her coffee with skim milk, swirled a spoon through the pale brew and then clinked it at the side of the mug twice.
Another sideways glance and she was looking very amused. “So, was it...good for you?”
The overnight.
Giving in to the laugh Nichole always seemed to pull from him, he nodded. “Very.”
“Seriously, how is it you’ve never spent the night with a woman before?”
Garrett took her hand and led her over to the breakfast nook by the bay window and, setting down his own coffee rather than giving up the loose hold he had on her fingers, pulled out her chair. “It just always seemed more of a complication than it would be worth.”
But then, he hadn’t exactly known what he was missing.
Parking it across the table, he threw back half his own mug—more about the infusion of caffeine than the lingering warmth he’d take his time over on the next cup.
“Really?” she asked, pulling her feet up beneath her as she settled in. “I guess I would have thought in some ways making a getaway would be more complicated.”
Nichole brought the mug to her lips and took a long swallow, her satisfaction all too distracting. But she’d asked a question. And, though the answer wasn’t exactly simple, he trusted her with it.
“Not really. I mean, at first it just wasn’t an option. I didn’t go off to college at eighteen like most of the other guys did, so it wasn’t like I could just sneak some co-ed into my dorm. I was living at home with my four sisters. Basically raising them.”
“Wait—Bethany’s a year older than you, and wasn’t your mom still around? I mean weren’t there times you could have got away if you’d wanted to? Weren’t there co-eds trying to sneak you into their dorms?”
Sure there were. Truth be told, there had been for years. “Yeah, but there was a lot going on. Our situation at home was pretty precarious for a number of reasons. My parents hadn’t done a lot of contingency planning. There was a small policy that got us through the first couple years, but my mom didn’t work, and I didn’t want the girls’ futures to die with my dad. Bethany was smart as hell. Always making those gifted programs at school. A hell of a lot more going on than I ever had, that’s for sure. And with the earning potential in the house pretty well limited to what I could eke out, her grades were her ticket into college. So that was her job and she nailed it. Free ride right through.”
Nichole was smiling at him then, and he knew she’d seen the pride he couldn’t contain when it came to his older sister.
“Which was great, but it meant she was basically gone by the time I was seventeen.” He’d never been a senior in high school, because by then he’d dropped out to work full-time. Everyone had helped out in the day-to-day—but the money, the bills, keeping the house fixed up had fallen to Garrett.
“My mom had always been kind of fragile. I have no idea how she managed to have five kids, but even before Dad died we’d all become pretty adept at chipping in. Which is probably the only reason we were able to make it the way we did. She never really recovered from losing him.”
“Garrett, that must have been so hard.”
He nodded, closing his eyes. And for a moment he was back in his kitchen that day, with some textbook open in front of him, his dad blowing through the room with all his endless energy, trailing a bunch of little girls clamoring for a last kiss before he took off for work. He’d leaned over Garrett and looked at the page, shaking his head in that bewildered way he’d had when it came to school.
He’d been blue-collar to the core. Working in construction from his teens. No higher education. Just a salt-of-the-earth, meat-and-potatoes man’s man who’d loved his family.
He’d clapped Garrett on the shoulder and nodded toward his wife over at the counter, cleaning up breakfast. “You’re the man of the house while I’m gone, son. Make me proud.”
Same words every day. And Garrett had grinned, rolling his eyes at the idea. Still, he always gave his dad his everyday commitment—“Yes, sir”—earning that last, “Good kid,” as he left for work.
Thirty minutes later his father had been dead. And all Garrett had had to honor the man he’d worshipped was that last promise he’d made.
Clearing his throat, he looked back at Nichole. “Mom tried. She got meals on the table and held it together enough so, for a while, the relatives weren’t asking questions. But even as kids we had a sort of instinctual understanding of her limitations. She cried a lot. Spent more and more time in her room. Less and less time doing the things a capable parent did. If there was a crisis in the middle of the night she wasn’t the one the girls went to. It was me. And by the end—when I was eighteen—it got to where she needed the kind of help she couldn’t get at home. Hell, she should have had help before then, but we— I just didn’t understand.”
The guilt inexorably tied to thoughts of his mother pushed at him, weighing in his gut and chest. The question that never went away... If he’d gotten her help earlier would she have had a chance?
“My God, Garrett, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize your mother— Maeve doesn’t talk a lot about her.”
It didn’t surprise him. “Maeve missed out on the most Mom had to give. She was just a little kid. And it was tough to lose so much at once. It was tough on all of them, but we got through it. And, long story short, someone needed to be around. I sure as hell didn’t like the idea of my sisters being alone overnight, you know?”
There were just too many things that could happen...and he’d thought about all of them.
Nichole’s brow pushed up. “That being the case, how in the world did you ever get this Panty Whisperer reputation?”
“I was a teenager.” He laughed. “With needs. No privacy at home. And a very short window of free time every other week or so to take care of them. Thank God I had a few friends with older sisters who were willing to be the responsible party and babysit once in a while.”
“So you’re citing your libido as an example of necessity being the mother of invention?”
“Exactly.” Then he held up a hand. “Only I don’t want it to sound like I was one of those guys who’d say anything to get into a girl’s pants. I wasn’t.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t need to, Garrett.”
But then her eyes found his again and they were still serious. Still waiting.
“What about later, though? After you got Maeve and the rest through school and out on their own? What about then?”
“By then I’d taken over running the construction company and I was going after my own degree. Still not a lot of free time. But, yeah, obviously I could have spent some of it crashed out overnight in a woman’s bed. It just seemed smarter not to.”
“Afraid they’d get ideas?”
“Yes.” It sounded bad. But all he had was the truth. “It was important to me that the women I took out didn’t get the wrong idea about what was happening. About what could happen.”
He hadn’t had the time to get to know them well enough to figure out if he could trust them to take his word for the kinds of limits a relationship with him would have. And so his romantic interactions had always been sort of stunted, shallow exercises that served a specific need.
Until Nichole.
; Because not only did he finally have the time, but she already knew the score. She already knew him better than any other woman he’d ever taken out. They had honesty and communication on their side.
And the freedom in that—just to be together and enjoy what they were doing—was incredible.
There was only one problem. He hadn’t actually taken Nichole out at all.
If ever there was a woman who deserved a solid date from him it was this one. But so far he’d picked her up at a party, literally picked her up in the back of a coffee shop and backed her into her place with no intention of letting her out until he’d gotten her to...well, where he’d gotten her. Several times, he mentally amended, giving into a satisfied grin.
“What’s that look about?” Nichole asked, cuddling her coffee mug to her chest.
“I was just thinking about where I should take you for our first date.”
ELEVEN
“You can’t be serious.” Nichole laughed, trying to keep up as Garrett half-towed her through a parking lot toward what appeared to be some kind of two-dimensional enchanted castle ahead.
“Why not? This is our first date—official first date. Because the weeknight dinners don’t count and I actually called you in advance to set this one up—so it seemed appropriate.”
God, she loved that he was so into giving them a first date. Even if they had spent five of the last six nights together, with Garrett proving to her time and time again what a stellar decision it had been going forward with a relationship.
Giving her hand a squeeze, he added, “And it’s on my bucket list.”
Nichole ground to a stop, thinking she’d never get used to the things that came out of this man’s mouth. “Your bucket list?”
“Yeah.” He brushed a strand of flyaway hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “The stuff you want to do before you die.”
“I know what it is. I’m just surprised to learn miniature golf makes yours.” The idea of him trying to navigate that big body through a tiny maze of six-foot fairways was just too much.