by Crespo, Nina
He dipped his fingers past the delicate fabric and traced over the landing strip of hair covering her sex. She didn’t wait for him to ask the question as he went a fraction deeper into her folds with each soft stroke. “Yes…yes.”
He reached her clit, and sensations overwhelmed her. She arched up for more of his touch. “Yesss!”
Rome slipped one finger inside of her, gliding in and out. Moans of pleasure she couldn’t stop purred from her throat as he thrust two fingers deep inside her channel. Her hips moved of their own accord, undulating, straining upward as his featherlight strokes over her clit and deep thrusts drove her closer to her orgasm.
The light graze of his hair-roughened cheeks on her breast and the warmth from his mouth as his lips closed over her nipple made her sex clench in anticipation. He sucked the peak deep into his mouth as he strummed her clit, and ecstasy rushed over her, bringing crystal clarity to him delivering perfect pleasure, being her pleasure. And it had just begun.
He got up, grabbed a condom from his pocket, and, after he tossed it on the bed, he stripped off his underwear and jeans.
She picked the condom package up and came to her knees in front of him as he stood by the bed. “My turn.” She took the condom from the package, then rolled it slowly down his thick, pulsing shaft.
He thrust his hips toward her hand. “Teasing will get you into trouble.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m just returning the favor.” She wrapped her hand around him and pumped his condom-covered cock.
His ab muscles grew rigid as she fisted him tighter and gently stroked his balls with her free hand. He matched her rhythm, and his hard length pulsing, growing larger, brought a rush from the power she held over him.
Suddenly, he grabbed her wrist, making her stop. His big body covered hers as he nudged her back on the mattress, and a kiss consumed her half-hearted protest.
He lifted up and guided himself inside of her.
Natalie wrapped her legs high on his waist and met thrust after hard…deep…wonderful thrust. Suddenly, her orgasm ripped through her, consuming her and scorching her like a flame from the inside out. Rome bucked his hips faster, awakening nerve endings that fired pure pleasure. As he found his release, he pulsed inside of her, prolonging a climax she wanted to lose herself in, possibly forever.
Chapter Nine
In the twilight of sleep, Natalie snuggled deeper under the covers, and the beige sheet brushed her bare skin. Last night, she and Rome had moved from the pullout bed to the one in the guest room, but sleep hadn’t been on the agenda right away.
A vision sprang up in her mind of straddling his hips as he lay on the bed. She’d traced her tongue around his flat nipples, then through his abs, steadily moving lower, torturing him, teasing him…until he’d turned the tables on her. Again. Based on her responses, he’d guessed her obsession with his morning beard. He’d wielded it like a sensual weapon, wickedly grazing his hair-roughened jawline over the sensitive skin of her throat, over her hardened nipples, and up her inner thighs.
She shivered from the memory and the chilled air-conditioned room. Another bonus besides his facial hair—the man was like a furnace. A smile tugged at her mouth as she scooted toward the other side of the bed, seeking Rome’s warmth. The cold, empty mattress brought her fully awake, and she sat up.
The dent in the middle of the pillow and the after-good-sex ache between her thighs were the only remaining evidence of her night with him. She couldn’t blame him for leaving. It was just a one-night stand.
The sun starting to light up the sky suddenly registered one more thing aside from Rome’s absence. Betsy. She was late taking her out for her morning walk. Shit.
She jumped out of bed. Just as she grabbed her sleep shirt from the floor, she heard the front door open and the jingle of a leash.
A short time later, she heard Rome talking to Betsy.
Her heart skipped beats as she quickly pulled on her shirt, then peeped out the doorway of the bedroom.
Betsy, now off her leash, trotted to the entrance of her playroom. Pacing and wagging her tail, she waited for him.
Rome came down the hall dressed in the clothes he’d worn the day before. He leaned down and rubbed Betsy from head to tail. “Come on. Let’s get you some food.”
Betsy wagged her tail harder, yapping as she followed him into the playroom.
He didn’t leave. He stayed. As Natalie slipped back into the bedroom, she released happy silent screams. Yes! In the midst of jumping around, she caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror against the wall to the side of the bed. Yikes!
Half of her hair stood up, and she’d done a poor job of removing her eye makeup, leaving her with racoon eyes. And yeah, morning breath added to the not-so-hot package. She rummaged through the dresser drawer, where she kept some spare clothes, found some faded, skimpy gray sweat shorts, and put them on. Then she hurried into the adjoining bathroom and tidied up. When she came out, Rome was walking into the bedroom.
He smiled. “You’re up.”
“Yeah. Guess I slept in.” She met him near the foot of the bed. “Thanks for taking care of Betsy.” As she stepped closer to him, the pleasant scents of soap and shampoo emanating from him surrounded her.
Last night, along with sheets for the pullout bed, she’d also given him some travel-sized toiletries and a couple of pre-pasted disposable toothbrushes.
He lightly grasped her waist and narrowed the gap between them. “I heard her whining this morning and figured she needed to go out.”
“You should’ve woken me up. I would have done it.”
“I nudged you, but you were completely knocked out.”
“Please tell me I wasn’t drooling on my pillow.”
He grinned. “Maybe just a little. But you looked really cute while you were doing it.”
“That’s so embarrassing.” Heat crept into her cheeks, but the teasing light in his eyes made her smile. “Are you into drooling women? Is that on your dating app profile?”
“Don’t have one.”
Neither did she. Yet. Most of the single people at her office were swiping left and right on their app, almost daily, searching for “the one” or for just a good time. But he probably didn’t need a dating app, considering how women were chasing after him at the Bash.
As he smoothed his hand down her back, she rested her hands on his chest.
In the daylight, she could see faint pink lines near his right eye and temple. With his fuller morning beard, the uneven lines and curves where the hair didn’t grow on his right cheek clearly stood out. While they were having sex, her palms had grazed over a scattering of puckered scars on his back, along with the ones on his hip. What type of accident had he been in to cause them?
He leaned in, and as he pressed his lips to hers, Natalie’s question disappeared in a slow, leisurely, melt-all-into-him kiss.
He skimmed his palms up to the outer curves of her breasts and back down to her hips. His jean-covered erection pressed against her belly.
Natalie wrapped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him. The list of all she needed to do, should do, should have done, loomed in her mind, along with pleasure.
Forget about everything else. She needed to set aside reality for just a little while longer.
He eased back, ending the kiss too soon. “As much as going back to bed with you is a huge temptation, we can’t. We have to keep our priorities straight.”
…
Natalie stiffened in his arms, and Rome immediately felt the chill even before she pulled away from him. “You’re right.” She released a hollow laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You need to go home. Betsy’s a little too quiet. I should check on her.”
She walked out of the bedroom.
Priorities? It just came out. What the hell did that even mean? Fuck. Rome raked his fingers through his short hair. What he hadn’t meant to do was offend her.
He walked into the hall and glanced in the
pet playroom, but neither Betsy nor Natalie were there. He found Natalie stripping the sheets from the pullout mattress in the living room and Betsy laying nearby watching her.
He helped her fold the mattress and frame back into the couch. “What I said. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”
“You don’t have to explain. Really.” She avoided his gaze as he handed her the couch cushions and throw pillows that were stacked in the side chair. “We hooked up, and now it’s over. We shouldn’t overcomplicate it. I get it.”
Wait. By priorities, did she think that he wasn’t interested in sleeping with her anymore?
“No. What I meant by priorities is that we need to focus on fixing the door and figuring out what to do about you not having a security alarm.”
“We?” Her brow raised. “We don’t need to figure out anything. Thank you, but I’m a grown-up. I don’t need to be told how to handle my priorities. Goodbye. You know the way out.” She scooped the sheets up from the floor.
A hint of irritation bristled through him. That was his cue to leave, and he should, but why was she dismissing him like that? He grasped her arm, stopping her from walking away. “Why are you coming at me like this when all I want to do is help you?”
“Because maybe it’s really shitty that instead of spending my weekend doing the things I want to do, I’m stuck cleaning up the mess someone else left in my home and spending money fixing stuff I didn’t break. And worse, I can’t even start my day with a cup of coffee because the assholes stole my coffeemaker.” As she released a harsh breath, her shoulders fell, and defiance drained from her eyes. “I had plans. I wanted to relax around the house with Betsy…and after last night, I wanted to spend a little more time with you.”
She wanted to spend more time with him? Happiness sparked but dimmed a little. He’d fucked up by not even giving her a chance to adjust to her day or tackling the unexpected to-do list she now faced. “I can supply the coffee, right away, if you don’t mind instant. I have some packets in my car.”
“Instant?” She grimaced.
“It’s the good kind.” He rubbed his knuckles along her cheek.
“Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” She looked down at the tangle of sheets in her arms. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s just overwhelming, thinking about how I’m going to get it all done.”
“You will.” Déjà vu struck him as the same words he’d said to her last night when she’d insisted she needed to pay for her drink echoed in his mind.
Her gaze met his, and from the spark in her eyes, she remembered him saying it, too. Along with what had unfolded later in the storeroom.
Unable to resist, he kissed her, and suddenly they were right back where they’d started, before he’d inadvertently ruined her morning. Into each other and nothing else.
He reluctantly pulled back from her lips and forced his breathing to slow. More than anything he wanted to take the sheets from her and go back to bed. He laid his forehead to hers. “You have stuff that needs to get done. I want to help. If we combine the two, we can have some of what we want. We get to spend a little more time together before I have to go to work this afternoon.” He leaned away. “What do you think?”
A small smile tipped her lips up. “Okay. But that instant coffee you mentioned better be decent, or I might have second thoughts about this plan.”
Rome laughed. “If you need a caffeine hit, it’ll tide you over.” He went to his SUV and retrieved the coffee. When he returned, Natalie was in the kitchen, taking clean white mugs and teaspoons from the load of dishes she’d washed in the dishwasher last night.
He’d swept up when he’d fixed the door, and she’d put most of what was still usable away. A door to one of the kitchen cabinets was half off its hinges. He could fix that.
But she could, too.
Because of the robbery, she didn’t have a choice of how to spend her weekend or even what type of coffee to drink this morning. He had to let her take charge. She needed to tell him what she did and didn’t want to do and how she wanted it done, starting with the door.
After she heated up cups of water in the microwave, they prepared their coffees—two sugars for her, four for him.
He let her get some caffeine in her system before he drifted to the broken door. “I’m pretty sure the home improvement store won’t have this exact design in stock. It’s probably going to be a special order.”
“I loved the design of this one. I hope they can still find it.”
“I’ll check. In the meantime, I’ll put on a plywood door. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’ll be sturdier than plastic and cardboard. You okay with that?”
She offered up a shrug. “I’ll have to be.”
He set his mug on the counter. “Do you have a tape measure I can borrow?”
“Sure. Old-school or digital?”
“Either is fine.”
She opened the cabinet under the sink and bent over.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away as her shirt rode up the back of her thighs. Last night, he’d nipped her ass with his teeth. At one point, he’d bitten her harder than he’d intended. Did he leave a mark?
She reached farther in, and the shirt rose higher, revealing a pair of skimpy shorts.
He covered a groan that was a mix of disappointment and lust with a cough as he recalled how he’d gripped her hips and thrust into her from behind.
Natalie rose and handed him a small blue toolbox. “The basic tape measure is in here, along with wrenches and screwdrivers. If you need a drill or a bigger hammer, my larger toolbox is in the garage.”
“This is good.” Rome focused on the door. Forget about a bigger hammer. His dick was hard enough to knock a hole in the wall.
Chapter Ten
In the master bathroom, Natalie turned off the flat iron and placed it on the heat-resistant pad lying on the bathroom counter.
Betsy lay on her stomach with her head on her front paws, watching her, just past the threshold of the bedroom.
Rome had been gone for a couple of hours. He’d planned to stop by his place to change, as well as go to the home improvement store.
After he’d left, she’d showered and dressed, then started the frustrating task of straightening up her bedroom and listing the items stolen from her home. But she kept thinking about him coming back to the house and decided she needed to do better than the faded red T-shirt and green yoga pants she’d thrown on, as well as put on a light dusting of makeup and do her hair.
Natalie smoothed a tendril from her cheek. The hem of her front-lace-up, rose-colored tank top rested above the waist of her jeans and exposed a few inches of her waist. She turned around and checked out the rear view in the mirror above the sink. Earlier, when she’d gotten the toolbox from under the cabinet, she’d caught him staring at her ass. It had been a while since a man she was interested in had looked at her with that level of lust in his eyes. And she liked it—maybe a little too much.
Natalie spoke to Betsy. “I’m playing with fire, aren’t I?”
Betsy cocked a brow and raised one of her ears as if to say, You think?
Heavy footfalls came from the back porch.
Rome was back. Jitters of excitement erupted in Natalie as she slipped on a pair of rose sneakers.
Betsy followed her to the kitchen.
Rome had taken down the cardboard and was checking the doorframe. He still wore the boots, but he’d changed into a pair of blue jeans and a deep blue T-shirt. He’d also shaved his morning beard to a shadow covering his jawline.
“Hey.” She paused near the sink.
“Hey back.” His lingering gaze, as he took her in from head to toe, told her all she needed to know about her outfit. She’d nailed it.
Natalie walked over to him.
Betsy went outside. She sniffed around the stepladder, clamps, and assortment of wood lying on the deck before trotting down the stairs to the fenced-in backyard.
Natalie looked out at t
he supplies. “So, you had some luck?”
“Yeah, but, like we talked about, the glass door wasn’t in stock. The store associate found it in the system, and I got the information for you. The good news is, when I told the woman in the lumber department why I needed wood, she took time to cut all the pieces needed to construct the temporary door. I’ll still have to make some minor adjustments for it to fit, but a lot of the work is already done. Like I said, it won’t be fancy, but it’ll hold.”
All he probably had to do was flash a smile at the woman to get her to help, but he’d also told the woman why he’d needed the wood. Simple compassion and good customer service might have also played a part. “How much do I owe you?”
“We can settle up later. Before I forget, here’s your key.” Rome slipped it from his keyring and handed it to her.
A long moment passed as they just stared at each other.
He stepped back, breaking the spell. “Guess I should get to work.”
“We should get to work.” She tucked the key into her front pocket. “I just need to get my toolbox from the garage.”
“See you out back.”
Natalie retrieved her purple toolbox with black trim then joined him on the deck. She sat it next to his nearly identical yellow-and-black one on the picnic table situated near the left corner. He’d moved her tarp-covered grill to the far corner on the right.
Rome measured the height and width of the doorframe. “The plywood isn’t as wide. We’ll have to nail in two-by-fours to take up the slack.”
She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand as he pointed to where the two-by-fours would fit. “Makes sense to me. I’ll get started on taking down the broken door.” As she opened the lid to her toolbox, the top tray divided into two. Screwdrivers were lined up on the left side. Wrenches and pliers on the right. In the tray underneath was a hammer, a small hand drill with assorted bits, and a digital measuring tape.
Rome peered over her shoulder. “Nice. Very nice.” He’d put on cologne when he’d gone home to change, and his tantalizing sandalwood and citrus scent wafted in breeze.
