He smiled. “It’s you.”
She ran her hand up his thigh. “So I’m trouble?”
“Of the best kind.” He kissed just behind her ear softly. She shivered as a wave of desire rocked through her.
There were things that had felt important to say before he was this close to her, reminding her of how good the rest of him would feel. What was it I wanted to tell him? “There’s no reason to be jealous of Jordan—he really is just a friend.”
“Mmm.” Bryant kissed a little lower on her neck, taking his time like she had him just as mesmerized as he had her.
Nicolette caught a mother frowning at them and gave him a little push. “Bryant, I’m serious.”
He raised his head, then glanced down at his hand. “I’m not worried about Jordan.”
Her gaze followed his. When she saw that his knuckles were bruised, she gasped. “How did you hurt your hand?”
Bryant flexed his fingers. “I can’t believe I made it this far in my life without ever punching anyone. Much more satisfying than unfriending someone online.”
“You punched Jordan?”
“Violence is never the answer, I know. I just thought he was saying that . . .”
“That what? I can’t believe you hit Jordan.” She covered her face with one hand. “You know he’s staying at Paisley’s, too.”
“We’re good,” Bryant said. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“And you think I’m the one who would benefit from anger management?”
Bryant laughed. “You bring out a side of me I didn’t know I had. I don’t like the idea of you with anyone else.”
A wave of pleasure washed through her. “Well, that doesn’t mean you can go around punching people.”
“You’re right.” He began to nuzzle her neck again. “There are much better ways to spend my time.”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay, hang on. I brought him out here to talk.
“Bryant, MacAuley has been so good for me. Meeting you has also been good for me. I’m beginning to see the world in a whole new light.”
He growled in her ear, “I want to hear all about it, but what do you say we find a hotel near here, fuck until neither of us can walk, then we spend the rest of the night talking.”
Nicolette threw her head back and laughed. Well, okay, then. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“Not if you want me to be able to concentrate,” he said with a shameless grin.
She laughed again and moved her hand farther up his thigh. “So if I want you to listen, I definitely shouldn’t do this?”
He shifted his hips forward, his pants striving to contain his raging hard-on. “You will never hear me tell you to stop.”
She kissed her way up his jaw and whispered, “Then take me somewhere where I won’t have to.”
He was on his feet instantly, dragging her along by the hand. “I drove by a place on the way here.”
She doubted her feet touched the earth all the way to the car. Nothing in her life had prepared her for how he made her feel. They checked in to a small designer hotel on the waterfront of the Mississippi River with huge grins on their faces and no luggage in their hands. The older male clerk at the front desk rolled his eyes as he handed them a key card.
On their way to the elevator, Nicolette spotted the hotel store. She glanced up at Bryant. “Do we need . . .”
He pat his suit jacket pocket. “I bought a few on the way.” He twirled her into his arms. “Okay, several.”
Nicolette blushed, but only because her thoughts were filled with images of them putting those condoms to use. She didn’t have to imagine long.
Once inside the door, his kiss turned every bit as sinfully addictive as she remembered. She slid his jacket off his shoulders. He pulled her shirt over her head. They tore at each other’s clothing, their kisses getting hotter, their hands getting more desperate as they moved into the room. Bryant bent and grabbed a handful of condoms that had fallen to the floor. He tossed them onto the bed like rose petals.
She laughed and pulled him down onto the bed with her. The rolled together, lost in the ecstasy of being together again. Her hands moved over him with bold confidence. He groaned and kissed his way over every inch of her.
When they rolled again so he was on top, he pinned her hands above her head. Her legs wrapped naturally around his waist. His still-bare cock nudged at her sex. There was a wildness in his eyes that mirrored how she felt. “I like you. You like me. Just fucking say it.”
“This isn’t enough?” She slid her wet sex along the length of him. He shuddered.
“With anyone else, yes.” He groaned when she did it again.
She pulled her hands free, pushed him onto his back, and mounted him. She held his hands as he’d held hers. The way he wanted her, the way he didn’t try to hide it, made her feel powerful and free. Here, with him, there were no inhibitions—no second-guessing. She took his mouth, claiming him the way he’d claimed her. She kissed her way down his neck, down his chest, loving how he moaned and begged her not to stop.
Just as she’d begged him.
She gave him one last heated look before she took his cock deeply into her mouth, rolling her tongue around it. Hoping she brought him the pleasure he’d brought her, she worked his balls with one hand while taking him deeper and deeper.
He didn’t swear the way she did, but he went just as wild. When he finally came, she took all of it, all of him, and loved the pained, guttural sound he made.
He guided her back up to him. The rush of a moment earlier had passed for him, but the hunger in his eyes promised that this was far from over. The things that man could do with his tongue were sinful. He teased her breasts until she was sure she could come from that alone. He pulled her up so she was on her knees directly above his face, then guided her down to the perfect height for—oh, holy shit, heaven.
Swearing wasn’t something she thought about—it just happened. When he used two fingers to hold her sex open wider while his tongue increased the speed of its clit flicking, she swore loud and clear enough for someone in the room next door to bang on the wall. It was the first time Nicolette had ever laughed while coming, and it felt fucking fantastic.
She was still catching her breath when he flipped her over, lifted her ass in the air, and sheathed himself in a condom. She braced herself as the tip of his huge cock teased her hole. “Say it, Nicolette. Say you like me.”
Then he plunged deep inside her, dug his hand in her hair, and filled her so completely it hurt in a wonderful way. She cried out his name. He pounded deeper, harder, wilder.
A warm heat began to spread through her again. He tugged her head back and growled, “Say it.” And ground himself deeper still.
Reaching a place no man ever had. Oh, that mystical, magical place that had fireworks going off as never before. “Fuck yes. Yes, I like you, Bryant,” she called out. “I like you so fucking much.”
“We know,” someone yelled from the other room.
Their audience was forgotten as he took his pounding up a notch. So good. So wildly deep and perfectly positioned for . . . oh, holy fuck . . . she came with a cry. He joined her with a growl and a final thrust.
He withdrew, cleaned off, and pulled her down into his arms. She kissed his smiling lips. A television next door blared.
“Jealous bastards,” he joked and tucked her closer.
She buried her face in his shoulder. “I should be mortified.” She met his gaze. “Instead, I’m just happy.”
“Me too.” He reached behind her and grabbed more condoms. “Let’s really piss them off.” The grin he gave her was irresistible.
She ran a hand down his cheek. “I do like you, Bryant.”
He kissed her deeply. “I know.” Gently, he threaded his hand through her hair. “I’m almost ready to listen to your epiphany, too.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Almost?”
He traced a finger from just behind her ear
to circle one of her nipples. “I suppose I can try. You speak, and I’ll just entertain myself while you do.”
Nicolette closed her eyes as her tip puckered for him. His warm breath teased her other breast. “I realized that I’ve been looking at things all wrong. Everything in life—either everything makes you happy or nothing does . . .”
He tugged on her nub with his teeth, then started making circles with his tongue while his hand moved down to her sex and began to mirror the move on her clit. She shifted her legs to give him better access and tried to remember what she was saying.
“Does this make you happy?” he murmured, then slipped a finger inside her, pumping it slowly in and out of her while moving his thumb back and forth over her clit.
“Oh yes,” she gasped as he thrust a second finger in. “Anyway, it’s up to me how I see things.” He moved his hand so his fingers went deeper still. “So from now on . . .” His finger found the spot that had been elusive to her previous lovers. “Holy fuck, don’t stop.”
He raised his head with the sexiest smirk on his face. “I’m listening.”
She dug her hand into his hair and dragged his mouth back to just above hers. “We’ll talk later.”
With a sleeping Nicolette in his arms, Bryant shifted to peel one of the few unused condom packets from his back. He tossed it on the floor beside the bed and chuckled as he draped his arm once again around the woman who had rocked his world.
He brushed a loose hair off her forehead.
As good as life could be, it was also full of things Bryant struggled to wrap his head around. The daily news was a constant barrage of the unexplainable and unconscionable. Thinking about death, suffering, and the state of the environment on a global scale could overwhelm him if he let it.
Caring for his mother had taught him to focus on what he could do, the positive he had the power to bring. Cancer didn’t care that Bryant had gotten a solid education or how much money he was set to inherit. It didn’t ease when he prayed, didn’t go into remission because he sought out the best doctors. Cancer didn’t even bring out the best in the people who surrounded his mother.
His mother, however, had been strong even in the end, and that still inspired him. The day she’d decided her fight was over, she’d called him in to hold her hand. Her last words would never leave him. “I’m tired, Bry. If I’m not here tomorrow, you didn’t fail. I didn’t fail. This is part of life that we all eventually face. It can scare you, or it can free you. I don’t know what comes next, but I don’t regret how I lived my life. Live yours in a way that you can say the same.”
There was a different look in her eye that day—she knew. “I’ll get Dad,” he’d said.
She’d smiled and closed her eyes. “This isn’t a journey he could go on with me. Forgive him for that, Bry.”
So Bryant had, at least to the extent that he could.
As he watched a sleeping Nicolette, he realized why his mother was so vivid in his thoughts then. Caring about anyone involved risk. But in the end, there was nothing more important—nothing.
The woman in his arms would one day be his wife.
He believed that just as surely as he believed the sun would come up the next day.
Nicolette stirred, and her eyes opened. “Are you watching me sleep?”
“Sorry.”
She wiped a hand across her dry lips. “Am I drooling?”
He kissed that sweet mouth of hers gently. “No. I was just thinking.” Then he smoothed her hair away from her face again. “Do you want to talk now?”
“Uh.” She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Okay.”
“I liked what you were saying you learned in MacAuley.”
She smiled and traced his jaw with her fingers. “I didn’t think you were actually listening.”
He grinned. “I was trying to, but you’re a formidable distraction. Forgive me?” He kissed her bare shoulder.
“I suppose I can’t blame you. I am irresistible.” Her sweet, sexy smile was one he’d gladly wake up to every morning.
Hugging her tighter to his side, he said, “I want to hear everything. Did you and your father talk things out? What did you do today?”
She ran her hand down his arm. He flexed, because at the end of the day, he was a man, and he liked to know he pleased her the way she pleased him. “Why do I get the feeling you had something to do with him being here?”
He tried to look innocent. “Me?”
“I spent some time with my grandmother today, and she said you had spoken to her. Something about the way she said it made me think that the conversation didn’t go the way I’d thought it would. It wasn’t about her threatening you to stay away from me, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Her eyes met his. “You told her what I said about my father, didn’t you?”
It was hard to determine what she was thinking, but he wasn’t about to lie. “I did. If you’re upset about it, I can understand, but I thought—”
She cut off his words with a kiss, then placed a finger softly over his lips. “Thank you.”
He smiled against her touch, then kissed her finger. She lowered her hand. He said, “I didn’t know if it would work, but Alessandro kept saying that Delinda and Dereck love you. I thought they deserved a chance to prove it.”
A shadow passed over her face. “What are we doing, Bryant?”
He could have said a hundred different things. So many responses leapt to the tip of his tongue. Some were sexy. Some were witty. She didn’t need any of those, though. Looking into her eyes, he knew that more than anything else, she craved the truth. “The best we know how to.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling, seeking a way to describe how he felt without diminishing it or scaring her off by saying too much, too soon. “From the moment I saw you in London, I knew my life would never be the same.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Because I looked good in that stupid dress?”
He kissed her jaw. “I thought you were hot, yes, but that wasn’t all that drew me to you. I’ve been lost. I’ve been lonely. Angry. I felt your pain.”
She shook a little against him. “And then I got shitfaced.”
Bryant looked back up at the ceiling again. “I didn’t care. I wanted to be there for you.”
“And you wanted to fuck me.” She hugged him tightly.
His eyes flew to hers. She was smiling, thank God. “That, too.”
With a flat hand, she caressed his chest. “I wasn’t ready for you. Not even when I came here. I was so confused.”
“I know.”
Her hand stilled. “Watching the people in this town take care of each other, seeing how connected they all are, made me want that. I don’t want to be alone. I do want to work things out with my family.” There was a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, something that made his heart thud loudly in his chest. “And I want you.”
It was more than he’d expected her to say. “From the first moment you saw me. Admit it.”
She chuckled. “It’s your humility that I love the most.”
“Did you just say you loved me? Fitting. You were the one who asked me out. When it comes time to propose, should I buy the ring, or will you?”
“You’re such an ass.”
He kissed her forehead. “But I’m an ass you love.”
Did she? Could she? That kind of leap of faith would have terrified her before she met him. “I do see us headed there.”
He reached behind her, picked up a few condom packages, and threw them up in the air. “Woo-hoo.”
She slapped his chest, then kissed it. “You’re so—so—”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I believe the words you’re looking for are charming, sexy—the kind of man a woman gladly drops to her knees for.”
She laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly the way I’d describe you.”
His chest rumbled with laughter. “I thought so.”
“So what did you do toda
y?” she asked after a pause.
He told her about the factory, about Sheriff Todd and Pat, about how he felt when he heard Jordan had put in a bid for the site. She didn’t let him skip a detail of what had led up to him punching her friend.
“You were jealous,” she said as if that weren’t a common human condition, as if no man had ever fought for her before.
“To the point of making an ass of myself. We talked it out, though. Thankfully, Jordan understands my pain.”
“Because of Paisley.”
He told himself he wouldn’t say anything, but it just came out. “Delinda said you asked Jordan to marry you.”
“For my inheritance. A few years ago, my grandmother sent out a decree that if any of us married and invited everyone in our immediate family to the wedding, we’d get our inheritance early. Spencer immediately got engaged just to get the money, and even though that didn’t work out the way he thought it would, it felt like a good idea for me to do the same—for a moment. There has never been anything but friendship between Jordan and me. I’m glad I didn’t mess that up. He came here to help prepare me for the arrival of my family. Just knowing that someone cared that much—and understood—helped. And now, seeing him with Paisley makes me think you just might be right . . . maybe things do start to align and work out when you share a common vision. Like you said—magic.”
“It’s all about seeing that you don’t have to go on the journey alone.”
“Yes. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but are you bidding for that factory to help MacAuley or me?”
“Both. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to bid against Jordan or with him. I have a feeling we have a shared vision, also.”
She took a moment to weigh his answer. “Before I came here, I wouldn’t have believed you came here just for me. I didn’t see myself as someone who could inspire that kind of action.”
“And now?”
She shook her head in wonder. “You’re a lucky guy, Bryant Taunton, because I’m pretty fucking wonderful.”
He kissed her briefly. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“I can finally look myself in the mirror and like what I see. And it feels pretty damn amazing.”
Runaway Heir Page 20
