Mended

by Sydney Landon

  Gwen was secretly hoping that the other woman would veto the whole thing because she wasn’t really in the mood to socialize. She just wanted to go home, eat herself into oblivion, and watch some man-hating movies on Lifetime. Of course, she’d probably run right into Dominic at the apartment complex where they both lived. Geez, she needed to move now. Wasn’t it just her luck to live doors away from Mac’s friend? Dominic was already so annoying…okay hot—completely, smoking hot—but still annoying.

  It was no one’s business if she peeked through her blinds every time she heard his boots in the hallway. Yes, dear Lord, she had to admit to herself that she could distinguish the sound of his tread from the rest of her neighbors. He just looked so good in his cargo pants and those tight shirts. And some evenings she was even lucky enough to catch him in all of his masculine glory after returning from a run. Shirtless…and wearing those low hanging shorts he favored. She loved the sight of his hard body with those rippling muscles, glistening sweat, the tattoos, the… “Hmmm?” Gwen looked around to see both Mia and Crystal staring at her.

  Crystal smirked. “Honey, where was your head at? You just moaned and your eyes went crossed.”

  “And you have some drool on your chin,” Mia pointed out helpfully.

  Gwen felt her face flush as she quickly ran a hand across her mouth. Darn it, there was drool there. Freaking Dominic Brady! “I…er…was just thinking about dinner.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Crystal grinned. “Whatever you say. So anyway, how about drinks at Hawks tonight?”

  Mia rubbed her hands together. “Ohhh, going the sports bar route, I like it. Seth would hate it, so it sounds perfect to me.”

  Gwen found herself agreeing. Surely an evening out with her friends was better than sulking at home. After all, her ass was big enough and adding another pint of ice cream to it wasn’t going to help things any. Tonight she would have fun and forget all about Mac—and Dominic. How hard could that be?

  ***

  Dominic Brady sprawled back on his sofa with a big sigh of contentment. Jet lag was a real kick in the ass. Maybe he was just getting old, but flying to Vegas and back in less than forty-eight hours was not something he cared to do often. When he was in the Marines, he and his friends had lived for quick trips like that. They’d get a few days off and make the most of it. Sin City was a frequent destination back then. Now, just being home in his apartment in Myrtle Beach was much closer to heaven than the bright lights and the scantily clad women on the strip. Yeah, hell, only thirty-three and he officially sounded old.

  The trip this weekend had been for a good cause, though. One of his best friends had gotten married to the woman he’d loved all his life. It had been a long, rocky, and uncertain road for them, but Mac and Ava had finally worked it out and Dominic couldn’t have been happier for them. He and Mac, along with Gage Hyatt, owned a company together called East Coast Security. They monitored and provided security for many high-end companies, including Danvers International that housed their headquarters.

  For Dominic, the job and the location fit him perfectly. His family lived in Georgia, so he was close enough to visit when he wanted and far enough away to keep his nosy mother and sister out of his business. He loved them dearly, but they had been trying to find him the “right woman,” since he was potty trained. If he still lived closer to home, they’d be herding single women past him like an assembly line. The fact his sister had married her high school sweetheart and promptly popped out two kids only put that much more pressure on him.

  He had just started on his second Corona and was watching Sports Center when he heard a sound at his door. It was more like someone moving against the frame than knocking. Biting off a curse, he reluctantly put his beer down on the coffee table and went to check. It was likely no one coming to visit him. His neighbor at the end of the hall liked to party, and even though he always tried to keep the noise down, occasionally there were a few lost strays in the hallway.

  Dominic checked the peephole then pulled back in surprise. This was a new one. He could make out the crown of someone’s head and that was about it. He stood there for a few moments hoping the person would just move on. When he heard nothing but silence, he came to the resigned conclusion that he was either going to have to leave them there all night or open the door and encourage them to move on.

  Swinging the door open suddenly might not have been the best idea, Dominic concluded, when a soft body landed against his. He heard a feminine giggle then a “Whoops!” He froze in place when hands started roaming his chest and then his torso. “Mmmm, you are sooo hard…I knew you would be.”

  What the hell? Just as he registered what he thought was brown hair through the peephole was actually dark red, his interloper looked up, and he gasped in shock. “Gwen?”

  “Dominic,” she purred back, blinking at him with wide eyes like an owl. Her hands continued to roam and he didn’t know whether to be thrilled or sorry he was wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts. Her hands on his bare skin were having a direct effect on his cock and the silky material wasn’t doing much to contain it. On the other hand…it felt good…no, amazing.

  Maybe he was asleep and this was a dream. There was no way Gwen Day, the woman who he’d wanted from the first moment he’d seen her, was here now, touching him…damn near everywhere. “Er…Gwen…babe, did you need something?” He almost groaned aloud when her hand dropped to cover the bulge in his shorts.

  “You could say that,” she moaned as she pushed him back a few steps before shutting the door behind her. Just when he thought this encounter couldn’t get much weirder—or hotter—she leaned down, grabbed the hem of the slinky black dress she was wearing, and pulled it over her head in a move that would make a stripper proud. Then she stood before him in nothing but a black lace bra, tiny matching panties, and black strappy sandals. He was completely and totally screwed.

  Still trying to be the voice of reason for some crazy reason, Dominic held out a calming hand saying, “Babe, what’re we doing here? I mean…God, you’re gorgeous.” All right, maybe that last line had slipped out before he could stop himself, but holy hell, how was he supposed to stay calm when Gwen was standing in front of him, practically naked, with a come-hither look in her eyes that was making him pant like a dog in heat?

  She began to prowl forward and he walked uncertainly backward—which he figured out was a big mistake when he tripped over his coffee table and landed in a heap on the sofa. “Oh goody,” she rubbed her hands together as she stopped a few inches from where he had landed. “It looks like we’re both on the same page.” Then…she dropped down to straddle his waist, and it was all over for him. When she grinned before pulling a strip of condoms out of her bra, he almost professed his love on the spot. Who was this woman? She certainly looked like his beautiful neighbor, but that was where the similarities ended.

  He’d caught her checking him out on more than one occasion, and yes, in his fantasies, he had wanted to believe she desired him as he did her. But she’d never given him any outward reason to believe that was true. He had certainly never imagined her showing up on his doorstep like a wet dream. So he forced himself to ask one last time, “Are you sure about this?” In answer, she ground herself against him before licking his neck. Well…that meant yes in his book.

  He put his hands on what he had come to think of as the Holy Grail…her ass. It was firm, round, and drove him to distraction. Dominic had never been one to desire a skinny woman. He loved soft, lush curves, and to him, Gwen had the perfect body. His only problem was deciding where he wanted to lavish his attention first. “I need you inside of me,” Gwen murmured as she bit his ear. As if to prove that point, she plastered her body against his chest, freeing his hips, before saying urgently, “Shorts off, condom on.”

  Dominic had always been something of an alpha male so this role change was not only something completely different for him, but it was also surprisingly sexy as hell. He couldn’t remember the last time he
’d felt this uncoordinated as he did his best to push his shorts down and then fumbled to put the condom on his throbbing erection without causing it to blow early. At this point, he was hanging on to his composure by a mere thread.

  After what was probably seconds but felt like hours, he was sheathed and past ready to feel her around him. “All right, baby, let me take care of you.”

  “Yes…God, yes,” she breathed throatily. “I need to take my panties—”

  Refusing to let her up, he ripped one side of her flimsy excuse for panties and then the other. She lifted her hips slightly and he pulled the fabric free, sending it sailing somewhere nearby. He ran a finger through her cleft, finding it wet and swollen. “Dom…I’m ready, now please!”

  Putting a supporting hand under her ass, he raised her body before bringing her down onto his waiting shaft. He held himself still as she cried out, afraid he’d hurt her by going too fast. “Okay, baby?” he asked as he stroked her hip soothingly.

  Gwen rose to her knees, so that he almost slid out of her wet heat before she bottomed out on him once again. “Harder, Dom!” Her demands broke what little control he had left. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close enough to devour her lips, while pumping his hips at a ruthless pace into her tight passage.

  Soon, they were nothing but a tangle of shifting limbs, grinding bodies. Dominic bit, sucked, and licked every available inch of her skin, and it drove him to distraction when she did the same. He’d never really thought he would enjoy having his own nipples nipped, but damned if it wasn’t off-the-charts hot. He wanted to make it last for hours, but all too soon, he felt the familiar tingle at the base of his spine. When Gwen started to spasm around him, he was helpless to hold back any longer. But his orgasm seemed to go on forever as black dots danced through his vision.

  Dominic collapsed backward as all of the blood that had been gathered down below finally redistributed throughout his body. He grazed his hand lazily up and down Gwen’s spine as she nestled against him. He knew he needed to get up and dispose of the condom, but he figured he could do that when she inevitably freaked out and ran from his apartment. He was braced and waiting for that to happen. Hell, he felt almost like the woman in this scenario, wanting to cuddle and talk about feelings and crap like that.

  When Gwen sat up, he dropped his hand, already trying to distance himself. He was floored when she licked her lips and gave him a lopsided smile. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to need to do that again. Can we? Please?”

  Well, hell, it was official. He had gone and lost his heart to the girl next door…and his best friend’s ex. In true fashion, he never took the easy route.

  Please enjoy this special preview of

  No Denying You by Sydney Landon

  A Danvers novel ~ Now Available

  Chapter One

  “Honey, have you given any more thought to getting some bigger tits?”

  Emma rolled her eyes and dropped her head onto her desk. Why couldn’t her mother bake cookies, knit sweaters or do any of that other Betty Crocker shit? No-o-o, she couldn’t be that lucky. Katrina Davis—or Kat, as she liked to be called—had always wanted to be the cool mom on the block. Heck, most of Emma’s childhood friends still called her mother for advice. The woman didn’t pull any punches. “God, Mom, can we please not talk about my tits today? Or lack of them?”

  “Em, it’s for your own good. You’re too attractive to sit at home all the time. Men are visual creatures so maybe a new rack is exactly what you need. Your father can’t keep his hands off mine. And you’re not getting any younger. You don’t want to wake up one day and have them fall out of bed before you do.”

  “Gross, Mom. This whole conversation is really gross. I don’t want to hear anything about your sex life with Daddy. Ever. I’d like to be able to look him in the eyes just once without the constant stream of images in my head of the things you feel the need to confide to me. Maybe you should just go Catholic—then you could confess to someone with a more professional opinion.”

  “Oh, Em, get over it. I’m just trying to help. You know what? I’ll even pay if I can pick them out. I’ll e-mail you some information and you can let me know what you think.”

  “Mom, for the last time, I like my tits just fine!” As soon as she shouted that last bit, Emma froze at the sound of a throat clearing behind her. Please tell me that the asswipe isn’t behind me, ple-e-ease. As she swiveled slowly in her chair, she groaned. Fate definitely wasn’t on her side. Her boss, Brant Stone, stood behind her with his usual condescending smirk. She quickly said her good-byes to her mother although she could hear her still speaking as she gingerly placed the receiver back in the cradle. Determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled, she raised a brow, asking as politely as she could manage, “Did you need something?”

  “Apparently not as badly as you do, Emma.”

  Oh great, here it comes, another jab at my work performance. I wonder how much jail time I would get if I choked him with the paisley tie he’s wearing? Turning her back to nonchalantly pick up her coffee cup, she said, “Pardon?”

  “I am positively riveted by your plight,” he replied.

  More obscure code to unravel. She spent half of her time trying to figure out what in the hell he was talking about. She knew he did it on purpose, the sneaky bastard. “I bet you are considering you cause most of my misery.” She knew it was unprofessional as well as career suicide to talk to her boss this way, but she kept hoping he would have her transferred to another department so that he could find someone more suitable for his assistant. So far, that hadn’t happened. She had even started dropping hints, but, like every suggestion she made, he seemed to completely ignore it.

  “That’s flattering, Emma, but I don’t think I can accept responsibility for your… shortcomings.”

  Her coffee cup fell from her suddenly limp fingers and crashed to the floor. Then she plowed into him as she jumped back to avoid the hot liquid. “Shit!” The carnage continued as they both fell backward like dominoes. When she managed to get her bearings, she was horrified to realize that Brant was laid out on the floor underneath her, and her butt was nestled firmly near his crotch. Coffee stains were splattered all over his perfectly creased slacks, and it took her a moment to realize why her legs seemed so bare as they lay tangled with his. Her short skirt had blown up during their fall and was now resting well above the level considered legal in most states. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be…

  Without thinking, she wiggled around experimentally. No way! Her boss, the spawn from hell, was not growing hard against her bottom. Oh my God, he was!

  “I didn’t realize that ruining my clothing also came with a lap dance.” When she froze, he chuckled. “Oh, by all means, don’t stop now. Even someone with small tits is a turn-on when she’s grinding against your lap.”

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Titles

  Praise

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Coming Soon

  Preview of Watch Over Me

  Preview of No Denying You

 

 

  books on Archive.