“Charli, for the record, you’re not just some girl I got drunk and kissed at a wedding.” He stopped just short of telling me I was special, but those are the whispered words I wanted to hear in that pause. “You’re the first girl I’ve been publicly linked to since my break-up.” He took a sip of coffee before he added, “Since I, uh, kind of swore off relationships. Naturally, people are gonna be curious about the girl who got me to break my own rule.”
“It’s not like you haven’t had sex since your break-up,” I said, shaking my head. “You’ve just been a little more discreet, I’m guessing.”
“Actually, I haven’t been with anyone since I ended my engagement.”
My mouth dropped before I forcibly snapped it shut. “Sorry, that was just a while ago.” A long while. “I’d just assumed you were…” I cleared my throat, trying to figure out how to pry my size six foot out of my mouth. “Pretty sexually active.” He sure seemed to have a lot of practice, given the expertise he’d displayed with me. But his dry spell may have explained why we broke the bed… not that I was complaining. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“I can’t afford to sleep around,” he said, piling eggs and bacon on my plate before adding some to his own. “Not with pics and video getting posted online in seconds these days. Sex means letting your guard down and I can’t afford to do that unless I trust someone.”
“But you barely knew me and we had sex.” I dig into my food, realizing how hungry I was after I took the first bite.
“I can’t explain what happened between us.” He paused with his toast in hand. “I tried like hell to resist you… I just couldn’t.”
Oh. Wow. When your celebrity crush tells you he couldn’t resist you… you’re gonna go a little fangirl, trembling on the inside, and that’s exactly what I did. But on the outside? Steady and calm. “Hmm, pretty sure alcohol had something to do with that, Dade. Lowered our inhibitions. Made us think it was a good idea, when obviously it wasn’t.”
“You said you had no regrets.” He looked out the window, at the mature trees beyond the landscaped pool area. “I guess that was before you had to uproot your whole life to stay off the radar, huh?”
“I’m more concerned about the effect this’ll have on your life,” I said, gently. “We talked a lot about how you’re going to protect me, but what about you? How’re you gonna avoid your friends in the press?”
He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “You’re worried about me?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Uh, because I’m the reason you’ve had it out with overprotective parents, twice. Got run out of your own home. Had your face plastered all over the Internet. Had to leave your friend’s house…”
I smiled. “Having to bail on Max wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I’m sure he thought it was.” He hesitated before asking, “Has he texted? Called?”
“Only about a dozen times.” I rolled my eyes. “I like the guy, but not like that, and I’ve told him that.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying, I guess.” He nodded as he polished off his eggs. “This is delicious, by the way, thanks.”
“My pleasure.” I loved to experiment with different recipes, but hated cooking for one, so it was a treat to cook for him. “I would have made hash browns too, if I’d had a bit more time.”
“Can we make cooking part of your job description?” he asked, grinning. “I can handle the grill, but that’s about it.”
“I’d love to cook for you,” I said, thinking about how much fun I’d have if time and money were no object. “But I could cook it down at my place and just bring a plate up for you, so you can eat whenever you feel like it. That way I won’t be underfoot all the time.”
“Feel free to use my kitchen,” he said, pouring juice into two glasses from the glass decanter I’d left on the table. “It’s much bigger and better equipped than the kitchen in the guest house. Besides, you’ll be here for most meals anyhow, so it makes more sense for us to cook and eat here.” He winked. “Maybe you can even give me lessons.”
“Okay.” His kitchen was a gourmet’s dream, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain.
“For the cooking, we’ll add an extra five hundred a week. Plus food and travel expenses.”
“Travel?” I couldn’t believe how generous he was being, but I supposed my salary was pocket change to a man worth almost half a billion dollars.
“Sure.” He looked at me over the rim of his juice glass. “Gas for local travel. Food when you’re away from the home office, running errands for me. Travel…” He took a sip of the freshly squeezed juice before licking his lips and setting his glass down. “I hope that won’t be a problem? Travelling with me? Naturally we’ll fly on my plane and I’ll cover all the hotel, food, and transportation costs.” He gave me a quick once over, taking in my Lulu capris and tank. “Anything that you need, in terms of wardrobe, to accompany me to meetings or events, just submit your receipts to my business manager, Jason. He’ll cut you a check at the end of the month.”
My head was spinning. I was used to working as a virtual assistant for small businesses. I’d never considered what must go into running a brand like Dade’s. “I hope I’m not getting in over my head here.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my hair. “I really want to do a good job and I don’t want to disappoint you—”
“Charli.” He reached for my hand. “Relax. We’ll go slow, I promise.”
I shuddered. He’d said those very same words to me that night, when he was perched on top of me. He was inching inside of me for the first time and I tensed up when I realized how hard it would be to accommodate him without a bite of pain.
He smirked before dipping his head. “Uh, I guess that was a poor choice of words, huh?”
I laughed, grateful he’d been the one to break the sexually charged silence. “Glad I wasn’t the only one who got a flashback.”
“I’ve been getting those a lot,” he said, eyeing me as he trapped his lower lip between a row of straight white teeth. “Flashbacks.”
“Oh?” I was too, but I didn’t think admitting it would help us to keep things professional. Not that we were doing a great job of that. He walked into a room and all my girly bits tingled with awareness. The sexy man-beast.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it,” he said, leaning in. “It was hot as hell, Charli. Like…” His voice lowered to a whisper when he said, “The best I’ve ever had. You?”
He must be joking. If he’d given me one more orgasm, I was pretty sure my heart would have short-circuited. “Uh yeah, you could say that. My previous lovers haven’t been known for their… generosity.” I couldn’t believe I was sitting at a table in my boss’s kitchen talking about the crazy-hot sexy we’d had. Another first for me.
“That’s a damn shame.” His lingering gaze was setting my body on fire as his eyes sparked with renewed interest. “You have a body that deserves to be worshipped.” He licked his lips, lowering his lids slightly when he cast a look at the fabric clinging to my thighs like a second skin. “By a real man, who knows how to pleasure you. Not a boy who’s more concerned about getting off than making sure you’re… satisfied.”
There was sexual tension and then there was this. It was like we were in a lust-induced stupor where the air was thicker and everything was more pronounced. The rasp of his voice. His shallow breathing. The hint of cologne still clinging to his skin. The darker shadow covering his square jaw. I forcibly tore my eyes away from his, looking at my plate.
“I should clean up.”
“Let me help you.”
When I stood, he reached for my hand before I could start clearing the plates. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ve never been intimate with a woman who works for me before, so I guess this’ll take some getting used to.”
I nodded. “It’s fine. I get it. This is new to us. We’re still feeling things out.” And if I had my w
ay, I’d be feeling out the arousal hiding under his black sweats.
“I don’t wanna cross any lines,” he said, dipping his head. “Or make you feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to do, just because you want to keep your job.”
My heart started racing when I realized he was propositioning me. Again. Oh God. I didn’t know how I felt about this. When I accepted this job, I assumed sex was off the table.
“What’re you saying, Dade?” I didn’t want any confusion or misunderstandings. No regrets. And I definitely didn’t want to be called a mistake again. If we were really going to do this, I wanted us both to have our eyes wide open.
“I want you.” He linked his hand with mine. “Jesus, Charli…” He lowered his head, the stubble on his chin brushing my cheek. “It’s crazy how much I want you.”
“But you said what happened between us was a mistake.”
A flash of remorse crossed his handsome face before he said, “The mistake was calling it that. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
I flattened my palm against his abs and felt him clench in response. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I was reeling too. Waking up with you was…” Amazing. “Kind of unexpected. I mean, it’s not that I was too drunk to remember what happened—”
“Every detail?” he asked, skimming his lips down my cheek. “Do you remember every little thing I did to you? The way I made you feel? ‘Cause I wanna make you feel like that again, baby. Over and over again.”
Baby? Oh God, I was melting. Never in a million years did I think Dade-freaking-Jarvis would be calling me baby. Was this really happening right now?
I tipped my head back, letting his lips graze my neck. This might be the best or worst decision I’d ever made, but I was so going for it. “That night is burned in my memory, Dade,” I whispered in his ear as my hand drifted over his chest and curled around his neck. “How could it not be? You were my fantasy.”
“I don’t want to be your fantasy,” he said, brushing his lips over mine. “I want to be your reality. I want the things I do to you to feel so real my hands are branded on your skin. When we’re not together, you feel me—” his thumb glided over my peaked nipple, making me suck in a sharp breath—“here.” He nipped my earlobe. “In the ache between your legs, that only I can satisfy.”
This man was killing me. Slowly. Deliciously. Every word he uttered felt like sweet torture because he wasn’t doing the things he promised.
“Please,” I murmured, sliding my hands under his shirt. “I’m dyin’ here.”
“Jesus,” he growled, sweeping me off my feet with a yelp of surprise before I curled my arms around his neck and let my mouth trail across his bristled jaw.
I’d never been a passive girl in bed. I loved sex. And I liked the man I was with to know he didn’t have to treat me like a delicate flower just because I was petite. What I lacked in size I more than made up for in enthusiasm, especially with someone like Dade, who seemed to enjoy every aspect of intimacy as much as I did.
He bypassed his huge master suite and headed straight for the ensuite bath.
Shower sex? Hmm, I wouldn’t mind christening every surface of this huge house with my sexy new boss. As dirty as that sounded.
Dade kissed me dizzy before he reached into the shower and turned the overhead spray on. He reached for the hem of my tank and pulled it over my head before groaning when he spotted the black silky bra underneath.
“You are so sexy,” he sighed. “It would be too damn easy to get addicted to you.”
He didn’t seem to relish the idea of calling me his addiction, but I really wouldn’t mind. If he had to have me morning, noon, and night… I’d be more than happy to oblige. Only one little problem with that. I could just as easily become addicted to him. And that would sting like a bitch when I inevitably had to leave.
He hooked his thumbs into my capris and panties, sliding them down my legs while kissing the exposed part of my breasts as I threaded my hands through his hair. I watched him unhook my bra and slip it off while I pushed his T-shirt over his head. Every second was making us more frantic and when our mouths finally collided, it was a hot clash of tongues, teeth, and lips.
He groaned into my mouth when I reached into his sweats and curled my hand around his erection. Remembering how incredible he felt filling and stretching me prompted me to widen my stance, inviting him to engage in his own exploration. I was so ready for him. Truth be told, I had been since the second he cleared the last step and his eyes met mine.
“Last chance to back out,” he said, taking my hand as he walked backwards into the shower. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” My heart hurt when I saw a hint of self-recrimination in his eyes. “No woman in her right mind would sign on for my mess, Charli.”
His choices had left him broken, and as strange as it sounded, I wanted to be the one to piece him back together again. To make him believe that he didn’t have to be defined by his past or his mistakes anymore.
“Then call me crazy,” I said, stepping into the shower after him. I flattened my palms against his chest, backing him into the stone tile wall as the hot shower spray rained down on us. “Because I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.” I kissed him, letting my lips tell him all the things I was afraid to. I was falling for this guy. Hard. “Until you tell me to.”
“What if I don’t want you to leave?” he asked, his large hands coasting over my body. “What if I can’t let you go?”
I was trying to break my pattern. No more clingy, needy, desperate men for me. No more users or abusers. Only strong men who knew what they wanted from now on. And the man standing before me, with his heart in his hands, as his lips travelled down my neck, over the slope of my shoulder as I melted into his heat… he was strong. But he was also weak. Maybe he was using me, to block out his pain, to forget all the women who’d wronged him. Only time would tell. But if I saw the warning signs, I promised myself I’d cut and run before I got in too deep. I owed that to myself.
His hand was between my legs, cupping me possessively, and just like the first time, his touch felt like he was staking his claim. Branding me, as he put it. Because when he touched me, it was hard to remember a time when another man had made me feel this way.
His fingers were stroking as he backed me into the wall and raised one of my legs so that my foot rested on the bench. I was open and exposed to him, but the hunger in his eyes made me want to open up to him even more. My heart. My soul. My body. I wanted to show him who I really was, to let him peel back the layers no other man had bothered trying to crack.
I was totally absorbed in his touch when he started circling and prodding, out of my head and consumed by his caress. Especially when his lips claimed mine and my body started to thrum. I was close, so close, as I moaned into his mouth, breathless and desperate.
Reading my mind and body, one quick flick of his finger and I was done. Drawn into a vortex that narrowed to a point where the only thing that mattered was the energy coursing from his body to mine.
He inched me down on the bench, out of the direct spray of water, while dropping to his knees. I watched him spread my thighs, but I felt too drained and boneless to utter a word as he worshipped me with his mouth. It was so intense, but it felt too amazing to stop him. Before long, the sensitivity gave way to an ache punctuated by breathless moans as I curled my hands around the edge of the bench and tried to remain still for the most erotic storm of my life.
I was frozen, all of the pent-up energy concentrated in one area before my heart started to pound and I found my voice. It echoed in a cry off the walls, his name falling from my lips as my body thundered with a release so powerful I feared I might pass out as he kissed his way up my body.
His eyes found mine before his lips did and his kiss was so sweet, so tender, I felt tears well in my eyes. How had I lived my whole life before finding a man to worship me this way?
“You okay?” he whispered, his cheek pressed against mi
ne.
I nodded, curling my arms around him. I wanted to hold on and never let go. To experience this feeling every day for the rest of my life, in the arms of a man who made me feel… safe. I realized that’s the way Dade made me feel, safe, and it’s the feeling I’d been craving ever since I left home. A place to feel like I belonged again.
“Damn it, no condom,” he grumbled, bracing his hands on the bench to support his weight. “I’ll be—”
“I’m on the pill.” I couldn’t believe I’d actually suggested a man with Dade’s past trust me with something so monumental. My sister told me he’d found his ex puncturing his condoms with pins, trying to trap him with a baby when their relationship hit the skids. She didn’t want to lose her meal ticket and was desperate to keep him through any means necessary.
“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head when he didn’t respond. “I don’t expect you to believe me. You should go get the condoms. It’s better anyway. Just to be safe.”
I had no doubt Dade was clean. He’d told me during our night together that he’d been tested after every one of his relationships ended because his trust had been broken and he wasn’t sure his exes had been faithful to him.
“Charli,” he said, curling his hand around my cheek. “Listen to me. Baby, I do believe you’re on the pill. I know you’d never lie to me about that.”
The trust we were building felt so real, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. And I wanted to believe he felt the same way. But this was so new and there were too many unknowns. Was this just sex? Or something more?
I nodded, waiting for him to tell me whether he was willing to cross that line.
“But this is a big deal. I told you the truth about getting tested—”
“I know.” And I’d told him that unprotected sex was non-negotiable for me, so I could understand why he seemed so hesitant now. He was probably wondering whether I’d ever been this reckless before, but I hadn’t.
“You don’t know how much I want this,” he said, dropping his head, like he was wrestling with himself.
Dirty Mind (Nashville Outlaws #2) Page 8
