Bring Your Heart (Golden Falls Fire Book 2)

by Scarlett Andrews

  “Ooh, my shoes!” she said, reaching for them. “Didn’t I promise to wear my sexy new shoes?”

  “That’s right.” Josh took them from her and got on one knee to put them on, and Hayley felt like a sexy Cinderella with her very own Prince Charming.

  A thrilling awareness pulsed through her as he lifted her dress just high enough to see the top of her thigh-high stockings and kissed her bare skin above where the stocking cut off.

  “No garter belt,” he declared, and her sensation of arousal intensified as he kissed his way up the inside of her leg.

  “Josh,” she murmured, half-pleading, holding onto the barstool for support, as she was more than a little weak in the knees. Keep going, she thought.

  His hand ran up her other leg, fingers sliding across her bare skin. He stood up then, but his hand stayed on her thigh, and he stroked closer to the fabric of her black lace underwear. Her dress was getting in the way, so she hitched it up with one hand, aching for him to feel how wet he’d made her.

  “Touch me,” she said breathlessly, arching her back. “Please touch me, Josh. Feel how much I want you.”

  She gasped as he reached beneath her panties and touched her most tender place.

  “Oh, Josh!” As she spread her legs further apart, he slid two fingers inside her. She began to move in primitive rhythm against his hand.

  “I’ve been wanting this all day,” she said. “You were all I could think about.” She’d thought about him far too much, in fact, and hadn’t meant to admit it aloud. But the exquisite sensations his hand was generating were like a potent truth serum, opening her like a book.

  “Are you going to come for me, Hayley?” He stroked deeper, with more urgency. “I want to feel you explode against me.”

  His other arm pressed her close, and as she leaned her forehead against his, she heard how ragged his breathing was, how turned on he was.

  “You’re so good, Josh,” she said, kissing him deeply. “I knew you’d be so good.”

  “Come for me.” He fingered her deeply, pulsing into her, and moved his other hand to cover her breast, massaging through her dress. “I know you want to come for me.”

  “I need you inside me. Please.”

  “Not yet.”

  The firm command of his tone, combined with the relentless pleasure of his touch, sent Hayley gasping forward, her orgasm now inevitable. Waves of unbelievable ecstasy thundered through her. She bucked hard against his hand as she came, clutching him against her, breathing his name like a prayer.

  Josh loved how Hayley said his name, as if no one else would do. He felt every pulse of her muscles as she came against his hand, holding her close until she was trembling, so wet and ready for him.

  “Josh … oh …”

  He helped her off the chair, supporting her liquid-warm body, then he brushed away the hair covering the zipper of her dress and kissed her neck.

  “I’m not even close to done with you,” he said, and she gave him a throaty little laugh in eager response.

  Going slow was sweet agony. His cock was rock hard and ready, but he knew the value of drawing it out. He unzipped her dress and removed it deliberately, helping her free one arm and then the other. When he pulled the dress down to her waist, she reached around and unclasped her bra, letting it slip to the floor, followed by the dress. Then she turned around, clad only in a black lace thong, black thigh-high stockings, and the silver heels.

  Josh’s throat went dry with arousal at the sight of her bare breasts.

  “You,” he said, taking her in, “are a thing of beauty.”

  Although he was desperate to hold those magnificent breasts, play with them, put his mouth on them, he took a moment to bend over and pick up her dress. He smoothed the wrinkles out of it and laid it across the counter.

  Hayley smiled.

  “Now,” he said, “where were we?”

  Still shaky from the power of her first orgasm, Hayley trembled even more to see the intensity in Josh’s brown eyes, the hunger and the lust. He was going to take her and have her, and it was only a matter of time. Not taking his eyes off hers, he removed his watch and set it on the counter. How that was erotic, Hayley didn’t know, but it was. It spoke of control. Of deliberateness. Of a man who knew what he was doing.

  He unbuttoned the top few buttons of his flannel shirt, untucked it, and unbuttoned the rest of the way. She wanted to slide her hands beneath the fabric of the shirt and begin to learn his body, but his eyes told her to stay where she was and simply watch.

  Shirt removed, he hung it on the back of the other stool, and as he eased his shoes off with his feet, Hayley took note of his wide chest, his chiseled arms, his taut and athletic physique. She could see every ridge of every muscle and knew that didn’t happen by accident or circumstance. It took deliberate effort, a discipline she lacked. What a turn-on. He had a thin covering of brown chest hair, the perfect amount.

  “If you ever leave firefighting, you could have a career as a male model,” she said.

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Should I keep going?”

  “You should keep going. Can I undo your belt?”

  “No,” he said. “You just watch.”

  “But I want my turn touching you.”

  “You’ll get your turn.”

  He unbuckled his belt and slid it through the waistband of his jeans. The soft whoosh sound of the friction of the leather sent a new quiver of desire through Hayley’s body. As he unbuttoned his jeans and unzipped them, she held her breath, eager to see his swollen cock burst forth, seeking her out.

  “Ohhhh,” she said when she saw it, thick and hard and long. “You’re gorgeous.”

  She wanted to fall to her knees and take him in her mouth. They were a few feet apart still, and she’d been patient, but enough was enough. She stepped to him, and he pulled her close. She wrapped her hand around his cock.

  “So hot,” she whispered. “So hot and hard.”

  He exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for hours. “See how I burn for you?”

  She suckled his earlobe and he groaned as she introduced the tip of his cock to her silken inner thighs, wrapping one leg around him. He ran his hands over her stockings and then over her bare ass, but it wasn’t enough for her. Her damn thong was in the way, and as he yanked it away from her, she ached to have him inside her, even for a second.

  “You’re perfect, Josh.” She pulled him toward her and pressed the tip inside her. “Doesn’t that feel so good?”

  He made a primal noise of agreement. She drew him a little further inside. Her folds enveloped over his thick shaft, and she wanted him deeper inside her. Needed him deeper inside her.

  “On your back, please,” she told him and kissed him deeply as she guided him to the ground, to the bear skin rug that had never been used before for this purpose but in the moment, was perfect.

  Slipping off the intrusive panties, she straddled him and took him in, all the way, as deep as possible. They locked eyes and the intimacy was a jolt to her very core.

  Josh took one of Hayley’s breasts in his mouth as she moved slowly up and down his shaft. With his tongue he teased her breast in rhythm. Her whispered, growing moans told him she could orgasm at any time, and so he moved his hands to her hips and set her on a course he liked. She pressed her hands against his chest to brace herself, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts, gorgeous and wild as she rode him to her pleasure, sliding up and down, slowly at first and then building to an urgency.

  Her breath grew erratic, shallow, her face flushed in the firelight. He knew she was close. He wanted to take charge. To flip her on her back and spread her legs wide and pound into her. But her smile was dreamy and her eyes were closed in rapture, and so instead he lifted his hips and thrust against her as hard as he could from his position beneath her. She cried out and linked her fingers through his, pressing tightly into his palms as her rhythm hastened.

  “Come again for me,” he ordered.
/>   “I want to do this all night long.”

  “We will,” he said. “But I’ve needed to come for hours, ever since you sent that picture, and I’ll come right when you do. So let yourself go, Hayley. Show me what you’ve got.”

  It was all the permission she needed. Her movements turned frenzied as she rode him this way and that, faster and higher, and he thrust into her as deep as he could. With each thrust, she cried out in pleasure until finally she dug her nails into his shoulders and gave one final cry as her body shuddered in deep orgasm. She was hot and tight and wet, and when she tightened herself around his cock, he couldn’t hold on any longer and he, too, exploded in pleasure.

  “Oh, Josh,” she said as she collapsed onto him. He moved his hands to her ass and gripped it, keeping her pressed into him. “I didn’t even know where I was half the time.”

  “You’re right here on your lovely bear skin rug.” He leaned onto one elbow and brushed her hair off her forehead and kissed her. It was a kiss of thanks and of coupling and of completion. “You’re officially a vixen,” he said. “That was amazing.”

  I’m in trouble, he thought as he watched her close her eyes and breathe him in. He kissed the top of her head and then closed his eyes and did the same, breathing in her special scent, pretending they could stay in the moment forever.

  He was calm now, and at peace, not pent-up like he so often felt these days. There might be lone wolves out there on the outskirts of town, but he wasn’t one of them, not that night.

  He was with Hayley, and being with her felt like coming home.

  15

  Ten minutes later, they found themselves soaking in a bubble bath in Hayley’s large clawfoot tub. When she went to the bathroom to get cleaned up and bring Josh a towel, he followed and stopped short when he saw the tub. He didn’t say anything, but Hayley caught his jaw-dropped look.

  “I take it you don’t have the world’s most awesome bathtub like I do?” she said.

  Josh shook his head. “We’ve got a forty-year-old piece of crap in avocado green. This—this is a work of art!”

  It really was. Claire had renovated the apartment a year or two before Hayley moved in and spared no expense to make it comfortable. The tub was set off from the wall so it had room on all four sides, not to mention the exterior of the tub was black and the inside copper. Both ends rose in a double-slipper design, and with the faucet in the middle, the tub had a pleasing symmetry. The look was completed with an iron enclosure hanging from the ceiling, from which Hayley had hung two simple white shower curtains, set on opposite sides when not in use. She’d placed candles on the windowsill and collected luxury bath oils.

  “How often do you take a bath?” Josh asked.

  “Every day, usually.”

  His jaw dropped in envy. “No wonder you always smell so good.”

  Hayley grinned. “Do you want to take a bath, Josh? Because I get the sense you do.”

  “I do,” he said. “I really do.”

  So she drew a bath for them, and as the tub filled she had him smell her various bathing products and choose the one he liked best, which turned out to be a mix of lavender, orange blossom honey, and sweet almond oil. She had him step in the tub first and enjoyed hearing his groan of pleasure as he sank into the water, which came more than halfway up his chest.

  “I’ll go get our wine and put some music on,” she said, lighting the candles before she went. She usually played classical piano music, often Mozart, when she bathed and so went with that. Part of her expensive settling into her apartment had been the purchase of Bluetooth speakers in all three rooms, including the bathroom, and when she got back to Josh, he looked at her with a new appreciation.

  “You really know how to live,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been more relaxed.”

  “Like I said, my little apartment is my happy place.”

  “Why do you need a happy place?”

  “Don’t we all?”

  She handed him both glasses of wine. As he sipped from one, she pinned her hair up, stepped into the tub, and sank into the water, her back coming to rest opposite his so they faced each other. Even though they’d just had the most intense sex Hayley had had in years, if not ever, she felt—and Josh acted—companionable and comfortable, with none of the usual post-first-sex awkwardness. It was like they’d been together for years.

  “I’m pleasurably spent.” She sipped her wine, then set it on the windowsill and sank into the bubbles, leaving only her head exposed. She inhaled the lavender scent and let pictures of her day pass through her mind like a slideshow. What a day it had been—working at a job she loved, having a fun and flirty day shopping with Josh, meeting new and old friends at the business mixer, and scoring a date with Golden Falls’ newest bachelor. Best of all, coming home to find Josh waiting for her. Coupling with him after wanting him since the moment they met.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “How much I love my life.”

  His legs were on one side of the bathtub and hers were on the other, touching. Beneath the water, he reached for her hand.

  “You do seem to have it all figured out. After today, my amateur assessment is that you don’t even need a dating coach. You just haven’t met the right guy for you.” His mouth opened, as if about to say something else, but then changed his mind and said nothing.

  Hayley considered. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “You said something interesting today at the bar. How you were wondering if I give enough of myself in relationships, and I don’t think I do. Not with men—with my friends is another story. But the idea of being vulnerable with a man—I’ll admit it scares the heck out of me.”

  He nodded that he felt the same. “I haven’t felt like previous girlfriends would really get me. Understand me.” He looked deep into her eyes. “I want to be understood—I do. But anytime I’ve thought of sharing, I think I’ve thought I’d feel disappointed afterwards, like I didn’t get the result I want. Like I wouldn’t be truly understood no matter what, so why try?” He paused. “Or maybe what I feel is too depressing and I don’t want someone to try and talk me out of it.”

  “You’ve been through war,” Hayley said.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And you lost your mom at a young age.”

  “I did.”

  “And you see horrible, shitty things happen at work every single day.”

  “That’s true as well.”

  “So you don’t see the world through rose-colored glasses,” she said.

  Josh laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

  “All I can tell you, Josh, is that bubble baths do make things better.”

  He laughed harder. “I’m realizing that! I think I’m gonna rip out my old tub and make my bathroom as nice as yours, and take bubble baths every night, and then the world won’t seem so bad.”

  “Or you could come here.”

  In the heavy silence that followed, she saw him flinch.

  “See, that was me being vulnerable,” she said. “And don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you to stay. I’m just saying I wish it was something you wanted on your own.”

  His chest rose and fell as he looked at her and then looked away, at the flicker of candles in the windowsill.

  “I wish I did, too,” he said.

  Hayley’s heart clenched with a wistful sort of pain. And this is why I don’t let myself be vulnerable with men. Tears pricked at her eyes, tears she’d told herself she wouldn’t shed over Josh. He’s been nothing but honest about his intentions, she reminded herself. This was your idea in the first place, so own it and respect the rules.

  Making a focused effort to turn her thoughts away from the compelling, amazing, so-out-of-reach man in front of her sharing her luxurious bathtub, she said, “I was asked on a date tonight. By the new manager at the Moondance. Guy named Evan Taylor. He’s attractive, seems really nice.” She forced a bright smile. “The emerald dress really did the tri
ck.”

  He looked back at her, smiling too, but with sadness in his eyes. “I knew it would.”

  “Josh.”

  She held out her hand and he pulled her toward him. She parted her legs, one on either side of him, and straddled herself on his lap with her breasts tantalizingly close to his face. The candlelight made it appear as if sparks of copper danced in his eyes, and she saw the beginnings of lust in them, too. Which was good, but now she knew he was only practice for her, practice for the real thing.

  “So,” she said, bracing herself for the constructive criticism she wanted, that she’d asked for. “Let’s hear it, dating coach, since I’m on a timeline. What are my blind spots? What do I need to work on?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “You’re perfect.

  Then why are you letting me go? she thought sadly.

  “Are you ready to get out?” She gestured to the towel rack. “I’ve got a heated towel rack, so the towels should be nice and toasty.”

  “A heated towel rack?” His look was of near disbelief. “You really know how to live, Hayley.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  They got out, dried off, and wrapped themselves in the warm towels. Josh took her hand and held it.

  “This is our only night together, isn’t it?” he said.

  She nodded. “I don’t think it would be fair otherwise.”

  “Fair?”

  “Fair to the next guy who comes along,” she said. “I can’t be with him and thinking of you.”

  Josh’s brow furrowed when she said it, almost as if hurt. But then he smiled gently and pulled her forward.

  When he softly kissed her, she tasted the blackcurrant on his lips and decided even when she was happy and married and raising a litter of kids, she’d sip Bordeaux sometimes in the evening and remember the perfect day and the perfect night she’d shared with Josh one cold November night long ago.

  “Come on,” she said gently. “Let’s go to bed and make some memories.”