For one beautiful, fleeting moment, Kat saw herself with just such a bump, glowing and warm, and clutched Carter’s arm in excited hope.
He looked down at her questioningly, but she simply gazed back. He smiled. “Will you dance with me, Peaches?”
She cupped his face in answer and breathed into the long but chaste kiss he offered. He looked devastatingly handsome in his tux, juxtaposed with the lick of black ink barely visible above his white collar and the large silver rings on the fingers of both his hands. He led her to the dance floor and held her closely, humming the Nat King Cole tune in her ear as they moved elegantly around the room. Kat leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes, inhaling his deep scent and smiling when his lips meandered across her temple and—ever so discreetly—her neck.
“It’s going to be a good year,” he murmured into her skin. “I can feel it. Can you?”
“Yes,” she answered, imagining their wedding, imagining dancing just like they were for the first time as husband and wife, imagining the rest of her life with him. “I can feel it.”
The world could have stopped for all Kat cared. She was never as safe or protected as when she was in Carter’s arms. As the crowd counted down from ten and the clock struck midnight, the cheers of the New Year and “Auld Lang Syne” echoed around them, but all they saw was each other. Under a shower of silver confetti and streamers, their lips met gentle and soft. Their aching love was whispered tenderly, with vows of naked worship and heated pleasure, leaving them equally fervent in their need to get home.
It was midnight.
chapter five
For Carter, the evening had been almost six hours of delicious torture. Captivated by Kat’s beauty and the sweet fragrance of her all around him, Carter was amazed he’d managed to hold a decent conversation with anyone while she stood at his side, wanton and stunning.
She touched him in ways that were intended to be innocent but nevertheless had him hot and hard and ready to take her to a quiet part of the crowded godforsaken Fort Knox of an apartment and fuck her senseless. A hand on his leg here, a brush of her shoulder there.
No, his girl didn’t play fair.
He knew she wanted it, too. The way her pupils dilated and her chest heaved when she thought he wasn’t looking told him so. Silly girl thought she could hide it from him, but she’d always been an open book.
He’d promised to behave outside the elevator and in the back of the car—where he’d managed to get his hand under her skirt to her thigh—but now they were home, her key sliding into the lock, and he was all for throwing well behaved and courteous out of the nearest window.
The loud moan that erupted from her when he pushed her back against the door, slamming it shut and the rest of the world out was encouragement enough. His dinner jacket and bow tie were the first things to hit the floor, along with Peaches’ purse and keys.
“Wait,” she panted, gripping his shoulders, nipping the skin through his dress shirt.
“Fuck that,” he grunted, rubbing his face into her cleavage. Christ, she smelled so damned good, all body lotion and his favorite perfume on her, Coco Mademoiselle.
“Please,” she whimpered into his hair. “I want you in our bed.”
“You can have me in our bed,” he said, kissing her passionately. “After I’ve had you against the door.”
Kat gasped when their lips met again: frantic and wet. Carter’s tongue slid aggressively against hers, causing her to moan and arch closer. He wound one arm around her shoulders and one around her waist, cradling her to him as he devoured her mouth. Kat’s hands were everywhere and nowhere at once. One moment they were in his hair, and the next they were on his neck, his shoulders, his back, his ass. Her hunger for him was so hot.
Ignoring her protests about having his mouth on hers, Carter dropped to his knees and lifted the material of her dress up to her waist with one hand. With the other, he pushed her black silk panties to the side and, without waiting for her to collect herself, began to lick her furiously. Sweet Jesus, her taste was like nectar of the gods. Her deep, familiar musk made his tongue tingle; Carter would freely admit that tasting his Peaches was what he loved most about being with her. Granted, all elements of their sex life were fantastic, but he’d gladly eat her out for the rest of his life.
Kat groaned and gasped, she clutched him and muttered dirty words wrapped in love and pleading. She grew swollen and wet under his tongue and her hips moved with the rhythm he knew would have her calling out his name in mere minutes. Her head thumped against the door and, just as he slipped two fingers into her, she detonated.
Yes. That was what he lived for.
Pressing his body closer, he held her upright against the door, smiling as her knees buckled and her panted breaths echoed around their home. Despite her groans of desperate surrender, he didn’t let up until she was begging and squirming away from his eager tongue.
He stood slowly, his palms sliding up her legs, and kissed her forcefully, sharing what he’d taken from her, what she’d given him so freely. The kiss went on and on, deep and wet.
“I could kiss you . . . fuck . . . I could kiss you forever,” Carter confessed, holding her face in his hands. “Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score,” he uttered against her cheek, moving to her neck and then back to her mouth. “Then to that twenty, add a hundred more: A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on, To make that thousand up a million. Treble that million, and when that is done, Let’s kiss afresh, as when we first begun.”
Kat gasped into the words of one of her favorite poems by Robert Herrick that she’d taught him one stormy night at the beach house during the summer. “I need you,” she breathed. “Please, Carter.”
She pulled the fly of his pants open and pushed her hand inside. Carter groaned when her small fingers wrapped around the hot skin of his cock. He panted, his forehead dropping to her shoulder.
“Does that feel good?” she asked, licking his throat, teasing him.
“Goddammit, yes,” he replied, sucking in a hiss of breath.
Kat released him for one quick moment and licked her palm from wrist to fingertip.
Good God.
Carter whimpered as he watched and groaned deeply when the heat and slickness of her hand slid along his full length.
“You’re so hard,” she moaned.
Carter’s mouth smashed against hers with a frenzied grunt. “Always for you,” he replied, grabbing her breasts through the bodice of her dress.
“I want you in my mouth,” she murmured. “Take me to bed.”
Carter didn’t hesitate. Yanking her hand from his pants, he scooped her up into his arms and hurried to the bedroom, smiling as he kissed her, feeling her laughter resound around his racing heart. He stripped in record time, throwing his clothes across the room before he watched the gown that had had him salivating all night drop to the floor, leaving his girl naked except for her panties. He disposed of those just as quickly. He laid himself on top of her, growling into her skin, caressing her body as though she were breakable. He knew the dips and curves of her better than he knew his own body, but each time he touched her was a revelation.
They clung to each other, rubbed against each other, and finally rolled so she was straddling his waist. He sat up, pressing his mouth to her right nipple. It puckered instantly, and the sound that came from Kat’s throat when he took it between his lips and teased it was awesome.
“You’re so good at that,” she gasped, biting her bottom lip.
“You like my tongue, baby girl?” he asked as he flicked her nipple once more. Her gaze burned him in all the right ways.
Christ, he was so hard with her wrapped around him and one small move of her hips and he’d be buried to the hilt, enveloped, inside.
She pulled her nipple from his fervent mouth and smiled, sensing his intent. “I’m tasting you first.”
Carter huffed as though what she’d said was seriously inconvenient. “Do you have to?” he deadpanned
. “Don’t. Please. Stop.”
He muffled her laugh with his mouth and sucked her tongue hard, gradually lying back down on the bed. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as he wound his around her waist, holding her as close as he could while their mouths feasted, tugging and licking. He hummed when he felt her soft skin and spine under his callused palms. She felt so delicate under his touch, but he knew better. She was stronger than anyone gave her credit for.
Shimmying down his body until she was between his bent knees, Kat took his cock in hand and, with every inch of her tongue, swiftly licked the tip of him.
“Motherfucker,” Carter growled through his teeth, pushing his head back into the pillows.
Kat smiled and slowly lowered her mouth onto him.
Carter’s hands were immediately in her hair. He thrust upward, filling her mouth because oh my God it was perfect. Carter apologized profusely when Kat gagged a little. “Sorry. Sorry, but it’s too good, sweetheart,” he panted, stroking her hair, watching her mouth intently. “Your lips, Kat. Fuck. Your lips.”
“These lips?” She placed openmouthed kisses down his shaft.
Carter was incapable of answering. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Undeterred by his size, Kat took him all the way into her mouth. Her mouth. Oh God, seeing her offer herself that way, so readily, was beyond erotic. Carter had watched in awe and excited wonder as, over their time together, Kat’s sexual side had slowly revealed itself in all its glorious technicolour. She was so open with him, so trusting, that his love for her was almost crushing. She wasn’t embarrassed to try new things with him, to please him, to please herself and that was sexy as hell. She’d embraced her dirty mouth and the daring seductress that had apparently been dormant within her, wholeheartedly.
And Carter loved it.
Kat moved her hand to Carter’s balls and cupped them gently, rubbing and caressing just the way he liked. Carter groaned out her name, his hips pushing up, seeking out more of what she had to offer.
“Yes,” he hissed.
Kat hummed at his praise.
“Look at you,” he croaked as his breaths became more rapid, shallower. “Look at you, so damned gorgeous sucking my cock.”
Kat opened her deep green, adoring eyes and stared up at him, flicking and twisting her tongue up and down, faster and faster. Her stare seared through him, punching his orgasm deep into his stomach as she took him impossibly deeper.
Carter cupped her face, his body tensing, his release approaching double time with her talented mouth and the taste of her climax still fresh on his tongue. “Oh shit. Peaches. I’m close. Do that thing where you—Oh fuck. Yes! Just . . . like . . . that.”
His fingers wound into her hair and he thrust his hips four times—a grunt from his chest punctuating each one—before he held her head still, arched his back, and exploded into her mouth with a long deep groan. Three long streams of his orgasm hit the back of her throat and Kat swallowed quickly, lapping at him, seemingly desperate for more. Stars danced behind his eyelids and white heat flushed Carter’s entire body while Kat moaned and purred around him. He hissed for her to stop, holding her face as his entire body shook from head to toe.
Just as it had done the first time they’d come together; sex with Kat blew him away.
“You’re incredible,” he sighed with hooded eyes, catching his breath. “Just . . . incredible.”
With a small kiss on the tip of his cock, Kat pulled back and smiled. She wiped at the sides of her mouth with the ends of her fingers. “You taste good.”
Carter’s eyes rolled at her words. He yanked her up the bed into his arms. “Woman, you,” he growled, kissing her firmly on the mouth, “will be the end of me.”
She laughed and curled into him, naked and warm. Carter held her close and kissed her hair, hopelessly happy in the silence that enveloped them both. “I love you,” he whispered.
She lifted her face. “I love you, too.” The tip of her index finger danced across his collarbone.
“You looked so beautiful tonight,” he added, smiling when her face washed with a gorgeous shy pink. He traced the color with the pad of his thumb. He rolled her carefully onto her back, resting within her thighs, capturing her head between his forearms. “You’re everything to me.”
Kat nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m marrying you.”
Carter grinned. “Happy New Year, baby.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him. “Happy New Year.”
chapter six
Kat made her way carefully through the chatting patrons waiting for one of the highly coveted tables of The NoMad restaurant her mother frequented, on Broadway. Looking past the striking maître d’, Kat saw her mother seated in her favorite spot, sipping water delicately from a crystal glass. She smiled when Kat caught her eye and waved her over.
After kissing her mother on the cheek, Kat took a seat opposite her and ordered a white wine from the smiling waiter. She had an unsettling feeling that she was going to need the drink. It’d been three weeks since New Year’s, four since Christmas, and Kat hadn’t heard much from her mother. Things had been quiet. Maybe too quiet. There had been the usual phone calls and text messages, but nothing on the scale of panic and fuss Kat had been expecting once her and Carter’s engagement was announced.
The fact that her mother had seemingly accepted the news without expressing her opinion was disconcerting to say the least and, although Kat hadn’t aired her worries to Carter, she had been on edge since they’d shared their news on Christmas Eve. The fact was Eva Lane was never quiet about such important matters. And, Kat knew, her marriage to an ex-con was a very important matter. Kat suspected the rare quiet had been the dangerous calm before the inevitable storm.
“So what’s up?” Kat asked after taking a huge gulp from her wineglass.
Eva looked up from her hand on the table, startled. “Nothing’s up. I haven’t seen you since New Year’s and I simply wanted to have lunch with my daughter. Is that a crime?”
Kat’s brow furrowed. “I guess not.”
“I’ve been thinking about your engagement party.”
Of course she had.
“Carter and I haven’t discussed anything in detail yet,” Kat replied. “I know we want something small. Besides, Carter wants to wait until Max is home before we start to plan everything. He’ll be the best man after all.”
Eva patted her lips with her napkin. “Max? The . . . fellow who . . . the one in—”
“In rehab, yes, Mom,” Kat interjected, never lifting her eyes from the menu the waiter had handed her. “And don’t sound so judgmental; half the women in your social circles over the years have been in rehab a time or two.”
Both women knew it was true, and the silence that settled over them was heavy with words unsaid. Kat sighed and set her menu down. “Come on, Mom. What is it? Was it just about the engagement party? I’m not going to be able to enjoy my food if you don’t tell me.”
Eva cocked an eyebrow.
“Come on,” Kat continued expectantly. “Spit it out.”
Eva licked her lips and adjusted her position in her seat. She was uncomfortable. That wasn’t characteristic at all.
Kat was instantly wary. “Mom, whatever it is, tell me. Are you okay?”
Sitting in her seat, straightbacked with an unflinching stare, Eva paused. Kat swallowed hard. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good news.
“Shortly after Christmas, I had a meeting with the family lawyer,” Eva said.
Kat’s shoulders dropped from their tense height. She blinked. “Family lawyer?”
Eva nodded and sipped her water.
Kat rubbed the bridge of her nose with her finger, utterly flummoxed. “Okay, and why are you speaking to a lawyer?”
Her mother’s eyes flitted away while her mouth pressed into a taut line before she began speaking. “I wanted to start the ball rolling with your prenuptial agreement.”
All the oxygen in Kat’s lungs l
eft her in a huge whoosh. For a couple of minutes, her voice eluded her, replaced with gusts of air and strange astonished noises. Kat shook her head gently. Surely, she’d misheard.
Prenup? Was she serious?
Glancing at her mother’s no-bullshit expression, Kat knew the unequivocal answer.
Kat cleared her throat. “And why the hell would you do that?”
Eva put down her glass. “Because you won’t.”
Kat’s blood thundered furiously in her ears, heating her face and causing her hands to shake. She crossed her arms over her chest defensively, knowing the answer before she even asked the question. “And I need a prenup because?”
The small laugh that Eva coughed was entirely humorless. “Because you have to protect yourself, Katherine. Protect your interests. You have to protect what is yours.”
And there it was. That word again.
Her mother’s continuing need to shelter, to keep Kat safe, despite her outward approval of Carter, still ran silent and deep. Yes, she was a mother; the need to protect would never fully go away, but this was beyond that. This was personal. Kat sat back in her seat, deflated, hurt. Christ, hadn’t her mother learned anything? Despite all that’d been said, all she’d learned about Carter, all that had happened, her mother still didn’t trust him, still saw him as a threat.
“I can’t believe you,” Kat said quietly.
Eva was immediately impenitent. “Don’t be silly, Katherine. You need to make sure these things are in place before you marry him.”
Kat’s teeth clenched. “Him being the man who saved my life, the man who has done nothing but bend over backward to satisfy you and everyone else who doubted him.”
“Katherine—”
“The man who’s CEO of a billion-dollar company and has so much more to lose than I do. The man who I love with my whole heart, who I want to be with for the rest of my life, who cares nothing for money, for status, for anything but my love.”
Kat’s fury was momentarily appeased when Eva dipped her chin.
Love and Always (A Pound of Flesh #1.5) Page 5
