A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  “Lie back.” His tone was bossy, but Ellie found that she didn’t much care. She did as he said, sliding backward until she half reclined, her elbows on the pillow.

  He was there before she could even catch her breath, his hips cradled by her thighs.

  His lips again found hers, and she settled into the kiss with a sigh of contentment, savouring the feeling of his body against hers after so very long.

  But then he thrust against her, just enough to make his arousal known, and the easy contentment burned away in an instant, fuelling something big and bright.

  He continued to move like this, his erection stroking her through the dual layers of their jeans. The seam of hers rubbed against her most sensitive spot with her slow, filthy slide of their bodies together, and her hands clawed at his chest, his butt. Part of her wanted this to be fast, a quick explosion of the tension between them, so that they could both move on. But then his lips would move from the sensitive column of her throat to her lips for another of those slow, drugging kisses, and she would arch against him, into him, and knew that she would do whatever he said.

  Once, she had been the aggressor—the one to lead him through the physical stages of a relationship. Now, she found herself slowly coming undone beneath the stroking and running and kissing.

  He’d learned her body as a boy. But now he was touching her as a man.

  It was too much. Her hands slid beneath his shirt, splayed over the solid muscles of his back, tried to pull the cotton layer off.

  He didn’t move, at least not in the way she intended, and when another of those delicious strokes of his hips hit her in just the right place, and her eyes rolled back in her head, she pulled her lips away and begged.

  “Please, Gabe. I need to feel you. Skin to skin.”

  He stilled above her, and Ellie froze, wondering if she’d said something wrong. But then he eased back, tugged his shirt over his head. Her eyes widened when she saw just what that T-short had been hiding—a solid chest, abs that had only been hinted at the last time she’d seen him like this.

  His hands slowly dropped to the buckle of his belt. The metallic clang echoed in the thick, still air of the room. He unbuckled it, then pulled the leather through the loops of his jeans, and it was the most sensuous sound Ellie thought she’d ever heard.

  But only until he lowered the zipper, the sound rasping against her ears. She propped herself up, desperate to see, as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans, the blue briefs that she could see beneath.

  Slowly, slowly, he eased them down. Ellie saw the planes of delicious hipbones, of taut belly. Then dark hair and, finally, his cock, fully erect, glistening with his need.

  She’d done that to him, and she was humbled.

  “I want you. Now.” Her voice was hoarse, and when he shook his head she growled.

  He grinned. “My turn. I want to see you.”

  Hurriedly she crossed her arms at her waist, fisted the hem of her shirt in eager fingers. But once she had the shirt over her head and off, his fingers found the straps of her simple bra, toying with the straps, flirting with the cups before sliding around back to unfasten the garment.

  It came away in his hands, and Ellie had a moment of panic. The last time Gabe had seen her topless, her breasts had been plump and perky, not even fully developed. They were fuller now, which she reasoned he might see as a plus, but going through a pregnancy had left them decidedly softer than they’d once been.

  She looked up from under her lashes, nerves fluttering in her belly.

  The look on his face was one of awe.

  “Beautiful. Perfect.” His hands cupped her, measured, stroked over the tips, which tightened to the point of pain.

  Then he lowered his head, closed his mouth around one of those points, and drew her deep against his tongue.

  “Christ. Gabe!” She arched into the touch, into the wet heat of his mouth. Moaning, her fingers burrowed into his hair, fastened him into place.

  He made some sound against her skin, and it sent shock waves through her system. She cried out in protest when he pulled his lips away, writhing under him when he moved to the other side.

  This was torture of the sweetest kind, and she couldn’t hold her defenses any longer. Tugging at his hair sharply enough to get his attention, she waited until he pulled back, his mouth glistening with dampness.

  “Now. Please. I just... I can’t wait.” She found the fastening of her own jeans, undid it, lifted her hips to shimmy them down before kicking them off.

  She waited, the nerves returning. Her belly was softer than it had once been, too, and her hips were rounder.

  Dancing his fingers over her collarbone, Gabe slowly ran his palm over her body, the valley between her breasts, the slope of her belly. Straddling her, he met her heated stare with one of his own as he slid his fingers slowly through her damp curls.

  “Okay?” He asked. Ellie nodded, her breath catching.

  He skimmed his knuckles over her, barely grazing her outer lips, and her hips rose off of the bed.

  “Gabe.” He didn’t listen, continue just brushing those soft, teasing touches over her skin. “Gabe!”

  He wasn’t listening. To make her point, Ellie proper herself up, took him in her fist. He stilled, a pained groan escaping him as she began to stroke him up and down.

  “Inside me. Now.” She savoured the power to be had at forcing a moan like that from the lip of such a strong man.

  His hips pumped into her fist once, twice, and triumph seized her.

  And then she was flat on her back, one arm banded around her waist, holding her still.

  “Not until you come.” Teasing touches past, he slid his fingers through her slickness, his thumb finding her center.

  “Gabe! I... oh!” He’d challenged her with those words, and her innate stubbornness wanted to hold out, to make him do it her way.

  But as his thumb circled her insistently, repeatedly, and her body tensed with the sweetest kind of torture, she knew that even if he got his way, she couldn’t possibly lose.

  She sighed, then shuddered, her body tensing. Looking up, she met his determined stare, and understood one thing.

  Once, she might have been the dominant force in their relationship. But now...

  If he said he wouldn’t slide inside her until she came... challenging him would only find her like this, receiving the pleasure that he was pulling from her body with a sure touch.

  “Gabe. Gabe!” One final rough swipe with the pad of his thumb, and the tension that was wracking her body melted into pure, unadulterated bliss. She cried out, clawed at his arms, and he held firm, stroking her until the last shivers had quieted.

  Out of breath, her hands found his shoulders, measured the tension there.

  “Now, Gabe.” This time she wasn’t begging, but inviting. “Come inside of me.”

  “I need a condom.” But he didn’t move, and she heard the question he didn’t ask.

  ”I’m on the pill.” Her voice was soft, almost shy. “I’m protected.”

  The muscles in his shoulders went rigid. “I’m clean.”

  She smiled. She wouldn’t have asked. She trusted him. “I know. Me too.”

  Feral possession blazed in those vibrant eyes. Balancing his weight on one elbow, Gabe pushed her thighs wide, then took himself in hand. He stroked his length over her, and she whimpered.

  Then he pressed himself to her, and slowly, excruciatingly, moved forward. Ellie held her breath, squirming beneath him as he steadily filled her body, stretching her, awakening her nerves.

  Once fully seated, he stilled, looked down at her.

  Lowered his head for one of those slow, perfect kisses.

  “I want to take my time. Watch you slowly come apart underneath me.”

  She very nearly could have, just from those words. But more than she wanted what he promised, she wanted to make him feel what she already had.

  Digging greedy fingers into his hips, the muscled p
lanes of his butt, she tilted her hips, forcing him in just a fraction more.

  The groan he made was the sound of a man in pain.

  “You got your way already.” Another squeeze, another tilt of her hips. “Come with me, Gabe. I want you to.”

  She saw uncertainty.

  Determination.

  Wicked intent.

  Pulling back, sliding forward. Mind numbingly good.

  Too slow.

  Raking her nails over his back, she urged him onward with her hips. He tensed, tried to fight it, but she could see the instant he passed the point of no return.

  “I won’t last long.” Burying his face in her hair, he moved faster, and faster still, finding his own pleasure—finding solace—in her body, and Ellie was only too happy to give it to him.

  “Come to me, Gabe.” Her whisper was loud in the dark. “Come to me now.”

  Shuddering, he clenched, hilting inside of her, and then again. Only once his soft groan had faded did he still, whispering something that she couldn’t quite catch.

  They stayed that way, wrapped up in one another, as the sweat dried and their skin cooled. Joined together.

  After what might have been minutes, and might have been an hour, Ellie had a question. Rolling over, she pressed her lips to the hollow of Gabe’s neck.

  “Why did your father want to buy Estelle’s Blooms?”

  Gabe made a sound that was half laugh, half snort of exasperation. “We’re naked in bed and you want to talk about my dad?”

  She scowled. “Just answer the damn question.”

  Gabe pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t have the faintest idea.” He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her throat...

  ...and lower

  ...and Ellie forgot what she’d asked.

  Chapter Nine

  A rare cold wind blew over the Florence graveyard. Ellie shivered, dressed in just the jeans and tank that she’d worn to Gabe’s the night before.

  Since she’d missed the funeral, she wouldn’t have known where to go, except for the freshly turned dirt, and the newly erected headstone.

  Estelle Agnes Kendrick

  1944- 2012

  “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,

  I could walk in my garden forever.”

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Ellie had no idea who had chosen the quote. It certainly wasn’t one that she would have selected for the woman that she knew. And yet...

  She thought of the boxes that Estelle had so carefully stored in her attic. Thought of the connections that bound them all... herself and Estelle, herself and Gabe. Jamie and Gabe. Even, she thought with amusement, Estelle and Ed.

  Shivering with cold, and uncertain of why she’d come in the first place, Ellie pursed her lips then, deciding to go all in, kissed her fingers and touched them to the headstone.

  That was when she saw the bouquet, tucked in behind. Dried now from the desert heat, what had once been a dozen red roses was propped up against the back of the headstone... wrapped in plastic from the grocery store where she’d seen Ed. A small card was tucked amongst the now desiccated stems.

  “They’re not up to your usual standards, my love, but with you gone, they’ll have to do. I know you never forgave me, but know that I carried you in my heart to the end.” Estelle read the words out loud, turned them over in her mind.

  Estelle had been sixty eight when she’d died.

  Gabe’s parents had had him later in life... Ed would be somewhere in his early sixties.

  Ed had been very interested in what she’d planned to do with the shop. So interested that he’d wanted to buy it.

  Ellie stood for a long time, looking down at those roses.

  Was it possible...

  Could love really still burn bright after tragedy?

  She didn’t have the answer.

  But...

  Was the possibility enough?

  ***

  Ellie was gone when he woke up. Gabe wasn’t surprised by that fact, but he was entirely taken aback by the depth of unhappiness that the knowledge caused.

  Rolling over, he scrubbed his hands over his face then, embarrassed even though he was the only one there, lifted the pillow that Ellie had slept on, held it to his face, and inhaled the floral scent she’d left behind.

  He was an idiot, because last night he’d fallen totally and completely in love with Ellie Kendrick again. Or maybe he’d never been out of love with her at all.

  And after listening to her story the night before, he knew that if it hurt her too much to stay, then all he could do was let her go.

  The pain was like a migraine, a dull ache that seemed manageable until you moved, where it morphed into a pain so bright it could blind you.

  Most of him wanted to roll over, to pull the covers over his head and never come out.

  The small part of him that seemed alive knew that he had to get his ass in the shower, and then to work.

  He sat up slowly, every muscle in his body aching as though his inner pain was leaching from his soul to his body. He made it to the edge of his bed, then was defeated, lowering his feet to the floor and his head to his hands.

  Was this how Ellie had felt, so many years ago? Utterly defeated and all alone?

  The sound of his door opening had his jolting, his cop instincts holding him rigid, listening until he identified the rest of the sound.

  Footsteps. Soft and quiet and, to his ears at least, easily identifiable.

  His heart rose, but he tried to push down the sensation until he knew.

  Ellie appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. In her hands was a single rose.

  “Hey.” She spoke softly, uncertainty playing over her features.

  “Hey.” Gabe’s eyes looked her over greedily. She wasn’t perfect, this woman, but damn it, she was his.

  Scared me, he wanted to add. Then, figuring he had nothing to lose, he did.

  Ellie crossed to sit on the bed beside him. Her fingers worried the petals of the rose, but didn’t touch him.

  “I thought I was going to leave. Even this morning... I still thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Gabe’s heart clenched, but he nodded at her to go on.

  Rather than speaking, she held the rose out to him. Not sure what she was getting at, he took it.

  “This flower has the potential to have a nice long life. For a rose, I mean.” She eyed the flower, sniffed. “And for a grocery store special.”

  Gabe couldn’t hold back a small smile.

  “But here’s the thing. We can nurture it. Take all the right steps to make sure it stays healthy. But in the end, it might still die before its time.” This time when she ran her fingers over the petals, her fingers brushed his, and she looked him right in the eye,

  “What are you asking, El?” He didn’t want to hope, but that ship had sailed.

  She bit her lip, worried it with her teeth before speaking again.

  “I guess the question is... do you nurture it anyway, even knowing that it might not live up to its potential? Or do you just walk away and avoid all the potential pain?”

  “To hell with this.” Gabe tossed the flower to the side, then pulled Ellie into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her tightly, he ran his lips over her hair. “We might fuck it up, El. We’ve done it before. But I’m game if you are.”

  She pulled back, looked at him for a long moment. And then she smiled sunnily, an expression that he didn’t entirely trust. At least, not on her.

  “Well then, I have a problem.” He could see her trying to make her expression solemn. She failed miserably.

  “Oh?” He traced his fingers over her cheekbone. She was so small, and she looked so impossibly fragile, this woman.

  He was the only one who knew how incredibly strong she was.

  “Yes. Well. I sold my apartment.” She smiled sweetly. “Know anywhere a girl can find a place to stay?”

  “I might. But we’d have to discuss terms of paym
ent.” Joy he hadn’t known he was capable of filled Gabe until he felt sure he would split in two. Unable to resist, he took Ellie’s mouth with his own, kissed her until they were both breathless.

  Wicked intent filled her eyes, and she nipped at his lower lip. “I’m pretty sure I overpaid you just then. You should give me my change.”

  He kissed her again, and his hands wandered lowered.

  He muttered a protest when she braced her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

  “Are you certain? I mean, we could screw this up again and make it all worse than it already is. In fact that’s a pretty likely possibility. So really, Gabe. Be sure.”

  In response, he kissed her again. And then showed her just how sure he was.

  The End

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  UNTOUCHED Excerpt

  Copyright 2014 by Lauren Hawkeye

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author Lauren Hawkeye serves up a captivating story of loss, self-discovery, and deep-seated desire.

  Some secrets are best left locked away in the past….

  Alexa Kendrick has no recollection of the car accident that left her scarred and sent her life careening wildly off course. When the half-sister she thought she’d never meet shows up at her door with an invitation to a new life, Alexa finds herself in Florence, Arizona, a town notorious for being populated with more prison inmates than actual citizens…a town that has done its best to hide its own dark secret.

  After Ellie is called out of town, she leaves her sister with the keys to her flower shop and Alexa finds herself swapping lives with her sibling: running Ellie’s business, living in the house left to them both by their absentee father…and forging a smoldering relationship with sexy-as-sin penitentiary officer, Nate Fury—a man with his own demons.