She chuckled. “Not unless I’m forced to. Jules likes to cook, and while we were growing up, I let her knock herself out.”
He gently brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “One favor deserves another. If I give you a pass, it’s only because I want you well rested for later.”
Shana knew exactly what he was talking about. She turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned up and placed a kiss on his lips. “That’s a deal.”
* * *
“Dinner was wonderful, Jace,” Shana said later that evening as she helped him clear off the table.
And it hadn’t been just the meal he’d prepared without any assistance from her. Over dinner, he was a wonderful conversationalist. Charming. At times amusing. And at others tempting as sin. He looked like he needed a shave, and he wore the scruffy look well. Too well, since it added to his sexiness.
When she began helping him load the dishes in the sink, he placed his hand on hers. “I got this. Why don’t you go upstairs and run our bathwater?” he suggested.
“Our bathwater?” she asked, raising a brow.
He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yes, our bathwater. I’ll be up when I finish in here.”
She fought back a smile at the same time as she narrowed her gaze at him. “Surely you’re not going to hold me to that silly deal we made earlier today.”
He chuckled. “On the contrary. I can clearly recall that while I was doing all the cooking, you were in the living room with your feet propped up on the sofa, reading some book on your iPad.”
She couldn’t deny what he said was true, so she chuckled and headed toward the stairs.
“Shana?”
She turned around. “Yes?”
The smile in his eyes lit a sensuous flame within her. “I’m glad you enjoyed dinner.”
She drew in a deep breath, nodded and all but rushed up the stairs.
* * *
Jace walked into his bedroom and stopped short. The room was dark, and kerosene lanterns were lit and placed in several spots around the room. He kept the lanterns in case there was ever a loss of power. But it seemed Shana had decided to use them for something else, and he had to admit they bathed the room in a soft, luminous glow.
“Your bath awaits you, Jace.”
He blinked. Shana materialized from heaven knows where, and what really had him mesmerized was that she was stark naked. She had a beautiful body, and automatically his gaze roamed all over her, taking in every inch of her. There was such a profound femininity about her that it had his gut churning.
“Jace?”
He swallowed. “Yes?”
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him toward the bathroom.
After pulling himself together, thoughts of all the possibilities with the naked woman leading him made his manhood throb, and he went willingly. There was no doubt in his mind that she would keep her end of the deal. And he couldn’t wait.
Stepping into the bathroom, he saw the bathtub was full of bubbly water and the scent of jasmine filled the air. “Now for your clothes.” She leaned up to whisper close to his ear. Doing so made a breast brush against his arm, and he fought back a moan.
For the next few minutes, he stood there, smiling like a ninny, while she stripped him of his clothing. The only time he assisted was when she had a difficult time easing his zipper down past his engorged erection.
In no time at all, he was standing there as naked as she was. When he extended his arm for her, she quickly moved out of his reach. “Not yet. Get in the tub, Jace.”
He chuckled before easing his long legs over the edge of the huge, freestanding tub to settle his body comfortably in place in the warm, bubbly water. “You’re going to join me, right?” he asked.
“Eventually. You fed me well today here, and I told you how much I enjoyed it. Now I want you to enjoy this,” she said, crouching down on her knees beside the tub. “I’m about to give you a bath that you won’t forget for a long time.”
Jace watched how she slowly slid the washcloth through the warm water before gliding it across his skin. First she worked his chest, causing a tingling sensation in his nipples before moving over his shoulders.
Then she moved down his body, circling the cloth around his navel before moving toward his groin. That’s when she replaced the cloth with her hands. He was more than conscious of every stroke of her fingers on him, her hand curling around his engorged penis, the same penis he planned on plunging deep inside her later.
He drew in a sharp breath when she began stroking him in a way he’d never been stroked before, and he stared into her eyes, saw the heated desire burning in them and knew the blaze was as hot as in his own. His body felt as if it was in turbulent ecstasy, and he fought back a moan. A tingling rush of pleasure moved from the soles of his feet all the way up to the top of his head.
And while she continued to prove the skills of her hands, she leaned in close and kissed his lips. He thought it would be a light brush of her lips across his, but when she parted her lips over his, she used her tongue to fuel more desire within him. He kissed her back with wanton barbarity that channeled a feverish rush, invading his body, as their tongues continued to duel.
Convinced he needed more, specifically the feel of wet flesh against wet flesh, he reached out and pulled her into the tub on top of him, not caring how much water splashed out of the tub in the process. She pulled back and stared at him in stunned disbelief. He merely shrugged a wet shoulder and smiled when he settled her between his thighs facing him.
“I wanted to bathe you,” she said in a perturbed tone with a pout on her lips.
He leaned in and kissed those pouty lips, deepening the kiss, all with one deep plunge of his tongue. He enjoyed kissing her, figured he could make a field day of it and probably would have if she hadn’t shifted and pressed her womanly core right smack against his hard erection. Immediately, he craved the feel of being planted deep inside of her.
Hot lust razzed his brain, and he lifted her hips at the perfect angle to ease through her heated flesh and become intimate with her. She moaned and threw her head back as he plunged forward, holding her hips steady to receive all of him. When he was convinced he was buried to the hilt, he placed a kiss on the smoothness of her neck and whispered, “Ride me, baby. I need you to ride me hard.”
He didn’t care that later he would be mopping the floor. All he cared about was the way she was making him feel as she lifted her hips off him to come towering back down again and began riding him the way she’d done in his dreams plenty of times. Even better, because this was the real thing. “That’s it, baby. Take it all,” he whispered brokenly.
And she was taking it. He could feel it in every part of his body. Her inner muscles were molding to his erection, generating more fire and heat each time she rode him hard. And he pushed her on by caressing the nipples of her breasts and trailing circular motions on her back.
Jace shifted his body slightly to capture the budded tips in his mouth while she continued to ride him hard. This was hot passion that was driving the lower part of his body to act as a spring with her movements.
Then he felt it, the slow stirring that starts in your bones before exploding to all parts of your body and ambushing your mind with breathtaking intensity. She was riding him. Boy, was she riding him. He felt every muscle in his body respond, and he instinctively lifted his hips to meet her downward plunge.
“Shana!”
Needing his mouth to be locked on hers, he went back for her lips, crushing down on hers and easing his tongue inside and stroking hers with wild abandonment and greed he felt in every pore.
And then she broke off the kiss to scream his name. The raw passion he heard in her voice was too much. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he brought her mouth back down to him, and his tongue claimed hers once again as another orgasm rammed through him and his response almost toppled them over the tub.
It was a while before the kiss en
ded and he slowly stood and got out of the tub, helped her out and toweled them both dry. He then swept her off her feet into his arms. She curled her body close to his and licked his shoulder before lightly biting into his skin.
“Let’s finish this in bed, shall we?” he asked.
She tightened her arms around his neck. “We’ll finish this wherever you like.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was nice when a man had the pick of any woman he wanted, Dalton thought, glancing around the nightclub. Women of every shape, size and color. He was one who definitely believed that variety was the spice of life. Already, he’d been hit on more times tonight than he could count, yet he hadn’t selected the woman whose bed he would spend time in tonight. It wasn’t eleven o’clock yet, so he had plenty of time.
He couldn’t help but be amused at how hard they were vying for his attention. Feminine heads had turned the minute he’d walked in wearing an expensive pair of linen trousers, a designer jacket and leather shoes. It never ceased to amaze him how far some women would go to pursue a man they thought had money. Knowing most of them were gold diggers didn’t bother him. He knew how to handle them. He only parted with his money when he got good and ready to do so.
“Would you like another drink, Mr. Granger?”
He rolled his eyes. “Drop the Mr. Granger shit, Percy,” he said to his waiter. “I’m Dalton, remember?”
Percy chuckled. “Yes, I remember. Just following the rules on how to address the customer.”
“Then you’re allowed to break them tonight while serving this table.”
He and Percy Johnson had never been close friends while attending the same high school, but they had played on the same football teams since middle school. Percy had been a damn good quarterback in senior high school and had gotten a scholarship to attend South Carolina University. He surprised everyone and turned it down when his girlfriend got pregnant, doing the honorable thing by staying here and getting married.
This was the third time Dalton had come here, and each time, Percy had waited on his table. Dalton wondered if this was his full-time job or if it was a second gig. He decided to find out.
“You married Trina Morgan, right?” he asked, knowing he had.
“Yes, Trina and I married right out of high school. Still married. It’s been almost ten years now with three kids.”
Dalton nodded. “Congratulations. Not every couple lasts that long.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, what’s been going on? I moved back to town a month ago.”
“I know. I read about you and your brothers in the paper. Sorry about your grandfather.”
“Thanks. So is this your primary gig?”
“No, part-time. I work full-time at the Cullum Meat Plant as a forklift operator,” Percy said, refilling Dalton’s glass. “Been there since I got married. I got my college degree last year. Took me a few years, but I got it.”
“Congratulations again,” Dalton said, glad for Percy. “It could not have been easy doing so while raising a family.”
“Thanks, and no, it wasn’t easy. I figured with my degree that I would move up within my company, you know, move from working inside the plant to working inside behind a desk. My degree is in Computer Technology. I graduated top of my class, but so far, no such luck. I’m hoping to find something that pays enough to quit this job. Percy Jr. is at the age where he wants to play ball, and it’s hard getting to his games when I have to work at night.”
Dalton nodded. Suddenly, an idea came into his head. “How would you like working at Granger Aeronautics?”
Percy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, boy, would I? I applied a couple of times and never got an interview.”
“You just did,” Dalton said, standing and fishing a business card out of his wallet. “Give this to the person in Human Resources and tell them to call me.”
Percy’s lips broke into a huge smile. “Thanks, Dalton. I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. You said something to me one day years ago that I’ll never forget. And to this day, I appreciate it.”
Percy frowned, racking his brain to remember, so Dalton decided to help him out. “It was the day I returned to school after my father’s trial ended.”
Then as if a light went off in his head, Percy blinked. “Oh, that.”
“Yes, that,” Dalton said. “You didn’t even know my dad, yet you acted as if you believed in his innocence when some of my closest friends who knew him didn’t.”
Percy shrugged. “I didn’t know your dad personally. But I’d seen him once or twice after the game when he came to pick you up from practice. He always seemed like a cool dude, and I just couldn’t imagine him doing what the law said he did.”
Percy then looked down at the business card in his hand before staring back up at Dalton. “You don’t know how much this means, man. It doesn’t matter if I start off in maintenance. I bet the starting salary for a low-end position at Granger is double what I’m making working both jobs. Thanks, and I’ll do a good job.”
“I know you will.”
He watched as Percy hurried off to serve another table, and something about what he’d just done made him feel good inside. His brothers and grandfather had been right. In life, everything had come easy for him, and he never thought about where it came from or the hard work someone had to do to get it.
Okay, he would admit he’d grown up selfish and spoiled. And he wouldn’t change overnight about feeling entitled when it came to certain things. Like women, he thought, glancing around the room looking at the number of them looking his way, trying to decide when to make their move. He’d already turned a few down tonight, but it was getting late, and he needed to decide on one and soon.
He was about to take another sip of his drink when he glanced at the entrance. Holy shit. Just when he’d given up and figured he would have to settle, in walks a woman wearing a pair of stilettos on long gorgeous legs that went all the way under a dress that was way too short to be considered decent.
And he liked it.
When she paused in the doorway and glanced around, he bet the penis of every male in the place got hard. Lordy, she was hot. And when she began walking toward an empty table, his erection began throbbing like it was about to explode. She had that seductive walk in those shoes down to an art form. And he could just imagine getting some of that.
His lips curved into an I-want-you smile. This was the woman he was going home with tonight.
* * *
Jules settled in at the table feeling tired and frustrated. This was the third club she’d been to tonight and still no luck in finding Mr. Asshole. But she had run into a couple of his cousins, she thought, remembering the two men who’d tried coming on to her at the last club and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She ended up kneeing both really hard in the balls before they understood she was not a woman to be manhandled. Now one of her knees felt sore, her feet hurt and she...
She looked up when a glass of wine was placed in front of her, and a man slid into the seat opposite her. She blinked. Okay, it wasn’t Mr. Asshole Number One, the man she had spent most of the night looking for, but she wondered if she’d run into another cousin.
“And what is this?” she asked, frowning down at the drink.
The man smiled at her, and she tried keeping her insides from quivering. He was definitely a cutie. “Your drink. I ordered it for you. You look thirsty.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
He had a pair of gorgeous eyes, light brown in color, and he smelled good. Just as good as he looked. If she didn’t have another club to hit tonight, she would hang around and get to know him. But she had a job to do. Besides, he was kind of pushy, and she didn’t like pushy men.
“Thanks for the drink, but no thanks. I order my own. Do I look stupid?”
Her question seemed to take him aback a little, but he quickly recovered. “No, you look highly intelligent.”
“In that case, then you sh
ould know that an intelligent woman would never accept a drink from a stranger. For all I know, you could have loaded that drink with Ecstasy.”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t know you well enough to agree,” she said.
Dalton licked his lips, deciding he liked her. She had a mouth on her, but he could definitely put that mouth to other uses than talking. “Okay then, order your own drink.”
“I will.” She then got the attention of a waitress.
“Yes, may I help you?” the waitress asked.
Before Jules could open her mouth, the stranger cut in. “The lady doesn’t want that drink. Give her another and put it on my tab.”
Jules opened her mouth to tell the man she could pay for her own drink, but then she changed her mind. She had no problem with a man buying her a drink. She would enjoy it, and then she would leave to go to that next club. And she hoped Mr. Asshole was there.
She gave the waitress her order and glanced up to find the stranger staring at her. “So, what’s your name?” he asked
Jules wished his voice didn’t sound so sexy. “You don’t need to know my name, and I don’t need to know yours.”
“Why would you think that?”
When the waitress set the drink in front of her, Jules took a sip and sighed deeply. She needed that. “Because I came here looking for a man.”
A smile spread across Dalton’s lips. “The last time I looked I had all the necessary parts.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “A particular man,” she clarified. “You aren’t him, so I plan on enjoying this drink and then moving on.”
“If your guy stood you up, then...”
“Then nothing. Look. Don’t waste your time hitting on me. I’m not interested.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
Dalton’s face split into a wide grin. Maybe he should be offended, but instead he was amused. This woman with the short, barely there dress and long, gorgeous legs had not only piqued his interest, she had all kinds of fantasies floating around in his head. Like the one of her naked, stretched out with him over her. He would pour the drink she was sipping over her body then proceed to lick it off her.
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