“I guess. And you fulfilled your dream, Carson. You always said you wanted to become an international security expert.”
“I said I wanted to become the best international security expert,” he corrected her. “And I am.”
“Whatever.” He felt her smile as she kissed his neck again. “That’s only because I didn’t go into your field and blow you away.”
“Well, you did blow me,” he said playfully.
She laughed. “Did you know…” She paused, reminding him of all the times she’d led with those words when they were studying together and she knew more about a subject than he did. “Only six percent of people fulfill their childhood dreams? And only thirty percent of people work in what they’d consider their dream job or a related job. How can the statistics be so low?”
“I think a better question is why do you know that?”
“I had a lot of long, lonely nights to ponder very important things like that, as well as how giraffes mate, global warming, and the best wax for dripping on skin.”
He chuckled. “That brain of yours never rests, and I like where it’s headed. You can fulfill your dreams, too, Tabs. Move here, start your business. You can have it all.”
“Carson, it’s not that easy. You of all people know how hard it is to build a business. And mine would be such a niche. It will take a lot of hard work. Not that I’m afraid of it, but I do have to plan and prepare so I know what I’m in for. Besides, there’s Adeline to consider.”
He closed his eyes, soaking in her loving tone. “You really don’t want to leave her, do you?”
“No,” she whispered. “She was so shy when she first came to the orphanage, and scared of everyone and everything. I feel like I was supposed to meet her, and she’s really come into her own. I don’t know how long she’ll be at the orphanage, but however long it is, I want to be there for her.”
His heart broke for the little girl. He reached for Tawny’s hand.
“I feel like half my heart is here with you,” she said, “and half is there with her. I can’t just abandon her. I don’t want to.”
“Then you shouldn’t,” he assured her. Too many women would toss money at less-fortunate children and feel they’d done their duty. Tawny would take every one of those children into her home and love, nurture, and protect them with her whole self. She was so real, so very rare, he’d never take that away. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider opening your business. Even if in Paris.” It killed him to say it, but how could he ask her to leave a child she clearly adored?
They both fell silent.
“I want you to have everything you’ve ever wanted,” Carson finally said. “If Adeline owns a piece of you, then who am I to take that away from either of you? We’ll figure the rest out, but don’t put your hopes for a perfumery on hold.” He had no idea how they’d figure it out, but they didn’t have to do it that second. “You deserve to have your dreams come true.”
“Like you?”
If only. “I fulfilled my career dreams, but I have yet to conquer the dreams that really matter.”
She slid off his back, to his side, a sweet smile on her face. He turned to face her and gathered her against him, their naked bodies intertwining.
“What are your other dreams?” she asked as they each palmed the other’s ass, keeping their bodies as close as could be.
“They’re not what you think.”
“Try me,” she challenged.
“They have nothing to do with mating giraffes.”
She laughed, and he pressed his lips to hers in a tender kiss, glad to set his worries aside for now.
“I had this friend once,” he said. “She was a total bookworm, and into chemistry and computers and all things historic. I made her a promise when we first met that if she studied with me, one day I’d take her to the Speculum Alchemiae Museum. She was so excited to go to Prague and see the secret underground alchemy laboratory from the sixteenth century, she let me do dirty things to her for almost two whole years.”
She gasped. “You did promise me that! But that’s not why I let you do those things. I’ve been waiting a decade to go there. You sure take a long time to fulfill your promises.”
He swept her beneath him, lacing their hands together beside her head. “Is that so?”
She bit her lower lip, trying to stifle an unstoppable giggle, and nodded.
He nipped at her lower lip, freeing it and kissing her. Her hips rose off the bed in an effort to align their bodies.
“Want something?” He pressed the head of his cock against her slickness, rocking just hard enough to breach her entrance.
“I want you.”
He lowered his mouth to hers as their bodies came together, and he loved her until they were both too tired to move. Then he held her close, and they fell back to sleep.
CARSON AWOKE HOURS later to the sun streaming through the curtains and Tawny snuggled soft and warm in his arms. He’d dreamed of waking with her in his arms, sharing days, and loving her through the nights, but nothing compared to her actually being there. How could he love someone so much that he didn’t want to think about going a day without her? They kissed and laughed, and when they finally forced themselves from the bed, Carson carried Tawny’s luggage into his bedroom and cleaned out a drawer.
“You can put your things in here, Tabs, and hang up anything you’d like in my closet.”
“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around him, both of them still naked, and kissed his chest. “I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up at the hotel and I don’t feel like you minded, but I have to ask—”
He silenced her with a kiss, knowing his careful girl was suddenly worried he felt pushed into a corner. That was her cautious nature coming out, and he loved that she worried about him, but she needn’t have.
“That’s my answer, Tabs. You figure it out.”
He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and turned on the shower. When he came out, Tawny was standing by the balcony doors, holding her toiletries bag and looking like a gift from the heavens above.
“It’s really beautiful here,” she said. “The park reminds me of the campus. Does it remind you of it, too?”
He looked out at the snow-covered park and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Mm-hm. That’s why I bought this house.”
“I love knowing that.” She touched his cheek. “You smell minty.” Gazing outside, she said, “There must be eight inches out there.”
“That’s okay. We have no plans until later, when we go to Dylan’s.”
He led her into the steamy bathroom and stepped into the shower while she brushed her teeth. When she joined him under the warm shower spray, she brushed her slick body along his.
Her delicate fingers circled his cock. “The snowfall has nothing on you.”
MAYBE IT WAS the number of years Tawny had gone without Carson, or maybe it was just that she loved him so much, making love with him was like discovering a new, exotic fragrance every single time. Whatever the reason, as she urged him to sit on the tiled bench in his very large shower, she wanted him more than she ever had.
She sank down to her knees, and he grabbed her arm, patting the bench beside him.
“Right here, baby. I want to be able to touch you, too.”
She climbed onto all fours, lust coiling hot and tight inside her. He’d never been one to receive without wanting to give. He gathered her hair in one hand, watching as her fingers circled his cock, and she slicked her tongue over the head. He sucked in a long, slow breath, and the needy sound made her want to hear more. When she lowered her mouth over his cock, he tightened his grip on her hair, though he still let her control their speed as her hand followed her lips along the length of his shaft.
His other hand caressed her ass while the spray of the shower rained down on them. She loved him slowly, drawing out his pleasure, enjoying the way his muscles tensed with his effort not to take control. She drew back and slid her tongue
around his swollen glans, holding his gaze.
“Suck,” he said firmly.
She continued licking along his shaft, challenging him.
“Suck, Tabs.”
The warning in his eyes made her insides clench. Oh, how she’d missed this! She continued teasing over and around his broad head, squeezing his shaft, but not stroking. The first crack of his hand on her ass brought tears of pleasure and a scintillating sting. He rubbed his palm over the tender spot, and she lowered her mouth over his cock. After all, he’d given her exactly what she’d wanted, and reciprocating gave her as much pleasure as receiving. She dragged her tongue along his shaft, his lower belly, his thighs, everywhere except where he needed it, earning another spank. By the third, her bottom was tender, and she moaned with the sting. He immediately tipped her face up, searching her eyes. The worry in his gaze made her heart so full of him she could barely think.
“Too much?”
“No,” she managed, but she needed him.
She wanted to feel him lose control and to taste his essence. When she lowered her mouth again, he groaned. His hand moved between her legs. He pushed his fingers into her sex and his thumb into her ass, taking her right up to the brink of madness. She moaned around his cock.
“Christ, I love when you do that,” he ground out between gritted teeth.
His hand in her hair helped guide their speed. He knew her so well, what she wanted and what she needed. He knew she was unable to concentrate on the incredible sensations he was doling out while pleasuring him. He guided her into a fast rhythm, matching the beat of his fingers and thumb, quickening the pace, breaching her harder, moving her mouth faster, until the world spun away and she shattered into a million pieces and his release pulsed warm and thick against the back of her throat as he grunted out her name.
When he gathered her in his arms and kissed her breathless, all those pieces of herself came back together.
Chapter Eight
CARSON’S TYPICAL SUNDAY routine included going for a run and then working for most of the day. Occasionally he’d join his brothers to watch a game, as he and Tawny were doing later that afternoon, but for the most part, weekdays and weekends blended together. Enjoying a leisurely day with Tawny had shown him what he’d been missing. Not the downtime—the woman. They binge-watched The X-Files, snacking on Junior Mints and popcorn, tossing them into each other’s mouths until they tumbled over in fits of laughter. Tawny curled up beside him, just like old times, looking sexy and adorable in a pair of black leggings and an oversized white sweater that refused to stay on her shoulder. Carson took full advantage, tasting her shoulder as often as he liked and earning the sweet smiles he adored.
Now it was midafternoon, and they were taking a break from the television to go through the last two boxes from the storage unit.
Carson sat on the couch, and Tawny sat between his legs on the floor as he rubbed the tension from her shoulders.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” She pointed to the boxes as she said the words.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Tabs, it doesn’t matter where the tiger hollers. You’ll open the one you want to open first anyway.”
She wrinkled her cute, upturned nose. “You’re right.” She patted one box. “This one is from college. It’ll be easier.” She pushed it away and tore the tape from the other box, the one marked with her mother’s name, in her father’s handwriting. She flatted her hand over the flaps and glanced at Carson with a nervous expression.
He moved to the floor beside her and draped an arm over her shoulder, bringing her closer. “You sure you’re ready for this?”
“No, but I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Can I ask you something that you don’t have to answer?”
“That’s a loaded question. Sure.”
“We didn’t really talk about the fundraiser or your family, and I just realized that I kind of blew into your life and the most important thing about this weekend got pushed aside.”
His mind spiraled back to a few weeks earlier, when he and his brothers had decided to honor Lorelei by making her the focus of the fundraiser and he’d gone to share the news with his mother. Overwhelmed with the freeing feeling of bringing memories of his baby sister into his life again, he’d fallen into his mother’s arms like a giant child, and years of repressed emotions had come tumbling out. She’d said it was a feat of magic that it had finally happened. He’d argued that it was a coming together of the minds, a rational decision between brothers. His mother had shaken her head with a knowing smile and said, I know you don’t believe in magic, sweetheart, but Lorelei did. She’s probably been sitting up in heaven wondering why her smart big brothers were taking so darn long to realize she’s been with you all along. Sometimes all the rational thinking in the world won’t get you what you need. It takes a little magic, and magic exists right here. She’d patted his chest, over his heart.
“The fundraiser was important, but it wasn’t the most important thing. You coming back to me on the night of the fundraiser? That is important. A sign even.”
Her smiled warmed him. “You don’t believe in signs.”
“I never did.” But he was starting to. Tawny was the only person he’d ever opened up to about Lorelei. Wasn’t that a sign of how deeply he’d trusted her? The fact that she’d reappeared in his life on the night they’d chosen to celebrate Lorelei’s life after all these years had to mean something.
A shy expression came over her. “Me, either. But can anything be more of a sign than what my father said to me?”
“Some would argue that he was the catalyst for change. And the sign was the sold-out hotel.”
She rolled her eyes. “This is why we don’t do signs. Because everything can be interpreted differently. I wanted to ask about your family. When you first told me about your sister, you said your parents had split up after she’d passed away and that your father had turned angry and bitter. I’ve always wondered if things had gotten better for your family.”
Carson sat up a little straighter, putting a few inches between him and Tawny, a typical reaction when someone mentioned his father, which wasn’t often. At six foot four, Gerard Bad had a commanding presence, and he used it to his advantage in the courtroom. He was a leading criminal attorney, as manipulative and devious as they came. Before Lorelei had gotten sick, their father had been a typical overworked attorney, but he’d been a good father. After they’d lost Lorelei, he’d turned hateful toward everyone, most of all his family. Two years later their father was still storming through the house, raging at every little thing and arguing with everyone. Carson’s oldest brother, Mick, had stood up to their father and finally gotten him to do what he’d already mentally done. Leave his family for good.
“We don’t have to talk about him.” Tawny reached for his hand.
She had such a big heart. She should be worried about herself, gearing up for what he was sure would be an emotional ride when she saw her parents’ belongings, but instead she was thinking about him.
“It’s okay. Mick got married a few months ago, to Amanda. She’s terrific. You’ll meet her later at Dylan’s. My father attended their wedding, and he was less angry, but still bitter. He’d never shown up for the fundraisers in the past, and we didn’t expect him to be there this year, especially since this was the first time we’d honored Lorelei with posters, as you might have seen at the hotel. For us, honoring her was a really good thing.”
“I remember you mentioning that your family hadn’t really talked about her.”
Carson was eleven when Lorelei died, and he’d retreated from life, holing up in his room to deal with the devastation of losing the sister he adored. Lorelei had been a shining star in their house. As the youngest of five, she had a zest for life that put them to shame. She was inquisitive as hell, and inserted herself into her older brothers’ lives every way she could. She’d shared Carson’s love of science fiction and insisted on watching all the scary movies with him. By the end of them
she’d be curled up beside him peeking out from a quarter-sized hole in a blanket. She claimed it made the shows less scary. After she died, the house had felt colder, their lives had felt emptier, and Carson hadn’t been able to put words to the emptiness he’d felt. With his father’s bitterness, he wouldn’t have risked it anyway. In his despair, he buried his thoughts in trying to understand why Lorelei had died so quickly. That was the year Carson learned to hack computers. He’d needed answers, and he’d hacked into the hospital database to find them. He’d quickly learned that tests and medical conclusions weren’t answers that could help him with his pain. He’d disappeared from the world for months on end, save for attending school, but Mick had finally dragged his ass out into the world again and helped him find his footing.
“We didn’t,” Carson finally responded. “I talked to you about Lorelei, but no one else. It was too hard, and talking about her was a trigger for my father’s anger. We learned to keep our mouths shut. But Dylan’s new girlfriend, Tiffany, convinced him it was time to reopen the doors we’d closed and honor her. As hard as it was to see Lorelei’s pictures on the posters, we all desperately needed it. Anyway, our father showed up at the event. I didn’t see him. He was only there a few minutes. But Dylan said he’d told him he did a good job by honoring Lorelei. I think he’s softening around the edges. Talk about regrets. That’s a man whose bed is made of them.”
“I hope you can mend that fence at some point. At least you and your brothers are talking about your sister again. That’s good, right?” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “And your mom? Is she doing okay?”
“She’s doing great.” He knew she was fishing now, buying time before going through her parents’ things. “How is Tawny?”
“Nervous, but good.” Her eyes shifted to the box. “What do you think he saved from my mom?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“Thank you for being here with me,” she said as she lifted the flaps.
Bad Boys After Dark: Carson (Bad Billionaires After Dark Book 3) Page 10
