ANTE UP (7-Stud Club Book 3)

by Christie Ridgway

  Her equal.

  Reaching one hand between his shoulders, he grasped the cotton of his shirt and swooped it over his head. Then she dedicated herself to touching every inch of his nakedness, kissing his nipples, sucking on them, her own tightening in reaction to his low moans. His fingers found her bottom, digging with a bite of sweet pain into the flesh, and she ground down on the denim of his jeans.

  “God.” His head fell back on the cushions.

  She slid down his body to the floor, kneeling between his thighs. “Fuck,” he said, one hand going to her hair, the other caressing his own chest. “What are you doing?”

  For answer she attacked the button and zipper of his pants, pushing them and his boxers down to expose his stiff cock and full balls. The blatant display took her breath and stoked all her sexual fires, and she stared at him, licking her lips.

  His hand was gentle in her hair, stroking softly, but there was that devil in his half-closed eyes, and his aroused body called to her.

  She had to have him in her mouth. It literally watered as she lowered her head to press a kiss to the hot shaft. This was for her. Only for her.

  Not as payback or reciprocal foreplay but because she wanted to taste him, needed to taste him, and if it drove him as wild as she, well…bonus, as long as he wasn’t objecting.

  Which of course he didn’t, because it was all approval in that groan as she drew a wet line from his heavy balls up to the crown. She swirled her tongue there, swallowing the pre-cum, taking his essence into her mouth. His hand on her spasmed, short nails digging momentarily into her scalp, and the tiny bite only spiked her desire for more.

  Her belly met the edge of the couch and he slouched lower as she sucked the velvet-skinned head into her mouth. His hands went to the cushion on either side of hips, palms flat to the surface as he shuddered in reaction to her teasing strokes followed by a steady suction.

  Between her legs she felt soft and empty and wet and greedy, and having him in mouth suddenly wasn’t enough. Time for more.

  With a last luxurious lick, she crawled up his body. He caught her to him, bringing her mouth to his with a commanding hand at the back of her head. She allowed it; this was still about what she wanted.

  All about me.

  The selfish thought was a secret aphrodisiac and she squirmed against his body, wanting to get closer. He captured one breast, caressed it, then pinched the nipple until her head jerked back in a gasp.

  I’d make you beg when I was rough.

  Her blood molten, she stared at him. “Do that again.”

  And he obeyed, driving her wild with his rough touch in tandem with his thorough kisses. After more heated minutes, they both groped for one of the condoms at the same time and rolled it on together. Then he was helping her take him inside. As she sank onto his hard erection he latched onto her tender nipple and sucked, not ever easing up as she rode him steadily and asked for more. More. More. Please.

  I’d make you beg when I was rough.

  She came first, crying out his name as he bit down on her nipple and pressed one finger to her clit. Her hips rode the waves of pleasure and then he held her down as he thrust up, again, again, groaning against her flesh in his own throes of pleasure.

  Somehow they made it to his bedroom and fell to the mattress, no discussion necessary, nothing necessary except sleep. She dove into it, curled against him, her body still smarting in the best of ways, pleasure ghosting through her and following her into candy-colored dreams.

  In the middle of the night, she woke to a room filled with cool moonlight and to find herself on her belly, Cooper pushing aside her hair to kiss the back of her neck. To trail his mouth down her spine.

  To give a tender bite to one cheek of her bottom, and then the other. It caused her to tilt her hips and he whispered just like that, now spread your knees and something moved in her chest. She supposed it was reinvigorated lust.

  Her body was primed for him again already, eager to be filled and pleased. Maybe there’d been foreplay in those dreams. Whatever.

  She positioned for him, burying her face in the pillow and breathing in the scent of him. He came between her parted thighs and she could feel him positioning his erection, notching that big head against her. Smart man must have brought the condoms from the other room.

  He rubbed the crown against her soft tissues and she felt how wet she was. Her back bowed to give him better access. He swatted one bottom cheek and she jerked at the smarting heat. Moaned. He swatted the other side.

  She thought she might die of lust.

  “Hold still for me,” he muttered in a dark voice, and the sound ignited her nerve endings. A rush of near unbearable excitement coursed through her. She wiggled on purpose, and the little slap to her tingling backside was her reward.

  God.

  Then he was entering her, and it wasn’t easy, because she was swollen and tender from the last round, yet he kept on coming because her moan wasn’t at all registering pain. Only pleasure.

  Please. More.

  When his hips met hers at last, his shaft filling her so full she couldn’t help but clench down on him, they both groaned. Cooper twisted his hand in the hair at her nape and drew her head back, turning it. She lifted up on her elbows and met his gaze over her shoulder.

  They held there. Bodies locked, eyes locked, no place for pretenses.

  There was something different about sex with Cooper. Something beyond the fact that they seemed to match each other with mutual need. Her body trembled.

  For the first time she felt as if trust and vulnerability went both ways.

  Poker night, and because Raf had a conflict they’d switched locations to Cooper’s place. Usually, he looked forward to his turn to host, but tonight he didn’t feel welcoming.

  He felt thwarted.

  Without the crew scheduled to come over for their usual hours of dinner and play, he would have issued an order in his best alpha voice or made puppy dog eyes or anything necessary to coax Willow back to his condo and into his bed. Just thinking of her naked body and wanton kisses made him ready to fall to his knees.

  But nothing got in the way of poker night.

  Men didn’t turn their backs on their friends for temporary pleasures.

  His doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of said friends. Temporary pleasures, he thought again, and scowled.

  He supposed he appeared out-of-sorts, because Hart and Maddox took one look at him, then shared one with each other. “Wrong time?” Mad asked.

  “Wrong day?” Hart echoed.

  Cooper pulled the door wider. “Of course not. Come in.”

  “Wrong man?” Maddox asked Hart as they moved inside. “Our Coop is usually smile upon smiles, deluding himself he’s about to take all our money.”

  “Shut up,” he muttered, then gestured toward the beverage cooler. “Help yourselves to beer. Sophie’s coming with food in the next half hour.”

  The guys dropped their non-greasy snacks donations—so as not to stain the felt of the poker surface—onto the countertop. Then they rooted around for their preferred drinks. By the time they’d taken their first swallows, he’d let the others in.

  Without engaging in the usual pre-game conversation, he grabbed his own beer and checked the clock. Could he call Willow later? But poker could easily go to midnight and it wasn’t as if they’d parted with any promises or future plans.

  He’d brought her coffee in bed and she’d sipped it without giving away a single morning-after thought. Trying to play it as cool as she did, he’d not objected when she’d refused breakfast and left him with a sweet little kiss on his cheek.

  He should have grabbed her up and laid a deep and filthy one on her.

  But truth was, he’d been…a little tense. Emotionally exposed.

  He’d promised he’d never lie to her and the whole night he’d been aware of his feelings bubbling under the surface. So he’d kept quiet and let her go without a word.

  A quick double-
knock on his door heralded his sister’s arrival. As she pushed in, her arms full, he headed that way. Then his feet stuttered to a stop.

  On Sophie’s heels was Willow, bearing more containers and wearing an uncertain smile. Her gaze found his.

  His heart somersaulted. Actually fucking turned over in his chest.

  For a moment all he could see was her face and then a memory nudged in, her body under his, her round ass blushing with his playful slaps, and then her eyes, peeking over her smooth shoulder.

  Looking into his soul.

  Seeing something he hadn’t known was there.

  “Hi,” she said now, her cheeks turning pink.

  His feet could move again—hurrah—and he hurried forward to take from her a long pan with a bowl balanced on top. “Hi.”

  Behind him, his sister muttered something but he ignored her and leaned down to kiss the top of Willow’s head and breathe in her honey shampoo. “You’re with Sophie tonight?”

  “A movie,” she said. “Not a scary one.”

  He grinned, then led her toward the island where he set down the food. “Guys, for those of you who don’t know, this is Willow.” She sketched waves as he performed the introductions to those men she’d yet to meet.

  “Come and get it,” Sophie said, pulling tops off of steaming containers. “Tonight it’s chicken and rice and stew meat and dumplings. Man food.”

  “Red flags to bulls,” Cooper said to Willow as his friends converged.

  “Ready, Willow?” Sophie asked, heading for the door. “We’ve got dates.”

  At Cooper’s hard look, his sister snickered. “With two delicious leading men. It’s a buddy movie.”

  The women were nearly to the door when he broke. “Just a sec,” he said, grabbing Willow’s hand. “I need to, uh, discuss the chair. Grandfather’s. The one in the bedroom.”

  Once inside, he shut the door and left off the light. Then he pushed her against the wall and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her with a tenderness he didn’t know he had in him. Still, he went for thorough. When he lifted his head, her mouth was wet and her gaze hazy.

  He smiled and placed another kiss on the tip of her nose. “You okay?”

  “Mmm.”

  The smile became a grin. “Yeah.” He touched her cheek. “After…were you sore?”

  Her eyes shifted left and even in the dim light he saw her face turn pink again.

  He touched his forehead to hers. “Truth.”

  “Not in a bad way.” A little quiver coursed through her body, and her hands came to his waist as if to steady herself. “How are you…after?”

  “Great. It was the best…” At the last moment he made a crucial amendment. “…sex of my life.”

  It had been the best night of his life. Sleeping beside her, just that, had sent satisfaction settling into his bones.

  Sophie’s voice, calling for Willow, sounded through the door. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  Telling himself it shouldn’t be so hard, he walked her to the entry. There, he thanked his sister. Then he turned to Willow once again. “Bye.”

  Her hand reached out and trailed down his forearm “Bye.”

  At her farewell smile, his heart turned over again and a new feeling soared through him, a wild exhilaration, an electrical charge of well-being.

  He didn’t resist it, but instead let the strange goodness surge.

  This was it. It.

  What all the fuss was about.

  Why people sacrificed their safety and made promises about the future and risked, well, everything. This was being in love.

  He returned to the poker guys, hoping it didn’t show that his feet weren’t touching the ground. Fuck, they’d laugh their asses off if they knew he was floating on proverbial air.

  They were either oblivious or nicer than Cooper deserved. The meal was consumed with the usual appreciative noises and then they gathered around the poker table. The first half of the evening he couldn’t keep his mind on the game, so, naturally, his pile of chips was low when they took their customary break. Sophie had left chocolate and caramel brownies that he insisted must be consumed away from the green felt surface, so the crew stood around his kitchen.

  He began to make coffee as they passed the dessert platter and began trading baseball predictions.

  Maddox left the others and joined him on the other side of the kitchen. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said.

  Cooper shot him a glance. “It’s not like we weren’t seated right beside each other all night.”

  Mad smirked. “I wanted to talk to you when I wasn’t taking your money and you weren’t looking like your brain had walked out your front door with the designer.”

  Hmm. Maybe his friends weren’t as oblivious as he’d thought. “What’s this about? Don’t tell me you think you’re turning telepath like Shane?”

  “I’m putting on my cop hat.”

  “Oh.” Cooper frowned, hit the coffee maker’s On button and gave the other man his full attention. “Don’t take me in, Officer. I swear I didn’t do it.”

  “It’s detective, as you know,” Mad said, “and this is just a warning.”

  “Okay. What’s going on?”

  “A little trouble in the downtown area.”

  Cooper nodded. Sawyer Beach didn’t have a golden bubble around it. “I’ve got a bouncer lined up for Friday and Saturday nights since we’re more crowded those evenings, but there hasn’t been any real trouble so far.”

  “A few attempted break-ins have been reported. Some of the business owners say there’s loiterers behind their buildings.”

  “That’s probably Big Ed,” Cooper said. “I don’t think he’d actually steal anything, but he’s homeless and bunks down by dumpsters sometimes.”

  “Yeah, Ed.” Mad sighed. “We have social services…”

  “Big Ed doesn’t trust them.” Cooper gave him food on the occasions he saw the disheveled man setting up his bedroll nearby.

  His friend shook his head, sighed again. “All right. But I’m not sure what I’ve been hearing is all on Ed. Do you have a security camera out back?”

  Cooper owned one. It was just a matter of installation. He should have got around to it before now, but he’d been distracted by one beautiful, life-altering designer. His hand clenched, recalling the scent of her hair, the feel of the strands between his fingers as he lined up behind her and—

  “Uh-oh,” Mad said. “There you go away again. Better call your brain back before you lose the deed to this place.”

  During the second half of the poker evening he didn’t gamble away his condo, but he lost more than he liked and was still smarting over it when he dragged two bags of recycle toward the communal bins. It had been Boone’s job—rule was, the last to arrive had to make the disposal run—but Cooper had recklessly made a final bet on a high card draw and lost.

  You’d think he’d be more pissed about his deuce to the big man’s king, but he’d been focused on the idea of calling Willow to hear a recap of the movie and maybe talk her into a little phone sex.

  That happy notion was still on his mind as he dumped the bags then headed back to his place. Turning a corner, he saw a couple in a hot-and-heavy clinch in the deep shadows beneath a staircase.

  It wasn’t shadowy enough that he didn’t recognize the pair.

  Oh. Whoa.

  Maybe he made some sound, because then the two broke apart. They stared at Cooper. He tried to think what the hell he should do. Hurry on without comment sounded great, but he’d been losing all night.

  “Go on,” Brad Faber said to Ben Gillespie. He squeezed the other man’s shoulder, the man he’d just been locking lips with in a way that said it wasn’t their first kiss. “I’ve got this.”

  With a last look at Cooper, Ben slipped away into the darkness.

  Brad turned to him. “Look. This doesn’t mean—”

  “None of my business,” Cooper said, holding up both hands.
He didn’t care if Brad was interested in other men.

  “I’ve always loved her,” Brad said. “I still love her.”

  “If you say so.”

  At Cooper’s skeptical glance in the direction Ben had taken, Willow’s ex insisted, his voice rising. “Look, people can be attracted to both men and women.”

  “I don’t doubt that, friend, and that’s okay by me too.” Except… “But if you were using her, acting like she was the one you wanted in order to cover up—”

  “You don’t understand. My family, my father expects…” Brad hung his head and breathed deep. “Fuck.”

  “I actually do get fathers and their expectations. But you can’t live your life according to them.” Frowning, Cooper looked down. While he’d always pursued his own thing, more than once he’d let Randy Daggett’s opinions about that sting.

  “Anyway, this has nothing to do with Willow,” Brad said.

  Cooper looked up, stifled his own sigh. Here was why he didn’t do deep. Because this situation was a minefield of emotions and unresolvable issues that you just didn’t have to travel through when you kept things on the fun and games level.

  “You think she doesn’t know anything—suspect anything?” he asked.

  “I was going to marry her!” Brad said fiercely. “I was planning to be faithful to her for the rest of our lives.”

  Yeah, but then what happened? And had the other man been faithful during their engagement? Likely not. He sighed. Whatever.

  “Well, good luck, Brad.” He made to step past him.

  Brad caught Cooper by the arm. “My father can’t hear about this.”

  “Relax. I don’t see us having a convo.”

  “Willow can’t hear about this either.”

  Now Cooper hesitated. Brad and his private life weren’t any of his concern. If he’d been five minutes earlier or ten minutes later with the recycle run—fuck the damn losing deuce—he wouldn’t know about Brad and his private life. But the broken engagement took on a new dimension now, and the other man’s former fiancée probably deserved to learn about it.

  “You should tell her,” he advised the ex. “Be honest. Be honest about your feelings.”