Prima Donna

by Drewry, Laura

  Every stroke, every breath, made it more and more difficult to keep her balance, especially when he smiled against her lips, daring her to take control. But Regan wasn’t in control; she knew it before she wrapped both hands around the thin strip of leather around his neck and leaned deeper into his kiss, and she knew it long before she fell back against the wall, dragging him with her.

  His fingers scraped the paint as he curled his hands into tight fists against the wall, but still he didn’t touch her. He skimmed his teeth against her bottom lip, nipping it gently and tugging it between his own for one last lingering moment before he eased back, leaving her dazed, her pulse hammering through her veins and her breath coming in short, fast gasps.

  So many thoughts raced through her brain it was impossible to focus on just one. If that’s how he kissed…no! But she deserved a distraction, that’s what Maya said. He’s Jayne’s cousin. No, he’s Jayne’s cousin-in-law, that’s different. Sort of.

  As fast as the rational side of her brain rattled off its list, the oft-ignored girlie side clamored for attention. Why shouldn’t she do this? She’d just closed her business, she had no job prospects, no impending thumbs-up from the bank, and talking to her mother only reinforced what Rational Regan already knew: loving someone was no guarantee they would ever love you back.

  Regan didn’t need anyone to love her, she just needed a little pick-me-up, a little distraction, and if anyone deserved that, Girlie Regan argued, it was her. And if that distraction happened to present itself at her front door in a leather jacket, looking and smelling better than any man had a right to, who was she to argue?

  Had a guy ever whispered her name against her neck like that, so soft, so deep, so…oh, screw it. What’s the worst that could happen? With her fingers still hooked around the leather strip, Regan swallowed hard.

  “Close the door before we scare Mrs. McLaren across the hall.”

  A slow smile spread over Carter’s face as he reached his foot back and kicked the door shut.

  She inhaled slowly and forced herself to stop staring at his mouth. “I have one rule.”

  “Only one?” He pinched open her hair clip, tossed it over his shoulder, and filled both hands with her hair as he leaned in to kiss her again.

  Damn, he was making it really hard for Rational Regan to think straight. Another smile, another kiss, this one against her jaw as he chuckled low in his throat.

  “What’s your rule?”

  “I…uh…oh…”

  He pressed a soft kiss just below her ear, then moved lower to where her neck curved into her shoulder, pulling another full-body shudder out of her.

  “Damn, you smell good.” His low, ragged breath had Regan moving, tripping, bumping into furniture and walls as she dragged him backward through the apartment, one hand fisted around his shirt, the other fumbling to shove his jacket over his shoulders and down his arms.

  As they crashed against the bedroom door, Regan’s sensible side tried desperately to run blocker, but her girlie side, finally set free, wasn’t about to give up an inch of ground. Not now when Carter had her pulled her up tight against his chest, and definitely not when he looked down at her with those oh-so-dark eyes and that sexy little half grin that promised this would be a New Year’s to remember.

  Girlie Regan looked up from where it had Rational Regan pinned in a half nelson and cheered, but not before Rational Regan choked out her final breath.

  “You can’t sleep over.”

  Carter’s slow, rumbling chuckle was muffled slightly as she jerked his shirt up over his head. “I don’t know what you think is gonna happen here, sweetheart, but you can bet your ass sleep’s not going to be part of it.”

  Free from his shirt, he reached for her, paused, and frowned. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “It’s my nightshirt,” she laughed, looking down at her calf-length red flannel nightshirt. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” he snorted. “If you were an eighty-year-old man. It’s gotta go, Red.”

  And just like that, he whipped the shirt up over her head, leaving her standing in nothing but her underwear. Regan knew she was no supermodel, but the way he stared at her, his dark eyes widening, his mouth tipped up in the barest of smiles, and his breath coming out in a low whistle, she may as well have been.

  If he did nothing else right for the rest of the night, he’d get full marks for that.

  She gave him a second to make a move, and when he just kept standing there, not even blinking, she pressed her hands flat on his chest—his broad, solid, smooth chest—and pushed him gently until he stumbled back, caught his knees on the edge of the bed, and sat, pulling her down with him.

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, not gently, not softly, but with the same urgency she felt building up inside; an urgency that made her want to touch him everywhere at the same time and to have him touch her the same way.

  “Carter,” she muttered against his mouth. “You’ve got about five seconds to get out of those jeans or—”

  He was out of them in three and then scrambled to get them back so he could pull a condom out of the back pocket.

  “Always prepared, huh?”

  “Hey,” he chuckled, fumbling with the package like it was his first time. “I’m like a regular Boy Sc—ah, shit!”

  “What?” Good grief, was that her voice so full of frustration?

  “I—” He held up the condom for her to see. Both pieces of it. “Ripped it.”

  One look at his face and Regan started to laugh, quietly at first, then harder, until Carter laughed, too.

  “In the drawer.” She stretched over to the bedside table, but Carter beat her to it, jerked the drawer open, and fumbled around until he pulled out another one.

  “Can you manage this one?” she teased. “Or do you need my help?”

  His mouth curled but he didn’t answer as he worked the next one carefully out of its package. By that time, Regan was done waiting. Hands around his neck she pulled him down for another kiss, another touch, another smile against his lips as he finally cheered his own success.

  She didn’t need him to go slow, but she wasn’t going to argue with him if he wanted to take his time kissing her like that, deep, long, and oh, so thoroughly. She didn’t need soft caresses, but if he wanted to slide his hands over her hips like that, or up over her breasts like…ohhhh boy…yeah…like that…she wouldn’t…oh wow.

  She shifted under him, wanting more of him against more of her, and without a word spoken, Carter pressed his body against hers, belly to ankle, holding most of his own weight up on his arms. She slipped her hands around his back, walking her fingers down his spine, loving the way his moan started quietly and grew louder the lower she moved.

  By the time she slid her hands over his butt, he’d buried his face into the side of her neck.

  “Regan,” he breathed. “I—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish, just arched up and took him in, deep and hard. There was a moment, a heartbeat, where they both hesitated, and then he was kissing her again, lingering over her bottom lip and down the side of her neck to that same spot…right there near her shoulder…that made her whole body tremble.

  Moving together, Carter kissed her again, slow and deep, pushing her closer and closer to the edge, then easing her back, dragging a harsh frustrated groan from her throat.

  “Carter.” She tried to hold on, but at the sound of his name Carter smiled against her mouth and drove them straight over the edge together, holding her there until his name was nothing more than a breath against her lips.

  He rolled onto his back, pulling her up beside him, and they just lay there for a long time, both trying to catch their breath. After a few minutes, Carter pressed a kiss against the side of her head and chuckled wryly.

  “The first time was supposed to be soft and slow,” he muttered. “Guess we sort of ruined that, didn’t we?”

  “See, that’s where you’
re wrong.” She grinned, trailing her finger across his abdomen. “The first time is supposed to be hard and fast to release the pressure. After that you can take your sweet time.”

  “Is that right?” Carter shifted slightly so he could see her face. “So what you’re saying is…?”

  “Is that I hope you ate your Wheaties this morning, champ, ’cause this time I’m going to make you work for it.” She pressed a kiss against his Adam’s apple, then squealed when he flipped her over and hovered above her, grinning wickedly.

  “And I hope you’ve got more supplies in that drawer over there.”

  “Should be a full box,” she chuckled. “Will that do?”

  “It’s a damn fine start, sweetheart.”

  —

  The walk back to Nick’s wasn’t nearly cold enough to douse the fire in Carter’s veins. He’d gone over to Regan’s for a New Year’s kiss, hadn’t planned on doing anything else—hell, he wasn’t even going to touch her, but then…

  Holy shit.

  No chick had ever kissed him like that before, so free, so giving and so…selfish. She took as much as she gave, maybe more. And her skin was like…well, hell, he had no idea, because he’d never felt anything that soft before, never had a chick touch him the way she did, her hands moving over him as though they’d touched him a thousand times before and knew exactly where he wanted them to go next. She didn’t try to control him and he soon learned not to try and control her, but instead she drove him crazy with those sexy little sighs, the full throaty laugh when he ripped right through the first condom he tried to open, and the way she breathed his name every time they crashed over the edge together.

  Holy shit.

  The first time he’d met her, she’d been with that guy, Todd, and while Carter didn’t have many rules, he never went after another guy’s girl. Not even if she was smokin’ hot like Regan was, not even if she looked bored out of her skull, and not even if the guy was a total dipshit. And there was no question, dipshits didn’t come much bigger than Todd.

  Carter hadn’t spoken to her since Nick and Jayne got married, but he’d thought about her a couple times.

  Okay, maybe more than a couple. And since he saw her wielding that bat at her salon earlier, she was all he’d thought about. Hell, it was all he could do not to kiss her the second she opened the door, or when she stood there jabbing at his feet with the broom, or any one of the times he caught her watching him in the mirror. And then, God help him, at Nick and Jayne’s with her hair down like that, smelling sexier than any chick ever had.

  He knew kissing her was going to be something else, but he sure as hell never expected she’d come off that wall the way she did. Carter blew out a long, slow breath and scrunched his eyes closed for a second.

  And when she grabbed him and pulled him back with her…

  Ho. Lee. Shit.

  It was a damn good thing she hadn’t let him kiss her at Jayne’s.

  A taxi flew past, its horn blaring, people hanging out the windows waving and screaming drunken New Year’s greetings, but Carter didn’t wave back. Head down, he walked straight past Nick’s street without so much as a blink. How could he go back in there when all he really wanted to do was head straight back to Regan’s apartment and start all over again—with her back against the wall and him doing everything he could to pull just one more of those sexy little sighs out of her.

  Ten blocks around the residential area, then through the hotel parking lot, around the elementary school and right past her apartment building. Then he did the loop again, slower.

  After the second lap, he gave up on the wind cooling him off and headed back to Nick’s. He let himself in the front door and eased it shut, but what he thought was a stealthy entry brought Duke howling from the far side of the living room. At ten years old, the basset hound wasn’t exactly spry, but he still had a home to protect, and he did it—with gusto.

  Carter tried to hush him, but it was too late.

  Nick rounded the corner, pulling up his sweats, with Jayne hot on his heels, fumbling to tighten the belt around her purple robe.

  “What the…Carter?”

  “Sorry,” Carter laughed, covered his eyes, then peeked through his fingers. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Jayne’s face flushed three shades of red. “Where were you? You just disappeared.”

  “I…uh…had something I needed to take care of.” He might have gotten away clean on that if Nick hadn’t snorted.

  “What do you m—” Jayne’s blue eyes flew wide, her jaw tightened. “Tell me you didn’t go over to Regan’s.”

  “Okay, I didn’t go over to Regan’s.” He walked past her to the sink and poured himself a glass of water, but he knew better than to think Jay would leave it at that.

  “Carter!”

  “What?” His grins were always wasted on Jayne when she was angry, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

  “How did you…Nick!” she cried. “Did you give him Regan’s address?”

  “Nooo…maybe.” He held his hands up, took a step backward, and caved. “Okay, yes. Is that bad?”

  “Yes, it’s bad! Do you have any idea how mad she’s going to be?”

  “I dunno about that, Jay,” Carter chuckled over a shrug. “She was in a pretty good mood when I left.”

  Another snort ripped from Nick before he caught it and forced a straight face. Jayne’s glare barely breezed over her husband before closing in on Carter.

  “She’s my friend, Carter.” Jayne stomped toward him, like all buck thirty of her was a big threat or something. “You can’t just screw around with her like you do with every other woman on the planet.”

  “Wow. Nice, Jay.” He looked to Nick for backup, but his cousin just leaned a hip against the island, crossed his arms and waited; a human Switzerland in the middle of a family war.

  It was on Carter’s tongue to set Jayne straight, to clue her in to the fact that all of the women he’d hooked up with over the years knew full well he wasn’t going to stick around, and most of them were good with that. Sure, there’d been a few who’d thought…well, he didn’t know what the hell they thought…but they obviously chose to ignore him when he’d told them he wasn’t looking for anything but a night or two.

  And while they were at it, maybe he’d shock the hell out of Jayne by telling her it had been months since he’d last slept with a woman. Seven and a half to be exact, but who was counting?

  He didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth because Jayne was still yelling at him.

  “Save the innocent act for someone else, Carter. When it comes to women, you’re a complete asshole. You don’t care about any of them; it’s all about you, what you want and when you want it.”

  “Okay.” Nick stepped forward and wrapped his hand around her arm. “Maybe we should all—”

  “No.” Jayne jerked free and stepped out of his reach. “Why her, Carter?”

  “Why not her? She’s hot.”

  How her eyes could harden like ice and blaze fire all at the same time, he’d never know, but for a second there, when her hands balled into white-knuckled fists, he thought she might actually hit him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she finally ground out. “Don’t you dare treat her like that. I’ve never said a word about any of the women you’ve been with, though from what you’ve told me, you’ve picked some doozies. I figured if that’s what you needed to do to deal with it, and everyone was consenting adults, then…fine.”

  “Deal with what?” Nick frowned, but Jayne ignored him.

  “I love you, Carter, and I get why you do it, but I’m not about to stand by and watch you treat Regan like that. She deserves better.”

  “What are you talking about? Do what?” Nick took a step closer, frowning at the look passing between Jayne and Carter. “Okay, somebody clue me in here.”

  Jayne blinked at Carter, giving him a chance to answer; a chance he wasn’t about to take. There was no way she could know; he’d never sai
d it out loud to anyone, not even Nick, whose eyes bulged as Jayne’s next words hung like lead around them.

  “He’s afraid he’s going to get sick again and he doesn’t want to drag anyone else through that.” She spat the words out, punctuating each phrase with added force. “But instead of doing what a normal person would do, and maybe talking to someone about it, maybe giving a woman a chance to make up her own mind, he thinks it’s better to avoid any mention of it at all, and the only way to do that is to run from one woman to the next, never staying long enough for any of them to find out or ask questions!”

  Arms crossed, head tipped to the side, she all but dared Carter to deny it.

  He didn’t. He couldn’t. All he could do was lean back against the counter and try not to lose his grip on his glass.

  “I’d bet it’s also why he wouldn’t partner up with Rossick and Jules at the clinic, because he’s scared to commit to anything just in case.”

  “Wait. What?” Nick squinted through his confusion. “Your blood work’s been clean for years, so why would you even think…”

  He never finished, maybe because Jayne and Carter were ignoring him, or maybe because he didn’t want to know the answer. Either way, Carter was relieved. It was too much to hope Jayne would take Nick’s lead and let it drop, but at least she eased up a little.

  “Please don’t use her like that, Carter; she’s too vulnerable right now.”

  When he frowned, Jayne sighed long and loud.

  “Seriously? It’s shocking how stupid you are sometimes. She just closed her business, her mom’s not well, and her best hope for a job in this town is working the register at the CozyMart or T-Squared’s.”

  “She doesn’t know one end of a hammer from the other,” Nick muttered. “There’s no way T-Squared’d ever hire her.”

  A slow knot began to pinch Carter’s gut. Regan had said as much herself about where she’d end up working, but he’d been distracted by the way her blouse brushed against her breasts when she moved and the way her freckles stood out when she blushed.