by Violet Duke
Whoa. Caine went over to plop down on the couch, just as Alec shot up to his feet. “You lied to me about that? What the hell, Addison? What if that guy had been working for David? Or what if he’d been an even bigger psycho than David?”
“He was a harmless flirt that I didn’t want you terrorizing.”
Pure and utter disbelief marred his features. “I can’t believe you actually lied to me.”
“Why not? You lie to me all the time.”
“No, I embellish and conveniently reword or omit. All to keep you safe.”
“Well, I was keeping this poor guy safe. Alec, you picked the pocket of the last man who’d made the mistake of asking me out, and then when you found out he had debt up to his ears, you went and got him audited by the IRS.”
As Addison began listing a few more of the awesome things his new best bud Alec had done to the guys who’d hit on Addison in the past, Gabe leaned over and commented, “I think we should make him an honorary Spencer. He’s got the right stuff.”
“I was just going to say.”
A now mouth agape Addison cut him a look that said, traitor.
“Honey,” he reasoned placatingly. “Let’s face it, the guy bugs me about as much as Max and Gabe do so he really would be a logical fit.”
When Alec gave them a big thumbs-up sign from across the room, Addison looked ready to throw something at all of their heads.
That’s when Caine realized something belatedly. “Hey, wait a minute. What tell?” He frowned at Alec. “I didn’t see any tell just now.”
“I missed it too,” said Gabe. “Was it the lip thing?”
Alec rejoined them on the couch. “Naw, she only does that one for little fibs.”
“Was it the scratching her left elbow thing? Oh! Or did she fiddle with her pinky nail?” Gabe shook his head. “I played poker with her the other week and seriously, the poor girl can’t bluff even a little. I swear, she has like ten tells.”
Caine shook his head. “It’s a lot more than ten.”
“Yeah,” agreed Alec. “A few of them, she only does when she’s—”
“Enough!” Addison stomped her foot on the ground. “You both,” she pointed at Gabe and Alec, “have just lost your coffee privileges for the next week—maybe that’ll teach you to keep your nosy little butts out of my business sometimes.”
The pair whimpered in perfect harmony.
“And you.” She lasered her sharpest glare on Caine. “Alec was right. I was holding something back on my reason for wanting to sleep solo tonight. The other week when I was dropping Kylie off at Lia’s place in Cactus Creek, I met the owner of that adult toy store over by the brewpub. We got to talking and she ran back to her store to go get a…vibrator thingamajig for me when I told her that I’d never had one—or had sex—before. And since taking an ice cold shower every morning after cuddling with you and your massive hard-on every night hasn’t been helping one bit, tonight, I was thinking of actually taking the thing out of its box and trying it out. Alone.” She put her hands on her hips. “How was that? Did you see any tells?”
No. No he hadn’t.
She then promptly spun on her heel and zipped back to her apartment.
It took all of five seconds for Caine to pick his jaw up off the floor and unfog his brain enough to shove past the two applauding yahoos next to him, and go storming after her.
Caine hit the hallway just as Addison slammed her door shut.
And triple-dead-bolted it.
Growling, he stomped back to grab his keys off Alec’s dining table. One by one, he unlocked all the new locks he’d added to Addison’s door, cursing now over his decision to go with the 6-digit key-coded entry on the knob itself as well.
The longest two minutes of his life later, he finally burst through and went right over to her bedroom. Only to come skidding to a halt at the sight of Addison carrying something in a hand towel calmly over to her bed.
In nothing but her bra and panties.
She got under the covers. “You can just see yourself back over to Alec’s. I’m not in danger, and I’m not planning on sleeping anytime soon. You have no obligations here.” Seemingly in defense of that statement, she opened up the small towel to reveal a compact metal vibrator. And open on her nightstand? The instructions for said vibrator.
God, this woman.
“So yes, I’ve got everything I need for this solo mission.”
Really, she was just throwing kerosene on top of a raging bonfire now.
“Who says this mission needs to be a solo one?” He took off his boots first, and his t-shirt soon after, nearly busting through his zipper as he watched her heated gaze track his progress. His belt and jeans hit the floor next. “You sure you want me to leave, baby?”
Lord have mercy, that thin, lacy bra she was wearing hid nothing from him. “Sexy new tell to add to the list,” he rasped his approval, voice a deep, feral octave lower. “I think that one—or two, more like—may be my favorite yet.”
He gently caught her hands before she could cover herself up, and tried like hell not to lose it when his mention of her tells caused an indignant flare of defiance in her eyes.
…Followed by her staring him down, and clicking the vibrator on.
With his sanity—and her virginity—hanging on by a thread, he pulled back the covers.
Knowing full well he was in critical danger of coming right then and there if she actually followed through, he let go of her wrists.
And called her bluff.
For several mind-numbing beats, she simply laid there like his wildest fantasy on a silver platter, vibrator buzzing away. All but forgotten. Lids at half-mast, breathing scattered out of control, her undivided focus was now exactly where his was, between her legs as he slowly rocked against her.
Judging by the fluttering of her core muscles against him, she was close…maybe seconds from going off like a bottle rocket.
So he stopped.
Her thighs trembled. His name fell from her lips in a reverent curse.
But he stayed the course.
He had a virgin vixen nearly naked under him who had seriously thought he’d let her go off on a solo mission without him. Not freaking likely. And she best be disabusing herself of any more insane notions like that here and now.
Easing the humming vibrator out of the death grip she had on it, he slowly began tracing the lines of the artwork that disappeared behind her bra. He’d been dying to see the rest of that tattoo since he first laid eyes on it. Fake or not, it was the sexiest ink he’d ever seen.
He flicked open the front clasp of her bra and watched, mesmerized, as it parted. Her berry-ripe nipples still partially hidden from his view, the soft swells of her cleavage—and the rest of that tattoo—played a dangerous game of peekaboo with his self-control.
Damn.
Dropping his lips to her neck as he let the vibrator keep trailing lower, he murmured roughly against her skin, “Let me hear that fib again. The one where you don’t want me here helping you…because sweetheart, I can’t wait to trigger all the rest of your tells.”
Chapter Seventeen
Just as Addison was trying her best to get her runaway nerves under control, suddenly, Caine stopped and shut the vibrator off, cursing under his breath.
“Dammit, I don’t have a condom on me. Well, other than the happy face glowing one, which I’m sure is expired by now—not that I’d ever use it. And not that a single condom would last us tonight, with the way I’m feeling right now.” He grimaced. “I’m going to have to make a run to the store.”
Pure female pleasure swamped her. She couldn’t help it, there was an irrepressible satisfaction that came with knowing Caine wasn’t walking around packing condoms on him 24-7.
That said, this was a problem. A quick store run sounded like an eternity at this point.
“Oh wait!” She lit up. “I have some condoms. A lot, actually.”
“Why do you have condoms?” he growled, eyes narrowed.<
br />
Good lord, that growl was a thousand times sexier when the man was nearly naked.
“They’re not my condoms. We had this teen talk thing here last month and had some extra pamphlets and condoms and things leftover.” Since she obviously couldn’t just leave the condoms in a fishbowl on her desk like candy, she’d just tucked it under her bed for safekeeping until their next teen talk. “Hang on a sec.” Dangling over the edge of the mattress, she rummaged under her bed for the box.
“Found it!” she called out triumphantly before gasping. “Oh.” At the feel of Caine’s hand slowly sliding her panties down to her knees, her brain blitzed out and the box went shooting out of her hands, sending condoms and safe sex pamphlets scattering all across her bedroom floor.
“Sweetheart, you really shouldn’t be tempting a hungry man like this.”
Peering back at him over her shoulder, she saw his gaze riveted to her bare behind with open appreciation, the look in his eyes more…unbridled than she’d ever seen it.
With gravity sending way too much blood to her head, admittedly, she didn’t think her next step through fully. Scooting back away from the edge of the mattress, she pulled herself up and flipped over.
With her panties at her knees and her bra hanging off her shoulders.
Face blazing, she immediately tried to cover up.
Which caused Caine to growl again. And catch her hands at the last second.
Threading his fingers through hers, he pinned her arms above her head. “Open your eyes.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d shut them.
Slowly peeking through her lids, she found his eyes locked on hers.
“I won’t look unless you tell me it’s okay, baby.”
Did the man have any idea how unbelievably hot his being such a gentleman was?
Far too shy to actually speak the words aloud, she simply nodded.
And then spent the next minute feeling his molten hot gaze run over like a live wire, tingling every inch of her until she was a trembling mass of arousal.
“You are so beautiful.” He speared one hand through her hair and touched her cheek with the other. Then he dipped his head down and kissed her. A deep, penetrating kiss that stalled the air in her lungs and stole every last thought from her brain.
By the time she was floating back to reality, he’d somehow divested her of the rest of her clothing. Throat bobbing, steely body corded tight with tension, he held himself over her as if he didn’t trust himself to touch her.
So she touched him.
Smoothing her hands across his broad chest, she watched in fascination as his eyes darkened and his breathing roughened while he slowly lowered himself to settle between her thighs. Only to pull back up again sharply.
Logically, she knew he wasn’t teasing her, but it tormented her all the same. Became a whole-body craving she couldn’t ignore. Timidly, she raised her hips up to his, wanting, needing to feel him nudge against her core again.
He snapped.
His hips rocked between her legs with unerring accuracy, against the throbbing pulse point at her core that set off exploding colored lights behind her eyelids.
“Open your eyes,” he repeated gruffly.
As soon as she did, his mouth latched down over her nipple while a large, calloused hand encompassed her other breast, both working in tandem to deliver the most exquisite torture.
His hips flexed against hers with more dominant force, and that’s when her lust-fogged brain cleared enough to fully feel how hot, hard…and huge he was.
Um. “C-Caine?”
He stilled. “Do you want to stop?” His words were a labored, sandpapery groan that made butterflies flutter and faint in her stomach over its intensity.
God no she didn’t want to stop. She swiftly shook her head. “J-just wondering if we should maybe, um, look in that box for something to…ease you into me a bit easier?”
She wasn’t a complete sexual moron. She knew how lube and things worked. And she’d read romance novels describing what sounded like supernaturally monstrous erections managing to work their way into the tiniest of holes.
His lips twitched in adoring amusement, causing his five o’clock shadow to abrade her nipple…in the best possible way.
A sound she’d never heard come out of her before seeped past her lips.
And a rushing river of arousal drenched her core.
Ohhh.
She hadn’t realized the books weren’t exaggerating about how…avid the response would be to...errr ‘greet’ its first male caller at the…um, entrance.
Okay, so maybe she was a bit of a sexual moron.
His mouth now curved up into a knowing male smile, he pumped his hips once more, fitting his hard, thick length against her wet center with perfect precision.
Again.
His eyes flared.
Had she really said that out loud?
By the way he was now rocking against her and gripping the backs of her thighs, evidently, he liked her quiet little demand.
She did too.
“Don’t move, sweetheart.”
And apparently the liking of the sexual demands worked both ways.
More liquid heat flooded out of her.
With a harsh curse and a truly pained expression, he lifted himself off of her so he could reach over to grab a condom from the cornucopia of prophylactics on the ground.
Before she could properly admire how erotic it was to have a man lock his eyes on you while ripping open a condom and sliding it on, Caine was back, his broad, hard tip easing into her with heart-melting care.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He sounded tortured, nearly at the end of his tether.
“You could never hurt me,” she whispered, hitching her legs around his waist. “I want to feel you inside me, Caine.”
He groaned and pushed in part way.
“So tight,” he rasped, his voice gravelly with a whole different kind of torture.
Rigid, muscular forearms tensed against the bed as he pulled back and gradually slid the rest of the way inside her in one slow, careful plunge.
He was being so gentle with her, despite how much it was clearly taking out of him.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he gritted through his teeth.
Unable to answer with words over the shockwaves of pleasure quickly eclipsing the pain, she tilted her hips, and gasped when the new, deeper angle caused her to flex against him.
“Christ, Addison. I have to move.” It was a strained, husky warning. The only one she got before his lips landed on hers and his hips began thrusting into her. First in firm, measured strokes that eventually turned into a hard, relentless pace.
He watched her intently as he edged her closer and closer to the edge, scanning her face the entire time to make sure she was alright.
Soon, she was better than alright.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip to keep from crying out, and she watched the fire in his gaze smolder. He fit his mouth to hers and delivered a mind-scorching kiss, scoring his teeth against her lip the way she had. Only better. “Mine,” he murmured before taking her lips again.
With each passing second, he seemed less capable of holding back the dominant force he always tried to keep under control around her.
She wanted him to lose control.
“Caine, I’m going to come.”
That did it.
His hands slid under her knees and he buried himself to the hilt. He held himself deep. Unmoving. Until her knees shook, and her heart began spinning out of control.
He held her hostage with a long, hot stare before sliding one hand up to cup her breast, and another one between them, where she was slick, sensitized. And ready.
“Come for me, Addison.”
She shattered, flew over the edge into oblivion.
Through the pulsing, mind-altering sensations crashing over her, she heard him expel a final, deep, guttural groan, and then he was coming with her—hot, hard, seemingly neve
rending.
Long minutes later, fierce pleasure colored his features as he caged her with his body and gave her a slow, bottomless kiss that was humbled, reverent, and all-consuming, all at the same time. Arms now rigid steel bands around her, he looked deep into her eyes. “Tell me the truth, sweetheart. Did I hurt you? Was I too rough at the end?”
She melted. “No, not at all.”
When he continued to gaze at her worriedly, she said simply, “Read my mind. What am I thinking right now?”
Again.
He growled.
The swift relief rushing through him was quickly overtaken by lust, pure and simple.
“Ready for me again, baby?”
Her inner muscles fluttered against him in response, sending destructive bolts of pleasure surging down his spine, hardening him in an instant.
As she began experimenting with her newfound hidden power, stealing his sanity one shy squeeze at a time, he tried like hell to slow the hammering of his heart in his chest.
She owned him. Of that, he had no doubt.
It was messing with his head in a big way. And his heart, just as badly.
Even now, as he slid out to quickly put on a new condom, he was having a hard time accepting that there had to be even that single layer separating them as he took her again.
It was damn primitive of him, but he simply didn’t see himself evolving when it came to Addison.
As he sank back into her damp heat, he slid his hands over all her soft, sweet curves, not wanting to leave any part of her untouched, unclaimed.
Grasping her chin gently, he told her gruffly, “I can’t get enough of you, sweetheart. Can’t ever, won’t ever get enough of you.”
Her orgasm crashed over her a moment later, with him buried deep inside her, which of course sent him tumbling over the edge right after her.
As he gathered her up against his chest, he felt a rush of sharp, piercing satisfaction over the sleepy, satiated look on her face.
Holding her flushed cheek in the palm of his hand, he asked her curiously, “Were you really going to use that vibrator earlier?”
She looked up at him from beneath her lashes and smiled. “Absolutely.”
