Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel)

by Novak, Brenda

  She sniffled. “I know. I mean, I know that now. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” An angry curse whispered across his neck. “Hell, that’s all I’ve been doing for the last month. And I finally realized that what hurts me the most is that his bullshit excuses about holding me back and not being good enough for me are dead on...and I wasted all those years because I couldn’t see that his love wasn’t real, that none of it was real.

  “I’m not upset that our relationship ended. I’m upset at the thought of what those wasted years could have been if I’d had the good sense to end it myself. And I’m scared that I’ll make the same mistake. That I’ll start building a life with someone only to find out later that I was wrong about him, too. I don’t trust myself when it comes to relationships anymore.”

  “No one knows if the person they’re with will end up being the right one. It’s still a gamble for even the happiest of couples. The best you can do is place your bet when the odds are most in your favor.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess so.”

  “Either way, it’s not something you should be stressing about right now. You need to give yourself permission to take the time to figure out what it is you want to do from here.”

  Trish tucked her feet back and pushed up to sit on them. “You’re right. I need to stop obsessing over the past and even the future. To stop thinking about this shit day in and day out. I’m so damn tired of thinking, Tony.”

  “I’m not surprised.” He pushed up to a sitting position, right knee bent with his arm resting on top. “So then give yourself a break. Whether your plan is to stick around for another month or another year. I vote for the latter, by the way.”

  Finally, she smiled. Not the kind that stretched wide and accompanied laughter. But the soft kind that followed an exhausting bout of sadness. Trails of moisture still shone on her cheeks. He felt compelled to remove any evidence of her pain. He lifted his right hand and used the backs of his fingers to wipe them away. “There,” he said. “Now there’s nothing left of your past to hold you down. From this moment on, you’re going to live in the moment.”

  “You’ve always been good at the carefree thing.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and held. He felt the weight of it sink into his lips and race down into his cock. Jesus Christ, she had no idea what she was doing to him. “Tony?”

  “Yeah?”

  She lifted her eyes to his again and then dragged her bottom lip through her teeth. It wasn’t a gesture of seduction, but one of insecurity. “Will you help me live in the moment?”

  In the background, the characters in the movie were still playing out their story. Every so often, murmurs of people talking or ordering from concessions mixed in, a good reminder of where they were and that they weren’t alone. But all he heard was the beat of his own heart and the blood rushing in his ears.

  Without thinking, he slid his hand through her hair to cradle the back of her head and brought his mouth down on hers in a soul crushing kiss. For years he’d imagined what a first kiss would be like between them. Soft and tender, slow as they explored one another. But anyone who lusted after someone for most of their life should come with a warning label that read “Contents under pressure. Do not puncture.” Because the moment Trish’s gaze settled on his mouth, she split him wide open, causing him to explode.

  He couldn’t think beyond each second that passed, afraid that if he started hoping for more that Karma would pay him a visit and rip it all away for being greedy. But when she fisted the front of his shirt and melted into him on a barely audible whimper, Tony changed tactics and to hell with the consequences. If this was the only time he’d have her like this, he would damn sure take all he could get.

  Wrapping his arms around her waist, he hauled her onto his lap to straddle him. Since she’d come home, her wardrobe relaxed a little at a time; becoming less city and more country. She still liked her skirts, though, which he was currently thankful as hell for. Her short jean skirt bunched at the top of her thighs to allow her legs to part this wide. And that left only her panties as a barrier between him and her humid sex.

  She kept herself a little farther back from where he’d like, but he wouldn’t rush her. Refocusing his energy back to her mouth, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and angled her head, then licked the length of her lips. She opened on a sigh, giving him access to the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

  His tongue swept in and danced with hers at the edges of his control. He groaned. She moaned. He grabbed her by her ass and squeezed, his fingertips running along the edges of her panties, conjuring wicked thoughts flashing through his mind like a synaptic seizure.

  Then she gave him a game changer. With two tiny forward movements on her knees, she centered herself directly over his cock...then lowered and rocked her hips forward to drag her hot sex back and forth.

  It was Heaven.

  It was Hell.

  Though it nearly killed him, Tony wrenched his mouth away and pressed his forehead to hers, the sound of his breaths sawing in and out of his lungs a testament to how far gone this girl made him in such a short amount of time. “Hold on, T. I need to be sure this is okay with you. That I’m not taking advantage of a situation where you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “My thoughts have never been clearer. I want this. I might even need it. I want to lose myself with you. I want you to make it so I can’t think; only feel. No strings and no expectations.”

  It stung that she felt the need to draw lines in the sand. Set parameters for their time together. Even though he knew this was nothing more than an arrangement between them, he hated feeling like they were at a conference table discussing terms. But now wasn’t the time to let his pride get in the way. She was offering him exactly what he wanted. A chance to be with her, to finally know what it’s like to have her in every way possible, without the fear of things getting too serious or complicated.

  “Don’t worry, in a few weeks I’ll be gone again and you’ll be off the hook,” she said with a hesitant smile. Injecting levity at the end was her way of dealing with things when she was nervous. The thought of him wanting to be “off the hook” from having sex with Trish Howell was downright laughable. But he wasn’t in the mood to laugh, and no doubt his face showed it. He watched as her sweet smile melted away, leaving her lower lip a prisoner of her front teeth.

  “Anthony...?” His full name. Only used for serious conversations. Or if he was in trouble, but then she added his middle name to it.

  Jesus, what the hell was his problem? He should be jumping all over this, but somehow it felt...off. It didn’t make sense. If Jason were here, he’d smack the back of Tony’s head and tell him to quit being such a pussy.

  Trish knelt up to move from his lap, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. Forget I said—”

  Fuck that. He banded one arm around her lower back and dragged her back in, then gripped the side of her head and shut her up with a searing kiss. She went stiff at first, but as he moved his mouth over hers, she melded into his body from hips to chest. He grunted when she rocked herself against the length of his cock straining in his jeans. He’d never been so fucking hard in his life. With every forward motion, she killed him a little more; tipped the scales more to the side of pain than pleasure.

  But in no way did he want her to stop because he could tell she was getting off on what she was doing. Her pace steadily increased and the fingers fisted in his hair pulled harder. His hands lowered to her ass and squeezed in encouragement, sensing she needed this more than he understood.

  A loud thud and laughter came from a couple cars down and brought the world around them back into focus. Trish buried her face on his chest and held still in his arms.

  “My God, woman, you made me lose my damn head.” No matter how badly he wanted to burrow beneath the blankets and take her right then, he refused to let their first time together be like a couple of teenagers pretending to watch a movie when the parents were home. “In the
truck. I’m inviting to back to my place and you’re accepting.”

  Tony picked her up by her waist and set her off to the side then scooped up all the blankets in one jumbled pile before jumping over the side of the truck.

  “Assumptions and high-handed commands tend to piss me off,” she said.

  Shoving everything in the back seat of the cab, he slammed the door and turned just as she dropped down next to him. “Sweetheart, we can have angry sex if you want. As long as the end result is me sinking deep inside you and making you come so hard you forget your own name, then I’m good.” He gave her a crooked smirk. “How about you?”

  A few seconds passed as she studied him wide-eyed as though his words were taking their sweet time sinking in. Finally she snapped out of it with a hard blink and cleared her throat. “Yeah, I guess I can live with that.”

  “Good. Now hop in and buckle up. I plan on breaking some traffic laws.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Trish watched the world pass in a blur from the passenger seat as Tony drove them the ten minutes back to his house. The music wasn’t blaring, but just loud enough to make conversation difficult, which was fine with her because anything she said at this point would sound like some cheesy attempt to ignore the we’re-about-to-cross-that-line elephant sitting squarely between them. Awkward silence was the next best thing, she supposed.

  It’s not that she didn’t want to follow through on what she asked him. When Tony kissed her that first time, she’d been flooded with things she couldn’t remember feeling with Nick. They’d been together so long that the excitement and passion they’d shared in the beginning of their relationship got buried under years and years of routine and comfortable compatibility.

  But Tony’s kiss... Her cheeks flushed and she reached up to touch her fingertips to her lips. She’d felt like a spring of cool water for his desert-dry mouth. Needed with a desperation she didn’t understand and yet didn’t want to waste time thinking about it. Instead, she gave herself over to the sensations washing over her and let her body take control.

  And holy shit did it ever. She’d never felt like that before, like she was acting on pure instinct. She’d rubbed herself on him like an alley cat in heat. In the middle of the outdoor theater, no less. If she wasn’t already at the center of the gossip mill, having public sex would have done the trick. Thank God for the drunk idiot who fell out of his car and gave them a much needed reality check.

  No, the awkward silence now came from being nervous. Like, really really nervous. In the heat of the moment, she wasn’t focusing on how out of practice she was in the sexual department. Or that the practice she did have probably wasn’t worth much anyway. But now that the haze of desire had burned off, every insecurity she had about her sexual prowess—or lack thereof, in her case—ran in random zigzag patterns in her brain, crashing into each other and slamming against the edges of her worst dating fear. To make matters worse, there was one thing in particular she had to tell him before they got too far into things, and it could be a huge buzzkill.

  Trish was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t realize they arrived until she felt Tony throw the truck in park and kill the engine. She looked over at him. Unsure what to do with her hands, she kept them in her lap and kept her fingers busy with each other as though they had an actual purpose for being there. Tell him tell him tell him.

  Stretching his right arm along the back of the bench seat, Tony turned to face her...and then waited. Why was he waiting? Did he change his mind? Maybe he preferred aggressive women. But even if she wanted to be the aggressor, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about it, and even if she did, she’d feel stupid instead of sexy. Shit!

  “You’re nervous.” He always could read her better than anyone. Denying his statement would be futile. “It’s just me, T. I’d never do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

  “If there’s any man I trust implicitly in this world, Tony, it’s you.”

  “Good. Then why the nerves?”

  Oh, God. The space in the cab shrunk around her and the air grew thick. She did not want to have this conversation with him. But Tony was like a shark if he sniffed even a drop of blood in the water. He’d pursue relentlessly until he got what he wanted, which in this case, was a truthful answer.

  “I realize this isn’t the best thing to say to get in the mood, and I’ll totally understand if you think it kills the moment, but I feel it’s something you should know beforehand.”

  Tony narrowed his eyes. “Did that asshole give you an STD?”

  “What? God no, Tony, it’s nothing like that.”

  He gave her a curt nod. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “You just need to know that it’s not because of something you do or don’t do—”

  “Trish, you’re rambling. What’s the ‘it’ in that statement?”

  She released a heavy sigh and forced herself to spit it out. “My inability to orgasm.”

  If he’d forgotten his contacts while sitting in on a lecture from someone with a thick accent, this is what he would look like. She almost laughed picturing it. Dear lord, even confused and squinty-eyed the man was still handsome.

  “I’m not following,” he said. “Like you physically can’t? Did a doctor tell you that?”

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or even a doctor—to figure out that if it was possible, I’d have had at least one by now.”

  “Not if the guy you’re with doesn’t know a clitoris from his asshole.”

  She scrunched her nose. “Graphic much?”

  “Sorry. But you know I’m right. A wise man once said, ‘A clueless lover does not an orgasm make.’”

  “What wise man was that?” she asked skeptically.

  He smiled. “You’re looking at him.”

  Trish rolled her eyes and lightly smacked his chest. “Listen, it’s not a big deal to me. It’s not like I know what I’m missing, and sex still feels good without the Big O. I only wanted you to know so you didn’t pull a muscle trying or go all caveman and question your ability to make fire and kill prey with a single swing of your club.” She smirked when he chuckled. “No pun intended.”

  “I’m not worried about my club. It’s in perfect working order. But back to you,” he said, still smiling, “you’d know what the big deal is if you’d gotten yourself one of those vibrating clubs. I hear they’re all the rage.”

  “I did.” He raised a questioning eyebrow. She shook her head. “Nada.”

  Tony sobered. “Jesus. I thought those things were foolproof.”

  “They probably are so long as they’re not being used on a broken vagina.” Doing her best to keep a grin off her face, Trish held her hands over her heart and asked, “Anthony Joseph, will you accept me as your temporary sexual partner despite my broken vagina? Speak now, or forever hold your penis.”

  “Wow, decisions decisions.” He pretended to waffle on an answer like a contestant on the Price Is Right. She gave him her best I’m not amused look—even though she totally was—prompting him to act.

  Sinking his left hand between her thighs, he hooked her left leg and used it to pull her across the leather bench until she was tucked against him. If she’d thought the cab had shrunk before, now it ceased to exist. He completely dominated the space with his wide chest and shoulders and his height advantage that forced her to tip her head back to meet his eyes. Eyes that no longer sparked with humor, but burned with the embers of carnal possibilities.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go ahead with the sex portion of our evening,” he said, his now-husky voice creating goose bumps all over her body. “But with one small caveat.”

  “What caveat is that?” Trish barely recognized the breathy voice as her own. Her body flinched like she’d touched an electric fence when his hand slid up her inner thigh until most of it disappeared under her jean skirt.

  “I want you to say that you can in fact have an orgasm. That your body is more than c
apable of experiencing the ultimate release.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, but positive affirmations aren’t—”

  Tony’s words came out in a quiet, but sharp command. “Stop talking unless you plan on repeating what I just told you.”

  Her eyes opened wide. Whoa. The amiable school teacher had left the building, and in his place was a man who knew what he wanted and expected to get it. Holyshitthatwashot. Her pulse started to race, and the butterflies she’d thought long dead danced in her stomach. It felt so damn good. Like, she-didn’t-remember-it-ever-being-like-this damn good. And she wanted more.

  Then, as if he’d read her mind, his fingers—the ones mere inches from her sex—began tracing feather-light designs along her sensitive skin. She held her breath when they got close to the damp silk covering her, but retreated at the last second, causing her to whimper her disappointment.

  The sound seemed to test Tony’s patience. With a disapproving shake of his head, he dipped his head and nuzzled along her jawline and the shell of her ear. “You’re thinking too hard, Trish. Say it. Tell me what I want and what I know you need to hear.”

  Swallowing hard, she let her eyes drift closed to give her the sense of hiding even as she made herself vulnerable. “I can h-have an orgasm.”

  He nipped her earlobe. She gasped. “And?”

  “And my body is more than capable of experiencing the ultimate release.” If only it were true.

  “Good girl.” Pulling back slightly, he held her gaze with a soft intensity. Strong enough to prevent her from escaping, yet gentle enough not to harm her. Like one would hold a dove before releasing it to the sky. He made her feel cherished and protected with nothing more than a look. “I know you don’t believe it now, but you will.”