“Kade,” she whispered and turned to him, desire making her eyes nearly black.
It was that plea, that longing he heard in her voice that snapped his control. Pulling her to him, Kade’s strong arms banded around her middle until there was no space between them and his large hands cradled her face.
Thumbs caressing her jaw line made her moan and reach up for those lips and that mouth she’d dreamed of kissing since the first time her name left his lips. His mouth moved against hers, hungry and seeking, and she gave back as good as she got. His mouth was warm and soft and it tasted like chocolate and cherries. His skin was so soft, his muscles underneath forged steel, his heart hammered his passion against her hands. This kiss, this moment was everything she had ever dreamed of and she had to stop. She would. In a moment. “Kade,” she moaned into the night as his mouth peppered kisses down the column of her throat.
“I’ve wanted to taste you there all night,” he said, his words choppy from his heavy breathing. He had to feel more of her and commanded his hands to leave her face and trail down her body until he cupped her backside to press her deeper into him. They groaned simultaneously when their bodies connected in that perfect spot.
The words were on the tip of her tongue, “Take me to bed Kade,” but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. She wanted Kade, of course she did. He was handsome and smart, funny and kind and he could turn her on with a smile. But she couldn’t give her body to him knowing it was temporary and she knew it could never be anything but. She had to stop. “Kade, please,” she pushed gently on his chest. “I can’t.”
He looked at her in confusion until the lust cleared. “What’s wrong?”
Her head fell to his large, muscled chest. “Nothing’s wrong it’s me. I can’t have sex with you.”
“Are you a virgin?” He knew she was young but not that young.
She gave him a get real look. “No I’m not. But I am a realist Kade and in the real world you don’t fall for a girl like me and if we have sex I know it’ll be good.”
“It would be damn good,” he growled.
She smiled wistfully. “Okay damn good. But I like you Kade, not your money just you and sex would only make me fall in love with you and I know neither of us wants that.”
Kade knew she was right but at the moment his body was in charge. He wanted to be the bastard the world knew him to be and seduce her, he could do it easily here under the moonlight after a kiss so hot it knocked his world off its axis. But he couldn’t do that because he liked her too.
Dammit.
“Your fiancé is quite a peach Kade, Helena is quite taken with her.”
Kade looked at the relaxed features on Bruce’s face. The man was completely at ease as though deciding to sell his life’s work was no big deal. But he too felt a sense of ease as Ava’s jasmine scent wafted over to him. “Yeah she’s the best.” His gaze wandered over to where she sat laughing with Helena.
“Talented too,” Bruce said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Yeah she is. How do you know?”
Bruce laughed, the deep lines in his face evidence of a lifetime of laughter. “She did anniversary shots for Helena and I two weeks ago and,” he leaned in close to whisper, “she did those sexy boudoir shots of Helena. I saw them yesterday and about died on the spot.” He fanned himself and leaned back full of mirth. “Hotter than hell, son.”
Kade shot another glance at Ava who caught him staring and smiled. She scooted back over and laid her hand on his thigh. “If you fellas are done taking over the world, I have a surprise for you.” She waved for the waiter and looked to Helena, “Since your anniversary is tomorrow I wanted to give you something special to honor your 35 years together.” The waiter placed a cupcake tower in the middle of the table and Helena squealed. “I made you red velvet cupcakes to remind you both of your humble beginnings and a champagne crème frosting as a sign of how much you’ve achieved.”
Kade watched in awe as Helena practically leapt over the table to gather Ava into a hug, a few stray tears rolling down her face. Even Bruce, stern and hard-assed Bruce had a watery gaze as he reached for Ava’s hand and kissed it. “You are the sweetest thing,” he said with a hand to his heart.
“Nonsense,” she waved away the compliment. “What you’ve achieved is amazing. I hope to have that one day. Now, let’s dig in!”
And they did, dig into the cupcakes like they were the last food items on earth. Tons of moaning and groaning came from their table until finally everyone was satisfied. “You ought to let her loose in the bakeries Kade, you’d be bigger than any donut shop in the nation.”
He said nothing at what those words meant because right now they meant nothing, not until they were printed on paper and browsed with a fine tooth comb by overpriced lawyers. “You try to take the camera from her hands Bruce, just you try it.”
It was another incredible dinner and without a doubt, it was all thanks to Ava. “They loved you,” she whispered as they waited for the valet to bring his car around.
Ava shrugged. “They’re very nice people. Can you believe they’ve been married for 35 years? That’s amazing. You should have seen them during their photo shoot, kissing between frames and couldn’t keep their hands off one another. It was so sweet.”
Her words made him cold. “Soliciting them for business, Ava?”
She stiffened at his words and his tone. “No. Helena called and asked if I could do it. I couldn’t say no, could I?” She took a few steps away and bit her lip. She couldn’t believe after six weeks living together he would think she’d do such a thing. This is what she got for treating him like a friend. For caring.
The ride home was silent and tense. Kade kicked himself for ruining a great night with his insinuations and insecurities. He knew she wouldn’t go after his clients, potential clients, for business. But he was so used to women using him the accusation came naturally. “Ava, I’m sorry.”
She stayed facing the window, watching the night scenery go by. “Don’t worry about it, Kade.”
He knew he should have kept his mouth shut.
Days later and Ava was still fuming over Kade’s careless words. How could he think she’d try to drum up business over dinner. She had pretty much been avoiding him since that night. She woke up later than usual to miss him in the morning and she ate dinner early and left a plate for him at night. They hadn’t spoken aside from his hasty apology in the car and she preferred to keep it that way.
She was in too deep with Kade Steele. The time they spent together when they didn’t have to—hiking, concerts, dinner and movie nights—had done the one thing she couldn’t abide. They had made her fall in love with a man guaranteed to hurt her. He’d already done it with his words but once this was over, this charade, she would also lose Bruce and Helena whom she bonded with during those photo sessions. It was okay, really it was. She’d known from the beginning that nothing would come of her time with Kade, she was expecting it. What she hadn’t expected was to like him, to love him.
So she decided she wouldn’t think about it. Instead she would spend the day searching the grounds with her camera. After breakfast she made her way to the rose garden, where she spent more than an hour capturing the rainbow of roses, some with the sunlight glinting off the morning dew others in full bloom showing off their color to spectators. She went deeper into the property to check out the manmade pond she’d seen on one of her early morning walks. She took really great shots, a frog on a water lily, a salamander on a slim tree branch and moss growing on a tree.
She was satisfied with the shots she’d taken so far. Her hope was to sell these prints, along with others of Rainbow Springs landmarks and landscapes in her shop. It would provide additional income and give her an excuse to get out in the world and take photographs.
“I’ve been calling you all morning. Where the hell have you been?”
Ava didn’t acknowledge his anger and she didn’t turn to him. But she did answer, “You�
�re looking at it Kade. I’ve been here at your house all day.”
His house. He heard her words and he knew they were meant to distance them and he guessed he deserved it. “Where’s your phone?”
She shrugged, lining up a shot of a cricket on a fallen white rose petal. “In the guest room, I suppose.” She captured a few shots before it hopped away. “Is there something you need?”
“How long are we going to keep this up?”
“I imagine Bruce will make up his mind in the next month,” she answered, purposely misunderstanding him.
“Dammit Ava,” he traipsed through the muddy grass and spun her to face him. “I’m sorry okay? I shouldn’t have said that. It was a reflex that had nothing to do with you.”
She sighed and looked past him, refusing to take in those green eyes that made her knees turn to goo. “I accept your apology Kade.” She had forgiven him days ago. She should thank him for reminding her that this was fake and temporary.
He wanted to kiss that impertinent look right off her face. So he did.
Ava let the kiss progress for a few minutes, taking these moments for herself, allowing herself to have this time with him. Then she stepped back. “Meet me at the pool tonight after dinner and wear your swim trunks,” she ordered and walked away.
After the kiss that still had her body humming with desire, Ava spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening inside her studio. She had selected about a dozen photos to send to the printer and made her way back to Kade’s mansion. She changed into shorts and a t-shirt over her white bikini and grabbed her underwater camera so she could make her way to the pool. When she got there, Kade was already there.
“I was beginning to think you stood me up.”
The sight of Kade all slick with water and smiling casually from the lit pool made the moisture pool between her legs. She shook her head to answer him and to shake the lust from her brain. “I just needed to change,” she held up her camera bags and set them on the table and pulled the t-shirt over her head. “I thought we’d get a few shots of you in the water, maybe under water.” She kicked off her shorts and looked at him, his mouth open and his eyes burning with desire. “What?”
“You take my breath away, Ava.”
She wanted to run to him, to wrap her legs around him and steal another one of those amazing kisses. Instead she pulled out her camera and captured him, looking like the biggest sexiest predator on the block. Water clung to his eyelashes and his green eyes burned with sensual hunger. She knew these shots would be magic and they would be hers when their fake engagement inevitably ended. “Wow,” she breathed out as she looked at the screen on her camera. “You are stunning on camera.” She looked at him and all that fiery masculine hunger was focused on her.
“Come here, Ava.”
His voice was deep and strong and crisp. The words were spoken with command, as though he just expected she would obey. She stood still, transfixed by the look of him, the sound of his voice but then her feet betrayed her, pushing her closer and closer until her toes curled over the edge of the pool. Her eyes closed when his hand closed around her ankle and gently caressed her leg. “Kade,” she pleaded with him, to stop or continue she didn’t know.
“Ava.”
She couldn’t resist him any longer, the photo shoot she had planned long forgotten as his hand continued its gentle persuasion on her leg. Before she knew what was happening Ava felt her body sinking slowly into the warm water, Kade’s hands skimming every inch of her body on the way down. A desperate moan escaped when his lips touched her neck and she knew this was happening. She was going to give her body and her heart to Kade. “Yes, Kade.”
Those words were sweeter than any he’d ever heard. Her surrender to the passion flaring between them touched his heart and stirred his longing for her. Kade couldn’t believe after more than two months of resisting her, resisting this thing between them he was finally free to touch her, to taste her, and take her body and join it with his until they could no longer breathe for wanting each other. He wasted no time when his mouth was upon her, placing slow—excruciatingly slow—open mouth kisses along her neck until her legs tightened around his middle. “You taste so good,” he told her as his mouth trailed down between her breasts and over to focus his mouth on that tight bud calling out to him.
She hissed when his tongue curled around that peak, taking her passion to heights until now unknown to her. She panted and writhed when he kissed a trail to her other breast, her hips grinding against him and legs tightening to pull him closer. “Kade oh yes!” Before she could say more she felt her bikini top hit the water and float away, his warm strong hands replacing the white fabric. “Kade, you are…yes,” she moaned beneath him.
Kade couldn’t get enough of her sweet responsive body. It took all the restraint he had to go slow, to savor the moment between them. He was close to bursting from the tight black swim shorts she requested he wear as her warmth cradled him. His hands snaked down her body of their own accord, a finger slipped inside the bottoms and then inside her body and he growled his appreciation. She was wet and hot, tight and so eager. “Ava, I want you.”
Rolling her hips against that finger her fire was quickly raging out of control and she knew she was moments away from her climax. “Kade,” she squeezed his shoulders and her tongue swiped his neck. “Yes Kade, yes. I. Want. You.” She did. Goodness she wanted him, his body in this moment more than she wanted more between them. Since this is all there could be, she would jump in with both feet and enjoy every blissful moment.
Her breathy words washed over his body in gentlest sexiest caress and his control snapped. With one tug of a few strings her bikini bottoms went the way of her top and Kade lined himself up with her and pushed in gently. “So, tight,” he groaned and allowed her a moment to adjust to his size.
“Don’t stop.” Her words were frantic, hands gripping and scratching at his back, her teeth sank into the tendons where neck and shoulder met. “I want you Kade. Want this.” She screamed when he pulled out and thrust in again. Over and over he did this, picking up speed and slowing down, torturing her with his erratic pace. She loved it, her body craved it, craved him. He gripped her hips hard and pounded into her body again and again until she was screaming as wave after wave overtook her body in violent shudders. “Kade, yes. Oh, yes. Yes!” His thrusts continued, her orgasm still going. Each time she felt herself coming down, he would lift her back up until she was floating on that precipice waiting for him to take her over.
Then, he did.
Grunting and groaning, Kade finally stilled with a firm grip on her hips as he spilled into her. Never had he felt so much during sex, or for a woman in general. Ava was one of a kind and not just because she’d given him the most powerful orgasm he’d ever experienced. She gave everything of herself to him and he was humbled by it. By her. He didn’t know when it had happened but sometime in the past couple of months, Kade had fallen for the sweet little photographer a decade his junior. “That was amazing, sweetheart.”
Ava couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She could only think and feel. Think about the way her body was still buzzing for him, think about how in one interlude Kade Steele had claimed her body and stolen her heart. She could feel him still throbbing inside her, felt her heart pounding rapidly as it worked to figure out this unfamiliar feeling. Love her body whispered and she knew it was true but none of that mattered. This was sex, plain and simple. She realized he was staring at her, waiting for a response. “I-I-I’ve never felt anything like that before.” She’d had sex before but she had never given herself so freely to a man, had never made love before.
Wrapping her hair around his hand, Kade tugged until she was at the perfect angle to fuse their mouths together in a kiss that had him growing hard inside her again. He growled when she squeezed him, “Neither have I, sweetheart.” And he knew he was in real trouble. Over the next few weeks Ava found herself living a lie. Each day she got up and went to her studio or t
o the outskirts of Rainbow Springs in search of something amazing. She’d nearly finished the Businessmen Bachelors calendar and she’d already started selling the prints that would supplement her income. She went through every day smiling when the old ladies in town told her how glad they were she’d finally settled down Kade and how much they were looking forward to the wedding. She gushed lovingly when Helena Henderson called for recipe tips and advice on marital bliss.
Then at night she would open her body and her heart to Kade without thought to the pain that was sure to come. Soon. Tonight was their third dinner with the Hendersons and she knew, based on hints Helena dropped, that Bruce had made a decision. Kade would very likely soon own Cakes A-shakin’ which meant their fake relationship was almost over. She hadn’t fooled herself that their arrangement was anything more than temporary but her stupid heart hadn’t gotten the memo.
Times like this, when she felt herself bursting with love for Kade she would repeat, temporary, temporary, temporary until she beat her heart into submission. She checked herself out in the mirror, the purple shirt dress was cinched at the waist by a silver belt and she wore matching flats. It was pretty and comfortable, and tonight that was enough.
Her pistachio and lavender macaroons were fresh from the oven and she was ready. Kade might not love her back but she would do everything she could to make sure he got what he wanted tonight.
ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance Page 15
