“Babe, I need to feel you come around me.” He started to thrust again and for a moment, Chloe forgot that she was in charge here because if Pete had been amazing before, he was simply breathtaking now.
Because he was filling her and she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt anything so good, so right.
Pete Wellington had always been the wrong man. How had he become the right one?
His hands went to her breasts again, tweaking her nipples and making her moan. “Come with me, Chloe.” It wasn’t a request—it was an order.
She laced her fingers with his and then kissed his knuckles. “Slow, Pete,” she told him when he tried to go faster. “I want this to last.”
If it were possible for him to look insulted and aroused at the same time, he did. “This isn’t a one-time thing, Chloe.” His voice was rough with need and that, combined with the way he was moving inside of her, made her shudder. “It can’t be.”
She shook her head. “Tonight.” She used his arms to balance herself, unable to keep her slow pace as he drove her mad. Again. “Just tomorrow morning.”
Suddenly, he pulled her down, chest to chest, and kissed her fiercely. Light exploded behind Chloe’s eyes as she went stiff and then completely limp, a climax unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She collapsed on top of him and in seconds, he had her on her back and was pounding into her, saying, “God, Chloe—yes!” Then, with a grunt that was almost a shout, he buried himself inside her and it was all she could do to hold on to him, to hold on to herself. When he fell onto her, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on. Breathing hard, they lay there in silence.
Had she thought the orgasm against the side of his truck was good? Or the one a few minutes ago against the wall? She’d had no idea, had she?
Now what was she supposed to do with him? There was no going back to the way they’d been before. She’d known that going in, but she hadn’t counted on how much sex with Pete would change her.
He propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at her. “My God, Chloe,” he said, his voice a reverent whisper as he touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. There was no deception in his eyes, no hidden joke at her expense. Nothing but a swell of emotions that made her breath catch in her throat because being with Pete had changed everything.
Because she wasn’t the same. She would never be the same.
Oh, no. What had she done?
Ten
While Chloe used the bathroom, Pete took care of the condom and chugged the now-warm wine so he could pour her a fresh glass. He moved the ice bucket to the nightstand, then put the chocolate next to it. There. Everything was in easy reach. Including the condoms.
It was easier to do these small things than to think about what had just happened. What, God willing, would happen again. Soon.
He’d made love to Chloe Lawrence. He was a little fuzzy on the details, but he was pretty sure they’d even managed to have an argument in the middle of sex.
Had he really told her he didn’t want this night—and tomorrow morning—to be a one-time thing? And had she really told him this was all that could be?
Idiot. He scrubbed his hand over his face, which was a mistake because he could smell her scent on his skin. He’d promised her one night. He was pushing his luck with one night and one morning. Asking—demanding—anything more was tantamount to failure.
Because how was he supposed to push Chloe out of the rodeo while he was having sex with her? And not just any old sex. The kind of sex that overrode every single one of his plans and intentions. The kind of sex that made him forget the last ten damned years.
Shit.
This was the problem with being scrupulously unscrupulous. Because he knew he could very well be at Chloe’s beck and call in the bedroom and still push her out of the All-Stars. It’d make everything easier because she might assume their physical closeness would mean he couldn’t pull the trigger. It’d be easy.
But it wouldn’t be right. If he were going to steal his rodeo back, he didn’t want to muddy the issue with emotions, dammit. Sex was fine. Everyone enjoyed a good time and that was that.
Or that was supposed to be that.
But just then, the bathroom door opened. Chloe came back out and even though she’d put the gray nightie back on, his heart skipped a beat and he was already pulling her into his arms and burying his nose in her hair and sighing in relief when she hugged him back.
Stupid emotions. They were going to ruin everything.
Somehow, he managed to break away. He couldn’t think and touch her at the same time. “Wine,” he said gruffly as he handed her the glass. “Chocolate is here, ice cream is in the fridge. I’m going to take a quick shower.”
She blinked up at him and he was more than relieved that she looked dazed. Thank God he wasn’t the only one left reeling by the best sex he’d ever had.
He was to the bathroom door—moving quickly, not running away from her—when she said, “Pete?”
He just needed another few minutes to figure out how to put all these damned feelings on lockdown and then he’d be happy to work under her again. But if she asked him to hold her right now, he knew he’d be at her beck and call. Happily.
As it was, he managed to stop and look back at her without rushing to her side. “Yeah, hon?”
She had the wine almost against her lips and she shot a look at him over the glass that made his pulse began to pound again. “Don’t make me wait.”
He didn’t even bother to fight the groan that ripped itself out of his chest. He all but tripped over his own damned tongue into the bathroom and proceeded to take the world’s fastest shower.
He needed to get a grip on something other than Chloe’s amazing body. Making love to her wasn’t a detour, it was...just a speed bump. He could do exactly what he’d told her he could—keep whatever happened in this room separate from whatever happened at the rodeo. He didn’t need to revise his plans. All he needed to do was make sure that neither of them got tangled up in emotions. Simple.
But simple wasn’t why he barely toweled off and hurriedly rushed through brushing his teeth. Simple wasn’t why he didn’t even bother putting on a pair of shorts, instead wrapping a towel around his waist. And simple had nothing to do with the way he all but jogged out of the bathroom.
It was Chloe. Dammit.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her perfect little toes just visible under her calves. He had an irrational need to suck on each toe, just to see if she’d giggle or threaten him with bodily harm or what. She had the pint of ice cream in one hand and a square of chocolate in the other, all while she grinned at the TV.
For just that moment, she looked young, like a girl full of wonder and mischief.
A memory came crashing out of the past, of Chloe full of a brazen kind of hope as she’d come up to him at a rodeo and said, “I know our dads have their issues, but I wanted to tell you that my brother Flash says you’re the best rider here,” and then she’d stuck out her hand like they could shake on that compliment and let bygones be bygones.
And he’d been young and stupid and so, so angry at her just waltzing into his rodeo like she owned it, which she had and he’d...
But that was bullshit, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been young. He’d been a twenty-three-year-old man and he’d had three whole years to adjust to the fact that the All-Stars wasn’t his anymore. But he hadn’t. He’d been furious that she’d had the nerve to even try to make nice. Instead of shaking her hand, he’d sneered, “You tell your daddy that next time he wants to talk to me he shouldn’t send a girl to do his dirty work,” before he’d stomped off, cussing out the entire Lawrence family at top volume.
That was when he’d seen pain etched on her young face. That was the first time he’d watched her lift her chin and refuse to be put in her place. By him.
He
could not have been a bigger asshole.
She giggled again and Pete put away that old memory. “What are you watching?”
She looked at him and her whole face softened. “I found I Love Lucy reruns.”
That look killed him. “A classic.” Was there a point in apologizing for how he’d treated her a decade ago if he was still hoping to wrestle control of the All-Stars away from her?
“This is a really good wine,” she said, taking another sip. “Where on earth did you get it? Pendleton isn’t known for its high-dollar wine selection.”
He snorted. “Ah, the guy at the front desk was happy to point me in the correct direction.” Point of fact, it had not been cheap, since the cute little wine store downtown had already closed for the night. But Pete was not going to let a little thing like regular business hours stop him from getting the very best for Chloe.
And, given how pleased she was with his choice—a nice Riesling—he was glad he’d basically bribed the store’s owner to reopen for him. “I’m glad you like it.”
Her gaze dropped to his towel. “Want some?”
He nodded and, losing his towel, climbed into bed next to her. She passed him her glass and he took a sip. Maybe it was that the wine was chilled. Or maybe it was the taste of Chloe on the rim of the glass. Either way, the wine was better for it.
She leaned into him, her shoulder bumping his. “Did I thank you for all this?” She waved her spoon around in what he took to be a gesture encompassing the wine, the sweets and the bed.
“Yes.”
“Well, I meant it.”
He grinned at her, at the matter-of-factness in her tone. “Duly noted.” And then, maybe because he’d had a little wine or because his brain hadn’t started fully functioning again after the mind-blowing sex, he heard himself say, “I’m sorry.”
She shot him a surprisingly hard look. “For what?”
Crap. “Uh, for...you know. For being an asshole for, uh, the last ten years.”
Brilliant, Pete. Way to go.
He had no idea what he was expecting her to do with that lousy attempt at an apology, but it certainly wasn’t the way her shoulders slumped forward and she said, “Oh, Pete, don’t start that.”
Dimly, he was aware that the smooth thing to do would have been to say anything but an apology. Tell her how amazing she looked. Compliment her skills in bed. Hell, even asking what he’d missed in the Lucy episode would have been better than leading off with an apology after great sex. He knew that.
But the sheer dismay radiating off her put him on the defensive, dammit. “Start what? I’ve been a jerk in the past and I want to apologize for it.”
She shot him the kind of look that normally he only saw on her face when Flash was doing something idiotic. “Well, don’t. It’s enough that we’ve both matured to the point where we can work well together and the sex is...” She cleared her throat, her cheeks bright pink. “The sex is very good.”
He didn’t like where this was going. “But...”
“But that doesn’t make us friends.” She looked away. “Or more than friends.”
He knew he was staring at her, but he was powerless to stop. “That horse is out of the barn, Chloe, and there’s no point in shutting the barn door behind it. We’re way past more than friends.”
She groaned and it wasn’t a sensual sound. It was a sound of aggravation. “You don’t get it, do you?”
That was a trap of a question if he’d ever heard one and, even in his muddled state, he knew better than to reply, get what? Instead, he crossed his arms and waited for her to answer her own question.
“Don’t make me like you, Pete. It’s enough that I respect you and you respect me. I couldn’t handle it if we were anything else.” She shifted, leaning back against the pillows and pulling her knees up, as if she could block him with her legs.
It took him a beat or two to make sense of those words. Respect? Hell, yeah, he respected her. He’d seen her in a new light in the last few weeks. She wasn’t a ditzy, self-absorbed teenager whose only concern was how many people liked her. She was a business-focused horsewoman with big plans and the numbers to back up those plans. She put the All-Stars ahead of her family, for God’s sake. He never would have believed it if he hadn’t seen her handle the Flash debacle with his own eyes.
But this whatever between them? This wasn’t respect. This was white-hot attraction that went beyond professional courtesy and far beyond their messy history.
What did she mean, she couldn’t handle it?
He was going to find out, by God. He reached over her to grab the remote and shut the TV off. “Hey,” she said, her voice muffled as he practically sprawled on top of her. “I was watching that!”
“Lucy gets a crazy idea, Ricky gets mad and yells in rapid Spanish, Fred and Ethel save their bacon and everyone lives happily ever after,” he said, taking her wine and ice cream and half setting, half throwing them onto the nightstand.
“Pete?”
Good. Better. She was a little nervous now. She should be, after saying they couldn’t be friends right after she’d ridden him better than any bucking bronco, by God.
He knew all the reasons they couldn’t be friends. He was going to screw her over in a nonsexual sense and she was going to hate him and her brothers might try to kill him. They could not be friends. Not in this lifetime, not in the next.
“Pete?” she said again and he went hard at the sound of his name on her lips. “What are you doing?”
He grabbed her legs and pulled her down. “This,” he said, skimming his hands up her legs, “is how I respect you.”
He buried his face against the soft hair that covered her sex. She gasped, in pleasure or surprise, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He licked her, the taste of her arousal flooding his mouth, pushing everything else away.
They weren’t friends.
He found her already tight and swollen with need, and swept his tongue over her. “This is how I honor you,” he murmured against her delicate flesh.
They weren’t friends with benefits, either.
Her hands found his hair and she gripped him tightly, holding him against her, asking for more. Begging for more.
They weren’t enemies. Not anymore.
He slipped a finger inside her and had to hold her legs down when her back came off the bed. God, she was so responsive, so beautiful. He loved that he could make her come in moments, when he put his mind to it. “This is how I love on you.”
This was how he loved her.
He almost snorted to himself. This was not love. This was lust. This was emotions running high. This was them straddling the fine line between love and hate in a purely physical way.
Hell. He didn’t know what they were.
He added a second finger and focused on timing the thrust of his hand with the movement of his tongue, finding the right rhythm to push her higher and higher. His erection bounced against the sheet beneath him, each contact making him even harder for her.
“Pete, oh...” she breathed, her whole body twisting underneath his touch. He pinned her thighs open and pushed her body to the breaking point.
They were not friends, dammit.
“I love making you come,” he all but hummed as he tasted her again and again. He couldn’t get enough of her. “Come for me, babe.”
She broke, her shoulders coming off the bed as she damned near ripped his hair from his scalp. Her sweet body pulsed around his fingers, against his tongue as wave after wave crashed over her. Every twitch of her body pushed his own need higher until he was in danger of coming just from the act of satisfying her.
Three, he thought as the tension began to drain away from her body and she collapsed back against the bed, breathing hard and making little mewing sounds of satisfaction. He’d made her come three times tonight.
Th
ree was a good number. Four was better.
He kissed her inner thigh and then sat up, pausing only long enough to grab a condom and then roll it on. “Yeah?”
She looked up at him, her eyes glazed and her mouth open. “You’re going to be the death of me,” she murmured as he wrapped her legs around his waist and fit his tip against her sex.
He sank into her with one thrust; she was still quivering from the last orgasm. His body jerked in response and he wanted desperately to let go. But she wasn’t at four yet and by God, by the time they collapsed into sleep tonight, he was going to make damned sure that she’d forgotten every other man in the world. That every time she looked at him, thought of him, she’d remember how he’d taken care of her.
This was not a race to see how fast he could make her come but there was no way in hell he was going to go slow, like she’d done when she was in control. She wasn’t in charge of this whatever anymore.
He set a steady rhythm, determined to keep the upper hand. But then her nails dug into his ass as she pulled him into her, demanding more from him and he lost himself in her.
Not friends. Not enemies. Just him and her and whatever this was.
She bit him on the shoulder and he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer, not with the way she was overwhelming his senses, his everything. He shifted so he could reach between their bodies and press her right...there.
She bit him again, harder, muffling her screams of pleasure against his skin, and he gave up the fight. He surrendered to the way her body pulled him in, to the way she felt surrounding him, to the indescribable pleasure of his climax deep inside of her.
He was hers.
Dammit.
Eleven
Despite the large, comfortable bed and despite the sheer exhaustion that obliterated the need to come up with appropriate post-sex pillow talk, Pete slept badly.
Every time Chloe turned in her sleep, he woke up wanting to make sure she was still there. To make sure she wasn’t leaving and, most important, that he hadn’t dreamed her.
At five, he gave up trying to keep his eyes closed. He lay on his back, with Chloe curled against his side, and tried to picture how either of them were going to move forward from this. Going back to the way things had been was out of the question.
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