by Ann Jacobs
“That feels good.”
Somehow lying here like this felt more intimate than being buried deep inside her. More personal than tasting her sweet, musky secrets or having her take him in her mouth and drive him crazy.
Craig felt her innocence and his own.
Was he losing his mind? Neither of them was innocent any more. They were lying in bed, naked, so close they might as well be fucking. Hell, if he hadn’t nearly killed himself with that triathlon, he’d be pummeling her with his cock right now.
Then it came to him. Innocence was a state of the mind, not the body. Some professor in an ethics class he’d taken had said that, if he recalled correctly.
Today he’d gone for the image he wanted the world to see: success at any cost. He’d laid another cornerstone on his journey to success.
He was a goddamned fool. He’d ignored doctors’ warnings about stressing his damaged leg and followed up the mile swim he’d enjoyed and a grueling bike ride he’d merely endured with a killer ten-K run, for no better reason than to win points with the pompous ass he worked for.
Now he’d be lucky if he could do more than hobble around for the next week or so. He’d paid a pretty stiff price for this cornerstone.
Worse, he’d exacted a high price from Casey. First he’d dismissed her as not the kind of woman he wanted for a wife. Then he’d hit on her deliberately, to get it on with her and round out his carnal knowledge before trying the Ranger case.
She deserved so much more. “I love you,” he said, lifting his head off the pillow and meeting her gaze.
Her dark eyes widened. Unshed tears made them glisten in the dim light from a bedside lamp. “Do you really?”
“Yeah. I do. A lot.”
“I love you, too.”
Lisa had told him she did, but Craig hadn’t believed it until now, when he heard it from Casey’s own lips. He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss.
As recently as this morning he’d been thinking timetables. He’d gloated over his string of successes in the courtroom, certain they would bag him a partnership in a major firm sooner than he’d first calculated. He’d revised his timetable downward, estimated that he could achieve in two years what he’d originally thought would take three or four.
Two years wasn’t too long for an engagement, he’d decided. Not at all. The idea had actually fit pretty well into his revised plan. He’d visualized a fancy wedding and an impressive house with an impressive address. Two kids later on—the son he’d always assumed he’d have someday, then a little girl who somehow had made her way into his well-laid plan.
That distant goal had seemed more real once he’d given a face and body to his intended partner, but he’d forgotten something vital.
It hadn’t taken him too long to determine the problem. Two years was way too long to wait for the right to wake up with Casey every morning. And it was much too long to string her along when he knew some idiot had had hurt her when he’d left her practically at the altar. Craig almost felt sorry for the idiot, because he’d missed out on making love with Casey.
Hell, two weeks was too long to delay his future, now that he realized Casey meant everything to him. “Let’s get married,” he said, cupping her face between his hands and looking into her soft, dark eyes. “I want to make love to you every way I’ve ever read about and some I haven’t. And to sleep next to you every night and see your pretty face every morning when I wake up.”
Her smile lit up the room. “Every night?”
“Well, maybe not every night until my leg forgives me for entering that triathlon,” he said, though at the moment he felt as though he could take on the world. “What about it, baby?”
“When do you want to do it?”
Craig wanted to tie her to him now, but he doubted he could drag his body out of bed, much less to the nearest justice of the peace. “How about next weekend?” He should be able to walk normally by then. Besides, that would give him time to find the perfect wedding present for his perfect lover.
“I’d like that. Now roll over on your back.”
“Why?” he asked.
Casey gave him a playful shove. “I want to taste one of those cherry condoms we didn’t try out last weekend.”
He wasn’t about to tell her no. “They’re in the night stand.”
While she rolled the triple-x confection onto his throbbing cock, he tried to memorize her features. “Love me, baby,” he murmured when she met his gaze.
“I do. Now let’s fuck.”
* * * * *
They’d done it.
Gotten married. Five days after Craig’s proposal, in Las Vegas, with no muss, no fuss, and no getting left at the altar.
Casey’s brand-new wedding band winked up at her from its place on her finger beside the two-carat solitaire Craig had put there five days earlier. She set her heart-shaped bouquet of roses and carnations on a massive heart-shaped bed.
“Too bad Lisa didn’t want to catch this,” she told her brand-new husband who was busy baring his gorgeous body for her pleasure.
“Mike didn’t argue about catching the garter.” Craig looped his tie around her neck and dragged her to him for a long, hungry kiss.
“I know.”
Neon lights from the strip flashed red and green and purple outside the bridal suite of the resort center’s newest luxury hotel and casino.
The colors played against Craig’s bare chest, drawing Casey’s gaze there and lower when he pushed his dark-gray suit pants down and off.
He was gorgeous standing there, wearing nothing but his socks, his wedding band, and dark silk boxers. Casey had a hard time believing he was hers. If she pinched herself again, though, she’d be black and blue.
She shot him a sultry smile and shed the simple off-white sheath dress she’d worn for their wedding. “Do you think they’ll stay over?”
“What? Lisa and Mike? Yeah. He booked them a room before we went to the chapel.”
From the heated look in Craig’s eyes and his ragged breathing, Casey guessed he liked the lacy half-bra, cream-colored stockings and matching lace garter belt that were all she’d worn underneath her dress. She knew for sure he liked what he saw when he shed his boxers and bared an enthusiastic erection.
“Come here, wife.” He set her bouquet on the nightstand and pulled her down beside him.
With one hand, he urged her legs apart and opened her to his gaze. With the other he stroked her. First her satiny bare pussy framed by garters and pale silk stockings, then the little heart-shaped tuft of curls that seemed to fascinate him so.
He bent and ran his tongue along her glistening slit.
Watching in the ceiling mirror, seeing her pussy open and vulnerable and him paying homage to it with his mouth, had to be the ultimate turn-on. It certainly was the ultimate reflection of mutual trust.
He blew gently on her clit, then nuzzled her mound. “I’m partial to hearts. And to this velvety soft skin I love to touch and kiss.”
“It’s not natural.”
“I guessed as much. But I like it. A lot.”
Casey tried not to dwell on how often she’d have to visit Luisa to keep her Brazilian bikini wax job neat for Craig’s pleasure.
He dipped his dark head down and used his fingers to spread her labia. His slick, hot tongue did its magic before he caught her clit again. It throbbed, as though anticipating his attention, and he sucked it in while tickling it with fast, hard flicks of his tongue.
His hands were warm and arousing on her breasts when he slid the half-cups down and plucked the exposed nipples until they throbbed.
The erotic sensations spread like wildfire through her body. When she looked in the ceiling mirror, she gasped at the sensual picture they made.
Slick red sheets. Vanilla lace and silk. Craig’s dark head caught between her stocking-clad thighs as he drank the wet, pulsing juices that flowed from her pussy. Her breasts lifted by the half-bra, held in his big hands to bring them both pleasure.
Her face looked flushed, her hair spread around it like a veil. Her mouth was slack and her breathing labored, evidence of her desire. It was the most erotic picture she’d ever seen.
So erotic it spread incredible sensations to every nerve in her body, from her clit…her nipples…even from her eyes as they took in the ultimate intimacy between a man and a woman. Intimacy that transcended anything she’d dreamed of when she set out in search of pleasure.
Intimacy so deep, so complete that when her climax came, it seemed almost like a benediction…her body sealing the promises she’d made.
A few minutes later Craig set her on his lap and joined their bodies in one smooth thrust. His sapphire gaze enthralled her, as it had the first time they met.
“I love you.” Finally. Her fear was gone. She could tell him what was in her heart, knowing he loved her too.
When he kissed her, she tasted herself on his lips. Their hearts beat in unison as they rocked back and forth, no longer separate but linked not only by the irresistible sexual attraction that brought them together, but also by something so much stronger.
The bonds of love.
Epilogue
Bone Gap, Texas, three months later
“Looks like ol’ Buck was dead wrong about Casey.”
“Her new husband’s brought out the spice in our girl, that’s for sure. They can hardly take their hands off each other.”
The two elderly cowboys had staked out their usual spot at the Bone Gap Grange, near the water trough where they’d iced down the beer kegs.
It was party time, all right. Bob Thompson didn’t barbecue one of his prime steers for just any old occasion. The aroma had the old men’s mouths watering.
“Boss put on a fittin’ welcome for Casey and her lawyer,” one said.
The other nodded. “Casey’s brother told me they eloped to Las Vegas two weeks after he asked her out. Guess he couldn’t wait to stake his claim. Fast movers, them city boys.”
“No, I couldn’t wait.” His arm around Casey, Craig joined the cowboys and held out his plastic cup for a refill.
“Zach, Rocky, this is my husband.” She looked lovingly up at Craig. “These two old wranglers have been working at the Bar T since before I was born.”
A lot had happened in the five and a half months since Casey had left Bone Gap. Good things, and she had Craig to thank for most of them.
Heat suffused her cheeks when she recalled last night—and the erotic games they’d played in the hayloft of her parents’ barn.
They might have been curious teens risking getting caught, except that they had the added aphrodisiac of mutual, committed love.
She and Craig had learned a lot about each other in the three months since they’d exchanged vows in Vegas.
He liked his coffee hot and black, for instance. And he showered and shaved every morning even if he’d done it the night before. He wanted light starch in the collars and cuffs of his dress shirts, which thankfully he didn’t expect her to wash and iron.
He didn’t like to talk about his weaknesses, especially the leg she’d only realized was seriously damaged after he competed in that charity triathlon.
And she’d found he was possessive. He expected her to wear her rings all the time, especially when she was working with clients at the gym.
She didn’t mind, even though she told him every chance she got that not even Todd, who’d lost thirty pounds and was starting to look almost human, could hold a candle to him. Besides, Craig wore the plain gold band she’d given him like a badge of honor. Turn about was fair play.
Casey got wet when she thought about some very personal secrets she’d learned, such as the way Craig’s cock got hard when she blew on his ear but not when she played with his nipples. And that he blushed when she whispered outrageous, erotic suggestions in his ear.
He’d discovered things about her, too, such as the fact she liked the feel of the vibrator on her clit better than inside her pussy. And that she had a thing for watching them fucking in the mirror he’d glued to the ceiling above their bed.
Together they’d experimented with positions and techniques outlined in the books he’d bought. They’d found places on each other’s bodies that turned them on, places neither of them had ever thought of as erogenous.
They’d also discovered supposedly erotic acts that sent them both into gales of uncontrollable laughter.
Casey wanted them to keep on learning together for years to come.
Now, though, they needed to socialize.
It looked as if nobody for miles around had turned down her parents’ invitation to meet her almost brand-new husband.
She should have expected a crowd. After all, the harvest was in, and the cattle had gone to the big feed lots in Lubbock. Thanksgiving was just around the corner. Not to mention that folks were curious about what sort of guy she’d managed to rope and hogtie.
Everybody was ready to show Craig a good old-fashioned Texas hoedown.
There were her parents, chatting with Craig’s mom. Casey had liked her the moment they met, and was glad she’d joined Craig’s brother, sister-in-law, and their three daughters for the trip to Bone Gap.
“Our families seem to be getting along,” Craig observed as they made their way across the wide-plank dance floor.
“I’m glad.”
“Look. There are Mike and Lisa.”
Her former roommate waved from across the room. The diamond on her finger sparkled in the light from one of the multicolored revolving spheres that hung from the ceiling.
“We’ll have to find them something nice for their wedding next month.”
“Yeah. If it hadn’t been for them dragging you to that triathlon, we might not have made it this far,” Craig said as he looked around the room.
Apparently he didn’t find what or who he was looking for, because he shot her an expectant grin.
“Want to go check the barbecue pit? I’ve got something I want to give you.”
A kiss, Casey imagined, or an erotic invitation she’d have to wait awhile to collect on.
“Let’s do it,” she said, always ready for whatever new sensual adventure he suggested.
The late autumn moon was full and high in the sky. The cool, dry air smelled of late-fall chrysanthemums and her dad’s secret barbecue sauce.
Craig stopped outside the grange door, stilling her by caressing her shoulders through the clingy winter-white sweater dress he’d picked out for her to wear over the bra and garter belt she first wore to their wedding.
His breath was warm against her neck. Whatever he draped around it made her shiver.
She looked down and saw it. A perfect, heart-shaped ruby on a thin, gold chain. “Oh, Craig. It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.”
He kissed her neck, at the same time drawing her close enough to feel the pulsing of his cock against her bottom.
God, but he knew how to make her crazy for him.
With one big hand, he cupped her smooth pussy through the soft knit material of her dress.
“I think I told you I’m partial to hearts,” he said, and then he gave her neck a gentle nip.
“I am, too.” And she was, in spite of the discomfort involved in taking care of that heart he liked so well. In the past three months she’d made three return visits to Luisa. She guessed she’d be making many more.
After all, what was a little pain compared to the erotic pleasures that heart symbolized?
Like she’d said she would, Casey had come a long way from being the plain vanilla PE teacher, perennial good pal and all-around good girl. She’d set herself free. And she’d caught the hunkiest man of all, not just for a moment but for always.
Craig turned her around, smiled down at her.
He still had a smile that could melt Antarctica.
And he’d made her hottest fantasies come alive.
“Later, baby,” he whispered before they headed back inside.
“Yes. Later.
”
Casey was over being a good girl. Now she liked being a bad, bad girl—but only for her very own virgin hunk.
About Ann Jacobs
Ann Jacobs is a sucker for lusty Alpha heroes and happy endings, which makes Ellora’s Cave an ideal publisher for her work. Romantica®, to her, is the perfect combination of sex, sensuality, deep emotional involvement and lifelong commitment—the elusive fantasy women often dream about but seldom achieve.
First published in 1996, Jacobs has sold over forty books and novellas, some of which have earned awards including the Passionate Plume (best novella, 2006), the Desert Rose (best hot and spicy romance, 2004) and More Than Magic (best erotic romance, 2004). She has been a double finalist in separate categories of the EPPIES and From the Heart RWA Chapter’s contest. Three of her books have been translated and sold in several European countries.
A CPA and former hospital financial manager, Jacobs now writes full-time, with the help of Mr. Blue, the family cat who sometimes likes to perch on the back of her desk chair and lend his sage advice. He sometimes even contributes a few random letters when he decides he wants to try out the keyboard. She loves to hear from readers, and to put faces with names at signings and conventions.
Ann welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Ann Jacobs
A Gift of Gold
A Mutual Favor
Awakenings
Black Gold: Another Love
Black Gold: Dallas Heat
Black Gold: Entrapped
Black Gold: Firestorm
Black Gold: Forever Enslaved
