Picture Me Sexy

by Rhonda Nelson

  Sam shrugged lightly. “It’s understandable.” He tipped her chin up and gazed meaningfully in her achingly familiar face. “But you can trust mine. You can trust me. I swear it.”

  He shivered violently as a particularly intense rush of Martelli energy coursed through him.

  Her brow furrowed. “You’re shivering again. Do I need to turn up the heat?” she asked, concerned.

  Sam shook his head. While they were making confessions, he might as well make another one. He chuckled. “I’m not the least bit cold—can’t be around you.” He placed her hand against his neck, causing another wave of gooseflesh to break out over his body. “Feel? I’m burning up. Have been since I met you.”

  “Then why do you have chills all the time?” Her eyes widened in fear. “My God. Are you— Are you sick?”

  “No,” he quickly reassured. “It’s more bizarre than that.”

  “Then what?”

  He smiled, feeling ridiculous. “It’s called the Martelli ‘quickening.’”

  Predictably, she arched a skeptical brow. “A what?”

  Sam quickly explained the Martelli phenomenon, and thanked God that, while she did appear quite shocked, she hadn’t immediately withdrawn from his embrace and called Officer Testosterone back.

  She drew back and stared at him. “Let me get this straight? This Martelli ‘quickening’ lets you know when you find the right woman?”

  “Right.”

  “And you ‘quickened,’ or whatever, when you first saw me? You knew I was the one for you? That we’d fall in love and be together forever. Like all of your ancestors have? I’m your she-wolf?”

  He felt his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Correct.”

  Her eyes widened in outrage. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?” she all but screamed. She whacked him on the chest. “You could have saved us a great deal of heartache if you’d just told me.”

  Sam blinked, astounded. “What? You’d have thought I was a damned nut. What was I supposed to say? Excuse me, Ms. Walker, but according to my goosebumps, you and I are destined to fall in love and spend the rest of our lives together?”

  She winced adorably, mulled it over. “Well…there is that.”

  Sam felt his gaze soften as he looked down at her. He brushed his lips across hers. “There is that,” he repeated. Then he deepened the kiss, put every ounce of feeling that he possessed into the mating of their mouths. Made love to her mouth the way he wanted to make love to her body. Need vibrated through him and he’d hardened to the point of pain. God, he had to have her.

  Right now.

  She drew back and stared drunkenly up at him. Happiness shimmered in her bright gaze and a wicked edge turned her smile. “And there is that,” she murmured meaningfully, rubbing her pearled nipples against his chest. “Let’s take that upstairs, why don’t we?”

  Sam peeled her sweater over her head and latched his mouth onto her breast through the fabric of her bra. “Let’s don’t and say we did.”

  She laughed, arched her back, pushing her needy nipple farther into his mouth. Her breath hitched. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “I’ve been fantasizing about this table,” Sam told her as he swiftly removed every stitch of her clothing. He sat her on top of the antique refectory table.

  Delaney’s small hands worked just as efficiently, his clothes joining hers in the discarded pile on the floor. She wrapped her hand around his rod and quickly guided him to her hot, wet center. Sam gritted his teeth against the exquisite sensation, then slid into her with one smooth stroke.

  Home, he thought.

  She instantly convulsed around him, bit his shoulder, then arched her neck back and reveled in the feel of their joined bodies as he sank repeatedly into her welcoming flesh.

  “I love you,” Sam said brokenly between thrusts, pushing her further and further toward release. “You got that part, right?”

  She fisted around him, came hard. Delaney’s lids fluttered shut and her mouth formed a silent O of pleasure. “I g-got it,” she screamed in an orgasmic rush. “I l-love you, too.”

  Hearing those words sparked the most extraordinary sensation Sam had ever felt. His entire body tautened in awe of a cataclysmic eruption. Every cell in his body sharpened, his skin prickled from head to toe and the most incredible, breath-robbing, thought-shattering orgasm blasted from his loins.

  A long, slow howl issued from his throat, then he groaned and collapsed against her, almost unable to hold up his own weight. He trembled from the force of it, shook uncontrollably and knew that what had just happened had inexplicably bound them together forever.

  Chest heaving, Sam said, “That’s the s-second time we’ve made love without protection. I h-hope you aren’t opposed to starting a family i-immediately.” For reason’s that escaped him, he had the inexplicable premonition that they’d just done exactly that.

  That sounded like sheer heaven, Delaney thought. The idea of carrying his child warmed her from the inside out. “I’m not opposed at all,” she told him, flexing her feminine muscles around him, listening as his breath caught in his throat and watching his eyes all but roll back in his head.

  God, she loved this man.

  “In fact, I’m quite in favor of the idea.” She leaned forward, framed his face with her hands and planted a long, hungry kiss on his lips. Hers, she thought as he throbbed deep inside her. He had been different…and he was all hers. Not just for today, or for tomorrow or in the meantime—forever. Her senses soared.

  “Is th-that right?” Sam asked brokenly.

  “That’s right.” Delaney chuckled wickedly and her heart began to beat in tune with the Wedding March. “Inseminate me again, baby.”

  Oh, would he ever, Sam thought, then swiftly turned the thought into a reality.

  Epilogue

  “HE’S FALLEN ASLEEP,” Delaney whispered softy. “I need to lay him down.” She smoothed her fingers over her son’s dark, downy head and her chest inexplicably filled with wondrous joy.

  “Hold on just another minute,” Sam told her haltingly, face behind the camera. “This is too good. I can’t—I can’t stop. Just a few more minutes.”

  Though her heart filled with exasperated happiness, Delaney resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He’d been pleading a few more minutes for the past hour. For the past year. Her shutterbug husband had been taking pictures of her for what felt like forever. Racy photos, then when she’d become pregnant, he’d become almost obsessed with her maternal form, wanted to catalogue every change in her body.

  Her pregnancy had inspired a new line of maternity lingerie at the Chifferobe and her new senior photographer, a hot guy by the name of Sam Martelli, had headed up the project as well as fine-tuned others. Together they were an unbeatable team. Her business had enjoyed success before he came on-board, but now Laney’s Chifferobe was a force to be reckoned with. They gotten married immediately after getting back together and the speedy wedding had sparked a flurry of controversial publicity in Memphis. The Herald, in particular, had taken an unfavorable slant to her marriage. But one visit from Sam, his attorney, father and brothers in tow, had nixed any further uncharitable articles.

  She’d thought that his fascination with taking pictures of her would wane once the baby was born, thought her son would become his new favorite subject, but she’d been wrong. Oh, he’d taken thousands of pictures of their baby, but had taken thousands more of she and the baby together. Nudes, stills, indoor, outdoor, everywhere.

  She’d come to the baby’s room to nurse, had sat down in the rocker in front of the window and, when her greedy son had latched on to her breast, contentment and happiness had permeated her every pore. The rightness of the moment—of her life with Sam and her child—had hit her. Sam had chosen that exact moment to walk into the room, he’d gotten that look, hurried off, then reappeared with his camera. Delaney’s lips curled. Sam Jr. had finished his morning snack thirty minutes ago, and yet Sam Sr. still wouldn’t let her get up. />
  Delaney heaved a small sigh. “Sam, I’m going to lay him down. I’m getting up now.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing.”

  “Oh, all right.” He set the camera aside, met her at the crib and nudged a blanket out of the way so that she could lay the baby down. “God, he’s perfect, Delaney,” Sam murmured softly, reverently. Though he wasn’t comfortable with it yet, her big, tough, Italian husband had been known to tear up over their baby.

  A smile gently tugged her lips. That was an assessment she wholeheartedly agreed with. “He’s like his daddy,” Delaney told him.

  Sam slid his arm about her waist and pulled her close. “Nah, he’s definitely like his momma.” He bent down and kissed her nose.

  “I suppose we could share the credit,” Delaney replied drolly as familiar warmth started at her toes and fizzed to her hairline.

  “There is that.” Sam drew back and inclined his head. Something hot and wicked lurked in his dark-as-sin gaze, clung to that lazy smile. “When are Pops and the clan supposed to be here?”

  She knew where this line of questioning was headed. Anticipation drew a slow smile across her lips. “They’re coming for lunch. Not for several more hours.” She hadn’t simply acquired a husband, she’d gotten a family to boot. A big, loud family whom she absolutely adored.

  Sam bent down and nuzzled her neck. He hummed under his breath. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry now.” He nipped at her earlobe, sending a shock of gooseflesh across her skin.

  Delaney shuddered delicately as pleasure hummed through her. “Yeah?” she murmured. “I could go for something.”

  “Yeah? For what?”

  Delaney slid her fingers into the hair at his nape, dragged him down and kissed him until she could scarcely draw a breath, until she felt him prod against her belly. She laced her fingers through his and tugged him toward their bedroom. Her eyes twinkled. “Chocolate-covered sex.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7430-7

  PICTURE ME SEXY

  Copyright © 2003 by Rhonda Nelson.

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