by Heidi Betts
Even better, the light purple fabric of her current gown was less sturdy than the one from earlier in the day, so Callie's nipples appeared larger than before. Her breasts looked fuller, more pert, and he liked to believe he could see a hint of the darker area of the areolae that surrounded them.
He also wanted nothing more than to strip away the fine material. To see those beautiful breasts—not to mention the rest of Callie's mouthwatering form—without the barrier of her clothing.
Toward that end, he wasted no time carrying Matthew upstairs, standing by while Callie changed him, and then helping her tuck the child into his cradle.
He enjoyed putting Matthew to bed. Most of the nights he'd been here, he'd lingered over the task to watch every yawn, every wrinkling of Matthew's tiny nose, to hear every muffled sigh.
But tonight he had other things on his mind. Much more urgent things, if he ever wanted to walk a straight and painless line again.
He waited while Callie pulled a light blanket up to Matthew's ears and gave his back an affectionate pat. When she turned to leave the room, he took her elbow and walked with her.
When they reached the hall, Callie moved toward the stairs, but Wade pulled her up short. He spun her around, drew her flush with his chest, and kissed her, all in one smooth flash of motion.
His mouth moved against hers, his tongue teasing hers, until she sagged against him, until he felt a soft sigh ripple through her body. When he released her, it was only to let her suck in a much needed breath of air. He did the same, but quickly lowered his head and ran his lips over her cheeks, jaw, and earlobe, and down the slope of her beautiful neck.
"The bedroom,” he rasped. “We should move to your bedroom.” He would have taken her to his room, but he didn't think she would feel comfortable making love in what was, in actuality, her brother's bedchamber.
For a minute, he didn't think she would answer. And if she turned him away now, he truly expected to expire. He would draw one last breath and wither away to nothing more than a pair of worn dungarees and a red plaid shirt.
But then she nodded her head slowly, her eyes never wavering from his, her gaze filled with desire.
Wade covered her mouth with his own, bending slightly at the knees to swoop her into his arms. Relying on nothing but the vision from one corner of his eye, he stalked toward the promised land.
He lifted his foot to kick the door open rather than taking a single hand off Callie's delectable body, but remembered Matthew and knew if he woke the boy, any plans he had for the next several hours would be abruptly—and possibly indefinitely—called off.
Careful not to drop her, he reached out and twisted the knob, pushing the panel wide on noiseless hinges. He did kick it closed behind them, albeit quietly.
Every step across the room, Wade expected her to balk. To call out for him to put her down or stop. And if she did, he would. Or at least he would try. No matter how badly he wanted her, he wasn't going to force her.
But with each step, she only twined her fingers more firmly into his hair, stroked his cheek, met his tongue thrust for thrust.
My God, she was amazing. No wonder he desired her so strongly, had such an earth-shaking reaction whenever she walked into a room.
When he reached the bed, he laid her down on the soft mattress, stretching out with her atop the neatly tucked in coverlet. He raised his head to look down at her, to drink in every detail of her beautiful face. The smooth skin, expressive blue eyes, and heart-shaped mouth. Her lips were swollen now from his kisses, and a deeper rose color than usual.
Running his fingers through the hair at her temples, he framed her face with his rough palms. “You knew this would happen, that we've been moving toward it almost from the moment we met. But, Callie, I want you to be sure. I won't have you accusing me later of taking advantage of you, or forcing you into something against your will. Do you understand?"
With his hands still on the sides of her face, she nodded.
"So tell me, Callie. Do you want to make love with me?"
The seconds ticked by and he held his breath. If she said no, he didn't know how he would walk away. He didn't know if he could walk away. But he did know that he would never do anything to harm or frighten her, so if she asked him to leave, somehow he would manage the Herculean feat.
What seemed like hours later, Callie's delectable lips parted and a whisper of sound drifted out. It sounded like “yes,” and his heart stopped beating.
But he had to be sure. “Did you say yes?” He pushed the question past a tightly closed throat, praying all the while that his ears weren't playing tricks on him.
A beatific smile curved her mouth and she lifted her arms to more fully encompass his neck. “Yes,” she breathed again, loud enough for him to hear clearly this time.
He felt the muscles in his cheeks contract and knew his grin far surpassed her own. Pressing a light peck to her forehead and the bridge of her nose, he said, “In case I forget to tell you later, I'm the happiest man in the world right now."
"I'm glad,” she said softly, and he couldn't help but kiss her.
How had he gotten so lucky? He might not be a murderer, but he'd never done anything extraordinary enough to deserve a woman like Cal-lie. And yet she was here, in his arms, inviting him to make love with her.
Wade figured he could die this very minute—without doing anything more than they had already—and still not suffer a single regret.
But seeing as he didn't cock up his heels on the spot, he took that as God's blessing and a sign to keep right on going. Which he did, with great pleasure.
As his lips ran along her jaw and throat, his hands explored her shoulders and moved down to cup her breasts. The sensations that rocked through her as Wade ran his thumbs over the thin cotton of her dress, teasing her nipples, made Callie moan deep in the back of her throat.
How could he do such things to her? How did he know just where to touch her, when, and how much? However he knew, she thanked heaven he did, and arched toward him like a feline leaning into its owner's stroking palm.
She felt the buttons down the front of her gown being undone and opened her eyes to see his nimble fingers spreading wide the lavender sides of her bodice.
Although the evening air was only a few degrees cooler than it had been that afternoon, it still raised goose bumps on her exposed flesh. With one arm behind her back, he lifted her slightly off the bed in order to slip off the sleeves of the gown. From the waist up, she was left in only her thin linen camisole, which did nothing to hide the effect he had on her body.
"Wade,” she breathed, trying to get his attention as he rubbed her bare arms and kissed a line across her collarbone. “Wade."
He raised his head and looked down at her, his eyes the warm brown of hot cocoa and filled with an emotion she'd never witnessed before—desire. She'd especially never seen a man gazing at her that way.
"What?” he asked, his voice deep and gravelly. “Darling, what is it?"
Swallowing past the lump of anxiety in her throat, she attempted to form her earlier thoughts into words. “I've never . . . I don't want you to think. . ."
"That you do this with every man who breaks into your house?” he finished with a cocky slant to his mouth. “Don't worry, I didn't think that."
"But I've never . . . at all,” she tried again, needing him to understand how special an experience this was for her, how much she trusted him.
A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyes grew serious. “Good,” he clipped out. “It wouldn't make a difference, I hope you know that, but still . . . good."
Their lips met, and any other thoughts she might have had flew right out of her head. From somewhere far away, she heard her shoes drop to the floor and realized he was divesting her of her skirts. And then she truly was exposed but for the paper-thin material of her drawers and camisole.
His hand ran from her ankle, over the curve of her calf, along the outside of her thigh, and beneath the hem of her d
rawers to cup a buttock.
That intimate contact caused her to gasp, not only from the boldness of it, but because of the lightning-like jolt it sent into her belly.
And suddenly having him caress her, disrobe her, wasn't enough. She wanted to touch him, as well, to see what lay beneath his clothing. She'd dreamed of his naked form, fantasized what it might be like to undress him. Now here was her chance.
A flutter of modesty made her hesitate, but she pushed it aside. She'd already decided to make love with him; they would be joined as man and woman in the most intimate way. With that prospect lying in her not so distant future, removing his clothing the way he'd removed hers was nothing, really. Not so scary that she shouldn't just go ahead and start.
Tentatively, she reached out to undo the top button of his plaid work shirt. Then another. And another. Encouraged by his continued attention to her mouth and the shifting of his body to give her better access, she yanked the tucked-in fabric from his trousers and pushed the shirt from his shoulders. He released her only long enough to shrug out of the offending garment and toss it to the floor; then his hands moved to the waistband of his jeans.
Covering his fingers with her own, she said, “Let me."
He gazed down at her and nodded. Holding his weight away from her, he watched as she slowly slipped the metal rivet at the front of his trousers through its hole.
The lower she went, the less give she found in the heavy fabric because of the press of his arousal. She had to work her fingers in beneath the material, flush against his heated manhood, to slide the last few buttons free.
Instead of letting her push his pants down over his hips the way he'd done with her gown, Wade rolled away for the briefest of seconds and shucked out of the dungarees himself.
Callie almost chuckled at the speed with which he stripped . . . until she caught a clear glimpse of his body.
He wore nothing beneath his trousers. She realized with a start that while she had loaned him Nathan's shirts she had never considered how he managed without undergarments. Now she knew. Perched above her, balanced on his hands, all that separated their bodies was a diaphanous layer of white linen over her breasts and torso.
She waited a long minute for some sense of fear or alarm to overtake her, to send her running from the room. But that feeling never came, and she found her gaze drifting downward, toward that part of him that she'd never seen before on any man. It stood out from the rest of him, seeming to strain in her direction.
Her body turned liquid, blood rising to the surface of her skin and heat pooling in her womanly core. Wade—so patient it threatened to bring tears to her eyes—merely stared down at her, waiting for some sign that he should continue.
She thought wrapping her legs around his waist and telling him to get on with it might be a bit too brazen, even for the wanton woman inside her who had unexpectedly made her presence known. But she did link her arms around his neck and draw his face down to hers. With her lips pressed whisper soft against his, she said, “What are you waiting for? Make love to me, Wade Mason."
Chapter Sixteen
Wade wondered if he'd died and gone to heaven.
Fast on the heels of that thought was the notion that if he'd known this would be what greeted him on the other side, he might not have been nearly so eager to escape the gallows at the time of his trial.
Either that, or Callie was an angel sent down to earth. Because no way was any mortal woman half as beautiful, giving, soft-spoken, or receptive as his Callie girl.
Uh-oh. Slip of the tongue. Or rather, a slip of the mind.
Callie girl was all right, but he hadn't really meant to call her his. He'd gotten swept up in the moment, carried away by the fact that this woman—mortal or angel, he wasn't sure which, and didn't particularly care—was lying beneath him, open and willing, asking him to make love with her.
He'd have to be crazy to stop now. Judging by the state of his arousal, he might not even have a choice in the matter. He was lucky she hadn't panicked and fled the moment she saw him without his trousers. He didn't think he'd ever been so hard in his life, and Callie was the reason.
Now if he could only keep from either devouring her or embarrassing himself. Both were distinct possibilities.
He smoothed the hair away from her face, tracing the lines of her delicate features. From where her soft brown hair met the pale porcelain of her skin to the slightly upturned corners of her half-closed, darkened-with-passion cornflower blue eyes. From the cute-as-a-button tip of her nose to the heart-shaped curve of her now swollen lips.
He didn't deserve her, didn't deserve this, and he knew it. But damned if he had the strength to hand her dress back and tell her to get while the getting was good.
Playing his tongue against her lips, he felt her open beneath him, felt her warmth wash over him. With her arms looped around his neck, the tips of her fingers sifted through his hair, causing a trickle of anticipation to dart down his spine.
Snagging the hem of her lacy white camisole, he drew it up the narrow expanse of her abdomen to the outline of her breasts, and then over them. They were just as beautiful as he'd imagined in the dreams that kept him tossing and turning through the night. Pert and firm, with tight raspberry nipples begging to be kissed. Which he did, bussing first one and then the other.
But as much as he might have liked to, he didn't linger. He was too eager, too randy, and there was more of her yet to explore.
The drawstring of her drawers needed to be untied, which he did, sending a quick prayer of thanks skyward when the knot immediately came loose. Hooking his thumbs into the meager material, he pulled the drawers down the coltish length of her legs and tossed them aside.
They had quite a pile of discarded garments falling to the floor beside the bed. Wade figured it would be easier to find them later, when they wanted to dress.
If they ever got out of bed.
If he ever again let Callie wear clothes.
She shouldn't count on it.
The image of Callie, stark-naked and happy to be that way, played through his mind. Washing dishes, scrubbing laundry, fixing supper . . . No, not fixing supper. He'd be the one at the stove, watching while she set the table or played with Matthew.
Yep, that was just one more fantasy concerning Callie to add to his growing list. For now, though, he was going to focus on living out his number one fantasy: making love to Callie.
Wade's hands spanned her belly, stroking up and down the slight indentation on either side of her waist between chest and hips. His thumbs stroked the undersides of her breasts, then teased her navel. He brushed each of her pouting nipples, then the springy hair at the very top of her woman's mound.
Everywhere his hands touched, his mouth followed, wetting the sensitive pucker of her breasts, tasting the undersides of those cushiony globes. The tip of his tongue trailed along her rib cage, into the dip of her belly button, all the way to the slope of her inner thigh.
Moving back up her body, he brought that leg with him to hook over the ridge of his hip. Flesh against flesh, they lay there while he devoured her mouth, teased her with his fingers. His rigid length brushed the opening of her body, her enticing warmth urging him to lunge forward and make them one.
But he held back, wanting Callie to be as aroused as he was. With that in mind, his other hand slipped between the growing warmth of their bodies and into her silken folds.
Callie gasped as Wade touched her there. It was so unexpected, so unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, that her hips arched off the bed of their own volition.
His throaty chuckle made her blush, but the fierceness with which he took her mouth in the next instant washed away all her unease. As the strength seemed to go out of her limbs and her arms slid farther down his back, her head fell even deeper into the pillow and she turned herself over to the delicious sensations Wade was creating deep inside her.
His fingers tickled the outer rim of her womanhood, then delved deep, sho
cking another sharp intake of breath from her already overwrought system.
But she liked it, she really did. The rough pads of his fingers against her sensitized, never-before-breached folds. The rush of wet and warmth from her own body, brought forth by the exquisite slide of coarse against fine. The tantalizing rasp of his tongue tangled with her own as he kissed her.
He kissed the way she'd always dreamed a man would kiss her. Deep and long, until she was at risk of forgetting her own name.
It was at that moment she realized she hadn't been waiting for just any man to kiss her this way, she'd been waiting for the man.
The man little girls envisioned from the first time they saw a bride in white frills and lace walk down the aisle of the church toward a black-clad groom. The man her mama had always told her was out there, waiting for her. The man who would come along one day and sweep her off her feet, make her want marriage and children and forever.
Callie's stomach did a full flip and brought her heart up to her throat.
What if Wade was the man? He kissed the way she'd always expected the man to kiss. And though she'd never been brave enough to imagine how the man would touch her, he surely did that right, as well. If he didn't, her eyes wouldn't even now be rolling back in her head.
Wade smiled at her, and the world went away. She watched him with Matthew and she saw. . .
Oh, no. She saw visions. Terrible, awful, terrifying visions.
She saw good-morning pecks and good-night embraces. Bridal gowns and colorful ribbon curling over anniversary gifts. God help her, but she saw babies. More babies than just Matthew. Her babies, born of her womb and put there by none other than Wade Mason.
Lord have mercy, she was in trouble.
Wade Mason might be the man, she thought sourly, but that didn't mean she had to do anything about that fact. She certainly didn't intend to inform him of the ridiculous tangent her brain had just taken. The chances were low that he would stick around even if she did tell him.
And just because he was lying above her, doing increasingly wicked things to her senses, didn't mean this was leading anywhere even close to marriage and forever. It was just sex.
