I make a scandalized sound. “Bribes and coercion. That doesn’t sound very boy-scoutly to me.”
“Not at all,” Dylan agrees, warming to his story. “Rafe and I were pissed. So we decided to teach the bastards a lesson.”
“You toilet papered the boy scouts’ houses?”
“Hell, no,” he scoffs. “We had three growing boys in our house back then. We couldn’t afford to waste toilet paper. And we were 4H kids, so we were resourceful and knew our way around farm equipment.”
“Uh-oh,” I say, already seeing where this is going.
He grins. “The night before the parade, we snuck into the garage where they stored the floats and put bleach in the tractor’s fuel tank. Come time for the big moment, the tractor wouldn’t start, and the Boy Scouts’ winning float never got its victory lap down Main Street.”
“Served them right. But I’m betting the owner of the tractor wasn’t too happy.”
“Oh, Mr. Caputo was pissed.” Dylan laughs beneath his breath. “Somehow, Dad figured out that Rafe and I were responsible—he always had a sixth sense about shit like that—so he made us mow Caputo’s lawn for the next three years for free. Even though the tractor was already ancient, even back then, and probably not worth more than a couple hundred bucks.”
“Wow.” My eyes go wide. “Three years? That’s pretty harsh.”
“We would probably still be mowing it for free if Mr. Caputo hadn’t moved to Texas. Dad has zero tolerance for destruction of property.” He shrugs. “And I’m sure part of it was to keep us too busy to get into trouble. Having two teen boys the same age isn’t easy. My nephews have taught me that.”
I look up at him, frowning as I bring up a visual of the teen boys I’ve seen zipping up and down the bike trail on their way to friends’ houses. They’re identical twins, but Rafe and Dylan certainly aren’t. “So, you and Rafe are twins, too? I would never have imagined. You’re so different.”
Dylan’s grin takes on a wry edge. “No. We’re two months apart.”
I draw a blank for a moment before understanding dawns. “Oh. I see. So…different mothers obviously.”
“Yeah, my mom was the other woman. I didn’t come to live with Pop until I was older, but after that, Rafe and I were pretty much inseparable.”
I’m about to ask him if his mother was in the picture at all—a question too intimate for a friend with benefits—when the hostess calls his name, saving me from crossing the line. I’m going to have to be careful. It was easy to keep my emotional distance from grumpy Dylan, who teased the shit out of me. Friendly Dylan, with his dimpled smile and easy way with a story, is another thing entirely.
He bounces to his feet and reaches down to help me up, looking nearly as giddy as I feel. “Let’s get the goods and get out, Haverford.”
“The sooner the better.” I take his hand, a zinging feeling skittering up my arm. “But I’m paying. My treat.”
“You’re not paying.” He snorts at the apparent ridiculousness of the suggestion. “I’m old-fashioned, Blondie. When we go out, I’m paying.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to stay in, because I believe in paying my share.”
Dylan flashes a heated look over his shoulder. “Staying in is fine, too, princess. More than fine.”
That look, the nickname, and all the sexy, sinful things they imply steal my words away, leaving my arms much too limp to wrestle him for the check. He pays, tucks the two pizzas and salad we ordered under one arm, and gathers me close with the other. As we circle around the restaurant to the parking lot, more than a few folks cast curious glances our way, making me wonder if meeting in a public place was a good idea, after all.
I’m not usually shy about people knowing who I’m dating, but this isn’t a date, and Dylan and I are going to expire in no more than three months. Maybe sooner.
And then I’ll be the city slicker who got dumped by Mercyville’s golden boy, because no one will ever believe that I dumped him. I’ll be an object of pity all over again, just like in my old life, when mutual friends called to commiserate before attending a dinner party hosted by Jeremy and his new girlfriend.
“I encourage you to eat in my truck.” Dylan hands me the pizzas then lifts my bike as if it weighs nothing at all and loads it into the back of his truck. “Less time we’ll have to spend eating when we get to your place.”
“What about you?” I push away my melancholy thoughts. I refuse to sully the beginning of this with thoughts of the end. “Would you like me to shove pizza in your mouth as you drive? I’m ambidextrous, so I can do that.”
He laughs. “Thanks, but like I said, I grew up in a house with brothers. I can take down half a pizza on the walk from the truck to your front door.”
And amazingly, he does.
And before I know it, we’re closing my front door, setting what’s left of our dinner on the entry table, and coming together in the dark.
Chapter 9
Dylan
This afternoon, when I was imagining how things would go down between Emma and I tonight, it started out slow, with some bone-melting kisses and me unwrapping her delicious body, piece by piece, pausing to discover, to savor, to taste and tease until she was so hot she was begging me to get her naked faster.
The reality is a whirlwind.
A hurricane.
A brush fire catching and surging out of control.
The second the door closes behind us, we’re on each other like starving people. Our mouths crash together and our tongues wage sweet war as we hurry across the living room, tearing off clothes and letting them fall where they may.
For a moment, as we stumble through the door to her bedroom, where pale lamplight illuminates a four-poster bed, I flirt with the idea of slowing down. We could take a beat, take a breath. I could take the wheel and set a more sustainable pace. But before I can act on my good intentions, Emma has stepped out of her jeans and is back in my arms, kissing me like she intends to devour me from the mouth down, and I’m lost.
Lost in her heat, her fire.
Her…other things that are hot that I can’t remember right now because her shirt is over her head and her breasts are in my hands, covered by only the thinnest white lace. I’m so close to having her nipples in my mouth it’s impossible to think of anything else.
“I want to kiss you here.” I brush my thumbs over her tight tips as her knees hit the edge of the mattress.
“Yes, please,” she says as I shove my jeans to the floor and she pops the clasp on her bra. I lunge out of my pants, and we tumble to the bed, her pinned beneath me as I draw her bra down her arms then cup her breasts in my hands.
They are twin handfuls of pure feminine softness, topped by pale pink nipples already pulled tight for me. I circle first one with my tongue, and then the other, licking and biting, making her squirm before I suck her deep, tugging with rhythmic pulls until she groans, an abandoned sound that makes my cock throb.
“Yes, oh please.” She fists her hands in my hair, hanging on tight as I transfer my attention to her other breast, treating it to the same sweet torture.
I keep at it until she writhes against me, clearly desperate for more. Only then do I slide my hand down the front of her panties.
When I reach that sweet promised land and feel how ready she is for me, my breath rushes out. “God, Emma, you’re so wet.”
“I want you so much.” She moans against my lips as I kiss her again, fucking her mouth with my tongue as my fingers thrust into her heat.
She spreads her legs wider in response, shamelessly lifting into my hand, giving me a preview of how incredible it’s going to be to be inside her. My heart stops for a beat, only to jerk back into motion as she reaches down, rubbing my erection through the thin cotton of my boxer briefs.
“Please, I’m ready.” She pushes my underwear lower on my hips, setting my cock free, making my breath catch as her cool hand strokes my fever-hot length. “I’ve been ready since last night. I’m dying to
feel you inside me.”
“We don’t have to rush,” I say, even as I strip my boxers down my legs so fast you would think they were on fire. By the time I’ve kicked them to the floor, she’s wiggled out of her white lace panties, too, revealing the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.
Truly, the absolute prettiest. A total heart-stopper.
I bring trembling hands to her inner thighs, cursing as I take her in by the soft lamp light. She is so delicate, so finely made, and so wet that the salty, sexy heat of her rises all around me, making it impossible to resist the need to get my mouth between her legs.
She gasps as I slide lower on the bed. “Oh, no, I don’t usually—”
Before she can finish, I lean in, teasing my tongue through her slickness to circle her clit, and her words end in a sharp inhale. Then a moan. And then a cry of surprised pleasure as I cup her breasts in my hands and angle my mouth, playing with her nipples as I draw my top lip over my teeth and roll the softened hardness over her clit again and again as my tongue strokes deep inside her.
I take her, claim her, prove to her that she can trust me to deliver, to ensure she never leaves my bed unsatisfied.
Emma cries out once, twice, before the third cry breaks into a long, low moan-whimper-gasp as her thighs begin to tremble on either side of my face. She comes hard, flooding my mouth with the primal taste of her, making it impossible to hold off another second.
I have to be inside her—now—or I’m going to come the next time she touches me. I surge over her, claiming her mouth as my hand instinctively reaches toward the nightstand.
But we’re not at my place, and there is no condom waiting to be rolled on before I slide inside this woman locking her legs around my waist and rocking her slick pussy against my cock. This is all there is—her and me and all the heat raging between us, making me feel like my heart is going to burst as I fit the head of my cock to her entrance.
Gritting my teeth, I pull back, fighting for control as I meet Emma’s gaze, muscles clenching tighter as I see her parted lips and glazed eyes. She looks sexy as hell fresh from coming on my mouth. It’s all I can manage not to sink into her that very second, but some sickly chivalrous part of me has to make sure, to give her one last chance to change her mind.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” I force the words out as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of my face, testimony to how hard I’m working to hold back.
To wait. To resist.
“More than anything,” she says, without a hint of doubt. “Inside me, Dylan. Now. Please.”
I don’t make her ask twice. I push forward, sinking into her, chest aching as her slick heat grips me tight. God, she’s so fucking tight. And she feels so insanely good, wild and sensual as she rocks into me, taking every inch of my cock, transporting me to some previously unknown level of carnal heaven.
Sex is almost always good and often great, but this…
This is magic.
This is paradise.
This is going to ruin me for fucking with condoms for the rest of my life.
But I’m too far gone for the realization to bring me down. I’m too busy tasting Emma, feeling her, stroking inside her until she cries out against my mouth and comes for me again, so hard it takes my breath away. From that first contraction, the first clench of her body around my throbbing length, I know I’m a goner.
But instead of pulling out—the way I feared I might if last minute second-thoughts got the better of me—I pump harder, faster, driving into her so deep that as I finally thrust forward, coming with a groan, my balls are pulsing against the seam of her ass.
And then I’m lost, my release hitting so hard I’m no longer in control.
It’s like losing traction on black ice. One second I’m behind the wheel, making things happen, the next I’m sliding out, stomach lurching and head spinning. The pleasure is so intense my vision blurs. Suddenly, I’m unable to see, to focus on anything but the bliss spreading from my balls to every inch of my body, spiraling on and on, pulsing through my every cell as my cock jerks inside Emma.
By the time the pleasure is nearly finished with me, she’s coming a third time, crying out, “The best ever! The best in the entire world,” and I know we won’t be sleeping much tonight.
As soon as we’ve caught our breath, she looks up at me and says, “More, please?” with a smile that is such a perfect mixture of naughty and sweet I can’t help but laugh.
And then I give the lady more.
And more.
Until I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve both come. All I know is that as we drift off to sleep deep in the heart of that night, heavy in each other’s arms, I’m happier than I’ve been in a long, long time.
I may be sorry later—I know that—but right now, I can’t bring myself to regret one second of this absolutely perfect night.
Chapter 10
Emma
It was a dream. It was all just a dream.
My subconscious stubbornly repeats the mantra as my conscious mind drifts toward wakefulness and I become aware of the slight ache between my legs and the feather softness of my flannel sheets on my bare skin. I’m sleeping naked—I never sleep naked; I was raised Catholic for God’s sake—and my body is tender in places that haven’t been tender in far too long.
And then a warm, heavy arm slides around my waist, pulling me back against Dylan Hunter’s also very naked body, and any doubt that last night was real vanishes in a rush of breath and body-wide tingles.
“I’ve got to go soon, Blondie,” he says, his erection pressing against my bottom, awakening the hunger I was sure we’d sated last night. “Morning chores aren’t going to do themselves.”
“No, they won’t.” My fingers skim back and forth over his lightly furred forearm as I add, in a sex-kitten voice I barely recognize, “But then, neither will I.”
He laughs and hugs me closer, his breath warm on the back of my neck. “You’re insatiable, woman.”
“I’m just committed to the cause.” I arch my spine, rubbing my tailbone against his thickness. “I’m only able to conceive today and maybe tomorrow. I haven’t been taking my basal temp so I can’t be sure, but…” My words trail off as his other hand finds my breast, cupping me beneath the covers as his thumb brushes lazily back and forth across my nipple.
He hums softly. “I see. So the fact that my cock is the best cock in the entire world has nothing to do with it?”
“Maybe a little.” My breath catches as he pinches my nipple, sending a surge of electricity straight between my legs. “Maybe a lot.”
“I bet you’re wet already, aren’t you, princess?” His voice is as rough as the palm he skims down my quivering stomach. “Fuck, I love that. How hot you get for me.”
“Yes.” I nod, not knowing exactly what I’m agreeing to until Dylan urges my leg up and over his, making room for him to enter me from behind.
But oh yeah, yes to this. Yes, yes to this a thousand times.
I cry out as the thick head of him presses through where I’m still sore from last night, but the pain is almost immediately banished by a wave of pleasure as he glides deeper, stretching my inner walls, filling me so perfectly I can’t believe I ever thought I’d had quality sex before him.
Yes, I’ve gotten off, but I’ve never felt anything like the full-body glow that takes over my being as we begin to move together, slow and easy this time, him stroking in and out with deep, sensual thrusts that make me certain he’s a wonderful dancer.
He’s just…brilliant. The way he moves. The way he holds me so tight, making me feel so precious and safe. The way he kisses my shoulder, whispering encouragement, telling me how amazing I feel, how much he loves being inside me, how hard I make him, how much he wants me to come with him.
To come now…
Now…
“Oh, please, now,” he groans, fingers gliding over my clit as we move faster, faster. “Come with me, Emma.”
And I do, my body con
tracting in fierce, beautiful waves that make me feel like I’ve swallowed starlight, making me glow as bright as the moon outside my window.
The moon that is still bright in the dawn sky when Dylan leans down to kiss me goodbye.
“See you tonight?” he asks. “Around six?”
I nod. “Yes, six is good. But I’ll need to pop into the lab before bed and do a last brix check on the juice we brought in last night.”
“I can help you with that. I know my way around a refractometer.” He pauses, crouching down to bring his face level with mine. “Speaking of knowing my way around… I was thinking about what you said. About you only being able to conceive a couple days a month.”
I nod, nibbling my lip to keep from telling some falsehood about weird windows of fertility in order to keep him in my bed on a more regular basis. We have a deal, and sleeping together simply for fun isn’t a part of it.
Though, God, I wish it were. I had no idea sex could be this good.
“Well, the way I see it…” He trails off, glancing down at the rumpled quilt, his hair falling into his eyes, making them even harder to see in the near darkness. “Maybe we shouldn’t limit this to a couple times a month. I mean, I would think the more I know my way around, the better the chances of success.”
“Know your way around…me?”
He looks up, a guilty grin curving his lips. “Yeah. Am I pushing my luck?”
I smile so widely my jaw starts to ache, and hundreds of tiny fireworks explode in my chest. “No, I think you’re right. Back when Jeremy and I were trying, my girlfriends were always saying I needed to take things less seriously. Being comfortable and relaxed with your partner is important.”
“So, is that how I make you feel, Blondie? Relaxed?” His fingers twine through mine as he presses my hand into the mattress, reminding me of the way he held me down as he took me for the fourth or fifth time last night.
The Baby Maker Page 7
