“I—it’s . . . Emily,” she said quietly.
His lips twisted in amusement. He could tell she hadn’t wanted to say it, but apparently, she’d wanted this more. He feared it wasn’t him, but the sex she didn’t want to disappear. Then again, a woman like this could find pleasure with any man. So maybe it was him. At least a little bit. His mouth slowly tipped up into a full smile and she reciprocated.
A moment passed between them. A truth. Something real, and it felt good to pull it from her. Settling his body fully onto hers, he leaned down, his tongue tracing the curve of her ear. She shivered and then gave a full-body sigh as her tension fled. He told himself that the honesty was a relief for her.
“Thank you. For telling me.” He brushed her hair aside and sucked her earlobe into his mouth, biting at it gently, then whispering, “And now, Emily. I’m going to fuck you. Is that okay?”
She let out a quiet moan, which he decided meant yes. Reeve angled his body so he could find her center with his fingers, and God, she was now so ready. He quickly donned a condom, and when he sank into her they moaned in unison.
He stroked in and out of her, trying not to think about how much more real this felt with the soft morning light streaming in, and the sound of her name lingering between them.
Emily. Such a sweet, feminine name for such a strong, no-bullshit woman. She was full of surprises.
Reeve wrapped his arms around her and flipped them so she was on top, and without hesitation she sat up and sank fully back down onto him.
“Oh shit, that’s good.” His voice was ragged. “Ride me, Emily.”
He reached up and cupped her perfect breasts as she began to find her rhythm, rocking back and forth on him. The sensation of her gripping him in her warm body, slipping in and out. Holy shit, he had to get control of himself.
Her hands came up to her chest and landed on top of his, forcing him to squeeze her breasts harder. He had no problem complying, pinching her nipples lightly, and then harder when her fingers pushed down on his.
“You like it a little rough, Emily?” He just wanted to say her name over and over.
“Yes.” She was nearly breathless. Her hips began to shift faster. The grinding of her body was going to kill him if she didn’t come soon.
Twisting his hands, he slid his fingers between hers, putting them palm-to-palm. The small action of holding hands seemed to increase the intimacy of the moment, and when their eyes met he yanked her down to him, needing to get his mouth on hers.
She fell right into his kiss, devouring his mouth, and it wasn’t long before she was whimpering against his lips. Finally, sure that she’d found her climax, he grabbed ahold of her ass and began to guide her body as he sought his own. He may have been a little too rough, his callused hands gripping her skin without gentleness, but she didn’t seem to mind as she flattened her palms on his chest for leverage. He came hard, looking up at her, biting back a groan.
Emily.
He had her name. And he’d had her body. It still didn’t feel like enough.
They lay side by side in silence, her cheek nestled on his chest as she ran her fingernails through the hair on his navel. She was not a talker, which normally would have suited him just fine. Then again, he still sensed she was holding out on him.
“You have plans for today?” he asked.
Her nails froze in place. Clearly that wasn’t something she was expecting.
“It’s an innocent question.” Reeve put a finger under her chin and nudged her face up to look at him. She allowed it.
“I thought we made it clear that this time had a label.”
“That discussion did take place, yes. But you’re still here.” He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. “It’s nine forty-five. Based on your last sleepover I’d call this a huge step. Not very one-night-standish.”
Her eyes looked panicked and he wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. She pushed up off him and grabbed a pillow to cover her nakedness. Well, he certainly had his answer. He was a bit offended but not surprised. He’d just really hoped she’d prove him wrong.
“Emily, wait.”
She jumped at the sound of her name, almost as if she’d forgotten revealing it. Great. He really needed to accept this one was a runner and probably not worth the effort.
“I’m sorry, I just . . . you reminded me I do have a lot to do today,” she said in a tone so distant it was like she was trying to avoid an irritating neighbor. Her eyes scanned him warily, and he called her bluff. She was scared of something. Him maybe. But he’d been nothing but easy on her so far. Maybe it was time he pushed a little harder. Made her squirm.
“Okay. Like what?” he asked.
Her eyes widened in surprise. Clearly she hadn’t expected him to keep at it.
“Well, Amanda’s wedding is next weekend, so I have to . . . pick up a few things.” She began gathering up her clothes on the floor, trying to sound nonchalant as she continued to blow him off. “You know. Feminine errands.”
She was good, he had to hand it to her. No doubt most men would be thankful she was hitting the road without asking them to come along. He’d been one of those men a thousand times. But not today. Not with this woman. There was just something about her that was making him crazy. And he didn’t believe it was an accident that they’d run into each other last night at the store. It was meant to happen.
He slipped his hands under his head and watched in amusement as she tried to get dressed. It was almost funny, her holding the pillow over her chest with one hand while she tried to pull her yoga pants on with the other.
“You know I just had my mouth all over those breasts you’re trying so hard to conceal from my view.”
She sighed and threw the pillow on to the bed. Reeve grinned.
“A gentleman wouldn’t watch a woman dress when it was obvious she was trying to maintain some semblance of modesty.”
“Please,” he choked out. “A gentleman might find a way to do it without being obvious, but he’d be trying to watch. Trust me.”
She gave him a little amused eye roll as she clasped her bra. With every article of clothing she put back on he could feel her slipping away. This was it, she obviously had every intention of keeping this labeled. Last Time.
He didn’t like that, and as she bent over to reach for her T-shirt, he sat up. Might as well just pull out all the stops. “I want to see you again.”
“Reeve, we sai—”
“No, you said one night. Last Time. Whatever. I never agreed.”
Her lips clamped shut just as his phone rang. With a curse he picked it up and glanced at the caller ID. His mother.
Not now.
“If you need to take that.”
“No, I don’t.” He hit DECLINE and looked back up at Emily. “What I need is to see you again. Go to dinner with me tonight.”
She sucked in a breath and let her shoulders drop. Sensing she was weakening, Reeve shot out of bed and stalked toward her. “Come on, Whip. I like you. I know you like me, too.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here.”
Her eyelids fluttered shut. “My life is . . . complicated.”
“Isn’t everyone’s? That’s exactly why we need to go out. And I promise to make sure our date is the exact opposite of complicated. Dinner, drinks, maybe some more of this.” He angled his head toward the bed and rested his hands on her hips. “Since we clearly have that part down.”
His spirits rose when she smiled. And then his phone began to ring again. “Shit.”
“Just take it,” she said. “I really don’t mind.”
With a sigh, Reeve scooped up the phone. Yep, his mother again. “This is embarrassing, but . . . it’s my mother. Give me a minute?”
She grinned. “Sure.”
He placed a quick kiss on her nose and turned to head for the bathroom. If he had two guesses, they would be that his mother either couldn’t find so
mething in her shithole of a house and was having a panic attack, or she needed money to pay a bill and was having a panic attack.
The minute he answered he knew he was right about the panic. “Reeve, I’m sorry to bother you—” She always started with that line, and it was always breathless.
“It’s fine, Mom. What’s going on?”
“It’s Clarice. I think she may be pregnant.”
Reeve let his head drop and blew out a breath. “Who the hell is Clarice?”
“My new cat.”
Of course. He’d known it before he asked, but once again he’d hoped a woman would prove him wrong. His mother, sadly, never proved him wrong. “I’m pretty certain we had an agreement. No more animals.”
“I know, but she kept coming to the back door, and . . . well you know. I can’t turn away a soul in need.”
She couldn’t turn away anything, living or not. He knew this story all too well. His mother had taken it upon herself to feed Clarice and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest. This was exactly why he had Plain Jane. When he’d come back from deployment, fresh out of the military, he’d gone to his mother’s house and found six cats living with her. Two adults and their four offspring. That meant on top of the trash and crap, there was the stench of cat shit. A week later, without telling her, he’d taken all four ten-week-old kittens to the shelter. When he’d come back for the parents she’d been hysterical. The only way he’d gotten her to calm down was to promise to let her keep Mr. Boo, her male cat that she’d had for years. In addition, he’d promised to keep Plain Jane, the female. But under no circumstances could the two live together. Reeve drew the line at a zoo in her home, and he knew better than to hope Mr. Boo could keep it in his pants around any female.
He suddenly felt his pulse in his temples. He caught a glance of himself in the mirror, buck-ass naked. Here he stood, discussing a cat named Clarice with his mother, while a gorgeous woman waited in his bedroom. What the hell was wrong with him?
“You know I’m going to have to take Clarice to the shelter, Mom. Preferably before she gives birth. But I’ve got to go now.”
“I thought maybe I could ke—”
“No! You cannot keep any of them, understand?” Reeve sighed. He hung up before she had a chance to say any more. Having a mother who acted like a needy child was draining both emotionally and physically. And of all the times for her to do this to him. Since he was in the bathroom he took the opportunity to relieve himself quickly and then opened the door to his room.
It was empty.
His heart sank. Surely, she wouldn’t pull this shit on him, again.
“Whip?” he called out. No answer. “Emily?”
Grabbing a pair of boxers out of his dresser, he headed down the hallway to the living room. Then the kitchen. On instinct, he walked over to the front window, certain what he what find. Or not find. And sure enough he was right. No Audi in the driveway.
He was alone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Emily lifted her eyes from her laptop and stared out her home office window into the backyard beyond. It was Wednesday and she was on day three of working from home, something she rarely did. In fact, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d done it. Probably two years ago when she’d had the stomach flu. Even then she’d continued working in bed as long as her body had allowed.
One minor reason she’d chosen to break from the norm was because her mother was visiting. But the truth was, this week’s absence from the office was mainly about one thing: avoidance. Of many things, such as Natalie’s questions, the window in her office that looked over the outdoor patio, and her stray thoughts that kept reminding her how stupid she’d been to leave Reeve’s house Sunday morning. Avoiding that last one wasn’t working out so well.
She’d been so close to agreeing to go out with him. Had even decided to say yes, and then he’d gotten up to take that phone call, and there it was. A big black, ink-on-skin announcement of her worst fear. The unmistakable insignia of the earth attached to an anchor, an eagle on top, was placed amid other calligraphy and images on Reeve’s back shoulder blade. It was a beautiful tattoo on a beautiful body, but it didn’t change the reality.
He was a marine.
Or had been one at one time, considering he owned a landscaping company in Manhattan, Kansas. Didn’t matter, “Once a marine, always a marine.” How many times had her stepfather said exactly that? The general had a version of the same image on his own shoulder and Emily hated it.
Logic told her it wasn’t fair to judge Reeve based on her feelings about another human, but in her experience, men like that were opinionated, chauvinistic assholes. And if she’d had any hope that Reeve might not have a problem with her owning and running a multimillion-dollar company while he mowed lawns and planted trees for a living, it had been shot to hell right then and there.
Time to cut and run, was what her head had told her to do upon seeing the tattoo, and that’s exactly what she’d done as soon as he’d shut the bathroom door.
Emily heard the light footsteps of her mother coming down the hall and sat up in her desk chair.
“I may have gotten too much sun sitting outside,” Stephanie Strickland said as she entered Emily’s office without as much as a tap on the door. “Sure would be nice if your pool was open.”
“That would be nice, but it’s still spring, and only sixty-two degrees,” Emily said, forcing a warm smile. “You’ll have to come back in a month or so. And I have sunscreen in the hall closet if you need some.”
Stephanie smiled and stepped over to the unit of built-in bookcases that lined the far wall of Emily’s office. She picked up a framed photo of Emily and Amanda, smiled, then put it down before moving on to the next item on display. Her office was full of photos, favorite books, miscellaneous awards, and even random trinkets she’d collected through her life. Emily liked to be surrounded by things that made her happy.
Everything about this house made her feel content and comfortable. She’d bought it after selling her grandfather’s mammoth of an estate in the country that she’d inherited in his will along with the privately held company. Making the decision to sell had been hard, but ultimately, she’d known it was necessary. Not only had she no desire to live in the big house all by herself, but it was a money suck. Hadn’t made sense to keep it, despite the fond memories there.
She’d made a great profit off the sale, enough to pay cash for the four-bedroom Tudor in an older, secluded part of town, and even do a great renovation. She’d paid for an overhaul of the kitchen and master, refinished all the hardwood, laid new carpet, and painted nearly every wall. Last but certainly not least was the update of the already serene backyard and pool.
Her mother picked up a photo of their family at her mother and the general’s wedding. “So long ago,” Stephanie said with a quiet chuckle. She set the frame back down and then made her way toward the large picture window that overlooked Emily’s backyard haven.
“You really have such a pretty backyard, Em. I sat out there by that blooming lilac bush and it just smelled so nice. So peaceful, I wish Allen was here to enjoy it with me.” She turned and gave Emily a forlorn look. “He sent his apologies, just so much going on at work. But he’ll be here Friday afternoon so he can attend the wedding with me.”
Emily wasn’t going to argue with her mom, but she knew the truth. The general flat-out refused to be a guest in her home. The two of them did not get along, never had, but their hostile relationship had hit a boiling point when she’d inherited her father’s legacy after her grandfather’s death.
The inheritance had been the nail in the coffin on their already strained relationship. It didn’t help that Emily suspected that even after all these years, the general was jealous of her father. How a man could be jealous of a deceased husband, one he’d never even met, Emily would never understand. She had a feeling that Allen was insecure enough to believe that her mother still mourned her first husband. Maybe he w
as right. Her father had been a good man. Stern and serious, but gentle. Fair. The exact opposite of the general, which always made Emily wonder what the hell her mother had found appealing in the man. He’d been happy to move them across the country when he was promoted, away from everything that resembled their former life.
Allen Strickland made old school look progressive, still believing women were best sitting still and looking pretty. The fact that Emily had not only taken over what should have been her father’s company, but had made it into a success, went against everything he believed in. In fact, she was sure he hated her for it. Hated how proud her mother was of her, especially when Emily had taken Stephanie on a trip to Paris. A dream of her mother’s. And it wasn’t that he didn’t make good money. He could have fulfilled her mother’s dream, but he hadn’t cared enough to.
She hated that he couldn’t even stay in his stepdaughter’s home for the sake of the woman he proclaimed to love. There was no doubt in her mind that was the reason for his absence now.
“It will be nice when you can both stay here this weekend. You can lounge out back together,” Emily said, testing her theory.
When her mother hesitated, Emily knew she was right. Why did it sting even when she’d known it was coming?
“You know, Allen and I talked, and we agreed it would be better if we stayed at the hotel where the reception is being held. We’ll probably have a drink or two so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving. Easier for you, too.”
She should just nod and agree. Avoiding a confrontation would be the polite thing to do. Emily was never good at that, though, at least not where her mother and the general were concerned.
“Just say it, Mom. He won’t stay here in my house.”
“Em, that’s ridiculous.”
“You’re right. It is ridiculous. And childish. And chauvinistic. And yet . . .” Emily lifted a finger to her chin, pretending to contemplate her words. “It still sounds just like General Strickland.”
All I Ask Page 10
