Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel (16 page)

Belinda reached up and grabbed his face between her soft hands. She kissed him, and he closed his eyes and let himself be kissed. It wasn’t explosive like their prior kisses. It wasn’t even heated. It was just a slow soft kiss from a woman he thought he would spend the rest of his life kissing.

“Belinda,” he breathed when she broke the kiss. “I don’t know how I can feel such conflicting things about you.”

She looked up at him with curiosity.

“Half the time I don’t want to let you go. The other half I want to throw you off a cliff.”

“Ass!” She pinched him hard on his chest and pulled away from him.

He wouldn’t let her go. He pulled her closer and dropped a kiss right on her pouty lips. “Kiss me again, Bell.”

“No. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not even attracted to you anymore.”

“You’re not?” He slid his hand up her dress, settling it on the back of her soft thigh. “You could have fooled me. You sure are good in bed for a woman who isn’t attracted to me anymore.”

“I was out of my mind in that moment,” she said. He took the opportunity to slide his hand a little farther up to her behind. It felt just as good as he had remembered.

“Were you?” He sprinkled gentle kisses around her mouth, dragged his lips across her jaw until he reached that spot on her neck that he liked to bury his nose in.

She went totally slack then. He almost felt like liquid himself. She was warm and soft and sweet smelling. And he wanted her so bad his teeth hurt.

“I was. I hadn’t had sex in four years. You can’t blame a girl for wanting to crawl out of her skin.”

“What?” He lifted his lips from her skin. “You haven’t been with anybody in all that time?”

She looked away from him. An embarrassed flush coming over her skin. “Just you.”

He didn’t know what to call the feeling that swelled in his chest. Relief. Pride. Happiness.

“Why not?”

“Because in the back of my mind I knew I was still married to you.”

She was his. She was still his.

He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes for a long moment. He wanted to smash his lips into hers and kiss her hard and pump inside her until he forgot his own name, but he didn’t. Their last time had been like that—too fast, too frenzied, too much, too soon. He regretted that. She was the kind of woman a man needed to take his time with.

He moved closer to her, letting her know what was about to come, giving her the chance to pull away, but she didn’t. She accepted him willingly, like their coming together was an inevitability. Her mouth was welcoming, her lips sweet, her skin soft and still a little damp from the rain. It was a slow kiss, because all he had thought about at night was her and this, and he’d promised himself that when he got close to her again that he would do this right, that he would show her how good it could be.

She moaned into his mouth, causing him to grow so hard he wanted to burst from his pants, but he ignored the urge to free himself and focused on her. His fingers slid up to the top of her pretty underwear, the tips slipping inside, slowly tugging them down. She broke their kiss, frowning at him in curiosity, but her lips were pink and kiss-swollen and her hair was tousled and she was so damn beautiful that it would kill him if she asked him to stop.

“Let me touch you. I need to touch you. Please, Bell.”

She looked unsure for a flash of a moment, but then she nodded, lifting herself up so he could slide the little piece of fabric off her body. He was rewarded with skin, the smooth rounded flesh that fit in his hand so nicely.

“You’re so beautiful.” He lay her down on the seat, her dress bunching up to her waist as he did. He had loved seeing her completely naked, he’d loved seeing all of her skin, but there was something about seeing her half clothed that was erotic to him, too: covered up but naked. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to look at her or touch.

“Come here,” she whispered, reaching for him, sliding her fingers into his hair.

Touch won out.

He kissed her and her legs parted for him but he didn’t enter her. Instead he placed his hands between her thighs, stroking her. She was more than ready for him, but when he touched her, she whimpered, the sound so arousing it nearly caused him to explode. He touched her again, a longer stroke, a little firmer this time. She moved against his hand, clearly not wanting to be teased anymore. He sank his fingers into her, rubbing her as he stroked inside her, showing her with his fingers what his body was planning to do to her next. Their kisses turned hard and hot and hurried. Frantic, almost, and soon she was shuddering against him. He lifted his lips from her mouth so he could look down at her. He always loved to look at her after they had finished making love. She was so unguarded then. He could see every feeling in her face. But he didn’t get to process her emotions for too long because she reached for him, rubbing him through his pants with one hand as she undid his belt with the other.

“Damn it, Bell,” he hissed as she slid a hand into his boxers, the feeling almost too good. “I need to be inside you.”

She nodded and then said the sexiest words he had ever heard: “What are you waiting for? I’m right here.”

She unzipped his pants, tugging them down as he brought himself closer to her. Her legs hooked around him, and he fully pressed against her. She was ready for him and the anticipation of that wet heat around him almost caused him to lose it.

“Now, Carter.”

He obeyed her order … and just as he began the slow slide into her, honking penetrated his ears, bright lights shone into his car, and for a moment he couldn’t process what was going on.

“Shit. The tow truck is here,” Belinda said, pushing him away. “Shit!” She looked at him, her face pained. “What the hell are we doing? What the hell am I doing?”

“It’s okay, Bell. The windows are fogged up. They can’t see what we were doing.”

“It’s not that.” A horrified looked crossed her face. “You came here to divorce me. Divorce me! We can’t keep doing this. It’s screwing with my head. I need to move on with my life and you need to move on with yours. We need to be done.”

“You think I expected this, to still be so attracted to you?”

She shook her head. “Send me the papers, Carter. Please. Just send them.”

And with that Belinda slipped on her shoes, straightened her clothes, and walked away from him without another word.

CHAPTER 10

Ain’t nothing but a hound dog …

“Daddy?” Ruby called to him from her tiny desk in the corner of his office.

“Yes, babe?” He looked up to find her head down, most of her attention absorbed in the drawing she was in the middle of.

“Can you buy me an iPhone?”

“What?” He shook his head. He thought he knew his daughter, but she never ceased to surprise him. “What do you need with an iPhone?”

“I could play games on it. You don’t let me play on your phone anymore. But if I had my own phone then I wouldn’t want to play with yours.”

He blinked at her for a moment. She made a very sound argument. “I don’t let you play with mine because the last time I did you sent fifteen picture messages to my old boss.”

She looked up at him, kind of exasperated, like she didn’t know what the hell she was going to do with him. “I don’t know why you got so mad. I didn’t mean to. I was trying to send the pictures to Grandma. She said you should get me my own phone, and that way we could talk to each other anytime we wanted. She said that she’s sad I moved so far away.”

Carter inhaled. He wasn’t speaking to his mother, still bothered by the fact that she’d gone out of her way to make Belinda feel like she didn’t belong, but he couldn’t let that interfere with her relationship with Ruby. In her own odd way, Bernadette Lancaster loved her granddaughter. He wasn’t surprised his mother would suggest he buy a five-year-old an expensive cell phone. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I know you miss your grandma, but I’m not buying you an iPhone.”

“Okay.” She went back to her drawing. “Daddy?”

“Yeah, Rube?”

“Can you get a TV for your office then?”

He looked up from the plans he was drawing and gazed at her, her little face so serious. She was bored. She never complained about being there for two hours almost every afternoon, but he should have known that construction paper and coloring books weren’t enough to keep any child occupied for so long. Sometimes he thought it might be better for her to go to the after-school program and be with the other kids. He sent her when he had meetings he couldn’t reschedule, but most days he was selfish and kept her with him. It was one of those parenting moments when he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing or not.

He had so many of those lately.

“How about we go to the store this weekend and see about getting you a tablet? You could read books and watch movies and play games on it. It will be like your own little computer.”

“Can I go on the Internet?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

She went back to her drawing and he went back to his until he heard, “Knock, knock.”

Molly poked her head in his door and smiled at him. She had been stopping by his office more and more the past couple of weeks. They even had lunch together in the break room a couple of times, but he still hadn’t agreed to dinner. He liked Molly but he didn’t want to date her.

“I was heading out to class and just wanted to drop in and say good night before I did.”

“Good night, Molly. Have a good weekend.”

“You, too.” He thought she was about to leave but she stepped farther inside his office. “You got any big plans this weekend?”

“Big plans?” He shook his head. “Just plans. I think I’m going to take Ruby to the electronics store and maybe to the movies.”

He glanced at his daughter, who was staring at him, and winked. She gave him a soft smile before she went back to coloring.

“Oh, that sounds nice. And hello, Ruby. I nearly didn’t see you there.”

“That’s because you were too busy gawking at my daddy.”

“Ruby!” he scolded, but he was more than a little surprised that she’d said anything to Molly at all. She was coming out of her shell. He would have been inordinately proud if she hadn’t been so rude.

“Well, don’t you have a mouth on you, little Miss Ruby,” Belinda said, walking in. “I’ll have to admit I’m a little relieved to hear it. You were far too polite and well behaved for a normal child. I was starting to think you were a robot.” She smiled at Ruby, her green eyes sparkling.

He was surprised to see her in his office. He didn’t think he would see her so soon after their afternoon in the back of his car. She’d asked him to send the divorce papers but he hadn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to. Not after what had almost happened between them.

“How are you, beautiful girl?”

“Good.” Ruby grinned widely at Belinda, seeming happy to see her.

“You should apologize, though. It’s okay to be a little sassy sometimes, but it’s not okay to be unkind.”

Ruby nodded, looking contrite. “I’m sorry, Molly.”

“That’s okay,” Molly mumbled as she focused on Belinda. The two women looked at each other, checking each other out in the way only two women could.

“I’m, Molly. I work here. I’m Steven’s intern.”

“Hi, Molly. I’m Belinda,” she said, giving no explanation as to who she was. “Nice to meet you.”

Molly glanced at Carter and then back at Belinda as if trying to figure out their relationship. He might be reading too much into it, but it seemed that Molly was a little more interested in who Belinda was than she should be.

“It was nice meeting you, too. I need to get going. Good-bye, Carter. Let me know if you want to do something this weekend.”

Belinda crossed the room, stopping at his desk. She gave a quick look at the door before she bent to speak into his ear. “I think Miss Perky Blond Intern has the hots for you.”

He grinned at her, trying to ignore the feeling of her warm breath on his skin. She was arousing without even trying. “Are you jealous?”

She searched his face for a moment, all traces of humor melting away. “Damn. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful your smile is.”

She was the beautiful one. He took a moment to study her but he didn’t need to because he’d barely taken his eyes off her since she walked into his office.

She was in bombshell mode again in a body-hugging red dress and little denim jacket. She was always in bombshell mode, but today he had an especially hard time pulling his eyes off her. She was too much for him to take in. Lush breasts, tiny waist, an overabundance of curves. She never hid it. She was never afraid to show herself off to the world. Belinda wasn’t a woman who hid herself in corners. She wasn’t quiet. She wasn’t understated. She was the opposite of everything he had ever known or wanted. He had spent so many years being angry that he had forgotten those little things that had made it impossible for him to live without her.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds with Ruby a few minutes ago,” she said awkwardly, and he realized he had been staring at her just a little too long. “I had no right to ask her to apologize. She’s your child.”

“No. You should have.” He managed to pull his eyes away from Belinda long enough to give his daughter a pointed look. “She was rude.”

Belinda gave Ruby a small smile before she turned back to Carter and lowered her voice. “She’s just a little territorial over her daddy. Or maybe she has exceedingly good taste. If she doesn’t like the woman you’re dating, maybe you shouldn’t date her.”

“She likes you. What does that tell you?”

“Of course she likes me.” She raised her chin haughtily. “I’m not trying to get in your pants.”

“Really?” He felt like teasing her a little. He dropped his voice, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close so that his lips touched the curve of her ear. “Should I remind of you of what happened in my car a few days ago?”

Her eyes shot up to his and she shook her head. “You started it!” She tried to pull away from him, an embarrassed flush creeping up her face.

“I can finish it, too. Just say the word.”