Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel (27 page)

Ah. Ruby. Somehow she had forgotten all about the little girl.

“Hi, Daddy.” Her voice came clearly through the speaker. “It’s me, Ruby.”

Belinda watched Carter’s face soften. “Hi, baby. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just wanted to talk to you. I never slept in nobody else’s house before and I wanted to make sure you wasn’t sad without me.”

“I miss you a lot, Rube. But I’m okay. Are you okay?” Belinda could hear a little worry in Carter’s voice. “Do you want me to come get you? I can be there in a few minutes if you need me.”

Ruby came first, she was reminded in that moment. She always would, and Belinda was glad about that. It made her respect him so much more.

“I miss you,” Ruby said in her soft voice. “But I don’t need you to come get me. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m here. Talk to me.”

“Can you come get me at twelve o’clock tomorrow? Mrs. Cameron is gonna take us to get manipures and she said I had to ask you if it was okay. But she said to ask you in the morning because you might be sleeping, but I knew you wasn’t sleeping because you like to stay up late and watch TV.”

Carter smiled. “You’re right. I do. It’s okay with me if you get a manicure tomorrow. I can pick you up at noon.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome, Ruby.”

“I’m going to go to sleep now. Mrs. Cameron said it’s not right for children to be up past ten
PM
.”

“Okay, baby. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Good night.”

“Good night.” He hit the button again, disconnecting. “She said she doesn’t need me. It’s her first time sleeping away from home and she’s not scared and she doesn’t want me to come get her and she doesn’t need me. I kind of feel like crying a little.” He grinned at her but there was a little bit of sadness in his eyes.

“She said she didn’t need you to get her. Not that she didn’t need you.” She kissed his cheek, knowing that she had been wrong earlier. She’d said she couldn’t fall any more in love with him. She had been wrong. Because she tumbled a little deeper into it tonight.

“Thank you for bringing me home, Carter.” She went to open the door but he stopped her.

“I don’t want to say good night yet, Bell.”

“And I don’t want to fall in love with you again.”

“So don’t.” She thought about saying no, about making excuses, but the truth was she didn’t want to say good night, either. She didn’t want to spend this night without him. “Stay with me tonight.”

She got out of the car and he was right behind her. She felt his warmth on her back, and she smelled the spicy scent of his aftershave as she fished around for the spare key she kept tucked behind her light.

“You shouldn’t keep a key there,” he scolded softly. “I don’t like you living by yourself. It’s irrational. I know this town is safe, but I can’t help but think that if something were to ever happen to you, it would be my fault because I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“I’m fine,” she said softly, feeling kind of choked up.

“I know.” He linked his fingers with hers as soon as she opened the door. “I still thought about you, though.”

She walked through her living room, past the couch, and they went directly upstairs to her bedroom. She couldn’t sit on the couch and pretend that this wasn’t the place they were both thinking of. He looked at her for a moment and then around her bedroom before stepping completely away from her.

“It’s nice here. I like your house. It feels like a home to me.”

“Really? I like it here, but it’s a little too cookie-cutter for me. Every unit in this complex is the same. I would like a house one day. One of those little cottages like they have on Lafayette Drive. They have so much character and not one of them looks the same.”

“I live on Lafayette,” he said absently. “One Thirty-Two. My place has plenty of character, but it doesn’t feel like home. I can tell so much about you by looking at this place.” He picked up a small picture frame that she had picked up at a gift shop in Nantucket. “I can tell that you like to travel and that you love your friends and that you lovingly handpick each thing you own. And even if none of it matches it somehow all oddly fits together.” He walked over to her and kissed her nose. “I missed that about you when we were together the last time. I was with you but I didn’t know you like this.”

“I didn’t let you know me. I was so busy trying to be perfect for you that I lost a little bit of myself. I had to go, Carter. You know that. If I hadn’t I would have ended up hating myself and you would have ended up hating me.”

He nodded. “Maybe. But we’re here together now.” He wrapped his strong arms around her. “Getting to know each other.” He kissed her. She felt him grow hard against her and just like that the sizzle they always had, the burning for each other, turned into fire. She gripped the back of his head, pulling him closer, taking steps backward toward the bed. Clothes were too much. They were bothering her. She wanted to feel his skin. She wanted to lose herself in him for a few blissful minutes.

He broke their kiss abruptly and gently set her away from him. “We’re going to sleep together tonight.”

“I know.” She reached for him. “Drop your drawers.”

“No. We’re going to sleep. That’s all, Bell.”

“What?” She shook her head bewildered. “Why?”

“Because it’s always sex with us. Even the first day we met. I want to prove to you that we can really be friends. That we can really get to know each other.”

She blinked at him.

“This is important to me, Bell. Please.”

She nodded. She could have refused. She could have sent him on his way. She could have seduced him. But she didn’t do any of that.

“I’m going to get ready for bed then.”

She went about her nightly rituals while he slipped out of his clothes and waited for her in bed.

She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and moisturized her skin, so aware that his eyes were on her. When she finished she slipped into bed beside him. As soon as his leg brushed hers she got a flashback to when they were first married, and those feelings of anticipation and excitement came over her. Back then, she couldn’t believe she had married him, that she’d found someone who had the power to make her feel so much. Things weren’t much different now. She still felt the rush, the anticipation, the wonderment.

She touched his dragon tattoo, trailing her fingers over its curved form and feeling the solidness of his chest.

“Tell me how you got this again.”

“Hmm?” He was looking at her through half-closed eyes, in that sleepy aroused way that always managed to turn her on. He took her fingers from his skin and kissed them. “I have a hard time paying attention when you’re touching me.”

“Your tattoo.” She pressed her lips to his pec and spoke against his skin. “I want to know how and why you got this one.”

He let out a slow breath. “You kissing me is only going to make this conversation more difficult.”

“Talk to me.” She smiled.

“It was a stupid reason really. I was eighteen. I had just come back from boarding school and I wanted to get the most badass tat I could think of. And this dragon seemed pretty gnarly at the time.”

“It looks like it hurt.” She kissed his tattoo, right on the dragon’s face.

“It hurt like a bitch and is ugly as hell.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Nope. It’s big and angry. It kind of represents how I felt back then.”

She touched the anchor on his bicep. “And what about this one? What does it represent?”

“My grandfather. He was in the navy. We were close, even though he lived in Connecticut most of the time. He used to come rescue me from school when I was a kid and take me to Mets games. He had money, but he wasn’t like my father. It was just a circumstance of life for him. He never let it dictate who he was. He was the most down-to-earth person I knew.”

“And you got this to honor him.” She kissed the anchor and then climbed on top of Carter. His eyes widened and he let out a short breath, but he didn’t stop her. Instead he ran his hands up her thighs.

“We’re not supposed to be having sex. We’re just spending time together.”

“I’m not having sex with you. We are spending time together. I’m just on top of you.”

“You’re not wearing any underwear.” He grinned lazily at her.

“Oh. I guess I could see how that could be troubling for you.” She stroked her hands up his sides, running her hand over the simple
R
tattoo. “This one is my favorite.”

“I got it when Ruby was still in the hospital. It was on a whim. I wanted her at my side. I was so afraid that she wasn’t going to make it that…”

She could see that he was getting emotional, so thoughtful and sweet, a side she’d seen only tiny glimpses of when they were together before. “You wanted to keep a piece of her with you.” She leaned over until their chests were touching, and took his face in her hands, just looking at him for a moment as she ran her thumbs over his cheeks. “I’m so glad you have her. She’s made you such a good man.”

“I miss you, Bell. I don’t want to do this without you anymore.”

She closed the distance between them and kissed him. She missed him, too. She wasn’t sure she could go back to life without him.

*   *   *

It was almost strange to be in bed after all these years. Strange to have her curvy body on top of his, strange to feel her gentle kiss on his mouth. They had been through so much since he came to Durant. So much anger and hurt that he almost couldn’t believe that she was willingly giving herself to him, that her guard was all the way down, that she was loving him again. He had missed her so much after she first left. His bed had felt empty. His house had felt empty. His chest. For weeks he couldn’t bring himself to change his sheets because her smell still lingered there. He had been too stupid to call her to go after her, too prideful. Too angry. He was so mad at Bethany and mad at Belinda and bewildered by Ruby that he felt like he was drowning. It was a bad time in his life; the only time that was worse was when he was sitting in the hospital with a baby he wasn’t sure was going to survive.

Now she was back in his life. In his arms, and for once he felt balance.

She broke their kiss, sitting up to pull her nightie off over her head. She was fully naked for him and even though they had been intimate many times since he had come here, he had never seen her fully undressed. He couldn’t help himself: He stared at her. The sight of her nude, straddling him, with her loose red hair falling over her shoulders was nearly enough to take him over the edge. He hardened even more.

And when he looked into her eyes he noticed that she was looking down at him shyly, a flush creeping up her cheeks.

“What is it?” He sat up, causing their chests to touch and her nipples to scrape against him. She closed her eyes at the brief contact, and he knew that she was just as aroused as he was.

“I’m nervous,” she admitted to him, her tongue coming out to lick her lips.

He kissed her quickly, unable to stay away from her mouth. The glimpse of her pink tongue made him want to lick the moisture from her lips. “Why are you nervous, baby? We’ve done this before. In fact we’re quite good at it.”

She grinned at him. “I don’t know. It feels like my first time all over again.”

“Oh, Bell.” He shook his head. “My first time was nowhere near as good as this. In fact, if I had a girl as sexy as you my first time, I could have died right there on the spot and been a very happy, very satisfied seventeen-year-old.”

“Carter…” She rested her head on his shoulder. “This feels important to me, like if we do this we can’t go back.”

He grabbed her face, pulling it up so that he could look in her eyes. “This is important and you’re right, we can’t go back. I don’t want to.”

He rolled them so that she was on her back. He buried his face in her neck, kissing her there as he ran his hands down her body. He didn’t want her nerves getting the best of her. He didn’t want her second-guessing them. She was his wife. They were meant to be together. He had to prove that to her.

“You have to trust me,” he whispered in her ear, before he lifted his face to look into her eyes.

She stared at him for a moment, a hundred emotions flashing through her eyes before she nodded. She didn’t trust him. Not yet. He hadn’t realized how much he had hurt her, but the fact that they were together in her bed was a step in the right direction. He just had to prove himself.

“Trust me.” He leaned down to kiss her and just before his lips met hers, she sighed, her body relaxing beneath him. “Let me make love to you tonight.”

“I always wanted you to.” She smiled again. “You’re the one who said you just wanted to sleep tonight.”

“Sometimes I can be a very stupid man,” he said as he moved down and bent to kiss her stomach. “But in my defense, you seduced me.”

“Seduced you? Me?”

“You got naked and climbed on top of me. You knew what you were doing.” He kissed her thigh, shifting her body so he lay between her legs, and then licked inside her. “I wanted to show you that it’s more than sex between us, that I want to be with you because you are you.” He licked inside her, deeper this time. She let out a sound that was in between a gasp and a groan. He groaned himself. She tasted sweet and familiar. He sucked on her nub, eliciting a cry of his name. He stayed there playing, taking his time, bringing her to the edge and then pulling back. She moved against him, panting, begging, cursing him. Each sound she made spurred him on.

“Please, Carter.” She lifted her head and looked down at him when he removed his lips. “I’m ready.”

His lips traveled up her body to her belly, where he dipped his tongue into her belly button. Her fingers curled into his hair and tugged.

He looked up at her, the slight pain making him pause and turning him on at the same time.

“Now. I want you. Now. Please.”

“It’s been four years. I want to take my time. Let me.” He shifted himself up her body a little more, stopping at her breasts. He covered one with his hand and tested the weight; the other he covered with his mouth. He tugged on one nipple with his teeth and rolled the other between his fingers.