Marriage With Benefits (11 page)

Her eyes were so dark, they were almost black. They met his with thirst in their depths. The evidence of her desire lanced through his gut.

Her mouth fit to his, pulling on his lips and sucking his tongue forward. A guttural moan wrenched free from his throat, and she absorbed it into the heat of her kiss. He flung his arms around her and bound her to his chest, desperate to keep her in place.

The things this woman did to him. It defied description. Thankfully, she’d agreed to exorcise this wicked draw between them by acting on it instead of pretending it didn’t exist.

Long dark hair fell into his face, trailing along his fevered skin, sensitizing it and begging for attention. He wound it up in a fist and guided her head to the side, lips following the line of her neck with fierce suction, laving her skin with his tongue, crazy with the craving to taste her.

Lime and coconut invaded his senses, both curse and cure, snaking through his head like a narcotic, heightening the wild lust.

Her body covered his, scalding breasts flat against his chest, her hands shoved in his hair, fingers sparking where she touched his scalp. One leg straddled him, opening her up. Her hips gyrated and tilted her center against his throbbing tip. Damp heat flared out, enveloping him, and his eyes glazed.

Now.
The keening scream exploded in his head as she dragged her slick center up the length of his erection.

“Wait,” he bit out, with no idea whether he was talking to her or his questing hips, which had a mind of their own.

He stretched out a hand to fumble with the drawer knob on the bedside table, shifting her center. Should have already had a foil packet under the pillow, top torn off. Fingers closed over the box and an eternity later, he unrolled the condom.

The second he was sheathed, Cia wiggled back into place atop him, nudged him once and impaled herself to the hilt with a feminine gasp.

His eyelids snapped shut as he filled her. His body shrieked to start pumping, but he forced himself to give her a minute to adjust.

Amazing. So tight. He pulsed as she stretched to accommodate him. Stretched perfectly, just enough, just right. Experimentally, she slid up and back down, rolling her pelvis, driving him home.

Home. A place for him. Only him.

He echoed her hip thrusts and heaviness built upon itself, spiraling higher and energizing him to move faster and faster.

“Lucas,” she breathed. “I… Will you, um, look at me? I like it when you watch me.”

He worked his lids open and greedily soaked in the visual perfection of the female form astride him. Why had his eyes been closed this whole time? The empowerment, the sheer magnificence, plastered across her face forced all the air from his lungs in a hard whoosh.

He’d done that for her. Unleashed her desire from its boundaries and allowed her free rein to take pleasure from his body, exactly as he’d insisted.

And she was taking it. Acknowledging it. Returning it tenfold. It was unbelievably hot.

Her torso undulated in a primal dance, nipples peaked and firm atop alabaster breasts. She threw her head back, plunging him deeper, and long hair brushed his thighs.

Sparkling pressure radiated from his groin. Willing it back, he clamped a hand on her thigh, trying to slow her wanton thrusts, but she bucked against him and the tightness shoved him to the very edge.

He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t wait for her.

But then she came apart and the shock waves blasted down his length, triggering his release. Their simultaneous climaxes fed each other, like oxygen to a flame, dragging out the sensations and flooding his whole body with warmth.

Flooding his body with something else, something nameless and heavy and powerful.

With a sated moan, she collapsed against him, nestling into the hollow of his shoulder, and he gripped her close, absorbing every last bit of warmth, too lost in the lush, thick haze of Cia to move. They were still joined, and he basked in a thrilling sense of triumph.

Only with him could Cia be like this.

Now would be an excellent time to put distance between them. But he couldn’t find the energy. Couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t all that interested in distance when he knew he should be. Never had sex been like that, a frantic and mindless rush toward completion.

Completion, not release. Even this—
especially
this—was bigger, stronger and more meaningful with Cia.

He’d proven something to himself, all right. Something earthshaking. Something fearsome. This wasn’t casual sex between two people. He’d been making love to his wife.

Nine

I
n the morning, Cia woke half-buried under Lucas, and it made her smile. One heavy arm pinned her to his chest and his legs tangled with hers, trapping her bottom against his abdomen. His heat at predawn was delicious, warming her sore and stretched body.

It had been a while. Since college, back when she’d still been convinced the right man’s love would heal her. All she’d done was prove sex didn’t equal love, and both were ingredients in the recipe to misery.

If her high school days had resembled most red-blooded Americans’, she might have figured out how to handle relationships then, instead of lumbering into her mid-twenties without a clue. Now she finally got it.

As long as she divorced sex from emotion and commitment, no problem. Divorce rocked.

She unscrambled their limbs without waking him and slipped out of bed to head for a much-needed hot shower. It probably wouldn’t have taken any effort at all to nudge Lucas into semiawareness and then take shameless advantage of him, but she was anxious to get to the shelter. A part of her hoped Pamela would still be there, but in her heart, she knew better. Regardless, the other women would need someone to talk to.

In no time, she dressed and tiptoed out of the bedroom she now shared with the sexy, slumbering man sprawled out across the bed.
Later,
she promised. No-strings-attached sex was the most awesome thing ever invented.

Pamela was indeed gone for good when Cia arrived at the shelter. The other women seemed dejected and upset. How self-centered was she for being in such a good mood, for shutting her eyes and savoring memories of the previous night? But she couldn’t help it and had to force herself to stop humming three times while handling the most unexciting tasks.

Since she’d stayed so late the night before and arrived at seven that morning, Cia elected to leave at three.

She should be wiped out, but as she drove home, her mind got busy with one topic only—seeing Lucas again as soon as possible. She couldn’t stop fantasizing about him. About the beyond-sexy trio of tattoos down the length of his torso and how she’d like to experiment on him a little to see how many times she could make him explode in a night.

Was it cool to call him and ask about his schedule? She’d almost sent him a text at least once every ten minutes, just to check in. Or say thanks for an awesome time last night. Or something else not so lame, but she had no idea about the rules when the person she was sleeping with was also her fake husband.

They’d done a lot of talking last night. But not once had Lucas mentioned what their relationship would look like going forward.

So frustrating. And ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she could casually ask Courtney the requisite number of days to wait before calling when the guy involved was Cia’s husband. As far as her friend knew, the marriage was still business only, and Cia wanted to get used to the change before admitting anything to anyone.

Besides, she and Lucas
still
weren’t dating. Maybe it was okay to let her spouse know she was into him. In a strictly hot for his body kind of way.

Once at home, she stopped in the kitchen to get a glass of water and drank it while standing at the sink. Before she could swallow the second mouthful, said spouse blew through the door, startling her into dropping the glass into the sink.

“What are you doing home?” she asked.

Lucas strode toward her in a dark suit, which encased his shoulders with perfection, and a dark, impossible-to-misread expression on his face. Raw masculinity whipped through the kitchen to engulf her a moment before the man did.

He caught her in his arms and kissed her, openmouthed, hungrily, working her backward until her butt hit the countertop’s edge.

She was trapped between hard granite and hard Lucas, and he was devouring her whole with his mouth. A whirlwind of desire kicked up in her center.

Dull thunks registered, and Lucas’s hands delved inside her shirt, yanking down her bra and palming her breasts. Buttons. He’d popped all the buttons on her shirt and they’d thunked to the floor.

Four seconds later, he stripped her. Then he tore off his jacket, ripped the rest of his clothes half off and boosted her onto the counter. Cold stone cooled her bare bottom and sizzled against her fevered core.

Less than five minutes after he’d walked in the door, he spread her legs wide and plunged in with a heavy groan.

She dropped into the spiral of need and hooked her legs behind him, urging him on. His mouth was everywhere, hot and insatiable. His thrusts were hard, fast. She met him each time, already eager for the next one. Pinpoints of sensation swirled and then burst as she came, milking his climax.

What happened to
slow down?

They slumped together, chests heaving, her head on his shoulder and his head on hers. She put her arms around him for support since her spine had been replaced with Jell-O.

“Um, hi,” she said, without a trace of irony. If this was what their relationship would look like going forward, the view agreed with her quite well.

“Hi,” he repeated, and she heard the smile in his voice.

“How was your day?”

He laughed and it rumbled against her abdomen. “Unproductive except for the last ten minutes. You distracted me all day. Don’t disappear tomorrow morning. I’d like to wake up with you.”

The explosive countertop sex had been hot, but the simplicity, the normalcy, of his request warmed her. “It’s not my fault you’re such a heavy sleeper. Set an alarm.”

“Maybe I will.” Carefully, he separated from her and trashed the condom. He helped her to the floor and gathered up her clothes, which he handed off, then began pulling on his own clothes with casual nonchalance. “I have another favor. I swear I was going to ask first but, darlin’, you have to stop looking at me like that when I come in.”

When his muscled, inked torso disappeared behind his ruined shirt, she sighed. Those tribal tattoos symbolized Lucas to a T—untamed, unexpected and thoroughly hidden beneath the surface. One of his many layers few people were aware existed, let alone privileged enough to experience. How lucky was she?

“You looked at me first.” Of course, he always looked at her like a chocoholic with unlimited credit at the door of a sweetshop. “What’s the favor? Do I get another dress out of the deal?”

He grinned and kissed her hand. “Of course. Except this time, I intend to take it off of you afterward.”

“Or during.” She shrugged and opted to toss her irreparable blouse in the trash. Lucas might end up buying her a new wardrobe after all, by default. “You know, if it’s boring and you happen to spy a coat closet or whatever.”

His irises flared with heat and zinged her right in the abdomen. “Why, Mrs. Wheeler, that is indeed a fine offer. I will surely keep it under advisement. Come with me and let’s see about your dress.”

Mrs. Wheeler.
He’d called her that before, and it was her official title, so it shouldn’t lodge in her windpipe, cutting off her air supply.

But it did. Maybe because she’d just been the recipient of a mind-blowing climax courtesy of Mr. Wheeler.

He took her hand and led her upstairs, where the couture fairies had left a garment bag hanging over her closet door. Her fake husband was a man of many, many talents, and she appreciated every last one.

“By the way,” Lucas said. “When I ran into the maid earlier, I told her we’d had a little misunderstanding about a former girlfriend, but you were noble enough to get past it. I hope that’s okay. Any excuse for why we weren’t sharing a bedroom is better than nothing, right?”

“More than okay. Perfect.” And not just the excuse. While she still basked in the afterglow of amazing sex, everything about Lucas was perfect.

The deep blue dress matched her eyes and eclipsed the red one in style and fit. Lucas leaned against the doorjamb of the bathroom, watching her dress with a crystalline focus and making complimentary noises. His attention made her feel beautiful and desired, two things she’d never expected to like.

Lucas Wheeler was a master of filling gaps, not creating them. Of giving, not taking. Ironic how she’d accused him of being selfish when trying to convince him to marry her.

As they entered the Calliope Foundation Charity Ball, a cluster of Wheelers surrounded them. Lucas’s parents, she already knew, but she met his grandparents for the first time and couldn’t help but contrast the open, smiling couple to Abuelo’s tendency to be remote.

Matthew joined them amid the hellos, and his cool smile reminded her she owed Lucas one asset of a wife. It was the very least she could do in return for his selflessness over the entire course of their acquaintance.

A room full of society folk and money and lots of opportunities to put her foot in her mouth were nearly last on her list of fun activities, right after cleaning toilets and oral surgery. But she kept her hand in Lucas’s as they worked the room; she laughed at his jokes, smiled at the men he spoke to and complimented their wives’ jewelry or dress.

There had to be more, a way to do something more tangible than tittering over lame golf stories and smiling through a fifteen-minute discourse on the Rangers’ bull pen.

“Are these clients or potential clients?” she asked Lucas after several rounds of social niceties and a very short dance with Grandfather Wheeler because she couldn’t say
no
when he asked so nicely.

“Mostly potential. As I’m sure you’re aware, our client list is rather sparse at the moment.”

“Is there someone you’re targeting?”

“Moore. He still hasn’t signed. Matthew invited another potential, who’s up here from Houston. George Walsh. He’s looking to expand, and if I’m not mistaken, he just walked in.”

If Walsh lived elsewhere, the Lana fiasco probably factored little in his decision process. “Industry?”

“Concrete. Pipes, foundations, that sort of thing. He’s looking for an existing facility with the potential to convert but wouldn’t be opposed to build-to-suit.” He laughed and shook his head. “You can’t be interested in all this.”

“But I am. Or I wouldn’t have asked. Introduce me to this Walsh.”

With an assessing once-over, he nodded, then led her to where Matthew conversed with a fortyish man in an ill-fitting suit.

Matthew performed the introductions, and Cia automatically evaluated George Walsh. A working man with calluses, who ran his company personally and preferred to get his hands dirty in the day to day. Now what?

Schmoozing felt so fake, and she’d never been good at it. Lucas managed to be genuine, so maybe her attitude was the problem. How could she get better?

Though it sliced through her with a serrated edge, she shut her eyes for a brief second and channeled her mother in a social setting. What would she have done? Drinks. Graciousness. Smiles. Then business.

Cia asked Walsh his drink preference and signaled a waiter as she chatted about his family, his hobbies and his last vacation. Smiling brightly, she called up every shred of business acumen in her brain. “So, Mr. Walsh, talk to me about the concrete business. This is certainly a booming area. Every new building needs a concrete foundation, right?”

He lit up and talked for a solid ten minutes about the weather, the economy and a hundred other reasons to set up shop in north Texas. Periodically, she threw in comments about Lucas and his commitment to clients—which in no way counted as fabrication since she had firsthand experience with his thoughtful consideration and careful attention to details.

Somehow, the conversation became more than acting as an asset to Lucas and enhancing his reputation, more than reciprocation for upholding his end of the bargain. She’d failed at drumming up donations for the shelter, despite believing in it so deeply. Here, she was a part of a partnership, one half of Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, and that profoundly changed her ability to succeed.

It reiterated that this marriage was her best shot at fulfilling her mother’s wishes.

“Did I do okay?” she whispered to Lucas after Matthew took Walsh off to meet some other people.

Instead of answering, he backed her into a secluded corner, behind a potted palm, and pulled her into his arms. Then he kissed her with shameless heat.

Helplessly, she clung to his strong shoulders as he explored every corner of her mouth. His strength and solid build gave him the means to do the only thing he claimed to want—to take care of her. It wasn’t as horrible or overbearing as she might have anticipated.

It was…nice. He understood her, what she wanted. Her dreams. Her fears. And they were partners. Who had amazing sex.

When he pulled back, the smile on his face took her breath.

“More than okay,” he said. “Are you angling to join the firm?”

“Well, my name
is
Wheeler,” she said in jest, but it didn’t seem as funny out loud. That was a whole different kind of partnership. Permanent. Real. Not part of the plan.

“Yes. It is.” He lifted her chin to pierce her with a charged look. The ballroom’s lighting refracted inside his eyes, brightening them. He leaned in, and the world shrank down to encompass only the two of them as he laid his lips on hers in a tender kiss. A kiss with none of the heat and none of the carnal passion sizzling between them like the first time.

It was a lover’s kiss. Her limp hands hung at her sides as her heart squeezed.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

“We have to find that coat closet. Now,” she hissed against his mouth. Sex. That’s all there was between them, all she’d allow. No tenderness, no affection, no stupid, girlie heart quivers.

His eyebrows flew up. “Now? We just got he— Why am I arguing about this?”

Linking hands, he pulled her along at a brisk trot, and she almost laughed at the intensity of his search for a private room. Around a corner of the hotel’s long hallway, they found an empty storage room.

Lucas held the door and shooed her in, slammed it shut and backed her against the wood, his ravenous mouth on hers.

The world righted itself as the hard press of his body heated hers through the deep blue dress. This, she accepted. Two people slaking a mutual wild thirst and nothing more.