Sweet Disgrace (9 page)

Gently, he traced a finger across her cheek, over her lovely, still swollen lips. “But I’m looking forward to only negotiating what movie we’re going to watch or what we’re going to eat for dinner every night.”

“Or which drapes complement the sofa, or which tile to get for—”

“Okay, I give, I’ll leave all that stuff up to you. I’ll never win.” He eased over and drew her against him, cradling her in his arms. She snuggled sweetly against him, her head resting under his chin.

“Are you still going by your name? No offense, but it’s sort of dramatic.”

“I have many names—” A sharp pinch in his side caused him to yelp. He had to try to restrain both her hands as she continued to pinch and tickle him, but she was a nimble little thing. She ended up straddling him, pinning his hands down. Be damned if his cock didn’t respond to the damp rub of her pussy against his lower belly. She gave him a feral grin as he laughed. “Easy, woman. Damn.”

“Oh,
please
. Henceforth, consider yourself punished for any demonic statements, actions or proclivities. I’ll have a hard enough time as it is convincing them to let you past the gates when the time comes.”

“I’m entirely in your hands, sweet angel.” He stared up at her, taking the measure of her lovely face. Her hair cascaded in silken spirals around him, her eyes twinkled. Every time he looked at her was almost like seeing her for the first time again. And yes, he remembered the exact moment that was. “It’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.”

She leaned down to kiss him, her wicked smile turning sweet. “From now on, it’s the only place you’ll ever be.”

About the Author

To learn more about Cherrie Lynn, please visit
www.cherrielynn.com
. Send an email to Cherrie at
[email protected]
. She loves hearing from readers!

Look for these titles by Cherrie Lynn

Now Available:

Unleashed

Rock Me

Loving him couldn’t be worse than losing him… Could it?

Rock Me

© 2010 Cherrie Lynn

Candace Andrews has had enough of pleasing others. In an act of birthday rebellion, she sets out to please herself—by walking into the tattoo parlor owned by her cousin’s ex-boyfriend. All she wants is a little ink, and Brian’s just the guy to give it to her.

As soon as she submits to his masterful hands, though, the forbidden attraction she’s always felt for him resurfaces…and she realizes the devilishly sexy artist could give her so much more.

Sweet, innocent Candace is the last person Brian expected to see again. She’s everything he’s not, and her family despises him. He doesn’t need the hassle, but he needs
her
, and this time no one is taking her away. Not even those who threaten to make his life a living hell.

Backed into a corner, Candace faces the worst kind of choice. Cave in to those who think Brian is a living nightmare…or hold her ground and risk it all for the one man who rocks her world.

Warning: This book contains explicit sex, naughty language, tattoos aplenty, family drama, a hot rock concert…and a bad boy hero who’s pierced in all the right places.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Rock Me:

Candace closed her eyes as Brian’s finger traveled gently up her nape, raising gooseflesh on her arms. “Maybe you had a point, as far as how my parents are going to react to you. Maybe it’ll always be that way.”

“Does it have to be?”

“How else could it ever be? There’s no changing my situation.”

“Sweetie, there’s no way to say this without sounding condescending, but you’re young. Right now this is all you can see, but trust me, this won’t always be your reality. Pretty soon you’ll be able to make your own way in the world no matter what they think.”

“You don’t know them very well, do you,” she said flatly.

He cupped the back of her neck in his hand, bringing his other over to tilt her chin toward him, trapping her for the kiss she knew was coming if she didn’t do something fast. But he just held her that way, stroking her cheek with his thumb, his gaze searching hers as if all the answers were inside her somewhere.

If only that could be the truth.

“I don’t. But I think I have a pretty good handle on
you
. You’re going to be okay.”

He stared at her so intently. His eyes were a dark, turbulent ocean, and she wanted to drown in it. Suddenly she became aware of the aching fullness of her lips and the weight of her breasts pushing against her bra.

This skirt was so short, and she’d chosen it for that reason alone, but maybe it had been a huge mistake. Reaching under it
and
her black G-string would take absolutely no effort on his part. Not good, though she wanted that so, so badly, she couldn’t resist rubbing her bare thighs together as his gaze continued to melt through all of her defenses.

Just when he knew she was about to go up in flames or melt right there in his truck, he leaned in. Warm lips slanted over hers as a breathless cry rushed from her mouth into his. She brought up her hands, clenching his shirt in her fists as his tongue stole past her teeth and plundered her mouth. His was the kiss she had dreamed of all her life, deep and somehow as fierce as it was gentle. It opened the gates to a flood of emotion and erotic sensation that had her almost writhing against the seat.

His hand finding her breast seemed the most natural thing in the world. Even through two frustrating layers of fabric, she could feel his heat as he palmed her and circled the tight bud of her nipple with his thumb, forcing it to pull even tauter. When he pinched it, she moaned into his mouth, clasping his wrist in her hand. But not to stop him. To make sure he didn’t stop. The little jolts of pleasure/pain sent lightning zipping all through her body, striking at the juncture of her thighs. Her skimpy underwear was no barrier to the growing wetness there. She began to fear making a mess on his seats.

She pulled away from his mouth to breathe, and he attacked her throat with his lips, his heavy breathing the sexiest sound she had ever heard. He was shuddering as hard as she was. His teeth raked her throat and an involuntary “Oh” slipped out before she could stop it. It seemed to only enflame him further, and he plunged a hand under her top, pushing up the cup of her bra as he finally brought his fingers flesh-to-feverish-flesh with her aching nipple.

She had no anchor, nothing to buffer her from these insane sensations. The worry of getting caught was only a minor flicker in the back of her mind…they were in the back of the lot, it was dark, and his windows were tinted. She turned into him as much as she could, trying to bring her right leg over his, to straddle him. If he would only pull her into his lap so she could grind against him…

He got the hint. Almost before she could cry out in frustration, he pulled his hand out of her shirt and plunged it beneath her ass, yanking her hard over him as if she weighed nothing. The new position, legs splayed over him, pushed her skirt the rest of the way up over her hips. She was bare except for a scrap of fabric he could easily rip. Instead, he ran both hands down the small of her back, allowing his fingers to become entangled in the strings as he cupped both her bare cheeks in his palms.

“Jesus Christ, Candace,” he groaned, leaning his forehead against her shoulder as his hands massaged, soothed, played and tantalized. It felt so good, so good…

“Oh, God.” The words were a shuddery sigh. Spread open this way, with his fingers only inches away. “Please.”

“Please what?”

She ground her pelvis into him hard, so that her clit barely rasped across the fabric of his jeans. She couldn’t get close enough. His hands continued tormenting her, squeezing her ass, tugging her panties, but making no move to address the need burning hot and wet at her center. “Touch me.”

“Where? Let me hear you say it.”

He didn’t have to ask twice, but her mouth—so squeaky clean until she’d started hanging out with him—tripped over the word she didn’t think she’d ever uttered out loud in her entire life. “My…pussy.”

Pressed cheek-to-cheek with him, she felt him smile. He ran one fingertip lightly down the crease of her bottom, reaching under her until he found the source of all her torment. His other hand wandered up to her breast again, still bare under her shirt.

She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and sobbed as two of his fingertips trailed through her wetness, finding her entrance and nestling there until she wiggled and pushed down against him. He evaded her, chuckled maddeningly. She was caught, and it was torture. Did she push back and give him easier access to her slick channel, or lean her hips into his and grind her clitoris against him?

“Hasty little thing. I’ve got to teach you to slow down and savor this.”

She didn’t want to savor it. Not now. He couldn’t understand. She’d denied herself this for so long, too long. She’d bought this skimpy freaking underwear dreaming of the day some guy would rip it off her in crazed lust. Her pent-up frustration had her running in the red, and she was about to burn down.

He had mercy on her, snuggling his fingers into her tight passage as she let her head fall back, groaning as loudly as he did. He withdrew and reentered, slicking through her, soothing the sting that was briefer and much less intense than it had been last night. She rocked her hips gently against his hand, bringing her head forward again to kiss him and struggling to open wider to his invasion of both her mouth and her pussy. He thrust his tongue between her lips in the same rhythm that his fingers plundered her body, and she nearly flew apart. “Ohhh, Brian.”

His answering sigh formed into the most beautiful words she’d ever heard. “Candace. Come home with me right now and I’ll give you everything you need, sugar. Everything you want. If it takes all night.” His fingers plunged deep, as if to show her exactly what he meant, and she cried out.

But Samantha’s earlier words were somehow filtering through her frenzied thoughts, making her want to scream.
Make him sweat
. Then Macy’s, telling her how insane she was. Her mother’s haughty, disapproving face.

Michelle’s expression softening with yearning and traveling a million miles away at the memories of him.

All at once, she was barraged with all the voices of reason in her life, every one in direct opposition to what her body was begging her to do right now.

“I can’t,” she whispered, pulling away from his lips to cram her face into his neck. Praying he would understand, but that he wouldn’t stop. Selfishly trying to claim what she couldn’t have.

“I feel how wet you are,” he murmured sinfully in her ear. “How much you need this. To hell with everyone else. Let me give you what you need.” His tongue flickered against the soft shell, and she moaned as his talented fingers continued to work their magic. But he was slowing his pace, touching her too shallowly, holding her teetering on the edge of a devastating orgasm. Trying to make her give in. And she couldn’t. “No one has to know,” he cajoled.

“Please don’t do this to me,” she cried, fearing the dam stopping up her emotions was about to burst. She couldn’t let it, couldn’t do this. And Brian froze, pulling his hands away from her as if she’d seared him.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they might just make the perfect match.

The Matchmakers

© 2009 Jennifer Colgan

Nick Garret is flypaper for females, and he likes it that way. Women stick for a while, and when it’s over they fly away. So does he. Then one rain-slick night a young woman steps in front of his pickup truck, and his jaded, cynical life takes a sharp swerve toward trouble.

Calliope did the only thing she could think to get Nick to steer his truck—and his life—in a new direction. Banished from the Fae realm for granting a wish gone bad, her punishment is an impossible task; redeem the unredeemable Nick Garret. If she fails to help him pair three couples in everlasting bliss, he’s doomed to never experience real love. And she will share his fate—as a mortal.

Nick can’t decide if this charming, exasperating woman is a dream come true, or a saucy, sexy nightmare sent to drive him insane. Yet something about her makes him want to rise to her challenge. He’ll do anything to make her stick around a while.

Besides, how much trouble can one half-naked, seemingly wingless faerie be?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Matchmakers:

Nick stole glances at his passenger while he followed the winding mountain roads toward the state forest. The views from the Appalachian foothills were spectacular this time of year, and he’d been itching to get out in the cool autumn air and fill his lungs with freedom.

Unfortunately, the view in the car was equally distracting. Callie had traded her pink satin pajamas for faded jeans and hiking boots. Under a matching denim jacket, she wore a fluffy sweater the color of caramel. It looked soft as a kitten, and Nick’s fingers ached to touch it.

He’d asked himself over and over why he wanted to do this—why he wanted to be with her today. The easy answer was, why not? She was beautiful, vivacious and when she wasn’t driving him crazy, she left him breathless. Loony or not, she was nice to look at and maybe, if he could figure out how to draw her out, he’d learn a little more about her. He needed a better explanation as to why she seemed more and more like a magical creature and less and less like an escaped mental patient.

“Oh look! Pumpkins!”

Nick smiled at her delighted cry. Mounds of brilliant orange pumpkins, some plain and others painted with goofy neon faces, spilled over wooden tables and out of huge crates at a roadside stand. A rocky gravel lot served as a parking area, and Nick pulled in between another pickup and an SUV.

“They’ve got cider. I haven’t had cider in years,” he said as he rounded the back of the truck and helped Callie out.

She breezed past him and immediately wrapped her arms around a twenty-pound pumpkin, hugging it like a long lost friend. “Look at this one! He’s beautiful.”

“It looks like all the other ones, only bigger.”

“It’s perfect for a centerpiece for the bar.”

“Oh. Can’t Farley get his own pumpkins? He hasn’t even agreed to have the party yet.”

Her face fell, and once again, Nick felt like a monster. Why did her smile suddenly mean so much to him? He thumped the pumpkin’s unblemished hide and reached for his wallet. Callie rewarded him with a triumphant grin as she hauled the huge gourd off its table.

Nick pulled out his wallet and paid for the pumpkin and two cups of fresh cider. He leaned against the truck, grinning into his cup while Callie hoisted her prize into the back of the flat bed.

She glared at him when he handed her the cider. “You could have helped.”

He shook his head. “You could’ve popped that thing back to the apartment or right to the bar.”

“Not in front of everybody,” she whispered between sips of cider.

Nick shrugged. “You could’ve made it weigh less.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out. Her expression told him he’d pay for his cheeky comments later, and he relished the challenge.

They finished their cider in silence and climbed back in the truck. Callie immediately twisted around in her seat to check on their new passenger. “Will he be all right back there?”

“He?”

“It’s a male pumpkin.”

“Of course. Pumpkins have gender?”

“Everything has an essence that defines its sex.”

Nick struggled not to laugh. Her serious expression forbade it. “I see. It’ll—
he’ll
be fine. Are you sure you don’t want to buy him a lady friend before we go?”

“I’m sure.”

Nick just shook his head. Faerie logic would be the death of him yet.

The morning’s destination was a scenic overlook abutted by a crumbling, moss-covered stone wall. The view rivaled anything visible in the Fae realm and made Callie homesick. She shivered in the autumn breeze. Nick put his own jacket around her shoulders, and her heart thumped wildly.

“It’s colder than I expected up here.” He stood close, and Callie leaned into his warmth, wishing for the endless summer of her world. “There’s the road back to Bayerville. If you look past that farm and along the tree line, you can see the hiking trail that leads to the skating pond.”

Callie followed Nick’s tour of the fiery landscape lit with brilliant gold and orange foliage. Country traffic meandered along thin ribbons of road that wound through the hills. Here and there, the familiar shapes of grazing horses and cows dotted the hillsides, and not a single cloud interrupted the endless blue of the October sky.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, fighting to keep her voice light. “It reminds me of home.”

“What’s your world like? Do the seasons change?”

“Not like they do here. We have a time when the leaves change color and a time when the flowers bloom, but it never becomes unbearably hot or cold. We don’t get rain…unless we want to create some. It never gets dark.”

Nick surveyed the land spread out before them. “Rain isn’t so bad. Sometimes it can be…sort of comforting.”

“You love it here, don’t you?”

Nick seemed reluctant to answer, but Callie felt his thoughts. He wanted this to be his home, but he didn’t want to need it so badly.

“It’s nice here. It’s nice in a lot of places I’ve been.”

“You love open space. You hated the time you spent in the cities, didn’t you?”

He nodded, snaking his arm around Callie’s waist, making her stomach flutter. “I hate smog. Traffic. Subways.”

“I bet you love snow, don’t you?”

He grinned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Snow is nice. It’s a little too cold for me. What else do you love?”

“I love sleeping in hammocks and cold lemonade and…”

“What else?”

His eyes narrowed on her, and she sensed his discontent. “I can see right through you, Tinkerbell. This is some kind of lesson, isn’t it?”

Callie feigned innocence. “I just want to know more about you.”

“I hate mind games and psychobabble.”

Callie pulled away from him, though she was reluctant to leave the safe circle of his arms. “It’s not a game, Nick. When love is gone—it’s all gone. You’ll lose it all.”

“I said I’d help you with this mission of yours—”

“It’s for both of us, Nick. Not just me. I want you to understand that.”

“I’m trying.” He stepped forward and tilted her chin up with his fingers. “Tell me what you love.”

His lips hovered close to hers, and Callie’s breath caught. She could kiss him now and make him feel something he wouldn’t want to lose. But that wasn’t her mission. She moved back just enough to break the hypnotic pull between them.

“I love helping people fall in love. And I don’t want to lose that.”

The rest of the day passed in a blur of crimson leaves and blue sky. They drove through the forest and back and had dinner in a small café that sold hand-churned ice cream and dusty antiques.

Nick stayed close to Callie, aware of the glances of other men and feeling proprietary. By the time they returned home, the buzz of arousal had replaced the light mood of their afternoon.

He followed her up the stairs and hesitated before unlocking the door. “Did you have a good time today?”

“I did. Maybe we can do this again sometime before…”

“Before what?”

“Before I go.”

“We don’t have to think about you going right now, do we?”

“No.”

He centered his gaze on her lips, pink and moist, still sweet from the peach ice cream he’d bought for her. He wanted a taste, and the sleepy-sultry look in her green eyes told him she did too.

He leaned in, his fingers creeping up under her jacket. A second later his lips nearly collided with the doorframe, and his hands closed on empty air. He caught himself before he stumbled, face first, through the door as she opened it from the inside.

“Hi, Nick.”

“What was that about?” He leaned one arm above her head on the doorframe. “I almost kissed a brick.”

“I’m sorry about that, but we’re not here to fool around.”

“I wasn’t fooling.”

“Nick.” She put a soft finger across his lips and leaned close. The faint smell of roses teased him. “No distractions.” She turned and walked into the apartment, disappearing into the kitchen.

Nick watched her go. He’d been shot down before, not often, of course, but there were certain women on which the Garrett charm just didn’t work. Somehow, his borrowed intuition told him Calliope was not one of them. He’d seen desire in her eyes, felt it each time their fingers touched. Something held her back, though, and he vowed to figure out what it was. He needed to uncover all her secrets, and he wasn’t going to let her disappear without knowing exactly what she was all about.