Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (14 page)

At the reappearance of her stutter, his heart pinched. “Very much so.”

He smoothed a hand down the column of her slender neck and dipped his head to draw in her scent, stronger near the base of her earlobe. The hitch in her breathing stirred the rising ache between his legs.

He trailed his fingertips over the bare skin of her shoulder, and then pressed his lips to the spot. “If I do anything that pleases you, will you tell me?” With the tip of his tongue, he took a tiny taste of her skin.

“Th-that.” Her breath rushed over his skin. “I like that.”

Triumph tugged a smile from him. Her pleasure mattered to him more than he wanted. “What do you like? Tell me.”

“I like the way you touch m-me.”

His hands skimmed down the curves of her body to the exaggerated swell of her hips. “Where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

His cock jerked painfully and he swooped down to claim her mouth. She opened for him easily, eagerly, and his heart lightened. His hands found their way beneath the hem of her shirt, the flat of his palms smoothing over her silky skin and narrow ribcage. A gasp tore from her when his thumbs brushed over her pebbled nipples.

Breaking away, he dropped his head and pulled one nipple into his mouth through the fabric of her tank top.

She arched into his touch.

Her. I want her.

Whatever this was between them, she wanted it as much as he did. With a desperation that bordered on needy, he wanted her. He wanted to feel. He wanted to feel her wet heat wrapped around his cock.

He popped the button of her jeans. The soft scrape of her zipper as he lowered it roared through him. His fingers pulled back the waistband of her panties and slipped beneath.

Her breathing stopped, and then redoubled with short, shallow pants. Large round eyes fixated on his hand in her pants, willing it.

He pushed his fingers through the soft fuzz of her bush to her wet, swollen core. Her startled yelp slid into a throaty moan that carried the brutality of desperation.

For a moment, he feared she would retreat. Their game had gotten out of hand and—

She shifted her stance, parting her thighs for his touch.

Her
.

He had to have her. He
would
have her.

He stroked the folds of her sex, teasing and toying with her sensitive, puffy lips while she whimpered and rocked against his hand. Together, they drove toward something.

Climax, yes, but something more. Deeper.

His name was a moan falling from her lips, wrapped in a teardrop of uncertainty.

“What it is, sweetheart? Tell me.” His voice, thick with some unnamed emotion, snagged on the words. “Tell me anything.”

Tell me everything
.

“I need you to—” She gasped with her arousal. “I need you—”

A wayward strand of hair fell across her forehead and he pushed it back. With a small wrinkle between her brows, she stared at him with eyes glazed with lust. Lost to the sensation, she clutched his shoulders and swirled her hips.

The torture of her expanding pleasure was exquisite and heartbreaking.

“You need me to what?” He was desperate to understand.

She shook her head. “I need you.” Her head fell back and a moan vibrated in her throat. “That’s all. I need you. Only you.”

A moment of startled disbelief seared him, and then he knew only heat and hunger. The fire consumed him, overwhelmed him. Overrode him. He undid his fly and his heavy shaft bobbed free.

Her mouth formed a tiny O of surprise when she gazed at his erection. His cock jumped and he snatched her to him to suckle her luscious lips.

She wriggled under him, working her blue jeans down over her hips, and soon stood fully exposed to his touch. With a groan, he smoothed his hands over the rounded globe of her bottom and lifted. Her arms came around his neck and she slid down his body, until the head of his cock pushed at her entrance.

He pressed her back to the wall. Eye to eye, he drowned in whiskey. He tilted his hips, but a fraction inside, he came up against her tight passage. She shifted and he slipped deeper.

Sweet Jesus.

With his hands on her hips, he eased himself inside her. The little sounds originating in the back of her throat as her body adjusted to him almost sent him over the edge. Still, he nudged further into her secret center until he reached home.

The glory of finally reaching her tight wet heat leached the strength from his body. His head dropped to her shoulder. God, she was tight. So tight.

Then he started to pump his hips, only three delicious slides before she cried out and her sweet pussy quivered.

Her. He had her. Now. Forever.

Her tight passage clamped around him and her cry of release broke his heart while he pounded up into her. With every thrust, his knowledge of her deepened.

Her. Her. Her.

He shattered.

The last talons of numbness suffocating him the past six months burned away with the pureness of her orgasm. His world was gray and tasteless no more. Hadn’t been since Emily Cole burst into his life with a heart-tugging stutter and a hot-pink vibrator, and yanked him back into the world of the living.

Except, he didn’t want to be in the world again.

Anymore.

Ever.

He stumbled back.

He never lost control. Not like this. Not ever.

Certainly not over some woman.

His self-control was all he had. The only thing separating him from the delinquents and degenerates he faced every day.

The only thing that separated him from his dad.

“Luke? Are y-y-you okay?”

He couldn’t think for the ache in his chest. Was he having a heart attack? “I… this…”

What had he done? He’d just fucked Emily Cole. Emily fucking Cole.

He tucked himself back into his jeans and yanked up the zipper.

The blood left his head in a rush. He’d just fucked Emily Cole…

Without a condom.

Oh, shit.

With a ruthless shove, he buried his hands in his hair. He hadn’t done anything so reckless since he was thirteen years old and, at Noah’s urging, bleached his dark hair platinum blond using lime, as the ancient Celtic warriors had, for authenticity’s sake.

Now, he scooped Emily’s discarded blue jeans up off the floor and thrust them at her. “This shouldn’t have happened. I made a mistake.”

She drew back, her wide eyes filling with pain.

He didn’t care. He had to get away. Gulping for air, he shot out of her house like a convict from the Supermax.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t dare.

The right thing to do, and Luke always did the right thing, was to get away and stay away from her.

In his truck, he cranked the key in the ignition and the engine growled to life. He scrubbed a hand over his face, only to breathe in the intoxicating musk of her arousal, which lingered on his skin.

He balled his hand into a tight fist.

It was a momentary lapse in judgment. Nothing more. Just a mistake. A sweet mistake—the sweetest—but a mistake nonetheless.

But it wouldn’t happen again. Not if he wanted to stay on the right side of rock bottom. It couldn’t.

S
he couldn’t speak for his regret clogged in her throat, so rather than demand to know why he’d say something so cruel, she watched in mute frustration as he stormed from her house.

That night, she lay awake, replaying every detail of their lovemaking in her mind, trying to pinpoint exactly where it’d all gone wrong. Was it when they did it in her kitchen without any regard for being caught in the act by her houseguest, or cousin, or his brother? Or when they’d forgotten to use protection?

She may not have a lot of experience with men, but she had no excuse that might explain such an oversight. She had no one but herself to blame for that fact that such a special moment, her first orgasm with someone other than herself, had left her feeling rejected and dejected.

She flopped onto her side.

Had she really expected anything other than confusion and disappointment? Though oh-so-tempting, Luke Nolan was a billion light years out of her league. She’d known it the moment she laid eyes on his too-beautiful face a year ago. Pleasant to look at, but not for her.

Okay, pleasant was a bit of an understatement. Seriously, who looked like that? So perfectly perfect and symmetrical? She should’ve known not to dally with him. He shone bright like the sun, and lingering too long in his presence only guaranteed a blistering sunburn.

With a hearty kick, she thrashed onto her other side.

The most troubling part? She didn’t care that he regretted it, she didn’t. She couldn’t regret the white-hot anarchy rioting through her veins with his touch, or the way he watched her when she came, with naked, unrepentant hunger.

He’d stolen her peace, and her sleep. Near dawn, she gave up and, throwing back the covers, climbed from bed. When she sat at the island stirring a heap of sugar into her mug, a noise at the door tipped her off to his arrival a moment before he burst back into her life.

Her heart hummed, the stupid thing, and so the words dropped out of her mouth unfiltered. “You’re back.”

His gaze didn’t quite manage to connect with hers. “Good news. Ms. Beardsley had a friend visiting.”

She blinked with bafflement, finding it difficult to think clearly with his presence suddenly filling the room.

A humorous tilt curved his mouth. “Her friend brought her grandson with her.”

“Grandson?” A surge of hope stirred in Emily. “A ten-year-old?”

“Eleven.” The tension in his shoulders eased a bit. “But he’s our culprit. Confessed to the whole sordid affair.”

Relief swept away her nervous tension.

Until green eyes locked on her face, his symmetrical features carefully blanked.

Dread prickled up her spine.

With the appearance of a man sentenced to a life term, he crossed to the counter opposite where she sat on the edge of her barstool, laid his palms flat on the countertop, and captured her gaze with his. “We need to talk about what happened.”

Oh, no. Please, no.

“Emily, I’m sor—”

“Don’t.” The gash on her heart might never heal from all he’d said already.

He held her gaze while the moment stretched out, growing tight and thin.

Until she snapped. “It’s m-my fault, really. I thought you were ready for an advanced lesson, but clearly I misjudged.”

Relief swept over his face. “Em—”

“I forgot how inexperienced y-y-you are. I should’ve been upfront about what’s going on between us.”

A slow grin thawed the last of his cool expression. “What’s going on between us?”

“We’re just having fun.” She meant for the ruse to deflect his apologies and regrets, but it twisted back around instead and pierced her heart with a poison-tipped reality dagger. She scowled. “Well, w-we
were
having fun, until you r-ruined it.”

In truth, she had no clue what was going on between them, but she’d have taken as much or as little as he was willing to give her. She wasn’t proud of the fact that, if given the choice between nothing or a kiss, or a touch, or one of those warm, lingering looks from him, she’d have chosen the latter without hesitation. No silly schoolgirl notion of promises and futures required.

If given a choice, she’d have chosen him.

If he’d only asked.

Which he didn’t.

Instead, he lanced her with a look. “We need to talk about what happened.”

The rush of heat burned her cheeks. “It’s okay.” She swallowed the tightening lump in her throat. “It’s n-n-not the right time for me.”

That was if, based on last night’s panicky Internet research, she’d calculated her monthly cycle correctly, but the deep lines bracketing his eyes and mouth had eased with her words, so she buried her doubts.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His gentle tone tugged at her insides, though she had no idea what he was really asking.

She changed the subject. “You don’t need to cook breakfast. The muffins from yesterday are still good.”

One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “Are you firing me?”

“Giving you the day off.”

He pushed away from the counter and went to the refrigerator. “I’m already here.”

She gritted her teeth. “He doesn’t even eat your food.”

“Yeah, but you do.”

“Don’t you have a real job terrorizing innocent people?”

“I’m on the night shift this week.”

He’d been there by 7:00 a.m. the past two days. “Don’t you sleep?”

He cracked open an egg and the runny guts dribbled into a bowl. “Not so much.”

A weary pall stole over him while he stared into the bowl, lightly whipping the eggs.