A Beaumont Christmas Wedding (8 page)

“Oh,”
she gasped. “Oh, Matthew.”

“Do you like it,” he growled against her chest.

“Yes.”

“Louder.” He thrust harder.

“Yes—
Oh!
” She gasped again—he was— She was going to—

He rocked against her again, in time with his teeth finding the spot between her shoulder and neck. He bit down and rubbed and—and—

“Oh yes, oh yes,
oh yes
!” she cried out as he pinned her back against the wall and held her up as she climaxed.

“Kiss me back,” he told her, his forehead resting against hers. He was still cupping her bottom in his hands, but instead of the possessive squeezing, he was now massaging her. The sensation was just right.
He
was just right. “Always kiss me back.”

So she kissed him, even as the climax ebbed and her body sagged in his arms. She kissed him with everything she had, everything she wanted.

Because she wanted everything. Especially a man who put her first.

“Tell me what you want,” he said. Already his hips were moving again, the pressure between her legs building. “I want this to be perfect for you. Tell me everything you want.”

She cupped his cheeks in her hands. “Perfect?”

He gave her a look that started out as embarrassed but quickly became wicked. “Do you doubt me?”

After that orgasm? For heaven’s sake, they were still fully clothed! What was he capable of when they were naked?

She grinned at him, feeling wicked in her own right. “Prove it.”

Nine

“O
h, I’ll prove it,” Matthew told her. He hefted her up again. Then they were moving. He carried her through the house. He knew where they were going—his old room. If he didn’t get all these clothes off them and bury himself in her body soon, he might just explode.

She wasn’t helping. True, she didn’t weigh very much and, since he was carrying her, she didn’t trip or stumble into him. But the way she busied herself by scraping her teeth over his earlobe? He was going to lose it. Him, who was always in control of the situation. Of himself.

She’d stripped that control away from him the moment she’d walked into his life.

“This is my old room,” he told her when they got to her door. He managed to get the door open. Then he kicked it shut.

Then he laid her out on the bed. Normally, he took his time with women. He was able to keep a part of himself back—keep a certain distance from what he was doing, what they were trying to do to him. Oh, they enjoyed it—he did, as well—but that level of emotional detachment was important somehow. He didn’t know why. It just was.

Besides, being detached made it easier to make sure the women he was with were getting what they wanted from him.

But seeing Whitney on his old bed? Her hair was mussed now, her red lipstick smudged. She was no longer the perfect beauty he’d tentatively—yes, detachedly—kissed in the salon.

She was, however, his. His for right now. And he couldn’t hold back.

He stripped off his coat while she tried to wriggle out of her jeans. Then, just as he had his sweater over his head, she kicked him in the stomach.

“Oof,” he got out through clenched teeth. He stepped out of range and jerked the sweater the rest of the way off.

“Sorry! Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Whitney lay on her back. She had one leg halfway out of her jeans, the other stuck around the ankle. “I didn’t— I wasn’t trying to— Oh,
damn
.”

He caught the jeans, now practically inside out, and yanked them off her. Then he climbed onto the bed. Her blush was anything but pale or demure. An embarrassing red scorched her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking as if she might start crying.

He straddled her bare legs as he pinned her wrists by her head. “None of that,” he scolded her. “Nervous?”

She dropped her gaze and gave him a noncommittal shrug.

“Look at me,” he told her. “Do you still want to do this?”

She didn’t look. “I’m such a klutz. I’m sorry I kicked you.”

“
Look
at me, Whitney,” he ordered. When she didn’t, he slid her wrists over her head so he could hold them with one hand and then he took her by the jaw and turned her face to his.

There was so much going on under the surface. She was trying to hide it by not looking at him, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Apology accepted. Now forget it happened.”

“But—”

He cut her off with a kiss, his hand sliding down her neck. “One of the things I like about you is that you get clumsy when you’re nervous. It’s cute.”

Defiance flashed over her face. Good. “I don’t want to be cute.”

“What do you want?”

She sucked in a tiny breath—and was silent.

Oh, no, you don’t
, he thought. He snaked his hand down her front and then up under her sweater until he found her breast.

God, what a breast. Full and heavy and warm—and so responsive. Even through her bra, her nipple went to a stiff point as he teased her. “Is that what you want?”

She didn’t answer. Not in words. But her breathing was faster now, and she’d tucked her lower lip into her mouth.

What control he had regained when she’d kicked him started to fray like a rope. He rolled her nipple between his finger and thumb. Her back arched into him, so he did it again, harder. “Is that what you want?”

She nodded.

“Say it,” he told her. “Say it or I will tie you to this bed and
make
you say it.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he wondered where they’d come from. He didn’t just randomly tie people up. He wasn’t into that kinky stuff. And when he’d dreamed of making it with Whitney Wildz, well, hell, back then, he hadn’t even known people did that sort of thing.

But she didn’t reply. Her eyes got huge and she was practically panting, but she didn’t utter a word.

Then she licked her lips. And he lost his head.

Challenge accepted.

He let go of her breast and pulled her up, then peeled her sweater off her. The bra followed. She said nothing as he tore her clothes off, but when he kissed the side of her breast, when he let his tongue trace over her now-bare shoulder, she shuddered into him.

He couldn’t stop whatever this was he’d started. He’d made her cry out in the entry hall. He’d make her do it again. He wrenched his tie off, then looped it around her wrists. Not tight—he didn’t want to hurt her. But knowing her, she’d hit him in the nose with her elbow and nothing ruined some really hot sex like a bloody nose.

The tie secure around her wrists, he loosely knotted it to the headboard. Then he got off the bed.

Whitney Maddox was nude except for a thin pair of pale pink panties that looked so good against her skin. Her breasts were amazing—he wanted to bury his face in them and lick them until she cried his name over and over.

And she was tied to his bed.

Because she’d let him do that. Because she’d
wanted
him to do that.

He’d never been so excited in his life.

He stripped fast, pausing only long enough to get the condom out of his wallet. He rolled it on and then went to her. “I want to see all of you,” he said, pulling her panties down. She started to lift her legs so he could get them off her ankles, but he held her feet down. “I’m in charge here, Whitney.”

He trailed a finger down between her breasts, watching her shiver at his touch. Finally,
finally
, she spoke.

“I expect perfection.”

“And that’s what you’ll get.”

He climbed between her legs and stroked her body. She moaned, her head thrashing from side to side as he touched her.

He couldn’t wait much longer. “You okay?” he asked. He wanted to be sure. They could play this little game about making her say it, but he also didn’t want to hurt her. “If it’s not okay, you tell me.”

“This is okay. This is...” She tried to shift her hips closer to his dick. “Am I...am I sexy?”

“Oh, babe,” he said. But he couldn’t answer her, not in words. So he fit his body to hers and thrust in.

“Matthew!” she gasped in the same breathless way she’d cried his name in the hall.

“Yeah, louder,” he ground out as he drove in harder.

“Matthew!” she cried again. Her legs tried to come off the bed, and she almost kneed him in the ribs.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he told her as he grabbed her legs and tucked them up under his arms. Then he leaned down into her.

She was completely open to him, and he took advantage of that in every way he knew how—and a few he didn’t even know he knew.

“Is this what you want?” he demanded over and over.

“Yes.” Always, she said yes.

“Say it louder,” he ordered her, riding her harder.

“Yes! Oh, Matthew—
yes
!”

There was nothing else but the moment between when he slid out of her body and drove back in. No thoughts of family or message or public image. Nothing but the woman beneath him, crying out his name again and again.

Suddenly her body tensed up around his. “Kiss me,” she demanded. “Kiss me!”

“Kiss me back,” he told her before he lowered his lips to hers.

Everything about her went tight as she kissed him. Then she fell back, panting heavily.

Matthew surrendered himself to her body. He couldn’t fight it anymore.

Then he collapsed onto her chest. Her legs slid down his, holding him close. He knew he needed to get up—he didn’t want to lose the condom—but there was something about holding her after what he’d done to her...

Jesus—had he really tied her up? Made her cry out his name? That was...something his father would have done.

“Can you untie me now?” she asked, sounding breathless and happy.

Focus
, he told himself. So he sat back and undid the tie from the headboard. He’d really liked that tie, too, but he doubted it’d ever be the same.

He started to get out of bed to get cleaned up and dressed, but she sat up and tackle-hugged him so hard it almost hurt. But not quite. After he got over his momentary shock, he wrapped his arms around her.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “It was...”

“Perfect?” He hoped so, for her sake.

At that, she leaned back and gave him the most suggestive smile he’d ever seen. He could take her again. He had another condom. He could loop his demolished tie back through the headboard and...

“I’m not sure. We might have to do it again later. Just to have a point of comparison, you understand.” Then a shadow of doubt crossed her face. “If you wanted to,” she hurried to add.

He pulled her back into his arms. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot. You were amazing. Except for the kicking part.”

She giggled, her chin tucked in the crook of his neck. He grabbed one of her wrists and kissed where he’d had it bound.

Then, from the floor, his phone chimed Phillip’s text message chime.

And the weight of what he was supposed to be doing came crushing back down on him.

Why was he lolling away the afternoon in bed with Whitney? This was not the time to be tying people up, for crying out loud. He had a wedding to pull off—a family image to save.

An image that was going to be a whole hell of a lot harder to save when Byron got done with it.

Matthew had to keep the wheels from falling off. He had to take care of the family. He had to prove he was one of them. A Beaumont.

Then Whitney kissed his jaw. “Do you need to go?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay here, wrapped up with her. He wanted to say to hell with the wedding, the message—he didn’t care. He’d done the best he could.

He cared about Whitney. He shouldn’t—her old image was going to keep making headaches for him and it’d been only twenty-four hours since he’d met her.

But that didn’t change things.

And yet it changed everything.

The phone chimed again. And again. Different chimes.

It sounded as though Byron had pulled his stunt.

“I’ve got to go bail out Byron,” he told her. “But I’ll see you soon.” He got off the bed, trashed the condom and got dressed as fast as he could. By now his phone sounded like a bell choir.

“When?” She sat on the bed, her knees tucked up under her chin. Except for the part where she was completely nude—or maybe because of it—there was an air of vulnerability about her.

“Lunch, tomorrow. You’ve got to choose where you want to have the bachelorette party. I’ll take you to all the places I’ve scouted out.” He picked up his phone. Jeez, that was a lot of messages in less than five minutes. “What a mess,” he muttered at his phone. “I’ll get you at eleven—that’ll give you time with Jo and it’ll give me time to fix this.”

He leaned down and gave her a quick, hard kiss. Then he was out the door.

He knew he shouldn’t be surprised that Phillip was standing in the living room—this was his house, after all—but the last thing Matthew needed right now was to be confronted by his brother.

Phillip looked at him with a raised eyebrow. But instead of asking about Whitney, he said, “Byron got picked up. He said to tell you he’s sorry, but the black eye was unavoidable.”

Matthew’s shoulders sagged. His little brother had done exactly what he wanted him to—but damned if it didn’t feel as though Matthew was suddenly right back at the bottom of the very big mountain he was doomed to be constantly climbing—Mount Beaumont. “What’d he do?”

“He went to a restaurant, ordered dinner, asked to see the chef and proceeded to get into a fistfight with the man.”

Matthew rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And?”

“The media is reporting he ordered the salmon.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny. I’ll get him.”

He was halfway to the door when Phillip said, “Everything okay with Whitney?”

“Fine,” he shot back as he picked up the pace. He had to get out of here, fast.

But Phillip was faster. He caught up to Matthew at the door. “Better than yesterday?”

“Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

Phillip grinned. “Never thought you had it in you, man. You always went for such...boring women.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Denial—whether it was to the press or his family—came easily to Matthew. He had years of practice, after all.

“Right, right.” He gave Matthew the smile that Matthew had long ago learned to hate—the one that said
I’m better than you are
. “Just a tip, though—from one Beaumont to another—always wipe the lipstick off
before
you leave the bedroom.”

Matthew froze. Then he scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. It came away bright red.

Whitney’s lipstick.

“Uh...this isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really? Because it looks like you spent the afternoon sleeping with the maid of honor.” Matthew’s fists curled, but Phillip threw up his hands in self-defense. “Whatever, man. I’m not about to throw stones at your glass house. Say,” he went on in a too-casual voice, “this wouldn’t have anything to do with Byron telling me he’d done what you asked him to, would it? Except for the black eye, of course.”

Matthew moved before he realized what he was doing. He grabbed Phillip by the front of his shirt. “Do. Not. Give. Her. Crap.”

“Dude!” Phillip said, trying to peel Matthew’s hands away from his shirt. “Down, boy—down!”

“Promise me, Phillip. After all the messes I cleaned up for you—all the times I saved your ass—
promise
me
that you won’t torture that woman. Or Byron won’t be the only one with a black eye at this wedding.”

“Easy, man—I’m not going to do anything.”

Matthew let go of his brother. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not. Go.” Phillip pushed him toward the door. “Bail Byron out so we can all line up for your perfect family wedding. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”