Authors: Erin Nicholas
The Bradfords, Book 3
There’s only one problem with the woman Jason “Mac” Gordon wants: his best friend’s little sister is off limits. Way off limits, and too young and innocent for the likes of him. From past experience, he’s learned to hide his not-so-nice preferences from the nice girls he seems to attract. That definitely includes the woman he’s always thought of as a sister. At least until recently.
Sara Bradford always gets what she wants—which is partly Mac’s fault. After all, he helped spoil her. So she has no intention of taking his no for an answer on anything—least of all his refusal to sleep with her. He thinks she’s too innocent? Fine. She’ll simply get un-innocent and show Mac that she wants him—the good, the bad and the nipple clamps.
When Mac’s plan to drive her away works too well, he’s forced to follow her to a tropical paradise, determined to make sure she doesn’t find her wild side with anyone but him. Once she gets a real taste of what he likes, he’s sure everything will go back to normal.
That’s until he discovers a slight kink, er, flaw in his logic…
Warning: Contains hot sex at the beach, kinky online shopping—and yes, cotton-candy-flavored body powder does exist.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Just My Type:
He pulled his mouth from hers, loving how she followed him with her lips for a moment, not wanting to let him go.
“I want to see you naked. Now.”
She nodded, looking slightly dazed. “Let’s go to my condo.”
He shook his head. “Now.” He watched her look around the empty restaurant. It was past lunch and before dinner, so there wasn’t a crowd—or an audience—but there was no way sweet Sara would get naked in public.
“Here?” she asked.
He crossed his arms and tried to look disappointed. “I like a streak of exhibitionism,” he said. He did too. He’d had sex in more than one public restroom and in two storage rooms he could think of. And there had been a couple of times in his car in public parking lots. And an elevator. They hadn’t had sex, but he’d gotten an eyeful between the twenty-second floor and the lobby.
Definitely not nice-boyfriend material.
The idea of taking Sara up against the wall of a toilet stall didn’t sound appealing. Sara was too good for that. But she would remind him of that and it would be a moot point.
“Okay.”
Belatedly he recalled the tattoo parlor from the night before and the way she’d stripped her bikini top off without a second thought.
She started in the direction of the ladies’ room and then turned to look over her shoulder. She slid the strap of her dress down and as she stepped into the enclosed hallway the dress slipped down off of her left breast.
Mac went from hard to granite in less than a second. Dammit. This was already backfiring.
He tossed another twenty on the table, stalked over and grabbed her hand and headed out of the restaurant, swearing under his breath. He was obviously going to have to go a lot further to convince her she didn’t want a part of his games, his sex life, or his…life.
The sick feeling in his gut at that thought was probably because he was still hungry.
It was going to take an actual demonstration to give Sara a full picture of what she did
not
want for as long a they both should live.
A cab was stopped along the curb a half block away and Mac headed after it, giving a sharp whistle to catch the cabby’s attention. Fortunately, Sara had pulled her dress back up to cover herself.
Once they were settled in the backseat, he once more did as Sara had accused him and used money to get what he wanted. He handed the cab driver thirty bucks and said, “Take the long way back, mind your own business and don’t look in the rearview mirror.”
When the man nodded his consent and pocketed the money, they pulled away from the curb and Mac said to Sara, “Do you have panties on?”
He didn’t look at her, but in his periphery saw her pivot to face him.
“Yes. Well, a thong.”
Damn
. He wasn’t sure this game was such a great idea. Still, he had to keep going. He had to push her into discomfort in order to push her away.
“Take it off.”
She sat and stared at his profile for several seconds. Then, without a word, she lifted her butt off the leather seat, reached up under the skirt of her sundress and pulled the underwear off.
He couldn’t help but look then. The thong was white. Virginal white. And tiny.
He held out his hand and she put the warm silk in his palm. He cupped his fingers around it and then slipped it into his front pants pocket.
“Now come here.”
Without hesitation, she slid across the seat. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap, one knee on each side of his thighs, making her straddle him. Without panties. Mac took a moment to compose himself so his voice wouldn’t come out as a squeak. The backseat of a cab wasn’t new to him either, but he’d never felt this wound up before.
“Let me see your nipples,” he told her, finally letting himself look at her face.
She was flushed, breathing hard, her lips slightly parted and her eyes full of heat, surprise and anticipation. She reached up and pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders, then peeled the straps down, taking the upper portion of the bodice down as well.
Her breasts bared, her nipples prominent, she sat on his lap, waiting for his next move.
“Put one in my mouth.”
He kept his hands firmly around her thighs, just above the knees, not daring to even twitch a finger for fear his hands would never stop until Sara was naked and begging him to take her hard, right there in the cab.
What made him nearly lose it, still in his boxers and blue jeans, was that Sara didn’t hesitate to respond to his commands. She pushed up slightly off his lap, her hands going to his shoulders, to put her right breast in front of his mouth, then leaned forward, offering the tip.
Mac’s tongue tasted it first. He flicked over the hardened nipple, causing her to moan. Then he closed his lips around it, kissing gently, before he sucked, once soft, then harder, making Sara squirm on his lap and her fingers tighten on his shoulders.
“Mac,” she whispered. “More.”
He sucked again, willing his own fingers to lessen their grip on her thighs as he fought the wave of lust. He licked, sucked and licked again. Then switched to the other side with only a slight turn of his head. She knew what he wanted—and what she wanted—and she shifted to give him access to the left breast as well.
Several delicious minutes later, he gave her the next order. “Touch yourself.”
Finally, a hesitation.
“What do you mean?”
“Squeeze your nipple.” He figured they could start slow.
She lifted her hand to her right breast and took the tip between her thumb and forefinger. She tugged gently and sighed with pleasure.
Mac was amazed at his willpower. Everything in him screamed at him to take her, but he was still clothed and his hands hadn’t left her thighs. Impressive. Or stupid. Still, he was going to congratulate himself for what he could, because in the next few hours, maybe days, he wasn’t going to be the nicest guy in the world.
A minute later, God proved His existence—and that Mac wasn’t completely off His list—and they arrived in front of the resort.
“Cover up,” Mac told her. When she was slow to respond to his instruction, Mac slipped the straps of the dress back up to her shoulders as the cab stopped.
He threw thirty more dollars into the front seat and slid from the cab putting Sara on her feet first and then nudging her along in front of him.
Without a word, they walked toward her condo, not touching but overwhelmed with awareness of one another. He needed to shock her, he needed to push her sexually, he needed to turn her off, but everything he did she kept right up with.
Dammit. He’d been here before. And regretted it. He wasn’t doing that again. Guilt was not something he lived with well. He hadn’t forgiven himself for the past, and he hadn’t forgotten, but he was strict about his reparation, which made him feel better.
He’d made himself choose between women who wanted meaningful relationships and women who could match his sexual preferences, understanding that, for him, they didn’t mix. In his life there were no women who might fall in love with him, no women who might require him to remember anniversaries, no women who batted an eye at having their hands tied during sex.
And now there was Sara. She couldn’t fit into his life either, but she was the first in a very, very long time that he wanted to. He had to get to Sara’s no-way-in-hell limit damned quick.
He needed to get creative.
Chipping away at her resistance, one touch at a time…
The Reluctant Nude
© 2011 Meg Maguire
Fallon Frost’s late foster mother had done so much to heal the wounds of her damaged childhood. So when a lecherous developer plans to bulldoze her old home to make room for a strip mall, the practical, ordered life Fallon has built for herself is threatened.
Then he makes a twisted proposal. He’ll leave the land alone if she poses nude for a sculpture that’ll end up in his collection. Seeing no other choice, she heads for Nova Scotia—only to find something totally unexpected. A sexy, hot-blooded,
infuriating
sculptor.
Guarded, sexually detached Fallon is a challenge Max Emery can’t wait to tackle. Yet with each tap of his chisel, he uncovers a woman who rekindles a dream he thought lost. Home, family…love. And the closer he gets to her core, the harder it becomes to accept that he’s carving her naked body for another man’s eyes.
As progress on the sculpture almost grinds to a halt, their fragile fantasy world collapses under the weight of reality. Threatening Fallon’s one chance to save her foster mother’s land…and any chance she and Max have to find love.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Reluctant Nude:
“When do you think we’ll start the marble?” Fallon was curious to watch the process. She’d come to know the menagerie of marred statues in Max’s garden intimately in the past two weeks. What he did was breathtaking, astounding. She could admit that now. She wanted to see him at work.
“Soon. We are close. Closer. But we’re not quite there yet.”
“You mean the touching bit?” she asked, body tensing. Since bringing it up Max hadn’t pressured her about it, but she’d been living in fear of the inevitable day when it couldn’t be put off any longer.
He nodded. “I know you’re not thrilled, but I hope you trust it is necessary now.”
“Yeah. I do.” She shivered nonetheless. She wasn’t a great fan of being touched, handshakes and the platonic hugging of friends aside. It was probably why her relationships never made it past the three- or four-month mark. She dreaded to think how uncomfortable Max’s touch would be—his eyes alone often felt like a brand on her skin.
“Perhaps this afternoon we will try?” He cocked a cautious eyebrow across the table at her. “It must be soon if you wish to stay on schedule.”
“Yeah, I do.” Fallon frowned. It had become startlingly easy sometimes to forget why she was here, whose statue she would ultimately be posing for. “But don’t expect me to be comfortable or anything. You may have to sculpt me wincing.”
“I am sure I won’t. It is all that energy nonsense I am sure you’re sick of hearing about.” He held his hands up and wiggled his fingers like a close-up magician. “Nothing personal. In your job, when you’re working outside, what is it you do?”
“A lot of plant and animal collection…checking on populations of weeds and algae and mollusks and things, looking to see what’s declining and what’s thriving in a given area.”
“And what if you had to do that with your eyes closed?”
She nodded. “I get it. It’d be really difficult.”
“And
I
understand you do not want to be treated like a specimen. But you see what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled deeply in his wicked way. “So you better keep drinking.” He refreshed her glass and gathered their dirty dishes.
As Max puttered, Fallon sipped her wine and tried to imagine what it would be like, having Max’s hands on her. She shuddered, though not entirely from trepidation.
For over a week now she’d been having dreams about him, the sorts of dreams she’d never been disposed to before. Dreams that had her waking up in cold sweats in the early hours of the morning. Stark visions of this man’s predatory body and dark eyes, rough hands, rough voice. Dreams about commanding him and being commanded.
Across the room she could see the long ridges of muscle flanking each side of his spine, his shoulder blades, his shirt pulled taut against these shapes as he washed dishes. In her dreams those muscles twitched and tightened with other kinds of labor. Fallon hadn’t felt the protracted touch of his skin since they’d shaken hands her first day at the studio, but neither had she forgotten it. Calloused fingers and palms on her bare body. She swallowed.
Max dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said, heart pounding. “Can we do this in baby steps? Can I keep my clothes on?”
He nodded.
“Good.” She shrugged her sweater off and stood in jeans and a tee in her usual space near the center of the studio. She trembled harder with each step he took toward her. By the time Max was directly in front of her, Fallon was shaking.
“You look terrified,” he said, hands tucked safely in his pockets.
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you might cry.” As he said it, Fallon felt the pressure mounting in her tear ducts.
“I won’t cry.”
“You can if you want, you know.”
“Well, I don’t,” she snapped, more surly toward him than she’d been all week. “Just get started, already.”
Max slid his hands from his pockets and held them out, inviting her to do the same. Her fingers shook visibly. She held her breath as he sandwiched them gently between his palms, and the heat and roughness of his skin made her flinch.
“This is very hard for you,” he said softly, eyes on their hands as his thumbs rubbed her wrists.