For Her Son's Sake (6 page)

They knew each other well enough now that they both opened their mouths at the same time and their tongues tangled together in a rush of hot breath. She rubbed her hands down his back to his waistband and pulled his shirt free of his pants.

He was sliding his hands under the hem of her long sweater and cupping her butt as he thrust against her. She loved it and swiveled her hips against him.

She felt the world spin around her as he lifted her off her feet and carried her to her bed. He placed her in the center but on the edge so that her thighs hung over the side. She pushed herself up on her elbows and watched as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and then cast it aside.

His chest was lightly dusted with hair and his pecs were well developed. His stomach was smooth but not rock hard and in her mind he was perfect. She felt a rush of moisture between her legs as excitement spread through her.

He pulled his belt off and tossed it on the floor next to his shirt, then tipped his head to the side. “I’m feeling a little underdressed here.”

“Not nearly enough,” she said. “I had no idea that you were so muscular.”

“Do you like it?” he asked, flexing his biceps. “It’s L.A., baby, you have to work out or you feel like a schlub.”

“Well it’s working for you,” she said.

He took a step forward, putting his hands on her thighs and drawing her hips to the edge of the bed. Then he grabbed the bottom of her sweater and pulled it up over her head, tossing it aside.

She glanced down at herself, at her average breasts in a bra, which luckily was new. A pretty light pink one with brown polka dots on it. He reached down and traced the demi-cups and the flesh that they didn’t cover. Then he slid the strap off her left shoulder and leaned down to kiss it.

Six

H
er bedroom was like everything else about Emma: a complicated contradiction. He’d expected it to be sleek and modern but the furniture was antique in the old-world style. Her dresser was covered in photos of her family and on the wall above the bed there was a rustic wooden shutter with the words
She turned her can’ts into cans and her dreams into plans
on it.

She lay in front of him with her breasts rising with each breath she took, her legs on either side of his and her eyes watching him with anticipation. He wanted to pretend she was any woman, to not see her as Emma, but that was impossible. She was Emma from the top of her reddish-brown hair, which fell in soft waves over her shoulders, to the pink and brown bra that covered her breasts.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

He wanted to savor this moment. He had learned that things he really treasured rarely came into his life more than once. “No need to rush this.”

He was glad for the shadows in the room; they suited him. He didn’t allow himself to think; instead he just focused on her body and his reaction to it.

Her hair spread out on the comforter behind her head as she propped herself up on her elbows. She parted her thighs a little further apart and slid one hand down her body over her rib cage to her belly button and then glanced up at him.

“If you’re not going to touch me....”

He climbed up on the bed and pulled her into his arms, drawing her over him. Her hands were trapped between them and he felt her fingers on his chest moving slowly over him.

“I like the way your chest hair tickles my fingers,” she said, shifting on his lap.

She bit his earlobe and whispered all the things that she wanted him to do to her. The erotic talk turned him on, painted images in his mind of things that he couldn’t wait for them to do.

He cupped her butt and pulled her forward, drawing her up so that her breasts were level with his face. She wrapped her arms around his head and drew him closer as he quickly dispensed with her bra and nibbled and kissed his way from one breast to the other. He traced the outline of her nipple and then lightly scraped his teeth over it.

She shifted her shoulders and looked down at him. He glanced up from where his face was buried in her chest and she bit her lower lip. He cupped both of her breasts, felt them swell under his hands, and then he pinched one nipple lightly while he sucked the other nipple deep into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around it and felt her rock forward against him.

Her hands sprawled out on his back as she pulled him closer and closer to her. He held her to him with one hand in the middle of her back. She rotated her shoulders and he was surrounded by the scent of her, the feel of her, the sensuality of her. He was so hard and hot, he was going to explode, but at the same time he used his iron self-control to slow down.

This night was going to last forever. He rolled so that they were next to each other on the bed and he could caress her entire body. He started with her arm, which he lightly stroked, and felt the goose bumps spread on her skin. He drew her hand up to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm and then put her hand on his chest.

She spread her fingers out and lightly rubbed circles over the muscles of his pectorals. It tickled, which startled a laugh from him.

“No.” He caught her close and rolled her underneath him.

“Ah, did I find a weakness?” she asked with a carefree grin and he was struck by how beautiful her smile was. He leaned down and kissed her fiercely, holding her head in his hands.

“No. I don’t have weaknesses.”

“Sure you don’t,” she said, running her fingers down his sides again, making him grab her wrists. He stretched her hands up above her head and held her underneath him.

She was just smiling as she rocked her hips against his and he felt her slide against his erection. This was so right. He had no idea why. The thought that this was Emma Chandler and he had no business being in her bed surfaced, but he shoved that aside.

He held her wrists in one hand and lowered his mouth to hers. He wasn’t just teasing now, but determined to ensure she knew she was his. For tonight at least she belonged to him and he was going to claim every inch of her body.

He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth and felt her suck hard on his tongue as she arched underneath him. Her hard nipples poked into his chest and her legs scissored underneath his as he settled into the cradle of her thighs.

Caressing his way down her body with one hand, he found the waistband of her leggings and shoved them down her legs to the top of her thighs and let his hand move over from her thigh to her abdomen and then lower.

Her feminine center was hot, and as he traced her through her panties she moaned his name and arched against him. But now that he had her stretched out beneath him he found the control he’d almost lost.

He palmed her and then pulled the fabric of her underwear from her body, sweeping one finger down until he heard her breath catch. Then he lightly caressed her nub of desire. Slowly at first, with just a light back and forth motion, until she started to move restlessly against him.

Then he pushed his finger lower and found the moist opening of her body and slid it inside. He felt her hips jerk and she pulled her mouth from him.

“More.”

Her breathless voice was like a caress on his spine. His pants felt even tighter and he wished he’d striped them both naked. But this was nice. It felt so good as he pressed his thumb to her clitoris and let his finger thrust in and out of her body.

She was hot and wet and so damned ready for him.

He kept up his caresses until he felt her hips moving more quickly against him. Then her body tightened as she dug her heels into the bed and thrust upward against his hand. He kept his fingers where they were, moving between her legs for a few more moments, and then drew his hand out of her panties and rolled to his side.

He pulled her leggings and underwear down her legs and tossed them on the floor and then stood up to take off his own pants. She lay on the bed watching him with languid eyes. Her skin was flushed, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, and her legs moved restlessly against the covers on the bed.

He crawled back over her and lowered himself slowly, using his entire body to caress hers. He eased his chest up over her torso and then slid his hands under her back to her butt and held his own weight on his forearms as he lowered himself until they were pressed together. She felt better than any other woman ever had before. It was so much more than he’d expected and he buried his head in her neck as emotions that he’d always kept locked away washed over him.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. For a minute they lay there until his erection reminded him he was holding a very naked, very tempting Emma in his arms and maybe he should do something about it.

He lifted his head and kissed her neck, nibbling at that point where it met her shoulder and her pulse beat so erratically. He felt it skip a beat as he sucked at her skin, then soothed the small area with his tongue before moving down her collarbone to her shoulder.

He learned her slowly with his hands and his mouth. He found a small birthmark under her left breast and caressed it with his tongue before moving lower over her ribs.

He found the small scar at her bikini line and when he looked up at her, she shrugged. “C-section.”

He laved it with his tongue and felt her hands in his hair, tightening as he moved lower. Her inner thighs were sensitive to his touch and she twitched on the bed as he continued moving lower. He lingered there, kissing her, surrounded by her silky thighs and the scent of her passion. He couldn’t resist turning his head and licking her center, tasting her.

She was addicting and he brought his mouth back to her more fully so he could thrust his tongue into her. Then he pulled back when she thrust her hands into his and drew him up.

“I can’t take much more. I need you inside of me. Now.”

He shifted away to reach for his pants and the condom he’d optimistically put in his pocket earlier. He sheathed himself quickly and then crawled back over her, but she put her hand in the middle of his chest and shoved him onto his back.

He rolled over and she climbed on top of him, reaching between her own legs to position him at her center. Then she braced herself on his chest and slowly lowered herself onto him. She moved so slowly that he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

She slid him all the way inside of her body and then started to move on top of him. He brought his hands up to cup her breasts and caressed them as she moved over him. She reached behind her and put her hands on the top of his thighs, shifting her angle and taking him deeper into her body.

He held her by the waist as he felt her start to tighten around him. He thrust up into her harder and faster, taking every inch of her. Claiming, and being claimed in return.

Their eyes met and held as she bit her lower lip and leaned forward, riding him harder and faster. As the first wave of her orgasm rocked through her, he kept thrusting, pulling her down toward him to capture her nipple in his mouth, sucking deeply as he continued driving into her until he felt that tingling at the base of his spine that signaled his own orgasm.

He thrust into her three more times and she collapsed against him. Her entire body covered his, her hair tangling over his face as he held her closer, breathing in her scent. Realizing that everything in his world had changed.

Not because of the revenge he’d finally exacted on the Chandlers but because of this moment. He had thought he wasn’t the kind of man who cared for anyone but he knew that was a lie as he turned his head away and cuddled Emma closer.

He cared for her.

He had a weakness he hadn’t counted on and he had no idea how he was going to counteract it because a man with this kind of weakness made stupid mistakes.

* * *

Emma was exhausted. She felt her heart beat throughout her entire body as Kell sat up and lifted her off of him, setting her next to him on the bed. “I gotta clean up.”

He walked toward the bathroom, which was marked with a pretty French sign that Cari had given her for Christmas last year. She watched his naked body as he walked away from her and came down from the physical high she’d been on.

Something was wrong.

He closed the door and she lay there for a second, knowing she should get up and put on her robe or something. But she was too perplexed by everything that had happened. When Kell had touched her C-section scar, she’d been forced to acknowledge that he was the first man to see her body post-baby, as Helio had died while she’d been pregnant. She’d been worried about that after she’d first had Sammy but as time went on she’d changed.

Her priorities had gone from her obsession with how her body looked to the fact that if she did invite a man into her bed he was going to have to measure up in other areas.

She groaned and put her hands over her eyes as she felt an emotional release of all the things she’d been holding inside for too long. Kell Montrose was the first man she’d had sex with in four long years. And he’d shaken her to her core.

Physically, she couldn’t have asked for more. He’d taken her to the limits of what she’d expected and pushed her beyond. Emotionally, he’d withdrawn. Something had happened at the end there and she knew that she had made a really stupid mistake.

Dammit, she was a smart woman. But why was it that when a man was dangerous to her she couldn’t resist him? Kell was nothing like Helio but he had the power to wreak more havoc in her life than Helio had.

She rolled over and walked to her armoire, where she kept the television, and turned it on for the noise it provided. Her robe was on the back of the door in the bathroom so that wasn’t available to her. Instead she grabbed her nightshirt from the top drawer in her dresser and then moved to the bed.

She had no experience at this kind of thing. She and Helio had both been in love from the moment their eyes met. She and Kell had been in conflict from birth, despite the fact that much of what she’d felt for him had changed in the past two days. She had no idea if it had for him.

In fact, given the hasty retreat he’d made to the bathroom she had to guess it hadn’t.

She swallowed hard and tried to marshal her feelings into some sort of sensible order. But she felt a tinge of anger. He’d come over here, acting like a hot and horny Romeo, with a gift for her kid even, and now she felt as if she’d made a mistake by letting him into her bed.

She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher that her housekeeper, Mrs. Hawking, kept filled on the nightstand for her. She wanted to curl up and hide but her days of retreat were long behind her. Some of her earliest memories were of standing up for herself and her sisters against their father’s rants. She’d never been one to cower and she certainly wasn’t going to be that way now. She gathered the clothing that was spread all over her bedroom floor and wondered how something that had felt so wonderful and right could have turned wrong.

She’d never have the answer because Kell was a man and his mind was unfathomable to her. She’d been surer of how to deal with him when they’d been enemies. But they technically weren’t rivals anymore. They were family now. Even if she was fired from the company, their futures were inexplicably entwined.

And she’d slept with him. But more than that, she’d invited him into her home to meet her son and see her without any of the barriers that she used to protect herself in the workplace.

God, how was she going to face him for the rest of their lives knowing that he’d seen her naked and afterward had run? She knew that was his vulnerability showing and in no way a reflection on her. But it sure as hell felt a lot like rejection.

A lot like she hadn’t measured up.

Considering she’d only shared her body with two other men, it hurt a lot.

She wanted to pretend that these things happened and she could shrug it off but she knew she couldn’t. She’d been naked in front of him and he’d run away as soon as he’d....