One Night with Sole Regret 06 Tell Me (16 page)

Melanie looked damned beautiful standing on his porch with the light of the setting sun making her skin glow. He doubted she realize
d how happy he was to have her here with him—just the two of them at home—or how much he appreciated her help with Lady. If Melanie hadn’t been there, he probably would have been too busy losing his head over the teenaged drunk driver to realize his dog needed medical attention and not a hole in the ground.

He felt bad for Beau too. The dog had never been as close to Lady as he
’d been to Sweetie. It was as if Beau was afraid to get too attached to another mate. Could a dog have a broken heart? Gabe knew one could. Beau still had one. The dog cared about Lady and had sired her first batch of pups, but he had loved Sweetie. Gabe had always believed that there was one true love for everyone—even his damned dog—and that a man could love many women in his lifetime, but not the way he loved his one. As Melanie waited for him to join her on the porch, he wondered if she was his. His one. Did a man know that kind of thing right away, or did it take a while for the feeling to develop? Did a man choose his one and only or was it written in the stars? He’d never pondered those kinds of things before and wondered why this particular woman put these strange thoughts in his head. Time to get her naked, so he could think about something a less terrifyingly life-altering than Melanie as a permanent fixture in his life.

“I thought you’d be naked by now,” he said.

“Just admiring the view,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder at the spectacular sunset behind him.
A red-orange globe hovered just above the horizon and shot veins of pink, violet, and green through the clouds. The brilliant blue sky above the clouds had begun to darken to cobalt.

“That is a beautiful sunset,” he agreed.

“What sunset?” she said with a laugh. “I was ogling you.”

He took his cap off, smoothed the strip of long hair down the center of his scalp with one hand
, and plopped the hat back on his head. His face felt uncharacteristically hot. Was he blushing? Dear lord, what was the world coming to? “Wouldn’t you rather ogle me naked and wet?”

She reached for his hand, grabbed it securely in hers
, and tugged him toward the front door. “Good call.”

Beau followed them into the house and took his regular spot on
the rug near the threshold. He gnawed on Lady’s ball and completely ignored the humans who were already pawing at each other like a couple of animals.

Gabe drew Melanie against him, pressing her soft breasts tightly to his
bare chest. His emotions were a blend of joy and turmoil, hope and despair, and he couldn’t get a firm handle on any of them. Which is why he needed a distraction. He smiled when her hands found his ass and gave both cheeks a playful squeeze. She tilted her face up and trailed sweet tickling kisses under his jaw. Apparently she was ready for a distraction as well.

He lowered the zipper at the back of her dress, so sorry that it was ruined but glad that it was easy to remove so he could expose her beauty and touch the warm smooth flesh of his little Melanie. Yes, his. She had to be his.

She shrugged her dress straps off her shoulders, dropping the dress on the floor and lifting her arms to rub her hands over his bare chest.

She looked devastatingly sexy in her garters, thigh-high stockings, lacy white bra
, and panties, but nothing material could match the beauty of what was hidden underneath. When she lifted her arms to remove the clip from her hair and let the glorious mass tumble down around her shoulders, Gabe groaned in approval.

He reached behind her and pinched the bra clasp at her back before brushing the straps from her shoulders to free her beautiful breasts to his eager eyes. She lowered her arms and let her bra join her dress on the floor. Her fingertips glided up his quivering belly
, bumping over the hard contours of his body. She paused to rub the barbell in his nipple with one thumb, staring up into his eyes and working his sensitive flesh until it was hard and achy beneath her touch. When he groaned, she leaned forward to kiss his chest, her lips brushing over the wolf tattoo on one side and the cougar on the other. Her breath was warm and moist against the skin over his heart as she kissed between her splayed hands. She paused unexpectedly and gave her hand a hesitant sniff. She pulled a face and stepped away abruptly.

“Oh gross, I do smell like dog,” she said. “Let’s continue this in the shower.”

She slipped her garters, lacy thong, and stockings down her legs, leaving the remainder of her clothes and her shoes in a tangle on the living room floor. Struck dumb by the sight of her glorious nude form streaking through his house toward the bedroom, Gabe didn’t blink until she was completely out of sight.

He stripped
off his clothes where he stood—from ball cap to tennis shoes—and followed Melanie into his bedroom.

He heard the spray of water and Melanie’s, “What in the world?” echoing off the bathroom tiles.

He supposed she’d just discovered he didn’t have an average, everyday shower. His was a shower designed for a thorough cleaning. And if one was so inclined to utilize the showerheads advantageously, an added kick of pleasure.

He watched her sidestep out of the jet of water spraying her in the ass in favor of the overhead flow that she used to wet her skin as she lathered on the soap. Most of the showerheads were currently off. How would she respond to getting sprayed from all directions?

He smiled, knowing how adventurous she could be with the slightest encouragement, and opened the glass shower door to join her.

She immediately went after him with the soap. “You smell like dog too,” she said and then nodded at one of the walls of showerheads. “What’s with all the plumbin
g? It’s like a carwash in here.”

“Would you like a demonstration?” he asked.

She eyed the brushed silver fixtures warily. “I’m not sure.”

He took her by the shoulders and judging the best location, shifted her back a few paces. “Stand right there,” he said, giving her a kiss of encouragement on one cheek. “Spread your feet apart.”

“For balance?”

He chuckled. “If that’s what you want to believe.”

She took a deep breath and spread her feet apart.

“A little more.”

She obeyed without question. He loved how she trusted him so thoroughly with her body. He began to turn the showerheads on and adjusted the heads to spray water over her erogenous zones from multiple directions. He focused on her breasts first—directing a few showerheads so that each nipple was stimulated from the side, above, and below. She sighed in pleasure, shimmying slightly to move her stiff nipples in and out of the warm spray. He set several showerheads to massage her shoulders and lower back with strong, pulsating bursts. He had additional jets tickling the backs of her knees and then finally turned one particularly vigorous spray to hit her in the ass. She gasped and bent forward, opening herself up to the pleasure. It also gave him a spectacular view of the slick, swollen pussy between her thighs. One he very much wanted to investigate on a more personal level. But first…

He removed a handheld sprayer from the wall, turned it on
, and handed it to her.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

He twisted the showerhead and it began to pulsate. “I think you’ll figure it out,” he said.

He stepped back to stand near the shower door—the only surface not covered with fixtures—and just looked at her. Her skin was slick with water and rosy from stimulation. Her long hair was almost black when wet and hung in limp waves, sticking to her shoulders, her back, and breasts like the brush strokes of an admiring artist. When she directed the handheld’s spray between her thighs and began to moan in pleasure, he would have l
oved to simply continue watching, but he honestly didn’t have the willpower to keep his hands off her for another moment.

He stepped up behind her, the gush of water that had been spraying up her backside hitting him in the thigh. It was times like
this that he wished he was several inches shorter. He cupped her breasts in his hands and massaged them so that her nipples entered and left the spray in cycles that made her groan in delight.

The spray she was directing between her legs hit the tip of his cock
, and he shuddered. Fuck, he was hard. He couldn’t stop himself from rubbing his dick against the sweet, slick heat beckoning him inside.

She bent forward and gyrated her hips, rubbing against him, encouraging him to take her, claim her, make her his.

He bent his knees and slipped the head of his cock inside her, surging forward, taking what he wanted.

“Yes, Gabe,” she said, using the handheld sprayer against her clit, where their bodies were joined, and against his heavy balls. He smiled to himself, glad she was sexually brilliant. His perfect match.

Unfortunately, the tiles of the shower floor were a bit too slippery to get the leverage he needed to thrust properly.

He turned her toward the wall, his well-placed water flow no longer hitting her in all the places he’d aimed them at. She still had the handheld massager
, though, and used it to quickly bring herself to orgasm while Gabe filled her from behind and squeezed her nipples between his fingers. Her cries of ecstasy echoed off the tiles as her pussy convulsed around his driving cock. In her excitement, she dropped the sprayer that had been doing maddeningly delightful things to his balls.

Shuddering intermittently, Melanie went
limp and almost sent Gabe slipping to his death on the hard tile floor as he tried to keep her on her feet. His cock sprang free of her body, still hard as granite and far from finished.

“I think we should take this to the bedroom,” he said.

Leaning hard against the wall, Melanie nodded, her eyes closed, her body still shaking from her orgasm.

He shut off the water and stepped from the shower. She followed him on shaky legs and reached for a towel, but he caught her hand.

“No time for that,” he said, lifting her into his arms to carry her to his bed.

For a man so intent on getting
her into his bed, Gabe was sure taking his sweet time in getting down to business.

Now that the sun had set, the
bedroom was dark except for a single lamp glowing on a side table across the room, near to where Gabe stood with his back to her. He was sorting through gadgets inside his large armoire. Melanie watched, admiring the phoenix tattooed on his back. Admiring his firm ass. Admiring his long, well-muscled legs and his huge feet that correlated in size with what he had going on between his legs. But even gazing appreciatively at his backside lost its appeal after ten minutes of waiting.

“Gabe,” she said when she couldn’t bare another moment lying there without him. “It’s awfully lonely over here.”

From the armoire came a strange series of clicks and then what sounded like a jackhammer pounding against a tin can. A belt screeched, gears grinded, and Gabe pounded on something in the armoire out of her line of sight. The sounds died with a clunk.

She sincerely hoped he wasn’t thinking of trying that, whatever
that
was, out on her. It sounded like a machine dying a thousand painful deaths.

“Fuck,”
he said. He scrubbed his face with both hands and turned slightly to glance at her. “I don’t think it’s quite ready.”

She checked out his nearly flaccid cock and had to agree. “Perhaps it’s because you’ve been standing all the way over there
, while I’ve been way over here, for far too long.”

He scowled and then followed her
gaze to his cock. “Not that. That works just fine, thanks,” he said. “The new invention I’ve been working on. I don’t think I should use it on someone I care about. I fear it just might fuck you to death.”

Melanie was not ready to die, even by fucking. “Your inventions are spectacular, baby, but maybe I could give Gabe
,
sans
equipment, a go.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at him, hope blossoming in her chest. That’s what she really wanted. Not the rock star. Not the kinky inventor. She wa
nted him, just him, open and exposed. The way she doubted many women had seen him.

He turned away from her and slammed the door of the
armoire, clearly frustrated. “This weekend has been one disaster after another,” he grumbled and smashed his hands to his hips as he tried to glare a hole through the wall.

“It’s been life, babe,” Melanie said. “That’s all.
”

“I wanted everything to be perfect for you.”

“This weekend has been perfect.”

He grunted.
“Hardly.”

“It has been,” she insisted and sat up on the bed, “because I was able to spend it with you.”

He turned to look at her then. And not a cursory glance. He stared openly, as if trying to commit every inch of her to memory.

“Are you going to stare at me all night or are you going to join me in this bed?” she asked, patting the mattress beside her.

He turned back to the armoire and opened the door again.

“I think I have something in here…”

She growled and then sprang from the mattress, crossed the room, and plucked some device out of his hand. She tossed it into the cabinet and slammed the doors shut, leaning her back against them to prevent him from tinkering with anything else.

“Gabe,” she said.

“Fine,” he said, “if that’s what you want.”

“
That’s
who
I want,” she corrected.

“But you won’t come near as hard as you would if we used
—”

She reached up and covered his lips with a finger. “I think I should be the judge of t
he strength of my orgasms,” she said.

Besides, when he
used one of his devices, he concentrated on making her come as quickly as possible, over and over again until she couldn’t move. Which was admittedly good, but she never got to appreciate the more tender part of making love. The part where she felt him—him, the man—deeper inside her than his very impressive cock, even with attachments, could ever reach.

She took his hand and led him to the bed. She could feel his resistance, almost reluctance.
Didn’t he want her?

“Are my inventions weirding you out?” he asked. “I understand if they are.”

So he was still fixated on the gadgets? Or maybe just her acceptance of them.

“Nope. Not weirded out at all,” she said.
“In fact, tomorrow I want you to show me everything in that cabinet—”

“And in the basement?”

“Yeah, and in the basement.”

“And the garage?”

She hoped her trepidation didn’t show. She feared her pussy would never be the same if she gave him free rein to use all his gadgets. “Yeah, the garage too, but tonight—”

“What about the shed
? And the barn?”

She swallowed hard and nodded.

“And the attic?”

“Dear God, Gabe
, how many fucking inventions have you designed?”

He laughed. “All the good ones are in there,” he said and pointed to the
armoire with his thumb.

“Sometimes I think you’re trying to scare me away,” she said.

His killer smile faded, and he lowered his eyes, looking guilty.

“
You are,” she said in disbelief. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t
really want you to go. I just… I’ve never had someone accept everything I am the way you do. The women I’ve been with in the past have mostly known me as Force, the drummer of Sole Regret, but you… You insist on getting to know Gabe, the geek who couldn’t get a date in high school. And I guess…” He shrugged. “I guess I’m just looking for your deal breaker to see if I can overcome it and win you for real.”

“My deal breaker?”
Her heart did a strange fluttering thing as she looked him up and down. “You’ve known my deal breaker since the night we met.”

He looked halfway sick with nerves and she felt halfway guilty for teasing him.

“My
deal
breaker, Mr. Banner, was all of those crazy tattoos. What
were
you thinking, young man? Don’t you know those things are permanent?”

He laughed and grabbed her, hauling her body against his. Fucking finally. His
fingers dug into her sides, and she laughed along with him, trying to free herself from his vigorous tickling.

After a moment, he stopped and just held her against him while she caught her breath.

“Being rejected for what you are on the outside is easy,” he said. “It’s when you’re rejected for what you are on the inside that really hurts.”

She snuggled closer to him. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

He leaned back and tucked a finger under her chin to lift her head. Her gaze settled on his gorgeous green eyes. Got lost in them. Practically melted under their attention.

Damn.

“How did I ever luck into finding you, Melanie Anderson?” he asked.

“You can thank Nikki’s libido for that,
Mr. Rock Star,” she said. “She forced me backstage against my will, you know. So she could rock Shade Silverton’s world.” A brief stab of concern stole Melanie’s breath. She still hadn’t heard from Nikki. Melanie didn’t know whether to be worried or pissed.

“I’ll send her
vag some flowers,” he said.

Melanie’s
worry vanished when he lifted her by the waist and set her on the edge of his king-sized bed.

In fact everything on earth but him vanished as he peppered her skin with soft kisses until he’d claimed every inch of her as his. She claimed every inch of him as well, with fingertips and lips and tongue, until at
last he covered her body with his and, staring unwavering into her eyes, claimed her deeply. His strokes were agonizingly slow, giving her plenty of time to cherish each one. He entwined his fingers with hers, holding her hands above her head as he slowly, slowly pushed her body towards release. When she finally shattered, he kissed her sputtering lips and followed her into bliss. He’d been completely wrong about that orgasm not being as strong as her others. She’d felt that one in her clenching pussy for sure, but she’d felt it deeper. She’d felt it inside her heart, in her soul. In all the places she felt Gabe.

Damn.

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard to fight back the emotion clogging her throat. Was she seriously about to cry after sex? Who did that?

Gabe went limp on top of her
, and she freed her hands from his so she could hug him close. She inhaled him deep into her lungs and held on to that breath for as long as she could, wanting more of him inside her. Wanting all of him inside her.

I’m so far gone, she thought as the breath she’d been holding burst from her lungs and she breathed him in again.

“Okay,” he whispered. “I’m going to roll over and go to sleep now.”

Typical man, she thought with a grin.

“And pretend I didn’t just give you my heart.”

Or not so typical. What was she supposed to say to that?

He slid from her body and rolled beside her. Instead of closing his eyes and commencing to snore, he lifted a hand and traced the lines of her face with one finger.

“You’ll probably need a replacement for th
at heart you just gave me,” she said.

He lifted a
questioning eyebrow.

“Will mine do?” she said huskily.

He covered her pounding heart with one hand and smiled that wide gorgeous grin that made her toes curl in pleasure. “It seems to be in good working condition. I’ll take it.”