Blade gently released Candice’s mouth, absurdly thrilled when she whimpered her dissatisfaction. “Sweetheart, as much as I love kissing you, I think maybe you’re ready for more.” The heat and desire in her eyes nearly sizzled his mustache. “Will you let me touch you?” he asked with a fair amount of caution. “Only above the clothes…for tonight,” he reminded her. When Candice gave him a breathy, “Yes,” Blade’s cock grew another inch.
Never once straying away from the deep, blue pools of her eyes, Blade rubbed his hands up and down Candice’s back, stroking her taut muscles. She arched for him and he let his hands move around to the front of her. Careful to make sure he stayed on neutral ground, he flattened one palm over her concave belly, delighted when she trembled. She was so small that his hand was able to cover the entire width of her. Christ, she was so fragile, it made him want to protect her from all the evils of the world.
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Blade moved his palms slowly upward, ever watchful of signs of panic or fear. When her head fell back and her eyes closed, a wave of tender affection overtook him.
“I’m going to touch your breasts now,” he told her softly. Her whimper urged him on.
His hands spread over the gentle swell of her tits and Blade knew a whole new form of bliss. For a man who thought he’d known everything there was to know about women and sexual gratification, it was humbling and thrilling to find out that a slip of a woman could bring him to new heights of pleasure.
“I like that, Blade,” Candice rasped out.
“Me, too, baby,” Blade assured, as he palmed her. He loved the incoherent sounds she made as he kneaded and fondled. When he took a chance and squeezed her erect nipples between his fingers, she fairly jumped.
“I want you, Candice,” he growled, “so fucking bad.”
Her gaze fastened on the erection straining against the confines of his jeans. “I will keep my word to you, sweetheart,” he reassured her. “Just over the clothes. But I won’t lie to you, either. I want to be buried inside of you, so deep and so tight.” Blade had to swallow hard to get himself under control. “You’ll fit me perfectly, too, I just know you’ll fit me perfectly, baby.”
“Oh, Blade.”
He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes against the need in her voice. It was agony to see her so turned-on, yet unable to do a thing about it. Her next words had his heart racing out of control and made his blood run fast and hot.
“Maybe, we can move under the clothes.”
Blade’s eyes flew open as he tried to comprehend her words. “Under?” Blade asked optimistically.
Candice nodded, and Blade drowned in the deep blue of her eyes.
“Are you sure?” She nodded again, more enthusiastic this time, and he nearly came in his pants.
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“Just tell me what you want and it’s yours, Candy. Anything. Christ, everything!” he promised heatedly.
She smiled and, in a voice so soft he had to strain to hear, asked, “Will you take off your shirt? I’d like to see you.”
The delicate pleading drove him wild. He wanted to give her whatever she wanted, but he’d made her a promise. Damn it. “I swore only above the clothes. I don’t want to break that promise, baby,” Blade ground out. Being a man of honor was a nuisance at times.
“I know, and you’ve stuck to your word wonderfully.” Candice’s eyes and smile were tender. “But, I think I’ve waited too long to move on with my life. You’ve helped me to see that.” She touched her hand to his cheek. “I want to know what it’s like to feel passion and I want you to be the one to show me, Blade. Please don’t deny me.”
Hearing her say it, and knowing he wasn’t pushing her into anything, helped him make up his mind. Without further delay, Blade whipped his t-shirt over his head and waited. Her gaze traveled over his chest in a heated caress, turning him on further. “Now, will you take off your shirt, Candy girl?” he asked on a ragged breath. “I’d very much like to see you, too.”
Candice’s eyes grew big. For a suspended moment in time, Blade feared he’d lost her, that he’d gone too far. But then she surprised the hell out of him and whipped her own shirt over her head. She sat straddling his thighs with an unadorned white bra covering her small, pert breasts.
Blade’s mouth watered.
He’d never encountered such genuine innocence. She couldn’t have been more beautiful to him if she were wearing some fancy bit of lace and satin. Never in Blade’s life had he felt more like the pillaging bandit. “I want your bra off,” he pleaded. “Please, let me.”
“Yes, Blade.”
With his hands shaking, Blade reached around and undid the clasp, letting the bra fall to her lap. Candice was a small woman, and so her breasts were, too, but to Blade she 42
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was perfect. Round and firm and meant for his hands alone. Her taut nipples were enticing dark-mauve cherries surrounded by sweet, creamy fullness. Blade couldn’t seem to muster the strength to stop his fingers from reaching out and stroking the gentle slopes.
She moaned and wiggled, and he had to clamp down on the clawing need to take her. To make her his.
She was even softer than he’d dreamed—and Blade had dreamed about her a hell of a lot. Nevertheless, nothing could compare to being able to touch her sweet perfection in real life. He could sit in her barely-lit living room, touching Candy for hours and not get bored.
Blade smoothed his palms over and under, rubbing and cuddling, relishing her rapid breaths. Thrilling over the way she kept her hands in her lap, fisting them together, as if she wanted to do the same to him but was too shy to ask.
“Touch me,” he demanded. “Put your hands on my chest and feel me with your fingers.”
Very gently, she flattened her delicate hands against him. At first, her fingers shook, but soon she sifted them through his chest hair, playing and stroking.
“Can you feel how fast my heart’s beating?” he asked. “I’m excited, sweetheart.
Yours is doing the same thing for me. I can feel you beneath my palm, baby. Seeing you like this, all open and ready, it makes me want to taste you. Will you let me do that?” If he could have just one taste of Candy, then surely he’d die a happy man.
“Yes, I-I think I’d like that, Blade.”
“I swear you’ll love it,” he promised. He bent forward and tasted her for the first time. Holding her in his embrace, he sucked on her beaded nipple, laving it with his tongue, encouraged when Candice’s fingers pulled his hair, holding him firmly against her. Her head fell back and she moaned long and deep.
He lifted away from her slightly, breathing as if he’d run a marathon, and growled, “You taste so fucking good, woman.” Then he moved to the other nipple, giving her what she’d asked for—as much passion as he was capable of giving without self-combusting.
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“That feels so incredible,” she cried. “I want…” Candice let the words drift off, as if unable to express the turmoil his mouth created.
Blade lifted his head. “I know the feeling.”
“But I’m not doing anything to you.”
He smiled at her naivety. “Are you kidding? I’m ready to explode here. Believe me, seeing you all hot and anxious is definitely doing something to me.”
She blinked, wide-eyed, and whispered, “Oh.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Oh.” When she blushed and her smile turned slightly wicked, Blade wondered if maybe Candice was ready for more. “Do you think you could handle the next round?” Her hands came up and covered her breasts. Spellbound, Blade watched her rub them as if trying to quell an ache.
“I do want more. I’m just not sure I’m ready to…go all the way, yet.”
Damn if that “yet” didn’t please him to no end. “Not all the way, but maybe below the belt?”
She laughed. “The next round, below the belt—you seem to like boxing terms, don’t you?”
He grinned and shrugged. “I did some boxing. It helped me get through college.”
“I didn’t know you went to college. I bet you were good, weren’t you?”
Blade’s brow quirked up playfully. “Yeah, I’m
very
good.”
Candice laughed harder this time, and Blade felt a surge of pride for her. She was starting to feel so comfortable with him that she could talk and laugh even with her tits beautifully bare. Which is how he’d like to spend all his time conversing with Candice, Blade thought with masculine delight.
“I like it when you laugh, Candy girl,” he admitted. “You have a real pretty smile.”
All at once, her cheeks turned pink, and she tried to cross her arms over her chest.
“Don’t do that. Don’t shy away from me, baby,” he told her, then urged her to drop her arms. She did, but she refused to look at him.
“What did I say? One minute you were laughing and excited and ready for me, and the next you’re closing me out. Why?”
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“He said that, too. He told me I had a pretty smile. I guess it just reminded me of—”
Blade groaned. “I’m not Lance. Don’t compare me to that bastard.” She flinched, startled by his outburst, but it killed him to think of what Lance Markum had taken from her. It made him feel helpless. “Aw, hell, I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered, “but you have to stop making comparisons. I’m not like him. I would never hurt you.”
Candice reached out and touched his cheek, his lips, and Blade grabbed at her wrist and held her palm against his mouth for a kiss. He relished the way her pulse jumped and sped up for him. Only for him, he thought, feeling a surge of possessiveness. He never wanted to see her with another man. The very thought made him sick to his stomach.
That confused him. He lusted after Candice, even cared about her, but he wasn’t ready to get serious. Was he?
“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” she confirmed, taking Blade’s mind off his disturbing thoughts. “Or I never would have gone to the cookout with you. But I’m bound to be jumpy when something triggers my memory of that horrible night. I can’t help it.”
“Christ, I know, I know. I just get a little crazy when I think of what he did to you.”
Candice started to move off his lap, but he held her firm. “And just where do you think you’re going?”
Her smile held a hint of sin and her voice turned husky. “You wanted below the belt, didn’t you?”
His mind went numb. Maybe that was what happened to a man when all the blood in his body moved south. “Definitely,” he growled, his voice rough with need.
Candice left his lap and started to strip off her shoes and jeans. In quick order she was standing before him wearing only a pair of white cotton panties, plain white socks and a smile.
He was such a fucking goner.
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“I’m dying to see under those panties, sweetheart, but I don’t think you want that just yet. Am I right?”
Blade’s voice was a rough thread of sound and his entire body seemed to vibrate with sexual tension, and still he stuck to his word and let her decide their next move. “No, I’m not ready for that, but for the first time I do feel like I could be ready…maybe the next time.”
Candice wasn’t even sure there would be a next time, since she was quite possibly driving the poor man insane with her shy, schoolgirl attitude. Any other man would have given up by now, called her a tease or worse, and left. Not Blade. He was like a dog with a bone, slowly chewing away at the layers of her fear. As she stared at the hunger in his eyes, Candice knew no other experience in her life had prepared her for a man like Blade Vaughn.
He was powerful even while he was being gentle, possessive, though she knew he wouldn’t try to push her too hard, and he was the man she’d made love to countless times in her dreams. At that very moment, she had his full attention, as if she were the only woman on earth. It all left her hot and excited and restless.
“Come back over here, Candy girl, you’re way too far away,” Blade grumbled low as he held out a hand to her.
She fidgeted, worried that once he got his hands on her mostly-nude body he’d not be able to maintain control. Not that she was the type of woman men lost control over, but Lance had soured her on physical pleasure.
At least she thought he had.
“Blade?” Fear blazed through her as she stared at the huge erection straining his fly.
“You can trust me, baby. We made a deal.”
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The sincerity on his face relieved her. Blade had more than proven he was a man of his word.
Slowly, she walked toward him. As soon as she was within reach, Blade snatched her off her feet and sat her in his lap again. He groaned and pressed his face to her naked breasts, and Candice’s worries slipped away with the first contact of his tongue to her nipple.
It was incredible that a single touch from him could make her feel so many sensations at once, and in so many places at the same time. Her limited experience with men even before the incident with Lance hadn’t come close to the way Blade made her feel.
He nibbled and sucked at her as if he had the rest of his life to sit and amuse himself with her body. He sat back, smiling. “You are the most amazing woman.”
“No, I’m not.” She clasped her hands together in her lap and tried to concentrate on something other than the hard length of him pressing insistently into her bottom. “You’ve been with countless women. I’m sure there were others that left you feeling much more amazed.”
“Yeah, baby, I’ve been with plenty of women,” Blade whispered, “but I’ve never dreamed of any of them. And they damn sure never had me crazy with lust the way I’ve been with you.”
She liked that she made him crazy, because she’d definitely been going slightly nuts herself. And since he was being so obliging…
“Blade, I’d be much more comfortable if you took off your jeans, too. I feel sort of funny here.”