Nick heaved a sigh as he snatched his wallet off the night table and handed his brother a twenty-dollar bill. “Have you found a new job yet? You may have earned a scholarship to Temple, Brainiac, but that won’t cover your living expenses. And as soon as I hit the road with my band this fall, I won’t be here for you to mooch gas money—”
“I’m on top of it, okay? One of the girls said she’ll put in a good word for me with her boss.” Justin pulled several rubbers out of Nick’s sock drawer. “I assume you won’t need these tonight.”
“Make sure you replace ‘em. I’m not your free condom distributor.”
“As soon as I get my first paycheck.
Gracias, hermano
.” Justin stuffed the square packets into his jeans’ pocket. “I won’t be home tonight, so cover for me with Mama in the morning.” As usual, their mother, a nurse’s aide, was working the graveyard shift at the nursing home. Justin pulled a quilt off the shelf in Nick’s closet and dashed down the hall with the comforter under his arm, yelling, “I’ll be damned if I’m goin’ to college a virgin!”
Nick did a double take as the front door slammed.
Whoa. He’d been getting lucky since ninth grade. Nothing could’ve stunned him more than to learn his lecherous eighteen-year-old brother was still cherry. Although, it explained all the hours the butt-head spent in the shower.
The sound of water running at the front of the house dragged Nick from the flood of memories, and he headed toward the master suite.
He would love to change a lot of what he’d done in his lifetime. But comforting Sam when she’d shown up looking for Justin only an hour after he’d left for his little beach party wasn’t one of them. Nor was letting things get out of control and making love to her three more times before sunrise.
The
only
thing he regretted about that night was his brother had taken every damn condom.
CHAPTER 6
Samantha replaced the toothpaste in the cabinet, tightened the towel around her, and left the steamy bathroom. She turned to take a clean nightgown out of her dresser and gasped at the sight of Nick stretched out on the king-sized mattress wearing nothing but a pair of thin knit boxer briefs.
He must have been doing intensive workouts in California, because no amount of bedtime aerobics could give a man a six-pack like he’d developed. Nick’s build had always turned women’s heads, but now his chiseled muscles were....hoo-boy. Plain spectacular.
Her nipples swelled at the sight of such raw masculinity occupying her bed. She swallowed hard.
“What’s the matter?” His eyebrows drew together.
“What happened to you using the sofa bed?”
“You told me to sleep wherever I like.” He shrugged. “I like here.”
There went her theory about him not being a stupid masochist.
“I’m not trying to be difficult, Sammy, honest. The sofa bed’s mattress isn’t any longer than the couch downstairs,” he explained. “You don’t want me to sleep with my feet hanging off the bed, do you?”
“There you go again, trying to make me feel guilty. I hate when you do that.”
“That’s not my intention. But if you’re feeling guilty, then maybe—”
“Fine. Stay there. The sofa bed is more than long enough for me.” She stomped into the bedroom’s alcove and flipped the back of the couch down.
“But I don’t want to push you out of your bed.” He tossed a pillow to her and stood to help her pull the fitted sheet onto the sofa mattress.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be quite comfortable over here.”
“Now
I
feel guilty. I really don’t mind sharing, and I don’t need that entire king-size bed to myself.”
“Well, I
do
mind.” If he liked being tortured, who was she to keep him from suffering? She’d make sure he didn’t get a wink of sleep.
She picked up her body lotion from the dresser and proceeded to slather herself. When her towel accidently slipped and dropped to the floor, she allowed him to take a good, long look before slowly bending to pick it up. Stealing a peek at him, she bit back a smile at the tent his soldier erected in his shorts and the ravenous look on his face.
Apparently it made no difference whether she was slender or pudgy. In Nick’s eyes, a naked woman was still, well....naked.
She pulled open her dresser drawer and selected his favorite black satin nightgown. She’d rarely worn it while they were married—and not at all since—due to its plunging neckline and back, not to mention the provocative slit. The gown had always clung to her, but now, on her fuller figure, it fit as if she’d slipped into a second skin.
“Damn,
querida
, you don’t play fair.”
“What?” She stared down at her lush cleavage, feigning innocence. “You can’t possibly be tempted by my chubby body.”
“Chubby? Hardly.” He snorted. “If you ask me, you have room for a few more pounds.”
“Where? On my big toe?” She pinched her butt, proving how much flab had taken root on her behind. “Look at this.”
“I am. And I like what I see. Your breasts are....well, let’s say you’ve never been more tempting than you are right now.” He flopped back down on the bed, propping himself on one elbow. “To be honest, you were always so frail and delicate I worried about hurting you.”
“Is that so?” She release a soft snort “I don’t recall you ever holding back.”
“You’d be surprised,
Abejita
.” His mouth curled in a seductive smile.
“Oh? I suppose I simply imagined our headboard cracking the plaster after my aunt’s funeral.”
“Okay, so I got a little carried away that night. But if I’d taken you the way I wanted to, we would’ve broken a lot more than a hundred-plus-year-old wall. If you have any doubt, I’ll be happy to demonstrate the fullest extent of my, uhhh....enthusiasm.”
She’d never forgotten the wild passion he’d unleashed after discovering his brother holding and comforting her at her Aunt Caroline’s wake. Her aunt had broken her hip only a few weeks before and developed a multitude of serious complications that led to her death. Ironically enough, one of the hardest months in Sam’s life had culminated with her most memorable night.
Nick’s overwhelming need to brand her and remind her she was
his
wife made her feel as though he might have truly fallen in love with her. Sadly, in the bright light of day, Nick admitted he’d always known his brother would’ve offered to marry her if he hadn’t.
Any idiot could see her husband’s ardor and jealousy had been motivated by mere sibling rivalry. Her throat tightened at how badly it would break her heart if she let him make love to her like that again now.
His gaze lingered on the swell of her breasts, and his pupils dilated, turning his dark eyes almost black.
“I said you could sleep wherever you like.” She spread the top sheet over the sofa bed. “I don’t recall issuing any other invitations.”
“It’s not too late,” he rasped in a hoarse whisper.
“It was too late over a year ago,” she said, reminding him of their divorce and sliding into the alcove’s bed.
He cocked his head and frowned. “So then why put on that come-and-get-it nightgown instead of your usual T-shirt?”
“This is what I’ve been wearing, lately,” she fibbed, knowing full well he would assume Adam was responsible for her reversion to the sexy nighties she’d worn when she and Nick were first married. “Since Dani’s outgrown her need to sleep in here, I might as well use the lingerie I bought every Valentine’s Day to surprise you.”
“Why bother, if there’s no one here to appreciate it?”
“I don’t need a man to enjoy wearing silk and satin.” She fluffed the pillow. “Now that I’ve hit my sexual prime, I’m feeling extra sensual.” Biting back a smirk, she dragged her fingertips down the center of her body, arching her back in a demonstration of how easily she could arouse herself.
For a split second, Nick’s mouth gaped like a trout’s on a hook. “It figures you would ditch me when you were about to peak,” he grumbled. “Was that why you divorced me, Sam? You were too proud to give in on the birth control issue, so you had to free yourself up to enjoy your so-called sexual prime?”
Somewhere along the way, her plan to tease him had backfired.
“That’s right!” she snapped. “And I’ve loved every minute of it. Haven’t you noticed all the notches in my headboard?”
“If you’re that eager and available, I have a blue-ribbon hard-on that’s going to waste.” He rolled to his back to give her a better view of the two-story teepee in his shorts. “Whaddaya, say, Sammy?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “How about a wild ride with
El Capitán
for old time’s sake?”
“Goodnight, Nick.” She rolled to face the window, silently cursing her overdeveloped pride. If she were willing to sacrifice a little of her dignity, she could surrender and enjoy the intense pleasure he would no doubt give her.
He switched off the bedside lamp, huffing his obvious frustration—which could be nowhere near as great as hers, seeing as he’d recently had a busty teenager sharing his bed.
“Your loss,
querida
.”
Regrettably, it was. In the past year, she’d tried seeing to her own needs, but that was like rubbing a case of poison ivy to alleviate the relentless itching.
It simply amplified her craving for a good, hard scratch.
She didn’t need a college degree to realize there was an excellent chance no other mortal man could incite the shivers Nick did. It was probably why she kept putting Adam off. Despite her raging hormones, his kisses did no more for her than Justin’s had fifteen years ago. It would devastate her if she discovered she’d divorced the only man who appealed to her.
Or worse....that she’d condemned herself to a life-sentence of loneliness.
She swallowed past the giant lump in her throat. It was much easier to hope she’d be paroled someday than it was to face the possibility Nick was the only man she would ever want.
~*~
“I want you so much, Nicky.” Samantha slipped her hand into his shorts and caressed his hard, thick length. His tongue teased its way between her lips in a wicked slither, coaxing her mouth open as he pulled her into a deep, toe-curling kiss.
Delicious shivers rippled through her while he worshiped her face and neck, dotting it with tender kisses and caressing her breasts. His thumb circled one crest so gently it ached for him to squeeze her it....to lick it.
His other hand slid between her legs, stroking her slick core. The rough texture of his callused fingertips merely intensified the sensation—and pleasure.
After years of practice, Nick had become a virtuoso, playing her body. He simultaneously plucked her nipples and strummed her sweet spot, enticing a long ecstatic moan from her with the same finesse he used to make the strings of his guitar sing.
Finally his lips closed over one taut crest and suckled her while he pinched the other peak and continued stroking her, faster and faster. The empty passage to her womb pulsated in time to his teasing, aching to be filled.
By his fingers. His penis. It didn’t matter.
“Oh, pleeease, Nick, now!” She needed him inside her, occupying and stretching her. Instead, her entire body stiffened. Shards of white hot light pierced her brain as she shuddered, every muscle contracting, every nerve crooning its bliss through a long, way overdue, mind-blowing orgasm.
“Oh, yesss! Yes!” She clawed at his back, bucking wildly in time with her body’s convulsions. “Don’t ever stop!”
Her own shrieking jolted her awake from the most divine dream she ever—
“¡
Madre de Dios
!” Nick gasped and stared down at her. “You weren’t kidding about reaching your sexual prime.”
She shook her head. Oh, please, no.
No-no-no
! She groaned, trembling from the aftershocks of her climax. Evidently, none of it had been a dream—most especially her earth-shattering orgasm.
Damn him. She knew he would try to seduce her if she allowed him to stay in her room. “How dare you molest me while I’m asleep!”
“Me?” He drew back, staring at her as if she were some alien life form beamed down from the mother ship. “Before you make accusations like that,
querida
, you’d better check where you are.”
Wait a minute. She glanced around the sun-drenched bedroom, confused. She’d gone to sleep in the alcove. How had she ended up in the bed with Nick?
She winced as a vague memory of getting up to use the bathroom a few hours earlier flitted through her head.
Oh, no. She slid off Nick, who, at the moment, teetered so precariously on his edge of the mattress it was a miracle she hadn’t pushed him onto the floor.
“Evidently you didn’t find the sofa bed all that comfortable.” His mouth twisted in a smug smile, begging her to slap the smirk off his face.
If only she believed in violence.
“Just because I accidentally climbed back into the wrong bed while I was half asleep, doesn’t give you the right to—”
“If anyone did any molesting, Sammy, it was you. I didn’t crawl on top of my roomie and grab his soldier and wake him up. I also didn’t plead with him to make love to me.”
She really had no right to be angry with him after the way she’d teased him the night before. It wasn’t his fault she lost her inhibitions while she was unconscious.
“How was I supposed to know you were still asleep or that you hadn’t intentionally gotten into bed with me? I was simply giving you what you were begging for.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I must’ve thought you were someone else.”
“Really? Are you in the habit of letting men stay the night with our daughter sleeping right down the hall?”
“Of course not. I....uhh—”
“And do you call them all by my name? ‘
I want you so much, Nicky
,’” he mimicked in a high-pitched, needy voice, which simply refueled her indignation. “‘
Oh, pleeease, Nick, now
!’”
“Oh, shut up!” She swung her feet to the floor and stood, seething that he still had the power to reduce her to a desperate, sex-starved beggar. When it came to resisting Nick’s magnetism, drug addicts had more self-control. One kiss and she willingly forfeited every ounce of dignity in exchange for a few moments of his soul-shattering lovemaking. She yanked her nightgown down over her traitorous body. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”