Nikki checked into the Moriah Motel, a twelve-room lodge on Main Street in Sheridan. The motel had wireless Internet and cable TV, and was only half a mile from the funeral home—a double blessing, given her lack of transportation. Although she’d have to deal with Wade eventually, the more distance she could keep between them in the meantime, the better.
After unpacking a few things, Nikki’s stomach sounded a loud protest against two days of neglect. She’d only seen one restaurant when they drove through town, but it too was within walking distance. Hating to eat alone, and even worse, to become a subject of local speculation, Nikki called the Prospector Café to place a takeout order—a large burger with the works, beer-battered onion rings, a shake, and a slab of chocolate cake. Only a humongous caloric overload could even begin to soothe her hurt.
After hanging up the phone, she undressed for a much needed shower. She was in her bra and panties and had just turned on the tap when a knock sounded on the door. She froze with her heart in her throat. Wade? It was what she most wanted and most dreaded all at the same time.
Don’t be ridiculous, Nikki. Regardless of what his mother had said, he’d never come to Sheridan with Allie waiting for him at the ranch. Still, she peered through the peephole. Shit! It was him, leaning on the doorjamb, hat pulled down over his eyes, and looking like sin incarnate.
“Open the door, Nikki,” he said in a low voice. “We need to talk.”
Leaving the chain on, she flipped the dead bolt and opened only a crack. “Go away, Wade. There’s nothing to say.”
“The hell there isn’t!” he growled. “You left with some harebrained notions. We need to settle this. Now. C’mon. Open the door… Please.” He sounded angry and frustrated, but it was his pleading look that did her in.
“All right,” she sighed. “Just give me a minute, I’m not dressed.”
“Don’t go to any trouble on my behalf.”
She closed the door on a snort and pulled out the least provocative thing she owned—an oversized Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt. The frown on his face when she opened the door almost made her laugh. It also told her she’d made the right choice.
“Your ugly alma mater wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for.”
“Speak your piece, Wade. My shower and dinner are waiting.”
He doffed his hat and raked his hair. “Why’d you leave me like that?”
“Like what?” she asked, feigning indifference.
“Just slinking off like you did. I told you when I left with Dirk that we needed to talk about some things.”
“Things? What things? We spent a night together. It was a mistake, but it’s done. I just want to move past it now.”
“Damn it! If you’re put off because of Allie, I told you—it’s just business.”
“So you keep saying, but I got quite another impression.”
“All right,” he groaned. “I won’t say there was never anything between us, because there was. Past tense. But it wasn’t serious and it pretty much ended on this last trip of mine to Denver. If she insinuated anything different, she was just blowing smoke up your pretty ass.”
“Look, Wade, I appreciate your desire to set things straight, but it truly doesn’t matter to me. I came here to say good-bye to my dead father. That’s it. As soon as I settle things, I’m gone. I don’t want or need any complications.”
He took a step toward her. “I wasn’t looking for this either, sweetheart, but it’s too late to turn back now. There’s already something between us. I don’t know what it is, or where it’s going any more than you do, but I sure as hell want to ride it out and see.”
“That’s the difference between us. I don’t. I told you it was a mistake, Wade. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull? I don’t want to continue this. Please just go now. If there’s anything else we need to discuss, I’ll make an appointment at your office on Monday.”
“Appointment, my ass! I’m not done with you by half, and setting the record straight, darlin’, you haven’t had your fill of me either.”
Nikki snorted. “There you go again with all that big talk. Is your ego really that inflated? Do you really think you’re so irresistible?”
He advanced another step with a dangerous look. “You’re wasting your breath if you think to convince me you don’t feel it too.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Another bold-faced lie. Last night was all she’d been able to think about, but that didn’t mean she was fool enough to repeat it.
He laughed. “You’re a piss-poor liar, Nikki Powell. And if you even draw another breath to protest, I swear I’ll bury my face in that pretty little nectarine of yours until your mind is empty of any thought beyond how fast I can get my prick inside you.”
Her breathing hitched as her mind filled with visions of his dirty promises.
As if reading her thoughts, his mouth came down on hers—deep, hot, and devouring, tangling her reason and emotion in knots and sending a ripple of raw lust ripping through her.
Wade held nothing back. His mouth was everywhere, on her mouth, her neck, nibbling her lobes, breathing nasty words in her ear, and purging her mind of every thought but what he’d just threatened to do. Damn him!
Powerless to resist, Nikki tumbled headlong into his arms, and into his kiss. Her brain cried out insanity, but he drove her to the brink of it every time he touched her. Her mouth and hands were equally hungry, growing more fevered and frenzied with every searing stroke of his tongue. Breaking apart for breath, Nikki gazed up at him, licking her kiss-swollen lips. “M-my shower is still running.”
“Is it? Then maybe we should catch it together.”
His slow, sexy smile sent a gush of liquid heat straight to her core.
Before she could utter a word of protest, he’d slid his hands under her legs, and lifted her clean off the ground. Taking his cue, Nikki wrapped her legs tightly around him, panting and moaning between deep drugging kisses, as he carried her through the narrow doorway into the bathroom. They devoured one another until they were both gasping for air.
When Wade set her down, they rapidly shed clothing. Frantic to feel his hot skin under her hands, Nikki went to work on his buttons, ripping his shirt away to map her hands over his strong pecs and sculpted abs. While she fumbled with his belt, he balanced on one foot, toeing off his boots. Then his hands joined hers, tugging frantically at his zipper until he sprang out, big and hard. He kicked out of his jeans and then tore off her bulldog shirt and bra. Her panties followed.
With his hands firmly anchored on her hips, his hot gazed raked her from head to toe. Nikki shifted under his hungry stare, feeling self-conscious to be completely exposed in broad daylight. In the cabin, they’d made love in near darkness, with only the flickering light of the fire.
“Hot damn.” A wolfish grin stretched his mouth. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a prettier sight.” He kissed her again, long and deep, releasing her only long enough to grab some soap before joining her in the shower.
* * *
Stripped of his clothes, Wade followed her into the steamy shower, kissing her again, long, lush, and deep. She was already achingly aroused, but just like last night, Wade seemed to be totally in control. She wondered what it would take to make him come unglued.
“There’s something I want, Wade.” She was determined to send him over the edge with the same mindless want he so effortlessly wrested from her.
“Anything darlin.’ Just name it.”
In response, she pressed her palms against his chest, sending him backward under the shower head, forcing him to shut his eyes against the blast of streaming water. Hands shaking, she took up the bar of soap to begin an eager tactile exploration of his beautiful body. Wasn’t it only a couple of days ago that she’d fantasized about this very thing? All six-feet-plus of his wet, male magnificence? But Wade naked, wet, and highly aroused was so much more than her imagination could ever have conjured.
Sliding her hands up and over his broad, muscular shoulders, she worked her way over his chest and torso slowly devouring every rock solid inch of him, until she was lost in lust. With her mouth, she worked her way down his body, noting the tightening in his jaw and compression of his lips as she traced the dark trail of hair leading to his erection. The sight of it, big, hard, and ready, made her insides clench with desire.
His eyes jerked open wide when she cupped his sac, gently fondling it, loving the weight of him in her hand. He drew a harsh breath when she wrapped her hand around his length, stroking, teasing, and squeezing until the urge to take him into her mouth overwhelmed her.
* * *
Wade sucked in a gasp when she gripped his thighs and sank to her knees. Holy shit! He hadn’t expected that move. His hips bucked involuntarily at the sensation of her hot hungry mouth engulfing him to the root. Adding slick, sliding, strokes of her velvety tongue, she fondled his balls with soft, skillful, soap-slicked hands, while working him in and out with long, lush pulls and the sweet, hot suction of her mouth. With a reeling head and weak knees, Wade plastered one hand on the wall behind him and cupped the back of her head with the other. She responded by clutching his ass tighter and taking him deeper.
Sweet Jesus it was good. So damned good.
Oh, he’d had plenty of women go down on him, but mostly in reciprocation, or in Allie’s case, as a means of coercion to get something she wanted. He’d never had a lover suck him off so eagerly. Wade gazed down at her just as she stole a look up at him, heedless of the water streaming down her face. Their gazes locked then his leveled on the beautiful, generous mouth that was driving him out of his mind.
His chest grew tight, his balls contracted. His knees threatened to give way. Shit, if she doesn’t stop soon…like now… He drew a deep, wrenching breath, grinding his teeth against the urge to shoot his load into her mouth. It was almost more than he could bear but it wasn’t how he’d wanted this to play out. Reaching down, he stroked his thumb over her lips, withdrawing himself with a groan and then pulling her back up to her feet. She’d blown more than his cock; she’d blown his effing mind.
“I didn’t expect that, Nikki.”
“I know.” She smiled. “But it was what I wanted. We didn’t have to stop, you know.”
“Yes. We did.”
He kissed her slow and deep, then took her hands in his, lathering them up, and then bringing them to her breasts. “My turn now,” he said darkly.
“Your turn?”
“Yeah. I want you to wash yourself. Touch yourself.”
With their joined hands, he guided her, soaping, caressing, fondling, and squeezing her breasts. “Don’t stop.” He released her hands, tonguing her ear and sucking her neck. “It turns me on to no end, Nikki. It’s sexy as hell.” Her gaze locked with his, He released her hands to make a more thorough exploration of her body.
She froze. “Is that really what you want?”
“Oh, yeah, sweetheart.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Does this voyeuristic inclination extend to other things?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like watching me with someone else?”
“Fuck no!” he retorted. “If one man’s not enough for you, I’m sorry. I’m just not into that shit. I don’t share.”
She returned a meaningful look. “Neither do I.”
“Glad we got that straight up front.” He kissed her hands one at a time and brought them back to her own body, sliding them slowly over her hips and belly. “Do this for me, darlin’, and I’m all yours…anything you want.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Wade,” she replied low and husky.
Nikki leaned against the shower wall, closing her eyes, and dropping her head back with a sigh. Letting water stream over her, she glided her hands over her breasts, molding and squeezing them together, offering him a visual banquet.
While she teased her nipples with one hand, she held the bar of soap in the other, guiding it downward over her belly, pausing to circle her navel and then stealing a daring look at him through her wet lashes before her hand continued its descent, plunging at last into her sexy hairless slit. “Is this what you wanted?” Her voice was breathless, her nipples pebbled as she slowly, tauntingly undulated against herself.
Holy hell. The erotic vision was suddenly too much.
With a guttural sound, Wade pinned her to the wall, shoving his thigh between hers, dipping his head and feasting on her breasts—licking, biting, sucking. She rode his leg as they clung together, writhing and grinding, cranking their need until he thought he would explode. She reached for his shaft and he clasped her wrist. He wanted her like hell, but he wouldn’t last if she began pumping his cock.
“No you don’t,” he said. “I’m not done with you yet.”
He released her wrist to grip her shoulders, spinning her before she could protest and then placing her hands on the shower wall above her head. Last night they’d fumbled in the dark. Now he was gonna take his damn sweet time.
“Spread your legs, sweetheart.” He urged her thighs apart. “I want to feel that pretty ass of yours squeezing my dick.”
Wade resumed his earlier slick and soapy survey of her body, concentrating now on her delicious ass. He loved her curvy womanly ass. He ran his hands over the smooth cheeks, eliciting a needy whimper from her when he took himself in hand, rubbing the soapy head of his cock along her ass crack. Stepping closer, he positioned his shaft between her cheeks.
Sweet Jesus.
The sight of his cock nestled inside her slick globes made him want to bend her over in the worst way, but he held himself back. Prolonging the mutual torment, he slid himself slowly up and down her cleft. She squirmed against him, urging in no uncertain terms.
“All in good time, darlin’,” he growled in her ear, determined not to rush.
Still holding himself with one hand, he slid the other down her belly, over her baby-smooth mound and into her soap-slickened slit. Still stroking his cock up and down, Wade circled her clit with his thumb, coaxing her ever closer to climax. His hips rocked. His tempo increased. “Give it to me now, sweetheart,” he urged, low and husky. “Come for me.”
“I can’t… I need… Please…” she begged between broken breaths.
“I live to please you, sweetheart.” Wade plied his mouth to her shoulder, biting down softly as he plunged two fingers into her, pumping in and out even as he worked her clit. Her head fell back against his chest with a cry as her body squeezed his fingers and then let loose long spastic shudders that left her limp and dazed in his arms.
Wade held her upright until she came back down and then turned around with another long lingering kiss. He then cut off the water, long past ready to move onto new games in new places—like the bed.
Grabbing the towels, they dried each other between more fevered kisses, and somehow managed to stumble into the bedroom. They toppled together onto the bed, where he rolled her on top and cupped her delectable ass.
Nikki was eager for more, rubbing her bare mons on the head of his prick, and purring like a cat about to get cream. He was primed, but when she raised her hips to impale herself on him, he gripped her hips and shook his head. “Not yet.”
“But—” Her brows furrowed.
“Turnabout is fair play.”
But he wasn’t playing fair. He knew he was driving her insane with anticipation…with raw need. Hell, he was killing himself, too, but he had something to prove. This kind of chemistry didn’t come along every day and he was gonna make damn sure she knew it.
He shifted his hands under her ass, urging her up his body, until she was straddling his face. Nikki gazed down at him wide-eyed, looking shy and uncertain. As his own gaze swept slowly, hungrily over her, he was overcome with the powerful urge to touch and taste every inch of her. Her heady, musky, mouthwatering scent wafted over him, engulfing and overpowering him with the urge to bury his face in her pretty little snatch.
He felt her resistance, but refused to be denied. He kissed her inner thigh and then the other, wet his lips, and then lowered her hips toward his questing mouth.
“No Wade,” she gasped and tried to buck away. “You can’t. Not like this.”
“Wrong again. I intend to explore every luscious bit of you.”
“B-but it’s too…too…intimate.”
His mouth twitched. “And what you did to me wasn’t? Tit for tat, sweetheart.”
“That was different.”
“How? Because you were in control? Is that what this is really about? Are you afraid of giving it up?”
“No, that’s not it at all.” Her gaze wavered, belying her denial.
“Let me do this, Nikki,” he coaxed. “I want to. I want to tongue you, taste you, drown myself in you. I want to look up at your face when you fall apart.”
“But—”
“Shh.” He placed his index finger over her mouth. “No more talk. Just shut your eyes now, empty your mind, let go and enjoy the ride.” He slid her hands over her hips to cup her ass. She tensed under his hands, but he pulled her closer. Close enough to touch, to taste. He began gently, with soft and teasing flicks of his tongue, increasing to long deep lashes when she started rhythmically rocking her hips. Letting her set the cadence, he probing deeper, licking, swirling, and sucking, growing drunk on her tangy essence. He stole another gaze upward. Her lids were squeezed tight, her cheeks flushed, her lips softly parted. Her breaths came shorter, sharper.
His hands wandered over her sweet ass as he made love to her with his mouth, stroking, caressing, and then probing her passage in time with her undulating hips. She gripped the sides of his head, her fingers threading through his hair, clutching and clutching spastically as she careened toward climax. With one hand on her hips, he honed in on her clitoris, single-mindedly circling and sucking. Faster, harder, his sex-slickened fingers plunged and thrust, in and out, until her body seized and convulsed in the first waves of her orgasm.
She cried out, throwing her head back on a scream as she came against his mouth. Releasing her while she still quivered with the aftershocks, Wade flipped her onto her back and then gloved himself. Coming over her with elbows braced on either side, he watched her lids flutter shut as he sank into her depths with his own shudder of raw, unadulterated pleasure.
He stilled, buried to the root, basking in the sensation of being sheathed in her hot little snatch. Stealing a breath, he withdrew and drove into her again, alternating with short stabs and long drags until she came back to life beneath him. Clutching his ass, she met him stroke for stroke, panting squeezing, spurring him on. Wade ground his teeth, thrusting deeper, harder, finally giving her everything he’d been holding back.
Unaware of anything but the glistening sheen of sweat that coated them, the slick friction, and sultry slap of flesh on flesh, Wade increased his tempo, pounding ruthlessly into her until her legs trembled and her passage milked him with rhythmic contractions of another climax. His chest tightened. His balls drew up. Several more hammering thrusts sent his orgasm crashing over him, in long, shuddering, mind-melting spasms. He withdrew, collapsing beside her and pulling her into his arms even as he fought for breath. Nikki gazed into his eyes with a soft laugh. He looked down at her with a feigned scowl. “You thought that was funny?”
“No.” She chuckled again. “Not funny. I think I’m delirious.”
“As in deliriously happy? As in ‘You’re hands down the best I’ve ever had, Wade’?”
Her smile faded. “Without a doubt.”
Her words humbled him. He couldn’t begin to fathom what Nikki did to him. Maybe it was that she was so damned responsive…so warm…so real after two women who’d only used him; Rachel to get to Dirk, and Allie, purely for recreation. Whatever it was, he couldn’t get enough of this Nikki.
“You think so?” He nuzzled her. “Just give me a little time to recover, sweetheart, ’cause we’re only getting started.” Everything about this, about them, together, felt so damn good.
And that thought jarred him to the core.