mistakes and a loss of control. Improvising led her here, to this bed, where a shirtless, grinning Tony Corcarelli loomed over her. For better or worse she’d seen the last of her simple, straightforward plan.
God help her with whatever happened now.
Tony figured Trish spent lots of time ironing out details, including how the deed would go down. He grinned, because knowing Trish, the all-business Boss Lady, “going down” wasn’t one of those details. But after the kick in the crotch he got from kissing her, he had his own ideas about her little plan. And after the way she responded to him, he didn’t think she’d mind the detour.
“Maybe you could just stop talking and get busy making a baby,” she said, sitting on her knees in the middle of the bed, crisscrossing arms over breasts. If it weren’t for the wide eyes and flushed face, he’d think she was disgusted by him. But he saw the way she gawked at his chest, and there was nothing disgusted about that.
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” he said, dropping his pants and boxers to the floor with one push.
She zeroed in on the goods for a second. Her eyes growing even wider, but then she looked away, reaching behind her for the edge of the comforter. “Seriously, Tony, it’d probably be best if we didn’t say anything else now. Let’s just…”
He dropped to the bed, grabbed her and pulled her to him, knees to knees, chest to chest. Gathering the hem of her shirt in his hands, he tugged the soft fabric over the curves of her bottom and back, stroking soft skin as he went. His breathing quickened, matching hers. When she was naked, pressed against him, he stole a glance between them.
“There,” he whispered. “Now we’re even.”
She didn’t seem bothered by his talking now. She matched his crooked grin, a look he hadn’t seen before, just the tilt of her lips, a sparkle in her eye, and he wanted her in the worst way.
He pressed against her until she toppled backward, sprawling on the mattress beneath him. And then he kissed her, hard and punishing, squeezing her face in his hands. She whimpered, grabbed hold of his wrists, digging nails into his flesh, and then she arched into him, trapping his erection between them, milking it with rolling hips.
Tony swallowed a growl. Making a baby would be damn near impossible if he gave in too soon. Raising onto his hands and knees, he straddled her, releasing some of the pressure to his groin. Another kiss. A brush of palm across her nipple. Her hands smoothing down his sides. The blood pounded through his veins, pooling in his penis.
Tony dipped his lips to her shoulder and then to her breast. As much as he wanted to linger, he needed to keep moving, to get away from her hands that were crawling across his lower stomach, inching toward the launch site. One touch, and he knew he’d be over.
He dropped his mouth to her stomach, licking her skin. His hands roamed, grazing her thighs inside and out until his fingers opened her. She was wet enough to finish this, no need to delay, but the faint floral fragrance of her skin on his lips urged him to taste the rest.
Shoving his hands beneath her, he lifted only to feel her muscles harden in his hands.
“Tony, don’t. You don’t have to. It’s not necessary.”
His gaze grazed the center of her body, past her taut belly button, between her swollen breasts, to find her staring down at him, brows furrowed even as her chest heaved. “But I want to,” he said. And when he did, she unclenched her butt cheeks, dropped her head to the pillow and moaned.
Apparently he’d found the ultimate way to relax Trish DeVign. He smiled as he kissed, licked, and teased.
She moaned again, squirmed, yanked his hair, and then she lifted her body to him, pressing against his mouth. More tortured noises. More hair pulling. He was hard as a rock, avoiding contact with everything and anything, praying for not so much as a brush of air. And then she broke. Shattered. Muscles shaking. Breathing in sobs. He crawled over her to find her eyes closed and her arm flung over her forehead.
“That was not part of my plan,” she whispered.
“I figured, but I like my plan better.” He kissed her, wanting for her to taste the proof of a good plan on his lips.
Several seconds passed before she returned the enthusiasm of his kiss, but when she did, there was no mistaking the boost of energy. She drilled his mouth with her tongue as she reached between his legs. This time, he didn’t panic. He held his breath and rocked against her hand, hardening every inch of his skin, feeding the ache to a fraction of the edge, and then he cranked her knees higher, lifting her hips. On a single, labored breath, he drove inside.
Trish yelped at the abrupt movement, but before he could pull back and slow down, she gripped his neck and yanked his face to hers. “You were right,” she managed between heavy breathing. “I did want to be with you.” And then she kissed him, driving her tongue into his mouth again, matching the rhythm of their lower halves. She clawed at his shoulders, nibbled his lip and drove him crazy, until the edge was a welcomed relief.
He collapsed on top of her with only sweat and breathing between them. Holy hell. That was…
“Do you think it worked?”
Was it wrong to wish against her, to hope it didn’t work? Maybe it was lousy of him, but it was also true. Tony hoped he failed. He hoped Trish wasn’t pregnant.
Because then they could do it again.
CHAPTER TEN
Trish rested her chin on Tony’s shoulder and watched candlelight flicker on her ceiling. God, she hoped this worked, because if it didn’t, they were going to have to do it again, and that was… She closed her eyes, tried to breathe, but his weight restricted the motion. What little air she managed to inhale was tinged with him, cedar and soap. She was entirely too comfortable in this position, and that wouldn’t do.
Tony was simply a means to an end. No matter how attractive or good in bed, he wasn’t a romantic possibility. He was a sort-of employee, her best friend’s brother, and a man fundamentally opposed to settling down. She sighed, wanting her body to agree with her brain, to declare more sex with Tony out of the question, but who was she kidding? She’d never been closer to having a baby. But she’d also never been closer with chaos. And why? Because Tony made the loss of control exhilarating.
“We should do it again, just to make sure,” he said, nuzzling his nose against her neck, blanketing her skin in shivers.
“Tony…”
The doorbell rang followed by three loud knocks that ricocheted through her exhausted body, rattling her cells to attention.
Tony lifted, hovering above her on the palms of his hands. “Were you expecting someone?”
“No.” Trish scrambled out from underneath him, snatching her pants from the floor. “But what if it’s Ange? Your bike’s parked in front. She’ll…”
The warm, wet sensation between her legs startled Trish. She’d never had unprotected sex before. And although she knew what they’d done and why they’d done it, the proof of their action slightly overwhelmed. With a giant inhale and a squeeze of her muscles, she clenched her thighs, hoping to lock the fluid in a few seconds more, not wanting to lessen her chances of conceiving. But the doorbell rang again, and then her phone. Trish blinked her brain to attention, wiggled into her pants and glanced at her nightstand where the phone sat next to Tony’s discarded beer.
Trish bounded down the stairs, heart in her throat. She had no idea why her mother would stop by unannounced at—she looked at the grandfather clock—ten o’clock. She hoped it wasn’t an emergency.
Smoothing her hair with one hand and wiping a finger under her eyes with the other, she hoped to God she didn’t smell like sex. Her mother was going to hug her and then ask a million questions Trish wouldn’t know how to answer. Raising her shirt to her nose, Trish sniffed. Faint traces of Tony lingered enough to make her stomach wobble, but she opened the door anyway if only to foil the incessant knocking.
