Custo could guess where she was going with this. He should have kept his distance, kept his hands off her. There was no white picket fence in their future. Ever.
“I think we should dispense with any and all crap and tell the truth for once,” she continued. “That way, neither of us needs to read minds.”
No house in the burbs. No happily-ever-after. But some offers were just too good to turn down. He pulled his shirt-tails out of his pants and started removing the studs in his shirt.
“Now,” she said, her voice wavering after her speech. “I think you should start.”
Little coward. Custo caught himself from smiling. She wanted truth; she was going to get it.
“I hate your dress.” There.
Her faced flushed, hands going to her flat, little waist. “Well, I—”
Custo flicked the last stud away as he strode over to her. Her scent, sweet and subtly flowery, filled him. He circled to her back and stroked a knuckle down the exposed skin. “It’s been bothering me all night. It really should come off.”
He lifted his hands to her shoulders and brushed away the straps. The blue fabric slid down her body and puddled on the floor. “Much better.”
She turned her head to the side. “I saved for three months to buy that dress.”
“This is much better, trust me.” He skated over her waist to her flat belly to pull her back against his open shirt, skin to skin, then stopped at her breasts. He’d been certain a second ago that she was braless. He turned her to investigate.
Sure enough, a nude bra of sorts covered her breasts. Having no straps, the molded cups were held up by magic. He hated it, too.
“It’s a stick-on,” she explained, a shy version of her smile tugging at her mouth. She stepped out of her gown, stooped to pick it up, then laid it on a wing-back chair. He didn’t stop her so he could watch her move in her high heels with her endless legs in thigh-high stockings and her itty-bitty G-string.
But his attention came back to the bra. “You’re telling me that you have a sticker for a bra?”
Innovative. Brilliant. Somebody must be making millions.
Annabella laughed now. “A self-adhesive, yes. So my bra wouldn’t show with my dress. You can’t just yank it off either.”
She began to apply herself to the task of slowly peeling the silicone from her skin.
“No, no,” he said. “Let me. I thought I had mastered all women’s underwear, but I seem to have missed this one. As always, Bella, you challenge me.”
Her hands dropped to accommodate him, her weight shifting to sit in her delectable hip to let him know how exasperating he was being and how patient she was in return.
“Now let me know if this hurts, and I will kiss it all better.” He tugged a little at the cup, gently, and kissed the bare spot anyway. The skin beneath was warm, dewy, and pinked. Salty. Her fingers threaded into his hair to keep him close.
Her touch had electricity charging his blood, beating in time with the pulse of the music below. Heat pooled in his groin, pulsing and insistent. The task required a tenderness that he didn’t have. Never had. He wanted the thing off. He wanted her pinned beneath him. Pierced by him. So she would know, for certain, that no matter what happened tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, he was hers and she was his, and that’s the way it was going to be forever.
The first breast sprang free, and he sucked hard on the nipple. She arched against him, yanking at his shirt, while he made short work of the cup on the other side. He had to touch and taste all of her. To learn her, memorize every lash and freckle. To
He was sorry when she kicked off her sexy heels, but he shucked his shoes, too. His mouth grazed her shoulder, thumb sliding the G-string from her hip. She did a little shake of her perfect ass, which jiggled slightly in his hand, and the bit of fabric fell to the floor.
“Bed,” she said. Demanded more like.
He was too far gone, ready to bring her to her knees and take her for the first time right there, stockings and all. Damn, he loved stockings. They made up for the maddening sticker.
She pinched him hard on his pecs. “Bed. Now.”
Brat. The sooner he was inside her, the better. He circled her waist to pick her up and kicked open the bedroom door. He didn’t mean to jar her with the doorjamb, but it was her own damn fault they were going in there in the first place. And he’d kiss that better, too.
He set her on her feet at the bed and worked the double clasp of his pants. By the time they were wrinkling on the floor she was crawling across the mattress toward the pillow.
Grabbing her ankle, he dragged her back toward him. The bed was the only comfort she was getting now. Pillows later, if she were lucky.
Annabella rolled onto her back as soon as Custo released her. She caught a flash of his green eyes, his full mouth, and his incredible physique before he came down on top of her, his tight, smooth skin rippling with muscle and incredible warmth. She expected him to ravage something—anything would be good—but he stopped, pinning her to the bed with his weight to drag a lock of hair from her mouth.
“You drive me crazy,” he said. The vibration of his chest felt amazing against her body. She responded with a deep, petulant ache at her center.
“Right back at ‘cha,” she said, lifting her head to nip at his mouth. She wriggled a little under him to let him know she was impatient.
He ignored her urgency and brushed his lips over hers, the texture smooth, the pressure hard, as if finding just the right angle to settle in. Then he kissed her so dark and hot that she forgot to breathe. It made her heart pound harder. There was only Custo, his body, and the strange climbing rhythm of the bass from the club below. She was liking his music more and more.
When he moved to her neck, stubble rasping as his mouth worked her sensitive skin, she gasped for air. Her hands gripped his shoulders, her gaze blindly casting upward.
He lowered to her breasts, which by now she knew he liked a lot. He couldn’t stop touching them. He nuzzled and sucked; the answering pull in her body was delicious. Her breath came faster as his hands traveled her contours, breast, waist, ass, thigh, branding her all over with finger trails of possessive heat. She blinked rapidly to clear her clouding mind, but his laves and strokes drove away coherent thought.
She couldn’t lose herself yet; he hadn’t admitted the truth out loud. With words.
Far off, a saxophone wailed. She grabbed hold of the sound as his mouth trailed down her belly. He climbed off the edge of the bed, hands sliding up her inner thighs, thumbs parting her.
The things the man could do with his hands.
“What’s this song?” she asked as her vision fuzzed, his warm breath both liquefying her and sending hot sparks into her core.
Custo paused, then kissed her where she ached. “ ‘Footprints.’ ”
The sax trilled up with his touch, as did the pressure rising within her. When the music fell to a lower register, she gripped the sheets, willing it to climb again. “I like it.”
Custo echoed the rhythm, coaxing the music higher against her with his demanding mouth. His kiss was wet, and hot, and hard. Maddening. When the band came together to climax, she did, too, shuddering against him on the last waves of the melody.
Every joint and muscle in Annabella’s body was happy-loose when Custo altered his hold on her, kissing her temple briskly.
“Up,” he growled, pulling her out of her languid pleasure.
Not that she was complaining. She wanted his weight on her, him inside her, moving slow and deep.
He nudged her toward the headboard, lifting her to her knees like an expert dance partner, her back to him. He took her hands, braced them on the wall, and held them there. At her ear, he said, “Arch for me.” His voice, dark with desire, had her coiling inside again. Heart pounding, she tilted her hips back for him, feeling his length behind her.
