A Texas Chance (11 page)

He snagged her arm. “You call this taking care of yourself?”

She glanced back and saw a dark glint in his eyes. “No, I call it foolishness to have yielded to temptation. It won’t happen again.” She moved toward the workshop.

He stepped in front of her. “Don’t you trying freezing me out, Queenie. It won’t work.” He herded her away from her workshop. “Be as snotty as you want, but you’re going to either let me help you, or, better yet, go to bed at a decent hour. Choose one. You’re operating on sheer nerves.”

She yanked her arm away. “You don’t know me. You have no idea what I need.” She tried to step around him.

He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. “Okay, we’ll do it the hard way.” Grimly he stalked toward the house.

A hot ball of fury burned in her chest. “Let me go, Cade,” she warned. But her voice was shaking.

“Zip it, Queenie, before you really make me mad.”

“Let me down, you idiot, you—” She pounded on his back. Kicked.

He made it to the front door then yanked her down in front of him, his own temper simmering.

She smacked his chest, eyes sparking fury. “Don’t you ever— You have no idea— I can’t—” Her legs felt weak. Her head pounded, and her vision wavered.

“Sophie, you don’t have to do everything alone.”

Suddenly, her face crumpled, and she buried it in her hands.

“Hey, now,” he said, a little edge of panic in his voice. “Sophie, don’t… Oh, hell.” Somehow he got them inside, led her to the library and sat down on the sofa, pulling her onto his lap and gathering her into his arms.

And held her while she cried.

CHAPTER TEN

S
OPHIE
WAS
TOO
TALL
to sit on anyone’s lap. Cade was a big man, though, and somehow in his embrace she felt delicate. Cherished. This must be what Jenna had experienced all her life—this sense of safety, of knowing that she always had a home, that someone was there to shelter her if she needed it.

Sophie had not had that luxury in more than half her life. She burrowed into Cade’s arms and let his deep voice soothe her with words she couldn’t make out, but it didn’t matter. All she knew was that she was safe.

She cried it all out—the past, her fears of failing at this dream that meant so much, of disappointing Maura again, her loneliness…all of it.

As her tears eased, mortification swamped her. She tried to rise.

He only tightened his embrace. Tilted her chin up. “No way, Sophie. You don’t get to be ashamed. Look at me.”

She opened tear-swollen eyes, somehow knowing he’d be kind, tolerant…understanding. Sympathetic, much as she’d hate pity.

What she saw in his eyes were traces of all those but something more.

She saw respect. Tenderness.

“I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone, Sophie.”

Then his lips brushed hers in a manner that began as soothing, for him as well as her, she thought.

And a fierce tug of longing made Sophie let go.

She opened her mouth to him, and his tongue swept inside. She drove her fingers into his hair with sudden urgency. Powerful arms banded her waist, locked her against him until breathing was too much to expect.

She didn’t care if she never breathed again.

His mouth cruised over her throat, and she barely resisted a moan. Fingers like flame licked down the neckline of her shirt as he bared her to the waist.

Sophie gasped for breath and raked her own fingers down his sides, yanking up his T-shirt and freeing the acres of muscle she’d admired from afar.

“God, Soph,” he muttered. “I want you.” His mouth branded its way up to her earlobe, and he gathered her closer as his fingers traced tantalizing circles around first one nipple, then the other. His mouth slicked a torturous trail across her collarbone then down until he fastened his lips on one breast. Her back bowed, and his strong arm supported her as he feasted.

Abruptly, he swept her up and strode to the chaise in the corner, laying her out like a banquet, his hungry gaze a sharp, sweet stab to her senses.

His blue eyes locked on hers as he flicked open the snap of her jeans and lazily drew down her zipper, lightly brushing the soft skin of her belly, stroking and teasing just out of reach of flesh that was screaming for his touch.

Sophie squirmed, held out her arms. “Come here,” she said in a rough voice she didn’t recognize. She unbuttoned his jeans, slid her hand inside, finding him hot and hard and so very ready.

“Uh-uh, baby,” he muttered softly, imprisoning her hand just out of reach. “Not yet. This isn’t gonna be fast.”

“Cade…” Was that her voice, so low and needy?

For endless seconds, his eyes devoured her body, dark as smoke. Sophie’s blood warmed, every nerve ending awakening from a long hibernation.

He bent to her, his warm breath whispering across her belly, his tongue a dangerous, beautiful weapon, his touch taunting her as he licked a lazy trail following her jeans down her legs. Strong hands parted her thighs, and Sophie bit into her lower lip as the anticipation dizzied her. One long finger caressed the tender creases, skimmed over curls, lingered over plump flesh—then at last, oh God at last, slid inside.

A blue-white flash streaked through her. When his mouth fastened on the curls at her core and began doing devastating things to her insides, Sophie abandoned herself to the searing, stormy pleasure. Craving poured through her like molten gold, and all she could do was cry out and reach for him. “Cade, please…”

He lifted her into his arms again and reversed their positions, wrapping her trembling legs around him.

Abruptly he stopped. “Sophie,” he whispered. “Damn it, we can’t.”

She whimpered, seizing his mouth in a scorching kiss. She wanted to scream. To weep. “I need you.”

“I know, sweetheart. But I don’t have anything with me.”

“I’m okay. And protected. I promise.”

“Me, too, but are you sure—”

She wrested herself from his grasp. Slid to her knees and took him in her mouth.

Cade groaned aloud. “Sophie, no…you’re killing me.”

He yanked her up, kicked off his jeans. She climbed his legs, wrapped hers around his waist. “Now. Please now.”

He thrust into her, and Sophie stifled a scream of pure bliss. He felt good, so good. For a very long moment they were still, soaking up the astonishing rightness of how well they fit.

Sophie never let herself go, never truly relaxed with any man, not in years…yet she did so now as every cell in her body drowned in glory. She wanted to freeze time right here, live in this exquisite moment for hours, weeks, centuries.

But Cade’s assault on her control wasn’t finished. He fastened his mouth on her throat and began a delicious rhythm that dragged greedy sounds from her. With a near growl, Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

Explosive
was too mild a word for what flared between them, and in the heat of the flames, Sophie didn’t think, didn’t reason, didn’t ask…she only surrendered to the magic of this proud, scarred, beautiful man.

His arms tightened, his powerful body both refuge and demand—until one last kiss broke the bonds of her restraint, and the star-drenched night went nova.

N
O
WOMAN
HAD
EVER
MADE
his knees go weak.

Cade needed to sit down. Go somewhere quiet. To figure out what the hell had just happened. Instead he stroked her soft skin, traced the curve of her breast, her waist, her hip as she lay boneless on his lap. He should let her go, walk away now, but he didn’t, even though his mind was yelling cautions to him.

Sex this explosive was bound to cause trouble.

But damned if he didn’t want to do it again. The sooner the better.

Sophie sighed, and he couldn’t help smiling as her fingers began to play with the hair at his nape. He should pull away, separate them....

Her fingers tightened as he tried. “Not yet,” she said in a throaty murmur. Her head fell back, and green eyes caught his. She smiled. “Wow.”

Cade breathed a silent thanks. She looked playful. Seductive. This didn’t have to get serious. Cheered, he grinned back. “Yeah…wow.”

Sophie stretched her arms high above her head.

He was already half hard inside her and zoomed straight to ready. Her inner muscles squeezed, and he suspected his eyes bugged out. “Careful now, Queenie. A girl could get more than she bargained for.”

Her lids fluttered down for a second, but hers was a wicked cat smile as she glanced up from beneath her lashes. “I already did, but you don’t see me running, do you?”

Cade was incredibly relieved that Sophie really wasn’t going to make a big deal out of the mind-blowing sex they’d just shared. “You are something, you know that?”

She squeezed him again, teeth coming down on her lush lower lip. “Takes one to know one, cowboy.” Then she locked her arms around his neck and laid siege to his mouth. Cade was more than ready to leap right back into the insanely fantastic world of Sophie’s body, but first he tore his mouth away and just looked at her.

He’d kill for his camera right now.

Sophie leaned back and propped herself on her hands, a study in what a beautiful woman should look like, hair falling around her face in sweaty curls, beautiful breasts ripe, nipples begging for his mouth. He kept his grasp on those hips that had driven him crazy since his first sight of her, and pulsed inside her as his gaze trailed over her belly and down to the burnished curls. He slid out, then thrust inside again, watching her as she closed her eyes and moaned.

“Sophie,” he said. Simply her name.

She opened her eyes. Her pupils had swallowed the irises but for a thin rim of green. “Cade,” she answered, low and silky. Sultry.

He yanked her up against him, dared her to keep up the lazy tease. He’d meant to go more slowly this time, but she latched onto him, too, her thighs a vise around his waist, and urged him on, pushing the pace higher, harder.

He fastened his mouth to one breast and gave her the ride of her life.

Though he wasn’t at all sure who was actually doing the riding.

Not that it mattered. Sophie not only matched him but egged him on, her voice in his ear setting his mind ablaze, whipping his body to heights he’d never known possible.

She was a sweet fire in his arms, a warm and demanding woman a man would never get tired of—

Whoa
. For a second, Cade faltered. Deeply attuned, Sophie relaxed her hold and leaned back. “Cade?” Her eyes were unfocused, glazed with emotion, with the same fear that was licking at the edges of his restraint.

She was so beautiful. So valiant.

And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall for her.

He crushed her in his embrace to stifle all thought of that impossible notion. Instead he focused on their pleasure, forcing their pace to lessen from the frantic heat, making his strokes long and murderously slow until he thought he’d lose his mind and she was panting. Begging. Urging him on.

After her third climax, he cut the leash he’d tied on his control.

The world went white behind his eyes. Deeper, harder, faster… He couldn’t get close enough to her, couldn’t quite grasp what he sensed was just out of sight....

Sophie locked her mouth on his, raked her nails down his back.

And Cade forgot everything but the glory of the woman in his arms.

W
HEN
S
OPHIE
REVIVED
,
Cade’s head lay heavy on her shoulder. He was still inside her, and she very much wanted to keep him there.

Wanted to place a tender kiss on his temple.

Which was why she would not. The sex had literally blown her mind, but they’d agreed up front—hot sex, that’s all this was.

Even though her mind kept threatening to drift off into fantasies.

But she reminded herself that he would leave her. He would go back to wandering as soon as he was well enough.

And she would stay here. Maybe he’d visit Jenna now and again, but he would be a stranger to Sophie. He had a life much larger than her own, his stage the entire planet.

It had been very clear to her in the first moments of their lovemaking—hot sex, she corrected herself brutally—that this was a man who could steal her heart.

And leave it in shreds when he left.

So it would be only a fling, as they’d said. And, she had to smile, that was not a bad thing. She had too much to focus on, making Hotel Serenity a success. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by emotion. Hot sex, though…she could spare a few hours here and there. She did, after all, feel like a million bucks right now. More relaxed than she’d been in weeks. Months.

Years, maybe.

“What’s got that Cheshire cat smile on your face, Queenie?”

“If I say you…” She raised her eyelids slowly. “Are you going to get all arrogant and conceited on me?”

He grinned, that devastating, killer-sexy smile of his. “Maybe.”

His eyes scanned her body and she was surprised by the urge to preen. She lifted her arms and flipped out her hair. “Me, too. I so rocked your world.”

His laughter rolled over her like honey. He pulled her up and hugged her. “So you did, Queenie. So you did.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and clasped him tightly. Surely simple affection was all right. How could she not feel tender toward someone so generous with his body, so in tune with her own? “Friends with benefits,” she murmured. “I never really understood that until now.”

“Me, either.” He leaned her back so he could look at her. “I like you, Queenie. When you decide not to play the ice queen, or harp on me, anyway.” His eyes twinkled.

“You’re trying to make me mad, but I’m too satisfied to take the bait.”

“What did I tell you? Aren’t you glad you caved? Did we ever set an amount?”

“I didn’t cave, you did.” She tossed her head. “One kiss and you were toast,” she said, surprising herself. She’d never flirted like this in her life, always too serious.

She liked it.

“
You
caved,” he said smugly. “But hey, I understand. You couldn’t help yourself.”

Sophie opened her mouth to protest—

But Cade had other plans for her.