Innocence Defied (New York) (3 page)

Gage nodded like he had already planned on that anyway, then Cade, Trevor and Riley showed up and it was hugs and kisses all over again. Riley was cupping Zoe’s cheeks and gushing about how gorgeous she was, but Cade and Trevor were looking as shocked and dumbstruck as he and Gage felt. When Cade looked at Brice and mouthed, “What the fuck?” all Brice could do was shrug.

Trevor stepped up to Zoe, draped his arm over her shoulder and tucked her close to his side. She smiled up at him and snuggled right in, Brice could tell she’d never guess that he was doing it to cover as much of her as possible.

Dinner was strained at first—Brice and the men still struggling with the caterpillar-to-butterfly fiasco that Zoe had pulled on them. But thank God for the wives, because they chattered away like nothing was wrong. Zoe had a million questions about the trip the men were taking Riley on and it was hard to tell who was more excited about it—Riley or Oops.
 
Soon the infectious laughter of the girls loosened the men up, and dinner became the easy family affair it always was. Until desert came, and Zoe tried to order wine.

“No,” Brice and Cade said at the same time, even as he saw the other two men opening their mouths. Brice interrupted, “She’ll have coffee.” As the waiter left, Brice looked at her with one brow raised.

“I’m not a baby anymore, Detective.” She sent him a frown, and that, more than anything, reassured him. In the frown was the Oops he knew and loved, not the smooth and well-spoken young woman who’d been sitting across from him all night.

“That is unfortunately obvious, Oops. However you are also not twenty-one so it’s coffee for you. Or would you like a Coke instead?”

She huffed at him, further warming his heart.

“I have wine at home sometimes and you know it.”

“Ah, but this isn’t Christmas or New Year’s and we are in Cade’s place of business. Are you really willing to risk his liquor license?”

That snapped her mouth closed instantly. She looked to Cade and was ready to appeal to him when Gage spoke up and simply said, “No Zoe. Don’t ask again.”

Her eyes darted to him and all resistance fled. With a meek nod, she folded her hands in her lap and said, “Coffee will be fine.”

Brice let out a sigh. She always had listened to Gage. Maybe her staying in New York wasn’t going to be a disaster after all. Gage would watch out for her, and Brice had never seen her go against the big Texan’s wishes in her whole life.

Yeah,
he thought as he relaxed and slipped a hand behind his wife.
Things were going to be just fine.

It was two a.m. and Gage couldn’t sleep. It was that damn thong and its tiny red bow. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that little bow nestled between the globes of her ass. It was making him feel itchy and guilty as hell. With a groan he gave up and shoved from the bed. He’d go downstairs and grab a snack, then maybe put in a movie. Something with lots of explosions or maybe some gore. That should pull his mind from the gutter, and tomorrow he’d wake up and be over the shock of seeing her all grown up and things could go back to normal.

As he padded, barefoot and in old sweat pants, he passed by her room.

Her door was open all the way, and he reached out to close it just to make sure the movie wouldn’t wake her. With his hand on the knob, he looked and froze in place. She was on her side, facing away, with the covers thrown off, and her night shirt rode way up her back. She was still wearing those same pair of panties, and with the soft light from the hall shining directly on her, he was left with no doubt about her dimples. There were two tempting little divots right above the delicate crease in her cheeks, and the red bow rested between them, making her ass look gift-wrapped. Before he could muster the will power to close the door, she sighed and rolled over. She flopped one arm over her eyes and listlessly trailed her other hand over her bare stomach and down, until it came to rest over the scrap of cloth covering her pussy.

Once he could drag his eyes away from her hand, he looked up and saw that her shirt was twisted so that one beautiful breast was bare. The dusky nipple sat invitingly atop a firm mound. It rose and fell gently with her breaths, and Gage stared with a deep appreciation of the beauty of her. She was everything a woman should be, and it was as mesmerizing as it was terrifying.

He headed down to the kitchen, and thought he was definitely going to need to pick a flick with lots and lots of gore to get that image out of his mind.

Chapter Six

The jostling of the bed woke him for the seventh day in a row. All week he’d been tortured with this. Her bubbly and energetic presence throughout the evenings—after stressful and tension-filled days at work—eased him in ways he couldn’t express. Then there were the wake-up calls like this, before his alarm could sound in the mornings.

The sight of Zoe crawling toward him on hands and knees galvanized him. She was wearing her flimsy nightshirt this morning. The front was gaping open and he could clearly see the lovely sway of her breasts as she drew closer. With an inner scolding, he lifted his eyes to look at her face, only he got distracted by the tempting upper curve of her ass that he could clearly see from his vantage point. That damn bow was back again. She was on all fours, beautiful, lush and in his bed and nothing his scrambling mind could come up with could make him see her as anything other than a woman. A beautiful, single woman. His normal morning wood transformed into morning steel, and he flung an arm over his eyes with a groan. It was the best defense he could come up with.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” Her sleep-husky voice caused his throbbing shaft to twitch in response. She plastered herself to his side, and with one arm and one leg draped over him, she tucked her head onto his chest and gave him a full body squeeze.

“Mornin’.” He wrapped his free arm around her shoulders and pulled her in a little tighter. This was normal for them. Her whole life, she hopped from one family member’s bed to the next in the mornings. Aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings had all grown used to her crawling into bed at the crack of dawn since she figured out how to escape her crib. He and Brice had spent many a summer break with her tucked between them for early morning cartoons or video games.

The difference now was he simply could no longer see her as the baby sister. That was his problem, he told himself. He wasn’t going to hurt her feelings and ruin one of her favorite things because he seemed to be suffering some twisted midlife crisis.

“What do you want to do today?” Gage’s question ended on a strained note he hoped she couldn’t hear, because that naked, toned leg she had draped over him rubbed from the top of his thighs all the way up to rest on his stomach. He assumed she didn’t notice the bulge over his lap. With desperation, he tried to bring back images of the blood and gore from some of the movies he’d been plying himself with over the last few nights. He hoped it would keep him from clasping that leg and using it to drag her the rest of the way onto him for some decidedly un-brotherly morning activities. When she inched it up just a little higher and hummed a soft little purr of contentment, he thought for the millionth time:
I am so going to Hell
.

Zoe was starting to get discouraged. She dressed as scantily as she dared and he always noticed, she knew, because he would look at her in panic and then look everywhere but at her for the rest of the day. She left her door open every night, and she knew he saw that as well, because every morning it would be closed. She was also crawling into bed with him practically naked every morning. It was enough to hurt a girl’s feelings. He never touched her in a way that wasn’t his normal brotherly affection, and she didn’t know how to fix this.

“How ‘bout we drive outta the city and take a day cruise with your brother and Terryn?”

Gage sounded like he was already set on the plan, and Zoe bit her lip to keep from pouting. Every single night he took her someplace. Broadway—
Mary Poppins, really? Do I look twelve?
—dinner with family or friends, arcades and restaurants. They were never alone, and now that the weekend was here, she was desperate to keep them here and see if she could push that envelope just a little further.

“Oh, do we have to?” Zoe’s first nudge caused a flush to burn her cheeks and a quaver in her voice, but she was playing for keeps and brazened through it. She shifted until she was lying right on top of him. Gage was six six and built like the Texas roughneck he used to be—thick with muscles bulging and a chest that rippled with strength whenever he moved. His lean hips were under hers and with her thighs tingling from excitement, she parted her legs and curled her knees until she was straddling him. It was impossible to mistake the ridge under her for anything other than what it was.

“I was hoping that today we could just hang out here. You know, watch some movies and take a swim. Just you and me.” She couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper, all her being was focused where they were so intimately pressed together at last. She used her hands on his chest and pushed herself up to a sitting position, afraid to lift her eyes and see rejection. She kept straightening until all her weight was centered on that throbbing pulse between her thighs.

“Darlin.”

She still couldn’t look up. He’d see what she was feeling. He’d know then and he wasn’t ready yet. He still saw her as a kid and he’d reject her.

“Oops, look at me.”

That voice. Zoe jerked a little, her hips doing a tiny rub that caused them both to gasp. She slowly raised her eyes. She never could disobey him when he used his voice like that. It was as compelling as the waves on the ocean to her.

“What’re you tryin’ to do here, Zoe?”

She couldn’t answer. He was looking at her like he’d caught her doing something illegal, and she was afraid this would be the end.

When those big strong hands moved to her thighs as though to push her off, all her careful planning went out the window and she blurted, “Don’t! Don’t make me leave. I love you. I always have. I always will. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you ever wondered why I never had a boyfriend?” Her hands gripped his where they rested on her thighs and she went on with tears of desperation stinging her eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you. Only you. You wanna know why I can’t pick a major at school? It’s because the only thing I can think about doing with my life is being with you.”

Before he could say a word, she grabbed the hem of her nightshirt and whipped the fabric off and away. Gage’s hands clenched her thighs, the grip punishing and she relished the pain, hoping that there’d be bruises left for her to cherish in the coming days. His hips flexed once under her, hard, and the sensation that caused deep in her belly and between her legs brought a husky sound from her lips she’d never made before.

“God, darlin’.” His voice was husky too, and Zoe took hope in that. This first real sign that he saw her as more than just a baby. “God. Yer killin’ me here.”

His hands slid farther up to cup her hips and he shifted to the side as though to roll her off but she clung—and following some instinct that she couldn’t name—bore down hard on the iron bar of his shaft, wiggling there as much as his grip would allow. He cursed and clutched her tighter, his hips flexing up hard again and Zoe couldn’t help but cry out at the amazing and confusing sensations it caused. He did it again, slower and higher this time—his hips coming fully off the bed while his hands shoved her down on top of him. An almost painful jolt of pleasure shot from her slit to her toes. She cried out and fell forward over him until her hands were braced on the headboard. The position left her breasts swaying mere inches from his face.

Panting and shuddering, her body felt like a wire about to snap. Zoe looked down at Gage and watched with amazement as he lifted his head and took her nipple into his mouth. It was hot and wet and unlike anything she would have guessed it would feel. A current of incredible pleasure shot like lightning from her nipple to her core, and another of those low wanton noises escaped her. Gage groaned too, closing his eyes and sucking deeper and harder on her breast while his hands slid to the bared cheeks of her ass and squeezed. Hard.

He moaned again and used his handle on her cheeks to slide her up and down in short, slow strokes along that ridge that was trapped under the covers between them. All Zoe could do was hang suspended above him while he took her down this first steamy road of desire.

“God, baby.” His mouth, damp and swollen, released her breast, only to trail hot open-mouthed kisses to the other. “What the hell am I doing? Fucking beautiful. You are just so fucking beautiful.” And then he was sucking that nipple deep into his mouth, his tongue doing crazy, wonderful things.

“Some…” Zoe choked, pleasure rushing her along like a wild river, “Something’s…hap…happening. Unghh.” She was drowning. She was flying. By God, she was dying and she didn’t care.

“God, darlin’. Yeah. Come for me.” Gage moaned around the breast in his mouth, then pumped up fast and hard between her legs until, with a gasping cry, Zoe broke into a million little pieces. She lost all control of her body, and flopped down on him as graceless as a fish while her body shook in the grips of her first taste of pleasure.

Without letting go, he rolled with her until she was flung onto her back and he was kneeling between her spread legs. The globes of her butt were still gripped tight in his hands, and he lifted her up into three violent, grinding thrusts before he froze suddenly and growled low in his throat.