Once Tasted: A Silver Creek Novel (25 page)

She really wanted him to go away, she decided as she scrambled out of the truck. Damn it, she thought, as the slamming of his door echoed hers. Maybe he’d get the message if she ignored him, and she scurried up the path toward the front porch steps on legs that felt far too rubbery. This time she couldn’t blame the sensation on vodka.

It was all Reid.

He made her feel things she absolutely did not want to feel—at least not with him. With anyone else, she’d have some guarantee of safety, that a part of her heart would remain untouched.

Not with Reid.

Never with Reid.

He caught up to her, his feet hitting the porch steps in sync with hers. Reaching the top, she whirled to face him. “I’m here. Safe and sound. Now go away.” She made a shooing gesture.

“You know, it’s the craziest thing, but sometimes I get the impression you don’t like me, which is funny, because I’m beginning to enjoy our post-Drop dates.”

“This is not a date.”

“Business hours are over, Mia. This is a date. Or would you prefer ‘tryst’?”

Her heart banged so loudly she was sure he heard it.

“Neither. We’re not dating—or anything else-ing. I wouldn’t date you. We have nothing in common.” She stopped before she began to babble.

“Sure we do.” He plucked the key chain from her nerveless fingers. Inserting the house key into the lock, he turned it, and the soft
click
reminded her how easily he’d unlocked her desire. Did she have any defenses he couldn’t breach?

“In fact,” he continued, “I’d say we have a lot in common.”

She tried to un-fry her brain. “Like what?”

“We’re business partners, for one.”

“Not my choice.”

“We’re neighbors.”

“An accident of fate.”

“Both of us love the land and love working it.”

When she silently conceded the point, he flashed a smile. “And we can’t overlook the fact that we’re really good in bed together.”

“We slept together? I can’t remember.”

He laughed softly. “I can. We men tend not to forget when our lovers come three times for us. And scream loudly each blessed time.” His voice dropped even lower. “I’d like to give you four orgasms tonight.”

Lover. Orgasm. Four. Dear God
. A helpless whimper escaped her. It was as articulate a reply as she was likely to make.

He stepped forward, and she reeled as his body heat and scent enveloped her.

“But first, I’d like to kiss you.” The words were a husky whisper.

She tried; she really tried to save herself. “You already have. Kissed me.”

“Not the way I want to. Everywhere, and slowly. Inch by inch.”

She swayed. “I—I don’t think—”

“Don’t think, Mia,” he commanded as his arms stole about her. “Just feel.”

This time, his movements were unhurried. He removed her clothes slowly, unfastening buttons, pushing the fabric off her body, and then pausing to let his gaze roam over her before following its meandering path with his hands and mouth.

It was unbearably erotic to be stripped with such care, to have his breath blow across her bared flesh as he whispered where he wanted to kiss her next.

The man really knew how to kiss.

There, in the quiet of her room, Reid made sensations explode inside her, as vivid as the morning sun lighting the world.

Her panties were all that remained. He slipped his thumbs beneath the elastic and, dropping to his knees, dragged the soft cotton down her legs. Continuing his sensual journey, he explored her navel with his mouth, his tongue dipping into the hollow. Her legs suddenly limp, she sank to the edge of the bed. He followed, blazing a trail over her hip bones with his tongue, the ends of his hair brushing her sensitive skin and awakening her every nerve until she trembled in mute supplication.

Reid sank back on his heels. He’d shed his clothes without ceremony. No need for any when what lay underneath was a masterpiece of muscle, sinew, and bronzed skin as well as blatant masculine power. His erection was a thing of glory. Yet despite being fully aroused, despite the fine sheen of sweat covering his pecs and darkening his gold-blond hair, Reid’s focus was on her alone.

He shifted forward, his hands running up the inside of her thighs, each stroke bringing him closer and closer to where she longed for him most. When his fingers brushed her damp curls, she moaned, already so close.

He tilted his head and met her gaze. His eyes gleamed with a fierce passion. “You’re so damned beautiful, Mia. Everything about you—the way you look, the way you feel, the way you taste, and, above all, the way you respond to me—drives me wild.”

Her heart tripped and opened. Maybe they were just words to Reid. It was possible he’d profess something
similar to some other woman at a future point. It didn’t matter. Her heart was his now—if he chose to claim it.

“Keep looking at me, Mia. I want to watch your face, I want to hear you cry my name, I want to feel you shudder around me when you come.”

His fingers had already found her. Nimbly they played, coaxing, strumming, and then sliding into her slick heat as she whimpered in pleasure.

His mouth joined in, met her heat with his, and drove her ever higher with flicks and lashes of his tongue. He made her writhe, made words tumble from her lips in a fevered rush. “I—oh, please, yes—oh!” Then his teeth grazed her. The sharp nip was followed by a slow sweep of his tongue. A second graze, another slow sweep, and the pleasure was more than she could bear. She screamed his name, her fingers digging into his hair, holding him to her as she arched and jerked, her orgasm rocking her body and soul.

He followed the frenzied movements of her hips, prolonging her climax, then let her drift back to earth with easy strokes and gentle, undemanding kisses. For a second she could only gaze at him dazedly, too wrung out to do more than luxuriate in the tiny aftershocks that continued inside her.

He was still kneeling between her open legs. Her gaze slid down the muscled ridges of his torso and encountered another very hard part of his body. Hard and eager. The sight of his arousal and the tension still gripping him banished her lethargy. She remembered the foil-wrapped condoms he’d dropped onto her bedside table and lunged for one, for the first time in her life truly feeling all that was sexy and powerful, when Reid laughed. The happiness in the sound filled the room and filled her.

With a smile that matched the joy in her heart, she scooted back across the mattress.

“Wouldn’t the bed be more comfortable?” she asked, and grinned when he all but vaulted onto it. “Lie down. It’s my turn to have fun.”

He did as she requested. “I’m all for a girl having fun. Go wild, Mia.”

Filled with hunger at the veritable banquet his body represented, she thought she might. Deciding the condom could wait, she dropped it beside her and reached for him. Her fingers skimmed his torso, tracing patterns along his chest and abdomen. Her eyes widened as his muscles quivered and jumped for her.

Lightly, she caressed the bulbous head of his penis. Triumph surged within her when it danced at her feathery touch. Wrapping her hand around him, she stroked him from velvety tip to thick root.

With her other hand, she cupped his balls and watched arousal stamp his cheeks and make his eyes glittery bright as she gently squeezed and fondled the warm sacs and then grazed them with her nails.

“Ah, Mia—”

Whatever he was about to say ended on a low hiss as she lowered her head. She kissed the tip of his penis, then opened her lips and drew him into her mouth. He tasted salty, with a touch of musk. The flavor made her head spin.

She savored him with slow licks and delicate nibbles, circling his throbbing length with her tongue and then scoring it lightly with her teeth. With each pass she took him deeper into her mouth.

“God, Mia, yes, just like that.” His voice had gone rough with need, and she felt his hands fist in her hair. From the trembling that gripped him, she knew it was as much to anchor himself as it was to control her movements.

The groans and soft curses she wrung from him with each flick of her tongue, each slow suck of her lips, re-kindled
her own arousal until her core throbbed with an aching urgency to have him fill her. To be one with him.

But she wanted this first.

He was close—she knew it from the tightening of his balls when she caressed them, felt it when his hands dug deeper into her hair as his hips quickened their rhythm. With a guttural cry, he jerked and then stiffened, coming in a hot rush and an equally sweet groan.

Spent, he groaned again. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered, stunned stupefaction in his voice. Letting go of her hair, he grasped her arms and tugged so that she landed in a sprawl across him.

“Oof.” With a smile, she kissed her way up his sweat-covered chest to the column of his neck, secretly gloating when her lips found his racing pulse.

“Just so you know,” she said, dropping another kiss and then a deliberate lick along his bristled jaw, “you taste really good.”

He cocked a brow, and his mouth curved in a slow grin. “That so? Coming from someone with as refined a palate as yours, that’s some compliment.”

“Mm-hmm, it is.”

For a while they lay quietly, his fingers sifting through her hair, lifting it as if gauging its mass, letting it slide down to her shoulders and back, then stroking it to its twisting, curling ends.

Her fingers moved, too. At first they traced aimless circles across his ribs. Then, as her hunger reasserted itself, they traveled southward, with intent. When again his breath grew labored, his chest rising and falling heavily, when he stirred, thickening and lengthening to meet her questing fingers, she looked into his eyes and saw her need mirrored.

The neglected square foil was beside them. Grabbing it, she sat up, kneeling over him. He watched, waiting.
His willingness to follow where she led made happiness bubble inside her, as delicious as the pleasure he’d given her.

She tore it open. Condom in hand, she positioned it over him and smoothed it down as heat gathered inside her.

Her palms glided over the tops of his thighs, so muscular and sprinkled with light-brown hair. “Did I tell you I’m going riding soon with Tess and Quinn?”

A bright spark lit his gaze. “I heard something to that effect.”

“I’m pretty rusty. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of them.”

“You know,” he said, as he reached around and palmed her rear, squeezing her cheeks gently before letting his fingers slide down to her slick opening, “I think I could help you with that.”

“You could?”

“That’s right.” His smile was pure sin. “Now, why don’t we start with the best way to mount.…”

S
EX WAS SEX
. That’s how Reid had always thought about it. Physical, sweaty, and gloriously messy, at times awkward and occasionally mechanical—insert rod in slot and churn until done—but an act he rarely regretted. It was quite simply the best damned fun Reid could imagine with a naked or even partially naked woman. After all, it topped his personal list of pleasures.

He ran a hand down the length of Mia’s back. She shifted, murmuring drowsily against his collarbone, and slipped back into sleep. Her boneless slumber was evidence of how much pleasure, how much damned fun, they’d wrung from each other. But sleep eluded him, his mind too busy grappling with what had happened.

Yeah, sex was a lot of great things. But that didn’t mean Reid had ever considered it profound. Or even important. Or that he’d ever seriously believed the words “making love” related to what he did with the woman in his arms. “Faking love” was far more accurate.

This night with Mia changed that.

He was more than willing to admit that after interrupting her cousin’s shakedown, he’d been gripped by
another weird and alien protective urge. Actually, he’d felt not only protective but possessive. And proud, too, because from what he could tell, she’d been holding her own against Jay, an impressive feat considering how hard her cousin was pushing her emotional buttons.

After Jay had slithered off to whatever rock he currently lodged under, all Reid could think about was getting Mia in his arms. Bent on his goal, he’d hustled Mia out of The Drop in front of Maebeth Krohner.

Now Maebeth, who was a little too fond of gossip and a lot too determined to land a guy, would start putting one and one together, meaning that in a couple of hours all of Acacia would know his interest in Mia wasn’t limited to figuring out how to peddle her fermented grape juice.

He’d known all this, yet it hadn’t stopped him. He’d understood, too, that while the first time he’d escorted Mia home might have been written off as his watching out for a neighbor who’d over-sipped, this second instance would be interpreted differently.

From here on out they’d be viewed as a couple.

The speculation, the gossip, had neither mattered nor deterred him. And the lectures he’d given himself on the importance of keeping his distance from Mia? Every sentence, observation, carefully crafted justification and rationalization fell like a house of cards, scattered by the driving need to get Mia alone—and then get up close and personal with her.