Sea of Love (Love in Bloom: The Bradens, Book 4) Contemporary Romance (18 page)

“Aaah.” He winced.

“You like that?” she asked.

Dane could barely think past the ache to make love to her. “I like everything you do,” he said.

She took the other nipple in her mouth and sucked, her teeth moving roughly over his tender skin. She slithered down beneath him and took him in her mouth.

Dane sucked in a breath. Jesus, he felt like he was going to come. She sucked and licked, using her hand to bring him right to the edge.

“Stop, Lace,” he urged.

She continued sucking until he had to reposition his body and lay down on the couch beneath her, his eyes closed, relishing in the zeal of her lust. She tucked her feet beneath her body, positioning herself between his legs. Then she drew her tongue up his body. She sucked his neck, as he’d done to her, and then her mouth covered his. He felt her reaching out to the side with her right hand, and he opened his eyes. Her fingers returned with the silk tie of her dress. Her eyes alit with mischief, she wrapped the silk around his wrist, then lifted his hands above his head and bound them together with the silky restraint.

“Lacy?” Dane had played bondage games before, but he was always the aggressor. Now, beneath Lacy, he wasn’t sure what to expect, but if he’d allow any woman to tie him up, it would only be her.

She raised her eyebrows and kissed him again. “Yes?”

Too many things were running through his head. He couldn’t weed through them fast enough to make sense of them.
Fuck me? Let me tie
you
up?

“Truth or dare?” she said in a deep, seductive voice.

“Truth?” he asked.

“How long’s it been since you were with another woman? Exactly?” She settled her hips over his. His erection lay between them like a dare.

He closed his eyes. He knew exactly how long it had been. He’d met Lacy fifteen months ago, and he’d stopped sleeping with other women four months later. But he couldn’t tell her that. What kind of man relies on his own hand to satiate a need that’s driven into him night after night by a woman who’s too far away to touch?

“Lace, please,” he said.

She lowered her chest until her nipple touched his lip. “I could give you a dare,” she said. “You’re in a precarious position to carry out a dare.” She glanced down at his erection, then slithered down his body and licked the length of him again. “Exactly how long?”

Dane closed his eyes. “Eleven months,” he whispered.

Lacy sat up and shook her head.

“Eleven months, okay? Eleven fucking months.”

“Eleven months?” she repeated. “If you don’t tell the truth, the punishment might be harsh,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Lace, it’s true. It’s fucking embarrassing as shit, but it’s true. Eleven months. Remember that night you told me about your father? The night you cried?”

She wrinkled her forehead. “Yeah.” Her voice was just above a whisper.

Dane remembered it like it was yesterday. He’d wanted to climb through the computer monitor and hold her until her tears dried and he knew she was safe.

“I knew that night that I couldn’t be with anyone else. Not while my heart was becoming yours.” He looked away, his erection faltering. He lowered his hands and began untying the bindings. “I’m sorry, Lace,” he said. “You’re the last person on earth I ever wanted to hurt.” He reached for his clothes.

“Dane,” she said. “I was trying…to seduce you.”

“You’re a great seductress, Lace. But you don’t even have to try. You had me the minute I met you in Nassau.” His heart ached for Lacy, for the hurt in her eyes and the embarrassment that rose on her cheeks. But mostly, his heart ached for himself and the reality that who he had been would never change—even if he’d stopped being that person eleven months ago.

“I’m sorry I killed the mood. My history is always going to be between us. It’s the one thing I can’t change.”

He handed Lacy her dress, and she held it against her shivering body. Dane put on his pants and went to the glass doors. He closed and locked them, then grabbed a throw from a chair and wrapped it around Lacy’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to stay for the rest of the week, Lace. Nothing I do will ever change the man I was.”

“Wait, please,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “The other night, when you said you had women all over the world, I thought you had been with them more recently. Eleven months, Dane, that’s almost a year.”

“I’m well aware of every day, every second, every hour.” Dane’s heart was shattering inside his chest. He didn’t need to remember all the nights he’d longed for Lacy’s touch and had to satisfy himself, or the multitude of midnight hours he’d spent staring at the photos she’d emailed him, wondering what it would be like to kiss her. He needed to go away. Far away. Someplace he wouldn’t see Lacy’s face in every cloud.

“I’m not judging you, Dane,” she said. “I asked that question expecting an answer of a few months, maybe two or three. I don’t know. That would have made me feel better. I never imagined it had been that long.”

“Now you know.” He couldn’t change the fact that he hadn’t gone to see her in fifteen months, and he couldn’t change the number of months and years he’d slept with random women—all of which made him too upset to think straight. He couldn’t think clearly enough to comprehend what she was trying to say. He looked away, and Lacy wrapped her arms around him from behind. He felt her cheek against his back.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For?” He should just walk out the door. He didn’t want to spend his life fighting about who he had been.

“For liking me enough to be faithful even when I was too far away to know if you weren’t.”

Dane clenched his eyes shut as relief tore through him. His shattered heart began pulling itself back together, piece by fragile piece. He’d misunderstood what she’d said completely, and the realization knocked the sails right out of him. He turned and reached for her, as much for stability as for the need to feel her with him. Everything he’d wanted for so long was right there, coming together, and he couldn’t find the words to tell her how much it meant to him. Instead, he looked down into the sea of love in her eyes, and he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her until his heart reassembled, until the pain of thinking he’d lost her melted away and the desire to love her back to being his returned.

“Babe, we have a lot of making up to do.” Dane lifted her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed. Ten seconds later, he ran out and retrieved the silk tie, then hurried back into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. Her giggles faded behind the closed door.

LACY MOVED THROUGH the kitchen, humming as she made coffee, eggs, and toast. She’d gotten up while Dane was still sleeping and picked wildflowers from the garden, putting them in a vase in the center of the table.

“Breakfast? This was not on the itinerary,” Dane said as he came out of the bedroom in only his boxer briefs and wrapped his arms around Lacy’s waist from behind. He kissed the back of her neck and slid his hands beneath her satin camisole.

“Neither was last night,” Lacy said, turning to kiss his cheek.

He pulled her close. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I wanted us to get back together. I can’t change my pa—”

Lacy covered his lips with her finger. “Shh…I didn’t know how much I had been wondering about your past until the words left my lips last night and, Dane, I couldn’t have asked for a better response. No more talk about your past, okay?”

“You won’t get an argument from me.” He kissed her neck.

“And I won’t ever bring it up again. That’s done, and I’m working on my fear of sharks, but I think my fear was bigger than just sharks.”

“Bigger?” He kissed her shoulder, her breastbone, her neck.

Lacy closed her eyes, her body purring from his touch. “Yes,” she said in one long breath. “Danica said…Oh hell.” She turned and kissed him. Dane grabbed her ass and pressed her against him. Damn if she wasn’t already wet and ready for him. She pulled back. “Jesus, I feel like a nympho with you.”

He pulled her top over her head. “Good.” He narrowed his eyes and lowered his mouth to her breast.

She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him harder against her. “God, that feels good. Harder,” she whispered. She felt his heartbeat kick up. He licked her nipple, then took her into his mouth again, bringing both hands up and cupping both breasts. “Ah, you're driving me crazy.” She reached for his briefs.

“Oh no, not yet,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to spoil you yet.” He took her in a possessive kiss and then swept her off her feet and carried her back into the bedroom.

“Didn’t you spoil me last night?” she asked as he laid her on the bed.

“Hell no. Last night I devoured you. There’s a difference.”

Standing beside the bed looking down at Lacy with a potent stare, Dane looked more handsome and more virile than he ever had. Sunlight spilled into the room through the sheer curtains, casting a streak across her bare stomach. Dane’s hand disappeared into the streak as he lowered himself to the bed beside her, his strong hand moving in long, hard strokes against her stomach to the hard bones of her ribs, where he curved his hand around to the back and then dragged it along the same path. Lacy’s body thrummed with anticipation. Now he used both hands, pressing every inch of her torso into the mattress, stroking her ribs, her breasts, up her chest to her neck and shoulders, insistent and in control. He lowered his lips along the same path of her curves while he gripped her biceps within his large hands. He kissed his way up to her neck, then claimed her with a deep kiss. Lacy grabbed at his shoulders, needing his hands on her again.

He moved down her body, splaying his hands just above her belly button and kissing the insides of her thighs. Lacy moaned, arching her hips toward him. She covered her eyes with her hand, moving her head from side to side.

“What do you want, Lace?” he whispered.

She laid the back of her hand over her mouth, breathing hard. “You. I want you.”

He licked the crease between her sex and her thigh. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes. God yes,” she said in a heated breath.

He moved to the other side and sucked on the sensitive skin just below that sensual crease. She lifted her hips and reached for his arms, trying to guide him to her center.

“Tell me what you want,” Dane whispered.

Lacy clenched her eyes shut. Showing him was one thing; saying it out loud was another.

He slid his body up along hers, his massive chest a wall of muscle against her breasts. He licked her lower lip, then her upper lip, and when she lifted her head to meet his lips, he pulled back.

“Let me in, Lace,” he said.

“Kiss me.” She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to her, relishing in the taste of him, the urgency of her desire. She reached for his hard cock and stroked him from base to tip.

Dane grabbed her hand and pinned it above her head. “This is your turn,” he said in a deep, throaty voice. He licked the underside of her arm.

“Jesus,” she said.

“You like?” he asked. Her hand still restrained, he ran his tongue around her taut nipple.

“Dane.” She couldn’t talk, could barely think past the pulsing need between her legs. Then his mouth was on her neck, his teeth grazing her flesh. She moaned when his lips lingered, licking, trailing light kisses across the tender area he’d just loved so intensely. His big hands traveled down her body and gripped her hips. Then his lips were between her hips, just above her damp curls.

“I can’t spoil you until you tell me what you want,” he said, looking at her while he licked her skin from hip to hip.

She covered her eyes again. “Dane,” she pleaded.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me,” he urged.

Every nerve in Lacy’s body was on fire. She clenched her eyes shut and whispered, “Lick me.”

“That’s it, baby.”

He ran a finger along her wetness so softly that it sent shimmering heat through her.

“You’re so slick and beautiful,” he said as he lowered his mouth to her and dragged his tongue in slow strokes, teasing her into a moaning, wanting frenzy beneath him. He stimulated her sensitive nub with his finger. She rocked her hips with each stroke, aching for more, for him to deepen the sensation. Clutching the sheet in her fists, she felt her insides swelling, pulsing for more of his intimate caresses.

“Harder,” she whispered.

He thrust his tongue into her. Lacy gasped, riding the shock that tightened the muscles in her thighs and curled her toes.

“Yes. Oh, Dane. Yes.”

His long fingers entered her, and she cried out as he flicked his tongue over her swollen nub, carrying her up, up, up and over the edge of a captivating orgasm. The cries of pleasure that filled the room were so loud, she barely registered that they were coming from her own lungs. She rocked against his willing mouth, whimpering as tiny pulses came one after another as her body descended the glorious climax.

Dane moved up her body and put just the head of his heat into her, teasing her overly sensitive nerves. She gasped for air as he took her mouth with his, his tongue filling her, thrusting as the wide cap of his erection continued its masterful massage. Her insides climbed toward another peak. She clawed at his hips, using all her energy to pull him deeper inside her. She cried out as he captured her breast in his mouth, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her body begging for more. Her head fell back, breathless, in the wake of her summit.

Her eyes fluttered open and met his. He looked at her with so much love, she felt it like a presence in the room. Her legs fell open.

“Hi, baby,” he said and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She smiled, caught in a sexual blur, unable to even think about speaking. He lowered his mouth to hers again, and Lacy’s pulse sped up again. His mouth was so hot, his tongue so forceful, that she felt a renewed blazing need rip through her. She whimpered into his mouth again. She’d never been like this, not with anyone. She never even knew she could.

He drew back with a swipe of his tongue across her lower lip. “I love making love to you, Lacy Snow,” he whispered.

She opened her mouth to speak at the same time he pushed his full length into her.

“Ah, Dane,” she cried.

He pumped and thrust, their hips knocking against one another. He wrapped his strong arm around her waist and sat up with her legs straddling his waist, and Lacy instinctively took over, meeting each of his thrusts with a stroke of her own. She lowered her head to his chest and sucked on his nipple.

Dane sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and gripped her hips, pulling her deeper onto him. She held on to his shoulders as she rode his cock harder than she’d ever done before. She couldn’t get enough of him. He wrapped his arm around her and in one swift move settled her on her hands and knees before him. Then he drove back into her, his hands flat on her shoulder blades, his hips slapping against her ass as he pumped every blessed inch of himself into her. The cries started deep in her chest and tore through her body with a tangle of exquisite, pulsating pleasure as she cried out again, just as Dane found his own release.

“Lacy. Oh, Lacy,” he said through clenched teeth. He gripped her waist in his massive hands and held her against him as he pumped her full with his love.

He ran a finger lightly above the curve at the top of her ass. “You have the sexiest dimples at the base of your spine,” he whispered, and laid his head on her back.

Lacy closed her eyes, taking pleasure in the attention he gave her body. He gently repositioned her onto her side and wrapped his body around hers. Lacy nuzzled against him, wondering how she could have ever walked away from him in the first place.