Seeing is Believing (5 page)

“You’re not . . . You’re not really . . . um, attracted, to me, are you?” She looked a little bewildered by the thought.

He had no idea what was so confusing about his erection. He was hard and she had to see that. The tension between them all night had been palpable. Surely she wasn’t doubting it. But given the look on her face, she most certainly was. “Oh, I’m attracted to you, alright. I want to eat you—that’s how good you look to me. You’re like chili con queso that I want to shove into my face.” Maybe that would make it clear.

Those innocent eyes widened with shock and understanding and then a spark of lust, like he’d seen earlier when she had stared at him, wetting those plump lips.

Brady swallowed hard. Rein it in, asshole. “But that doesn’t mean I should do anything about it.”

“I’ve never had a man want to eat me before. I think . . .” Her voice dropped to a husky, sensual whisper. “I think I would like that.”

Oh, God. He was going to die. He was going to explode from lust and then he was going to hell for having this conversation. Or worse, he would die and be forced to troll this house as a ghost, watching other people have sex while he stood mutely by, a dead eunuch. It wasn’t a pleasant future.

He had always been impulsive. The kind who reacted first, thought later. With concerted effort, he reminded himself of all the reasons he couldn’t just dive onto Piper Tucker’s breasts like a famine-struck infant. Must. Retreat. Now.

“Sometimes things we like aren’t always good for us. I don’t think I would be good for you, Piper.” Then he bounded up the stairs, two at a time, not giving her a chance to reply, self-preservation winning out over manners.

“Brady?” she said softly, her voice drifting up the stairs in the dark to caress him.

He paused. “Yeah?”

“Zach’s room is the second on the left. The blue bedroom. Try not to wake up the girls, please. They’re light sleepers.”

Oh, yeah, the children who were currently in the house, his cousin’s twins. Now he really felt like an ass for what he had just said. He didn’t even look back at her. “See you in the morning, Piper.”

“Night, Brady,” she whispered, and the words stirred a longing in him he didn’t even know had existed.

A desire for a life where he climbed the stairs in a dark house with a woman and children surrounding him in it. His woman and his children.

Brady just about dove into Zach’s bedroom. My God. Sudden unemployment had affected him worse than he had realized.

His gran had always told him he wasn’t the marrying kind, and she was right.

He was almost sure of it.

* * *

PIPER EYED THE CLOSED DOOR TO ZACH’S BEDROOM
and pictured Brady lying behind it on the twin bed with plaid sheets. It seemed maybe he was attracted to her, after all. Either that or he was willing to sleep with any woman who came within two feet of him and was single. He certainly looked at her like he was attracted to her, specifically, and he had compared her to a chip dip. But then, could she really be sure what that meant exactly? Was he attracted to her or just women in general? Her knowledge of interpreting men’s expressions could fit in a thimble. For a mouse seamstress.

In high school she had dated Chris Anders briefly. Then in college she had spent her sophomore year in a roller coaster of a relationship with a smart and attractive business major named Seth who was the president of the Young Republicans club. He should have been the head of the Assholes of America club as well. He had taken every single one of her insecurities and had used them against her until she had finally wised up and walked.

These days she spent her time interpreting the expressions of five-year-olds, which generally included pouting, hunger, the urgent need for the restroom, or post-lunch wild-eyed vacancy. None of which were helpful in determining a grown man’s sexual intention. She didn’t think.

But he’d said he wanted to eat her. Surely she could trust that. Men didn’t just compare women to a meal if they were mildly interested or just feeling the effects of blue balls. He would have sex with her if she pushed the issue—she was almost entirely sort of sure of it.

There was no sound from behind the closed door. No snoring. No tossing and turning. No desperate plea for her to join him.

Exasperated at herself, Piper turned and went into Shelby and Boston’s room, shivering in her wet pajamas as she gently closed the door and leaned against it.

“Get a backbone,” she whispered to herself. If she wanted to go in there, she should have just turned the knob and gone in. But that wasn’t her. She didn’t have the courage to take what she wanted so boldly. She also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would not be woman enough in bed for Brady, no matter how offended she chose to get at his labeling her a woman-child. In that regard, compared to him, she was.

Not to mention the truth she saw constantly in her classroom: that it was never wise to play with toys you couldn’t keep. It was just too hard to let them go.

She peeled off her tank top, goose bumps rising on her damp skin, her nipples painfully hard. Draping it on the windowsill, she stripped off her shorts and panties as well. Standing there naked in the dark, staring out at the rain trailing down the window in driving rivulets, she was very much aware of her body. The goose bumps on her skin, the ache between her thighs, the brush of air across her backside. She didn’t spend a lot of time naked, given that she still lived with her parents and her little brothers. It felt decadent to stand there, her frizzy damp hair teasing across her back and her bare breasts, flesh warming to the temperature of the stuffy room now that her wet pajamas were off.

Sensual. Like the woman that she knew she was. Piper stood up straighter, raking her hands through her thick hair. She always loved to feel her hair, to bury her fingers in its richness, to feel it brush against her back and her breasts, to hold it between two fingers and idly twist it, to drag its weight up on top in a messy knot. All those things she had longed to do as a little girl.

Glancing at the door, she changed her mind. She could do this. She could stroll in there and take what she wanted from Brady. She could prove that she was an adult. She could indulge in one night with her childhood crush knowing that it wouldn’t result in anything. There weren’t enough times in her life when she gave herself credit. She had survived abandonment, being bald, feeling like the odd kid out next to her beautiful blond baby brothers. She had lived her life quietly and diplomatically, and she was good with that.

But tonight, just for once, before he walked out and the opportunity was never there again, Piper wanted to be selfish. She wanted to feel sexy, and she wanted to be satisfied.

Grabbing the robe she had brought for traversing back and forth to the shower, she pushed her arms through the sleeves. It would have been really bold to stroll in there naked, but she couldn’t risk it with the girls in the house. Nor did she think she was really capable of being that sassy. Not yet, anyway.

Belting it, she opened the door and moved into the hallway, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the windowless corridor. Then she moved towards the blue bedroom.

Only to halt when she realized that Rachel was standing in front of the door, shoulders drooping with sorrow. Piper drew up short. “Oh, geez. Rachel, give a girl a little warning.”

The spirit didn’t respond. She just stared at Piper.

With . . . disapproval? Piper’s cheeks went hot. Why did she feel like she was being called out by a ghost?

“If I want to sleep with him, it’s none of your business,” she whispered, feeling foolish even as the words came out of her mouth. She was explaining herself to a dead woman. That was just dumb. And maybe an indication that she wasn’t as sure of herself as she liked to think.

Rachel shook her head, a silent tear rolling down her opaque face.

Which left Piper in a conundrum. Did she reach through Rachel to turn the knob? Did she try to scare her off? Or did she abandon the slutty ship she was on and go back to dry-dock in her room?

There was no way she could stick her hand through a ghost. It would be like touching her eyeball. She just couldn’t do it. The very thought made her queasy. Nor could she shoo her, which just seemed cruel. Hell, maybe Rachel was purposely blocking her entry into Brady’s room. Maybe the ghost had more sense than she did. Piper sighed. Seduction didn’t really suit her anyways.

She was about to retreat in defeat when Brady opened the door, causing her to jump and Rachel to disappear in a blink. “Oh!”

“Are you okay? I thought I heard you talking out here.”

Piper nodded, her tongue suddenly stuck to the roof of her mouth. Brady was in his underwear. Tight boxer briefs that showed firm thighs and an oversized package. The kind that would require extra postage down at the Cuttersville post office.

Good Lord in heaven.

She was both intrigued and horrified.

“So what were you doing?” Brady pressed.

Prying her tongue down, she forced her gaze up to meet his. “Going to the bathroom,” she managed to lie. “Sorry for disturbing you, Brady.”

But she realized Brady was no longer listening to her. He was staring at her chest.

A glance down showed that the robe had shifted. Her left breast was about 50 percent exposed. Including the edge of her nipple.

Before she could react, paralyzed by the horror of her failed attempt at sexy, Brady reached out and yanked the robe closed. Gripping both lapels, his face close to hers, he said grimly, “You’re going to kill me. Pick a door now and use it before I remove your free will from the equation, and then feel guilty as hell about it.”

Before she could think, respond, scoff at herself doing anything against her will, or overanalyze what his feeling guilty really meant, a low, keening wail started up down the hall. At first she thought it was one of the twins, but Brady didn’t seem to notice, and the sound wasn’t right.

It was unearthly. Starting, she turned to the right. It was Rachel, making the most god-awful sound of frustration and despair Piper had ever heard in her life.

“You don’t hear that, do you?” she asked Brady.

“Hear what?”

“Never mind.” Piper moved towards Rachel, intent on shushing her, soothing her, anything to get that sound to stop. But the minute she took a step in her direction, the wailing cut off. It annoyed Piper. Why couldn’t she ever just be normal? Why couldn’t she attempt to flirt with a man without a dead woman getting involved in the business?

Her heart was pounding in irritation and anxiety, and she could feel her face flushing with embarrassed heat. That was it. She was in this far, she was going all the way. Brushing past Brady, she went back into Shelby and Boston’s bedroom, right inside the doorway, and pivoted to face Brady again.

And she dropped her robe.

If this failed, she would most likely dig herself a hole quicker than Snoopy and dive into it to die of mortification.

If it succeeded, well, she might just be too nervous to enjoy herself.

But she was naked and something had to happen one way or the other, so she tried not to squirm as she waited for his reaction.

She didn’t have to wait long.

With a muttered curse Brady took her by the hand and just about yanked her arm out of the socket as he dragged her farther into the bedroom.

After he locked the door behind him.

Piper’s heart kicked into overdrive, but before she could say a word he was all over her like stink on hogs.

Yeah, he was attracted to her. Thank you, baby Jesus.

Chapter Four

BRADY MIGHT HAVE STOPPED TO CONTEMPLATE THIS
rather unusual turn of events in his evening if he could remember how to think. At the moment, he seemed to have forgotten how. The second Piper dropped her robe he’d momentarily gone blind, followed by mute, capped off with paralysis.

Then every nerve in his body had fired up at once like a pottery kiln.

It started in his cock, like a blast of pure energy that rushed out to every limb, so that he ached and burned and his skin felt like it was melting. His mouth went hot. His hand twitched. Piper in damp shorts and a clinging tank top had been noteworthy. Arousing. Intriguing. Piper naked was awe-inspiring. She stood there just inside the doorway, chest rising up and down rapidly, a pink bloom in her cheeks, eyes wide with what he suspected was a little bit of shock at what she had just done, and Brady could honestly say that in all his doggish days of doing women he’d never seen one quite as beautiful.

Her body was perfect. It was lush, with full breasts, dusky nipples, and womanly hips. Her waist nipped in, and her arms were natural, not beaten into muscular submission by thousands of hours at the gym. She looked soft and ripe and delicious, like a strawberry straight off the vine. If there had ever been a possibility that he would refrain from touching her, the sight of her naked was a game changer. Not the least of which was the way she looked at him, so guileless, so honest. So sweet.

When her tongue peeked out to nervously lick her lip, he finally found the ability to do something other than stand there and gape.

Before he could come to his senses, before she could change her mind, he had her by the hand and was dragging her farther back into Shelby and Boston’s bedroom, aware of two needs—to remove her naked body from the open doorway where they could be busted by small children at any given moment, and to place that same naked body on the largest vertical surface available so he could bang her brains out as soon as possible.

He paused in dragging her to close the door as quietly as he could under the urgent circumstances and lock it. Then he brought her head to his and did what he had been fixating on for the last two hours.

Brady kissed little Piper Tucker. Only she wasn’t little anymore. She was a full-grown woman with breasts worth fighting a war for, and as they pressed up against his bare chest, her lips softly parting for his, Brady groaned. He had never stood a chance. Wily women, he could spar with and dodge. Charming flirts, he could bait and tease.

A woman who bared herself before him and then kissed with the artless tenderness of Piper was not something he could resist. Her hands tentatively trailed up his arms to rest on his biceps while her hair hung between them in a heavy curtain. She smelled like damp rain and peaches. What women smelled like peaches? A farm girl, that was who. One who had spent so much of her life outside that it was woven into the fabric of her skin. That the Tuckers probably didn’t grow peaches and they were out of season was totally irrelevant to Brady at the moment. He was just enjoying the light scent, an odd sense of homecoming working its way inside him. This was a hell of a welcome back.

Unable to resist, he cupped her full breast while he kissed her again and again, enjoying the reaction she gave him. When his finger brushed over her nipple she gave a little gasp, right into his mouth, their breath intermingling in a simple and base eroticism that shocked him in its intensity. They were making out, plain and simple, with the frantic need of teenagers, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he had done that. He kissed to initiate seduction. A few well-placed darts with the tongue before he moved on to greener pastures down south on a woman, giving her a requisite orgasm with his mouth before he could slide in and stroke himself to satisfaction.

It had been years since he’d done this, a kiss just for a kiss. Just because it felt wonderful to feel his mouth on a woman’s, to have her fingers pluck restlessly at his chest, her hip press against his cock with more desperation than calculation. She waited for him to direct, kept her hands away from his erection or his ass, and the desire he felt to have her grope him surprised him. At the same time, he liked her passivity, the way she let him take the lead. It made him feel manly, alpha, aggressive.

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he shifted, reaching his arm down under the perkiness of her backside and lifting her up into his arms.

“Oh!” she said, startled as he swept her off her feet.

Hell, she couldn’t be any more shocked than him. He didn’t think he’d ever pulled this particular move. But carrying Piper to bed seemed to make sense and he was caught up in the moment, damn it. Might as well go all the way with it. The moonlight was streaming in the window, the rain softly pelting the glass as he strode across the room with her warm, naked body in his arms. If there was a split second of hesitation when he placed her on his cousin’s bed, it didn’t last long enough to be of any consequence. Shelby wasn’t going to find out, and as far as Brady was concerned at the moment, the only female who even existed was Piper.

She was looking up at him with naked desire, her fingers pulling her lustrous hair out from behind her back so it wouldn’t tug. It spread out on either side of her, a wavy thick border to her luscious breasts and flesh. He couldn’t say that her hair was any particular color. It was more a fascinating collage of browns and goldenrods, ranging from espresso to toffee to wheat, all overlaying one another. At the top of her head, it was straight, then as it descended to her temples, it began to wave, and by the time it reached her chin, it corkscrewed on down past her breasts.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, knowing it was stupid and trite, but sincerely meaning it. She was all things pink and soft and feminine.

He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe protest. Blush. But she didn’t. She said, with a sincere politeness he hadn’t heard in a long time, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Whether that was for the compliment or the fact that he had taken her to bed, he wasn’t entirely sure. He just knew that while Piper may have been letting him take the lead, she was directing him more than she knew. He bent over and kissed her softly, running his hand over her shoulder, down her arm, watching the goose bumps rise on her skin. This would be when he normally took a woman’s thighs in his hands, spread her, and worked her clitoris with his tongue until she came. Some came with hard bursts, arching and clawing, others with tight control. But all loosened and dampened so he could push inside and take his pleasure, sometimes after a nice, long cock sucking, depending on the woman.

But none of that felt right here. It all seemed too orchestrated, too remote. Funny how the most intimate of acts, oral sex, could feel more distant than kissing and touching a woman. He just wanted to feel Piper. To touch her. So he kissed her again and again, his tongue making sweet inroads into her moist mouth, while he lay over her, not crushing her, but brushing his body over hers, his right hand gliding softly over her arm, her breast, her belly, her hip.

Their mouths were swollen, her eyes glazed as she gazed up at him, her hands lightly on the waistband of his boxer briefs. The air was humid from the rain, the last remnants of summer clinging to the house, all quiet but for the soft drumming of the storm remnants and their ragged breathing. He almost thought this brush and tangle of lips, this slumberous mating of their mouths, could be enough to satisfy him.

Almost.

But when she gave a tug at his briefs, he knew it was a lost cause. He was going in, and Lord knew when he’d be coming back out.

Piper tried to catch her breath, her inner thighs on fire as Brady kissed her senseless. She would have thought that he would go right for the good stuff, either oral sex, or straight-up tab-A-in-slot-B penetration. She was prepared for that, had known precisely what she was getting into. You don’t drop your robe with a man you hardly know and expect a whole lot of romance. It just didn’t work that way, and she’d known that and had done it anyway.

Yet Brady was proving to be quite the man of mystery. He had picked her up in a move that had nearly had her orgasming in his arms, then had spent she wasn’t even sure how long kissing her senseless, his hands roaming, but in a way that was more loverlike than one-night stand. He was throwing her off. Making her feel vulnerable. But at the same time, she knew that this was perfect. That if it had gone down the other way, she wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. It would have been a gesture, a brazen, I’m-a-woman statement, but it wouldn’t have been her. This was more her. It was like he had been able to understand that, to offer her exactly what she needed, to have her relaxed and pliant and so very, very turned on.

She was so achy, so desperate for more, for a sense of completion, that she started to move beneath him, trying to force him to take stronger action. He didn’t. He didn’t even slide a finger between her legs. He randomly, and without any real sense of purpose, would flicker across her nipple, but that was it, and she was going to die. She decided that it was absolutely true, that bullshit lie boys told girls at fifteen, that if they didn’t have sex they would die. Piper was going to expire into an early grave if Brady didn’t stop being so gentlemanly and take his boxers off and take her. Oral sex right now would kill her as well. It would frankly be more than she could handle. She just wanted him inside her thrusting away the ache, stripping it out of her with his impressive erection.

So she reached for his boxers, trying to tug the tight cotton down. Brady sucked in a sharp breath, and Piper realized that he wasn’t as unaffected as she’d thought. He looked like he was in pain, and he swallowed hard, his hand coming over hers to pause her movements. “You sure? Because once it’s out, there’s no going back.”

Like she could stop now. It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. She nodded. “I’m sure.”

“I thought you’d say that,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her temple. “Thank God.”

In the back of her mind she thought about the lack of a condom, her father’s awkward warnings rising up to taunt her. Starting at the age of twelve, he’d barraged her with statistics and information, and an honesty about her own conception that she could have frankly done without. Piper figured he’d been worried that she’d shared some sort of sexual gene with her mother, and he’d watched her like a hawk throughout middle school and high school, but Piper had never been aggressive that way. She kept her needs quietly addressed and to herself, like most things in her life.

But not tonight. And she wasn’t sixteen and she was on the pill, so she wasn’t going to worry about the lack of a condom. As if she could find the willpower to stop him at this point.

While she wrestled mentally, Brady divested himself of his boxers and poised between her thighs, bumping lightly against her, his finger toying with her clitoris, but the pause was brief. Before she could even think to urge him on, he was pressing inside her with an erection of epic proportions. She had been right to ogle when he’d stepped into the hallway. All the breath left her lungs and she froze, her body stretching to accommodate him, giving her a feeling of fullness she’d never experienced.

It had a groan of ecstasy ripping out of her mouth before she could stop it. It should feel uncomfortable, and there was a lot of pressure, yet at the same time, she felt so stuffed, so complete, so tingly and amazing that she couldn’t think, couldn’t breath.

“Oh, my God,” Brady said, his voice strained. “Fuck, Piper, you feel so good.”

That she was hearing those words, that she was feeling this, had a flood of moisture rushing to surround him. This was her fantasy coming to life, and it was better than she could have ever imagined. His forehead was dewy from the strain of holding back, and her inner muscles throbbed with anticipation. But she did have the forethought to bring her finger to her lip and give a soft “shh” so he would remember to keep it as quiet as possible.

His head shook back and forth slightly and he whispered, “You’re killing me.”

Piper lifted her hips. Look who was talking.

He got the message, a naughty grin bursting across his lips. “You’re going to be sorry you did that,” he said in a low voice.

She didn’t think so.

When he started to move, she knew so. No regrets whatsoever. Just pure, raw, blinding ecstasy. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t cry out, and knotted her fingers into his back. He buried his own hands in her hair as he established a slow and intense rhythm, his hot breath blasting over her cheek with each long, deep slide into her. This was sex. This was what she’d been waiting to experience. This was two bodies deeply connected, grinding and pressing together to one final mutual goal. There was nothing fancy about it, just him buried inside her, and yet she had never been so aroused, so sensitive, in her entire life. She could feel it building in her, could feel the quivering that started deep in her womb, her head shifting as she reached for it, desperate.

Brady seemed to sense it because he plunged his tongue inside her mouth, mimicking the thrust of his cock into her, his hips swiveling so that he got the deepest penetration possible. That was all it took. She came, crying out into his mouth, letting him swallow her passion as her body shattered around him. She clung to him, stunned, dragged down under the waves of pleasure, unable to believe she had come to orgasm so quickly, with so little foreplay.