She could see how that was so. She could also see how that quiet strength of his could be a rock for her on chaotic days. Brian had once told her something she’d never forget—that Candace was the eye to his hurricane. Candace was his calm, serene center; she kept him grounded. Gabby had identified a lot with Brian and his rebellious nature since her upheaval a few months ago, and now she wondered if she might need that grounding influence herself. Her ex-fiancé had only been another hurricane right beside her, each of them swirling along their own separate paths. How could that have worked?
Maybe the balm for her fiery blood was right in front of her. All she knew was she didn’t really want to talk. She wanted to be in his arms.
He read her mind again. Before she could make a move, she was pulled gently against that hard chest. Burying her face in his neck, she breathed in his clean scent. God, she loved the way he smelled. And the way his short hair felt under her stroking fingers, soft and pliant and damp from an obvious recent shower. She could get all the comfort she needed from his body alone. She wanted to take all she could get.
“Are you happy?” he asked, his voice rumbling in his chest beneath her ear. “Underneath all the uncertainty and the loss of control, are you in any way happy about this?”
“I am,” she whispered, letting her hands stroke down his back and pulling him closer. “I do want you to know that. When I saw that first positive test, I was so terrified, I just…panicked. And I don’t panic. But after it sank in for a while… I don’t know. I began to realize I don’t think I would change it. It’s something I thought I’d never have the chance for again. Now it’s happening.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “And I want you to know I’m sorry about asking you why you even bothered to tell me. Thank you for telling me. You didn’t have to. You could have gone back to Dallas, and I’d have been none the wiser. I know that.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry too. We got pretty heated.” She felt a little ridiculous having this conversation crushed against him like this, but she could get used to having every conversation like this. He felt too good and smelled too good to let go, and he made her feel so warm and protected.
It was too premature for thoughts like that, she knew, but her heart and her hormones didn’t give a damn.
She loved the way his hands slid through her hair, the way he combed through it with his fingers as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of it. “Want this wrapped around me,” he murmured, tugging just enough so that her face tilted up to his. Her eyes closed and her breath caught, waiting for his kiss to sweep her away. “Guess we’re already in enough trouble, though, huh?”
Impatience tightened her muscles. “The damage is already done. I do hope you’re clean, though? Because obviously something got through and—”
“I’ll get myself tested for you, but no, there’s no reason whatsoever to think I wouldn’t be. I’m always safe.”
“Okay. Me too.” She shifted her weight to her toes, lifting her mouth to his and sliding her lips across his.
“Mmm. Thought tonight was for talking?”
“Didn’t we just have a breakthrough?”
He gave her bottom lip the tiniest, faintest lick with the tip of his tongue. “Did we?”
“Day by day, remember?”
“Oh yeah. But what about getting to know each other?”
“Isn’t this getting to know each other? Kiss me,” she whispered.
His lips curved, separated from hers by only a breath. “I already know how you kiss.”
Oh, she was going to kill him. After he kissed her, though. And fucked her. She hadn’t really thought about it much before coming here, but yeah, she wasn’t leaving without an orgasm or three. The first-trimester horniness wasn’t a myth, at least not for her. Starving, nauseated, emotional, horny—she could check each off her list. She lifted her mouth to his ear to whisper into it, “There are some things you don’t know how I do.” And she drew his earlobe between her lips and sucked on it, giving it a nip with her teeth at the end.
“Jesus.” His hands clenched on her ass and ground her against his growing erection. “Gabby.”
“Please, Ian?” She slid one hand down his chest and rubbed him through his jeans. He groaned, leaning into her. “Let me suck it,” she whispered, giving the outside of his ear a lick. “Talk later. I promise.”
“You’re a fuckin’ siren, woman. I knew it from the second I saw you in the bar. I knew you’d lure me to my demise.”
“Your demise?” She chuckled. “Don’t think I’ve ever lured a man to his demise before. I’ve been lured to mine, though. More than once, it seems.” Letting her knees buckle—mainly because she didn’t want to talk about it anymore—she slid down the length of his body and went to work on his belt. His hands remained on the top of her head, stroking, still combing through her hair.
She released his cock from his jeans, and her mouth watered. He was so gorgeous. Long and broad. Made for pleasure, with such a thick coronal ridge that her pussy clenched in anticipation of the feel of it stroking through. Looking up at him through a few strands of hair that streaked her vision, she placed her tongue flat on the bottom of his head and licked over the tip, collecting the drop of precome and letting him watch her savor it.
His fingers clenched in her hair, and his other hand moved to the base of his shaft, holding it rigid for her. His eyes burned into her. He didn’t speak, but his breath became rapid.
She enclosed his head in her mouth, swirling her tongue around it, sucking it until he gasped and shuddered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted. He began to move, pushing his hips forward. She pulled back, releasing him when he sought more and then giving him long, wet strokes up his shaft until her cheek met his hand. Then she dipped under and gave his balls a lick, prompting him to release his cock to give her better access.
And she reveled in it, exploring the spice of his scent and the texture of his skin. Warmth spread from her lower belly…where his tiny offspring lay nestled in her womb. God. At any other moment, she might’ve thought the idea would be a buzz kill, but no…it enflamed her. He was already inside her. They shared a connection some people who’d been together for years hadn’t achieved. It was a blessing.
His head rolled back on his shoulders. She pulled his jeans down his hips and dug her nails into the firm muscles of his ass.
“Gabriella,” he groaned, and her too-long name was another blessing when it came from his lips. “Yes.”
Once she’d dampened him to her satisfaction, she sucked him back into her mouth, shocking the breath from him as she took him all the way to the back of her throat. “God! Gonna make me shoot, baby.”
Oh no, he wasn’t. He had a long way to go yet. Letting go of his delectable ass, she drew her nails around to the front and scratched lightly down his thighs. They didn’t disappoint either—a pair of muscular thighs was one of her favorite places on the male body. A place to dig her fingers in.
He let her go while she did so, lacing his hands behind his head. She watched him as she drew back, unwilling to lose sight of him any longer than she had to. There was so much of him she wanted to feel and see all at once…ass and thighs, those hard abs, those pecs with their pierced nipples. Gabby allowed her hands to roam as she swallowed his thick cock down over and over, delighting in the way he filled her mouth to perfection, the way he held back and let her play as she wanted.
But damn, she wanted him. Her pussy craved him in the same rhythm she sucked him. Slow. Deep, then shallow, back and forth. She wanted him to keep her guessing, wanted to give it all up to him.
Just not every aspect of her life.
“Fuckin’ hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice a sexy purr. She glanced up to see him looking down at her, watching her work him with her mouth. For all she knew, he might say that to all the girls. But she didn’t want to think so.
As she’d already told him once, he was definitely the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
br /> Suddenly, he pulled back, reaching down to grab her and haul her up to him. His chest heaved, and she pushed herself against him, needing every inch of his body next to every inch of hers. She caught his cock in her hand and gripped him tight at the base, seeking to stem any impending eruption. He throbbed in her hand, and, glancing down, she saw he was flushed dark red with the rush of his blood. Damn, she wanted that inside her. He was as hot in her hand as he had been in her mouth. As he would be in her aching pussy. She wanted to feel his pulse against hers in that most intimate of places.
“Don’t want to mess up this pretty face,” he murmured, planting little kisses along her lips and stroking her cheek with his thumb.
“I’d have swallowed you, baby,” she whispered. “Every drop.”
“Fuck,” he breathed.
She stepped back, letting go of him and turning, giving him a playful eye over her shoulder as she moved toward his couch. “Too bad. Missed your chance. I want something else now.”
He never let her put much distance between them, dogging her steps until she stopped near his couch, turned and slipped her hands under his T-shirt. “I’d ask again if it’s always about what you want, but you’d tell me it’s not,” he said.
“What’s so bad about that, anyway? What I want is very important to me.”
“As it should be. I’m just wondering how the hell you were ever refused, Gabriella.” His lips grazed hers, and she smiled against them.
“I think I like the sound of that.”
“That I’d give you any fucking thing you wanted, if it was in my power?”
“Everything I want right now is well within your power, Ian.” She let her hand drift down to his cock again and stroked it base to tip. “Right here.”
“There’s nothing else you want?”
“Of course. But contrary to popular belief, I usually know when what I want isn’t within my reach. Usually.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I have my lapses.”
“Don’t we all.”
He didn’t press further. She was glad, because right now she didn’t want to delve too deeply into the disturbing things she wanted. Slowly, so slowly it agonized her, he began to undress her, kissing every area of intimate skin he exposed. From the gentle, nipping kisses he placed on her sore, swollen breasts, to the thrilling little lick on her clit as he pulled her jeans and panties down. Before he was done removing them from her feet, she was nearly lying over on top of him. She had to straighten when he stood again.
“Goddamn,” he murmured, tracing his fingers around her nipples. She shivered.
“I’ve already gone up a freaking cup size,” she muttered.
“You’re gorgeous.” As tenderly as he’d kissed her, he took her breasts in both hands, and she wanted to roll her eyes into the back of her head at the pleasure of having that achy weight supported in his warm hands. She fit him as if she were made for him. “I could spend all night doing this.”
“I could let you. Mmm.”
“I have to warn you, I have no idea about this pregnancy stuff. If I’m doing something wrong, you have to tell me.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t worry. Right now, the pregnancy stuff is just making me horny as hell.”
“Is that what it is?”
“That and you.”
He dropped his hands, and she wanted to chase after them and put them right back where they’d been. But when he grabbed her ass and pulled her tight against him…yeah, okay, that was good too. Because she was pretty achy in other places as well. “Just so you know, I think you’re only trying to avoid the matter at hand here,” he growled against her neck. “But I’m gonna keep giving you what you want, Gabriella Ross, because I don’t know what else to do. And I’ll lose my fucking sanity if I don’t get back inside you soon.”
All that stuff he’d said to her at Dermamania flashed through her head. He thought about her all the time. He couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep either. What if he really was falling for her? Even worse yet, what if she was falling for him? And soon there would be a baby between them. They could be setting themselves up for a lifetime of misery if they didn’t stop—if she didn’t stop—until they figured this whole thing out, until they saw how it was going to go.
He might be on to something... This was somehow safer than facing their problems. As long as he was touching her, wanting her, everything was okay. And she couldn’t stop. This man was too scrumptious, too hard and hot and dirty, and she’d never experienced anything like it. She wasn’t ready to let it go yet, dammit.
“Do it,” she said. “I need you. I promised we’d talk. I meant it. You haven’t been absent from my mind all this time, Ian. I think about you too. I want to know you in more ways than this.”
“What if you don’t like what you find out?”
A chill went through her. “Then I’ll deal with that when I have to.”
His mouth crushed down on hers, and he toppled them back on the couch. Her heart leaped into her throat, nearly choking her with the force of its pounding. For the first time, a little fear coursed through her. She was pregnant with the child of someone she didn’t know. Someone who might have a few skeletons in his closet. Already, he’d told her about his troubled childhood, and her heart had broken for him. What else could he be hiding, though? She’d trusted him because she trusted Brian not to have anyone shady working at his establishment.
Now she was here spreading her legs for him again, spending most of her waking hours consumed with thoughts of him.
No. It might be naïve of her, but she refused to believe he was anything but honorable, no matter the darkness he hinted at. He could be testing her, seeing what she was made of. She’d show him now.
His kiss was nothing less than savage, but his hands were gentle, and he was careful to keep his weight off her. Pushing her thigh up the back cushion, he dove between her legs, and she writhed as his tongue zeroed in on the one little needy place that craved his attentions. He kissed her there like he’d kissed her mouth. Deep. Tugging lips, swirling tongue. She arched into his mouth. Oh, Jesus Christ, she was going to come already… Her belly tightened, the sensation strange and different than it ever had been, more focused. His fingers slipped deep inside her, adding to the maelstrom threatening to sweep her away. Slow, deliberate thrusts, too slow. He even moved his tongue higher than her clit, too high to throw her over but not so far away she couldn’t feel the distant sensations stoking her flames.
“Oh my God, let me come, Ian,” she cried, grasping frantically at his head with both hands.
“You’ll come on my cock or you won’t come at all,” he growled against her.
“Then give it to me!”
“I’m having too much fun like this.” He gave her one more thrust with his long fingers, held them deep, then pulled them out and let her watch as he put them in his mouth and tasted her.
Her hips churned with the emptiness at her core. “Please,” she whispered, almost at the end of her strength, reaching in vain for that pleasure that just wouldn’t come. “Please.”
“I’ll wear a condom,” he told her conversationally, “for all the good it’ll do us.”
Gabby found it within herself to laugh, but the sound quickly turned into a moan when he stood and leisurely began to strip the rest of his clothes off…as if he were getting ready to go to bed, not fuck her raw. Then he took his sweet time rolling on the condom, to the point that she almost sat up and did it herself. If she hadn’t gotten such gratification from watching him touch himself, she might’ve done it.
“I’m going to finish myself off and be done with it before you ever get here,” she warned.
“No, you won’t. Because you know you can’t do it like I can. You want this filling you up when you come.”
Oh God, wasn’t that the damn truth. He came back to her at last, nestling close and kissing her beneath her jaw as she spread wider to accommodate him. Again, he teased her, slipping that broad head through her wet folds as he c
aught his breath and watched her face. She struggled to breathe, her pussy clenching for him. So close. Right there. Right there and…
“Push, dammit,” she all but yelled at him.
He burst out laughing. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say, like, months from now?”
“Yeah, you’ll get your turn. Right now, it’s mine. Give it to me.”
He gave it to her. He gave her about an inch of it. She strained toward him, but their position hindered her. “Oh, you motherfucker,” she growled, sounding like a woman possessed.
“You’re correct on that one, I guess. I’ve never fucked a mother before you.”
“Good to know. But this one is begging you to fuck her.”
“Begging? Oh, you haven’t begun to beg yet, Gabriella. Maybe I’ll give it to you like you want it”—he surged into her, ripping the breath from her lungs, and a chorus of angels sang—“and then take it away.” He pulled out and left her empty and panting and without the powers of speech. She wanted to sob. Maybe tears would move him.
“God, you felt good,” he groaned, seeming as affected as she was by that one taste of absolute nirvana. “So good, baby, I don’t know how long I’ll last.”
It was his own fault for holding back so long. “Try it out and see?” she suggested weakly.
“Aww, you sound so sweet now,” he said. He slid back and forth through her folds again, that teasing, torturous movement. Gabby licked her lips and tried not to beg, since it was precisely what he wanted. Then she bit both lips between her teeth. Then she feared she might draw blood.
“Ian!” she burst out. “Fuck me now, or I swear to God I’ll get up, put my clothes on, go home and give my vibrator a workout.”
He shoved into her. She wanted to weep from relief but was so damn wet and ready, she suspected tears might dehydrate her. The stretch of him burned her deep, sizzling along nerve endings that sang with pure bliss. She saw it now. The fuss. The hair-mussing sex. The kind that left marks. The craving for it. She’d had it good before. Very good, she could admit. But she’d never had it like this.