Once is Never Enough

CHAPTER FOUR

BACKING OFF THE BED he helped her out of her jeans and panties. Staring in blatant appreciation at her naked form spread out before him, he shed his shirt with a few efficient jerks and went to work on his belt.

Nichole’s mouth went dry, her eyes wide. And then she was on her knees at the edge of the bed, pushing his hands from the wide length of leather and running her own up the steep plains of his chest. She’d felt the power in his shoulders when he carried her, seen the definition across his pecs when she’d opened his shirt, but this—nothing had prepared her for the hard-cut terrain of his shirtless form.

He was like a work of art. A Greek god. A veritable playground of muscle and man. And he was only half undressed.

“Naked,” she murmured, her fingers jumping the crest of each abdominal ridge as they descended back to his belt, tugged the stiff leather until the buckle freed, before moving on to his straining fly.

He stood patient before her as she opened his zipper with trembling fingers. As if he sensed her need to be an active participant rather than a passive player. But still he touched her all the while, never breaking contact, his hands always moving, coasting over her bare shoulders, her neck and back as she pushed the denim low on his hips. His thumbs brushed the line of her jaw, the swell of her bottom lip, the hollow at the base of her throat as she eased the stretchy waistband of his white cotton boxer briefs over the thick head of his erection and saw for the first time his actual size.

Big. Like everything else about him.

Different. Than anything she’d experienced before.

Exciting. In a way she’d never known.

Unable to resist, she closed a hand over him, testing the steely length.

“Nichole.”

At the gruff sound of her name she lifted her gaze up, up, up until she met the blue burn of his. Intense. Barely contained. A shocking contrast to the light touch he’d treated her to. The look in his eyes said he wanted to throw her back on the bed and take her hard. Let the weight of his body hold her down.

Wow. Okay. She was pretty sure she wanted that too.

She gave him the space to toe off his shoes and discard his jeans, retrieving his wallet and the condom within in the process.

Breathless with mounting anticipation, she waited for him to rip it open and roll it on … frowned as he tossed it onto the bed instead.

Please don’t let him be one of those guys who only wants to wear protection at the very end. She was so excited, so caught up in the magic of what was happening, the wet blanket of a conversation about risks and necessity and protection really wasn’t one she wanted to need to have.

At her questioning stare, his brow quirked.

Okay—so, yes. She was going to have to have the conversation. “Umm, you’re going to wear that? The whole time, right?”

The eyes above her looked briefly confused, then cleared completely. “I would never take that kind of risk, Nichole. Not with your life. Not with mine.”

The conviction in his words was unmistakable, and left her with no doubt about his sincerity or commitment to their mutual protection. Which was incredibly sexy.

Almost as much as when his mouth tipped in a way that suggested a secret lingered behind his crooked smile. One he looked forward to sharing with her.

“What? You didn’t think the fun and games were over yet, did you?”

She swallowed, unwilling to admit that in her experience the bulk sum of “fun and games” took place between the time the condom went on and came off. “I—I don’t know.”

He leaned in closer, and then closer still, so the light pressure of his mouth against her ear and his bare chest at her shoulder guided her down to the bed. “Not even close.”

Nervous laughter escaped her even as her inner walls clenched with unmet need.

His hand moved between her legs, cupping her sex as he held her gaze. A single thick finger slid between her swollen folds and then inside her. Deep and deeper. Slow and steady. He withdrew to paint a light circle around that throbbing bundle of nerves—the callused pad of a workman’s finger adding sensation when she was already beyond what she’d believed she could take—his gentle, rough touch a decadent sensual contrast.

Different.

Every single thing about him.

About this night.

Another slow thrust of his finger and her hips rocked to meet him. Her back arched and the desire pooling warm and thick through her belly spilled free, making her slick, making her beg. “Please. I need—”

“You need more?” A second finger joined the first, this one pushing a gasp from her lungs instead of words.

Want coiled tight within her, making her pulse around his slow thrusts. Making her skin heat and her center burn. “I need you—”

“To make you wait? Make you so hot and ready …” the strong draw of his mouth on her nipple stole conscious thought “… that when you finally fall over the edge it’ll feel like forever?”

“Oh, God.” Her body seized, liquid heat scorching through her veins, pushing her fast toward the very edge he’d threatened to pull her back from. “I—I’m so close. Please—it’s been so long. Please.”

His touch far inside her, he met her gaze. “How long?”

Another deep thrust, this one slower, so she felt the curl of his fingers stroking, teasing some wicked spot that promised to make her its slave.

“Years,” she admitted on a broken gasp, unable to bear the intensity of his stare a moment longer.

His hand stilled. Withdrew as the bed sagged under his shifting weight.

Her eyes shot open, panic slamming through her. He couldn’t stop. Not now. “No, wait—”

Only then she saw he wasn’t leaving the bed at all, but rather moving between her legs. His wide hands spread them apart in a way that with any other man would have left her feeling vulnerable, exposed. Not with him. Not when his big hands slid beneath her bottom and wide shoulders braced her thighs. Not when he looked into her eyes and said, “No more waiting.”

And then his mouth was covering her, his tongue mimicking the actions of his fingers and hands only moments ago … only it was different. So very, incredibly different. So much more … intense. Stimulating. Hard and soft and wet and strong. Everything. He was delving inside her and then licking a path to her most sensitive spot.

Stroking.

Nibbling.

Circling with the wet velvet point of his tongue.

Making her gasp and cry and beg and scream.

And then he closed over her … drawing deep against the throbbing, needy ache. Pulling sensation from every tingling extremity … centering it all … at that one … concentrated … spot.

She was falling.

So hard. So good. So long.

Finding her release had never been so incredible. Not even close.

Maybe it was the anonymity. Or semi-anonymity anyway, since he’d made it clear he knew her name, saying it again and again in a deep, rumbling voice that stroked her every nerve like the wet tongue that spoke it.

And then he was crawling over her, giving her a taste of his body atop hers.

His lips grazed her neck. Tender. Lingering. He was going for the condom, but not in any rush. And she realized he was savoring her as he’d savored their sunset.

Oh, no. That fluttery sort of ache in her chest, making her want to link her arms around his neck and pull him closer, didn’t belong there. Or maybe it did. Maybe it was just a normal side effect of endorphins being released and not her reckless heart getting ahead of her. She didn’t know. What she needed was an expert. Someone with a point of reference when it came to “casual.”

She couldn’t even believe she was thinking it—and while she was still in bed with her blue-eyed stranger. But maybe Maeve was right and she should talk to—

“Garrett,” came the gruff, deeply masculine voice from above her.

Her eyes blinked wide as the flutter in her chest dropped into her belly, turning leaden and still.

“I can feel you getting tense.”

The decadent weight she’d been basking under eased as he shifted to his elbows and peered down into her eyes. Familiar eyes.

Oh, God.

“It’s fun to play and all, but I didn’t want you to wonder or worry about who you were with. My name’s Garrett.”

“Garrett … Carter?” Her throat closed over the name, fighting what she knew deep in the pit of her stomach to be true.

His muscles tensed. “You know me?”

Oh, yeah. She knew him. And her face must have said as much because Garrett flinched, looking pained and then … resigned. Moving to a chair in the corner, he grabbed the light quilt from the back and tossed it to her.

Shoving one leg into his jeans, and then the other, he pulled them over his hips before he turned back. “I don’t know what you heard, but this—tonight, Nichole—it’s not—”

He stood immobile, his gaze searing over her skin, her hair—sweeping across her bedroom until it settled at the ladder-style bookshelf at the opposite side of the room. His body seemed to lock tight. She knew what he’d see there. The photo Maeve had given her for Christmas last year. The one where their grinning faces filled the frame.

He took a halting step forward, his features hardening.

His eyes slammed shut. “Nichole?”

Pulling the quilt around her breasts, she tried to ignore the sensitivity of her nipples and the knowledge Garrett had made them that way. With his mouth. His teeth. Tongue—

“Nikki Daniels?”

Garrett Carter. Maeve’s brother. The Panty Whisperer.

Yeah, she couldn’t quite believe it either.

Stalking across the room as he raked his fingers through his hair, Garrett—because, as clumsy as it felt tumbling around her thoughts, that’s what his name was—looked as dismayed as she felt. One thing was certain. She didn’t have to worry about the night turning into anything more complicated than—well, this.

Granted, this was messy. But the makings of some emotional train wreck it wasn’t.

Maeve would laugh about this. Nichole knew she would. She had to.

There wasn’t any risk to their relationship—not over one innocuous little slip she hadn’t seen coming.

“What is that?” demanded the voice that had been growling her name in her ear mere minutes before.

Her head snapped up and then followed Garrett’s pointed gaze back to her hand and the slim rectangle of technology she’d unconsciously reached for. “My phone.”

Her lifeline to sorting out the mess in her head. To Maeve reassuring her their friendship was as strong as ever. There wouldn’t be any awkwardness. Not this time. Not like with—

“No kidding. A phone, Nikki?”

Jerked back from the brink of one of the worst memories of her life, Nichole refocused on the man glowering down at her.

Her brow pushed up a degree. So now she was Nikki? Like Garrett thought he knew her or something? But before she could call him on his presumption he was back at her.

“What are you doing with it?”

Nothing yet. But the intent was obvious. Even if it had taken a moment for her head to catch up to her thumbs. “Texting Maeve.”

He’d crossed to the bed in two strides.

“Like hell you are.” Paling, he grabbed her hand and turned it over in his. “If you snapped a picture of me on this thing, so help me—”

“What? Are you insane? You think I took photos of you when you were … were … doing that?”

Arms folded over his chest, Garrett pulled back. “No. I hadn’t actually thought—” Another, deeper growl. “But you tried to take a picture of me at the party.”

“And you said no, so I didn’t. Though in retrospect I’m fairly certain both of us would have preferred I had.”

What Garrett had given her was beyond anything she could have imagined. But regardless of how good it had felt—how much she might have needed it—nothing was worth risking her relationship with Maeve.

Brows drawn, he asked, “You think Maeve would have warned you off me?”

Seriously? “Don’t you?”

Granted it would have been for reasons different than Nichole’s, but, yes, she was fairly certain Maeve would have wanted her to know who she was about to take a dip with.

One dark brow cocked in amusement. “I think she’d have been laughing too hard to hit ‘send.’ But for you, she’d have tried.”

Nichole felt her lips twitching at the thought, along with relief flooding through her at hearing Garrett too believed Maeve would have a good sense of humor about this. “You could be right.”

Garrett sat at the foot of the bed—not close enough to touch, but not a total snub either. Just maintaining the distance between them.

Snaking a leg out from beneath the blanket’s overlap, she stretched, trying to reach the panties lying three feet from the bed without actually leaving it.

There was something significantly different about being naked in front of Garrett now that she knew who he was. What he was.

At risk of severe cramp, she strained further, extending her leg until finally she was able to snare the little heap of lace-edged cotton with her toes. Only just as she had them Garrett turned, one arm braced on the bed, muscles bunched thick from the weight of his torso, and cocked a curious brow at her. “What are you doing?”

“Panties.”

His brow drew down as his gaze flickered over the length of her barely concealed form, making her pull and pluck at the corners of the blanket to try and hide further beneath it.

“You really didn’t know who I was?” he asked, pushing to his feet.

“I would have run the other way. No offense,” she offered belatedly, wondering whether it was possible not to take offense.

But apparently he hadn’t. “No, that’s good.”

“Why?”

“I just didn’t like the idea of what happened tonight being some kind of conquest thing.”

She sat up straighter. “This from The Panty Whisperer?”

Garrett froze where he was, jeans pulled over his hips but the fly left open. Bare feet, bare chest, the short dark waves of his hair a tousled mess … It would have been a calendar-hot snapshot in time if not for the hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes. “You did not just call me that.”

“Well, I mean …”

He paced the room and back. Coming to stop in front of her.

“What?” he demanded, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans—a position that pushed them down just that extra inch in front, showing off a nearly scandalous stretch of skin. “You’re not suggesting I ‘whispered’ you out of anything?”

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