Chapter 11
Veronica
Carter walked me up the stairs to my apartment, his hand on the small of my back. I couldn’t restrain the shivers, wave after wave of them. I clutched the takeaway box and focused on anything but his body heat.
I failed miserably. “This is me,” I said and fumbled with my handbag.
“Here.” He took the box from me to free up my hands.
“Thanks.” I whipped my keys out of the bag and inserted them into the keyhole. I let us into the apartment and stumbled again. What was the matter with me? I was never this clumsy, and I hadn’t had enough wine to warrant this type of behavior.
Carter, to his credit, didn’t comment on it. He hovered on the doorstep but didn’t cross the threshold, and his knuckles were white on the box. Gripping tight without squashing the to go box. Firm but gentle.
What would his hands feel like on my body? Fingertips dancing across my skin.
Stop it, Veronica. That’s your brother-in-law. But where had I expected this to go? I’d agreed to a date, and I couldn’t pretend that the chemistry between us wasn’t there. He smiled and my heart skipped a beat.
I dropped my keys on the entrance hall table, then braced my palm on it. I popped a hip, did my best to look sexy instead of stupid. “Want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee,” he said.
“Yeah. I usually get from downstairs but when they’re closed I make my own. I’m – okay, I don’t make the best coffee. I’m not entirely sure how the machine works.” Truthfully, every time I popped a filter in that bad boy and whipped up my own pot it tasted like dirt and the grounds in the cup added to the effect.
“I could make it for us.”
“You? Surely, you wouldn’t know any better. Don’t you have butlers and chefs to do that stuff for you?” I teased.
“Sure, but they take Sundays off, remember? And I’m not about to forego coffee on a Sunday morning.” He winked at me. And finally, God, finally, stepped over the threshold and into the apartment.
I exhaled. My shoulders sagged. He was in my apartment. He shut the door, then drew the latches and wiggled the knob, ensuring it was locked. Had what I’d told him about Jackson worried him that much?
“But no funny stuff,” I blurted out.
“What?”
“No funny stuff, all right? We’re here to have coffee and nothing else. You’re still married.” Oh, boy, maybe I had drunk too much wine.
Carter laughed and joined me at the table. “Funny stuff,” he said and lifted his index finger.
I watched him, watched it, drawn to every movement he made.
He trailed that finger down my bare arm, from the shoulder down to my elbow, raising a trail of goosebumps. “It wouldn’t be funny.”
“Huh?” I gulped.
“What I’d do to you. It wouldn’t be funny,” he whispered. We were inches apart.
My mouth went dry as the desert. “W-what?”
“Are you asking me what I’d do?”
I hadn’t unstuck from my shock. I couldn’t nod, though I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to.
“But we’re only here for coffee,” he said. “Right?”
Still couldn’t move. His finger encircled my wrist and rested there. He could probably feel my pulse.
“I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to do,” Carter said. “If you just want coffee, if that’s all it’s going to be, I’m fine with that. I’m not going to rush into anything. I’ve made that mistake once before.”
This time, I managed a nod. He’d rushed into things with my sister. God dammit, why did I have to think about her right now? I didn’t want Jayne in my head while I was with him. Jayne who spent his money and had broken his heart. Jayne who’d cheated on him and who hadn’t bothered speaking to him in months, maybe even a year.
Carter amazed me. He’d been destroyed by my sister but he’d moved on. He was charitable and sweet. He deserved the best.
“Veronica? I lost you for a second there.”
He deserved the best. My gaze tracked over his torso and up to those expressive eyes. I slipped my arms around his neck and interlaced my fingers behind his head. “You haven’t lost me.”
He swallowed this time, searched my expression for a clue or that answer he needed.
I rose onto my tiptoes and brushed my lips across his. Pleasure erupted in my core. Our first kiss. The slightest touch and I melted against him, impossibly weak.
He cupped my cheek in one hand and raised my face to his. “You’re sure.”
“I’m sure. We’re not rushing into anything. I’m sure about what I want.”
“And what’s that?”
“You. I want you. I don’t care about the rest, right now. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.” And most likely beat myself up about it.
I took him by the hand and led him down the hall, past the darkened living room and into my bedroom. I clicked on the bedside lamp and stared at it. Didn’t turn around.
“Doubts?” he asked. “I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”
“Stop it,” I said and faced him. If he continued, I would let the doubts seep in and snatch this moment from us.
He grazed my shoulders with the heels of his palms, hooked his thumbs under the straps of my dress. “Okay,” he said. The dress slipped down my curves and pooled around my feet. “I’ll stop asking.”
“Good,” I said and trembled. I hadn’t put on any underwear tonight.
Carter finally broke eye contact and looked down at my body. He groaned, actually swayed. “Fuck,” he muttered.
I grasped his belt buckle, kept my heels on, pressed my forehead against his and inhaled. His smell took me to new heights. Just that pure smell of his skin.
I undid his belt, unzipped his pants – they fell to the floor. His shirt came off next, unbuttoned with shaking fingers. Shoes were kicked off. And then we were fully naked in front of each other.
We didn’t touch at first. Just let the body heat meld in the gap between us.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “That word doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
I stroked his cheek, relished the stubble beneath my fingertips and the weight of him, the fact that he was real. He was here. In my bedroom with me.
Carter brushed the hair back from my forehead. He placed a kiss there, gentle, warm, then raked his hands down my back and rested them on my hips. He squeezed, pulled me closer, grunted as our skin touched – my nipples against his chest, his erection pulsing against my abdomen.
He was wet. I was wet. We still hadn’t even kissed properly yet.
I sought him out, lips aching for his touch, and he found me. We melted into each other, he parted me and tasted my mouth. Everything went hazy, the room, reality itself. There was just him and me and this moment. That was the way I needed it to stay.
He moved us to the bed, lay me down against the cool sheets, still kissing, then rested his body atop mine. The pressure built, and my core tightened up. I moaned into his mouth, and he growled back, broke the kiss.
“You’re amazing.” He peppered wet kisses over my cheeks and then my neck. He sucked on my skin, worked his way down my body. My décolletage, my left breast, took my nipple into his mouth and sucked on it.
I arched my back and gripped handfuls of his soft hair. “Yes,” I whispered.
“More?”
“More.”
He moved to my right breast and did the same, sucked and then nibbled. My nipple tightened, and a tickle spread across my breast. Carter continued his path down the slopes and planes of my body, over my stomach, pausing to nuzzle my belly button with his nose.
He parted my legs and lay down between them. Kissed the naked mound above my clitoris, breath whispering across my skin.
“Don’t tease me. I can’t take it anymore.”
Carter inserted one finger between my lips and ran it down to my entrance, collecting the juices. “You’re so wet.”
“Uh huh.” I couldn’t come up with anything better. I couldn’t think with him down there.
“So fucking wet.” He buried his face in me and I cried out. Carter’s tongue was magic. He swept it across my clitoris in slow, tight circles, a gentle touch that brought me closer and closer to that tenuous brink. He closed his mouth on it and sucked, slurping me up. “Taste so good. I can’t get enough of you.”
I tugged on his hair. “I want you,” I managed.
“You’ve got me.”
“No. I want you inside me.”
He took his time, a few more licks and sucks, then crawled back up my body, his lips glistening.
I craned my neck and kissed him again. “Please,” I said, into his mouth.
Carter reached between his legs. A crinkle of a wrapper, a snap, and then he guided himself to my entrance. He took his time, drew out that tension, and kissed me again.
This was it. We were on the cusp – either we’d traverse the next path together or we’d separate. It was the beginning of something… I wished I could tell what that ‘something’ was. The minute he entered me it was done. I’d be done.
It wasn’t just that he was huge, that he’d fill me and pleasure me, and that the intimacy of this moment would connect us. It was more than that. Carter undid me. Every breath against my skin, every smile, every look. He unraveled the fabric of who I was, and I was loathe to let this one opportunity slip away from us.
“Please.”
He buried himself inside me. A sharp flash of white-hot pain, then spreading pleasure so deep and low, it resonated inside me and struck a bell I hadn’t known existed.
He worked himself inside me, arms shaking, braced on the bed. We maintained eye contact, only broke it to kiss.
“God, Veronica,” he said. “You’re so tight.”
I clenched tighter, an involuntary response that rocked through me again. Another bell tolled. What was this? Why was it so good?
He increased the pace, thrusting deeper, groans escaping him on every other stroke. His jaw went slack and his eyes glazed over, but he kept them on me.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, and moved with him, building myself toward that climax.
Another bell tolled. The final one, and I crashed over the edge, seething against him, pulsing. I dug my fingernails into his flesh and cried out. “Carter, Oh, God. I’m coming.”
He spasmed into me with that and thrust three times, hard and deep. One. Two. Three.
And then he sighed, pressed his forehead against mine and squeezed his eyes shut. He held himself upright and practically vibrated on the spot from the tension of keeping himself like that.
“Hey,” I said, swallowing as an aftershock hit me. “Hey, lie down next to me.”
He rolled to the side and onto the pillows, arms open. “Come here.”
I snuggled up to his side and rested my head on his chest. His heart beat thundered along. Our sweat mingled and connected us. I loved that. I’d never paid attention to something like that before, but now, I loved it.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Thank you,” he said and tickled the back of neck.
Our breathing slowed, and we drifted off together.