Along Came Trouble(47)

“It was a calculated risk.”

She lifted the lid of the box and bent over, inspecting the food. Her shorts got shorter. His dick woke up and came to attention so fast it hurt.

“Ellen,” he choked out. “Could you do me a favor and put some real clothes on?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “You show up on my porch uninvited, and now you’re telling me what to wear?”

He tried closing his eyes. No help. His brain projected an image of Ellen bending over on the back of his eyelids.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. There was. Something important. Though at the moment, he had no idea what it was.

“Hmm.” She bent down again to pick up the pizza boxes. “I guess you’d better come inside.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

She opened the screen door and smiled. “Yes, it is.”

Fighting to keep a clear head, he said, “I’m not leaving this porch until you agree to the floodlights.”

“Yeah, fine, you can have the lights.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Sure, tomorrow.”

She walked into the house, and he followed her. A thoroughly stupid man.

“Have a seat,” Ellen said, pointing him toward the living room as she slipped through the back patio door into the kitchen. “I’m going to put the pizza in the fridge.”

By the time she reemerged, he was sitting on her plush white couch, and he’d remembered what he was supposed to say. But he couldn’t look at her without wanting to rip her clothes off, so he kept his eyes on his clasped hands as he said it.

“I wanted to apologize. For sending Bill and Matthias over here without your permission.”

“You apologize? I didn’t know men actually did that.” Her bare feet came into view. Those sexy red toenails. When he looked up, dark nipples greeted him through white fabric, hardening to peaks as he stared for far longer than was polite.

He lowered his eyes, but it was too late. His hands reached out and found her waist, and his head fell forward until it rested against her stomach.

“It’s not very manly of you,” she said.

“I’ve got sisters. I understand the value of a sincere apology.”

“Fair enough. Apology accepted. Can I ask you something?”

“What’s that?”

“Did you mean it earlier, when you said you’re attracted to me? You weren’t just teasing me, or trying to get me to do what you wanted?”

He found the bottom of her shirt and lifted it to expose the dark indentation of her navel. She’d turned the kitchen light on, but the living room was dim, and the sideways illumination caught the fine, downy hair on her arms and made it glow. He brushed his lips over her stomach. So f*cking soft. Her flesh pebbled with goose bumps when he breathed against it.

“I want you, Ellen.” His hands slid up her bare back to cup the delicate wings of her shoulder blades and draw her closer, while his mouth found a path that led north from her belly button. “So bad.”

He should have said something different, something more considerate of her feelings or his honor. Told her he wasn’t the kind of person who’d use sex to manipulate a woman. But all he could think about was getting his hands and his mouth on more of her skin, which made it hard to see the point.

“Show me,” she whispered.

“Don’t you think we’d better slow this down?” He lifted her shirt a little higher and kissed the underside of her breasts, his own answer to the question. As he straightened to standing, his hands moved to the caps of her shoulders, and when she lifted her arms, he started pulling the shirt off over her head. “I was hoping to ask you—”

But then he got a good look at her, her breasts full and lush, nipples bunched. Her damp hair spread out over her shoulders and plastered against her neck. Whatever he’d been about to say evaporated, and he kissed her so hard their teeth collided. She did something with her breath, a happy exhale that was like a laugh, fanning out over his face. Caleb cupped her head in his hands, held her still, and went after her with no finesse and no control whatsoever.

The kiss was pure, distilled sex. Greedy. Hungry. When he slid his tongue into her mouth, she met it, a slick, explicit welcome that tasted like the best kind of homecoming, sweet and spicy as the cinnamon in her hair. Softer than he’d even hoped, her breasts, her stomach pliant and sweet pressing up against him. Her hands on his shoulders. On his neck. Slipping over his biceps.