Any Man of Mine

Chapter Thirteen

Any Man of Mine:

Pushes My Buttons

Rain pelted the windows of Autumn’s rented beach house as the storm pushed the black surging tide up the beach to crash within the long grasses whipping about in the extreme winds. A kitchen light illuminated her from behind as she stood in front of an entire wall of windows in the A-frame house.

Lightning flashed within the black clouds, and white cracks splintered the night sky a second before thunder boomed. She felt it through the hardwood beneath her bare feet.

Upstairs, in one of the two bedrooms, Conner slept, blissfully unaware of Nature’s chaos. He’d passed out about an hour before, after a full day of beachcombing in his rubber boots and raincoat. The weather had been fairly tame until the storm had rolled in three hours ago. Autumn loved a good storm, and this one was proving to be spectacular.

She folded her arms across the thin top of her wiener-dog pajamas. If she hadn’t been alone with only an exhausted five-year-old, it might have been nice to crack open the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she’d bought to take back to Shiloh. It might be nice to turn up the fire and listen to the thunder as she laid her cheek on a big shoulder and enjoyed a glass of wine with a man.

Yesterday had been tense, from the moment Sam had arrived until the moment he’d left. Beyond the general tension she usually felt near Sam, he and Vince had been at each other’s throats, and both took it to a whole new level.

She hunched her shoulders against the air that chilled her skin and tightened her breasts beneath the T-shirt material. There had been a few brief moments yesterday when her tension had eased. When Sam had smoothed it away with his hands. Then he’d kissed her neck and filled the void with a whole different kind of tension. And in those few moments, when he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back like she was starving, he’d woken every cell in her body. He’d reminded her that she was thirty. That she wanted to be touched and held. She wanted to be wanted. He’d reminded her that she wanted more at night than the battery-operated boyfriend she had to hide in a box on her closet shelf, away from a snoopy five-year-old. He’d reminded her that dragging a chair to her closet and uncovering her special toy boy, was an empty substitute for a real flesh-and-blood boy toy.

And she wanted a boy toy. A hot, pretty one. Like Sam.

Thunder rolled across the sky and boomed beneath her feet. Lightning flashed like a strobe within the clouds. No. Not Sam. The fact that his name had even entered her head was horrifying. Proof that she needed some skin-on-skin time. That it had been waaay too long since she’d rolled around naked in a man’s sheets.

The thunder boomed again, and she waited for the lightning. It didn’t happen. Just a steady boom boom boom until she realized it was the front door. A frown creased her forehead as she moved across the carpeted living room, past the stairs to the entry. The storm wasn’t bad enough for evacuation, and she made sure the chain was latched before she opened the door. She flipped on the lights, and through the crack, Sam stood in the downpour, his hair plastered to his head.

“What are you doing here?” she yelled to him above the sound of the rain.

“I don’t know.”

She closed the door just long enough to unlatch the chain before she opened it again. “There’s a travel advisory.”

Water dripped down his forehead and stuck his eyelashes together, but he didn’t move. He just stood there staring at her like he was lost.

She flipped her watch over and looked at the face. “It’s ten o’clock, Sam.”

Droplets ran down his cheeks as his gaze lowered from her eyes to her mouth. “Is it?”

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why one minute I was sitting at Benihana with Ty and Darby and some of the scouts, and I just got up and left.” The shoulders of his thick hooded sweatshirt were soaked, and his gaze continued lower, down her throat to her cold, hard breasts. “I don’t know why I got in my truck and drove two hours through this god-awful storm.” He looked back up into her eyes. “I don’t know why I’ve been standing outside this house for ten minutes before knocking on the fucking door.”

She wasn’t going to ask why again. He clearly wasn’t making sense. Maybe not playing hockey made him crazy. “Sam, I’m confused.”

“That only seems fair.” He reached for her and grabbed a big handful of her shirt just below her breasts. “You confuse the hell out of me.” He pulled her across the threshold. Outside into the rain.

Cold droplets hit her face and neck. She lifted her face to tell him he was crazy, but his mouth silenced hers. Hot, slick, and demanding. She stood perfectly still while he kissed her, waiting for him to stop. Waiting for her hands to creep up his chest so she could shove him away and slam the door in his face. But the kiss was too hot, too delicious, and he must have slipped her some of his craziness because she rose onto the balls of her feet and kissed him back. Her tongue touched his, swirled and tangled. Heat radiated from his hand and mouth and warmed up places deep in her belly and between her thighs. Cold rain soaked her hair and arms. Thunder boomed, and rain slid past their sealed lips. She slid her fingers into his wet hair and sucked the air from his lungs.

He pulled back first, and the black night cast a shadow across his eyes and nose. Her heart pounded like the chaotic sky, and she fought for breath, sucking in cold air and water and him. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she didn’t need to see him to know that his eyes burned with his desire. It surrounded them both in hot waves. Pressing in and demanding satisfaction. The kind that could only be sated with hot skin against hot skin.

“Come inside, Sam.” She’d felt it once before. Years ago. Big. Forceful. Dominating. Like the man himself.

“Where’s Conner?”

“Asleep.” This was dangerous. A dangerous game she’d lost in the past, but she was older. Wise enough to feed her lust while her heart remained detached.

“You know what I want.”

Yes. She knew. She knew she was probably going to regret it in the morning. But that was hours away, and she wanted to spend those hours satisfying the ache pounding her like the thunder overhead.

She took his hand and pulled him across the threshold. She closed the door behind him and leaned back against it as he reached down his back, grabbed a fistful of his sweatshirt, and pulled it over his head. The bottom of the thick shirt lifted from the waistband of a pair of worn Levi’s resting low on his hips. It rose from the five buttons and up the narrow blond line of hair on his flat belly. His happy trail circled his navel, then climbed up the ridges of his abdomen. He wiped his face and dropped the sweatshirt on the floor. Then stood before her in wet jeans and damp skin and his figure-eight splint. He shook his head like a dog, sending droplets everywhere.

Droplets landed on her cheek and top lip. She took a deep breath in an effort to slow her racing pulse. “How’s your shoulder?”

“My shoulder’s fine. Your shirt’s wet.”

She dragged her gaze from the short blond hair on his big defined chest and pecs that looked like they’d been chiseled by a Nordic god. She glanced down at the wiener dog on the shirt clinging to her chilled skin. In the middle of his long dog body, her nipples made two very hard points.

“You should probably go ahead and take it off before you catch a cold.”

She tilted her head to one side and glanced back up, past his square chin and slightly crooked nose and into his blue eyes, all sleepy with lust. “You worried about me?”

“I’m worried you won’t take off that shirt.”

“You do it.” She raised her arms above her head, and when he stepped toward her, the place between her thighs got all tight and needy. His fingers curled into the bottom of her shirt and racked her sensitive skin up her sides. He pulled the damp shirt over her head and dropped it next to his sweatshirt.

There was no turning back. She leaned forward and pressed her open mouth to the hollow of his throat. He tasted warm and musky, his skin damp from the rain. Her hard nipples raked his hot naked chest, and he moaned. Before she lost all reason, she said close to his ear, “Bored?”

“I wasn’t bored, yesterday. I was turned on.” He slid his other hand up and filled his palm with her soft breast. “And I wanted you. I couldn’t think past all the parts I wanted and in what order I wanted them.”

She slid her hands up his sides and chest. “Which parts do you want first?”

His voice a low gravel across her skin. “These parts.” His thumbs brushed her nipples, forcing a soft moan from her lips. “I want these parts in my mouth before I go south to my favorite part.”

She wanted that, too. Wanted it so bad she had to fight the urge to toss him down and take what she wanted. She chuckled, kind of breezy, like she wasn’t burning up and feeling greedy. “My toes?” She had all night.

He shoved one hand down her pajama bottoms and beneath her panties. “This.” He cupped her crotch in his hot hand, and she almost fell to the floor. “Right here where you’re wet, and not from the rain.” His fingers brushed upward, into her moist flesh, and everything got hotter, more intense. A blur. A rush. “I want deep inside you, where you’re tight. I want to rub your little button with the head of my cock until you scream my name like you used to.”

She didn’t think she’d ever screamed his name, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter as she tore at his clothes, and he pushed her pants and panties down her legs. She stepped out of them and reached for his erection. She wanted him, and she wasn’t going to wait. She didn’t want to take it slow.

Beneath the entrance light, he was naked and beautiful, and she took his penis in her hand. Huge and hot. Bigger than she remembered. The pulse of the thick bulging veins pounded in her palm. Beyond Sam, lightning streaked across the sky and flashed within the darkened room. Thunder shook the air and the foundation of the beach house. “I want that, too, Sam.”

Sam looked at Autumn standing before him, her red hair slicked back, her green eyes bright and alive with lust. Pulsing urgency thumped through his veins. His lungs squeezed, and the pit of his belly got tight. His dick was so hard, he hurt. Her lips parted as she moved her hand up and down the shaft. He locked his knees to keep from falling and lowered his head. He wanted to take it slow. She deserved slow, sweet sex, but the instant his lips touched hers, the raw, naked edge of desire cut straight to the primal place in his core that demanded he go for it. No finesse. No thought beyond throwing her down and going completely caveman on her.

She inhaled, sucking his breath from him, and he was gone. Gone to the hot lust whipping through his body and grasping his testicles in a fiery squeeze. Her mouth opened, and she kissed him. A sweet liquid warmth. Like the sweet liquid warmth that waited for him inside her body. Their slick tongues touched, and he slid his palms over her breasts, her belly, her thighs. Once more, he slipped his hand between her legs. She’d shaved her red pubic hair into a landing strip. A little bare. A little hair. His favorite, and he felt her where she was warm and wet and waiting for him to thrust inside of her. He pushed his erection into her hand, in and out, simulating the ultimate act. Her thumb spread a bead of moisture in the cleft of his head, and he groaned long and loud, in pain as he sank to the floor, taking her with him. He kissed her mouth and her breasts and reached for the wallet in his back pocket. Somehow he ended up on his back with her on top, rolling the condom down his shaft to the base.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, her voice husky with need.

“The only way you’re going to hurt me, honey, is if you stop now.”

Her chuckle was husky, like her voice, as she rose above him, then slowly lowered, and he slid into her hot, extremely tight body. He thrust up, and her head fell back with a long, drawn-out moan. The light in the entrance bounced off her round white breasts and tight pink nipples, down her belly to her red strip. Lost in waves of mindless pleasure, he growled, “That feels good, Autumn.” She rose, and he lifted his hips and shoved into her hard. “Yes.” He pushed deeper, the head of his penis pressed against her cervix, stretching and filling her up. He grabbed her thighs as she rode him like the queen of the Calgary Stampede. Within a few short thrusts, the first pulse of her orgasm squeezed him hard, milking him, and he set his teeth to keep from coming.

“Oh, God.” A husky moan slipped past her lips, and she planted her hands on his chest. Her hair fell over her face. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop. I’ll kill you if you stop.”

No way was he going to stop, and when the last wave of her orgasm racked her body, he reached for her shoulders and turned her until he was on top. His penis deep within her body, he looked down into her green eyes, pulled out, and plunged even deeper. “Put your legs around my back.” When he felt her tight thighs around his hips, he started slow, pumping his hips in a smooth rhythm. “More?”

“Yes.”

He rested most of his weight on his right forearms, and he held her face in his palm as he gave her more, hitting just the right place deep inside her.

“Harder,” she moaned.

“You sure?”

Her pink lips parted, and she sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

He drove into her faster, harder, deeper. Stroking her walls, and sweet spot, with the thick head of his penis and hard shaft. Over and over, and he felt the familiar hard tug of her second orgasm. It started deep inside and radiated down his erection, squeezing him tighter than before. So tight he set his teeth against his own release. Against the sharp pleasure of holding back.

Then she cried out again. The sound of his name was drowned out by the boom of thunder, and he finally let the intense pleasure curl his gut and sweep across his flesh. It grabbed him hard and harder as her vaginal walls convulsed around him. He heard his own deep groan as he felt his own orgasm ripped from his groin. Ripped from his soul, almost as violent as the storm outside. Over and over until he was so spent he could hardly breathe, like he’d just finished a three-minute shift that ended with a fight in the corner. He lowered his forehead to the floor next to her ear. He’d had a lot of sex in his life, but this felt different. Bigger, better, more primal.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, still panting hard. “I’m wrung from the inside out. If you came like that in Vegas, no wonder I married you.”

Autumn stood in the kitchen and raised a glass of red wine to her lips. Several emotions churned and collided in her stomach. Shock and shame battled for the top spot, but more than anything, she was embarrassed by her total lack of control. She expected that sort of shameful behavior from Sam. Sam was… Sam. She didn’t roll around on the floor having sex. Not these days.

And not with Sam, for God’s sake!

In the back of the house, the toilet flushed, and the bathroom door opened. She looked down to make sure her terry-cloth robe was securely tied around her waist. After Sam had scooped up his clothes and retreated to the bathroom, she’d picked up her pjs and run upstairs. She’d thrown on a robe and fought hard against the urge to lock the door and hide under the heavy covers until she figured out what to do. Or until Sam left. Whichever came first.

Unfortunately, neither was an option. She was an adult and had to face the music.

Sam walked into the kitchen, shirtless, a ladder of hard muscles rising from the waistband of his jeans. He picked up the bottle of wine and looked at the label. “I’m usually a beer guy.” He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a glass. “But I’m going to save you the shame of drinking alone.”

She wished he’d saved her the shame of shoving her hand down his pants. She drained her glass and held it toward him for a refill.

He dipped his head, and his blue eyes looked into hers. “Are you mad about what I said?”

She shook her head. She hadn’t heard anything beyond the rush of blood leaving her brain and her own voice yelling his name. Thank God Conner hadn’t woken up. “What did you say?”

“If you don’t remember, forget it.” He looked a little relieved and filled her glass. “If you’re not mad, why is your face all red?”

She put a hand on her hot cheek. “The wine.”

“Does wine make you frown?” He poured the Cabernet into his own glass. “Do you want me to apologize?”

If he had to ask that, he wouldn’t mean it anyway. And besides, an apology from Sam would be so unexpected, she just might pass out. “No. I’m not mad.”

“Then what are you?” He set the bottle on the counter and took a drink.

“Mostly, I’m embarrassed by my spectacular loss of control.”

He lowered the glass and smiled. “It was spectacular.”

She shook her head and fought the urge to smack him. “Do you know how many times I’ve told myself that you were the last person on the face the earth that I would ever have sex with?”

One corner of his mouth turned downward. “I’m guessing a few.”

“More than a few. Do you know how many times I told myself that I would never have sex with you again, even if it meant saving my own life?” She took a drink. “Just a month ago, if given the choice between having sex with you and getting hit by a truck, I would have taken the truck.”

“Yeah, I think you mentioned something like that a few times in the past five years.” He spread his arms wide. “And yet you chose me and spectacular sex.”

“I meant my loss of control was spectacular.”

“The sex was spectacular.” He raised a finger off his glass and pointed at her. “You came twice.”

She shrugged and turned her face away before her cheeks caught fire. “It had been a while.”

“How long?”

“Never mind.”

His finger on her hot cheek turned her face toward him. “A few months?”

“Drop it.” She took a drink. Maybe if she got drunk enough, she’d think the whole thing was funny. There probably wasn’t enough booze in the world for that, though.

“A year?” At her silence his brows shot up his forehead. “A year and a half?”

“I’m a mother. I work and take care of Conner. When I have time without him, I get a pedicure.”

“A foot rub is no substitute for good sex.”

“Depends on the quality of the foot rub. Some people are good at it. Others just can’t get the good spots.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He chuckled. “How long since someone rubbed your good spots?”

“Really long.” She moved into the living room, and said over her shoulder, “I have a son. Your son. Remember?”

He followed and stood next to her in front of the windows. Waves crashed just beyond the sea grass, and she felt rather than saw him raise his glass to his lips.

“Looks like the storm might be letting up,” she pointed out.

“Two years?”

“Are we back to that?”

“We never left it because you didn’t answer.”

Lightning struck farther in the distance, but the rain still poured down in sheets. “More than five years. Less than six.”

It took him a few moments to do the math. The second he figured it out, he choked on his wine. “That has to be bullshit. No one can go that long.”

“Why? Why is it so hard for you to believe?” She held up her fingers and counted down the reasons. “I was pregnant for nine months, covered in baby vomit for an entire year after that, and trying to start a business on almost no sleep. I was tired for the first three years of Conner’s life, and the last thing I wanted was another person in my life demanding my time. Being a working mother is very difficult.”

“You haven’t had sex in almost six years?” Out of everything she’d just said, he was stuck on the actual years. “Jesus. No wonder you’re so mean.”

“I’m not mean.” She took a drink, and the sleeve of her robe brushed his bare arm. “It’s just hard for you to believe a person can go that long because you’ve probably never gone without sex for six days.”

“It’s been longer than six days. Sometimes I’m on the road for two weeks.”

“Big whoop.”

“But I can tell you one thing,” he continued, “if I went without sex for six years, I’d have gone blind by now. Then where would I be? I’m a hockey player. Can’t play hockey if I’m blind. Now can I?”

She wondered if he believed his own warped logic. Sadly, he probably did. “On the rare nights I don’t work and you have Conner, what am I supposed to do? Go to some bar and pick up a guy?” Hadn’t she recently had this same conversation with Shiloh and Vince?

His voice was a low murmur in the darkness when he said, “Some women do.”

“Well, I’m not some women. And despite what you might think of me, given the way we met and how I behaved in Vegas, I was never that woman.”

“I never thought you were.”

Sure. “You made me take a paternity test.” He opened his mouth to defend himself, and she held up one hand to stop him. “I understand why you did it. At the time, it made me mad, but I understood.”

“If I’d seen Conner first, I never would have asked.”

“It doesn’t matter. My point is, that the last time I hooked up with a guy I’d met in a bar, it didn’t exactly work out for me.”

“Yeah.” He was quite for a long moment, then said, “But we have Conner. I haven’t always been a great dad, but I’ve always loved him. I’ve never regretted that he’s in my life.”

Which brought the conversation around to, “On the two-hour drive here tonight, did you think to call?”

“Of course, but you would have told me not to come.”

“You’re right. You can’t just invite yourself on our vacation because you want to see Conner.” Like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

“This isn’t about Conner.”

She looked across her shoulder at him. Into the shadows of his profile. “Then what’s it about?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out.” He turned to face her and shoved a bare shoulder into the glass. “I think it might have something to do with unfinished business between the two of us.”

“Whatever ‘business’ we had was finished a long time ago.” When he’d divorced her.

He brushed his hand across her cheek and pushed her hair behind her ear. “That first night I saw you at Pure, you reminded me of the time when I was ten or eleven and mom took me and Ella to Washington, D.C.” His gaze moved over her face and hair. “It was night, and we were standing at the Vietnam Memorial, and I looked out and saw bright blinking lights in the darkness. My mom said they were fireflies. I was so intrigued, I ran after them. Trying to catch one.”

She tried to ignore the brush of his fingers on her neck. “Did you just compare me to a fly?”

“To a flash of fire. A bright intriguing light that I wanted to catch and hold in my hands.”

When he said things like that, it reminded her of exactly how and why she’d fallen in love with him so easily. If she didn’t know him, she might be in danger of falling all over again. “I’m not going to have sex with you again, Sam.”

He smiled and dropped his hand to his side. “Okay.”

Clearly, he didn’t believe her, and the wisest thing to do would be for her to send him home. Or make him go get a hotel room. She pointed to the sofa. “That folds out.”

She expected him to argue. To charm her. To kiss her until she gave in and shared her bed. Instead, he grinned as if he’d just gotten his way.

“See you in the morning.”