Sweet Deal

Chapter Eleven

Shelby’s heart raced as she let Myra and Riley in.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, trying to breathe. She was all hot and bothered from making out with Jake, and seeing her friends at her door unexpectedly just totally threw her off. “Is it Adam? Is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s okay, as far as we know. We just thought we’d come over and see how you’re doing.” Riley snapped her phone shut and Shelby’s phone stopped warbling as Riley walked past Shelby toward her living room. “You seemed upset last night after we saw him in the hospital and I had nothing to…” She stopped in the doorway. “Oh. Uh…hi.”

Myra, following behind Riley, stopped too.

Shelby pushed her hair off her face and swallowed her sigh. “You haven’t met Jake, have you?”

Riley swiveled her head and stared at Shelby. “No. We haven’t.”

Riley turned back to Jake, still sitting on the couch. He sat up straight, very carefully, and Shelby winced as she realized why. Would her friends notice?

Riley might have, because she turned to study Shelby and amusement tipped up the corners of her mouth. “Jesus, Shelby, I’m so sorry.”

Myra’s grin widened. “Uh…Shelby, hon, your shirt’s on inside out.”

Shelby looked down at the inside-out T-shirt, her hard nipples poking through it, and heat swept from her cheeks right down to her chest. Her braless chest. Oh crap. She gave her friends a weak smile.

She expected them to leave once they realized what they’d interrupted, but no, Myra sauntered over to a chair and plunked herself down in it. “I’m Myra,” she said to Jake with a wide smile.

He held out a hand. “Jake Magill. Nice to meet you, Myra.”

“We thought Shelby might not want to be sitting at home alone. Though she clearly isn’t.” She winked, then sobered. “I guess you’ve heard about our friends Adam and Kiara?”

“Yeah, I have. I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Yeah, it sucks, huh?” She glanced at Shelby. “We could use a drink.”

“Myra, we should go,” Riley said, giving Myra a pointed look.

Shelby stood there, fingers curling into her palms. Her body still tingled everywhere, her pussy aching, her nipples on fire from all Jake’s attention to them. Lord, the man knew how to turn her on.

Hell, all he had to do was look at her to turn her on.

“We can stay for one,” Myra said to Riley, returning the look.

Shelby wanted to tell her friends this wasn’t very good timing but clearly they already knew that. She sighed and walked toward the kitchen. “Wine?”

“That’d be great.”

The twinkle in Myra’s eyes told Shelby that Myra knew exactly how annoying she was being and didn’t care. What was with her? She shot her friend an evil glare from behind Jake’s back as she poured white wine into two glasses. While she was there, she snagged two beers out of the fridge and tucked them under her arm so she could carry the wine to her friends. Riley had taken a seat on another armchair.

“Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Myra seemed extremely interested in Jake. “So, Jake, I didn’t realize you and Shelby were seeing each other again.”

Shelby dropped to the couch beside Jake and handed him a cold beer, meeting his eyes. She tried to look apologetic and his mouth twitched. Thankfully the guy had a sense of humor. If he was half as frustrated at the interruption as she was, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

Her gaze went to his lap. Okay, not so much. The thick bulge behind the fly of his jeans told her he had to be feeling pretty frustrated too.

“It was a last-minute thing,” she answered for both of them as she took the cap off her beer. “Jake brought over pizza.”

Riley and Myra exchanged another look Shelby didn’t like. Were they worried about her? Or maybe they were worried about Jake.

She took a gulp of her fizzy cold drink. She needed something cold, because she was burning up. Just like Jake had wanted her to. Her body tingled and she glared again at Myra, who grinned.

Bitch.

She shook her head, her own lips twitching, as Riley and Myra got into a conversation with Jake, clearly checking him out. She sat and watched in bemusement as Jake laughed and flirted a little with her friends, evading their unsubtle questions with quick humor. Much as she’d been annoyed at the interruption, something hot and soft expanded in her as Jake charmed her friends into giggles and fluttering eyelashes.

“We should play poker,” Myra suggested eventually.

Riley groaned. She set her empty wine glass on the coffee table and stood. “No,” she said firmly to Myra. “Enough. We’re going.”

Myra didn’t even protest as she stood too, still smiling. “All right, all right,” she grumbled but Shelby saw the twinkle in her eyes. “Shelby, you put that shirt back on the right way, okay?”

Oh geez, she’d totally forgotten about that. She pursed her lips and shot Myra a look that made her laugh. She followed the girls to the door.

“I like him,” Myra whispered to her. “But be careful, okay?”

Shelby pursed her lips and looked back and forth between her two friends, then nodded and smiled reluctantly. She locked the door behind them and returned to the living room.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she slid down onto the couch beside Jake again.

“That’s okay.” His smile stole her breath. “I was annoyed at first, but they were just concerned about you.”

She rolled her eyes.

“They were fun to talk to,” he murmured and hooked his index finger into the neckline of her T-shirt. He quirked an eyebrow. “Like she said, we really need to fix this shirt.”

As he slowly lifted the T-shirt over her head for the second time that night, cool air brushed over her nipples and tightened them into sharp points. She longed to feel his hands on her again, like he had earlier. He’d teased her and heated her up into a frenzy of need for him. That lust and heat was banked deep inside her, glowing coals of desire, and it wouldn’t take much for him to stir that up into a roaring inferno again.

He took the T-shirt and carefully turned it right side out, then made as if to put it back on her. She bit her lip and gazed up at him through her lashes and he laughed softly.

“I’m just kidding,” he said. “You’re not getting this back on.” He tossed it behind his shoulder. “In fact, we need to get those pants off you again.”

He had her on her back on the couch and naked in seconds, leaning over her, kissing her, opening his mouth wider over hers, sucking her tongue inside his mouth. He moved between her legs and lifted one thigh, his fingers lingering behind her knee and sending shivers of delight cascading over her.

His other hand speared into her hair and held her head as he kissed her again and again, the weight of his body heavy on hers, his mouth stealing her breath. The hand on her leg slid down the side of her thigh and under her butt, cupping her, lifting her to him, and she moved along with him, needing that pressure, seeking the hardness of his erection.

They’d sat there practically quivering with frustrated lust the entire time her friends had been there and now it all exploded into flames, burning her up, every nerve ending alight, her skin on fire. Heat grew and swelled in her and she kissed him back as avidly as he kissed her, opening for him, tasting his tongue, nipping his bottom lip.

Her hands moved over his back and shoulders and she wanted him naked, too. She tugged ineffectually at his T-shirt, trying to find bare skin, until he finally sat up and reached behind his back and dragged the shirt over his head.

She lay there gazing up at him, again wonderstruck at the beauty of his body, all sculpted muscle and smooth, tanned skin. He was perfect, male perfection, heat practically shimmering off him. She wet her bottom lip with her tongue and saw his eyes darken as he watched her, his lips parted.

Then his gaze drifted from her mouth down over her breasts, her nipples tightening and tingling, then lower to her stomach, and lower still. Her body tightened with anticipation. With gentle hands, he parted her thighs, shifted backwards on his knees, and then it was his shoulders pushing her thighs even farther apart and his breath on her pussy rather than just his gaze.

Oh lord, oh lord. She closed her eyes then opened them again, his dark head between her legs, and then his tongue licked her, one side, the other, long, slow swipes of exquisite pleasure. His lips closed over sensitive flesh and sucked gently, again one side and the other in soft, suckling kisses then little closed-mouth kisses until he reached her clit. She quivered, ripples starting in her pelvis, heat building, her insides squeezing, her hands going to his head, threading through silky hair.

He licked her clit at the same time as his finger slid into her. She cried out again, lifted against his mouth and his hand, that unbearable sweetness swelling, everything tightening inside her. She was going to come, oh god, and then his mouth closed over her clit in a long, electrifying pull. She shattered, colorful spots dancing behind closed eyelids, flames consuming her body and her fingers gripping his hair.

“Sweet, Shelby.” He rained more little kisses over her sensitive, swollen folds, her quivering inner thighs, her tummy, as he shifted back onto his knees. She tried to breathe, her arms now limp at her sides, dragged her eyes open to see his hands at the fly of his jeans, and with sexy efficient moves he had them undone and shoved down his hips. So hot. More heat swept over her.

Her gaze dropped to his erection, more male beauty, thick and heavy, ridged with veins, so hard. He paused and reached down to his jeans and she swallowed tightly, waiting, still pulsing from her orgasm, until he rose again, a condom package in his hands. After quickly gloving up, he fell over her, jeans still around his knees.

On his elbows, both hands in her hair, he held her head again and kissed her, thumbs near the corners of her mouth, his mouth hot and wet, and she tasted herself on his tongue. He throbbed against her and she lifted her knees, opening for him.

“I can feel how wet you are,” he whispered close to her ear. “Wet and hot.” He opened his mouth on the skin of her neck, just below her ear, and gently sucked. Shivers swept over her again and she tightened her thighs around him.

“I want you inside me,” she whispered back. “Please, now.”

“Oh baby.” He reached between them, nudged at her entrance, and then pushed into her with a thrilling, stretching burn of pleasure. Still sensitive, with his thick shaft filling her, she started tingling again, a swirl of sensation inside her, contracting around him. He groaned and kissed her again and she arched against him with a small cry into his mouth.

He felt good, so very good, in her, on top of her.

“So good, Shelby,” he muttered. “Hot and tight around me, and you taste so sweet. I loved tasting you like that, feeling you come in my mouth.”

His words inflamed her and she wasn’t sure if she’d even stopped coming from the first orgasm or if this was another one, but it swelled inside her and she burst into flaming pieces again as he moved in her, against her, his face pressed to hers.

He groaned her name, a long drawn-out word, his body going rigid against hers, pulsing in hard, heavy jolts. “Oh man,” he moaned long moments later. “I so wanted to do this again, after last weekend.”

“Me too,” she confessed, hands stroking his sleek back. She was pretty sure she’d never been so turned on, so hot for a guy, so instantly orgasmic. Holy crap. Not even with Mark. Funny how Mark seemed like such a pale, anemic memory. At the time, she’d thought sex with him was hot. She hadn’t even known the meaning of the word hot.

Now she did. Burning up, feverish, explosive. Hot, hot, hot. She smiled and Jake lifted his head to look down at her. She loved the gleam in his eyes, the quirk of his lips. And that made it even hotter—the fact that they could talk and laugh and have so much fun.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

As if she was going to tell him she’d been thinking about her ex, even if it had been a comparison entirely favorable to him. “Nothing,” she said, twining her arms around his neck and stretching beneath him a little. “Just feeling good.”

“Ah.” He kissed her mouth lightly. “You’re welcome.”

She laughed, but dammit, that made her inner muscles tighten and push him half out of her. They both sighed and he rolled off her. He used a couple of tissues for the condom, then hiked his jeans back up, leaving them unbuttoned. Shelby licked her bottom lip, sat up and tried to run her hands through her tangled hair.

“Leave it,” he said, voice deep. “It looks sexy.”

She smiled, sitting there naked, amazed at how comfortable that felt. He stood in front of her, jeans low on his lean hips, emphasizing the hard muscles of his abs. Was he going to leave now?

He held out a hand to her. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.

She took his hand and rose, warmth swelling in her chest.