wanted her so much it hurt. And yet, he still couldn’t give in. Not yet.
“It’s not just marriage. What’s been going on with me—Payton, I can’t do a relationship. I don’t want one.”
The pounding of his heart filled the seconds before she answered. Something he didn’t want to consider flickered in her eyes. Remorse. He knew better—but before he could drag his own ass outside to kick it, something new surfaced in her gaze. Resignation. Acceptance. And then the spark of what could only be described as clarity and determination.
“Do you want tonight?”
How could she even ask?
Yes, he wanted tonight. But tonight was all he wanted. Well, that and Payton not getting hurt. Just two consenting adults having a good time with no expectations. Only sometimes good girls like Payton got the wrong idea when they were making out with guys at weddings. Something about the tux triggered those saccharine fairy-tale fantasies and then suddenly they started attributing all kinds of meaning to an event that began as a little sordid groping in a back hallway. Sometimes they thought if they played along, things would change—the guy would change.
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. And he wasn’t about to let Payton believe otherwise.
Only before he could open his mouth, she was pulling his face to meet hers. “Stop looking at me like I’m some little girl you have to protect.” Her hands drifted lower, running down his chest to settle low at his abdomen again. “See me as the woman who wants a single night with you.”
It couldn’t be that easy. That straightforward. Except the stare meeting his own shone with an intent of purpose he couldn’t mistake.
She wanted him and she understood this wasn’t the beginning of forever.
It was tonight. He had one night—a mere handful of hours—to give her what no other man would dare to.
Oh, yeah.
No more second-guessing. No more wasted time.
Sweeping Payton into his arms, he strode to the bed and tossed her—wide eyed and squeaking—back into the pillows. Followed her down, getting off on the fact he had her naked but for a scrap of silk and those incredible heels that were driving him nuts…and he was still decked out in the full tux minus the jacket. That worked for about two seconds before he was backing off the bed, taking those tiny panties with him. He wanted inside her more than he wanted to revel in some fantasy.
Working the studs free, he had his shirt half off before the sound of her voice halted his actions. “Nate?”
His head snapped up to where Payton lay reclined, one knee sliding slowly against the other. Fighting past the rise of pure lust at the vision of her there for his taking, he sent up a silent prayer she hadn’t come to her senses. “What?”
The pink tip of her tongue slipped in a moist trail across the swell of her bottom lip. “Hurry.”
He swallowed hard. The shirt came off in a spray of onyx studs clattering against whatever surfaces they reached, followed immediately by the cummerbund, pants and the rest. Body taut with need, he rolled on a condom retrieved from his pants, unwilling to be careless with either of their futures, and then he was on her again, losing himself in the feel of her mouth, the press of her breasts and the glide of her knee against his hip as she melted in his arms.
It was torture, but he held himself in check as he pressed his length at her entrance. His gaze holding hers, silently offering one last chance to change her mind.
Maybe it was all the memories he had tied up with her. Or that he couldn’t quite stop thinking of her as the girl he wanted to protect from the guys like him. But whatever nonsense he’d let take seed in his mind, Payton swept it away with one head-back, body-arched gasp of pure need…
“Please.” And then as though that weren’t enough, “Ye-e-e-s-s-s,” when he began to move.
Oh, yeah, he liked the sound of that at his ear as he pushed into the tight clasp of her body. Too tight to thrust hard, he gritted his teeth through the measured penetration, pulled back, only to sink again, slowly taking her deep and then deeper still, repeating again and again until he was buried to the hilt.
Her lips were parted, a suspended breath hanging between them. Looking into her eyes, he held, lost in something too good. Too perfect a fit. Too intensely right.
Her body gripped him with the rhythmic pulse that signaled she was close, and his jaw clenched hard in his fight for control. He followed her every gasp and sigh, learning exactly what she liked, what made her crazy. And when those delicate hands moved down his body, from his shoulders to his arms to his back, clutching at him as if she needed to hold on…it satisfied him in a way he didn’t even want to contemplate.
She was incredible. Coming apart in his arms even as she begged him for more.
Hell, yes, there was more. A whole night’s worth of more. Payton didn’t want to be the good girl tonight, and after six months he needed to be bad.
Chapter Five
PAYTON roused herself from a sated state of lethargy, peeling back her eyelids only to encounter a tangle of curls blocking her view. Shifting slowly, she reached up to shove the mess from her eyes—halting at the slow rise and fall of a chest beneath her cheek.
Nate.
She swallowed down the burst of joyous excitement as images, sensations and whispers of the night before bombarded her waking consciousness.
He’d been so gentle with her the first time. So careful. And then after that—
Her toes curled deep beneath the sheets at the thought of all they’d done.
Everything.
They’d made love, over and over again. Nate waking her with his hands, his mouth. A seductive growl accompanied by his rising need. Nothing planned. Nothing proper or polite about it.
Incredible.
“What’s got you smiling so early?” Nate’s morning-rough voice stroked over her like a soothing caress, bringing her attention to the hard line of his stubbled jaw and the soft amusement in his blue, blue eyes. They were intimately wound together. Arms and legs and bare skin everywhere. It felt good and, though today they wouldn’t be lovers, Payton wasn’t about to rush from the bed or give up the warmth of his body, the steady thump, thump of his heart sounding beneath her ear, or the shelter of his arms around her. She couldn’t. Not yet.
For now, they were comfortably entwined. Or at least they were until Nate reached down her back with one hand and pinched her bottom.
“Hey!” she squeaked, ineffectually trying to pinch back at skin too muscle packed to give.
“The grin. Tell.”
Inching her bum out of pinching distance, she raised a brow. “So desperate to feed your ego?”
“Mmm, so it’s an ego-feeding grin. Tell me more.”
She took a deep breath, weighing the temptation to share her indecent
