subject, huh?” asked Colton. “You don’t have to convince me that your ex is a bastard. I don’t like him, never have.”
“He doesn’t like you, either.”
There was a calculating light in her eyes that made him wonder something. “Did he tell you how he cheated me out of several contracts?”
She harrumphed. “I didn’t know and didn’t want to know anything about his business dealings. And if you think you can get back at him for some dirty deal by sleeping with me, think again. He doesn’t care about me. I’m a starter wife, his first wife, but apparently not his last. He’s already engaged to number two.”
“I don’t even think like that,” Colton vehemently denied. “My wanting to sleep with you has nothing to do with Adam Eckhart. Does your wanting to sleep with me have anything to do with the fact that he hates me and if it got back to him it might piss him off?”
“No!” Lauren cried.
“Then you do want to sleep with me?”
“Yes, but...”
He moved in. Lauren looked him in the eyes. Her stare was penetrating, as though she could see right through him. He found her scrutiny thrilling and invited it. He had nothing to hide. He wanted her to plumb deep and discover that for herself. He didn’t wonder why he was unafraid of being so vulnerable. He just knew she made him grateful to be alive at this moment.
At last, she spoke. “There have to be some ground rules. You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”
“There is no one special in my life,” he assured her.
She was looking at him suspiciously. “I won’t have a part in another woman getting hurt over infidelity.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said with a straight face.
She seemed to be satisfied with his answer. “Okay, then. What happens here stays here.”
“Done,” he promised.
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“Understood,” he agreed. “That goes for you, too. Not even your girlfriends.”
“Not even your boys,” she countered.
“Not even your priest,” he said.
“Not even God,” she said with a smile.
“I think He already knows,” said Colton as he backed her against the wall and planted a sensual, bone-melting kiss on her sweet mouth.
Bodies pressed closer and warmth ensued shortly afterward. By some silent consensus they agreed that this seduction would be slow and deliberate. When they came up for air from that first kiss, their eyes met and they smiled. It was confirmed. They were a good fit. She unbuttoned his shirt, curious to know whether his chest was hairy or smooth. She was rewarded with a hairy, muscular chest and a washboard stomach.
He was patient as she ran her hands over his pectorals and admired his biceps after she had finished removing the shirt. “I like your guns,” she said.
“Speaking of guns, you don’t keep yours under your pillow, do you? I don’t like those kinds of surprises in bed.”
She laughed sexily. “No, it’s back in the safe. The only thing exploding in my bed tonight will be you.”
After that there wasn’t very much talk. She took him to her bedroom, which was two doors down from his. When he walked in the room, he saw that her bed had been turned down already, and there was a book on it. She had obviously planned to read until she fell asleep.
He watched as she began removing her clothing piece by piece.
First, her jeans, revealing long, shapely legs and a see-through pair of panties. Then her blouse, under which she wore a lacy cream-colored bra that matched her bikini panties. Her body was lush and feminine yet athletic and she had an ass that a man like him would love to hold in a fit of passion.
After she’d gotten down to her underwear, her gaze fell to his lower half. He unbuttoned the jeans he wore but did not pull them past his hips. “I’m not wearing anything underneath,” he warned.
“I’m a grown woman,” she told him. “You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.”
She removed her bra to make him feel more comfortable. Her breasts were full and everything he desired, not too big, nor too small, just right for palming in his big hands, and the erect nipples were ripe for licking. His mouth watered.
He pulled the waistband of the jeans down past his hips and heard the audible intake of breath from her. He was well-endowed, but not monstrously so. It was nice to know she liked what she saw.
Lauren, suddenly faced with the manifestation of her wanton desire, was having second thoughts. She was pretending to be someone she was not. Adam was the only man she’d ever made love to. She had made it seem to Colton as if she had more experience with men than she actually had. Adam was not nearly as blessed as Colton was when it came to sexual “equipment.” She wasn’t sure if she could accommodate him.
Too much time had passed with Lauren staring at him for Colton’s comfort. “Lauren, is something wrong?”
“No,” she denied.
He walked toward her, totally naked, his muscles flexing enticingly, his manhood semi-erect. She couldn’t help it. Her body reacted to the sensual image he made. The man was sex personified, and she’d been too long without a lover, a good lover. She was beginning to wonder if Adam had ever been a good lover. After all, she had nothing to compare him to.
There was only one way to find out.
She removed her panties, tremblingly. Colton stopped in his tracks and took all of her in. He sighed with satisfaction. She was not one to mow the lawn, so to speak. She was beautifully natural, which was refreshing as far as he was concerned.
There seemed to be nothing separating them now as he pulled her into his arms, and they fell onto the bed. She molded her body against his. He was fully erect now, and their bodies, his skin a darker cinnamon than hers, wrapped themselves around each other. Their kisses were deep. The taste was like a drug, and her body writhing beneath his worked him into a sexual frenzy.
The smell of her, the silkiness of her skin fed his need. When she opened her legs to him, somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered condoms. He didn’t know if she had any. He hadn’t even thought about them until now. But it wouldn’t do. No matter how much he wanted her he wouldn’t risk getting her pregnant just to satisfy his needs. “Do you have any condoms?” he asked huskily.
“They’re in the nightstand drawer,” she said with a gesture of her head. He got up and looked in the drawer she’d indicated. Once he had the condom in his hands he tore it open and put it on. He looked back at her to see that she was watching him. He supposed he should feel self-conscious. They were strangers in every sense of the word, especially in a physical sense, but this felt natural.
But he was a man who’d been brought up right. He was a gentleman. So when he pulled her into his arms once more, he looked into her eyes and
