let out a low groan, his hands tightening over the curves he’d once sworn never to touch.
For so long…
This was Payton. Brandt’s little sister. With her wide-eyed innocent stare all but guaranteeing she’d fallen under the misconception he was someone she could trust. Not tonight, she couldn’t. He couldn’t look out for her best interests, not with those breathy moans and little teeth working at his ear while her bare breasts pressed against his shirt. Not with the taste of her sweet on his tongue.
But if she’d been carrying some kind of torch—
He couldn’t ignore what everyone knew. She wanted the happily-ever-after. The down-on-one-knee, white-picketfence, pram-around-the-park fantasy. And while most women wouldn’t make the mistake of imagining him in that role, Payton had a bad habit of seeing him in ways no one else could. God only knew what she was thinking now. “We’ve got to stop,” he gritted out. But the fingers at his waist only clenched tighter as her lust-clouded gaze drifted hungrily from his mouth to his eyes and back again.
“No,” she gasped, reaching for him and sending his body into some kind of lust-induced free fall from rational ground.
No? He’d heard the word before. Could quite easily imagine it slipping past Payton’s lips. Only the context was all wrong.
But then those soft lips were pulling at him, her breasts pushing against his chest and suddenly his hands were moving down the sleek line of her, settling over the bones at her hips and—
Damn it, he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to have to bring reason and rationale into something that was so good as pure instinct and response, but he wasn’t a kid and he knew all too well about the consequences of diving headlong into a skirt he didn’t belong in.
“Payton, wait,” he managed, ignoring the wounded look in her eyes as he held her still. She needed to understand. “I’m not looking for marriage.”
“Okay.” She nodded, her gaze already targeting his mouth as she leaned into him again, making him wonder if she’d actually registered what he said at all. That was a risk he couldn’t take. He set her back a pace, having to check that the woman driving him past sense was who he thought. Payton. Hot, demanding Payton, with her slight fingers brushing against his navel as she tried to get into his pants. Heaven help him.
“I’m serious. Look at me.” Warm brown eyes, smoked with need, blinked wide as she peered up at him.
He 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