by Jill Shalvis
“Which one?”
Callie didn’t hesitate. She pointed to the purple unicorn with a hideously bright pink mane.
None of the prizes was great but she’d seriously chosen the least attractive of the bunch. “You sure you want that one?” Tanner asked as the kid handed it to her.
“Of course I’m sure.” She hugged it to her chest like it was precious cargo. “Why not this one?”
“Because it’s a purple unicorn?”
She stared down at the stuffed animal as if just realizing it was purple. “When we were in school, I’d come play my entire allowance away trying to win her.” She paused and stroked the neon, eye-blinding pink mane. “I never did.”
Tanner had seen her throw. He wasn’t surprised. He kept that to himself, as he was in enough hot water. “Should’ve gotten one of the football players who paid you to do their homework down here to win it for you,” he said.
“I wasn’t like you,” she said, talking into the unicorn’s plastic eyes. “I wasn’t popular. I didn’t have a lot of friends that I could’ve asked to do this.” She paused and then grimaced. “Okay, I had no friends that could have done this…” She trailed off, looking as though she wished she hadn’t said that.
But he’d already flashed on the image of the shy girl who’d paid a buck to send him a Valentine all those years ago.
And then he thought about her getting left at the altar. And every wedding she planned probably took another piece out of her, and she didn’t even realize it. “Callie,” he said softly.
She lifted her head to meet his gaze, her own carefully shuttered. He knew she’d learned how to do that the hard way, and a surge of emotion nearly choked him.
“Closing now,” the kid said again, sounding worried that they’d never leave.
Yeah, they needed to take this shit somewhere private anyway. He took Callie’s hand and led her out of the arcade and down the dark pier.
They stood alone there, the surf pounding the shore behind them, hitting up against the wood pylons beneath their feet so that the foundation shuddered with the power of it.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said quietly, staring out at the water. “But thanks for winning the unicorn for me.” She gave him a side glance. “I owe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” She turned to face him and her gaze dropped to his mouth, telling him exactly where her mind was at.
His was already there.
She was leaning back against the railing now, beyond which was the dark night and churning waves, matching the storm in her eyes. Reaching out, he took the unicorn from where she had it clutched to her chest.
“Hey,” she said.
He set the thing on a bench and turned back to her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, brow furrowed with great suspicion.
Setting a hand on either side of her so that he was gripping the railing at her hips, he leaned in. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry.”
She stared up at him for a beat. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“You’re referring to when you said I was—and let me quote you here—‘She’s nothing.’ Yes?”
Holding her gaze, he let her see his regret. “I said ‘She’s a coffee companion. Just that, nothing more.’ And that was true—until the kiss.”
She looked at him for a long beat. “And the rest?” she finally asked. “The knock-it-off-with-the-Callie-shit thing?”
“That was me being an idiot and saying the opposite of what I meant when I was backed into a corner.”
Another long, searching look. “Okay.” She crossed her arms and met his gaze. “Go on with your apology then.”
“I shouldn’t have said any of it,” he said. “I certainly didn’t mean it. You just…” He shook his head. “Christ, Callie. I feel a little out of my league with you and—” He broke off at her hard laugh. “What?”
“You feel out of your league with me?”
He couldn’t tell by her expression if this was a good thing or not. “Yes,” he said, going for broke.
When she only shook her head and muttered something he couldn’t quite catch, he shoved his fingers in his hair.
“Frustrated?” she asked mildly.
“Getting there, yeah. This makes me nuts. You make me nuts, and I don’t even know why.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I know,” she said, turning away. “It’s because I have that effect on men.”
Shit. He was truly the world’s biggest fuckup. “Callie, look at me.”
“No.”
Too bad. Hands on her hips, he turned her to face him. “I meant that you drive me nuts in the very best way.”
She narrowed her eyes. “There’s a best way for that?”
“Apparently. And you’re it.” Sliding his hands up her arms, he cupped her face, needing to make sure she heard what he was going to say. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It’s important to me that you know that. Hurting you is the very last thing I would ever want to do.”
She looked at him for a long beat—she didn’t have much choice as he was holding her head—but then she slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He opened his mouth and she made a sound of complete and utter annoyance, like he was driving her nuts as well, which was something to think about. “Okay, no talking,” he agreed. Finally something he could get on board with.
“Good,” she said.
“Good,” he said. Like the dog grateful for the slightest bit of attention, he stilled, not wanting to scare her off.
She was staring into his eyes and then her fingers were tight in his hair. “Not a single word,” she breathed against his mouth.
“Not one.”
She nodded and licked her lips, and then it was game over. Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her to him and covered her mouth with his in what started out as a soft exploration and ended up in two point zero seconds as a hard, demanding kiss that she met with equal fervor.
Chapter 15
Tanner heard the sweet sound of Callie’s moan as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. Music to his ears. They were both breathing raggedly when he pressed his forehead to hers.
“Not here,” he said.
“No,” she murmured, and grabbed her unicorn before heading off the pier at warp speed.
He followed. Not that she looked back at him. He knew that she had no doubt he’d follow her to the moon and back.
When they hit the street, he took her hand and the lead, pulling her along with him.
Still no talking.
Just heat.
So much heat he could barely think straight.
“Where?” she gasped half a block later.
Her apartment was closer but his was more private by far. “My place,” he said.
“Too far.”
They practically ran the last block to the warehouse. In the hallway, he waited, half expecting for her to go inside alone. In fact, if she was smart, that’s exactly what she would do.
And she did slam the door. But she yanked him inside first. She hit the lock and then turned to him.
“Callie—”
“Still not talking,” she said, and shoved him up against the door, her sweet, soft, curvy bod pressed up against his. He could feel her breasts, her thighs, and wanted to think he could feel the heat between them. “Callie—”
“Not one word.”
Since her mouth was now at his throat, her busy little hands at his shirt working the buttons as fast as she could, he couldn’t have talked if his life depended on it. He huffed out a low laugh and the little minx bit him. “Jesus.”
“You’re not paying attention,” she said.
“Trust me, you have one hundred and fifty percent of my attention.”
Had he ever been so hard? He couldn’t remember. Hell, at the moment he couldn’t remember his own name. Fisting his hands in her hair, he pulled her back to him and
kissed her until he was damn sure she couldn’t possibly remember her name either.
When they surfaced for air he had one hand under her sweater cupping a perfect breast, the other gliding up the back of her thigh, bunching up her skirt as it went. And then he was beneath it, palming her very sweet ass. Her panties didn’t cover much and he squeezed an ass cheek, letting his fingers slip beneath the cotton.
“Wait,” she gasped. “Stop.”
He went utterly still, not even breathing. He’d known it was too good to be true, that she would change her mind. He was going to take it like a man. He was absolutely not going to cry—
She pushed him away and then ran around the room. She yanked open a drawer, pulled out an armload of…socks?
Yeah, socks.
He watched in disbelief as she continued racing around, shoving a pair or two of socks into each heat vent. There were four.
“There,” she said, straightening after blocking off the last vent. She dusted off her hands and came back to him. “Now.”
“Now what?”
“Now I don’t have to remember to be quiet.”
He stared at her.
“The vents,” she said. “There’s no insulation in this place. Becca, Olivia, and I can hear each other breathing. Or…” She grimaced. “You know.”
He felt himself grin. “You’re afraid you’ll be noisy.”
“No.” She went red. “Well, maybe. It’s been a while. I mean, I don’t want to be concentrating and forget to be quiet.”
He yanked her into him and nuzzled at the soft spot just beneath her ear. “Callie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to have to worry about concentrating.”
“I’m not?”
“No,” he promised.
With another sexy-as-hell breathy moan, she finished unbuttoning his shirt and shoved it off his shoulders. She took a very satisfying long look at his chest and abs and actually licked her lips as she reached for the button on his jeans.
“I still don’t want a relationship with you,” she said, and unzipped him. Before he could suck in some desperately needed air, her hand slid inside and took a hold of him.
“Works for me,” he managed to say. “Me either. Take off your clothes, Callie.”
“I mean it, Tanner. This changes nothing.”
“I hear you. I get you. In fact…” He tugged off her sweater and found a white tank top beneath it that revealed her nipples pressing hard against the thin fabric. Picking her up, he dropped her onto her bed and followed her down. “I not only get you, I got you.”
She squirmed and struggled, but only a little, and it was more like jockeying for the top position. He allowed her to have it for a moment, let her roll him to his back and hold him down and kiss him.
He couldn’t get enough of that. Her hair was in his face and he loved the scent of it, of her. He listened to her ragged breathing as her breasts pressed into his chest, her thighs snug to the outside of his. Tightening his hold on her, he pulled her in even closer.
Her body soft and eager, she whispered his name. With a groan he rolled, tucking her beneath him before he could lose his head again. “Still too many clothes,” he said, and began to strip her. It was like unwrapping the last, big, best present left under the Christmas tree. In a beat the tank was gone and so was her skirt, leaving her in just a plain white bra and panties, both skimpy on fabric, leaving his mouth dry, his body hard and aching.
“Pretty,” he said, and stroked the pad of his thumb over the tip of a breast. Lowering his head, he kissed her neck, then made his way to her shoulder, her collarbone, then dipped beneath the cotton to flick his tongue over a puckered nipple.
She gasped and arched up into him. He rocked his hips into hers, pressing her back down into the bed. Writhing beneath him, she made soft, sweet sounds that wreaked havoc on his tenuous control.
Stopping, he looked down at her. Her face was upturned, her lips parted, her eyes closed. She was a man’s greatest fantasy.
She was his greatest fantasy.
With Tanner’s mouth and hands on her, Callie couldn’t breathe—she simply couldn’t get enough air into her lungs—and she made a sound that must have resembled the one she made when choking on a doughnut because he lifted his head.
“Okay?” he asked.
She tightened her fingers in his hair. “Don’t stop!”
Flashing her a heated, wicked smile, he braced up on one forearm as he unhooked and slowly pulled her bra free, tossing it over his shoulder.
“So pretty,” he whispered again, and lowered his head.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders now, sliding their way down his back to grip his very fine butt as she made a sound of dissatisfaction, pushing at his jeans.
When he didn’t stop kissing her to assist, she attempted to use her toes to shove his pants down.
Laughing at her, he kicked them aside and kept his mouth on her like he couldn’t get enough either.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Lifting his head, he met her gaze and her heart clenched at the emotion there, raw and stark and unspoken but as apparent as the beat of her heart.
She started to say something, she had no idea what, but instead she touched. She had to. She rocked up to spread kisses over his broad shoulders, his throat, needing to get closer still, wanting to eat him up. But he was holding her down to do the same to her. Unable to get enough, she growled in frustration.
“You first,” he said. He brushed his lips across hers and though she tried to hold him close, he evaded her.
“Tanner—”
“I know. Christ, I know, but I’ve been dreaming of this. You’re not going to rush me, babe, not tonight—” His hands slid down her body, igniting fires along the way. Her head arched back as his fingers traced the edge of her panties, teasing, slipping between her legs. Then his thumbs hooked into the sides and he dragged the cotton slowly down.
She met his gaze, his eyes dark and heavy lidded with desire. She was riding a fine line here between wanting him to hurry and letting him make the most of the moment. But again he took the matter out of her hands by lowering his head.
Making the most of the moment then.
And that was the last thought she had for a good long time because he replaced his fingers with his tongue. She cried out and shamelessly ground her hips up toward his mouth.
Stilling her movements with his hands, he used his lips and tongue to whip her into submission.
And into coming.
Which she did, faster and harder than she could remember ever happening before. When she could breathe again, she tackled and straddled him like a rodeo star.
He grinned up at her. “You liked that,” he said.
“I did. And now you’re going to like this.”
“Whatcha got?” He broke off with a hiss of breath through his teeth when she nipped at his lower lip and ran her hands down his