No, he didn’t have to go to Mort’s. The new manager he’d hired was doing a good job. He kissed the side of her throat and raised a hand to her breast. In the pit of his belly, the lust that had been thoroughly sucked out of him a moment ago caught fire once again.

He had plans of his own.


She should not have fallen off the wagon. Having sex with Mick was wrong of her on so many levels, but the time to stop things before they got out of control had passed an hour ago. She should have stopped him before he put his mouth on her breast and slid his hand into her pants. But of course she hadn’t. Once she’d felt his moist mouth and skilled fingers, she’d become selfish and greedy. She’d wanted to feel his hands all over her body. To feel him touch her in places she hadn’t been touched in a long time. To look into his eyes and see how much he wanted her.

Within the spill of lamplight pouring across the gold and red quilt, Mick kissed the small of Maddie’s bare back and continued up her spine. “You always smell so good.” His hands and knees were planted on her bed on both sides of her body and his erection brushed the inside of her bare thigh as he leaned down to kiss the back of her shoulder.

No, she should not have fallen off the wagon with Mick, but she wasn’t sorry. Not yet. Not when he made her feel things. Wonderful things she hadn’t even known she missed. Tomorrow she would be sorry when she thought about all the ways she’d just complicated her life and his, but tonight she was going to be completely selfish and enjoy the naked man in her bed.

Maddie turned onto her back and looked up into Mick’s lusty blue eyes surrounded by thick black lashes. “You feel good,” she said and ran her hands up his arms and across the hard muscles of his shoulders. “You make me feel good too.”

He bent down, lightly bit the ball of her shoulder, and his penis touched her between her legs. “Tell me all the ways you’re going to use my body.”

She turned her head and said next to his ear, “It’s a surprise.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Only if you can’t get it up.”

He pressed his erection into her. “That’s not going to be a problem.” And it wasn’t. He kissed and teased and tortured her with his hands and mouth, bringing her to the point of climax, then backing off. Just when she thought she might have to pin him to the bed and jump on him, he reached for the condom on the nightstand. Maddie took it and put it on him while she kissed his belly. Then he pinned her to the bed and knelt between her thighs. He wrapped his hand around the thick shaft of his penis and brought the broad head to her slick opening. He pressed into her, hot and enormous, and she gasped from the sheer pleasure of his entry.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I love this part,” she said.

He pulled out and plunged a little deeper. “This part?”

She licked her lips and nodded. She wrapped one leg around his waist and forced him even deeper. His nostrils flared slightly as he pulled out, then buried himself to the hilt, thrusting into her and shoving them up the bed.

She cried out, whether in pain or in intense pleasure, she wasn’t quite sure. She only knew that she didn’t want it to end.

“Sorry.” He spread kisses across her cheek. “I thought you were ready.”

“I am,” she moaned. “Do it again.” And he did. Again and again. Maddie hadn’t had sex in a long time, but she didn’t remember it feeling so good—if it had been this good, she was positive she would not have given it up for so long.

He groaned deep, deep within his chest and placed his hands on the sides of her face. “You feel tight around me.” He kissed her lips and said just above her mouth, “And so good.”

Heat flushed her skin, radiating outward from where they were joined, and she slid her fingers up his warm shoulders and into his hair. “Faster, Mick,” she whispered. She loved the feeling of him touching her deep inside, the plump head of his penis rubbing her G-spot, then pushing into her cervix. She loved the press of his moist skin against her and the intensity of his blue eyes. Without missing a beat of his pumping hips, he ran a hand down her side and bottom to the back of her thigh.

“Put this leg around my back,” he said just above a whisper. He pressed his forehead against hers and his breathing rasped against her temple. He plunged faster. Harder.

“Mick,” she cried out as he thrust in and out, pushing her closer and closer toward climax. “Please don’t stop.”

“Not a chance.”

Like a flash fire, heat spread from the apex of her thighs, across her body, and she was completely mindless of anything but Mick and the pleasure of his body. She called his name once, twice, maybe three times. She tried to tell him how good it felt, how much she loved and missed sex, but her words came out short and abbreviated as he relentlessly thrust his erection into her, and slammed her into a pleasure so intense she opened her mouth to scream. The sound died in her throat as wave after luscious wave rolled through, and her vaginal muscles pulsed and contracted, gripping him hard. On and on it went as he plunged into her, his labored breath hot against her cheek until finally he shoved into her one last time and a long tortured groan died in his throat.

“Oh…my…God,” she said when she could catch her breath.

“Yeah.” He raised up onto his elbows and looked into her face.

“I don’t remember sex being that good.”

“It usually isn’t.” He pushed a few strands of her hair off her forehead. “In fact, I don’t think it’s ever been that good.”

“You’re welcome.”

He laughed, and his two dimples dented his cheeks. “Thank you.” When she didn’t reciprocate, he lifted one brow up his forehead.

She smiled and unwrapped her legs from around his waist. “Thank you.”

He pulled out of her and moved off the bed. “You’re welcome,” he said over his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom.

Maddie rolled on her side and closed her eyes. She sighed and settled within a nice comfy bubble of afterglow. She didn’t have a tense muscle in her body and couldn’t recall ever being so relaxed. She heard the toilet flush, and she wrapped her arms around the pillow under her head. She should probably have sex more often, as a sort of stress reducer.

“Who’s Carlos?”

Maddie opened her eyes and her afterglow bubble popped. “What?”

Mick sat on the bed and looked at her over his shoulder. “You called me Carlos.”

She didn’t remember that. “When?”

“When you were coming.”

“What did I say?”

A little scowl turned down the corners of his mouth. “‘Yes. Yes. Carlos.’”

Heat rose up her neck to her cheeks. “I did?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been called another man’s name.” He thought a moment, then added, “I don’t think I like it.”

She sat up. “Sorry.”

“Who’s Carlos?”

He obviously wasn’t going to let it drop and she was forced to confess, “Carlos isn’t a man.”

He blinked and stared at her for several moments. “Carlos is a woman?”

She laughed and pointed to the bedside dresser. “Open that top drawer.”

He leaned forward and pulled the drawer open. His brows lowered, then slowly rose up his forehead. “Is that a…?”

“Yes, that’s Carlos.”

He looked at her. “You named it?”

Maddie sat up. “I thought since we’re intimately acquainted he should have a name.”

“It’s purple.”

“And glows in the dark.”

He chuckled and shut the drawer. “It’s big.”

“Not as big as you.”

“Yeah, but I can’t…” He scratched his cheek. “What does it do?”

“It can pulse, vibrate, throb, and get hot.”

“All that and glows in the dark too?” He dropped his hand to the bed.

“You’re better than Carlos.” She moved to kneel behind him and slid her hands down his chest. “I’d much rather spend time with you.”

He looked up into her face. “I don’t glow in the dark.”

“No, but your eyes get all sexy, and I love the way you kiss and touch my body.” She pressed her breasts into his warm back. “You make me vibrate and you make me hot.”

He turned and pushed her down on the bed. “You make me feel like the last time I was in this room. Like I can’t get enough. Like I’m fifteen and can go at it all night.”

A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead and she reached up and smoothed it back. “Is this room a lot different from the last time you were here with…what was her name?”

“Brandy Green.” He glanced about the bedroom. At the mahogany dressers and bedside ta bles and lamps. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember what it looked like.”

“Too long ago?”

He returned his gaze to her. “Too busy to notice.” Laugh lines creased the corners of his eyes. “Brandy was a senior and I was a sophomore and I was just trying to impress the hell out of her.”

“Did you?”

“Impress her?” He thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you’ve impressed me.”

“I know.” He moved over the top of her onto his back, then pulled her across his chest.

“How do you know?”

“You’re a moaner.”

She pushed her hair over her shoulder. “I am?”

“Yeah. I like it.” He brushed his hand up and down her arm. “It lets me know you’re into what I’m doing to you.”

She shrugged. “I like sex. I’ve liked sex since my first time when I was a sophomore at UCLA and lost my virginity to my first boyfriend, Frankie Peterson.”

His hand stilled. “You waited until you were, what…twenty?”

“Well, I was Cincinnati Maddie, remember? But once I moved out of my aunt’s house and went away to college, I dropped sixty pounds by virtue of being so poor I didn’t have money to spend on food. In those days, I used to work out a lot too. So much so that I burned myself out, and now I refuse to work up a sweat on anything that is painful and boring.” She ran her fingers up the thin line of hair on his belly.