In Name Only: Best Friend Bride (In Name Only) / One Night Stand Bride (In Name Only) / Contract Bride (In Name Only). Kat Cantrell
gave it to her. Over and over he worked his lips and tongue against her swollen flesh until she bowed up with a release that tensed her whole body. And then she collapsed against the mattress, spilling breathy, satisfied sighs all over him. Only then did he permit his own needs to surge to the surface.
Fingering on a condom that he’d retrieved from the drawer, he settled over her and indulged his intense desire to kiss her. She eagerly took his tongue, sucking it into her hot mouth, and he groaned as he transferred her own taste back to her. Their hips came together, legs tangling, and before he could fully register her intent, she gathered him up in her tight fist and guided him into the paradise at her core.
A strong urge to fill her swelled. But he held on by the scrabbly edge of his fingertips, refusing to slam into her as he ached to do. Slowly, so slowly that he nearly came apart, he pushed. Her slickness accepted him easily, wringing the most amazing bliss from a place he scarcely recognized. The deeper he sank, the better it felt.
Her gaze captured his and he fell into her depths. She filled him, not the other way around. How was that physically possible? He couldn’t fathom it, but neither could he deny it. Or halt the rush of Viviana through his veins as she streamed straight to his heart in a kill shot that flooded all four chambers at once.
And then there was nothing but her and the unbelievable feel of her skin against his, her desire soaking through his pores in an overwhelming deluge. He meant to hold back, determined to prove something that escaped him as she changed the angle. Somehow that allowed him to go deeper, push harder. Her cries spurred him on, and unbelievably, she took it higher, sucking him under into a maelstrom of sensation and heightened pleasure.
When her hips began pistoning in countermeasure to his, it nearly tore him in two. Delirious with the need to come, he grabbed one of her legs and pushed at the knee, opening her wider so he had plenty of room to finger her at the source of her pleasure. Two circular strokes and she climaxed, squeezing him so tight that it tripped the wire on his own release.
Bright pinpoints of light streamed behind his eyes as he came so hard that he would have easily believed he’d crossed over into an alternate dimension. In this new dimension, he could let all the things crowding through his chest spill out of his mouth. But those things shouldn’t exist in any universe.
If he didn’t acknowledge them, they didn’t exist. Then he wouldn’t be breaking his word.
As his vision cleared and his muscles relaxed, rendering him boneless, he collapsed to the mattress, rolling Viv into his arms.
The heavy diamond swung down from the chain he’d latched around her neck, whacking him on the shoulder. He fingered it back into place silently, weighing out whether he could actually speak or if that spectacular orgasm had in fact stolen his voice.
“I get the sense you’ve been saving up,” Viv commented huskily, her lips moving against his chest, where her face had landed after he’d nestled her close. Probably he shouldn’t have done that, but he liked coming down from a post-lovemaking high with her in his arms.
“It’s been a while,” he allowed. “I mean, other than last night, obviously.”
Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Both times were amazing. I could get used to this.”
He could, too. That was enough to get the panic really rolling. “We should probably talk about that.”
To soften the blow, he threaded some of her pretty, silky hair through his fingers. That felt so nice, he kept going, running all the way down her head to her neck and back again.
“Mmm,” she purred, pressing into his fingers, which were somehow massaging her with little strokes that she clearly liked. “I’m listening.”
“We’re still friends, right?” Pathetic. That hadn’t been what he’d intended to say at all, but now that it was out there...it was exactly what he wanted to know. He wanted to hear her say that having an amazing encounter that he’d felt to his soul hadn’t really affected her all that much. Then he could keep lying to himself about it and have zero qualms.
“Sure.”
She kissed his chest right above his nipple and then flicked her tongue across the flat disk. Flames erupted under his skin, fanning outward to engulf his whole body, including his brain, because he suddenly couldn’t recall what he’d been so convinced he needed to establish.
Then she slung a leg over his, nestling her thigh against the semi-erection that grew a lot less semi much faster than he would have credited, considering how empty he’d have sworn he was already.
“Geez, Viv.” He bit back the curse word that had sprung to his lips. “You’re insatiable.”
Not that he was complaining. Though he should be saying something that sounded a lot like “Let’s dial it back about one hundred and eighty degrees.”
“You make me that way,” she said throatily. “I’ve been celibate for like a billion years and that was totally okay, but all of a sudden, you kiss me and I can’t think. I just want to be naked with you 24/7.”
“Yeah?” he growled. That pretty much mirrored his thoughts perfectly. “That can be arranged.”
No. No, it could not.
He had a merger to manage. Reins to pick up from his grandfather. What was he talking about, letting Viv coerce him into a day-and-night screw fest? That sounded like a recipe for disaster, especially given how strong his reactions to her were. They needed to cool it off.
“We can’t.” She sighed. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork and Josie requested the rest of the week off so she can study for final exams. As nice as this is, we should probably back off for a while. Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely not.” Wrong answer. Open your mouth and take it back. “We’re doing fine winging it. Aren’t we? There’s no pressure. If you come home from work hot and needy and want to strip down in the foyer to let me take care of you, I’m perfectly fine with that.”
In fact, he’d gladly etch that date on his planner with a diamond drill bit. Mental note: buy Viv more jewelry and more racy lingerie. If he really tried, he could space out the gifts, one a night for oh, at least two weeks.
She arched a brow. “Really? This isn’t feeling a little too real?”
His mood deflated. And now he was caught in a trap of his own making. He couldn’t lie to Viv, but neither could he admit that it had been feeling too real since the ceremony. The same one he’d tried to sell to Warren and Hendrix as a fake wedding when Warren had clued in immediately that there was nothing fake about any of this.
This was what he got for not nodding his head the second the words back off came out of her mouth.
“See, the thing is,” he began and would have sworn he’d been about to say that being friends with no benefits worked better for him. But that’s not what happened. “I need this to be real. I don’t have to pretend that I’m hot for you, because I am. We don’t have to sell that we’re burning up the sheets when we have dinner with your family on Friday. Why not keep going? The reasons we started this are still true. Unless I’ve dissatisfied you in some way?”
“Oh, God. No!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Not in the slightest. You’re the hottest lover I’ve ever had, bar none.”
That pleased him enormously. “Then stop talking about easing off. We can be casual about it. Sometimes you sleep in my bed. Sometimes you don’t. No rules. We’re just friends who’re having really great sex.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
She shrugged like she could take it or leave it, which raked across his spine with a sharpness that he didn’t like. She obviously wasn’t feeling any of the same things he was. She’d been a half second from calling it quits. Would have if he hadn’t stopped her.
“Great.” And somehow he’d managed to appease his sense of honor while agreeing to