No Flowers Required (6 page)

“No.” His gruff denial cut her off. He wouldn’t go easy on her. Maybe other men leaped to do her bidding—he totally didn’t blame them—but he’d be damned if he helped her forget him. “Not yet.”

She whimpered when he drew his thumb away from her clit, his fingers never letting up inside. “Yes yet. Now,” she breathed at his sharp tug on her braid.

“No,” he repeated. He nuzzled her shoulder while he lowered his hand to her breast, still distended over her shirt. The beaded nipple pressed into his palm and he plucked at it, hard; gauging from the noises she made she wanted rough more than soft. Appearances could be deceiving, and this woman who made her living with flowers seemed to crave the dark and lewd with the same ferociousness he did. As she proved when he flicked her clit and she nearly went off, her body lunging forward until she banged her forehead against the door.

“You want it?” he grated against her cheek.

He wanted her to beg, to say it in no uncertain terms. She didn’t give in. But her drenched, throbbing flesh told him, especially when he released her breast to fumble in his back pocket for his wallet. She grew wetter, more pliant. More ready for him to take what she so eagerly gave.

She snatched his wallet and searched through it in silence, her heavy breaths the only sign she ached as much as he did. His fingers picked up their pace inside her as she ripped the foil packet between her teeth, then passed it back with an accompanying proprietary stroke. His neglected cock jumped and she let out a throaty laugh, the sound of a woman who knew she had him under her spell. “Guess
you
want it?”

“You know I do.” He couldn’t help his growl, any more than he could stop himself from yanking down his jeans and boxers so he could torture her with a little skin-on-skin contact before he suited up. She slicked her hand up and down, coasting on the trickle of arousal that slipped free. Under her touch it multiplied, until he had to drop his head back and stare up at the seething gray sky.

If he’d had the energy to look around, he would’ve seen the world stretched out around them. Twinkling lights. Shadowy trees and hills. Buildings rising up out of the ground. As close as they seemed from up here, they might as well have been a million miles away from the web they’d spun around themselves, binding them together in the dark.

He twisted his fingers free of her snug heat and used the wet to outline her lips. She didn’t balk, and instead darted out her tongue to sample what he’d left behind.

“Goddamn, woman.”

She taunted him with a wiggle of her ass. “Fuck me already.”

With one pull, he had her shorts and panties down, baring her pale cheeks to his hungry gaze. He wanted to see more of her. Everything. Right now he’d have to settle for feeling her, inch by inch.

He jerked on the condom with shaking fingers and stilled her sensuous movements with a shallow thrust before he pulled out and left her wanting. Then again and again, going slightly deeper, just enough to earn her ragged breaths and the pinch of her nails into his ass.

God, what he wouldn’t give to feel that bite of pain down his back as she hauled him into her sweet, slick sex. From this position she couldn’t do much more than slam him into her, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted. She wouldn’t control this pace. She wouldn’t rule his body as she’d already taken over his head, filling him with her so that he breathed her in every time their bodies merged.

If he went faster, if he yielded to the demands of his own longing, this would be over. A night that wasn’t. A memory he refused to put on the shelf until he’d wrung it dry.

But his hips picked up the beat anyway, lunging into her while she opened herself to him and let him take. She massaged him from inside, her walls clasping him in a spasm that pulsated all the way from the head of his dick to the soles of his feet.

“Harder.” She rocked into him, her head bouncing against his shoulder. Her pale breast bobbing like a buoy in the boiling ocean that surrounded them. “I want it.”

His cock took up the charge without his help, surging into the searing clasp of her body in a ceaseless rhythm. He bruised her with his punishing hold, deliberately testing her limits, and she only grew more slippery and hot. Trying to corral her desire was like tossing a Molotov cocktail into a forest.

Once more he pulled back in a futile attempt to prolong the inevitable, but she gripped him deep and tight, ripping a shout from him when the first gush of her release took him under. Her orgasm rippled all the way through him, as strong as the lash of rain against his back and neck. He drove into her over and over, his climax firing pinwheels of light behind his closed lids. An explosion of white-hot energy, unleashed.

His breaths sawed in and out of his parted lips and he mumbled against her hair, breathing in its fragrant lavender scent before he gave into a moment of blissed-out exhaustion.

She trembled in his arms, around him. Reminding him they lolled against a door that could open at any time, on top of a public building.

A building he owned.

“Dillon?”

He cocked open one eye and blinked as it stayed dry. The rain had let up while they’d been plastered together. “Hmm?”

She shot him a grin over her shoulder. “So, was it good for you?”

He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. Probably not the usual gesture after rough door sex, but it fit. “Try spectacular.”

“Did you see lightning?”

“Affirmative.” He looked up and noted the clearing skies. A slice of moon peeked through the gap in the clouds and he couldn’t stop the grin that crossed his face. “It even stopped raining.”

“It was raining?”

Laughing, he pressed a rueful kiss to her shoulder and eased out of her. That she made a weak sound of protest went a long way to making him feel better about leaving the silken fist of her body. He wasn’t the only one who hated to see this end.

Even if it never should’ve happened in the first place.

He pulled off the condom as she tugged up her shorts and bent to adjust her shoes. Or at least that’s what he assumed until she turned and dangled the handle of his watering can from her fingertip. A sexy smile ghosted around her mouth, scarcely visible in the moonlight. “Aww, a daisy. Missing this?”

“It’s a watering can,” he muttered, snatching it out of her hand.

“I know. I’ve used them before. You know, a lot of men might be intimidated by using such a…cute item.” Another sexy smile. Damn if he didn’t find them delicious.

“If I didn’t prove my manliness a few minutes ago, then screw the daisy.”

She laughed and the sound smoothed away most of his ire. Unluckily for her, since he’d been half-tempted to “prove his manliness” by taking her against the stone railing.

“Need some help?” She had apparently noticed his full hands and pulled up his jeans and boxers for him, tucking him inside the cotton with an efficiency that got him half-hard all over again. “So did you really put this garden together?”

“It’s not just a garden,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s an ecologically viable green roof.” Something he might’ve told her more about, had he not been much more consumed at the moment with the way her nipples beaded against her top. He could have it off and her breasts in his palms again before a moan passed her rosy lips.

“Is it part of some beautification deal? Or to save some cash?”

God, he needed to dump this condom and lose the watering can. Holding both somehow made his chest puff and his manhood shrink in disparate proportion.

He tossed the condom in the nearby garbage can and returned as Alexa was redoing her braid. Shit, he’d pulled it to pieces. “It’s not just about money.”

“Only rich people say that,” she said under her breath, wrinkling her nose in a way he guessed was supposed to convey displeasure but instead made her look freaking adorable. “Are you trying to blend in with the moneyed set?”

“I’ve been trying for years.” Definitely a true statement. “There are heating and cooling benefits for buildings with green roofs, yes, but they’re also a good move for the environment and wildlife.” He tucked the watering can under his arm and opened the door. “Come on. I have your part.”

Falling silent, she followed him downstairs and up the hall to the apartment he’d been working on earlier that evening. He set aside what he’d been carrying and grabbed the bag he’d left by the door.

“I’ll put it in now, if you want,“ he said, hating the awkwardness he could already sense building between them.

Sure, everything had been hunky-dory when they’d both been horny out of their minds, but now reality had arrived. They were near strangers, and worse, he was keeping something huge from her. Even if she hadn’t wanted to hear the truth, that didn’t diminish his guilt in holding it back.

“Where did you get that?” She stared at the part tucked under his forearm.
Fuck
. He’d forgotten to lose the bag.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to get the part in Renault, but the hardware store had been closed when he arrived. So he’d come back to Value Hardware just before closing and grabbed what he needed, thinking he’d ditch the evidence and she’d be none the wiser.

Yeah, not so much. Apparently that cheerful smiley face imprinted on plastic might as well have been the bell at the start of a boxing match. Any second she’d put up her dukes.

“Why do you hate Value Hardware so much?” Maybe, just maybe, he might even be able to come clean and not feel guilty as hell for digging through her financial records, then having dirty roof sex with her while she believed he was just the full-service handyman.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning.”

She huffed out a breath. “They don’t care that they’re squashing the little guy.”

“You mean you,” he said gently.

Irritation flared on her face and she threw her braid back over her shoulder. “Not just me,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest. “They’re trying to do everything instead of what they’re good at. First they were just a hardware store. Now they’re expanding into flowers and landscaping. I even heard talk in town they want to do some snooty lifestyle magazine. It’s like they want to put everyone out of business in Haven but them.”

If Dillon knew his brother—and he did—Cory wouldn’t mind that. At all. “Diversification’s good in this economy. Besides, you can’t blame just one store if your business isn’t doing well.”

Unless there was more to it… and
unless
was a word practically made for his brother.

Her eyes flashed. Damn, but she was pretty when she was riled. Pretty all the time, prettier when she had a flush tingeing her skin and that fire in her eyes. “Oh, and you’re an expert now?”

“I’m just saying there has to be more behind why you hate Value Hardware so much. You don’t hate Zulo’s, I bet, and they sell plants too.” Or did she hate Zulo’s? Hope bloomed in his chest. Perhaps she had an all-encompassing retail hate, which was a little creepy and yet also would let him off the hook.

His gaze lowered from her pursed lips to that dangling necklace flirting with the vee of her tank top. Her nipples pebbled under the thin ribbed fabric, making him stiffen against his jeans.

Then they could have sex again. Soon.

“No, I don’t hate Zulo’s. I reserve my hatred strictly for Value Hardware.” She sighed and looked at her watch. “I should go. I have to be up early.”

“Me too.” He’d be talking to his brother first thing, because something still wasn’t right with this whole situation. She’d just had an incredible orgasm—thank you very much—and yet she was already strung tight again at just the mention of the hardware store. He got that she was stressed about money, but he could tell there was more. There had to be.

If he couldn’t figure out what the problem was, he couldn’t fix it. And if he couldn’t fix it, he couldn’t get another hit of Alexa. And that wasn’t an option.

“I’ll be by soon to put in the part,” he added into the silence. The air practically crackled with renewed sexual energy.

That he couldn’t take advantage of again yet. Unfortunately.

“Thank you. I appreciate you fixing my sink earlier, and getting the part.” She turned toward the door.

“You forgot to thank me for the orgasm,” he called with a grin just before the door thudded shut.

…

Alexa scrubbed the counter inside Divine, determinedly buffing out every last fingerprint from the glass. It wasn’t as if she had any customers to help. It was just past noon and she’d already been open for three hours. In that time, she’d had two browsers and two non-buyers. There had also been a visit from her brother, who’d stayed just long enough to ascertain she was once again without help in the store. Oh, and that she basically had no customers.

The good thing was that the lack of foot traffic meant she’d have plenty of time to work on her new window display that afternoon. She’d decided to take a page out of Value Hardware’s book and do up some pretty, inexpensive displays with a fun fall theme. She glanced at the pile of paper flowers, wire, and swaths of bright red-and-yellow ribbon she’d bought at the craft store. Her inner snob wanted to sneer, but the rest of her was excited. It had been so long since she’d done arrangements that weren’t high-end, pricey affairs with the most expensive flowers and exquisite silk bows. It would be fun to really let her creativity go.

Besides, what did she have to lose? Nothing she’d done so far had worked. She’d happily content herself playing with her carnations—what the hell—and loops of bells.

Speaking of bells, the one over the door chimed and she glanced up, her heart beating faster. Nope. Not a customer. Or…anyone else she might foolishly hope to see, though she knew she shouldn’t.

“Hey, Travis,” she said to the college kid who’d been helping design Divine’s new website. “Get out of class early?”

“Yeah. Had an exam.” Travis’s sandy brows lifted toward his equally sandy thicket of unruly hair as he studied the gleaming counter. “Look at you go.”

She shrugged. So she was a bit obsessive-compulsive when it came to keeping the store clean. There were worse things she could do.