Seeing is Believing (17 page)

“Excellent. Good. Very good. But damn it, I have to talk to you about something first.” He looked agonized.

Uh-oh. She didn’t like the sound of that. If he had a girlfriend, she was going to shove him off this truck into the dirt. With trepidation she said, “Yes?”

He raked his hands through his hair in a way that made him even more appealing to her. Piper had never, ever been as attracted to a man as she was to him. And he was a man, she made no mistake about that. Not a boy like the others she’d been involved with.

Taking a deep breath, he looked up from his jeans and met her expectant gaze. “I just want to make sure you understand that I’m going back to Chicago.”

That was it? Piper let out a whoosh of air in relief. “Of course I know that.” He had said it, hadn’t he? His grandmother had said it. It was a given that a man like Brady would not want to stay put in a town like Cuttersville, which he had run away from at eighteen. “I know.”

She did, and if she had indulged in a fantasy or two that he would stay longer, well, that was her problem. But she’d never gone so far as to fantasize about them being together long-term. She wouldn’t allow herself to do that.

“So what are we doing, then?” he asked.

Piper didn’t think a man generally asked that type of question. She raised her eyebrows. “Having fun?”

His brow furrowed. “Yeah. We are.”

“So is there a problem?” She didn’t have one other than the fact that she really, really wished he had waited until after she’d had an orgasm to have this conversation.

“No.” He jumped down into the truck bed and walked over to the bag she’d pointed out to him.

Piper waited, sure the conversation wasn’t over. There was something else he wanted to say.

She was right. As she dangled her feet over the edge of the cab, watching him, he dug into the nylon encasing and pulled out the sleeping bag.

“Piper?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever wanted to move out of Cuttersville? Live in the city? See something of the world?”

“No.” She didn’t even need to think about it. The branches of the apple trees stretched out towards her as she sat on her truck, on Tucker land.

“Why?” He sounded frustrated, and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like he was considering a future with her.

Was he? She wouldn’t dare to let herself even consider the possibility. Wanting him to want that was disastrous, because he never would, and she couldn’t go to Chicago anyway.

“Because my family is here. Sure, I’d love to travel and see some of the world, but I don’t want to live anywhere else.”

“But the city has excellent food, museums, shopping.”

He sounded like the Chamber of Commerce. “High rent, crime, pollution.” She laughed, still unsure what he was getting at. “None of which would bother me if my family were with me.”

“Really? You don’t want the experience of living somewhere else?”

“I don’t want the experience of being lonely. I want to know that I’m never more than a couple of miles from someone who loves me.”

There was a heartbeat when he just stared at her, then Brady stretched his hand out to take hers. “I can understand that.”

Did he really? He would never know what it felt like to have no one else in the world, no one who cared whether you lived or died. That’s what Piper had lived with as a kid, and once she’d found her family, she had no reason to ever want to leave again. She put her hand in his larger one. “I’m happy here,” she said. “It’s where I belong. What about you? Did you find that sense of belonging in Chicago? The place you know you’re meant to be?”

She expected him to say yes. To say that he had to go back because it was where he belonged.

Instead, he just said, “No.”

Piper slid down into the bed and stood in front of him, looking up into his handsome face. “No? I’m sorry.”

He gave a soft laugh. “You’re very sweet, which is why I can’t resist you. I should, you know. I should walk away from you. Hell, I should get in my car and drive back to Chicago tomorrow.”

“To the place you don’t belong?” she asked, because it seemed so utterly illogical to her.

“Yes. Because I’m being selfish with you.”

So that’s what was bothering him. Piper was oddly flattered. “How are you being selfish?” She wanted to hear him spell it out.

“By doing this with you and then going home.”

“I think they call
this
an affair. People have them all the time. We both understand it won’t be more than a few weeks.” Piper squeezed his hand. She wasn’t going to be denied this because he was having a moral pang, probably brought about by her father’s threats. “And if you remember, I’m the one who threw myself at you, so I don’t think you need to feel guilt over loving and leaving me.” She didn’t really want to be having this conversation, but she wasn’t one to be anything other than perfectly honest and direct.

Brady studied her, and the intensity of his scrutiny almost had her asking him what else was wrong, but she didn’t want to be that girl, the kind who questions a guy every five minutes. Are you okay? What’s wrong? Why are you quiet? Are you mad at me?

Piper would stab herself in the heart with a butter knife before she ever became that pathetic around Brady. She’d done that in college, and she would rather be alone for the rest of her life than let someone, or let herself, be reduced to a level-five clinger.

Her words seemed to have the effect she wanted. Brady shook his head a little. “Damn, you’re right. You’re totally right. You did throw yourself at me.” Brady grinned at her. “As long as we’re on the same page, hussy, I guess I shouldn’t be worrying.”

She supposed she’d walked right into that tease. “Ha-ha. Yes, we’re on the same page. Though right now it’s kind of a blank page.”

Brady gave her a smile that had probably charmed many a resolute woman right out of her underwear. “So let’s fill it up.”

That worked for her. “With what?”

“Nothing you’d write home to your mother. But something that will set your diary on fire.”

“I don’t have a diary.”

“Tomorrow you just might start.”

Piper suspected he just might be right.

Chapter Ten

HOW WAS IT THAT THIS WOMAN COULD DISARM HIM THE
way no other could? Brady had fully expected her to go ballistic on him when he reminded her that he was going back to Chicago. Or to try to talk him out of it. Or suggest she come with him. All responses he would have gotten from other women. Or the most likely one—defiant disinterest. The who fucking cares? You’re just a notch, baby—the attitude of a lot of women he’d dated. The attitude that he was never really sure was legit. Like was it that they really didn’t give a shit or were they just trying to make it seem that they didn’t?

But Piper didn’t react in any of those ways. She just shrugged and smiled and told him they were having an affair.

My God. They were having an affair. He wasn’t sure he’d ever done that. It was like traveling to Italy and meeting a local and spending two weeks sightseeing with her and making love and eating gelato, then going home. A wonderful and passionate interruption of life with a person you really connected with. That was exactly what he was doing, and now that she’d spelled it out for him, he was going to stop feeling guilty about it and dive right in and eat some gelato.

He spread out the sleeping bag and stripped off his T-shirt and bunched it up at the top of the bag like a pillow. Only a country girl would agree to do this, and he was feeling a whole new appreciation for farmers’ daughters. Kicking his boots off, he sent them sailing into the corner so they wouldn’t trip on them. Taking his cue, Piper stepped out of her sandals.

“Come here,” he murmured, then didn’t wait for her to follow his instructions. He couldn’t let another minute go by before he felt her skin against his, had her in his arms. Burying his head in her hair, he said, “You feel good.”

“Better than smelling bad.”

“When did you get so sassy?” He nibbled at her ear, enjoying the warmth of her skin, the soft sigh she gave at contact.

“I don’t think I am. I’m just matter-of-fact. I don’t know how to flirt.”

Was she kidding him? “Oh, I think you do just fine.” He felt flirted with. Or maybe she was right. Maybe her just-the-facts-sir attitude was actually the real turn-on. Because she wasn’t game playing. If she wanted him, she said it. “I find myself a bit turned around by you, Piper. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“I think you know what to do with me,” she said, taking his hand and lowering it from her waist to her inner thigh. Not quite on her sex, but damn close.

Brady groaned. “You’re right. I do know what to do with you. I’m going to start with kissing you again.”

Her lips were soft, sweet from the apple, open for him. He kissed her with a tenderness he didn’t know he possessed, kissed her with something like reverence. They were all right. Piper was special. She did things to him that he didn’t understand, made him want to be a better man. Plunging his tongue inside her, he was determined to give her the same pleasure that she brought to him, wanting to make the most of the limited time they had, absorb her into him in a way, so that when he went home, she would still be with him.

Stroking across the front of her skirt, pressing against her clitoris when he found it, Brady tried to form a game plan, a calculated seduction. But all he could think was that he wanted her and he wanted her now. Everything he’d learned about taking his time and teasing a woman seemed to have evaporated. He was just overcome with the pure greedy need to take, take, take. So he stepped back and forced himself to drag in some fresh air and get a grip on his hormones. He was not going to just drive inside her again like the first time.

Reaching out, he drew her T-shirt off her head, slowly, easily, putting a lid on the frantic nature of his desire. He was in control. He was going to make this worth her time and the ire of her father. When the shirt popped off her head and her hair tumbled back down, he placed it on the side of the truck so it wouldn’t get dirty. Or not too dirty, anyway. Then he took in the sight of her in the moonlight, her breasts firm and full, spilling out of the top of a white lace bra, her waist tapered, her arms slim and delicate, her neck graceful. “God, you’re so beautiful,” he told her, and he meant it. She was ethereal in her beauty. The portrait of feminine perfection, her hair shiny and healthy, her lips plump and rosy.

It was a compliment that drew a blush to her cheeks and stained the flesh above her breasts a pale pink. “Thank you.”

“May I?” he asked, taking the waistband of her skirt and readying to shove it to the floor.

“Yes.”

Brady kissed her while he pushed the skirt past her hips, letting it drop with a soft thump. Brushing his hands over her nipples, straining against her bra, he took his time kissing her, exploring the contours of her body, the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips, the heaviness of her breasts, the delicate bone underlining her shoulder. He couldn’t place the scent she wore. It wasn’t a heavy perfume, it wasn’t floral. There was something fresh about the way she smiled. Like the outdoors. Like youth. Like soft, ripe fruit ready to be eaten.

Popping the fastener of her bra, Brady toyed with the top of her panties, hinting at where he would like to go next, even as her breasts spilled out of the open bra. She made a sound in the back of her throat that had his mouth hot and his boxers stretched to capacity. Her fingers were doing their own traveling, sliding up and down his chest, tracing all the lines of his muscles and squeezing here and there before coming to a rest on his waist. He bent over and pulled her bra off with his teeth, grabbing it right in the middle and drawing it away from her body before letting it fall down onto her skirt. Which left his mouth deliciously close to the breasts he’d been dying to taste. Flicking his tongue on the underside of one, he moved his feet apart, bracing for some serious playtime. The fingers on his waist tightened reflexively.

Her nipples were hard, a dusty rose, the perfect size to draw into his mouth and suck. When he did, she gave a low, soft moan that had him throbbing harder, something he wouldn’t have thought possible.

Then he bit her. Just gently, but a definite nip.

“Oh, God,” she said, her head falling back, her hands moving up to his head, to hold him tightly against her.

“Turnabout’s fair play,” he told her.

“I didn’t bite your boob.”

He laughed. Sometimes the things she said just killed him. “That’s not your boob. It’s your nipple.”

“Yes, sir.”

That deference, fake or not, made his blood surge south, hot tendrils of desire flickering along his body, consuming him. It was near impossible to maintain his composure, but somehow he managed it. She seemed to realize the impact her words had on him because when he said, “Can I take your panties off?” she gave the same response.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re killing me,” he breathed, closing his eyes for a second to grasp for the thin strands of his control. “That should sound so wrong, but Jesus, Piper, it’s turning me on like nothing else.”

“It’s turning me on, too. Tell me what to do.”

This couldn’t be happening. It was just too amazingly perfect. He was in the back of a pickup under the stars with a beautiful woman who wanted him to tell her what to do. This more than made up for losing his job. He’d stay unemployed and broke for the next six months rather than give this up right now.

What he really wanted to tell her to do was to go down on her knees and suck his dick, but he wasn’t there yet with Piper. It seemed like the first time for her giving him head should be entirely on her terms, not his. So instead he said, “I’m going to take off your panties, and then I want you to lay down for me.”

She nodded, the pulse point in her throat jumping, her eyes dark with desire, goose bumps rushing across her chest.

Her panties matched her bra, just a simple white lace that glowed in the dark orchard, low cut but covering everything. Brady knew what he was going to find behind that triangle of lace and cotton as he peeled it down inch by agonizing inch. Soft dewy curls, not a bald eagle. While waxing everything had its own appeal, it didn’t suit Piper. It was too . . . maintained. He liked to think of her as freer, untamed, feminine. It made more sense to him than anything else. This was Bush country, after all.

When the panties passed over her pelvis, soft downy curls the same caramel color as her hair emerged. It was neat and tidy, but for the most part was as nature had intended it, and he dipped his finger into the center of her curls, swallowing hard when he immediately slid into hot moisture. She was more than ready to take him inside her. But he pulled his finger back and put it into his mouth, tasting the sweetness of her body. She made a strangled sound, her chest rising and falling faster.

The panties weren’t down all the way, but she dropped down to the sleeping bag anyway, like her legs could no longer hold her. Brady took in the sight of her, sprawled out for him, hair a riot of waves around her head and on the bag, her arms out to her sides, legs trying to spread, but still contained in her shocking white panties. There was something very pure about the way she looked, or maybe it was the purity of her soul that he saw, which sounded corny even in his own head, but he knew was true. And he was never more humbled and aroused in his life. This was more than he deserved. This was more than he knew what to do with.

But he’d be damned if he’d walk away. He didn’t always finish what he started, but this, he was going to finish.

He was going to have this affair, for lack of a better word, for the time he was in Cuttersville. And he was going to give her as much pleasure as he possibly could.

Divesting himself of his jeans, Brady knelt down before her.

* * *

PIPER SHOULD CARE ABOUT HOW SHE LOOKED—
whether she was posed awkwardly, whether her thighs looked big, whether she had a goofy look on her face—but she didn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to care about anything except the way Brady was looking at her, like she was the tastiest thing he’d ever seen.

There were no voices in her head for the first time ever except for Brady’s telling her she was beautiful. She felt beautiful, appreciated. Not pitied.

Her skin felt alive, like every nerve she possessed had been sleeping until now, and Brady had awoken them. She gave a sharp intake of breath when he dropped between her feet, only in his boxers, and peeled her panties the rest of the way down. He stroked along the insides of her knees, then her thighs, casually spreading her legs, moving between them like he belonged there. When his mouth made contact with her aching sex, she allowed herself to release the moan she’d been withholding.

Then he used his fingers to massage her inner lips while he kissed her clitoris, sliding his tongue down deep inside her, and Piper knew that she had just crossed a line and couldn’t go back. This was what a man with experience could do, with just a few touches here and there. There was hesitating, no overenthusiasm or tepid strokes, no constant changing of the rhythm or continual fussing with her curls, which she knew were probably in need of some grooming. But she wasn’t dating anyone, so she hadn’t bothered. And no one she had ever dated had known how to do this—this casual but earnest and confident approach to eating her out.

She had never felt anything as awesomely, amazingly delightful as what Brady was doing to her. She wasn’t even sure she was in her body anymore. It was like she had been reduced to nothing more than her clitoris, her tight nipples, and her aching vagina. Turning her head to the side, she stared at the ridges on the sides of her truck, needing to focus, to concentrate on something as a tightness built inside her. Gripping the sleeping bag with a viselike grip, she panted and moaned and squirmed, trying to back away from him. It was too much, the sensations overwhelming her, the realization of where she was and with who and what incredible things he was doing to her with his tongue and his fingers.

Brady stopped tickling the insides of her thighs with his fingers long enough to grip them firmly, holding her in place. “Stay still,” he commanded. “No squirming.”

It should have embarrassed her, the effect his orders had on her. She immediately stilled, a rush of hot fluid greeting his fingers when he returned with a thumb sinking into her and hooking to stroke her G-spot.

She wasn’t embarrassed at all. She was beyond any care or concern for social boundaries. She knew what she wanted, and it was Brady. And she knew what he wanted, so as she stopped moving, she said, “Yes, sir.”

Her obedience was rewarded with him sucking on her clitoris, his thumb deep inside her, his beard stubble tickling her inner thighs. Everything in her was tight and tense, poised to explode. She wanted to orgasm, knew she was seconds from coming. But some instinct compelled her to ask him for permission. She may not have a ton of experience with men, but she had learned to read people out of necessity. Her gut told her to ask him.

“Can I come?” she asked, struggling to hold herself still, wanting to grab his head and buck her hips. The sweet torture of it all sent another gush of moisture trickling over his tongue. She’d never been this wet for another man.