Sisters in White (Love in Bloom: Snow Sisters #3) Contemporary Romance (7 page)

The night sky was clear, but Danica felt the angst of the evening weighing her down like a wet, woolen shawl. She was torn between remaining with her sisters, Chaz, and Blake, sitting around a picnic-style table on the patio of a little bar down the street from the hotel, and returning to the hotel to make sure her father was okay.
The hell with it
. She downed another tropical drink.

An hour later, and three sheets to the wind, she looked across the table as the ocean breeze kicked up and blew both Lacy’s and Kaylie’s hair across their faces. They laughed at something Chaz said, and Kaylie reached up and moved the hair from Lacy’s cheek. Danica realized that there was no place else she’d rather be, even if she wasn’t really sure what was going on. Her sister had all but abducted Lacy.

She sighed as she took another sip of her drink. Even if she had invited him to the wedding, her father had made his own bed years ago.
Let him lie in it, swallowed by guilt and strangled by the knowledge that he hurt us. He didn’t ruin us—not
any of us
.

“I’m telling you, you didn’t do it. He did,” Kaylie said.

Uh-oh, maybe he did.

“No. No, no, no.” Lacy swayed from too much alcohol. “I was a mistake. If I hadn’t come along, then who knows? Your parents might still be together.”

Kaylie put her arm around Lacy’s shoulder. “Honey, you were a product of what fucked up our life. You are not what fucked it up.”

“Awww,” Lacy said, resting her forehead against Kaylie’s cheek.

“Even if you hadn’t been born, they’d still have been together.” Kaylie gulped down the remainder of her drink. “Behind my mother’s back.” She threw her head back and took another swig, dribbling it down her chin. “And we were so stupid. We thought he was on business trips, ’cause he’d bring us chocolate and shit.” She lifted her glass in Danica’s direction. “Remember that? Ghirardelli? Oh yeah, like he’d been to San Francisco. Right. Fuckin’ San Francisco.” She didn’t wait for Danica to answer. Kaylie slammed her glass down on the table. “They fucked us all up. Every one of us.” Kaylie drew a circle in the air with her glass, spilling her drink on the table with a giggle.

“Fuckers,” Lacy spat, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my gosh. I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t talk like that.”

They didn’t fuck us up. We’re just fine, or at least we will be.

Blake and Chaz looked on with amusement, and Danica’s attention turned to her man. She was compelled to drink more—to drink in every inch of him. His mouth moved slowly, sexily, as he said something to Chaz that Danica could not make out. She caught Blake’s eye and licked her lips seductively. Or at least she thought she did. The right side of his mouth lifted into a playful smile. She dunked her finger in her drink and then sucked the sweet nectar from her skin.

Kaylie’s voice broke through her drunken reverie. “It’s them. They make you use that foul, disgusting language. They made me, too. Right, Danica?”

Danica blinked, coming back to the present.
Oh God, what did I just do?
Why is Blake looking at me like a starved wolf?
Did Kaylie just call me foul and disgusting?
She tried to shake the alcohol from her head.

“Right, Danica? It was them who made us use that foul, disgusting language. They fucked us up.”

Oh, thank God
. She lifted her glass. “Damn right, sis,” she said, and eyed Blake, who still had that hungry look in his eyes. Danica put her drink down and felt a cool breeze across her wet finger. She closed her eyes.
Oh, Danica. You didn’t
. She opened her eyes and looked at Blake. He licked his lips and his socked foot found her leg beneath the table.
Oh, yes, I did
.

They stumbled back to their rooms on the arms of their men, Lacy’s arms linked between Danica’s and Kaylie’s. It was well past two o’clock in the morning, and Danica’s head swam. She had to be up to meet her mother, Camille, and the rest of their guests at—she couldn’t remember what time the next day.

Suddenly they stopped in middle of the hall. “This is me,” Lacy said, dropping the girls’ arms and pointing to a door.

“No, honey, you’re not a door.” Kaylie bent over, laughing, taking Lacy with her. “A door! You’re not a door; you’re my sister.”

The hallway silenced, and all eyes focused on Kaylie as she chewed on her own words. Her jaw moving from side to side, her eyebrows drawing together, then relaxing again. She pulled herself upright and put one hand on Lacy’s shoulder. Danica wanted to move to Lacy’s side, but her legs would not obey. Thank God for Blake, who seemed to be the only thing holding her upright at the moment.

“You’re not a door,” Kaylie repeated. “You’re my sister.”

Tears streamed silently down Lacy’s cheeks. She wiped them away and dropped her eyes. “You might not feel that way tomorrow,” she said in what sounded to Danica to be a much-too-sober voice for having had as much to drink as they had.

Kaylie flung her hand around Lacy and tugged her against her chest. “I shall remember, sis.” Her eyes connected with Danica’s, passing a silent acknowledgment between them. “I shall remember.”

Danica collapsed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Please tell me I did not just dream that.”

Blake lay next to her, the liquor-sweet smell of his breath infiltrating Danica’s senses. “Tell me I did not just dream this.” He took her finger and put it in his mouth, then sucked it as he drew it out slowly.

“I kinda remember something along those lines,” she admitted. “I think you’re making me into a sex maniac.”

“Maybe you dreamed that you want to be a sex maniac.” Blake slid off the bed and pulled his shirt off over his head, flinging it across the room.

Danica licked her lips at the sight of his naked chest.

He removed her shoes, running his hands along her legs and up her inner thighs. “I seem to remember a certain someone falling off her too-high heels one night.”

Danica smiled at the memory of one evening shortly after they’d first met. She was stone-cold drunk when they’d left Bar None, he with a girl on each arm, her alone. Danica had fallen off of her high heels and twisted her ankle. Blake appeared out of nowhere, without his two beautiful blondes, sweetly removed her heels and inspected her ankle, and they’d shared a steamy, flirtatious moment. She’d wanted it to be so much more.

“I see you remember that night, too,” he said, kissing each of her toes and working his way up her left calf. “What do you say we play out what might have happened that night had we not been...”

Danica had closed her eyes when he was kissing her leg, and now she opened one eye and looked down at him. The hunger in his eyes pulled open her other eye. “What? Not been what?”

“Trying to restrain ourselves,” he said innocently.

She looked up at the ceiling, remembering that evening and the pull that she felt toward him, which had grown ten times stronger in the weeks that followed. Now, as every fiber of her being ached with desire, that pull was even stronger. She patted the bed beside her, and Blake lay down, resting on his elbow, looking down into her eyes. She touched the bare flesh of his belly. A shiver ran through her and she mimicked his position, hoisting herself up on one elbow, the room spinning around them. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the room stilled, and Blake inched even closer. His black boxer briefs barely contained his desire.

“You were not wearing those that night. You had on clothes,” she said.

“Indeed I did.” He gathered her skirt in his hands and brought it up around her waist. “What have we here?” He ran a finger under the lacy string of her thong.

Danica fell on her back and pulled her arm over her eyes with a groan. “I wore those so I wouldn’t feel unattractive sitting with my insanely beautiful sisters,” she said, only half joking.

He moved her arm from her face so she had no choice but to look at him. “Do you seriously think they even compare to you?”

“
Pfft.
Yeah, right.” She pulled her arm back, but he pushed it away again and turned her face toward his.

In his most serious voice, which to Danica sounded gruff and wildly sexy, he said, “I have yet to meet a woman who could hold a candle to not only your exquisite beauty, but your honesty.” He kissed her cheek. “Your intelligence.” He kissed her forehead. “Your laugh.” Another warm kiss landed on her nose. “Your sense of responsibility.” His lips met her other cheek. “Or your passion.” He took her chin in his hand and turned her face toward his as she leaned up and met him in a long, deep, heart-thrilling kiss.

“Or my childlike need for compliments?” She laughed, pushing him onto his back and straddling his body. Blake was almost always the dominant one in their lovemaking, and this new position sent a rush of control through her. She whipped off her shirt and tossed it aside, then wrapped her hands in his hair and leaned forward, her hair curtaining their faces. “Tell me,” she said in a throaty voice she did not recognize.

“Oh, you want to play, do you?” He grabbed her upper arms. Tight. And began to lift her off his body.

She felt so light in his arms, and her drunken state slowed her reactions.

“Uh-huh.” Somehow she managed to wiggle free from his grasp and trap his arms beneath her knees. “I do want to play.” So this is what men like? Having control made her feel stronger, riskier.
Yes, I want to play! I do!

“Careful now,” he said as she dug her knees into his arms.

“Tell me,” she repeated.

Blake closed his eyes. “Kiss me.”

“Uh-uh.” She gently pushed his eyelids up. “Look at me.” Once she had his attention, she asked, “Where?”

He licked his lips, and it took all her restraint not to lean down and taste his wicked little tongue, which had brought her so much pleasure. But tonight was about control—or at least it seemed to be a good ride at the moment—and her inhibitions had yet to arrive, so she was taking full advantage of this loose, unrestrained Danica that had taken over.

He lowered his eyes toward his groin.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,” she teased.

“Kiss my...lips.”

Chicken
. “Not so easy on the flip side, now, is it?” She leaned down and kissed him hard, taking his lower lip between her teeth on the way back up. Feeling him swell beneath her.

“Tell me.” She took his finger in her mouth and ran her tongue in circles around it, then drew it out slowly. When he didn’t answer, she repeated it again, only this time, she closed her eyes and moaned as she licked the salty taste from his skin.

“Touch me,” he whispered. “There. Touch me there.”

With one hand she unhooked her bra and tossed it aside, lowering her chest so her breasts were just out of reach of his mouth. He arched toward her, and she used her hand to caress his forehead, then locked his head down beneath her palm.

“Where?” she whispered.

“Touch yourself,” he said.

Danica blinked. Then blinked again. Was that fair? Could he do that? She was in control, wasn’t she? She never had him touch himself.
No, definitely not fair at all
, she decided.

“In your dreams.” She held up one finger and then slid down his body and removed his briefs. He began to sit up, and she scrambled back on top of him, regaining control with a sly smile. With one hand, she held his shoulder down, while she used the other to remove her thong. Now wearing just her skirt, she took his hand in hers and ran her tongue along his palm, up, down, then up again, taking two of his fingers into her mouth and then drawing them out slowly.

“Touch yourself,” she whispered, sliding sideways, allowing him access to do as she asked. Danica bit her lower lip in response to the shocked look in his eyes. The alcohol fueled her actions as she took his hand, which had stopped midair after she took it from between her lips, and she wrapped his fingers around his hard shaft.

“Danica,” he pleaded.

She shook her head, feeling naughtier than she ever had before—and liking it. “Do it,” she said.

His hand moved up and down, his head fell back, and his eyes fluttered closed. Danica kissed him until his strokes grew harder, faster, and he moaned into her mouth. She pulled away, watching him touch himself.