Chapter Four
BRADY MIGHT HAVE STOPPED TO CONTEMPLATE THIS rather unusual turn of events in his evening if he could remember how to think. At the moment, he seemed to have forgotten how. The second Piper dropped her robe he’d momentarily gone blind, followed by mute, capped off with paralysis.
Then every nerve in his body had fired up at once like a pottery kiln.
It started in his cock, like a blast of pure energy that rushed out to every limb, so that he ached and burned and his skin felt like it was melting. His mouth went hot. His hand twitched. Piper in damp shorts and a clinging tank top had been noteworthy. Arousing. Intriguing. Piper naked was awe-inspiring. She stood there just inside the doorway, chest rising up and down rapidly, a pink bloom in her cheeks, eyes wide with what he suspected was a little bit of shock at what she had just done, and Brady could honestly say that in all his doggish days of doing women he’d never seen one quite as beautiful.
Her body was perfect. It was lush, with full br**sts, dusky ni**les, and womanly hips. Her waist nipped in, and her arms were natural, not beaten into muscular submission by thousands of hours at the gym. She looked soft and ripe and delicious, like a strawberry straight off the vine. If there had ever been a possibility that he would refrain from touching her, the sight of her naked was a game changer. Not the least of which was the way she looked at him, so guileless, so honest. So sweet.
When her tongue peeked out to nervously lick her lip, he finally found the ability to do something other than stand there and gape.
Before he could come to his senses, before she could change her mind, he had her by the hand and was dragging her farther back into Shelby and Boston’s bedroom, aware of two needs—to remove her naked body from the open doorway where they could be busted by small children at any given moment, and to place that same naked body on the largest vertical surface available so he could bang her brains out as soon as possible.
He paused in dragging her to close the door as quietly as he could under the urgent circumstances and lock it. Then he brought her head to his and did what he had been fixating on for the last two hours.
Brady kissed little Piper Tucker. Only she wasn’t little anymore. She was a full-grown woman with br**sts worth fighting a war for, and as they pressed up against his bare chest, her lips softly parting for his, Brady groaned. He had never stood a chance. Wily women, he could spar with and dodge. Charming flirts, he could bait and tease.
A woman who bared herself before him and then kissed with the artless tenderness of Piper was not something he could resist. Her hands tentatively trailed up his arms to rest on his biceps while her hair hung between them in a heavy curtain. She smelled like damp rain and peaches. What women smelled like peaches? A farm girl, that was who. One who had spent so much of her life outside that it was woven into the fabric of her skin. That the Tuckers probably didn’t grow peaches and they were out of season was totally irrelevant to Brady at the moment. He was just enjoying the light scent, an odd sense of homecoming working its way inside him. This was a hell of a welcome back.
Unable to resist, he cupped her full breast while he kissed her again and again, enjoying the reaction she gave him. When his finger brushed over her nipple she gave a little gasp, right into his mouth, their breath intermingling in a simple and base eroticism that shocked him in its intensity. They were making out, plain and simple, with the frantic need of teenagers, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he had done that. He kissed to initiate seduction. A few well-placed darts with the tongue before he moved on to greener pastures down south on a woman, giving her a requisite orgasm with his mouth before he could slide in and stroke himself to satisfaction.
It had been years since he’d done this, a kiss just for a kiss. Just because it felt wonderful to feel his mouth on a woman’s, to have her fingers pluck restlessly at his chest, her hip press against his c**k with more desperation than calculation. She waited for him to direct, kept her hands away from his erection or his ass, and the desire he felt to have her grope him surprised him. At the same time, he liked her passivity, the way she let him take the lead. It made him feel manly, alpha, aggressive.
The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he shifted, reaching his arm down under the perkiness of her backside and lifting her up into his arms.
“Oh!” she said, startled as he swept her off her feet.
Hell, she couldn’t be any more shocked than him. He didn’t think he’d ever pulled this particular move. But carrying Piper to bed seemed to make sense and he was caught up in the moment, damn it. Might as well go all the way with it. The moonlight was streaming in the window, the rain softly pelting the glass as he strode across the room with her warm, naked body in his arms. If there was a split second of hesitation when he placed her on his cousin’s bed, it didn’t last long enough to be of any consequence. Shelby wasn’t going to find out, and as far as Brady was concerned at the moment, the only female who even existed was Piper.
She was looking up at him with naked desire, her fingers pulling her lustrous hair out from behind her back so it wouldn’t tug. It spread out on either side of her, a wavy thick border to her luscious br**sts and flesh. He couldn’t say that her hair was any particular color. It was more a fascinating collage of browns and goldenrods, ranging from espresso to toffee to wheat, all overlaying one another. At the top of her head, it was straight, then as it descended to her temples, it began to wave, and by the time it reached her chin, it corkscrewed on down past her br**sts.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, knowing it was stupid and trite, but sincerely meaning it. She was all things pink and soft and feminine.
He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe protest. Blush. But she didn’t. She said, with a sincere politeness he hadn’t heard in a long time, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Whether that was for the compliment or the fact that he had taken her to bed, he wasn’t entirely sure. He just knew that while Piper may have been letting him take the lead, she was directing him more than she knew. He bent over and kissed her softly, running his hand over her shoulder, down her arm, watching the goose bumps rise on her skin. This would be when he normally took a woman’s thighs in his hands, spread her, and worked her clitoris with his tongue until she came. Some came with hard bursts, arching and clawing, others with tight control. But all loosened and dampened so he could push inside and take his pleasure, sometimes after a nice, long c**k sucking, depending on the woman.