The Winner Takes It All Read online

  Pure sensation had her belly dipping and pulling tight.

  He stroked her clit. His rhythm a slow tease that made her want to scream.

  She bit his lower lip, scraping her teeth against him as her hips rose to meet his hands.

  “Please,” she whispered, needing more.

  “What do you want?”

  “You,” she said simply.

  He groaned, and his knuckles brushed against her aching flesh as he went for his zipper.

  Yes, oh yes. It was wild and crazy. Not like her at all, but she just didn’t care. She reached for him, desperate to help, because he couldn’t move fast enough.

  And then the kitchen door flew open and someone flicked on the light.

  Chapter Six

  Shane blinked against the brightness, rushing back from all that lust and heat. He zipped his half-open fly and covered Cecilia’s spectacular thighs, his blood still a heavy rush in his ears. He whipped around, standing in front of her to shield her from the intruder.

  An amused James stood there in a rumpled T-shirt and shorts.

  Shane’s hands curled into fists. Shane wanted to take him out. Right here. Right now.

  Behind him, the sound of silk rustled as she slid off the counter.

  Shane wanted to punch someone—namely his brother—but he settled for yelling, “What the fuck do you want?”

  Cecilia stepped out from behind him, her long, lean body wrapped in her robe. She clutched the lapels closed at her throat, but it didn’t do any good. Her hair framed her face in a wild mess of tangles, her lips were swollen and pink, and her cheeks flushed.

  James laughed, ending in a fake cough at Cecilia’s fierce glare. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You didn’t,” Cecilia said, her tone as cool as ever. As though she hadn’t been burning him up a minute ago. “There’s nothing to interrupt.”

  Shane ran a hand through his hair and glowered at his brother. “Would you get the hell out of here?”

  “No, no.” She skirted away, pulling her robe tighter around her like a shield. “I’m leaving. I need to go to . . . um . . . sleep.”

  “Sure, sleep,” James said, unable to hide his shit-eating grin.

  Shane wanted to grab her by the arm and insist she stay put but thought better of it. The moment was gone and he still didn’t know what the hell happened. Had he really been about to bend her over the table? He’d only meant to kiss her, tease her a little bit. He’d thought he’d have to coax a response out of her. Damned if that theory hadn’t been blown straight to hell.

  Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

  She smoothed her hair, refusing to look at his brother. “I was, just . . .” She turned toward the door. “Getting a glass of water.”

  She bumped into the chair, stumbling.

  Shane lunged forward, catching her as she swayed on her feet. “Hey, easy.”

  She yanked away, flushing ten shades of scarlet. “Oops, silly me.”

  Then she practically ran from the room.

  It was the first time he’d ever seen her flustered and he couldn’t deny his amusement, or that he wanted to see her that way a hell of a lot more.

  The door swung closed and he crossed his arms and glared at his brother. “You are a dead man.”

  James grinned, holding up his hands in surrender. “Look, this is not my fault. I mean, hell, when I left you were deep into e-mail. How could I have anticipated this?”

  Disgusted, Shane shook his head.

  He’d been so close.

  If James hadn’t interrupted he’d be inside her right now. Even though it would have been all kinds of wrong, he hadn’t been thinking about consequences. Shit, he hadn’t been thinking about anything other than how spectacular she was under his hands and the lust pounding fast in his blood.

  James leaned against the wall. “So, you and Cecilia? That’s . . . different.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Shane ran a hand through his hair. Truth be told, he was a little flustered himself.

  James laughed. “She didn’t look too icy from where I stood.”

  “Would you just shut the hell up?” Shane walked over to his laptop and scooped it from the table. “I’m going to bed.”

  His brother grinned. “Good luck with that.”

  “Not one word.” Shane’s tone was pure steel. The last thing he needed in this house full of people was everyone talking about him and Cecilia. “Or you’ll regret it.”

  “I’m real scared,” James said, clearly not intimidated at all.

  Shane figured it was only fair to turn the tables. After all he was going to bed with blue balls because of his brother’s not-so-timely interruption.

  Although sex on the kitchen counter, where anyone could wander in, hadn’t been his brightest move. He was lucky it had been James. Who was discreet and wouldn’t tell anyone.

  Not that Shane didn’t intend to make his point, to be on the safe side. “I know a woman with some cupcakes, who could make your life a living hell.”

  The amusement died a quick, sudden death as James straightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  It was Shane’s turn to smile. “It means what you walked into isn’t the only interesting thing going on here.”

  James strolled across the kitchen to the cabinet that held the glasses. “Weren’t you off to bed?”

  “Yep.” Point made, Shane went to his room.

  Fifteen minutes later he hadn’t done anything but stare at his open e-mail. He flipped the cover of his laptop closed, tossed it on the nightstand, and turned off the light.

  He was still hard. Still aching. Unable to get the way she’d responded out of his head. How had Cecilia, the most reserved woman on the planet, ended up as one of the most explosive sexual encounters he’d ever had?

  And they hadn’t even had sex.

  He scrubbed a palm over his face. Jesus, he was going to be up all night. He picked up his cell phone and was surprised to find a text message from Cecilia waiting for him. He swiped his thumb across the screen and grinned.

  That was a mistake. Let’s not mention it again.

  Into the darkness, he smirked. She had to know he wasn’t going to agree. Which meant she was so flustered she wasn’t thinking it through. The normal Cecilia response would be to ignore him completely until he pushed the issue. He typed out, You’re mine. It’s merely a question of when.

  His cock was like granite. He fisted it, hoping to quell the ache but it only made him hotter.

  His phone cheeped. It’s not going to happen. It was a MISTAKE.

  He remembered how much she’d liked it when he’d talked dirty to her. That little surprise had been the tipping point that made him lose complete control of the situation. The only mistake was being interrupted before I made you come.

  A full minute passed, and just when he’d given up, she responded, Please don’t talk like that.

  In his mind, he read the text as a plea.

  Fuck it. He hit the number at the top of the message bar. It rang a half ring before she picked it up and hissed, “What is wrong with you? I’m right down the hall and you’re calling me?”

  He chuckled. “Fine, I’ll come to your room.”

  “Don’t you dare!” she shrilled. “This needs to stop, right now before it goes any further. I apologize for my behavior, I don’t know what came over me, but it won’t happen again.”

  Okay then, she was on the move. Which he’d expected and he liked a good chase. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes!” She sounded sure enough, but he didn’t buy it.

  Not when it’d been so damn hot. “Just so I’m clear. You don’t want me to kiss you again?”

  “No.” Her tone lost some of its frantic tension.

  “Or touch you?” He lowered his voice into something dark and intimate.

  A rustle of fabric over the line. “Yes, that’s right.”

  He imagined her lying in bed, staring at the darkened ceil
ing a few feet away. It would be so easy to go to her. They were both so on edge, one kiss and they’d be back to where they started. But he decided on patience. “Or bite and lick your nipples.”

  And teasing.

  She squeaked, and another noise he couldn’t distinguish came over the line. “Exactly. Because it was a mistake.”

  There wasn’t an ounce of conviction in her tone.

  “So I shouldn’t think about how you’d taste, how your clit would feel under my tongue?”

  “I think that would be best,” she said, her voice soft and breathless now. “Please stop.”

  “Maybe that would be easier if I’d felt you come.” He was so hard he hurt.

  “Not going to happen. Ever.”

  He stroked his cock. “Are you going to touch yourself?”

  She gasped. “That is not the point.”

  “You didn’t say no,” he pointed out, tightening his hold on his shaft. “You know what I think?”

  “I don’t care,” she said, her words strained.

  “I think you’re a liar.” He slowed his pace to leisurely. “I think you’re squeezing your thighs together right now. I think you’re wet and ready and you’re not going to have any fucking choice in the matter.”

  There was a long, long pause where nothing but the sounds of their shallow, too-fast breathing filled the line.

  “You’re wrong.”

  He laughed. “Sure, I am.”

  “You are.”

  “All right,” he said, knowing not arguing with her would infuriate her all the more.

  “Thank you!” she snapped, clearly getting agitated again. “Now can we just agree this is a mistake and move on?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  She let out a strangled scream that had him grinning into the darkness.

  “Oh, and for the record,” he said, his grasp turning tight and demanding so she’d be damn sure to hear he wasn’t lying. “I’m going to lie here, stroke my cock, and think of all the things I’m going to do to you. All the ways I’m going to talk dirty to you until you’re out of your mind and willing to do whatever I want.”

  “Stop this.” The words needy instead of forceful, the way he was sure she’d intended.

  “Not going to happen, babe,” he said, his mind already concocting a thousand scenarios.

  “I hate you,” she said, her voice all liquid heat.

  He laughed. “Goodnight, Cecilia.”

  Cecilia made her way down the stairs and toward the kitchen with her head held high.

  Shane would not know what she’d done last night. He had no proof of anything. He’d never know he’d been right about his little late-night phone call.

  She’d tried so hard but had been unable to resist.

  It wasn’t her fault. It was his.

  That voice. The way he talked. All the craziness in the kitchen. Knowing what he was doing down the hall.

  She’d had no other choice.

  She’d made it a whole twenty minutes. The covers pulled up to her chin, she’d recited the order of the presidents in her head, hoping against hope that picturing George Washington or Andrew Jackson would dull the heat between her legs.

  When that failed miserably, the rationalizations began.

  The whispers that promised he’d never know. He could suspect, but he couldn’t prove anything.

  She was an expert at masking her expressions. She’d never give herself away.

  In the end, she’d caved. Forced to give herself an orgasm—not because she felt like it, or needed the tension relief—but because she’d been so turned on her skin had felt like it was on fire.

  Every move she’d made, every press of her thighs, was excruciating. When she’d broken down, it had taken all of thirty seconds. The climax was so explosive she’d had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. It hadn’t been enough. She’d come again, ridiculously fast. Then, embarrassingly, again. In the aftermath, as she’d lain panting for breath, damp with sweat, still filled with an unquenchable wanton heat, her first conscious thought had been that he’d know what she’d done. How crazy she’d been. How abandoned.

  Even though that was impossible.

  Now, in the light of day, she had to face him and reveal nothing. She took a deep breath.

  Easy peasy.

  She was bound and determined to get this situation under control and her mind back where it belonged—on her campaign.

  She’d dressed carefully in a pair of tan cotton slacks and a white three-quarter-sleeve top. No one would think of sex dressed in white and beige. With her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail and light makeup she could pass for a librarian. Nothing about her carefully constructed appearance would suggest her lascivious actions.

  Now she’d get through seeing Shane and pretend nothing ever happened.

  Head held high, she walked into a kitchen filled with chaos. The radio was blaring “Let the Good Times Roll.” The air was filled with the smell of butter and syrup as Maddie flipped pancakes at her new industrial stove. Mitch grabbed a stack of plates out of the cabinet while her mom sat at the table sipping coffee, flipping through a magazine and tapping her foot to the beat. James read something on an iPad, seeming oblivious to the commotion.

  It was a full house.

  And there was no Shane.

  Cecilia didn’t know if she was relieved or wanted to kick something. She’d been all prepared, worked herself up to face him, but instead everyone else in the house was there but him.

  Spatula in hand, Maddie swung around. “Morning. Did you sleep well?”

  Everyone in the room turned to look at her, and she put a polite smile on her face, willing her cheeks not to heat. “Great.”

  Mitch handed her a cup of coffee. “Black, right?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she yelled over the sound of the music.

  Maddie lowered the volume to mere background noise.

  Awkward in a room full of people who were all comfortable with each other, she said, “Can I do anything to help?”

  Maddie took three pancakes off the griddle and then grabbed a pitcher. “Would you mind running over to Gracie’s house and getting some of that homemade blueberry syrup she has? I already called her. I have the worst craving for it.”

  Mitch squinted at her flat belly. “Craving, huh?”

  She slapped him on the arm. “Bite your tongue!”

  Charlotte glanced from the magazine, a frown on her face. “Please don’t tell me you don’t want children.”

  Cecilia blinked, shocked that her mother would ask such a blunt question.

  “Mom,” Mitch said. “That’s not appropriate.”

  Charlotte raised one brow, managing to look regal. “And is it appropriate to tease an old woman about grandchildren she may never have?”

  Irrationally, Cecilia was irritated Charlotte assumed she didn’t want kids. Unfair, considering Cecilia had never given her mother any indication that she was interested in anything but her career, but it still irked her.

  She was used to being the good one. And she begrudgingly admitted she was jealous. Petty, yes, but true.

  Maddie laughed and waved a hand in the air. “No, we want kids, but not now. We’re not even married yet.”

  “Soon, I hope,” Charlotte said, her tone chastising but her expression amused. “Mitchell is thirty-four now.”

  “I’ll knock her up soon enough,” Mitch said.

  “Don’t be so crude,” Charlotte said.

  “You started it,” Mitch pointed out, his voice filled with an easy affection that made Cecilia’s stomach tighten.

  They were family now. Comfortable with each other in a way lost to her.

  The domestic tranquility wore on her already frazzled nerves and, thankful for the escape, she grabbed the small glass pitcher from Maddie. “I’ll be happy to get the syrup.”

  Maddie beamed, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove. “Thanks. What are your plans for the day?”

  �
�I’m not sure yet,” Cecilia said, knowing she should work on her campaign plans, but the thought made her stomach turn to lead. The idea of sitting in that bedroom, all by herself, poring over her laptop, sounded like one of Dante’s seven circles of hell.

  Right now, watching paint dry sounded more appealing.

  Which was odd. Normally she was a workaholic. She’d been looking forward to the free time so she could work on her plans, so why was she resistant?

  Maybe because every time she thought about running, her mind became a blank slate. She knew what she needed to do, she’d done it a thousand times before for her father, but when it came to her own vision—nothing.

  She shook her head. All she needed was a break. She’d worked almost nonstop for the past couple of months—maybe she’d finally hit a wall.

  Yes, that must be it.

  Because she definitely wanted to run for office. She needed to pursue her dream.

  It was just that the article had upset her more than she’d anticipated. Once she got over that, made peace with the choice she was making, she’d be fine. Her motivation would come roaring back and her vision would become clear.

  Maddie nodded. “Your mom and I are going to the outlet mall if you want to come.”

  The outlet mall? The shock had her forgetting her campaign worries. When had her mother started shopping at outlet malls? “Sure, that sounds like fun.”

  “We won’t be too long,” Maddie said. “We have our final fitting at two.”

  “We know,” James said from his spot at the table. “You’ve told us all a million times.”

  Cecilia smiled and risked a peek at James.

  Their eyes met, and heat rose to her cheeks. She glanced quickly away.

  Maddie’s head cocked as though scenting something on the air. She stopped and looked back and forth between James and Cecilia, then shrugged.

  Cecilia cleared her throat. “Let me get that syrup.”

  She grabbed the pitcher and walked out of the chaos and down the hallway, the sounds from the kitchen growing distant. When she passed the office, opened up by glass French doors, she heard a laugh.

  Her stomach dropped.