Bar Bites: A Man of the Month Cookbook (Man of the Month 13)

"Tonight, I want to come with you," he said, and even as he spoke, he pulled the cord to release the two slipknots binding her wrists. Then he did the same with her ankles.

"Hurry," she whispered, but she needn't have urged him. He was on top of her almost immediately, their mouths rough and hot together. A primal meeting, with legs twining, hands grasping, fingernails scraping.

He pulled back once, breathing hard, his eyes on fire. "I love you," he said, and the words shot through her, full of passion and power.

"I love you, too. Please, Nolan. I need you now."

"Over." He spoke the word even as he twisted her, urging her onto her hands and knees. "I can't go slow."

"No--God, no."

His hands were on her hips, his cock at her core. "Touch yourself," he demanded. "And touch me."

She did, one hand teasing her clit, her hand positioned so that she could stroke his velvet-hard cock as he pounded into her, filling her. Claiming her. "That's it, baby," he said. "That's it. Now come with me." She could feel how close he was, and when he leaned over her and one hand pinched her nipple, she felt her core spasm around him, heightened when he slipped the finger of his other hand inside her. She was close, too, so close she just needed a little more and then--Oh, God, yes.

He'd moved his hand from her pussy to her ass, the slick fingertip sliding in just to a knuckle, and the unfamiliar pressure had pushed her over the edge. She came violently. Deliciously. Her body pumping him, emptying him. Wanting every bit of him, taking everything he gave until, spent, her muscles could no longer support her and she fell onto the bed with Nolan beside her, their legs twined, their faces so close that they were breathing the same air.

"I think you've destroyed me." Shelby stretched, feeling deliciously used. "In the best possible way."

"Good," he said, lazily drawing circles on her bare skin. "Then you're primed for what comes next."

"Next?" She pretended to groan. "Any more and you might have to bring me back from the dead."

He didn't answer. Not at first, anyway. But then he cleared his throat, and he actually sounded nervous.

She shifted so that she could prop herself up on an elbow, but his fingertip moved to her breast, making her close her eyes and bite her lip.

"I talked to your dad--"

Her eyes flew open as she accidentally bit down too hard on her lip, drawing blood. "What?"

"I just--I know I'm not the guy your father wants for you--"

"Dammit, Nolan." She shoved herself up onto her elbows. "You know that doesn't matter to me. We talked--"

"Hush," he said, pressing a finger to her lip. "I believe that it doesn't matter to you. But it matters to me. He doesn't have to love me. He damn sure doesn't have to like what I do for a living. But he needs to know that I love you."

"I--Oh. What did you do?"

His wide smile reminded her of Tom Cruise's cocky grin in that classic movie, Risky Business. "I told him."

"Oh. And he was--"

"And I told him something else, too."

"Yeah? What?"

He slid off the bed, then grabbed something from behind one of the candles on the bedside table. She sat up, both because she was confused and because she wanted to see him better. "I told him that I was going to ask you to marry me."

Her breath left her in a whoosh, and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest.

He held up a ring, the diamond sparkling in the fake candlelight. "Shelby Drake, I love you more than I ever thought possible. Will you be my wife?"

She nodded, because she couldn't seem to remember how to form words, and it took a while to finally fumble out even a single word. "Yes," she said, sliding off the bed and dropping to her knees in front of him as he slid the ring on her finger. "Of course, yes."

And then, dammit, she burst into tears.

Joy was leaping through Nolan with such intensity that it took a second to process that her tears weren't of the normal newly-engaged variety.