Marly's Choice (Men of August 1)

“Yes,” he groaned. “Your worst nightmare. Go back to sleep so you can wake up and make everything normal again.”

“Come kiss me again so I know it’s not a dream.” She smiled at him, slow and soft, dreamy with her emerging sensuality.

Marly knew now the power she held over him. He clenched his fists as he fought her request.

“Go back to sleep.” He tried to smile back at her. “Maybe I’ll kiss you goodnight when you go to bed.”

“I’m ready to go to bed, then,” she whispered with innocent seduction. “Tuck me in, Cade.”

The flesh between his thighs hardened, nearly bursting from his jeans as her husky voice tore through his body.

“Marly,” his voice was soft, the protest lacking strength.

“You could just let me sleep with you and keep me warm. You know how cold I get at night.” Her legs shifted, the shirt riding marginally higher from the movement.

He had slept with her one night, right before she went off to college. That night was seared into his brain, as was his father’s words when he found Cade there the next morning. It had been innocent. She had been depressed over leaving home, crying. He had only tried to comfort her. But the hand wrapped around her breast, beneath the material of yet another of his shirts hadn’t been. Neither had the hard-on beneath his sweat pants been in any way innocent. That event had begun his downfall, and Marly wasn’t even aware of it. That he knew.

Cade breathed out roughly. He wouldn’t survive a night with her in his arms now. He knew it, and it terrified him. He watched as her hand pressed against her stomach, and he wondered if the ache in his gut was echoed in hers.

“Sweet Jesus,” he moaned, closing his eyes and shaking his head at the suddenly erotic pictures flashing through his mind. He would burn in hell for this. Surely as anything, he would.

The knock at the study door had him jumping with a guilty start. His gaze flashed to her as she hastily jerked the blanket over her body, her face flushing in embarrassment. Shaking his head he watched as the door inched opened, wondering if her thoughts had somehow mirrored his. Praying not, because if she actually did it, he knew his heart would explode.

“Cade. Got a minute?” Sam was standing in the doorway, his bruised face unusually serious.

Hell, he was going to have to stand up.

“Yeah, a few.” He stood, thankful that he had pulled the tails of his shirt from the waistband of his pants earlier. There would have been no way to hide his arousal if he hadn’t.

Marly swallowed tightly as Cade left the room, closing the door behind him. Her body was pulsing beneath the blanket, shivering with the look in Cade’s eyes. She had never seen anything so hot, so achingly possessive and wanting as that look. As he watched her fingers move lightly over the silk of her stomach, she had seen his needs, his desires. She closed her eyes. She knew what he wanted. She knew he would have never been able to resist her if she had.

Regret filled her as her fingers stilled on her stomach, the blanket lying at her hips. She had been tempted, but terrified. She cursed her own immaturity and lack of experience. Other women would know how to entice him, how to give him what he wanted without being hesitant or frightened.

Cade was a very sexual man. She had heard that when she was as young as fourteen. He had been a young man, but even then, careful to keep his women away from Marly. But that hadn’t kept her from hearing the rumors. It hadn’t stopped the women he bedded from whispering the tales they heard. How he could go all night. His touch slow and sure, his kisses hot and wild, his hands bold and his desires as carnal as original sin. She had hated the rumors, jealousy eating her up inside, but she had listened. She had listened and fought to understand what they meant. She had known, even then, that she loved Cade and that one day she would have to know the needs of the man, as well as the friend.

Could she do it, she wondered? Could she tease and tempt him as those other women had done? Did the older Cade still enjoy the sights and sounds that the younger Cade had, from his women?

“That look on your face is killing me.” His voice was raw and husky, and when she opened her eyes, his gaze was a liquid flame centered on her hand and the fingers still rubbing over the silk softly.

He was standing beside the couch, his dark face flushed, his eyes glittering and centered longingly on that hand.

“What look?” Marly couldn’t breathe. She felt too warm, too excited. She needed his touch too damned much to wait any longer.

“Marly,” he whispered warningly. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Marly licked her lips.

“When I was sixteen, Kari Black told me about that little fling you had with her sister,” she said softly.

Cade’s eyes widened in shock.

“Sisters talk. I was so mad at you, Cade. Remember? I wouldn’t speak to you until you quit seeing her.”

“I remember.” His tone was guttural.

“Her sister told her all kinds of things Cade, and I listened. I hated it, but I listened, because I wanted to know how to please you. How to make you need me so badly you couldn’t resist me.”

“No,” he whispered weakly, his eyes greedy, transfixed as her fingers went to the buttons of her silk shirt.