Page 59 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

With a growl, I dropped my forehead to hers, sweat coating my skin as I slammed into her luscious body over and over again. She had the power to undo me with just a look, a handful of words. It never failed.

“And this is why you hold all the power,” I ground out, that tingle starting at the base of my spine. I felt my balls draw up, my own release just a few thrusts away. “Because I’ll never get enough of you, Layla. Not fucking ever.”

I slammed my lips down on hers just as her walls clamped down on my cock, squeezing it in a vice grip as she went off again, swallowing the sexy noises she made as she came for me. Three brutal, driving thrusts later, I followed her over the edge, pouring my cum into the condom and my grunts and shouts down her throat.

Somehow, impossible as it was, every time with her was even better than the last. And what she didn’t know, what I couldn’t tell her since I’d agreed to take this thing slow, was that I was already on the downward slide of falling chin deep in love.

26

Layla

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can help with?”

It just didn’t feel right, sitting at Jude’s island, doing a whole lot of nothing while he stood at the stove, making me a huge breakfast.

“Positive, princess,” he said, looking up from the skillet where he’d just laid out four strips of bacon and shot me a wink that made my core flutter. How that was possible after the sex we’d just had, I had no clue, but there you had it. Jude Kingsley was a freaking God among men. “I got this. You just relax.” Using the fork in his hand, he pointed at the coffee mug sitting on the granite right beside my elbow. “Need a refill?”

I hopped off the stool I’d been sitting on before he could grab my mug and pour me another cup. “I got it. You need a top off while I’m at it?”

He slid his mug toward the edge of the island as I rounded it. “Appreciate it.”

I went about pouring us each a second cup of coffee before going into the fridge to pull out the milk to add to mine. When I turned back around, I saw Jude’s gaze was zeroed in on my bare legs. When his eyes lifted up to mine, I could see the hunger was back, making my skin heat and arousal pool between my thighs all over again.

“Knock it off,” I snapped, pointing my finger at his face while giving him a playful glare. “I know what that look means. That look means you’re two seconds from stripping me naked and banging me into your kitchen floor.”

He shrugged like he didn’t give a single damn he’d just been caught. “Can’t help it. You look fucking phenomenal walking around my kitchen in my shirt.”

I looked down at the plain gray tee he’d insisted I wear. It had been washed about a million times, so the cotton was as soft and downy as kitten fur against my skin. “Still. Get a hold of yourself, man. If you don’t, you’ll burn breakfast and have to start all over, and I’m really hungry. I’m also really sore. In averygood way, mind you, but that will go from good sore to bad sore if you don’t give me some recovery time. So put a leash on that predatory sex drive of yours, you animal.”

His eyes went wide, his brows climbing up his forehead. “Pretty sure the scratch marks on my back prove I’m not the animal here.”

I felt heat hit my cheeks and knew they were probably glowing red. I gave him a seductive smile, feeling my eyelids droop at the memory of what we’d just done in his bedroom not long ago. “Don’t act like you didn’t like it,” I teased.

He reached out and grabbed the front of my—his—shirt and yanked me to him. With a small growl, he leaned in and hit me with a kiss that nearly made my knees weak. “Fucking love it, princess. But you need to get back around that island and park it on the stool so I can’t see those sexy legs. You’re the best kind of distraction.”

Those flutters returned at that compliment, only this time, they were in my chest. I loved being a distraction for him, but at that moment, food took precedence over my desire to scale him like he was Kilimanjro, so I did as he instructed, placing his mug within reaching distance before returning to my stool.

I gave myself a few minutes to watch him work. With the bacon perfectly crisp, he transferred it over to a plate covered with a paper towel to soak up the grease and proceeded to crack a few eggs into the same skillet. The show he put on, the muscles in his forearms flexing and working beneath his skin as he twisted the salt and pepper grinder over the eggs, was more mouthwatering than the delicious smells he was creating.

There was an intimacy in what we were doing just then that was even greater than sex. He hadn’t said it out loud, and there was a strong possibility that maybe I was just reading into things, but I got the sense that this was his attempt at trying to take care of me. I’d never had that before, and as I watched him use a spatula to remove four perfectly cooked over-easy eggs to their respective plates, I felt something bloom inside of me that I’d never felt before.

“You know, I don’t think a man has ever made me breakfast before,” I murmured, conveying my thoughts unintentionally.

He looked up from the pancake batter he was now whisking in a large metal bowl. “Told you I was good in the kitchen. And those other assholes you used to date obviously didn’t know how lucky they had it.”

Oh man, talk about a direct hit to the heart! That declaration left me flustered. “Man, you really can pull out the sweet when you want to, huh?”

He shrugged before ladling some of the batter onto the flat griddle plate in the middle of his stove. “I’m finding it surprisingly easy.” He shot me a quick glance. “When you aren’t bringing out the worst in me, you seem to bring out the best.”

My head fell back on a long belly laugh. If you’d told me months ago that I’d be laughingwithJude and notathim after he, say, fell in front of a moving car or something, I’d have called you a dirty, dirty liar. Back when we hated each other, he’d brought out the worst in me as well, but now . . . Well, now I was happier than I could ever really remember being.

Once I got a hold of myself, I noticed him staring at me with a warm, affectionate look on his face that was at risk of turning me to goo. “Damn it,” I grumped as he slid a plate in front of me. “I’m starving, and now all I want to do is bangyouinto the kitchen floor.”

He chuckled unrepentantly. “Eat your breakfast,” he husked. “You’re going to need your strength for what I’m about to do to you.”

* * *

I walked into the dressing room backstage at Whiskey Dolls later that evening with a smile on my face that had been pinned there all damn day. I wouldn’t have been able to wipe it off if I’d wanted to—which I absolutely didn’t.

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