“Why are you here, Macie?”

The guarded look on his face said he expected her to say I’m here for hot sex, baby cakes, strip.

And seeing him standing there, all tough and masculine and yummy—it was tempting to be flip and reduce this… need to be here for him tonight into nothing more than a physical act. But at some point in the last few days, things between them had gone beyond physical. So, she simply said, “I missed you.”

The energy drink in his hand stopped halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“I missed you.” She took a step toward him. “Surprised?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Look. I know you were upset tonight. I don’t know why, and I’m sorry I didn’t notice until right before you left.” Another step. “But I’m here now, in case you want to talk about it or something.”

Carter’s eyes devoured her. Then he threw the drink can over his shoulder and charged. A hand dove into her hair and his mouth slammed down on hers. Hot. Hungry.

Greedy. Achingly familiar.

During the consuming kiss, Carter’s body was plastered against hers, yet as he ate at her mouth, his fingertips softly caressed her face.

She moved her lips a fraction of an inch. “Carter.”

“I’m not done kissing you.” And he absolutely destroyed her with the ferocity of his need. Finally, he gentled his kiss. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I can’t believe you left early. I thought you’d be happy that your family was here.”

“I am. But I know my place in the McKay clan.”

“Which is?”

Carter rubbed his cheek along her hairline. “I’m the quiet one.”

She considered that. “I’m the last person who knows anything about family dynamics. But I’m glad you’re not the quiet one with me.”

“Why?”

“I never have to guess how you feel. Granted, I don’t always like it, but you don’t hold back anything.”

“That’s the first time anyone has ever said that to me.”

“It’s true. So tell me what’s wrong.”

Carter sighed. “When I’m with you, I feel like I’m really me. I don’t have anything to prove. You just let me be who I am. That’s not always the case with my family. And tonight, maybe it was childish, but I hated that I couldn’t show them…”

“What?”

“Show them who I am when I’m with you.”

“Oh yeah? A bossy sexual deviant?”

She felt him smile against her temple. “Maybe. But I couldn’t. Then I got really selfish and didn’t want to share you with them either. You’re mine, and I know even sayin’ that is just plain wrong.”

Wrong or not, his words sent a thrill through her. “Since they’re not here, how about if you show me instead? Remind me of who I am when I’m with you.”

“Of my bossy sexual deviance?”

She brushed her lips over his collarbone, tasting sweat and mineral spirits on his hot skin. “If that’s what you want. I didn’t come here for sex, Carter. I just wanted to be here if you needed me.”

His hoarse laugh vibrated on the top of her head. “Oh, I need you, all right.”

“For?”

“Never mind. You’re not here for my sexual deviance, remember?”

“But I am if that’s what you need from me tonight.” She placed another tender kiss on his pec. “Show me who you are with me. I’m yours tonight to do or be whatever you want. You already know I can’t say no to you. I don’t want to say no. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m really me too. Tell me what you want.”

Carter sought her mouth, kissing her, toying with her lips. Then his breath tickled her ear. “What I want? Well, I don’t want to talk; I want to feel. You. Me. Us. Nothing matters beyond what we are together. I want your mouth on me, Macie. I want to see my cock slippin’ between these sweet, sweet lips. I want to wrap my hands in your hair and feel you suckin’ me deep, suckin’ me hard. And when I can’t stand how good it feels, when I’m about to explode, I wanna come on your tits.”

A flood of moisture burst in her panties. “Oh wow.”

“You rethinkin’ that ‘whatever’ comment?”

“No.” Macie placed her hands on his head. She looked directly into his eyes and repeated, “Whatever you want.”

Carter growled.

In one fast movement she yanked her camisole tank up until disappeared over her head. Her shorts hit the dirt and she was buck-assed naked before him.

Macie licked her way down his torso, stopping to taste his belly button as she slid his sweatpants to his ankles. She dropped to her knees and gripped his muscular ass. She let her tongue tease his plump cockhead, until his cock jerked and clear fluid leaked out. She lapped at it like candy.

Carter rifled his fingers through her hair and sighed.

She opened wide and sucked that delicious male hardness halfway. Released it, and sucked it all the way in.

A strangled groan echoed above her.

She took her cue from Carter on how fast he needed her mouth moving. If he started to thrust his hips into her face, she increased the pace. She lost herself in his clean, salty taste. The erotic pull of that hard silken skin over her tongue and lips. The slick feel of her saliva coating his shaft and the excess running down to glaze her face and neck. His heady masculine scent enveloped her in a musky cloud of need as she reveled in this closeness. The tantalizing sounds of his unrestrained pleasure as she gave him this intimate kiss.

“Macie. You have no idea how fuckin’ fantastic it feels.”

She looked up at him. Carter’s neck was arched; his head thrown back in abandon.

Those blue eyes were squeezed shut and he was slack-jawed. The muscles in his stomach quivered as his chest rose and fell rapidly. His arms shook from the effort to hold her head gently.

He was stunningly beautiful lost in passion. She’d never seen anything so powerful.

She’d never felt so powerful.

Macie was wet everywhere, her mouth, her chin, her neck. Especially between her thighs.

Carter pumped a little faster. She increased the suction. He groaned, pulled out completely and fisted his hand around his cock, keeping one hand tightly clutching her hair. “Ah. Shit. Yes. There it is.”

She watched as white spurts arced in the air and splashed on her chest. Warm at first, then the fluid cooled as it slid down her sweat-coated skin. She looked up at Carter, who was watching everything with heavy lidded eyes: his hand slowly pumping his spent cock, his come splattering on her breasts and dripping off her nipples.

Macie licked her chafed lips.

“Don’t move.” He sidestepped her, and she heard clanking, fabric rustling. Then from behind her he said: “Lay back. I put a blanket down.”

Macie’s heart raced as he propped himself on his elbow next to her. The lust-filled look in his eyes hadn’t dimmed one iota. “Carter—”

“Ssh, sweet darlin’. Whatever I want, remember? And right now I want to paint you.” A small brush appeared and he swirled it through the sticky spots he’d left on her chest. “I’ve been paintin’ you a lot. But never like this. Because this time, I’m paintingyou with me.”

The soft bristles and his sexy words sent shivers racing over her bared flesh.

Carter zigzagged the paintbrush through the wetness around her nipples and down her belly. Straight to her clit. He flicked the brush over the distended nub and she gasped at the ticklish sensation. He swept the bristles side to side over her slit, inserting the brush a few inches to make circles inside her pussy.

“Now I’m on you.” He kissed her. “And in you.” He used the brush to paint two lines on his chest over his heart. “Now you’re on me.” He brought the paintbrush to her eye level and traced his lips with the wetness, before sucking the tip into his mouth. “And in me.”

When she gasped again, he smashed his mouth to hers, rubbing her lips against his.

He whispered, “Taste us, taste what we are together,” before plunging his tongue between her teeth.

Macie had never been so hot in her life. She jerked on Carter’s shoulders and attempted to roll him on top of her. He crashed into a table and open jars and tubes of paint rained down around them. Blue splotted her chest. Yellow on her arm. Black on her shoulder. In trying to wipe it away, Carter smeared it more thoroughly into her skin.

Cursing, he grabbed random tubes and squeezed, his fingers leaving random trails of color on her body.

She threw her arms above her head. “Put your hands on me. I need—”

Then his paint-coated hands were tracking the hypersensitive skin from her wrists down to her armpits, making her skin a mass of gooseflesh.

She writhed and arched beneath him, whimpering, craving this side of him, knowing this was who he was to her.

“Here?” Carter’s hands plumped her breasts and his thumbs swept her nipples.

“Yes. More.”

His sticky palms raced over her ribs, smearing blue paint across her belly. His mouth was busy on her throat.

“Please. I want…Carter. I’m on fire. I need—”

“—to come. I know, darlin’, I’m there.” Hands covered in black paint slapped the inside of her thighs and pushed them out. He buried his face in her pussy and ate at her like he’d eaten the pie.

“Oh. Yes!” Macie grabbed his head and ground her throbbing sex into his face.

When she started to come, Carter kept her clit captive between his teeth and flicked his tongue back and forth until she screamed.

Rough fingers scraped the outside of her calves while the pleasure receptors in her brain detonated. His hot breath burned her ear. “I want to fuck you from behind. Get on your hands and knees.”

She vaguely heard the crackle of a condom package.

Somehow she flopped to her belly. Carter jacked her hips in the air and slammed into her. It didn’t matter as she was so wet and so ready to take him.