Buying His Bride (The Donovan Brothers Trilogy Book 1) by Alison Ashlyn

the pressure there, eased up, then built it again. He swallowed her cries, whispering encouragement.
    “That’s it. You like that, don’t you? Show me how good it feels.”
    She gasped her pleasure.
    “Come for me,” he growled, and then, with a final touch, brought her to climax hard against his hand. Wave after wave of intense, almost painful pleasure wracked her body as she shuddered beneath him. Raw cries of pleasure she didn’t recognize as her own escaped her, and the musky scent of her arousal filled the enclosed space.
    She couldn’t believe it. Evidently her libido wasn’t dead after all.
    Michael’s husky voice broke the silence a minute or two later. “God, you’re amazing. You okay?”
    Sierra nodded, opening her eyes and allowing him to help her sit up. She glanced out the window and was startled by how close they were to her neighborhood.
    “Oh my God, we’re almost home.” She looked down at her disheveled clothing and then at Michael, whose own appearance was in a state of disarray. “We look as if…”
    “As if we’ve been doing exactly what we’ve been doing.” Michael’s tone was wryly amused. “We’d better put ourselves back together for public consumption. Although,” he drawled, “You look damn near perfect just as you are.”
    She was self-conscious, which was ridiculous considering what they just shared. She began the hopeless task of straightening her clothing. “Wait!” she exclaimed.
    “What is it?” Michael was buttoning the shirt she had undone and retucking it.
    “You haven’t…I didn’t…”
    How did you tell a man with whom you had just had an incredible orgasm that you hadn’t had the presence of mind to make sure that you took care of his needs as well?
    Reading her thoughts, Michael smiled and shook his head. “Sierra, I’m not sixteen any longer. Don’t worry about it.”
    “But you’re still…”
    “Hard for you?” He was blunt. “Hell, yes. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have to take a cold shower tonight. Or three. But I’ll live, and you owe me nothing.” He snaked a hand around her neck, kissed her hard on the mouth. “Believe me, it was my pleasure.”
    And then they were home.
    Sierra had thought her mother might be waiting up, but Grace had gone to bed by the time Michael took Sierra’s key with old-fashioned courtesy, unlocked the door, and after a final quick kiss and a growled, “Get inside, woman, or I won’t be responsible for my actions,” pushed her through the entrance and disappeared into the night.
    It was past two o’clock in the morning. Kicking off the heels Jen had lent her, she padded into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, hoping it would help her relax enough to sleep. Taking it upstairs to her bedroom, she slipped out of her now-wrinkled dress, then surveyed the remains of her ruined pantyhose.
    Good lord, had she really asked Michael to rip them off her?
    She’d experienced orgasms before, of course, but never like that.
    God, the man was sexy. If she and Michael had found themselves in a space more conducive to seduction, they would have ended up in bed together. As it was, they had been only a breath away from a full-on sexual encounter in the back seat of a car, like teenagers.
    Only it had been better than anything she’d experienced as a teenager—that was for sure.
    She’d had the usual make-out sessions high school and one feckless boyfriend in college to whom she’d lost her virginity. She’d witnessed the misery between her parents as she was growing up. She’d seen first-hand how her alcoholic father used sex to manipulate and threaten Grace to remain in their marriage.
    It all added up to her vow never to become vulnerable to a man and dictated her refusal to become involved with them now. If fear of that controlled her choices, so be it. Happily-ever-afters were strictly the domain of romance novels, and as she’d told Jen earlier, she’d given up those long ago.
    A no-strings arrangement, she