His words brought a bitter chuckle from her. “I’m not, either. I just want ... ” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, so she raised her other hand and settled it against his chest, which heaved, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps.
“But if things were to go south, to go sour, you, me, Cat, Ben ... ”
“Who says they have to know?”
His pupils flared, and his grip on her hand tightened. “One time only.” Turbulence clouded his eyes.
“One time only,” she agreed with a firm nod.
He snickered. “This sounds more like a business deal than a sexual one.”
She raised her free hand to his face, her pulse pounding as she traced the hard line of his jaw. “We can be in the business of pleasure.”
The words shocked her. People had called her brazen for years, but she’d never really acted so, as much as she’d secretly wanted to. It didn’t have to be a secret anymore.
Standing on tiptoes, she pressed her lips into his, and the dam of restrained desire broke. He growled into her mouth, a deep, visceral sound that thrilled her to her toes. His tongue traced its way across her lip, and she opened her mouth, welcoming him in. Yes. Yes.
He let go of her hand and wrapped a long, lean arm around her, pulling her in close, his fingers tracing her side. He moved them down slowly, slowly, his mouth never leaving hers as he found the edge of the sweater and pulled it up, tracing her skin underneath. As his fingertips trailed over her hip, he drew back. “You’re not wearing underwear.” His voice reflected his surprise.
Her cheeks burned. “I, uh ... Cat bought me some, but I don’t like wearing it.” What would he make of that? Should she blurt out they didn’t wear such undergarments in her time?
Half of her wanted to tell him the truth, to stop pretending, to confess she was a stranger here in so many more ways than one. But if she did, that would be the end of this, likely the end of their entire acquaintance. For he wouldn’t believe her. She didn’t have proof, not the way Eliza had with her phone. She only had her word. She looked up at him.
His eyelids were lowered, his pupils wide. “I’m not complaining; I just wasn’t trying to move quite that fast.”
She smiled, grateful he wanted to savor the experience. If it were the only time for them to be together, she didn’t want to rush, either.
His hands moved back up to her face, letting the sweater drop. He fixed a long gaze on her. “I don’t know what it is about you, Amara. It’s not like I haven’t had other women, but you’re different.”
She winced. His talking about other women wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear at this moment, though she shouldn’t be surprised. Men in her era certainly sought out companionship, whether fleeting or more permanent via a mistress. And she herself had had a lover. If one could call him that. One time in a garden did not truly an affair make, did it?
His own face contorted. “That’s not how I—”
She leaned into him, pressing light kisses to the base of his neck. She was different. But she didn’t want to think about that right now. She wanted to revel in the masculine form of the man in front of her.
He exhaled and laced his fingers through her hair, pulling her face back up to his. “You’re better,” he breathed against her cheek before kissing her again.
The taste of Matthew was beyond anything she’d ever experienced, a heady combination of sweetness and spice, a taste of which she would never get enough. Little sounds of pleasure emanated from her throat, and she pushed into him, luxuriating in the connection, the intoxicating feel of skin on skin. She wanted more.
Her fingers slid down the front of his shirt, admiring the play of muscles underneath. Finding the shirt’s edge, she moved her hand beneath it, over the firmness of his stomach. It flexed as he trailed his arm down her back, kneading her side through her sweater.
“I love your softness,” he murmured against her hair, breaking the kiss. “So glad you’re not super muscular, like some women.”
Women? Muscular? She’d seen women running, their defined leg muscles rousing envy; women in her era were not expected to be physically active beyond walking and riding. Yet now, with him, she was grateful for her curves, if that’s what he liked.
“Whereas I admire the opposite on you,” she whispered into his neck, her fingers dancing over his ribs and higher, skimming across the fabric of his shirt.
“Shall I take it off?” His breath came in short pants.
He was asking permission? Drake had never asked. He’d only taken. “Yes. Please.”
He dropped his arm from her waist to pull off the shirt, and she immediately rued his absence, the lack of him, wanting him back. That is until she saw his chest. The man was a marvelous creation—leaner, perhaps, than the statue of David she’d seen in etchings, but of similar musculature, a light smattering of hair drawing her attention and her fingers. She liked how it narrowed and darkened the farther it descended on his abdomen, leading her eyes lower, lower ...
The bulge in the front of his jeans made his arousal obvious, and for a second, Amara hesitated. Everything in her entire upbringing said this was not proper. And yet, what had being proper ever got her? One night of scandal and years of repentance. She was finished with being proper.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his chest above one of his nipples. “You are—what was the word Cat used the other day?—yummy. Yes, yummy.”
His chest bounced with laughter against her mouth as she moved down, bending to kiss his stomach. “God, Amara, much more of that and I’m going to want you to go lower right away. Can we slow down?”
Lower? He wanted her to go lower? Her cheeks flamed, though this time as much from embarrassment as from titillation. The idea was half-frightening, half-exhilarating. Would he do that to her, too? Would she let him?
She nodded, rising back up to her full height. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, first, let’s play some more music. Set the mood.” He moved back to the sofa, taking the headphones out of his phone before hooking it up to some sort of box. Music floated through the room, someone’s voice singing of getting it on.
She giggled. “That’s not a phrase with which I’m familiar, and yet I think I comprehend his meaning.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Marvin Gaye will get you every time.”
“I don’t want Marvin Gaye,” she said, padding across the floor to press her full length against him. “I want you.”
“God, Amara, you are so damn hot. I can’t believe I’m here, touching you, kissing you.”
“You’re not if you’re still talking.”
“Good point.” His mouth took hers again, as the music echoed around them.
She tasted like heaven, cinnamon and vanilla and sweetness and goodness. A small voice in the back of his head insisted this wasn’t the best idea, but a much louder voice coming from places farther south told that other one to shut up.
He wanted to go slow, to savor every inch of her, and yet his hands itched to reach under that sweater, to clasp her ass to him, to feel his way up to her breasts. The sweater with its deep folds had them well hidden, but he knew they were in there, tempting him, taunting him.
She smoothed her fingers over his skin, one hand stroking around to his back and up his shoulders, cupping him to her. He moved back, taking her with him onto the sofa, leaning to the side so that he lay on it length-wise, with her on top of him. Her weight, the softness of every inch of her, fired his blood, and it was all he could do not to rip open his jeans right then. Thank goodness she was on top, so he couldn’t.
He could, however, get his hands on her rear, that delicious ass. He squeezed it, wanting to slide his hands in between and forward, to dip his fingers inside her, but he held himself back. She moaned and pressed her hips into his. God, I feel like a teenager, fumbling around for the first time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this excited.
“Can I remove this?” he ask
ed, tugging at the sweater. Slowness be damned.
Her cheeks pinked, but she nodded, sitting up. He tried to yank it, but the angle was awkward and he made no progress, so she grabbed the ends and pulled it over her head, tossing it on the floor.
Holy shit. She wore no bra, either. No undies and no bra? Had she grown up in a nudist colony? Perhaps an Amish nudist colony?
Those cheeks deepened from pink to red. “Part of me wants to throw my arms across my front,” she confessed.
“Please don’t. You are glorious. Glorious.”
The music shifted, Madonna’s Erotica pulsating in his ears. He hadn’t heard the song in years, but it definitely fit the mood.
He tried to ignore the fact that her naked pelvis was pressing into him. No, he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
His hands moved slowly up her sides, across her stomach, to cup the fullness of her breasts. “Like manna from heaven.” He squeezed them gently, his thumb flicking across one nipple.
She started, a gasp escaping her lips.
“Did you like that?”
“Yes. Do it again.”
“With pleasure.” He ran his thumb over her nipple a second time, enjoying the way she arched her back into his touch, her eyes closing to revel in the sensation. “But you might like this even better.”
His hand pressed against her back, coaxing her forward, down to him, and he shifted slightly, leaning up to capture the luscious bud in his mouth.
“Oh. Oh ... Oh my heavens,” she gasped. “I’ve never ... Oh.”
He paused at those last words, his mouth releasing her nipple as his brow furrowed. “You’ve never?” He looked up at her face. Her wide eyes stared back at him. “Amara, you’re not a virgin, are you?”
Good God, he hoped with every inch of him not. He couldn’t take her virginity. But she couldn’t possibly be, such a stunning woman of her age. Could she?
“No.”
He relaxed, even as his groin pulsed.
“I’ve had one ... lover, but he did not linger.”
“Bad lover, then.” His eyes jerked to hers. Great. Another thing he shouldn’t have said. But, really, how could one ignore the magnificence of those breasts, no matter how in a hurry one was? The man must have been an idiot.
Man. Not men. Man. One lover? That was almost as bad as being a virgin—because he no longer felt he couldn’t, but yet, she had limited experience. Very limited.
Her laugh interrupted his thoughts. “Yes, I rather think he was, now that I know a little more.” She leaned forward, dangling her breasts over his mouth. “I want you to teach me the rest. Teach me everything, Matthew.”
His name on her whispered breath was his undoing. Screw being as bad as being a virgin—it was better. He got to introduce her to all of the pleasure, with none of the guilt. He slammed the door on the inner voice screaming, “Caution, maybe some guilt!” as his mouth closed over a nipple again and suckled, her mewling response firing his blood ever higher.
She writhed against him, and his hands feasted on her flesh, tracing their way up and down her back, over her bottom, between her legs. “Ooh,” she murmured as a finger stroked its way along her inner thigh, close to her center.
“I’d like to,” he said, breaking off from her breast, “switch this up.”
“What do you mean?” She frowned, panting.
“You underneath. I need to reach more of you, all of you.”
“All right,” she said, slowly. “But I want to see all of you, too. I feel ... exposed.”
“Darlin’, you are exposed, and I love every single inch of it.”
She stood up, and he hesitated, his eyes taking her in head to toe. The hair, softly tousled. Her eyes, sparkling with excitement and, he supposed, a bit of nervousness. Understandable. He was nervous, too.
Her skin was so pale, so creamy. Her breasts, firm and high and full—not too large, not too small, and bedecked with the most intoxicating rose-colored nipples, nipples puckering now in the cold. Or in anticipation, perhaps.
Her narrow waist and slightly rounded belly were all woman, the embodiment of sensuality. And the triangle at the top of her thighs—how frickin’ sexy that was, instead of the shaved parts several other women had sported. He’d never understood the alleged allure. He wanted a woman, not a girl.
He had one.
Slowly, he rose, his eyes never leaving hers, and he reached for the snap on his jeans. “What do you want?”
She hesitated, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. “You, if you don’t mind.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up as he freed the snap and lowered the zipper, pushing the jeans down over his thighs and stepping out of them.
She wrinkled her nose. “Smalls.”
“Small? Um, no, I’m not small.” Momentary doubt coursed through him. He might not be the best-endowed man on the planet—he left that to the porn stars—but surely he wasn’t small. No other woman had ever said anything.
She pointed to his boxers. “No, I meant those. I’m sorry, I don’t know what you call them.”
“You mean my boxers? Yes, some of us do wear underwear,” he teased. Parts that had softened slightly sprang back to attention as she moved closer.
“Take them off.”
The combination of surety in her voice with the flushing of her cheeks was one seductive elixir, and he pulled the boxers down, flicking them off, and stood before her, buck-naked. She didn’t say anything, didn’t move. What was going through her mind?
“You are beautiful,” she breathed. “So different. So beautiful. I never saw ... ” She broke off, biting her lip.
She’d never seen her lover naked? What kind of yokel had he been? “Beautiful is not a word a man usually wants to hear applied to himself, but if you’re saying you like what you see, I’ll take it.”
“Oh, yes. I like it.”
Matt reached for her hand, yanking her to him. “I like it, too.” He pressed the full length of himself into her, relishing her intake of breath as she pressed back.
“There’s something I’m dying to do,” he whispered into her ear, delighting at the shivers his breath induced.
“What?” Her own breath was thin, reedy. “I’ll show you. Sit down.”
Amara hesitated. His hands guided her, though, and as the sofa scraped the back of her legs, she sat. What was coming next?
He fell to his knees on the floor in front of her, his hands gripping her thighs as he leaned in to kiss her. “I want to taste you,” he murmured against her lips. His tongue darted in again, a quick caress, before his mouth moved down, dropping kisses on her chin, then her neck. He stopped at her breasts for some time, laving each nipple with his tongue until she cried out, some need deep inside her questing for more.
At long length, his head moved down, the kisses trailing over her stomach, and lower, lower ...
“Matthew!” she shrieked, panic in tandem with anticipation. Surely he wasn’t going to? And then she had no more time for thought as he parted her lower lips and pressed his mouth against her, his tongue stroking the tiny nub at their apex.
She clutched first at the cushions, then at his head, holding him to her as his tongue worked its unbelievable magic. This was sinful. This was divine. He traced a finger lower, dipping it into her entrance, and she bucked against him, seeking more. He drove the finger deep inside, moving it in rhythmic motion with his mouth, and she was off, her body racing, climbing, questing for a summit she’d only ever reached alone.
“Matthew,” she cried out again, but this time it was no protest, it was an entreaty, begging for more, and he gave, his tongue loving her until she fell over the precipice, her world bursting into a thousand colors, sensation surging through every part of her. The spasms went on and on, and she reveled in them, holding him close until the shudders had died away.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, and he looked up, a saucy smile on that mouth, that mouth that had just ... Her cheeks flushed thinking about it, even as par
t of her wanted him to do it again. But no, though she floated languidly on a cloud, some part of her said it was his turn, now.
“Should I?” She gestured toward him, her pupils enlarging as he pulsed up and down in reaction to her words.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” he ground out. “But only if you want to.”
Please say you want to. Please, God, want to. Some women found giving head distasteful, but he hoped and prayed Amara wasn’t one of them. If she felt uncomfortable reciprocating, that would be okay. Seriously, it would.
“Yes.” The word was soft, hesitant, but it was there, between them, and he nearly leapt to his feet, so eager was he at her response.
She stood, pointing to the couch. “Sit down.” The command was stronger, more certain, and the wickedly delighted expression on her face had him wanting to bury himself in her now, skipping any more foreplay. He hoped he could hold on.
“You’ll have to tell me if I do it wrong, though.”
He groaned. The combination of innocence with unabashed sexuality was a bigger turn-on than he’d ever thought imaginable.
“Oh, I’m sure anything you do will be ... good.” The last word came out a moan, as she’d fastened her lips over him, licking and sucking, her enthusiasm making up for her lack of experience.
“Oh, God, Amara, that feels so ... ” He closed his eyes, giving over completely to the sensations enveloping him. She continued, her tongue and mouth hot everywhere. He showed her how to add her hand, increasing the pressure, but the combination of the two had him so close to the edge he had to yell out, “Stop!”
She immediately backed up, her eyes wide. “Did I make a mistake?”
“No!” He pushed her down onto the carpet, his mind barely recognizing Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game playing as he widened her legs, touching her skin. She was wet. Thank God. He couldn’t wait another minute. He slid into her, her muscles spasming around him as he sank deeper, and he nearly came on the spot, so delicious was the warmth in which he’d buried himself.
She bucked up against him, urging him deeper, giving every time he thrust. “My God, Matthew, I never ... ” she breathed, before she bit his shoulder, clinging to his back as he drove them both forward to paradise. As his orgasm neared, he captured her mouth with his as he thrust into her.
The Magic of Love Series Page 73
