by Tawna Fenske
“I didn’t want to be presumptuous,” he says, grinning. “But I thought there was a chance you might ask.”
I nod slowly, aware that my body has just gone from zero to nuclear fusion in thirty seconds. I’m grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, but there’s nothing kidlike about the desire coursing through me.
How does he do this? Just one smile, one tiny flicker in his eyes, and a dam inside me bursts, filling my insides with liquid heat.
I don’t know, but there’s nothing I want more than to get him inside. To touch him and stroke him and—
“Come on.” I set my wineglass on the porch and stand up, reaching down to offer him my hand. “Let’s continue this conversation inside.”
Chapter 9
Jonathan
I stumble into the house on Blanka’s heels, aware that something big is happening.
For the record, my lack of coordination has nothing to do with wine and everything to do with how much I want her, how desperately I’m hoping this is really headed where I think it is.
My mind spins with ways to flood her with pleasure. To that spot on the underside of her left breast that made her speak in tongues. I’m swimming in ideas, in a million ways to leave her writhing and gasping and calling out my name.
Blanka pauses just inside the doorway and points to my bed. Thank God I remembered to make it this morning. “Lie down. Please.”
“Okay.” Not like I’m going to object to that.
I ease onto the bed, carefully guarding the surgical site. It barely hurts at all, but I’m still conscious of it. Still testing it the way you slide a tongue over a sore tooth.
Blue eyes flash with heat as Blanka surveys my body. I can’t help noticing her eyes linger at the fly of my jeans. “Take off your shirt.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’ve never been bossed around in bed, but it’s pretty hot. “Is this whole thing going to be you issuing commands? Because with that sexy accent and—er, what are you doing?”
She holds up a necktie she’s grabbed off the top of my dresser. “Is this yours?”
“No, it’s James’s,” I tell her. “I borrowed it a couple days ago when I gave a presentation to the Rotary Club.”
I managed to raise over a thousand dollars in donations for pediatric nephrology services in Central Oregon, a pet project of mine since the surgery.
Blanka looks at me a moment, then drops the tie. She picks up a second one and frowns. “Why do you have two identical ties?”
“Look closely.” Why the hell are we talking about neckties? I thought we were going to—okay, never mind. Whatever it takes to get her in the mood. “See how it’s almost the same pattern as the other one? But if you study the pattern—”
“Oh.” Blanka peers closer at the second tie. “Are these tiny penises?”
“Bingo.” I grin, willing her to join me on the bed. “I’m giving that one to James to see if he notices the swap.”
Which I know sounds juvenile, but I live to mess with my tight-ass big brother.
Blanka puts the ties down and shakes her head. “You’re not making this easy.”
“Making what easy?” I pat the bed beside me. “I already ditched the shirt. All I need is for you to join me so I can get busy stripping off your—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “This is not about busy. Or work.”
I cock my head, watching her stroll to the other side of my room. “I wasn’t suggesting we run spreadsheets.”
But hey, whatever floats her boat. I just need my hands on her, preferably soon. “Come on. I promise I’ll make you forget all about neckties and Rotary Club and work of any kind.”
And maybe forget her own name, if I do my job right. I’m dying to see Blanka come undone.
She shakes her head, picking a discarded sock out of a laundry basket before making a face and setting it down. “That’s not how we’re going to do this.”
“Do what?” Okay, now I’m confused.
And yeah, even more turned on as I watch her stride to the other side of the room and bend down to grab something off the floor. God, that ass. And the way her breasts shift under that pink T-shirt as she straightens up holding—
“Balloons?” She quirks an eyebrow, studying the pack of extra-long pastel latex. “Why do you have these?”
“Would you believe they’re condoms for someone with a two-foot long, quarter-inch wide penis? Which is not me, in case you’re worried.”
Blanka rolls her eyes and tosses the pack on the bed. “You just sealed your fate, smarty-shorts.”
Her Blanka-esque twist on smarty-pants is too adorable to correct, so I don’t. Instead, I watch her drop to her knees and crawl up the bed toward me. My mouth goes dry as she draws closer, moving until she’s right over me. Her hair skims my bare chest, making me shiver. I reach for her, but she sits back and picks up the balloons.
“Why do you have these?” She shakes her head. “Never mind, let me guess.”
“You’re not buying the condom thing?”
She ignores me. Well, ignores my words as she shakes two balloons out of the package and tosses the rest aside.
Her gaze rakes my bare torso, pupils flaring. She’s almost close enough to touch. One small ab crunch, and I can sit up and catch her hips in my hands, pulling her down on top of me.
I swear she reads my mind, because she plants one hand in the center of my chest to hold me down. “No, you don’t.”
“What?”
Her palm curves over my pec, stroking the curve of muscle. I’m not sure she meant for this to turn into prolonged touching, but she takes her time running her fingertips over my bare skin, up and over one pec and back again. She licks her bottom lip, then seems to shake herself out of a trance.
“You heard the doctor,” she says. “No abdominal work. You were going to do a sit-up.”
“I was going to strip your clothes off with my teeth and put my hands all over you.” Might as well be honest.
“That sounds vigorous.” There’s a teasing note in her voice, but her expression is anything but jovial. “Nothing too vigorous, remember?”
“I’m beginning to regret playing you that message.”
She smiles and holds up the two balloons she liberated from the pack. “Let me take a guess what these are for.”
“This should be good.” I’m curious, actually.
She rests her hand on my chest again, palm stroking slow circles over my breastbone. It feels amazing, which is a testament to how turned on I am. The heel of her hand grazes my nipple, and I shiver. When did that become an erogenous zone?
“My guess,” she says, reminding me we’re having a conversation. “My guess is that you’ve been blowing up balloon animals for those pediatric patients you mentioned. True or false?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
She doesn’t give in to the smile tugging the corners of her mouth. “Answer the question.”
“True,” I admit. “Libby and I have been volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House.”
“Which is not taking it easy,” she says. “And also probably an over-exertion of your lungs and abdominal muscles and—”
“Would it make it better if I tell you I used a hand pump?”
I’m not saying I did. Fine, the truth is that we visited three times this week, and I totally felt it in my abs and airway after blowing up all those balloons. The pump was Mark’s idea.
I don’t tell Blanka any of this, but somehow, she knows. Her palm slides down my chest, moving between the healed incisions. Her touch is gentle, but sexy as hell with her eyes holding mine. I swear I could come in three seconds if she moved her fingers a few inches lower.
When she draws her hand back, it’s all I can do not to groan in frustration. “You’re killing me here.”
“I’m trying not to kill you,” she says. “Or not to let you harm yourself.”
“I can promise you I’m undamaged and fully functional.”
Her stern c
omposure cracks, and she smiles as she drags a palm over the front of my jeans. “I can see that.”
“God, Blanka.” The words slip through gritted teeth, and I reach for her again.
Again, she moves back, and my fingertips skim her knee. Lifting the first balloon to her lips, she blows into the end. Once, just a quick puff of breath. Then she ties it off and does the same to the second one, leaving her with two slightly puffy noodles a half inch in diameter.
“This is officially the weirdest form of foreplay I’ve ever experienced.” But also hot. Maybe it’s the way she’s holding eye contact while blowing those damn balloons.
“There’s a plan here,” she says.
“Naked water balloon fight?” I’m game. “Balloon darts?” Hell, she could ask me to hold the target over my junk, and I’d oblige as long as she kept looking at me the way she is now.
“Here’s the thing.” Blanka leans forward and grabs hold of my left hand. “You are very, very bad at taking things easy.”
“Didn’t you just accuse me of not making things easy?”
She grabs my right hand, pulling it tight against the left. “You don’t know how to relax.”
“I didn’t know we were coming in here to nap.” I stare at my wrists as she twists one softly inflated balloon around the left, then the right.
“Oh, we’re definitely not.” She finishes binding my wrists together and grabs the second balloon. I could easily break the hold, but why?
Fascinated—and yeah, still turned on—I watch as she twists the second balloon into a perfect double-half-hitch to bind my wrists to the headboard. Her breasts brush the side of my face, and I close my eyes and breathe her in.
When she sits back, I’m still lightheaded. “You are the sort of guy who’ll be hellbent on pleasuring me six ways to Sunday,” she says.
“And that’s wrong because—?”
“It’s not wrong.” She leans over to adjust the knot at my wrists, loosening it just a little. It’s plenty comfortable already, but I welcome the graze of her breasts against my cheek a second time.
I turn so my lips brush her nipple through her T-shirt and bra, and Blanka makes a soft sound in the back of her throat. I expect her to press into me. To allow me to pleasure her, to indulge her in the sort of gratification she deserves.
Instead, she sits back and looks at me. “Not wrong,” she repeats. “But also, not what the doctor ordered.”
I tilt my head to check my balloon-bound wrists, strangely aroused by her handiwork. “I don’t remember anything in the post-surgery paperwork about bondage with limp balloon animals.”
Blanka ignores me and tugs her T-shirt over her head.
“Holy shit.”
Her bra is a wisp of lavender lace, nipples clearly visible and begging to be touched. My hands ache to reach for her, which I’d do if I weren’t trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. A turkey bound with balloons.
She flashes that gorgeous, unselfconscious smile with the perfect gap between her teeth. Eyes locked with mine, she reaches behind her to unhook the bra. As the straps slide down her arms, her breasts spill out. My mouth goes dry as Blanka skims her fingertips over her nipples and smiles.
“Christ,” I choke out. “Anyone ever tell you that you have the world’s most perfect breasts?”
“Yes.” She tosses the bra aside and leans down, skimming those soft globes of perfection across my chest. “Thank you.”
“Guh,” I manage as the tickle of her hair sparks every nerve in my body to life.
“Here’s the thing,” she says, breathing the words soft against my ear as she kisses her way along my neck. “I want you to be selfish. I want you to lie back and focus on your own pleasure. Not mine, not anyone else’s but your own. Think you can do that?”
“I—uh—I can try.” To be honest, I’ve never done it before. “I’m not positive I can.”
“That’s why you’re tied up,” she whispers, flicking her tongue over my earlobe. “You’re going to learn to be selfish. To take care of you.”
I close my eyes, dissolving into her touch. Into the dizzying pleasure of her breath against my skin. “Kinda tough to take care of myself with my hands tied behind my head.”
“Very funny.”
I flex my fingers, enjoying the unfamiliar tug of the restraints around my wrists. “I suppose I could get you off with my feet.”
“I’ll pass on that.” She laughs and sits back again, doing her best to keep up the stern Ukrainian headmistress act. “Here’s how this is going to go down.” She pauses, blue eyes flashing. “I am.”
I stare at her, wondering what I missed. The sight of those perfect, bare breasts is making my brain short-circuit. “What?”
“I’m going down,” she says. “On you. And you’re going to lie back and enjoy it. Do you have a problem with that?”
I should, I know I should, but I can’t recall why. Something about being a considerate, selfless lover, which I swear I’ve done my whole adult life.
But the fire in Blanka’s eyes has me wondering what the other side looks like. What it might be like to focus purely on my own pleasure. What kind of selfish dick would that make me?
“Uh—” my voice comes out in a croak as I give a halfhearted yank on my bound wrists. “That seems a little unfair to you. I’m just supposed to lie here and let you—uh—”
“Yes.” She licks her lips, making my brain spin again. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. For a few minutes at least, I want you to be selfish. I want you to learn how good that can feel. I want you to think of only yourself.”
But all I can think of is Blanka. The flush in her cheeks, the scent of her skin, the spill of her hair over those perfect breasts. Christ, she’s beautiful.
I know I should argue. Should insist on pleasuring her, too.
But part of me wants what she just described. Selfish pleasure, purely for the sake of pleasure. I’ve never done that before, not at the hands of someone else. Is it wrong to want that, just this once?
“Ung,” I manage.
She smiles and strokes her hands over my chest again, her touch light and electric. “So, I have your consent?”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I ought to. I should insist on getting her off. I should promise mutual pleasure and multiple orgasms. I should at least—
“Yes,” I croak. “Yes, please.”
The smile she gives me is priceless. Satisfaction mixed with enough heat to make my brain boil. “Excellent.”
She leans forward and kisses me, bare breasts brushing my chest. The kiss is slow and soft and full of promise, igniting a flame in the center of my belly. I kiss back, unable to twine my fingers in her hair or pull her against me. There’s a fissure of frustration in my chest, but it’s snuffed out by an unfamiliar sensation.
It's the feathery light breath of letting go. Of letting someone else be in charge.
Christ, is this what it’s like?
“Blanka,” I groan against her mouth. “You’re good at that.”
She laughs and draws back. “Kissing?”
“That mouth.” I shake my head, not sure I’m making sense. “It’s fucking magical.”
“Thank you.” Still smiling, she kisses her way down my throat, taking her time. Her hair trails along my collarbones as she lays a path of warmth across my sternum, my pecs. Her nipples are soft pebbles tickling my belly, tracing lovely, curved waves around my torso.
I groan and close my eyes as her tongue grazes my nipple. She uses her teeth, and I arch up, unaccustomed to the sensation. I’ve never thought about that part of me being an erogenous zone. On women, sure, but this feeling, this electricity—
“Christ, that feels good.” I tug at the restraints again, grateful they hold. Grateful for whatever she’s doing down there with her tongue and the soft scrape of teeth. “Don’t stop.”
She laughs and moves to the other side of my chest, giving its twin the same treatment. Her breath ruffles hot again
st my sternum.
“Did you know men’s and women’s nipples have a similar nerve supply?” she murmurs against my chest.
I shake my head, then shiver as she blows lightly on one of mine. “Uh-uh.”
“The nerves in male nipples lie closer together, but those in the female breast are spread out more widely.” She strokes her tongue over mine, and I shiver again. “But male nipples are much more sensitive than most people give them credit for.”
I stifle another groan as she drags her teeth over me. How did I never know this before? “Thanks for the education.”
And for everything else she’s doing. She goes back to kissing me, moving lower down my torso. When she reaches the first incision site, she brushes a feather-light kiss near the edge of it. “Does this hurt?”
I shake my head. “Not at all.”
It feels fantastic, honestly. Every inch of my skin is electrified, buzzing with sensation. The way she’s kissing me feels like an act of worship. Like she’s memorizing every scar, every freckle, every hair follicle.
Her mouth drifts lower, and the anticipation buzzing in my core morphs into a full-on swarm of killer bees. I suck in a breath as her lips graze the patch of hair right above my jeans.
“Jonathan,” she murmurs. “You feel so good.”
She has no idea. I’ve never felt this insanely good in my life. I know it’s wrong; I know I should be fighting harder to get my hands on her.
But when her fingers find the button on my jeans, I forget all about that. I forget everything but how fucking good it feels to have her hands on me. I watch as she unzips my fly, working my jeans down over my hips.
She meets my eyes and grins. “This should be fun.”
I try to say something witty, but my throat stops working as she kisses me through my boxer briefs. A strangled hiss forces its way from my mouth as she rubs her lips over my erection, teasing me through the cotton.
“Shall we get these off you?”
I nod because that seems like the right answer, and also because my voice isn’t working. Breasts glide over my thighs as she pulls down my jeans and boxers, stopping every few inches to plant a kiss in some random spot. Thigh, kneecap, shin—her mouth lighting tiny fires everywhere she touches.
