by Andrews, Amy
When Nash finally lowered his head it was for an agonisingly slow exploration of her mouth. Maggie tried to deepen it, to open beneath him and draw his tongue inside but he pulled back and smiled at her. ‘Patience, Maggie. We’ve got all night.’
She shivered at the promise in his voice, in his eyes, accepting the teasing stroke of his lips against her again with an eagerness that bordered on shameless. The kiss slowly deepened and Maggie moaned as his tongue finally touched hers.
His hand spread its own joy, lightly stroking down her neck and her chest to her breasts. Her nipples beaded at the light play of his palms over them and she arched her back and moaned into his mouth as he rubbed them into unbearably tight pebbles.
Nash dragged his mouth from the drugging kisses of hers, eager to taste the engorged tips. He’d fantasised about it but already knew it was going to far exceed his expectations. He kissed down her throat, feeling the whimpering noises coming from her as they vibrated against his lips.
When his tongue flicked out to touch one turgid peak, her whole body trembled and when he sucked it fully into the hot cavern of his mouth she dug her nails into his back so hard he knew there’d be blood.
‘Nash!’ Maggie almost lifted off the bed as her stomach clenched.
Nash smiled against her skin and paid the other breast equal homage, eliciting another fevered response. Her reaction stoked the fire in his loins ever higher and he felt a surge of animal power that he could turn her mindless with passion.
She was so reactive. Her skin goose-bumped wherever his breath meandered, tiny mewing noises slipped from her lips and she trembled beneath his touch.
He’d never had such a responsive lover and it was incredibly arousing. It urged him to go further, push her higher, give her more, and he moved his hand lower to stroke down her belly as his mouth continued to feast on her breasts.
Maggie shook her head from side to side in utter mindless ecstasy. He had to stop. She couldn’t take it anymore.
She was going to die from pleasure.
He’d no sooner finish ravaging one nipple than he’d turn his attention to the other and her pelvic floor muscles would contract again.
‘Stop,’ she moaned as Nash switched sides again. ‘They can’t take any more.’ She was close to delirious with lust. Mindless with passion. Treading that fine line between pleasure and pain.
Nash looked up from his feast. ‘No.’ His hand slipped lower, stroking her inner thigh.
‘Nash,’ she begged.
He smiled. ‘Uh-uh. These...’ he paused and looked down at her large breasts with their proudly erect nipples. ‘Have been taunting me all night under that damn T-shirt — it’s payback.’
He dropped a quick, hard kiss on her mouth as he stroked her slick entrance. ‘Just lie back and enjoy.’ Maggie’s eyes rolled back in her head as he found his target, pushing inside her at the same time his mouth reclaimed a nipple.
Just when she’d thought more pleasure wasn’t possible he proved her wrong and she arched off the bed as he inserted another finger and probed deep inside. Through the haze of sensations, she could feel his erection thick against her thigh and she reached for him, desperate to touch him as he was her.
To feel the hot length of him. To hear him moan in mindless abandon and know that she was responsible.
He batted her hand away and she growled her frustration. ‘Nash —’
He cut off her protest with another hard kiss. ‘Not yet,’ he whispered against her lips, raising his head briefly before plundering her mouth and her body into submission.
Nash wasn’t sure how long he’d last if she touched him. He’d been fantasising about her, about this, for two weeks, and with the wild blend of her perfume and the sweet smell of her readiness intoxicating him, his control was tenuous.
His hand returned to the slick heat at her centre and her hips bucked convulsively. Her shudder as he stroked the tight nub there told him she was close and after numerous fantasies of her coming apart beneath him, he was hungry for the reality.
Nash broke away from her mouth. ‘Condoms,’ he whispered raggedly against her neck.
Maggie’s blood felt like treacle, her brain waves practically at a standstill as she dragged herself back from the fireworks display that was going on in her head. ‘Drawer closest to you,’ she panted.
Nash reached across her, yanked the drawer open and blindly felt for the box. He located it, pulled out a foil packet and quickly tore it open with unsteady fingers as Maggie teased his throat with wet kisses.
‘Now,’ he said, covering her body with his.
He paused for a second, looking down into her face, her fudge-brownie eyes glazed with passion, her mouth moist and slightly parted, their hips aligned, their hearts pounding together.
‘Now,’ Maggie whispered, her pelvis rising to meet his as he slid into her, stretching her, filling her, completing her. ‘Yes,’ she sighed, her hands gripping his shoulders as he rocked her into the bed.
‘Yes,’ he groaned as her heat enveloped him, seduced him, possessed him. He stilled, dropping his mouth to hers, kissing her deep and hard. Pulling away, Nash rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard. ‘I knew it was going to be like this.’
Maggie dragged in a ragged breath, aware only of his girth nestled against all the right places inside her. ‘Like what?’
‘Perfect.’
And he pulled out and pushed in, and pulled out and pushed in and the heat built everywhere as his biceps slicked with sweat and her brain went to mush and her lungs turned to liquid as her body was consumed by the heat.
The heat of him. Of them.
The pressure built with each deep, measured thrust from his hips and it was like an itch, a bubble beneath her skin, building and spreading outwards, like a ripple in a pond growing larger.
Nash could feel her trembling and he gathered her close and whispered, ‘Yes, Maggie, yes,’ in her ear.
Her first cry pierced him to the core and she tightened around him like a vice, her hips bucking, her chest arching.
‘Nash!’ Maggie was slammed from all directions by the powerful sensations of her orgasm and all she could do was hold on tight and ride the fallout.
Nash kept up the rhythm for as long as he could, staving off his own build-up as she broke around him. But her rhythmic contractions pulled at his resistance, sucked at his willpower, and he followed her over the edge, holding her close as they free fell through a quagmire of sensations that sucked and pulled and spun them around until they lay shattered and weary at the bottom.
CHAPTER FOUR
Neither of them moved for several minutes as they waited for earth to right itself and their breathing to return to normal. Maggie shifted underneath him and Nash moved, rolling onto his back still dazed by a sexual energy with a kick more powerful than dynamite.
‘Wow.’
She laughed. ‘Yes. Wow.’
They lay still, looking at the ceiling for a few more minutes, not touching, just breathing, languishing in a post-coital drowse, savouring the last vestiges of sensation lingering in their tissues.
Nash roused himself to go to the bathroom, a smile curving his mouth. It didn’t last long. To his horror he discovered something that banished the smile and the lassitude in his bones in an instant. The condom had split.
Holy shit. No. No. No.
His mind raced with a thousand dire scenarios and his pulse sped up as Nash looked at himself in the mirror. He should be looking sated, relaxed, instead of tense and frowning, and the urge to throw something at it almost overpowered him. He didn’t want this night, what had just happened, diminished by contraception failure. Or for it to be over before it had even really begun.
Damn it all to hell!
Nash stood in the doorway and watched her for a moment despite his inner turmoil. She’d moved, pulled the covers down and got in the bed proper, the sheet pulled up to her hips. Her head was turned away from him and his gaze greedily devoured the
contours of her breasts, the line of her neck and the way her stomach sloped down to her pelvis.
His dick twitched and regret mixed with his irritation that the night had come to a premature end.
Maggie stirred and turned her head. How long had she drifted off for? She spotted Nash standing in her en suite doorway, gloriously naked. Memories of that nakedness all over hers returned and she smiled. ‘You’re a long way away.’
Nash plastered a smile on his face, ignoring the slick of dread in the pit of his belly. ‘Easily fixed.’
Watching as he sauntered towards her, Maggie’s eyes were glued to the easy movement of his tall, broad frame. Her gaze dropped lower as he neared, even spent the man was well endowed which was thrilling and fascinating in equal measure.
He stopped by the side of the bed, his eyes roving over her body as they’d done earlier. But he seemed hesitant - tense – and Maggie felt a prickle brush her nape. Now his curiosity had been satisfied, was he having second thoughts? Was he trying to find the words to say he had to go?
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Regrets?’
‘Oh, God, no, Maggie,’ Nash assured. Not that kind of regret, anyway.
Sitting on the bed he reached for her, pressing a kiss to her palm but Maggie withdrew it, a cold hand slowly wrapping her heart in icy fingers. ‘Sounds like there’s a but coming.’
Nash sighed. ‘No but. It’s just...the condom broke.’
Maggie blinked. And then blinked again as a wave of relief flushed through her system. The condom broke. That was all. He hadn’t looked at her with their passion all burned up and wondered what the hell he’d done.
The condom broke.
She almost vaulted up and danced across the bed but one look at his shattered face told her he might not share her jubilation. Putting herself in his shoes she guessed that as a single footloose-and-fancy-free thirty-year-old man, it was probably the worst possible outcome from a night like this.
But as an infertile forty-year-old woman, it didn’t even rate on her list-of-things-to-worry-about.
Nash took her continuing silence as a bad sign. Damn it! How quickly something good could turn so bad. ‘We should go find a late-night chemist. I think there’s one near the hospital. It’s really best if you take emergency contraception as soon as possible after the incident.’
Maggie laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Even when he looked at her like she’d grown a second head, she laughed.
Nash shut his eyes. Oh, God, she was hysterical. What a disaster. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured.
She sobered at his look of utter misery. ‘Hey.’ Sitting, Maggie tucked her knees under her chin, hugging them close. They were close now and she could see the concern marring the clarity of his blue eyes. ‘It’s okay.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. You’re on the Pill?’
She shook her head and watched the glimmer of optimism fade in his eyes. ‘Come here,’ she whispered.
Nash obliged, moving so he was sitting behind her, his legs spread, his back against the headboard.
‘We really should be thinking about going,’ he said as she snuggled her back into his front, her head under his chin, her bottom into his crotch.
Her smell invaded Nash’s senses as he draped an arm across the front of her, pulling her closer and her nipples beaded against his arm. The slope of her shoulder was close and he only had to drop his head to press a kiss there.
Maggie lightly stroked her fingers up and down the bulk of his biceps, thrilling in the way it twitched beneath her touch. ‘Have you got any diseases I should know about, Nash?’
Nash arm’s tightened at her bald question. He forced himself to relax, rubbing his face against her hair. It was a fair enough question. Condoms weren’t just about pregnancy.
‘Nope. I never have unprotected sex. Never. Ever. And I have a regular blood test. I’m clean.’
Maggie smiled, pleased at his vehement response. Nash had started to trail his fingers up and down her shoulder, the movement dragging his arm across her, and her nipples were growing harder beneath the erotic rub of his biceps. She shut her eyes, savouring the sensation.
‘And you?’
Maggie’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Well, it’s been a long time for me so I’m pretty certain there nothing to worry about.’
Nash kissed her head as things in his loins started to heat up. ‘How long is long?’
Maggie almost didn’t answer. Concentrating was difficult with his erection thickening impressively against the small of her back, and she didn’t think a virile young man would possibly understand her abstinence. ‘About three years.’
He opened his eyes, his fingers stilling. Maggie had gone without sex for three years? He recommenced the stroking. ‘Hell, Maggie, no wonder the condom broke. It’s probably past its expiry date.’
Maggie laughed, he was probably right. But underneath his light words she could detect his horror at her non-existent sex life.
Just one of the many differences between them.
‘You don’t sound too upset by the condom thing,’ Nash murmured after her laughter subsided. ‘Aren’t you worried about getting pregnant? Or is this a safe time in your cycle?’
Even as he said it he wished he could take it back. He was sounding like an ignorant teenager. There was never a safe time. He was a doctor, for fucks sake.
Maggie shut her eyes, savouring the closeness of him, his warmth as she reached for the shield she hadn’t needed in a long time. ‘I don’t have to worry about cycles because I’m... infertile.’
Nash’s hand stilled again. Her voice had been casual but he could feel the tension in her frame. ‘Oh?’
‘Two years of trying with my husband. Six years of IVF. Multiple attempts. Pregnancies none. Divorce one.’
Her forced nonchalance made Nash ashamed at the flood of relief sweeping through him. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to know that Maggie had suffered. After a few moments he kissed her head and went back to trailing his fingers along her skin.
‘That must have been hard,’ he said carefully. He didn’t want to betray his giddiness in the face of Maggie’s misfortune.
Maggie shut her eyes. It had been the most gut-wrenching decade of her life. No wonder she and Peter had crashed and burned. Years of her being a hormonal wreck, in debt to their eyeballs and having robotic sex devoid of any expression of love had led to an inevitable conclusion.
‘Yes.’ Made worse by Peter marrying again within the year and having three children in quick succession.
‘Did they identify the problem?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘No. But it was with me. Idiopathic infertility. After hundreds of tests and tens of thousands of dollars no one could tell me why.’
Sitting this close, Nash could sense her deep, deep regret. He’d seen her with the kids at work. She would have been a good mother. ‘I’m sorry.’
She turned her head, capturing his gaze, raising her palm to cup his face. ‘It was a long time ago.’
Hadn’t he said that to her about his sister’s death?
Maggie dropped her hand but continued to look at him. ‘I take it from the overwhelming relief in your eyes that babies aren’t on your agenda just yet?’
Nash shot her a sheepish grin. He felt like he’d dodged a bullet. ‘Babies aren’t on my agenda full stop.’
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Really.’
‘Oh.’ Maggie looked away.
He glanced at the top of her head. ‘Is that so hard to believe?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘You’re training to be a paediatrician. I guess I assumed you liked them.’
‘It’s because of my profession I choose not to be a father. And my sister’s death. I see the bad stuff that can happen to kids every day. I’ve witnessed it personally. Parents can do everything right and then, whammy! Out of the blue some horrible cancer or awful disease comes at you. I’ve seen how it tears families apart. How it tore at my own family
for years. I lived through the death of my ten-year-old sister and I won’t willingly set myself up for that kind of potential ever again.’
Maggie nodded. Obviously Nash’s scars ran deep. Not that she could blame him. How often had she comforted herself with the fact that she would never know the agony of some of the mothers she’d been involved with over the years?
Being infertile had been a cruel blow but Nash had a point. At least she would never know the even crueller blow of losing a child.
‘Yes, losing a child must be deeply devastating.’
Nash rubbed his cheek against her hair. ‘And I guess I have some old-fashioned beliefs. I don’t think people should have children outside committed relationships. And I don’t plan on committing to anything other than my career for many years to come.’
Maggie heard the grim certainty in his voice. It was easy to mistake Nash as a laid-back country boy but he was as driven and career focused as the most dedicated city doctor.
She shifted against him and wriggled a bit to get comfortable. ‘It’s good that you know what you want.’
Nash’s erection appreciated the delicious rub of her ass. ‘Well, I know what I want right now.’ He dropped the arm draped around her shoulders and cupped her breasts in his palms.
Maggie sucked in a breath as a lust-tipped arrow shot straight to her core. ‘I think it’s the same as me,’ she said, arching her back as he grazed his thumbs across appreciative nipples.
‘Lucky for us I have two condoms in my wallet. Two new ones.’
Maggie looked up at him. ‘I thought we just established there’s no need.’
Nash dropped his head and kissed the tip of her nose as he kept up the massage of her breasts. The thought of being inside her with no barrier between them was so very tempting.
‘Old habits die hard.’ He kissed her nose again. ‘Just because you couldn’t fall with your ex doesn’t mean you won’t with me.’
Maggie smiled at his youthful cockiness. ‘You think your swimmers can manage what medical science couldn’t?’
