by Megan Hart
“All right. Should I still meet you in the lobby?”
Graham signaled and took the exit. “Yes. Sure.”
He heard the soft sigh of her breath and pictured her expression. She’d be smiling. Julia had a gorgeous smile.
“I’m waiting, Graham.”
“Okay.” He caught sight of his eyes in the rearview. Crinkled again. He couldn’t help the grin.
Julia’s laugh had always sent a thrill through him. He’d gotten a hundred hard-ons thinking of it over the past year. That and the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, and how smooth the column of her throat was, and how much he’d fantasized about kissing her there…and other places.
“I’m almost there.” His voice had roughed a little, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“I can’t wait.”
Silence followed that, and for an instant Graham wondered if it had been too much. If maybe the entire year he’d spent cursing himself for what an idiot he’d been to let her walk away had been based on nothing more than wishful thinking. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d misread a woman, but then Julia put his fears to rest. The silence became another sigh and another sweet, low laugh that raised the hair on the back of his neck and thickened his cock.
“Me neither.”
Other voices filtered into the background. The ding of the elevator. He pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine.
“I’m really glad you emailed me, Julia.”
The click-clack of heels on a hard surface muted, and more voices swirled around hers. Overhead as he got out of the car, the rumble-roar of a plane taking off echoed in the phone. Graham looked across the lot to the Hilton’s glass front doors.
“Are you?”
He locked his doors but kept the phone to his ear as he walked. “Yes. I am.”
“Why?” she asked, and he had no trouble picturing the sly, sideways glance she’d give him with her smile.
“Because it’s been a long time.” He didn’t count the steps it took him to reach the building, or how many inches his arm had to reach to yank open the door. He was inside, his eyes already scanning the lobby for her when she answered.
“It sure has.”
He didn’t measure the distance between them when he saw her. He only did his best to make it smaller. And then she was there in front of him, her smile the same as he remembered it. Her eyes the same blue, hair a little longer but the same dark shade.
Julia looked up at him, her head tipping back as she smiled. Her gaze swept over him, head to foot and back again to his eyes. “Well, hello,” she said, and disconnected the call.
Chapter 3
Nothing about Graham had become unfamiliar. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the tip of his smile, the flex of his jaw and throat when he spoke. All those small details had been burned into her memory and kept fresh viewing the photos on his Connex page.
His hair had grown, feathering over his ears in tufts the color of a wren’s wings. There was nothing else avian about him. Nothing else so soft. Every line and angle of his face looked as though it had been drawn with a fine brush, the edges sharp and clear, not blended or fuzzy.
“It’s good to see you.” Graham slid his phone into the pocket of his khakis.
She expected him to reach for her, even if only in a purely casual social gesture. When he settled for an incongruously impersonal handshake, her heartbeat stuttered at the simple touch of fingertips and the heat of his palm, and she was grateful he hadn’t embraced her. It would have been too much.
“You, too.”
Never had there been words so bland yet so fraught with tension. Julia lifted her chin a little but turned her gaze to keep from looking at him full-on. She didn’t want to burn him with her eyes.
“Are you ready?” Graham looked around the lobby, then back at her. “Hungry?”
“Yes. I kept thinking I’d grab a snack while I waited, but then they’d announce something else about the flights and I’d hang out to see what it was…” She trailed off with a shrug and put a hand over her stomach. The rumbles and roars inside had only a little to do with hunger, at least the sort that could be satisfied with food.
“C’mon. I’ll take care of you.” Graham held out his hand, and she took it.
He didn’t drop it as he led her across the parking lot to his car. He opened the door for her and kept hold of her hand to help her inside. The thud of the door as he closed it reverberated in her belly and between her thighs, which Julia pressed together under her skirt.
She’d showered quickly and changed her clothes, though it meant she’d have nothing clean to wear home tomorrow. It had been more important to look good now, when it mattered who saw her. When it mattered that Graham saw her.
An entire year vanished as they drove. Graham asked her about the new fish she’d bought for her fish tank, the only pets she allowed herself since she traveled so often. The fact he’d been paying attention sent her pulse racing. So did the way he shifted gears, his big hand engulfing the gearshift. She only had to move her leg half an inch to the left, and his knuckles would brush the fabric of her skirt. The corner he took made the decision for her. Graham glanced at the shifter, then at her, and Julia looked back.
What had she been so afraid of, anyway? Why had she wasted so much time? They could have been cyberfucking for months, even if they hadn’t done so much as do anything more in person than shake hands.
She’d been stupid.
Graham pulled into the lot of a cozy-looking restaurant and turned off the car. For the first time, their conversation died. He turned in his seat to face her, and Julia braved herself to look at him. Why had she thought this would be so difficult?
“Are you ready?” Graham asked.
If she touched him, Julia was convinced electricity would arc from her hand to his. It crackled unseen between them. She could smell it, the tangy ozone scent of desire.
“Absolutely.”
One word said quite a lot. His smile said more, and all at once she had no more doubts. No fear of rejection, or making a mistake. The urgency didn’t fade, but it shifted. First dinner and later, then…the rest. The cake. There’d be time for all of it. Graham’s smile told her so.
Maybe it was her answering smile that had emboldened him, or maybe he’d come to his own realization, but Graham made no pretense that this was anything other than a date. Last year, the setting and their companions had constrained them, but here there was nobody to judge. This wasn’t work.
It was all about pleasure.
He stayed back to allow her to slide into the booth first and handed her the menu before lifting his own. Julia held the stiff, printed sheet but didn’t study the selections right away. Graham’s face drew her attention. It fed her as easily and fully as the fettuccine Alfredo and garlic bread they both ordered. It quenched her thirst as well as the good red wine the sommelier recommended.
The booth could easily have sat six, and they both pretended it was as crowded. His thigh pressed hers as he leaned to offer her another slice of garlic bread oozing butter. Julia took it, and their hands brushed. She bit into it and the full flavors of good Italian bread, sweet butter, spicy garlic, exploded on her tongue. Graham’s tongue slid over his mouth at the sound she made.
“That good, huh?”
“Try it.” She offered him the slice from her hand.
His fingers circled her wrist to keep her hand steady as he took the last bite from her. He lipped her fingertips, suckling gently and so quickly only the answering tug of desire in her clit proved he’d done it at all. Without letting go of her wrist Graham chewed. Swallowed. His mouth gleamed with butter, and Julia wanted to lean in to lick it from his lips.
Under the table, their legs touched. She waited, holding her breath, for him to kiss her. Graham’s mouth parted and he leaned forward…but he didn’t kiss her. His breath nuzzled her cheek and the scent of garlic and butter and
wine all mingled until he was as tantalizing as the meal.
Julia tensed at the brush of his mouth on her ear. She could turn her head and take his mouth with hers, but the tickle-tingle of pleasure his lips were creating against her neck as he spoke was too delightful to give up. Her nipples peaked against the satin of her bra as her eyes fluttered closed. Could he see that, the evidence of her arousal? She didn’t care.
“Are you ready for dessert?”
It wasn’t exactly what she’d expected him to say. Julia opened her eyes, her mouth already tipping into a smile as she turned to look at him. “Are you?”
Graham’s fingers slid from around her wrist to link with hers. Palm to palm, their hands came to rest on the table. Below it, their thighs touched, moved apart. Touched again.
“Whatever you want, Julia.” Graham’s eyes weren’t blue or green or gray but some mixed-up shade of all three. Now the pupils had gone wide and dark, with the table’s candlelight reflected in them.
Julia also saw herself, hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her mouth a slash of red, tinged from wine and her cheeks flushed pink with the heat of his closeness. His admiration had become her mirror.
She meant to speak but her throat at first wouldn’t let her. She licked her lips, and he watched her do it. His fingers tightened on hers. She drew in a breath, then another.
Graham’s gaze flickered, but he didn’t look away. There’d be no taking back the words, not that she wanted to. Julia leaned closer, just a little, to allow her lowered voice to reach his ear. Their mouths were scant inches apart, but they were not kissing. This close she could count the individual hairs in each of his brows, his lashes, in the line of his off-center widow’s peak. She could trace the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes with her gaze.
“I think,” Julia said slowly, “I’d like you to take me back to my hotel.”
Chapter 4
The car ride had been eternal. Unbearable. Julia had turned on the radio and opened the roof, and the wind whipping her hair into tangles around her shoulders had also taken away their conversation, leaving only the sound of her laughter.
In the parking lot she said nothing but looked at him over her shoulder as she moved toward the hotel. She didn’t have to crook her finger to get him to follow. The invitation was in her eyes, impossible to misinterpret this time.
The lobby bustled with people coming and going. They got on the elevator, where Graham took a spot along the back wall next to Julia. She stared straight ahead, but he could see the tilt of her smile. The crowd pushed in on them, but even in the crush of people he could feel her. Smell her. She was the only woman there, as far as he was concerned.
The elevator stopped. They got off. Down the hall he followed her, and still they hadn’t said more than a murmured word or two. At her door she paused.
Now it comes, he thought. She’d say goodnight and leave him with his cock aching and his heart pounding. But Julia glanced at him over her shoulder and slid her key card into the slot. She pushed open the door and walked through.
Graham went after her.
She was already turning as he stepped inside and the door started to hiss closed behind him. In two steps she was in his arms. In another she had him pushed against the door, her knee between his thighs, both her hands laid flat on his chest.
She didn’t kiss him.
They stared. He was breathing hard, his pulse like thunder in his ears. The perfect breasts he’d fantasized about for months rose and fell beneath her silk blouse, and though his hands itched to cup them, Graham didn’t move.
Julia looked at him and tugged her lower lip into the grip of her even, white teeth. Her hands, fingers spread, moved down his chest to his belly. Her knee hitched higher, pressing her thigh against his balls, and his cock surged.
Her eyes widened a tiny bit at the sound of the moan he couldn’t hold back. Her tongue swiped her mouth. Holding his breath, Graham watched her gaze move over his face, his jaw, his throat, the small part of his bare chest exposed by the undone couple buttons on his shirt. Her eyes licked kisses all over him.
His hands, which had gone naturally to her hips when she put herself against him, clutched, but something in her gaze kept him from moving more than that. Julia’s thigh moved slowly back and forth between his legs, the pressure not enough to do more than tease.
And still they hadn’t spoken. The sound of their breath, mingled, was harsh and loud even over the room’s noisy air conditioner. Through the door behind him Graham heard the mutter of voices, the squeak of wheels. He opened his mouth to say something, but had nothing to say.
“I shouldn’t have walked away.”
It wasn’t what he expected her to say, but once the words left her lips Graham couldn’t have imagined anything more right. He half-nodded, not trusting his voice.
One hand moved down his chest to his belt buckle, and he held his breath again. Her other hand slid over his heart. Her gaze went there next. When she leaned to press her mouth to his shirt, when she felt the leap and stutter of his heart at her touch, Graham said the only thing that came to mind.
“You’re not walking away now.”
Her breath seeped hot through the cotton and her lips traced shivery patterns on him when she spoke. “No. Absolutely not.”
In his imaginings he’d had her on the bed already, exploring that luscious body with hands and tongue. But now, here, in the reality, with the slow but steady rocking of her thigh against his balls and her hand only inches from his cock, Graham couldn’t move.
She wasn’t waiting for him to make the first move. He knew it though she hadn’t said so. Julia wasn’t waiting for him to kiss her, or touch her. Julia, Graham thought with another small groan easing from his throat, was the one in charge here. All he could do – all he wanted to do—was acquiesce.
When she looked at him this time, her dark blue eyes flashed. Something passed between them in that look, and though Graham wasn’t sure exactly what it was, Julia nodded slightly, as though she approved.
Her thigh pressed him again, and this time he couldn’t stop the breath from hissing out, or his hips from pushed forward. Julia smiled. The hand on his belt moved to cup him. She weighed him through the khaki, his cock stiff and his balls heavy; when her hand stroked him the material blunted her touch but did nothing to diminish its power.
Graham’s hands fisted in her shirt, just above her hips. “Julia –”
“Shh.” She shook her head a little. “This is all right. Isn’t it?”
He didn’t know what to say. No other woman had ever pinned him to a door. It didn’t matter he stood a good half a foot taller or that he could easily have captured both her wrists with one of his hands. She held him prisoner not with her size or strength but with her will.
It was fucking sexy as hell.
Her gaze still locked on his, Julia nimbly opened his belt buckle. Then the button and zipper. When she slid her hand inside both his pants and his boxer briefs, when her hand found his hot, hard cock and stroked it flesh on flesh, Graham’s head went back against the door with a thud. It stung, but the sweetness of her touch took away any pain. He wanted to watch her face but his eyes closed as automatically as his mouth opened from the pleasure.
She stepped away from him, and his hands fell away from her. Graham forced himself to look at her again, even as the ecstasy her hand was making on his prick wanted to take all his attention. Julia’s expression had gone serious, her smooth brow furrowed. She wasn’t looking at his face, but at the place her hand disappeared into his pants. Up. Down. She jerked him slowly, constrained by fabric.
When she met his gaze, she smiled. “It feels like you have a nice, thick cock, Graham. But I’d like to see it.”
His hands went at once to his waistband and pushed at it. His briefs got hung up for a moment on his erection but he was practiced enough at stripping past a hard-on to get beyond it. Julia, still gripping him, used her other hand to help him, but the pants went no fur
ther than his upper thighs.
It was enough, apparently. Her eyes gleamed as she took in the sight of him. Watching her look at him sent a surge of pleasure from his balls to his cock, held so firmly in her fist.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
No woman had ever said his penis was pretty, much less called it gorgeous, and heat flooded his chest and up his throat to his cheeks. She tilted her head to stare, her hand still moving at a torturously slow pace.
“Does that embarrass you?”
The blush embarrassed him more, and Graham shook his head.
Her grip tightened. She squeezed the head of his cock gently, then stroked down. He jerked under her touch. “It’s not nice to be untruthful.”
“I’m…not…It’s not that.” Graham swallowed, then laughed. “You do realize it’s hard to talk when you’re touching me like that.”
“I figured as much.” Julia’s low, throaty laughter sent more heat spinning through him. “What do you think would happen if I sucked you, instead?”
“I –”
It was all he had time to say before she stepped back far enough to push his pants farther down as she stepped into the crotch and used her foot to shove them all the way to his ankles. In the next moment she’d gone to her knees in front of him. She hadn’t yet let go of his prick, and Graham looked down, stunned.
She gave him a quick smile before she took him in her mouth. His hands found the silk of her hair and his head went back against the door again. His cock leaped as her tongue stroked the head, and when she sucked gently Graham muttered a low curse.
Julia hummed laughter around his cock and sucked a little harder. Her hand followed her mouth’s path. When her other stroked his balls, Graham cried out her name.
Julia had such a beautiful mouth there was no doubt he’d more than once imagined it on his prick, but even in his wildest fantasies Graham had never pictured her like this. Hell, even as a teenager horny from watching soft-core porn on late night cable he’d never believed something like this could happen. He’d had blowjobs, but a woman had never gone down on him like this.
