“See something you like?” He didn’t have the ability to stop flirting, especially when a beautiful woman he desired regarded him like dessert.
Half her mouth lifted in a sultry smile. “Lose the towel, and then I’ll tell you.”
He struggled to remember his resolve and her status as a virgin. He managed what he hoped was an amused grin, and he disappeared into the bedroom. If she came after him, he might not pass that test.
MINA DEBATED FOLLOWING him, but he closed the door solidly behind him, a definite hint that he didn’t want her in there. It wasn’t quite a rejection. His manner had seemed more like he wanted to wait, that he had planned a series of activities for them today and nothing she could say would derail his plans. She understood on a very primal level that he needed things to happen on his terms.
She wasn’t sure she was willing to accept that. A bigger part of her wondered whether the debate mattered. She’d be gone as soon as her mother agreed to move.
She returned to the kitchen, where three quiches cooled on the stove. She didn’t know if two were for Ever, or if Wilder had planned to accompany them until she’d brought up his lack of a date. Seriously, though, if Wilder wanted a date, she didn’t see how he’d have trouble finding one. He was very attractive—not as handsome as Everett, but definitely a hottie.
Arms slid around her waist, pulling her backward. She turned her head to snuggle into the embrace, and Ever’s shower-clean scent engulfed her senses. His body seemed to wrap around her as well, holding her tight and keeping her safe. The contradictory responses he aroused puzzled her to no end. One moment she was questioning his nearly pathological need for control, and the next she luxuriated in his affection.
Her lack of experience wasn’t to blame either. She didn’t need to have dated anybody else to know that Ever was a singular man. He would eventually make sense. In the meantime, he could be a fun enigma to figure out.
He turned her around and kissed her soundly, gripping her hip with one hand and the side of her head with the other. A light, tingly feeling zipped through her body, which seemed to swell into him, trying to burst out of her clothes.
When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers, and she knew he’d been affected just as much as she had. It made her feel special. Then he pressed another kiss to her lips and stepped back.
“Let me pack up the quiche, and we can get going.” He put two of them into the basket and handed her the third. “We’ll drop that by Wilder’s place. He inherited his cooking ability from our mother, so he’s in danger of starving to death.”
They smelled good, and Mina’s stomach gurgled with anticipation. Everett took her to the mountains above the town. She knew the area pretty well, having grown up here, but she didn’t recognize the narrow road he turned down.
“I have to widen this a little more. Once the house is built, I’ll have asphalt put down.” He slowed his truck to a crawl as he guided it over the deep ruts.
“This is the land your grandparents left you and Wilder? Did they leave anything to Danica and Marielle?” The land was beautiful, lush with forest vegetation. But it seemed unfair that the male children would inherit everything.
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “They wanted cash. Marielle has a kick-ass condo on the beach in Hawaii. Danica’s money is stuck in a trust until she’s twenty-five. My parents could give it to her now, but they know she’ll just blow it.”
Mina hadn’t known Danica that well, but she didn’t think Danica was as thoughtless and impulsive as Everett did. Danica might not invest the money the way her older sister had, but she would no doubt use it well.
Ever brought the truck to a halt. He gestured to the right, where a clearing revealed a sloped piece of land. “That’s where I’m going to build.”
She studied the incline thoughtfully, trying to picture a house there. “You’re going to built it into the hillside?”
He nodded. “Four bedrooms, five bathrooms, three stories. Solar cells on the roof. It’ll have glass lining most of the back where it overlooks the drop-off.”
“It sounds wonderful.” She couldn’t see living in a house that large and ostentatious. Her next place would be a small, two-bedroom house or apartment in sunny California.
“It will be.” He sighed. “It’s going to take a few more years to save up before I can start construction. In the meantime, we can have a picnic and admire the view.”
The afternoon flew. Mina ate more than she thought she would. It turned out that Everett had some real talent in the kitchen. They rambled all around his property. He showed her where Wilder planned to build his house. It was close enough to walk over, but the thick stands of trees afforded plenty of privacy. He held her hand, and he kissed her a lot, the type of deep, toe-curling kisses that left her breathless and wanting more. Then he’d move on, his fingers intertwined with hers as he guided her through the woods.
Standing near a precipice overlooking a small stream, he took pity on her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, cupping her breasts in his palms. He held her in place with her back pinned to his chest, and he nipped at her earlobe.
She melted into him, trusting him to support her weight. He hummed against her neck, making an approving sound. Wordlessly, he lifted her shirt and unclasped her bra, and then he returned to cupping her breasts, this time without a barrier. She gasped as he pinched and rolled her nipples.
“I’m going to make you come, Mina. Spread your legs a little farther apart, and keep facing forward.”
He didn’t ask, not that she expected that from him. If she objected, he had instructed her in how to stop him. Obediently, she widened her stance. The cotton shorts she’d chosen made her butt look cute, but they were stretchy as well. He’d told her to dress comfortably.
He kept one hand high on her body, holding her to his chest and stimulating her breasts at the same time. The other he slipped past the waistband of her shorts, directly into her wetness.
“Mmmm.” He opened his mouth wide and bit her neck. A hundred bolts of lightning shot from that point to where he circled his finger around her clit. “You’re so wet, so responsive. I could keep you like this for hours, play with you all day, taste you, touch you until you beg me to make you mine.”
She was ready to beg right now. “Ever?”
“Shhh. Just enjoy what I’m doing to you.”
“But I want—”
He pulled his hand from her shorts and shoved two wet fingers into her mouth. She wasn’t sure whether she should suck on them. “Mina, when I tell you to stay quiet, I mean it. One more word, and you’ll be choosing between a spanking and a gag.”
There was that threat again. What was it with him and spanking? The spanking was obviously an empty threat, but she wasn’t so sure about the gag. She opted to keep the question to herself. Closing her mouth around his fingers, she sucked them with gentle pulls. He exhaled hard against her neck and twisted her nipple. It didn’t hurt like she thought it would. Little blasts of heat pulsed from the tip, spreading over her breast.
She whimpered with him in her mouth, and when he slid his fingers in and out, she sucked and licked, simulating a blowjob the best she could. If she wasn’t allowed to tell him what she wanted, he couldn’t object to her showing him that she was willing to go as far as he wanted to take her.
He ground his hard cock against her ass. “Little vixen.”
She moaned at the accusation in his tone, giving her consent however she could, but he extracted his fingers and returned them to her pussy.
“Not a sound.” He pushed those fingers inside her, plunging them deep. “You’re going to come for me, but you’re not allowed to shout or cry out. Hold it in.”
She’d been loud the night before. No doubt her screams would echo all over the valley if she let loose. He massaged her intimate tissues until he found the spot that made her gasp. Then he spread her pussy lips with the palm of his hand. As he slid his fingers in and out, establishing a rhythm
that she couldn’t hope to resist, his palm rubbed and scraped her clit.
She moved her hips, fucking his hand as they stood on the edge of the mountain. The way he plucked at her nipples drove her need higher. It stung a little, but it felt so damn good at the same time. She wanted to make noise, to say his name, to release the wealth of moans trapped inside her. They only added to the tension, the coil of heat low in her abdomen.
Pressing her hand to her mouth, she did her best to stifle the sound of her climax. Ever held her body against his as the strength left her limbs. Vaguely, she was aware that he’d withdrawn his fingers and licked them clean, and then he’d fixed her shorts.
“Ever?” She figured it was safe to speak now.
“Yes, dear?”
“I want you to make love to me.”
He buried his face in her neck, but she heard his muffled response anyway. “One day, I will. But not now.”
Any lethargy fled. She turned in his arms and forced him to meet her eyes. “Why not?”
He pressed his lips together as he thought.
She didn’t want him to take his time to formulate a response. She wanted the truth. “Everett Burke, don’t you dare lie to me.”
That got him. His eyes widened. “I would never lie to you. There’s a time and a place for every discussion. That’s not lying.”
She tried to pull out of his arms, but he wouldn’t let go. “The time and the place is now. I know you’re attracted to me. Why don’t you want to have sex with me? Why won’t you let me make you feel the way you make me feel?”
He exhaled hard through his nose. “Because you’re a virgin, Mina. It’s not just sex, and you’re not in love with me yet, so it’s not making love either.”
She yanked hard this time, and he released his hold on her. She wasn’t under the delusion that she was free because she’d pulled hard enough. He allowed her to take a step away from him. “How did you know I was a virgin? For Christ’s sake, I’m not that bad at kissing.”
His brows shot up, and she could tell he was suppressing the urge to laugh. “No, you’re very good at kissing. It was a hunch, one you just confirmed.”
She couldn’t believe this. The one time she actually wanted to sleep with a man, and he turned her down because she hadn’t said yes to someone else before she’d met him. What kind of hypocrisy was that? “This is bullshit.”
EVERETT WATCHED HER stomp around. She was pissed. If he weren’t afraid she’d launch herself at him, he’d spend some time admiring the way her eyes flashed and rosy spots of color bloomed on her cheeks. She set her lips into a thin line that made him want to kiss them until they were swollen again. She clenched her fists and muttered under her breath in Korean.
He knew she spoke the language because he’d overheard her speaking to her mother one time in a store years ago, but he didn’t understand a word she said. He spread his hands wide, palms up. “Mina. Be reasonable.”
She whirled to face him, and that glare only grew brighter. “Reasonable? You’re prejudiced against me because I’m a virgin. That’s not reasonable.”
Where the hell had she come up with that? “I have no problem with you being a virgin.”
“No?”
“No.”
She parked her hands on her hips. “Then prove it. Have sex with me.”
If he were to use tactics like this on a woman, the entire world would judge him harshly. Yet he couldn’t muster up any ire at her. She was just too damn cute. He shook his head. “I’m not going to have sex with you just to prove a point.”
She narrowed her eyes until they were barely slits. “You don’t play fair.”
“No, I don’t.” There was no use in denying it. She would figure it out sooner or later. Because she was so intelligent, he knew it would happen sooner. His admission seemed to take some of the wind out of her sails.
“Take me back. We’re finished here.”
She tried to storm past him, but he caught her easily. She struggled in his arms. While he found her stubborn display of anger endearing and cute, he also found it exasperating. “Stop fighting me, Mina.” He had a strong urge to turn her over his knee, but he didn’t say that aloud. Besides, that idea seemed to be temporarily off the table. That didn’t mean his need to discipline her had vanished. The unspoken warning hung in the air with the reverberation of his command.
Immediately she stilled. Though her face was turned to the side, he could see the way her thoughts raced through her mind, because her face was too expressive to hide anything. When she lifted her gaze, she nailed him with daggers. “So, what now? You’re bigger and stronger than me, so that gives you the right to bully me?”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Her bullying tactics hadn’t worked, so now she turned the situation around to make him the bad guy.
She renewed her struggle, but he merely tightened his grip. “Mina, honey, maybe you want to ask me why I won’t have sex with you right now.”
Her entire body went rigid. “You have an STD?”
He wanted to laugh again, but out of frustration, not amusement. She was a feisty one. While it was vexing, it just made him fall for her a little more. “No. I’m clean. My employer requires a complete health check twice a year. I just had mine. I can show you the report if you’d like.”
She peered up at him again. “You work for your parents.”
He shrugged and eased his hold. “I don’t get special treatment.” Though he didn’t want to, he released her once again.
She ran a hand through her hair and pursed her lips. “Okay, tell me why you won’t have sex with me right now.”
He’d asked for this, yet it wasn’t as easy to put his reasoning into words as he’d hoped. But he knew if he took too long to start talking, she’d just get pissed again. “You’re twenty-two, and you’re a virgin. The fact that you’ve never let a man touch you tells me that sex means a lot to you, maybe more than it means to most people. You’re saving yourself for someone special. I want you to be sure it’s me, Mina, because I never want you to look back at anything we do together with regret.”
Her shoulders slumped, her face crumpled, and she turned away. Crap, he’d failed. He should have taken more time to formulate his response.
He closed the distance between them and hugged her from behind. “Please don’t cry. I’m not doing this to hurt you. I’m doing this to protect you.”
“I’m not crying.”
She might deny it, but he heard the tears in her voice. Still, he knew better than to call her on it. Her convoluted reasoning would somehow lead her to the conclusion that she wasn’t crying and he was calling her a liar.
“Of course you’re not.” He turned her in his arms and held her until she stopped sniffling.
“You’re a very sweet man, Ever, but you’re sorely misguided.”
Had he heard her right? “Misguided?”
“Yes. Maybe I just never met a man I wanted to have sex with before you. Most girls dated in high school. I wasn’t allowed friends, much less boyfriends. I didn’t learn how to date until college. Perhaps it’s not that I’ve saved myself; it’s just that I started a few years later than everybody else.”
Her argument took him by surprise. He supposed, looking at it that way, she was right. If most women had their first sexual experiences in their late teens, then she was only a couple of years behind.
“Nice,” he said, not bothering to hide the depth of his appreciation for her argument. Of course he had to follow it up with a joke to defuse her anger. “Were you on the debate team at Harvard?”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re not buying that either, are you?”
“No, but if you want, I’ll teach you how to give me a blowjob.”
Her chin came up defiantly. “You’re assuming I’ve never done that before too?”
He responded with the barest lift of his eyebrow. He’d bet his land on it. Before yesterday, she’d claimed to have never kissed on a fir
st date.
“Fine,” she said, giving in without a hint of grace. “I’ll let you teach me.”
She extracted herself from his arms and headed away from him.
“Where are you going?”
“To the truck,” she called over her shoulder. “How else are we going to get back to your apartment?”
“If you keep going that way, you’ll end up at Wilder’s place.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “Truck’s back that way.”
He didn’t bother to temper his laughter at the way she turned around and lifted her chin higher, as if she’d intended to go that way all along.
* * * *
Mina bit her lip, something she almost never did, as she waited on Everett’s sofa. The bright summer sun streamed through the windows, reminding her that it wasn’t even close to sunset. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this nervous. Even last night, her first time naked with a man, she hadn’t resorted to torturing her face.
Ever whistled as he came out of the bathroom. He’d let her use it first, which was good because she always had to go when she was anxious.
He sat on the couch next to her, his arm splayed along the spine and his leg bent between them. She stared at his shorts and wondered if she was going to have to undress him the way he’d undressed her.
“The first thing to keep in mind is that this should be fun for everyone involved.”
He said it with a straight face, but he’d also asked her if she had been on the debate team at Harvard with a straight face, so she knew he had mastered ironic delivery. Mina glanced around the room to see who else might be involved. Not even the kitten was around. Then she looked back at him. His expression hadn’t changed.
“You’re kidding, right?”
That smile curled at the corners of his mouth, rendering him even more devastatingly handsome. “Nope.”
Safe Word: Oasis 5: Mina's Heart Page 9
