And the Winner Gets...Married!

by Metsy Hingle

  When his fingers brushed the mouth of her sex, Kim writhed in embarrassment as she felt herself grow even more damp. “Justin, I—”

  He opened her then, began to stroke the sensitive flesh at her center with his finger. Kim could no longer think, let alone speak. Curling her fists into the towel that had fallen discarded on the rug beneath her, she could scarcely breathe as need began to spiral through her. And when Justin replaced his fingers with his mouth and stroked her with his tongue, everything inside her shattered.

  Seven

  Justin nearly lost it as Kim came apart beneath him, her body trembling in the throes of her climax. She was so sweet and responsive it had made holding back his own pleasure even more difficult. Witnessing her stunned look of satisfaction now as she opened her eyes and attempted to focus made him all the more glad that he had held back.

  “Justin, I…you…”

  He smiled, enchanted by her expressive face. He didn’t need her to tell him that she was a stranger to oral sex. And he couldn’t help feeling glad that he was the one to initiate her. While he knew it wasn’t fair, the idea of another man touching Kim, sharing intimacies with her, struck some primal chord within him.

  She touched his face. “What just happened…it was…incredible.”

  He kissed the palm at his jaw. “You were incredible,” he told her, and meant it.

  She smiled at him then, that woman’s smile. Much like the smile he imagined the nymph Calypso had used on Odysseus. And like Odysseus, he found her impossible to resist.

  She kissed him deeply, hungrily. Sitting up, she kissed his shoulder, nipped the skin, then laved it with her tongue. All the while her hands were on him, stroking, exploring. He filled his palms with her breasts, felt his manhood throb as the nipples hardened beneath his touch.

  Her tongue circled his nipples, and Justin groaned when she closed her teeth around them and suckled. “Kim, you’re driving me crazy.”

  “Good,” she replied, and began a trail of kisses down his chest to his belly. After unbuckling his belt, she loosened the snap of his cutoffs. But when she fumbled with the zipper, the innocent brush of her fingers nearly sent him over the edge. Quickly, Justin dispensed with the cutoffs and briefs and returned to Kim.

  “You’re beautiful,” she whispered, and ran her fingers down his male length.

  The sensation was erotic and as arousing as hell. Like being stroked by velvet, Justin thought. When she closed her fist around him, his vision blurred. “Kim, sweetheart,” he cautioned, and captured her wrist. Sucking in a breath, he grappled for control. He’d been teetering on the edge since she’d kissed him and told him she wanted him. He didn’t want to ruin it for both of them by exploding now.

  Trying to slow things down again, he pressed her back into the pillows and kissed her softly.

  It didn’t work. How could it? he reasoned when she was nipping his mouth with her teeth? When she was guiding him to her moist center? When she was looking up at him out of those incredible blue-green eyes that mirrored his own desire? With a Herculean effort, Justin held himself back and forced himself to ask, “Are you sure this is what you want? It’ll probably kill me to stop now, but I will if you’re not sure.”

  “I’m sure,” she told him, and pulled his mouth down to hers. “I want this. I want you.”

  The kiss was hot, explosive, carnal. Justin wasn’t sure where his mouth ended and where Kim’s began. He only knew that he couldn’t get close enough to her. She moved against him, brushing her lower body against his sex. He went weak with need as she guided him to her warm, moist center.

  “Wait,” he told her, feeling the last vestiges of his sanity and control slip. He scanned the shadows, searching the floor for his pants, intent on getting protection.

  “Please, Justin. Now!”

  And before he could stop her, Kim was lifting her hips.

  Justin swore. Unable to stop himself, he caught her hips and drove himself home. He felt the brief resistance, heard Kim’s soft cry and froze as he realized the reason behind it. He tried to remain perfectly still, terrified that he would hurt her even more.

  “Justin?”

  “Sweetheart, try not to move,” he told her when she stirred beneath him. Sweat broke out across his brow with the effort it took him not to finish what they’d begun. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

  She caught his face between her palms and forced him to look at her. “You didn’t hurt me. But you will if you tell me that my being a virgin makes a difference and you no longer want me.”

  “Oh, I want you.” He wanted her as he’d never wanted anyone or anything before in his life.

  “Then show me.”

  “Kim—”

  She tightened her feminine muscles, and Justin groaned at the sensation.

  Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room with streaks of light. Thunder struck nearby. But the storm outside was no match for the storm inside him as Kim began to move beneath him. Then all he could see was Kim. All he wanted was Kim.

  Driven by desire and the need to make this special for her, to make her his, Justin eased his hand between them and began to stroke that sensitive spot with his finger even as he moved himself inside her. He brought her up, took her to the brink.

  Her eyes were glazed as she looked at him and gasped, “Justin, I can’t. I—”

  “You can,” he assured her, urging her to take. When she shuddered, cried out in wonder, Justin’s own need spiked. Drinking in her cries of pleasure, he strained to hold himself back as she pulsed around him and brought him closer and closer to the edge.

  Sweat trickled down his back with the effort it took not to follow her over the crest into those storm-tossed waves. Still, he waited. And when her spasms subsided, he took her up again and again, and watched her come apart in his arms. While he liked to believe he was a generous lover, never before had he felt this need to give so much. Never before had he found such pleasure in the giving.

  When she pulsed around him and cried out his name, his control broke. He plunged into her one last time and the world around him exploded as he followed Kim into the storm.

  Now he knew what it must feel like to be shipwrecked, Justin thought a short time later. He eased himself up onto his elbows and looked down at Kim. Something warm and tender unfurled inside him as he stared at her flushed face. He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Are you all right?”

  Her lashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes. A smile curved her lips. “Am I alive?”

  “I think so,” he told her, feeling a measure of relief at her response. “You’re sure I didn’t hurt you?”

  “Positive. You’re a wonderful lover, Justin Connelly. Just as I knew you would be.”

  Justin sobered at the reminder of the gift she’d given him. He lay down beside her and held her in the circle of his arms. Kissing the top of her head, he asked, “Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes? There’s something I want to do.”

  “Yes, but—”

  He silenced her with a kiss. “No buts. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Snagging his cutoffs, Justin took one of the candles from the mantel and headed for the bathroom, where he turned on the taps and began to fill the old-fashioned claw-foot tub with water. Once he had the tub filled and had lit the room with the fat, scented candles Tara had insisted he needed the last time she visited, he went to retrieve Kim.

  She lay sleeping on the rug in front of the fireplace where he’d left her. With the towel wrapped around her body, her arms and legs were bare. For several moments Justin stood over her and watched the candlelight play over her features. She looked so beautiful and tempting that he wondered how on earth he had managed to work with her for six months and not realize it.

  But on some level he had recognized just how beautiful and special Kim was, Justin admitted as he knelt beside her and brushed a strand of hair from her face. He’d simply tried his best to ignore it and his feelings
for Kim because deep down inside he’d known that once he did acknowledge them, he and Kim would find themselves right where they were now. As lovers.

  When it came to making decisions, he and Kim becoming lovers was probably not the wisest thing to do, Justin conceded. After all, he’d seen firsthand just how his father’s involvement with his former secretary Angie Donahue had impacted his parents’ marriage. Though his parents had patched up their differences and his mother had raised his half brother, Seth, as her own, it had not been easy for any of them, including Seth. That was why Justin had been determined to avoid just such a situation by ignoring his attraction to Kim.

  But then, he and Kim were not his father and Seth’s mother, he reasoned. And he was no longer sure he’d really had any choice in the matter. Even now, less than thirty minutes since he’d made love to her, he wanted her again with an intensity that shook him.

  Kim stirred, and when she opened her eyes, she asked, “Where did you go?”

  “I’ll show you,” he said, and slid his arms beneath her legs and lifted her. He carried her into the bathroom, where he removed the towel she’d draped over her body and lowered her into the tub. Reaching for the hair clip he’d found stashed in a drawer, he gathered her hair onto her head to keep it from getting wet again.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and eased down into the tub of bubbles.

  Justin picked up the sponge, dipped it in the water, then began moving it gently along her leg, up the inside of her thigh.

  Kim stilled his hand. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to. I want to.” When her fingers remained locked around his wrist, he met her gaze and explained, “You gave me the most incredible gift a little while ago, Kim. Had I known, I would have tried to be more gentle.”

  “You were gentle. I told you, you were wonderful.”

  “Not gentle enough. I wanted you too badly.”

  “But—”

  “Please,” he said. “Let me do this. Let me show you gentleness now.”

  He showed her.

  Though he never planned for the gentle bathing of her tender flesh as foreplay, there was no denying that he was fully aroused when he lifted her from the tub and wrapped her in the bath sheet. He just hoped that Kim wouldn’t notice.

  She noticed.

  At least, Justin assumed she’d noticed because he caught the hint of a smile on her lips when she reached for the body lotion and brushed her hip up against his zipper. He bit off a groan.

  “Sorry,” she said, but the contrite tone didn’t match her expression.

  He wanted her. And watching her smooth lotion on her legs wasn’t helping. Despite the bath, he knew darned well that she had to be tender from their earlier lovemaking. Only a beast would consider making love to her again now.

  “You mentioned something about a bathrobe earlier?”

  Justin jerked his gaze from her legs to her face. “Yeah. I think Tara left one in the bedroom closet. I’ll go get it for you.”

  He returned in time to see her release her hair from the clip and send long, blond waves cascading down her bare shoulders and back. Justin swallowed hard. Deciding the only way he was going to be able to keep his hands off her was to make himself scarce, he said, “Here you go. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved. I’m going to go raid the kitchen and see if I can find us something to eat.”

  While he was at it, he was going to stand outside and pray that the rain cooled him off.

  The rain didn’t cool him off. Nor did sharing the remainder of the pâté and French bread from their lunch and washing it down with one of the bottles of wine he’d found in the liquor cabinet. Somehow the simple meal became a sensual minefield. And before he knew it, they were kissing again. One kiss strung into another and another, until he ended up carrying Kim and the opened bottle of wine upstairs to the bedroom.

  He made love to her again. This time he loved her slowly. Gently. Completely. And when he lowered her onto his shaft and joined their bodies, she rode him. He filled his palms with her breasts, gloried in the sight of her astride him as she set the pace. She moved slowly, sensuously, her face reflecting her shock and pleasure as sensation rolled through her. When she increased the tempo, Justin clutched her hips and matched her pace. And when she cried out his name, Justin flipped her beneath him and raced to join her as she plunged into the storm.

  Kim blinked at the wash of bright sunshine streaming through the window. She glanced around the unfamiliar room and bed, noted the man’s arm draped over her, the hand closed possessively over her breast. Then she remembered. Justin. The sailboat. The storm. Memories of the night came rushing back to her. Of Justin telling her he wanted her. Of his hands and mouth on her. Of her own hands and mouth on him. Heat flooded her cheeks as she recalled the intimacies she’d shared with him, of how completely she’d surrendered her body and heart to him.

  Making love with Justin had been the most beautiful experience of her life. If this was how her mother had felt, she could understand now why Amanda Lindgren had spent her life searching to find love like this a second time when her relationship with Kim’s father hadn’t worked out. Kim thought of how loving Justin had been with her. How he had bathed her so gently, the tender way he had looked at her as he’d brought her to his bed. His every touch, his every look had been filled with love. Only, he’d never given her the words, she reminded herself.

  Kim bit her lip, remembered how difficult it had been for her to keep the words locked inside. Yet even in those intense moments when Justin had filled her, merged their bodies as one, he’d cried out how much he wanted her, needed her. But never once had he said that he loved her.

  And he hadn’t said that he loved her because he didn’t love her, Kim reasoned.

  You knew that going in, Kim. Did you really think that because you slept together Justin would fall in love with you?

  Kim frowned at the nagging voice in her head, knew it was true. She was neither naive nor foolish enough to delude herself into believing that last night meant as much to Justin as it had to her. Why should it? He’d been a perfect gentleman, had given her more than one chance to call a halt before things had gone too far. But she hadn’t ended it, because she had wanted Justin to make love to her, had practically begged him to do so, she admitted. And if she was going to be honest, she might as well admit that the moment she realized Justin actually desired her, nothing short of death would have made her say no last night.

  The problem was, what did she do now? How did one act the morning after spending the night in the boss’s bed? Kim fisted her fingers in the sheets and wished she hadn’t shied away from those Monday-morning coffee-and-sex chats that went on among a few of her female co-workers. If she had listened, she might have a clue as to just what she was supposed to do this morning. Did she say thank you and tell him what a fantastic lover he was? Or was it considered more savvy to act as though nothing extraordinary had happened? And what about when she went back to work on Monday? Kim bit back a moan as she considered the awkwardness of sitting across a desk from Justin and remembering that he had seen her naked. That she had seen him naked. If only—

  “Do you always wake up so tense?”

  Kim’s heart leaped at the sound of Justin’s voice. Unsure what to do, what to say, she simply froze.

  Justin reached for her sheet-tangled fingers, and her breath hitched as his arm grazed her breasts. After tugging the fabric free, he coaxed her to turn over so that she faced him. He’d pushed up onto his elbow and was staring down into her face, and all she could think was how handsome he looked, with his hair mussed, whiskers shadowing his jaw and his mouth curved into a wicked grin.

  “Good morning,” he told her, and brushed his mouth against hers.

  “Morning.” Kim finally managed to get the words past her lips.

  He frowned. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied. She was nervous, confused, unsure.

  He eyed her close
ly. “Any regrets about last night?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. She didn’t regret making love with him. How could she regret something so beautiful? So right? But it was obvious from his somber expression that Justin did have regrets. “What about you? Do you regret what happened?”

  The smile he gave her was fleeting. “Not making love to you. What you gave me…it was a wonderful and special gift, Kim. But what I do regret was not being more gentle that first time. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “I told you, you didn’t hurt me.” When he arched his brow in disbelief, she conceded, “Well, it only hurt a little and just for a moment.”

  “Thank you for that,” he said softly.

  “It’s the truth,” she told him, and tried to decipher the reason for the worry line that creased his brow. She’d worked too closely with him during the past six months not to recognize that something was bothering him. “Are you sure you don’t regret what happened between us, Justin?”

  His expression softened, and he stroked her cheek with the same tenderness he had exhibited when he’d bathed her last night. “I’m sure. I’m just wishing I hadn’t been so out of my head with desire for you that I didn’t use any protection the first time we made love.”

  “Oh.”

  “‘Oh’ is right,” Justin responded. “Even if you’re on birth control pills, using protection would have been the smart thing to do.”

  Especially since she wasn’t on the pill, Kim added in silence. Suddenly the repercussions of last night hit her like a dash of cold water in the face. The room spun. Justin’s voice echoed through her head. All she could think of was her mother. How Amanda Lindgren had ended up pregnant and alone because her lover hadn’t loved her. How the man who had fathered her hadn’t even been free to love her mother because he was already married. An image of herself alone and pregnant flitted through Kim’s mind. She sat up, hugged the sheet around her breasts.

  “Kim?” Justin cupped her shoulders and gave her a tiny shake. “Kim, sweetheart, what is it?”