by Erika Wilde
Kerri’s computer monitor flickered with information fed in by Carly. Kerri pressed a button on the console in front of her and connected one of the phone lines.
“Hi, Richard, you’re on the air with Heat Waves. Would you like to share your opinion on giving and receiving orgasms and what you like best?”
“Yeah…it sends me over the edge when I bite my partner’s nipples, tug real hard, and she claws at my back in that awesome mixture of pleasure and pain,” he said, his voice as rough as the visual image his comment projected.
Kerri grimaced and pressed her palms to her breasts as if to protect them. Looking at Ian with an appalled expression, she silently mouthed the word “Ouch.”
He bit back a chuckle, in complete agreement with her. He leaned toward the microphone to add his point of view to Richard’s nipple fetish. “I can’t say I’m a biter…but I do like to nibble, and suck, and lick. I love the feel of a soft, feminine breast in my hand, and there’s something highly erotic about curling my tongue around a taut nipple and tugging gently.”
Kerri’s breathing seemed to deepen, and when her hands finally fell away from her chest he noticed her breasts were full and tight and aroused…just the way he wanted her.
“Hey, different strokes for different folks,” Richard said jovially. “I guess I just like my strokes hard and fast and a bit on the kinky side to get that adrenaline rush going, you know?”
Ian knew all about adrenaline rushes…he only had to glance at the woman sitting inches away from him for his heart rate to accelerate and his blood to pulse in his groin. “And I prefer my strokes slow and easy to prolong the pleasure.”
Face flushed, Kerri thanked Richard and moved on to the next caller. “Welcome to the show, Cooper. What ultimately brings you to climax?”
“The combination of being enveloped in heat, slick moisture, and tight pressure at the point when I’m first entering a woman sends me straight into orbit.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ian murmured in male camaraderie.
Kerri shot him a curious look. “For you, too?”
“What can I say?” He shrugged and grinned recklessly. “That first thrust can be pure, unadulterated ecstasy.”
“So you like quickies, then?”
“I didn’t say that, and neither did Cooper,” he corrected her smoothly. “When a guy is as hard as a rock and wildly turned on, every nerve ending seems to be centered there,” he said, gesturing to his lap, where his own nerve endings had him in a state of semi-arousal.
“My listeners can’t see you, Ian,” she said, her eyes dancing with a teasing light. “So try to be more specific with your descriptions. Centered, where?” she prompted, displaying more of that impudence of hers.
“At his erection,” he stated bluntly. “And the feeling of being wrapped in a woman’s tight, snug body is the beginning of great sex, but not necessarily the end. Being a woman, don’t you agree that it feels good to be filled and penetrated by that fullness when you’re wet and excited and aching deep inside?”
She appeared startled by his candidness, but quickly recovered. “Sure.” She sounded too bright, too certain, and when she returned to the phone lines instead of launching into a debate, he wondered if that was her way of avoiding the truth—that she wasn’t so certain at all.
Intrigued by the notion, he studied her and all the subtle nuances that contradicted that on-the-air persona he’d known for more than a month. In the flesh, the woman was full of surprises. She had a sexy side he adored, a soft side that pulled at his emotions, and there was a hint of inexperience about her he wanted to cater to and explore.
The problem was, he doubted she’d ever admit to possessing any of those endearing qualities. Or any kind of inexperience.
“Hi, Kristin,” she said, greeting the next listener. “What do you do for your partner that makes him come apart for you?”
“I’ve found that blow jobs are a guaranteed orgasm,” she said with a deep-throated laugh. “Men are so easy that way, aren’t they, Ian?”
Kerri lifted an inquiring brow his way, inviting him to respond to the other woman’s flirtations—and equally interested to see just how easy he was.
He scrubbed a hand along the late-night stubble on his jaw as he took a few extra seconds to think about his answer. He was, after all, a man, and fellatio was something no healthy, red-blooded male refused without a very good reason.
“Well…no doubt about it, there’s something incredibly exciting about a woman’s soft, wet mouth closing around such a vulnerable part of a man’s anatomy. But for me, that intimate act is so much more gratifying and intense when it’s a woman I feel a strong connection to,” he said, his low voice vibrating with the slow simmer of desire. Desire for Kerri to be that woman who performed such an erotic, intimate act.
Tiny beads of perspiration formed on Kerri’s upper lip as she’d listened to his explanation. She reached for a piece of ice and slipped it into her mouth, tucking it against her cheek. It was warm in the studio, and the temperature continued to escalate with each successive call and response.
After forty minutes of sex talk covering nearly every provocative aspect of orgasms possible, Kerri broke for a desperately needed commercial.
In the studio next to theirs, Carly fanned herself with a file folder. “Whew, you two are burning up the airwaves!”
“We don’t need any comments from the peanut gallery, thank you very much,” Kerri muttered, swiping a hand across her damp brow. She stabbed a button on her console, turning off the two-way speaker and tuning out her friend.
“You okay?” Ian asked, concerned with her agitated behavior. She seemed tense and wound up, possibly from all their provocative talk and innuendo. And from the heat in the too small room and the heat sizzling between them.
“I’m great,” she said too quickly, too breathlessly. Then a hint of a devious smile canted the corner of her mouth. Dipping her fingers into her cup of ice, she grasped a small melted cube and trailed it down her arched neck to cool off, sighing in sensuous pleasure. “How about you?”
He swallowed hard, his throat as dry as dust. He was suddenly very thirsty. Water glistened on her peach-hued skin and rolled down her chest in sparkling, enticing trickles. He followed their path straight into her cleavage, and grew even harder than he already was when he noticed how the cold sliver of ice had affected her nipples. He wanted to sip at the water on her dewy flesh, ached to lap up the moisture with his tongue—all the way to the tight, pearled tips of her breasts.
He raised his eyes back to hers and smiled crookedly. “My condition should be fairly obvious.” He was as stiff as a board, unable to get up without other parts of his anatomy standing at attention, as well.
She eyed his erection unabashedly, contradicting the faint, delicate blush on her cheeks. “A little turned on by tonight’s discussion?”
She sounded pleased that she’d managed to bewitch him. There was that glint of determination again. He moved closer, encroaching beyond that invisible, do-not-cross line that had been erected between their chairs.
“A whole lot turned on by you,” he clarified huskily. “This is what you do to me every night, Kerri. No one else.”
Her golden-brown eyes darkened and her lashes drooped slumberously. Her lips parted and released a gust of air from her lungs. Want and need chased across her features…leaving behind a flicker of vulnerability that was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
He leaned closer still, his breath feathering across her cheek, his mouth brushing along hers, his tongue touching that soft cleft on her upper lip…
A brisk knock on the glass partition shattered the moment, and Kerri jerked back to her side of the microphone, looking shocked that she’d nearly succumbed to him in front of Carly. She dragged a hand through her silky hair and glanced up to find her friend grinning, as well as motioning with one hand to pay attention to her monitor, and counting down the seconds to airtime on the other. Three, two, one…
; “You’re listening to Heat Waves on WTLK,” Kerri announced, her quick transition back into the show smooth and professional, her voice steady and sure. “We’re back on the air with William. What is the most erotic thing your partner has ever done to you to bring you to orgasm?”
“Well…” William thought about her question for a few seconds, then cleared his throat and said, “It had to be the time I was taking a shower and my girlfriend joined me. She lathered me up, and gave me what she fondly refers to as a ‘wet kiss.’ She took one of those full, soft bath sponges and made it slick with soap, then wrapped it around my shaft and squeezed and stroked. Oh, man…just thinking about it is enough to make me climax!”
“What a great way to have a good time with bubbles,” Kerri said, humor lacing her voice.
The evening’s topic continued for the next hour and a half, with Ian and Kerri engaging in their normal spirited banter and enthusiastic, stimulating debates. The charged sexual tension in the studio increased, nearly crackling in the warm, stagnant air between them.
At fifteen minutes to two in the morning, Kerri cued Carly for the final call. “We have time for one more opinion before we wrap up the show,” she told her audience, and pressed the last blinking light on the phone. “Hello, Susan, what’s your take on orgasms?”
“Men are easy,” the other woman said succinctly, and with a thread of disgust. “A couple of thrusts and grunts and they’re done, leaving me far behind and usually unsatisfied. More often than not I take the edge off myself.”
“I hear ya, Susan,” Kerri commiserated. “Did you know it takes the average man two to three minutes of direct sexual stimulation to orgasm, and it takes the average woman about twenty minutes?”
“That’s where foreplay comes in,” Ian said, adding his two cents to Kerri’s boring, textbook statistic. “Which brings us back around to the mind sex we discussed during other shows.” Which brought the discussion back to them. If she was game.
She was, obviously, unable to pass up the subtle dare. “So, are you saying that foreplay and mind sex guarantees an orgasm?”
“There’s never any guarantee, but it definitely increases the odds,” he drawled in response. Remembering her comment a few nights ago about enjoying a slow seduction, he catered to that fantasy. “All that sexy mind stuff helps get a woman in the mood. So does kissing, and stroking, and touching. It’s a matter of building up to that release, and taking the time and care to prime a woman’s mind first, then her body. And then, depending on how worked up a woman is, an orgasm can happen quickly. Other times they’re meant to be prolonged and savored.”
In the booth next to theirs, Carly nodded her enthusiastic agreement to Ian’s opinion.
Kerri pursed her lips and ignored her friend’s response. “Or, like Susan said, they don’t happen at all.”
“If that’s the case, blame it on the Romeo you’re with. If a woman is excited enough and in sync with her body and desires, she can have an orgasm fully clothed and from just a kiss.”
A skeptical sound escaped Kerri’s throat. “Women’s bodies and responses are different, and not every woman can get that worked up over a kiss and with no direct, manual stimulation against her clitoris.”
Instead of arguing her point, he changed tactics and hoped it didn’t backfire on him. “I take it you’ve never had an orgasm that way? Fully clothed and from just making out?”
She shrugged indifferently. “I’m sure a lot of women haven’t.”
“We’re not talking about other women, Kerri,” he said gently, maintaining intense eye contact with her. “We’re talking about you. Yes, or no?”
She could have lied. Surprisingly, she didn’t. “No.”
Behind the plate-glass window separating the booths, Carly gaped incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe Kerri had been deprived of such great foreplay.
He was equally surprised, but Kerri’s honesty endeared him to her even more. “Ever come close?”
He expected her to fudge the truth, maybe just a little bit. Again, she opted for sincerity with her audience, and with him. “No.”
Carly smacked her forehead with her hand and shook her head grievously for her friend’s sake.
He grinned wickedly. “Maybe it’s time you broadened your horizons and experienced a fully clothed, kiss-induced orgasm.”
Carly nodded vigorously and mouthed the words, “Yes, yes, yes!”
Kerri shifted in her seat. Crossed one leg over the other. Her thighs flexed as she squeezed them together restlessly. Then she tossed him one of her frivolous smiles. “Maybe I will.”
She looked away and wrapped up her segment. “That’s it for tonight, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and I hope you enjoyed the show. I’ll see you all next week with more scintillating topics to discuss here on Heat Waves.”
A reel of commercials played, and the early morning DJ stepped into the booth to get ready for his show. Kerri politely introduced Ian to Steve on their way out of the studio. Carly stopped them in the hallway, looking her friend up and down as if seeing her for the first time.
“Oh, my God, Kerri—”
Kerri held up a hand to stop Carly from verbally expressing pity for her pathetic sex life. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I just can’t believe you’ve never—”
“Don’t say another word,” Kerri warned, her tone firm.
“Fine,” Carly huffed. “I won’t say another word about you not experiencing a making-out orgasm,” she said impudently. “But after all that talk about kissing and climaxes and such, I’m outta here to finish where Dan and I left off earlier.” She waggled her brows and retrieved her purse from the closet, then was out the door and gone.
Kerri moved at a slower pace, throwing her cup in the trash and gathering up her belongings, hoping Ian would take the hint and leave on his own. After being grilled by Carly, she had no desire to be interrogated by Ian, too. She’d seen the flicker of shock in his eyes when she’d admitted that she’d never come close to having a fully clothed orgasm, but how many women actually did? And what in the world had possessed her to be so candid with this man and thousands of her listeners and lay her deepest secrets bare?
When he hung around, clearly not going anywhere without her, she decided to be more blunt. “I need to use the restroom. You can go ahead and go, Ian.”
He slid his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans, his expression infinitely patient. “I’ll wait.”
She slung her purse strap over her shoulder as they headed for the station’s main door. “It’s late, it’s been a long night, and you must be exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, sounding very energetic and wide-awake. “Waiting a few extra minutes to walk down with you isn’t going to amount to sleep deprivation.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “The guard will see me to my car. Really.”
He tipped his head and grinned, persistently. “I don’t mind. Really.”
“I’m taking the stairs.”
Deep laughter escaped him, curling around Kerri and eliciting another rush of warmth in forbidden places. As if she needed any more stimulation after four hours of sexy, on-the-air conversation with Ian.
“Sweetheart, my legs are in good shape and I can handle a few flights of stairs.”
Sweetheart. She shivered as the endearment touched her much too close to her heart. In a place she’d kept off-limits to men since her disastrous relationship with Paul.
She stopped in the hallway, a few feet away from the women’s restroom, and sighed. “Ian—”
He reached out and skimmed his fingers along her cheek and tucked a wispy strand of hair behind her ear, startling her into silence. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to argue with a date when he’s trying to be a gentleman?”
“My mother never dated gentlemen.” The comment spilled out of her mouth before she could stop it. She inwardly winced, blaming her slip of the tongue on being tired, confused and tho
roughly aroused by this man in front of her. Her body was alive with sensation, and she had a feeling sleep would be a long time coming when she finally crawled into bed.
“What kind of men did your mother date?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
She paused, and found him looking at her with kind eyes. Understanding eyes. And she felt compelled to explain her offhand remark. “My father died when I was six years old, and after that my mother tended to gravitate toward men who were users and took advantage of her insecurities. She’s a very needy, clingy kind of woman who believes her life isn’t complete without a man in it to take care of her. And the many men who’ve taken advantage of her weakness were not the gentlemanly type.”
She shuddered as old, unpleasant memories swamped her—of growing up watching a parade of guys coming in and out of their house, of resenting her mother for putting her kids second after the newest man in her life. Of spending time in a women’s shelter after a boyfriend had taken his anger out on her mother one time too many.
“Sounds like we might have something else in common besides all this hot sexual chemistry between us.” His words were light and teasing, but the raw emotion in his gaze spoke of something far more painful.
She didn’t ask for details, but he shared, anyway. “My father left my mother when I was one, and she spent her nights partying with guys and doing drugs, and I kind of got shuffled around and was more of a nuisance to her than anything. She died when I was seventeen of an overdose. I pretty much raised myself, as I suspect you did, too.”
There was so much more to his story, she knew, and a part of her ached to delve deeper into his past, to hear that she wasn’t the only one who’d struggled to make something of her life after growing up in such a dire situation. But the late hour, and her fatigued mind, wasn’t conducive to such an intense conversation.
She smiled, seeing the strong, confident, successful man he was now, despite his disadvantages as a youth. “Looks like you’ve come a long way.”
“So have you,” he said, returning the compliment.
