His hungry mouth slanted hard across her lips, and he gave her hot feeding kisses. He tasted like excited man. Like sex. She arched into him, into the warm wall of his chest and kneading hands, into his erection. Against her lower belly he was fully aroused, hard as stone, and she craved more, needing closer contact. Wanting the one thing he had, the one thing that only he could give her, she moved her hands to the front of his pants. She unsnapped the waistband, and when she pulled down the zipper, she found him naked beneath his jeans. His flesh jutted forward into her palm, and she closed her fist around the hot circumference of his erection.
A groan tore at Dylan’s chest, and Hoped pulled back to look into his face. His eyes were slits of green and his breath was uneven. She lowered her gaze to her hand, to the dark pubic curls visible between the edges of his zipper and his large penis. She slipped her palm up the smooth shaft and slid her thumb over the velvet head. She spread a bead of clear moisture over the plump cleft, learning the weight and texture of him.
“Hope,” he whispered, his voice rough as if she were torturing him. He took her hand from his body and set it on his shoulder. Then he grasped the backs of her thighs and lifted her until she sat on the counter. He took a step back and within less than a minute he stood before her completely naked. She would have preferred a moment or two to look him over, to appreciate the beauty of his body, the solid muscles and impressive proportions, but he didn’t give her the chance. He stepped between her legs and placed a soft kiss on the side of her neck.
“I want you, Hope,” he said as he kissed a trail along her collarbone. “You’ve driven me crazy wanting you.” He kissed the inside slope of her breast. She arched her back and he said, “Crazy thinking about this.”
He kissed the very tip of her nipple, then rolled it beneath his tongue. Hope’s eyes closed as a shudder ran up her spine. Dylan licked her like the ice cream he’d talked about earlier; then he sucked her taut flesh into his hot, moist mouth. He drew on her as his hand moved beneath her skirt and between her thighs. He cupped her there, pushed his palm into her crotch, and softly squeezed. He moved to her other breast and popped her nipple into his mouth. His hand slid to the inside of her thigh, and he slipped his fingers beneath the edge of her panties.
“You’re wet,” he whispered as he touched between her legs, feeling her where she wanted it most, where she was slick and where his touch made her greedy for more. “I want inside you.” With each caress, each stroke of his hand, he brought her close to orgasm. He pulled her panties down her legs, and said, “You’re wet, and I’m extremely hard.” He dropped the twisted cotton on the floor. “I think it’s time.”
As Hope wiggled out of her skirt, Dylan grabbed a condom from the box on the counter behind her. She kicked the skirt free of her feet and watched him roll the thin latex down the length of his thick shaft.
“Come here,” he said and she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He slid her off the counter and onto the warm head of his penis. He glided himself to her opening and shoved up as he pushed down on her thighs. He didn’t get far before a stitch of pain penetrated Hope’s lustful haze and she cried out in distress.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” he whispered, and with her held tight against him, he moved to the kitchen table. “I’ll make it all right. I’ll make it good for you.” He laid her on the cool wooden top and her hand landed in the white cake. The cake skidded to the far side of the table, but neither cared. He leaned over her and kissed her neck and breast while he put her feet on the table and pushed her thighs wide. He rocked his hips, slowly thrusting into her, easing his way further and further until he was buried to the hilt. His groan was a deep rumble that came from the pit of his soul.
“Goddamn,” he swore and he tangled his fingers in her hair. “Are you okay?”
Hope could honestly say she didn’t know. She’d never experienced anything quite like Dylan Taber, and then he moved and it was like white-hot lightning danced across her skin. Her gasp turned into a moan as he pulled back and thrust deep. The heat gathered between her legs and spread across her belly and breasts like a flash fire. He filled her completely, touching her so deeply that she felt utterly consumed by him.
She raised her hands to the sides of his head, getting frosting on his jaw and in his hair. She lowered his face to hers. “I’m better than okay,” she said and kissed his lips.
He kissed her long and deep as he moved over her, slipping in and out with a slow, even rhythm that built up and up until neither could hardly breathe at all. He pulled back far enough to look into her eyes, and his breath became ragged with the punctuating thrust of his hips. Every nerve ending in her body was alive and tingling with warm liquid pleasure, pushing her up, up, up toward release. It built tighter, hotter, the pleasure curling her toes. And then it pulled her completely under. Wave after wave seared her from her head to the bottom of her feet and she cried his name.
She grasped his bare shoulders and clung to him as the walls of her body pulsed around him. It went on and on like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life. He moved faster, harder, pumping into her again and again until the air whooshed from his lungs as if he’d been smashed in the chest and his muscles beneath her hands turned to stone.
In the aftermath, the only sound was that of heavy, spent breathing. Their skin was glued together and neither seemed to have the energy to lift themselves off the table. Dylan’s forehead rested next to Hope’s right ear and his fingers were still tangled in her hair. A warm, fluttery afterglow settled on her flesh and she turned her head and kissed his temple.
“My God,” he moaned. “That was amazing.”
Hope smiled. She thought so, too. He’d just given her the most amazing sex of her life. It wasn’t love. Hope knew the difference between sex and making love. What he’d given her was the most incredible orgasm of her life. No, it wasn’t love, but it had been wonderful. He was wonderful, too.
Chapter Eleven
LIGHTNING SHOOTS FROM MAN’S FINGERTIPS
Dylan leaned a bare shoulder into the doorframe and raised his coffee mug. He took a swallow and shoved his free hand into the pocket of his Levi’s. The morning sun spilled through the blinds, striping his bed with light and picking out the gold in Hope’s hair. She lay beneath a tangle of sheets, one arm thrown above her head, her face turned slightly into his pillow. Her breath was slow and steady in sleep.
Dylan rubbed the warm mug against his chest and watched her. She’d wanted him to take her home in the wee hours of the morning. Instead, he’d taken her mind off leaving.
It had been a while since he’d had sex. Even longer since he’d slept with a soft woman draped across him, and he didn’t know which he had missed most. Waking up with her warm curves pressed against him and her silky hair in his mouth was something he’d forgotten he missed. The other… he hadn’t forgotten that, he just hadn’t remembered it feeling so good.
In his life, Dylan had been with more women than he could remember. He wasn’t proud of his past, but he couldn’t change it. As a teenager, he’d been wild. In his twenties, he’d slowed down a bit. By the age of thirty, he’d certainly become more choosy, but he’d never really thought about the full ramifications of such an intimate act. It had taken his relationship with Julie to bring it home. It had taken a broken condom and the birth of his son to make him realize the full physical consequences, but beyond that, he’d discovered there were deeper emotional consequences, too.
Hope stirred in his bed and he watched her foot peek out from beneath the sheet.
Until now, he hadn’t been willing to risk it, but there was definitely something about Hope Spencer that made him forget about the consequences of becoming involved with her. Something beyond the scent of her skin and the taste of her mouth. Something beyond her beautiful body and how she made him feel.
Dylan liked her dry humor and sarcasm and laughter. He liked that she didn’t take a lot of bullshit. He liked her pink toenail poli
sh, too.
He wanted to know more.
They’d made love three times last night. The first time fast and explosive, the second time slow and… explosive. The second time he’d taken his time, licking frosting from Hope’s nipples and munching peach slices that he’d placed on her breasts but had slid down her body to her thighs. She’d eaten cake from him, too. From his belly and lower. The third time the sex had started in the shower and ended in his bed.
And he’d do it again. He couldn’t seem to help it. He didn’t want to hurt Hope. He didn’t want to hurt himself or Adam, but he knew he’d be with Hope again. He’d thought one night would be enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. He’d have to be very careful.
Hope moved her hand and Dylan watched her slowly come awake. She blinked and her brows lowered.
“Good morning,” he said and pushed away from the doorframe.
She sat straight up as if she’d been doused by water. Her hair swung across one side of her face, and the sheet slipped to her waist. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep and a night spent using her mouth for something other than talking.
“If you don’t remember, then I didn’t do my job,” he answered as he moved to the side of the bed. Keeping one foot on the floor, he sat next to her and brushed her hair from her face. “Is it coming back to you now?”
She didn’t answer, but her cheeks turned pink.
“Here,” he said and held his coffee mug to her lips. “This might help.”
Hope took several deep swallows, then pushed the mug away. “You were supposed to take me home.”
Dylan lowered his gaze to her full breasts, her pink nipples beginning to pucker against the cold. “I guess I forgot.”
She scooted away from him and raised the sheet to her arm pits. “I didn’t want to wake up here.”
He lifted his gaze to her face. “Why?”
“Because I always look like crap in the morning. I don’t have clean clothes or underwear, and my eyes are puffy.”
He would have laughed, but she appeared to be very serious. To him she looked so good he wanted to pounce on her and bury his face in her neck. He wanted to make her smile and sigh his name. Instead, he stood and walked over to his closet. He took out a terrycloth robe that was too short and which he never wore. Tossing it onto the end of the bed, he moved to his dresser. “These have never been worn,” he said after he found a pair of boxer shorts. “My mom bought them for me for Christmas, but I don’t wear underwear.” He tossed them by the robe. “She hasn’t given up on trying to reform me.” He slanted her a smile, but she didn’t say another word. So much for putting her at ease. “I’ll make you breakfast,” he said as he left the room, giving her a chance to dress by herself.
His bare feet didn’t make a sound when he moved down the hall, past Adam’s room and the bathroom. In the kitchen, the cake mess was still everywhere. Earlier, while he’d waited for the coffee to perk, he’d picked up the biggest hunks, but a lot of the frosting still smeared the table and floor.
Dylan opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. Since he hadn’t expected to come home for a few weeks, he’d cleaned it out and there wasn’t much inside. A tub of margarine, a jar of mustard, and some ketchup. In the cupboards he found boxes of macaroni and cheese, instant potatoes, and canned fruit and vegetables.
Down the hall, he heard the bathroom door open and shut, and then the water run in the sink. There was nothing in his house to eat, and he couldn’t take her to breakfast. Not when she was wearing his boxer shorts, and not when the news of them together would be served up at lunch.
Dylan took the broom and dustpan from the closet and swept up as much cake as possible. If this were any other town, if he were a man other than the sheriff trying to live down his own past and Hiram Donnelly’s, no one would have cared so much, but he wasn’t just any man and Hope didn’t exactly blend in with the locals.
He threw more cake into the trash and smiled to himself. The next time Paris asked him how he’d liked her cake, and she would, she always did, he could tell her in all honesty that it was the best damn cake he’d ever eaten.
Dylan put the broom and dustpan away, and when he turned, Hope stood in the doorway. Her hair was brushed, her face scrubbed. The edges of his boxer shorts hung just below the bottom of his robe.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for breakfast,” he said.
Her gaze slid from his and moved around the kitchen. “That’s okay. I never eat before noon anyway. Have you seen my clothes?”
He pulled out a kitchen chair and pointed to the bundle he’d folded earlier.
“You folded my clothes?”
He shrugged and watched her move to the table. He hadn’t known what to expect this morning; he hadn’t really thought about it. But even if he had, he wouldn’t have expected her to be chilly. She reminded him of the Hope who’d first driven her Porsche into town. Sometime during the night, between the time he’d pulled her against him and the time she’d opened her eyes, something had changed, and he didn’t even pretend to know what that something might be.
When she reached for her clothes, he reached for her hand. “What are your plans today?”
“I have to work. I’m really behind.”
“Did you get the police files yet?”
“Yes.”
“I could help you look them over.”
“Ah, no, thanks.” She looked somewhere over his left shoulder, and he placed the tips of his fingers against her jaw and brought her gaze to his. Her eyes gave nothing away, and in giving nothing, she told him what he needed to know. She was hiding from him, and he would have none of it. He lowered his lips to hers and lightly kissed her. She tried to take a step backward, but he cradled the nape of her neck in his palm. With his mouth poised just above hers, he ran the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips and felt her relent by degrees. Her shoulders relaxed, her stance softened, then a light puff of a sigh and a silent “Ahh.” He kissed her more fully. He kissed her until her hands found the back of his head. Until she’d risen on the balls of her feet and pressed her breasts into his bare chest. He drew back and looked into her eyes. “Sorry about breakfast?”
“Mmm… I’m still full from all that cake.”
Dylan smiled. Damn, but he liked her.
* * *
Hope chose a photograph of a normal-looking grandmother from her computer files. She gave her purple hair and lipstick. As she made the alien’s eyes beneath the purple eyeshadow a little rounder and her fingers a bit too long, she wondered if Walter would think all the purple was too far-fetched and make her change it. In her wildest imagination, she’d never have thought to make up a character like Eden Hansen.
Not even she was that good.
She’d already sent two alien articles to her editor. He liked them both and wanted more. She clicked the send icon on her computer screen and shot her third story through cyberspace.
The first article had just hit the stores, and according to Walter, the preliminary reader response was positive. The paper wanted to run with the series as long as possible. Which was fine with Hope. She had enough material to last a while. And when she ran out, she’d just make a trip into town.
She was writing some of the best articles of her career, and she didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her it was because she no longer felt empty, trying to create from a dry well.
By moving to Gospel, she’d inadvertently kick-started her career and her life. She was sleeping and feeling better than she had in a long time. She’d always known that her life and creativity were so intertwined that when one suffered, they both suffered. She supposed for a while she’d just tried to ignore the truth. She’d focused on something she’d thought she could control, her career, but she’d found herself hanging on by her fingernails.
Now she had a social life, and she had something else entirely different to work on besides her stories for The Weekly News of the Universe. When her aliens were givin
g her a headache, she took out her article on Hiram Donnelly. She didn’t know if she’d ever sell it, but writing it gave her another outlet.
She reached for the large envelope she’d received in the mail a few days prior and removed the FBI report inside. From the sections that weren’t blacked out, she’d read that the FBI had been tipped off and provided proof of embezzlement by someone inside the sheriff’s office. An informant who had access to bookkeeping records. Hope wondered if that someone was Hazel Avery. Or perhaps even Dylan.
She leaned back in her chair and her gaze lowered to the telephone next to her computer screen. Dylan said he’d call. When he’d dropped her off that morning, he’d said he had some work to do at the Double T, but that he’d call her tonight. She glanced at the clock on her monitor. Five-fifteen. Officially evening.
Hope pushed back her chair and stood. When she thought of last night, she felt equal parts thrilled and terrified. Like she wanted to laugh one second and hide the next. She felt schizophrenic. Torn in two. Wonderfully alive and scared to death. Looking for meaning in a meaningless affair. Trying to protect herself while running toward a collision with something that was bound to hurt her. Completely out of control.
He’d licked frosting from her body and they’d been as intimate as two lovers could be, yet before he’d taken her home that morning, he’d given her a baseball cap and helped shove her hair up into it. He’d given her one of his big Levi’s jackets to wear so no one in town would recognize her and start rumors. That was what he’d said anyway, and she wondered if that was true, or if he was secretly embarrassed to be seen with her.
He’d asked about her scar. He’d finally noticed it as he’d bathed her in the shower. She’d told him her ex-husband had given her a tummy tuck, because it hadn’t been the time or the place for the truth. Then he’d kissed her old hysterectomy scar and made her feel bad for lying.
True Confessions Page 19
