by Jane Graves
“Where are you going?”
“To that crappy sofa bed where I should have been in the first place. Sorry about the sheet. You’ll just have to do without it. I’ll wash it and return it to you tomorrow.”
She headed for the door, tripping a little on the edge of the sheet and righting herself again, trying to preserve what little dignity she might possibly have left.
“Looks as if my uptight CPA is back,” Tony said.
“Yes, she is,” Heather said. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Oh, I like it,” he said. “I like it a lot.”
She spun around, blinked dumbly. “What did you say?”
“For a while there, I thought the pod people came and took the real Heather. Fortunately, that’s not the case.”
She looked at him incredulously. “What is with you? Huh? You tell me I’m too uptight, but when I try not to be uptight, you tell me that’s not right, either!”
“Right now I just want you to be you, Heather. Slutty women are a dime a dozen. That’s not why I’m attracted to you.”
Attracted to her?
She had no idea exactly what a guy like Tony meant when he said that, but the words seemed to fuse her feet to the floor. As she stood there clutching that sheet to her chest, Tony walked over and stood in front of her, looking big and imposing and way, way more comfortable than she felt, which made her realize how far out of her element she really was. After the kinds of women he’d been with in his life, she’d be nothing but a big, fat disappointment. If she thought she was embarrassed now, wait until that happened.
She ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Tony. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She expelled a breath of frustration. “Because I’m not really into recreational sex.”
He frowned. “You make it sound like a round of golf.”
“You know what I mean. But you are.”
“I’m what?”
“Into recreational sex.”
“Is that a problem?”
“You do it a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“But I don’t do it a lot, so this is never going to work.”
“Look, sweetheart, I know you’re trying to tell me something here, but I’m afraid I’m just not getting—” He stopped short, looking a little panicked. “Are you telling me you’re a virgin?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Tony! I’ll be thirty in July. What woman gets to thirty without having done it at least once?”
“So how many times have you done it?”
She swallowed hard, her voice suddenly deserting her.
“Once?”
“No!”
“Two times?”
She closed her eyes. This was turning into a major disaster.
“Three?” he asked.
She exhaled. “More like two and a half.”
“How do you do it two and a half times?”
“His roommate came home early.”
When Tony smiled, then laughed a little, Heather felt like a total loser.
“See, I knew that was going to be a problem,” she said. “I don’t know why I did this. Temporary insanity. Bad phase of the moon. Split personality. Hell, I don’t know. I just know I’m out of here.”
She started for the door again, but he caught her arm. “Now, hold on there. We’re going to talk about this.”
“Tony? Why can’t you be like other men? They don’t like to talk. Women have to drag the words out of them. But not you. You never shut up. You talk and talk and—”
“Tell me why you’ve had sex only two and a half times.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No. I just want to know.”
She shrugged weakly. “The first two and a half times didn’t go so well, so I thought I’d wait until I knew that it would go well.”
“There’s never any guarantee of that.” He paused, his teasing smile returning. “With most men, anyway.”
Heather shook her head. “Is that ego of yours ever going to take a vacation?”
“Tell the truth, Heather. You like my ego. You like having a man around who’s sure of himself and knows what he wants.” He inched closer. “And do you know what I want right now?”
“What?”
He took a step forward, closing the gap between them, then took her face in his hands. “You.”
He lowered his mouth to hers in a gentle kiss, and in spite of the mortification she felt, her heart went crazy. He trailed the backs of his fingertips sensuously along her cheek and then kissed her again, this time touching his tongue to her lips, and when she opened to him, he slid his arm around her back and deepened the kiss. She clung to the sheet with both hands, her world going blurry. He kissed her again and again, taking his time, making her want him more with every moment that passed.
Finally he eased away and looked down at her hands clutching the sheet. “Tell you what. Why don’t I blow out the candles?”
He backed away slowly, then went to each candle and extinguished it. She looked toward the window, where the full moon shone in like a searchlight. Even though the blinds were closed, the room was still too bright.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider turning off the moon, too?” she asked.
“Sorry. My superpowers are limited to sex.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She took a deep, shaky breath and went to him. She shifted uncomfortably, tugging the sheet higher on her chest.
“I know it feels awkward,” Tony said. “But I promise you it won’t for long. Just let go of the sheet.”
“You’re not going to like what you see.”
“Heather,” he whispered. “Let go.”
Her stomach churning with apprehension, she released the sheet, closing her eyes at the same time so she wouldn’t see his face when he saw her. Seconds sluggishly ticked by. She could only imagine how disappointed he must be.
Then she felt his hand against her hip. Oh, God. He’s not just looking. He’s touching.
She held her breath as he stroked his hand upward, leaving a trail of seared nerve endings in its wake. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, every muscle in her body tensing with anticipation. He closed both hands around her waist. She felt him shift, and a second later, his lips touched the side of her neck in a gentle kiss.
“Heather?” he said.
“What?”
“Where did you ever get the idea that I wouldn’t like what I saw?”
Taken aback, she slowly opened her eyes as his gaze came around to meet hers. Every word he spoke could be a lie. Every word probably was a lie. But she saw nothing but sincerity in his eyes.
Tony slid his hand beneath the mass of hair at her neck, the warmth of his fingers sending tiny shock waves across her shoulders. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her neck. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you. And now you’re all mine.”
All mine. Heather felt a slow, heavy pull of desire right down to her toes.
“I thought about holding you like this,” he said, moving behind her, splaying his hand across her abdomen and pulling her against him. She felt his erection at the small of her back, and even through his jeans it felt hard and demanding.
“And kissing you like this,” he murmured, pulling her hair away from the side of her neck and placing a hot, wet kiss there. Shivers zoomed all the way to her toes.
“You’re still tense,” he said.
“A little.”
“The good thing about sex is that you just do what comes naturally.”
“I don’t remember it feeling all that natural.”
“That’s because you were thinking too hard. You have to go with the flow.”
He ran his hands slowly and sensuously along her waist to her hips, then slid them down to stroke the tender flesh of her inner thighs. Then he brought his hands slowly back up across her hips, moving them upward to caress her breasts, then strum his thumbs across
her nipples. She swallowed a gasp. They were already so swollen and hot that the slightest touch made her squirm.
“You feel so good, Heather. I want to touch you everywhere at once.”
Lost in the feeling, she dropped her head back against his shoulder, wishing that were anatomically possible. He spent what seemed like forever just touching her, his big, strong hands moving over her body, his lips moving over her neck, as if she was his to do with as he pleased. But she needed more. She needed him to be as naked as she was. She needed to touch him. She needed to move on with this very, very soon or she was going to melt away into a red-hot puddle of goo.
“Tony—”
“Shhh.”
She squirmed against him, but he held her tightly.
“I’m naked,” she said, breathing hard. “You’re not.”
“That’s because I’m not finished with this yet.”
“When will you be finished?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“But I want . . .”
“What do you want, sweetheart?” He pinched her nipples lightly, then rolled them between his fingers, nipping at her earlobe at the same time.
Oh, God. He was killing her. More. She wanted more. More, more, more! Now!
With a sudden gasping breath, she turned around. “Take your clothes off.”
Tony drew back with feigned surprise. “Are you sure? Right now?”
“Yes, now!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tony grabbed his T-shirt by the back of the neck, yanked it off, and slung it aside. In seconds, the rest of his clothes had hit the floor, too.
For a moment, all she could do was stare at him in awe, cursing the fact that he’d blown out the candles and she couldn’t see him as clearly as she would have liked. She could almost feel her pupils expand, trying to take in more of him.
He pulled her to the bed, where he stretched out beside her and gave her a leisurely kiss, smoothing his hand over her abdomen. Then he moved his hand lower. Then lower still, until the heel of his hand was resting on her pubic bone. She tensed, holding her breath, and a moment later, he stroked his fingertips between her legs.
No!
She grabbed his hand, stilling it. He looked up, frowning. “What’s the matter?”
“It . . .”
“What?”
“Tickles.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
He moved his hand to her thigh, caressing her there for a moment until she relaxed again, then moved his fingers back. He pressed them to her and rubbed in little circles, but it wasn’t long before she gasped and clutched his hand again.
“Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry. That still . . .”
“Tickles.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we’d better go about this differently.”
“No. It’ll be okay this time. Really. I’ll concentrate. Do it again. Maybe harder or something.”
He touched her again more firmly, this time kissing her deeply. Heather squeezed her eyes closed and bunched the sheet in her fist, but she couldn’t help it. She squirmed away from him again, laughing this time. “Stop. Stop!”
He sat up, throwing his hands in the air. “These are my moves, Heather! They’re supposed to leave you gasping for air! Begging for more! You’re giving me a complex!”
She giggled.
“And now you’re laughing. God.” He turned and flopped down on his back. “Well, now you’ve done it. I am not in the mood anymore.”
“Not in the mood?” She glanced down at the contradictory evidence between his legs. “Tony, somebody could shoot you dead and bury you six feet under, and you’d still be in the mood.”
“That’s residual. From the moment right before you attacked my performance.”
She laughed. “Attacked your performance?”
“You know how big my ego is. And you just shot it to pieces. To pieces, Heather.” He sighed dramatically. “I’ll never be able to have sex again.”
“Oh, you poor thing. Sure you will.”
“No,” he said sadly. “I won’t. You’ve wounded me for life.”
She gave him a sly smile. “What would it take for me to convince you that your sexuality isn’t gone forever?”
He shrugged and turned away with a hurt expression.
She leaned in and whispered against his ear, “I have an idea.”
He flicked his gaze back to her.
She sat up beside him. “What I want you to do first,” she said, running her hand from his shoulder to his wrist, “is put both of your hands behind your head. Beneath the pillow.”
With exaggerated reluctance, he did as she said. “I don’t know what good this is going to do.”
“Oh, you’ll see in a minute.” She leaned in again, kissed him on the neck, and whispered, “Now, close your eyes.”
His eyes drifted closed. She let her gaze drift down that beautiful body and back up again, watching it go rigid with anticipation. She rose to her knees, letting her hands hover over his chest . . .
And tickled his armpits.
His eyes sprang open. He yanked his arms from beneath the pillow and grabbed for her. Laughing, she squirmed away, but he caught her arm, pulled her back, and pinned her to the mattress.
“Why, you rotten, conniving little—”
“Tony! You’re not attacking my performance, are you?”
“You’re as crazy as I am. Don’t you ever try to say you’re not!”
“I am not crazy!” she said. “If I were crazy, I’d have tied you up and then tickled you.”
“Now that’s a hell of a good idea. Only you’re going to be on the receiving end of it.”
“Uh-oh. I’m out of here.”
She tried to squirm away again, but he grabbed her and pulled her back. She squealed and started to laugh again, and then he was laughing, too, and then he was kissing her and they laughed some more, and then he extinguished the laughter completely with a long, slow, blistering kiss that melted the fight right out of her. The endorphin rush was almost more than she could bear. Tony was something she’d never imagined a man like him could be—sweet and kind and funny—and she wished she hadn’t waited so long to be with him like this.
She pushed him to his back again, tracing her fingertip along his jaw. “How about if I do it for real this time?”
“I’m all yours, sweetheart.”
As Tony lay back, Heather felt like a starving woman at a smorgasbord—she didn’t know where to start first. But she had the feeling that whatever she did, wherever she kissed him, however she touched him, she couldn’t mess things up.
She explored his body in a way she’d never done with a man before, finding all kinds of places that elicited a groan here, a sigh there. With every kiss, every touch, his arousal seemed to grow. Soon she got up the nerve to close her hand around his penis, feeling the length and width of him.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he said, his voice hot and breathy. “Touch me.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to do something specific, but the sex she’d known so far had been fast and fumbling without much of a chance for experimentation.
“I don’t exactly know how,” she whispered.
She felt really dumb saying that, but since she’d already confessed her lack of experience, she figured this was a good time to get rid of some of the ignorance no woman her age should have. Tony closed his palm over her hand and showed her what he wanted, and then she was stroking him up and down, over and over, loving the feel of him beneath her hand, watching the rise and fall of his chest as his breath came faster. Eventually she felt bold enough lean in and kiss the head of his penis. He sucked in a breath, his body going rigid.
“Is that okay?” she said suddenly.
“Oh, yeah,” he said as he exhaled. “Trust me. It’s all good.”
She closed her mouth over the tip, then pulled back. When she saw his fingertips curl into the mattress, she took him deeper into her mouth, then pull
ed back, circling her tongue around the head as she stroked the shaft. She did it over and over, going a little deeper each time.
She heard his sharp, ragged breathing, and when she flicked her gaze up, she saw a sheen of sweat on his chest and his eyes squeezed closed and his hands clasping the sheet, and suddenly she didn’t feel like the same awkward, clueless woman she’d been just a short time ago. She was a woman who could give as much pleasure as she received, and it made her feel powerful in a way she never had before.
Okay, she thought with a little bit of elation, this is good. I can do this.
Then all at once he let out a soft groan and sat up, taking her by the shoulders and pressing her back on the bed again.
She looked up at him with distress. “Was I doing something wrong?”
“Sweetheart, it doesn’t get much more right than what you were doing. Which means if you keep it up, this is going to be over way sooner than I want it to be.”
And then he was touching her again, and to her surprise, her ticklishness was long gone. He slid his fingers deep inside her, then moved them back up again to circle over her clitoris. If she was writhing this time, it was only to ask for more, to beg for more. The tension he created seemed to pull her tighter and tighter, her whole body trembling with need.
Oh, God. There it was. A tiny spark deep inside her. A soft, involuntary moan rose in the back of her throat, and soon her breathing turned into short, sharp gasps. He drove her higher and higher, then higher still, until the whole world finally exploded in a burst of sensation.
Before she knew it, Tony had the condom on and was moving between her legs. He plunged inside her with sharp, heavy thrusts, his breath scorching hot against her neck. It seemed as if only seconds passed before his body went rigid, and then he fell forward and clung to her with a fierce groan.
Heather had never felt anything like it.
As they rode out the last waves of pleasure together, she relished the feeling of Tony’s body on hers, the brush of his hair along her cheek, the wild beating of his heart against her chest. She clung to him as tightly as he clung to her, until the last tremors died away and she could finally breathe again.
After a moment, he fell away from her, hitting the mattress with a soft thud of satisfaction. His chest expanded with a deep breath, settling down again as he slowly let it out.
