When she lifted those watery blue eyes up to him, he had a hard time controlling his body’s reaction. What was it about this woman that made his body harden like a rock with just a look? It didn’t seem right! And if she weren’t right here in front of him, looking like a sensual goddess, he might resent the power she had over his body.
But right now, he didn’t have room in his brain for resentment. He was too busy holding himself back from pulling her into his arms, lifting her up, and pressing her against the wall so that he could kiss her. Ravish her. Such an old-fashioned term, but completely appropriate at the moment. He wanted to rip that ugly flannel off her body, pull the straps of her camisole down and expose her breasts. He wanted to see her nipples, watch them pucker and then taste them, feel the tips against his tongue. Damn, he wanted to strip all of her clothes off and taste every inch of her body, lose himself in that sexy navel, and taste lower. He wanted to feel her body climax around his mouth, taste her juices as she throbbed with an orgasm and watch her glistening, pink folds entice him.
Shaking his head, he banished the images and tried to focus on what she was saying. It was hard because already he could see her nipples, knew that they were hard, pressing against the thin material of her pink camisole. Unhindered by a bra, those amazing breasts were larger than he’d thought, fuller, more lush.
Damn, Maria Ellis was the sexiest woman he’d ever met in his life.
“Yes, letters. My grandmother’s letters to my grandfather. They were written several decades ago, long before e-mail was even a niggle in someone’s mind. She saved all of the letters and, every once in a while, I pull them out and read them.”
He watched her, trying to see if she was lying to him. But all he saw in her beautiful eyes was honesty and that freshness that never failed to turn him on. “You’ve been reading love letters,” he replied back, stunned at her tender sentimentality.
Maria looked down, noticed the bag by his feet. “What’s in the bag?” she asked, trying to change the subject. She felt more than a little silly at admitting that she was reading love letters that were over fifty years old.
Sloan looked down at his feet and remembered the bag. “Tennis balls,” he told her.
Maria looked up, surprise and a smile lighting up her eyes. “You brought Ollie new tennis balls?”
She saw the odd expression, almost as if he were grimacing, but that seemed impossible. This man didn’t seem like the type to grimace. She suspected that everything in his life was carefully planned, well thought out, and calculated.
“They aren’t new.” He opened the bag to show her.
Maria peered inside, unaware of how her body movement revealed a tantalizing curve of her breast and an enticing shadow. She would never have thought that the sound coming from Sloan was a groan of pain.
As she looked into the bag, she spotted several tennis balls, one of which had a red mark on it…Ollie had a tennis ball with a red slash. “That’s strange,” she mumbled, taking the ball out of the bag and walking towards the back of her house. Looking at the basket where she kept all of Ollie’s collection of tennis balls, she noticed that it was almost empty.
Looking at the couch, her eyes narrowed on the dog who was laying right where she’d left him. Normally, when another human being entered the house, he was wagging his whole body, eager to greet a new human.
At the moment, he looked…guilty? Could dogs feel guilt?
“I think he followed my scent back to my house this morning and left these on my front stoop, giving me a hint that he wanted to play again.”
Maria looked at her dog, then at the tall, amazingly virile man. Ollie was beautiful in her eyes, but objectively, she knew that he really was a mess. She loved every crazy hair on his wiggly body, but she knew that others looked at his floppy ears and rough fur and, until they knew his charm, thought he was ugly. He was named after one of her best friends from college, Olivia, who was just as wonderful of a human being as Ollie was as a dog and companion. She and Olivia had done everything together, including commiserate over grades, difficult professors, horrible boyfriends, disgusting cafeteria food, and a painful lack of funds throughout their whole college experience. Being with Olivia had been like having the sister she’d always wanted. Now, being with Ollie was like having a best friend. Well, sort of, she thought, looking at her adorable friend with the guilty expression.
The man standing beside her was…oddly, similar to her dog. Oh, not the adorable part. No, this man could never be described as adorable. He looked hard and mean, his nose too sharp, his features too angular. And his height might scare someone. Until they looked into his eyes and saw the goodness there. The compassion.
He might not be considered traditionally handsome, but Sloan Anderson was shockingly attractive. Yes, she loved her dog. But boy, she was embarrassingly attracted to this man.
She suddenly realized that her flannel shirt was exposing more than she’d thought and pulled the edges closed. “Um…well…” She wasn’t sure what to say. Surely, Ollie wasn’t playing matchmaker! “Thank you for returning the tennis balls. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you again.”
Sloan watched the play of emotions flash across her features, fascinated by the gamut from sadness to guilt to suspicion and…that enchanting shyness coming right back. He wanted to pull her into his arms and make love to her until she couldn’t be embarrassed about anything any longer. He wanted to do things to her that would shock her, until she screamed out with pleasure.
Sliding his hands into his pockets, he tried to remember what he was supposed to tell her. But for the life of him, all he could think about was her breasts and how much he wanted to tease them, feel the weight in his hands. He wanted to pull her legs apart and look at her femininity. He wanted to lower his head, breathe in her scent, and tease her until she screamed out his name as her body convulsed with bliss.
“Are those the letters?” he asked, pulling his eyes away from her breasts, hidden now by the ugly shirt.
***
Maria blinked, not sure what he was talking about. Letters? What letters? She was focused on his lips, wondering what it would be like to be kissed by a man this intense. She suspected that it would be life-altering.
Turning in the direction he was looking, she spotted the pile of old letters on the coffee table. “Yes!” she breathed, grasping onto the subject as a lifesaver. Maria was honest enough with herself to suspect that she might embarrass herself if she’d continued to stare at his lips like that.
Enthusiastically grabbing his hand, she led him over to the letters, handing him one that contained funny references to a fight her grandparents had engaged in through their letters. They were obviously mad at each other, but still trying to save each other’s feelings while calling the other person names. At the time, the name-calling had probably been pointed. But reading the letters decades later, and knowing that her grandparents had loved each other until their dying breaths, the letter was sweet and poignant.
“See how she calls him a mule? Most people would say stubborn mule, but she…”
“What does ‘hotter than a two-dollar pistol’ mean?” he asked, his eyes quickly scanning the letter.
Maria laughed. “That means she was really pissed off. It’s a southern woman’s way of saying she’s furious.”
“Ah!” he replied, looking at the rest of the contents. “She had a temper?”
Maria shook her head and walked into the kitchen. “Wine?”
He thought about it for a moment, thinking he should leave. He should get away from those soft, blue eyes and…Then he looked into her eyes. “I’d love some.”
Maria poured him a glass of her favorite red wine, handing it to him carefully. She didn’t want to touch him. Having his hands on her arms a few minutes ago had been bad enough, sparking ideas and images that were best left out of her mind. At least while he was close by. Better to leave the fantasies for when she was alone and he couldn’t see her blushes.
Sure enough, there was heat in his eyes as he stared down at her, a hunger that a less sane woman would attribute to him being attracted to her.
Blinking, she shook her head and stepped back slightly, feeling the pull and resisting. She was being ridiculous! This man couldn’t…he wasn’t….
Men like Sloan weren’t attracted to mousy women like her, she admonished herself. They went after the glamorous blondes wearing silk negligees or slinky black dresses while wearing four inch, spike heels. Flannel shirts and draw string pajama bottoms…not the sexiest outfit to grab the attention of a man like Sloan.
A drop of wine spilled onto her hand and she shivered. “Sorry,” she whispered, hurriedly turning back to the kitchen to grab a dishtowel. She quickly wiped off the errant drop of wine before turning back to him, taking a deep breath to get her mind back in control. She couldn’t let her mind wonder what it would be like to experience his kiss, to think about the heat from his body or what it would be like if he touched her. Again.
She sat down, waving him towards the sofa and handing him a stack of letters. “Here, this one is sweet too. I was reading this one when you rang the doorbell, so I’m warning you, it is one of the most lovable letters any man has penned.”
Sloan sat down next to her and took a sip of the wine. It wasn’t bad, he thought. Carefully lifting the letter, his eyes skimmed across the words, prepared to have to manufacture some sort of emotion that would satisfy Maria’s tender heart.
But as he read the words, a man’s letter to his wife moments before he anticipated dying in battle, he had to swallow past the lump that formed in his throat. The words on the crumpled paper were poignant and loving, gentle and honest, telling his wife a world away all of the things he’d forgotten to tell her, or the things he’d been too embarrassed to say.
Words like, “You have gentled me in ways I never knew possible, and yet, made me into more of a man than I could have ever hoped.”
Maria watched as this big, tough man read through the passionate words. Similar to his reactions last night, his features barely moved, but she noticed the slight shift in his eyes, the tightening of his jaw. It was as if he were trying not to show any emotion as he read the words. But she could see what he was hiding. And it softened her heart. He was reading the words her grandfather wrote so many years ago and one could still feet the emotion in the text. Sloan Anderson had never heard of Jerimiah Ellis, and yet, he was just as moved by the words as she had been.
“Sweet, right?” she asked softly, staring up into his silver eyes.
Sloan handed the letter back to her, his eyes moving over the rest of the coffee table. “They seem to have been prolific letter writers,” he commented. There were stacks of the letters littering Maria’s coffee table.
One by one, Maria handed him a letter, pointing out funny, sad, or sweet phrases and paragraphs. When she handed one to him, she read the sweet tales aloud and he looked over to find Maria crying, the tears silently streaming down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her onto his lap. He probably shouldn’t, he thought. But those damnable, heretofore unknown protective instincts kicked in once more.
“I miss my grandparents,” she said softly.
Sloan told himself that he was only going to kiss her to distract her. But as he leaned closer, he knew it was a lie. He was going to kiss her because he couldn’t stop himself. Because she’d been sitting next to him, her gorgeous, lush body tempting him since she’d opened the door. And he was going to kiss her because it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Not to mention, if he didn’t kiss her, he might just burn up in flames.
As soon as his lips touched hers, Maria was lost. She barely knew this man but everything about his kiss felt perfectly right. As his kiss deepened, her fingers slid up against his chest, exploring, feeling, needing to touch him.
When her fingers found the skin on his neck, she was shocked at the heat emanating under her fingers. The man was on fire!
So was she. Maria whimpered when he shifted, finding herself on her back, looking up at him as he stared at her. She held her breath, praying that he wasn’t about to tell her he had to leave. The look in his eyes…she couldn’t interpret what he was thinking. But when her fingers moved along the skin of his neck once more, she heard him growl and knew that his moment of hesitation had passed. He wasn’t leaving! He was going to kiss her again.
This next kiss was different. It was intentional. Powerful. Devastating!
She whimpered, arching her body up against his, needing more as his tongue invaded her mouth, showing her what was in store for her. And Maria was shocked to find that she wanted that, needed his touch and his lovemaking more than she needed the next breath in her lungs.
As his fingers moved underneath her camisole, she shifted so that his long fingers could touch more skin, expand to more territory. Last night, she’d wondered what it would feel like to have his fingers touching her. Never could she have imagined the kind of crazy pleasure his touch could ignite inside of her.
Intellectually, Maria barely knew Sloan. But the lack of detail about this incredible man’s life wasn’t important at this moment. There was a rightness to this moment, to the way he was looking at her. For the past several hours, they’d sat on this couch and read through her grandparents’ letters. Every moment, every look, every subtle touch had led them both to this point, to this decision. She knew that it was right and good and powerful.
So when he hesitated, his jaw tight and clenching, she reached up and touched him, her fingers silently giving him the permission he needed to proceed.
Gone were all of her insecurities about whether he was interested in her or not. She no longer pictured this incredible man with a gorgeous blonde. She was imagining him touching her. Making love to her. Making her feel…
His fingers slid higher and she gasped, the feeling beyond anything she could have imagined.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, as if the silent permission from her gasp wasn’t enough.
Those still lips relaxed ever so slightly but his eyes moved down, looking at her chest. His fingers were almost rough as he pulled the fabric away from her skin. The flannel shirt was tugged down her arms, then blindly tossed behind the couch. His fingers slid against her skin, sending tingles of fire along every nerve ending. When he pulled the strap of her cami down, she held her breath, anxious for his reaction.
But when she saw the heat intensify in his silver eyes, she groaned in fear and anticipation.
“You’re gorgeous!” he growled before his mouth covered one taut peak, his other hand blowing her mind by tweaking her other nipple. She arched into his mouth, his touch making her lose all conscious thought as she grabbed onto his shoulders. When his tongue lashed against the peak, she wasn’t aware of her fingernails digging into his skin, but Sloan knew. He felt the sting and loved it, loved the way she moved under him, the way her body responded so instantly to his every touch. She hid nothing from him and it was more exciting than anything he’d ever experienced.
His mouth moved over her nipple, tasting the peak, biting it and teasing it with his tongue. She whimpered with his tender, and not so tender, ministrations and he found that he was addicted to the sound, needing to hear it again and not satisfied with her reactions until she made that sound, or some other sound, again.
Damn, he was losing his control, he realized as he moved over to her other breast, feeling the weight, loving the gentle sway as he kneaded the flesh.
But there was so much more of her that he wanted to explore. Reluctantly, he abandoned her breasts and moved lower, his mouth quirking to a slight smile when he found a ticklish spot on her stomach. Looking up, he noticed her teeth were clenched tightly together, her anticipation just as hot as he was feeling.
“Relax, Maria,” he urged.
; She shook her head, her brunette locks sliding against the pillow behind her head. “Can’t,” she whispered, unaware of her legs shifting, wrapping around his waist in a silent invitation to continue.
Sloan felt her hips move and tore off his sweater and shirt. “Touch me,” he urged even as he lowered his head to explore her stomach. When he felt her fingers against his skin, he groaned again, causing her to shift her delectable hips. His fingers easily released the bow on her drawstring pajamas, then his hands whipped the thin pants away, unconcerned that they’d landed on top of the lamp. All he knew was that this woman was wearing the sexiest pair of white, cotton panties he’d ever seen. Women usually wore lace or barely there satin. But somehow, this virginal cotton covering the part of her that he most wanted to see was more erotic than the most expensive lace. It was almost a fetish fantasy pair of panties.
“These have to go,” he told her and his fingers drew them down her legs. Standing up, he shucked off his jeans, standing there looking down at her. His hand moved to his erection as he took one of her ankles, spreading her legs so that his eyes could devour her while he stroked himself. “Damn, you’re beautiful!”
Maria watched him, more turned on by his look than she’d thought possible. He wouldn’t allow shyness. When her legs started to close, his fingers tightened on her ankles, keeping her legs spread wide for his viewing. Her mouth fell slack as she watched him stroke himself, but her fingers were too interested in doing the same.
“May I?” she asked, sitting up and reaching for him.
“I don’t…” he started to say, but her fingers gently wrapped around his shaft and he closed his eyes, trying to control himself. Her light, tentative touch was almost his undoing. But as he wrapped his hand around her fingers, showing her how to touch him, he groaned, enjoying her delicate fingers too much.
He only allowed her a few strokes before he pulled her hand away, shaking his head. “More later,” he promised when she opened her mouth to argue with him. He bent lower, silencing her protests with a deep, wet kiss as his body pressed hers back down. He spared only a moment to grab a condom out of his jeans pocket, rolling it down his erection as he pressed her back so that she was once again spread out in front of him.
Billionaires On the Beach: The Anderson Brothers Page 4
