by Ginny Glass
Bea bit her lower lip hard enough for the edges of the skin to pale. She stayed completely silent. An unreadable expression crossed her face. Eli thrust harder, faster, unable to help himself. The wildness in her eyes answered his new pace, and smug satisfaction thrilled through him at the way she let go of her full lower lip.
He drove into her with measured intent, testing the limits of her control. He braced his forearms on either side of her, angling so that the base of his cock found hard, repetitive home against her most sensitive spot. Bea rose on her heels over the washer. Her mouth opened fully on what was nearly a sound, and he moved impossibly faster.
“Mine,” he growled. “For always. No more wondering, Bea.”
Too close to coming, he shortened his strokes, sliding his hands up to dig into the thick mass of dark hair spread out beneath her head. Bea slicked her hands up his forearms and her nails bit into him. Eli stopped short. His gut knifed. Zips of pleasure tingled along his nerve highways, spreading to where her slick lips pulled at his throbbing shaft. His thighs erupted in goose bumps.
Eli steadied himself, his slow thrusts drawing new agonies, new angles of beauty from her flushed face. Her faraway eyes, the tautness of her legs as she urged and begged him without words. It was the words he wanted. It was the words he’d wanted almost since the day he’d first laid eyes on her.
Eli knew she must be uncertain of him—he had drawn her out before, only to pull away. He wanted to reassure her, but more than that, he wanted her to trust that he had seen the light. “I told you what you were allowed to say, and you know what you get when you say it.”
Bea shook her head, closing her eyes. It tore at him, the small rejection, but instead of anger, gentleness took hold.
“I’m here, Bea. I’m here for you. With you. Inside you.”
He tightened his grip on her hips, his chest heaving, too quickly resuming a punishing pace. She met him over and over again, her eyes glinting from heavy lids, challenging. He was losing it, his own control slipping.
Their bodies made deep, decadently liquid sounds as they jerked apart and plunged back together. The musky smell of sex and sweat mingled in his flared nostrils. The ravager who had bent her over the washer and branded her was being reduced very quickly to helpless putty.
Bea’s hand fisted around his tie. She yanked and the length of silk around his neck drew taut. She arched toward him. He turned his head, avoiding the lush temptation of her offered lips.
“No.” He punctuated the word with a savage thrust of his hips, and several thereafter. “Not until you say it. Say you’re mine, Bea.”
She wouldn’t say it, at least not before he lost it completely. The edges of his vision were tinged a sweet, hot red that fuzzed into his line of sight just before he came, and Bea still wasn’t budging. Eli’s balls tightened. He was going batshit insane waiting for that plush mouth to form those two little words.
His ego would have been more wounded at her silence, except she wasn’t entirely unaffected. Her thighs clenched around his hips and she twisted wildly against him, panting hot jets of breath against his cheek. She clutched his tie, wrapping the silk around her knuckles, keeping him close. Eli buried his mouth in her neck, flexed his fingers in her hair, knew that he was resting his heart in her hands.
The washer spun beneath them, and their momentum, combined with the drum’s rotation, rocked the machine on its legs. With each of his retreats, it returned level with a solid thud that echoed whatever wrenched in his chest.
Bea suddenly froze, then her body shuddered. Eli tried to push up, to watch her face, but she kept hold of his tie. He ground his whole body against her instead, driving his cock harder. She had slicked the skin of his stomach, and he felt his pubic bone grind over the hard nub of her swollen clit. He bore down once, twice, pushing her over the edge.
She didn’t give him words, but he pressed his lips to hers in what would, in more rational situations, be called a compromise. Bea opened her mouth under his and he caught her cries of release, returning his own as her climax triggered his. Pleasure ripped up his spine and scored hot rows at the base of his skull. He came in long, spasmodic, breath-stealing pulses. He tore his mouth from hers and nearly roared in satisfaction as he took a long, wringing freefall.
Minutes later, he felt her hands in his hair. Bea pushed her tongue into his mouth and hummed contentedly. Eli pulled back as something small, round and rough passed from her mouth to his. She let him go as he raised a hand…and spit a quarter into his palm. She stretched under him, grinned saucily. Eli grinned back.
Bea ran her fingertips down her own chest, and Eli caught her hand. The humidity in the laundry room had lent a fine sheen to her skin, and he kissed her fingertips, tasting the salt of her sweat. Eli’s eyes found hers and, for the aggressor, he felt strangely, completely vulnerable.
“I’m yours,” she said softly.
Elation was instant. He tossed the quarter over his shoulder, framed her face with his hands, and kissed her deeply. She tasted of sweet, unhurried warmth, kissing him with an ease that radiated into him. Contentment spread from her mouth to every cell in his body.
Eli had come home.
Bea pulled away to stare up at him. Her eyes shone with a brilliance that he had seen before—the tender devotion he’d witnessed dozens of times over the past years. He’d been too blind to really recognize it.
“Eli, I…” Bea’s eyes went damp and she held her breath. If she was trying to stop her tears from falling, she failed.
“No.” His thumbs grazed her cheeks. “No regrets. I won’t hear them.”
Bea shook her head. “I just… Is this…”
“Real?”
Bea nodded, closing her eyes.
Eli brushed again at her tears, planting soft, lingering kisses on her eyelids, her cheeks and, finally, her mouth. He wrapped her up against him and she didn’t even complain about his weight on her. His stomach twisted and he took a deep breath. “I didn’t know that I would love you.”
Bea’s arms tightened around him. “You what?”
“I’m sorry about what happened. The argument. I was terrified. I love you. I think I ha—”
Bea attacked him with kisses, smothering his words. Between kisses and laughter, he managed to get them up off the washer and standing. He snuck to the trash at the far end of the room to discard the condom and returned to her open arms. When she finally released him, her eyes were shiny with new tears.
“Eli, I love you, too.”
He spent an intense stretch of seconds studying her face.
“This doesn’t scare you? My…I mean, we…” Eli reached out and skimmed a fingertip over a still-bright circle that marked the curve of her shoulder.
Bea shook her head, took his hand and kissed his fingers. “No, Eli. You didn’t scare me at all.”
Eli’s grin nearly split his face as he bent to pick up his pants, as well as the tatters of her clothes, from the linoleum. He wondered how he hadn’t planned far enough ahead to bring her extra clothes. He drew her close. “That’s Mr. Elliot to you, miss.”
Bea tipped her face up to him and plucked the shreds of her clothes from his hand.
“I’m pretty naked right now, Mr. Elliot.”
“You’re pretty anytime, Miss London.”
She smothered her laughter in his neck. He tugged her back.
“Bea, one more thing.”
“Yes, Elijah?”
“Lynn Perry called me today. She’s going ahead with your campaign.”
Bea’s eyes widened. “What? She acted like she hated it!”
Eli cupped her cheek. “She said she loved your presentation, after she left it on her kitchen table and her husband saw your slideshow.” Bea snorted and he grinned. “She wants to mail catalogs with red silk scarves attached.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“The best. She wants us. You and me.”
Bea smirked and pressed closer. “Well, Mr. Elliot, if we’
re going to work together again, I think you owe me some money. It seems you’ve lost some of my laundry change.”
“I’m changeless at the moment. How about one of my T-shirts to wear out of here?”
“Can I keep it?”
He lowered his head for another kiss.
“Forever.”
About the Author
Ginny Glass grew up in the rural South thinking that she wanted to be a stage actress. She discovered a love for romance novels early on, and reading romance eventually became a love of writing it (admittedly spiced up a bit from her early childhood collections of soft-focus category novels).
Ginny currently lives in the desert Southwest with her husband and a very spoiled mutt who has an unfortunate taste for upholstery. Her drama is on the page now instead of the stage, but comes with the luxury of being able to always work in her pajamas.
Find Ginny at www.ginny-glass.com or www.twitter.com/ginnyglass.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9000-0
Copyright © 2010 by Ginny Glass
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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