“You woke me up just to tell me that?” he asked with a silent chuckle.
“You weren’t asleep.”
A guilty blush traveled from Chip’s face to his shoulders. “How do you know?”
“You answered your door quickly enough.”
“Well, you’re right. On both counts. Thomas Campbell wrote that couplet I gave you, and I wasn’t asleep.”
The door partially hid Chip, but she caught a glimpse of his briefs, their whiteness startling against the expanse of bare tanned skin he tried to hide from her. Even though he’d answered the door quickly and in his underpants, his mussed curls indicated that he’d been in bed, even if he hadn’t been asleep.
“I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing now,” she said quietly. She crossed her arms over her chest, awkward in the chill emptiness of the corridor. Was he with someone? The blonde receptionist with the beady eyes? “‘Night, Chip.” Taking a half step back, she raised her hand in farewell. The strap of her nightie slipped from her shoulder once more.
Stepping clear of the door, Chip reached for her errant strap just as she did, his fingers lighting over hers, moving with them to reposition the strap. Zae lowered her hand while Chip’s fingers grazed her shoulder, coming to rest at the place where her neck met her shoulder.
“Is that all you wanted?” he asked. “To give me an answer?”
Zae cleared her throat, the only part of her body that had gone dry. “Of course. Once I knew it was Campbell, I got…uh…excited. And I wanted to let you know that you hadn’t stumped me.”
He grinned, his fingers still on her. Less than a hand’s width separated his bare torso from hers. With the slightest step forward, the glittery golden hair of his legs would tickle against the bare skin of hers. Her nipples strained against the silky fabric of her nightie, sharing her eagerness to touch his broad, taut pectoral muscles.
“Goodnight, professor,” he murmured. He leaned in, his face aiming for her cheek, most likely to give her a goodnight kiss.
Zae’s brain surrendered control of her limbs to organs unconcerned with good sense. Her arms went around Chip’s neck, her feet carried her body closer to his and she turned her head, assuring Chip’s lips came down on hers in a hungry kiss that stole her breath and all attempts at reasoning her way out of his tight embrace. Walking backwards, Chip pulled her into his room and kicked the door shut. He stumbled onto the sofa, landing heavily on its plush burgundy cushions. Zae sat astride him, her knees framing his hips. Her thighs, warm and strong with the steady flex of her muscles, hugged his, the full rounds of her buttocks filling his hands.
He hiked her nightie over her hips as she slipped the straps down, baring her breasts. She braced her hands on Chip’s knees, arching her back to treat him to the twin wonders previously hidden. Chip took a breast in each hand, cradling their firmness, testing their responsiveness with light flicks of his thumb. Zae reacted, settling herself atop the hardness straining against Chip’s white briefs. Her shift pooled at her waist, and Chip reached under it to find the lacy gusset of her panties. Long fingers, firm but gentle, pushed the gusset aside to burrow into Zae’s silky heat, starting a quiver in her thighs that radiated through her body.
Her breath caught, her head fell back. Her breasts thrust themselves upward, directing Chip’s attention back to them. He sampled one with a feathery flick of his tongue, then hungrily sucked it, drawing just short of the point of pain. Zae’s abdomen tightened, curving her torso toward Chip. She clutched his head to her bosom, welcoming his hunger in her need to satisfy her own.
She undulated, her hips meeting the pressure of his fingers, the heel of his palm positioned perfectly to work against the tiny bullseye crowning the center of her pleasure. Chip freed himself through the opening in his briefs and took Zae by her hips. She raised herself, helping him steer himself into her.
“Don’t move,” Chip exhaled heavily once she entombed him, her weight full upon him. “Please, please don’t move.”
Her arms wreathed around his head, Zae shook from the effort to honor his plea. But when he framed her breast in one hand and drew on her nipple, she could deny herself no longer. Her buttocks and thighs contracted, driving her hips back and forth in deep, hard thrusts that nursed guttural groans from Chip.
Everything within Zae hardened and melted at once. Clenching handfuls of Chip’s hair, she kept his mouth at her breasts, insensate bliss pulsing through her over and over until she could no longer see, hear or breathe. The hard pulse of Chip’s body inside and against hers seemed to sustain the rapid beating of her heart, his arms about her did the work of her spine to keep her upright.
Supporting her with an arm around her waist and one angling across her back, Chip pumped his hips, giving her weary thighs a respite. He breathed faster, her name disappearing into her hair, which cloaked their heads. His mouth met hers in a crushing kiss that unlocked Zae’s limbs and inflated her lungs. Chip’s thighs and abdomen hardened, the bulging muscles of his arms froze and he grimaced, his head jerking back from the force of his eruption.
Zae kissed the taut cords of his neck, eventually relaxing them. She held him close, stilling the intermittent shudders wracking his hard body. Her lips again found his, her kisses salty with the sweat of his brow and neck.
Chip framed her face in his hands, drawing it away from his to gaze at her. He stroked her hair from her face, his fingers moving all the way to the curling ends teasing her shoulders and neck.
“Do you have a robe I could borrow?” Zae asked.
“No.”
The left side of her mouth quirked in a grin. “I’ll need something to wear back to my room.”
“Maybe I can find one by the time I’m ready to let you go back to your room.”
* * *
“What time is it?”
“Hell if I know,” Chip answered. “Do you have something to get to at the moment?”
Zae lifted his arm and rolled from under it to peep at the digital clock on his nightstand. “It’s almost three. I should call the girls and make sure they’re at home.”
She reached over Chip for the phone. He took her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. With his other arm, he pinned her to his chest. “The girls are gonna be moving on campus in a few weeks. You might want to get used to not knowing where they are all the time.”
“It doesn’t matter where they’ll be living,” Zae said. “They’ll still be my babies and I’ll still worry about them.”
“They’re nineteen.” Chip kissed her neck, right under her earlobe. “And they’re good girls.” His tongue flicked her earlobe, then he suckled it as he rolled Zae onto her back, stroking his hand along her ribcage and up to her breast. “They don’t need a mother hen hovering over them.”
Chip kissed a path to her breast, taunting her nipple with the stubble on his cheek before soothing it with his lips and tongue. Zae’s head and hips drove themselves into the mattress, her thighs widening to welcome Chip’s hand.
“They’re probably sound asleep,” she gasped. The motion of Chip’s fingers between her legs affected her breathing. Firm but gentle, he parted her, baring her sensitive kernel and bedeviling it with the pad of his thumb. His index and middle fingers seemed to play Hide and Seek, darting in and out of her in sync with the work of his mouth at her breast.
“It would be a shame to wake them up,” Chip spoke against her breast.
“Indeed,” Zae agreed.
As though it were a handle, she grabbed Chip’s hot thickness in both hands. Her thumbs extended, she slid her hands up and down his length. He growled through a mouthful of her, his fingers probed deeper, finding the bed of nerves that sent lovely frissons of bliss traveling through her.
Her thumbs glided over his cap with each upward stroke, and Chip’s abdomen contracted hard. She thought he would have emptied himself earlier, but the movement of the fuzzy weights at his base convinced her that he had still more to give. And soon.
She aimed him downward, raising her hips to anoint him with the nectar he had generated. He whimpered as if in pain, his lips clamped at her nipple.
“I think I might come without you,” she taunted, raising her head to kiss him.
Chip’s upper body flexed as he kissed her, hard, his right hand trying to remove hers from him. Grinning through their kiss, Zae tightened her grip, daring him to use more force, challenging him to hold out longer.
“You’re used to being the boss, professor,” Chip panted. “But it’s time you realized that the only reason you can boss me is because I let you.”
Chip hooked his left arm under her right knee, hoisting her calf onto his shoulder. Zae freed him to grasp his shoulders, and he drove himself into her as deep as he could. Kissing her calf, he supported his weight on his hands, his forearms flanking her head. Zae clutched at his backside, assisting each of his thrusts.
Zae closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Chip dropped to one elbow to awkwardly stroke her hair from her face. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” he panted. “It hurts me to look at you and to feel myself inside you. I could die right now and if I went to heaven, it wouldn’t feel as good as this.”
She took his face and stopped his sweet words with kisses. He stiffened on one hard thrust, grunting against Zae’s mouth. She tore her face from his, her fingernails digging into the meat of his buttocks. Her center locked around him and pulsed with his, milking him with such force that he buried his face in her neck and cried out. He collapsed on top of her, easing her leg onto the bed. Boneless and satisfied, Zae roused him with tender kisses to his temple and brow.
Reluctantly, Chip withdrew from her and lay beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked, curling an arm around her.
“I’m a little sore, but I’m fine. You?”
“Never better.” He chuckled.
Zae traced lazy patterns in his golden chest hair with her fingertip. “I wonder what Cinder and Gian are doing right now.”
“I hope they’re doing half as good as we are.” Chip laughed. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought you and I would end up together.”
“I didn’t plan this.” She walked her fingers down his midline, pausing to circle his navel.
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever notice how the best surprises are the unexpected ones?” he said.
She nodded against his shoulder. “Is that what I am to you? An unexpected surprise?”
“That and more.”
“I wish this night would last longer,” she sighed. “The sun will be up soon.”
“So? Are you gonna up and turn to dust on me?”
“No, but I’ll have to leave.”
Chip stopped her hand, which was inching steadily lower. “No, you don’t. I heard you tell Cinder earlier that you cleared your whole weekend for the wedding.”
“I promised Cinder that I’d help her with some things today,” Zae said.
“Is that the only reason you want to leave?”
“No.”
“Having regrets already?”
She shook off his hand and cupped him between his legs, stroking his softened flesh. “No. Not now, not ever.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Who said I had a problem?”
“Zae, you’re talking in riddles. Just tell me—”
She stopped him with a kiss, then slid down his body, taking the bedclothes with her. He lay in the semidarkness wearing nothing but Zae, who settled between his thighs. “Would you mind terribly if I used my mouth for something other than talking, soldier?”
She took him, returning him to ardent life once more. “No,” he gasped, clutching the sides of her bobbing head. “I don’t mind at all, professor.”
* * *
Heaven and earth, dream and reality, now and later…Chip and Zae reveled in those in between places, learning each other’s tastes, textures and rhythms. Time seemed to elongate in the moments they spent talking only to rapidly contract when they reached the intense heights of passion. They left Chip’s bed once, to retrieve the complimentary fruit and wine basket the receptionist had sent to Chip—along with her personal cell phone number, which Zae dropped in a waste can with their grape stems and banana peels. Rehydrated and nourished, they greeted the earliest rays of the sun in rapture. Weakened by their marathon exertions, Zae had fallen asleep with her head on Chip’s chest, one of her legs resting upon his.
Chip lay awake long after the sun’s brightness tried to penetrate his drawn curtains. He stroked his upper lip with a lock of Zae’s hair. He inhaled its scent, which reminded him of fresh ocean rain. Every part of Zae had a unique aroma, each of which he’d done his best to commit to memory.
When damp with sweat, the crease where her thigh joined her pelvis issued an aroma akin to honey and citrus, a weaker version of the sweet musk he’d aroused between her thighs. From the valley separating her breasts came the scent of something sugary and earthy, something he couldn’t quite name. His scents mingled with hers and still hung faint in the air, stirring his desires all over again.
He stared at the ceiling, wondering exactly how he’d ended up in this moment. In all the years he had known Zae, she’d given no indication that she was at all interested in him as more than a friend. He couldn’t remember the last time she had dated anyone, if she had, since her husband’s death.
Thinking about Colin Richardson, he tightened his embrace, nestling Zae closer as if Colin could reach beyond the grave to reclaim her. For more than a year, he and Zae had been developing a deeper friendship, ever since Cinder had begun taking karate lessons at Sheng Li. Respective best friends to Gian and Cinder, Chip and Zae had been matched by convenience, more than anything else.
Sure, they had ventured out on their own from time to time, to lectures, movies, the occasional restaurant. And then there were all the times he had dined at Zae’s after taking care of some minor house repair, or after she’d been particularly obnoxious in class and wanted to make it up to him.
He had canceled dates to be with her, yet he’d never considered dating her, never mind making love to her.
Well…
He’d never considered it a genuine possibility.
Smart, attractive, accomplished and mature, Zae was so unlike the women he usually dated. She was as different from his string of Ashleys, Brittanys and Heathers as Schwinns were from Porsches. A mere glance from Zae stirred him in ways Heather couldn’t with her whole body, and Zae’s kiss—her kiss stripped him of everything.
With abandon, he had returned her kisses, giving her not just physical elements but claims on every emotion behind them—joy, apprehension, curiosity, passion. So much passion, he hadn’t known how to manage it, at first. She had heeded his need for her to keep still upon their initial union. The pleasure at being inside her had been so keen, he’d been certain that he’d have taken her mindlessly, perhaps too roughly, if she hadn’t allowed him to muster control.
Such torture had never paid greater dividends.
Even now, his equipment drained and pressed against her, he wanted more of her. More of her eyes gazing at him, her lids heavy in the throes of her climax; more of her lips suckling his and pursed around his shaft; more of her soft, slippery heat clamping around him; more of her heart and the piece of her soul she’d given him when she muttered his name in her sleep, and pressed her face into his neck.
He kissed the top of her head, earning another sleepy sigh of contentment. Colin’s time with Zae had been spent. Turning his head from the thread of sunlight shining between the drawn curtains, Chip considered that Colin wasn’t the person with whom he had to contend. Zae was the one who had yet to let go.
Chapter Four
Cinder and Gian were in the garage sorting unopened wedding gifts, so Zae volunteered to get the door when the bell rang. She opened it to see Chip on the front porch. “What are you doing here?”
> “That’s a fine greeting,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Gian asked me to come over and help with the heavy lifting. Apparently, they got loads more gifts than they expected.”
Zae stepped aside to let Chip in.
“Woulda been nice if you’d said goodbye before you disappeared this morning,” he said in a low voice.
“You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you.” Zae led him through the wide foyer and into the spacious, airy living room. Gian had purchased one of his brother Pio’s “greenhouses,” the environmentally friendly houses his company builds. Chip admired the bamboo floors and skylights anew as he followed Zae through the kitchen.
“I appreciate that,” Chip said, “considering I didn’t fall asleep until you stopped snoring around sun-up.”
Zae’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t snore.”
Grinning, Chip said. “Yes, you do. And you talk in your sleep, too.”
Zae whirled on him, her long, white tunic swirling about her hips. “Really? What did I say?”
“You said my name.”
“You—” Her expression softened. “I don’t—”
“I’d like to talk about what happened last night.”
“I was there. I don’t need to talk about it.”
“Are you ashamed of what we did?”
“Hell, no.” Zae detoured to stop at the refrigerator. She grabbed the handle of the big, stainless steel door and hauled it open. “Are you?” She grabbed two bottles of water, tossing one to Chip.
“I’m looking forward to being ashamed like that again.”
Chip’s lazy, one-sided smile softened Zae’s knees. She quickly walked past him, hanging a right to enter the garage. “Last night was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again.”
Chip took her arm, stopping her from opening the garage door. “What happened last night was special. You didn’t feel it?”
“Oh, I felt a lot of things.” She unscrewed the cap of her water bottle to give her hands something to do other than dive into his curls.
Everything in Between Page 6
