He just looked at me.
“Oh, all right, I do, but you don’t have to assume I do. I am not the sort of a woman who needs a man to be happy in her life. I’ve got a fulfilling job, and am happy in my own skin. Well, mostly. I would like to drop a few pounds, but I refuse to let society dictate to me what I should look like.”
Gunner looked a little puzzled. Before he could ask me what the hell I was ranting about, I added, “Sorry. That was just a little self-defense thing. I do like touching you and kissing you and all that, but you could have pretended to have a shred of doubt, you know. It’s a bit annoying to have it assumed that I’d fall for your gorgeous self.”
“I don’t, as a rule, play games like that. I believe in honesty.”
I flinched. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. That wasn’t intended to reflect upon our discussion of a few moments ago. I was referring to honesty in emotions. So, how about it?”
I shook my head. “We’re trapped in a passage under a castle, with no one knowing we’re down here. And you said there are rats.”
He sighed heavily. “I knew that lie would come back to haunt me. There are no rats, Lorina.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to get busy with me,” I said suspiciously.
“I want to get busier with you than you’ve ever busied before—that’s true—but I said it because I’d hoped you’d be terrified of them, and want to cling to me.”
“That’s a pretty dastardly thing to do, Gunner.”
“I know, but I’m beginning to feel desperate.”
“Just because you say there aren’t any rats doesn’t mean they aren’t here,” I pointed out.
“Look around you. Have you seen any rats since we’ve been down here?”
I glanced around the passageway. “Well . . . no.”
“Have you heard any sounds of rodents?”
“No,” I said slowly. “But maybe they’re just hiding from us.”
“Hiding where?” He gestured at the stones on the floor. “There’s nowhere for them to go to remain unseen, not to mention the fact that we’d see droppings if they had been here.”
I rubbed my arms. “It’s still a bad idea. We’ve only known each other less than a week, and for most of that time, you were annoyed with me. I’m not the sort who dashes into relationships, anyway. It took me six months to decide whether or not I wanted my previous boyfriend, and thankfully, it only took me a year to get away from him.”
“Get away from?” His lovely blue eyes were narrowed slightly.
I shook my head. “Not ready to talk about that.”
“Fair enough.” His brows smoothed, and a little smile flirted with his lips, making all my internal organs melt into puddles of goo. “If I told you that my brother married his wife after knowing her for less than a week, what would you say?”
“That your sister-in-law must be one hell of a woman.”
“She is that.” He pulled me into a loose embrace. “Do you know what I think?”
“No, but I have a strong suspicion you’re going to tell me.”
“I think that you’re suffering mental distress, Lorina. You’ve let this situation with Thompson—no, don’t tense up; I’m not going to question you about it—you’ve let it work you into knots, and now you’re worried about rats and being trapped down here, and whether or not you’re falling in love with me, and that’s giving you an immense amount of stress.”
I shoved back on him. “I am not falling in love with you! Didn’t you just hear me tell you that it takes me forever to warm up to a man, romantically speaking?”
“Ainslie men are different. My brother proved that. Regardless, you’re under tremendous stress, and quite obviously suffering. That’s not good. You need something to distract you from your dark and confused thoughts.”
“I do?” The lure of his nearness was too much for me. It wooed me as nothing else could. I watched his mouth move as he spoke, wanting to kiss him again, wanting to touch all that gorgeous warm flesh.
“Yes, you do, and as a caring man, as a man who values you for more than just your delectable body, and enticing breasts, and truly magnificent ass, I will take it upon myself to provide that distraction so that you might be comfortable, mentally speaking.”
“Oh.” Unable to resist, I leaned in and gently bit his lower lip. “That is very thoughtful of you.”
“Yes, yes it is,” he said, and with businesslike, efficient moves, he peeled off his shirt, and spread it out on the ground.
“Noble, even,” I said, my eyes huge as they drank in all that lovely chest acreage. My mouth started watering at the sight of it. “We’re talking Mother Teresa sort of generosity, the kind of act that the Nobel people take note of. Are you going to take off your jeans, too?”
“Yes, it’s part of the plan I just created to keep your mind from being distressed.”
“I like your plan. Your plan is good. No, wait, what am I saying? We can’t have sex here, Gunner.” I stopped pulling his jeans off him when he carefully removed his cast. “It’s wrong.”
“How is it wrong? Please pull the jeans off, so I can put my cast back on. Thank you. It’s a nuisance, but the doctor assures me it’s necessary for another day.” He strapped the cast back onto his foot, and sat watching me.
I had a horrible time trying to get my brain working in the face of his near nudity. “My god, you really are gorgeous. Hmm? Oh, it’s wrong . . . uh . . . morally?”
He shook his head. “I’m not involved with anyone, and I’m assuming you aren’t, either, since you mentioned a former partner.”
“Still, we haven’t known each other long—” I stopped. I had a hard time forming coherent thoughts in my almost overwhelming desire to lick him.
“I don’t think that would make a difference in how we feel about each other, do you?”
He had a point, I had to admit. “Well . . . I suppose if I’m going to die down here, it would be better if I died happy, rather than sexually frustrated.”
“You’re not going to die down here.” He swept his hands down my back, and around my front to cup my breasts. “I, however, may well do so if you don’t let me finish what we started this morning.”
My breasts were wholly on board with that idea. I let them flirt shamelessly with him for a few minutes before letting my hands do a little walking along his arms and shoulders. “I thought you were doing this to save me from mental upset?”
“Ah, yes. Good point.” He cleared his throat and looked down his nose at me. “I am thinking only of your welfare, Lorina. You will allow me to kiss and otherwise fondle your breasts for your own good.”
He bent his head to do just that. I moaned, and pulled away enough to run my thumbs over his naked little nipples. “I’d nominate you for Good Samaritan of the Year, but you have a raging erection, and I don’t think they approve of that sort of thing at the awards ceremony.”
“My erection is not raging—it’s simply appreciative and attentive. And I can’t help it when you kiss me like you just did.” He looked somewhat offended.
“Well, now I feel like a heel pointing it out,” I said, and pulled my shirt off over my head. Gunner had arranged his pants on the ground next to his shirt. “Here you are doing nothing but thinking of my own good, and I go and make you feel awkward.”
“If you take your trousers off, I won’t feel awkward anymore,” he said, nodding at my lower half as he laid my shirt out next to his.
“Then I obviously need to do that as a sign of just how much I regret causing you even so much as a moment of unhappiness,” I said grandly, and shucked my shoes, socks, and pants with panache.
He paused in the act of putting them on the ground, giving me a look that had me giggling out loud.
“Too far?” I asked.
He nodded. “I could pretend to c
halk it up to the regret-causing-you-unhappiness bit, though.”
“Good. I’m not sure I’m willing to face the fact that I’m so happy getting it on with you when we could be down here for the rest of our lives.”
He slid my bra off, and immediately cupped my naked breasts in his hands, bending down to kiss each handful. “At most, we’ll spend a day down here, just long enough for us to get a bit peckish.”
“I don’t know that people will know to look for us here, assuming they notice we’re gone,” I said more than a little breathlessly.
“Perhaps not, but my brother is due back tomorrow, and he knows I know about the bolt-hole. He’ll be sure to look here once he finds out we’re missing.” Gunner looked up at me, his eyes a smoky blue even in the dim lamplight. “You’re sure you want to do this, Lorina?”
“Oh, hell yes,” I said, leaning into him and gently biting the tendon in his neck. “I’ve wanted it since that first moment when you ran me over and pulled me onto your lap. Oh, dammit! I didn’t mean to say that. Great, now you think I’m just one of the millions of women who no doubt fall for you the second they see you.”
“And that, I assume, is my cue to tell you that you are unique and there’s never been a woman like you, and despite the millions of women who have fallen for me, I can see, think of, and desire only you?”
I pulled back and punched him in the stomach.
Laughing, he held my hand and pulled me down onto the makeshift bed. “Don’t tell me I deserved that.”
“You did,” I said, giving in to my body’s demands and nibbling my way along his jaw to his ear. “You’re not supposed to catch me out when I’m fishing for a compliment. A polite man, a man who has the manners to live in a castle, would have said all of that and not pointed out my insecurities.”
“I’m a boor and a brute, and I did deserve that punch, because it is true that I do only think of you.” He rubbed his cheeks against my breasts, the slight abrasion of his beard making my whole body feel like it was made up of fire.
“Apology accepted,” I said, squirming restlessly against him as I kissed him. “Although you still haven’t retracted that ‘millions of women’ thing.”
“Less than twenty,” he amended, and slid a hand up my leg, bending over my ankle and giving it a little bite. “You have the most beautiful legs.”
“That’s because I’m on my feet all day. It builds up the calf muscles.” I gave myself up to the moment, relishing the feel of his mouth as it steamed up my flesh.
“Mmm. So sexy,” he said, nibbling a path up my thigh.
“I hope that wasn’t a cannibal reference. Gunner?”
“Yes, my dumpling of delight?”
“Can we skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course? Because I already feel like I’m going to explode in a thousand little pieces if you take any longer, and it’s just bound to make me insane if you insist on going into the land of oral sex.”
He pursed his lips and eyed my underwear. “But I was looking forward to giving you pleasure.”
I lifted my hips and peeled off my undies. “Oh, trust me, this is going to be pleasurable enough. Normally I’m very thumbs-up on foreplay, but I’m feeling a bit vulnerable here. We’re not really in a private place, are we? We are just out here in the middle of a passage with Roman ruins, and if anyone opened that door and came into the passage, they’d see us going at it, and then where would we be?”
“I would have to marry you,” he said gallantly, and released my leg, pulling himself upward as he did so.
I snorted. “That’s a pretty old-fashioned response. People don’t do that anymore.”
“You’ve never been a member of my family,” he said with a twisted smile. “If my mother had her way, we’d all be married with large families by the time we hit twenty. Hell.”
“I don’t know that it would be hell being married to you. Not that I’m looking for a man to marry—I’m perfectly fine on my own—” I stopped, realizing that he wasn’t listening. “What’s wrong? You look disappointed. Did you really want the oral sex part of the event? If you did, I can go ahead with it.”
He gestured toward his lap. “Do I look like I’m unhappy? I was just thinking that since this is our first encounter, we should use protection.”
“Oh. You’re right.” I was annoyed that I was so smitten with him, I hadn’t even thought of that. “And how stupid is that?” I said aloud. “Especially since it’s the whole reason I’m here.”
“Pardon?” he said, looking confused. “You’re here just to have sex with me?”
“Of course not! I didn’t even know you existed until I got here. Just ignore my mouth. It’s talking again without my permission.”
“But I like your mouth so very much.” He got up on his knees and leaned over me, kissing me in a slow, hot manner that left my stomach quivering, and all my girl parts cheering in anticipation.
“I don’t suppose you have a condom?”
“I do, as a matter of fact, and if you make so much as one comment about that, I will refuse to let you touch my chest for an entire week.” He rolled me onto my side while fumbling around in the pocket of his pants, which lay beneath me.
I gasped at him, pinching him on the hip. “That’s even worse than telling me you’d eat me while I was in a coma!”
He found the condom, and opened the package while I tried to adopt a position that said I was willing and enthralled without seeming needy or the sort of woman who would get down with a man in a dire situation.
He slid me a coy look. “Would you like to put it on, or should I?”
“Oooh! Let me.” I took the condom from him, and sat up, biting my lip to keep from offering him help when his underwear got caught on his cast. At last he managed to wrestle it off, and lay on his side next to me, panting slightly, but trying hard to look suave.
“Now, let’s see.” I waggled the condom at him, unrolling it a bit. “I believe I know how this works. Why don’t you lie on your back and let me see if I can’t get you suited up?”
“I hope I last,” he said, groaning when I trailed my hand down his belly and made a little circle around his crotch. “I’d better start thinking about famine and sexual diseases.”
I froze just as I was about to kiss his belly button, glancing up at him in worry.
“Sorry,” he said, waving a hand. “I wasn’t implying I thought you had an STD. I’ll stop talking now so you can continue.”
I opened my mouth, closer than I’d ever been to just telling him the truth, but decided that it wouldn’t enhance the moment. Instead, in an attempt to recapture the light mood of a minute ago, I said perkily, “Prepare yourself. I shall now apply the condom . . . using only my mouth.”
At that moment, the oil lamp gave a nasty hissing sound, sputtered twice, and went out.
I heard Gunner sigh in the darkness.
I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself—it was just too funny to refuse to acknowledge.
“Do you ever feel like you’re doomed?” Gunner asked when I finally managed to stop. “Not doomed to die—I reiterate that we will be found sooner rather than later—but doomed on a metaphysical level, the kind where all the sins of your past return to haunt you?”
“Not really.” I reached out to where I last saw his penis, found it still standing at attention and waiting for my ministrations, and leaned down to lave my tongue around the head.
Gunner sucked in approximately half the air in the passage. “Oh Christ! I really won’t last if you do that.”
With some fumbling, I managed to get the condom rolled down on him, after which I crawled up his body, careful to avoid his hurt ankle. I lowered myself until I lay on top of him, his flesh warm and solid beneath me. Instantly, his hands came around and possessed themselves of my behind. “It’s a bit weird doing this in pitch black, and I’m
having to block the thought of rats from my mind even though you said there really aren’t any, but I think if we focus, we can do this. Only, Gunner, I’m going to need a whole lot of distracting.”
He chuckled, his mouth taking possession of mine, his tongue doing a wonderful little move against mine that had me feeling light-headed with passion. And when he lifted me up so that I was poised to accept him, I had a flash of insight that told me that nothing would ever again be the same.
The feel of him as he slid into me was almost overwhelming, making my muscles cramp around him in a manner that had him humming with pleasure. And when he worked up a rhythm that came close to making me hum, too, I let go of the last shreds of doubt, the little slivers of fear that he would turn out like my father. Gunner wasn’t a man who felt he had to dominate in order to prove himself—far from it. He had been solicitous and thoughtful with me, and I realized that he must have known I would have felt threatened otherwise.
The question of how he knew that was for another time. Right now, I just wanted to glory in him, in how right he felt, and tasted, and simply was. Everything about him fit perfectly with me, and when he urged me to a faster pace, his fingers tightening on my hips and his breath coming short and hard, I knew that no matter how the situation with Paul ended, at least one very good thing had come from this trip.
Gunner shouted as I slipped over the edge into an orgasm that seemed to ripple outward in never-ending waves. And after I collapsed down on his chest, now heaving and damp with exertion, his ragged breath ruffling my hair, I felt a few tears prick painfully behind my eyes.
Now that I’d found Gunner, I didn’t want to ruin everything. Would he understand if I told him the truth about my plan? Or would he find it so repugnant that I lost him forever?
I clutched him tight and ignored the fact that I was lying naked in the middle of a hidden passageway. If I pretended hard enough, maybe everything would work out.
A Midsummer Night's Romp Page 21
