by Olivia Dade
She made a noise in her throat, a kind of strangled moan, and he smiled against her mouth. As he took her lower lip between his and suckled it, he soaped his hands again.
Under her arms and along her sides, she was a little ticklish, and he made a mental note of specific spots for future torment. Then he finally got to cup that bountiful, beautiful ass of hers, and it slipped beneath his hands like silk. When he squeezed her there possessively, her thighs parted, and he nestled his leg between them.
Given his height and the small stall, soaping her strong, curvy legs proved a challenge, but he did it half-kneeling on the floor, the drain digging into his knee.
It hurt. But at his current level, he had possibly the world’s best view. Amazing breasts above, lovely legs below, and just in front of him, peeking out pink and slick beneath her dark curls—
Her hand lowered to cover those curls. “I appreciate the thought, Lucas, believe me. But my knee won’t let me do anything too acrobatic in here. Also, if I fell, I’m pretty sure I’d kill us both.”
No matter. They’d have plenty of time in bed for him to get his mouth on her, and in the meantime…
“No need for anything complicated.” He managed to rise to his feet without jostling her too much. “Just lean against the wall and relax.”
The lines between her brows smoothed. “If I’m reading your expression correctly, please know I’m completely on board with what you have planned.”
“You’re reading my expression correctly,” he told her.
Her lips yielded beneath his, and he sucked her tongue into his mouth while he soaped up his hands again. Then he was nudging her legs a little further apart. Not enough to cause her discomfort while holding the position, but enough to give him room to work.
She was slick and hot and smooth, and her clit swelled beneath his touch as she arched against his hand. He toyed with her folds, letting the water, the soap, and her own wetness make the movements easy and light. Then, with two fingers, he opened her to the spray of the water, and she gasped and trembled as he rinsed her clean.
No soap left to irritate her delicate skin. Now he could really play.
He’d washed away her natural moisture, but he had no problem working to bring it back. While he scattered little bites down the side of her neck, he rounded her clit in a steady, slow circle. Again and again, until she was moaning and grinding against his hand.
She’d become slick again, and he sank two fingers inside her, rubbing and trying to find the angle that made her whimper.
There. She was clutching him now, her short nails digging into his back as he braced her against the shower wall with his weight. After one last slide of his fingers inside her, he returned to her clit, and she cried out.
With one hand, he found her nipple, brushing his thumb back and forth over the beaded tip. With the other, he kept up that same easy glide, around and around her clit, letting her rub herself against him for more pressure as she tensed and began to pant.
Not too long now. He lifted his head and watched her face, the way her delicate eyelids drifted shut and her lips parted and her breath came in little puffs. The way she lost herself in pleasure at his touch.
He pinched her nipple lightly. And with a high, loud keen, she came against his hand, her head falling back as her thighs shook and her fingers bit deep into his skin. Her sex quivered, pulsing as her body sagged against the wall.
A good partner would wait for her to recover before dragging her to bed and fucking her into twelve more orgasms. He gave it about a minute, coaxing the last few tremors from her flesh and rubbing her back soothingly.
Finally, she sighed and rested her forehead against his shoulder, her body still and lax. And he was done waiting.
Flipping off the water, he shoved open the shower door, took her hand, and marched her to his bed, the two of them dripping all over that generic carpet.
At his bedside, he paused, his chest heaving with each desperate breath. “How can I make this good for you? I don’t want to hurt your neck or knee or back or—”
“If I start hurting, I’ll let you know. You do the same if your wrist bothers you. Until then”—she climbed onto the bed and sprawled across his comforter, arms and legs open for him—“let’s not worry.”
A condom. He needed a condom.
A quick search of his bedside table produced a small package, and he rolled the condom over his cock while he enjoyed the view of her spread wide and gleaming in the light from the bathroom. God, she was hot enough to burn this fucking island to cinders.
Without another word, he crawled between her thighs and buried his face in her sweet, swollen pussy, starving for the taste of her. And yeah, it hurt his nose, and yeah, he was grinding his stiff-to-bursting dick into the comforter as he licked her, but it was worth it to have her push herself against his face as he circled her clit and feel her legs shake as he sucked that small bit of flesh into his mouth and rubbed it with his tongue.
“Let me…” She tugged at his hair. “Let me move my knee a little.”
He waited until she’d resettled, then lowered his head again.
When she was clutching his hair and grinding against his mouth, whimpering with every stroke of his tongue, he pulled away, knelt between her legs, and rested a hand on her belly.
“Do you want me to do this slowly, or at full power?”
His eyes held hers as he echoed words he’d used once before. As he invoked the memory of how she’d watched him serve, her eyes narrowed and hot on his arms, his thighs.
Both times, he’d hit the ball much harder than necessary, much harder than was wise, for one reason and one reason only. To see that look on her face.
He wanted to see it again, at intimately close range, as he used his power for her pleasure.
Just like last time, her words emerged with a slight slur. Lust. “Full power.”
Rising up, he urged her long legs around his hips. Then he was pushing inside her, feeling her quiver and stretch around him as he slid balls-deep.
He didn’t give either of them time to recover or think. Rearing back, he withdrew almost all the way before sinking his cock deep again. And again.
She might have doubts about dating a twenty-something athlete, but if there was one thing a man like him could offer, it was stamina. He could do this for hours, if that’s what she needed. And if he came too quickly, he knew the mere sight of her would make him hard and hot soon enough, and he could get back to work between her thighs.
This first time, though, he was determined to wait until she climaxed again, because he needed to feel her tighten and spasm around his dick. He needed to know he’d satisfied her. Most of all, he needed her to understand what exactly she’d be giving up if she let her fears and that shield of pragmatism drive him from her life and her bed after her vacation ended.
Supporting himself on his elbows, he cupped her sweet face in his hands and kissed her as he buried himself deep inside her pussy with steady pushes. Within minutes, they were both sweating, and she was making little sounds into his mouth each time he bottomed out and ground against her. His balls were aching, and a warning tingle had started at the base of his spine.
He was coming soon, like it or not. Lifting himself higher, he slid one hand down between them and found her clit, and when he tapped it with his fingertips, she tore her mouth from his and gasped. He did it again, a little more firmly, and her legs spread even wider, her hips raised high in silent plea.
But silent wasn’t good enough. Not for this.
He raised his head, a drowning man in sight of land. “Harder?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes closed tight, she gritted out one more word. “Now.”
One last rub of her clit as she twisted and moaned, and then he gave that stiff, hot bit of flesh a little slap, and God help him, she nearly snapped off his dick with the force of her orgasm. She arched beneath him, her pussy spasming again and again, and her cry was nearly soundless.
With a sense of profound relief, quickly drowned by the sort of intense, blinding pleasure he’d never, not once in his life, experienced before, he pushed inside her one last time and came until he couldn’t remember his own name—and was hoarse from shouting hers.
Sixteen
The blare of an unfamiliar alarm woke Tess the next morning, and she rolled over to see what the hell was happening. Only to find herself face to face with Lucas, who was just blinking open sleepy olive-green eyes.
He reached for her right away, and she let him draw her close, the hair on his chest tickling her nose. His skin was warm, his limbs long as they wrapped around her.
He’d wanted to cuddle as they slept too, telling her with his inimitable charm how romantic it would be to nod off while spooning or with her head on his chest. But she knew herself too well for even his particular brand of sweet talk to work. If they attempted to sleep intertwined, she’d never even doze. And if by some miracle she did, she’d either awaken sore or drown them both in a lake of her sweat.
She’d always run hot at night. A fact to which he’d responded with a certain amount of delightful innuendo.
In compensation for her refusal to sleep cuddling, she’d offered another round or two of lovemaking. And Jesus, sex with a twenty-six-year-old had its definite perks. As in, a perky penis with very little refractory time necessary—which meant a little bit of chafing but a lot of orgasms for her. Mind-blowing, multiple, and memorable.
She’d never believed that forty-year-old women are in their sexual prime bullshit, but she was starting to think she’d been way too cynical about way too many things for way too long.
“This is nice,” he murmured, nuzzling the crown of her head.
It really was. She tightened her arm around his chest and wedged her leg deeper between his. With a pleased rumble, he stroked her bare back, his indefatigable cock stirring against her thigh.
Mmmm. She wouldn’t mind starting every morning like this.
But the damn alarm kept getting louder as they failed to heed its call, and she needed to get moving, like it or not.
“You’ll have to address Mr. Perky on your own today, hon. Sorry about that.”
She pressed one final kiss below his jaw, where bristly whiskers had begun to emerge, inhaling as deeply as she could. That heady lungful of Lucas needed to last until evening.
His grip tightened for a moment before he let her slide out of his arms. “Mr. Perky?”
“I’ve given your penis its own adorable nickname.” Spying her pile of discarded, sweaty clothing just inside the bathroom door, she grimaced. “I don’t want to put any of that stuff back on, not even for the walk to my hotel room, and I don’t want to put clean clothes on a dirty body. Can I shower here? Or do you need the bathroom to get ready for your morning lessons?”
Without a word, he lumbered out of bed and into the living room. Hoisting her overnight bag over his shoulder, he brought it to the bathroom, set it on the tiled floor, and sat beside her on the edge of the bed again.
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” The words were low. Intimate. Accompanied by his own devastating smile.
Holy Moses. Those dimples made her hotter than the last time the school’s HVAC system had malfunctioned. Which was saying something, since she figured she’d gotten a preview of menopause that late-July week.
When he reached for her again, though, she sprang up. “Nice thought. But I need to pee and brush my teeth before you get any closer. And I have”—she glanced at the alarm clock—“an hour to get clean and ready for the ferry trip to the mainland. There’s no time for any shenanigans.”
As she ran for the bathroom, he sighed. “And you call me a spoilsport.”
“I’m saving you from morning breath!” she called back before closing the door.
When she emerged twenty minutes later, he gave her a lingering pat on her bare butt and took her place. While he conducted his business, she opened up her overnight bag. Only to realize she’d somehow packed one of Belle’s shirts instead of her own.
In theory, the two of them were roughly the same size, but the same could not be said for their breasts. Still, that tee was all she had, since Lucas’s clothing wouldn’t fit. Good enough.
A couple minutes later, the door to the bathroom opened, and then he was studying her, his lips twitching in an altogether annoying fashion. “That shirt is—”
“Can it.” She tugged at the chest of the t-shirt again, hoping the material might abruptly loosen and decide to stretch more over her breasts. “I may be too much woman for this shirt, but I consider that a flaw in its design, not mine.”
He took a step forward and tucked a runaway strand of hair behind her ear with gentle fingers. “I was about to say that the shirt looks amazing on you. It emphasizes some of my favorite bits. And if you wore just the shirt…”
His eyes grew cloudy, and Mr. Perky sprang to life once more.
After one more futile tug at the chest of the tee, she gave up and laughed. “I should have known you’d love me in a too-tight top.”
“Yup.” He grinned at her, shameless. “You really should have.”
After slipping on her socks and sneakers, she slid her keycard into the pocket of her yoga pants. “I need to get to my room and pack for the outing today. Change shirts, too.” She hesitated. “Do you want to come with me, or would you rather—”
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m coming with you.” He hurriedly donned his usual work clothing and shoved his feet into a pair of flip-flops. “I intend to spend as much time as possible looking at you in that shirt. And while I was in the shower, I realized I don’t even have your contact information. I need to get that before you leave for the day, just in case.”
His stride toward the door stuttered. “Um, assuming you want to see me again?”
Why did his particular combination of lasciviousness, sweetness, and vulnerability knock her already-problematic knees out from under her?
“I want to see you again,” she told him, and the tense lines across his forehead vanished.
His kiss, gentle and warm and devastatingly affectionate, made her even later than she already was, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to care. Not even a little.
When they finally exited his apartment, they walked to her room holding hands, making their way along a sidewalk already crowded with early-bird beachcombers and through a lobby teeming with loudly chattering families headed to and from the breakfast buffets. His secure grip didn’t falter. Not when several of his coworkers glanced at her with raised eyebrows after greeting him. Not even when one of the twenty-something female guests, a woman who’d apparently taken tennis lessons during her vacation, did the same.
Tess didn’t fret about those sidelong stares either. Maybe people were simply surprised to see Lucas claiming a girlfriend so publicly. Even if she was wrong about that, even if their reaction was specific to her, a forty-year-old male tennis instructor sleeping with a twenty-something ingénue wouldn’t raise a single brow. And she wasn’t ashamed of her size. Not one bit. Not at this point in her life.
No, her Lucas-centered worries had nothing to do with the opinions of outsiders. Just a hard-eyed assessment of two disparate lives that had, however improbably, intersected for two weeks. Which didn’t mean those lives would or should intersect again, outside of these specific circumstances.
Those were concerns for later, though. For now, she would ignore her looming departure in favor of thinking about the light brush of his thumb over her knuckles. The casual way he immediately pushed the call button for the elevator instead of suggesting she take the stairs. The sly satisfaction in his grin as he crowded her into the corner of that empty elevator and claimed her mouth once more, his tongue demanding and hot.
By the time they reached her room, she was lightheaded with the rush of his proximity and single-minded attention but trying not to show it. The man already looked entirely too self-satisfied for h
er liking.
Unsure whether Belle would be in any state to greet guests, Tess knocked on the door with an unsteady hand instead of using her keycard. Belle responded right away, swinging open the door and regarding them both with a smirk.
“Couldn’t drag yourself out of bed any sooner, huh?” Belle stepped aside and let them enter the room. “I was starting to wonder whether we’d miss our ferry.”
“An early-morning tour of the mansion was a terrible idea.” Tess grinned at her friend as the door shut behind them. “Why didn’t you plan our day better, Belle?”
Belle tipped her face toward the ceiling, as if beseeching the heavens for patience. “Get everything you need into your backpack, Ms. Come-On-Belle-We-Should-Get-Up-Early-To-Beat-the-Heat-and-Have-More-Time-On-the-Mainland Dunn.”
“You can see why I changed my first name to Tess,” Tess told Lucas.
At Lucas’s huff of laughter, Belle’s baleful stare lowered to Tess. “Because of you, I rose before the actual sun while on vacation, which I consider a violation of my constitutional rights.”
“She probably hasn’t had coffee yet.” Tess let go of Lucas’s hand, located her backpack in a corner of the room’s little closet, and dumped the bag onto her double bed. “Without caffeine, you could say she’s not a morning person. Much the same way Joan Crawford was not a wire hangers person.”
Belle bit back a smile. “Less flirting with Sparky. More packing.”
Lucas emitted a small, pained sound.
As Tess dropped sunblock, a hat, and the guidebook into her backpack, she considered his nickname. “Sparky? I like it.”
“Thank you. I thought it had a certain ring.” Belle donned her own sun hat and adjusted it in the closet mirror, tipping the floppy brim up a smidge.
“I call him Mr. Perky,” Tess said to Belle. “Well, part of him, anyway.”
This time, Lucas groaned loudly.
So did Belle. “I don’t want to know.”
