So he had resisted the urge to sit beside Frannie on the couch and cuddle her in one arm while she fed Lex last night, and he’d disciplined himself not to leap on her like a starving wolf the minute she opened the door this evening... the way he had last night.
But he couldn’t wait any longer to feel her soft curves against him again.
He heaved a sigh of warm relief at the sweet feel of her as he closed the distance between their bodies, and he felt the thrust of his masculine flesh cushioned by yielding female. “How come I can’t stop thinking about you?”
“I don’t know.” She leaned back in his arms and placed her palms against his chest. The action plastered her lower body more tightly against him, and he knew she couldn’t miss his arousal throbbing against her belly. Her velvety eyes were dark and mysterious, unreadable as she gazed up at him in the brightly lit kitchen. “I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”
The admission pleased him enormously; he could practically feel his chest swelling like Tarzan. Come to think of it, he felt like picking her up and carrying her off, too. Her palms were caressing small circles over the broad planes of his chest, and his hips surged against her of their own accord. Slowly he lowered his head, searching for her mouth. He kept his eyes open, locked on hers until her lashes fluttered down and she lifted herself on tiptoe, pressing her lips to his in an unmistakable offering.
Without hesitation, he sought her tongue with his while his hands roamed up and down her back and buttocks. She clasped her arms around his neck. One hand cradled his skull, holding his mouth to hers. And, that suddenly, he knew how this evening had to end.
God, he felt like he was going to explode. Right here in her kitchen. Tearing his mouth away from hers, he muttered, “I want you. Now.”
Her eyes widened, startled, he supposed, at his frank statement.
He glanced at the crib, and her gaze followed his. Alexa had fallen asleep, little arms and legs flung wide in a dream’s embrace. He felt like a kid sneaking off with his girl in the back seat of his parents’ car, with Time the enemy, as he bent his head and crushed her lips beneath his again. He slipped one hand beneath her, lifting her into even greater contact with his aching flesh. The other hand caught one bare thigh and pulled it high around his waist, caressing the long, satiny length of leg. All that stood between them were a few flimsy layers of fabric. His fingers slipped beneath the edge of the shorts she wore, sliding beneath the elastic at the leg of her panties. He clasped her naked bottom and she jolted in his arms, a husky moan escaping into his mouth. The satiny feel of her skin was both heaven and hell.
“Where’s your bedroom?” He barely recognized the deep, hoarse voice as his own.
She hesitated.
He lifted her off her one supporting leg and pulled it up to wrap around his hips with the other, and began to walk toward the steps at the front of the house. “The bed is optional. This isn’t.”
“Upstairs. On the right.” Her head dropped back over his arm, the slender stalk of her neck pure and white.
He ran his lips down the smooth column of her throat, lingering in the hollow he found at its base, inhaling deeply. There was that “come hither” scent again, and abruptly his brain shut down and his body took over.
He had no conscious memory of carrying her up the stairs, although he must have. When he lifted his head and let her slide down to her feet, they were standing beside her bed. They both gasped at the fleeting caress over sensitized flesh as she slowly flowed over him. Reaching around her, he drew her shirt up and over her head, then tore at the waistband of her shorts, popping a button in his haste. Her body was beautiful; he wanted to stop and appreciate the small, pert breasts shielded beneath the pale pink bra, the flat belly that disappeared beneath the matching panties, the way her long, coltish legs met her torso, hiding her feminine flesh between them.
But he couldn’t. He stripped away the panties and bra, leaving her body bared to his hot gaze. With a groan, he lifted her in his arms and set her on the bed. His fingers shook, but he managed to rip off his clothing in seconds, putting a knee on the mattress and coming down over her before her back hit the bed. He wedged a knee between her legs and opened a space for himself as his mouth took hers again in a deep, sure claiming, a precursor of his purpose. Her breath was rushing in and out. He kissed a path down the gentle swell of one breast and fastened his mouth on the pink-tipped crest, suckling strongly. She screamed and arched against him. He could feel the furious beat of his pulse echoed in the shaft between his legs as the soft curls at the junction of her thighs pushed at him. Frantically, he reared back and set his palms on the sleek muscles of her inner thighs, clearing the way for his invasion of the moist flesh that lay bared to him. A shift of his body positioned him at the entrance to her secrets, then his hips flexed, his buttocks clenched, and he drove forward in one stroke.
Frannie cried out sharply. She placed the palms of her hands against his shoulders as if to shove him away. As if she could.
Panting heavily, he stilled and looked down at her as shocked comprehension dawned. Her face was averted and the glorious body in which he nested—God, she felt good!—was stiff and drawn into an uncomfortable arch. Panic roared through him, and instinctively, he began to withdraw.
A whimper escaped her; her hands flew down to clench on his buttocks like talons. “Don’t move. Please.”
He froze, caught between the sweet pleasure of feeling her slick passage clasping him and the pain he could see he had given her. Hoarsely, he demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I...wasn’t thinking.” Her eyes met his, and in them he read feminine vulnerability and a shy awareness that inflated a totally inappropriate bubble of possession inside him, given their current state.
“I wasn’t thinking, either.” He could say that with all honesty. He braced himself on his elbows and caught her face between his palms, forcing her to look at him. “If I’d known, I’d have gone about this differently.” He grimaced. “A lot differently. How in the name of God does a thirty-two-year-old woman manage to stay a virgin in this day and age?”
He felt, rather than saw her shrug, and he realized the self-directed anger twisting in his gut must have shown in his voice.
“I told you I didn’t have much time for normal dating when I was younger,” she said with quiet dignity. “The opportunity never arose.”
Thank God. A primitive surge of pleasure tore through him. No other man had ever known what it was like to lie between her long, lovely legs. No other man had known how tight and sweet the hot clasp of her lithe body felt around him, how swollen and red her lips were from his kisses as he took her.
He felt himself throb and pulse inside her, and suddenly he realized how desperately he needed her to enjoy what was happening between them. Dropping his head, he took her lips again in a gentle kiss that enticed and entreated, persuading her to relax the rigid set of her body. He nibbled his way along her jaw to her ear and felt her shiver of response. His body shouted at him to get moving, to hurry and begin the rhythmic dance toward fulfillment, but he held himself still with ruthless control. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Do you want me to stop?”
He sure as hell hoped she wasn’t going to say yes, because he didn’t know if he could bring himself to leave unfinished what he’d started. But if she asked him to stop, he’d stop.
And pack ice in his briefs for the rest of the night.
She turned her head slightly as he continued to feather kisses along her temple, to nuzzle that special place where the smell of her gathered, and he realized that she was angling her neck to give him better access. “Don’t stop,” she said. “Just go slowly.”
He almost laughed aloud, but he was afraid he might break down and howl like Lex at her most frustrated. Did she have any idea what she was asking?
No. Of course not. How could she?
Leaning slightly to one side, he drew a hand over the ridges of her ribs, marveling at how silky her s
kin was. A short detour led to her breast, where the silkiness was underlaid by the soft tissue that proclaimed her sex. He brushed a thumb over the nipple, and she made a small humming noise deep in her throat as the flesh drew into a taut bud. His own rigid flesh leaped in response, and to his grateful surprise, she lifted her hips the merest bit, pushing him deeper.
“You feel good in me,” she whispered.
Damn the woman! She couldn’t be any more arousing if she’d had years of practice at pleasing him. “I couldn’t have said it better,” he answered, and it was little more than a growl.
She moved against him again, definitely wriggling this time. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she announced. “It feels...like I’m waiting for something.”
“You are,” he assured her. He dared to withdraw halfway from her heated depths, and slowly filled her again. “Let me show you.” He slipped a hand down between their bodies and teased the small nubbin he found above the site of their union. He rotated his finger once, massaging gently.
Her heels dug into the bed and her body thudded against him; he heard her gasp. He touched her with a bolder stroke, and the gasp became a sob. Her hips began to rock beneath him, creating an irresistible friction around him until he couldn’t wait any longer. Withdrawing his hand, he gripped her hips and began a steady driving rhythm that matched her movements. He knew she wasn’t with him, that she wasn’t going to find out what she was waiting for just yet, but he had no control; his body was calling the shots. Within seconds he felt the forerunners of his climax stretching and stiffening him to unbearable proportions; he braced himself over her on his forearms and gave in to the desperate race, pounding against her again and again until, shaking like an oak in a hurricane, his hips plunged once, twice and his seed spilled into her as he shuddered and jerked in her arms.
Spent, he collapsed on her, his face buried in the silk of her hair. His chest heaved, and he fought for air, for control. He knew he was too heavy for her; in a moment he’d move. But right now his limbs felt like his bones were made of cement blocks. He couldn’t lift an arm if he tried.
Her arms were around his back as far they could reach; she used her fingernails to lightly scratch up and down, over and over again as his heart rate slowed and his breath stopped hitching with every inhalation. The sensation was so intensely pleasurable that he couldn’t prevent the contented groan that escaped him. A last, involuntary shiver slithered down his spine, and he felt his satisfied flesh twitch once more in its snug bed.
Her hips lifted against him.
A sudden flash of understanding brought comprehension. He’d forgotten her. He knew that he hadn’t been able to wait, that he’d finished satisfying his own desperate need without giving her the same pleasure, and he recognized her restless movement...recognized it and was all too willing to help her find what she was seeking.
Lifting himself away from her, he slipped to one side. The loss of warmth chilled him as he withdrew from her; from the little whimper she made, he could tell she didn’t like it, either. He placed one big hand flat on her belly and looked down into her face.
Her pretty, wide mouth with its pouty lower lip was still, her big doe eyes serious. He bent and dropped a kiss on her brow, then another on the tilt of her nose.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” Why was she thanking him? As far as he was concerned, she’d given him an irreplaceable gift.
She placed her hand atop his, then lightly ran it up his arm. “I always wondered what the big fuss was about sex. Then I met you and I could see why women get themselves into trouble with the wrong men. It really is a basic drive, isn’t it?”
“Only with the right person,” he said. “And I’m pretty damn glad you didn’t find him before.”
She giggled. “I just bet.”
His palm slipped up over the slight depression of her navel, over her rib cage, and farther until he’d covered a breast. He stimulated the still-tight peak with small circles and was pleased when her breath caught in her throat. “We didn’t finish this,” he told her.
Her eyes grew even wider. “We didn’t?”
“No.” Gathering both her hands in one of his, he anchored them above her head. “Now I get to show you what the big fuss is really about.”
Her voice was nervous as she said, “Jack, I enjoyed it, too. Honestly. You don’t have to—Oh!”
He was suckling at her breast, working the nipple and stroking it with his tongue, and again her hips arched involuntarily. “Do you like that?” he murmured against her skin.
“I—yes.” It was a breath of sound.
“How about this?” He smoothed his free hand down over her belly again until his fingers just brushed the dark thatch of curls between her legs. Idly he caressed the soft flesh there.
She whispered, “Yes.”
“And this?” His hand moved down to clasp her sex in his palm. Cupping her, he used the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb to press and stroke the spot he knew was waiting for his touch.
She whimpered, arching again and pressing herself against his hand.
It was answer enough. He increased his rhythm, and her hips began to move in a rising, falling circular pattern that mimicked his pace. His mouth continued to pluck and suck at her breast, and she thrust her hips up at him. Without breaking stride, he slipped one stealthy finger into the sweet heart of her, reveling in the slippery heat he found. She cried out, and he lifted his head then, unwilling to miss seeing her face, needing to be sure he wasn’t hurting her newly initiated flesh.
She had her eyes closed, head thrown back, neck straining. Her hands pulled against his restraining grip.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She opened her eyes, and in the brown depths he read a wild need, a desperate quest for release. Satisfaction surged through him and he pressed his captured finger upward against the sensitive wall of her womb, pushing her toward the edge.
Her eyes were locked on his. Her hands curled into tight fists and her heels lifted her off the bed. Her breath began to rush in and out in a frantic, uncoordinated gasping and her body shuddered and bucked beneath his hand. He could feel her sweet internal muscles contracting again and again, and he realized he was as hard and ready as if he hadn’t just taken her mere minutes ago.
The motion of her hip against him urged him to thrust strongly against her, but as her body quieted, he forced himself to halt. She’d been a virgin thirty minutes before; just because he was ready for round two didn’t mean he should take advantage of her.
Her eyelids slipped down to shield her thoughts from him as he slipped his hand from her and bent to take her mouth briefly. “Now do you get it?”
Her lips curved up into a sweet smile. “Now I get it.”
There was nothing he wanted more than to continue their intimate games, but conscience brought back memory. “I’d better go check on Lex,” he said.
He rolled and rose from the bed, then padded down the stairs naked. Alexa was sleeping the sleep of the truly innocent, and he grinned as he gathered her into one arm and hefted the portable crib in the other. She could sleep just as easily here as she could at home in her own bed.
His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he needed no light as he settled the crib in a room just across the hall from Frannie’s bedroom and laid the infant down again without even waking her. Then he returned to his woman.
She was lying right where he’d left her, and he knew a surprising sense of pleasure that she hadn’t jumped up to dress right away. Pulling back the covers, he slipped in beside her and curled around her, like two spoons nestled in a drawer. With a sigh, she twisted her head around and kissed his chin, then let herself go limp.
He glanced at the clock. “It’s silly to leave now. I’ll let Lex sleep and go get a change of clothes in the morning.” Then he pulled her more closely back against him, savoring the press of his hips into the crease of her buttocks. He jumped as he felt her reach back and touch hi
m, and his flesh leaped beneath her hand.
“Jack?” she whispered. “Do you want to...?”
He chuckled. “Can’t you tell?” But he pulled her hand away and laid it against his hip. “But you’ll be too sore. We’ll take it easy until you’re a little more used to this.”
He felt her huff out a breath of what sounded like indignation, then a groan welled up in his throat as she deliberately rubbed her bottom back and forth against him. He felt himself immediately grow as stiff as a flagpole again.
“What if I don’t want to take it easy?” There was the merest thread of laughter in her whisper this time.
He gritted his teeth. God save him from a woman who was using him to test her newfound sexual powers. “Go to sleep,” he said, and there was more than a hint of steel in his voice as he tucked her head beneath his chin on the pillow.
Seven
One of the twins was fussing.
Frannie fought to swim to the surface of dreamless sleep. She was warm. Incredibly cosy, in fact. She struggled to sit up, but the movement was hampered by a heavy weight.
A groan in her ear brought memory flooding back.
Jack was here. With her. And last night he’d made love to her in a shattering, earth-shaking experience that she knew she would recall and cherish for the rest of her life. She’d never imagined that the act of accepting a man into your body could be so much more than... simply physical. And in her heart she recognized that sex always would be only sex unless she was making love with Jack.
A wave of revulsion, all the stronger for being unexpected, swept across her at the mere idea of another man touching her the way Jack had.
His arm was the weight she’d felt, and it lifted as he rolled away from her onto his back and then heaved himself into a sitting position. The child’s discontent began to elevate into outright aggravation and she realized it was Alexa making the noise.
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