by Leanne Banks
His chest was extremely distracting.
“What are you staring at?”
Embarrassment rushed through Amy, and she swung around to avoid him. “Nothing,” she said in a high-pitched voice while she quickly removed the cookies with a spatula.
“I don’t think so,” he said, his hand squeezing her shoulder. Urging her back around to face him, he studied her face. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she insisted in the same damn unconvincing high-pitched voice.
“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly. “Answer my question.”
Darn. “If this is truth or dare, I think I’ll take the dare this time.”
“It’s not truth or dare,” he said, moving closer. “It’s just plain old truth.”
Amy sighed and looked past his right shoulder. “It’s your chest.”
He glanced down. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing,” she muttered, unhappy with him for forcing her to answer. “That’s the problem.”
He wrinkled his face in confusion. “I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, knowing her cheeks were as red as tomatoes.
He lifted a hand to her face. “You’re blushing.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re so observant.”
Holding her jaw, he studied her for a long moment. She saw the moment the light dawned. “There’s nothing wrong with my chest and that’s the problem,” he echoed in surprise. “You like my chest.”
She bit her lip. “I didn’t really say—”
She broke off when he lifted her palm to his chest. His warm skin and the thud of his heart against her palm wholly distracted her.
“I can’t believe Amy of Arc likes my chest.”
“I’m not Amy of Arc,” she protested, but there was no oomph in her words. He moved her hand in a sensual circle over his skin, over the pectoral muscles, then down the center to his belly.
Amy’s mouth went dry. “You work out.”
“A few times a week.” He released her hand, but she couldn’t quite find the will to remove it. Meeting her gaze, he lifted his hand to her hair, then circled the back of her nape and slowly drew her to him. He dipped his head and his mouth hovered a tantalizing breath from hers. “What do you want?”
She whispered the only word her lips would form. “More.”
Justin’s tongue drew a circle around her inner lips. Amy’s temperature immediately rose ten degrees. He slid his fingers through her hair and drew her against him trapping her hand against his chest so that she felt his rapid heartbeat.
The sensual pleasure of touching his bare skin made her wish she could feel him against her naked breasts. He slid his thigh between hers and the thin cotton of his trousers both tantalized and frustrated her. There was no mistaking the hard bulge of his crotch rocking against her. Amy slipped her fingers to the back of his neck, urging him on. He drew out every carnal urge she’d never thought she possessed. In the eyes of the law, he was her husband. For Amy he was still forbidden territory, but she was finding him too tempting to resist.
She was consumed with his touch, his mouth, his attention. She wanted him to consume her. He guided her in a sweeping, sliding motion over his thigh that teased her, and turned her damp and swollen. She stroked his tongue with hers, unable to swallow a moan.
He slid his hand down over the outside of her breast to her waist, then lower to her bottom. He shifted slightly so his masculinity rubbed against her intimately as he guided her in an undulating provocative rhythm. Amy’s mind grew hazy with desire.
“What do you want?” he asked against her lips, his breath coming as quickly as hers.
“More,” she whispered again.
He dragged his other hand to the hem of her tank top and slowly slipped his fingers up her waist and each rib until he slid one finger just underneath her bra. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she said, and he unfastened the front clasp.
“You feel so good,” he muttered “I want to taste you.”
Amy shuddered at the dark desire in his voice.
He toyed with her nipples, drawing tiny moans from her throat. Suddenly, he lifted her onto the countertop and raised her shirt to reveal her swollen breasts. For a moment, he stared at them, then met her gaze with an expression of barely restrained passion. He lowered his mouth to her nipple and made love to it with his tongue. At the same time he slid his fingers inside her shorts, past her panties to where she ached for him.
“Oh, Amy,” he said when he found her swollen. “So wet.”
She couldn’t recall ever wanting to be the sole source of a man’s desire and satisfaction this much before. She couldn’t recall feeling so utterly female, so powerful, yet vulnerable within the same moment.
This wasn’t just her gratitude over Justin coming through for her. It wasn’t her appreciation for the piano. This man called to her in a way no other ever had. She didn’t completely understand it, and wrapped in the cloud of arousal, she couldn’t begin to explain it even to herself, but she wanted him to know her. As a woman.
She arched her breast farther into his mouth, and Justin slipped his finger inside her. He gently nibbled on the hard tip of her breast, sending a shower of sensations through her.
Swearing, he drew back and scored her with his gaze. “I want to be in you. I want to feel you wet and tight all around me.”
She shuddered at the provocative bluntness of his words.
“It’s either the kitchen counter, your bed, or my bed,” he told her. “You choose.”
Her heart fluttered wildly. “Your—” She swallowed over her suddenly dry mouth.
“Good enough,” he said and lifting her in his arms, he carried her into his bedroom. With excruciating slowness, he eased her down the front of his body. “Last chance. Are you sure about this?”
Absolutely not, she thought, but more than her body was urging her onward. Doubts, however, slithered and crawled through her mind like serpents. Teetering on the edge of the unknown, she took a deep breath. “What am I to you?”
He stared at her without answering for a long moment. “You’re a witch,” he said.
Amy’s mouth fell open. “A wi—”
“You’re the witch who makes me hard and keeps me from falling asleep every night,” he said, and the insult felt more like praise.
“You’re Amy of Arc determined to save the world.”
Irritation trickled through her. “I’m not Amy of—”
“I’m a pretty selfish sonovabitch, so I admire you for it.”
Surprised again, Amy swallowed the rest of her protest.
He lifted his hand to her jaw and shook his head. “You are, by some stroke of fate or insanity, my wife. I need to know you. In every way.”
His words clicked deep inside her. She couldn’t imagine refusing him. Anticipation tinged with the metallic taste of fear filled her mouth. Theirs would be no easy coupling. He would touch her in ways she hadn’t been touched, make her feel things she hadn’t felt before. There were doors inside her she’d kept locked shut from everyone, and she wondered how she would keep those same doors locked from Justin.
She couldn’t begin to answer all her unanswered questions. Except one. “If I’m a witch and I’ve been keeping you awake,” she said, twining her arms around the back of his neck to bring his mouth closer to hers. “Then show me how to put you to sleep.”
His eyes lit like twin flames. “This is gonna take a while.”
Eight
He led her to the bed and pulled her down on his lap. Lifting her tank top over her head, he pushed her bra from her shoulders so her top was completely bare to him.
“Your breasts have driven me insane,” he told her.
Amy glanced down at her chest, expecting to feel her usual detachment about her body. Instead she watched his hand cup her, making her nipple pout. He made her feel so sexy. “I don’t usually think about them,” she confessed.
/> “I have,” he muttered and pulled her closer to worry her nipples with his tongue.
In the mirrored closet door, she caught sight of the provocative image of his dark head buried in her breast. The sight and sensation provided a double sensual whammy, surprising her with immediate force. That was the tip of her breast his mouth caressed.
She had never thought she was a particularly sexual woman. Was that woman in the mirror really her?
He lifted his head and looked at her. Suddenly self-conscious, she ducked her head. She felt caught.
“What is it?” he asked in a low, intimate voice.
“I’ve never watched—”
Realization crossed his face. He stood and stripped off his lounge pants in one smooth motion. Amy stared at him. His body was unrelentingly male. Tugging her to her feet, he took her mouth at the same time he unzipped her shorts and pushed them down over her hips along with her panties.
He brought her lower body against his, then tilted her head toward the mirror. “Now look.”
Her mouth went dry at the soft, sensual image of her body entwined with his.
“Nothing to say?” he taunted, stroking her breast with his hand.
She closed her eyes, but the strong, knee-weakening visual burned in her brain. “You are such a show-off,” she said, biting her lip.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his sexy chuckle vibrating against her.
“I mean,” she said, “your body is—” She stifled a groan of embarrassment. “Your body is impressive,” she hissed through her lips.
“You’re impressed with my body? I hadn’t thought you’d noticed.”
Hearing the smile in his voice, she shot him a dark look. “Liar.”
His gaze grew serious. “Don’t you know what a turn-on it is knowing such a sexy woman is impressed with me?”
“I’m not a sex—” she automatically started to say before he covered her mouth with his hand.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Teacher, somewhere along the way, your education has been sadly neglected.” He rubbed his mouth over hers. “And I’m gonna show you how much.”
He took her mouth and the room began to spin. Stroking her tongue with his, he tempted and teased her to respond. She’d thought it would be heat and fury, and maybe it still would be. She hadn’t thought he would make her laugh and ache for him at the same time. How did he do that? she wondered.
“Look,” he said. “Look at you.” He shifted her in front of him. Burying his face in her shoulder, he skimmed his hand over her breast, down over her abdomen, then lower still between her legs.
Through half-closed eyes, she peeked at the erotic sight of his large hands arousing her. But his touch was too distracting, her feelings too overwhelming, and her hunger for him too strong. She turned into him.
“Why won’t you watch?”
“I’d rather watch you,” she said, and he groaned.
Nudging her onto the bed, he followed her down, kissing her breasts, dragging his tongue over her skin. The tension inside her tightened with breathtaking speed. He dropped open-mouth kisses over her abdomen, whispering words of praise.
When he kissed her intimately, she stiffened.
“I want to taste you,” he said, and his words melted her resistance.
His tongue sought her tender recesses while his hands stroked her inner thighs. He found her swollen bead of femininity and caressed her until she began to squirm. She felt hot and needy, full to the point of spilling over.
“Justin,” she said, her voice husky to her own ears. She wove her fingers through his hair.
“So close,” he said, flicking his tongue over her again and again.
Helpless against his sensual onslaught, she twisted beneath him. He devoured her and the coil of tension tightened excruciatingly. She arched, and a power surge ricocheted through her. She gasped in shocked pleasure.
Justin kissed his way up her body to take her mouth again. The taste of her pleasure on his lips spun her around again. Before she could catch her breath, he pushed her thighs apart and holding her gaze, he thrust inside her.
Amy gasped. Despite her arousal, she felt overstretched. He was large and hard.
He made a sound that mixed pleasure with exquisite frustration. “Tight,” he muttered and swore.
“It’s been a while,” she confessed.
“How long?”
She breathed and wiggled beneath him, feeling herself slowly begin to accommodate him. “A while.”
He swore again at her movements. “How long?” he repeated.
“Do we have to discuss this now?” she asked, distracted by his sensual invasion. “Can’t you think of something better to do?”
He looked at her as if she’d just completely shredded his patience. His gaze dark and primitive, he flexed his powerful thighs and pushed deeper inside her, stealing her breath again. He lifted her hands to the wooden posts on the headboard. “Hold on,” he told her and began a mind-bending rhythm.
His chest brushed her breasts and he stole kisses with each thrust. She felt the friction of his legs against her thighs. With a long motion, he pulled his hardness nearly all the way out of her. Craving more of him, she arched and flexed around him in silent invitation.
He licked her lips. “You like the way I feel inside you, don’t you?”
She felt him, tantalizingly out of reach, at her entrance. She wiggled.
He licked her lips again. “Answer me,” he demanded.
Surrounded by him and her need for him, she felt as if she were at his mercy. It was humbling, liberating, and scary. Though she feared what she might be giving up, she closed her eyes and just for the moment surrendered to her humanness, to her need as a woman. “Yes,” she whispered.
Covering her hands on the headboard with his, he took her with all the heat and fury his gaze had earlier promised. He stretched inside her, filling her so completely she felt as if every stroke of his masculinity provided the most exquisite, intimate massage.
She felt his tension rise with the force of a crashing earthquake. His body quaked and rippled as he took her to the top again. Amy fought her release, fought the dizzying oxygen-deprived moment of ecstasy. In a primitive feminine way, she wanted to experience every moment of his pleasure.
She felt it before she saw it. His body stiffened, then he closed his eyes. “Amy,” he muttered in a sex-rough voice that called her to come with him. His climax took her over the edge again, and her body joined his in a rocket to the sky, shooting like a star.
Moments passed before Amy could breathe normally. Her head was spinning, her ears ringing as if cannons had gone off. Distantly she felt Justin roll beside her, his chest pressed against her side.
Her heart pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it. She knew she had never given herself so thoroughly, and she couldn’t remember feeling this vulnerable in her adult life. Ever. She wanted to be held. Badly.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and she closed her eyes to his inquiring gaze. If he couldn’t see her eyes, then he couldn’t read her turmoil.
She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Yes,” she said too quickly. Why did she feel as if she’d splintered into a thousand pieces and all those pieces of Amy would never be arranged in quite the same way again? She suddenly felt the horrifying urge to weep. Gritting her teeth against the feeling, she stiffened her love-worn body.
Justin slid his arm around her waist and shifted her on her side so she was cocooned against him. He surrounded her and even though her mind was racing, some primitive part of her must have trusted him because her body relaxed.
“You blew me away,” he murmured next to her ear, a secret that gave her a sliver of ease.
Although she suspected their “blowing away” scales were vastly different, the notion that she’d had a fraction of the impact on him that he’d made on her allowed her to breathe normally.
Several hours later, she awakened, d
isoriented. What was she doing here? This wasn’t her bed. Justin’s arm was still wrapped around her, serving as a reminder of their intimacy. Amy shifted slightly and her body reminded her more thoroughly with twinges from their lovemaking.
A silken thread of uneasiness twisted inside her. Something about this was too comfortable, she thought. It would be too easy to slide into a habit of counting on Justin. Even though they had connected in the most powerful, physical way last night, he hadn’t spoken any words of love and neither had she. Her heart tightened.
She couldn’t love Justin, she told herself. She didn’t know him well enough to love him. Besides, if she gave her heart to him, then what would she have left after he left her?
Too disturbed to remain, she held her breath and slowly slid from his bed. Gathering her clothes, she bundled them against her and tiptoed to her room. She tugged on a nightshirt and panties and crawled into bed. She’d thought she would feel safer in her own bed, more like herself. But she still felt shaken up and bothered. Knowing tomorrow would require all the energy and clear-thinking she could muster, she told herself not to think about Justin. She mentally closed every door in her mind to him, and when he still crept in like a warm breeze, she pulled the sheet over her head.
Justin watched Amy from the kitchen doorway as she poured juice and cereal. He wondered why she had left. He remembered the intensity of their lovemaking, however, and combined with her inexperience, he’d guess she was knocked off-kilter.
She must have felt his gaze. She looked up from taking a sip of orange juice and choked. She rose quickly from the table and rushed to his side.
“I—You—” She cleared her throat. “Do you want some orange juice?”
“I can get it myself,” he said, catching all the little signs of nervousness, stuttering, high-pitched voice, and fluttery eyelids. Deciding he might as well get it over with, he pulled her into the hallway for a moment of privacy. “You left,” he said. “Why?”
She bit her lip. “I, uh…” Her eyes widened helplessly. “Too much,” she said haltingly adding, “you.”
“At first,” he agreed, remembering how tight she’d felt. “But you got used to me.”
