by Lori Foster
“I want to kiss you again.”
Bram smiled. “Any time, any place.”
Lucy hooked her left arm around his neck and took his mouth. He didn’t control the kiss, but he did gently guide her, tipping his head slightly so that their mouths completely meshed, urging her tongue into his mouth by teasing it with his own. He nibbled on her bottom lip until she did the same to him, then he gave a rough sound of pleasure, like a jungle cat purring.
Incredibly, his penis grew harder, longer, in her fist.
Having access to Bram’s body was a sensual feast. His skin felt like heated silk, taut over muscles and bones and sinew. She opened her mouth on his throat and relished the taste of him, the saltiness of his skin. Burrowing lower, she kissed his chest and nuzzled her nose through the soft chest hair, drinking in his scent. When she found his small nipples she licked, and felt his reaction in the flex of his body and the way he gasped.
Lifting her head, Lucy asked, “You like that?”
Bram stroked her hair. “Lucy,” he said tenderly, smiling. “You have my cock in your hand, your mouth on my body. Of course I like it.”
She felt color rush to her cheeks, but she ignored it. “I meant this”—she licked his nipple again—“specifically.”
His nostrils flared. “Any place you want to put that sweet little tongue is fine by me, but yeah, I suppose it feels close to the same for me as it does for you.”
And before she could recover from that discovery, he asked, “Why don’t you lose your top, too?” His gaze darkened. “Then I can return the favor.”
Lucy froze at just the thought. She didn’t want him looking at her thirty-nine-year-old body with all the flaws that came with age and pregnancy and nursing. He would compare her to the other women he’d been with, and she couldn’t bear that.
Refusing to lose control of the situation, she summoned up a teasing note and said, “Oh no you don’t. You told me we’d do stage two, and me being topless isn’t part of it.”
“You being topless should be part of everything.” He caught the hand she had wrapped around his penis and started her stroking again. His voice dropped an octave, husky and warm. “Cooking breakfast, doing laundry … pleasuring me. Everything could be enhanced if I could see your breasts.”
Lucy laughed at him. “Not yet. Let me concentrate on what I’m doing.”
With his unshakable gaze locked on hers, he asked, “Do you want to see me come?”
Intrigued by the prospect, Lucy looked at his erection and saw a drop of fluid beading on the tip. “Yes.” She felt her own body growing damp again in gathering excitement. “I’ve never … you know. Watched that before.”
“But you’re curious?” He gasped as she again smoothed her thumb over the tip, spreading the drop of semen around and around. His legs shifted, his heels pressing into the hardwood floor.
Leaning down, Lucy kissed his lower chest. She took little nibbling pecks down his lightly furred abdomen. “Yes. Very curious.” His incredible scent was stronger this close to his sex, and it drew her. His chest heaved and his back arched slightly. “I wanted to do things this week,” she admitted, “that I’ve never done before. I wanted to be as wild, as improper and earthy, as any young liberated woman might be.”
“Yeah.”
Lucy might have smiled at Bram’s nearly incoherent agreement—or was it encouragement? She wasn’t sure. But she didn’t smile because she, too, was caught up in the carnality of it.
Her inky black hair was spread out over his hard belly, and his erection throbbed and pulsed and Lucy knew that this, at least, was one thing she could do, one desire she could satisfy. Squeezing him a little tighter in warning, she kissed just above where her fingers held him, awed by the velvety texture of his shaft, feeling his pulse beat riot against her lips. She circled the head of his penis with small damp kisses, letting her hair tickle him as she did so. He smelled nice, felt nice, and she flattened her tongue over the head of his penis and tasted him.
Bram nearly shot off the couch.
Suddenly his hands were in her hair, holding her, guiding her back while he murmured words of pleasure, words of need and pleading. Lucy licked him again, and again, until Bram was making incoherent sounds of pleasure, his body vibrating, the air charged around them. She opened her mouth and let him in.
He was so large, it wasn’t easy, and it turned her on so much, made her so excited and wild to taste him, to know that he was ready to explode. She couldn’t take him very deep, just the head. So she concentrated on working on what she could get into her mouth, using her hands to tease the rest of him.
Bram’s fingers tightened suddenly in her hair and he groaned roughly. “Lucy …”
Her tongue swirled, softly, gently, and then she sucked.
Again, his reaction was immediate. “Stop, Lucy. I can’t hold back. Baby, stop.”
Instead she struggled to hold on to him, to take as much of him as she could, and as if accepting her decision, Bram stroked her nape, curled his fingers around her head—and he came with a shout that echoed through the summer house.
His hips lifted again and again, his big body trembled and shuddered, and finally after a long time he quieted, only his strenuous breaths reverberating in the air. Lucy lazily licked him, pleased with herself and smiling at the way his body continued to flinch with pleasure.
Bram curled himself around her, hauled her up to his lap, and pressed his face into her shoulder. His arms, his whole body, were still shaking.
Stage two, Lucy thought with a smile, successfully completed.
Bram watched Lucy as she sliced into her steak. They were both nearly done eating, and while the food tasted good, looking at Lucy was better. There’d been a comfortable silence between them since that incredible episode on the couch, but a secret little smile kept playing around her sexy mouth. She liked it that she’d made him lose control.
Hell, he liked it, too.
Now he wanted more. He wanted her naked. He wanted her to offer herself to him in the same way he’d given her free reign of his body.
He still could barely believe what she’d done. It wasn’t the first blow job he’d ever gotten, but it was by far the most emotionally devastating. Having Lucy’s mouth on him guaranteed to reside at the top of his list of most erotic and satisfying encounters ever.
“Worked up an appetite, didn’t you?”
With her mouth full, she looked at him and promptly choked. Bram reached across the table and patted her on the back until the wheezing turned into laughter. She looked so damn proud of herself that he couldn’t stop smiling, either.
A rose blush colored her cheeks, enhanced by the early-evening sunlight filtering through the trees to the deck. This time of day, the deck was more shaded than otherwise, making it comfortable to eat outside. An occasional boater went past, laughter from the vacationers drifting up the hillside, mingling with the chirping birds and the droning insects.
At first, Bram hadn’t wanted to leave the couch. With his legs like rubber and his heart still pounding, he wasn’t sure he was even able to leave the couch. And he’d been more than willing to move right into stage three—once he’d regained his strength.
But she’d slipped away from his hold, giving him no alternative but to follow her.
The yard work was now done and he’d brought down his few bags from the car, unpacking them into the same dresser Lucy had used. Whether or not she’d noticed the significance of that, Bram wasn’t sure. But she hadn’t said anything about it, so neither had he.
While she put fresh linens on the bed, he’d gone for another swim. At the moment, he felt lazy and relaxed and warm with satisfaction.
Lust was just below the surface, waiting for a look, a smile, from her that told him she was ready to go on to the next step. And even if she didn’t make a gesture, in a few more hours the sun would set, and he’d already told her what he planned.
They had the whole night ahead of them.
&nbs
p; Before dinner, they’d taken turns showering, and now Lucy wore a soft pale green cotton sundress. She’d also combed her hair at some point, and it hung in a silky fall to her shoulders. He loved her hair and didn’t give a rat’s ass if she colored her silver streaks or not. Either way, her hair still felt the same, and it was still a part of Lucy.
He’d agreed to grill the steaks while Lucy prepared the potatoes, after she’d informed him that she was, at last, famished. It was damn tough not to touch her, not to be as familiar as he now felt he could be. But even though Lucy kept smiling and looking secretly happy, she had DO NOT TOUCH signs plastered all over herself, warning him from pushing too fast.
Lucy glanced up and shook her head at him. “Stop that.”
He smiled. He’d been smiling nonstop since she’d had her orgasm in the kitchen. He couldn’t recall ever being so happy before.
He took a leisurely drink of his soda before asking, “What?”
“Staring at me. You’re making me feel …” She hesitated, licked her lips, then shrugged. “Nervous.”
“You were going to say ‘naked,’ weren’t you?” He loved teasing her. He loved loving her. “I make you feel naked, when I watch you. Isn’t that right?”
Primly she replied, “I don’t want to put any ideas into your head.” A bird flew close, then landed on the railing to watch them. Lucy tossed a piece of bread to it, and the blue jay snatched it up and again took flight.
Laughing out loud, Bram told her, “Too late, sweetheart. I’ve had ideas about you for a long, long time!”
“You did not.” It was too absurd to be true.
“Did, too. You’re beautiful and I can’t help myself.”
Carefully, with emphasized precision, she laid her fork beside her plate. “Do you mean that, Bram?”
“Cross my heart. You, sweetheart, replaced all my adolescent fantasies, which I gotta tell you were pretty goddamned vivid.”
“Even while David and I were married?”
Realizing the seriousness of her tone, Bram, too, pushed aside his food. He felt mellow and semisated after his release and was more than willing to do some of the talking he knew needed to be done. “You’re gorgeous, Lucy. Sexy. Smart and caring. Of course I had ideas about you. I’m just a man, susceptible to the same lusty thoughts as any other guy. I tried real hard not to let them show, though.”
She seemed to be considering that, then said, “I’m almost forty.”
“I know.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m already forty-one. So?”
“I’m not a gorgeous forty. I’m … lumpy.”
Bobbing his eyebrows at her breasts, he said, “Nice lumps.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Bram sighed. “You’re talking normal wear and tear, honey. Trust me, I like your body just fine. More than fine. Hell, I lust for your body in a big way. Any man who looks at you would feel the same.”
Lucy shook her head. “I used to be attractive, I know. It’s what drew David in the first place. But now … I’m tired-looking and my waistline is shot and I’m … average at best.”
Bram left his seat across the patio table to settle at her side. He reached for her hands and ignored her reserved attempts to pull away. “Do you know what I feel when I look at you?”
Blue eyes crystal clear and wide with curiosity, she shook her head.
Bram kissed her quickly, softly. “Whenever you’re around me, my stomach gets all jumpy, just like it used to when I was fifteen and getting laid seemed about the most important goal in the world. A girl would give me that certain look and I’d get the inside jitters just thinking about what I was going to do. You give me the jitters still.”
He touched his open palm over her head, delighting in the feel of her baby fine hair heated by the sun and teased by the hot breeze. “You toss back your hair and I feel it like a punch in the gut. You laugh and I get hard. When it’s cold outside and your nipples get puckered, I shake like a nervous virgin.”
She laughed at him, shyly.
“And babe, there’s no two ways about it. You have always had a world-class ass. When you walk down the street, it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a skirt or jeans or baggy slacks, male heads turn.”
Her mouth struggled with a smile and lost. “Bram,” she said in admonishment.
“Lucy,” he teased right back. “You might not think you’re beautiful, but my gonads strongly disagree.”
Lucy stared at their clasped hands rather than at his face. “I look a lot different without my clothes than I do with them on. Clothes hide a lot of flaws, you know.”
He curled his hand around the nape of her neck. “When I have you laid out naked before me, you can bet it won’t be flaws I’m looking at.”
The smile changed to an outright laugh. “Maybe. But you’ll see them all the same.”
“Lucy, no man in his right mind expects a woman to be perfect, because men aren’t perfect, either.”
She thrilled him when she said, “You are.”
Bram bit back a grin of sheer joy and remarked teasingly, “Want me to get naked and you can check to see for sure? It’d probably take a real close examination, but I’m sure you could locate a few imperfections.”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
“Dirty pool, Lucy!” He could feel her words stirring him, making his muscles tighten anew. “And I’ll tell you right now, if you give me another boner you’re going to have to take care of it.”
She trailed one fingertip over his jaw. “I wouldn’t mind.”
He groaned at the husky way she said it. “Now stop that, woman. The next time we get something going—which, if you have any mercy at all will be real soon—it’ll be the full mile, and we’ll both be naked.”
Lucy looked out over the lake, at the way the slowly setting sun turned the water different colors. She said abruptly, “I thought about getting a boob job.”
Startled, Bram stared at her. “Good God! Whatever for?”
She looked down at her chest with a wry expression. “Pregnancy and nursing is hard on a woman.”
Bram cupped both breasts in his hands. Leaning down to see her face, not letting her shy away from him, he said, “You’re soft and sexy, just the way a woman should be. You sure as hell don’t need anything plastic added.”
“I’m not … pert, anymore.”
Holding her gaze, Bram reached around her and with casual ease lowered the straps of her sundress. Moving slowly so that she could protest if she chose to, he let the material drop to her elbows, then pulled it away from her breasts and down to her waist.
Dappled sunshine danced across her pale skin, moved by the slight breeze rustling through the tree leaves and stirring the humid air. Sitting there, stiff and uncertain, her backbone straight, Lucy was the most breathtaking sight he’d ever encountered. Bram couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Oh, babe. Anything you don’t have you don’t need. I swear.”
Her breasts rested softly against her body, still full but, as she’d said, no longer so firm. There were a few faint lines, stretch marks from when she had filled with milk to nurse the kids. Bram traced one faded line with his pinkie fingertip, all the way to her nipple. Her nipples had been plump and soft, but now they beaded, drawing into points.
Bram swallowed hard, nearly strangling on emotion, and lowered his head to close his mouth very softly around her. Her nipple was sweet, and he stroked her with his tongue, tugged gently with his lips.
Lucy caught her breath. Her hands settled in his hair, petting him, pulling him closer as her head tipped back. With a low moan she said, “Bram, that feels so good.”
“Mmm. I’m enjoying it just as much.”
Lucy shook her head, breathless, heated. “No way.”
Bram looked at her wet nipple, then blew gently on it and watched her shiver. She was so responsive. Touching her was an incredible pleasure. “When you were kissing me on the couch,” he said, “did you enjoy it?”
Her breasts shimmered with her uneven breaths. “Oh yes.”
“Because it made you feel good, too?”
She blushed a little but admitted, “Just seeing you like that … It made me hot to see you getting so hot.” She swallowed hard. “It was incredible.”
“Yes.” Her words burned into him. “Exciting you excites me. And you are excited, aren’t you, Lucy?”
She nodded.
“And wet?”
Lucy squirmed just a little, then shrugged.
“Don’t ever lie to me, sweetheart. I know you’re wet.” He stroked her nipple, squeezed a tiny bit. “Admit it to me.”
Her lips parted. “Yes.”
“You want my fingers on you again? In you this time? Nice and tight?” When she nodded, he ordered abruptly, shaking with his own lust, “Straddle the bench.”
He helped her, lifting her right leg up and over so it rested on the other side of the bench. Teasing her and himself, Bram lightly dragged both hands up her legs, from her knees to her groin. The skirt of her sundress rose with the movement of his hands. Bram watched her breasts as he slowly, so very slowly, brought his fingers to the juncture of her thighs, to the wet, swollen lips he could feel even through her underwear.
She jerked, her eyes nearly closing.
Bram pressed a warm kiss to her open mouth. “Your panties are soaked,” he whispered.
She reached for him, but he caught her arms and brought them behind her back. “Brace your hands behind you, babe. C’mon, trust me.”
Tentatively she did as he asked. The position thrust her breasts out and made her legs sprawl more widely. Bram wanted to get the damn dress all the way off her, but her expression was a mix of anticipation, excitement, uncertainty.
He slipped his fingers beneath the leg band of her panties and encountered slick flesh, swollen and ripe. His voice a rasp, he said, “I want to see how tight you are.” And he pushed his middle finger into her all the way, not thrusting hard, but not slowing down until he was as deep as he could be. Her inner muscles clamped down hard on him; Lucy’s hips lifted on a gasp.
