by Lori Foster
“Shhh. Easy now.” She was snug on his finger and Bram broke out in a fresh sweat just thinking of how she’d feel on his thick cock, how she’d squeeze him, how damn tight she’d hold him.
He couldn’t stand it. “Lucy, honey.” He removed his hand and lowered her skirt. Her eyes shot open, alarmed, but Bram stood and lifted her. “I can’t wait. I need you now. Tell me,” he insisted, holding her to his chest with trembling arms. “Tell me you’re ready.”
“Yes.”
Bram nearly went through the patio doors, he was in such a rush. His earlier release might not have happened, his control was so shaky.
And then he was finally in the bedroom. He dropped onto the bed with Lucy and her hands started exploring him and Bram decided it didn’t matter. It would be okay.
It had to be okay—because he couldn’t bear to be without her anymore.
Lucy felt the tight grip of Bram’s fingers around her wrists and then she was on her back with him over her. He kissed her naked breasts, her midriff. His mouth was open, biting gently, consuming. “Let me see you, Lucy, all of you,” he groaned.
At that moment, modesty had no place. She felt only a slight prickling of unease as she lay docile, allowing him to reach beneath her dress and tug off her panties. Bram came up to his knees, kneeling between her legs, and lifted the damp fabric to his face, rubbing her panties over his cheek, inhaling her scent, while he stared down at her body. His voice was so low and deep it wasn’t recognizable.
“I can’t believe this,” he growled. “I have you beneath me, on a bed, hot and wet, and it’s reality, not just fodder for dreams.”
“Bram.” She’d never been wanted like this, not even when she and David had been young and overflowing with sexual energy.
“Lift your hips.”
She did, and the dress was whisked upward. They each struggled until it was over her head and thrown across the room with her underwear.
Bram froze, his eyes hot on her body, his hands hovering just over her thighs. He swallowed hard, his nostrils flaring. “Christ.”
Very gently, almost with awe, he pressed her legs open. She’d never been exposed in such a way, literally put on display, but it was wonderful and she didn’t worry about how soft or fleshy her thighs had become or that her stomach was no longer concave. The look on Bram’s face more than reassured her.
His hands drifted over her pelvic bones, his fingers spread until they were tangling in her public hair. His lips parted on a deep breath. Using his thumbs, he spread her open, and she groaned, then cried out as he bent and covered her with his mouth.
Voracious, ruthless, he tasted her, delved and lapped and tormented with his tongue, taunted with his teeth. Lucy screamed as he drew her clitoris into his mouth and suckled. She couldn’t hold still, couldn’t hold back the orgasm that raged through her.
The pleasure was so intense, so startling, she nearly passed out from the throbbing waves of sensation.
When she finally got her heavy eyes to open again, Bram was standing beside the bed, breathtakingly naked and rolling on a condom. His body was sculpted of hard muscle and thick bones, his legs braced apart, his wide shoulders gleaming with sweat. There was a tightness to his expression, a stormy glitter to his eyes, that told her his control was a thing of the past.
Lucy moaned, seeing his long fingers roll the rubber up the length of his rigid erection. It was long and thick and throbbing, and something insidious expanded inside her; she didn’t know if it was anticipation or fear. Staring at him, she said, “I don’t know about this, Bram.”
Evidently done with wooing her, he didn’t give her a chance for second thoughts. He lifted her under her arms and straightened her out on the bed, moving her limp, nearly lifeless body just like he would a doll. Almost the second he laid her flat, he had two fingers pushed deep inside her, stroking. Her sensitized tissues jolted at the invasion, causing her body to shudder and flinch.
“Don’t fight me, Lucy. Relax. You can take me.” He ground out the words from between his teeth, sweat dotting his forehead, his temples. “It’ll be so goddamned tight I’m liable to die, but I won’t hurt you.”
She had no reply to that and couldn’t have spoken anyway, because Bram kissed her. His body covered hers and his mouth stole her breath and then she felt him at her opening and the burning pressure began.
Wriggling, she tried to adjust to his entrance. Bram caught her legs under her knees and lifted, opening her wide, alarming her to the point that she stiffened.
“No, Lucy. Relax, baby. Don’t tense up on me.” He panted out the words, every muscle on his body straining. And still he pressed on, coming into her by agonizingly slow degrees, continually driving forward, deeper and deeper. True to his word, for her there was no real pain, only the acute pleasure of being filled once again by a man.
But it was even more than that, because he wasn’t just any man. He was Bram, so very special, so male, so overwhelming in every way.
He paused, his eyes squeezed shut. Lucy tentatively stroked his chest and neck, down to his nipples, where she flicked and teased them. His back arched and he pushed deeper still, causing her to gasp.
“That’s enough, Bram.” Her heart pounded so hard it rocked the mattress. If Bram heard her, he showed no sign of it. He didn’t move, but he didn’t pull out, either.
Lucy couldn’t get a deep-enough breath. He really was too huge, she thought, almost panicked. “Bram …”
“Just a little more, baby.” He opened his eyes and locked his heated gaze with her wary one. “A little more.”
Gently, inexorably, he pressed. Their strenuous breathing filled the otherwise silent room. His chest heaved, his arms trembled. Dark color slashed his high cheekbones and his mouth looked hard and sensual. In a rumble, he urged, “Take all of me, Lucy. Tell me you want all of me.”
She wanted to say yes, but she didn’t think she could. Fantasizing about a man so large didn’t even begin to touch on the reality. She tried to relax, tried to accept him, but she felt impaled, ready to break.
Moving her legs over his shoulders, Bram came down to one elbow, balancing himself. With his other hand, he smoothed her hair away from her face. He looked at her mouth and kissed her while he trailed his fingers to her breast and began tormenting her nipple with rough fingertips. Her muscles clamped around him in reaction, making them both moan.
She didn’t think she could take any more, but he proved her wrong. Her body was burning, on fire, her breasts throbbing, her nipples painfully tight. And Bram kissed her gently as he reached between their bodies and stroked her swollen sex where she held him. Lucy caught her breath.
“That’s it,” he murmured, continuing to tease sensitive tissues before readjusting his hand and smoothing his thumb over her turgid clitoris. She jerked hard, crying out.
“No, Bram.” Her voice was a whimper, a plea. She was too sensitive, and it felt like too much.
He continued the light touch, growling, “Yes,” and there was no way she could stop him. All she could do was accept him and try not to scream as sensation once again built within her.
The pleasure was too sharp, too much, making her squirm and inadvertently helping him to sink into her. Every place on her body was affected by him, her nipples rasped by his chest hair, her mouth caught under his, his erection more than filling her, his thumb driving her insane, and then, to her amazement, Lucy began to climax again. It wasn’t your average, run-of-the-mill orgasm. Her body burned with feelings, her muscles all clenching hard so that she ached at the same time the pleasure overcame her.
Bram took swift advantage, pushing himself the rest of the way in so that she screamed after all, but with incredible enjoyment, not pain. He drove into her, his movement rhythmic, slick, deep and deeper. He threw his head back and arched hard into her as he groaned and Lucy managed to get her eyes open enough to watch him. It was wonderful. It was beautiful.
All because it was Bram.
The week went
by in a blur. They made love in the lake, late at night, torturing each other with the necessity for quiet. Bram didn’t make it easy on her. He seemed to take delight in making her scream, in driving her past the brink of a mere climax.
They made love on the deck in the hot sunshine, hurriedly because of the risk of being caught, which added to the thrill. Though at first she’d honestly believed he was too large, Bram showed her how to accept him in a dozen different ways—in the bed and on the kitchen counter. And on the couch.
He filled her up, indulging her every need, pampering her every desire. He seemed to know her fantasies without her having to ask. And he never hesitated to share his own.
He convinced her to spend one entire day naked, and they never left the cabin. They barely left the bed. She felt drowned in sensual pleasure, but in emotion, too. It had been a lush, indulgent, sultry week.
Lucy felt a little sick with foreboding when the last day of the vacation rolled around.
Bram was sprawled on the deck in the sun, dozing after having just made love to her. He wore only a pair of dark cotton shorts and looked so beautiful, tears blurred her eyes. She’d slipped away from him, promising to return with drinks.
Holding one glass over his chest so that the icy sweat of the glass dripped on him, Lucy decided to face her demons. Bram jerked awake with a curse, saw her, and laughed. He took the glass, but his gaze was wicked as he said, “Paybacks are hell, sweetheart. You can’t imagine the things I can do with an ice cube.”
No, she thought, but she wanted to find out. “This is the last day of the vacation. When will you pay me back?”
Bram went still, causing her heart to do the same. Then he shrugged, deliberately nonchalant, though his eyes burned with intensity. “If I tell you,” he asked quietly, “how can I take you by surprise?”
Lucy pulled up a patio chair beside him. Looking at her glass rather than at him, she said, “I think I’ve decided not to sell the summer house after all.”
Bram watched her closely. “Oh?”
She wished he’d say more than that. He could have been a little more helpful with the situation, maybe given some clue to his thoughts. He was so damned open about everything else. “I … I thought, seeing as how we got along so well here—”
“Got along how?”
She couldn’t read his expression, and it made her nervous. Lifting her chin, she said, “I didn’t know sex like this even existed.”
“And you want more?”
Her heart pounded hard, making it difficult to think. “Yes.”
“We’re in agreement on one thing, anyway.”
“I’m serious here, Bram!” Deciding to just blurt it out and get it over with, Lucy said, “If I keep the house, we can make it a special getaway. No one back home would ever have to know what we’re doing.”
Bram came out of his lounge chair so fast it nearly tipped over. She could read his expression just fine and dandy now—and wished that she couldn’t. He was furious.
“So you want to carry on some illicit little affair, is that it?”
Slowly Lucy stood. “Bram … You know how much gossip I had to put up with. All of our friends—”
“David’s friends. They were never yours to begin with or they’d have understood.”
That was an unvarnished truth. Her true friends, like Marcy, had stood behind her all the way. She cleared her throat. “The kids were hurt by all of it.”
Bram’s muscles bunched, from his shoulders down to his fists. “I had nothing to do with that, Lucy, and you know it.”
“I know,” she rushed to assure him, “but I don’t want to even guess at what the neighbors will start saying if they see us together now.”
“Fuck the neighbors.”
She reeled back, appalled by his anger.
Bram stalked her. “What I want doesn’t matter? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Half afraid to ask, Lucy said, “What is it you want?”
“You. The kids. Happy ever after. The whole shebang. Everything.” He caught her face to still her retreat. “I want to marry you. I want us to be a family. I want the right to touch you every damn night and all through the day, not just when we can slip away.”
“Bram.” Her heart thundered, with emotion not fear. “I … I can’t. Try to understand.”
He let her go so fast, she nearly stumbled. Rubbing his hand over his face, he turned toward the lake. With his voice sounding cold and remote, he said, “You can, Lucy. But you won’t.”
She wanted to touch him, yet didn’t dare. She was afraid he’d push her away. “Bram, why can’t we just have this? Why can’t we just—”
He didn’t look at her. “Because I don’t feel like another illicit affair. It’s all or nothing, Lucy. You decide.”
Appalled, tears prickling her eyes, she whispered, “What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t be a casual friend. Not anymore. I can’t sit back and pretend I don’t love you.”
He waited, but she had no idea what to say to that. Bram loved her? Then her own anger ignited and she heard herself shout, “Since when?”
Bram looked at her over his shoulder. His hair was gilded by the sun, and his back looked like polished bronze. She felt snared in his gaze as he muttered very quietly, “I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you.”
Lucy’s mouth fell open. “But—”
“But you were married to someone else?” He turned and leaned on the railing, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes hard. “It’s a fact I choked on every goddamned day. When you carried the kids was the worst. You were pregnant by David, and I couldn’t bear it.”
“He … he was your friend.”
“Until the day he died. I’d never have done anything to hurt either of you. But that sure as hell didn’t change the way I felt.”
Lucy stumbled back into a seat, dropping hard. “But … you sleep with young, beautiful women. You’re a … a stud.”
“Yeah? Big deal. I’m a forty-one-year-old man who wants more in his life than a string of onenight stands with women looking for a father figure or a guy who’s settled enough that he can buy them a good time. They see me as responsible, mature, when they’re anything but. The sex is great, but is that supposed to make my life worthwhile?”
“I don’t know.” At the moment she didn’t feel like she knew anything. Everything had changed so suddenly she couldn’t get her bearings.
“Well, let me tell you,” he shouted, “it doesn’t.”
Lucy flinched, and Bram instantly lowered his tone, drawing a deep breath in an effort to calm down.
“Being with you, that’s what matters.” Bram knelt down in front of her and caught her hands. “This week has been the best of my life. Not just the sex, though God knows you send me through the roof. But it’s you, sweetheart. Talking with you, laughing with you. Loving you.”
Hearing him say it again made tears roll down her cheeks. She sniffed and then smiled because she couldn’t not smile. Bram loved her, and according to him, his feelings weren’t new.
He smoothed her cheeks, brushed her mouth with his thumb. “You can’t begin to imagine all the times I’ve fantasized about you, about having a moment like this, being able to tell you how I feel. You’re my life, Lucy. You’re all I want, not some young female just out for kicks.”
Lucy touched his mouth, almost laughing now. He made a “young female just out for kicks” sound like a bad thing, when most men would have done anything to be in his position.
He kissed her fingers. “I want a woman who matches me in maturity, who’s intelligent and settled and honorable—and still so sexy that even when she’s sitting here crying and telling me she might walk away, I still get hard.”
Lucy threw her arms around him, chuckling and sniffling at the same time.
Bram held her, his big hands moving up and down her back. His touch was so gentle, so uncertain, it broke her heart.
And then he asked, so quietl
y she could barely hear, “Do you love me, Lucy?”
“I always have.” That was one truth she could easily admit to.
“No, not like a friend.” He pushed her back and held her there, his gaze boring into hers, into her soul. “Did you ever fantasize about me while you were married?”
Such a thing seemed sinful, by thought if not by deed; she couldn’t get the words to come.
“Lucy?” His voice was hard, bordering on impatient. “Admit it—you did dream about me, didn’t you? I can’t be that wrong.”
“I … I was married to David,” she hedged, feeling breathless and guilty and confused, “and even though things weren’t great, we—”
Bram shook her. “Damn you, tell me the truth! Tell me you dreamed about me.”
“Bram …”
“Tell me you wanted me even then!”
“Yes!” Lucy saw his vulnerability, his fear, and everything else ceased to matter. Gently, love consuming her, she cupped his face in her hands. “Yes, Bram. In the beginning of my marriage, I only noticed you as an extremely attractive man. I was so curious, but your girlfriends were always around, always bragging, so I knew, without having to ask much, that you were a good lover. And of course that made me … wonder.”
Bram turned his head and kissed her palm. His eyes were closed in relief, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
“When things started to go wrong between David and me,” she continued, willing to tell him everything now that she knew he needed to hear it, “I … I pretended sometimes that he was you.”
Bram jerked around to stare at her. Lucy kissed him, giving him the words without making him ask. “That wasn’t any good, because David had stopped caring about what I wanted or needed and sex was … Well, I still loved him as a father to my children, as a man I’d known for so long, but I didn’t desire him anymore. And pretending didn’t help. I knew, intuitively, that being with you would be incredible.”
She drew a shuddering breath, guilt melting away with the heat of the summer day and the warmth in Bram’s gaze. “So yes,” she said, smiling just a little, “when I was in bed at night, alone and lonely, I thought of you.” Lucy laughed, then wiped her teary eyes. “You’re even better in reality than in my dreams.”
