Gage immediately thought of Sabrina’s boss. Now, there was a man who was fooling around if he’d ever seen one. Gage had picked up on Theo Ward’s rumpled tuxedo and the small, cordial distance the representative had put between himself and his wife, Jillian.
“You really think there should be friction in a marriage?” Sabrina wondered with a frown.
“Absolutely,” he said frankly. “But not a lot and not all the time. You and I disagree. We argue and then we call truce. It’s frustrating, but it’s real. If you want a country club marriage like the Coles’ where no one raises their voice other than to yell at the help, prepare yourself for a lifetime of boredom, frustration and staring at the personal trainer’s ass. Me? I like a challenge.”
Gage looked her square in the eye. This was no sweet talk. He wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear. This was Sabrina. Suddenly, he was aware of one sure thing. He would always tell her the truth, no matter what.
She broke their gaze, cleared her throat and quickly looked down at her lap.
“Did you know that Milton Hershey never intended to become a chocolate maker?” she asked as she balled up the spent foil. “He originally started a caramel factory. Somehow ‘Hershey’s Chews’ doesn’t have the same ring.”
Gage laughed. “That was so apropos of nothing remotely related to the subject at hand — which is the only way I know you’re trying to change it. Hell, Sabrina. I could spend the rest of the years of my life and short-circuit that many brain cells to the power of ten trying to figure out what makes you tick.”
“Then you’d be ill-advised to try, wouldn’t you?” Her voice sounded slightly breathless as she glanced up at him from under a swoop of bangs. It was a distinctly sexual look. A slightly predatory look. Gage could almost hear the hiss of tension between them as she shifted in her seat to draw closer to him.
This time she definitely wasn’t giving him a show.
With no port and peacocks to blame, she leaned over and kissed the edge of his mouth. Then she moved her lips onto his for more. She had said “no complications,” hadn’t she? The woman was an exercise in contradiction, Gage told himself as he kissed her with the same intensity as he had on the south lawn. She tasted so damned good, like chocolate and rainwater. And she was more responsive to his touch than any woman he’d ever met, pressing her cheek into his palm as he kissed the base of her throat where her pulse beat madly.
He tried to be tender. To give her the long, languid kisses she deserved. But Sabrina wasn’t in the mood for anything quite so precious. She ran her hands over his chest fervently, tracing the nubs of his ribs under her fingertips. Her breathing came faster as she unbuttoned his shirt and lay her palms flush against his chest.
Gage’s rational side reminded her that heavy petting in the front of the GTO was the frolic of horny teenagers. Hadn’t he outgrown that shortly after senior year in high school, when he tried to talk countless girls into touching his junk? But there was something about Sabrina. Every kiss — the same kiss engaged in by legions of men and women during the course of civilized and uncivilized society — felt new and exciting with her, like his first memories of thunderstorms, ice skating and space shuttle takeoffs. Thrilling, unpredictable and just a little dangerous.
So easy to fall …
It was time to put on the brakes before the situation spun out of control. His control.
“This is moving fast,” he breathed. “We should talk about what’s really going on here.”
“Can’t,” she said in a throaty voice. “Stopping is for people who don’t intend to finish the race.”
He shuddered as Sabrina nestled her lips into the tender hollow under his earlobe.
“Yeah, but I’m trying to conserve energy — ahhh!” He winced with pleasure as she dragged her fingers down his skin from sternum to belly. But he was still in the driver’s seat and reminded her of this fact by grasping her wrists lightly in his hands.
“You told me you didn’t want complications,” he reminded her. “You were very clear about that.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Sabrina bowed her head contritely.
“So.” He released her wrists slowly. “If you don’t want tension between us, why are you all over me all of a sudden? Or have you even thought about it?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked slightly abashed. Gage noticed that they’d already fogged up the GTO’s windows.
“Well?” He waited for her to respond with the Sabrina March logic to which he’d become accustomed. None was forthcoming. Before he knew what was happening, she’d cleared the gearshift and was straddling him lightly, her hands grasping the waistband of his jeans.
“I need another catharsis,” she said, her breath hot against his lips.
“Huh. I figured as much. As long as we’re being honest with each — oh god,” he hissed out a pained sigh as her fingertips slid into the denim and trailed across the plummy tip of his cock, back and forth, ever so lightly. Then she took it in her hand using just the right amount of pressure, as though she knew just what he needed and where he needed it the most. Gage felt like he was seventeen again, only the passenger seat wasn’t occupied by a Walden girl who didn’t know what she was doing with her hands. This was Sabrina, and she was stroking his cock, slowly and luxuriously, like she had all the time in the world. He closed his eyes, not wanting the sensation to end. Suddenly the heady, rhythmic motion ceased. Why was she stopping now? Gage wondered. His eyelids fluttered open just enough to see a cap of sleek tortoiseshell hair descend into his lap, and then he felt her hot, wet mouth all over him, picking up where her hand left off. She swirled her tongue around him with each seductive stroke.
A hoarse cry escaped from his lips, and he instinctively dug his fingers into her hair.
Dear god. If she kept this up—
A car door slammed behind them, and he heard the sound of voices drawing closer. Sabrina hastily unhanded him, and then she and Gage organized themselves in their seats. He managed to zip up his pants just as four college-aged kids staggered past the GTO on their way to the tree, beer bottles dangling in hand.
“Yo, man! Did you remember the keys? The keys, man! Where are they?”
“Shit, Houser. Left ’em in the ignition. Chill.”
After the voices grew distant, Gage looked at Sabrina cautiously. Her eyes swept over his chest and torso with hunger and blatant appreciation. She was confused, he decided. She would probably regret everything in the morning. But she knew what she was asking of him. Damn straight she did.
But did she know that once he felt her soft, naked body under his, he’d want her again and again?
“Sabrina?” He turned her name into a loaded question. He didn’t know or care what would happen twenty-four hours from now. Or even the next four. He only knew that he wanted her badly enough to disturb the peace.
Sabrina’s lips parted as she inhaled shortly. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes to everything.” Her eyes were drowsy with lust, dilated under a thick fringe of lashes.
“Okay. As long as you remember who started it,” he said before slamming the car in reverse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sabrina was no longer coherent by the time they reached the house.
There had to be some chemical the brain released just prior to sex that made people get a little stupid, she decided as she watched Gage unlock the front door. A chemical that accounted for every misbegotten one-night stand and ill-fated relationship and that also explained why the smell of his skin had gone from subtly sexy to purely intoxicating.
He scooped her into his arms and carried her across the threshold as though she weighed nothing. Taking delight in her Scarlett-on-the-staircase moment, Sabrina let him carry her into his bedroom and deposit her by the big four-poster. Now his fingers were unfastening the buttons on her jeans.
“I haven’t shaved,” she warned him, thinking about the three-day stubble on her calves.
Gage gave he
r an amused look. “C’mon, honey. Do I strike you as the kind of guy who gets turned off by a little leg hair?” He pulled her jeans over her hips so she could step out of them. A dark, wet patch the shape of a half-moon had spread across the front of her underwear.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining things,” he said, stroking the damp stain. The light, sudden contact made her shiver.
“What things?” she asked.
He began to unbutton her shirt. “You’ve wanted to jump my bones from the minute you saw me at the wedding reception. And you wanted to really, really badly.”
“You know this how?”
“Because whenever we’re within six feet of each other, you start to shake like a racehorse trying to get out of the starting gate. And—” He lowered her onto the bed slowly. “—I can smell it all over you,” he whispered, pushing the silk sleeves over her shoulders.
Sabrina wasn’t ashamed of her body. On the contrary, she was proud of it. It was small, strong and evenly proportioned. She worked hard to maintain it and was choosy about who saw it. Gage’s appreciative gaze made her want to arch into his hands when he touched her. Her mind was tuned out to everything but sound and sensation. She heard the tiny snap as he deftly undid the front clasp of her bra. She gasped as he took one puckered nipple into his mouth and grazed it with his teeth. He cupped her other breast with one large hand in what was almost a protective gesture.
She reveled in the reverence she saw in his eyes as he paused to admire the curves of her breasts and the smooth skin of her belly. Slowly he peeled off her underwear and brushed the soft tuft of hair with the back of his hand. She quivered in response.
“Damn, you’re fine,” he said before he kissed her again. She ran her hands across his broad shoulders and down his back. The chafe of her bare skin against his jeans and flannel shirt felt tantalizingly good, but she wanted a different texture. Skin texture. Him.
“Strip, Fitzgerald,” she demanded huskily as she pushed him away.
“I knew I was right.” He grinned. “Help or watch?”
“Watch.”
He undressed not teasingly or eagerly but simply and efficiently in preparation for doing what a man had to do. She’d already seen his bare torso but as she watched his shirt slide off his shoulders, revealing their width and the ripple of muscle, it was like seeing him again for the first time. He pulled off his jeans to reveal big, strong thighs and calves that were equally as defined. His erection bobbed slightly. It was proportionately sized, long, with an impressive circumference and thickly veined. A milky tear had formed at the tip. She didn’t know when he would be inside of her. Only that he would. A trickle of trepidation ran down her spine.
“Gage?”
He gave her a look of concern. “Having second thoughts?”
“Not one. It’s just that … what if this turns out badly? You know how sometimes you think you want to have sex with someone only when you do it’s awkward and disappointing?”
“If any other woman had asked me that question, I might have said yes,” he said as he climbed over her. “But you and me together? Cakewalk. You’ll see. We just need to put in some warm-up time.”
The friction of his body against hers as they tussled electrified her senses. Like a child with a new toy, she reveled in exploring him. She ran her toes down one strong calf while her hands admired his prominent triceps and the muscular curves of his back. He didn’t have the springy, bulked-up build of a dedicated gym rat but the body of a day laborer with just the right amount of padding. He traced the delicate bones of her neck with his fingertips, pressing down with more urgency as he ran his hands over her hips and then her buttocks. The slow burn of his mouth on hers was more urgent. Sabrina had heard about men who approached sex with the same natural vigor as they would a good meal after a long day or a swim on a hot afternoon.
Gage was one of them.
The plain white sheets on his bed were soft from years of launderings. Sabrina was aware that most if not all of her reasoning skills had gone out the window, but there was a faint, nagging buzz in the back of her skull as though she’d overslept her alarm.
“You’re not using protection,” she murmured against his warm shoulder. Damn, why did he have to smell and taste so good? Like sun-dried laundry and caramelized sugar.
“No,” he said distractedly.
“You have condoms.”
“Scoping out my Dopp Kit, were you?”
“This is theoretical, but what would happen if you got me pregnant?”
“I guess I’d become a family man,” was his reply.
Was it her imagination, or did he just get harder? “Gage, I can’t let that hap—”
His lips smothered the tail end of her protest. “Kissing you seems to be the only way to make you shut up.” He paused to look at her. “Should I be worried about getting you pregnant?”
“It would be a real long shot.”
“Then let me in, Sabrina,” he said hoarsely.
“Just this once,” she heard herself saying. What was it about this man that made her totally lose her inhibitions — and her common sense?
“Oh, darlin’,” he grinned. “Believe me, I have no intention of stopping after one.”
The firm touch of his thumb in the middle of her perineum sent a shock up her spine. Then he drew his thumb over her wet sex so slowly she could feel the fine ridges of his print rubbing against her flesh. She felt the heat of his skin as he paused at her clit with a slight pressure and rubbed, as though he were testing a sensitive instrument. While she was still quaking from the test stroke, his head disappeared between her thighs. His breath felt hot and cool at the same time, making her folds unfurl and her hips arch. His tongue traced the perimeter lightly, stimulating her just enough to give her a promise of pleasure.
He knew exactly what he was doing; he was intentionally making her want him, she thought, as her nails dug into the sheets.
Of course he was knew what he was doing. This was Gage.
Then he began to kiss her there slowly and deeply just as he had that night at Green Pastures. Only he’d altered his technique to take her rhythm into consideration. The way he used his tongue was too skilled to be dreamed up on the fly but too sensual to be overly rehearsed. It was having the right effect. She’d barely recovered from the shock of the first contact when a sweet, familiar tension began to bloom somewhere deep inside of her.
“Gage—!” The orgasm shot her into orbit so fast it was almost obscene, spiraling on and on until she lost coherence. Steadying her hips with his hands, he kept his mouth against the sensitive folds and waited until the strong contractions slowed and finally ceased before releasing her.
“Amazing.” He ran his fingers over the lips of her sex leisurely as though she were made of fine leather. “We’re easy together. What did I tell you?”
She still felt heady with pleasure, but her body ached with boundless hunger she’d never experienced before. The first orgasm had given her a taste of fulfillment. It wasn’t enough. Just the first bite of something bigger and far more delectable. She wanted him to fill all of the gaps and spaces and sate her completely.
“Gage, please — now — please?”
“You have to be the most damned impatient woman I’ve ever met.” He loosened the tight grip of her legs around his waist, instinctively drawing his pelvis to hers. “The first time only happens once. Do you want it to be over before it even starts?”
“Of course not.”
“Then let me take the lead,” he whispered beneath her ear. He positioned himself above her and pried her legs apart, massaging the taut muscles in her inner thighs. His erection, still at full mast, was poised above them.
“Touching is allowed, however,” he informed her. “All kinds of touching.”
“Did I ask for permission?” She didn’t recognize the growly sexpot voice that came out of her mouth. She explored him with her hands, marveling at the softness of his warm skin. Her fingers traced the compl
ex network of veins that ran the length of his cock. Simultaneously voluptuous and hard, like a Moore sculpture warmed by the sun, the shape of it alone was erotic and clearly designed by nature to please. It didn’t seem possible that it would fit inside of her. That she could be so malleable.
Everything about him wasn’t only bigger, but just plain big. The bones of her pelvis fit neatly into his like stacking shells. There wasn’t an inch of her body that couldn’t be covered by or engulfed by his. Simply by wrapping her legs around his waist, she felt as though she were being stretched apart like a wishbone. A combination of moonlight and streetlight flooded the room, casting everything in a cool silver hue. She could see him looking at her intently, studying the curves and angles of her body.
He entered her tentatively at first with a slow, deliberate glide, just deep enough. Then after giving her time to adjust to his girth, he began to move in slow, shallow thrusts, stroking her right where all of the pivotal nerves were bundled. He wasn’t just trying to get off, she realized; he was trying to make it so damned good. And it almost hurt. The next orgasm danced elusively around the edges. She felt insane with need.
“Gage—” She didn’t need to say anything else. Interpreting her tone and beseeching look, he simply reached down and located the hypersensitive nub between her legs. With a few strokes, she trembled to a climax again, this one far more powerful than the last. Right when she recovered, he stroked her again, having located the tiny sweet spot that women never tell about and men discover through trial and error. Gage had got it spot-on during the first try.
As another orgasm washed over her, her instinct was to impale herself on him to the hilt. He firmly refused to let her. Oblivious to everything else going on around her, she let him stoke the fire over and over again until she could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Finally he relented and let her take him in completely, assuaging the hollow. The pain and the pleasure were exquisite; she felt like something inside of her would split and rupture.
Something About You (Just Me & You) Page 25
