He wanted in there with her, but he was the one who had pressured her into going there alone. Far from him. “Open your eyes,” he said.
“Stop it. You’re distracting me,” she whispered. “This is hard enough as it is.”
“Open them,” he urged. “I want you to see me looking at you.”
That smile again. “Don’t worry. I don’t have to see you to know you’re there. You make your presence felt.”
She was getting closer, working herself up to it with tight circles, panting breaths. He felt the power building.
And he was on his feet, in her face. “Open your eyes,” he pleaded.
“Goddamn it, Nick,” she gasped out. “I’m so close…”
He forced his hand between her clamped thighs, into the moist heat behind her fingers. “Now.” He made his voice sharp, a whip crack.
Her eyes popped open, startled, and he thrust two fingers into her slick depths just as the pleasure jolted through her. Her cunt clenched hard around his fingers, and he saw right into her unguarded eyes, right into that sweet, secret space inside her, where he wanted to be.
God. Where he wanted to live.
He held her up there against the wall until she could more or less stand again, and then gave in to the inevitable and sank to his knees, lifting up one of her legs and placing it on the seat of the chair.
“Hold open your pussy for me,” he told her.
She fumbled to obey him, and just shook there, poised over him on wobbling legs, and holding her labia wide for him. He went at her with his hungry tongue, sliding it up and down the sopping length of her pink vulva with swirls around the taut, swollen clit at the top, deep darting thrusts into it, over and over until she came again with a low wail, jerking and shuddering against his face. Too soon. He could stay there, drinking from that sweet fountain of life. For hours.
He held her steady as he got to his feet and rolled the condom he had at the ready over himself, then shoved her back against the wall and nudged his cock head inside her, pushing until he felt that delicious resistance of that plushy glove of perfect woman flesh.
“I won’t be able to stop once I start,” he told her.
“I’d hit you in the face if you tried to stop,” she shot back.
God, he loved it when she was feisty. “I can’t go slow, either.”
“I don’t want you to.” She dug her nails into his shoulders and hung on. “Stop being such a chatterbox. You’re pissing me off again.”
Her words became a low moan in chorus with his own as he nudged deeper, pushing and pushing, digging the slow, tight glide into her body. He eased back a little, surged in, and just went at her, wildly, desperate to lunge inside her before he was even done with the stroke he was on. He jolted her against the wall with a cry at every deep plunge.
A simultaneous orgasm was building up, her charge added to his own. They exploded, souls touching for a timeless instant. And he was there, in that magic place where he had longed to be. Part of her. Awed by her. So beautiful.
He locked his wobbling knees by sheer force of will, and let his weight prop their shaking, sweating bodies against the wall.
“So,” he said, looking for words for the thought pervading his mind. “So it wasn’t just those vid cams that did it for you, then.”
It took her a second to register what he was referring to, but her eyes popped open, bright with righteous anger. “Hell, no! As if! What kind of pervert do you think I am, anyway? It was you!”
“Me,” he repeated, in a shaky whisper. “Me.” He took a deep breath, forcing enough strength into his limbs to lift her up and carry her over to the bed, still wrapped around him. His cock still inside. He wasn’t ready to let go of this contact yet. No fucking way.
He sat down on the bed, arranging her legs so that she was kneeling astride him, and flopped back onto the coverlet.
He stared up at her, still speechless. She stared down, petting his chest, her fingertips exploring him with tender, idle curiosity.
Her eyelashes swept down over her eyes, shadowing them from his gaze. “Well? So? Did that, um…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?” he demanded, impatient.
“Did that make it up to you? For the burning-in-hell agony?”
He refused to let the smile loose, even though his face desperately wanted to. “Nah,” he said. “You’ve made a dent, maybe. No more.”
She looked outraged. “You call that a dent?” Her mouth twitched. “You really do have to keep the upper hand, don’t you? At all costs?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed.” He reached up, tangling his fingers into her hair. “To my last breath.”
“Doesn’t that make you tired? Always having to be in control?”
The question made him vaguely uncomfortable. “No,” he said.
She picked at the buckle on her sexy spike heeled sandals, pulling them off and tossing them away, and she looked at him, her eyes big and thoughtful. “I scared you that badly?” Her voice was soft.
He hesitated for a moment. “I was beside myself,” he said.
Her eyelashes swept down, and she spent a couple of minutes stroking his chest hair. Which made his dick twitch and thicken inside her.
She leaned down, and startled him by dropping a tender kiss right between his eyes. “I’m sorry I scared you,” she said.
Sorry. Hah. Part of him wanted to hoot with laughter. Another part wanted to seize the advantage quick, roll her over and fuck her again.
Another part altogether took him entirely by surprise when it spoke up. “I thought you were running away from me,” he blurted.
Her sexy mouth fell open. She stared down at him, eyes wide, startled. “From you? But why on earth would I…how could you think that, Nick?”
He’d gone red in the face, was already regretting the stupid confession. He shrugged, almost angrily. “How the fuck should I know how your mind works?” he muttered. “I haven’t had much luck with women. I thought maybe it was too much. Maybe I was too much.”
She shook her head, distressed. “That’s nuts, Nick! After all we’ve—after all you did for me! I wouldn’t run from you! I love…”
Her voice trailed off. Her eyes got huge, her white throat bobbing, as she realized that he knew exactly what she had almost said.
I love you. She had almost said it. And she had stopped herself.
The silence that thudded down around them had physical weight.
He broke eye contact. Whatever. Big fucking deal. So she didn’t want to say the L-word to him. It was a lot to ask of the woman, all things considered. He couldn’t blame her. Hell, he was glad she hadn’t.
After all. What the fuck would he have done if she’d said it? If she’d meant it? Christ. What a freaking responsibility. Who needed it.
He rolled her over onto their sides, so he could slide his cock out of her, look the other way, get rid of the condom. Think of something to say to break the tension of that awful silence, to make those goddamn unsaid words stop burning in the air between them in letters of fire. But he didn’t trust his voice yet. He didn’t trust his face.
There was a hollow feeling in his chest. It ached and burned.
She recovered first. “Nick, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He cut her off, without looking up, and sat back down on the bed so he could start prying off his shoes. “It’s OK. Take it easy. I wouldn’t have held you to it.”
He winced inwardly. Stupid thing to say. As if he could.
“No! That’s not what I meant!” Her voice sounded anxious. “It’s just that—”
“I understand.” He kicked his jeans the rest of the way off so they’d stop hobbling his knees, dug the strip of condoms out of his pocket. “It’s a weird time in your life. You’ve got a lot to deal with. So do I. So we keep it simple. Just sex. That’s fine with me, OK? That’s cool.”
“But I didn’t mean—”
“Becca, for Christ’s sake,” he cut in
savagely. “Let it fucking go.”
He kept his back to her, ignoring the hurt silence as he ripped a condom open, pried it out of its envelope. She grabbed his arm.
He turned. “Nick, I…oh, for God’s sake,” she finished, staring down at his erection as he sheathed it, with a swift, one-handed swipe.
“Let’s get back to that dent of yours,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I thought we’d moved on.”
Tell him about it. He’d thought so, too. He’d stopped himself just in time from embarrassing the hell out of her by throwing himself at her feet. Making a bunch of dramatic declarations. Jesus. Narrow escape.
But hey. That was no reason not to nail her another few hundred times. She definitely seemed to like that aspect of their relationship, whatever else might be lacking. Might as well accentuate the positive.
As long as he had the breath to hang on to her and the mojo to seduce her, he would. To the fucking bitter end.
He reached around behind her, unhooked the bustier and lifted it reverently away from her gorgeous tits. The garter belt and stockings were welcome to stay, but he wanted to see those tits jiggle with each thrust. There were red marks in her soft, creamy flesh, from where the tight garment had pinched her. He stroked his fingertips over them.
“You’re evading me,” she accused him.
Evading himself was more like it. He grunted, shoved her legs open, folded them wide, and gazed down at the divine spectacle of her pussy. He loved the contrasts in color, the dark hair, the white skin, the slick pink and red of her inner folds.
She wiggled and made soft, breathless gasping sounds as he petted them, sliding his fingers inside to find the slick, hot fluid that he loved so much to lick, pulling the hood up off that tight, swollen pink clit with his fingers, to admire it. He rubbed his cock head against it, swirling it around and around her clit, and nudged inside the wet pink hole beneath it, shoving until her tender tissues were distended around his thick cock head, tenderly clasping him.
“Does this feel like evasion?” he asked.
Her amusement made her sheath contract rhythmically around his cock. “Hah. Smart-ass. Invasion is more like it.”
He invaded her some more, squeezing deeper into that quivering sheath. The teeth-grinding, heart-pounding excitement almost canceled out the ache in his chest.
She put her hands against his chest, dug in her nails, and pushed. “I’m not letting this go,” she said “Sooner or later, we have to talk about it. Just keep that in mind.”
He flexed his hips and drove the rest of the way inside. She let out a shocked gasp, her nails digging deep.
He froze. Shit. “Did I hurt you?” He braced himself.
She swallowed, bit her lip. “Little bit. You bumped something. But I’m OK.”
“Sorry,” he said helplessly.
Becca wiggled and adjusted herself around the hard, unyielding shaft of his cock. “That won’t work,” she said. “I don’t want just sex. That’s not what I meant at all. Not. At all.”
He shut her up the only way he could think of. He kissed her.
A double invasion, with his cock embedded in her slick, squirming warmth of her pussy, his mouth moving hungrily over her soft lips. The taste of the paint on them was unfamiliar, contrasting oddly with the sweet taste of her inner depths, her little tongue.
Again. He had no idea why he made this same goddamn mistake, over and over. This double contact did something to his chest, stretching him out between those two focus points of intense awareness and need. The aching, hollow place in his chest took over his whole body. He clutched her like she was life itself. He was kissing her like he’d die if he stopped. Fucking her with hard, frenzied lunges. Desperate to get inside her, as deep as he could go. She struggled just as hard, straining towards what she needed. Her body clutching, demanding, as her orgasm called forth his own.
He obeyed, rode the crest of that wave for as long as he could, feeling for her, waiting for her before he topped the rise and let himself be battered under the tons of pounding foam.
She was already asleep when he finally had the strength to lift his eyelids. He was grateful for that. Somehow summoned the strength to reach out, flip off the bedside light.
The light that leaked out of the bathroom loved up the graceful curves and lines and hollows of her body.
He tried not to think about it. Tried again. Christ. He fidgeted.
Hey, he would have stopped himself, too. No one knew better than he what Becca had to deal with in Nick Ward. He was a rude, irritable, oversexed pain in the ass. Since he’d met her, their encounters all had more or less the same arc. First he scolded and bullied her, then he subsequently tossed her on her back and fucked her brains out.
Not much of a base there for “I love you.”
He’d never had the nerve in his life to say those words to anybody.
At least not in English. The thought came to him suddenly. He’d said them to his mother, in Ukrainian. And there he went, right off the cliff. Bad move. Thinking about his mother was all he needed right now.
No “I love you’s.” It was against his rules. It was like painting a big bull’s-eye on your chest and saying, go on shoot me. Shoot me, please.
He was a fucking chump idiot to get his tender feelings hurt.
He dragged her closer, his arm jealously tight around her smooth body, and tried like hell to grow up, and get some goddamn sleep.
Chapter
22
“I can’t do it, Richie,” Diana said brokenly. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m so sorry.”
Dismayed, Richard Mathes stared at the woman swaying on his front porch. Diana looked awful. Eyes bloodshot, lids swollen and fiery red, ringed with tear-streaked makeup. Her mouth was marred with a bubbling mosaic of fever blisters; her hair was a rat’s nest, squashed into a bizarre one-sided crest. Her clothes look like she’d slept in them. She stank of old sweat—and of alcohol.
His shock lasted only a moment before his practical nature snapped into action, checking rapidly to see if any nosy neighbors were out pruning their flowers to witness this tableau.
“Richard? Who’s at the door?” Helen’s voice floated out the open door, growing nearer.
“Wait here,” he hissed at her. “No one,” he called, whipping the door shut just as Helen appeared at the top of the stairs, fastening an earring.
“Don’t get absorbed in anything, please,” she said, in a crisp, admonishing voice. “The Zimmer girl’s birthday party starts in twenty minutes, and I can’t take Chloe because I’m taking Libby to get her hair done at GianPiero’s, so you have to give her a ride. Remember?”
Mathes gave her a placating smile, though his teeth clenched hard enough to send bursts of pain up into his skull. “Of course.”
He waited until his wife disappeared back into the master bedroom before he permitted the smile to fade. He had no idea what the real expression beneath it might be, but it was better that the nagging, irritating bitch not see it. He had enough problems.
He slipped out the door, spun Diana around and frog-marched her over the vast expanse of the Mathes lawn and into the shade of the big maple that overhung the drive, and from there into the garage. “Where is your car?” he demanded.
“It’s around the corner,” she said faintly. “On the Avenue.”
He abruptly ruled out the possibility of sending her packing back to her own vehicle. She was drunk, for one thing. Worse still, in this neighborhood, she would be remembered in this deplorable condition. Bad enough that she’d staggered this far.
Time for damage control. He jerked her into the garage, unlocked his BMW coupe and bundled her into the passenger’s seat. Not gently, he shoved her down onto her side. “Keep your head down,” he snarled.
He left her there weeping while he went in to deal with Helen.
He found her in the foyer, shrugging on the elegantly crumpled white linen jacket that matched her suit, tucking
a nonexistent wisp up into her smoothly coiffed blond hair. She glimmered with accents of gold and diamonds. Who’d guess that a world-class bitch lurked behind that perfectly groomed, angelic façade?
He gathered his energy. “Something’s come up,” he said. “A medical emergency. I can’t take Chloe to the party.”
Helen’s eyes went blank for a moment, and then the lower lids quivered and crept up, as they always did when she was angry with him. Which was to say, every instant of every goddamn day.
“You’re lying. Of course.” Her voice had that low tremor of martyrdom that made him want to wrap his fingers around that slender white throat and squeeze until her blue eyes popped. “You’re going to play with one of your whores, I imagine.”
He grabbed his briefcase, which was always at the ready near the door. “It’s work, Helen,” he said, with steely patience.
“Isn’t it always?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Well then, why not take Chloe on your way? The Zimmers are en route to your office. Which I assume is the site of your, ah, medical emergency?” Her voice rang with righteous challenge.
He thought of Diana, sweating and sobbing outside in his car, and silently cursed her for being so weak. Falling apart on him like a wet paper bag just when things got critical. “I do not have time to swing by the Zimmers. Just as I do not have time for this conversation.”
“Daddy?” Chloe appeared on the stairs. His daughter had inherited her mother’s spectacularly bad timing. She gave him a dewylashed look of desperate entreaty. “If I have to wait for Mom to take Libby to GianPiero’s, I’ll miss the party! I swear, you just have to drop me off, it’s not like you have to go in and chat, and I—”
“No!” he bellowed. “God, how many times do I have to say it?”
Chloe jerked back, mouth quivering, and ran up the stairs.
Extreme Danger Page 30
