Certified Male

by Kristin Hardy

  His eyes seemed darker, deeper as she leaned closer. She flicked a glance at his mouth and her tongue darted out to lick her own lips. She wanted this, she thought, tipping her head slightly. For tonight Jerry and the stamps could take a backseat. For tonight she just wanted.

  And then their mouths came together and she didn’t have to want anymore.

  Her fingers were still curled in his but she didn’t feel it. All her awareness was concentrated in the feel of his mouth on hers. He didn’t just kiss, he savored, feasting on her as though she were some rare delicacy. A shift, a nip, a quick slick of tongue. There was a sumptuousness in the slide of lip against lip, temptation in the taste. Her system began to buzz.

  When his hand slid to cup her neck and pull her closer, Gwen went willingly. When his mouth opened against hers, she made a little sound of pleasure in her throat. It didn’t matter that she hardly knew him, that he was just a pair of teasing eyes and a devilish smile. Something about him tempted her to take a risk. Something about him sent desire surging through her with an intensity she couldn’t recall feeling before.

  In the casino a cacophony indicated that someone had won a big jackpot, but neither of them even registered the noise. All that mattered was this moment, this place, this feeling.

  If he’d felt the need to take before, now Del fought the urge to plunder. Up close, her scent wove around his senses, making him imagine her naked, hot and urgent against him. Her mouth was warm and alive. She tasted of Courvoisier and arousal, he thought hazily. Driven by the slide of her tongue over his, the nip of her teeth, he only wanted more.

  And so he took the kiss deeper.

  The teasing swirl of her tongue around his had desire coiling in his belly. She might have been an enigma, but her trembling response didn’t lie. Throughout the night she’d been an odd mix of uncertainty and confidence. There was nothing tentative here now, though, only a heated certainty that sent urgency thudding through his system.

  Finally Del broke away. He sat for a moment, waiting for his system to level. It was going to take a while, he realized. “You pack quite a punch,” he told her.

  “So do you.” It took her two tries to get the words out. Gwen stared back at him, breathing hard. She wanted, oh, she wanted. If he could take her this far with just a kiss, how much more was waiting for her? Her lips still felt as though they were vibrating, she realized. And she wanted more. She leaned toward him again, but he stopped her.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else,” he said, staring at her. “Someplace less…public.”

  She nodded, not in answer to the words he’d said but to the question in his eyes. “I think you’re right.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Gwen leaned forward to press a kiss on him. “Oh, yeah,” she breathed. Del tossed a twenty on the table and rose, catching her hand.

  And a bubble of exhilaration began to swell in her chest.

  It wasn’t her usual style. Gwen dated clean-cut, serious men who took her to a few weeks of movies, concerts and dinners before they segued into decorous sex. That part usually lasted until she was bored mindless with them. She certainly didn’t pick up the kind of men who hung out in casinos. She definitely didn’t kiss them in bars the first night she’d met them, even if they did have perfectly delicious mouths.

  And she absolutely didn’t wind up in bed with them.

  Maybe it was being in Vegas, maybe it was the cosmopolitans, but suddenly it didn’t matter. Suddenly what she wanted was this moment with this man. She could go back to being careful and deliberate Gwen tomorrow.

  Nina was taking over.

  5

  THE ELEVATOR WAS A BLUR, THE walk down the hall a desperate trek broken up by pauses to just stand fused together, desperate to get their hands on one another. Finally they stood at a door, Del fumbling for his passkey.

  Gwen had never known anything like this before. Certainly sex had involved some excitement, but all to a manageable level. Getting swept up in passion was what Joss did, not Gwen. Gwen kept things tidy and controlled.

  But now she was Nina, and Nina wanted no truck with tidy and controlled. Nina wanted hot. Nina wanted the rough feel of a man’s hands, the pumping urgency of his body.

  Nina wanted it all.

  Gwen leaned against him, up on tiptoe. “I want you naked,” she whispered over his shoulder. “Now.”

  And the door latch clicked open.

  Inside the room Del groped for a light switch, and a recessed light in the entryway came on. It was as though Gwen had a fever in her blood. She was hot, light-headed with wanting. Del turned to her and she flowed into his arms.

  She’d never been kissed like this. She’d never had a hot mouth and a pair of hands fling her into arousal so quickly. As he pressed her against the wall and took the kiss deeper, she could taste a faint hint of the bourbon he’d been drinking. The stroke of tongue against tongue sent desire arrowing through her. He was hard, she could feel it, and she shivered a little with anticipation as she shifted her hips in response.

  He groaned. With an exultant laugh Gwen broke the kiss and let herself nuzzle his throat, the skin taut under her lips. She could feel his hard-muscled body under the shirt and made a noise of impatience.

  “More,” she breathed. “I want more.” Her mouth still on his, she stepped back enough to push his shirt away from his shoulders, and he shrugged it off.

  And she caught a breath of delight. His was a body made for movement, the arms hard and sculpted, the belly corrugated with muscle. She traced her fingers down over the ripples of his abs. When he sucked in a breath, she dipped lower to trace over the swell of his hard-on under his jeans.

  She wanted the feel of his skin against hers. Gwen reached for the hem of her own top, but Del caught at her hands. “Oh, no, that’s for me to do,” he murmured. He slipped his hands around her waist, sliding over the bare skin and up under the stretchy crop top she wore. His fingers trailed up her back, and the immediacy of the contact made her shiver, and shiver again when he slid them around to the front to fill his hands with the curves of her breasts. The fabric diminished the sensation, and she strained against him with a noise of frustration. She wanted his touch on her naked breasts. Instead he slid his hands up her sides and along her arms, until the rolled-up shirt was just a memory tossed across the room.

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” Del said hoarsely as he stepped back and just looked at her in her sheer black bra. She flushed and glanced down, pulling her arms in toward her in what seemed like a reflex action. Catching her wrists, he pulled them gently aside. “Let me look at you. You’re such a turn-on.”

  She was delicious, all soft and curvy. He wanted more, though. One minute she was all confidence, the next minute self-conscious. There was something about the way she met his eyes, suddenly hesitant. He wanted it gone. He wanted her wet and abandoned, twisting against him. He wanted to hear her cry out. He wanted to taste her. Reaching down, he unzipped her jeans. “These come off. Now.”

  Slipping the denim down, he savored the feel of her silky skin against his palms, then pressed her back onto the ridiculously high sleigh bed that mirrored the decadence of the rest of the hotel. One at a time he pulled off her spike-heeled shoes. Her jeans followed and he tossed them aside.

  She sat up. “I want to…”

  “No.” He pressed her down. “Let me.” He started at her instep, kissing the tender skin, then tracing the inside of her calves with his tongue. Working his way up her thighs, he pleased himself by teasing her, licking close to the silky lace at the vee between her legs, going just under the edge before moving away. Because he had plans and he was nothing if not a patient man.

  Rising, he stripped off his own jeans and leaned over the bed. Her breathing became more ragged and she shuddered a little as he moved up over her flat belly, along the sides of her waist. With a snap he unfastened the front clasp of her bra and peeled back the cups.

  Dry-mouthed with anticipation, Gwen stared up at h
im. The touch, when it came, wasn’t the cupping of a hand or the brush of fingers but the stroke of a tongue, wet and warm against her. She licked her lips and waited for more. When he bent to her breasts again, he took his time, until the suction and rub of his tongue over her swollen nipples started an answering resonance down where she was wet and fevered.

  Tension tightened her and she twined her fingers in his hair, drawing him up to her so that she could press a hard, openmouthed kiss on him. She curved her arms around him, mad for him to lie alongside her, but he kept away. “Later,” he promised and moved back down her body.

  This time he focused on her breasts, kneading them, rolling the nipples with light pressure as he kissed his way down her body. The brush of the hair on his forearms against her body made her shudder, the warmth of his lips made her toss and turn. When she felt him slip off her lacy underwear, she slid her fingers into his hair. “Oh, god,” she breathed.

  The mattress gave just a bit as he settled himself between her legs. She felt the brush of his hair against her inner thigh, felt the warmth of his breath. Every atom of her being was tensed in anticipation. Her hips moved just a bit, involuntarily. He gave a chuckle deep in his throat and settled himself between her legs. “Not until you’re begging.”

  Lightly, maddeningly lightly, his tongue brushed the lips that enfolded her clitoris. When he separated them, she gave a hum of satisfaction and expectation, but he ignored the hard bud where she ached to be touched. Instead he licked at her folds, dipped inside her, touched her everywhere but the point that would give her release.

  She clawed at his shoulders, pulled him toward her. “Please,” she managed. “Oh, please.”

  And then his mouth was on her, sending her gasping and flinging her head back into the pillow. Hard and relentless, he drove her, tongue tracing maddening patterns that sent her flailing upward toward some crest, some climax, some pinnacle of ultimate release.

  Yet just as she was trembling at the edge, he backed off again, leaving her achingly unfulfilled while he teased her with other touches, his hands on her breasts, his mouth against her thigh. She dragged at him, hands on his head as she urged him to take her over.

  And he did, his mouth driving her up, sending her gasping, hips jolting against him, seeking that final touch. But just when he had her shuddering, crying out mindlessly, just when she could feel the climax looming, he moved away.

  “Don’t stop,” she cried raggedly, the pressure of the unrealized orgasm pounding through her.

  “I’m not. I’m just changing gears.” Breathing hard, Del slid off to stand beside the high bed. She felt a little thrill as he pulled her to the edge, stepping close enough to stretch her legs up the length of his torso, her ankles hooked over his shoulders. Stiff and hard, his cock jerked just a little with arousal as he sheathed it. Then he took the head of it and slid it into the slick cleft between her legs, running it up and down a few times, each brush of the smooth skin against her engorged clitoris making her gasp.

  “Oh, like that,” she rasped, but he shook his head.

  “I think you’re resourceful enough to do it for yourself,” he murmured and in that instant pumped his hips to slide into her up to the root.

  Thick, hard, solid, it dragged a cry from her. Moving against him, she savored every bit of friction as his cock slid in and out, in and out. She trembled on the edge of orgasm.

  But she didn’t quite go over. It was taunting to feel so much, to have his hands sliding up and down her legs and still have her desire remain unslaked.

  She had to do something or she’d go mad. She needed hands on her breasts, needed something to ease the throb. One hand crept closer to the vee between her legs. When her finger slid into the warm wetness, when she felt the slide of it over the hard knob of her clitoris, she gasped.

  “Oh, yeah, touch yourself,” Del said softly, and Gwen swore he got harder. “Show me what you like.” He caught her ankles and moved them apart a little, watching her avidly, watching himself move in and out of her.

  Any vestige of self-consciousness was gone. Gwen circled her finger over her clit, each touch tightening the tension that strung her taut, each touch in time with the hard, swift strokes of his cock. She was almost delirious with the sensation that battered her from all directions. Close to the edge, she was so close she didn’t think but raised her free hand to her breast, brushing the tender skin, squeezing the nipple.

  “Oh, man,” Del cried out raggedly, even as the bolt of sensation flung her over the edge to orgasm. It was hard, jolting, tearing staccato cries from her as the pleasure battered her over and over again. And even as she was still shuddering with pleasure, he groaned and spilled himself.

  SOFTNESS. WARMTH. DEL REDMOND woke to find his face pressed against a fragrant spill of hair, his arms full of silky, curvy woman. It wasn’t an experience he’d had very much of since his divorce two years before. Or very much the year or so before his divorce, come to think of it. He liked it, the way Nina fit in his arms, spooned against him. He liked it a lot.

  As to the night before, well, it had been mind-blowing, pure and simple. The way she’d touched him, the way she’d moved, had brought him astonishing release. The two of them might not know each other from Adam outside of bed, but in it they were incredibly compatible.

  Of course, he was in Vegas to work, not to have a fling with a woman. Then again, so long as he got the job done, who was to care? And this wasn’t just any woman. This was a woman who attracted him, who aroused him.

  Who intrigued him.

  A low whine had him glancing at the nightstand to see his muted cell phone flashing. Recognizing the number, he gave a quiet curse and slipped his arm out from under Nina. She rolled over with a sleepy murmur, dragging the covers with her.

  Del rose and headed to the bathroom. “Redmond here,” he said, closing the door and sitting down on the edge of the tub.

  “It’s ten-thirty in the morning. Where’s your copy, Redmond?”

  “Morning, Perry, how are you?” Del could picture Ed Perry, the Globe’s comfortably paunchy sports editor, his balding head counterbalanced by a neat Vandyke.

  “How am I? Not nearly as good as you, I’m sure. So where’s my column on the poker life, champ? What are you doing—drinking, chasing after women?”

  Del glanced uneasily at the door. “I wrote a story yesterday. I’ll get it filed this morning.”

  “You know, I send you to Vegas, plum assignment. This is not what I expect in thanks.”

  “Hey, this was your bright idea, not mine.” Walking to the counter, Del pulled his electric shaver out of his leather toilet kit.

  “Who was the one bitching about another year covering the All-Star game?”

  “Me,” Del admitted.

  “Is that a razor I hear? Are you shaving?” Perry demanded. “You really have spent the day in bed.”

  “You’re the one who’s always telling me to multitask,” Del reminded him. “I’m not a gambler, Perry. The last time I was in Vegas was when I played here in college.”

  “Not a gambler, huh?” the editor grunted. “So how was it again you fleeced me for forty bucks in last week’s poker game?”

  Del moved the razor in circles over one cheek, then the other. “Look, a friendly poker game with the guys to drink beer and shoot the shit is one thing. Out here you’re talking hard core. These people are up all night. Everything I own reeks of cigarette smoke.” He ran the razor along his jaw.

  “Switch that thing the hell off, will you? It’s buzzing in my ear like a mosquito.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

  “Me? What about you? Anyway, you were getting stale. I figured something different would shake you up.”

  Del snorted. “Hardly. You just wanted to distract me from the newsroom job.”

  “Newsroom job?” Perry repeated innocently.

  “Don’t give me that. You know I want to apply for that opening in the metro section.”

  Perry sigh
ed. “Del, you’ve got a good gig here in sports. Why do you want to gum up the works going after an entry-level reporter’s job?”

  “You just don’t want to have to break in a new writer.”

  “I just don’t want to see you get shot down.”

  “Why would I be?” Del scowled. “I’ve worked on the sports section for nearly eight years, since I washed out of the pros.”

  “Yeah, and the whole time there’s been a crew of bright-eyed kids over in the newsroom busy building their contacts so they can get half a dozen city hall staffers on the phone for a story. You can get Felipe Alou. You can’t compete, Del.”

  “Let them tell me that,” he snapped. “I want stories that take work. I want to dig, not just interview a bunch of genetically gifted millionaires.”

  “You’ve got a gift for interviewing genetically gifted millionaires.”

  Del sat back down and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve got a little bit of one for investigation, too. What about that series I did on the BALCO scandal?”

  “Some good work there,” Perry admitted reluctantly.

  “I want to do more.”

  “Fine. The doping scandal’s still going. Follow it up.”

  “It’s not enough, Perry.”

  “What is this, an early midlife crisis? Is this about the divorce?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Del rose and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I just know I took the easy way out for way too long and it didn’t get me anywhere I wanted to be. I want to make something happen, not just take what comes my way.”

  “Sports not good enough for you?” A hard note entered Perry’s voice.