“So if I was, you wouldn’t want me to tell you?” he asked. He took a seat on the edge of the bed, just within her reach.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said not to tell you if I was a virgin,” he reminded her.
“You’re not a virgin.”
“How would you know?”
“Because you look like that. Girls are probably throwing themselves at you all the time. And here I am, looking like I should drive carpool.”
“Some of the best women in the world drive carpool, Eliza.”
“True, but it doesn’t exactly burn calories.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a good plan for that, Miss Brightwell.”
“You’re just saying anything to get me in bed. Which is kinda silly considering I’m already in your bed and I want you to get in here with me.”
“Yeah, but you’ve still got clothes on,” he said with a grin.
“You gave me these clothes.”
“Huge mistake.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t take ‘em off.”
“You sure you don’t want to rest?” he asked.
“No, I’d much rather use every inch of your body to avoid dealing with post traumatic stress or whatever it is I’m probably about to be diagnosed with.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about being objectified,” he said with a huge grin that said he loved the idea.
“Well, you’re not feeling anything yet. You need to get in bed for that part.”
“Still, I’m nervous…”
“About what?”
“I just…I want this to be just right,” he said. “You’re not some girl in a bar. You’re Eliza Brightwell and I want to do everything to make this perfect.”
“Tell me you’re not serious,” she said.
“Of course I’m serious,” he said, the hurt evident in his voice.
“No, Danny. That’s not it. It’s… You saved my life. You kept me alive during a blizzard with just some wood and a stove.”
“And a Buick. Don’t forget the Buick.”
“I haven’t. I won’t. My point is, what else could you possibly do to make this perfect?”
“You really mean that?”
“I can’t lie to you, Danny. Not after last night. And not after what you told me back at the station. I could never lie to you again.”
Only once the words were out of her mouth did she realize they sounded like some kind of vow. Because they were here. A promise. A promise that wasn’t about the next forty-five minutes they spent together in his bed, or the next few weeks she was probably going to be forced to spend in Surrender. The promise she’d just made to Danny was about the future, a future she wanted him to be a part of.
“Never lie to me again?” he asked with a broad grin. “That makes it sound like we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Are we?”
“Can we? Please?”
“You don’t have to say please, Eliza. Not this time.”
“Okay… Then get in bed with me.”
“All right, well, just as long as you’re sure you’re not doing this because you think you owe me.”
“What?” She pulled the towel free of his grip with one tug. It slid down his hard thighs then slipped over his knees before falling to the carpet, revealing his cock at the ready. “This?”
He looked powerful and strong, but also exposed and vulnerable, and the combination shortened her breaths, made her face flush. There was something about the innocent, expectant expression and his thick, gasp-inducing erection that nailed her to the mattress, made her pulse ring in her ears. Unlike many of her girlfriends, she didn’t want a man to take relentless control, to bend her over the hood of his car and ask questions later. She wanted a man who tested, tasted, and adjusted based on her response. She wanted a man who could take instructions. She’d never tied a man up, but she liked to give an order now and then.
This fact of her desire had always shamed her, as if her need to turn a man into a student of her pleasure was a perversion of the years she’d spent as a teacher. Only now did she realize it was Lance who’d put this thought in her head. Whenever she’d tried to guide or instruct him in the bedroom, he’d snarled some version of, “I’m not one of your damn students.” In the process, she’d been left with the crazy notion that being honest about her needs somehow put her in league with child molesters.
Time to put that crazy line of thought in jail along with her ex-husband.
Now, Danny Patterson filled those hidden and overlooked parts of herself with lust and light, and she had no choice but to explore them.
In his bed, with his hand reaching up to draw the comforter off her body. With his hard, muscular body glistening in the light from the bathroom, his cock engorged and jerking just from the anticipation of touching her.
It was, without a doubt, the most erotic thing she’d ever felt, the feel of his hard, naked body coming to rest atop hers, and its deliciousness was compounded by the fact that he didn’t rush to pull her clothes off. He kissed her instead. Taking all the sweet time they didn’t have up in that tiny hunting cabin. Her hands roamed his back, gripping the tight cheeks of his ass, savoring the hard flesh of him as their tongues found their perfect, intimate rhythm.
Then, after a while—she had no idea how long, exactly—her breaths were so rapid and high pitched he took them as a sign they’d passed a point of no return. He reared up onto his haunches, slid his old T-shirt up and over her breasts.
At the sight of her body exposed, he let out a small, controlled growl, the sound of a good and patient boy deciding to turn bad.
He kneaded, pinched, teased and nibbled, searching for spots that made her back arch and her toes curl. Once he slid his boxers down her legs, he leaned in close to her aching, moistened folds and inhaled. No man had ever done this to her before, taken in the raw scent of her as if it were deliciously hypnotic.
In the past, it was moments like these when she’d forced herself to stay silent, even as the desire to direct welled within her. This wasn’t the past. This was now. This was new. Not Lance, but Danny. Gorgeous, devoted and brave.
“Now, Danny,” she said. “Now…make me…”
“Now what?” he asked, his lips so close to her pussy his breath tickled her folds.
“Do it.”
“Do what, Eliza?” He placed his ring and index fingers on either side of her bud, grazing the edges of it, then closing his fingers so that on the return trip, he gave it a long, determined swipe.
“Fuck me, Danny.”
“Now? You mean, you want me to skip…”
He gave her a clit a gentle lick.
“No,” she gasped. “I want you to fuck me with your tongue, you sweet, dirty boy.”
That was all he needed. He started with a mad, focused flicker. Soon her bones felt molten and her thighs were rising off the bed, gripping his neck. He slid his hands under her ass and gripped her cheeks, drawing her sex harder against his hungry, working mouth. She was cursing. Screaming. Thanking God he didn’t have neighbors even as she thanked God for his gifted tongue.
“Am I doing a good job?” he asked, breathless. “Am I doing a good job of eating your pussy, Miss Brightwell?”
Oh, that was so like him, to spring the role-play on her now when it felt delicious and dirty and absolutely perfect.
“You’re doing a great job, Danny,” she gasped. “Now sit up and let me see what a man you’ve grown up to be.”
He rocked back onto his haunches, his weight rolling off her, freeing her to rear up and crawl toward his cock—his beautiful, statuesque cock, which she took tenderly in both hands before sliding them gently along its length, a simple, light gesture that caused him to shudder. He let out a long, stuttering moan.
Was he about to come?
She released him just in case.
He drew several deep breaths to steady himself, then reached down and twined his fingers gently through her hair. She took that as a sig
n to go back to work.
“Eliza…”
“Yes, Danny.”
He didn’t shudder or groan as she stroked him, but he did bite his lower lip.
“Eliza…”
It was like her name had become a mantra designed to keep him connected to his body even as her touch alone threatened to blast him into the heavens.
“Yes, Danny,” she said, and gave the head of his cock a swift, gentle lick.
“Eliza. You are…”
“Yes?”
“You are…”
Before he could answer, she licked the length of his cock, squeezing the head in her palm. Then she gripped his shaft, swallowed his head and established two contrasting rhythms.
“Eliza…”
She groaned and kept working.
“Eliza!”
He went from gently stroking her head to gripping it.
“Eliza!”
She recognized a note of alarm in his voice, put two and two together, and got her mouth off his cock just in time.
He fell back onto his haunches, cock jerking as he erupted. God, it was a sight, and the beauty of it chased away her disappointment over having brought them here too quickly. The silent O of his mouth, the rippling tension shooting through his every visible muscle, the ropes of cum flying from his cock. It was like a Baroque sculpture carved by a filthy pervert.
Just at the moment when she thought he’d start apologizing and her own gratification would be delayed, Danny jumped off the side of the bed.
“Just one minute!”
“Wait…what? Where are you going?”
It all happened so fast. He was back on the bed and on top of her in no time. She’d heard the faucet run for a few seconds, and she’d glimpsed him tossing a hand towel behind him as he emerged from the bathroom. Then their mouths were inches apart and she was realizing he was clean and not remotely sticky as he kissed her and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
“Five minutes,” he said with a smile.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Just give me five minutes and I’ll be ready to go again.”
“Danny, you don’t have to…”
“Yes, I do. I do have to. And I want to.”
“Danny, you’ve been up all night. Let’s just get some rest and then maybe we can—”
“Five minutes,” he said with a smile.
“Danny. I wasn’t born yesterday, okay? I know it’s gonna take a lot longer than five minutes.”
His mouth to her, he growled, “Trust me. It won’t. There are advantages to being with a younger man, Miss Brightwell.”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s not put it exactly like that. That makes it sound a little—”
“How about I put it like this?” He took her right nipple gently between his teeth while he rolled the left between his thumb and finger. Suckling. Nibbling. Pinching. Kneading. Working his way back down her body. Returning to places he’d visited just moments before, only this time gently, leisurely, but persistently. Bringing her back to the place of burning hunger and aching need she’d been in when she’d reared up and taken his cock in both hands.
He surfaced after a while, kissing her as he rubbed his fresh erection against her folds, showing her how much he could feel for her and how quickly.
Advantages indeed, she thought.
“Give me permission,” he growled into her ear.
“Permission to what?” she teased.
“To fuck you so hard you can’t remember where you are. To fuck you so hard the only thing you know is that it’s me on top of you. Me inside you. Me tasting you. Me making you come so hard you feel like you’re gonna fly apart and I’m the only thing that can hold you together.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Yes, what, Eliza?”
“Fuck me, Danny. Fuck me like you’ve always wanted to.”
She’d lost herself in his dirty talk; the sound of the nightstand drawer sliding open and the brief ritual of the condom were vague suggestions. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this ready, this open. Maybe there hadn’t been a last time. Because it had never been him. It had never been Danny. Danny, who could read her body and her mind. Danny, who shared not only this electric intimacy, but who, during one of her lowest moments, had shared a story straight from his heart, a story designed to comfort and protect. And now he had sealed their bodies together, driving into her as he suckled her neck.
She’d never had a man take her quite like this, a man who managed to bury himself inside her without losing eye contact. A man who could kiss while he fucked. Two separate rhythms, sometimes meeting and overlapping, sometimes contrasting. Together they made for a sense of absolute connection.
This time, the bliss was a slow build, a heat that spread from her sex to the rest of her body. Pulsing in waves that forced her to close her eyes. Each pulse was so intense she couldn’t look at him and breathe at the same time. She had to choose between one or the other, and it didn’t matter, because even when she closed her eyes there was still Danny and only Danny. Driving, kissing, grunting, saying her name like the very sound of it sustained him. And when the pulses turned into a single wash of pleasure that shot through her from head to toe, he increased his thrusts. Didn’t vary the rhythm. Drove hard but steady, his every muscle now devoted to her gratification and release. And when she finally came, it felt like a hard shell inside of her cracked, and the terror and regret of the past few days came tumbling out before he drove them away with a series of powerful thrusts.
“Hey,” he whispered.
And that’s when she realized she was crying. He settled down next to her, reached down and slid the condom off so it wouldn’t irritate her as he snuggled up to her.
She tried to speak, but she couldn’t. She didn’t regret what they’d done, not for a second. But she’d never experienced this kind of emotional release before coming so quickly on the back of pure pleasure. If there was such a thing as therapeutic orgasm—and Lord knows, someone in California had probably already come up with the term—this was it. Right here.
“Hey,” he whispered gently.
“So good,” she managed through her tears. “No…so good…”
“Okay,” he whispered, stroking the side of her cheek with one bent finger. “Okay.”
“Just. So much, you know? So much but…so good.”
She’d heard about this from friends who’d been to chiropractors, that some muscle would get released in the course of their session and all sorts of emotions would come tumbling out. This was a version of that, times ten.
After a few minutes, he gently whisked her lingering tears away with a finger, which tickled her cheeks and caused her to giggle.
“I guess after what we’ve been through there was a lot of pent-up energy there,” he said.
“There was a lot of pent-up everything.”
“But it’s out now.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“No…no. It’s just… All the frustration and all the anger, you can’t get rid of it all at once, I don’t think. It’s always going to be around. But with you here, it’s…”
“So you want to go again?” he asked. “See if we can get the rest of it?”
Was he kidding? When she saw his big, mischievous grin, she cracked up. A second, less intense release.
“Oh, Danny.”
“Oh, Eliza.”
“I don’t ever want to leave this bed,” she said before she could think twice about it.
“Who said you had to?”
“Eventually…”
“Eventually what?”
“You’re sure you’re not going to get sick of me once the whole drama fades? Once you realize everything I put you through?”
“There you go again. Blaming yourself for things you didn’t do.”
“Give me time.”
“I will,” he said. “I will give you time. Lots of time, Eliza. Time
for this to become exactly what it needs to be. Time for you to stay in this bed, my bed, for as long as you want.”
She wanted to protest. She wanted to call him a silly boy. Wanted to dismiss him, contain him. Because sometimes it was easier to go back to old habits and bad situations than it was to embrace the future, especially when the future was as beautiful and bright and exceptional as Danny Patterson. Deputy Danny Patterson, proud member of the Surrender Sheriff’s Department, who had saved her from bullets and ice and two crazy criminals who didn’t know shit about snow and cars.
“Are you sure, Danny?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Good. ‘Cause I’m going to need a lot of time in this bed, and a lot of time with you.”
Another unhurried kiss, another close embrace.
“With me, Eliza, you’ve got all the time you need and we can spend it wherever you like.”
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Marnie Whitlock has never known what it’s like to be normal. She and her family moved from place to place, hiding from reporters and psychologists, all because of her gift. A curse was more like it. Seeing a victim, feeling his pain as the last of his life ebbed away, and being helpless to save him. It was torture. And then one day it disappeared and she was free. Until those who hunted her for her gift tried to kill her. And then the gift came back with a vengeance.
Beckett Hamilton leads a simple life. His ranch is profitable and a legacy he’ll be proud to pass onto his children one day, work fills his time from sunup to sundown, and his romances are short and sweet. He wouldn’t have it any other way. And then he runs into quiet and reserved Marnie Whitlock just after she moves to town. She intrigues him like no woman ever has. And she’s hiding something. His hope is that she begins to trust him before it’s too late.
Desire & Ice: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) Page 7
