by Em Petrova
But it would be nice to hear if he was okay. If he thought of her.
At her stop, she hurried down the bus steps and onto the sidewalk. The little neighborhood was quiet, with a few apartment buildings clustered on each side of the street. From what she noticed, a lot of married people lived here, and about six o’clock every evening, cars filled up various driveways and took over the parking spaces on the street.
When she entered her apartment, she set down her bag and inhaled the calming lavender incense she’d started burning from day one. She needed all the serenity she could get to start her new chapter in life right.
She kicked off her boots, hung her coat and flopped on the purple couch. Total silence flooded her senses.
Another night of quiet.
Of work on her project.
Of being lonely.
At least tomorrow she could share a pizza with her new critique group and join in a geeky chat about filmography.
Smiling to herself, she plumped a pillow beneath her head. She just got comfy when a knock sounded on the door.
She bolted up.
Only one person had ever knocked on that door.
River.
She ran across the room and tripped on her boot. Slamming a palm into the door to keep from trundling headfirst into the wood, she lurched onto tiptoe at the same time to press her eye to the peephole.
A scream escaped her, and she whipped open the door to River.
His eyes danced. “Christ, you’re gorgeous.” He tossed his bag in the door and lifted her off her feet.
“River!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and inhaled his musky scent. His scent had worn off the pillow he’d slept on that night they spent together.
“I missed you so much.”
He kicked the door shut and twisted the lock. “I’m going to show you how much I missed you, baby. But first, I’m gonna give you hell for not locking this door. You know that, right?”
“I just got in.”
He leveled a look at her that told her that security was a top priority with him.
“I promise I will next time. Now...” She dipped her stare to his lips.
His gaze filled with a hungry heat. “How did you get even prettier?”
She dipped her head at the compliment. “Must be the Alaska air.”
He leaned closer. His breath washed over her lips, teasing her almost beyond her control. “Let’s baptize your new digs.”
“Yes!” She kissed him as he practically dragged her, caveman-style, across the living room.
He stopped. “Is this a purple couch?”
“Uh-huh.”
He tumbled her onto the cushions and hovered over her.
“I take it you’re feeling fine now,” she said.
“I do have this problem.”
Her brows creased as she stared up at him. “What’s wrong?”
He did an erotic pushup, grinding his bulging erection into her pussy.
She bit her lip against a laugh. “Feels as if it might be swollen.”
When his grin flashed, she thought her heart would burst. The young man she knew and hadn’t seen after she picked him up from the hospital was back and in full teasing force.
As he lowered his mouth to hers, she sucked in a gasp and locked him in her arms. Need sprang up like a hot, bubbling geyser. His lips crushed hers perfectly. His tongue swept over hers, leaving a dizzying rush of sensation she couldn’t cling to before a new one jumped into its place.
He churned his hips in an erotic dance that left her gasping. Passion flowed over, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders to draw him closer. She wanted to feel his weight pressing on her.
To feel him moving inside her.
“You look beautiful in pink.” He leaned away enough to strip her fuzzy pink sweater over her head. Underneath, her bralette matched the baby pink hue.
He took a look at her and shook his head. “Christ. You actually glow, Sascha.” He attacked her throat, kissing up and down and nipping her earlobes too. As he drove her crazy by kissing her neck, he removed her bra. When he ducked and took her hard nipple between his lips, she cried out.
Locking her hand to his nape, she held him there. He sucked and nibbled her nipple until she arched off the sofa. Her insides were heated mush, and a dark quiver of desire had her rocking against his steely thigh that settled between her legs.
River moved to her other nipple and lapped a circle around it. She tossed her head back on another rough cry, driven just as crazy by his soft licks as she was by the graze of his teeth.
He unlaced his boots and kicked them off. Then he slid off the sofa and hit his knees beside it. Watching a gorgeous, muscled special operative peel off his clothes turned her on just as much as his mouth on her. He removed his outer layer and shirt, leaving him in only black cargo pants and a whole lot of muscle.
His gaze drilled into her. “Slide your hand inside your panties and touch your pussy for me.”
A shock of excitement hit her. Nobody had ever made such a request—or left her so wet in the blink of an eye.
Sliding her hand into the waist of her leggings, she lay sprawled on the couch with River gazing down on her as if she was the tastiest treat he ever saw.
Heat climbed her throat. Her breaths came faster. When her fingertip touched her wet clit, she wanted to squeeze her eyes shut on the pleasure coursing through her, but she held them open to see her lover’s reaction.
“Does it feel good, baby?”
“Uhhhyess.”
“Are you rubbing your clit for me?”
“Yesss.” The word escaped as a breathless hiss.
“Remember me watching you touch yourself. I want you to remember for when I’m not here.”
Her breath hitched, and she slipped her finger down her seam to dip into her soaking entry.
Her nipples peaked. She shuddered all over, the experience heightened by River’s heavy stare pinning her down.
“Fuck yeah.” He took her by the hips and yanked her to the edge of the cushion, where he proceeded to tear her leggings off her body, dragging her panties with them.
Still staring at her, he stroked his thumbs slowly up her inner thighs from knees to her apex. His callused thumbs brushed over her pussy lips. She shuddered with desire and anticipation.
“I’ve been so goddamn hungry for you, baby.” He slid his thumbs down her outer lips to her ass and then back up again.
“Taste me, River. Please.” Her ragged plea seemed to ignite the charge of powder in him ready to go off.
He thumbed her apart and lunged forward to lick her pussy. Her insides clutched when he thrust his tongue in and lapped as deep as he could reach. She bucked upward, and he caught her ass in one broad palm, cradling her, lifting her into his mouth.
Her cries grew wilder by the moment. As he flattened his tongue over her clit, grinding it into her body, he plunged two fingers into her pussy. Panting, she concentrated on holding on to her control. She refused to succumb to another early release. No, she planned to savor this moment as long as she could.
Her chest heaved in a struggle to get enough air. River’s hot mouth drove her higher and higher. When he strummed her G-spot, the first thrum of release threatened.
He growled. The vibration coupled with the pressure of his tongue…of his fingertips…sent her sailing.
She bit off a scream and shook through intense waves while he continued to tongue and finger her to completion. Her breaths rasped for what felt like minutes.
Lowering her to the sofa again, he pulled his tongue free of her folds. Her mind blurred with passion, and she reached for him. But he took his time withdrawing his fingers from her pussy.
When he stuck them in his mouth and sucked, she nearly passed out.
But then he smeared her juices over her nipple, leaned in and sucked it off.
“Oh…my…God.”
He shot her a wicked grin along with a more wicked glimmer in his eyes. “I might have
fantasized about doing that a time or two.”
Without warning, he plunged his fingers deep into her core, gathered more of her juice and repeated the act. The pressure building inside her couldn’t last long before she blew. She trembled under the lash of his tongue licking her own cream off her nipple.
After he drank his fill, he eased his hands under her and dragged her to the floor with him.
They rolled onto the carpet with her stretched on top of him.
She shot him a smile. “I had a few fantasies myself.”
Sliding down his body, she unzipped his fly and drew out his long, thick erection.
Chapter Seven
Hepburn’s eyes flickered shut at the first touch of Sascha’s hot mouth on the head of his cock.
His chances of lasting vanished as she slicked her tongue across the ridge, riding the circumference and driving a growl to his lips.
“Sascha…baby…” He pressed on her chin to open her mouth wider at the moment she sucked him in.
Watching his veined length disappear into her sweet mouth just about stripped away the last shred of his mind. Need tingled at the base of his spine and pounded in his balls.
She wrapped her fingers around his base and sucked his length down to her hand. She fixed her gaze on his face, and seeing her enjoy his pleasure gave him a sensation of freefalling.
He palmed her cheek as she pulled off his cock. He never expected her to dip the point of her tongue into his slit and gather his precum.
“Fuck! Baby…”
She took him again, her sucking pull harder, drawing the cum from his balls.
“I can’t blow in your mouth, as much as I want to. I want in your pussy.”
Her pupils drew to pinpricks at his dirty talk.
He couldn’t fucking take it another minute.
Flipping her, he shoved off the mass of his cargo pants in the same move. She spread her legs for him.
“No condom,” he grated as he centered the tip of his arousal at her wet folds.
“Just us.”
He wasn’t prepared for what those two little words would do to him. The urge to shove deep and claim her burned.
But he remained still. Aching. Throbbing. About to fucking blow.
And falling harder for her.
Their gazes locked. Her swollen lips tipped him over.
With a hard jerk of his hips, he filled her. She took every inch. He buried himself to the balls, and she angled her hips to take more.
His mind hazed out as he started to move. Her soft cries echoed his groans. Leaning in, he captured her lips on a deep kiss that spiraled from heated to tender to wild.
Feeling her arch beneath him as her release ripped through her called to some deep need to…to… Thinking proved impossible right now, because his release hit.
He didn’t just fill her—he flooded her. The primal instinct to own her in all ways spurred him to the end.
At some point, he rolled to his side, bringing her on top of him. Her bare toe rode up his calf, and she toyed with his nipple, stretching her fingers over it.
“Will it always be this way?” she whispered.
Christ, he wasn’t thinking. He’d treated her like a piece of meat, bursting through her front door and fucking her like some beast.
“I’m sorry, Sascha. I should have offered to take you out or at least had a conversation before I—”
She pressed her finger over his mouth to silence him.
“Why are you apologizing for giving me the most amazing sex of my life?”
After the month he’d had, his rumble of laughter caught him off guard. First the accident and then returning to his unit only to find that men in the armed forces were dying at the hands of a serial killer. Even knowing Sascha lived in the state made him worry. But in the end, coming to her today left him with a peace he hadn’t felt forever.
He cupped her cheek. “Maybe I should apologize for not taking you again.”
“Why apologize when you can just do it?” she tempted with a dollop of Texas sass.
Laughing, he flipped her onto the carpet and hovered over her. “Why don’t I take you to the shower this time?”
They never made it to the shower. But River took her to bed and kept her there long into the wee hours. After that, he woke her by swinging his legs over the mattress.
He reached for his boxer briefs.
“Where are you going?” Her voice projected as a groggy rasp edged with satisfaction from their last marathon sex encounter.
His spine rippled with muscle as he drew his briefs up his hard thighs and over his carved ass. “I’m gonna make you some breakfast.”
“It’s still dark.”
“That’s Alaska, baby. It’s O-six hundred.”
She sat up, tugging the sheet over her bare breasts. “Do you have to leave?”
He met her gaze and then nodded. “But I have time to fix you eggs. If you have any.”
“I do.” She swung her legs out of bed and padded to the bathroom while he finished dressing.
When she came out, she smelled butter frying and smiled to herself. Being with River, even for a short romp and a homecooked breakfast, made her heart patter faster for the man.
Way back when, she teetered on the verge of falling in love with him. One more heated look from him and she might have been too far gone by the time he left. She was glad she hadn’t fallen in love with him while young and inexperienced, because now she could revel in every heart-throbbing, exciting moment.
She threw on some comfy clothes and walked into the small kitchen. River’s back faced her as he fried eggs.
“I could only find this small frying pan.” He shot her a smile over his shoulder.
“I just bought one. It’s all I need.”
He turned away, but not before she saw his lips compress.
“Do you really have to go?”
Holding the spatula, he twisted to look at her again. “I can’t stay. I wish to hell I could.”
“Where’s your team?”
“Here in Anchorage.”
Her brows shot up. “On a mission?”
He evaded her question with a roll of his shoulders she took as a shrug.
“Will you be joining them?”
“Yes. They’ll be picking me up in…” He glanced at his watch. “Half hour.”
She drifted across the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee in the single-serve machine. “Do you want a cup?”
“Sure.”
They’d spent little time together in a domestic fashion. She liked it—a little too much. As soon as she was on her own again, she’d miss it. For the first time, she understood military spouses and their struggles to hold together a life without the person they loved.
“What have you been doing?” He flipped the eggs and stood back from the range to watch her. “Have you been working on your documentary?”
“Yes. And I enrolled in U of A. I came in at the right time between semesters.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I’ve been getting some footage for my documentary that I’m really proud of.” She walked over to him and handed him a mug of coffee.
He took the big green mug that said Proud Dad on the side.
“Uh…do you have something to tell me?”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“This.” He raised the mug to display the words.
A giggle burst from her, loud and long considering the early hour of the day. She had to set aside her mug to keep from spilling it, though some sloshed onto her shirt. “You thought I was…” She wheezed a second and then shook her head. “No, I’m not expecting your baby. It’d be too early to know anyway. And I’m on birth control. If I weren’t, I would have insisted you use a condom, River.”
“So what’s with the mug?” A serious light came into his eyes.
She went on tiptoe to offer him a kiss. “It’s thrifted. I like how big it is. Your eggs are burning.”
Snappe
d back to his task, he flipped the eggs onto a plate and cracked three more into a pan for himself.
“Do you want fruit?” she asked him, moving to the fridge.
“Sure.”
She withdrew a container of fruit salad.
“So the campus.” He turned from the range again while his eggs sizzled in butter. “What’s the security like?”
“Seems safe enough.”
“Did you look at the website? Were there statistics on the number of cameras and guards on campus?”
She stared at him. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I am. Sascha, your safety’s important to me.”
Warmed by his words, she sent him a look. “I’m safe.”
“Watch the eggs a second. I have to get something.”
She moved to the range and flipped his eggs before he returned with some object enveloped in his fist. “What is that?”
He held out his palm to reveal a black canister. “Keep this with you at all times.”
“Bear spray?”
He gave a single nod.
Seeing he wouldn’t be happy until she took the spray, she accepted it and set it aside on the counter.
“You know how to use it?” he pressed. “You never know what you’ll get into.”
“I’m an adult, a returning student, and I’ve navigated campuses before. But thank you, River.” To show she really did appreciate his worry for her, she slid her hand around his nape and drew him in for a kiss.
The soft brush of their lips sent a shiver through her.
He groaned and drew back. “You have no idea of the thoughts going through my mind.”
She arched a brow. “Such as?”
His eyes hooded. “Saying to hell with breakfast and laying you out on this old table, for starters.”
Her chest constricted, and her lower belly heated.
He moved in for another kiss, taking total control of her lips and tongue until she quivered.
Pulling free, she dumped his eggs onto a dish. They were a bit crispy on the edges after her distraction from cooking.
The tender smile he gave her as he accepted the plate and settled at the table beside her would linger with her long after he walked out the door again.
