by Foster, Lori
“They looked quite painful, actually. I tried not to get oil in them.”
“Shit.” He dropped his face into his hands and shook his head. “I should have canceled my appointment. No wonder you blew me off.” He looked up at her, his face a dull red. “This may sound lame, but please believe me, I’d already ended that affair before I asked you out. I don’t juggle women. My life is stressful enough as it is.”
“You don’t have to excuse yourself to me,” she said hastily. “And I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with seeing more than one person at a time, if everyone’s aware and consenting. I’m just not wired that way myself. It would destroy me to be a notch in someone’s belt.”
He winced. “Ouch. Admitted, the timing and the claw marks make me look really bad, but that’s still not fair, Tess.”
“I’m just saying what pops into my head,” she said. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He didn’t reply, just looked at her quietly. She became increasingly more aware of the crackling of the fire, the wind sighing in the treetops outside. Shadows played across the planes and hollows of his face. She didn’t even see him move, but suddenly his warm fingers were wrapped around her wrists, and he was tugging her closer again.
“Let’s take this from another angle,” he said. “You said you don’t need another rich, spoiled playboy, which implies that there have been other spoiled playboys in your past. Right?”
She remained stubbornly silent. He tugged on her wrist. “So?”
She sighed. “Just one. But I’d rather not talk about him. It just makes me depressed.”
He nodded. His thumb moved against his her palm in a tiny, soothing caress. “OK, foiled again. One last try. The playboy in question walked all over you, meaning he was an egotistic, selfish, oblivious asshole. Guess what, Tess? I’m not like that. I was brought up better. I would treat you like the queen of the universe.”
“Oh, please.” An unexpected giggle burst out of her.
His grin of relief was radiant. “Oh, yeah. Ever been treated like the queen of the universe before?”
A dull ache of old sadness pulled at her from below, and her smile faded. “I most certainly have not.”
Jonah lifted her hand to his lips. “If you stay with me tonight, I promise you won’t regret it. It’ll be all about you. Your call, your rules, your pleasure, Your Exalted Majesty. You don’t have to worry about anything. Just let me please you.”
“Oh, my God,” she murmured. Her hand tingled, shimmered with the heat, the tenderness of his soft lips.
“I won’t do anything unless you say I can,” he assured her. “Which is not to say that I won’t make plenty of suggestions.”
The teasing humor in his face warmed and reassured her. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
He lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “You can’t know,” he said quietly. “You just have to trust me. Life’s like that.”
His calm, direct gaze, his warm hands, his gentle words, made something that had been tight and pinched in her chest relax and soften. She took a deep breath and for the first time, she let herself really look at him. Not through the lens of Larry or any of her past disappointments and heartbreaks and fears. Just at Jonah.
What she saw dazzled her. He was so solid. Beautiful and sensual, yes, but there was something fair and honest and stubborn in his eyes that was even more alluring to her.
He endured her long scrutiny with quiet patience.
“Do you really mean it, the queen thing?” she whispered.
He touched her cheek. “Is it so hard to believe?”
“For me, it is,” she admitted.
He slid off the table and sank to his knees. “Oh, my queen. I am at your command.” He smooched up the length of her arm until she shook with nervous laughter.
He pressed a hot kiss against her palm. His teasing grin faded, supplanted by naked desire. Her laughter abruptly stopped.
“Let me kiss you,” he said hoarsely. “Then you’ll understand exactly how it’ll be tonight between us. Please, Tess. Can I kiss you?”
He rose slowly to his feet. His face was inches above hers, his eyes hot and pleading. She drifted closer and closer with the slow inevitability of clasped hands on the planchette of a Ouija board. The waiting, the breathless curiosity, and then the gasp of delighted terror when the oracle yielded its answer. Yes, or no? Yes, or no?
She drifted closer. Closer. Yes.
She touched his hot face as she had longed to do for weeks, running her fingertips over his skin, his high, elegant cheekbones. Tracing the strong, dark slash of his eyebrows, the faint rasp of beard shadow, the sharp line of his jaw.
The hot, thrilling, pulsing life of him beneath her hands.
She pulled his face hungrily toward hers.
Chapter Four
Her lips trembled beneath the light, brushing contact, which was all that he dared to allow himself. She was still poised for flight, and if he lost her now he would implode, self-destruct, disappear out of sheer frustration. He was as tormented by lust as if he were a young boy, everything brash and raw and unmoderated. No veils of hard-won self-control or calm experience to overlay the roar of need.
He tasted her lips, shaking with exultant eagerness. They were just as he had dreamed they would be, full and unimaginably soft. As fine-textured as a dream of silk or suede. Pansies, poppies, butterfly wings. Things too delicate to touch.
She was kissing him back now, praise God, and the sweet, liquid contact of her lips made him wild, crazy; first the pull, then the slide, then the tiny wet pop as her lips disengaged, panting for breath, and then another hungry, tender assault upon his mouth. One brush of her hot, eager tongue blotted out his ambitious promises. Her small, fragrant hands stole around his body with eager curiosity, stroking across his ribs, his back. He pressed the throbbing heat of his hard-on against her, hoping it wasn’t too rude, too soon.
But it didn’t seem to alarm her. She just stroked and petted and soothed him, opening to his kiss. Her response emboldened him to put his arms around her. He marveled at how small and deliciously curvy she was, her narrow rib cage with the pillowy softness of her bosom pressing against his chest. He clasped his legs around her, a grasping, possessive gesture that he couldn’t control. His body spoke a language that needed no translating. Mine, all mine.
She murmured against his hungry, marauding mouth, and he forced himself to pull away. “I want—” He stopped, panting and unsure of himself. “I want to kiss you deeper, but I don’t want to scare you.” He barely recognized his voice, it was so shaky.
She smiled her mysterious smile that never failed to turn him inside out. Pure Tess, warm and unforced and achingly sweet.
“You’re not scaring me, Jonah.”
She let her head drop back trustingly into his cupped hand, going soft and pliant against him. Her response was like a match to gasoline, a heavy whump, and then flames roaring up. Careful, careful, pleaded the tiny voice in the back of his mind. This is the queen of the universe he was dealing with. He had promised to control himself, to indulge her utterly. But she was pressing her plump breasts against him, so lush and soft and tempting. He couldn’t stop to ask, he couldn’t help himself; he slid his hands over her, cupped her abundant curves through all those layers of clothing. He wanted to rub some of that scented oil on her breasts and bury his face between them. His mind was a mass of roiling sensual images. His mouth roved over her slender throat, fumbling desperately for buttons, zippers, anything. He became dimly aware that she was saying his name, over and over.
“Huh?” He lifted his mouth reluctantly from the hollow of her throat, groping for the curve of her ass through her voluminous skirt. That Little House on the Prairie outfit was pretty weird, but she could wear a burlap sack and he would be on his knees, salivating for her.
“I’ve decided my first royal command.” Her tone was hesitant, but her green-gold eyes sparkled with challenge.
He tried not to pant like an animal. “Let’s hear it.”
“I want you to rub my feet,” she announced.
He blinked at her.
She looked slightly defensive. “This might come as a shock to you, Jonah, but I’ve been on my feet all day long. And after a day like that, the most erotic, luxurious thing I can imagine is to have a big handsome guy kneeling in front of me, rubbing my feet.”
He started to grin as the sensual potential of the situation dawned on him. Touching her delicate little feet until she purred and relaxed, and then moving slowly, inexorably upward. What an awesome lead-in.
She reached for the bottle of oil and smoothed some onto her hands, smiling up through her eyelashes as she rubbed them over his shoulders and chest. “Fantasy detail,” she explained. “My love slave should be oiled up and gleaming.”
He stared at her small, strong hands as they rubbed him all over with casual skill. His cock throbbed so hard it was a wonder there was enough blood going up to his brain to keep him on his feet. His tongue seemed to have dried out and adhered to the roof of his mouth.
“There,” she said, with an approving pat. “You look perfect.” She put the bottle of oil in his hands and raised her eyebrows. “Well?”
“Want me to be stark naked?” he suggested hoarsely. “You could oil up the rest of me, too.”
Her cheeks flushed even pinker at the bold suggestion. “Let’s take this one step at a time, shall we?” she said primly.
“As my queen commands.”
She could hardly believe her luck. By some trick of amazing intuition, Jonah had come up with the one scenario that might not make her clench up and botch the whole thing. By declaring her queen of the universe, he had taken all the responsibility for the success of the evening upon his own broad, capable shoulders. She didn’t have to worry about being skillful or responsive or creative enough. He had given her permission to be pampered and indulged, to think only of her own pleasure. And she was going to take him at his word.
Besides, he was tough. He was so supremely confident that she could bounce him around like a rubber ball, and he would never break. And such a sweetie, too, grinning at her like the idea of rubbing her tired feet thrilled him no end. It was adorable.
She watched him pull the couch closer to the fire, hypnotized by the beauty of his lean torso. He crouched, silhouetted against the flames, and set another oak log on it. She took advantage of the moment to dart behind the couch to unlace her shoes. White rubber-soled sneakers did not belong in a sensual fantasy of the queen of the universe being pampered by her brawny love slave.
He was looking at her now. There was no graceful way to reach beneath the long skirt of her dress and tug down the black wool tights. She had to just do it.
Her fingers brushed across the scalloped lace of the red teddy. Dear God. She had forgotten all about the teddy. She had put it on this morning, just to give herself a jolt of confidence and have a naughty little secret against her skin. Now he would deduce that she had come up here intending to go to bed with him all along, and—
Or had she? Was this what she had wanted all along?
She didn’t know, she couldn’t tell. She felt like her body had been taken over by a mysterious stranger.
Oh, well. Too late to worry about it now. She peeled the tights down, striving to perform the graceless act with queenly panache. Jonah indicated the couch with a gracious, sweeping gesture of his arm, and she settled into the soft cushions.
He sat down cross-legged in front of her and squirted some of her oil into his hand. “Any particular way you want me to do this? You’re the expert, after all.”
“Just follow your instincts,” she said.
He cupped her foot tenderly in his big palm, and closed his fingers around it—and a heavenly chorus burst into song.
Oh, he was good. His hands were wise and warm and knowing. Strong when she needed him to be strong, gentle where she needed gentleness. Exquisitely slow and thorough. Her head fell back against the sofa cushions, her eyes closed. She abandoned herself to the feeling of being pampered and caressed. Almost . . . loved.
The foot that he wasn’t massaging was resting on his thigh. A very hot, hard, long something was beginning to nudge against it. Then more than nudge. She could feel the heat, the pulsing energy.
Her eyes popped open. She remembered that the source of this sweet, heady bliss was a big, powerful, extremely aroused man.
“I read once in a health magazine that every part of the body corresponds to a point on the foot,” he said. “Some kind of Chinese medicine thing, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Reflexology. Shiatsu and acupuncture are based on . . . ah . . . the same principles, as well.”
He laid the foot he was working on tenderly on his other thigh, and rescued her other foot, his fingers sliding intimately around her arch. “So you know all these pressure points?”
“Of course. Oh, God, that’s so wonderful, Jonah. You’re incredibly good at this. You could be a masseur.”
“Great. Nice to know that if the bottom ever falls out of my consulting business, I’ve got one more card to play.”
She almost hummed with pleasure. “Don’t be snide. A guy who looks like you could make a fortune rubbing women’s feet.”
“Yeah, right. How about you tell me what part of the body this corresponds to?” He rubbed the pad of her big toe, then tenderly manipulated the other four.
“Ah, the pads of the little toes correspond to the sinuses.”
“So if I do this”—he lifted her foot and kissed each of her toes—“then it’s like I’m kissing your nose and eyebrows, right?”
She laughed at his foolishness. “I suppose you could say that, if you wanted to be fanciful.”
“Oh, but I do. And the big toe?”
Her brain was so swamped with pleasure, it was hard to concentrate. “The tip is the brain, and the inner side is . . . is the side of the neck. And the fullest point in the middle are the eyes and ears.”
He kissed her big toe, sides, tip, pad, his mouth warm and soft. His hot breath tickled the delicate skin of her arch, and sensation shivered up her legs. He pressed hot, seductive kisses against the ball of her foot. “How about this part?”
“Lungs. Shoulders. Heart,” she whispered.
“Yes. Heaving lungs, kissable shoulders, pounding heart. I love it.” He kissed her foot repeatedly.
She giggled and tugged her foot, but his hand wrapped around her ankle. “Jonah, I—”
“How about this foot? I don’t want to neglect it. How about this part right here?” He kissed the tender arch near the outside.
“That’s, ah, the sciatic nerve, I think. And the appendix. And that should be . . . the ileocecal valve.”
He covered the spot with tender little kisses and grinned at her. “You lost me there, sweetheart. I missed that day in eighth grade biology. But I’m sure yours is the cutest little ileocecal valve ever.”
His butterfly kisses made her shake with laughter. “Jonah, you’re tickling me. Stop!” She pushed at his chest with her other foot, and he grabbed that one too, wrestling with her playfully.
Suddenly he let go. Both her feet shot out past his shoulders.
She froze. Her legs were wide open and draped over his hot, naked shoulders. And the look in his eyes was so purposeful. As if she were about to let him—oh, God. She scrambled back against the cushions, twisting and flailing.
“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t panic,” he urged. “You’re still the queen.”
She tried to breathe, to relax, to stop struggling. He was kissing her knee, making soothing noises, but she didn’t feel soothed. She felt like she was going to fly apart in his hands, do something disgraceful and uncontrolled. It was scaring her to death.
“I love these dimples on your knees,” he told her. “They’re so cute. Hold still, let me put more oil on my hands. I want to massage your legs, too.” He stopped, and looked doubtful. “That’s OK, right?
”
“Yes,” she whispered. He pushed her skirt up. She jumped when his hands closed around her knee, and tension left her body in a long, shuddering exhalation. She closed her eyes, wanting, needing to trust him. His big, oiled hands crept higher, gentle and mesmerizing. He stopped and waited, motionless, until she opened her eyes. He stared into them for a moment, silently asking her permission, and pushed very gently against her inner thighs.
She opened for him with a soft, trembling sigh.
“I love the red lace panties,” he said appreciatively. “They make your skin look pearly white.” She gasped as he pushed her back against the cushions. “Shhh,” he murmured. “I’m just going to touch these lacy underpants with the tips of my fingers. Like this.”
The light, teasing circles against the dampening silk of her panties were sweet little flames licking against her. A heavy, aching desperation began to grow out of the pleasure. For the first time, she actually understood why people were willing to do dangerous, self-destructive, even immoral things in order to follow this impulse.
She invited him with her eyes to touch her wherever he pleased. She couldn’t say it with words, but when he deepened the pressure and circled his thumb around her clitoris, she reached down and pressed his hand against her harder, with a pleading, wordless murmur.
He pinned her against the couch with his weight, his own breathing ragged and audible in the silent room, and she moved against his hand, her head thrashing back and forth, striving for something unknown and yet so seductively close, beckoning her.
When the hot oblivion pulsed through her body, she was so surprised, she actually fainted.
She floated back, dazed and limp. That was nothing like any orgasm she’d ever had—or rather, thought she’d had. She’d never understood what the big deal was about orgasms; to her they seemed no more than a sudden dissipation of whatever mild tension she had managed to build, a deflated sense that there was no point in continuing. Sort of like watching water swirl down a bathtub drain.
This had been . . . mind-shattering.
