Burning Up

by Susan Andersen

  Macy grasped his head and gave him a fierce kiss that was all hot tongue and soft lips. Pulling back, she said, “Right. You feel so right.”

  Yes. Forgetting every fancy move he’d ever learned, he picked up his speed even more, his hips pistoning him in and out of her. Deeper. Harder. Faster.

  He must have found her sweet spot, for a frantic sound burbled out of her throat. “Gabe? Oh, God, Gabriel, please.”

  He clenched his teeth as she tightened around him, as he felt the preliminary clasp and unclasp that heralded her climax, his balls drawing up as his own release gathered at the base of his scrotum. Then she was coming and there was nothing preliminary about the hard, strong contractions gripping, tugging, milking his cock. Groaning deep in his chest, he thrust deep one last time and held.

  Macy’s voice climbed several octaves even as the top of his head threatened to blow off his shoulders. “Oh, Christ, Macy, I’m com—oh, Jesus, you’re so fucking tight and I’m—” As the pressure grew more and more intense, his entire body tensed and he was so focused he forgot to breathe.

  Then he roared her name as he came in hot, violent pulsations that went on and on and on as Macy clung to his neck and dug her heels into the small of his back.

  He didn’t have a clue how much time had passed before he finally collapsed against her, driving the breath from her lungs in a whoosh. “Sorry.” He forced himself to lean back when all he wanted was to slump against her, to feel her cushioning him like the softest of beds. “You okay?”

  Her lashes fluttered up, and a soft smile of fulfillment curved her mouth. “Oh, yeah. You could say that.”

  Satisfaction flashed through him. Satisfaction and something deeper, more primitive, something that whispered mine when it looked at her.

  A sliver of alarm sliced through him, but he pushed it away. He wasn’t letting anything wreck this. Not some caveman-possessive shit, not the tendrils of unease that plucked at him when he considered his loss of control.

  Screw that. He felt good. Too good to analyze to death what had just happened. This was nothing like it had been when he was a kid, anyway. Then any willing female would have fit the bill—the girls had all been interchangeable. But today he knew exactly who was in his arms. It was Macy he desired, Macy who left him feeling as if he’d just ingested the world’s best feel-good narcotic.

  Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t show her how it felt to be sexed up by a guy in control, he thought as her legs slipped down his. He gently lowered her onto her feet and stepped back, steadying her. Watched, amused, as she primly pulled her top down, then admired that sweet round butt as she bent to grab her pants and pull them up her long legs. A hank of hair had pulled free from her ponytail to trail down her neck and her lips were swollen and pink, while a dark flush stained her skin when she turned back to face him.

  He leaned down to kiss her in appreciation. She looked like a woman who’d just gotten hers, which left him feeling pretty damn good.

  “That took the edge off,” he said. “Let’s see if I can’t wreck you for other men in the next go-around.”

  Gabe’s grin was all white teeth and satisfied male ego, and Macy snorted. “As if.” Okay, that was weak, but it was the best she could manage since she was too busy thinking, There’s going to be a next go-around?

  “Ah. A challenge.” Gray eyes darkening, he slicked his tongue over his lower lip. “I like that.” And he swept her up in his arms.

  In the time it took her to register his body heat pumping through the fabric of her scrubs, he’d carried her the few steps to the air bed and laid her on its smooth sheets. Squatting on the floor by her feet, he leaned forward to stroke his hands down the purple fabric covering her thighs, her knees, her shins. Then, grasping the hems of her scrub pants, he abruptly surged to his feet, shaking her out of the pajamalike bottoms she’d just donned.

  “What the—?”

  He shot her a cocky grin that made her roll her eyes. Yet she had to swallow a smile because, secretly, she got a kick out of this playful side of him. It was unexpected and charmed her pants off. She gave her bare legs a rueful look. Literally.

  He climbed onto the air bed with her, eased her up into a seated position and peeled the top over her head with one swift, economical movement. Her hair was still drifting back to her shoulders when he let go, looking down at her with hot, satisfied eyes as she flopped, buck-naked, back onto the mattress.

  “That’s better,” he murmured. “Every artist needs his canvas. And mine—?” His heavy-lidded gaze followed his fingertip as it traced a path over her collarbone, between her breasts and down her diaphragm to her navel. Inserting the callused tip into the shallow swirl, he raised his gaze, letting Macy see his appreciation. “She’s a beaut.”

  She should probably feel exposed, lying here without a stitch while he had on a shirt with a hem long enough to hide all but a peek-a-boo glimpse of the goods. Yet for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she didn’t feel the need for the protective covering of one of her costumes. “Let’s see my canvas,” she demanded, giving him a long, slow perusal. “I hope it’s not one of those paint-by-numbers jobs.”

  Toeing off his shoes and stepping out of his jeans, he whipped his T-shirt off over his head.

  “Ooh.” She sat up, staring at his wide shoulders, at the black fan of chest hair that narrowed to a thin silky line down the defined muscles of his abs. “I remember this torso—although I do believe it may be the first time I’ve seen it dry. The other times I’ve seen you shirtless, you were coming out of a shower or a dunk tank.” Then her gaze traveled lower. “I must say, though, that that—” she indicated his no-longer-rampant penis hanging between his thighs “Well, it felt a lot bigger.” She snickered like a schoolgirl.

  “You’re such a card.” He stood on first one foot then the other as he pulled his socks off. Tossing them aside, he came down on one knee on the air mattress and threw his other over her thighs to straddle her.

  He gave her a slow, carnal smile. “You females have it all over us poor guys with that multiple orgasm thing you’ve got going, so this is just for you.” Pressing her hands back against the silky cotton sheet on either side of her head, his long fingers gently encasing her wrists, he slid down her body.

  “Oh, but—” Her voice trailed off as his teeth scraped the skin on her throat and she surged beneath him, rotating her wrists to break his grip so she could hold him in return.

  He didn’t turn her loose.

  She bucked. “Hey. ’Scuse me. Holding me down here.”

  “I know,” he murmured between descending kisses, settling more firmly atop her. “I like it. I’ve thought about holding you down. Making you scream. That’s my new goal,” he whispered, stringing more of those kisses back up her throat. “I’m going to make you scream.” Another openmouthed kiss, this one behind her left ear. “And scream.” His teeth suddenly closed over the lobe, warm breath gusting down the whorls and making her shiver. “And scream.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” she said with weak defiance. But holy shit. She’d deny it with her dying breath, because it was sooo un-PC, but his words had her clamping her thighs together. Never having had a multiple orgasm, she’d assumed she was done.

  But maybe he was onto something.

  “Oh, I’ll do more than try.” He pushed up on his fingertips, keeping her wrists caged even as his palms lifted to avoid compressing them, and bent his head to kiss her.

  “Lemme go, lemme go,” she pleaded every time he lifted his mouth to change the angle. And she began to move beneath the newly resurgent need twisting through her system. She’d had sex before, of course. But never had she experienced the lack of control she always seemed to feel with Gabriel. She wanted another orgasm. Wanted him to touch her, take her, give her the reward these restless feelings promised. The way he had before.

  “Soon.” This kiss was deep and slow, and she arched, scraping her nipples against his chest hair. Raising his mouth,
he shifted to once again kiss his way down her neck. He made his way down her chest but then halted his descent, his lips inches above her breast. His breath fanned her nipple and it tightened, grew longer. He studied it with intent eyes but didn’t touch it.

  She arched her back but…couldn’t…quite…make it…reach. Panting, she dropped back onto the bed, her gaze locked with single-minded intensity on his mouth with its full lower lip and the hint of teeth showing beneath his sterner upper lip. The damn thing was centimeters from where she needed it and she raised her gaze to find him watching her with smoldering intensity.

  Oh, God. Her lips opened and her tongue stole out to give them a lick. Extending its tip the tiniest bit farther, she curled a come-get-me gesture at Gabriel, then drew it back inside, shivering at the brush of moisture along the slick lining of her upper lip as it retracted.

  He groaned. “Jesus. I can’t believe how fast you can reduce me to a randy teenager without even trying.” Bending his head, he rasped the flat of his tongue over her nipple. His gaze still locked on her face, he clamped his mouth over it.

  An inarticulate sound exploded from her throat and she writhed beneath the attention he lavished on it with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. Not until she was nearly mindless did he let her nipple pop free and roll them onto their sides. At the nudge of his knee, she spread her legs, locking them around the thigh he immediately pushed into the newly opened space. He sank his long fingers into her butt to direct the movement of her hips, making her realize her hands were free. She gripped his shoulders and kissed him back when he rocked soft, suctioning lips over hers.

  Feeling her last bit of control dissolve, she pulled back. “Again,” she panted. “I want you in me again.”

  “In a minute,” he murmured. Tipping her onto her back, he trailed his fingertips over her breasts and down her diaphragm to her navel. His fingers circled there for a moment before continuing their descent over the slight curve of her stomach to head south.

  But then they halted and she arched her pelvis to encourage the continued downward momentum.

  With a muffled chuckle, he complied, stroking his fingers into the golden-brown fleece between her legs, insinuating a fingertip into the creamy crease separating the plump lips of her labia.

  One touch of that rough-skinned pad slicking over her clitoris and Macy’s world exploded around her. A high-pitched keening purled from her throat as she thrust her hips high. Sensations flashed and pulsated and tiny pops of color burst behind her closed eyelids. “Oh, gawwwwwwd,” she moaned as he continued feathering his fingertip over the turgid little bundle of nerves. “OhGodohGodohGodohGod.”

  Gabe tore his mouth free and his gaze honed in on his fingertip, where it rubbed gentle circles in that sweet little slit.

  “Not quite a scream,” he growled as her hips collapsed back onto the mattress, leaving his hand high and—

  Well, not dry, he thought with a crooked smile, lowering it to grip her smooth, lax thigh. “Still, a satisfying sound all ’round. And baby?” He grabbed another condom from the chest. “I guess this isn’t just for you after all.” Pushing higher on his elbows, he gave her another rough kiss, then rose to his knees and tore the wrapper open.

  She cracked an eye open. For a second she merely stared, her gaze locked on the naked thrust of his cock. Then she slowly swallowed. “I take it back. Well, either that or the angle from here is creating an optical illusion. Because it’s not really as big as it appears, right?”

  “Hell, yeah, it is.” Wrapping his hand around himself, he gave it a stroke, a get-real sound escaping his throat. “You’re not looking at it through your side-view mirror, honey.” He shook his head. “Like any guy would voluntarily cop to his dick being smaller than it appears.”

  She guffawed and her gaze, which had dropped once more to closely observe his hand action, returned to his face. “Good point.” Pushing up onto her own knees, she looped her arms around his neck and stretched to press a kiss against the angle of his chin. Then she relaxed her posture, her hands sliding down to rest against his chest.

  “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “For…you know.” She twirled a vague hand at the sheets, avoiding his eyes as her cheeks, which had been regaining their normal color, turned pink once more.

  Damn but she had pockets of sweetness in her. Deep pockets that he had somehow managed not to cop to until today. Crooking a finger beneath her chin, he raised it until she met his gaze and gave her a wry smile. “Trust me, sweetheart,” he said wryly, “it was my pleasure.”

  “Mine, too.” She laid her head against his heart and stroked the hair on his other pec. “This feels…good,” she said around a yawn. “Safe. Have I told you I really like your chest?”

  Something deep inside of him clenched tight for a moment, something that had less to do with her admiring his chest than it did with her tender gesture and that safe, which grabbed him for some reason. Maybe because it implied a level of trust that would allow her to admit to the vulnerability of sometimes not feeling safe. He’d have expected her to fiercely guard what she no doubt considered a weakness.

  Raising his hand, he stroked her hair from the part in her bangs to her low ponytail, which he slowly pulled through his fist.

  He cleared his throat and his voice came out low and gruff when he said, “I’m pretty damn fond of yours, as well.” But he didn’t even glance at those perky round breasts.

  She went abruptly still, but before he could figure out why, she raised her head and shuffled back a few inches on the mattress opening up a space between them.

  She raked a gaze down his body, then back up again, and he was struck by the knowing smile she flashed him. Gone was the woman with her brief flicker of sexual shyness. This was the cocky chick he was accustomed to.

  She rubbed the back of her hand down his abs, her lips curling up in a cat-in-the-creamery smile when he sucked in a breath as her palm brushed so close to the bob of his dick that he could feel the warmth it radiated. He was vaguely betting her moment of unguarded honesty had driven her to this sudden mood change when she raised a finger to bridge the gap. His cock jerked as if it had been electrified, and all cogent thought left his head. Wrapping her fingers around him, she squeezed.

  He had her on her back in seconds, clever fingers slipping between her thighs to bring her back up to speed.

  Thighs opening, eyes blurry with passion, she reached for him. “Hurry.”

  Falling over her, he stiff-armed himself away from her upper body with one palm, thumbed down his erection and lined it up. Planting both hands on the bed next to her head he tilted his pelvis and slid into her with one easy thrust.

  The last time had been all flash and fire, so he took it slow, sliding in and out of Macy with long, easy strokes. Moaning, she raised her hips to meet each thrust.

  But his effortless rhythm went to hell when, hooking the bend of his elbows around the inside bend of her knees, he leaned into her, driving her legs back toward her chest. Clearly the move had him reaching her buzzer, because Macy went ape on him. Bracing her feet against his shoulders, she writhed and ground at the apex of each thrust. Holding himself deep he reciprocated with a rapid grind of his own.

  She went off, coming all around him just as he’d demanded. And just like that, so did he.

  His first inclination when the last pulse and throb faded away was to collapse atop her like a felled ox. Only the knowledge that, given the position he’d put her in, he’d probably snap her back in two made him pull back and help her straighten her legs. Then he rolled onto his back, grasping her sweet ass to maintain their connection.

  She did that lay-her-head-over-his-heart thing again and exhaled a shaky breath. “God, Gabriel. That was…amazing.”

  “No shit,” he agreed. He’d never had sex quite like it.

  And he had a bad feeling he’d been talking out his ass earlier. Because he wasn’t wrecking her for another man. She’d just wrecked him for any other woman.

>   CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN GRACE ANSWERED the rat-a-tat-tat of the knocker against her front door, the last person she expected to see was Jack Savage. “Oh,” she said, one hand going to the pale pink pin tucks of her gauzy Empire-waist blouse. She stared at him standing hip-shot on her tiny stoop, his tattooed arms like living tapestries in the afternoon sunlight, his hands behind his back—and hoped to heck she wasn’t gaping.

  Or worse, drooling.

  “You’ve been sober for a good, long stretch now,” he said, checking her over from the top of her messy updo to her bare feet. “And yet you never came to see me.”

  Oh man, she had been so tempted. But when she’d sobered up she’d felt mortally embarrassed over the way she’d climbed all over him, then had been pretty sure he’d laugh himself silly if she actually took him up on his invitation. In the end she simply hadn’t had the nerve to present herself at his Airstream. “I didn’t think you were serious.”

  He shook his head. “Jayzus, Gracie. You are one cynical bird.”

  “No, I’m not! I’m—”

  “I kind of thought that might be your reaction, though,” he interrupted, “so it’s here I am, then, to woo you. I brought you something.” Bringing his left hand out from behind his back, he presented her with a bedraggled stalk of Queen Anne’s lace, a tall white flower that grew wild along the roads. “And of course, what are flowers without the always popular chocolates to go with them? Or in this case, it.” He brought out his right hand to offer her a bag of M&Ms. “Me, I go for peanut, but in case you’re allergic, I didn’t want you thinking I’m out to plant you six feet under, when my real aim is to shag you.”

  She choked and heat flooded her cheeks—as well as areas much farther south. “You have got to quit saying stuff like that.”