Sex and the Sleepwalker

by Donna Sterling

  He received that mandate with unblinking composure, then hoisted himself forward with athletic ease, pinning her beneath him and positioning his mouth in general alignment with hers. He maintained just enough elevation to scour her face with a hungry gaze. In a low, throaty rumble, he asked, “Which part do you want next?”

  Heat curled through her. Decisions, decisions. Not that this one had to be rushed. His very nearness titillated her. The warmth of his breath against her mouth, the evocative scent of his hair and skin, the tension emanating from every muscle in his large, strong body…

  “Illegal contact,” she admonished. And she shoved at his powerful shoulder in an ineffectual attempt to dislodge him from his advantageous position above her.

  With a wry slant of his mouth, he rolled onto his side, still high enough to peer down at her, but allowing her the freedom of movement she would need to drive him utterly out of his mind. Which was, after all, the goal of her siege. He would soon be begging her to “use” him, and he’d forget all about the questions she couldn’t answer, the intimacies she couldn’t risk.

  “Let’s get one thing straight.” She propped herself up on her own forearm to face him eye to eye. “Whichever part of you I choose,” she murmured, sweeping her hand with teasing slowness down her body to the zipper of her jeans, “will be used as a tool.” In no particular hurry, she unfastened the button and unzipped her jeans as she spoke. “I will be the only one to manipulate that tool. You’ll have nothing to do with it.”

  She wasn’t sure he’d heard a word she’d said, let alone understood her. His gaze, which had been lingering on her breasts, now traveled to the slowly parting zipper of her jeans.

  “I’d say it’s time to open the toolbox,” she whispered.

  That reclaimed his attention, though he looked too distracted to know exactly what she meant. Pursing her lips to hold back a pleased smile, she gestured toward his body-hugging Henley shirt. He immediately sat up, tugged the shirt from the waistband of his jeans, yanked it over his head and tossed it over one broad shoulder, leaving his magnificent, lightly furred chest bare.

  Fighting the urge to run her hands and mouth across his powerful pecs and abs, she waggled her fingers in the direction of his jeans. He knelt to unbuckle his belt, then cautiously guided his zipper down—an undertaking complicated by the massive swelling behind his fly. When he’d finally succeeded, leaving the column of his erection straining beneath the white cotton of his briefs, he turned his efforts to pushing the jeans down his trim, virile hips and muscular thighs.

  Brynn watched with a steadily increasing pulse rate, and a blossoming sense of awe. Despite a few mysterious scars marring his dark, smooth flesh—proof of violent confrontations, which jabbed at her heart—he was stunningly, shockingly beautiful.

  And if she’d had any doubt about his willingness to play this game of hers to the very end, he laid those doubts to rest. Without a break in the fluidity of his movement, he drew a packet from his discarded jeans and smoothly applied a condom. His most prominent tool now stood tall and proud and entirely at her service.

  He then turned his attention to her—a large, sleekly muscled warrior stretching out with single-minded intent. Fully aroused. Undeniably ready. His eyes, a burnished gold, were lit by a fire within. “Have you made up your mind yet,” he said in a low, gruff purr, “as to which tool you’ll, uh, manipulate?”

  So he had been listening. She should have known. He always listened to her. Even when she didn’t realize she was talking.

  To her dismay, a dreadful, paralyzing shyness struck her. Throughout their previous sex games, she’d insisted they remain at least partially clothed, and so had never seen him entirely naked before. Never fully appreciated the majesty of his body at the peak of desire. He wanted her, as he always had, without the slightest hint of reserve. She felt honored, and humbled, and somehow out of her league.

  But much worse than that, while he waited at her side, allowing her to take the lead, allowing her to make light of concerns that had bothered him to a surprising degree, she felt an inexplicable swell of emotion that nearly brought tears to her eyes.

  Determined to overcome this foolishness, which hit her out of nowhere, she said through an alarmingly constricted throat, “Your hand. I’ve decided to go with your hand.” Briskly she held out hers. “Give it to me.”

  With a small frown—he’d clearly been hoping she’d choose a different tool—he did as he was told. His strong, callused palm nestled against her own with sensual perfection. The simple yet somehow intimate contact threatened her with another wave of fiercely tender emotion, so she shut her eyes to block out his face, lay down beside him and brought his hand to her mouth.

  She hadn’t planned this move. It wasn’t particularly seductive. Swallowing the ridiculous lump in her throat, she turned his hand around with both of hers and pressed her lips to the center of his palm in a compulsive kiss.

  She heard him expel a breath, felt a quickening of his pulse. And eroticism heated her blood again. In mimicry of what he’d done to her breasts, she extended her tongue and licked with light, teasing strokes across the spot she’d just kissed. She then brought his hand to her breast and rubbed the exquisitely hardened peak of her nipple with the moistened center of his palm.

  Cade watched in helpless arousal. He’d been ready to love her during the worst of his anger. This sex play had pushed him into desperate territory. And the indescribably tender kiss she’d pressed into his palm had added a dangerous depth to his need.

  Unable to stop himself, he reached forward to catch the extended peak of her breast between his fingers.

  With a cry of surprise and an arch of her back, she opened her eyes and met his gaze—something he’d been wanting her to do since she’d first closed them. She looked dazed and aroused and sexier than sin.

  “You’re bad.” The breathy chastisement rolled from deep in her throat like a moan. “Very bad.” Tightening her grip on his hand, she pressed his fingers together, her nipple still caught between them. Arching again in involuntary response, she said, “When I want your help, I’ll tell you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, though he couldn’t help kneading her breast slightly and squeezing the rigid crest between his fingers, which caused a reflexive parting of her lips and dilating of her pupils. The heaviness in his loins pulsed with greater urgency.

  She then pushed his hand downward in a slow, sensuous movement, from the velvety swell of her breast, past the beguiling dip of her navel, to the shadowed expanse of flat, sleek abdomen revealed by the open zipper of her jeans. His thumb lodged beneath the confining denim. His fingertips brushed the body-warmed satin of her panties.

  The heat within him leaped and burned.

  And with her eyes tightly shut, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she slid her fingers over his and pushed them beneath the layer of red satin, into the hot, moist cluster of feminine curls.

  The compulsion burned in him to move, to push, to take over from here. But he also wanted her to go on. Wanted to see and feel and experience everything she’d allow.

  She stopped short of the expected target, though—barely within the silken nest, at the very top of the sloping valley. She mashed his fingertips there, her hand curving over his, and initiated tiny, circular movements…a gentle press and stroke…a sensual rhythm that further enflamed him.

  Her hips took up the rhythm with slight undulations, and he felt sure that if he couldn’t bury himself deep within her very soon, he’d die.

  And in some far corner of her mind, beyond the compelling blaze of sensuality that drove her, Brynn knew she’d crossed some border of intimacy she’d never planned to cross. But now that she had, she lost herself in the sheer carnal pleasure. Gave in to the wickedly sexual demands of her body, knowing Cade was there with her, in every sense.

  She expanded the movement of their fingers, pressing his downward along the fleshy folds. But the tightness of her jeans and panties soo
n compromised the rhythmic slide. She reached with her free hand to push them down. He reached with his, and together they tugged her jeans and panties down to her thighs, her knees, then off.

  He leaned above her, his breathing labored, his face intense, his gaze traveling between her face and her manipulations as she worked his hand, rolled her hips and broke out in a fine sweat. Only after she’d wrapped her hand around two of his fingers and pushed them inside her—a shallow, angled penetration at first, then deeper with each fluctuation of her hips—did his resolve break.

  With a soft curse, he took over the thrusting, earning a surprised gasp and long groan. Though he’d always known how to get her hot, how to make her come, he now had inside knowledge of the quickest path to take, the optimum rhythm and pressure, to drive her beyond conscious thought.

  He used it shamelessly, up to a point. A very fine, tentative, hair-trigger point. As she teetered at the edge of orgasm, he stopped. “Ready for more?”

  “More?” she repeated with a gasp, comprehension beyond her.

  He took that as a yes. And brought into service his ultimate tool—the one that had been straining and pulsing against her naked thigh for far too long now.

  She arched with a cry as he entered her slick, hot tightness, and he had to stop and grit his teeth to keep from exploding then and there. While he struggled to regain control, he grabbed hold of her hips to keep them still.

  And in a tremulous, panting whisper, she told him again, “I’m using you.” She then caught him off guard with a sudden lurch, and before he knew what had hit him, he’d lost his balance, taking her with him in a tumble…and jarring him into deeper, hotter penetration.

  While he lay stunned by the onslaught of pleasure, she twisted around to straddle him, maintaining their intimate union the entire time. Her dark hair streamed in shimmering abundance from her gypsylike bandanna, the ropes of beads swaying across her breasts adding to the exotic effect, and her curvaceous body glistened in the golden light of late afternoon. He feasted on the sight of her. He’d never had her entirely naked before.

  “Do you want me to keep using you, Cade?” Her hoarsely uttered question ended with a slight tilt of her pelvis, bringing his shoulders up from the ground.

  “Yeah,” he mouthed on his way back down, unsure if his voice had emerged at all.

  She clearly understood what he meant. With a sensuous arch to her sinfully beautiful body, she rode him. Every revolution of her hips, every throaty groan that escaped her, every subtle change in her rhythm and speed, propelled him further into mindless bliss.

  But he wanted more than that. Wanted more from her. He would not be distracted. With a superhuman effort, he gritted his teeth, held his breath and resisted the tide as it took her. With a guttural cry, she went into a spasm, her inner muscles pumping, her body shuddering.

  He caught her in his arms and held on tightly. She breathed his name and pressed her face to his neck. He fought with every ounce of his might to keep from ejaculating into her.

  When he’d quelled the voracious need enough to risk movement, he rolled her onto her back and peered down into her flushed, glimmering face, aware with every jolting beat of his heart that he was still buried within her, hard and thick, clamoring for release.

  “Brynn.” He barely recognized his rasping voice.

  Her responding gaze, warm and vibrantly tender, heightened a profound need in him that surpassed even the physical. “Hmm?”

  “It’s my turn to use you.”

  Her angel eyes smiled into his with sweet consent.

  “Mouth,” he said. Her brows raised, and he added for clarity, “Open.”

  With a slight, provocative smile, she parted her lips. He kissed her. Slid his tongue inside. And she gave in to a full-bodied kiss. Though he hadn’t intended to move within her, he couldn’t quite help it.

  But he broke the kiss and suspended his gyrations yet again, his body taut from the effort, his face beading with sweat. “Mouth open,” he whispered again.

  She obeyed.

  “Now say ‘I love you.’”

  The request pulsed like a heartbeat between them.

  Time itself seemed suspended.

  Brynn heard his instruction, but thought she’d misunderstood. With her blood drumming through her head and heat blurring her vision, she felt sure she must have heard wrong. Must have pulled the words from somewhere deep in her subconscious—dangerous, forbidden words. And so she merely stared at the wildly sexy, ruggedly beautiful man whose erection pulsed within her.

  “I played your sex game, Brynn,” he uttered. “Now play mine. I want to hear you say it.”

  She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Say…?”

  His arms tightened around her, and she felt the tension coiled in every muscle. He was holding back a ferocious physical need. Holding back, just to hear her tell him…

  “Say ‘I love you.’”

  How could she refuse when he’d obeyed all of her commands? How could she refuse, even though this game was much more dangerous than the one she’d played? But this was just a game. For sexual dominance. Did he think he’d hit upon her secret weakness? Had he?

  With her heart throbbing in her throat, in her head, in her feminine core, she obediently said, “I love you.”

  Releasing a torrential breath, he drew back his hips and thrust fully, solidly, into her. Reaction spiraled through her loins to every region of her being. “Again,” he urged.

  “I love you.”

  He thrust again, and she arched at the keen, un-earthly pleasure of it.

  “Keep on,” he growled.

  So she did, repeating the words at first by rote, careful to keep a proper emotional detachment. He greeted each refrain with a forceful push of his hips, a gasp, a groan, flooding her with hot sensation and ever-growing need, until somewhere along the way, she lost all objectivity.

  “I love you. I love you.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and angled her body to take him in as deeply as she could, and when he’d filled her to capacity with a jarring thrust, she fought for breath and swore again, “I love you.”

  Cade savored the words, savored her intensity, which fed and fueled his passion. Grasping her arms and then locking them beside her head, he peered into her eyes and drank in her reaction while he thoroughly, utterly possessed her.

  “I love you!”

  He believed her. He heard the sincerity in her voice, saw it in her gaze, felt it in her body’s welcome. At the first rippling squeeze of her inner contractions, he gave a mighty lunge. A shout tore from his throat, and he let go of his control, giving in to the most blindingly explosive climax of his life.

  And when, a good while later, the pieces of his soul loosely reunited, he drew her closer, pulled a blanket over their naked, glistening bodies and held her with stronger purpose than ever before.

  He believed with his whole heart and soul that she’d spoken the truth, even if she didn’t know it. But he also sensed that her feelings for him scared her. He could think of only one reason—the same reason she refused to confide her secret to him. She didn’t entirely trust him.

  At one time, the pain of that knowledge would have had him drawing back from her. Would have sent him on his way, licking his wounds, shoring up his defenses, swearing to never open himself again. It was how he’d handled their breakup in college, once he’d failed to move her with jealousy.

  He wouldn’t be put off that easily now.

  Sometime during her evolution from shy temptress to brazen seductress, his course had become crystal clear: he had to make her his, entirely his, for as long as they both would live. Though he hadn’t consciously faced it before, he knew now that he’d wanted that from the very first moment he’d met her.

  The silence between them spun out much longer than it should have, but he wasn’t sure what to say or do to advance his cause. Had he made another crucial error by insisting she say, “I love you”? Should he laugh it off as part of the
game, or force a serious discussion? He’d messed up his chance with her so badly before….

  “Cade?” She lifted her head from his chest to level a searching gaze at him. “Why did you want me to say that?”

  “Say what?”

  A subtle flush tinted her cheekbones. “You know what.”

  So. She couldn’t bring herself to even repeat the words outside of their game. “You mean, ‘I love you’?”

  She nodded.

  He brushed a thick, silky lock of hair from her face, savoring the softness, hoping he could trust what his gut was urging him to do. “I guess because I love you.”

  Her breath surged out as if she’d been squeezed too hard. She remained perfectly still, her expression unchanging, though he saw shadows gathering in her eyes. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was hushed and tentative. “It might just be the sex. It was pretty good sex.”

  A colossal understatement. “The best.”

  Color warmed her entire face then, and an enticing softness came into her gaze, though he sensed she wouldn’t be pleased to know it. “We’ve always had a special…chemistry between us. People sometimes mistake sexual chemistry for love. You think, maybe…you have?”

  She sounded ready to be convinced otherwise. Which gave him hope. But he had to tread carefully. If he made the wrong move, she might bolt from him like a deer through woods.

  “That’s a question worth exploring,” he murmured. Sliding his fingers into the heavy, shining mass of her hair, he held her profoundly beautiful face between his hands and wished upon his soul that she’d believe in him. “Don’t be afraid to explore it with me, Brynn. I’ll never hurt you again, I swear. You can have your secrets, whatever they are. I have a few, too. When the time is right, I’ll share them with you. You can keep yours forever, if you want. All I ask is that you give me the benefit of any doubt you might have about me. Give me a chance to prove myself. Will you do that? Will you trust me not to hurt you?”

  A sheen of tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded.

  Intensely pleased by that response, he kissed her. The kiss turned immediately hot, deep and searching, charged with a need that transcended the physical.