by Kat Cantrell
Or maybe that was just him.
Her secrets spread wide, he paused just a moment to enjoy the visual, but she was having none of that.
“Put your mouth on me,” she instructed throatily. “I’ve dreamed about your wicked hard tongue for weeks and weeks.”
Oh yeah? That was enough of a compliment to spur him into action. The first lick exploded across his taste buds, earthy and so thick with her desire. For him. This was his wife, who was wet and slick for him. It was nearly spiritual. Why didn’t they tell you the mere act of signing a piece of paper had so much significance?
That was a discovery best explored further through hands-on experience. Her juices flowed over his tongue as he drove deeper, added a finger to the party, swirled along her crease until she started bucking against his face and still she seemed to crave more.
He gave it to her, sliding a wet finger between her cheeks to toy with her while simultaneously working the nub at her pleasure center with his teeth. Her thighs clenched, and she rocked against his fingers, pushing them deeper, and then she came with a cry that vibrated through his gut.
That was not something he could possibly hear enough.
She sat up far before he would have said she’d had time to recover, pushed him free of her body and rolled him until she was on top. Looked like they were moving on. Noted. But he couldn’t find a thing to complain about as she straddled his hips. She’d never taken off her white strappy stilettos and she parked one on each side of his thighs, easing her center into a place just south of where he really wanted it, but that fit with his need to go slow, so he let her.
He’d teased up a flush along her cheeks and her beautiful peaked nipples rode high on her breasts. As she stared down at him from her perch, she was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, with those pursed lips and a sated sheen in her eyes that he’d been personally responsible for putting there.
He wanted to do it again. And again.
And finally, he could. He reached for her, but she shook her head, clamping her thighs tight against him as she laced his fingers with hers to draw his hands away from her body. She weighed practically nothing and it would be an easy matter to break free, but he was kind of curious what she had in mind that required him to stay still.
He found out when she released his fingers to trail her own down his torso until she reached his groin. All the breath whooshed from his lungs as she palmed him to stroke downward with one hard thrust.
Fire tore through his body in a maelstrom of need.
His eyelids flew shut as he struggled to breathe, to hold it together, to keep from exploding right there in her hand. She wasn’t in a merciful mood obviously because she crawled backward to kneel over him, captured his gaze in her hot one, and licked him.
The sight of her pink tongue laving across his flesh nearly undid him. Then she sucked him fully into her mouth and he pulsed against her tongue and it was almost too much to hold back. He clawed back the release with some kind of superpower he had no idea he possessed.
Anti-Orgasm Man. He should get a T-shirt for his effort.
Except his wife had some powers of her own and worked him back into a frenzy in under a minute flat. This was going to be a very short honeymoon indeed if she didn’t stop this instant.
“Whoa, sweetheart,” he bit out hoarsely and tried to ease out from her mouth without catching his sensitized flesh on her teeth. She pushed him deeper into her throat in response, melting his bones in the process so it was really difficult to get his arms to work.
“Please,” he begged as she swirled her tongue counterclockwise so fast that he felt the answering lick of heat explode outward clear to his toes. His head fell backward against the bed as his legs tensed and he genuinely had no clue what he was begging her to do—stop or keep going.
She took the decision out of his hands by purring with him deep in her mouth and the vibration was the tipping point. The release rushed through his veins, gathered at the base of his spine and pushed from his body like a tsunami, eating everything in its path. She took it all and more, massaging him to a brilliant finish that wrung him out. Spent, he collapsed back on the mattress, too drained to move.
“That was for following the rules,” she told him with a smug laugh. “You deserve about ten more.”
If he’d known that was the prize for proving to himself and everyone else that he could go without sex, it might have made the whole moratorium a lot easier. Without opening his eyes, he nodded. “You have my permission to proceed.”
“Ha, I didn’t mean right this minute.”
She fell silent and the pause was so heavy that he opened his eyes. Roz was lounging on the bed between his thighs, decked out like a naked offering with one leg draped over his calf and an elbow crooked on the far side of his hip. It was the most erotic pose he’d ever seen in his life. And that was saying something considering the sizzle factor of the photograph she’d starred in.
“Thank you,” she said. “For what you said to my father.”
Her expression was so enigmatic, he couldn’t do anything but let his own gaze travel over it in search of clues for what he should say next. You’re welcome seemed highly lacking in weight given the catch he’d noted in her voice. Neither was this a conversation he wanted to have while in bed with a naked woman.
Except she wasn’t any garden-variety naked woman that he had no plans to see again.
It was Roz. And he most definitely would be waking up with her in the morning. So many mornings that he was at a loss how to avoid the significant overtones of this kind of sex, where they were apparently going to talk about stuff between rounds of pleasure.
Maybe that was the key. He just had to move them along until they were back in a place where there was nothing but heat between them. Clearly he hadn’t gotten her hot enough yet if she could still think about things outside of this room.
“Let’s talk about that later, shall we?” he murmured.
The tendrils of hair around her face had increased exponentially and he itched to pull the entire mass free of its confines. So he indulged himself. Leaning up, he plucked pins from her dark hair. Slowly, he let chunks of hair fall to her shoulders, and the enigmatic, slightly guarded expression melted away.
Better. She deserved about ten more orgasms, too. Enough that she could only focus on how good he could make her feel and not the crappy stuff about her life that he had an inexplicable drive to fix for her.
“Tonight is about making up for lost time,” he told her as the last pin fell free. “I thought I’d never see you again after Vegas. I can’t lie. I wanted to.”
Why had he blurted that out? They were supposed to be reeling back the true confessions, not throwing down more.
She blinked and let the tiniest lift of her lips register. “I’d like to say I forgot about you. I tried. Never happened.”
And here they were. Married. It was something he was having difficulty reconciling in his mind when Roz fit so easily into the “hot fling” box in his head. Surely there had been a woman at some point in the past whom he’d seen more than once, but he couldn’t recall the face of anyone but this one. She’d filled his thoughts so much over the past month or so that he suddenly feared he’d have a hard time getting her out when they divorced.
More sex needed, stat. Obviously. They were doing far too much chitchatting.
Reaching for her, he snagged her shoulders and hauled her up the length of his body, which went a long way toward reviving him for round two. She met him in a fiery kiss that shot sensation down his throat. Roz spread her legs to straddle him, this time hitting the exact spot he wanted her to be in, apparently on board with no more talking.
The heat built on itself instantly, putting urgency into their kisses, and the thrust of her tongue against his had sweet fire laced through it that he welcomed.
This time, there was no need to go slow and he didn’t waste the opportunity. Taking a half second to pull out the box of condoms he’d stashed in his bedside table in anticipation of their wedding night, he dove back onto her, rolling to put her under him so he could focus.
She needed oblivion. He could give her that. Taking her mouth in a fierce kiss, he let his hands roam over her amazing body, caressing whatever he could reach until she was moaning deep in her chest. Her blistering fingers closed around his erection, priming it, and then she reached for the condoms before he could. In what might be the hottest thing she’d done thus far, she rolled it on him, squeezing and teasing as she went, then notching him at her entrance.
He caught her gaze as he paused, savoring this moment before he plunged because it was his favorite. The anticipation built and she flexed her hips, eager for him but not taking the initiative, apparently content to let him go at his own pace.
Roz was his match in every way. The reality seeped through him as they stared at each other, their chests heaving with the exertion of holding back. And then he pushed inside and not even the feel of her mouth could match the exquisiteness of the way her silk caressed every millimeter. He sucked in a breath as she took him deeper, wrapping her legs around him to hold him inside.
The pressure and tension climbed until he had to move, to feel. Gasping, she arched against him, grazing her breasts against his torso, and that felt unbelievable, too. Sensation swirled, driving him faster and faster and she closed around him again and again, squeezing until she was crying out her pleasure. His second release built and she was still watching him, her eyes dark and sensual and so open that he fell into them, hopefully never to surface.
They exploded together and it was only as they came down, wrapped in each other’s arms, that he realized that they’d done it missionary style, like a real couple. A first. He’d have said he hated that position but it had felt so right with Roz. Something warm lingered in his chest as he pushed hair out of her face. She kissed his temple and snuggled deeper into his embrace.
This was maybe the most sated he’d ever been in his life. And they hadn’t even had sex that many times. Quantity had always been his goal in the past, but apparently quality trumped that. Because they’d gotten married? Because he knew they had tomorrow night and the next and the next, so he didn’t have to cram all his appetites into a few hours?
Whatever it was, it felt different. He liked it. Who knew?
This was uncharted territory and he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Sex hadn’t decreased the intimacy quotient after all. But he’d always shied away from that because rejection wasn’t something he dealt with well, or rather, more to the point, he’d never felt like finding out how well he’d deal with it.
His father had done such a thorough job of rejecting him that he’d lived most of his life with total hatred of a man he’d never met. That was what had made the pact with Jonas and Warren so easy. He had no interest in learning how much more it would hurt to be rejected by someone he’d fallen in love with. Obviously it had driven Marcus to a permanent solution. What made Hendrix so much more capable of handling the same?
The rational part of his brain kicked in. Honestly, he’d have to give a woman a chance to reject him in order to fully test that.
Had he been given an opportunity to do exactly that? Roz had been great so far in their relationship. Maybe she was the exception to the rule. Maybe he could test out having a little more with her...
He settled her a little closer, letting her warm him thoroughly, and snagged the sheet to cover them. They hadn’t slept at all that night in Vegas, so this would be a first, too. Waking up with a woman had also been something he studiously avoided, but waking up with Roz held enormous appeal.
If “more” didn’t work out, then they could get a divorce like they’d always planned. It was practically a foolproof experiment in something that he’d never have said he’d want but couldn’t seem to stop himself from exploring.
Eight
Hendrix and Roz had opted not to go away for their honeymoon, largely because that was something real couples did. But also because Helene had already scheduled a splashy fundraiser, the biggest one of the summer, for four days after the wedding. The event was supposed to generate the majority of the money needed to push her campaign through to the election. In other words, it was a big deal.
Helene had specifically asked them to make an appearance so it didn’t seem like they were hiding. Go big or go home, she’d said with a smile and Roz hadn’t really been able to find a good argument against attending. Though she’d racked her brain for one because a big social event with plenty of opportunity for her to feel like she still wasn’t good enough to be associated with the Harris name didn’t sound like fun.
The afternoon of, Hendrix came home from work early carrying a bag emblazoned with the name of an exclusive store that Roz knew only carried women’s clothing. Intrigued, she eyed the bag.
“You entering a drag queen revue that I don’t know about?” she asked from her perch on the lounger near the window of their bedroom. It was an enormous room in an even more enormous house that felt genuinely empty when her husband wasn’t in it. Probably because it was his, not hers.
Or at least that was the excuse she kept telling herself so she didn’t have to think about what it meant that she sometimes missed him. That she thought about him all day long and only some of it was sexual.
“Maybe.” He waggled his brows. “Let’s see if it fits.”
He pulled the dress from a layer of tissue paper and held it up to his chest as she giggled over his antics. But then the dress fully unfurled, revealing what he’d picked out. Oh, God, it was gorgeous. Red, with a gold clasp at the waist that gathered the material close.
“I think it would fit me better than you,” she said wryly. “Is this your subtle way of getting me excited about the idea of hanging out with North Carolina’s movers and shakers?”
“Depends.” He shot her an adorable smile that made her pulse beat a little strangely as the dress became the second-most-beautiful thing in the room. “Did it work?”
Oh, it worked all right, but not even close to the way he meant.
“Only if it goes with the gold shoes I have in my closet.” She held out a hand for the gown because the whole thing felt inevitable. “I’ll try it on. But I’m only wearing it because you picked it out.”
The silk slid through her hands like water as she laid it on the couch, then stood to wiggle out of her pants and shirt. The dress was strapless on one side and came up into an elegant over-the-shoulder style on the other. It settled against her curves like it had been made for her and fell to the ground in a waterfall of red. A high slit revealed enough leg to raise some eyebrows, which she sincerely hoped Hendrix would use as a convenient way to get his hands on her during dinner.
“You look amazing,” he said quietly and when she glanced at him, pride glinted from his eyes.
“You have good taste,” she shot back, mystified why the compliment pleased her so much. The gift as a whole pleased her in ways she’d never have expected. No man had ever bought her clothes before. She’d never had a need for one to, nor would she have accepted such a gift from anyone else.
Sure, there was an agenda buried in the middle of his gesture. He needed her by his side at his mother’s thing and now she couldn’t use I have nothing to wear as an excuse to weasel out of it. But she didn’t care. The dress fit like a dream, clearly indicating her husband paid attention to details, and the way he was looking at her made her feel desired more sharply than anything he’d done in their entire history. That was saying something.
She half expected him to reach for her, but he started chattering about something that had happened at work earlier as he stripped out of his suit, then went to take a shower. Too bad. She’d be happy to show up
late but he wasn’t on board with that.
The limo ride was uneventful and she started to get antsy. The wedding hadn’t been too bad in terms of dirty looks and noses in the air. But she’d been the bride and it was practically a requirement that people treat her nicely on her wedding day. This fundraiser was a whole different ball game and she didn’t often do this kind of society thing. For a reason.
Only for Helene would she brave it. And because Hendrix had done something so unexpected as buy her a dress.
“Nervous?” Hendrix murmured as they exited the limo. “I’ll hold your hand.”
“You’re supposed to,” she reminded him blithely. “Because we’re married and making sure people are fully aware of that fact.”
When he clasped her fingers in his, though, it didn’t feel utilitarian. Especially when he glanced down at her and smiled like they shared a secret. “I’m also doing it because I want to.”
That warmed her enormously. For about two minutes. Because that’s when she saw her father. Whom she had not realized would be in attendance. Of course he’d wrangled an invitation to the premiere Helene Harris for Governor event of the season. Maybe Helene had even invited him of her own free will.
Roz’s chest turned to ice.
“I wonder if there’s a closet in this place,” she said into Hendrix’s ear with a little nuzzle. If she could entice him into a back hall, they could spend an hour there before anyone even noticed they’d arrived. Then there wouldn’t be a big to-do about them disappearing, and she could get good and relaxed before braving the hypercritical looks and comments.
Hendrix smiled at a few people and snaked an arm around Roz, pulling her close. But instead of copping a feel, like she’d have laid odds on, he held her waist in a perfectly respectable fashion. “Maybe we’ll look later.”
“Maybe we should look now.” She slid her own arm around his waist in kind, but let her hand drift south with a caress designed to remind him they were at their best when they were burning up with need for each other. Though why she had to be the aggressor in this situation, she wasn’t quite sure.
