by Cari Quinn
Slipping her hands into his hair, she returned his kiss, letting him take the lead. Knowing that a powerful, sexually confident woman like Kim was looking to him for pleasure was a damn heady thing.
“Then consider this me saying ‘ice cream’,” she murmured.
He nipped her jaw, working his way up to her ear with its tiny gold hoop. A hidden delicacy tucked behind her sexily tousled hair. “I forgot to tell you the other reason I picked ice cream. It reminds me of you in other ways.”
“Does it?” She already sounded a little breathless.
“Mmm-hmm.” He cupped her breast, feathering his thumb over the plump tip while his eyes searched hers. “Key lime ice cream especially.” He took her nipple in his mouth, sucking gently. Biting down at the catch of her breath. He trailed his other hand up the inside of her leg, sliding in her wetness until he reached the apex.
“Why key lime?”
Releasing her breast, he kissed the other tight peak before shimmying down her body. “Ice cream’s wet and creamy and sweet.” He opened her up for his fingers, caressing her with light strokes. Holding her lower lips apart, he darted his tongue over her clit and savored her sigh. “So wet.” He traced his fingertip over the swollen flesh, finally inching it into her clenching passage. “But key lime’s got that hint of tart mixed in, making the flavor so much richer. So much more complex.” He breathed the words against her, hoping like hell they affected her the same way they did him.
From the way she squeezed him inside, he was on the right path.
He slid his finger in and out, studying her face. Her heavy fringe of lashes blocked her half-closed eyes, as if she couldn’t hold the lids up any longer. Her cheeks and neck and upper breasts were flushed, her mouth parted and damp. The rosy tips of her breasts beaded with need. And Christ, the longer he looked at her, the more dire the situation in his shorts became. He shifted hands to grip his cock, clamping tight at the base.
“Take them off. I want to see.”
“This is about you—” He stopped at the hungry expression she wore. Yeah, so maybe him getting naked would add some additional fuel to her fire. Her long, curvy body definitely had upped his.
Upped being a literal term.
He rose and slid off his shorts, grunting at the sensation of the cotton brushing engorged flesh.
“Come here.”
Absolutely no way he could say no to that. He approached the head of the bed and she curved toward him, taking his erection between her ruby red lips for a leisurely suck. Her hands never stopped moving, rubbing his dick, his belly, his balls. She didn’t touch him tenderly either. It was all rough pulls and violent tugs, yanking him from that quivery edge straight into the depths of oblivion in the time it took him to gather her hair in his fists and issue some commands of his own. “That’s it, baby. I love how you tighten your mouth on me. God, that feels good. Scrape your nails over—”
Hearing himself, he hesitated. Was he being lame? From the sounds she was making and the way she kept hauling him into her throat so hard that she nearly choked, he had to think she was into it.
Though there was another way to check.
He angled his body so he could run his palm over her mound. “Holy shit.” Wetness smeared his skin and when he speared her with his index finger, she arched and clutched at him, causing his length to twitch in her hold. She released his hard-on and pressed herself into his hand, whimpering for more.
“You’re enjoying it? What you’re doing and what I’m doing?”
“God, yes. I love when you push all the way into my throat. It makes me so hot. Stop holding back on me. And oh—that’s good too.”
Going with it, he corkscrewed his finger in and out of her pussy, going deeper on each trip. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Use two fingers. Twist them together, make them thicker, like a cock. Like your cock. Work them in and out, curving up until you feel that swollen spot—right there. Right there, oh hell yeah. Perfect.” She leaned up on an elbow and huffed her hair out of her face. “Someone’s gonna get an A tonight.”
Chuckling, he eased out of her grip and returned to his place on the bed. “Shh. I have a pussy to eat.” The word tasted a bit foreign—she was right, he wasn’t exactly a dirty talker by nature—but he couldn’t deny the effect it had on his groin. So he said it again experimentally against her clit, drawing the s sound out into a long vibration. She groped for the pillow, driving her other hand into his hair to hold him in place. He rolled his tongue over her, still pumping inside, murmuring his encouragement. “How am I doing? Do you think you can come?”
“Do that thing with your fingers again. That twist. And keep sucking my clit. Don’t let up the pressure.” She panted between words, proving to him that she wasn’t protecting his feelings. She really was almost there. “Keep it steady. Please.” She moaned and ground her hips, pulling his face down into her in the sexiest fucking way. He fingered her hard, doing what she’d said, adding a hint of teeth to his suction.
She went wild, pelvis rotating as her walls contracted again and again. “God yes. Please. Don’t stop.”
“Not stopping. Ever. God. Keep coming. Let me have it.” He removed his hand and plunged his tongue into her still pulsing passage, spreading her legs wide as he feasted on what she’d given him. He’d never been starved like this before.
Scooping up her hips, he drew her against his face, burying his mouth in her succulent cleft, lapping and tonguing her until she let out a keening moan and nearly yanked out a handful of his hair. And then she was pulsing again, pouring that sweet honey over his lips and chin. Drenching him in her pleasure and acceptance and affection.
The instant he finished he had to turn away and encircle the base of his painfully aroused cock to stave off the orgasm threatening to leak all over his thighs.
At least she didn’t laugh. Much.
She dropped damp kisses along his shoulder then reached down and replaced his hand with hers, stroking him right back up to the crisis point. “Can’t waste this. What was it you wanted me to do before? My nails, here?” She grazed his lower stomach and he groaned, pressing his face into his arm. God, he didn’t want to blow too soon. “Or was it here?” She cupped his sac, nails teasing the tight, sensitive skin. “How much can you take?”
He gritted his teeth. “Right now? Not much. I want to fuck you so goddamn bad.”
“Mmm, magic words.” She licked his neck, long and slow. “Roll on your back. I’m about to make both of our wishes come true.”
Chapter Nine
Michael sprawled in the pillows, satisfied beyond belief. Kim slept in his arms, face tucked into his neck, her leg curled around his. They’d made love twice before going back to sleep with the promise of myriad sexual positions to try once they woke up. He ran his hand over her hip. She was like an erotic candy store full of naughty things to try and dirty rides to take.
A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to explore them all.
He’d known her five days and she’d already expanded his world so much. Having her around was like throwing open the curtains to the light after a lifetime spent fumbling in the dark.
“You’re awake.”
He smiled. “I am.”
“Here I thought I’d have to throw a bucket of water on your head to get you up again.” She glanced down their bodies to where his slumbering cock had roused. “Okay, so maybe not.”
Grinning, he tightened his grip on her and rolled them over on the bed until she was beneath him, her dark hair spilling over the pale blue sheets. Bright winter sunlight streamed through the window and highlighted her features—full rosy lips, tangled lashes, high cheekbones. Lines fanned out around her mouth but they only added to her beauty. She’d laughed a lot over the years. He wanted to make sure that never stopped.
“Thinking deep thoughts already.” Her finger smoothed over his brow. “Should I be afraid?”
He considered for a moment, caught between the desire to keep things exa
ctly as they were and telling the truth. She tended to spook easy. If he held back—
If he held back, he wasn’t being him. Not really. She’d been attracted to his warts along with all the rest, reluctantly or not, so he had to trust she could handle even the parts that might make her worry.
“When we first started, I wanted to use you for a quick fuck.”
She frowned, those faint lines under her eyes digging in deep. “I think I’m insulted. Do I look like the kind of woman who can’t handle a long one?”
He laughed and framed her face between his palms. “Absolutely not. Now I know without a doubt that you can go and go and go. Good goddamn, woman.”
“I’m pretty sure it was you who went and went and went. And after making me think you were a stiff breeze away from a mess on my sheets.” She tsked under her breath.
“It’s your fault I was so close to disaster. You should make it up to me for putting me in that state.”
“I thought I did. More than once, I might add.” She smirked.
“You did but I want more. Come with me to my sister’s graduation party tonight. If you’re free.”
She pursed her lips. “What kind of single, swinging lady makes Saturday night plans on Saturday mor—” She glanced at the clock and grinned. “Okay, Saturday afternoon.”
“Hmm, a woman that didn’t even know me last Saturday and couldn’t have saved her dance card for me even if she wanted to?” He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. “We rented out a gym. I promise to dip you plenty, even if it’s to Snoop Dogg instead of Frank.”
“Snoop Dogg, huh? How old is your sister and what is she graduating from?”
“Twenty-eight. She finished her last classes for her criminal justice degree in August. But her boyfriend was deployed and he only got back home a few weeks ago. She wanted to wait to celebrate until she knew he was okay.”
“That’s sweet. I’m glad he made it home safe.”
“Yeah. Me too. They have two little girls, Esme and Abra. She’s been working at their school in the lunchroom but that doesn’t pay much. They live in a shitty neighborhood and I want to help them out but she won’t let me. So I’m throwing them a party.”
“Small comfort.”
“Yes. I can take care of all of them with what Roch left me, but my mama won’t hear it beyond small checks here and there. Says it’s my money and they’re fine. Julie’s no different. I have all that room, and all that cash accumulating in my bank account, and my family’s in the city, so far away.”
“Why don’t you move them in with you?”
“I’ve tried. My mom doesn’t want to uproot their lives and take the younger ones out of school. Plus she’d never dream of invading my space. She thinks a man my age should have plenty of freedom to date and sow my oats, as she puts it.”
“You definitely have some sowing to do.” She stroked his back, played with his hair, rubbed his scruffy jaw. Small, light touches that kept him in bed with her instead of mentally with his family hundreds of miles away. “So why don’t you sell the house and move closer to home?”
“The house was important to Roch. I can’t offload it and forget how much it mattered to her.” As if he’d never considered selling it and moving somewhere else. But Roch had entrusted her home to him. He had a responsibility to fulfill.
“Sweetie, she’s dead. You’ve taken care of it this long. Sell it to someone else who would appreciate it more.” She forged on at his silence. “You said Roch came into your gas station. Where?”
“In Kew Gardens. Queens. She was visiting a friend.”
“And she took a liking to you.”
An edge had come into her voice, one he couldn’t place. “I guess you could say that. She came into the station a couple of times that week while she was visiting. She was beautiful. Statuesque, I guess you’d say. I was sure she was married. And she had been, years ago. Her husband made a fortune in oil, of all things.” He shook his head. “I’m living the way I do because some guy I never knew died of an aneurysm and left his fortune to his wife, who left her money to me.”
“Her family was all right with you getting all her cash?”
“She didn’t have any, just a few distant cousins. Her husband’s grown son tried to bring suit against me after Roch died, saying he had more right to the money than I did, but I gave him a generous amount. He deserved it. I probably should’ve given him more and I would have, if not for my family.”
“Your family who won’t take much of the money.”
“Not yet.” Smiling grimly, he kissed her hand again. “I’m a persistent bastard.”
“Oh, I believe it. Persistent enough to work two jobs to stockpile money you don’t need, just in case. For them. You’re doing all of this for them, still.”
“I do my duty.”
“You’re one of a kind, Michael Montgomery.”
“Don’t build me a pedestal just yet. I like to keep busy. Besides, I spent enough time closed up in the house, reading every one of the books in Roch’s library and watching TV with her. I like getting it out. Other than Roch and my family, the only person I saw on any regular basis was Rand.” He squeezed her fingers and let her go, shifting onto his back beside her. “So, come on, get it out. Ask again how was I still a virgin.”
“I can’t even figure out how you were a virgin before you met Roch. Dude, you’re hot. You must’ve had high school girls all over your jock.”
He turned toward her, resting his cheek on the pillow and sliding one arm beneath it. Talking in bed was a novelty he’d never enjoyed before.
So many things he’d never enjoyed, and she was his gateway to all of them.
“I went out with girls a few times in high school and fooled around but that was all. After my dad’s death so young, leaving all of us kids behind, there was no way I’d take a chance on accidentally fathering a child. I don’t trust any birth control that much. I also wanted it to matter when I slept with someone. My parents were so in love. Sex to me was never recreation, at least back then. Abstinence worked for the most part, though I slipped occasionally.”
“Horny teenage boy? Um, yeah, I’d think so. I’m impressed you managed to hold out at all.”
“I had a family of young kids I was helping to raise at sixteen. Believe me, it wasn’t all that tough to jerk off rather than risk an unplanned pregnancy.”
“Until Rochelle came along. She couldn’t have children?”
“No. And she also had medical issues where sex was uncomfortable for her, which I didn’t know until later.”
She rubbed his hip, offering comfort in her own quiet way. “Coincidentally she didn’t mention that ahead of time, huh?”
“In all fairness, she never indicated we’d have a full-on sexual relationship. I just assumed after we’d gone on a few dates and we’d…done things that led me to think we were heading that way.”
“Did you find her attractive or was it just because you knew she was loaded?” When he stared, she held up a hand. “Look, no judgment here. You had your reasons. If she wanted companionship and it jived with your needs, there’s nothing wrong with—”
“I had feelings for her. I wouldn’t have moved in otherwise. She was a wonderful woman and even if she hadn’t been loaded, as you put it, I probably would’ve moved in with her when she invited me to anyway. Because I was a frigging kid who didn’t know any better and just wanted to get the hell out of Queens.” He fought to stay still as she went back to rubbing his hip. He’d never told this whole story before. “But I’ll be honest. If she’d only been my friend and wanted us to be lovers, I would’ve gone for it. I didn’t know she was dying. She didn’t tell me until I’d committed to her. I don’t shirk my duty.”
“Sounds like duty is all you’ve ever known. To your family, to a woman who was supposed to be a partner and took advantage.”
He touched her cheek. Here and now mattered more than all the rest. “You’re nothing like her. From the first time I saw
you, I could tell you were self-reliant and strong.”
“Whoa, now who’s whipping out pedestals?”
But he wasn’t finished. “I certainly took advantage of the situation with Roch too. Because of her, I had options. My mom needed my help. I was working my ass off but I was a high school dropout. How far was I going to get?”
“You expect me to tell you that you were wrong.”
He shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
“I’m not your judge and jury. We all need to live our lives as we see fit.” She wriggled closer and looped her arm around his shoulders to toy with his hair. He loved how easily she touched him. As if skin-to-skin contact was the most natural thing in the world. She’d never understand how starved he was for just that little—or that much. “So you’re going to drag me to Queens tonight, huh?”
Pleasure bloomed inside him so swiftly that he didn’t have a chance in hell of steeling his features. “You’ll come?”
“How many of your siblings are going to be there?”
“All eight. The youngest, Tanya, is thirteen. Four more of them are still teenagers. A couple of the older ones have significant others and kids of their own.”
She only grimaced slightly. “And your mom? She’ll be there too?”
“Yes.” He reached up to cup her jaw. “I’ll make you a milkshake when we get home.”
Her laughter gusted across his cheek. “You think I’m easily wooed with cold products?”
He pulled her close and pressed his mouth to her forehead. “And hot.”
“Wise man. I guess I’ll go. But I haven’t finished all my instructional episodes of Sex For Newbies so you might want to take some extra vitamins with your Wheaties.”
“God, such a hard bargain you drive.”
She grinned. “A girl can only hope.”
She’d never been to Queens. She’d definitely never danced until her feet hurt in a sweaty middle school gym-slash-recreation center. She’d never been accepted into a huge family with almost no effort on her part.
