Divine Liaisons

by Poppet

  “You need more squirrel medicine,” he says.

  His expression is serious, his voice smooth, but gruff at the same time.

  “What is squirrel medicine?”

  “Food. You don't eat enough.”

  My eyebrows raise. I usually have a dominant personality, and it reacts without my permission.

  “I don't starve myself, if that's what you're implying.”

  His mouth hooks, wrangling that resisting smile from him; he was trying to be serious, and gave himself away.

  Lifting his arm, he pops the muscles, “You need more meat on your bones, girl.”

  Speaking of meat and bones... Hiding my smile, I duck my head, stretching to pick up my margarita, and peeling off the lid. That is some impressive muscle. I doubt both my hands could fit around his arm. What the hell is doing with me? He could have anyone.

  The music changes, so it's a compilation CD. No one beats Chad at hoarse and lusty singing. No pegging his age then.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he says conversationally, distributing food onto our plates.

  Sitting back, first taking a sip, I mull an answer by swirling tart lime and tequila over my tongue.

  “I'm a librarian.”

  He sits back again, linking outstretched legs; the muscles straining against his jeans. Shut up heart, just shut up.

  “How old are you? Married, divorced, single? Kids?”

  Okay, no small talk then. Big guns ask big questions.

  “Never married, no kids, thirty.”

  Chuckling, he puts his beer down, linking his hands on his stomach.

  “This is different.”

  “It is?” I ask.

  “Yup. Give a babe the chance to tell you about herself, and you have the next half hour covered.”

  “I should have my squirrel medicine.” Laughing silently, I pick my plate up and start eating, so I can't answer any more questions.

  He raises his eyebrows, picking up his beer again, drinking, silently watching me.

  Draining it, tilting his head back, giving me a full frontal view of that incredible neck, he puts it down on the table between us, giving me a hard stare.

  “You're hiding something.”

  Swallowing the last bite of my first enchilada, I lick my stinging lips, “Everyone's hiding something.”

  “It shows, in your eyes.”

  He's leaning forward now, elbows on knees, trying to read my soul, inspecting my eyes. Uncomfortable, I pick up my margarita, hiding my eyes behind the disposable cup.

  “You are a mystery Sarah Tempest.”

  So are you, Mr Guns.

  I can't drink forever; but the relaxing temperature in here, the spicy food, and the fairly potent margarita, work their mojo, and I lower the cup, staring straight back.

  “People get on your nerves, don't they?”

  How astute.

  “Yes, they do,” I say. Where did my voice go? It was hardly a whisper.

  Clearing my throat, I put the cup down, flicking my long brown hair back over my shoulder, “Yes, they do.”

  “Do you ever go camping?” he says, finally picking up his food and biting half a burger off in one bite. Holy crap! He'll be finished his food in a minute, flat.

  “Yes.”

  He chews, watching me. I love the way men are never self-conscious. He raises his eyebrows in silent question.

  What does he want me to say?

  “What about you? Married, kids, age, guns or hand to hand combat, bikes or four wheels, blondes or brunettes?”

  I'm biting back my laugh, following his greedy example and shoving half an enchilada in my mouth, chewing, staring back.

  This is like truth or dare, in a very strange way.

  He uncaps the next beer, taking a swig.

  His eyes are wet-earth brown in this light, and they feel invasive, as if he can literally read secrets by staring into eyes.

  “Guns and hand to hand combat, bikes and four wheels, blondes and brunettes,” he starts laughing, as am I.

  Resting his elbows, he smirks at me, “You'll do.”

  “I'll do? Ha!”

  “Yup. We have a date under the desert stars. Just you, me, and a tent.”

  Instantly asthmatic, breathing just became difficult. We've just met and he's plotting a future?

  “What makes you think I'll go?”

  “Because you can't resist a challenge. That, and you think I'm hot.”

  “Not half full of yourself, are you?”

  His eyes narrow marginally, the humor evident, “Deny it.”

  “It's okay. Your delusions are safe with me.”

  His rumbling laughter ripples over my skin again. This is beginning to feel as if I've known him forever. Shoving the last of my food in my mouth, I pick up the margarita, downing what's left after I swallow.

  “There, I've had my medicine.” I show him my empty mouth, lifting my tongue.

  Meeting his gaze, he's frozen, his beer halfway to his mouth.

  It's a tazer to my chest. This chemistry is supernatural.

  His jaw is clenching, I can see the muscles bouncing around.

  “Nice mouth. Want something else to fill it?”

  “Wow, that's brazen.”

  He laughs, taking a swig and thunking the bottle onto the table. “Tequila, Sarah. Why, did you have something else in mind?”

  Caught, I'm blushing and laughing.

  Standing, he goes behind the bar, coming back with two shot glasses and a dark bottle of Negro. Putting it between us, he shows me the bottle. Chinaco Negro Extra Anejo Tequila.

  “This should be sipped. We'll save the savage behavior for later.”

  “We will?”

  “I'm sure you can manage sipping, you did it with your margarita without any help.”

  He avoided the question, which I stupidly blurted out. Smooth, very smooth.

  He pours us each a glass, “Cheers.”

  Clinking, I sip mine. It's salty, and peppery. I'm going to get plastered at this rate. In no time he's finished his meal, taking our plates to the bar. When he returns, he sits closer, on the chair at a right angle to the one I'm on. Relaxing, his knee touches mine, he retrieves his glass, has half of it, and rests his hand on the wide puffy armrest.

  “You can tell me.”

  “What?” What is he talking about?

  “The look in your eyes, it's the look of solitude. You don't have a large circle of friends, you pick them carefully, and probably only have a couple of close friends. There's a reason you do it. I want to know that reason.”

  “How the hell would you know?”

  “Look into my eyes, Sarah. I know that look.”

  It's automatic, I look into his eyes. They're gentle, and understanding. But just before he blinks, he lets me see it. A stark pain, a hurt so deep, nothing can fix it.

  Before my brain catches up with my caution, I'm touching his leg, “I'm sorry.”

  He shrugs, “So, what's the story?”

  His hand moves, its warmth encasing mine in a hand hug.

  “Don't you have any cards, or something?” I say.

  “Don't change the subject.”

  “Dustin, I don't feel like talking about it. Definitely not on the first day of meeting someone.”

  “So you kiss people you can't trust?”

  “I think I can trust you with my body, but there's no way you're getting more than that today.”

  His lips quirk, “Are you coming onto me?”

  How does he do that? He manages to turn things around on me constantly.

  “What if I am?”

  Take that!

  “You're like a wildflower in the desert – unexpected.”

  I don't know how to answer that, so look at his hand, covering mine, it's sending a heat wave through me.

  “How about ecstasy?”

  Darting my focus back on his face, his expression is veiled, conveying he's dead serious.

  “I don't do drugs.”

/>   “Yes, you do,” he says, sitting up, his face an inch from mine.

  Hot breath laced with chili and tequila slips into my nostrils, right down to my lace underwear.

  “No, I don't,” I whisper back, against his smooth sexy mouth.

  He hardly moves, a hand catching the back of my head, his tongue in my mouth, his eyes too close to focus. The restrained strength in his arm is as exciting as it is intimidating.

  It's magma hot, flowing through me, setting everything aflame, even my eyeballs. Like I've been sitting too close to the fire.

  Being moved, I'm reclining back, he's covering me, and we're going down on the black leather. I'm immediately so horny - I can't handle the pressure sinking onto me.

  Breaking contact, he looks into my eyes, his irises back to caramel tenderness.

  “You can't say no to ecstasy. This is one drug we all do.”

  Barely able to breathe, I'm trying to suck air in through parted lips, but he's tapped my tender underside. It's bittersweet. I feel both emotional, and resistant. Hot and cold. Hard and soft.

  My hipbone is digging into his; he's one solid wall of muscle, and it's scary. This is like skydiving. You could end up broken after the adrenaline wears off and you hit the ground.

  Bracing himself with a hand next to my head, he smothers me again, his mouth is greedy, his other hand mapping the contours from my jeans to my neck, giving me a harsh ache of hot desire.

  Catching his windswept scent; it's wild and untamed. He manages to communicate, through his kiss, that he's not good at waiting, dancing takes too long, he's being blunt.

  Pushing back, I dare to skim my hands down his wide back, giddy when it makes him bite my lip.

  He's so close I hear him swallow, speaking against my throat when his lips move there, “If you want to back out, speak up now.”

  Rebellious, enjoying breaking ladylike rules of engagement, I answer by pressing down on his firm glutes.

  A growl buffers my ear, “You have a date with destiny. Behind that black curtain.”

  It happens so fast, swept up in an iron grip, he hoists me into his arms, crossing the den in seven strides, snatching back the curtain; dumping me onto a bed. It's peripheral it happens so fast.

  And then he's on me, pushing me into comforting folds, pressing hard against me, his knee between mine, lifting my shirt, devouring my mouth.

  Chapter 5

  Blindfolded with the way he's pulled my shirt up, shock sends a sharp reflex through me when his mouth closes over a nipple. Imprisoned inside sleeves and shirt, he keeps pushing them up, so he can see my eyes. Now I'm rightly stuck, trying to push my shirt off with my arms, above my head, but he just leans on both wrists in a hand, watching me with a wicked chuckle.

  “Not so fast, ohpitsa.”

  His smile is feral, lowering his head back to my lips. The raw power in his kiss saps me.

  Surrendering against the impossible odds, I mumble when he withdraws, “Ohpitsa?”

  “I suppose you'd rather I call you, sugar?”

  “Sugar is sweet, but ohpitsa sounds like you're putting a spell on me.”

  He leans in, his breath coming in laughing gusts; it's hot, like mirage on rock.

  “It means sweetheart.”

  “It does?”

  “We're in Apache country sugar, ohpitsa is Apache for sweetheart.”

  “Oh,” is swallowed inside his mouth, while his hands wrap my long sleeve shirt tighter around my wrists. This isn't fair!

  Straddling my hips, he yanks off his shirt, tossing it behind him. This is what heaven's army looks like. Impossibly wide, impossibly defined, incredibly powerful.

  Giddy, completely distracted from extricating myself from my top, I stare.

  Shadows slide down deep ridges between muscles, undulating when he moves. Hard steps pave his body below his chest, to a perfect V rising from his groin to his lats, like two rods coming out his jeans.

  Watching me with sharp eyes, he backs off me slowly. Satisfied I'm not about to untangle his knotwork, he unbuttons my jeans, sliding them down my legs, pulling them off with my shoes in one easy snap.

  The air breathes goosebumps over my skin, and I'm watching the lats running down his sides widening when he pulls his own jeans off, commando underneath. It takes him all of ten seconds to get out of his clothes, and my heart is now blocking my throat completely.

  Terrified, fascinated, I watch him prowl back over me; sheer lace is all that stands between us, and what looks like the promise of pain mixing a cocktail with pleasure.

  God, that's the biggest, hardest, manly muscle I've seen. I can't look, staring into his eyes, staring into mine, his expression is serious.

  Closing my eyes, forcing myself to breathe, I'm a butterfly with her wings pinned.

  Thighs the width of my hips slide over mine, staking a knee between my legs. Slipping over me, skin on skin, it's luxurious and tantalizing. Hands run over me, up, and down, scalding lips touch my left nipple. He's hotter than Arizona in drought season; we don't need a fire in here, his temperature is soaring.

  The moist touch of his tongue circles it. Suctioned into his mouth, velvet nicks over it, again and again, taunting my g-spot when it whips a path deep through my body. Erupting with shudders, craving pools her slippery kiss between my legs. I open my eyes, looking up at the hooded ceiling. Flames make shadow phantoms, licking each other, sliding together, drawing apart, like a staccato tango.

  It happens so fast, I yelp. I'm flipped over onto my stomach.

  No escaping now.

  His strong fingers hook my hips, pulling them off the bed, and my underwear is gone. Feeling naked and exposed, I hide my face in my arm. Wanting it desperately, but fighting the nun in my head, telling me this is how good girls get into trouble.

  I'm so wanton, it's almost painful. And to make things worse, I'm the only one with deep breathing. It's all I can hear.

  Pushing his knee against the back of mine, he forces it up, my thigh at a lazy right angle to my hips now. Clenching, I move a hair's breadth away from the pressure against me.

  Cloaking me with his body, an elbow depresses the ink linen next to my head, holding me in the prison of his legs and arms.

  “Ohpitsa, it's okay, I won't hurt you.”

  That's easy for you to say.

  But I can't speak, my breathing comes in whimpering waves. His voice is therapeutic, gliding between my vertebrae, teasing my spine the way his skin kisses against my back. Relaxing into the bed, I close my eyes, waiting.

  His teeth nip my neck; a hand directs my leg further away, tilting my body. Without withdrawing the ecstasy in my neck, he lifts my hips again, aggressively thrusting the other leg up, pushing me into a cat stretch; I'm shocked forward, into my arms, when the touch of him cascades into me. I could cum right now, with him hardly breaching the sanctum.

  My breath is wild, shaky, like my heartbeat.

  “Trust me.”

  It's three octaves deeper, a purr, oddly safe, trustworthy.

  Forcing myself to relax, he senses it. Teasing me, firm hands holding my hips, thumbs stretch me apart. The skin is taut, it rides my desire. Kneading his inflamed sex over my core, it pricks my arousal with sharp strokes.

  Writhing closer, I want to feel him. I'm needy, a harsh ache deep inside is torturing me. Sinking his hips deeper, my breath hitches when my pulsating walls beat a heartbeat against his, an inch deep. Moaning, my hard nipples pine for rough hands. I want the savage. I want the storm to break free and wreak a hurricane path through me.

  And in one swift thrust, I'm neck deep in sensation.

  I thought it would hurt, it doesn't. Pausing, waiting for me to adjust, the twitch sends a warm buzzing of pleasure in every direction. Slowly sliding out, back in, my veins rush with blistering quicksilver, my blood frenzied, humming to every pore, every synapse, it's complete obliteration. I'm pure sensation, I can feel nothing else, and I never want to again.

  The raw music sets a pounding beat ar
ound the room, siphoning a primal pulse out of me, from him, he's a piston inside me, firing all cylinders at once.

  Pressure points carve filigree under my skin, indelible, white hot poison, spreading like a virus, coding itself into every cell, in a blackout surge of incinerating fire.

  When my euphoric cry hides in linen folds, a roar shimmies off the walls.

  It's a battle cry, the roar of a beast claiming his mate. Guitar riffs singe the air, throaty, grungy, gruff, hard, titillating; like the man now kissing my nape, scarring my skin with hot strokes of short stubble. Still convulsing hard girth behind my navel; every twitch a knife plunging euphoria into my soul.

  Overwhelmed, coming down from soaring high, I'm rearranged. Catching my breath; jolted back to here and now, he dives back inside me. Staring into his shoulder, cords of muscle tense in his arms, bracing him. An impatient hand tugs the shirt off my wrists.

  I'm on a seesaw, up - down, up – down, oversensitive; he's unnaturally scorching, radiating heat at me, into me, through me; his scent fills my lungs; wind, desert, fire, summer, the promise of rain on a dusty day. His smell is so earthy, so unnaturally comforting, I can't inhale enough. Running my tongue across his skin, he tastes like just burnt sugar.

  Curling my legs around him, wrapping arms so my hands can glide over his back, he reacts, arching, hunting deeper, shooting lightning so powerful, the room swirls in my vision – my orgasm pounds bullets to my fingertips, bursting out through nipples, sparkles dance before my eyes. I'm numb in my toes and fingers. I can't feel my heart beating. I'm dead. He killed me with pleasure.

  The rumble of his roar wriggles inside my chest, like a kitten curling up, snuggling tight. It's precious.

  I'm still waiting for my vision to return. Really powerful orgasms leave me blind. The longest I've had is two minutes, and a strange fear pierces inside. This was a volcano of furious passion, I could be blind for the rest of my life.

  Riding me again, cruising hard and deep, ruthless and desperate, my insides are on fire, strumming my soul with blunt fingers of sheer paradise. Chaffing my thighs, our bodies connect with a panicked shluck, adding a crescendo to the music.

  Clenching, my body kisses back, hot and wet, coating with another uncontrollable stuttering. I must have been holding my breath, vertigo gyrates my senses.