“As close as you can be with an ocean separating you. I spent glorious summers there when I was growing up.” She heard his smile.
“Do you go with your parents?”
“No.” The sudden chill in his tone was a stark contrast to his earlier warmth. His body tensed against her back, his arms tightened slightly. She intensely disliked Simon’s parents even though she’d never met them. By virtue of how little he said, she had a pretty clear picture of two self-absorbed, self-important people who didn’t make time for their son. She might be the odd man out in her family, but she still knew they loved her even though they often disapproved of her.
“I can’t imagine you on a farm.” She deliberately interjected a light, teasing note.
“I’ll have you know I’m quite proficient at gathering eggs and milking a cow.”
“No way. That I’d like to see.” Despite her teasing, it was true. She’d like to see Simon unplugged. “Did you have a girlfriend there?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong with the girls in England? I can’t believe you didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Devon’s not exactly a metropolis like New York or London.”
“Are you telling me the countryside was totally devoid of young women? You never wowed a milkmaid one farm over with your egg-gathering technique?”
Simon chuckled, but it sounded forced. “There was one girl.... Her father was the vicar.”
Sometimes he wasn’t the most forthcoming with info. Fortunately Tawny didn’t mind asking questions. “How British...the vicar’s daughter. And her name was...?”
“Jillian. Jillian Carruthers.”
“And whatever happened to Jillian Carruthers? Or do you still see her when you go to England?”
“I do still see Jillian, almost every trip.”
“Oh.” Oh. Crud. Suddenly her teasing and Jillian weren’t quite so funny. In fact, Tawny felt sort of nauseous.
“She married my cousin Reg. They’re expecting twins this fall.”
“Oh.” Surely that hadn’t been pleasant to have his love interest marry his cousin. Was Jillian his unattainable woman? Yet, Simon had said his unattainable woman wasn’t married. Tawny knew she was an evil bitch to feel so relieved Jillian was safely out of the picture. “Is it awkward when you see them?”
“Not at all. That was a long time ago.”
She stroked her thumb over his arm, feeling the play of muscle beneath skin. “Did you ever tell her how you felt?”
“I did, in fact. But by the end of the summer, she decided I wasn’t her cup of tea. She and Reg became an item and that was that.”
Hmm. And there was more there than he was letting on. His tone was light and nonchalant, but she felt the tension in his body. “Were you devastated?”
“Only for a bit. They’re well suited. It worked out that way for a reason. Life has a way of doing that.”
She didn’t want him to retreat due to a memory of a lost love. She deliberately brought the conversation back to them. “I for one am glad it worked out that way because otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here with you. Jillian has no idea what she’s missing.” She wriggled, pressing her buttocks against him, a not-so-subtle reminder of where he was, who he was with and the direction things were headed. “I think you’re lots of fun.”
“Do you now?” He pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, seeming to inherently know her most sensitive spot. He laughed softly at her intake of breath and the shiver she had no hope of hiding.
“Yes,” she said. His teeth raked lightly against her shoulder and she shuddered at the exquisite sensation. “And I’m particularly fond of that kind of fun.”
“I’m just getting started with the fun. I owe you a back wash.” He released her and she passed him the soap. “Lean forward a bit.”
She folded her arms over her knees and rested her head on them. He stroked his soapy fingers over her shoulders, traced down the line of her backbone and then rubbed small circles over her back. She almost purred, it felt so good. “Ahh. You certainly know how to wash a back.”
“Your back has beautiful lines.” He curled his fingers along her right side. “This curve. Very graceful.”
Oh. The things he did and said—the way he made her feel. What was it about Simon that he unlocked more feelings, more response in her with a single touch than any man ever had with far more than a touch?
“Thank you. And don’t even think about stopping and getting your camera.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Heat underscored his teasing tone.
The water lapped around her as he gentled his soap-slicked hands up her sides, his fingertips barely brushing the sides of her breasts, to her underarms. My God, she’d never had anyone stroke her underarms, never knew it could feel so good.
She raised her head and uncrossed her arms when he cupped his hands and ran them over her upper arms. He stroked the length of her limbs and she leaned back into him once again, her breasts tingling, tightening in anticipation of where his hands would roam next.
He reached around, beneath her arms, and worked his finger magic across her collarbone, along her chest leading to the slope of her breasts and then the curve of her breasts, along the side, beneath them but never actually touching them or her nipples. Finally he cupped them and she dropped her head back against him, the thud of his heartbeat strong against her shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Is this what you wanted?” His breath gusted against her neck. “Is this what you’ve been waiting for?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too,” he purred next to her ear while his fingers found her nipples. Warmth rushed between her thighs as he plucked and kneaded and caressed. Judging by the way his cock surged against her back, he enjoyed fondling her breasts as much as she enjoyed his “fun.”
He cupped his hands and sluiced water over her front, rinsing off the soap.
“Now your back.” She leaned forward and he rinsed. He settled her once again against his chest.
“Feel better?” He traced the shell of her ear with the tip of this tongue.
“Much.” He expected her to think coherently...talk...when his tongue and mouth were...ooh.
“I think you can feel even better yet,” he said, low and seductive.
She closed her eyes when he kissed her neck. She loved having her neck kissed. It tingled through her body all the way to her toes. He could spend hours kissing her neck and she’d be a happy camper.
“I don’t know... I’m feeling...ooh...very good.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said and anticipation coursed through her. He ran his hands over the rounded mound of her belly and she tried to suck it in, to flatten it. His warm breath teased against her ear. “Stop, Tawny. Relax. You’re built like a woman’s supposed to be built. Soft, with curves in all the right places.”
Go to the head of the class for that answer, Simon. He was so tuned in to her, seemed to read every nuance of her body language. He trailed his fingers, the lightest of touches, along the tops of her thighs.
“Open your legs for me.” His voice was as thick as his erection nudging her from behind and reminded her of her dream that morning. It was a perfect blend of fantasy and reality and left her all the hotter still. She spread her legs and cool water rushed against her slick heat.
Simon reached between her thighs, his arms and hands dark against her pale skin, and parted her with his thumbs. “Oh, luv, I like your bare style.”
It had taken two margaritas of Dutch courage to actually work up the nerve to have another human being wax her there and it had hurt like hell, but when it was all said and done, once she’d gone bare she was never going back.
She inched her legs farther apart. “Me, too. The better to feel you.”
And feel him she did—every screaming, craving nerve ending in her body centered between her legs. He traced her with a finger until he found her clit and brushed against it. She whimpered and pressed against his
hand. Okay, maybe her neck wasn’t her most sensitive spot.
“Easy. Relax. Not so fast. Sit back and enjoy it. Savor it. You liked it when I did that?”
“Yes.”
“How about his?” He slid a finger into her and she forced herself not to arch into him, but she did clench her muscles around him.
“Yes.”
“You feel so good. You’re so much hotter than the water. It’s like dipping my finger into warm honey.”
His voice, low and sexy, his words, his touch, the feel of his body behind her, his arms around her, the feel of his breath against her skin when he spoke, the faint scrape of his whiskers against her shoulder, the cool water lapping at her hot skin, all centered in her, through her.
He alternated stroking along her slit and sliding a finger, then two fingers, into her, while his thumb worked magic on her clit. He cupped her left breast in his other hand, toying with her nipple, plucking, squeezing.
Tawny gripped the sides of the tub and spread her legs wider, pressing against his hair-roughened legs on either side of her. Please. She couldn’t stand anything that felt this good much longer, but she also didn’t want it to stop.
“Harder. Faster. Yes...yes...like that...oh...” She thrust her hips up to meet his fingers, driving him deeper within her, grinding her clit against the pressure of his thumb.
“That’s it, luv. You’re so beautiful. I want you to come for me. That’s it...” Simon’s voice sent her over the edge. She turned her head and bit into his shoulder, suckling him, tasting the warm saltiness of his skin against her tongue as she spasmed with pleasure.
She collapsed against him, quite simply because she didn’t seem to have a bone left in her body. She felt as fluid and formless as the water surrounding her.
Simon pressed a kiss to her hair and wrapped his arms more firmly around her. “Oh, Tawny.”
“Mmm,” she murmured and rubbed her cheek against his arm, the only response she was capable of at the moment. Slowly she came back together, fully aware of his hard ridge behind her, the taut muscles of his belly and chest, the tension banding his arms.
She slid forward and turned around to face him on her knees. Sexual arousal and need etched his face, glittered in his eyes. With a slow smile she reached for the soap.
“Your turn.”
* * *
“I can’t get it up,” Tawny said, her frustration evident in the way she shoved her hair back off of her brow. “Do you want to try?”
“Sure. I’ll have a go at it.” God, this would be embarrassing if he couldn’t get it up for her, but there was no guarantee. He put his weight behind pulling up on the window sash. “These older buildings have been painted so many times, sometimes the window’s painted shut.” He felt the smallest amount of give. “I think it’s coming.” Yep. The window gave and opened a few inches. He wrestled it the rest of the way.
“My hero,” she said, teasing him with a smile, but her eyes shone with something that wrapped around his heart.
God, he was hopeless. He felt ten feet tall just because he’d opened the bloody window for her.
“It’s no Arctic blast, but it’s a bit cooler than in here.” The drenching rain had brought little relief from the relentless heat. Steam rose from the pavement below.
“When it rains at home, it’s steamy, too. But New York never smells fresh the way Savannah does after a rain,” Tawny said on a wistful note. She swept back the comforter and top sheet and settled against the pillows propped against her headboard. “At least the sheets are sort of cool.”
She obviously had no intention of sitting in the cloying confines of her den. Suited him fine. He stretched across the end of the bed, a towel around his hips. His damp clothes were draped over the shower rod in the bathroom. She’d had the benefit of fresh clothes and wore a pair of black panties, which were really just plain but very sexy, and a black tank top.
“Do you miss Savannah?” he asked.
“I miss certain things about it. The way it smells after a summer rain. The sound of a horse-drawn carriage on cobblestones. Spanish moss draping trees so old and sprawling they canopy the streets. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I’m not well traveled outside of New York and England.”
She traced a lazy pattern on his calf with her toe. He liked the casual way she touched him, as if she needed to and had the right to. “The slower pace might drive you insane, but you’d love the city itself.”
They lay in the flickering light, with the sounds of New York drifting in through the window, and she painted a picture for him of her birthplace, of the history and architecture and culture. Whether she knew it or not, her voice slowed, took on more of that honeyed Southern accent that always underlay her words. He imagined the two of them enjoying a horse-drawn carriage ride along cobblestone streets beneath moss-drenched oaks.
“You obviously love it. Why’d you leave?”
“I do love it, and in a way it was hard to go, but not really. I left because I needed to.”
“Needed to or wanted to?”
“Needed to. I needed to step out of my comfort zone, discover new places, new things, discover myself.”
She intrigued him with her mix of gutsiness, attitude, open sensuality and insecurities.
“And have you? Discovered yourself?” he asked.
“I thought I had. Tonight’s sort of blown me out of the water. But I think I’ve finally figured out it’s an ongoing process. Every day brings something new and different—some days more than others—like today. I know for certain I’m not the same person I was when I left, and that’s a good thing.”
How did she feel about today’s changes? After this fiasco with Elliott, would she think about moving back home? She didn’t strike Simon as the type to run home to her mother, but he had to ask.
“After this with Elliott, are you thinking about moving back?”
She shook her head and gave him a funny look. Tendrils of loose hair danced across her shoulders. “Not in the foreseeable future. I love Savannah and it’ll always be home—I look forward to my visits—but New York has a pretty firm hold on my heart, as well. What about you? Have you ever wanted to live somewhere else?”
Tawny was easy to talk to and the dark didn’t hurt either. Simon found himself telling her things he’d never told anyone else, perhaps never truly thought about consciously. “When I was a kid spending my summers in Devon, I wanted to stay there forever. When I got older, I realized it was my grandparents that drew me and not the place itself. Once I moved out on my own, New York felt more like home.”
“My parents aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy either.”
They weren’t even touching—well, except for her toe against his calf—but he felt closer to her emotionally than he ever had to anyone, even Elliott. He almost told her he hadn’t said that about his parents, but he supposed he had. Indirectly. She had a way of seeing through to him. And as she’d said earlier, what was the point of prevarication?
“But you’re warm and outgoing. How did that happen?”
“I’m an anomaly, the which one of these doesn’t belong.” She laughed and the rueful note tore at his heart.
“I’ve always been the odd man out, as well.” He’d thought it innumerable times. It was liberating to say it.
“What are they like?” she asked.
“My parents?” She nodded. “Clever, engaging, articulate. They’re a self-contained unit. They made wonderful cocktail-party guests and lousy parents.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“Nope. Just me.” And it had been just him in every respect. They hadn’t been a family. Growing up had been such a lonely experience until he and Elliott became friends that he didn’t particularly want to revisit it. “What was it like with two sisters?”
He switched the conversation back to her. She looked at him and he knew she was onto him, but she indulged him nonetheless, launching into tales about her siblings.
Sh
e was a natural storyteller. He loved the rhythm and cadence of her voice. There was a soothing quality to her speech even when she was regaling him with her childhood escapades.
“You might be the baby of the family, but I’m seeing a pattern here. You’re definitely the instigator.”
“Hmm. I told you...I’m the one who doesn’t quite fit.” Drowsiness exaggerated her drawl.
“You sound tired,” he said.
“I am. What time is it?”
Simon checked his luminous watch. “Almost midnight.”
“It’s still early, but I think I’m emotionally exhausted and then too much fun...”
“Get some sleep.”
“Mmm. That’s a good idea.”
They’d had sex twice, but there was such an intimacy to actually sharing a bed with another person, letting your guard down enough to drift into unconsciousness....
“Would you rather have me on the couch?” he asked.
“No. Stay with me.” Don’t read more into it than she means. “It’s cooler in here...and I don’t want you to go. I changed the sheets this morning, if that was...you know, if you felt funny about... I’m making a mess of this.”
“You’re not making a mess of anything.” He slid up the bed to stretch out beside her. She was one woman in a million—concerned that sleeping on sheets after Elliott would bother him. He ran his finger down the line of her nose and pressed a chaste good-night kiss to her forehead. “Thank you for telling me. Go to sleep and I’ll be right here.”
She smiled sleepily, hands-down the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, on or off camera. “Try to sleep, too.” She found his leg with her foot.
“I will.”
He lay in her bed and listened to the muted sounds from a city that never slept, even in the midst of a blackout, and the soft cadence of her breathing. Without forethought, he lightly stroked her hair away from her face, wanting only to touch her while he still could, unwilling to sleep away his time with her. She uttered a soft satisfied sound.
“Simon?”
“Hmm?”
Northern Rebel: Daring in the Dark Page 27
