One Taste

by Cari Quinn

  Then she stopped feeling irked and started enjoying.

  “No.” The word sighed from her lips. “It’s good.”

  Her eyes closed, but only to focus on the plunge of his finger and the electrifying swipe of his mouth. He knew exactly what to do to bring her to the edge of another orgasm, but her moans halted in midstream as he nudged her thigh up to her chest. Before she could draw a breath, he’d gone back to exploring her with leisurely rasps of his tongue. “Still good?” he asked, turning his smile against her belly when she only quivered.

  His lips clasped her clit, sucking, pulling. With a raw cry, her hips rose from the mattress as pleasure swamped her, drenching her like the warm blanket of the Pacific. Dragging her down, drawing her in.

  Home.

  While he kissed his way up her sweat-dampened torso to her mouth, his lips learning each hollow and curve as if he’d be tested later, her hands skimmed over the corded line of his shoulders. Hot, damp skin stretched over rippling muscles that bunched when she nibbled his neck and yanked down his pajama bottoms. There, his skin burned even hotter, his temperature rising with each caress of her palms over the hair-roughened backs of his thighs.

  Underneath him, she wriggled lower, trailing a wet path of kisses down his chest while her hands kneaded his ass. Her mouth fastened on one flat nipple, and she timed the speed and suction of her kisses to the pounding of his heart.

  She relished his guttural pants, craved the sensation of his breath fluttering her hair. Her hands slid down the taut, tense muscles of his stomach to his cock, using the drop of liquid pearling on the head to coat her fingers as she stroked and teased.

  She licked his stomach, tasting the salty sweetness of his skin, inhaling the scent of the hotel soap and his sweat. But when she neared what she wanted most, he hooked his hands under her arms and dragged her up, taking her mouth with a ferocity that left her stunned. His kiss was flavored with her and thrummed with raw need, the kind no amount of lovemaking could sate.

  Need for her. For what they’d begun creating so many years ago.

  Rachel blinked when he drew back, the withdrawal of his body heat as painful as a slap. Her leaping heart steadied when she watched him roll away to retrieve his wallet.

  Just like the previous evening, she hadn’t thought about a condom.

  She swallowed, hard. What was up with her? She carried a first-aid kit in her suitcase, for God’s sake. With six kinds of bandages. Plus, she’d tucked a spare cell phone in her carry-on and three sizes of batteries. Just in case.

  “It’s been too long, that’s why,” she said as he did the honors and cast a quizzical glance in her direction. She shook her head, wrapping her body around him as soon as he settled between her legs.

  She’d take time to worry what had happened to her brain later. Much later.

  But now…

  He didn’t slip inside her right away. Anchoring his hands in her hair, he enjoyed her mouth as if he’d never sampled anything quite so delectable before. Kiss after kiss, he erased her hurt from earlier that night, building the anticipation and setting her nerves afire. Though the delicious ache between her legs made her squirm, she tried not to rush, but his soft laughter against her mouth proved he knew her too well.

  “Always in a hurry.”

  He leaned up, tracing his fingertips over her cheeks until she trembled. Desperate for relief, she rocked against him, her head twisting on the pillow as he strummed the backs of his fingers over her breasts. Bending, he captured one reddened nipple between his lips, sucking it until she couldn’t hold back a moan. “Shawn. I need…”

  His eyes narrowed, the green darkening to the color she’d once seen the sky before a lightning storm broke across the ocean. “What?”

  She wet her lips and brushed her fingers through the hair falling across his forehead. Warmth blossomed inside her, twining with the desire pooling in her pussy. “You.”

  In one smooth motion, he lifted her hips and slid inside her. He gripped her chin in fingers that weren’t steady, keeping his eyes locked on hers as he started to move. She reveled in each pulse of his cock as her legs clamped around his hips, her body bowing under the incredible fullness of his thrusts --

  “Ow! Christ.” The knife of pain in her back made her collapse against the mattress seconds before her hands slipped limply from his shoulders.

  Perspiration trickled down his temple as he stilled his hips. “What? What’d I do?”

  “Not you. Or not you…now.” Hissing at the line of flames spreading between her shoulder blades, she didn’t even raise her head when he shifted away and turned her onto her side.

  His long, inventive curse would’ve made her grin, ordinarily. But she was too sore.

  “Damn. You look like you hit a wall.”

  She grinned at him over her shoulder. “Uh, yeah. Kinda did.”

  “Sorry.” His lips touched the bruises she’d discovered in the shower, when she’d been too weepy to pay them any mind. “Guess we won’t be trying any more missionary sex for a while.”

  He pulled her back against him, thumbing her hair off her shoulder so he could nuzzle her neck. Getting his drift, she threw her leg back over both of his, and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood when he brushed the strip of curls at the apex of her thighs. “Still wet.” Teasingly, he flicked her clit, his chuckle ruffling her hair. “Back must not hurt too bad.”

  “God, just do it.” Laughing helplessly, she reached behind her and guided him in, her sighs blending with his as she took him to the hilt. The fit was even snugger this way, the angle even more extraordinary. His erection stroked her exactly right, gliding over the swollen spot inside her pussy that made her tingle from head to toe.

  When she ground against him, his gentle squeeze of her breast made her pause. “This one time…” He nibbled her ear as he slid out, then in again. “Just enjoy.”

  As if he needed to ask twice.

  Beethoven’s Fifth crescendoed on the CD, the perfect backdrop to the inferno exploding in her body. She trapped his hand in hers, linking their fingers while he pumped his cock deeper, faster. His harsh pants scalded her skin as she arched, straining toward the climax she neared with each ragged breath.

  She shuddered in his arms, feeling him tense as her orgasm roared through her system. A stunned whimper shattered the thick silence. Hers. His. She couldn’t differentiate. All she could do was ride the delirious wave of scorching pleasure until it bottomed out.

  His hips never stopped moving. God, had anything ever felt so…intimate? She didn’t have to face him to feel linked. It was if their mingled breaths and hearts were one.

  Need flared anew, nowhere near quenched. Even the pain in her back was a distant memory. All she knew was that she wasn’t satisfied yet, would never be satisfied until he’d found his release.

  Until she’d given it to him.

  As soon as she’d recovered, she rolled over onto her hands and knees, dragging him with her. She flexed her pussy around him, sliding up and down his cock. The wet friction built, driving her up again. But she ignored her body’s demands and reached down between them to feather his tight balls. She knew he was close. A heartbeat away.

  With a fractured oath, he dug his fingers into her hips and slammed her forward and back on his length, forgetting her soreness. Forgetting everything but his own desperation. Just as she’d hoped.

  And on a groan that was her name, he let go, taking her with him one more time.

  Silence reigned as she fought to get her breath and her bearings. He shifted, and they collapsed to the mattress in a tangled heap. She burrowed into his embrace, holding his arm prisoner between her breasts just in case he thought he’d make a getaway.

  Not this time.

  “Not weird,” she whispered, noting the CD had finally stopped.

  “No.” His drowsy, satisfied voice coaxed a smile onto her lips. “Not weird at all.”

  The phone shot her awake what seemed like minutes later, thou
gh a quick check of the clock proved it had been hours. Besides that, it was past seven. She should have been working out hours ago.

  Her crankiness at being awakened vanished as she sneaked a glance at Shawn over her shoulder. He was sprawled flat on his back, lost in dreamland. Pesky interruptions like phones never intruded on him when he was getting his Z’s.

  She grinned. Lucky bastard.

  The phone rang again, and she inched toward it, swatting Shawn’s hand away when he grabbed at her halfheartedly. She looked back at him as she snatched the receiver, unsurprised to note he’d already dropped back into sleep. Some things never changed.

  There was a pause after she said hello. Then Dillon Griffin’s voice boomed into her ear. “Rachel?”

  She swallowed, suddenly feeling like a high school kid caught making out with her boyfriend on the living room couch. Shawn’s father was the second-best thing to her own, after all. “Uh, hi, Mr. Griffin.” She tossed a desperate glance at Shawn, still blissfully unconscious. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. How’s New York?”

  What, no questions about why she was in Shawn’s hotel room at just past seven in the morning? Yeah, everyone knew they spent ridiculous amounts of time together, but she didn’t spend the night with him under normal circumstances.

  “Great. Weather’s been perfect, not too hot.”

  “Done a lot of sightseeing?”

  Since just about the only sight she’d gotten an up-close-and-personal view of was his son’s very sexy body, she cleared her throat. “Some. Probably we’ll --” She heaved out a breath, reminding herself not to make assumptions. “I’ll be doing more today.”

  “Shawn’s still asleep, I’m sure.”

  She started to flail about for a plausible explanation, but Dillon cut her off. “It’s all right, honey. I understand the situation perfectly.”

  Her grip on the phone faltered. How could he, when she didn’t understand it herself? “You do?”

  “I do. It’s about time you and Shawn accept your destiny.”

  Rachel sank onto the mattress, suddenly completely unconcerned whether or not Shawn got his beauty sleep. He’d left her to deal with this, alone? “I…what?”

  “Your destiny,” Dillon said matter-of-factly. “Since you were a little girl, your parents and Elaina and I have waited for you two to realize what we’ve always known. There simply couldn’t be a better match for either of you.”

  “Says who?”

  “Well, my dear, obviously you’re not averse to the idea or you wouldn’t be answering Shawn’s phone at dawn.”

  “That just…happened.” Her cheeks flamed. Three times. “Don’t make more out of it than it is. We’re adults,” she said finally, gathering her flagging courage. “It’s not anyone’s business how we spend our time.”

  “It is when Shawn owes me work, but in this case, I’ll let him slide.” His smile all but winged across the line. “Your parents will be thrilled when I tell them the news.”

  Her frustration shot into the red zone. Oh, hell no, she would not face this fight on two fronts. “There is no news. Nothing. So we had sex, it doesn’t mean --” She pressed her fingers against her eyes, beyond horrified at both her admission and how fast it would travel around Calvin Bay. “Please. Shawn wouldn’t want this either. We just want our privacy.”

  “If he wanted privacy, he wouldn’t have come to me for advice. Maybe you haven’t made up your mind yet, which is your right. But he has.”

  Her heartbeat stopped. Literally stopped. Not Shawn too. “What do you mean?” she whispered, her gaze fixed on her free hand, now balled in her lap.

  “He agrees with me. With us. We knew you wouldn’t be so easy to convince, but in time, you’ll realize how much sense this makes.”

  “Sense? What about love? Does that factor in any of your freaking equations?”

  Sidestepping her question, he replied in an even tone, “You know Shawn will take care of you. He’ll be an excellent husband and father to your children.”

  Husband? Father to her children? Good God in heaven, she’d just walked into the setup of the century.

  Suddenly, the room seemed too chilly. Goose bumps prickled on her arms. Her nipples pebbled. But most of all, her heart felt cold, as if a block of ice had wedged itself in her chest. “I’ll tell Shawn you called.”

  She hung up without another word, then shifted to stare at the nude man beside her, his golden hair messily tousled, his arms draped across his eyes as if he slept without a care in the world.

  “Nap’s over, Griffin.” She seized his pillow, deriving a perverse pleasure from the thunk of his head on the mattress. Then she swung the pillow high and brought it down hard.

  Chapter Nine

  He was being smothered. By the woman he loved, no less.

  Lifting his hands to push at the pillow over his head, Shawn sputtered at the shock of being awakened so abruptly. Sure, he tended to need a shake or two to be roused from sleep, but a pillow in the face? Followed by yet another whack in a region that didn’t respond well to violence?

  “What the hell’s your problem?” Recovered enough to speak, he wrenched the pillow out of her hands, giving him an unobstructed view of her mutinous expression. “I know I didn’t set the alarm, but we’re on frigging vacation.”

  “Some vacation.” She shoved his feet off the bed, for no reason he could discern other than pure spite. “I trusted you. I never thought you’d betray me. God, anyone else. But not you.”

  It wasn’t her words but the anguish on her face that had him sitting up. He scooted closer, then held up his hands when she all but spat at him like a wounded cat. “If this is about last night, I told you I shouldn’t have left. It was a mistake, one I won’t make again.”

  “Damn right you won’t make it again. We’re through.” She climbed off the bed, drawing herself up to her full five-nine as if she thought towering over him would have some effect. “This sex crap is so over. I haven’t decided if the friendship is yet, but it’s not looking good --”

  Irrational or not, the emotion that grabbed him around the throat wasn’t anger. It was panic. “Can the dramatics, dammit.” He rose to his knees and gripped her shoulders. “Whatever your problem is, say it straight.”

  “Fine. You want it straight?” She ripped his hands from her shoulders. “I know you’re trying to tie me up in knots so I have no choice but to marry you and have your babies, which you will then be an excellent father to, even if no one fucking cares what I want.”

  He stared at her for one charged moment. Then he sank back on his heels, his sides shaking with laughter. “Jesus, Rach, I almost thought you were serious for a second there.”

  As her hand snaked toward the discarded pillow, he clamped his fingers around her wrist. “What’d I tell you about hitting me last night?” His voice gentled when he saw her lips quiver. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “I just did.”

  “You honestly believe I’m trying to confuse you into getting married and pregnant?” At her silence, he shook his head as another baffled laugh tumbled free. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, we’ve used condoms every time. And you’re still on the pill. If I wanted to get you pregnant, I’m a little swifter than that.”

  “I don’t mean you want me pregnant now. But someday. After we’ve had our perfect little wedding, it’ll be time for me to shoot out our perfect little babies like the natural-born breeder I’m supposed to be.”

  “Well, I’m sure they would be perfect little babies. I mean, c’mon, look at the gene pool.”

  His attempt at humor didn’t sway her. In fact, she barely seemed to register his voice as she stared resolutely at the wall.

  Trying again, he reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. When she jerked as if he’d struck her, he dropped his hand and sat back. “You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have had sex, because you’re acting like someone I’ve never met, never mind -
-”

  “I told you!” She turned away, but not before he glimpsed the tears glistening on her lashes. “I told you this would screw us up, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  Though he wanted to turn his back, her tears, as usual, hit him square in the gut. The lowest of low blows, especially when he had no clue what he’d done to cause them. “Us having sex isn’t the problem.” He searched for his patience, but realized he had none left. “You are.”

  “Of course I am. That I won’t fall right in line with the Cooper/Griffin agenda must really get your shorts in a knot.”

  “Not wearing any,” he said easily, letting out a breath when she covered her face with her hands. “Okay, I’ll play your way. For the record, I’m not trying to trap you into marriage. Or having babies. I’m not trying to trap you, period. I wouldn’t do that, Rach.”

  When his declaration was met with stony silence, he continued. “But just in case what happened years ago with Halston has something to do with this two-headed monster trip, you can bet your pretty ass if you did get pregnant, I wouldn’t be three thousand miles away.”

  She blotted the tears dripping steadily down her cheeks, falling one after another in a deluge she wasn’t fast enough to catch. “He never knew.”

  “And if he had? You think he’d have changed his plans? Temporarily, maybe. Maybe he’d have gotten a charge out of some kid calling him daddy, but then he would’ve been off again.”

  “You don’t know that. I don’t know that. It’s useless to speculate, because my baby’s dead.” She gathered her clothes off the floor. “As dead as you and I.”

  The poison-tipped barb arrowed right into his chest, arousing a fury to match hers. “Is that it? You can’t stand that I’d stick by you, that I’d want our child? That I wouldn’t ride my motorcycle off to the next woman while you cried yourself to sleep?” Unable to rein in his temper, he swung off the bed and hauled her up to face him. “Is that the fucking problem?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m crying right now.” As she wiped her cheeks, her body vibrated from a mixture of anger and pain. And fear. He smelled it on her, the scent as pervasive as the earthy tones of her perfume. “Get out of my way.”