by Cari Quinn
He nuzzled her, breathing in the combined scent of strawberry bubble bath and her delicious musk. “Don’t see any shriveling here. Let me do a thorough examination before I give you my firm diagnosis.”
“Firm, eh?” She sounded wryly amused, and he knew why. His cock was already doing its best impression of a periscope, surging up from the water the moment he tasted her excitement.
“Very.” He banded his arm around the backs of her thighs and used his other hand to open her up to his mouth. Slowly, he licked her from the top of her mound down to her quivering slit and savored her low moans and the way she softened. She was so eager and wanton in her approach to pleasure—one more thing they shared. There were a lot of them.
Now if he could only make her see that.
His fingers tensed on her flesh as she twisted her hand in his hair, holding him steady while she rocked into the thrusts of his tongue. Never losing his rhythm, he pried the toy out of her hand and searched with his thumb for the switch. Grumbling when he couldn’t find it, then chuckling at the sensation of her equally clumsy fingers guiding his. Together they turned it on and aimed it at her clit, which made her jump back so quickly he had to lurch partially out of the tub to maintain his hold on her. “Uh uh. No escape for you.”
“Brad, I can’t—”
“Such a liar. You know you do this all the time. Don’t be shy with me. Ever.”
He rubbed the tip over her sodden flesh, absorbing each of her shudders until they seemed to move through his body as well. The link between them held fast even when he slipped back. Her gaze held him in her thrall while he started the vibrator’s next circuit over her flesh.
For a moment she remained absolutely still, staring down at him with smoldering eyes. Her wetness growing, slickening the toy. Slickening his hand. Making him lose his grip. He swore and bore down, the vibration in his hand traveling up his arm. His ignored cock twitched, urgent for some stimulation, but he concentrated on her, bending to take the swollen pearl of her clit between his teeth at the same time the head of the toy breached her pussy. He flipped the lever higher, nipping her clit in conjunction with his teasing thrusts. She squirmed in his hold, her fingernails scraping his scalp, her body swaying.
Loudly and lewdly he sucked at her flesh. The flavor of her arousal heightened with every step he brought her toward orgasm. He was dying for more in his mouth. She made a sound of protest and edged away, but he didn’t let her get far. He pushed upward, and she gasped as her folds greedily pulled that extension of him inside.
“I want you to come all over my hand.” He nipped her lower belly. “Soak me, baby.”
As if he’d hit her switch, she jerked forward, practically falling over him as wild shudders racked her. She rode the toy with abandon, lost to the sensations that made her skin flush and prickle with perspiration. Moans burst from her lips. Praise. Curses. Unintelligible delight.
And he basked in every second with her, throwing the vibe aside to take advantage of the liquid treat awaiting him. She spasmed around his tongue, and he groaned so deeply he was sure the neighbors heard it. Not that he cared. He wanted to tell the world she was his, that he never wanted to let her go.
Before he’d had his fill, she shoved him back and straddled him, sinking down on his ready cock in a fluid move that stole his breath. Though he watched her envelop his straining shaft and felt every twitch of her aftershocks, he couldn’t fucking believe what he was seeing. What he was feeling.
Sara. Around him. Bare.
As much as he wanted to revel in the feeling of her taking him deep, he couldn’t stay silent. She mattered too much to him, and if she’d had a momentary lapse she would regret later—
“I know,” she whispered, stilling his lips when he would’ve spoken. “We’re covered.” She replaced her finger with her warm, tender mouth. “Now fuck me like you mean it, O’Halloran.”
He wouldn’t make her ask twice.
He pressed her thighs wide apart, his gaze riveted on the show between her legs. Her swollen lower lips spread at his surge into the sweet spot that took him so readily. Her gently curved belly undulated at his strokes. The bubbles obscured way more of the action than he liked, but he drew her up over him, powering into her tight pussy again and again.
Taking, and giving, and taking more.
Her mouth opened on a silent moan, her pale brown eyes warming to the color of molasses. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, drunk on her. She was his champagne, the very blood that beat in his veins. He could feel her inside his skin, as if she were entering him rather than the other way around.
She tipped her head back, brown hair streaming over her shuddering shoulders, the pale line of her throat and soft swells of her cleavage drawing his mouth. He kissed wherever he could reach, hungry for the taste of her skin. She reached out and grabbed the ledge that held the soap, using it for leverage to rock up and down over his stiff length. To bob forward and dangle her lovely breasts over his face like ripe fruit, full to bursting.
He sculpted his hands over her reverently, consumed with her velvety texture. He’d dreamed, and he’d wished, but he’d never imagined reality could be as intoxicating as this.
Her lips rounded again and she picked up her pace, telling him she was close. Sweat beaded on the apples of her cheeks, and he licked it off. She rocked harder, faster, raising and lowering in the water. Giving him an erotic peepshow of taut nipples, a slash of navel and a hint of brown curls. A glimpse of pink flesh, straining to accept all of him. He circled his hips, filling her inexorably. Leaving no part of her untouched. Unloved.
“Brad. God, I’m coming—”
“Yes.” He kissed her, sucking at her tongue the same way her slick sheath sucked him deep. “Come on me, Sara.”
She gasped, letting go. Giving in. The sight of her features caught in climax would stay in his mind forever. Her orgasm flowed through her like lava, creating hot waves of pleasure around his cock. His balls clenched close to his groin as he fought to hold on, to continue fucking her through her spasms. She scraped her nails down his arms, her movements wild even in her body’s surrender to his. He palmed her breast, thumbing it with the longing she’d unleashed. And she arched, offering him everything.
Except her heart.
Suddenly desperate, he pumped into her harder, deeper. Aching to forge that connection between them, to make it last. Here she couldn’t run, and his feelings didn’t put him at a disadvantage. They were equals, trapped in the same vortex of need.
Her teeth scraped his lip, and he grunted at the flash of pain in the center of so much goddamned bliss. “Your turn,” she whispered, and there wasn’t a thing on the earth he wouldn’t have given to keep that glow on her face. Even himself.
He couldn’t wait. Couldn’t stop the ecstasy that rippled through him and into her, his release pulsing as rhythmically as the jets of water shooting out around them. It went on and on, his cock spasming until she’d spent him dry.
Sara slumped against him, sliding so far down his chest that he feared she’d keep going and drown. Weakly, he hooked his hand around her upper arm. “Where you going?”
“Naptime.”
“Don’t advise you sleeping down there.” His dick chose that moment to flex expectantly within her depths. “He’s a beast. Outta my control,” he added at her baleful glance between her legs.
“Sorry, buddy. Maybe later.”
“He appreciates your consideration.”
“And I appreciate him.” Grinning, she placed her hands on the side of the tub and rose, almost letting him leave her body. She gave him an eyeful of the waterfall coasting off her beautiful breasts before she was in his arms and engulfing his shaft again. Then he couldn’t think beyond how good her hair smelled and how softly she curled around him and—
How much deep shit he was in.
“You never showed me your toy.” She snuggled against him and let out a sound that bordered on a purr. “If you’d like I could use i
t on you. Maybe settle him down some,” she murmured, tightening her inner walls around his semi-firm shaft in a manner that would not have the effect she desired. In fact, he could already feel the blood surging into his groin, his balls growing harder by the second.
He worked the snarls out of her hair. “It’s right on the edge of the tub.”
“What? Where?” She glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t see—” Noticing the stuffed bird he’d tucked in the corner, she threw back her head and laughed. With a sad little pop, his cock slipped free of her body. “Here I thought you’d have something really crazy. Like, I don’t know, a cock ring or ben wa balls for me or something. Instead, you’ve got my macaw.”
“Ben wa balls?” He tapped his chin as she faced him again. “Those could be arranged. Maybe even for that fancy shindig of yours.”
“That’s our most important benefit of the year.”
“I bet you could handle it.” He brushed a kiss over her temple. “You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?”
She pursed her lips. “You never play fair.”
He caressed her nipple until it stood firm and dark. He reached for the other and gave it the same treatment before sliding his hand down her belly. She shivered as he fingered her, spreading the silky wetness that coated the pad of his thumb. “Who’s playing?”
Her delirious moan rose above the sound of the jets. “There was a time I wasn’t multiorgasmic.”
“The Dark Ages?”
She elbowed him and grabbed his MP3 player off the side of the tub. “I need new music.”
Reluctantly, he slid his hand away from the juncture between her legs. But damn, it called to him. “Don’t the classics mean anything to you?”
“Not when I’ve heard them fifty times in a row. I think ’Ticket To Ride‘ might cause an inappropriate reaction in me from now on.” She frowned at his list of playlists. “You have anything good on here? Metal Magic. Uh, no. Fuck Rock?” She shot him a look. “Nice.”
He shrugged. “Short and sweet.” Remembering the other playlist on there, he grabbed the device. From the look on her face, it was too late.
“Babymaking music? Really?”
“Babymaking’s a euphemism for sex,” he muttered.
“Thanks for the heads up. I can’t imagine you using that term.” She lowered her lids then looked up again, her eyes darker than he’d ever seen them. Logically he knew the color hadn’t changed, but the heaviness in them had sucked out all their light. “I could see you with kids.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, unsure where she was going.
“Do you want them?”
“Kids?” He jerked a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
She nodded and swiveled around, suddenly taking an interest in some hidden spot behind her knee. Her fingers moved restlessly while his sluggish, still oversexed brain finally figured out her point.
Shit.
“But maybe not.” He rested his chin on her shoulder. “I’d be happy either way.”
“No, you wouldn’t. A guy like you is built for kids. You’d be cheating yourself.”
Brad wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her face, not stopping even when she went rigid in his embrace. “Since the Beatles are out, what do you feel like listening to?”
“I don’t care. Anything’s fine.”
“Sara. Look at me.”
She didn’t.
“Sara.”
“Look, it’s no big deal. I forget sometimes that we’re only fooling around, even though in my head I know we are. You’re just starting everything and I’m on the other side. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s reality. And I need to remember it.”
He gripped her chin and turned her face toward his. “You might just be fooling around, babe. If so, that’s your deal. I’m not. I’ve never been anything but serious as a heart attack about you.”
When moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes, he blinked, sure he was mistaken. She didn’t cry. Ever. Not during sad movies, not when she fell and scraped her shins raw on uneven concrete. Definitely not when she was talking with her boytoy lover she couldn’t even acknowledge having real feelings for.
“You made that playlist when you were with your wife, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t make it. She made it on our honeymoon. Said it was all the songs we’d had sex to.” Despite his effort to keep his voice even, he knew he’d failed when her gaze swung sharply to his. “More lies, since I don’t recognize half of them, and I sure as hell never fucked her to ‘Mmm-freaking-Bop’.”
“You were trying to start a family.”
“No. I thought we already had.” At her quizzical expression, he shoved a hand through his hair. Only Darla could ruin his night with Sara when she wasn’t even around. “I married her because she told me she was pregnant. She wasn’t. End of story.”
Chapter Eight
Sara shifted away from Brad, sliding toward the other side of the tub. He didn’t protest her slipping away. Actually he seemed to welcome the distance.
He’d almost been a father. Or he could have been. Obviously he’d wanted to be, enough to marry the mother of the child he believed he would have.
He hadn’t left Darla because he wanted to be with other women, as the rumor mill had suggested. Hell, maybe as Darla herself had suggested enough times until the gossips in town accepted it as fact.
Just like Sara did at first.
She hooked her arms around her updrawn knees, suddenly cold despite the warm, frothy bubbles. “Who does that? Who lies about something as important as a baby?”
He stared at her for so long that she had to struggle to hold his gaze. “Lots of people lie, Sara.”
The back of her neck prickled with heat, and she drew in a slow breath. She wasn’t going to run from this conversation or from the accusations he didn’t voice. Was he lumping her in with Darla? How could he compare her harmless wish to keep them secret for a while to a woman who would lie to him about his baby? A baby that didn’t exist.
“You’re sure she was never pregnant?”
He stabbed the MP3 player and the music stopped. Only the sound of the bubbling tub broke the eerie silence. “She admitted as much.”
“You didn’t…did you ever love her?”
“No. We had a fling, one of those that you keep coming back to even when you know you shouldn’t.” His thumb traced the circle on his music player as if he was lost in thought. “I knew it wasn’t serious, that I wouldn’t ever feel anything more for her than affection, but I didn’t break it off. Sometimes someone wanting you is the biggest aphrodisiac there is. It fills a lot of holes.”
She understood that well, part of why she’d chased after that elusive feeling more than once since she’d been in Fairdale. Why be alone when someone could smooth over the ache, even if it was only temporary? She’d never realized Brad was looking for more too. That hearing that same need in his voice would allow her to acknowledge her own desire for something beyond quickie hookups and even faster breakups.
“So you divorced her because she’d lied?”
“Like I said, I didn’t love her. And if I had, that would’ve killed it.” His lips quirked, but it wasn’t a real smile. More like a visual dart aimed at her. “Then there was my harem. You know, all those women I wanted so badly to bang, according to you and the town bigmouths. You’ve seen a ton of chicks parading through here, right?”
“You wouldn’t have done that while I was around. Not if—not when you wanted me.”
“Right. So for the two months you’ve been here, I’ve kept my manwhoring out of this house. But before then…” He whistled, and she shut her eyes tight. “Sure you should’ve gone raw with me? You might’ve put your health at risk. Since I’m such an indiscriminate bastard.”
Before she could reply, he jerked to his feet and stepped out of the tub, trailing water and bubbles across the floor as he strode into his room.
“Great,” she whisp
ered, lowering her forehead to her knees.
How had everything gone so wrong? One minute they’d been laughing and loving, the next she’d driven him away with her questions and her tears. Tears, for God’s sake. It must’ve been a hormonal thing, because she absolutely did not cry. Especially not because she’d suddenly realized the biggest reason this would never work between them long-term, if she even wanted that.
He wanted children. Brad was that guy. The kind that would screw his way through town—okay, that wasn’t as certain now—before settling down with his cute wife and passel of cute kids, each of them with his blond hair and blue-gray eyes. The perfect little family.
And that absolutely did not include an aging, past-her-prime wife who couldn’t even have those kids if she wanted to, which she’d given up on ever happening years ago.
Once she’d had those goals in mind. The husband, the kids, the dog. Her family had been boringly traditional, and she’d assumed she would settle down and live the same kind of life. Then she’d discovered her love of animals, birds in particular, and her dreams of falling in love had taken a back seat to getting her doctorate and a good job. By the time she’d dusted them off the shelf, all the decent, family-focused guys were off the market. Or so it had seemed. It had taken almost getting engaged to Mr. Incredibly Wrong for her to see exactly how far astray she’d wandered.
Coming here and meeting Kim had felt like a rebirth. She hadn’t merely shed her old life; she’d become a new Sara. She’d sowed her wild oats repeatedly and happily and thoughts of what might have been rarely entered the picture.
Until now.
Now she felt every day of her forty-two years, three months and nine days. Soon she’d be counting minutes off too.
She didn’t need kids or a husband to be content. She’d proven that. But what if she needed Brad, and he needed more than she could give him?
After a few moments, she turned off the jets and sat in the cooling water. Her skin had shriveled and turned pruny long ago. Her heart was about to follow suit.
