by EC Sheedy
Her lips ticked up, stayed up even as her eyelids drifted closed.
“What did you want to say?” He found her tight sensitive bud, hooded and nestled at the apex of moist full lips—avoiding its tip, he circled it with a finger. His mouth dry, he swallowed hard. If her skin was living gold, this was a shimmering pearl, moist and slick. And currently the center of his universe. And if he was a damn poet, she’d made him one.
“Oh, that’s good…what you’re doing. So…good.”
He kept it good, then made it better, circling closer to her center, exposing it. “You wanted to say something.”
Her smile disappeared, replaced by a straining look. Her hot breath seared his shoulder. “You have to know…before you—we—go any…further.” She lifted into his hand. “I haven’t been with anyone for…forever, and I might not be very good—”
He kissed her, long and deep, figuring his tongue had better uses at the moment than forming words.
When the kiss ended she murmured, “You could tell me to shut up.”
“Shut up, Deanne.” He kissed her again, slipped a slow, probing finger deep into her moisture, then two. His mind—finally—shut down, his concentration totally in the now—fucking her with his fingers. Feeling her slippery heat. He wanted her to come, he wanted to see her face when she did, then he wanted to plunge into her, give her all he had and take her up again. He wanted inside…deep, deep inside.
Nothing poetic about it.
He lengthened his finger strokes, going deeper, faster. Deeper. Slower.
Her moan was long, low and guttural. “Yes, oh, God…yes.” She lifted her hips to his hand. “I didn’t know…” She ran her tongue along her lower lip as if to moisten it. As if there was moisture to be had, other than what his fingers glistened with, worked in. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” Her words were barely a whisper.
He kissed her deeply. “Don’t plan to.” Hell, it would take a dozen linebackers to stop him now.
His erection was staggering, diamond hard. Pounding. He was crazed, obsessed, outside himself. None of which felt familiar. She was heat, liquid, and quivering flesh. She rocked on his fingers, gasped when his thumb rolled and pressed her engorged clit—the perfect placeholder until he slid down, replaced thumb with mouth—and suckled.
“Oh…No. I’m going to—” She fisted her hands in his hair, rushed them downward, clawed at his shoulders, pulling him up. “I want…”
Julius knew what she wanted—what he wanted. Raising himself, his hands on either side of her head, he watched her face, entered her—and gave it.
Slipping into her tight fluid heat as far as he could go.
Every muscle in his body maxing out.
Sweat bursting along the ridge of his shoulders.
His mind a blur of sex and concentration.
He gave…and gave. And gave.
Raking her nails along his back, streaking and grabbing, Deanne raised her hips, met him thrust for thrust in a wild, primal rhythm. The world was a bed and they were the center of it.
“I can’t— I can’t—” She shook her head from side to side, her hands flying away from his back to tear at the bedcovers on either side of her.
Julius pulled back to entry, paused there—the effort damn near killing him. He closed his eyes and went back in high, gliding his hardened flesh over her drenched clit, a final plunge, taking him to the depths of her—and the end of his control.
And hers.
Her body convulsed around his, a living vortex, sucking on him, absorbing him, owning him. Twisting wildly beneath him, she wrapped her arms around him, and…and screamed into his shoulder.
Managing a shaky grin, he shifted his weight from her and pulled her to his side. That scream—he smiled into the shadows above the bed—felt like a damn gold star.
But while he might have earned the star, he wasn’t sure he was ready for what came with it—the fullness of the heat growing in his chest as his body cooled, the sense he’d entered not just a beautiful woman’s body, but a strange new world.
CHAPTER 11
“Damn, damn, damn. I knew it. I just knew it!” Deanne shuddered, fisted her hands and ground them into her eye sockets.
Well, here she was then, coming like a shotgun-induced avalanche—and screaming like…God…like she was playing the shower scene in Psycho. She’d barely restrained herself from biting him.
Now she was lying beside him, hot, sweaty, probably with hair tangled like cat’s wool, and totally paralyzed. Not a smidgeon of energy to be found in her entire body. She couldn’t be moved without a U-Haul truck. Julius had been exactly what she expected, exactly what she wanted him to be—a dream lover.
A dream lover whose lean, strong body was a practiced—and obviously experienced—sexual instrument. Not that she was complaining. Just a bit overwhelmed.
It didn’t help that he’d propped himself up on one elbow and was now looking down at her as if she were a tray of diamonds and he was a cat burglar. He lifted a tangle of her hair and placed it behind her ear with the care of a…cat burglar. He was so smooth, so easy with himself—and her body—as if this kind of thing happened all the time, which of course, it probably did. For him. She closed her eyes briefly. This is not a competition, Deanne. It’s not about achievement, or being the best. It’s about being yourself. The thought calmed her. Somewhat.
“I guess I don’t have to tell you how great that was,” she said, determined to join him in the smooth business.
He shook his head, continued to play with her hair. “I was there, remember?”
Oh, yeah…And I’m not likely to forget you were there. Ever. Odd, she felt a tearing somewhere in chest—like a strap giving way. A safety strap. Confusing. “Yes, you were,” she said. The words sounded lame and weak compared to the storm in her chest. She turned from his gaze. Whatever courage she’d had prior to having sex with him was sliding off the bed with a whimper. She could see it slithering out under the bedroom door, looking back over its shoulder and saying…now what?
Julius tugged her chin, made her face him. No hardship. His startling gray-green eyes were dark in the waning light in the room, yet glowing with the same laser intensity they’d had when he was seventeen. Sexy eyes, she’d thought back then, before she even knew what the word meant. Now those sexy eyes, speculative and thoughtful, studied her face, warmed it from within. “You’re uncomfortable. Why?” He slid his hand down to her shoulder, squeezed it, not for a second taking his eyes from hers.
Because making love with you was more than I bargained for. “I’m…not exactly sure. Maybe because I’m semi-embarrassed by my unladylike screeching during my first orgasm. Or maybe because I’m not sure how to go about getting more of the same.”
Frowning, he went still as her bedposts.
Deanne went on, doggedly looking for a truth in a minefield of them. “Or maybe because as fantasies go, you—” she frowned, “—struck me dumb. Well, not exactly dumb, I guess, considering I’m still talking.”
Julius put a finger to her mouth. “Whoa. Let’s back up, okay?” His eyes were as still as he was.
“Okay,” she said. “Where to?”
“To where you told me you had your first orgasm.”
Did she say that? Damn. Where was the duct tape when you needed it? “So now you want a medal?” she teased, while she looked for firmer ground.
He was undeterred. “You were married.”
“Three years.”
“And he never made you come.”
“Is this conversation really necessary?’
“No, but it’s damned interesting.”
“To you.”
He nodded.
Feeling cornered and frustrated, and considering surgical intervention on her big mouth, she said, “Julius, unless you’ve lived under a turnip patch, you have to know that saying ‘I do’ doesn’t come with orgasmic guarantees.”
“What does it come with? Or to be more specific, what did it come wit
h—for you?”
“Crap. You don’t want us to lie here naked—with the whole night in front of us—and talk about my ex, do you?”
“Maybe not the whole night. But right now? Yes.”
“Why?”
“Not sure,” he said, his brow knitting. “I just want to know.”
She cursed under her breath. He’d asked, she’d answer. “Okay, there were probably lots of reasons why our sex life was zero on the Richter scale, but here’s a couple. One, I married Kevin because my mother liked him. Two, he married me to get into my mother’s business—and possibly my mother. Kevin was all about business, in bed and out, and as he considered sex with me merely a cost of doing that business, he spent himself as little as possible. And that was okay by me.” She paused, rubbed at the old knot in her chest. “Until it wasn’t.”
He replaced the hand she had on her chest with his own, rubbed softly between her breasts. “And then?”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“No.”
“Okay, but it’ll be the abridged version.” She steadied herself. “We were workaholics, Kevin and I. Toiling in the service of my mother and her five companies. I did it because that’s what I’d always done—what I was trained for, and what she expected of me—and Kevin did it because he was teeth-baring ambitious and in love with my mother. It took me a while to figure that out. You actually had to lift your head from the P&L statements to do that. But when I did, I split…apart. I had a…breakdown, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, panic attacks…depression. Like they say, the whole enchilada. I finally got some professional help—thanks to Clancy, who threatened to drag me there kicking and screaming, if I didn’t go on my own.” She stopped, smiled. “Thank God for Clancy. Anyway, when I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I ran toward it as fast as my shaky legs would take me, and I left everything else—Chicago, Kevin, Mother, job—behind.” She looked at him, watched his face carefully. “I spent more than a year in therapy, Julius. I was a certified nut case.”
“And now?” His eyes were quiet, thoughtful. “What are you now?”
“Almost the woman I want to be.”
“Which is?”
“Me. I’m almost me for the first time in my life. My mother is a great woman, brilliant and successful, but I knelt at her feet all my life, because that’s how she liked it. She made the rules. I followed them. They had to be great rules, right? Because look at her, on the covers of business magazines, tons of awards…beauty. But they weren’t right—for me. Not her fault really—at least not completely—because she knew what made her happy, she simply assumed it would make me happy, too.”
“And Kevin?”
“He was fine with things. He was everything I wasn’t, and desperate to get her approval.”
“Her approval being more important to him than yours.”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “Poor Kevin…but then he couldn’t have known.”
“What? Known what?”
She hesitated, not sure how far to go. “Mother didn’t much like men. To her they were all competitors. She never married. Although she did have the occasional lover.”
“Your father?”
Deanne took a breath. This was always weird. “A test tube in New Hampshire.”
“Jesus.”
“Not nearly so exalted, I’m sure.” She brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “Mother was straight about it from the beginning. She was building her businesses. And while she wanted someone to carry on her empire, she didn’t want the legal and financial entanglements of a relationship.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“No.” He traced her ear with his finger. “So when and how did Kevin come into the picture?”
“Kevin worked for one of her competitors. He was a brilliant accountant—still is, I suppose. Mother admired his tax work. She put up no fuss at all when I started dating him—and believe me, she knew how to ‘fuss’ when it suited her. Kevin was nice enough, charming in his way, and he was the first man she’d ever approved of, actually encouraged me to see, so…”
“You married him, so your mother could steal an accountant from a competitor.”
“I didn’t see it that way at the time. And I did…care about him. Which made me blind enough that I didn’t see he’d only married me so he could skip a few rungs on my mother’s corporate ladder.” She stopped. “Honestly? It was awful from day one. And a few months later it got worse when Kevin told me the truth—about how he’d never loved me, how it had always been my mother…” A shiver tickled its way over Deanne’s skin. “Then he told her.”
“And she fired him.”
Deanne shook her head. “She called us both into her office and told us our personal problems were affecting the business—and she wouldn’t have it, and that if we couldn’t work it out, one of us had to go. Our choice, she said, and asked that when making it, we first and foremost considered what was best for the company.” She paused. “You know that straw thing? The camel?”
He nodded.
“That was my straw day. I never went back.” She took a breath, amazed at how calm she felt, how free of those ugly memories. Damn, but it was liberating. “Mother called a couple of times, which was nice.”
“And Kevin?”
“As far as I know he’s still working for her. Like I said, she admired his tax work.”
“And you don’t mind.”
“At first, I did—made me crazier than I already was. But now?” She shook her head. “No. That would mean I want what he has, the job of pleasing my mother. Been there, done that. Failed. Not going back again. I might have been an emotional mess, but even I’m not that crazy.”
Silence drifted between them, and they let it settle. End of conversation.
“You’re far from a mess. You’re smart, beautiful, you like dogs—and you have spectacular orgasms.” He smiled.
Wow…It was the first time he’d looked at her quite that way, the first time his smile softened his features and lit his eyes. It was mesmerizing, and it made her heart beat like a drum thumped on by a hundred two-year-olds. God, she was in trouble here, heart trouble of the serious kind. When she got out of this bed and had some time, she’d do some serious thinking about it. But not now. No thinking now. Only feeling. And no more talking—because only two words were necessary. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He bent to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around him, and sighed, loving the firmness of him, the hard, straight shoulders, the taut, tan muscles. And she kissed him back, gave all of herself to a kiss that took her to Fantasy Land on winged silver slippers.
When the kiss ended, she was breathless, and that inky, sexy darkness had once again taken hold in Julius’s eyes. “We’re going to do it again, aren’t we?” She wasn’t sure if her question was a plea or a prayer.
“Oh, yes. We’re definitely going to do it again. And again and…”
When Kurt’s cell phone rang, it scared the crap out of him. Had to be dad—just like him to call in the middle of the night. Hoping he was right, and not bothering to turn off the TV he’d fallen asleep watching, he clicked on. “Dad?”
“I want those pups.”
Jesus Christ! Wheeler. His voice sounded garbled, like it was coming from a well—or hell. Or he was drunk or cranked on somethin’. There was music and voices in the background, a girl giggling. “What? Huh?” Kurt sat up straight, moved to the edge of the sofa.
“You heard me, douche bag, I want the dogs.”
“How’d you know?”
“It don’t matter. I fuckin’ want ’em.”
Kurt pushed a hand through his hair, tried to think. “They’re too little. They can’t be taken from their mother yet.”
“They’re big enough.”
“For what? What do you want them for?”
A pocket of silence filled the line, then, “None of your fuckin’ business.”
Kurt’s
breath was slamming around in his lungs. He couldn’t get it up and out. No words either. He wished his dad was home, he wished his mother hadn’t left, he wished—
“Just get the dogs, retard. Tonight. Dev’ll come by and get them in the morning.” He clicked off.
Kurt stared at the phone, sweat pushing its way through his pores. Closing his eyes, he said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
CHAPTER 12
Samba barked from the kitchen.
Julius woke abruptly, disoriented.
Damn, he never fell asleep after sex, usually too busy planning his exit strategy. But with Deanne’s head on his shoulder, her eyes closed and her deep easy breathing warming its way through his chest hair, he’d dozed off—exiting the furthest thing on his mind. Bad move, Zern. And now Deanne was curled into his side, one leg resting over his hip, her knee grazing his groin, enough to unsettle him, and make him greedy for more of what they’d already spent hours doing. He shouldn’t be here.
He heard a low growl, more barking. Louder.
Shifting away from Deanne and careful not to wake her, he got up. Making a guess, based on the level of darkness—and the number of times they’d made love—it had to be after two.
Another growl. Low and damned serious.
Julius located his slacks, pulled them on and did up his fly—carefully—on the way out of the bedroom. Deanne had left a night-light on in the kitchen and he followed its dim beacon. The laundry room door was open.
An agitated Samba stood, alert, over her disturbed and irritated pups; the ones Julius could see snuffled around her feet like little planets who’d lost their sun. When Samba spotted Julius she whined, barked again.
“What’s the matter, girl?” Julius said, keeping his voice low. “This crowd here getting to you?”
Chilled night air breezed over his bare shoulders.
The back door was wide open.
He bolted for the porch, scanned the field behind the cottage and the slope leading to the big house on the hill. Nothing. No visual. No sound. No movement. Just the smell of cedar perching in the crisp night air. The sky, moonless and cloudy, created no shadows. Julius’s gut didn’t like the emptiness—or the alarms going off in his head.
