by Jane Graves
Edging downward, he circled his tongue around her right nipple, then sucked it into his mouth, taking the salt and the lime juice in an intense pulling motion that sent fiery hot tremors radiating right down between her legs.
“I love the way you taste,” Dave said, his lips humming against her breast. “And the salt and lime juice aren’t bad, either.”
He moved to her other breast, giving it the same treatment, licking and sucking the salt and lime away, every movement of his lips and tongue so slow and sensual that she almost couldn’t endure it. Then he moved along her breastbone, working his way down to her navel, stopping periodically to swirl his tongue in tiny circles or reach out the tip of it to capture a stray drop of lime juice. Lisa had never felt anything like it in her life. He was concentrating every bit of his attention on one tiny part of her body at a time, elevating the sensitivity of that particular part until she wanted to scream.
“Dave?” she said breathlessly.
“Uh-huh?”
“You’ve got to stop this.”
He responded by streaking his tongue over her abdomen. She stiffened, sure he was going to move lower still. Instead, he stopped and stood up.
“Now,” she said on a harsh breath. “I want you inside me. Right now.”
He came around to the foot of the bed, where he gently pressed her legs apart. He stared down at her for a long time, devouring her with his eyes, his intense gaze making her heart rate soar. She lifted her hips, encouraging him to plunge right inside her. Instead, he began to stroke her legs with his fingertips.
No, no, no!
“Dave—now.”
“Hush.”
“But I want you to—”
“What you want is not the issue here. I’m far more interested in what you need.”
He passed his thumbs over the creases between her thighs and pelvis, causing salt to scrape gently against her skin. Dipping his head, he ran his lips across her, then followed with his tongue, easing toward the very center of her.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. . . .
Exposing her clit with his thumbs, he teased his tongue in a half circle around it on the continued pretense of finishing off the lime juice and salt. She couldn’t breathe for the anticipation she felt, and when he finally flicked his tongue against the most sensitive part of her a flash of unbearable sensation streaked through her. She gasped and twisted hard to one side.
“Easy, baby,” he said, holding her hips until she stilled. “You act as if the men you’ve been with have never done this before.”
“They haven’t.”
“Only because you wouldn’t let them. Fortunately, I don’t have to ask.”
He lowered his head again, this time closing his mouth over her with a soft sucking motion of his lips and tongue that made her squirm all over again, but he held her in place, and after a moment the sharp stabs of sensation melted into something warm and pleasurable. He splayed his palm against her abdomen to hold her steady, then swept two fingers of his other hand over her moist opening. With his mouth still against her, he slid his fingers deep inside her, then stroked them back and forth at the same time his tongue moved in an incredible rhythmic motion that did away with all pretense of salt and lime juice removal. Every move now was focused only on making her crazy with need, driving her from feeling warm and pleasurable right into hot and passionate.
“Dave . . . oh, God. . . .”
With no voluntary thought at all, she began to flex her hips in sync with his movements. She was used to control, demanded control, but now she had no control at all. He was propelling her right into a realm where she wasn’t thinking straight, where everything seemed hot and hazy and unsure. She tried to focus, tried to think, but all at once it felt as if she’d flown into a bank of clouds and couldn’t get her bearings. Her breath was coming so fast she felt dizzy and light-headed, shifting her perception until the pleasure seemed distorted, her heart racing with uneasiness instead. With every stroke of his tongue and fingers, one more fragment of her carefully constructed sense of control slipped away, until she felt as if she were falling, as if her plane had stalled and she was plummeting toward earth, only this time there was nothing she could do to pull out of the dive.
“No!”
She pulled away from the headboard, sat up, and grasped Dave’s shoulders, breathing hard, her eyes squeezed closed. “Stop. Please stop. Please.”
Dave leaned away with a regretful sigh, shaking his head. “Now you’ve done it.”
He rose, came around the bed, and sat down beside her. He picked up the cord.
“Dave,” she said, her breath coming in ragged spurts. “No. You’re not actually going to—”
“I don’t make idle threats.”
He took hold of her wrists and slid the looped cord loosely over them. When she tried to pull away, he gave her a warning stare.
“Now, Lisa, while you’re a woman I’d generally think twice about messing with, you and I both know that the outcome here is hardly in question.”
She couldn’t believe it. He actually intended to tie her up.
“I’m a very patient man,” he said in a firm but even voice. “But before this night is out, I will get my way.”
She still felt so hot and swollen between her legs, her whole body trembling with the need she felt desperate to deny. As she sat there, her chest still heaving, he wound the cord around her wrists in a figure eight motion, and some force she couldn’t fathom kept her from pulling away. Then he eased her down to her back again, held her bound wrists over her head, and secured them to the headboard spindles. With a final tug on the cord, he leaned in and teased his lips against her ear.
“I’ve got you now. I can do anything I want to, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”
Her heart hammered her chest, beating with the frantic pace of a hummingbird’s wings. She tried to concentrate on the incredible level of sexual excitement he’d brought her to, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t fight the feeling that washed over her with her wrists bound, the terrible sense that she was caught. Trapped. Completely at the mercy of another human being. With her control completely stripped away, her apprehension quickly turned to panic.
She pulled on the cord that bound her wrists, desperate to free herself, desperate to get away, desperate to—
Wait.
She froze, breathing hard.
Pulled again.
With next to no effort, she could have slipped right out of the cord that held her.
She snapped her gaze up to meet Dave’s and found him staring down at her, waiting for her next words. Just staring at her, his dark eyes solemn and sincere.
Trust me, he was telling her. Just let me love you.
As the depth of his understanding suddenly became clear, her world seemed to tilt into an entirely new dimension. He was trying to give her something that went right to the heart of the relationship between a man and a woman, a connection she needed so much. And more important, he was giving her the pretense to accept it, if that was what she needed.
He was right. So right. He couldn’t give her anything if she refused to take it. With a desperation that drenched her very soul, she wanted all he had to give her, no matter how much she had to open herself up to get it.
“You seem to have forgotten where you were,” she said, her voice quivering.
“Do you remember?”
“You were touching me.” She swallowed hard. “With your tongue.”
A faint smile crossed his lips. “Now, how in the world could I have forgotten that?”
As he rested his hands against her thighs, she let her legs fall to either side. But when he pressed his mouth to her again, the feeling was so intense that she couldn’t help shivering beneath his hands.
“Just relax, baby,” he told her. “Relax. . . .”
His voice was hypnotic, his hot breath skating across her. She closed her eyes and gave herself to him completely, allowing him to touch her
, tease her, to send her on an upward spiral all over again. The tension he created slowly pulled her tighter and tighter, like an arrow on a bow, quivering with the need to be released. Soon her breath became short, sharp gasps, her mind so far beyond reason that she couldn’t have managed a single coherent thought. It was as if she were climbing through that cloud bank again, only this time she was focused on the clear blue sky she knew was beyond it and wanting it more than anything.
He paused for a moment, and she instantly arched up to meet him again. “No! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop! Oh, God, Dave . . . don’t stop!”
Words of sheer desire tumbled from her lips in a spontaneous rush. He pressed his mouth to her again, and somewhere deep inside her something caught fire. Flared.
Exploded.
She cried out his name, shuddering wildly, as wave after wave of incredible sensation slammed into her. He clamped down hard on her hips, holding her steady, compelling her body to accept every bit of pleasure that he could possibly wring from it. Still she gripped the spindles of the headboard, her eyes squeezed shut, overwhelmed by the feeling that she’d burst through those clouds into a sun so brilliant it couldn’t possibly be real.
She sensed him grabbing one of the condoms, ripping it open, and before she could even breathe again, before the sensations had faded away, he rose above her, moved between her legs, and plunged inside her in one deep, possessive thrust, intensifying the climax still pulsing through her. He fell to his forearms, his dark gaze locked onto hers, transfixing her with the burning desire that filled his eyes.
“Do you feel how much I want you?” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she said, barely able to speak. “Yes.”
“Hold on to me, baby. Put your arms around me.”
She twisted her wrists wildly, pulling loose from her bonds, then wrapped her arms around him. Oh, God, it felt so good to finally touch him, to hold him like this. As he moved inside her with hard, forceful strokes, she clutched him tightly, her fingertips digging into the muscles of his back and shoulders, bruising him, she knew, but she couldn’t stop. She had the most glorious sensation of him filling her, not just her body but her heart, her mind, her deepest needs. Unbelievably, instead of her climax fading away, she felt that place inside her spark again, deep ripples of heat swelling through her. An act that always generated a raw, unfinished sensation for her felt on the verge of being full and complete, and she wanted it more than anything.
She rose to meet every stroke, begging him with every breath to bring them both together to that glittering moment of release. The same foggy sensations clouded her mind as before, the same spasms radiated deep inside her, all of it expanding and multiplying with every furious thrust.
“Oh, God . . . Lisa . . . yes. . . .” A groan rose in his throat, a deep, rasping sound of pleasure that seemed to quiver through his entire body. “Come with me, baby. . . . Come with me. . . .”
He’d barely gotten the words out when she drew in a deep, gasping breath. It was happening again. She couldn’t believe it.
Oh, God, she was coming again.
She cried out as the sensations swept through her, deep, concentrated spasms that seemed to go on forever. They locked every nerve and muscle in their grip, bubbling up from someplace inside her that had never been touched before. And Dave was right there with her, holding her so tightly, drawing himself deeply inside her as the last waves of pleasure washed over them both.
Breathing hard, he lay against her, every muscle taut, his face buried against her neck. “Yes,” he murmured. “Every time, just like that. That’s how it’s going to be from now on.”
“Oh, God,” she said suddenly, shifting beneath him. He rolled to one side. She sat up suddenly, barely able to breathe, the sheer power of it making her tremulous and unsteady. “Oh, my God.”
He sat up with her, wrapping his arm around her waist from behind and settling his chin in the crook of her neck. She tried to shudder from his grip.
“Take it easy, baby,” he said.
“It was too much,” she said, “too much. . . .” Suddenly she felt swamped with emotion, the pounding of her heart erratic and unchecked. And tears were streaming down her face. Tears? Why in the hell was she crying?
“Just relax,” he said. “Lie back down.”
She thought about how she’d screamed, begged, been totally out of control, and suddenly she felt embarrassed. She refused to look at him. “No. I can’t. I acted . . . a little crazy. . . .”
“And I loved it,” he murmured. “All of it.”
She swept her tears away with the back of her hand and started to get up. He pulled her back down again.
“I’m still a little salty,” she said. “I—I need a shower.”
“No. I know what you need,” he said, wrapping his arm around her again. “What you’ve needed for a very long time. And I’m going to give it to you until you wonder where your next breath is coming from.”
His words made her satisfied body shudder to life all over again, even as she felt as if she had to get out of there right now.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
He sighed softly. “Yes, I do.” He backed off a little, his voice quiet and measured. “You need space right now. You need to pull yourself together, to feel as if you’re in control again. And most of all,” he said, “you need to convince yourself that this didn’t mean anything to you, just in case it doesn’t mean anything to me. Is that right?”
She turned to him, astonished that he’d just put voice to the feeling she always had when she was with a man. That feeling of putting herself into somebody else’s hands. That feeling that somebody else controlled even a moment of her life.
That feeling that if she gave her heart along with her body, the joke would be on her.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Then go.”
She expected to see anger on his face, but all she saw was compassion. For several seconds she just sat there, staring at him until finally he held out his hand. She took it, and he eased her down next to him, pulling her back into his arms again. He held her gently, running his hand along her thigh in deep, calming strokes.
“It’s like claustrophobia,” she said. “I get this breathless feeling, like I’ve got to get away.”
“Is that how you feel right now?”
Slowly her breathing was returning to normal, her heart rate calming. She felt heavy, relaxed, and as content as she’d ever been in her life, knowing now that the invisible cords that bound her to Dave were more powerful than any physical ones could ever be.
“No,” she said on a sigh. “I feel good. So good.”
“Then I don’t want you running away from me every time we make love. And I won’t have you giving me a really nice backrub and putting me to sleep, either.”
She smiled a little. “So no more backrubs.”
“Well, maybe after you’ve come three or four times. But by then it’ll be a moot point, because you’ll be the one who’s asleep.” He slid his hand along her neck and kissed her hair, her temple, then pulled her close again. Her eyes began to get heavy, and she knew exactly what Dave had meant. Any moment now she was going to be asleep.
Then she heard the phone ring.
She blinked her eyes open. “Sera?”
“Let’s hope so.” Dave rose from the bed. She started to throw back the covers, but he put his hand on her shoulder. “Just stay here,” he told her. “I’ll get it.”
He went into Sera’s bedroom to answer the phone while Lisa waited in bed. He returned a few minutes later.
“That was Sera,” he told her. “They’re at Hospital San Juan in Monterrey. Adam’s having some tests right now, but they made it there just fine.”
“Thank God.”
“I told them what we found out here, and she’s going to pass it on to Adam.”
“Good. He’ll be so happy to hear it.”
Dave climbed bac
k into bed, and immediately Lisa curled up next to him with a sigh of relief and contentment rolled into one. His body was so warm next to hers, so inviting, and she was tempted to think that somehow it could be like this forever.
She’d been right all along. She’d never stopped loving him. She loved the man who’d told her that day eleven years ago that there wasn’t anything on earth she couldn’t do if she wanted it badly enough. She loved the man who’d come to Mexico on a cryptic phone conversation just because she was in trouble. She loved the man who lay with her now, who understood more about her than any man ever had before. But where did they go from here?
I don’t want you running away from me every time we make love.
How many more times could there possibly be?
I want you to be exactly who you are.
Fine for now. But what about the long haul? Was he actually thinking about the possibility of there being one? If so, he was closing his eyes to reality. He had a daughter, a family—the kind of staid, settled, conventional life she knew would eventually suffocate her.
But as she closed her eyes and hovered in that nebulous world between sleeping and waking, those impossible images began to play through her mind. And Dave was standing in the midst of it all, opening his arms to her, inviting her to be part of it. And suddenly she wasn’t suffocating. She was breathing deeply, drawing it all in—feeling as if she was taking huge, endless, invigorating breaths for the first time in her life.
chapter twenty-two
Sera followed the nurse across the busy emergency room of Hospital San Jose, through a pair of metal doors, and into the patient area. She’d spent the past hour and a half waiting for Adam to be examined and tests to be run, practically tapping her fingernails right down to the quick on the arm of the chair where she sat.
The nurse swept back a curtain. Sera eased up to Adam’s bedside, and the nurse shut the curtain again. The moment Sera’s eyes met Adam’s, he smiled at her, and her heart melted.
