by Laura Taylor
Thomas grimaced. "Ouch. Trying to deflate my ego?"
"It could use a puncture or two," she informed him. "Need a bandage?"
Thomas settled into the adjacent chair. "I’ll live."
"We need to discuss their latest counter–offer, don’t we?" she asked, pushing them on to the real reason they were spending the evening together. "What did you think?"
"About what?"
"Today, of course."
"At the moment, I’m thinking about you, not work."
"Thomas," she warned.
"We’ve got twelve hours until the next meeting," he reminded her.
"Then we should spend the time productively."
"We will," he said as he got to his feet.
He towered over her. Heart racing, she stared up at him.
"I want to make love to you," Thomas signed. "I need to make love with you, Geneva."
She hesitated, startled by his admission. Then, she reminded herself that she wanted the same thing. Reaching out, she accepted his hand.
He tugged her to her feet. "Trust me."
She smiled, said softly, "I do trust you," and moved forward into his welcoming arms.
In that moment, Geneva knew she’d finally found a home for her heart. Whether or not it was a permanent or temporary home seemed unimportant. She loved Thomas Coltrane—loved him so deeply, she doubted that a day would ever dawn when she wouldn’t love him.
9
"What are you thinking?" Thomas asked as they stood facing each other in the master suite of the lodge a few minutes later.
"I’m not thinking," Geneva replied after a moment of hesitation. "I’m feeling."
"Tell me what you’re feeling."
She smiled. "You actually want an itemized list?"
Thomas chuckled. "I want you. The list will keep until later."
Her smile faded. She reached out to him, whispering, "I’m glad."
He took her hands, lifted them one at a time to his lips, and pressed hot kisses into her palms. He felt the tremors that moved through her, saw the surprise and desire that widened her eyes and flushed her cheeks.
Geneva shifted closer once he freed her hands. She ran her palms up his arms to his shoulders, then around his neck before tangling her fingers at his nape.
Rising up on tiptoes, she pressed herself to him. Her breasts plumped against his chest, and her hips brushed teasingly against his groin. A tremulous sigh escaped her, sending a gust of moist heat washing across his neck.
Thomas closed his eyes. Savoring the lushness of her shape, he felt the jolt of desire that traveled throughout his body. Geneva tantalized and teased as she shifted even nearer to perfect the alignment of their two bodies. An instant later she kissed him, tentatively at first, then with greater confidence.
Thomas welcomed her tender aggression. His hands snagged around her narrow waist, fingertips almost meeting. Angling his head, he deepened their kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth to explore the heated terrain within.
Geneva gasped, and then moaned into his mouth as he smoothed his hands over her hips. He held her still, shifting back and forth against her, his already aroused body growing even more aroused.
Time seemed to stop as they rocked against each other.
On fire for her, Thomas longed to bury himself within her and remain there forever. He knew that it would be the fulfillment of every fantasy he’d ever had about Geneva, not simply the sweetest pleasure he would ever experience.
He devoured her mouth, his rigid control in jeopardy and his hunger for her escalating as his imagination went wild. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her now that she’d stopped resisting him.
He didn’t understand all of the reasons for her sudden capitulation. And he didn’t care. They were together. For now, that was enough. Later he would need answers to all of his questions about this woman.
Geneva surged against him, matching his intense desire with her own. Her hands grew frantic as they moved over his shoulders and chest, her mouth voracious as she responded to his searching kisses.
Thomas had never wanted a woman more than he wanted Geneva Talmadge. He wanted her naked, though. He needed her naked, needed to touch her, needed to memorize each curve and hollow of her hourglass–shaped body before he took her. An unexpected realization suddenly pierced his consciousness—he would never not need this woman.
Tearing his lips from hers, Thomas lifted his head, dragged in enough air to feed his starving lungs, and peered down at her. His breathing ragged, he noticed that his hands shook from the intense physical and emotional hunger she inspired. Hunger that pounded through his veins with the force of a steadily advancing tide.
He felt her tremble as he began to free the buttons that ran down the front of her fitted gray sweater dress. Once he completed the task, he peeled the fabric away from her body. His breath wedged in his throat when he glimpsed the black lace bra and matching panties she wore. Thigh–high black silk stockings encased the length of her shapely legs, allowing a tantalizing view of pale skin at the top of each thigh.
Thomas freed the catch at the front of her bra. He watched the flimsy garment gape partially open.
She reached up and parted the delicate fabric. Her full breasts spilled free. She shrugged out of the lacy confection, her gaze locked on his face as it fell to the floor to join her dress.
He saw the pulse throbbing in the hollow of her throat, leaned down, and trailed the tip of his tongue over the spot.
Heat more incendiary than anything he’d ever felt seared his senses. Straightening, Thomas cupped her breasts, their weight and the satiny smoothness of her skin so enticing, his rigid sex throbbed in concert with his hammering pulse.
Geneva’s eyes fell closed as he molded and shaped her flesh. She arched into his hands, her nipples beading into tight little knots that stabbed at his palms. Soft sounds spilled past her lips as he plucked at her nipples with his fingertips.
Thomas heard her shattered gasp, then the long low moan that followed when he leaned down and covered the tip of one breast with his mouth. As he suckled forcefully, he trailed his fingertips down her back, slipped his hands beneath the lace that covered her hips, and cupped her buttocks.
Without warning he dropped to his knees. After sliding her lace panties down her legs, he steadied her trembling body and helped her to kick aside the delicate garment. He then smoothed his palms up her silk–covered legs, but he made no attempt to remove her stockings, which served as an erotic counterpoint to her nakedness.
He bracketed her hips with his hands, his lips whispering over the gentle swell of her abdomen. Painting her skin with the wet heat of his tongue, he criss–crossed the lower half of her body until he reached the silky golden nest at the top of her thighs.
He felt her fingers dig into his shoulders as he nudged her thighs apart, then heard her gasp when he branded her with the most intimate kisses. Her response only intensified his yearning for her.
She trembled when he slid a fingertip along the humid folds of her sex. Slick and hot with desire, she personified feminine vulnerability and sensuality. He kissed her there again, the tip of his tongue first tracing and then delving into her cleft. The taste of her reminded him of an aphrodisiac, one he didn’t ever want to live without. Couldn’t live without, he realized.
Surging to his feet, Thomas gathered her into the heat and hardness of his powerful body and reclaimed her mouth. She began to tug at the buttons of his shirt, but her shaking fingers made her clumsy. After several moments of frustration, she uttered an inarticulate cry for his help.
Thomas jerked the fabric apart, uncaring that several buttons popped off and scattered across the floor in his haste to have her hands on his skin. He shed his shirt, freed the buckle of his belt, and unzipped his trousers without releasing her lips.
She drove her fingers into the dense dark hair that covered his muscular chest, her tongue simultaneously darting into the recesses of his mouth. She taunted
and teased until Thomas thought he might go mad from the desire roaring through his body like an out–of–control freight train.
Shuddering, he tore his mouth free, stepped out of his trousers and briefs, and bent down to jerk off his socks.
Geneva eagerly moved back into his arms, molding herself to him like a second skin. Lifting her up, he smoothed her legs around his hips.
With her arms twined around his neck, Geneva swayed from side to side. Her full, taut–tipped breasts brushed repeatedly across his chest, her pelvis lightly stroking his erection.
Their lips met and fused, again and again. Their mouths mated with a kind of ravenous hunger that defied reason and restraint.
As he inhaled her breathless cries and tasted her hunger for him, Thomas carried her the few steps to his bed. Seated on the edge, he kept her perched atop his powerful thighs, her legs still circling his narrow hips. He caressed her shoulders and back, then brought his hands around to the front of her body to cover her breasts.
Geneva’s back arched, her head falling to one side, eyes closing, and a sigh of pleasure emerging from deep within. As he caressed her, Thomas marveled anew at her sensuality. She began to remind him of an exotic jungle cat as she quivered and undulated beneath his hands.
Geneva pulled back without warning. She watched him from beneath half–lowered lashes as she trailed her fingertips down his chest, past the ridged expanse of muscle that covered his belly, and then slipped her hands between their bodies.
Thomas tensed, inhaling sharply when he felt her light caress. She circled his pulsing sex with her fingers, her touch curious at first, then more confident as she measured his length and thickness. She tantalized him with long, slow strokes that set his senses aflame and made it nearly impossible for him to breathe.
"Careful," he said.
Geneva smiled, a slow, scintillating smile that sent molten sensations rushing into his loins.
She shimmied forward, her gaze still on him as she guided their lower bodies to an intimate kiss. Clasping him with both hands, Geneva moaned, the sound coming from low in her throat as she rocked against his hard flesh.
He sex swelled until he feared he might burst as the entrance to her body bathed the head of his shaft in the steaming rain of her passion.
She amazed.
She tempted.
She tormented.
And she thoroughly seduced.
Take me, her expression and her body simultaneously invited. Take me now.
Thomas shuddered with barely contained violence.
"I want you inside of me," Geneva finally gasped out. Her low voice, utterly enticing, and the honesty of her need had an incendiary impact on him.
Unable to restrain himself, Thomas grasped her hips, stood, and then tumbled her backwards across the width of the mattress. As he came down over her, he protected her from being crushed by resting the weight of his upper body on his elbows.
"I need you," he said slowly enough for her to read his lips.
Without speaking, Geneva reached up and trailed her fingertips across his cheek. The simple gesture conveyed both willingness and a wealth of emotions.
He turned his head, capturing a fingertip and sucking it deeply into his mouth. He felt the quiver that rippled through her as he swirled his tongue around the slender digit.
Her hips stirred with what Thomas recognized as restless but, as yet, unappeased desire. The sensations that resulted started in his loins and moved outward like rippling bolts of heat lightning.
Determined to draw out the experience ahead of them, Thomas lowered his head and took her lips. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, drinking in the taste of her. Both gasped for air when he lifted his head a few minutes later.
Thomas shifted to one side and reached for the drawer of the nightstand on the far side of the bed.
As if sensing his intent, Geneva caught his arm. "I trust you, Thomas, and you can trust me."
Nodding, he gathered her into his arms again and held her, trying to control the craving for fruition that continued to threaten his control.
Geneva trembled beneath him, her fingers digging into his hips.
Thomas felt her growing tension and met her gaze. The tears that seeped from the corners of her eyes and trailed across her temples startled him.
"What, love?"
"I want you," she choked out. "Now. Please."
He reacted instinctively to her almost pain–filled plea, realizing that no woman had ever made him feel more desired or more male.
He drove into her a heartbeat later, primal and very territorial impulses guiding him as he penetrated the narrow channel of her body.
She cried out, clutching at him. Thomas recognized the sound for what it was. Relief and recognition, not pain. He heard the same cry of relief and recognition echo within his own soul as he succumbed to the compelling need to possess this woman.
Geneva gripped his shoulders and circled his hips with her silk–covered legs as he repeatedly plunged into her. The sensations caused by the fabric as it slid over his skin heightened his already stimulated senses. His heart raced and the blood pounding through his veins scalded.
Geneva writhed beneath Thomas. She felt alive, more alive than she’d felt in years. She nearly wept with amazement.
The currents of pleasure sweeping through her body pushed her well beyond the loneliness and isolation of the past ten years and directly into the arms of an erotic storm too overpowering to resist.
She met his every thrust with a twisting thrust of her own. Her body clenched ever so tightly, and then quivered around him. She gloried in the pleasure she found in his arms, and she savored the invasive force of his sex each time he drove deeply into her. Anointing the side of his neck and his chest with feverish kisses, she clung to him as passion incinerated her senses.
Their pace steadily increased, bodies slamming together in near violence. Geneva felt her insides quiver, and then start to quicken. The suddenness of the spasms spun her into a whirling vortex of sensations that eclipsed any control she might have wished to exercise.
Her need escalated, driving her with every passing second. She twisted and turned, seeking fruition. Thomas altered the angle and depth of his penetration as he cradled her against his chest. He deepened each successive plunge into her body, his hips driving piston–like with steadily escalating force.
Geneva felt poised on the edge of a steep cliff, ready to leap into a freefall of glittering sensory delights that only Thomas could provide. She surged upward, the release he promised within reach.
It happened without warning. A stunned cry spilled out of her as something shattered deep inside her body. The sensations spread outward in consuming, devastating waves.
Thomas drank in her shocked cry, his thrusts hard and sharp until he pushed her completely over the edge.
Geneva surrendered to the inevitable. She had already surrendered herself to Thomas. She rode a wave of pure, mind–numbing pleasure in the moments that followed, convulsive spasms rippling through her body.
She called out his name. Over and over again.
Thomas eased his pace, drew in a ragged breath, then stopped moving altogether.
Geneva held tightly to him, momentarily disoriented. When she realized what he was doing, she appreciated the generosity of his restraint. It confused her a little, however. She peered up at him, her eyes glazed with residual shock and her lower body still trembling in the aftermath of climax.
He lifted one hand so that she could see it, and finger–spelled, "You’re amazing."
She didn’t understand why he thought so, but she smiled anyway. "If you say so."
She shifted beneath him, her gaze still on his face. The fine network of interior muscles deep inside her body continued to quiver around his hard flesh.
Groaning, Thomas ground his back teeth together. He finally muttered, "I say so."
Geneva read his lips, her smile widening at the pleasure he found in her response to
him as a lover. She caught her breath and her heart slowed to a less than breakneck speed.
Again, she shifted beneath him. Experimentally this time. She watched his eyes fall closed, then noticed the tension that caused a muscle to flutter high in his cheek.
She also felt the throbbing power of his desire. She rocked her hips, the subtle movement eliciting a pulsing response. Aroused by the feel of the engorged length deep inside her body, she intensified her movement as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
After several breathless minutes, Thomas stilled her undulations by pressing her hips against the mattress. He captured her attention with his piercing gaze, the expression on his face assuring her that he understood her invitation.
She cradled his face between her palms and urged him closer. Nibbling on his lips, she again rocked her hips in a timeless mating summons.
Thomas didn’t disappoint her.
He surged more deeply into her, paused, and then teasingly invaded and withdrew with unhurried movements.
Geneva sighed into his mouth, matching his leisurely thrusts. She stroked the length of his back, then cupped his hips with both hands, her fingertips flexing against the warmth of his skin. She swiped at his lower lip with her tongue, then sucked at it before worrying the damp expanse with gentle teeth.
Thomas suddenly jerked against her. His restraint vanished. His answering kiss was possessive and ruthless as he pumped into her with increased force.
Geneva followed his lead.
Willingly.
Eagerly.
She wanted everything Thomas offered, and she gave everything of herself.
She loved him, loved him more deeply than she’d ever loved anyone in her life. That thought struck her with total clarity as her inner core quivered and her body began to tighten into itself.
They took the journey together this time.
Slanting his mouth over her lips, he delved into the sweet taste of her, his hunger for her all–consuming.
She answered his every thrust with a sharp counter–thrust.
His muscular body knotted with tension, Thomas finally tore his mouth free and struggled for air. He trapped Geneva’s hands above her head. Writhing beneath him, she drew up her knees and locked her ankles at the base of his spine.
