by J. Haymore
I didn’t know what it was, but something about his voice, his touch, the way he talked to me and held me, was making me almost unbearably hot. I ached desperately for his touch, for release. All of these were foreign, utterly shocking sensations. It was like he’d taken a key and unlocked the source of my sexuality that had been hidden behind the massive steel doors erected by my ex. And that newly freed sexuality seemed to be surging out like a tidal wave—unstoppable and undeniable. I could hardly contain myself. I moaned softly. I needed him. Bad.
“You want me, don’t you? You’re wet, aren’t you? Are you ready to have me inside you, Lacey?”
Unable to move, I whimpered. Against my will, my hips undulated. And then, I felt the head of his cock stroking the juncture of my thighs. I opened my legs to encourage him.
His lips moved down the column of my throat, across my collarbone, feather-light in contrast to the iron grip of his hands on my arms.
“Just be, Lacey. Just be you. You’re so sexy, you make me crazy for wanting you. I can’t wait to be inside you.
I groaned aloud. He’d erased what remained of my inhibitions. This would be what it felt like if I didn’t have so many hang-ups about getting close to a man.
“Then do it!” I whispered from between clenched teeth.
Teeth grazed my nipple, and the low rumble of his laugh resonated again in my mind.
“No. Not when you’re asleep.”
Something within me deflated. If I couldn’t even control my own erotic dream, then how the hell was I supposed to control my real life?
“But I can give you a gift. Something to make you remember…and want more.”
His tongue stroked a hot trail down my belly as his hands traveled down to my thighs again, pushing them wide open.
In my imagination, in my dream, I didn’t have to worry that Kai would think this was disgusting, or unnatural. Josh did. Josh thought oral sex was only meant to be performed on men.
“Josh isn’t here.”
No, he wasn’t. Kai was here, or the dream version of him. I didn’t know what the real Kai thought, but in my dream, he wanted to explore every part of me with his tongue.
“I do, Lacey. I do. Every inch of you. I’m going to fuck you with my fingers, open you, suck you…”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
His mouth closed over me, and I nearly leapt off the bed. Tingles of sensation ran through me, coalescing in my center, in my very core. A ball of sizzling electric heat seared through me.
He parted my folds with his fingers. “So pretty, baby. So sweet.”
After one flick of his tongue, I cried out. Then his mouth was on me, and pleasure consumed me.
No man had ever made me come before, not even a dream man. But this one, with a few strokes of his tongue, was close. So, so close.
A fingertip stroked downward from my clit and circled my opening. “You taste so damn good.”
I whimpered and spread my legs wider.
“That’s right.”
His tongue followed the trail his finger had just taken, making me shudder and jerk with need. He cupped my butt with one hand. The fingers of his other hand moved between my legs, circling gently over my clit.
If he didn’t do something soon, I was going to scream. Or implode. Or…wake up and finish it myself.
“Are you ready, Lacey?”
Ready? Was he crazy? “Please,” I murmured. “Please, please, please…make me come.” Make me feel normal again.
“I will.”
All at once, he thrust two fingers inside. And he lowered his mouth over me.
It wasn’t long. I felt the tightening, the quick sprint to my peak as he stroked me with his fingers and tongue. Then, the waves began. Hard, rolling pulses that resonated up through me, to my chest and down my arms. My body convulsed on the sheets.
He rode the waves along with me, expertly drawing out the orgasm until I was a gasping mass of flesh, completely relaxed, my muscles no more useful to control any part of my body than jelly.
I was done for, sated, completely and utterly finished.
His body moved over mine once again, and I thought fleetingly of his long, hard, unsatisfied cock.
“That had to be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I couldn’t answer. Hot? Damn, but it had certainly felt hot. And the feel of his cock on my thigh sent a frisson of renewed heat through me.
“Show me. When you’re awake. I need you, Lacey.”
“Hmm…” I murmured. “Yes…”
“Don’t let him win. Don’t let Josh win. Don’t let him destroy you.”
“I don’t want him to win…”
“Until next time, Lacey.”
“Next time?” My eyes snapped open. “Wait…”
I reached to him. I’d wrap my legs around his body and hold him close, let him seek his own satisfaction.
But I grasped at thin air. It was too late. He was already gone.
The Third Night
Lacey
We walked barefoot along Hapuna Beach in the warm summertime dusk of Kona. The air was thick with humidity and the sweet smells of plumerias and the ocean. My sandals dangled from the fingertips of one hand and my other hand was entwined in Kai’s. Thanks to the clouds rolling in, obscuring the sunset, the beach was almost empty. Waves boiled offshore, whitecaps picking up in the breeze.
Last night’s dream had given me a new determination to make this work. I’d awakened this morning refreshed and ready to try. The Kai of my dreams was right—I couldn’t let how Josh had treated me destroy my life.
“Thanks again for dinner. Best shoyu chicken I’ve ever had.” Kai slid me a sexy sideways glance. “How’d you know I love shoyu chicken?”
Because I’d known him for a year, but I’d been watching him especially closely for the past few months, trying to control my massive crush and failing miserably.
If only the true way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. I knew better.
I squeezed his hand. “I’m a Southern girl at heart, you know. We take food very seriously where I come from. I love to cook, and when I moved to Hawaii my first goal—after I got a job, of course—” we both laughed, “—was to learn how to cook all the best Hawaiian dishes.” A smile quirked up the corner of my lips, and I said in a near whisper, “I’m glad you liked it. I like to please you. I’d like to do it…more.”
I didn’t miss the catch in his breath. I bit my lip and glanced away, instant heat suffusing my cheeks.
His voice was gruff. “Is that so?”
I could slap myself for allowing such a blatant sexual innuendo come out of my mouth. Ever since that strange, vivid, erotic dream last night, my mind and body had been betraying me almost nonstop.
“Yes,” I murmured. Because what else could I say? It was true.
Since I’d woken up this morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about sex. Sex with Kai. What would it be like to let go, to have those strong arms wrapped around me, pinning me down? What it would be like to feel him in my mouth, to press my tongue over his long length? What it would feel like to have him explore me as intimately as he had in my dreams last night…?
I gave myself a mental shake and pressed my thighs together to ease the ache between them.
After what had happened before Kai had left last night, the evening had started off a little awkward. But as it always was with us, we had fallen into an easy camaraderie. Our dinner talk had ranged from light to serious, but it was always comfortable and open. I’d never felt so in tune with a man before.
Well—except in one way. The way that mattered most. I curled my toes into the cool, silky white sand. If only I could be as physically open and comfortable with the real Kai as I had been with the Kai of my dreams.
But dreams couldn’t hurt me, couldn’t destroy me. The real man I cared about so much, the man standing beside me, could.
What would it be like to let him make love to me on the beach, hidden in a cove but still at risk of being ca
ught? An image of myself on hands and knees pressed into the cool sand flashed through my mind. Kai taking me from behind, holding my hips tightly, pushing into me…
“Oh God,” I murmured. That dream…damn. It had turned me in to some kind of sex monster.
Alarm flared in Kai’s eyes as he glanced down at me. “What’s wrong?”
Drawing in a deep breath, I forced myself to meet his gaze and smile. “Nothing.”
Just then, the wind whipped around me, blowing my skirt up Marilyn Monroe-style. With a small squeal of dismay, I tore my hand from his grasp and smoothed it back down.
The gleam in his eye sent shivers down my spine, and I knew he’d seen the lacy white thong I’d worn tonight.
I glanced to the other end of the beach. About a half-mile away, it ended at a rocky cliff.
I turned to him. “Let’s race.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. To the rocks. Loser buys dessert. Haupia cake at the Lava Lava Beach Club.”
I loved the Hawaiian coconut pudding cake, but the grin that tilted his lips was so sexy it made my mouth water for a completely different kind of dessert.
“You’re on.”
I motioned to my skirt. “I have a handicap, you know.”
“Chickening out already?”
“Absolutely not,” I huffed, already secretly gloating. He knew I jogged for exercise on occasion, but I’d never told him about my past as a track star. I was a middle-distance runner, and in my senior year of high school, I’d won the Louisiana State championship for the eight-hundred-meter run. That was a few years ago, but I hadn’t lost the touch.
I thrust my sandals at him. “I have the long skirt, so you can carry the shoes.”
“Deal.”
Drawing a line in the sand with my big toe, I announced, “Prepare for the ultimate defeat.”
He laughed. “Taking this a little seriously, no?”
“Not at all,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I won’t go easy on you, you know.” He took a step toward me, infusing a suggestive rumble into his voice, making it clear that his meaning extended beyond this race. Far beyond.
I cocked a brow at him, keeping my arms crossed. “You’d better not, because I won’t be easy on you either. Only wimps let women win.”
“Oh really?”
“That’s right. Give me all you’ve got. I can take it.” I carefully placed my toes on the edge of the starting line, fisted my skirt in one hand so it wouldn’t fly into my face, then sidled a glance at him. “Ready?”
“Say the word.”
“Get set…go!”
And I was flying. Never did I feel such ultimate freedom as when I ran. My toes hardly seemed to touch the ground. I was light and carefree, like a bird.
Kai kept up with me stride for stride, moving seemingly as effortlessly as I did. I felt my jaw drop in wonderment, and then noticed that in my distraction, he’d moved a pace ahead of me.
Oh, hell no.
Now that was unacceptable. With a burst of energy, I moved beside him again.
Kicking up sand in his wake, he lunged ahead.
We moved like this until we were a couple of hundred meters from the rocks. Over and over, Kai pulled ahead and I caught up to run alongside him only to have him pull away again. I was growing frustrated and winded, which irritated me even more. I couldn’t believe he could keep up.
The last fifty meters. Only a few more seconds to go. I gave it all I had. I caught up to him again, then drew ahead. Elation filled me, that rush of euphoria I always experienced when winning a race.
But it was short-lived. He sprinted past me, arriving at the rocks just a second ahead of me.
I collapsed on the sand, frustrated beyond reason, dragging air into my exhausted lungs.
Kai glanced at his watch, looking barely winded. “Less than three minutes. Not too bad.”
I flopped back onto the sand, groaning. “You didn’t tell me you were a runner. I mean, I knew you played basketball, but I didn’t know—”
“It never came up in the office.” He lay on his back beside me. “I used to run track in high school, but it’s just a hobby now. It helps with my speed and endurance on the court, though, so I’ve kept it up.”
I was silent for long moments, catching my breath.
He turned toward me, propping his head in his hands. “You’re fast.”
My only response was a noncommittal puff of air from my lips.
“You mad?”
“No,” I lied.
He grinned and touched my nose with his forefinger. “You’re mad that I beat you, that I didn’t warn you in advance that I could run.”
I shrugged.
“But,” he continued, his dark eyes twinkling, “you did the same thing. You were trying to trick me, show me up.”
He was right, damn him. I looked up at the sky, lips pursed, refusing to answer.
He tweaked my nose. “Showoff.”
I snorted. “I could say the same about you.”
Moving a little closer to me, he chuckled and ran the rough pad of his thumb across my cheek. “That was fun.”
I imagined running beside him again, not in a race but as partners, for exercise and companionship. I’d always liked to run with people, but I hadn’t had a running partner since I’d first moved in with Josh. A smile threatened to quirk its way onto my lips but I held it back. “Would have been more fun if I’d beaten you.”
“Maybe I should’ve let you win after all.”
“Humph.”
He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I like you like this, all breathless and pink.”
“You don’t even have a runner’s body,” I groused, still gazing at the twilight sky. I still couldn’t believe he’d actually passed me. He was too big to be a runner.
“Neither do you,” he pointed out. Though I wasn’t looking at him, I felt his gaze traveling down my body.
I clenched my teeth together to hold back the automatic defensive response. I’d always been large-boned and taller than my teammates, yet I’d worked my butt off for four years of high school and eventually surpassed them all.
“Thank God,” he added. “I like you just the way you are.”
Something warm flushed through my body. I turned to meet his gaze and saw the sincerity in his eyes. “I like you the way you are too.”
He cupped my cheek in his big palm and moved even closer. He was going to kiss me. I didn’t tense up like I had last night and in the past. I didn’t care if other people on the beach were watching us. Right here, right now, it was what I needed.
His lips were warm, soft, but at the same time firm with the command of a man with confidence, a man who knew exactly how to take what he wanted.
And right now I wanted to give. I slipped my arm around his waist, feeling the muscles ripple in his side, and tugged him closer.
The world narrowed down to the singular sensation of Kai’s lips on mine. Every nerve in my body was attuned to it, the soft friction, the slow dance of our tongues, the hot, driven, all-male taste of him. Sensation skittered through me, making me tremble, making my toes curl. He sucked my lower lip between his teeth, and I gasped, holding him even tighter.
His lips trailed down to my ear, and he whispered, “I want you, Lacey.”
The words, spoken low and filled with promise, made me weak with lust. I wanted him too.
Tonight.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the sudden onslaught of fear.
I can do this. I can satisfy him. I can resolve this awful tension that has built between us.
Yet a part of me cringed and cowered, preventing me from responding to him.
Staying close, he rolled over to his back. The air was growing cooler as twilight faded into night, and I cuddled closer to his warm body. One star already heralded the dark. “I wonder what star that is,” I murmured.
“I don’t know. Venus, maybe?”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened in your dream?”
The muscles in my shoulders tensed. Why had I opened my big mouth? “I…you…we…” How on earth could I explain the dream without sounding like a sex-crazed lunatic? “Can’t remember,” I finished lamely.
A fingertip brushed over my lips. “I dreamed about you too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced at him, and by the intense look in his eyes, I guessed his dream had been as erotic as mine.
We lay there for several minutes longer in silence. Finally, I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. “I guess I owe you dessert.”
Kai
Haupia cake at the Lava Lava Beach Club wasn’t exactly the kind of dessert I had in mind.
“How about we go back to your place and have dessert there? I saw some ice cream in the freezer. Looked good.” I fought myself to keep from touching her, from lifting her skirt and taking her right here on the beach, in public.
But it wasn’t worth it to risk spending our first night of intimacy in jail. A better way to end this night would be by falling asleep with her naked limbs wrapped around me. Damn, I couldn’t wait to get her back to the house. Everything about her—her flushed cheeks, her tentative smiles, the way I felt so comfortable, so natural around her—spoke to me on a cellular level. This woman was made for me.
She felt the same way, if her body language was any indication.
“Okay,” she said softly.
We walked to the parking lot then drove back to her house in silence. I was burning for her. Memories of the erotic dream I’d had last night didn’t help. I’d fucked her with my fingers, made her come with my mouth. I’d awakened to the most painful hard-on of my life, frustrated as hell that I hadn’t fully taken her in my dream and found my release then. I’d grimly rejected the urge to finish myself off—instead I’d thought about her all day, waiting, anticipating.
Tonight was the night. She might finally be ready, and I was raring to go. Every moment of the day today had been fueled by my desire for her. I could still taste her from my dream—her sweet musky flavor had lingered on my tongue all day.
