She missed her shot and stood up, her cheeks tinged with pink. “Shoot.”
“Thanks. Believe I will.” He took care of the last two balls and said, “Guess what. You lose.”
“Huh,” she said. “How come I have the feeling that this is going to end up with me naked and you still completely dressed?”
Because that’s my plan, he didn’t say. Instead, he said, “Ground rules. Winner gets to say what you take off.”
She was even pinker now. “Ground rules get decided on before you start. For your information.”
“Well, see,” he said, “that’s the other thing about me. When you’re in the survival business, there’s no such thing as a fair fight. And you could figure you’ll be getting an advantage. You’re going to be even more distracting this way.”
Over the speakers, some guy was singing about a woman taking down her hair, and about buttons that weren’t staying buttoned. “What is this?” he asked. “105.5 Make Out Tonight?”
“It could be called mood music.” She was distracted herself, he could tell. She bit her lip, then took another gulp of scotch and said, “OK, then. What?”
He took a sip of his own, watching her nibble at that lip some more. The single malt went down strong and sweet, giving him ideas, like he didn’t have them already. He said, “Bra.”
“Uh . . . not in order.”
“Didn’t we establish some ground rules? Winner decides, and I’m the winner.” He gestured at her with his glass. “Go on.”
She sighed, laid her cue down across the table, and took a final sip of scotch before handing him her glass. She told him, “Hold this.” And then she started to unbutton.
There were six pale-pink buttons on that little sweater, and she worked the hell out of every one of them. Underneath them, she was wearing a pale-pink bra. Lace. And nothing else.
He sighed. “You have some truly great underwear. I ever mention that?”
She tossed her head and said, “I don’t like padded bras.” Which made two of them. Then she reached behind her, unhooked it, and took off both it and the sweater, one slow side at a time, and he may have forgotten to breathe. Her breasts were as white and round as he remembered, and as deliciously pink tipped. Her nipples pebbled under his gaze, right on cue. He could’ve looked at that all night. Unless he’d had the chance to touch.
She handed him the bra and said, “Guess that’s yours,” and started to put the sweater back on.
“No,” he said, still watching. “That’s mine. And leave the top two buttons undone for me.”
“You get to say?” She was still going for badass, and not doing too badly at all.
“Yeah. I do.”
She sighed and did up four slow buttons, bottom to top, and said, “Notice, though, that I’m covered up again. I don’t think this was your brightest idea.”
He barely heard her. The cleavage she’d exposed was too distracting, and so were the two hard little points showing clearly under the thin, soft fabric, letting him know how aware she was of his gaze.
“Just going to . . .” he said, setting the glasses down on the bar. Before she could reach for her cue, he grabbed her at the waist and hoisted her up on the wide, padded leather bumper of the table.
“But this was my brightest idea,” he said. “I’m pretty sure.” And then he kissed her.
Soft, sweet mouth opening under his, taste of smooth scotch and warm honey, one of her arms coming around his back, her other hand fisting in his hair. He kept one of his own hands behind her head, and with the other, he gently shoved one of her knees away from the other so he could get closer. He needed to be closer. He needed to be right there.
He didn’t rush. He stood there and held her head tight and kissed her pretty mouth, nibbling and sucking and licking at it, into it, until she was soft and sighing against him. Only then did he trail a string of delicate kisses along to her throat.
He got a little more demanding, then. But how could he resist, when her hands had tightened on him and her head had tilted to the side to ask him to kiss her neck some more? To kiss it better?
When his fingers began to trace the edge of that unbuttoned sweater, gliding over soft wool and silky skin, she sighed. And when he reached the sensitive spot on her breastbone and stroked her there, she moaned.
He let go of her and stepped back, and her eyes flew open, unfocused and dreamy. “What?” she asked.
He smiled. “Next game.”
“Oh.” She still looked confused. He traced a gentle hand over the red abrasions he’d left on the soft skin of her neck and said, “I’ve marked you all up.”
“Well, if you’re going to kiss me that much,” she said, “you’re going to mark me.”
“Mm,” he said. “Beard burn.” And teeth, and hard, demanding lips. He’d done all that. He was going to do so much more, too. For right now, he put two hands around her waist, lifted her down, and went to the bar for the ice bucket and the scotch, then handed her a glass and said, “Ready?”
She took a drink, gave him back the glass, and said, “Ready and waiting.” And then she set out to smoke him.
“All right,” he said when she was two shots ahead with four balls still on the table. “Explain why you didn’t show me that from the beginning.”
She walked around the table, and he might have gotten a little distracted when she leaned over opposite him to take her shot and he looked down that unbuttoned sweater. Maybe his plan had its drawbacks. “Why do you think I bought a pool table?” she asked, looking up from where she was still bent over, catching the direction of his gaze, and smiling, a slow, wicked thing that was all soft pink lips, sparkling green eyes, and female sorcery. “Because I’m very, very . . . good.” She took her shot, straightened up, watched the ball roll right into the corner pocket, then walked around the table again, leaned over right in front of him, and lined up her next shot.
“By the way,” she said, looking over her shoulder and reading his mind, “no touching during the game. Those are my ground rules.” Then she sank another one.
When the table was cleared, she was standing there, leaning on her cue, with that smile playing over her lips again. “Shirt,” she said, gesturing with her cue. “Both of them.”
“It’s strip pool,” he said, starting to unbutton the flannel shirt and revealing the white tee underneath. “One at a time.”
“Nope. No such thing as a fair fight. Both of them, soldier. Get them off. Right now.”
He gave her his best hard-ass stare, even though everything inside him was saying, Hell, yeah, pulled the flannel shirt out of his jeans, yanked it off, and tossed it on a velvet cube on top of her bra, his own pale-pink trophy, then started to pull up the tee.
She stepped closer. “Changed my mind. I’m doing this part.”
He could have told her that that wasn’t how it worked, but he wasn’t crazy. Her hands moved slowly, just like they had when she’d been unbuttoning her own sweater. They brushed over his sides, his ribs, traced the raised edge of his scar, then stroked over his chest as she pulled the soft material up his body. She felt him like she meant it. Like she wanted it.
“Mm,” she said, when his shirt was most of the way off, his hands tangled up in cotton. She dropped her hands, leaving him to deal with the shirt, bent, and licked over one of his nipples, then gave it a soft bite. Her hands were still stroking, too, and he was sucking in a breath and forgetting about taking his shirt off. He stood there, arms over his head, and let her feel him.
Eventually, he remembered the shirt and tossed it. But when he got a hand under her own sweater and started to slide it up her body, she raised her head from his chest and said severely, “No. Winner does the touching. You get to hold my head. And that’s all.”
This was a new Hallie. Damn, but he liked her. He didn’t need telling twice, either. He got a hand around her head, burrowed into her soft curls the way he loved to do, and held on. And she tortured him. Touching, stroking, licking, biting
, over his neck and his chest and his belly, tracing all the way down to his belt buckle and back again, until he was groaning, and he would’ve done anything—anything—if she’d just kept going. If she’d moved on down.
She didn’t. She stood up and said, “The other rule. The part of the body we uncover is the part we get to touch. So if you want those jeans off . . .” She took a long, slow look down his body. “You’d better lose.” Then she brushed two fingers down his fly, smiled as he leaped into her hand, and said, “Whoops. Slipped.”
He didn’t lose. He won. Maybe it was the second drink she swallowed down during the next game, maybe it was the pulsing music, and maybe it was the way he stood behind her every time she took a shot, but she wasn’t focusing as hard this time. Or fighting as hard, either. And he was. He needed to win.
When the last ball had fallen into its pocket, he took her cue from her hand and said, “Underwear. Let’s go.”
She didn’t even argue. And she didn’t look one bit like a loser. She looked him in the eye, got her hands up under that skirt, lifting it high enough to show him just about every inch of creamy, curvy thigh, and then she was wriggling her way out of a pale-pink scrap of lacy fabric and handing it to him draped over one finger.
It was a sight he could have taken a picture of, and he drank it in before he crushed the filmy little things in one hand and said, “These aren’t as dry as I bet they were an hour ago.”
She gave his body a long, slow scan and said, “Your jeans look a whole lot tighter than they were an hour ago, too. Guess I’m not the only one.”
He tossed the bit of lace into the pile on the coffee table and said, “You could be right. I’m going to put you up on that table again, too. And we’re going to try a little experiment. If I’m not going to win every time, I’m going to have to maximize the impact.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen, but all she said was, “Well, it’s your call.”
He sighed. “Now, those are some truly special words.” He hoisted her up on the bumper again, picked up his drink from the bar and took the last swallow, then plucked a cube from the glass. He came over to her where she sat perched, watching him, half aroused, half wary, and in one swift move, pulled the neckline of the sweater right down under her breasts, baring and lifting them for him. Then he took one in each hand, closed his mouth over one hardened peak, and sucked hard as he touched the other one with the ice.
She jumped. She gasped. And then she cried out as he kept doing it. He went to work. Hot and cold, hard and soft. The ice circling before it touched her where she was so sensitive. Teasing her the same way she’d teased him, while he pinched and played and drove her crazy.
She was making some noise. Panting breaths, little moans, until she couldn’t hold still anymore. Until she was squirming on the bumper.
Finally, he raised his head, looked her in the eye, and said, “Game’s over.”
“Oh?” she said. He could see her trying to rally. “Who says?”
“I say.”
He was shoving her skirt up now, inch by inch, revealing her thighs, and then more, his hands following the material, and she was panting hard.
“Jim,” she moaned. “Please. I know I should be undoing you. But please. Touch me.”
If there were three better words for a man to hear than “Please touch me,” he couldn’t think what they would be. “Where?” he asked. His thumbs were moving up the insides of her thighs now, ever closer. “Here?”
“More,” she said. “More. Please.”
He came close, then skirted the area and traced the crease where her thighs met her hips. “Here?”
“No. Please. Touch me.”
By the time he finally ran a slow hand down the smooth slickness of her, painted her with it, and began to explore, he could tell she was already halfway there. While he did it, he was kissing her again, taking her pleasure sounds into his mouth.
“You like that?” he murmured into her.
In answer, she was reaching for his belt, starting to unbuckle it, and he shoved her hand away.
“Gotta win it,” he told her. “I won. So I get to do this.”
“Jim—”
“My game. My rules. And the one I’m going to tell you now is this. Lie down on that table.”
“I’ll mess up . . . the felt.”
“I’ll replace it.” He meant it, too. “Come on, baby. Lie down for me.”
She did it. Her hips were high in the air, he got a hand on each knee and shoved her legs farther apart, and then he just looked.
Pink. Open. Vulnerable. All his.
The power was running as fast and hard in him as the desire was running through her. He drank down the last of his scotch, took an ice cube in his hand, and ran it all the way down her belly while she jumped and gasped.
“Jim—” she started to say.
“Shh, baby,” he said. “You might want to save your strength. Because this is where it gets really fun.”
ALL THE WAY DOWN
She’d said she wanted to be a badass. She’d said she wanted wild. But she’d never expected anything like this.
The ice was so cold. So very cold. And it was moving down her belly, coming closer and closer. She tried to close her thighs, but Jim’s hand was there, holding them open, and he told her, “No. Don’t move. We’re going to do this.”
She knew she could tell him to stop, and he would. But she didn’t want to tell him to stop. She wanted to feel him pushing her to that edge. Pushing her over it, screaming all the way. So she let the cold come closer. And then the freezing touch was circling her outer lips, and she was squirming.
She couldn’t see him anymore. He must be on his knees, but there was no question who was in control here.
When he finally touched her where she needed him most, it wasn’t with ice, but with cold liquid. His fingers were wet, they were finally there, and she was leaping into his hand. It felt so good. So good.
Then he set his mouth to her and started to work. Hot, hard sensation, after all that cold. She was crying out, her breath coming in sobs. And when he lifted his mouth from her, she reached to pull him back.
“No,” he said. “Hands back behind you.”
“Wh-what?”
“Go on, Hallie. Stretch them out behind you. Show me how you hold still for me.”
It was the hottest thing she’d ever heard. Slowly, she stretched her arms overhead, feeling the fuzz of soft felt against her skin, and he sighed and said, “That’s it. That’s so nice, baby. That’s what I want to see.” She could hear him moving around, but she couldn’t see him, and she didn’t want to. She looked up at the beamed ceiling, and she waited. She couldn’t stand it, and she couldn’t stand not to do it.
After that, he went on and on. Burning cold and icy hot. Little flicks of his tongue, blissful moments of gentle suction, teasing probes with his fingers that didn’t go far enough, that circled and, when she tensed, waiting for them to dive, needing to feel them stretching her . . . didn’t.
She was completely out of control now. But every time she squirmed, every time she lifted her hands, he stopped what he was doing and said, “Hold still. Or I won’t let you.” Again and again, driving her up one careful step at a time, never giving her quite enough.
One second, he was teasing again. The next, his mouth and hands were gone, and she saw him rising to his feet.
“Jim,” she moaned. “Don’t stop. Please. Oh, please.” She was nearly sobbing. “I need it so much. Please. Let me . . . please.”
“You’re going to do it,” he said, and his voice didn’t sound like Jim anymore. No patience at all now. Nothing but command. “When I say.”
In one swift thrust, he was inside her. Hot, and hard, and deep. And she screamed.
He was moving hard. Fast. No gentleness at all this time, but she didn’t need gentleness. She needed this.
She pulled her arms down to hold him, and he stopped again and pulled all the way out
of her. “What did I say about holding still?” he asked.
“I can’t . . .” she said. “I can’t.”
“If you can’t, you don’t get it. Come on, Hallie. Arms over your head. Hold still, baby. Hold still.”
She gasped, and she did it, and he started again. But he’d slowed down. A hard thrust, an achingly patient withdrawal, while she felt every inch of him and wanted more. Needed more.
When he finally got his hand there, he did it differently. Instead of the circling motion she was used to, he was pinching and releasing in time with his thrusts.
It was too intense. It was too much. It was all she needed.
“Now,” he said. “Now. Come on, Hallie. Hold still and come for me.”
He was the one holding still now. He was all the way inside her, nothing but his hand moving on her, his other hand hard around a hip, and she was finally set free from the torturously almost-there plateau where she’d been stuck. From one moment to the next, she was hurtling up, and nothing could stop her. Everything in her body was tensing, squeezing him inside her in the same way he was squeezing that little button where everything was centered. The pleasure came in tightening, concentric circles, drawing closer and closer, pulling her up and up, until with a long, low wail, she was there.
It was more than an orgasm. It was an earthquake. It was a full-body seizure. Her arms stretched out farther, her fingers tried to reach the back wall, her legs shuddered as she shook and spasmed, as she rocked and rolled through the waves that took her over and tumbled her senseless. And Jim was moving again, too. Slamming into her, exactly like that night on his car. Keeping the pleasure going, so she was barely down from the peak before she was climbing up again. Up and over the edge. Spinning and twisting and falling free.
With Jim holding her hard all the way down. All the way to the bottom. All the way to the end.
TESTING THE POSSIBILITIES
It took her a while to come back to earth. And when Jim lifted her off the table, she still wasn’t steady.
“Whoa,” she said, leaning up against him, letting him hold her. He was still wearing his jeans. They were both still dressed. “Guess I won’t go for four out of five.”
Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4) Page 33
