by A. C. Arthur
After dealing with the last email Brandon declared there was nothing else he could do at the moment. He dressed for dinner and headed out, looking forward to spending time with Amber once more.
#
“I’m a twin,” Brandon said as he stood on the deck with Amber later that evening.
They’d enjoyed a great meal and had more wine than either of them thought was probably proper. Brandon had immediately thought of Tim as he’d finished his third glass. Then he considered that fact that he was far from being fall-down drunk the way Tim had been last night and he was nowhere near any of his co-workers. Tonight, he was just a man on a date with a lovely woman.
She’d been standing with her back leaning against the railing while he’d opted to stare right out at the dark water. It soothed him somehow to look out at the nothingness, giving him a feeling that at some point all of the bad things that were going on would be gone.
“What?” she asked, surprise clear in her voice.
He shrugged because the comment had come out of nowhere. Well, for her it had. For Brandon he’d thought about their earlier conversations and how he’d been hesitant to tell her about his family considering all that was going on. But after the emails he’d read before dinner one thought had remained clear to him—he was a Donovan and there was no shying away from that fact. His family was everything to him and he would continue to be proud of that fact, and to hopefully uphold all that was good about the name.
“I have a sister. We’re fraternal twins. Her name is Bailey,” he said. “I also have an older brother. His name is Brock.”
“All B’s,” she said with a grin and shake of her head. “You know this is a real coincidence because my younger sister and brother are fraternal twins, Fiona and Frankie. I’m in the middle between them and two older sisters and a brother.”
He nodded. “And you’re from Chicago?”
“Yep, born and raised. I already said my dad owns a couple of dry cleaners there and my mother used to be a seamstress. She’s retired now.”
She seemed totally willing to talk about her family which reinforced Brandon’s thought that he should be also.
“My father runs the family oil company. My mother used to own a book store, before she was killed in a car accident,” he said, the last words almost sticking in his throat as Brock’s email message came to mind.
“I’m sorry,” she said and touched his arm.
Brandon looked down at her hand. Her nails were polished the same shade of pink as on her toes. It made him smile because the cheery color matched her personality perfectly.
“I have a feeling you’re going to make a terrific mother someday,” he told her, again with the abrupt thoughts.
She yanked her hand away from him quickly. “Oh no, I’m so not ready for that,” she replied.
“Oh come on,” Brandon said trying to lighten his mood. “Wouldn’t you like to have your own set of twins?”
Amber was shaking her head so hard, the long earrings she wore slapped the sides of her face. Her hair was up tonight so her long neck was bare, leading down to her sun-kissed shoulders since her lavender dress was strapless.
“I don’t even want to hear that word,” she told him, with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, consider this, you, plus your twin brother and sister,” he said pointing to her. “And me, I’m a twin. That means if we get together we could be looking at quadruplets.” He had to chuckle at that himself because Brandon had never thought of having children with any woman before.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Don’t even go there. That is not a possibility at all.”
Brandon continued to chuckle.
“Aside from the fact that I might lose all of my sanity trying to care for more than one baby at once, it’s hard enough staying health conscious at my weight. You add to that a multiple pregnancy and first of all you’d have to cart me around in a wheel barrel. And after delivering, who knows what I’d look like.”
Brandon sobered then, standing straight and reaching out a hand to touch her cheek.
“You’ll be just as amazing and gorgeous as you are now,” he told her.
She tilted her head and smiled at him. “You’ve got to stop doing that, Brandon Donovan.”
“Doing what?”
“Saying the right things at the right time. I would think you’re rehearsing all this, but I’m not sure.”
Brandon shook his head. “I can’t rehearse for something that I never dreamed of happening.”
“You never dreamed of having dinner with a woman?” she joked.
Brandon remained absolutely serious. “Not with a woman like you and not in a place like this.” He looked around and then returned his gaze to her, sliding his hands down her arms and clasping their fingers together. “When I found out we were taking this cruise I was just happy to be getting away for a while. I really needed a break from the reality of the world. So I simply planned to sit on the deck and stare at the water whenever I wasn’t in a meeting. I never, in a million years, would have thought I’d meet a woman that could melt those harsh realities away with her smile.”
“See,” she said, swinging their hands between them. “You’re doing it again. Saying the right things when I really expected you to be a jerk. It would have been easier that way so I could simply brush you off and get on with my last business event. But you’re not a jerk, you’re actually kind of fantastic.”
He took a step closer to her. “I’ve never been called fantastic before,” he said softly.
“Good,” she replied. “This way you’ll remember it and me, more.”
“I don’t think there’s any way I could ever forget you, Amber.”
“Ever?” she teased, he knew because she was smiling up at him.
“Never,” he replied seriously, leaning in to kiss the tip of her nose.
“This is too fast,” she said softly. “I’m getting dizzy just thinking about you and how you make me feel. I don’t know if I understand it at all.”
Brandon shook his head slightly, then he kissed both her cheeks and finally her lips. “Let’s not think or try to understand it, Amber. Let’s just go with our feelings on this one.”
He kissed her lips again, this time tracing his tongue along their seam.
“Please, can we just go with this? I want this so badly,” he admitted, his eyes closing as he touched his lips with hers once more. What Brandon didn’t say was how much he desperately needed to be with her tonight, to know and feel that there was still something good in this world.
She nodded, and then kissed his lips this time. Instead of tracing his as he’d done hers, Amber slipped her tongue slowly inside his mouth, whispering over his tongue until he acquiesced. The kiss was slow and lazy but had the effect of a fast acting drug moving through his system as if he’d been plugged up to an IV. His body responded instantly, going hot and hard.
“Let’s go with it,” she said when they’d finally been able to pull their lips apart.
“Yes. Let’s,” was Brandon’s response before he stepped back and led them off the deck towards his cabin.
Chapter 6
Amber walked into his cabin, looking around as if expecting to see something different from what was in her own. Of course there would be, she thought as she continued, noting the leather briefcase on the round table near the balcony doors. A suit jacket hung on the back of the closet door which had not been closed. And it smelled like him in here, instead of like the salty sea air or of the cleaning supplies that would have been used when his room was tidied by the staff.
The scent wasn’t heavy, just a subtle hint of masculinity and musk. Yet it engulfed her like a cloak and her body reacted instantly. She took a deep breath, letting what was undoubtedly about to happen sink in. Her nipples tingled with the thought, her center pulsating in anticipation.
“It’s been a while for me,” she said finally, her back still to him. “I was involved in a serious relationship for almost tw
o years and then we broke up eighteen months ago. I’ve been traveling for the last eleven months, so, there’s been no time to meet or…you know…with anyone else.”
When his hands rested on her shoulders she jumped because she’d thought he was still standing across the room.
“I’m not that guy,” he said quietly.
“What guy?” she asked.
“The one that sleeps with women as soon as he meets them, every chance he gets,” he told her. “I keep pretty busy with work and when I do have time to date, it’s not always with the immediate intention to have sex with the woman. I’m just not that type of guy.”
She wanted to sigh because he was saying the right stuff, yet again. Instead, Amber turned slowly in his arms, until she could look up in to what might just be the most sincere eyes she’d ever seen. If there was a lie or ploy there, she couldn’t see it, and she’d had plenty of experience looking into those types of eyes. Brandon’s words might just be correct, maybe he wasn’t “that type of guy”. There was only one way to find out.
“Slow or fast?” she asked.
His brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
Amber lifted a finger to run along his bottom lip. “Do you like it slow,” she said as she moved her finger slowly from side to side, until he opened his mouth and quickly sucked it inside. “Or fast?” she finished with a gasp.
Brandon continued to suck on her finger, his eyes growing dark with desire as her breath hitched. When he lifted a hand and ran his thumb over her breast she wanted to cry out. Why oh why wasn’t the material of her dress combined with her bra, not thinner? She ached to feel his skin on hers because she knew without a doubt it was going to be magnificent. As his tongue moved around her finger, sucking the digit deeper into his mouth, then licking along her skin with heated strokes, he touched her other breast, until he was cupping them both in his hands. She was going to fall. For the first time in her years of wearing four plus inch heels, Amber felt herself wobbling.
He squeezed her breasts, pushing them up until they almost spilled over the top of her dress, moaning as his gaze dropped to watch them. Amber’s finger had begun to shake and finally slipped from his lips as both her hands moved to grasp his shoulders. She held tight as Brandon leaned forward, dragging his tongue over the heaving mounds of her breasts. Her head fell back and she sighed, her nails digging into the material of his shirt she squeezed him so tightly. In seconds the dress and her bra were moving, giving way to Brandon’s persistence. His strong hands were gripping her once more, this time skin-on-skin, his tongue moving to one already hardened nipple.
“Shit!” she hissed through clenched teeth, one foot tapping against the floor as the quick and potent bolts of pleasure soared through her body from that connection.
After a time that didn’t seem long enough, he reached behind her to grab the zipper of her dress. As soon as the zipper was undone, he was pushing the dress down her body. She helped him by moving her hips wishing like hell that she hadn’t worn her body shaper tonight. The undergarment had become second nature to her as she possessed so many of them now in different colors. Brandon didn’t seem to mind as he helped her step out of the dress, his hands immediately going around her waist and down to cup her ample bottom. He pulled her up close against him, grinding his rigid arousal between her legs.
Amber wrapped her arms around his neck then, pulling him down for a kiss that she hoped seared through his soul the way his touch had been doing hers. She worked her tongue over his, pressing her breasts into his muscled chest. When he gripped her butt so hard she wanted to moan in pleasure and pain, she knew he was feeling the same way she was. They both heaved as he tore his mouth away from hers and he took a step back from her. She watched his hands as they splayed down and over the ribbing of her body shaper, his complexion much lighter than the black material. He undid the eyehooks with what looked like practiced ease, although Amber wasn’t certain she believed Brandon Donovan had removed a number of body shapers in his past.
But he did the job with the snaps on this one, then proceeded to push the ribbed material down her bottom until she was stepping out of it. The strapless bra that he’d already pushed below her breasts went next and when she thought he would remove the sheer white thong she wore, he did not. Nor did he remove her shoes. Instead he stood there staring at her as if he’d never seen a just about naked woman before in his life.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said, his voice gruff.
Holding his bottom lip between his teeth as he touched her nipples with the tips of his fingers, he shook his head. “All night long I thought about you.”
Amber swallowed, hard, because she didn’t know what to say or do at this moment. There was a huge part of her that was feeling self-conscious. Sure, she could stand in a room with hundreds of people and tell them how they should respect plus-size women and that these women had nothing to be ashamed of, for hours on end. She could certainly push and insult a man who thought his skinny frame earned him the right to call her “fat ass”. But standing here, under a future lover’s scrutiny for the first time, was nerve-wracking.
His hands went from her breasts down to her sides, touching every inch of her skin.
“I knew you would be soft,” he continued. “Your skin was so golden and alluring when you were wearing that bathing suit. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you.”
Continuing their exploration, his hands moved from her sides to her front. Should she suck in her stomach? No, it wouldn’t matter, at some point during their intimate interaction she wouldn’t be able to hold it in anymore. Down further, his hands and his gaze moved.
“I want to taste you,” he said touching a finger lightly over the V of her juncture.
Amber did move then. She shifted from one foot to another as if to allow him deeper access between her legs, because she was well aware of how thick her thighs were.
“Oh no, baby, this is my time,” he said. “I want to do this my way.”
Touching a finger to her chin now, he tilted her head up and kissed her lips softly. “I knew you were beautiful, every part of you that I could see. Now, like this,” he moaned and kissed her again. “I want more.”
He walked her back into the bedroom, staying behind her, his hands brushing slowly over her bottom as she moved. It was strange to be walking in front of a man with no clothes on. She’d known that he’d watched her walk away that day she retreated to the pool and it had turned her on. But not like this. Nothing, Amber thought as she stopped at the end of the king sized bed, had felt like this.
Gently he pushed her back onto the mattress and continued his perusal of her body while standing at the foot of the bed. When he lifted her leg and kissed her thigh, Amber trembled. Those sweet little kisses continued down the length of her leg until he paused at her ankles.
“I can totally relate to a woman who has a shoe fetish,” Brandon said as he used one hand to hold her leg up and the other to unfasten the buckle of her nude sandals.
“You see, the shoe is like the dressing for the main attraction,” he told her as he slipped the shoe off slowly.
Then he was cupping her foot, massaging it from the toes to the heel. “This right here,” he continued. “It’s the first thing I saw on you. The first thing that reached out and grabbed me by the throat.”
Amber had come up to rest on her elbows by then and was looking at him. Was he saying he’d checked her feet out first?
“Simply beautiful,” he said with a shake of his head, before lowering it once more and kissing the tip of her big toe.
Amber’s fingers clenched in the sheet.
He kissed the next toe and the next and…wait, was she trembling?
His magical fingers continued massaging the ball of her foot, while his tongue moved slowly over the top of her foot, creating mini circles of pleasure that shot straight up her leg and hitting her center like a bullseye.
He was going to do the same thing to the next foot, Amber kn
ew without even considering the possibilities. The second that shoe was off, she braced herself, all but pulling the thin comforter off that bed. When he was finished and Amber thought she would never breathe normally again, Brandon continued to stand at the end of the bed and undressed.
Inch after inch of skin was revealed, mound after mound of muscle. He wasn’t a small framed man, she’d known that from the stretch of his shirt over his broad shoulders and chest, but now she was seeing it firsthand. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but his thighs were huge flanks of muscle, his arms almost like the proverbial cannons. His waist was toned, buttocks round and firm. Yeah, she’d missed a part, but really, there were no words to describe it. None. At. All.
“I told you this would happen,” he said as he moved closer, using his knee to push her legs further apart.
“I knew,” she spoke finally. “I knew from that first moment.”
Just like she knew without him sinking an inch inside of her that this was going to be the best sexual experience she’d ever had.
He ripped that thong away and had her thighs up on his shoulders in even less time. The quick lick of his tongue through her slit was like striking a match and Amber immediately exploded. He didn’t spend a lot of time there, licking and sucking, feasting, but it didn’t matter, the time he did was electrifying. When he pulled back the next thing Amber felt was his thick length. Unable to resist she came up on her elbows once more, staring down at the thick crest of his erection separating her vulva lips. How erotic was it to watch him sinking inch by inch into her, not nearly as blissful as it felt to have him easing so slowly and surely into her waiting cove.
He moved like he didn’t want it to end, which was just fine because Amber didn’t want that either. She loved the feel of him deep inside of her, his hands reaching up to cup her breasts and squeeze. Her head moved from side to side as she lifted her hips to meet his thrusts. When he pulled back and grasped her ankles, spreading her legs into a wide V, Amber wanted to scream out his name, but she refrained. How was she supposed to act when what she thought would be great sex was quickly turning into mind-blowing sex?
