“I’ve never had a woman faint on me before.”
“That makes us even. I’ve never fainted. Not in any circumstance.”
Why that should make him feel so proud and primitively possessive, he had no idea, but the connection between the two of them seemed to be weaving tighter every second.
Pretty soon he was going to start pounding his chest and saying stupid stuff like, “My Ivy.”
The fact those two words sounded anything but dumb inside his head was scarier than her faint.
He went to pull away, but her arms locked around him.
“I’ve got to take care of the condom.”
“I know, but I don’t want you to move.”
But he had to, and they both knew it.
She sighed and let her arms fall back to the bed. “All right.”
Holding on to the condom, he carefully slid from her tight heat and then rolled to his feet. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dealt with the condom. The wastebasket was in the bathroom; however, he didn’t head there immediately. The view in front of him was too incredible to easily walk away from.
Her hair was a cloud of reddish brown silk against the white comforter. A sheen of perspiration covered her luscious body, her still erect nipples and scent telling him that she might be satisfied, but she wouldn’t object to him touching her again.
“You’re extremely sensual, Ivy.”
“I never have been.” She stretched languidly, her body twenty-two karat enticement. “Not with anyone but you.”
He found himself swaying toward the bed in shock and renewed desire. He stayed upright purely by strength of will. She wasn’t the only one their intimacy had laid waste to.
“You didn’t enjoy sex before?” he asked, unable to contain his astonishment.
She was the most amazing lover he’d ever known and more responsive than he’d ever even fantasized about.
She didn’t seem offended by his surprised reaction, not with that warm, sated smile still directed his way. “I’ve only ever made love with one other man.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter; it was a long time ago.”
“It couldn’t have been that long. You’re pretty damn young now.”
“Been peeking at my employee records?”
“I’m the boss. It’s my prerogative. Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me who it was. Did he hurt you? Traumatize you in some way?” She didn’t make love like a woman who had had a bad sexual experience in her past.
She laughed, the sound soft and appealing. “No, nothing like that, and it happened my senior year of high school.”
It happened? Had she only made love the one time? One man he could believe. One encounter? Impossible. “And you haven’t had sex with anyone since?”
“No.”
“Was it that bad with him?”
She came up on her elbows, striking a provocative pose. Her expression wasn’t sensual, though; it wasn’t amused any longer either. If anything, she looked thoughtful and just a little sad. “Making love with Danny wasn’t like it is with you, but it wasn’t terrible either.”
“Then why?”
She sat up and slid her legs over the opposite side of the bed so her back was to him. “Because it hurt too much when he walked away.”
“But everyone breaks up with their high school flame.” And they didn’t all stop having sex because of it.
She stood up and started hunting for her clothes. “Not everyone.”
“Well, okay, a few end up getting married, but just because you didn’t shouldn’t have turned you off dating.”
She spun to face him, the look on her face one of surprise. “I didn’t say it put me off dating. I’ve dated plenty of men since high school.”
“But you haven’t made love with any of them.” He tried not to make it sound like a question, but he was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea of her years-long celibacy.
She cocked her head to one side and looked at him as if she was the one who needed to see inside his head. “Not everyone thinks sex is a natural component of dating.”
Okay. Touché. “But if you were holding out for marriage, you wouldn’t have made love with him, and you sure as hell wouldn’t be here with me right now.” He certainly hadn’t offered her anything permanent.
She winced, and he realized how that had sounded, as if he was ruling out a future between them before the sheets had even cooled from the most explosive sex he’d ever had.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not looking for marriage or even a long-term relationship. I know that’s impossible for us.”
“Not impossible…”
She just smiled and shook her head. “I made love with Danny because I loved him. I wanted to marry him, but I knew he couldn’t have his dreams with me around. He did, too.”
“Are you talking about this moon thing?”
“Yes.”
“Ivy—”
“I know you don’t think it’s real, but Danny knew it was. He wasn’t ready to get married and start a family. Who is at eighteen? So, he had to move on, and so did I.”
Blake didn’t know what getting married had to do with her moon thing, but he understood the implication of what else she’d said. “So, he made love to you and then walked away?”
She shrugged. “Neither of us had a choice.”
The little prick could have chosen to keep his dick in his pants. It had to have been harder for Ivy to let Danny go after making love than it would have been before. She’d just said it had hurt, enough to make her very cautious about having another sexual relationship.
But she’d also said she didn’t see making love as a given component to a dating relationship.
He was trying to get this, but it felt like one of those male-female things that he found incomprehensible most of the time. “So, tell me again why no sex since then.”
She took a deep breath, as though preparing to say something that she rather wouldn’t. She crossed her arms over her stomach and let the air out. “I’ve never loved another man enough to want to share something so intimate and sacred with him.”
He felt like he’d just been gut punched. “Are you saying you love me?”
She winced again, her face pinkening with embarrassment, and she tightened her arms in a blatantly defensive move. “Yes.”
He didn’t know what to say. He wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman. Hell, his hard-on had grown to aching full mast again, and all they were doing was talking. About stuff that usually gave him a worse case of the jitters than a triple-shot espresso.
He hadn’t considered the l-word, though. “Ivy, I—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not expecting you to love me back.” Her gaze flicked down. “Uh…are you going to take care of that?”
“I can’t until I get rid of the condom and put a new one on.”
Her mouth dropped open in an “O,” and then she laughed. “I meant the condom.”
He was still holding the tissue bundle. “We’re talking.”
“There’s not much else to say, is there?”
He couldn’t help feeling she was hoping there was, and he just didn’t know if he could give her the words and mean them. If he didn’t, he couldn’t say them. She deserved the same level of honesty she had given him.
She could have lied and said she didn’t love him when he asked, or that she didn’t know, but she hadn’t spared her pride at the cost of her integrity.
“I guess not. Not right now, anyway.”
She nodded, the flicker of disappointment in her pretty brown eyes quickly masked. But he’d seen it and felt like a jerk for putting it there.
He turned and went into the bathroom without another word.
When he came back out, Ivy was dressing. She had her blouse on and the first several buttons done up.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting on my clothes.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“Walking to my room stark naked doesn’t appeal.” She smiled, inviting him to share the joke. “I’ve never had even a slight hankering to streak naked down hotel corridors.”
“Why are you going back to your room?” Was it because he hadn’t said he loved her? Did she regret letting him into her body now because of it?
“You know the answer to that,” she said lightly.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” he growled.
Her eyes widened at his tone. “Management Training 101: you’re on duty even when you aren’t.” She finished buttoning her blouse and smoothed it down with a grimace obviously meant for the wrinkled condition. “If the staff needs me, they aren’t going to come looking in your room. At least, I hope they aren’t. That would be more than a little embarrassing.”
“Oh.”
She bent down and grabbed her skirt off the floor. It was all he could do not to go over there and take her sexy butt in his two hands and squeeze. She was so perfect, shaped like a dream and as hot as reality could get.
She shimmied into the navy blue uniform skirt. “You could come with me, if you like.” She said it casually, but her tense posture and the way she didn’t meet his eyes when she asked gave away her nervousness.
“I like.”
She looked at him then and smiled—a beautiful, happy, white teeth, lips bowed lusciously grin. “Good.”
“You had to know I’d say yes.”
“I thought me telling you I love you might have scared you off.”
“Technically you didn’t say the words,” he said, apropos of nothing. He didn’t want to hear them, did he?
She laughed, actually laughed. “No, I didn’t, did I?” She didn’t look heartbroken or miserable that he hadn’t said he felt the same way, far from it, and how was he supposed to feel about that?
Her smile never faltered. “I love you, Blake.”
Oh, man…that sounded good, too good.
It also turned him on. He started toward her, smiling with intent when her eyes widened in alarm. “We can go back to your room after.”
“After?” she parroted, backing up a step.
“Yes, after.”
“But…”
“I’m the boss, sweetheart, and right now your most pressing duty is to let me pleasure you stupid.”
“Some duty.” Her breath hitched, and her gaze grew hot. Just that fast.
“I think so,” he said, forcing her back one more step, knowing it was the last one he needed to get her right where he wanted her to be.
Ivy backed into the bed and tumbled backward when Blake kept pushing forward.
Feeling the brush of his erection against her as she fell, she expected him to pounce immediately, but he didn’t. Instead, he used his mouth and hands to sensitize her feet in a way that impacted every erogenous zone of her body as if each of her toes was some kind of remote control device.
The slow seduction of her senses had her begging for his possession before he’d even gotten her skirt off, but he showed with one tormenting caress after another that he was in no hurry to put himself inside her.
He slipped her skirt down her legs in an excruciatingly slow glide.
“Blake…”
“Shhh…honey, let me pamper you.”
“Pamper me?” She gasped as he leaned over her naked bottom half. “You’re driving me crazy.”
He laughed, the warm air from his mouth stirring the sensitive hair on her mound. What was he doing?
Her legs were pressed apart by strong hands, and then his mouth was against her most private flesh. His tongue swirled and dipped, making her arch toward his mouth in hungry, shivery excitement. He surrounded her clitoris with his lips, flicked it with the tip of his tongue, and started humming…not singing, but making a sound with his mouth that made her flesh vibrate. Then he slipped his finger inside her more than willing flesh. She clasped him as tightly as she could, moaning with the pleasure that inner clenching gave her. He pressed with his long finger against a spot that made her shudder and cry out.
He added a second finger, but kept up his attention to that secret spot she hadn’t even been sure she had.
Without so much as a preliminary muscle rigor, she came. “Oh, Blake, oh, yes…it feels so good, so perfect. I love you, Blake.” Having the freedom to say the words again intensified her pleasure, and her body continued convulsing around his fingers and arching toward his mouth.
The feelings grew unbearably intense, and she couldn’t take any more. She tried to pull away while shoving at his head with her hands, but his grip on her was unshakable, and the pleasure that was close to pain continued to spear through her.
“Blake, please, you’ve got to stop…I can’t stand it.”
But he didn’t stop, and she had another orgasm, this one even more intense than the first. Her whole body tightened to frozen immobility while her womb contracted and her inner core radiated the most amazing sensations outward she’d ever known. Then, again without warning, her body went limp, and every muscle that had been rigid was now totally incapable of moving or sustaining her in any way. Even her head lolled to the side in boneless abandon.
He kissed her, paying thorough homage to every centimeter of quivering nerves between her legs. Then he lifted his head, and she managed to turn hers enough to see him. Her essence glistened wetly on his mouth, and his blue eyes were dark with sexual pride. And hungry need. He’d given her pleasure; now he wanted to take his.
“You said it again.”
“What?” she slurred.
“That you love me.”
“Yes.” And she’d liked saying it. Loved the freedom to express feelings she would get to revel in for a few short days at the most. There would be plenty of time to grieve his loss later, just as she had grieved Danny’s, but right now she could do nothing but celebrate being with this man.
Instinctively, she knew Blake wasn’t comfortable with emotion. It wasn’t controlled enough for him, and this was one man who really liked to be in control. He’d given her a tremendous gift when he hadn’t allowed her honesty about her emotions to drive him away.
He didn’t say anything else, just started making love to her again, removing her blouse, caressing her, making her want him. Passion burned in his gaze like an inferno fed with gasoline, but his touch was gentle, and incredibly, he incited her own desire until it matched his once again before taking her with an excruciatingly slow, but inexorable thrust.
He filled her completely, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to keep him that way.
“It’s not too much, is it?”
“No, darling. Not too much.”
His eyes closed, and his head went back, a look of utter bliss on his features. “You can take all of me.”
Their pelvic bones ground together. “Yes. I love taking all of you.”
Then he started to thrust, each movement slow and measured.
“Blake…I want…I need more!”
“I was too fast the first time, but this time I’m going to be slow and careful. You’re a lot smaller than me, Ivy.”
“Just because you’re some kind of freak of nature doesn’t mean I’m a fragile midget. Go faster, darn it.” She pounded his back.
But all she got for her trouble was another slow, deep glide.
She reached up with her mouth, latched on to a patch of skin just above his left nipple, and started to suck.
A strangled sound that could have been her name came from his throat.
She kept sucking and pinched his right nipple, then played with it, delighting in the way the small, hard nub felt against her fingers.
Suddenly he was rearing back, breaking the hold her legs had on him and tossing her over onto her stomach.
“Hey,” she yelled and then gasped as he slammed into her from the back.
He went so deep, he was touching her heart; at least that’s how i
t felt. “You are a vixen.”
“Vixen? Who says vixen?”
“I do. It fits the beautiful tease I’ve got in my bed.”
“We aren’t technically in your bed; we’re on it,” she panted.
“And I’m on you.”
“Yeah, couldn’t stand the heat, huh?”
“If you’ve only ever made love with one other man, where’d you learn that stuff?”
“I read.”
A deep laugh rumbled against her spine. “I’ll have to borrow some of your books.”
“Any time.”
“But right now, I want to love you without any of your little tricks, got it?”
If he’d said screw her, she would have said something equally sexy and tried to get the leverage to flip over, but he’d said love, and even though he didn’t mean love-love, it still just melted her.
It wasn’t a good idea to go gooey on him, though. That probably would scare him away. “Are we playing your game again?” she asked in an effort to keep it light.
“What would make you say that?”
“The fact you have me on my stomach and I can’t do anything but what you want.”
“Don’t you like it?” He thrust deep and pulled out slowly only to thrust deeply again.
When she got enough breath to talk again, she answered. “I like it just fine, but I don’t like you thinking you can always be in control.”
“Would I think that?” he asked, reaching around and under her with one hand, his voice all rumbling innocence and his fingers a temptation to sin. The questing hand slid along her belly and down to her pubic hair; then fingers pressed between her labia and touched her clitoris.
“You might think it, but you’d be wrong.” And she tried something else she’d read about.
He cursed, a word she never, ever said, but described spectacularly what they were doing.
She squeezed and released her inner muscles in a rhythm that matched his thrusts. Pretty soon the rhythm increased until all she could do was squeeze and hold the contraction for as long as possible, then release and start squeezing again.
Six
He panted in her ear, his fingers playing her sweet spot as though they knew her every secret. He did. More than any other person on the earth. Minutes later, she and Blake came together with lots of noise and passionately rocking bodies. Afterward, he collapsed on top of her, his weight warm and solid against her back.
Star Quality Page 14
