Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  Electricity

  Her body had become supercharged, every nerve ending quivering. Joe’s hand was big and warm over hers, the muscle of his shoulder was hard and solid under her palm, and the rest of him was just as hard and solid against the rest of her. If she’d ever had any doubts that he wanted her, he’d just answered them, and she closed her eyes and surrendered to the pleasure of it. To the music washing over them, to the lyrics that said exactly what she wanted to believe Joe was thinking, to the size and strength of his body, the feeling of his palm against her back, pulling her in tight, giving her noplace to go even if she’d wanted to.

  They swayed through another song, and then Joe was talking, his deep voice audible over the music, because his mouth was so deliciously close to her ear.

  “If we do this,” he said, his hand splayed over her back, lower now, stroking below the waistband of her ski pants, tantalizingly near the curve of her cheek, making her feel how much it wanted to keep moving, where he wanted to hold her, “it’s not like Dr. Ski picking you up. I’m not some guy you’re dating for a while. If we do it, it’s for real.”

  “You mean,” she said into the wall of hard, warm chest, trying for casual and failing utterly, “that if I want you, I have to promise to make an honest man of you?”

  “I’m not joking. I mean that if we do this, you’re mine, and you need to know it.”

  He hadn’t even kissed her, and she was gone.

  “Joe,” she said, her hand on the nape of his neck, rubbing up and over the hair he’d grown for her, just because she wanted it. She knew that he was going to spend tonight giving her everything else she wanted, making her feel everything she needed to feel, and she needed him to start doing it. “If you don’t get me out of here right now, I’m going to give those guys playing pool over there a show they won’t forget. Because I need you inside me. I need it so bad.”

  “You didn’t answer,” he said, barely dancing now. “That’s a good answer, but it’s not the answer I need.”

  “What do you want me to say? Tell me, and I’ll say it.”

  “You know what I want you to say.” His hand was stroking, almost there now, and he had her pressed up tight against him, letting her know exactly what she had to look forward to. His face was hard and set, and she was melting.

  “That I’m yours.” She swallowed. It should have been cheesy, but it wasn’t. It was the hottest thing she’d ever heard, because he meant it. She could feel it in the way he held her, see it in the look on his face, that predator’s stare that had captivated her from the beginning. The difference was, now she knew for sure that she was its target.

  “Don’t you know,” she asked him, barely able to get the words out, “that I’ve always been yours? It’s all yours, Joe. It always has been. Go ahead and take it.”

  He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth brushing over hers, and they weren’t swaying to the music anymore, because the moment his lips touched hers, the current leaped straight through her, a shot of pure electricity that jolted straight to her core. The slow, steady pulse of arousal had been throbbing ever since she’d started playing pool with him, ever since she’d bent over the table and offered herself to him, her body begging him to take what she was so ready to give. She was thrumming to its beat now, to the insistent rhythm of the slow, steamy music, to his hand coming down for just a moment to grip her by one cheek, pull her up tight against him, right there on the dance floor. He was kissing her harder, his mouth demanding, and she was giving it right back, and she wanted more.

  Much too quickly, it was over, and he was stepping back from her. “Time to go,” he said.

  She thought about saying something, but there wasn’t anything to say. She let him lead her out to the doorway, let him hold her coat for her and take her outside.

  The blast of cold air as they stepped outside the bar, the whipping of the hard wind-blown flakes against her exposed cheeks and hands was like a shower of cold water, making her gasp. Joe had her arm, was leading her across the street, putting her into the car, running around to his side.

  She expected him to kiss her again when he got in, but he started the car, turned the defroster to high, flipped the switches for the seat warmers.

  And then he kissed her. He reached for her, pulled her to him with one hand at her waist, the other around her head, his thumb stroking her cheek, and kissed her, his palm on the back of her head, holding her to him, his mouth eating her up like he was starving and she was his only food. She got her own hands around him so she could explore the outline of his shoulders, his back through the heavy coat, reveled in the sheer size of him, in the feeling of him holding her so tightly, wanting her so much.

  “We could get in the back,” she said into his mouth. “I need you to touch me. I need your hands on me. I need it so bad.”

  He pulled away, breathing as hard as she was. “No. I need you to be in my bed.” He started the windshield wipers going, pulled out of the parking spot and into a cautious U-turn, and drove the few minutes to the cabin in silence. She was quiet, too, because she was so turned on she wasn’t sure she could talk anyway, and because she could see that the condition of the road demanded his full attention.

  “Damn,” he breathed, pulling to a stop in front of the cabin, the headlights picking out the wooden steps. “I left lights on. Got to be a power failure.” He reached across her, all business, opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. He handed it to her, reached under his seat, and pulled out an even bigger one.

  “You have two flashlights where you can reach them,” she said, wanting to giggle, some of the heady anticipation replaced by amusement, or just pure giddiness.

  “Got a lantern in the back, too,” he said with a grin, and opened his door. “Wait for me,” he commanded, switching on his light. “Slippery out here, especially in those boots of yours.”

  She waited, held onto his arm as she got out, and kept holding on as they stomped through the deepening, powdery snow on the steps to the front door, and Joe used his key to get inside.

  It felt barely warmer than the outside in there, and the blackness, outside of the beam of their flashlights, was total. Joe shut the front door, sat on the bench, and began to unlace his boots, and Alyssa did the same, the sense of anticlimax bubbling up inside her.

  “Way to let a girl down,” she complained, not even taking off her coat, because it was freezing in here, contenting herself with pulling off her boots and socks as he did the same. “I kind of pictured you carrying me upstairs. I don’t even get to see you when I take your clothes off? You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see that.”

  Joe looked at her, and she could make out another smile. “You want me to carry you upstairs? I could do that. And you get to see me. I get to see you, too. I’ve waited long enough to do it myself, and I’m not planning to miss out. That’s what candles are for.”

  “You have candles?” She shivered a little, and not just with cold. “And I was just joking about the carrying. Alec’s right. Nobody wants to pick me up.”

  “I do.” He stood, and the next thing she knew, he had one arm under her shoulders, the other one beneath her thighs, and had hoisted her into his arms. “You light the way,” he said. “I’ll do the carrying.”

  Nobody had ever carried her, because she was tall, and she was curvy, and whatever she’d told Alec, she knew she was too heavy. But Joe did it, and he did it without any apparent effort. He didn’t even bump her head around the corners. She wrapped one arm around his neck, held the flashlight in her other hand, and enjoyed every step of the way, until he kicked open the door to his room and set her down on the big, solid wooden bed she’d tried not to notice when she’d been in his tub the night before.

  He was right, he had candles on the nightstands, thick ivory pillars that she picked out with her flashlight while he found the matches in a drawer and lit first one, then the other. He took the flashlight from her hand, switched it off and set it
on the nightstand, and the single harsh spot was replaced by the flickering gleam of candlelight, casting mysterious shadows over his face, lighting the bed with its glow.

  He pulled her to stand, drew the covers back on the bed, and then, and only then, he reached for her coat, put a finger and thumb on the zipper, and slowly pulled it down.

  “Do you know how much I’ve always wanted to unzip you?” he asked, his hands brushing her shoulders as he drew the coat off, tossed it onto a chair beside the bed.

  “Probably about as much as I’ve wanted to do it to you.” She did, though she needed his help to get his arms out of the sleeves, because his arms were big.

  “That’s all you’re doing,” he said, and he’d pushed her down onto the bed, and he was over her, pulling the covers up so they were cocooned in warmth. “The rest of this is mine.”

  He was kissing her, his mouth hard on her, his weight resting on one elbow, and she was pulling the shirt out of his waistband, and at last, she had her hand where she’d always wanted it, sliding over the hard muscles of his back. He flinched like she’d slapped him there, and then she was flinching the same way, because his hand was under her sweater. It was cold, and it was big, and it was moving up, taking its time, and she shivered under it and kissed him more desperately, her own hand sliding over the shifting muscle of his upper back, then holding on.

  “I’m going to touch you everywhere tonight,” he told her, and his hand was making the point. “I’m going to kiss you everywhere, too. I’m going to put myself on every inch of you, and let you know I’ve been there.”

  “Please,” she breathed, feeling his mouth leave hers, his lips on her cheek, moving over to her ear, to the side of her neck, and she turned her head so he could reach it better, because it felt so good. The scrape of whiskers against her skin, the shock of his tongue, his teeth, his mouth finding every sensitive spot and lingering there, making her squirm. And his hand, moving up, finally covering her breast, then diving inside her bra and cupping her. His palm moved over a nipple that hardened under his touch into a sensitivity that was nearly painful. He was making her moan already, and he had barely started.

  He wasn’t rushing to get to the good stuff, either. Instead, his mouth lingered at her neck, then went to the other side, up to her mouth again so he could kiss her some more, his lips teasing, pulling out every response she had to give. His hand was still at her breast, and he kissed her and touched her until she was moving hard underneath him, her hand on his back trying to pull him closer.

  When he finally reached for the bottom of her sweater and began to pull it up her body, she sat up to help him, reached around behind her back for the fastening of her bra, only to have him grab one wrist.

  “No,” he said. “Didn’t I say this was mine?”

  “Then go faster,” she begged. “Please, Joe. I need to be naked. And I need you to be.”

  She could see his smile in the candlelight, and if she’d ever thought his face was hard, it didn’t look hard now. “You’re going to be naked. After a while. And I’m going to be naked too. Eventually. We’ve got nowhere to go, and all night to get there. So lie down, because I’m going to play with you.”

  And play is what he did. He spent what felt like an eternity on her breasts alone. Her bra came off, but that was all that did for a long, long time. His hands and his mouth coaxed every bit of sensation out of her, until she couldn’t ask him anymore, could only lie beneath him and feel.

  Then his hand moved lower, his mouth followed it, and his tongue dipped into her navel. “Pierced,” he murmured. “You’re not a good girl.” He licked around the little ring, his hand trailing over her side, and finally, when her hips were urging him in a rhythm that she couldn’t help any more than she could contain the sounds that were escaping her, his fingers went to the waistband of her stretchy pants. They dipped inside, lower, and lower still, brushing over the sensitive skin of her lower belly, and she was trying to move him closer by wriggling towards him, urging him on. He shifted, took her breast in his mouth, and, finally, touched her where she needed to be touched, and that was all it took. He rubbed once, twice, three times, hard, and she came undone.

  He swore, but she could barely hear him, because his hand was still moving, and all the tension of the past hours was being released in delicious spasms that went on and on, leaving her shaking and shuddering.

  Finally, he had the rest of her clothes off, and she was naked. She didn’t care what he said, she was unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it off, yanking off the T-shirt beneath, and he wasn’t complaining, he was helping her. She rolled over him, straddled him, and finally, she was running her hands over the hard expanse of his shoulders. Her mouth was at his neck, then his chest, her tongue stroking a flat nipple, and she was feeling him shudder in his turn. Her hips were moving, and she was rubbing against him, needing to feel what he had to give. Her hands were stroking the smooth skin of his biceps, her mouth moving to the tattoo, outlining it with her tongue, biting at it with her teeth.

  She did her best to take her time, the way he had with her, but she was greedy for him, for every bit of him. She shifted her weight lower, her hands reaching for his belt buckle, popping a button, and then unzipping him slowly.

  And, finally, after fifteen long years, she touched Joe Hartman. Her hand closed over him, and she thought, yes. Because if she was his, he was hers. This was hers, and it was good.

  “Get my pants off,” he told her, so she did. And then she showed him how much she appreciated what she’d found, and he grabbed her head, wound his fingers through her hair, and she was forcing some sounds out of him, too.

  “Stop,” he finally said. “Stop now. I can’t . . . I can’t keep from . . .”

  She came up on her elbows, slid up so her breasts were over him, let them enfold him, and his hands came down over her back, held her there like he couldn’t stand to let her leave.

  “Once you do it, how long does it take you, in between?” she murmured, her hands playing over the ridges of his belly.

  “Uh . . .” He groaned. “Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”

  “Think you could find something to keep you occupied for fifteen minutes?” she asked, her hands still stroking his skin, gliding over his chest, finding their way down the happy trail of hair that led from his navel to where she could feel the weight of him pressing into the valley between her breasts, and she wanted him so much. She wanted to do this.

  “You don’t have to . . .” he got out.

  “Oh, but I do,” she assured him. And she did. And when she felt his hands tightening around her head, heard the long, agonized groan beginning, she smiled a little around him, and finished it, and enjoyed every bit of it.

  “Oh, God,” he sighed, still on his back, when she rose back over him and kissed him, her tongue licking into his mouth, savoring all the tastes of him, her hands on his arms where they lay splayed over his head, her fingers circling him there, and she loved the idea that she’d satisfied him that much.

  “Mmm,” she said, kissing the corners of his mouth. “Don’t go to sleep on me, now. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Don’t let me down.”

  “We need a bath,” he sighed.

  “A bath?” She sat upright and stared down at him. “Uh, Joe. That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  He smiled up at her, slow and satisfied. “Don’t worry. You’ll get everything you want.” He pulled her down over him and gave her a long kiss, his hand moving over her back, tracing the curve of her waist.

  “You did a really good job,” he told her. “But I can take it from here.”

  He got his bath, finally. He got Alyssa just the way he’d imagined her the night before, on top of him in his giant tub, her firm, full breasts in his soapy hands, feeling her giving him every delicious response a man could ask for. Then he was sliding his hands down, feeling all her beautiful curves, rubbing her over him, lifting his head to pay some more long-overdue attention to her breast
s, holding her still for him, and she was loving it, and letting him know it.

  He pulled her out of the tub at last, once he was sure he was going to be able to do her justice. He dried her off, got her back between the sheets of his bed, and worked her over for real. He paid back every attention she’d lavished on him, showed her what he’d meant when he’d told her she was his.

  He had what he’d always wanted. He had Alyssa on her back in his bed, and he was doing things to her that he’d been imagining for fifteen long years. And it was all good.

  Maybe he wasn’t the best guy at talking, but he was pretty good at listening, and he was very, very good with details. He read the movements of her hips, the frantic reach of her hands for his shoulders, the sighs and moans and downright directions she was giving him. He listened, and he learned everything about her. How to touch her, how to please her, and how to drive her crazy. How to make her grab his head in both hands, the same way he’d grabbed hers, and how to push her so far she couldn’t even form words. And that was the best of all.

  He got her going to the point where her hips were trying to pump underneath him, where she was crying out so loud, she sounded as if she were in pain. And then he stopped. He lifted his mouth from her, stilled his fingers, and felt her buck against him.

  “Joe,” she gasped, “don’t stop. Please.”

  “This is for that doctor yesterday,” he told her. “You going to let him flirt with you again?”

  “No,” she moaned.

  He smiled, and started again. Got her even closer. And stopped.

  “No.” It was almost a scream.

  “That guy you were out with, the one you ran out on. You going to be going out with anybody else?” he demanded. “Anybody but me?”

  “No. No, Joe. I’m not.”

  “Because you’re what?”

  “Because I’m yours.” He heard the truth of it, and he felt the evidence of it, and thrust his fingers inside her harder, and felt her hips jerk in response. And then he set his mouth to her again, and that was all it took. She was there, and if her first orgasm had been strong, this one had her rising in the bed, letting it all go, calling out with what he could tell was the nearly unendurable pleasure of it.