by Alison Kent
She circled the sofa and moved to stand behind one of the wing chairs, needing something besides electrically charged air sizzling between her and Joe so she could concentrate on calming her racing heart. Now that they were alone, she’d developed a record-setting case of nerves.
He slipped off his cummerbund and tossed the black satin over the end of the chaise in the corner along with his tuxedo jacket. “A couple of months,” he said, giving her a meaningful look.
Okay, so maybe that did explain why he hadn’t called her the first ten months of the year, but it sure as hell didn’t justify his ditching her without a word in the first place. Not that it mattered, she amended. She hadn’t come upstairs with him to hear lame excuses.
He loosened the bow tie and unfastened the top button of his crisp white shirt. “How long are you going to keep pretending we don’t know each other?”
Her vintage Fendi slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor with a dull thud. She didn’t bother to make sure the clasp held. Regulating the increased rate of her breathing took every ounce of her concentration.
She gripped the back of the chair so hard her fingers ached. “Who’s pretending?” Careless had been her goal. She ended up sounding jittery and high-pitched.
He held her gaze as he moved slowly in her direction. “You are,” he said when he reached the love seat.
She forced herself to hold her ground, refusing to run. “I don’t know you.” Her death grip on the chair tightened. “Champagne? A few kisses? That hardly qualifies as getting to know someone.”
Except she had known him. At least that’s what she’d believed during those blissful, stolen moments a year ago. She’d convinced herself her search for Mr. Right had finally ended. Later she’d realized what she’d actually recognized had been his type—terminal frog.
Her much-needed space evaporated when his long legs ate up the short distance separating them. He stood behind her and slid his hands over her hips. Her pulse fluttered faster than the shutter speed on a top-of-the-line camera.
“We did more than kiss,” he reminded her, his breath hot against her ear. If that wasn’t enough to have her trembling, he grazed his teeth over her earlobe, then nipped playfully at her nape. She nearly melted into a puddle at his feet.
“I know the curve of your hip,” he whispered. His hands traveled with agonizing slowness up her torso. Through the weighty fabric, he palmed her breast. “I know the weight of your breast in my hand. And I know your nipples will pucker when I do this.”
To emphasize his point, he brushed his fingers rhythmically over her already sharp, sensitive peaks. “What I don’t know, yet,” he added, “is how sweet they taste.”
The insistent tug of desire had her pressing her bottom against his fly. She felt the hard ridge of his penis along the twist of the beads from her thong as she wiggled her backside. Moisture pooled between her thighs.
He kissed the side of her neck, using his tongue and teeth until her breath caught. “Did you know your eyes turn a brighter shade of blue when you’re aroused? Or that you make the sexiest sound deep in your throat as you want more?” His hands left her breasts and slid down her sides until his fingers lightly teased her thighs below the hem of her dress.
She’d be lucky to remember her own name with him touching her. “You obviously have me confused with someone else,” she said. Her voice definitely lacked the necessary conviction she’d hoped to convey.
He let out a heavy sigh and moved away from her. “Why do you insist on lying to yourself, Natalie?”
To protect myself from you.
She pushed away from the chair, stooped to pick up her bag and walked toward the bed. Not because she was running away. She just needed to…breathe. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He followed her. “Your body knows mine. All night it’s been acknowledging what you refuse to, and I’d appreciate it if you explained why.”
The tenderness in his eyes hit her hard, filling her chest with a sharp ache. She ignored the threat of her heart opening up to him and managed to produce a saucy grin. “You’re just suffering from some weird sense of déjà vu.”
“Then why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”
The ache reappeared despite her most valiant efforts. “I’m aroused. That’s all.” She pulled off a caustic laugh. “You could be anyone. Really, it wouldn’t make a difference tonight.”
His eyes filled with skepticism as he crossed his arms over his chest. The slight lift of one eyebrow said he wasn’t buying the line she’d just tried to sell him. Damn. And she’d been hoping there was some truth to there being a sucker born every minute.
“You’re aroused,” he told her with a touch of arrogance, “because you’ve been thinking about making love to me since last New Year’s Eve.”
He treaded too close to the truth for her to be completely comfortable. She had thought of him, constantly. She blamed him for her lack of sexual activity. But not, she realized suddenly, because of her hastily made resolution. None of the handful of men she’d dated the past year came close to making her feel the way Joe had with so little effort. All it had taken was a few smoldering gazes, a light brush or two of his hand against hers, the press of a very impressive erection against her backside and she was closer to the edge than she’d been in months—and more than ready to do something about it, too.
“Like I said,” she told him, “you obviously have me confused with someone else.”
The challenge was obviously too much for him. That confident half smile widened into a full grin. “Wanna bet?”
She simply couldn’t refuse. Not if she hoped to win her own battle and finally prove something to herself—that she didn’t need to believe herself in love with some guy just to have sex with him.
She tossed her bag on the bed, then reached behind her and tugged down the zipper of her dress. As she lowered her arms, the heavy metallic gold material slid from her body to pool around her feet. She pulled the pins from her hair and shook the long, curly strands loose.
Wearing only the gold-beaded thong, her four-inch Monticellos and a whole lot of false bravado, she looked him dead in the eye. “Go ahead,” she taunted him. “Give it your best shot.”
5
“I PLAN TO,” Joe told her, part threat, part promise. He took the few steps necessary to reach her and pulled her body flush against his, smoothing his hands over her sleek skin. “And this time, I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and he sensed her distrust. He hated that he’d done this to her, made her reluctant and suspicious. By morning, he hoped to change all that with an explanation about why he’d left her without a word.
She tossed her head slightly and gave him a manufactured full-of-sass grin. “You talk too much.”
“Prefer a man of action and few words, huh?”
Her arched strawberry-blond eyebrows rose a fraction. “Action is all I’m interested in tonight,” she said flippantly and pulled out of his embrace.
She turned her back to him and slipped her hand around the bedpost. Resting the other on the tall mattress, she hiked one knee onto the bed, leaving her other foot planted firmly on the floor. “Touch me,” she demanded, lifting her backside and opening her legs, offering him the view of a lifetime.
A thin strip of gold material from her thong was tucked enticingly along the seam of her bottom. Round gold beads rubbed her feminine flesh as she moved her hips, both glistening with moisture. His dick throbbed painfully.
When he stood staring at the glorious sight of her so open to him, she lifted her ass a little higher. “Touch me.” The repeated demand was warm, husky and too inviting for him to ignore. “Feel how wet,” she purred, rolling her hips forward. “And aroused.”
Still fully clothed, he moved in to skim his hand over the tender flesh of her derrière. “Because you want me,” he told her, bending over to place a kiss on the tiny dimple at the base of her spine.
“Because I
’m hot,” she countered, bending forward slightly and rolling those curvy hips upward again. “And I do want you—inside me.”
He followed the path of the beads with his fingers, pressing and rolling them against her sensitive flesh. Damn, she was wet, and he was ready to come out of his skin. “Only because I’ve made you that way,” he taunted as he eased two fingers deep inside her tight sheath.
She eased out a hiss of breath and pushed back against his hand. He withdrew to tease her with moisture, then rolled the beads back and forth over her swollen clit. A soft moan rose up from inside her when he thrust three fingers deep inside her this time. “You want me, Natalie,” he said again, retreating and entering her again and again until her moans coalesced into deep pleasure-filled pleas. “We’re here now because it’s me that’s made you so hot and wet.”
She bent farther over the bed and opened wider. The need to taste her overpowered him, but they had all night and he wasn’t about to rush their lovemaking now that he finally had her where he’d been imagining her for months. He planned to make her crazy, to the point where anything was possible.
“You want me.” He thrust so deep inside her, her back arched, and she cried out with a long, wild moan of pleasure. He bent over her to nip at her shoulder. “Say it,” he demanded.
She tossed her head back, her long red hair curling down her back. “I want you to make me come,” she said, then rocked hard against his hand.
He withdrew and ripped the string of beads free. Wrapping the length around two of his fingers, he slowly eased them inside her until she responded with a sharp, desire-filled groan. Her back bowed again and she pushed her ass high and up, giving him full access to her deep, wet core.
His own breath came in short, hard pants as he brought her pleasure. He slightly twisted his hand as he pulled out, over and over. She spread her thighs wider for him, taking him in her sleek heat as far as her body would allow. The roll of her hips became more demanding. Her cries grew louder and more insistent.
“More,” she whimpered seductively. Her sheath contracted around his fingers and she rode him harder, faster, taking him fully.
He slid his other hand around her to tease her nipples. She let go of the post and pushed his hand down her torso into her soft, dewy curls. “More,” she demanded again, her voice as tight and strained as her body. “Give me more.”
With his thumb and forefinger, he gently rolled her swollen clit between his fingers. Her hips bucked wildly beneath his hands, her bottom rising and falling, brushing erotically against his erection still trapped painfully within the confines of his trousers.
Her vaginal muscles clenched tight around him, and she called out his name as she came in a rush. Her hair floated down her slender back in shimmering waves of crimson as she uttered the throatiest, sexiest sound of intense pleasure he’d ever heard while spasm after spasm rolled through her still-trembling body.
“Pretend all you want, sweetheart.” He withdrew his fingers and pressed her labia open to tease her throbbing clit by rolling the beads over her tender flesh. “Your body speaks the truth.”
“Coincidence,” she murmured around another soft groan. She climbed fully onto the bed while keeping her legs open for him to continue stroking her. The only thing missing when she stretched like a languid, contented feline was an accompanying purr.
He gently gripped her hips and guided her onto her back, then carefully pulled her toward the edge of the mattress. Her blue eyes were half-lidded and a satisfied smile curved her mouth as he slid what was left of her thong down her legs. Holding her gaze, he removed her shoes, then set her feet on the mattress and pressed her thighs wide. “I’m going to taste you,” he said, inching his fingers slowly toward her damp core.
One of her eyebrows lifted lazily. “Good idea.” She opened her arms and reached for him.
Instead of leaning over her to taste her mouth as she’d mistakenly believed, he dropped to his knees and laved her deeply with his tongue.
“Oh, my.” He heard her arms flop onto the mattress and felt her back coming off the bed. She sighed.
He took his time, exploring with his tongue and fingers, tasting and stroking, thrusting and suckling the very heat of her until her legs trembled and her entire body was strung tight once again. The release her body craved, he withheld, building the pressure and carrying her closer to the brink with every lap of his tongue, every stroke of his fingers, every graze of his teeth over her ultrasensitive clit. Her hips bucked. Her hands sank into his hair, but she didn’t even bother to try to change his course.
“I want you in my mouth.” The sexy demand came out a harsh, strained whisper. “I need to taste you.”
He debated for about half a second before he left her to remove his clothes. She sat up and held out her hand, her breathing as ragged as his own. Gripping the front of his shirt, she popped every last button with one good yank and discarded the crisp white material by tossing it impatiently to the floor. He made short work of his shoes and socks by the time she had his trousers unfastened. He shucked off his briefs and joined her on the bed.
“Wait,” she said when he grabbed for her.
If she changed her mind now, he’d be the one to go insane. His erection pulsed and throbbed painfully. In wanting to drive her past the point of caring, she’d driven him there and beyond with her uninhibited response to their lovemaking.
“I want to look at you,” she whispered, her gaze zeroing in on his dick.
He rested on his knees and fisted his hands at his sides as her hands swept across his torso and down to his crotch. Her fingers whispered over his cock and farther down to the underside of his balls. “Poor baby,” she cooed, testing the weight of his sac in her small hand. “They’re so swollen.”
The smile canting her mouth was sexy as hell as she raked him lightly with her nails. He eased out a harsh breath and took hold of her shoulders to draw her close. “I haven’t slept with another woman since I met you. You’re playing with fire, babe.”
The hint of fear and a hefty dose of reluctance returned to her gaze, dimming the brightness of her arousal a full degree. Her body tensed. “Will you burn me, Joe?”
He looked at her steadily. “All night long,” he promised, though he knew they were no longer discussing sex, but something much more emotional and frightening for her.
She didn’t look entirely convinced, so he dipped his head and kissed her long and hard until her tension slowly eased. Wrapping his arms around her, he hauled her up against him. Still on their knees atop the velvet spread, he slid his hands down her back and pressed his fingers into the flesh of her bottom urging her even closer. With her curves plastered against him, he struggled hard for control.
She ended the deep, exploring kiss long before he was ready, but the moment the tip of her tongue traced his flattened nipple, he lost track of everything but the ends of her fiery hair tickling his erection and her hot, moist mouth sliding down his torso, tasting, nipping and laving.
He stopped her before she could take him into her mouth, but not before her warm breath fanned the tip of his penis in what had to be the most erotic sensation he’d experienced in a decade. She looked up at him quizzically. “I have a better idea,” he told her.
If the wicked smile on her face wasn’t enough to test his control, the way her tongue slid across that plump bottom lip definitely pushed him that much closer to his limits. With a sweep of his arm, he shoved her purse onto the floor, then settled back on the bed. Taking hold of her hips, he guided her over him, urging her legs open so she straddled his shoulders.
Her breath caught, then expelled in a whoosh when he spread her folds with his fingers then thrust his tongue inside her still-damp core. Her hair brushed his belly, then teased his thighs as she kissed his navel, then snaked her tongue in a heated path down his body and finally along the length of his cock. She gripped him in her hand and slowly pumped while he tongued and suckled her clit until her legs began to tremble.
>
The heat of her mouth circled his head as her lips clamped over his length as she took him deep inside with agonizing slowness. He gripped her hips and licked her, slowly lapping up the moisture of her need. She released her hold on him and used only her incredible mouth, freeing her hands to press his thighs wide so she had access to every part of him. He trailed his fingers along the seam of her backside and she moaned with him still in her mouth. The vibration of sound pushed him closer to losing control.
He concentrated on bringing her more pleasure in an attempt to distract himself from the feel of her hands and mouth on his body. Need raked his gut. His heart pounded. His cock throbbed inside her mouth as she pushed him toward fulfillment.
He pushed back, taking her gently into an exploration of wicked, exotic delights. Her response was wild as she flew apart and came hard in his mouth. Her lusty cries from the volcanic force of her orgasm pushed him too far and too fast for him to regain control. His body strained and he attempted to urge her away, but she continued to expertly bring him pleasure with her lips, tongue and the suction of her mouth until his body shook and he came in a hot, molten rush.
When he had nothing left to give her, she twisted around and slid her body along the length of his, stopping when she cupped his face in her soft, delicate palms. “That was some fire,” she said, sounding sleepy and satisfied. She ducked her head and nibbled his chin, then suckled the base of his throat.
He chuckled. “Careful. There could still be embers smoldering.” With her lying across him, he carefully maneuvered them beneath the covers to ward off the sudden chill in the room as their sweat-slicked bodies cooled.
With a lazy smile on her lips, she wiggled purposefully against him. “I hear they can flare up without notice and cause all sorts of trouble.”
He hugged her close and she sighed with contentment before lowering her head to his chest. “Sounds dangerous.”
