by BETH KERY
Pure lust made everything go black for a few seconds. The sounds of the piano keys being struck brought him out of his trance. His nose was buried in her soft, flat belly. She smelled subtly of honey and flowers. He blinked heavy eyelids and raised his head unwillingly. He held both her arms outstretched on either side of her. It had been her knuckles that’d struck the piano keys as he’d opened her wide for his consumption. She leaned back slightly, her eyelids closed, her lips and cheeks flushed, her spine arched, her beautiful breasts thrust forward.
A knot of need twisted so tight inside him, he winced in pain.
“Laila—”
Someone pounded on the salon doors.
“Asher? Laila? Are you in there?”
Her eyelids snapped open. He saw panic fly into her expression.
“Tahi? Yeah, what is it?” he yelled. As he spoke, he lifted Laila partially and slid out from under her, grimacing as her knees scraped across his erection. He stood and reached for her, hauling her up off the bench and setting her on her feet.
“I just got a text from your mother. She said she tried to text you, but when you didn’t respond, she tried me. I told her you had your phone off for the movie. She wants to know when we’re coming home. I think you better text her. We’re going to have to get going,” Tahi called through the door. He had the fleeting impression from Tahi’s weary tone that she was used to Laila’s mother behaving similarly. Asher bent and retrieved Laila’s bikini top and cover-up. He handed them to her and nodded significantly toward a closed door. Bathroom, he mouthed. He watched, frowning, as she jogged across the room, her naked, elegant back and long legs gleaming in the lamplight.
He sat down again on the piano bench, blocking the view of his crotch.
“It’s okay, Tahi. You can come in,” he called after he’d raked his fingers through his hair.
The door opened cautiously. Tahi peered inside.
“Oh . . . this is nice,” she said, stepping into the sitting room and looking around. Asher could tell she was relieved it wasn’t a bedroom.
“Laila was playing my mom’s piano,” he said, closing the lid on the keys.
“I thought I heard a piano from down the hall. That’s what led me here. This house is huge.”
“Laila’s in the bathroom. She’ll be right out. So . . . Laila’s mom texted?”
Tahi nodded, making a face.
“She does that a lot? Gets anxious about Laila when she’s out?”
“I can hardly think of a time when she hasn’t,” Tahi sighed.
Tahi walked farther into the room, examining some of his mom’s artwork. He covertly gathered up Laila’s music notebooks and set them on the piano facedown. By the time Laila came out, looking flushed and flustered and very pretty, his body had cooled down sufficiently to stand.
She turned to him, a concerned look in her eyes, as they followed Tahi out of the sitting room. They paused next to the staircase, and Tahi walked ahead.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone see your notebooks. I’ll bring them with me tomorrow,” he said very quietly, guessing what she was worried about.
“Tomorrow?” she whispered.
“Yeah. When we meet at the secret lake? At one?”
“I’ll try,” she whispered, and they continued down the hall. Asher willfully chose to focus on the excitement in her eyes at the prospect of them seeing each other again versus her reluctant answer.
Chapter Ten
The next day was unusually hot and muggy. He arrived at the inland lake a few minutes early, hauling a small cooler and sweating like crazy. Laila had mentioned last night that she loved the peaches that a farmer’s wife sold at a roadside fruit stand down on Route 87. He’d driven there this morning and bought a dozen, then packed several along with some sandwiches and drinks for a lunch.
At one forty, he’d already swum twice and succumbed to eating one of the peaches. There was no sign of Laila, but he hadn’t given up hope, recalling how she’d been late before. After he dried off, he checked his phone for the third time.
Sorry I’m not there yet. Mamma Sophia isn’t feeling very well in this heat, and my mom wants me to read to her. I’ll probably be able to get away as soon as she falls asleep, but I understand if you have to go.
He wrote back. No problem. I’ll wait. The water is nice and cold.
Which was a good thing, because the heat of the day was nothing in comparison to his vivid memories of Laila last night—of her steady, brilliant inner flame as she played and sang her song; of her wearing nothing but bikini briefs, her arms outstretched, her breasts flushed, her nipples tight and hard. She’d been so deep in the moment, so lost in arousal, even the memory made him feel a little drunk.
Desperate.
Cursing under his breath, he threw down the towel and plowed into the cold water once again. He’d never restrained himself as greatly as he was with Laila. The last thing he wanted to do was offend her. Turn her off. It didn’t take a genius to see she wasn’t all that experienced with sex. But she was naturally sensual. So damn sexy.
He’d never felt so tested.
“And you failed last night,” he muttered under his breath bitterly before he plunged his face back into the water and headed toward shore.
At a little after two, he got another text from her.
I’m so sorry, Asher. My mom just sprang it on me that we’re having guests for dinner. I need to help her get things ready.
The sharp disappointment he experienced was tempered by the dismay he read between the lines of her text. He wrote:
Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow at one?
Okay. Thank you for understanding.
• • •
It stormed that night. The next day dawned sunny but comfortably cooler. He grinned when he saw her already sitting on the beach when he broke the tree line.
“You’re early,” he said, soaking in the image of her. Her long hair was pulled back in the ponytail she always seemed to wear for swimming. Again, he noticed how the hairstyle emphasized the tilt of her pretty eyes. She wore some kind of sarong that twisted above her breasts and left her arms bare. It matched the color of her green eyes.
“To make up a little for yesterday?” she said, standing and smoothing the sarong.
“You don’t have to make up for anything,” he said, setting the cooler down on the beach. For a few seconds, they just soaked each other in. She stepped forward at the same time he did.
She tasted like peaches.
“You’ve been eating the peaches,” he muttered against her mouth a moment later. He dipped his tongue between her lips, feeling every nerve in his body sizzle with excitement at the sensation.
“I just had one.” She separated slightly from their embrace and pointed behind her. A plastic bag rested on top of her towel. Inside it, he saw several golden globes of fruit. “I thought I’d bring a few for you, since I was talking about them the other night,” she said, her smile going all the way to her eyes. “I stole one while I was waiting. I hope you don’t mind.”
He grinned. “We have plenty. I brought some for you too,” he said, hauling her back into his arms.
“What?”
He nodded his head in the direction of the cooler he’d brought, unable to peel his gaze off her. “In there. I went to the fruit stand you were telling me about and got some.”
“I can’t believe you did that. Thank you,” she said, looking a little amazed. “They’re sweet, aren’t they?”
“You’re sweeter.”
“You know,” she murmured teasingly, “somehow you manage to make it not sound like a line when you say things like that.”
“That’s because it’s not a line. You know that.” He touched her cheek. She was so soft. “I keep thinking about you singing that song the other night. You were incredible,” he said, stroking her
. “I brought back your notebooks. I hope you don’t mind, but I read some more of the lyrics. Your poems too.”
Her eyes widened. “You did? Which ones?”
“All of them. You really do have a gift. You should be studying music or poetry, not business.”
“Thank you.” She looked embarrassed, but very pleased. Which pleased him.
“Was it your parents’ idea? For you to study business?”
She shrugged slightly.
“Laila?”
“Yes, but I agree with them. I have to study something practical. Something I can make some money at. I can’t expect anyone to pay me for a song or a poem.”
“Then you expect too little of yourself.”
She blinked in surprise, and he realized he’d sounded very blunt. It’s just that it bothered him a little. She was so incredible, and yet she hid her gift as a matter of course. “Anyway, I never got to thank you . . . you know. For putting it out there. Bringing the music. Playing for me. For trusting me enough to do it.”
“I thought maybe you did.”
“Huh?” he managed to say once her words penetrated and he peeled his gaze off her lips.
“Thank me,” she whispered. “With what you said afterward. What you did.”
The vision of her wearing nothing but her panties and leaning back on the piano lost in sensation flashed into his mind’s eye. “I thought maybe you thought I was acting like a selfish pig.”
Her eyebrows arched. “I would think you’re being selfish by suggesting we should hang on to what’s happening between us?”
“No,” he insisted, frowning. His fingertip grazed across her full lower lip. “For wanting to eat you alive, and starting the feast without even warning you it was dinnertime.”
Laughter burst out of her throat. The tension in him broke slightly at the sound.
“Asher, when are you going to get that I want to be in those moments as much as you do?” she asked, her sincere expression sobering him. “It seemed . . . natural, what happened. Especially after we decided to, you know. Go deeper.” Her whispered two words hung in the air between them. She placed both of her hands on his upper abdomen. He held his breath at her touch . . . at something he saw in her eyes.
“I know I probably seem really young to you sometimes,” she said, her eyes flickering downward. “I must seem really backward, compared to other girls . . . other women you’ve known.”
He cupped her jaw and waited until she met his stare. She did so, albeit reluctantly. “The last thing you are is backward. I just don’t want to push you into anything you’re not ready to do. But even though I tell myself that, and really do want that, I still find myself doing it sometimes.”
“I don’t feel pushed,” she whispered. Her cheeks were flushed. From embarrassment? Her hands began to move up and down on his abdomen, stroking him. No. She wasn’t embarrassed. Or maybe she wasn’t just embarrassed. She was turned on, he realized with a rising sense of wonder. His skin prickled beneath her hands. Tension leapt into his muscles at full force. “We decided not to back off from this, Asher. I don’t want things between us to be one-sided.”
“One-sided?” he repeated, confused. Wary. “What do you mean?” He sensed her hesitation. “Laila, just talk to me. Be honest. I’m not going to think badly of anything you say.”
“I’m not used to talking about it.”
“Sex?”
She nodded. Instead of meeting his stare, she watched herself stroking his abdomen. It didn’t help his restraint much.
“Laila—”
“I haven’t done it before,” she blurted out.
He shrugged slightly. “Okay.” She glanced up, clearly taken off-guard by his nonchalance.
“You knew?”
“I kind of figured, yeah,” he admitted. He saw her face stiffen. “Not because I think you seem backward. Not at all. You’re so responsive, it’s like . . .” She looked up at him curiously—suspiciously? He paused, not exactly sure how to finish the sentence without possibly causing offense. He recalled all too well how she’d jumped up like she’d been stung when she’d climaxed so quickly beneath his touch on the dune the other night.
So incredibly.
He exhaled slowly, dipped his knees and leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers. The only thing he could think to say was the truth. “You’re perfect. You make me feel like a fricking god, the way you respond.”
Her eyes shone with emotion. He felt her beauty inside him, like the sweetest ache.
“I’ll do whatever you want to do. Just don’t tell me I have to stop seeing you. Kissing you.” He nipped at her mouth. She craned her head up, kissing him back. He stroked the length of her smooth arms. “Don’t tell me to stop touching your gorgeous arms.”
She smiled beneath his seeking lips. “That’s it? That’s all you need is my lips and my arms?”
“Maybe,” he said against her mouth. “A taste of you is better than a whole night with anyone else. Much. Better.” He started to step closer and take her more fully into his arms. He paused when her stroking hands on his stomach stopped him. Glancing down, he saw the determination in her eyes. Then her hands were lowering over his swim trunks. Her fingers closed around his cock.
For several stunned seconds, she gripped him in her hand while he stared down at her in openmouthed amazement and shivers coursed down his body.
“I don’t want this to be one-sided. I want to touch you too. I want to make you feel good too, Asher.”
• • •
She’d never realized that distilled desire was the antidote to shyness. She felt dizzy at her boldness. Liquid heat poured through her veins at the sensation of holding his erection. He felt so amazing. It was like holding his male strength . . . his very power in her hand. She’d sensed the tension that leapt into his body at her touch.
Was her boldness somehow related to yesterday, to that abrupt, unexpected dinner her mother planned, and Ben Khairi’s warm glances at her from across the supper table? To her mother’s smug smiles? To her own drowning discomfort at the surprising situation into which her mother had thrust her with Ben?
No. That wasn’t it. It was being deprived of seeing Asher yesterday combined with the memories of him touching her on that piano bench that had her so stirred up, pure and simple. It was the sharp realization of not just how wrong she felt with another man, like Ben Khairi, but how right she felt with Asher.
“I’ve wanted to touch you for . . . it seems like forever,” she told Asher, her voice breaking. She moved her hand, stroking him through his trunks. A shudder went through his body. She stopped, her eyes widening in alarm.
“No,” he said, his voice quiet, but rough. He put his hand on top of hers. For several seconds, their gazes clung while he guided her movements on his cock. She felt his shape pressing into her palm, the long, thick shaft. The flaring head. She tightened around the tip instinctively. He grimaced and hissed, his white teeth flashing in his tanned face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, starting to jerk back her hand. He bit back a groan and kept her hand in place. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re doing fine,” he grated out. A film of perspiration had broken out on his upper lip.
“Show me,” she said, desperation trumping mortification.
He nodded once but didn’t move. He closed his eyes briefly and then pulled her hand off him.
“Let’s sit down, okay?” he asked her, his voice sounding strained.
She nodded anxiously. He bent and withdrew a large beach towel from his backpack and spread it on a sandy portion of the beach. She saw his small smile as he turned to her. “Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes. Unless you don’t want—”
“You can safely assume I’ll always want to,” he said, cutting her off with a dry glance. She grinned, warmth sweeping thr
ough her. His sexual honesty was just another characteristic about him she loved. It might fluster her, but it somehow freed her too. He took her hand, and she lowered down to the towel. When he came down next to her, his gaze swept over her face.
“Don’t be nervous,” he murmured, reaching for her jaw. He turned her to him and kissed her mouth softly. “It’s like you said earlier. It’s completely natural. Just let it unfold.”
He covered her mouth with his, his taste, his maleness, his very essence filling her. She felt her body quickening. Maybe he was right, she thought as she dug her fingers into his short, thick hair. She felt herself unfolding for him. Blooming.
Her hands made a tour of his form, feverishly stroking his shoulders, chest and ribs. She bunched up the material of his T-shirt and dipped her hand beneath the hem. A thrill went through her at the sensation of his lean, muscular torso and bare skin against her fingertips. His tight abdominal muscles leapt at her touch. He made a rough sound in his throat. Emboldened, she ran her fingertips over his ribs and delved them into the hair on his chest, testing its texture. She found a flat nipple and rubbed it experimentally, arousal tearing through her when she felt the flesh tighten.
He broke their kiss abruptly but kept his lips in contact with hers. His warm breath fell across her mouth, his breathing slightly ragged. This time, she recognized the hard gleam of arousal in his eyes. She’d grown confident in her brief foray into seduction. She stared up at him, their mouths still touching, and wrapped her hand around his cock again.
“Like this?” she whispered, stroking him.
He nodded, their lips sliding together.
“Yeah. That’s great.” The tip of her tongue touched his upper lip as he spoke. She tasted his sweat. His arousal.
“Can I . . . can I put my hand?” Her fingers inched up to the top of his trunks. She felt that fever rising in her body again, like it had the other night on the beach.
“Be my guest,” he said, the tension in his voice tempered by his small smile. “Here . . .”
He drew his T-shirt off with one rapid movement. He flicked the drawstring on his trunks and hooked his thumbs into the waistband. Her hand fell away from his crotch. She watched in amazement as he jerked the trunks down to his upper thighs, his actions striking her as matter-of-fact. He sat there, entirely nude save his swim trunks bunched above his knees.
