by Jianne Carlo
She arched her neck in mute resignation, conceding carnal defeat, and shivered in anticipation. Moaning her mounting frustration when he skipped little love bites along the slope of her neck, she grabbed his arms and dug her nails into the steel of his biceps.
His low chortle ratcheted the burn in her clit to a blaze. She squeezed her legs together, jammed her mound over his stiff cock, and growled her objections when he eased his groin away from hers. When he returned to tantalizingly thrust his leg between hers and then retreat, moving in smaller and smaller dizzying twirls, she could do nothing but mirror his movements.
He broke the contact of their fused lips.
“No,” she muttered. She crushed his shirt in her hands, rose the scant inch separating them to hold his bottom lip between her canines, and, compelled by a primordial feminine need to claim, opened her eyes.
His gaze pulled her in, spun her around and around in the thick cobwebs of passion radiating from the glowing amber of his eyes. The dark pupils had contracted into mere slivers. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t see beyond the desperate, primal desire flaring between them.
“Yes,” he commanded, bent to lock his arms under her knees, and bounded to the kitchen, cradling her high against his chest.
She noticed nothing after that, too mesmerized by the spell his eyes wove to dislodge her gaze from his, even after the jarring impact when they bumped into the foot of his bed. Before her attention could wander, he latched on to her nipple and suckled hard, wetting the blouse. The turbulent sensations, the fire of his tongue and teeth, the chill of the soaked fabric, the rough nubs of the material, all conspired to liquefy her bones.
He slid her down his body, and her feet hit the floor. She collapsed against him, legs no longer able to hold up her torso, and had no doubt of his support.
Joe locked her to him. His powerful arms enveloped her body.
“I have you.” The promise melted any remnants of resistance left in her core.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, you do.”
The admission dried all the saliva in her mouth. She stared at him, uncertain; fear clawed her throat raw.
“I have you. No one will ever harm you while I live.”
“Joe—”
Touching a finger to her lips, he murmured, “Trust the moment.”
She clung to his words.
Trust the moment.
One moment at a time she could do.
What she thought must have shown on her face, for his mouth curved into a smile so tender all the pent-up anxiety oozed from the knotted muscles in her shoulders and back.
After arranging her in the middle of the mattress, he shucked his shirt but left on his pants.
The bulge of his erection fascinated her. Her fingertips tingled. She hungered to touch him, to memorize the feel and shape of him, to breathe in his musky scent so deep and so long that from then on her each and every inhale would be branded with him.
He undressed her.
Slipped her sleeves down—inch by inch—to her elbow. His lips replaced the cotton and grazed her flesh with hot, moist, openmouthed kisses. She reached for him. “Joe. Please. I need you.”
She burned for him. The tips of her ears, her turgid nipples, a pit low in her belly. Her toes flexed and curled, and every body part smoldered and sparked.
“Soon. Soon.” He worked the sleeve free of her arm and bared a breast.
“Soon won’t come soon enough,” she wailed.
“You should know I’m adding five minutes every time you interrupt me.”
His peculiar statement penetrated her lascivious fog. “Five minutes to what?”
“To how long before I’ll let you come.”
He wouldn’t.
He couldn’t.
She met his fierce stare. His lips twitched.
He would.
He could.
A buried-to-the-max dangerous, reckless part of her wanted to play his game, even knowing he’d be the victor.
“So pretty. I’ll go to my grave trying to decide which part I like best. The entire mound. The curve of the underside. The perfect cocoa areola. Or the impudent pink nipple.” He placed a quartet of incisive nips on each area described.
Her breasts ached, tingled. Her nipples prickled like a live electrical wire searching for a conductor. The need for pressure at all her pulse points—clit, nipples, neck, the backs of her knees—became unbearable. She groaned but didn’t dare utter a word, and squashed the bedcover with her hands to minimize her squirms.
The fabric covering her other breast could’ve been sandpaper. Each slight wriggle abraded the mound and peak.
Blistering, fervid desire had her in its grip.
“Is this beauty lonely?” His mouth hovered above the bud poking at the blouse. He nibbled the tip and peeked up at her.
Bereft, needy, she simply nodded, no words capable of forming in her parched mouth.
“That’s my gypsy. Let me take care of you.” He slid his arm under her back and teased the garment off.
He captured her hands, kissed each fingertip in turn, looked at her directly, and said, his tone soothing and persuasive, “Hands above your head.”
The amber had gone from his eyes, the midnight pupils unfathomable, inviting, reeling her closer and closer to the edge of his gravitational pull. His watchful, predatory pose should’ve scared her into full retreat, but the lure of his magnetic eroticism proved too powerful. She ignored the warnings niggling at the corners of her brain, and obeyed his request.
Somewhere in the back of her mind the rebellious, in-your-face persona she’d adapted as a shield reared. Vowing her submission wouldn’t happen again, Susie arched off the bed when he latched onto her lonely breast and suckled greedily.
He moved from breast to breast, fingers and mouth switching back and forth, the caresses too deliberate, too unhurried, too gentle to match the voracity of her greedy lust. She clamped her hands together, fingers interlaced so tightly that the skin between her knuckles pinched.
She bit her lips to prevent the pleas crowding her mouth from escaping. Closed her eyes when the visual of his thumb working her nipple zinged sharp and stinging bolts to her clit. Dug her heels into the mattress and wriggled her hips to increase the friction of his cock grinding on her pussy.
Her head rolled back and forth on the pillow. Pleas burst from her lips. “Joe. Joe. Oh, Joe.”
The delicious weight of him vanished in a thrice.
A draft coasted over her bare legs.
Peeking through half-closed lids, she didn’t know whether to grin or yowl. He had unlaced her belt and unbuttoned her skirt and shoved both aside. He stared at her sex, nostrils flaring, jaw set.
The muscles in his cheek jerked in an erratic cadence.
“I love your taste in panties.”
She wore a scarlet ribbon thong designed explicitly for titillation. One ribbon spanned her hips, and the two attached to that one framed her sex.
He lowered his head—nose grazing her center—inhaled, and closed his eyes. Levering on one elbow, he rolled between her legs and shoulder nudged her thighs wide. “Shiny and wet, gypsy woman.”
Joe glanced at her.
She shuddered, the picture too erotic for her oversensitized vaginal nerves. Her inner muscles clenched, a sharp, violent contraction that spurred a wave of spasms.
He pinched her clit, and the startling pain squelched the nascent spirals of pleasure. “No coming. Not until I say you can.”
The rapacious stare held her immobile. Only the sound of their rasped breathing broke the utter silence.
“Joe?”
“Ready?”
Ready to climax, but that’s not what he asked.
Shaking her head, she begged him to understand. “I can’t. Please.”
“Count aloud.” With that he lowered his mouth to cover her thrumming clit. The scalding, steady suction sparked her nerve endings.
She arched.
Her
clit needed a bite, a fierce pinch, a smack.
Anything.
She needed.
Now!
The stinging, sweet pressure vanished. “Count. Hands back above your head. Now.”
She seethed.
“I’ll walk away.”
No. No.
“Right this second.”
Her vaginal walls convulsed, and the agonizing, frantic tightening shredded her resistance. She grabbed the pillow, stabbed it over her face, and shouted, “One!”
Nothing.
Tears of sheer, angry frustration gathered.
Not even the whisper of his hot exhales.
Nothing.
He pinched a nipple.
The acute pain was pure ecstasy.
“Count.” The order delivered with a melt-your-bones charm. His voice closer now.
“Two,” she croaked.
He hooked her knees high, spread her legs so wide the muscles of her inner thighs trembled, drove his cock to her core, and whipped the pillow away.
She drowned in his eyes.
“Now. Come now,” he whispered and bit the lobe of her ear.
She shrieked.
The orgasm roared through her. Started with her pussy and radiated outward in wave after wave of incredible tremors.
He pounded into her. The base of his cock slammed her swollen labia. His taut balls slapped her wet folds. Her walls clamped around his tumescent cock, fisted the rigid length of him, fought his retreat, welcomed his thrusting.
One climax spurred another and another. The rapid-fire spasms rocked her to the core.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, and the position change spiked another mindless, endless series of furious contractions. He lifted her bottom and thrust, plunging deep. His cock hit her womb. He hammered into her, battering her pussy lips.
“Mine,” he roared and threw back his head.
The hot jets of his climax were molten fire to her waning orgasm. Aftershocks shuddered through her, the oversensitized walls of her sex vibrated around his throbbing cock, and she locked her ankles on his back to take him deeper.
How long they remained like that she didn’t know.
Time lost all meaning.
A sensual stupor stole over her.
She stroked his shoulders and filled her nose with the smells of the heady aftermaths of sex: sweat, his musk, her spice, and the mingled aromas of sperm and pussy cream. A craving to taste him gripped her. She licked his salt-tinged chest and sighed.
Contentment in the form of a heaviness snaked into her bones. He had remained on his forearms. His head drooped to one side.
She curled her arms around his neck and urged him down. But though he laid his cheek to hers, he still held his weight off her.
“You don’t have to stay up, you know.”
“I’m too heavy for you.” His lips feathered her damp forehead.
“I’m a big girl, in case you hadn’t noticed.” She wanted the heaviness of him. Wanted his total relaxation. Wanted him so mindlessly satisfied he couldn’t be logical. “I can take your weight.”
He chuckled. “I’m a solid two hundred thirty. And you don’t have to. I’m fantastic right where I am.”
“That you are.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He drew back, tipped her chin, and she nearly combusted in the heat radiating from his dark eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Can’t you tell?” Her cheeks ached from the wide smile that had captured her face. “I feel like the cat who ate the canary. Or the cream. And I can’t stop grinning.”
“Good.”
She forgave his smug expression and indulgent tone, too lethargic to let anything disturb the drowsy happiness seeping into her pores.
“You going to sleep on me?” He nose nudged her jaw.
“I hardly think I can sleep like this.”
He flexed inside of her. “You can, but you’d have to be on top.”
Blinking, she glanced down between their joined bodies. Was that even physically possible? She never had time to find out. He slid out of her and flipped them over.
“You attached to the blouse and the skirt?” He knelt beside her.
“What?” She glanced at her bunched skirt and the barely on shirt. One peek at his predatory expression and she realized his intent. “Don’t you dare. I have precious enough clothing as it is.”
“I want you naked. Now.”
She scrambled to shed the clothes.
“You can wear the panties.”
“You know, you can positively shred a mood with one order. Why I’m actually doing this—”
His mouth was paradise. Sheer enchantment, she loved his tongue, the roughness of it, the nimbleness, the spicy taste.
“Perfect.”
She glared at him. He’d somehow managed to get rid of all her garments during the kiss. “I think you could give an octopus a run for his money.”
He rolled onto his back and tucked her head down onto his damp chest. Beneath her side, his belly contracted on a deep sigh.
What happened now? Should she go to her room?
“What’s wrong?”
She shrugged. “Nothing.”
“You’re stiff as a board. Thirty seconds ago you were warm and relaxed. So what’s wrong?”
At least in the dark he couldn’t see her scowl. “I’m fine.”
“Sure, that fierce frown means you’re jim-dandy.”
He could see her frowning? It was so dark she couldn’t even make out his features. Susie remembered the peculiar color of his eyes during their lovemaking, set the memory aside, and shook off the unease crawling over her shoulders.
“What’s got you upset?”
Irritation replaced her disquiet. She pulled a hair on his chest.
He clamped her hand.
“If you must know, I was wondering about postcoitus protocol.”
“Postcoitus? Ouch. It was coitus to you? Damn, it was making love to me.”
She could tell he was trying hard not to laugh, and huffed. “Well, am I supposed to go back to my room?”
“If you do, I’ll haul you back here pronto. I’ve had the taste, gypsy, and I want the whole shebang. You. In my bed. Every night.”
If a whole body could purr, hers did. “Why gypsy?”
“You have the wanderlust aura. Wild and untamed. I’d give any odds, you drive barefoot.” He chucked her chin.
Okay, so now she preened. And he proved remarkably astute. “I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me.”
“This once, I’ll let you off the hook. Did you want dessert? I ordered honey pie, and Bob brought finikia.”
Thank Gawd he hadn’t gone all serious on her.
“Finikia?”
“They’re little pastries made with cinnamon, orange juice, honey, and a bunch of other stuff. Bob knows it’s one of my weaknesses.”
How many people were on a first-name business with their food delivery guy? And how many food delivery guys knew their client’s favorite dessert? “I’m still full to the gills. Tell me, just how often do you order in?”
“Hmmm. Let’s just say I get Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthday cards from every restaurant within a five-mile radius.”
Her jaw sagged. “But your kitchen is incredible. State-of-the-art.”
She felt his shrug. “Adds to the resale value. When I bought the house, the bedrooms had all been recently overhauled, but the kitchen had the original ’70s linoleum and appliances. All in mint condition, but it needed an update. It gave me something to do between missions.”
“When’s your next mission?” She blurted the question without thinking. “Don’t answer if that’s off limits.”
“I resigned today.” The arm snaked around her waist tightened.
She reared onto her elbows. “What? Why?”
“It took me three hours to track Petey. If I’d been here on Friday, he’d still be alive.”
“You can’t be positive of that.�
� She peered through the shadows cast by the headboard, but couldn’t make out his expression.
“He hadn’t been dead long.” Pain and regret and anger husked his voice. “Rigor hadn’t set in.”
She held her breath, but the need to know proved overwhelming. Resting her hand on his chest, she edged away and leaned on her elbow. “How long does it take for rigor mortis to set in?”
“It can vary, but Petey didn’t have a whole lot of muscle mass, and he’d been missing for three days. If he’d been killed right away, rigor would not only have set in, but been over with.”
He blamed himself. And she didn’t know enough about rigor or Petey to argue with him. Seeking to steer the conversation off the boy, she asked, “How did you and Kieran meet?”
“Kieran was the first person I ran into when I moved to Hallie. Literally. We got into a down and dirty fight. He won. We’ve been friends ever since. Barb was the girl whose pigtails he’d pulled in kindergarten, but she moved away for a while. They started dating in high school and got married after he graduated college.”
Two and two suddenly added up. “Kieran’s one of the buddies who helped prove you were innocent.”
“Yep. Grant said you’re in the same program as Charlene.” He turned to face her. “You graduate next May.”
Though he said it as a statement, she answered, crossing one set of fingers. “Yes.”
“It’s not going to be easy finding a place to rent now. This is a college town. The rentals all begin with the fall semester.”
She sighed. “I know. That’s why it was so perfect when I lucked into Terri.”
“How did you two meet up?”
“Her friend, Petra. Girlfriend, I mean. Is that the politically correct word?” Never in an eternity would she have guessed either Petra or Terri’s sexual preferences.
“Neither would give a damn.” He toyed with her ear.
Ear. Never in a double eternity would she have pegged ears high on the lust-inducing body parts list.
“Continue.”
She flicked his hand away, and he promptly tongue tickled a whorl. “I can’t think when you do that.”
He snickered. “Good to know. Well?”
“I put up a notice for volunteers for my study for my thesis, and she answered.”
“Pet? Volunteer for a study?”
