License to Love

by Barbara Boswell

  His mouth left hers to gently suck the sensitive cord of her neck, and Michelle whimpered as the sensation evoked a corresponding tingling heat in her breasts and deep in her belly. Her nipples beaded and throbbed, a syrupy warmth pooled between her thighs.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” she whispered feverishly, clinging to him as if he might disappear if she let him go.

  “I’m here.” His voice was deep and low and husky, and the very sound of it excited her. “Don’t tell me to leave, Michelle.”

  It was debatable as to whether his impassioned reply was an order or a plea. Michelle didn’t care either way. Sending him away was unthinkable. When he lifted her slightly, to settle her harder and higher against him, graphically demonstrating her effect on him, she undulated her hips in response to the carnal pressure.

  “I want you to stay,” she said softly. Once she said the words, she knew there was no turning back. And she didn’t want to. It was time. She was in love and she’d missed him, even though he’d hurt her with his cavalier treatment the night of his birthday.

  But that was in the past, and her nature was too generous and giving to nurture a grudge. She gazed into his burning black gaze. Her heart was pounding and her body pulsated with an aching sexual tension that throbbed just as wildly in him.

  Steve’s chest rose with a swift, deep intake of breath and he picked her up in his arms. The apartment was small and he carried her to the bedroom, finding it easily.

  A dark flash of fur brushed his legs as he laid her down on the bed, and he jerked upright, startled. “What the—”

  “It’s Burton playing with his mouse,” Michelle explained. “I guess we intruded on his game and he left in a huff.”

  Steve managed a shaky laugh. “You and your crazy cats and your crazy trips and your crazy — ”

  “I get the point,” Michelle interrupted huskily, reaching for him. “You think I’m crazy.”

  He came down beside her with a rough groan. “You make me crazy.” His mouth covered hers with breathtaking impact.

  The taste of him went straight to her head, and Michelle welcomed the bold penetration of his tongue, needing him in the most elemental way, craving union with him, body, heart and soul.

  He unbuttoned her blouse and unclipped her bra with ardent, arousing hands. She lay trembling and vulnerable, her breasts bared to him, watching his dark eyes study her with blazing intensity. Her body was on fire, empty and aching, wanting something she had never known but instinctively hungered for.

  Steve gazed at the flawless ivory smoothness of her full breasts, her taut raspberry nipples. His mind was rioting, his body rigid with a pleasure so fierce it bordered on pain. He’d waited longer for Michelle than he had ever had to wait for anything or anyone. He was used to things coming easily to him, to people doing what he wanted and when.

  Waiting for Michelle’s capitulation these past months had certainly not been easy. She was a challenge that he rarely faced. But the sight of her lying there, her blue eyes filled with passion and yearning, her pretty breasts rising and falling softly under his gaze, more than fulfilled the torturous anticipation of waiting.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said hoarsely. “So sexy. And I want you so much that I—I—” His mind went blank, hot licks of passion erasing his usual ready supply of stock lines.

  Steve bent his head and took the tight rosy peak in his mouth, gently laving it with his tongue, then drawing it deeper, sucking and nibbling, until Michelle was squirming and arching and shuddering with pleasure.

  “It feels so good,” she heard herself murmur in a throaty, sexy voice that she hardly recognized as her own. Her eyes were tightly closed. It felt almost too good. The intensity of the tempestuous, voluptuous sensations sweeping through her made her feel dizzy and dazed and completely out of control.

  It was wild, scary and exhilarating at the same time. She felt his fingers at her waist, manipulating the button and zipper of her skirt, then deftly divesting her of it. Her bikini panties were dark blue with white stars on them. Steve’s lips curved into a lazy, sensual smile.

  “Patriotic,” he drawled.

  Michelle blushed. “I—I’m partial to stars and stripes and anything red, white and blue,” she felt obliged to explain. “Maybe because I come from a military family.”

  “I won’t be able to look at Old Glory again without thinking of these.” His eyes gleaming, he slid his hand over the fabric.

  She felt chary and exposed and so very vulnerable. “Don’t tease me, Steve.”

  Her shyness touched him. “I wasn’t teasing you,” he said softly, his lips feathering the creamy smooth flatness of her belly. “Well, maybe just a little.” His tongue circled her navel. “Serves you right for pulling that disappearing act.” “Disappearing act?” she echoed drowsily. Her mind was spinning, and she was having difficulty keeping the threads of the conversation straight.

  “I’ve been trying to track you down since Saturday night. It was as if you’d vanished.” Steve frowned, remembering. “I was madder than hell.”

  “At me?”

  He audaciously inserted the tip of his tongue into her navel’s tiny hollow depth. Michelle gasped. When his hand moved between her legs, cupping her intimately, she uttered a soft cry.

  “At myself,” Steve admitted gruffly. He rubbed her, watching as she shivered helplessly under his fingers. “For being a jackass and for letting you get away.”

  “But you found me,” she managed to whisper. Her breath caught and held as he slipped his big, warm hand inside her panties.

  “I found you,” he echoed huskily. His fingers combed through the luxuriant triangle of dark blond curls, gliding along the exquisite folds of feminine softness.

  She blushed at the swollen wet heat he found there. Then he was kissing her again, as wildly and hungrily as before, and her embarrassment was dissolved in a storm of intoxicating passion. He slid her panties down the length of her body and opened her legs farther with his hand. Caressing her with light, gliding touches, exquisitely probing, he penetrated the hot secrets of her body.

  Michelle cried his name and clutched his shoulders, unconsciously digging her nails into the muscled strength. What he was doing to her...how he was touching her...the way he made her feel... She’d never experienced anything so profoundly intimate. She felt delirious, as with fever, but she never wanted it to stop. She didn’t want him to stop.

  And he didn’t. Slowly, carefully, as if he had all the time in the world, he concentrated on pleasuring her, with his lips and his hands, gauging her responses and tailoring his caresses to suit them. Repeating, intensifying, taking her higher and higher. She moaned, her whole body shuddering as each tender penetration and gliding withdrawal stretched the burgeoning tension within, until it burst into shimmering waves of heat, so pleasurable that emotional tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Through her convulsive sensual daze, she could hear Steve’s voice, exultant and male and proud. “Yes, baby. That’s it. Just let go...”

  Her whole body felt bathed by a glowing warmth and Michelle lay limp in Steve’s arms, feeling too languorous to even open her eyes.

  “I didn’t dream you’d be so responsive.” Steve brushed light, biting kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, her lips.

  Michelle’s eyelids fluttered open. She gazed at him with wide, wondrous blue eyes. And then a dark blush swept over her. She was in bed with him, naked, while he was stUl fully clothed. And her unbridled responses to the intimacies he had performed on her made her flinch with self-conscious embarrassment.

  “You—didn’t?” She didn’t know what to do, what to say. Her inexperience was so blindingly obvious to herself, she was sure it must be apparent to Steve, as well. “Why not?” Steve smiled. “It crossed my mind that you might find it difficult to give in and lose control. You’ve certainly demonstrated your ability to keep control and call a halt whenever—”

  “Do we have to have a postmortem?”
Michelle interrupted, flinching. Her blush deepened.

  Steve stared in fascination as her white skin turned a warm pink. “I’ve never seen anyone blush from head to toe. You, my sweet, are an ever-surprising phenomenon.” Michelle winced. If this was bedroom banter, she knew she wasn’t going to be good at it. Better complete silence than trading these shatteringly intimate observations. Even worse, she had none to trade. He’d done everything while she had simply lain there.

  Steve saw the anxiety shadow her face and correctly interpreted the consternation flickering in her eyes. He cupped her cheek with his hand, gently stroking the soft skin with his fingertips. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “It’s just—after that—” She paused, took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t know what to say to you,” she admitted hesitantly.

  “Say whatever you want. There is no script we have to follow, Michelle.’ ’ He rolled on top of her, pinning her down on the mattress, adjusting his body to hers so she could feel the insistent heat of his arousal. “Although I could offer a few suggestions. How about, ‘Oh Steve, you’re a marvelous lover!’” he trilled in a ridiculous falsetto. His dark eyes glittered with an irresistible combination of humor and passion. “Or, ‘Steve, you’re my hunka hunk of burning love,’ will do nicely, too.”

  Michelle laughed, her insecurity dissolving in a barrage of more powerful emotions and sensations. “I love you,” she whispered. Those were the words she’d been looking for. And they were surprisingly easy to say.

  Steve didn’t react to her declaration; she hadn’t expected him to. It might be the first time she’d made an impassioned claim of love, but she knew it wasn’t Steve’s first time to hear one. A man with his looks, charm and sex appeal, combined with his ability to use all three to his advantage would’ve been hearing “I love yous” from amorous females since elementary school.

  Such thoughts were disquieting and disturbing, but she pushed them away. This was no time to get cerebral. She loved Steve, faults and all, in spite of his past.

  Michelle wrapped her arms around Steve, holding him tightly. The starched cloth of his shirt rubbed her bare breasts. Her nipples were almost unbearably sensitive. His trouser-clad legs were entwined with her naked limbs and she was once again erotically, arousingly aware that she was nude and he was not. That sharp, secret throbbing that had been eased only a few moments before began to build again.

  “Take off your clothes,” she murmured, rather amazed at her own boldness. But this was no time for an attack of virginal nerves. She was a mature woman with the man she loved, the man she’d been waiting for her entire life. The man who would soon become her lover. She slipped her hands between their bodies and tried to undo the buttons on his shirt.

  Steve rolled on his side and ably assisted her in divesting himself of his shirt. She was relieved when he continued to undress on his own, though she watched with wide, avid eyes. Her pulses were racing. She felt wired with excitement, her skin tingled and an aching warmth swelled and throbbed deep within her.

  She drew a sharp breath at the sight of his nude body. He was splendid, powerful, male and strong, with corded arms, and a muscular chest covered with an intriguing dark, curly mat that tapered to a V at his navel and then arrowed

  downward. His stomach was flat, his thighs, long, lean and ; powerfully muscled. And it was visibly apparent that he : wanted her very much.

  Michelle wanted to touch him, to feel his strength and his hardness, to explore the contrasting textures of his smooth skin and wiry masculine pelt. She reached out her hand to him, welcoming, beckoning, her smile as timeless as Eve’s.

  Steve sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her for a long moment. “I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you right now,” he said. “Hell, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you.”

  He lay down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow so he could watch her as he skimmed his other hand along the shapely length of her body. He wanted her desperately, but the anticipatory torment was so delicious in itself that he held himself back.

  For now, he limited himself to the pleasures of looking at her, of touching her where his eyes strayed. The plump fullness of her pretty pink and white breasts, the hollow of her waist and womanly curve of her hips. Her thighs were femininely rounded, her legs well shaped. He smoothed his hands along the outside of them, then slipped between them, gliding upward to the creamy softness of her inner thighs.

  Michelle moved sinuously, sensuously under his hands, unable to lie still, wanting and aching and needing to give. It was no longer enough to lie submissively as he petted her; she needed to give him pleasure, to learn hisixrdy as he was learning hers.

  She framed his face with her hands, then touched her mouth to his, again and again in a series of sweet, soft kisses. Using the tip of her tongue, she traced the outline of his lips, then slipped between them to tease his tongue into a caressive little duel.

  “Michelle,” he groaned her name. She rarely took the initiative physically, letting him make the first move, be it kisses or caresses. Now her passionate feminine aggression sent him reeling. It was an effort to speak at all with the powerful coil of desire tight and sharp within him, consuming him with need.

  “I can’t wait any longer.” Hadn’t he already waited a lifetime for her? It felt that way, as if his life hadn’t really begun until she’d entered it. The thought was so profound and so unsettling that he quickly blocked it out, concentrating instead on the incredible, unbelievable storm of pleasure her soft hands were evoking within him. For she had found the pulsating male strength of him and was scrupulously exploring the size, shape and length with her fingertips.

  “Here.” Twisting, reaching, he grabbed his slacks that he’d dropped on the floor and retrieved a foil packet from the pocket. He thrust it into Michelle’s hand. “Put this on.” Michelle stared at it bewilderedly. Then the light dawned and she nearly giggled. “For a moment or two, I wasn’t sure what you meant. You see, I’ve never—helped a man put on a condom before.”

  Steve took the packet from her. “That’s okay, honey. I’ll do it. It’s probably just as well. I think I’ll explode if you touch me again.”

  Michelle watched, fascinated, as he sheathed himself with astonishing efficiency. It occurred to her that she hadn’t given a thought to protection and she was grateful that Steve had. Vaguely, she recalled his frantic fears of learning that he might be “eligible for a tie and a card on Father’s Day” through sexual carelessness. She certainly didn’t want any bouncing baby mistakes, either. After all, she’d been one herself.

  But it was slightly disconcerting to realize that she’d been completely lost in the heady heights of passion while Steve remained aware and prepared. “Have you ever forgotten?” she asked curiously. “Been so caught up in the heat of the moment that you either forgot or decided to risk it?”

  “Never. I’m not stupid. I’m a risk-taker in some areas but not in that one.” He eased her onto her back as he spoke, coming down on top of her. “And I’ve never been so swept away that I couldn’t see the consequences looming before me.

  “I just was,” she whispered to herself. The hair on his chest felt wonderfully, sensually abrasive against her nipples. Steve was moving between her legs to make a place for himself there and she savored the full male pressure of his body. “With you. I—can’t seem to think at all when you— when we—” Her voice trailed off and she gave a husky laugh. “I can’t seem to talk, either.”

  “You have a similarly mind-blowing effect on me.” His dark gaze locked with hers as his hands lifted her hips, positioning her to receive him.

  Michelle felt him hard and hot against her and she inhaled sharply. She closed her eyes as he moved into her tight satin heat, pressing slowly, inexorably in. There was a sharp stab of pain as her body stretched to admit him and Michelle clamped her teeth down on her lip to keep from crying out. She could feel involuntary tears seep from the corners of her eye
s.

  And then he was deep inside her, full and hard. He lay there, breathing heavily, feeling her body adjust to accomodate him. “Ah, Michelle. You’re so tight, so hot and sleek.” He heaved a groan pleasure. You're perfect for me.”

  “Yes, I am,” Michelle agreed throatily. “And not just in bed, either.” The burning, stretching pain was slowly dissolving, giving way to a melting, dizzying pleasure.

  He began to move and the pleasure swept through her in rhythmic waves, consuming and intimate and intense. The exquisite sensations radiating through her were like nothing she had ever experienced. Instinctively she moved in counterpoint to his rhythm, a passionate advance and retreat. Tension built and excitement soared, a rapturous heat shimmered through them, connecting them, bonding them, fierce and frantic and wild.

  Michelle cried his name as the fever seared her, exploding her senses in a pleasure beyond description. Her body shuddered and clenched and she clung to Steve as the only anchor in a whirling, swirling sea of sensation.

  Deep inside her, sheathed in ecstasy, Steve wanted to sustain the pleasure, but it was so immense, so intense, that Michelle’s cries of completion and her sweet, inner contractions triggered his own shattering release.

  And echoing in his head all through the pulsing climactic rapture was Michelle’s husky, passionate avowal of love for him.

  Eight

  It was a long time before either of them surfaced, and even after Steve had disengaged their bodies, Michelle lay cradled in his arms, basking in the warm sensual afterglow. They lay together silently. Only the noise of the traffic outside and an occasional thud in the living room—Burton jumping on and off the furniture in pursuit of his mouse-broke the stillness.

  Michelle didn’t mind the silence. She didn’t need words, she was too absorbed in her thoughts and her feelings to talk. And her thoughts and feelings were all of Steve. How much she loved him. How her love for him transcended the sexual attraction between them and elevated the physical pleasure they’d just shared. How it wasn’t just sex between them. It was love, the deep, true and abiding love she’d wished and dreamed and prayed for all her life.