by Anne Calhoun
Abby parked on the street in front of the house while he parked in the driveway. Sean unlocked the front door and stood back to let Abby precede him into the dark foyer that opened directly into the living room. Camilla had good taste and money; the house was decorated in mission-style furniture and Tiffany lamps. Solid. Discreet. Street light streamed through the front window, illuminating a path along the carpet, over the coffee table, and along one end of the leather sofa.
“Where’s your friend?” Abby asked idly.
“Italy, doing research for her dissertation.”
“You didn’t want to stay with your parents?”
“I’ve got a job with irregular hours. Mom can’t sleep if she knows I’m coming in late.”
She didn’t ask about the job. Fifteen months ago, before training and the deployment, she’d eagerly soaked up every detail about him. Now she just nodded.
He eased down into the corner of the sofa, rested his elbow on the arm and his cheekbone on his bent fingers, and looked at her. Really looked at her, standing there in the moonlight, her hair seemingly lit from within, her green eyes shuttered. Her freckles weren’t a cute smattering across her nose; they dusted her pale skin from her hairline all the way into the V-neck created by her blouse, buttoned at the center of her breasts. Memory filled in the rest, the spray of light brown like hennaed stars across her stomach.
Time to learn a little more about this new Abby. “This is your uniform?”
She nodded. “Linc sets the standard—white top, black skirt, black shoes. Stockings are optional.”
“Why do you wear them?”
At that a small smile lifted the corners of her mouth, knowing, older than before. With a switch of her hips she turned her back to him, and since she was standing in heels and he was sitting down, her ass was at eye level. Suddenly unable to breathe, he looked at the curve of her hips, draped in a skirt that ended just past the lace tops of her thigh-high stockings, then let his gaze travel down the seam along the backs of her legs. It was old-school sexy, Marilyn Monroe sexy, hot-fuck-bent-over-the-dresser sexy.
“Oh,” he managed.
She peered over her shoulder at him, then lowered her lashes, all red-headed vamp. “All the girls modify the uniforms to increase tips, and most go for hella hot. You didn’t notice?”
He’d noticed every other girl in the bar. It was his job to notice details, so as much as he’d love to say he had eyes only for her, the USMC spent a great deal of time and money training him to pay attention. He couldn’t just shut it off. “I noticed,” he said. “But you don’t. Why?”
“What do you think?” she asked, giving a little shimmy.
“It’s mysterious,” he said. “Makes me wonder if you’re wearing a garter belt.”
“You had your hand up my skirt twenty minutes ago,” she said archly. “Am I?”
His hand curled, unconsciously seeking the tactile memory of the back of her thigh. Stocking elastic under his little finger, the crease where buttock and thigh met animal heat tantalizingly close to his index finger, and nothing but bare, warm skin in between. “No.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Keep going.”
He’d find out if he was right soon enough. “It draws attention to your legs.”
“And my ass. Which is my best feature…”
He drew breath to protest, then figured he’d better look at her face if the statement would have any credibility. When he did, he saw the smile, again wicked, again knowing.
“…For increasing my tips. Which is the point of all of this,” she said, making a shopping network model gesture that encompassed her body from shoulder to thigh.
“The guys in the bar think the point of all that is to make them hot.”
“They tip better when they’re hot,” she said.
He didn’t doubt it. “Know what they talk about when you walk away?”
She turned back to face him and bent her head a little, hiding her eyes behind thick black lashes. Her hair slid forward, the soft waves brushing her cheekbones. “No,” she said.
“They wonder what you’re wearing under the skirt. Panties? Thong? Nothing at all?”
“What do you think?”
“Before you wore cotton bikinis, sensible but slightly sexy, but that was then. Now I’m not so sure.” His gaze traveled up her torso from the hem of the skirt to the buttons on her white blouse to her throat, mouth, then eyes. Even after that night with Ty and Lauren he wasn’t the most experienced guy in the world, but he knew arousal when he saw it, and he’d seen it in Abby’s eyes when he’d kissed her. “Show me.”
She went still. It wasn’t like she’d been moving before, just standing in front of him, but there was not-moving and then there was still. Prey-still. She wasn’t blinking, wasn’t even breathing as she looked at him, those cat-green eyes holding his. So compelling was her gaze that he missed the first movements of her fingertips, inching up her skirt. Black fabric cleared the tops of her stockings. A few racing heartbeats later black lace appeared below the skirt, covering her mound and a couple of inches of abdomen, stretching over her hips in a swath narrower than the width of his palm.
He swallowed. “Nice,” he managed as blood pumped into his cock, hardening it painfully. “Turn around.”
With the same switch of her hips she turned her back to him, and he stopped breathing. The lace fabric covered the swell just below the twin dimples at the base of her spine but left the lower curves bare. It was a sight to stop a man’s heart, seamed stockings, an expanse of thigh, then the sweet curves that would fit perfectly into his gripping palm as he drove into her.
Soon.
“Strip for me.”
Once again, that preternatural stillness before she responded. She let the skirt drop, hiding those sexy curves, then lifted her hands to her buttons. With her back to him he couldn’t see what was happening, but his brain filled in the details. The first button, the one that kept her decent, then the next, just under her breasts. The white fabric loosened a little more with each button. The next, right at her navel, then she tugged her shirttail free from her waistband, unbuttoned the last button. She looked over her shoulder at him, caught her lower lip in her teeth, and shrugged. With the slight movement the shirt slid down her arms and pooled around her heels.
A single hook fastened just under her shoulder blades, and he could see the knobs of her spine from the base of her neck, just below her hair, to the waistband of her skirt. The freckles stood out against her pale skin. As he watched, shivers chased each other across her skin.
“Are you cold?”
Still peering over her shoulder at him, she shook her head.
“Keep going.”
Both hands reached for her bra clasp, unhooked it. Another shrug of her shoulders, and this time white lace dropped forward to the floor. But she didn’t turn around. He could see hints of the curves of her breasts, her dark nipples hard peaks in the warm air. Without stopping she unfastened the skirt’s button and zipper. It dropped to the floor all too easily, leaving her in nothing but the panties, stockings, and heels.
The length of her spine, slender, erect, proud.
God. So delicate.
Then she lifted her hands to her hair, lifting and tousling it. The movement made her breasts sway slightly, just enough to draw his attention, a reminder that delicate didn’t mean weak.
“Step back,” he said. She did, the backs of her calves brushing the sofa’s edge. He reached up, skimmed his palms over the curves of her ass, around her hips, and up to cup her breasts. Then he kissed the base of her spine right between the two dimples just above the waistband of her panties. A slight tremor rolled through her. He drew her down to sit on his lap, her back to his chest.
He brushed his lips over the smooth warm skin of her shoulder, then moved openmouthed back to her nape. He remembered everything about her, including the sensitive spot on the right side of her hairline, where slow, hot kisses with just the right edge of teeth
would melt her hot and boneless against him. That facet of Abby hadn’t changed. He scraped a little harder, watching with unfocused eyes the way her nipples tightened even more, her hands gripped his wrists, the hot flush bloomed on her collarbone.
She shifted restlessly, one leg drawing up a little, the hot pressure of her ass against his cock a sweet torment. Moving without thinking he kept one arm around her waist and used the other to urge her legs to either side of his, opening her to him. Her hands tugged ineffectually at his forearms but he ignored her, and after a long, hot moment she ran her crossed arms up his biceps and lifted her arms over her head and his to clasp her hands at his nape.
So right. All his.
He stroked his fingertips lightly over her underarms, then her collarbone, caressing the swell of her breasts, then the sides, then her flat stomach and the waistband of the black lace undies before retracing his route, avoiding her nipples on the second pass, too.
“Sean,” she gasped. “Stop teasing me.”
Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, slowly opening as need built under her skin with each caress. When he cupped her breasts and brushed his thumbs over her nipples she arched into his palms. Possessed by some inner demon he couldn’t explain, he pushed the black lace down to her hip crease, just low enough to give him access without taking them all the way off. Lost in memory, he trailed the tips of his fingers across the stars diffused across her abdomen. She moaned and shifted again, the movement pleading and hot. He stroked the curls, petted them, as he pinched her nipple with the other hand, and watched. His hand was so dark against her pale skin, darker than the freckles as he dipped under the taut-stretched elastic and spread her soft folds.
He groaned. She was hot, wet, slick enough to shut off his brain entirely. Fuck the teasing. Fuck foreplay. In one movement he surged upright, hoisted her off her feet, and strode down the hall to the bedroom.
“Sean,” she gasped as her heels dropped to the carpet, but he was past thinking, his only objective to watch her face when he fucked her and made her come.
In the dark bedroom he set her down then yanked back the covers. All he had to do was nod at the bed. She shimmied her panties down and lay back on the mattress. Shirt off, pants down, condom on. Then he gripped her stocking-clad ankles and smoothed both hands up her legs, separating them as he knelt between them. He planted a palm on either side of her shoulders, lowered his hips, and nudged into place.
At the first contact her knees drew up and her eyelids closed.
“Open your eyes,” he said, stopping just barely inside the slick clasp of her pussy. “Abby. Look at me.” It would kill him, literally slit him from throat to gut if he heard another man’s name on her lips right now.
Her eyes opened again, the green, slumberous irises shuttered against whatever she felt. He waited, searching her eyes for a hint of emotion. All he got was her hand on his hip, her fingers flexing into muscle, thumb gripping his hip bone.
He pushed forward, in, felt that indescribable moment when the soft walls fluttered around him, adjusting to his girth. A low growl rumbled from his throat, the noise deeper, prowling because a giant hand had worked fingers through his ribs, trapping lungs and heart and throat against bone. Abby’s head tipped back, arching her torso off the mattress and forcing his cock all the way inside her. Her legs in their stockings drew up, heels digging into the backs of his thighs, and he thought he might go out of his mind.
He looked at her mouth, caught up in a heart-stopping memory of kissing her, spinning a web of pleasure using the sensitive nerves in her lips alone. He lowered his mouth to hers, urged her lips apart, then swept his tongue over hers before withdrawing to nip at her full lower lip, flick his tongue along the bow-shaped curve of her upper lip. She eagerly followed his mouth, but he pulled back and shook his head. The tip of her tongue slid along her lower lip before she bit it, as if searching for the taste of his mouth.
That was better.
“Please,” she whispered.
And even better…he bent his head and took her mouth, lips pressed to hers, teeth clicking as he slanted his mouth across hers. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and for a moment all he could think about was having her body open and available under his, legs spread, breasts pressed to his chest, legs wound around his hips.
Christ, it shouldn’t be, but his control was shot, blown into tiny little molten pieces. He shifted his weight to one elbow and gripped her hip with the other hand, then pulled out and plunged back in. She made a shuddering little gasping noise, high-pitched and feminine in a way guaranteed to yank him all the way back to animal brain responses. He adjusted the cant of her hips and did it again, got the same noise and the sharp sting of her nails in his shoulders.
Game on. His body set a pounding rhythm guaranteed to end this in a matter of minutes, but she was right there with him, clinging to him, making all kinds of eager, desperate, helpless noises as she wound tight around him, under him. Then she flew apart, the blood flush climbing to her face as she bared her throat in orgasmic release. He gritted his teeth and thrust through the contractions gripping his cock like a silken fist, and when the tension eased from her body, he drove into her once, twice, a third time, the orgasm exploding from him in long, sparking bursts.
She was limp under him when he withdrew, making only the slightest incoherent noise when he backed off the bed and went into the bathroom, where he dealt with the necessities and listened to the pipes rattle softly in the wall. Back in the bedroom he extracted his shorts from the pile containing his pants and shoes, and pulled them on, forming the arguments he’d use to keep her here overnight. Instead she made a soft, sleepy inhaling noise, and twitched.
She’d fallen asleep. In the sixty seconds between him pulling out and coming back into the room, she’d dropped into sleep. Keeping his touch gentle he eased down first one stocking, then the other, and draped them over the end of the bed. Then he lay down beside her, moving carefully so as to not wake her. He pulled the covers up over them both and lay back, then turned his head and looked at her, asleep in a limp sprawl next to him. The sleep of the dead. He had plenty of experience watching exhausted, overtaxed individuals sleep. His Marines fell asleep in seconds, and they dropped from awake to near-coma in a matter of minutes when the body demanded it. A day or two of missed sleep didn’t usually provoke that response. It was a chronic sleep deprivation thing, and Abby had it.
The plan was in motion, and he could add two more pieces of data to his set. She was utterly exhausted, and while she’d let him into her body, her soul was closed to him. Ramifications niggled at his brain, chasing themselves in circles as the clock crawled past 0300.
* * *
Abby drifted in the gray haze of near-consciousness as a deft mouth made its way from her ear down her neck and over her collarbone to her nipple. Lazy, sleepy tendrils of desire curled down to her pussy and along her nerves to her hands, flexing against rumpled sheets. A tongue lapped at her nipple until it tightened, hardened. Teeth rewarded this appropriate response with a tug, then gentle pressure, holding the sensitive flesh for a few moments before the mouth journeyed to her other breast.
Something was wrong, the room, the weak sunlight through sheer curtains as a large male body shifted over her, broad shoulders spreading her legs to settle between her thighs. Her eyes refused to open, and that was fine with her because a tongue touched her clit, sure and confident, and a soft purring sound rose into the air.
Strong arms worked under her thighs, then a hand captured each of her breasts, squeezing the firm flesh before pinching each nipple in time to the knowing strokes laving her clit. Desire cracked through her, and she arched into the hands and mouth. So good, steady and unhurried, slow and firm, driving all thought, including whatwaswrongsomethingwaswrong, out of her mind for a few precious minutes. Because this couldn’t possibly be wrong. It felt so right.
The slow burn became hot, pulsating fire, and the purrs took on a pleading, needy edge. Her secret
lover didn’t tease her or draw it out, just urged her in a steady climb to the edge and over. Soft gasps of release echoed in the dim sunlit room.
“Go back to sleep,” came a morning-rough male voice.
No problem, except her brain wouldn’t let go of that niggling sense that something wasn’t right. She rolled over and sank back into the gray haze, now with a golden tinge around the edges. Sunlight. The sun was up, and she was still in bed. That’s what was wrong. She pushed up on one elbow and shoved her hair out of her face as she looked frantically around the strange bedroom wherethefuckamI? for the clock.
7:28. Sean’s borrowed bedroom.
“Oh my God! It’s seven thirty in the morning!”
Sean appeared in the doorway, a plate holding fried eggs and two pieces of toast in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s seven thirty, that’s what’s wrong! I’m late for my dad’s breathing treatments, I’m going to be late for class, I’m on the wrong side of town!” She scrambled out of bed and into her underwear, snagged her stockings from the foot of the bed, then looked around. “Where are the rest of my clothes?”
“Living room floor,” Sean said, and stepped back to let her fly past him, no doubt enjoying the view as she snagged her heels from the hall wearing nothing but her cheeky panties. Flashes of last night were coming back to her, and holy Mary, mother of God, what had she done, suggesting Sean Winthrop become her hookup? He was brilliant at it. Too good at it, and they had a scheduling issue. She’d fallen asleep with a man who didn’t have to be at work at six in the morning. Big mistake. One of several.
It wasn’t like that with Ben. Oh no, it wasn’t like that at all. It was hot as hell, fast, a little rough, and utterly emotionless. She felt nothing more than physical need before she went to him, then the absence of need. The perfect antidote, come to think of it, to what she’d felt a year ago with Sean.
