His hand forked through his hair, and the long strands lifted then fell back into place. Her fingers tightened on her pencil and she foolishly wished she’d taken more time, the night before, to play with the silky stuff. She’d squandered her single chance at it, she thought.
“What’s that mad face about?” he asked.
She glanced down, seeking a convincing lie. “Oh, just a little trouble with my homework. I’m taking an online course in the latest state tax laws.”
To her surprise, he dropped onto the other end of the couch, his own face none too happy. Even slouched his body was unfairly beautiful, she decided, his long legs slight spread, the ripples of his ab muscles delineated by the dark, skintight Henley he wore with a pair of new-looking jeans.
In the air, she detected just the slightest hint of his citrus aftershave.
Then he glanced over, caught her staring.
Their gazes locked and she felt heat rising under her clothes, a response unsurprising but unwanted. She licked her dry lips and his gaze shifted to her mouth, so that she remembered their kisses, the deep, intimate wetness of them—the stroke of his tongue and the scratch of his whiskers as his lips moved over hers.
He lifted his hand to push back his hair again, and her gaze shifted to those long fingers, remembering the way his hand had slid beneath her shirt to find her breast. It seemed to swell now, the tip bunching to a tight point. Unable to help herself, she wiggled against the cushions, pressing her thighs together.
She felt swollen there too, arousal bringing heat and a softening to private flesh. Tonight she was wearing yoga pants, which meant no convenient four-way intersection of denim seams to both relieve and aggravate her excitement. Still, her inner muscles clenched, trying to create friction.
Mortified by the involuntary movement, she glanced away, hoping she could hide her reaction to his presence long enough for one of them to leave the room. Him, she decided, adjusting her computer over her lap. Men might have trouble moving about with an erection beneath their zippers, but she didn’t think she’d fare much better with her knees like noodles and her head dizzying with renewed lust. Plus, her walk of shameful yearning required maneuvering stairs.
“Paige get to sleep okay?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes.” Inhaling a deep breath, she touched the small gadget beside her, the size of her palm and with a single glowing green eye signaling its On status. “She has Boo with her and I found a monitor in the playroom. I set it up by her bed so now I can hear her wherever I am in the house.”
“So responsible,” he murmured.
Sloane sent him a sharp glance. “Is that supposed to be a criticism?”
He grunted, communicating both frustration and annoyance. “Of course not. I’m in a crap mood, is all,” he said, then grimaced. “Shit mood. I’m in a shit mood.”
“Are you all right?” She tried sounding like a reasonable, caring human instead of a hangry she-devil who’d rubbed against him less than twenty-four hours ago and now only wanted to do it all over again, despite knowing how unwise that would be. “Did you lose tonight?”
His laugh sounded sharp. “Yeah, in more ways than one.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, then hesitated. “Is there anything I can do?” If he asked for a bowl of ice cream, she’d have to dive head-first into the carton to cool her head and the thoughts inside it, because she kept recalling things she’d left undone last night.
The hair, she should have played more with that.
That torso. God, she wanted to lick him, from his collarbones to his belly button, with side trips along those hard abdominals. Suddenly she wondered about his nipples.
Never, not once in her life, had she considered the color or the sensitivity of a man’s nipples.
Heat prickled along her scalp and she took a death grip on her laptop.
God. She was ready to eat him up in long licks and tiny bites and she hadn’t even mentally made it to what he had going on beneath his jeans.
A flood of giddy, improper delight rushed through her as Sloane realized that she, a single mother and someone who’d not felt sexual in years, was having distinctly dirty thoughts.
Oh, well, she decided, tamping down on the accompanying onslaught of nerves, with Eli she was safe. They’d already hashed out the situation that morning. She’d made clear she didn’t expect him to act as her…as her, um, body of convenience.
As soon as she returned to her own place and if she continued to have these…urges—doubtful, perhaps, it could be spring fever or something—she’d online order some sex toys. Satisfaction didn’t require actual man parts in a complete package like Eli’s, who had a gorgeous face and lean muscles, not to mention—
“I was thinking we might go to bed together,” he said now. “Have actual sex.”
“What?” She stared at him.
He looked back, unblinking. “I wondered if we might fuck.”
“Um…” Her mind could not grasp the meaning of his words.
“Poker was a bust,” he said. “I never lose like I did tonight. So then I went to Domino’s—a local bar…do you know it?”
She shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.” He gestured with his hand and glanced away. “I hoped to meet a woman. Somebody who’d want to have sex with me. That was a bust too.”
Her eyes widened. “No woman wanted to have sex with you?” A thought struck and she felt a sudden pang of sympathy. Perhaps he’d made an embarrassing assumption. “Is Domino’s a gay bar and you didn’t know?”
His lips twitched. “No. It’s an every-flavor-is-welcome-and-present bar, and there were plenty of women I could have approached.”
Sloane wondered how that would go, exactly. “Do you just flat-out proposition them?” she asked, curious. “Or is there some protocol or code words or something?”
“I planned on offering to buy them a drink first.”
“But no one was thirsty?” She still couldn’t understand how they’d gotten here. Had he actually proposed that she and he have sex?
“No one caught my eye,” he said simply, his gaze meeting hers and not letting it go. “I kept thinking of you.”
That’s when she knew this wasn’t a dream. That she wasn’t actually dozing on the couch and her brain had taken itself on a fanciful holiday. Because even her Dream Lover wouldn’t be so direct and sound so sincere. I kept thinking of you.
Wow. She gulped. “You’re serious.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re free to say no, and you can trust that I won’t…bother you any further if you do.”
“Of course I know that,” she snapped.
“So here’s the thing. It’s been implied several times today that I should loosen up a little. Realize I’m twenty-nine and not seventy-nine. It occurred to me that you could use a little string-less fun, too.”
String-less fun. A tingle raced down her spine and she hoped she wasn’t gawking at him, because she hadn’t thought about having string-less fun since she was eighteen, got her first job as a receptionist at a temp company, and blew a small chunk of her first paycheck on a new haircut at a fancy salon.
“A night of string-less sex,” Eli said again. “For fun. To blow off steam. An opportunity to explore mutual pleasure. For one night.”
He dangled it like a diamond bracelet.
One night of mutual pleasure. Her heart started to pound. “I haven’t had, um, actual sex in more than four years,” she confessed. “I might be no good at it.”
“It’s been almost twelve entire months for me,” he said, “and I’d crack a joke about how long that is in dog time, but I don’t feel like making you laugh right now.”
She knew what he did feel like making her do, it was in that intense look in his eyes, a look that caused a rush of liquid heat through her veins. It made it hard to think, let alone talk, but he was being so direct and honest with her, she could do no less.
“Maybe I was never good at sex,” she said
, swallowing hard. “Paige’s dad certainly didn’t stick around for my sexual talents.”
“Did you want to talk about that? About him?” He scooted down the sofa cushions, gathering the papers between them and setting the stack on the coffee table. Then he took away the last of her armor, her laptop, and put it aside as well. They now sat inches apart. “It’s up to you.”
“I…” She might as well tell Eli everything, she thought, hanging her head. “I worked for his family’s large real estate office…that’s where we met. I know JJ liked me right away, and he probably liked even more that me being his girlfriend would outrage his mother.”
Warm fingers closed over hers. “Go on.”
She breathed in, looked up. “Being his wife would be even more outrageous, right? Then his parents would see he wasn’t willing to toe the familial line, go to business school, enter the family business, etcetera, etcetera.”
“You wanted to be his wife?”
“I wanted the family he promised me we’d have right away. I wanted to belong to somebody. It was enough to convince me I was in love.”
His hand squeezed hers. “So you got married?” At her nod, he asked. “How did his parents react?”
“It could have been worse, but Diane’s mother was struggling with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, so she had more pressing worries.
“We eloped to Las Vegas and I’d got pregnant almost immediately afterward. Soon enough JJ didn’t consider the whole thing such a fun jab in the eye to them anymore. He didn’t see me as fun anymore.”
Eli’s thumb stroked over her knuckles. “I’m sorry, Sloane.”
“Don’t. I got Paige, my person to belong to,” she said, lifting her chin. “But JJ died in a diving accident in Belize before she was born and I feel sorry that he lost his life running away from me and our child. I feel sorry that his parents lost their son.”
“Not your fault,” Eli said, squeezing her hand again. “You know that, right?”
Her nose stung and her eyes felt hot. “Most of the time, yes.”
They sat in silence a few moments, and then as if he could read her need, he pulled her closer, into his arms, onto his lap. His warmth surrounded her, the closeness companionable, accepting. Perhaps platonic.
To him.
But in Eli’s embrace, she didn’t feel mere friendliness coursing through her bloodstream. Her nipples were beaded, her womb felt heavy. An ache persisted between her thighs. She turned her head into his throat, trying to hide her reaction. Breathing him in didn’t help matters.
God, she thought she might spontaneously combust any second.
She licked her lips, and somehow her tongue managed a small taste of the slightly salty skin of his neck. Beneath her, she felt him tense. So she had to ask.
“Have I ruined the mood with all that?” She squeezed shut her eyes. “And with my four years of celibacy?”
He brushed his mouth against her hair and his arms tightened. “Not a chance. I take it as a challenge, and I like challenges.”
Chapter 8
Eli had never considered it possible to slow roll a one-night stand, but he and Sloane managed it. After her couch confession and his declaration of enjoying a challenge, he’d stood with her in his arms. She’d leaned down to scoop up the monitor and he’d appreciated her sense of responsibility—shut up, Nora—and then he’d carried her into his room. The lamp on one bedside table glowed, as did another on the table by the window that was flanked with a pair of armchairs, softly lighting the space.
Setting her on her feet, he’d asked if she’d like a glass of wine.
“Sure,” she’d said, and as he stepped toward the doorway, he’d watched her drift in the direction of the attached bathroom and glance inside.
“That shower,” she’d said, looking at him with wide eyes.
“You haven’t seen it before?”
She’d shook her head.
“My one major home improvement, forced on me by an unfortunate plumbing leak.” Upon getting the diagnosis, Boone and Hart had convinced him to pull out the big tub and the narrow stand-up stall and replace them both with a double-headed walk-in shower. The white subway and penny tile finishes didn’t over-modernize the space, and he had to admit he appreciated the renovation. “Resale value,” he’d said, then hesitated. “Would you like to use it?”
Her smile had told him everything, which was why, after dawdling in the kitchen, he’d come back to the bedroom to find her wrapped from throat-to-floor in his big flannel robe, her face flushed and her hair a tangle of damp curls.
He’d stared at them, fascinated. “They just do that?” he’d asked, rotating one finger over the top of his head to indicate the blonde spirals.
“They just do that,” she’d confirmed, and came forward to take a glass from him. He’d put the other on the table by the windows and then had crossed to the bathroom. “I won’t be long,” he’d told her. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Now he walked out of the steamy space dressed only in a pair of slouchy pajama pants, his own hair damp and his face freshly shaved.
From her seat on one of the armchairs, Sloane glanced over and the direction of her eyes had him ducking his chin to scrutinize his shoulders, noting a few stray drops of water. “What?” he asked her.
“One’s, um, rolling down.” She gestured vaguely with her wineglass, and again he followed her gaze to see the lone rivulet traveling along his pectoral muscle.
Instead of putting on a T-shirt as he’d intended, he made his way to the second chair and sat down, reaching for his own glass. He grinned, noting she hadn’t looked away from his naked chest. He’d take that.
“Shall we make a toast?” he asked.
Blinking, her head lifted and now she looked at his face. “To…what?”
“‘May we kiss who we please and please who we kiss,’” he said, and touched the rim of his glass to hers.
After a dutiful sip, she eyed him, her expression doubtful. “That sounded practiced. Twelve months, you say?”
He crossed his heart with one finger, watching her gaze drop there. “Truth. I don’t have a lot of free time, I have four sisters, I—”
“Have a lot of excuses,” she finished for him.
He blinked. “Uh...”
“You must have had a girlfriend here and there.”
“Here and there.” He shrugged. “But they didn’t last long, no matter how well-intended, because my sisters have always come first.”
Sipping from her glass, she sat back in her chair. This time she inspected him from the top of his head to his bare feet and he wondered if the heat in her gaze might cause his damp skin to start steaming. “So,” she said, “I’m truly going to be the first in a while to have a chance at that buff body?”
He nearly choked on his swallow of wine.
Before he could answer she licked a drop of her own from her puffy bottom lip. “You must go to the gym a lot.”
“No.” He set his glass down, wondering who was in charge of this seduction. “I do a lot of lifting at work.”
“Right.” She placed her wine on the table as well and leaned forward, her voice going low. “It shows. In a very nice way.”
The seductive tone made him want to laugh almost as much as he wanted to jump her bones. “Sloane—”
“Okay. Fine.” She slumped back in her seat, looking defeated. “That’s it,” she said then, throwing up her hands. “I’m officially no good at this.”
Laughter welled once more, which he thought was strange when his cock was taking her presence, in his robe and likely nothing else, very seriously. “What are you talking about?”
“Can’t you tell?” Her arms flew up again. “I’ve run out of flirtatious banter.”
Charmed by her, her blonde curls and her pouting mouth, not to mention her earnestness in the face of this event that he’d advertised as fun, Eli could only smile at her again. “Good,” he said, then grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. “Because
I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Slow rolling in poker was considered bad manners, he reminded himself.
It was a matter of seconds to pull back the covers and push her onto the bed. She landed there, the robe’s tie loosening at her waist. The sides parted, gapping enough so he could see the inner curves of her impressive breasts, the tiny hollow of her navel, and the strip of gold curls leading to her sex.
Heat flashed over him. Dropping to his knees on the mattress, he peeled aside the fabric to expose all the prettiness of her, from the creamy breasts with their mauve-pink crests, to the lips of her sex, the outer ones beginning to open to expose the furled inner petals. He breathed in, smelling his soap and her arousal, and he lowered his head to place a reverent kiss on each nipple, her belly between mons and navel, then the top of the fissure that opened to her center.
Her legs moved, twitching in response and he insinuated himself between them, pushing at her inner thighs to open her wider, to open her sex, too, so he could see the moisture gathering there, in that intricate and tender arrangement of secret flesh that wasn’t going to be a secret to him any longer.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she asked, drawing his gaze upward from her pussy.
“I’m definitely going to kiss you,” he said, then arranged himself so that her thighs went over his shoulders and he could settle in on his elbows, his raging cock momentarily mollified by pressing it against the sheets.
Sloane’s hand came to his head, fingers curling in his hair. “Not…there? No one’s kissed me there.”
He glanced up again, taking in her flushed face and the darkness of her eyes, pupils eclipsing the irises. “Then definitely there,” he said, and lowered his head. Ignoring her little protest, he breathed deep then kissed her, his mouth open and his tongue out, giving her suction and swirl, tasting her and taking the honey inside. Swallowing the sweetness made his belly tighten and his cock reflexively dig into the cotton beneath it.
Her clutching hand was no longer pulling, but it tightened for a second then fell to the mattress in surrender. Sweet, swift surrender.
NO LIMIT (7-Stud Club Book 2) Page 11
