She took a step, then another one, and he put a hand out, cupped her cheek, and said, “Hey. We’re only doing what you want. If you need to go home, go on and do it. We can do this later, or we can do it never. I’m being an impatient asshole.” He tried to smile. “Could be I want you too much.”
An intake of breath, as ragged as he’d imagined it, and she said, “So do I. I’m being stupid.”
He kept his hand on her face, kissed her, keeping it gentle, and said, “No. Maybe it feels like it matters. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll tell you what. We’ll go slow, and we’ll focus on you for a while. How’s that?”
“That would . . .” she said, then seemed to lose her train of thought. Maybe because she was looking into his eyes, and that was as distracting to her as it was to him. “That’d be . . . good.”
“Mm.” He would have smiled, but he couldn’t. “You’re going to have to help me out, since I’m not too mobile right now. I could be bossing you around some. That work for you?”
Her breathing was faster now, more shallow. A pulse jumped in her jaw, and the veins showed blue in the fragile skin at her temple as his hand brushed the curls away. He kissed her there, keeping his touch gentle, and said, “I think that could be a ‘yes.’ The idea’s doing a whole lot for me, too. Suppose you get on your back for me. I could kiss you for a while, unbutton that dress as slowly as I can do it, and take a good, long look at your pretty body. And then we’ll see how many times I can make you come.”
This time, he heard her sharp intake of breath. He’d said what he had to. She knew she could leave, that the line was hers to draw. Now, it was his job to thrill her.
She’d kicked off her sandals out there on the porch. As he watched, she sat down on the edge of the white bed, picked up a glass of wine from the tray, and scooted her way over to the center. Then she looked up at him, smiled with all the wickedness a redhead could command, and said, “That’s a lot of promises, Hunter. You just going to stand there? Or are you going to do something about it?”
He laughed. He was as turned on as he’d ever been in his life, the dark blood roaring in his ears, and still, she made him laugh. He said, “I’m going to do something about it,” set down his crutch, got himself onto the bed, watched her take a sip of wine and swallow it down, took the glass from her, and kissed her mouth.
Spice and smoke, black fruit, tobacco, and sweetness, and her arm curving around him, her hand in his hair. He reached behind him and set the glass down, then focused on kissing her better, now that he wasn’t hampered by his leg. He was still kissing her when he pulled her down diagonally onto the bed, so he’d have the room he needed. You could say he’d given some thought to how to make this work. It didn’t take much effort at all, either, to roll onto his right side so he could touch her better. The candles cast dancing shadows on the white walls, stirring in the warm breeze coming through the open windows, and he drew a slow finger down along the neckline of Willow’s dress, then unfastened a button, parted the fabric, and put his palm right there as he kissed her neck. Holding her there.
Her head was back, and her eyes were already closed when he unfastened the second button. Her bra was still unfastened, and when he sent a slow, questing palm across her breast, then circled his fingers around the nipple, she tensed. He reached his hand out for the glass of wine, dipped his fingers into it, painted her with the ruby liquid, then dipped his head and tasted.
Small and hard and pink, and when he sucked at her, her back arched and she called out. Oh, yeah, he thought in some dim recess of his mind, and kept on doing it. Giving everything he had to one breast, until his hand replaced his mouth, and his lips took a meandering path across her body to the other. He worked at her until she was rocking and panting, and then he unfastened another button, drew his hand down her pale body, and unfastened one more.
He was going to make this last.
This was probably going to kill her. She didn’t care.
She had just enough self-possession left to get her hands under his T-shirt, and once she did, she had to sigh. Just as good as she’d imagined, all hard muscle and coiled strength. Her hands were all over him, greedy for him, and she wanted to look, too, but she couldn’t, not with his mouth at her breast making her gasp and squirm, until he finally recognized her tugging, reached down with an impatient hand, and yanked the T-shirt over his head.
Exactly as good as she’d imagined. His arms cut like stone, and all that broad, firm chest. She was touching, rubbing her hands over his shoulders, his upper back, feeling those wonderful dips and bulges. He’d never feel like anything but a man, and it thrilled her to the bone. His skin burned hot as fever, and his hair brushed against her belly, alien and exciting. His tongue was in her navel, and then his lips were trailing on down, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders and tensed.
She couldn’t believe he’d start here, whatever he’d said. He had to be aching at least as much as she was, and she wanted him inside her almost as much as she wanted him to do what he’d promised. To eat her up, because she was delicious.
His hand teased at the next button. Only a few left, she thought hazily, and she wanted them gone. He abandoned it, though, and rolled to his side again, and she opened her eyes and said, “Brett. What?”
She’d decided. She definitely wanted his mouth first. His mouth, and his hand. But, bloody hell, did he look good over her. She wanted him on his back, too, and she wanted to be the one kissing him. But maybe not yet.
“Don’t stop,” she said. “Brett. Come on.”
He smiled, picked up the glass of wine from the headboard, and took a sip. “I’m not going to stop,” he promised. All the intensity he normally hid behind his social mask was right there to see. “I’ve imagined this for a long time, though, and I need to be looking at you when it happens.”
“Imagined . . . what? I wish you’d stop talking.”
This time, he laughed. His hand teased at the bottom button, halfway up her thighs, and flicked it open. He had his hand around her thigh, just above the knee, and as she waited, he drew his hand slowly up, shoving her skirt higher. One more button, then another, and her dress fell open.
He sighed. Exactly the way she’d imagined it, that first morning at her house. He sighed because he loved what he saw, because she was exactly what he wanted most to see. For the first time in her life, she lay naked under a man, watched him look at her, and felt perfect.
She thought he’d pull off her thong, but he didn’t. It was lavender, tiny, and matched the bra, and at that moment, she acknowledged the truth. She’d put on this dress and these undies tonight thinking about him. When she’d stroked the fragrant body conditioner over her belly and thighs in the shower, she’d imagined him doing it, and had trembled at the thought.
His hand was still on her thigh. Now, he looked into her eyes, sent his hand up, slipped it under the leg band of the thong, and drew his finger up, and she jumped like she’d been shocked. And he smiled again.
“Let’s do that some more,” he said. One more sip of wine, and he was dipping his fingers in the glass, then rubbing them over her again. Cool liquid, warm, probing fingers, and she was already rocking.
He didn’t even get her thong off. When he shoved his way down her body, pulled the silky material aside, and drew his tongue up her the same way he’d used his fingers? She started making some noise. And when he set out in earnest to please her, she kept on doing it. She’d have been embarrassed, but she couldn’t be. He read every movement, and when she started to go up in earnest, he put a hand on her hip, held her there, increased the suction, and she was rising off the bed, calling out incoherently, then beginning to spasm. He stayed with her through the whole thing, and afterwards, he didn’t stop. He had his fingers inside her, finding the spot, and oh. My. God. She wasn’t sure she could stand it, and then she knew she couldn’t.
She lost her words.
Brett was dangerously close to embarrassing himself. Whatever he’d th
ought she was, she’d been so much more. Right now, she was still shuddering, her hands up by her head in exactly the way he’d imagined, her chest heaving. As he watched, she sighed, and he realized that his hand was still on her, still rubbing, because he could tell it still felt great.
She opened her eyes at last and said, “Boy, that’s some . . . ahh . . . loving. Oh, bloody hell. Don’t stop.”
He laughed. It very nearly hurt to do it. “Best I can do,” he said, “with a broken leg.”
She was sitting up, then, yanking the dress and bra down her arms and the thong down her long legs, and he watched her do it and breathed a little harder. She was rose-pink and pretty everywhere, and he wanted to start all over again just so he could spend some more time there and look at all that. If he spread her open with his hand . . . exactly how excited would just that make her?
As he thought it, she got a hand on his shoulder, shoved him down onto his back, then leaned over and kissed his mouth. Slowly, and putting all her Willow-energy into it, her tongue stroking and exploring, not one bit shy.
“Got to do something about you, though,” she murmured into his mouth, her smile curving against him. “I’m guessing I can. If you hold still, will I hurt you? Or would you rather have my mouth?”
He groaned. “Is this a trick question?”
She smiled some more, looking as sleek and satisfied as a cat. Her curls tumbled around her like the outward evidence of all that passion, and his hand went up to trace a white breast like it was drawn there, which, of course, it was. She reached behind him for the glass of wine, drank it down, stroked a hand down his chest that lit him up, and said, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this. You are the most beautiful man.”
She set the glass back down, headed southward, got her hands under his waistband, and drew his PJs and briefs down. She took care over his thigh, it hurt some more, and he didn’t care at all. “Well, bugger me, boy,” she said, stroking a lazy hand over him, and he thought, That can be arranged, with the brain cells that were still functioning. And then she had her mouth and her hands all over him, exploring him like she wanted to, and he sighed some more and tried not to groan.
She could have talked, but he couldn’t have answered. And when she went to work on him for real . . . he really couldn’t answer. She was a tease, he discovered. Just when he was starting to go up, she switched it out, went slower, kept the wave from cresting. He thought hazily, Hey. I let you come as fast and hard as you needed to, and then forgot to protest, because all he wanted was more. His good right leg was stiffening, his hands were clutching her head, and he thought, Now. Now. Please, and tried not to groan.
And she stopped.
His eyes opened. He was going to die. He hadn’t even thought that in the hospital. Now, he was sure of it. And then she swung a leg carefully over his body and straddled him, and he forgot to think so.
“Tell me if it hurts,” she said, and he thought, Never, and took hold of her hips. And froze.
“Wait,” he said with the effort of a lifetime. “Uh . . . condom.”
She stopped with her hand still on him and her hips over him. Halfway to heaven, and nowhere close. “Oh. I forgot. Oh, bloody hell.”
She started to climb off, and he took hold of her wrists and said, “Don’t you dare. Bathroom. Shaving kit. Six of them in there. Bring three of them out.”
“Oh.” She put her forehead down onto his and laughed. “Mate. Six? How many girls were you hoping to meet in Oz?”
“I was hoping to meet a beautiful redhead,” he said. “I’m a lucky guy. And if you don’t mind, I’m dying here.”
“Mm.” She gave him a kiss, still smiling. “Hang on, then.” This time, when she climbed off him, he let her go, and when she came back already ripping a packet open and unrolled the condom onto him? He closed his eyes for a second and blessed his foresight.
And the heat and sweetness that was Willow gasping as she impaled herself on him . . . it was almost too much to take. So tight, and so hot.
“Oh,” she said. “That feels . . . oh, you feel good.” He couldn’t have agreed more. He let her move for a while, finding her pace and her spot, but when his hands went to her breasts, her head went back, and her hair was falling around her? He had to grab her hips then. He needed to be over her, to be moving her, to be showing her, and he couldn’t. But he could grab her and shove her onto him, so he could go as deep as he needed to. He could drive into her until she was calling out, and he could put his hand on her, too, and make her hold still when he got the spot exactly right.
Willow, trembling under his hands. Willow, calling his name. Willow, gripping him hard, shaking him loose.
Letting him climb in exactly the way he needed to, and holding him there, at the edge of the dark. Until he was closing his eyes, falling over into the blackness, and groaning out her name.
Until he saw stars.
When she got out of bed and said, “Got something for you, mate,” he smiled, his body humming all the way to his toes despite the pain that had forced him to swallow another pill, and said, “I know you do. And it’s something I want.”
She laughed. “Where’s my dress?”
“You could wear one of my shirts,” he said. “Closet through the door in the bathroom.”
She walked away. It was a good look. She wasn’t voluptuous, no. She was strong, slim, feminine, and gorgeous, and no matter what that idiot had said, you’d never mistake her for a man, coming or going. Especially not coming. Just thinking about the look of her under him was making him want her again.
Harder this time, though. Better.
She came back, buttoning up a white dress shirt and rolling up the sleeves, and he sighed. What was it about a woman wearing only your shirt? Especially when she was tall, and that shirt only hit the tops of her thighs?
She asked, “What?”
Should he tell her? He was always careful at first. How strange was it that the need to be careful had vanished? He didn’t think it was just the drugs. He said, “I’m thinking about what’s making you look so hot right now.”
She came to sit beside him on the bed. Not the way he’d have expected. On her knees, legs spread, the tails of the shirt falling around her, and, yeah, he flipped the edge up, got his hand under there, and went to work. Her hands went right to the mattress behind her, and she gave in to it, asking for it. Nothing like he’d have expected, but exactly like he should have. The woman who surfed like she was abandoning herself to the waves, and who kissed like she’d been born to please. That was who he had here, because his body had been right all along.
She might take a good long while to trust, but once she was in? She was in all the way. She was the whole teasing, tempting package, and he was also probably going to explode before this night was through. And then she said, “Tell me,” like a woman who wanted to hear it, and pushed that explosion a little closer.
He eyed her. He fingered her, too. She was loving it. “I could be a little . . .”
“R-rude?” It was a gasp. “Dominant? Mate. You’re . . . ah . . . keep doing that. And tell me. I need to hear it.”
If he hadn’t had this stupid broken leg, he wouldn’t have told her. He’d have shown her. On the other hand, he wasn’t doing too badly at showing her right now, she wanted to hear it, and he wanted to say it. “It’s that you’re mine,” he said. Too blunt? Too bad. “That it’s my shirt, you’re naked under it, and I feel like I can do whatever I want to you right now.”
Her eyes were closed, she was breathing hard, and she said, “Tell me what you’d do if you had . . . uh . . . Brett. Oh, do that some more. Please. If you had both . . . legs.”
“I love your ass,” he said, and got a little rougher, and she went up like a firecracker, making some noise. “I want to watch it while I fuck you. I’d put you standing up, facing the corner of the bed, with your legs spread, and then I’d shove your upper body down flat on the mattress. Slowly. You’re only a few inches shorter than I am,
and you’d make it so easy. I’d pull your wrists behind you with one hand, grab you around the thigh with the other, and fuck your brains out from behind while you rubbed against the mattress and I told you what I wanted and made you come. In my shirt. Under control.”
“Oh . . . God.” It was a moan, and she kept on doing it. She was soaking wet, and he was throbbing. “Say it again. Do it some more.”
“Could be I’d spank you while I did it, too,” he said. Testing. Burning. “Could be you’d ask me to.”
She didn’t even answer. She just moaned again, put her head back, closed her eyes, and came right there. Around his fingers. On his bed. In his shirt. Under control.
Yeah. She was all that and then some. Hungry for it, and for him, and if he had her? He’d never let her go.
And then she brought him a piece of Boston cream pie, smiled at him while he ate impossibly moist yellow cake, silky-smooth, golden-rich custard, and bittersweet chocolate icing, kissed his mouth, his neck, his chest, her hair brushing over his body like feathers, while he sipped red wine that tasted like everything dark and sinful in the world. She stroked her hands up his good thigh, tasted and kissed and teased and took him in like all she wanted in this world was to make him feel like a king, and blew his mind.
When he woke up, it was dark, and the other side of the bed was empty, even though he’d gone to sleep with a hand on her hip, holding her right there.
Something was wrong.
Surely he’d have woken up if he’d heard her van. Woken up, and protested. He rolled to his side, switched on the light, blinked against the harshness of it, and hauled himself laboriously up to sitting. His leg throbbed, and he bit back a groan and saw a flash of pink at the corner of the bed. When he leaned over and checked, it was her dress. And her bra and thong.
Not gone, then, because she wouldn’t have worn just his shirt home, even if she’d had trouble finding her clothes in the dark. She’d have asked him to turn on the light. No matter what he’d said in the heat of the moment, she must know by now that he wasn’t actually that guy, except in bed.
Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3) Page 18
