by Julie Cohen
‘You’re wearing too much,’ she said, and tugged his T-shirt up over his head. About time she got to do that after watching him do it so many times and not being able to touch him. He raised his arms obligingly to help her remove it and she was treated to a close-up view of his naked chest, all his beautiful bulging muscles and strong sinews and bones, the trail of dark hair on his stomach.
‘Wrestling with all that wildlife has been good to you,’ she said to him. Her voice was pretty shaky.
‘Jumping up and down on that plastic thing has been good to you,’ he answered. His gaze was hot on her. ‘You’re gorgeous.’
She wanted to touch his skin. She didn’t. Looking was enough pleasure for now; touching might be too much, too good. Instead she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of his shorts, her hands just brushing his firm belly, and pulled them down.
He helped her take those off, too. He had to, because when she saw his naked body she couldn’t take her eyes off him long enough to push his shorts down his legs.
Nick naked was the most amazing sight she had ever seen in her life, ever.
He was tall and strong and every line of him was perfect, every muscle defined. He was even more desirable because she knew his muscles hadn’t been built in the gym, in front of a mirror; they’d been built working, trying to make the world a better place.
His legs and chest were tanned and he had a band of paler skin where his shorts would cover him while he was working outside. The paler skin was still masculine, but something about it seemed more naked than the rest of him. His hip bones were visible under his skin and the line of dark hair on his stomach flared out at his crotch.
His penis was beautiful. Zoe wasn’t the type to go around admiring male organs; they were there, they gave pleasure, sometimes they were pretty funny-looking. But Nick’s was part of his strength and his desire. It was part of him. It jutted out from his body, heavy and hard and long, completely in proportion with the rest of his big, hard body, and every inch of it was perfect.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze from his crotch to his face. Nick was watching her as intently as she was watching him and they still weren’t touching but meeting his eyes was a shock and a pleasure. As if he were inside her already.
The air was thick and charged and Zoe felt as if she were on the edge of an explosion.
‘I have never wanted another woman as much as I want you,’ Nick said to her. The words nearly made her groan.
‘Nick, you’re—’
You’re too good for me. And I never want you to stop looking at me the way you are now.
‘Get the soap,’ she said, her voice husky, and stepped into the shower.
The hot, pounding water was no substitute for Nick’s hot, pounding body, but it still felt good. Not a release, but a distraction, and her muscles were tight and sore from being in a car for hours and then holding herself tense next to Nick. She closed her eyes and let it roll over her skin and waited for Nick to join her.
The rattle of the shower curtain let her know he had stepped into the tub. She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was his smile.
‘Here you go,’ he said. He had one of those little hotel soaps in his hands and he broke it in half and handed one half to her. The tub was too narrow for them both to stand underneath the spray; the water bouncing off Zoe’s body hit his in small droplets. The steam had made his hair curl at the ends.
She ran the soap between her hands to work it up into a lather. ‘Where do you want to get clean first, Boy Scout?’
‘Everywhere,’ he said.
He stood there, waiting for her to touch him. She rubbed her hands around the soap, up and down and around, feeling the friction, imagining what it would feel like to touch Nick. He would feel a million times better than this soap and her own palms.
What was she waiting for?
She knew why he was waiting. He was a damned gentleman, even stark naked in a shower.
And she was waiting, working this soap into a sliver, because…
‘You’re not scared, are you, Zoe?’
It was half in earnest, half a challenge. Zoe raised her chin and shook her wet hair back.
‘It takes more than a naked man with a huge erection to scare me, Nick Giroux,’ she said, dropping the soap, and put her hands on him.
His chest was warm and solid and slightly roughened by hair. Her fingertips, made slippery by the soap, slid on his skin, over his pecs and his collar-bone, up over his strong shoulders and back down. His nipples were hard and they rasped against her palms. His obliques, his abs, the shallow indent of his navel in his firm stomach. And then she curved her hands around to his backside and explored the perfect roundness of his glutes.
Nick groaned and he touched her.
She nearly purred as his hands, slick with soap, started at her waist and skimmed up, leaving a trail of lather, over her ribs and to her breasts. And then all her hesitation was gone, down the drain like the water in the shower and she pulled him towards her with her fingertips digging into his buttocks and he met her halfway and kissed her.
His erection poked hard against her belly, and her breasts slipped over the skin of his chest, and their kiss was instantly carnal and desperate and far, far hotter than the shower. Zoe arched up into Nick and kissed him with all the pent-up desire she’d had building inside her since the first moment she’d seen him waiting outside her great-aunt’s front door. He groaned again, deep in his throat. Zoe could feel the vibration of his voice in his lips, and it made her kiss him harder, wilder.
Nick. The perfect man, hers for this moment. When they broke for breath he smiled at her.
‘You don’t hold back when you go for it, do you?’ he said.
‘No, I don’t.’ She pulled him even closer and kissed him some more.
Nick manoeuvred them so that she was pressed back against the wall of the shower, pinned between the wet tiles and his hot wet body. Zoe lifted her knee and wrapped it around his hip. The position meant that the underside of his erection was in direct contact with her clitoris and the pleasure was so great she gasped into his mouth.
Since she’d lost her virginity at sixteen, just to get it out of the way, she hadn’t slept around, but she’d had her share of lovers. None of them had ever made her feel like this: powerful and powerless, and desperate with a need so big that she didn’t know if it could ever be fulfilled.
She tilted her hips so that she slid upwards along his slick length. Nick broke their kiss and, with one hand on her face, looked directly into her eyes. ‘Tell me what you feel,’ he said.
She moved again, sliding back down on him, and Nick made that guttural sound in his throat. His eyes were dilated, making them even darker than usual, and she knew that in one way she and he were feeling exactly the same thing. The same pleasure, the same desire, the same passion as the hot water pounded down on both of them.
And she felt more than that.
Zoe rubbed against him, building the friction, so wonderful it was almost maddening, and Nick matched her rhythm with his hips. The strokes were long and thrilling and Nick was clenching his teeth, his brows drawn together, his face a picture of a man trying to keep his ecstasy under control. Trying to make it good for her. Like a white knight.
‘What do you feel?’ he gritted.
She stared into his face, his strength and kindness. She knew what it was like to fight for control. Unlike him, it wasn’t her body she had to worry about. She could let her body feel every sensation, grab every bit of bliss.
‘I feel like I’m about to come,’ she said to him, and that wrenched another groan from him. He tightened his hands on her and quickened his movements.
Two more strokes, three, and she gasped as the feeling heightened and then broke through her in waves. She dug her fingers into his flesh and held on to him, the one steady thing in a world that was splashing, dissolving.
She threw her head back against the shower wall, squeezed her eyes tight shut, and gr
oaned out her climax. When she opened her eyes again Nick was looking straight down into them. He’d stopped moving, his erection still pressed tight against her and harder than ever.
‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it,’ she breathed, and brought her mouth up to kiss him as wildly and passionately as she knew how. She’d just come and she wanted more. She wanted all of him.
‘I need you inside me,’ she panted when they broke apart.
‘I think I need it worse,’ Nick said, ‘but we need protection, too.’
That brought her back down to earth with a thump. ‘Damn. I haven’t got—’
‘I’ve got some in my backpack.’ He gave her a crooked, sexy grin. ‘Be prepared.’
‘I’ve never been so thankful for the Boy Scout motto in my life,’ said Zoe. She unwrapped her leg from around him. For a fleeting moment she thought about how she’d taken her pleasure and shown him how much she loved it. How she’d been wide open and honest, so honest that it made her a little afraid.
And then she looked at Nick again, his face wet and flushed with desire, his chest heaving with his quick breaths, his penis hard up against his body. No way was she going to be scared now.
She reached down and wrapped her hand around his erection, loving it how he sucked in his breath sharply at her touch. ‘Let’s go get these condoms,’ she said, and turned her body and stepped backwards out of the tub, keeping her grip on his penis, leading him with her.
They didn’t bother with towels but walked, dripping wet, straight into the bedroom and to his backpack. Zoe didn’t take her hand off Nick as he unzipped a side pocket and got out a box of condoms. She noticed his hands were shaking.
‘Now,’ she said, and turned him around with her other hand, backed him towards the bed, and pushed him down on it, tumbling on top of him.
Their wet skin was slick against each other and though Zoe was impatient to have Nick inside her she kissed him again and he ran his hands all over her, their bodies so hot she could have sworn they were making steam.
And then she could not wait any longer. She reached for the box of condoms Nick was holding and he gave it to her.
‘You’re in charge,’ he said.
Zoe knew he was talking about more than the condom.
She smiled, took the box, and sat upright, straddling his naked body. With impatient fingers she pulled out a condom and tore open its wrapper. Then both her hands were on him again, rolling the condom down over his rigid length.
She should savour the feeling, she should experience every inch of him in case she only got to do this once, but she couldn’t go slow. She wanted to get this condom on him as quickly as she could because as she put it on him she heard him groan and she wanted to hear the noise he made when he was inside her. When he was coming.
Zoe raised herself on her knees and positioned herself above him, her fingers still wrapped around his penis. Nick grasped her hips with his hands but he didn’t guide her. Just held her. Because she was in charge.
‘I’m going to give you the ride of your life,’ she said, and sank down onto him.
She was so turned on, so wet and ready that he slid in quickly, big as he was, all the way up to the hilt, and Zoe gasped and heard Nick groan again.
‘Zoe, you’re incredible,’ he said.
He was incredible. He stretched her, filled her, felt exactly right and she rotated her hips just to understand even more how great this was and then Nick’s hands were on her breasts, and she lost control.
With a ragged cry she moved on him. She reared herself up, plunged back down, thrust her body against him and him into her as hard as she could. Below her Nick moved with her, his face tightened with pleasure, all his restraint gone. She could see his muscles tensing as he thrust into her, as she thrust onto him.
Wilder and faster, faster and wilder. Zoe felt the sweat break out on her body and she cried out, pulsing and squeezing around Nick as she came.
And then Nick roared out his own climax and she collapsed on his chest. Both of them breathing hard, bodies wet, hearts hammering in time.
He held her. He pushed back her damp hair and kissed her. He whispered, ‘Zoe.’
She sighed in contentment and Nick pulled the blankets up over them. He curled her into his body, his arms tight around her, and they let their breathing slow and settle into sleep.
Zoe had never felt so safe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE WAS GONE.
Zoe woke up all at once and sat up in bed, her chest clogged with panic. The pillow beside her still held the indentation of Nick’s head and there was a faint warm patch where he had lain. But he wasn’t there, wasn’t holding her and he had probably seen sense and booked it out of there as fast as he could go.
A scrap of paper on the orange bedspread caught her eye and she grabbed it. ‘Gone to get the truck and breakfast, be back in a few,’ it said. She hadn’t seen Nick’s handwriting before but she recognised him in its economical strokes. It was the way he moved.
She settled back into the warmth he’d left behind, and thought about the way Nick moved. The way he’d moved in the dark of last night, for example, when he’d woken her to have sex again. It had begun slowly, with soft kisses, but then hunger had taken over. Her otherwise-trained thigh muscles felt stiff, because she hadn’t quite practised the exercise of wrapping her legs around a man’s back and urging him to go faster, harder, deeper.
A smile touched her lips. She raised his pillow to her face and inhaled his scent left behind on the fabric. It was warm and arousing. If she’d woken up first, there was no way she’d have had the strength to get up and leave him there in bed without putting her hands all over him again.
Her smile faded. She wouldn’t have been able to leave. But he had.
She swung her legs out of bed. God, what was the matter with her? She’d spent the night having the best sex in her entire life and she was getting all neurotic because she hadn’t gotten laid yet today? Just because she was some sort of horn dog didn’t mean that the man shouldn’t go get his truck.
And it wasn’t as if he would have suddenly seen her by the light of day and thought she was ugly. He’d seen her plenty in the light of day before. It wasn’t as if sex with her would have cleared his vision or anything, like kissing a frog in reverse.
A noise from the corner caught her attention. The pigeon was cooing and shifting around in its cage, which was still sitting on the desk near the door, where she’d put it down last night. Zoe stood, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans from her bag, and went over to the cage. There was an open bag of birdseed next to it; Nick must have fed the pigeon its breakfast before he went out to find theirs.
Zoe sat down in the chair next to the desk and opened the plastic door of the cage. The pigeon didn’t start or back away. It cocked one bright beady eye at her.
In the morning sunlight, the pigeon’s feathers were a deep, soft grey, barred with black on the wings. Its neck gleamed green and blue, the colour of motor oil in water, but alive. Its eyes weren’t black, as she’d thought, but orange around a dark pupil.
There was food in its dish, but Zoe put a few more seeds in. Then she carefully pushed the dish closer to the bird.
‘Come on and get it, the room service isn’t going to last for ever,’ she whispered to it.
It watched her for a few seconds, and then dipped its head and snapped up a seed with its black beak. Its neck feathers rippled and glowed as it swallowed and pecked for another seed. Every move was sure and almost defiant of her, as if the pigeon knew Zoe was there, all right, but decided it couldn’t be bothered to care about her presence.
‘You’re one tough fella,’ she said. The bird’s rounded head and glowing neck swelled out to a plump, graceful breast and body. She remembered New York pigeons in flight, clapping their wings and soaring above the traffic and noise. A connection between the ground and the sky. She wondered if its feathers would be soft. They looked soft.
‘Nobody thinks you’re very special, huh?’ she said. ‘They think you birds are all alike and you’re all pests. But you don’t care.’
The pigeon made a sound in the back of its throat.
‘The thing is, I care what Nick thinks. I really care. That’s not good.’ She sighed. ‘I even liked sleeping with him holding me. Usually, I hate sharing my space.’
She picked up one of the seeds and bit it. It didn’t taste like much. No wonder pigeons liked picking through the garbage. She’d rather have an old hot dog bun herself.
She was absent-mindedly raising another seed to her mouth when the lock rattled and Nick walked into the room.
‘Boy you must be really desperate for breakfast,’ he said.
This morning he looked even more gorgeous than he ever had before. Maybe it was because she’d slept with him, and seen and touched every part of his body. Maybe it was the extra-sexy glint in his eyes as he looked at her.
She closed the pigeon’s cage and stood up. ‘That’s not all I’m desperate for,’ she said.
Nick dropped a paper bag on the desk, came over to her, and took her in his arms. He was cold from the morning air. It felt wonderful.
‘I’m so relieved to see you,’ Nick murmured, stroking her hair with one hand and letting the other trail over her back and buttocks.
‘Where was I going to go?’ She kissed him on the side of his jaw. He hadn’t shaved for two days, according to her count, and the stubble was beginning to get soft. ‘And how? You were getting the truck.’
‘Knowing you, you’d go anywhere and any way you could.’ He kissed her forehead, her eyebrows, the tip of her nose. ‘I broke the speed limit all the way back here from the garage because I was sure you were going to be gone when I got back.’
So the whole time she was worried about why he was gone, he was worrying about her leaving? Zoe shook her head and unbuttoned his shirt to feel his bare skin.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘After all this, I have to see your father with my own eyes. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to get into Xenia’s house without me.’
