by C. C. Piper
Noticing that he was still wearing far too much, I reached for his belt, loosening it with my fingers so I could get to his khaki shorts underneath. As handsome as James was in a suit, I decided I liked him better in more laid back clothing. But now, that clothing was in my way, so I dragged both the shorts and his boxer briefs down until they slid down to the floor.
What I saw next floored me. He was so goddamn magnificent. His arousal stood long and thick, extending out from his hips in the most delicious way possible. All cognizant thought left me then as I knocked him to the carpeted floor and licked the bulbous head of his shaft with the tip of my tongue.
James released a stream of curses I’d never heard from him before, sounding both incoherent and wound as tight as a guy-wire. Dragging the flat top of my tongue up and down from the top to the base, I continued to torture him with pleasure, but he didn’t let me torture him for long.
“Come here,” he panted out, voice rough as gravel. “I need to see you.”
His expression, while as lust-filled and hungry as I’d anticipated, was also full of wonder and some other emotion I didn’t know if I could handle. Still, I approached him, allowing him to pop the front enclosure of my bra. He immediately brought his lips to my breast once he’d bared my skin, raining tender kisses to some of my most sensitive flesh.
That tenderness was what brought me back to reality.
James touched me not like a man who simply wanted to get laid but like a man who felt something more significant. Something that scared me.
Jerking backward, I forced him to disengage, his mouth releasing me with an audible pop. I scooted away on my hands and knees until I’d placed a gulf of five feet between us. Here I was in nothing but my panties, having just bathed James’ ambitious erection with my mouth and tongue.
This could jeopardize everything.
I’d nearly… We’d almost…
“Emma, what’s wrong?”
“We can’t,” I half-shouted at him, and his eyes widened at the volume of my voice. “The annulment. We can’t.”
A long time ago, I’d been with my share of boys. I was no virgin. But this was my first time with an honest to goodness grown man. A man I knew to have good intentions and who was looking to settle down. A man I liked. A man I liked too much.
A man I might even…
But I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t.
It had been six years since I’d been with anyone sexually, and maybe that extended dry spell was what had clouded my senses. Being with James had consequences. Because he wouldn’t just be a one-night stand. James wasn’t a horny college kid on the hunt for some random piece of ass. James was on the hunt for a wife. He was playing for keeps.
And I wasn’t a keeper.
I studied him now, waiting for some sort of horrible reaction to hit. This had to anger him. No man liked getting riled up, especially to such an extreme extent, only to be shut down at the last minute. I’d never witnessed any violence out of James, but just because he was typically patient didn’t mean he’d willingly put up with this.
Instead of railing at me, though, he spoke quietly, even though he was still slightly breathless. “Would that be so bad?”
“Huh?” All my wits had obviously abandoned me.
“Destroying any chance for an annulment. Allowing our marriage to stand. Making love tonight and building something permanent with one another. It wouldn’t be a death sentence, you know.”
Though his body remained at full attention, what James projected at me primarily was calmness. A calmness born of maturity and rigid control. I hadn’t anticipated that.
“But our plan… We had a deal.”
“Yes. Yet one lesson I’ve been taught when negotiating these sorts of things is that sometimes you have to roll with the punches. Forget the deal. I’m releasing you from your debt. Circumstances change. Life is messy. But that’s okay. Do you want to know why?”
Mutely, I nodded.
“Because I’ve fallen in love with you, and I can’t imagine ever falling back out.”
17
James
I hadn’t told any woman that I was in love with her since Sofia, so saying it to Emma made my pulse spike. I’d just given her the power to decimate me, but I knew it’d been necessary. I’d needed to lay all my cards on the table and tell her the truth. And I had.
Even though it felt as risky as trying to dodge a firing squad blindfolded.
“But my brother…” she whispered, crossing her arms over her glorious chest. “I can’t just leave him.”
“Your brother is an adult,” I reminded her. “As are we. I realize that six years ago, you were thrown into a shitstorm not of your own making, and that you’ve struggled to do everything right despite having nothing but difficult choices. But you’re not his mother, Emma. And even if you were, Evan’s going to have to man up and become responsible for himself at some point. Otherwise, you’ll get to your golden years feeling resentful because your own life passed you by.”
It took all my willpower not to ogle her as she stood there, mind visibly reeling in nothing but a pair of decadently sinful underwear. But whatever happened next was up to her, and I had to honor and respect the choice she made.
The seconds ticked by interminably before she shifted and marched toward me. All her features had gone carefully blank, gaze averted so I couldn’t read her.
As she approached, I didn’t know what she might do. I braced myself against the possible fallout. Would she slap me for giving her my unsolicited opinion on her brother? Would she go to her room and stonewall me? Or worst of all, would she get dressed and walk out of my life forever?
But she didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she raised one of her delicate hands and pushed her fingers into my hair, her fingernails grazing my scalp enticingly. She pressed her lips to one corner of my mouth and then the other, fluttering pecks that made me want to plead for more. Then, she looked me unflinchingly in the eye.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Take me to bed.”
Oh, thank Christ.
Without wasting one more instant, I lunged for her, my tongue tangling with hers. After kissing long enough for our heartrates to skyrocket, I picked her up. “Wrap your legs about me.”
I carried her to the king-sized mattress in the master suite, sitting her on the edge. “Raise your hips, baby.”
As she did, I looped both thumbs around each side of her panties, shoving them down and off her smooth legs. I crawled to the middle of the mattress, feeling the cottony softness of the duvet beneath us. “Come and sit on my lap.”
Emma didn’t seem to have any problems with me issuing all these commands. If anything, her accelerated breathing told me it turned her on. Once she was situated, I wrapped my arms around her, needing to hold her body against mine for a moment. I hadn’t known if this time would ever come for us, but now that my dream of having her was coming true, I needed to savor every touch.
Leisurely, I stroked the divine softness of her back, my palms memorizing the skin over her shoulder blades, spine, and hips. I lavished open-mouthed kisses to her neck and collarbone, avoiding the most erogenous portions of her and driving us both completely insane. But I wanted this to be good for her, the best, so I knew I needed to draw it out for as long as I could.
Emma straddled me, the moist heat of her core right against my aching erection. I knew if I couldn’t maintain my focus everything would be over before I wanted it to be, so I concentrated on making love to her mouth. We kissed more and more deeply, my tongue seeking hers out as if to contain it, as if to hold it prisoner. I kissed every inch of her face next. My lips christening her forehead, eyes, nose, chin, and both cheeks.
Growing impatient with me, she took my arms from around her back and positioned them over each of her bare breasts, squeezing them more tightly than I would’ve thought she’d like. But when I kneaded and tweaked them roughly like she showed me, she gasped in pl
easure, growing noticeably wetter against me.
“Bite my chest,” I told her. “Right here.” I indicated a spot above my left nipple. The nip stung just a little, before she soothed it with a kiss. “Now here.” I pointed at a spot over my sternum, and she repeated the process, making me gasp. “And here.” The last place was over my heart.
Even though we were staying fairly still overall, she was so wet that she had me leaking. Clear drops had appeared and were running down the underside of my shaft. And this meant I was close. Too close. So I switched gears.
“Lay back, baby. Stretch out for me and open your legs.”
Stationing myself over her pink and glistening center, I flattened my tongue and licked along the outside of her folds. She whimpered, nearly crying out. I continued to taste her, this time moving to her inner folds as I lapped up her sweet earthy flavor.
Her hips began the automatic rocking motion that told me she was close as I was, so I rolled up my tongue so I could penetrate her, going as deep as I could go. Skittering nonrhythmic throbs pulsed occasionally against my mouth, so I targeted that taut bundle of nerves resting higher on her pelvis. I flicked it and gave that nub a single energetic suck. In the next second she cried out, her hips jerking as she came all over my face.
I rode with her through her orgasm, altering my licks and caresses to something much lighter as she relaxed into a boneless state. I pulled away from her then; I didn’t have a choice. Keeping control was demanding every bit of my resolve.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“James?”
“Mmm?”
“Where’d you go?”
Honesty was the best policy, right? “Just trying to hold out.”
The smile she favored me with could’ve melted every foot of snow in Antarctica. “How ‘bout you give me the reins this time?”
“Sure.” My voice cracked like a pubescent thirteen-year-old. I purposely cleared my throat and lowered my voice into its normal baritone. “Just let me grab a condom first.”
In a way, it was a relief to leave the bedroom, even as brief as this break would be. If I couldn’t feel her or look at her, maybe I would delay going off like a cannon.
Once I returned, Emma insisted on rolling on the protection herself. Then, she indicated that she wanted me to sit up and climbed into my lap again. Positioning herself over the dripping head of my arousal, she stationed herself over me for one infinite moment. Then, she crashed down all at once, her hips slamming against mine as she impaled herself on me.
I grunted. She was so hot and so tight I had to clench my teeth to keep from losing it the instant we were connected. She bucked her hips as soon as she was fully seated, undulating over me as if practicing the shimmies of a belly dance.
I was in serious trouble. Because there was no way in hell I was going to live through this.
“Yes, James,” she chanted, as she continued to cant her hips against mine. “Yes, James, yes…”
Everything about this seemed determined to undo me. Her eyes were closed and her head tossed back, causing her long hair to skirt along the tops of my thighs. Her skin glowed and the warmth of her body encased me, bringing tingles to every inch of my body.
She increased her pace, and I stayed with her, meeting her stroke for stroke. Things reached a fever pitch. When she kissed me again, I could feel her second climax cinching down on me. Without warning, she bit the fuck out of my bottom lip, and that was it. I came like a geyser deep within her. It went on and on, and despite several episodes of casual sex and one important relationship, this orgasm was lasting longer than any I’d ever experienced before.
When it was over, I couldn’t have moved even if the hotel had been burning to the ground. And maybe that’s what this had been. A fire. An all-consuming conflagration. Emma had made me burst into flames and nothing was left but ashes.
Very sated ashes.
To test my theory I tried to lift my head but only succeeded in elevating a half-inch off the pillow. Christ, what had this woman done to me?
What had my wife done to me?
Her body was still halfway beneath mine—I’d sort of tumbled onto her as she’d slumped flat onto her back—and after what felt like an hour, I felt Emma shuddering. It was a familiar stirring, recognizable because I’d felt her do this on a couple of prior occasions. My heart plummeted all the way to the floor. It felt like she was sobbing.
Goddamn it.
But then, miracle of miracles, she flipped her face towards mine and I realized something. She wasn’t weeping. She was laughing, the sound replete with absolute glee. Her face was incandescent with joy and bliss. With a healthy helping of male pride—not to mention sheer relief—I smiled back at her, pumped to be the reason for that dazzling expression of hers.
“So count me in for consummating things more often,” she said. “Holy crap.”
This time I laughed. But the motion of laughing together when we remained so intimately joined caused my softening arousal to go right back to full mast. Good to know I could still do a doubleheader now as easily as I had as a teenager.
Emma’s expression heated, and it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. “What do you say, Mr. Carter? You up for round two?”
“Why yes, Mrs. Carter, I believe I am.”
18
Emma
Warm hands kneaded the balls of my feet. I’d decided that I loved those hands. James’ hands. He has many, many desirable body parts, but I thought his hands must be my favorite. They were attractively masculine hands, large and long-fingered. Slightly calloused, maybe from wielding knives and other utensils in the kitchen so frequently. Yet the way he used them on me was nothing short of glorious.
His thumbs swept upwards in circular motions, up the back of my calves to my thighs, and up to my ass. He spent a great deal of time there. Somehow, even though he’d already provided me with the most epic orgasm I’d ever had, I felt that yearning ache pool low in my belly again. I felt insatiable for him, which should shock me since I’ve never felt insatiable for any man. Instead, I reveled in it.
From James, I just wanted more, more, more. And, to reciprocate.
When those hands of his slid from my backside to my core, I moaned. I’d grown wet again, or maybe I’d simply stayed wet. His fingers slipped in, gliding around and inside of me. I continued to lay on my stomach as James repositioned himself, one arm twining around me to shift me onto my side. I let him, allowing him to maneuver my frame however he saw fit.
He paused and I heard the crinkle of the foil condom wrapper. Then, he pulled me close, and just as he cupped a breast, inserted himself inside of me from behind.
This new position felt remarkably delicious, even decadent. I moaned out his name, feeling almost worshipful at the sensation of him filling me yet again. Everything about this felt right, he felt right, as if our bodies were specifically made to link like this.
Because we’d already found so much satisfaction together, for this round he went slow, taking his time. Something about this felt so much more intense and powerful than the frenzy we’d experienced the first time, and I noticed that his touches felt different. Not merely unrushed but reverent, like he considered me to be precious. Like I mattered to him.
The notion of it brought tears to my eyes.
Gently, he twisted my face toward his, holding my cheek as gave me a languorous kiss. “I really do love you, Emma.”
Something rose within me then, some emotion that while unfamiliar, I knew instantly what it must be. It was more than desire or lust. More than mere affection, though that was a part of it.
It was love. Pure and simple. As our bodies went from swaying together to convulsing and quaking in simultaneous ecstasy, I shed any doubts I might’ve had that letting myself be with James was a choice I would regret.
We napped for a few hours after that, lying tangled in each other’s arms.
It was after dawn when I woke in the king-sized bed, my joints and muscles loose while certain other bits of my anatomy felt a little sore. But it was a good kind of sore. The best kind even, so I didn’t mind it.
Rearranging myself under the sheet, I jockeyed around until I could see him. My husband. Now that we’d consummated our relationship and well, our marriage, things could get indisputably convoluted between us if this didn’t wind up working out.
Thorny and difficult.
I waited for this knowledge to sink in and freak me the fuck out. I should be freaking out. I’d done something I’d never planned to do, something that I’d once considered a big bad horrible thing. The worst mistake I could possibly make. Yet the fear and disgust at my weakness for James didn’t come.
Maybe it was due to my current gratified and fully satisfied state, but I couldn’t seem to dredge up the energy to castigate myself. I just felt so relaxed. So good. And nothing—not even the worst-case scenario of a future divorce—could burst me out of my contented bubble.
I pushed such depressing thoughts from my mind. I didn’t want to go there, especially not right now. Right now, I wanted to take in every single detail of my slumbering husband. James laid on his back with one hand on his stomach and the other flung out to his side. I’d been nestled against that arm. I studied the musculature of it, the strong biceps that I’d never allowed myself to explore so up close and personally until last night.
I liked being able to do this, to observe his body in the morning light without him being aware of it. I now knew that his chest wasn’t just broad and strong, it was warm when I nuzzled against it. And as I’d fallen asleep on him in the wee hours of the morning, I’d done so listening to the steady beat of his heart.
His features were spellbinding as he lay there in repose. Those firm lips and soft bristles of his whiskers had felt wonderful as they’d grazed the skin of my neck and chest. They’d felt delightfully naughty as they’d scraped against my inner thighs. I shuddered in pleasure at the memory.
