But when it came to Ursa?
Jesus, Ursa had never even been a consideration in that whole epic Esterbrook-girl versus teenage-boy-hormonal struggle.
You can’t even blame teenage hormones anymore. You’re not only leching after an Esterbrook girl, you’re foaming at the mouth for the littlest, youngest, most vulnerable one of all. You would have decked any other asshole for having a tenth of the filthy thoughts you’ve been having about Ursa.
Scary to think of what I would have done to any other asshole who actually did a fraction of what I’ve done to her.
Guilt swept through him, as fresh and sharp as that first time Ursa and him had gone to bed together.
“Z? Is something wrong?”
He realized he stood in front of the refrigerator with the door open and stared blankly at the contents inside. He glanced over at Ursa.
Christ. She hardly looked little or vulnerable to him in that moment. She shone in his eyes like a steady, radiant flame.
He cleared his throat and shoved the container onto a shelf.
“No,” he said forcefully, shutting the fridge door. “Not a thing.”
Not for now, anyway. Not for these precious few days and nights. He’d made his bed.
He was damn well going to enjoy lying in it while he had the chance.
Chapter Twenty-One
He was highly aware of Ursa the entire time he prepared the meal, and while they ate it outside later on the terrace. He’d repeatedly told her the dinner wasn’t that big of a deal. But he’d have been lying if he’d claimed her obvious enjoyment of it meant nothing to him.
“I still can’t believe it,” she said, setting down her fork on her empty plate. “That was the most delicious meal I’ve ever had.”
He rolled his eyes and ate his last piece of tender asparagus. The dinner had turned out as good as he’d hoped it would. James had let him take some of his homemade gnocchi from the café. Z had prepared a cream sauce to go with it, with shallots, asparagus, and snow peas from his garden. It’d been quick and easy meal, ideal for a warm spring night.
“Your mother is the best cook in the west, so I sincerely doubt that. Besides, I told you James made the gnocchi.”
“That sauce you made was perfect—delicate and so flavorful—and the vegetables—all grown by your own hand, and prepared perfectly. You have to cook for everyone back home. Or else they won’t believe me when I tell them how delicious this was.”
He pointed his fork at her. “You’re not going to tell them anything about it, because that would mean you’d been to my house. You promised.”
She sighed. Her hair had dried. It shone like spun gold in the light of the setting sun. He stopped himself from reaching and burying his hand in the heavy silk and fisting the glorious stuff.
“I know. It just seems like such a shame.”
“A shame?” he asked, frowning as he took a swallow of his ice water. “I don’t think so. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“How can you say that, Z? When I talked to Mom earlier today, she said that Stephen and Grandpa Joe were worried sick about you, mostly because they have no news at all. You know what they say about a vacuum. Since they don’t know anything about how or what you’re doing these days, they fill in the blanks with all sorts of worries.”
“You talked to your mom today?” he asked tersely.
“Well… yeah. I guess I forgot to tell you. I spoke to her before lunch.”
“What did you tell her?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Nothing. Nothing of substance about you, anyway. I didn’t give away any of your secrets. I told you I wouldn’t.”
He wiped off his mouth and tossed his paper napkin onto his empty plate. “I know.”
“Why does it make you so tense? The idea of our families knowing you’re doing so well?”
He shook his head. He wasn’t sure he could make her understand. But one glance at Ursa’s earnest face, and he tried.
“Have you ever known anyone who kept screwing up at relationships, so when they finally got in one, they kept it quiet?”
“Because they were worried that if everything fell apart, they’d have to confess the ‘failure’ to a lot of people?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you trying to tell me that’s what you think about us? You don’t want anyone to know about us, because anything between us is doomed?”
“No. I was just using an example. We were talking about why I didn’t want other people to know about my business, not… this,” he muttered, waving in the air between them. He took a gulp of water, feeling highly uncomfortable at the turn of the conversation.
“Talking about things to other people sort of… jinxes it,” he said. “When you keep it all to yourself, you kind of… ”
“Control it, somehow?”
“I know. It sounds stupid, when I put it into words. I’m just not ready for everyone to know about my business yet, that’s all.”
“Yet? You mean you do plan to tell them? Eventually.”
He hesitated, staring at her beautiful, flushed face. She glowed like the sunset.
“Yeah. Some day. When the time’s right,” he eventually conceded reluctantly.
She smiled, like she was witnessing some kind of vivid scene in her head. He didn’t know whether to kiss her or roll his eyes in frustration.
“They’re going to be so happy for you, Z.”
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe I don’t want to be responsible for whether or not they’re happy or anxious when they think of me.”
She surprised him by laughing.
“What?” he asked, frowning.
Ursa shook her head, her calm amusement making him feel like he was about seven years old.
“Z, they love you. Of course how you’re doing is going to make them either glad or worried. That’s part of loving someone.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but realized he had no good argument to Ursa’s simple, profound wisdom.
So he shut his trap and stood to clear the dishes.
Ursa peered at Z over her cards. It’d grown dark as they cleaned up together in the kitchen following dinner. They’d retired to the living room and now played a game of two-handed euchre—a family favorite that they both could play blindfolded.
Or highly distracted, in Z’s case.
It’d been Ursa’s suggestion when they finished up the dishes to play cards. Cards were an activity you could do together, but also gave you some opportunity to think your own thoughts. Z didn’t seem mad at her following dinner, necessarily, but he had seemed preoccupied and a little distant. Z wasn’t used to living with anyone. When he had cohabitated, it’d been at the enormous Lodge, with other males. There’d been plenty of opportunity for privacy there. She suspected he was getting a little tired of having to entertain her all the time, let alone having to engage in long, serious conversations with her.
She didn’t know squat about men, but pretty much everyone knew the male of the species tended to avoid deep, meaningful conversations unless they were an absolute necessity. Z had already fulfilled his quota for the year just in the past few days he’d spent with her.
He probably was starting to think of her as a burden.
Unselfish as her motivation may have been in choosing cards for a past time, her own thoughts had turned particularly self-interested as she watched Z study his cards in the lamplight glow. He sat on the couch, his long legs spread slightly in front of him. She’d volunteered to sit on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from him. The table acted as a kind of symbolic barrier between them.
She studied him while his attention was averted, not even trying to check her admiration. Her hunger. He was so handsome. So big and male, and yet there wasn’t an ounce of excess body fat on him. He exuded power
, even in the most relaxed pose. His face was beyond strong. It was enigmatic and complex, sensitive and stoic at once. Even his poker face spoke volumes to her.
The set of his mouth was hard, but his lips were perfectly shaped. So sensual. The short goatee he wore only emphasized the potent eroticism of his mouth. Just looking at his lips set her fantasies into high gear.
She only had two more nights with him before she left for Tahoe Shores, as promised. Thoughts of Z filled her.
And so of course, she was thinking about sex. Thoughts of Z and sex went together in her head. Or at least since they’d slept together, they did.
He threw a card on the coffee table between them. She hardly noticed. Her gaze remained fixed on him.
“Ursa?”
“Hmmm?”
She’d been caught gawking at him, mesmerized even by the subtle movement of him leaning forward and tossing the card, the way his shirt shifted against the muscles of his chest and upper arm.
“It’s your play.”
His voice vibrated in her head. My play?
“Do you actually want to play this game?” he asked after a pause.
She started out of her trance. “Uh, yeah, of course.”
“It’s okay if you don’t.”
Her eyes widened. Was it her imagination, or had his voice taken on a husky, seductive tone? Did his stare seem sharper on her, more focused than his previous preoccupied expression?
“We could Netflix something,” he suggested, waving a hand at the television mounted on the wall. A tingling sensation began in her ear, prickled down her spine, and tickled her sex. Z’s voice had ignited it.
“Okay…sure.”
He studied her for a few seconds, and then threw down his cards on the table.
“Why don’t you just say what you want to do?”
His gruff demand took her by surprise. She slowly set down her cards. His gleaming eyes held her captive. One second, his thoughts had been his own and his manner distracted. The next, his attention bore into her, and his stare had grown hot and focused.
“Whatever you want to do is—”
“No. Say it.”
Her mouth fell open. She knew what he wanted her to say. Well, he couldn’t know precisely what had been on her tongue. But his intent couldn’t be clearer.
He wanted—no, he expected—her to tell him what she desired to do in that moment.
“Well, I was thinking that I only have two more nights with you, before I go to Tahoe Shores… ”
“And?” he prompted when she faded off.
“Well…as nice as this is, I didn’t come here to play cards.”
His black eyebrows arched, making him look every inch the handsome devil. He didn’t speak, but she heard his voice in her head. “I’m waiting, baby girl.”
“I want to go to bed,” she blurted out.
“And what do you want to do there?” he asked without pause.
She gasped softly and gave him an incredulous look. “Fool around, of course. Have sex.”
“Oh,” he said, his tone conveying that finally they were getting somewhere. He leaned back and stretched one arm on the top of the couch, his manner conveying he had all the time in the world. “You want some of those lessons you came for? I haven’t been doing a very good job of teaching you anything, have I?”
She felt warmth flood her cheeks. “I’m hardly complaining.”
“Still. I’ve been pretty single-minded when it comes to you. Selfish. It’s not my intention. It just happens. But I should have been a better teacher.” He considered her unhurriedly for a moment, in which Ursa had difficulty sucking air into her lungs. “Maybe it would help if you told me what, exactly, you wanted to learn.”
Her cheeks burned hotter. “Every time you touch me, I learn something. You know that.”
“Tell me with words. I’d like you to be specific.”
“Z,” she protested, exasperated and agitated. “I don’t know what—”
“Ursa. I’d like it.”
Not only what he’d said, but the hot look in his eyes, made her pause with her mouth hanging open. She placed her hands flat down on the tabletop and tried to calm her choppy breathing.
“I’d like you to show me how to…make you feel good,” she finally said.
“There are lots of ways to do that. What, exactly, do you want to learn?”
“Z—”
“Just say it. There’s no shame here, Ursa.”
His gaze held her at his mercy. She couldn’t look away. It compelled her.
“I want to give you pleasure with my mouth.”
One eyebrow quirked up with interest. She laughed softly. She couldn’t help it. Z’s mouth twitched at her show of embarrassed amusement.
“I want to know what it would be like, to feel you in my mouth.” Her laughter faded. “To suck on you,” she added in a hushed tone, emboldened by his obvious prurient interest in every word she uttered.
“And what else? Do you want to suck on me for a little bit? Get me harder than a rock, and then have me inside you? Maybe you want me to return the favor? Or maybe we can favor each other at the same time?”
His words caused graphic images to flame up in her brain. She not only recalled vividly with her mind what it’d been like to have his hot, demanding mouth on her. Her body remembered with alarming accuracy. Her nipples hardened and arousal pinched at her sex. “Is that what you want?” she asked breathlessly.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes glistening in the lamplight. “I’m asking what you want.”
She pushed on the table and rose to her knees. The increasingly familiar feeling of a lightheaded fever had overcome her again. She leaned forward slightly, highly aware of the achy sensation of her breasts and his attention tightening on her. “I don’t want to do those things. Not now. Right now, I just want to take you in my mouth. And I want you to teach me whatever it is that’ll make you crazy. I want it all. I want to taste you. I want to feel you come. I want to swallow you,” she whispered.
For a split second, she wondered if she’d said something wrong, because his expression grew hard. Ruthless, even. Then she saw that muscle jump in his cheek, and knew she hadn’t made an error.
“We don’t need to go to the bedroom for that. Come here,” he said gruffly.
She braced herself against the coffee table to stand. As soon as she’d cleared the edge of the table, it zoomed away from the couch several feet. She jumped at the abrupt movement and scraping sound, her gaze flying to Z. He lifted a booted foot off the edge of the table. He’d shoved away the boundary between them.
She started to go to her knees in front of him, but he halted her by grabbing one of her hands and lifting slightly. He surprised her by standing in front of her. One hand delved into her hair, cupping the back of her head. His knees dipped—a smooth, seamless action with which she was becoming achingly familiar. Instinctively, she lifted her mouth to receive his kiss.
It was deep, demanding and completely intoxicating, his hunger a consumption and a gift at once.
He lifted his head a moment later, saying her name. His lips moved across her cheeks, brow and temple.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he muttered hoarsely next to her ear.
She shook her head, her head brushing against his mouth. His warm breath caused shivers to cascade down her spine. “It can’t be any worse than what you do to me.”
“I wonder.” He nuzzled her ear and she turned her head toward him. He seized her lips with his. He opened his hand on her bottom and pressed her against him. The evidence of his aroused state made her whimper in excitement into his melting kiss.
He broke the kiss roughly. Reluctantly, she thought.
“Do you really want to do this?”
“Yes. More than anything,” she assured
, pressing her breasts against his ribs and rubbing to get friction against the aching tips. He hissed a curse and pushed her away from him.
“Let me… ” He faded off, his voice sounding strangled, as he sat on the edge of the couch and attacked the laces on his black work boots.
He stood, now barefoot, and snapped open the top button on his jeans. Her anticipation mounting by the second, Ursa started to help him undress. He grabbed her wrist and gently, but firmly, pushed her back.
“It’ll go quicker if I do it,” he said, already having jerked the rest of the buttons loose and shoving his jeans and underwear down around his hips. His cock sprang free of the fabric: long, hard, and flushed-looking in the lamplight. It was part of him—of Z—the part of him that pulsed his pleasure, the flesh that betrayed his need.
Ursa felt her head swim with sharp, harsh lust.
He straightened, his erection poking out beneath the hem of his T-shirt. He reached for her elbows at the same moment that he fell back on the couch. She followed his lead, falling to her knees between his spread legs.
For a few seconds, she just stared down at his lap, her breath trapped in her lungs. He moved his hand, sweeping it beneath his testicles and cradling them firmly before he fisted the base of the shaft, stroking himself from bottom to top, and back down again.
Heat flashed through her at his matter-of-fact, bold handling of himself.
“It’d be better for your first time if I wasn’t completely hard yet. But I can’t stop it, Ursa.”
“Why would it be better the first time?” she asked, still staring at him transfixed as he cradled his balls again, causing the shaft to thrust forward even more prominently.
“Because, it would be easier to get accustomed to if I was softer at first, and grew hard while I was in your mouth.”
She glanced up at him. Her mouth had filled with saliva at his words. Her head dipped toward him.
“What should I do?”
Wild, Wounded Hearts Page 18
