Kitabı oku: «Under Fire», sayfa 3

4

EVERY INCH?

Jana had never hyperventilated in her life, but she supposed there really was a first time for everything. With any luck, an overload of carbon dioxide wouldn’t be her only first tonight.

No. She wouldn’t think about that. If she did, whatever magical, sensual spell Ben appeared to cast over her so effortlessly could easily break. Instead, she locked reality away and reached for the buttons on his shirt, pressing her lips to the warm, bare skin she exposed.

“So?” She shoved the shirt from his shoulders and down his arms, letting it drop to the floor. “What’s stopping you?”

With the tip of her tongue, she traced his flattened nipple then grazed it with her teeth, wanting him to experience the same delicious sensations running rampant through her. She tasted, laved and kissed a trail down his torso. A groan erupted from deep inside him, encouraging her.

Before she managed to taste another inch of the luscious length of his athlete-strong body, his hands gripped her upper arms. He hauled her against his chest, holding her tight. His mouth covered hers, coaxing, yet demanding with a sense of urgency that she open for him. A request she wouldn’t dream of denying.

Using his body to support her, he pressed her back against the wall again. His hands skimmed her breasts to settle at her waist. The hiss of leather rasped in her ears as he unfastened her belt and carefully withdrew it from the loops of her skirt.

Ultimate fulfillment might be a mystery to her, but she understood desire. She’d even delighted in the most fascinating tingles a time or two during foreplay. Yet her limited knowledge had never come close to the scrumptious way Ben was making her feel with only his caresses and kisses. Hot. Achy. Breathless. Craving what had always been elusive. An awareness so powerful, every nerve ending in her body came alive.

He unfastened the snap and zipper, then stepped back to push her skirt past her hips. The material slid down her legs like a sensuous caress to puddle at her feet. After toeing off her pumps, she kicked them and the skirt aside, then stood in front of Ben wearing only her matching white lace bra and panties, and a pair of thigh-high stockings. She’d expected to feel exposed, even a little self-conscious. The appreciation in his eyes effectively kept her doubts at bay.

“You are incredible,” he said with a reverence that obliterated any final shred of common sense she might have been considering. “Absolutely incredible.”

She smiled as she closed the few inches between them and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and moving her body against his. Friction, stimulated by heated male flesh and lace, rasped her nipples and sent an electric shot of warmth zinging down her spine.

Another tiny tremor shook her.

“Cold?” he asked.

She gently nipped his neck before tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “I’ve never been hotter.”

The color of his eyes deepened. “You keep talking like that, we’ll never make it to the bedroom.”

She gave him the most sensual grin in her pathetically small arsenal. “Nothing says we have to make it in the bedroom.”

With his arms around her, he slowly slid his hands beneath the elastic band of her panties to cup her bottom, drawing her even closer. “An adventurous woman. I like that.”

She arched her back and pressed her fanny into the warmth of his calloused hands. “Hmm,” she murmured as his fingers gently kneaded her flesh. “What else do you like?”

“Fantasies. Tell me your fantasy, Jana.”

She would, if she had one to share. She’d already admitted her sexual reality was a big fat zero. Her sensual self-esteem hardly needed a reminder she lacked the imagination to even conjure a decent fantasy. “I have a better idea.”

His hands inched down, moving with agonizing slowness toward her center. He dipped his head and caught the lobe of her ear gently between his teeth. “Tell me.”

Hot breath caressed her ear at the same moment the tip of his fingers brushed her moist curls in a feathery caress so light she couldn’t determine reality from one of those fantasies he kept insisting she discuss. Why on earth did he expect conversation when all she could think about was the most interesting sense of acute pressure slowly building inside her that kept her pressing her body toward his gently teasing fingers?

She pulled back slightly and reached for the clip still securing her hair in place. While he watched, she carefully removed the clip, then tossed it on the carpet next to her clothes and shoes. With a slight shake of her head, she freed her hair from the knot until it fell past her shoulders. “You show me your fantasy instead,” she quietly told him.

The sinfully wicked intent in his eyes had her catching her breath. “Tonight, you are my fantasy.”

She barely had time to absorb his highly erotic statement before he took both of her hands in one of his. He effectively pinned her against the wall by raising her arms just above her head, leaving his free hand to do whatever he chose. This was, after all, his fantasy.

He traced her mouth with the tip of his finger, then dragged the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip before he gently moved downward to caress her throat. His lips touched where his fingers had been, then followed the same path as his hand. His caress and the moist heat of his mouth traveled southward, teasing the slope of her breasts, down through the valley of her cleavage.

The palm of his hand was hot against her skin, rough and calloused, yet tender and reverent in execution. He created a path of heat over her rib cage while his tongue, lips and teeth strayed to her breasts, creating more havoc with her senses.

Just when she thought she would go crazy from the need burning low in her belly, he released her hands and eased slowly to his knees. The heat of his mouth and tongue never left her skin, which had grown even tighter, hotter. She flatted her palms against the wall for support. He hooked his thumbs onto the sides of her panties and slowly pulled them from her hips, tasting the skin he exposed along the way with a veneration that had her heart squeezing just a little.

He tossed the lace panties aside, then, drew his hands upward along the backs of her legs, caressing her inner thighs. She nearly came out of her skin.

As if she were as delicate as a hothouse flower, he gently eased her legs apart. The earlier pressure returned, more forceful and twice as demanding the instant he touched her wet folds and slid his finger inside her.

Her breath caught, then expelled in a rush, carrying with it a deep moan filled with such an earthy sound, it took her by surprise. Sensation overruled thought with every stroke. All that mattered were the incredible currents of energy rippling under her skin and the demands of her body urging her onward toward…toward…

She closed her eyes and shoved reality behind the locked door again. Tonight she wanted the sensual ride to carry her as far as her body would allow her to travel.

She stopped thinking and only…felt.

The beauty of total arousal. The stroke of his fingers. Glorious tension. The press of his lips against her moist curls. Fire growing inside her. The glide of his tongue as it circled her most sensitive place.

She experienced it all and greedily wanted more.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

He expertly stoked the simmering warmth into a full-fledged inferno that made her hotter than ever before. The upsurge of the flames pushed her steadily closer to…to…

He stopped.

Her knees threatened to buckle, but his hands quickly shifted to her hips and steadied her. Her eyes flew open.

He stopped?

“No!” she cried out in protest. She reached for his shoulders, but he was already rising to his feet.

She shook her head. “No,” she said again once he stood in front of her. She didn’t care if she was pleading with him to finish what he’d started. How could he do this to her? She’d been so close, or at least closer than she’d ever been in her life. Dammit, she’d told him not to stop!

The man had the audacity to smile at her. “Why?”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at him through a half-dozen thunderous beats of her heart. “Why?” she finally parroted. Surely she didn’t have to explain it to him. He couldn’t possibly be that obtuse.

He nodded. “Why?”

If he stooped to pick up his shirt, she just might kick him square in the backside.

“Because!” Definitely not her most intelligent reply.

His smile deepened into a grin before he planted a hard, quick kiss on her still swollen lips. “Because you were so close to orgasm?”

She eyed him suspiciously. She had no idea what kind of game he thought he was playing with her.

One of his hands massaged her bare hip while he reached up with the other to smooth away the hair clinging to the side of her face, moist with beads of sweat. “Do you still want to know why it’s everything everyone says it is?”

If he hadn’t stopped, she just might have had the answer to her own burning question.

“Anticipation,” he said when she remained stubbornly silent. “Not just a build-up of physical pleasure and final release, but something so intense it heightens all of your senses.”

“If I was looking for intellectual stimulation, I’d read a book or attend a lecture,” she complained.

“Every single nerve ending in your body comes alive until you explode,” he continued as if she’d never spoken. “The languid, liquid warmth that fills you is purely physical. Seduction of the mind is just as important for complete sexual gratification. A total orgasm.”

“I would’ve been happy with half an orgasm.”

His lips twitched as he drew his hand over her shoulder and down her arm to lace their fingers together. “I could’ve made you come, Jana, but it would’ve been only physical.”

“You really want to go where no man has gone before?” She managed a barely-there laugh despite the sharp edge of frustration slicing away at her sensual psyche. “In order to get there, you were supposed to stay on the south route of Pleasure Parkway. What is it with men and directions, anyway?”

He smiled, but otherwise ignored her sarcasm. She couldn’t help herself. His arrogance was too sexy to ignore.

He lifted her hand to his mouth, then pulled his tingle wrist trick again. This time, she almost melted.

“I promise you,” he said, his deep, rich voice a husky rumble of sin, “I will give you everything you’ve been missing.”

“I DON’T KNOW if we’ll be able to use the condoms.”

If there was another woman in the world more sensual than Jana, Ben hadn’t met her. Or one that was as unashamed of her body, either, for that matter. Stark-naked, she stood in the doorway between her tastefully furnished bedroom and the small bathroom, the overhead light behind her silhouetting her curves.

He’d never been more turned on, or hard. He hadn’t exactly been filling her with a line of BS, but he’d intentionally brought a premature end to their lovemaking fifteen minutes ago and suggested they move to the bedroom for one simple reason—he’d been too close to losing control.

If he hadn’t stopped, he was ashamed to admit even to himself that he might have made a monumental mistake and made love to her without protection. He’d been coherent enough to realize that Jana had passed the crucial point of no return and was probably not in a state of mind to object.

“Why? How old are they?” He rested his back against the padded headboard, the floral sheet draped over his lap.

She turned to the side for more light and peered at the box. The quick stream of breath she blew on the box sent a puff of dust floating in the air around her. She sneezed.

“That old, huh?” He liked the idea she’d had a box of condoms in her bathroom long enough to collect dust. Arrogance? Maybe. Had to be, he decided. Anything else defied logic.

“Six months,” she said with a shrug. “Could be eight. Wanna hit that light?”

He turned on the bedside lamp, then waited for her to join him. She tossed the box of condoms in his direction; he caught it with one hand. She climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips as if she’d been doing it forever. After what they’d just done, shyness would be hypocritical.

“See if you can find an expiration date.”

He set the small box on the nightstand next to the alarm clock. “They don’t have the shelf life of Twinkies, but anything under a couple of years is probably safe.”

Placing his hands on her bottom, he nudged her closer. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?” he asked her, although conversation landed dead last on his list of immediate priorities. Topping it was the matter of Jana’s first orgasm.

In the soft, rose-colored lighting from the frilly lamp, her green eyes sparkled with mischief as she wiggled her bottom and scooted even closer. His body flexed instantly and insistently.

She moaned softly, then moved against him. “I had a question, but it’s a close second to what I’d rather experience.”

Always willing to accommodate a woman’s sensual demands, he moved one hand up her spine to the back of her neck, applying the slightest amount of pressure. She leaned toward him and he nuzzled the slender column of her throat.

“Tell me what you’d rather experience.” He dipped his tongue inside the soft hollow at the base of her throat. She trembled in his arms.

Rising slightly on her knees, she yanked the sheet out of the way. With no barriers between them, she settled back down, her hot, moist heat brushing against the tip of his penis. A tiny cry of surprise escaped her throat. Her movements were tentative, but she shifted again. She moaned with such pure delight, he had to count to ten to maintain his control.

“I want to feel that way again,” she said. Her hips rolled sensuously forward.

He counted to twenty.

“All tight and hot. Way past the tingle stage.” Her breath caught, then expelled, bringing with it another soft moan of pleasure. “I want you to make me even wetter this time. Hotter.”

His hips bucked as she pressed down, rubbing against his shaft. She was slick and moist, and ready to accept him inside her—physically. But he wanted more. He wanted her mind free of everything but him and every wicked delight he planned to give to her.

Or was it his own mind he wanted free tonight?

Heat simmered in his veins. His body demanded release, moving him to the point where he didn’t care much about anything except the incredibly sensual woman driving him crazy with lust.

He rolled them over until she was on her back beneath him. “I definitely aim to please,” he practically growled.

He figured it wouldn’t take much effort to bring her back to the brink, and from the soft whimpering ringing in his ears as he skimmed down her body with his mouth and hands, he was right. He parted her legs wide enough to taste her more deeply this time. Her hips rose, reaching instinctively for more. And he gave it to her. While using his finger, then two, to explore her, he circled his tongue over the outer opening, then laved upward to where she was the most sensitive.

Her soft whimpers turned to all-out cries as her pleasure deepened with every stroke of his fingers and tongue. She was impossibly wet, dewy with moist heat. Her body was perfectly primed for his, but although he sensed her need for release and despite his own impossibly hard erection, he wasn’t willing to end her sensual journey.

Instead, he drove her higher, applying just enough pressure to make her cry out, then carefully slowing her down again. Her legs trembled. The core of her clenched his fingers, yet he still refused her the release she sought so desperately. He pushed her again, only to change the pace and bring her back toward earth before bringing her to greater heights the next time.

The waiting was killing him. His own anticipation to feel her body around his when he filled her had him damned close to the edge. Holding back was no longer an option. He quickly rolled on a condom and eased his body over hers.

Supporting his weight with his arms, he carefully lifted one of her legs and settled it over his shoulder to open her fully. Only then did he slowly ease inside her, inch by glorious inch.

“Yesssss,” she hissed, as he filled her.

She lifted her hips, taking him even deeper inside. She was wet, tight and so very close. He thrust into her, over and over again, urging them both nearer to the edge. The pattern of her breathing changed, becoming louder with every stroke of their bodies. Her hands gripped the sheet and her body strained beneath him.

She made a low, keening sound that rose from deep inside her. Her body began to clench tightly around him, her muscles contracting, testing the thin thread of his control.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered when her lashes fluttered closed. “Look at me, Jana.”

She did, and he watched in fascination as awe and wonderment joined passion and need in the depths of her eyes. Her entire body shook with the force of her release.

“Yes,” she cried out as she climaxed, her body pulsing hotly around his shaft. “Oh, Ben. Yes.”

The sounds of her pleasure shattered the tenuous hold of his control. Thrusting deeply into her one last time, his own release crashed into him in a powerful wave.

Slowly, the world righted itself until he became aware of the scents and sounds around him. The musky aroma of their lovemaking. The feel of Jana’s sweat-slick curves beneath him. The barely discernable sound of her crying.

He moved off her and pulled her with him, tucking her close to his side. Once she was curled against him, he reached for the sheet to cover their cooling bodies. “Jana? I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No.” She sniffled. “It’s just…” Her voice trailed off as a sob shook her shoulders.

Concerned, he tucked his hand beneath her chin and tipped her head back so he could look into her teary gaze still filled with surprise. “What is it?”

She gave him the tiniest of smiles. “I can’t describe it. It was just so…” She let out a sigh and snuggled against him. “Incredible. Absolutely incredible.”