by Anna Durand
"What's all that?" I asked as I perched on a stool at the island.
"Breakfast for the guests and your family."
"Making breakfast is my job, not yours. Guests don't do manual labor."
He paused in stirring scrambled eggs in my largest frying pan and glanced over his shoulder at me. "I thought I was more than a guest by now."
Had I hurt his feelings? I hadn't mean to, but it sure seemed like he was wounded by the fact I'd called him a guest.
I rubbed my forehead. "All I meant was that you are paying to stay here. You shouldn't be making breakfast for everybody. I get paid to do that."
"You need employees, Eve. Since you won't hire any, I'll fill in until you change your mind."
"Until you go home, you mean."
He was staring down at the eggs again, stirring them with a wooden spoon while they gradually congealed into fluffy masses of sunny-yellow goodness. His shoulders bunched the tiniest bit.
Why did I get the feeling I'd hurt his feelings again? I couldn't figure it out. Yes, I'd realized I liked being with him for more than sex. He'd told my sister something similar. But he hadn't expressed any interest in staying beyond the two weeks he had originally booked. I didn't know if he meant anything by the statements he'd made to Krista yesterday, or if holding hands meant anything to him either. He was a self-professed player who'd assured me he didn't want a relationship.
Since when did I sit around contemplating the status of my relationship, or lack thereof, with a man? Something about this thing between me and Val, whatever it might be, had turned me into a frazzled mess.
Until this morning. Today, I felt much calmer and more like myself.
I pushed off the stool and sidestepped the island to stand beside Val. "All I meant was that you had planned to stay two weeks. Are you changing those plans? Do you want to stay longer?"
He froze, his gaze nailed to the eggs. "Would you want me to stay longer?"
"Yes."
Only his eyes moved, his gaze homing in on mine. He didn't blink.
"Are you going to make me beg?" I asked. "I'll probably do that if you don't say something in the next three seconds."
He dropped the wooden spoon into the frying pan of full of eggs, whirled toward me, and hauled me snug against his body with his big hands spread over my buttocks. "Yes, Evie, I want to stay longer. Much longer."
"Like another week?"
"As long as you'll have me."
My pulse sped up, and I couldn't help grinning.
He grinned too.
I patted his ass. "Why don't you get out the breakfast sausages while I whip up some biscuits."
"Already did that. The biscuits and sausages are staying warm in the oven." He turned around to pick up the frying pan by its wooden handle. "I'll put the eggs in there too, while we eat the breakfast I made for you."
"How did you whip up a meal so fast? It didn't take me that long to get dressed."
Those luscious lips of his curved into a sexy smirk. "I got up before you. The biscuits were cooking while we were in the shower."
I hadn't smelled them cooking, but then, I'd been a little distracted by hot shower sex.
"You didn't have to do that," I said. "But thank you, Val. I really appreciate it."
"Sit. Café da manhã will be served in a moment."
"The what now?"
He smiled and laughed. "Café da manhã is what Brazilians call breakfast. It literally means morning coffee. This is a special variation known as Café Colonial."
I waited on a stool across the island from him while he gathered the delicacies he'd already whipped up for a separate meal, this one exclusively for the two of us. My stomach growled. Loudly.
He grinned at me over his shoulder. "Hungry?"
"Sorry for the rude noises my body made. I'm starving, and the food smells soooo good."
"You can start with this." He reached into the oven and brought out a small basket overflowing with golden muffins, or maybe they were biscuits. He set the basket down in front of me. "Pão de queijo, or cheese bread. It's a Brazilian specialty made with Minas cheese from the southeastern part of Brazil."
"Is that near where you're from?"
"Further to the northeast." He retrieved two glasses from the refrigerator and set them down on the island. "I've noticed you don't drink coffee, so I made chocolate milk. I've never been a coffee drinker myself."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, but I'm not done yet." He spun around, grabbed a bowl out of the fridge, and spun around again to plop it down in front of me. "Papaya and açaí."
I barely had time to notice the dark-purple berries nestled among the orange papaya slices before Val produced another basket of some type of bread from the oven and placed it in front of me.
"Pão francês. Literally, French roll." He gathered jars of jam and jelly from the fridge and placed them beside the rolls. "I've already buttered them."
The hunks of butter melting on the rolls had already clued me in to that fact.
"Looks yummy," I said, rubbing my palms. "May I dig in yet?"
"One last thing." He grabbed a plate off the counter which had been covered with a dish towel and put it in on the island. "Cuca de banana. That means banana cake. It has German origins and is something like streusel."
"German? I thought you were making me a Brazilian breakfast."
"I am. Brazil has a deep German connection." He eyed the items he'd laid out before me. "I don't normally eat this much for breakfast but being with you has given me a powerful appetite."
"Me too." I picked up a piece of cheese bread and plucked a sliver off it, chewing the bite before I spoke again. "Delicious. You're quite the cook."
"I had wanted to make more, but I didn't have time. Couldn't resist making love to you in the shower." He smirked. "Twice."
Making love. Until this morning, he'd called it fucking or ravishing me. Should I ascribe meaning to his change of phrasing? Probably not. Lots of people called it "making love" even when no love was involved.
I ate some of everything—most of everything, actually—because Val's cooking was incredible. I loved all the traditional dishes he'd made me, and I loved learning more about his homeland through those foods.
"Where did you get all the ingredients?" I asked. "The grocery store in town doesn't have Amazonian fruit or Brazilian cheese."
"I had them rushed here by overnight delivery."
"All the way from Brazil? That must've been expensive."
"You're worth it, and I can afford it."
I gnawed on my lip for a moment before deciding to just ask him. "Do you go all out for every woman you sleep with?"
"No." He picked at a hunk of cheese bread, peeking up at me with his head down. "Only for you."
His statement set my tummy to fluttering and gave me a strange glowy feeling behind my ribs. To avoid thinking about why, I redirected the conversation to general topics unlikely to lead to accidental intimacy.
After we'd finished our breakfast, Val tried to wash the dishes. I shooed him away. Since he'd made breakfast, for us and for the guests, I insisted on taking care of the cleanup.
Val insisted on drying the dishes. The man was incapable of not lending a hand.
While he was drying the last thing I'd washed, the frying pan, he peered out the window above the sink. His brows scrunched together, crinkling the spot above his nose.
"Are the Kittens prancing around naked out there?" I asked.
"No, it's not them."
"What's so fascinating, then?"
He tore his focus away from the window and set down the frying pan. "It's nothing."
Did he really think that would staunch my curiosity? I rose onto my tiptoes and peered out the window. My jaw dropped. Seriously. It dropped, possibly down to my belly button.
Out there on the lawn, my family was prancing around in the nude playing miniten with the Kitte
ns and Ollie. My niece and nephew had kept their clothes on, but my parents and my brother and sister, along with their significant others, had stripped. They all seemed to be having a great time and seemed oblivious of their own nakedness, like they'd always been nudists.
I dropped back onto my soles on the cold, hard floor.
"Well," Val said, "it looks like your family has no problem with nudism."
Chapter Twenty
Val
Out here on the lawn, I watched Eve while she watched her family enjoying a friendly game of miniten while in the nude. How could I look at anything but her? The dress she wore, with its thin straps and above-the-knee hem, barely covered her curvy body. The way the fabric swished around her thighs whenever she moved had me fantasizing about whether she wore anything under it.
When she'd first seen her family through the kitchen window, her expression had gone from relaxed to abject shock in a millisecond. I'd never seen anyone look as stunned as she had been at that moment. She saw nudists every day and didn't bat an eye, but seeing her family jumping into the lifestyle left her speechless.
Literally. Eve had not spoken a word since she'd gotten her first glimpse of her family au naturel.
When she had wandered outside, I followed. We loitered at the edge of the lawn where a group of smiling, laughing people engaged in a game of batting a tennis ball back and forth over the net with the wooden thugs that covered their hands. I'd never played miniten, but observing a game made me want to try it.
"Let's join them," I said to Eve.
She jerked and veered her wide-eyed gaze to me. "What?"
"Relax," I said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "I meant let's join the game. You can keep your clothes on."
She did relax, a touch, and her eyes were no longer bulging. "I don't play miniten."
"Neither do I. But how hard can it be? Senior citizens are doing it."
"Miniten isn't usually so vigorous, which is why nudists like it. This group is really going for it, though."
On the playing field, Sylvester leaped up to smack the ball with his thug. His own balls flapped along with his dick. The tennis ball sailed over the net. Krista tried to hit it but missed, succeeding only in making her tits flap.
Eve twisted her mouth into a look of half embarrassment, half amusement. "I've never understood how nudist women can stand having their boobs flailing around like that. It hurts, you know? Unless you're flat-chested, it can be rather painful."
"Have you tried playing sports in the nude?"
"No, but I do occasionally go without underwear."
"I know, and I love when you do that." I slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Makes it easier for me to get you naked. Or to fuck you while you're dressed."
"You haven't done that yet."
She was right, I realized. I'd done pretty much everything else with her, but I hadn't pushed up her skirt and taken her that way.
I bent my head to whisper in her ear, "Are you wearing a bra and panties?"
Her lips kinked into a sexy, mysterious little smile as she angled her head to look at me. "Neither."
She trotted toward the miniten field, shooting me a grin over her shoulder. "Come on, Val. Let's play."
I ran after her.
We joined the Holt family's team, but that left the Kittens and Ollie with two less players than we had. Krista and Jeremy offered to defect to the other team to even things out. Despite her lack of undergarments, Eve played with as much enthusiasm as the Kittens. She jumped up to hit the ball, raced back and forth, and even spun around once to hit her final shot. It seemed like she'd executed that move strictly to show off.
The Holts won the game.
Well, the Holts and me.
"You're an honorary member of the family," Donna told me when I joked that I was the odd man out on this team. "Besides, you might be an official member soon enough."
Her mother's words made Eve stop blinking, though her eyes didn't widen like earlier. Her gaze swerved to me.
Official family member? That could mean only one thing. Donna Holt thought I might marry her daughter. The idea surprised me as much as it seemed to surprise Eve. The implication that her family might want me as an in-law floored me. I'd never met a woman's family before, but I'd always assumed if and when I did, I wouldn't receive a warm welcome. What parents would want their daughter to be involved with a notorious show-off?
My lifestyle and my choices had never bothered me before Eve. Now, I wished I hadn't done those reckless and rather narcissistic things to get attention and find a new career. I wished I'd been the kind of man with whom a woman like Eve might want a future.
I wasn't. I couldn't change that.
After another game of miniten, I led Eve away from the group. She slipped her hand into mine, threading our fingers. I loved the feel of her warm little hand wrapped around mine. I loved the soft smile on her lips too, and the matching softness in her eyes. We meandered around the guest house to the backside where no one ever seemed to go. The Kittens had set up their tents in the makeshift campground, a grassy area screened from our view by trees.
Eve glanced at the rolled-up yoga mat lying on the ground. "Somebody left their mat here. I'd better take it into the guest house and—"
"I put it there, amorzinho. For our private use."
"Our use? I thought you brought me back here to get it on, not do yoga."
"Both." I picked up the mat and unrolled it, laying it out on the grass. "I'm going to fuck you while we do yoga together."
Her eyes flashed wide for a heartbeat, but then a sexy smile curved her lips. "Nude erotic yoga? I've never tried that."
"Let's start with a warm-up…kiss."
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, gently at first, relishing the taste of her while my cock stiffened and her nipples hardened against my chest with only the thin fabric of her dress separating us. I devoured her mouth like I was drunk on the flavor of her. And I was. I couldn't get enough of her lips, her slippery tongue, her breathless moans that I swallowed.
"Get rid of your dress," I murmured against her mouth.
She stepped back a few inches, just enough to let her whip the dress off over her head. It fluttered down to the ground beside the yoga mat.
I set my hands on her hips and backed her up until she stood on the mat. "Ready for a workout?"
Glancing around, she bit down on her lower lip. "What if someone sees us?"
"Everyone is on the lawn, on the other side of this building." I skated my hands down to cup her ass. "Let go, Eve. Let me have you here, now, please."
She hesitated for only a second. "Let's do it."
I moved behind her, my cock brushing her ass, and skimmed my hands up her sides. When I reached her arms, I used my hands to encourage her to lift them and join her palms above her head. "Do exactly what I say. I'm the teacher, you're the student seeking bliss."
"Val the yogi? Sounds like bliss to me." She craned her neck around to shoot me a saucy smirk. "Not sure this will be standard yoga, but I'm all in for whatever you've got in mind."
"Good." I gave her bottom a light slap. "Follow my instructions."
"Yes, sir."
I laid my palms over her joined hands and guided them down, past her face, to her chest. "Place your palms on your breasts with the nipples sticking out between your fingers."
She followed my command, smirking the whole time, the expression carving out dimples in her cheeks.
I placed my hands over hers and flicked my thumbs across her rosy nipples.
She sucked in a breath.
"Now spread your legs to hip width," I said, scraping my thumbnails back and forth over the rigid peaks of her breasts. "Are you wet?"
"Oh God, yes."
I glided my hands down to her belly and tugged her tight against my body so she could feel the hard line of my erection against her back. Her body felt so good, so warm and soft and tempting, that I
couldn't resist rolling my hips into her, grinding my cock against her, while I slid my fingers between her folds. A deep groan vibrated my chest. "You're so fucking wet."
The sensation of her slick heat on my fingers amped up my lust, that slender thread of control fraying. I'd wanted to take my time, but this woman drove me out of my mind. She would do anything I asked of her, anything, and never question it. Eve might've been straitlaced on the outside, but she had a deep, hot wild streak like no other woman I'd known.
"Downward dog," I said, my voice rough and low, strained by my need for her and only her. "Do it now."
She bent from the waist, planted her hands on the mat, and walked them forward until she'd stretched her body into an upside-down V.
A perfect downward-dog pose. Her luscious ass was in the air, her legs spread enough for me to do what I needed to do. To her. With her. Because of her.
I grasped her hips. "You are the sexiest woman alive, amorzinho. No other woman has ever made me come as hard as I do with you."
"Same for me. Sex with you is the best ever."
"Don't move." Before she could say anything, I pulled my hips back and thrust into her. "Hold the pose, and don't come until I tell you to."
A laugh sputtered out of her. "Not sure I have any control over that, especially with you."
I pinched her bottom, making her gasp. "Give it your best shot."
"Yes, sir."
Gripping her hips, I pumped into her in a steady rhythm, slow and easy, giving her time to adjust to the new position before I unleashed my lust on her. Holding back like this was maddening. I wanted to shove us both over the edge right now. More of her, I needed more of her, needed to go deeper, harder, faster, until her body clenched me and I erupted inside her. Somehow, I maintained the measured pace despite the intoxicating feel of her slick sheath around me. The pressure in my cock, the pressure to let go and come inside her sweet body, had me gritting my teeth.
She twisted her head around to look at me, desire tightening her features. "Forget yoga. I need to feel you come inside me right now. Please."
The huskiness of her plea snapped the slender thread of my willpower.