He jumped into her. She smiled, and he swore and said, “Zora—”
“Shh. Somebody told me this was the good part.” She had her palm there, tracing over the length of him, and he was kissing him again, still through his briefs, all the way from bottom to top. He was on his elbows, watching her do it, and she looked up at him, the smile curving her lips. “Nice, eh,” she said softly.
“Killing me,” he said, but he didn’t move to put an end to it. She got her fingers under the waistband again and peeled the briefs down slowly, a centimeter at a time.
She kissed him there, softly, a brush of butterfly wings, did it again, then sighed. “Oh,” she said, “that’s going to feel good.”
His smile was slow. “Yeh. It is.”
She got the things down his legs, and he was naked, but she wasn’t. She put a hand to the front clasp of her bra, but his hand closed over it. “No,” he said. “That’s mine,” and pushed her onto her back again.
When he kissed her neck, she shivered, and he slowed down and did it some more. When his hand finally traced over the edges of her low-cut bra, she shifted. When he flicked the clasp open and closed his mouth around her nipple, she moaned.
“You like that?” he asked, then sucked harder, and her back arched. A third time, and she was on her heels, stiffening, starting to go up. She cried out, he slid a hand right under her thong and rubbed once, and she came apart. He swore, slid all the way down her body, shoved the damp silk aside, and sucked her into his mouth. And she screamed.
He was in some other zone. His mouth was on Zora, and she was having the strongest orgasm he’d ever felt, just that fast. Or like she’d been teetering on the edge, waiting for it, all night long. The edges of her hands were still on the mattress, but that was all. Her entire upper body was arching off the bed, and so were her legs, until the only parts of her touching the bed were those hands, the back of her head, her heels, and where he had her pinned with his mouth.
She shook. She shuddered and spasmed, and she didn’t stop. She came like thunder and lightning, and he drank it all down.
She was still going, and he wasn’t going to make it much longer. He’d wanted this to be slow. He’d wanted it to be easy. He needed it to be now. When the spasms turned to shudders, he rolled off her, pulled her thong down her legs, grabbed a condom from the bedside table, and rolled it onto himself with hands that weren’t altogether steady.
“Tell me,” he said, “if anything’s too much.” Then parted her thighs with his hands, spiking up hard just from doing that, and, as slowly as he could possibly do it, shoved his way home.
She’d wondered, when he’d said it, why. When she felt him inside her, she knew.
She hadn’t had sex in three years. She’d only had it at all with two people. She’d never felt anything like him. She was lighting up like there was a fire burning inside, and Rhys was kissing her hair, twining the fingers of one hand through hers, moving slow. Almost all the way out, as glacially slowly as he could go, then a hard thrust in, over and over. It was a long, long way in and out, he was stretching her so deliciously tight, and she was buzzing from the inside out, tingling all the way down her inner thighs. All the way to her toes. Like the best vibrator in the world, and every bit of him focused on making her feel it.
She was kissing his shoulder, his chest, her legs straightening again, her body tensing. He felt so good, but if she did what she needed . . .
He asked, “What?”
“Nothing.” She was so out of practice. She needed to move, to give him something back, but she didn’t want to move. She needed to lie back and feel it, and to touch herself, too, but how could you do that?
He stopped moving and pressed his forehead to hers. “What?”
“I . . . I need it harder. With more . . . touching.” She wanted to explain. She didn’t know how. It’s been three years, and I’ve done it the same way all that time. I’m not sure I can get there like this, and I need to get there again so badly.
Selfish. Needy. But she was needy, and she wanted to be selfish. She wanted to be pleasured.
He smiled, then took her mouth in a slow, deep kiss and said, “Why didn’t you say so? Turn over, sweetheart. We’ll do it harder. With more touching.”
A surge of excitement, and she did it. On her hands and knees, but he said, “Oh, no,” lifted her hands, and slid them down the bed so her arms were all the way over her head, her upper body stretched out on the mattress, her thighs spread wide, her bum in the air.
Not the position you would want to assume the first time, or the way you’d want to have him see you after ten years, a pregnancy, and some weight shift past your best body. A posture that told you that all you could do was kneel there and let him look his fill, and then do whatever he wanted to you.
He made it hotter. “Here’s the other thing,” he said. “You have to hold still.” He shoved a pillow up under her belly. “Except for grinding into that. You can touch yourself, too. Make yourself come. Give it up while I’m inside you. Make me feel it.”
She started to say, “Wait,” but he drove into her, and she called out. He did it again, and she started to rock.
He stopped. “No. Hold still.”
“I can’t.”
He put a hand on the back of her neck. Lightly, but the shock of it went all the way through her body. “Do what I say,” he told her. “Hold still.”
The darkest, deepest thrill. She could have told him no. She didn’t. It was torture, and it was incredible. The slide of him inside her, giving her that electric buzz, the friction of the pillow, and then her hand, when she got it down there. And holding still, so there was only this to feel.
A hard thrust in, and Rhys saying, “You’re so bloody hot. You’re so tight.” A slow slide out, then another thrust. “I’m going to keep you . . . right here.” Pulling out again. “For as long as I want to . . . fuck you. Don’t you dare move.”
The buzz was hard and hot, making her shudder. Now, she had to move. She couldn’t help it.
His hand was at the back of her neck, brushing the hair away. And then he got his teeth there, bit down, and when she jerked, said, “Hold still.” After that, he put his hand on her upper back, just below her neck, and held her there.
The heat of it. The pressure of her cheek against the mattress, his heavy body over hers, his hand holding her down. Her upper body was stretched out long, her pelvis grinding against the pillow and her hand, and he was buried all the way inside her, grinding there, too. Pressure everywhere, pushing her higher, gritty and dark.
The orgasm came on her like a dragon on the flock. Gliding over the hills and down the valleys with a growl like thunder, the vibration of it entering the soles of your feet and echoing up your body, centering between your legs, corkscrewing down into you, pinning you there, pulling you with it, deeper and deeper, driving you into the ground.
His hand was hard, and so was his breath in her ears. He was swearing, moving faster. “Come on,” he said. “Come on. Do it. Give it up, or I’ll fuck you harder.”
“You . . . can’t . . .” she tried to say. You can’t make me, or something like that.
“I can,” he said, and his voice was the dragon’s. “And I will. Come on. Give it to me. It’s mine.”
The darkness was roaring in her head, and the dragon was on her. Vibrating into her bones, into her marrow, and she was catching fire.
He held her harder, his hand pressing her down, and she came. And came. And came. She burned to nothing. He plunged into her as the dragon took her in his claws and shook her senseless, and then he was groaning, gasping, driving all the way to the heart of her, pinning her down.
Shaking. Shuddering. Up in flames.
Somewhere, some bloke was having sex and getting up again like bouncing out of the tackle. That bloke wasn’t Rhys. He was lying over Zora, the fingers of one hand wrapped through hers where her hands were stretched above her head, his body still pressing her into the mattress. He wa
s still inside her, too, and he needed to get out, because he couldn’t get her pregnant.
The thought sent a thrill through him like skidding on black ice, and it shocked him out of his immobility. He rolled off her body, got rid of the condom, and got his sense back in a rush.
She was still face-down. He lay down beside her, got his arm around her, kissed the back of her head, and said, “Hey. All right?”
“Mm.” She rolled over, finally, but not toward him. Away from him. She straightened her legs, sighed, and said, “I should have cramp.”
He laughed. It might have been relief. “And you don’t?” He ran his hand down her back, over her gloriously round bum, and then focused there, because that was nice.
“No. Mm. That feels so good. Why does it all feel so good? It’s like you light me up. I feel like I could come again right now. Like I could do it all night long.” A thought that sent a thrill straight through his body. That she’d think it, and that she’d share it. He was such a lucky man.
He’d seen her right all along. The sweet exterior, and the wanton she was underneath it. He wanted to peel away those layers. He wanted to strip her down.
As if she could hear his thoughts, she said, “You held me down.”
“I did. Bit you as well.” He brushed the hair away from her nape and kissed her there, softly this time. “Having to hold still helps you keep your focus on what you’re feeling and not on whether you’re doing it right. It worked for me too, though, no worries. So did holding you down.” He sighed. “Oh, yeh. That was nice. You are one gorgeous fuck.”
This time, she rolled over to face him, and she was laughing. “Excuse me?”
“Shit. Sorry.” He rolled onto his back, threw his forearm over his eyes, and laughed. “I didn’t say ‘pussy,’ at least. Been reminding myself of that for weeks now.”
“Except that you just did.”
“Guilty. It may have been a while since I’ve minded my manners.”
She was over him, now, draping herself over his chest and kissing his mouth, so he wrapped his hand around the back of her head and helped her do it. “I’d say, boy,” she told him, “that it’s been a lifetime since you minded your manners. I’m not sure you know how. Dragon. And you just told me you coached me through sex.”
“Oi.” He couldn’t stop smiling. “Coached you pretty well, I’d say. It worked.”
“You did.” She kissed him again. “It had been a while, you know? I wasn’t sure I could . . . How did you know what I was feeling, though?”
“Dunno. I just do. Some people know how to fly jets in combat or do nuclear physics. I know how to read bodies. And it made sense. Nobody’s in their best form after three years out of the game. Training alone only gets you so far.”
He smiled, and she laughed, but said, “It’s so awkward to think about, I reckon you have to laugh. Feels like a taboo. It always has. Why is it such a thrill to break it? What does that say about the kind of woman I am?” She stroked a hand over his shoulder, down his arm, and kissed him there, her lips brushing over the design of his tattoo like she’d always wanted to do it. Then she moved on to his neck, and if he lit her up? She set him on fire. “Can we just stay with the thrill for tonight?”
“We can.” He kept his hand moving down her back, over her backside, then back up again. Nice and slow. “Must be why that dinner was so bloody hot. I did well, though, I thought. Didn’t start sharing my fantasies or anything, and it was tempting.”
“Which would those be?”
He sighed. “How much time do you have?”
She smiled as seductively as any woman could possibly have done, bathing on the roof and watched by the wrong man. The powerful man, and that was him. All of it as taboo as you like, which only made it hotter. And then she kissed his neck some more and said, “All right. Now you have to tell one.”
“The one I keep coming back to,” he said, “is pretty basic. Just you on your knees. Naked. And I’m dressed. Why is that so bloody hot? I tried not to think it for years and thought it anyway, and now, it won’t leave. Or possibly you turned nose-to-tail with me, so I can eat your gorgeous pussy—oops, sorry—at the same time. Yeh. That’s been a feature. I’m still dressed, though, and you’re still naked. Dunno why. That might not work in reality, as you’re so tiny, but I could have thought almost as much about eating you as I have about holding your head in my hands while I push myself all the way down your throat. It’s a close call, though. I could have a bit of a thing for your mouth. Possibly since the first night I met you. And now that I’ve seen everything, I’ve got a thing for more than that. We’re going to need some pillows. The things I want you to do . . .”
“Oh, God.” She buried her face in his neck. “I’m going to have to ask Hayden for his help after all.”
He got up onto his elbows and stared at her. “Exactly how? And exactly not.”
Her shoulders were shaking with laughter. “Tonight. I was asking him for advice about what to wear to go out with you, and he thought I was asking him how to give a good blow job. Well, he didn’t really think so. He just said he did. But I don’t know how to, ah . . . deal with your . . . size. So maybe . . .”
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. Hayden is not coaching you. That’s my job. It’s exactly my job. And you see—” He smiled. He felt like he could keep smiling forever. “I’m the perfect man for the position.”
She’d used his toothbrush. She’d slept naked in his bed, and she hadn’t even wondered if he still wanted her there. And when she’d rolled over in her sleep and had stirred into almost-wakefulness at the alien sensation of a warm, hard body beside her? He’d pulled her in, rolled over her, and kissed her mouth until she was sighing. He’d kissed a slow path down her body, then, feeling his way, and showed her that he knew exactly how to please her. Gentle, slow, and almost lazy, and she’d lain there with her eyes closed, his palms against her inner thighs and his mouth devouring her, the dragon melting her by slow, sweet degrees, until she’d drifted into the sweetest half-dreaming orgasm that had ever dissolved a woman’s bones. After that, he’d rolled her over and taken her from behind again, lying flat this time, a pillow under her hips, her arms over her head, and the rest of her doing no work at all. He’d petted and pleasured and filled her until she’d gone over the edge again, with no worry at all that she couldn’t get there, or that she couldn’t do it right. All she had to do was take it.
No words spoken, and none necessary. A midnight lover, coming to you out of the silent dark, taking your breath, your sighs, your moans in payment for the pleasure he gave you. She couldn’t even have said when sighing satisfaction had turned to sleep, except that she knew that she’d still been sprawled face-down on the bed, unable to muster the strength even to roll over, and he’d still been halfway over her, his arm draped across her body, like he needed to keep her there, guarded by his strong right arm. And she’d felt warm all the way through for the first time in years.
When she woke again, dawn had stolen into the room, and he’d stolen out. She could see him, though, out the wall of windows, standing at the acrylic railing and looking like he was perched at the edge of the ravine in the pearl-tinged light of early dawn. He was sipping from a mug, wearing another blue button-down shirt and charcoal-gray trousers. His travel-day wardrobe, she guessed. The coach, back to inscrutable hard-man toughness, wearing the mantle of responsibility like the feather cloak on a Maori chief.
She pulled on her clothes from the night before, used his toothbrush again, and headed out there.
“Hey,” she said. “Brr. It’s like being in the bush, bird calls and all. Nice. What time is it?”
“Six-thirty.” He pulled her to him with one arm, kissed the top of her head, and handed her the mug. It was tea, and she wrapped her fingers around the porcelain for warmth and snuggled into him. A tui called, a long, musical warble, another answered, and the pearly light turned a little pinker. Rhys smelled clean and cedar-spiced once more, like he’d
taken a shower, and she still smelled like sex.
Too bad. He was leaving in a few hours, and she had twelve long, cold days ahead to sleep alone in his bed, during which her rational, careful mind would no doubt be talking her into behaving sensibly. She wanted to smell musky and warm and sex-soaked for a little while more. Or maybe she wanted to smell that way until she dropped him at the airport, then come back and wash off the smell of him in his bath, and imagine him watching her do it.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“Worried?” She hesitated. “That was intense, last night, but . . . I loved it. So you know. Or feeling guilty, maybe?”
“No. Not guilty. I can’t seem to manage it. And I know you loved it. I’m feeling good. Feeling fit. I even remembered to open the hutch door for the bunnies. We’ll go inside and make breakfast. I’ll get you something warmer to wear.”
She cooked eggs wearing a hoodie that reached below her hips, and a pair of fuzzy socks. It was a pretty silly look, but when she rolled up the sleeves, laughed, and said, “Fashion plate, eh,” he said, “I like you like that. Something sexy about it, you in my clothes, just rolled out of bed, the smell of me still on you. A little messy. Nice. Mine.” With some intensity, his eyes heating up again, so she had to kiss him, and all she’d wanted was for him to pull her down and make her burn some more. Except that they didn’t have time.
So that was all very lovely and sweet and hot as hell. Until they walked up the path to her front door a little later, and her front door was ajar.
Not just ajar. Something was wrong with the frame. It was bent. Twisted. Broken.
Rhys said, “Shit,” then thought, Zora. “Stay here,” he told her.
She grabbed his arm and said, “They could still be here. They could be in the house. We should call the police. Where’s my phone? Oh, no. I left it in there.”
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