Tempted

by Megan Hart

  He burned me with his gaze, but I didn’t cower or back away from it. I held open my arms. “Do you?”

  He grabbed me, hard, a roughness I’d anticipated but which nevertheless caused me to gasp. “Is that why you’re here?”

  I didn’t struggle in his grip, though his fingers pinched my upper arms. “Yes. It is.”

  He drew me closer. I hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be in his arms. Every piece of him fit every piece of me, no fumbling, no awkwardness.

  “Jamie’s my best friend,” he whispered in my ear.

  His conscience might have issues with this, but his cock had no such qualms. It pressed me through the denim. I remembered the feeling of him in my hands and against my body. In my mouth. I shivered at the memory of his taste.

  “He’s my husband,” I whispered back.

  His hair had grown out a little, the fringes of it over his ears a ticklish touch against my skin. We stayed that way, both of us breathing hard, cheek to cheek. He eased his touch on my arms, setting me loose. I didn’t move away.

  He groaned, pulling away to let his gaze travel over my face. He focused on my lips, first. Then my eyes. “Why, Anne? Why now?”

  “Because I want to,” I answered simply. “Because you’re going away.”

  When he didn’t answer, I pushed his shirt off his shoulders. Down his arms, past each wrist, over his hands. When his chest was bare I slid my palms over his skin. His nipples pebbled under my touch and gooseflesh humped his skin. I leaned forward, my arms around his waist, and put my cheek against him, over his heart.

  “Because I have to let you go,” I said at last. “You have to go.”

  He put his arms around me and held me tight against him. His fingers traced the jut of my shoulder blades. “I’m going. It’s better this way.”

  “It’s not,” I whispered. “But that’s okay.”

  I looked up, then put my hands on his face to draw him down to me. I kissed him, slowly and without mercy, giving him no chance to pull away. His hands tightened on my waist at first, then relaxed. Our mouths opened. Tongues met. I breathed him in.

  The bed was only a few short steps away, but we took our time getting there. I opened his zipper and reached inside, found his heat. I stroked him, no easy task inside his jeans. He broke our kiss to put his forehead on mine, his eyes closed.

  “Anne,” he said. Nothing else. I waited for there to be more, and when there wasn’t I smiled and hooked my fingers in his waistband and pulled his jeans down all the way. I knelt before him and helped him step out of them.

  He was naked and I was not, but I was the one on my knees. His cock rose, hard, and my hands and mouth found him without effort. He groaned again, louder. His fingers twisted in my hair as he pushed into my mouth. I slid my hand down his shaft, then weighed his balls with my palm.

  There are few times when we know with absolute certainty we are going to do something for the last time. Life has a way of moving in circles, bringing us back to places we didn’t expect and taking us away from those we do. There are too many times we don’t pay close enough attention, and moments are lost in our assumption we’ll have another chance.

  I was not going to lose this moment with Alex. This was not an exploration of his body; I knew it already. I was paying attention. This would be the first and last time. I didn’t want to lose a single detail.

  His fists curled in my hair, tugging. I left my worship of his prick to sit back on my heels. He looked down at me, one of his hands moving to cup my jaw. His eyes gleamed. His mouth glistened from my kisses. He passed his hand over my cheek, then over the mass of curls. I closed my eyes briefly at that caress. When I opened them, he held out a hand for me to take. I stood.

  Alex led me to the bed, pausing first to pull the comforter all the way down. The sheets beneath were white and cool. The bed, soft. He laid me down with firm but gentle hands, and covered me with his body while he kissed me.

  The thin barrier of my panties meant that every time he rubbed against me, the friction on my clit doubled. I opened my thighs and hooked my legs over his calves, pressing his body harder against mine. Our kisses got harder, too. Hungrier. We ate each other and made a meal of our passion.

  His mouth moved down my throat. He bit my shoulder. I arched, crying out, and he licked me there. His weight pinned me, but I didn’t feel trapped. I wanted to be there, beneath him. Around him.

  Alex nuzzled my collarbone, nibbled the tender flesh of my breast above the edge of my bra, used his teeth to pull down my strap. He pushed his hands under me to unhook it. When it came free he slid it over my arms and threw it away without watching where it landed. His eyes on mine, he cupped my breasts. When his thumbs passed over my nipples, tight with longing, I let out a sound that would have been embarrassing under any other circumstances.

  “I know how to touch you,” he said.

  “Yes. You do.”

  He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “I want to hear you make that sound again.”

  He didn’t have to work too hard for it. I gave him what he wanted and was glad to do it. He replaced his hands with his mouth, sucking gently first on one nipple and then the other. His hands found other places to rest. A hip. A thigh. My belly. Under a knee. We rolled with each other, finding positions that pleased us.

  Though we weren’t covering new ground, and though this time we knew the end would be different, we didn’t rush. Every touch, every kiss, every stroke and lick and suck each had its moment.

  Alex was paying attention, too.

  At last he lay on top of me, his prick rubbing my clit with every small half thrust. We were panting, hearts pounding. We’d pushed each other to the edge again and again, each time drawing back at the last possible moment before we spilled the other into climax.

  Even pleasure can hurt if it’s unrelenting. Every nerve in my body ached and sizzled with tension. Each kiss and touch sent shudders through me. The universe had become Alex’s mouth and hands and cock.

  He moved. I opened for him. He slid against me, the head of his erection slick from my wetness. He stopped, licking his mouth and taking a deep breath. His arms trembled as he held himself up. I shifted, tilting my hips to ease his way.

  He pushed inside me one inch at a time instead of one full thrust. We were looking into each other’s eyes when he’d seated himself all the way. I saw myself reflected there.

  It wasn’t fair how fast I came. I felt cheated. My body betrayed me by responding too quickly to the pressure of his pubic bone on my clit and the thrust of him inside me. His mouth captured every cry I made. I unraveled from the pleasure, and his kisses wove me back together so I could come apart again.

  I didn’t count the number of times I came. It might have been once or a dozen times, so sensitized had I become to Alex moving within me. We made love forever, which didn’t seem long enough but was all the time we had.

  He slowed at the end, taking twice as long with each push and pull, in and out. He licked my mouth. Our bodies glued to each other. I wrapped my legs and arms around him, keeping him as close to me as I could. If I could have melded our bodies into one, I’d have done it just then, when pleasure filled me again and he shuddered with his own climax.

  We came together at the end, in one of those times when everything works out right and nothing could ever be wrong. It was magic, ecstatic, electric.

  Perfect.

  After, we lay side by side in the big hotel bed and stared at the ceiling. Our hands linked at our sides. From outside I heard the rattle and clank of the roller-coaster train reaching the top of the hill, the moment of silence, and the rush and roar and screams of its descent.

  It couldn’t last forever. It wasn’t meant to. So at last I rolled onto my side to face him. I let myself drink in the lines and curves of his face.

  There were things we could have said, but it was enough for me to kiss him one last time. I didn’t ask permission to use his shower, just did anyway. I rinsed him off my
body.

  He hadn’t moved when I came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. I dried myself and found my clothes. I put them on. Alex watched me without saying anything. I was glad for his silence. It made leaving easier.

  Dressed, I pulled my fingers through my curls and used my reflection in his mirror to pull it into a semblance of order. I pulled powder, mascara and lipstick from my purse and gave myself the face of someone else. I smoothed my clothes. I stepped away.

  I looked at him, and he hadn’t moved.

  “Goodbye, Alex,” I said at last. “I hope you’ll be happy.”

  He didn’t answer. I wanted him to say goodbye. Say something. But he was a rugged rascal even at the end. He gave me a half nod and a half smile and left me wondering if I had risked everything for a few hours of useless lust. If that’s all it had ever been. If I’d made a mistake in going there.

  “Anne,” he said when my hand reached the doorknob.

  I stopped but didn’t turn.

  “When I said Jamie was the only one who’d ever made me understand how it could be to love someone…”

  I turned and looked at him for the very last time.

  “…he wasn’t the only one.”

  I have only one regret about that day, and it’s that my last vision of Alex was blurred by tears.

  I closed the door behind me and stood in the hall outside as I caught my breath. Then I straightened my back and wiped my face. The beach outside was bigger and cleaner than the one by my house, but the water was the same. Cold and choppy, it darkened my skirt up to my knees. I’d gone to say goodbye, and I had done that. I had gone to let him go, and I’d done that, too. It was not a happy ending of the sort in fairy tales, but it was the only one we had.

  “Be happy,” I whispered to the water.

  Perfection is too high a goal to strive for. Sometimes working hard brings more satisfaction in the end. We appreciate what we’ve almost lost more than what we’ve never doubted. James waited for me at home. I had a life there with him. With our children, if we had them. It was not a perfect life, but it would be a good one, if we both worked hard to make it so. My husband waited for me, and I would go to him in time.

  For that moment, just then, I stood in the water with the wind blowing in my face, and I no longer feared I’d drown.

  TEMPTED

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-0024-4

  Copyright © 2008 by Megan Hart

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