“You’re gonna have to talk louder if you want me to hear you when we’re on the road.” He turned the corner and waited at a red light to exit the parking lot.
“I said, this is crazy.” It felt like she was shouting.
He placed his left hand over her arm. “I got ya.” And the light turned green.
It was twilight and the roads were busy, but not stop-and-go traffic.
Erin felt her thighs tighten against Matt’s legs to help stay on the bike. She liked to think she was adult enough to not get worked up over her position, but she’d be lying to herself to say she wasn’t. It was exciting both sexually and emotionally. The closeness to the man and the realization that she did trust that he would get her home, in one piece, were as foreign as they were serendipitous. Instead of overthinking, she tried to relax and simply enjoy.
Once they got away from the traffic of the city, Matt pointed the bike down the canyon road that led to the house. As they cut around corners, and the walls of the canyon closed in, she was very thankful for the jacket. Parts of her body felt the pockets of cold but they didn’t really bother her. She was too busy smiling and feeling the freedom of the ride. She compared it to cutting off her hair. Somehow the bike felt as refreshing as a cool dip in the pool on a warm day.
And she was curled around Matt like corn batter on a hotdog at the county fair.
She loved it.
From the buzz of the bike under her, to the warmth of the man in front of her, to the great outdoors all around her. She got it. Why people rode bikes. One trip and she got it.
Twilight was fading fast, and the half-moon night was closing in. When Matt turned up the long street to the house, she was actually disappointed the ride was over.
“What do you think?” he asked once he was driving at a slower pace up the residential street.
“I feel like a kid with a new toy.”
He turned his head and looked at her with a huge grin. “Good.”
Erin eased her grip and let one of her hands fall from Matt’s waist to his thigh. The man was firm. He wore jeans, but she could feel the hardness of him through his clothes.
At the gate, he punched in the code and covered her hand on his thigh with his.
He drove the remainder of the way to the guesthouse and parked his bike next to her car.
Once he turned the bike off, Matt just sat there and looked down.
It was then she realized that she was spreading both her hands over his thighs and enjoying the sensation of him under her fingertips.
He was breathing hard. Aroused, she thought. Maybe as much as she was.
Is that what motorcycles did? Turned you on? She couldn’t remember feeling this sexually charged in a great many years. Which was sad, since she wasn’t even thirty yet. Here she was, wordlessly straddling a motorcycle with a good-looking, caring man in front of her, who was showing some serious restraint.
Erin moved her hands high on his thighs, almost to his hips and back down.
He blew out a breath and swiftly unblocked the strap under his chin and removed his helmet.
It dropped to the gravel drive.
She didn’t stop touching him, and he didn’t turn around. “What are you thinking?” she asked, surprised at the huskiness of her own voice.
“I’m thinking that if you reach those hands any higher you’re going to realize exactly what I’m thinking.”
She smiled, and her thumbs twitched in that direction.
He held his breath.
One touch won’t hurt . . . will it?
Matt stopped her hand before she could touch him. His sudden movements made her flinch, but not in the way that said she was scared, more like excitement. “Erin?” Her name was a question.
“You don’t want me to?”
That’s when he shifted on the bike and looked at her. He unsnapped her helmet, removed it, and held it loosely in his hand.
His pupils were wide, feral with desire or adjusting to the night, she couldn’t tell. Maybe a little of both.
He wanted her. She could see it, smell his need thick in the air.
“I want you to touch every part of my body,” he whispered. “And I want to worship every inch of yours.”
Yup . . . her heart couldn’t beat faster without needing medical attention.
She wanted him, and he obviously wanted her. So what was stopping them? Erin licked her dry lips.
“Damn, Erin. I don’t want to scare you.”
She inched her fingers high on his thighs. “Do I look scared?”
A small shake of his head. His gaze dropped to her lips. “You look like you want to swallow me whole.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Yeah, babe, you are.”
She inched closer, his mouth a breath away.
He hesitated. “If you get scared, need me to stop . . . I don’t care how far we take it, I’ll stop.”
Was that even possible? The question must have been on her face.
“Watermelon,” he said out of the blue.
“What?”
“It’s your safe word. You say watermelon and I’ll stop.”
“I don’t know if we need that,” she told him.
“We don’t know if you do.” He was serious. And the fact that he’d actually thought about this moment enough to give her a safety net made her want him even more.
“You’re right. We don’t know. But I’d like to find out.” Erin stretched the final distance and pressed her lips to his. She tasted surprise, and it was scrumptious.
Matt fiddled with the helmet in his hands before she heard him cuss under her kiss and it dropped to the ground.
The twisted position he was in on the bike trying to kiss her became a source of irritation. He broke their kiss long enough to crawl off the bike and returned with an even bigger fever.
Erin reached for the back of his neck and closed her eyes. Every time they’d kissed before, touched before, there had been people around. Not this time. This was all them, permission slips signed. She smiled under his kiss with the thought.
She was still on his bike, one leg over each side, and wishing he was between them. Erin wasn’t sure how to crawl off without tipping the thing over while he was finding all the sections of her mouth with his tongue.
Matt was very talented with his tongue.
“We need to . . .”
“Yes,” he said over her lips. “We do.”
Without effort, he placed a hand under one of her thighs and the other under her butt and lifted her off the bike. “Hold on,” he instructed before he went right back to kissing her.
Erin wrapped her legs around his waist and did just that. Suddenly, the sheer strength of the man was nothing to fear, and everything to enjoy. He carried her, kissed her, and managed to get them both to the front door of her house. He wiggled the knob to the locked door.
Instead of letting her down, he pressed her back against the outside of the door while she fiddled with her purse and searched for a key by feel. The very hardness of him pressed against the softness of her and shot distant stars in her head.
The keys . . . she felt the . . .
He pressed into her again.
“We’ll never get inside at this rate,” Erin said.
“No one is home,” he said as he kissed the length of her neck.
“Got ’em,” she said, removing the keys from her purse. For a second, it felt like he was going to drop her, she drew in a sharp breath and squeezed her thighs harder. All he was doing was shifting positions and taking the keys from her hand.
While he attempted to open the door, she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed the side of his mouth and grazed her teeth on his jaw.
Three times he attempted to put the key in the slot while not letting her go.
“You can put me down,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m not a quitter.”
Now she was really laughing, and he was trying hard to kiss her and work t
he key. Finally the door opened, and they both nearly fell into the room.
Matt kept them upright and kicked the door shut as the burglar alarm blared.
He walked her to the kitchen counter where the keypad was and only then did he set her down. Butt on the counter, she kept her ankles locked around his hips.
Free of her weight, Matt roamed his hands up her thighs, much like she had done while they were on the bike.
She pressed in the four-digit code to stop the alarm and set the monitor aside.
The feel of his thumbs pressing along her hipbones and tracing the curve of her ass shot her awareness to full throttle. He was firm but gentle as he explored her through her cotton pants, his fingers pulling the fabric away from her skin.
He was making good on his promise of worship. His pursuit was slow even though his kisses were urgent with need and desire.
The heat of his jacket became too much, and she leaned away and tried to shrug it from her shoulders.
Matt’s hands stripped it from her body, and his lips pressed into her collarbone and the open V of her shirt.
So this is what real passion feels like, she told herself. And for one dark moment she felt her brain comparing when there was absolutely nothing comparable about what Matt was making her feel and what the monster she’d been married to had convinced her she felt.
“You okay?” Matt asked.
Her dark thoughts fled. “Better than okay.”
Those soft eyes bore into hers. “No discussion of your produce needs?”
Erin reached for his chest and slowly dropped her hands past the waistline of his jeans. “Is this a banana in your pocket . . . or are you just excited to see me?”
He pushed into her hands and she gripped him through his clothing. “I’m in trouble.”
With slow, measured movements, Matt played with the neckline of her shirt and worked on the first button. Once it was unhooked, he kissed the spot his hands had caressed and moved to the next.
She wondered briefly if Matt took his time opening gifts and enjoyed the discovery of them, or if he tore into them with frantic abandon.
His mouth detoured from the button to the tops of her breasts.
It was hard to breathe. Her chest reached for him and the tingling in her nipples told her they wanted contact. Only Matt didn’t seem in a hurry.
Maybe it was time to show him what she wanted.
Erin tugged at his shirt and slid her hands under it. This was perfect; the feel of his taut body under the splay of her fingers, his lips on her skin. The touch of a loving man whose goal was to bring her pleasure and not pain.
He popped the last button free and slid her shirt to meet his jacket on the counter. In turn, she pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.
The laughter over the fumbling of keys and opening of doors was gone; replacing it was a concentration of energy that buzzed like an open circuit in the room.
Matt reached for her, scooting her closer to the edge of the counter, and wrapped her in his arms. Chest to chest, skin touching, he accepted her tilted head and kissed her hard. Without warning, the clasp on her bra released and Matt shoved the unneeded clothing aside.
Hard lips softened when he moved his attention to the needy tips of her breasts. His tongue rolled one nipple and moved to the next.
Erin’s head fell back between her shoulders, and her legs tightened around him. “This feels so wonderful,” she told him.
“Yes, it does.” He cupped the breast he was inspecting with his mouth, held the weight of it. She’d not been blessed with large breasts, but the size of them seemed to suit her frame, and from the way Matt was latching on, he appreciated what she had.
Her bottom was losing feeling the longer she sat on the kitchen counter, and the desire to feel Matt stretched out alongside her was becoming a physical need.
“I have a bedroom,” she reminded him.
He nibbled on her nipple.
“Oh . . . the couch is closer,” she sighed.
Matt seemed to have other ideas. He tugged at the button on her pants and stopped kissing her long enough to gauge her expression.
Damn . . . she was really starting to love that smile. Confident, cocky. Matt.
“It’s going to be a little difficult to take those off with me sitting on them.”
He looked down. “You have a point.”
She giggled.
Matt swooped her off the counter. This time he held her ass with both hands and squeezed as he took the few steps to the couch and sat her on the arm.
“Lift,” he instructed.
She did and he wiggled off her pants and panties at one time.
Erin reached for the button of his jeans.
He pushed his hips away. “Not yet.”
“Shy?”
Strong hands encouraged her to sit on the edge of the couch. “There is nothing shy about me. And when I’m done with you, you’ll wonder where I’ve been all your life.”
She shook her head. “That sounds like a line.”
His eyes lost focus as he dropped to his knees. Their gazes locked. “No. I simply want you to think the same way I am.”
It took a moment for her brain to wake up to the meaning of his words. As it did, Matt pushed her knees farther apart and lowered his kiss to her sex.
Erin lost it. All thoughts of bad lines and the fact that Matt wasn’t completely undressed fled. His touch and the way he worked to find the spots she responded to the most, and the constant pressure that teased just enough and delivered even more, was too much.
She braced herself with one hand behind her, her back arched until she couldn’t hold herself up any longer. Her back met the sofa and her hips were up on the arm like an offering plate full of sexual sacrifices. And Matt took and took. And the moment when she felt the heat building she reached for his head and held on as he pushed her over the edge of sanity. He kept touching her until she had to push him away or risk screaming.
So completely lax, she didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed. Even when he smiled at her.
“Is it working?” he asked from the intimate space between her legs.
“What?” Were they talking about something before he took her away from the universe?
“Not sure?” he asked, teasing. He lifted her hips off the arm of the couch and scooted her whole body up. “I have more.”
She honestly couldn’t remember what they’d been saying.
It didn’t matter. Matt was kicking away his jeans, his erection fully prepared to do more.
He was a beautiful man. In every way.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked as he looked down at her.
At first, his question caught her off guard. Then she realized he was considering how she might feel if he was on top of her. Holding her down. And yeah. That might not be the best way this first time.
Erin sat up and pushed to one end of the sofa. “Lie down.”
He handed her a condom and took his time stretching out.
The packet in her hand laughed at her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these.”
Matt ran a hand up her arm. “Do you remember where it goes?”
The man made her laugh. She couldn’t remember ever laughing during sex. But then, she . . . No! She wouldn’t go there. This was about the two of them, and all thoughts and emotions that would follow had to come later. They couldn’t be allowed room to fester now.
Erin tore the packet open and removed the wet latex.
Matt guided her hand to him. The color of her fingernail polish caught her attention as she wrapped her fingers around him slowly. When she looked at him, his eyes were closed and that seemed to give her permission to touch him more. And she did. Part of her wanted to touch him the way he had her, but that might be pushing her into the past a little too quickly. And the last thing she wanted to do now was find a need to talk about summer fruit.
So she gave him pleasure with her hand, her
fingers finding the soft places, the hard places, and the ones that were adding lubrication without the condom.
Without realizing what she was doing, her fingertip caught a drop and she brought it to her lips. He tasted different. Smelled like heaven.
“Ah, damn.”
Matt had opened his eyes and was watching her.
She bit her lip and smiled. The condom went on, and she crawled up the length of him. Their lips met and Matt’s arms circled her back and ran over every place on her body he couldn’t touch before.
He seemed content just like this. Kissing her, touching her. Not once did he attempt to take control. Then, as if he caught her thoughts, he stopped kissing her long enough to direct those soft eyes on hers. “Your pace, your time.”
So many emotions swelled and threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Erin blinked several times to stop them while she bent her knee and draped it over him. Like the motorcycle, the man under her hummed. “Slow. Okay?” she asked.
Matt ran his hands to her hips and helped lift her at the right angle.
He was right there. “You sure?”
She braced her hands on his shoulders and nodded.
Together they met in the middle and paused. The length of him, the feel of him, was filled with pleasure and pressure. Because she knew he was waiting for her cue, Erin leaned down, kissed him, and started to move.
Matt whispered in her ear saying all the things she wanted to hear. How she was making him feel, how beautiful she was, how he wanted her to crave this time together. Only when the intensity became too much, and her hips moved faster, frantic, did Matt stop talking. Her orgasm was fast approaching and instead of keeping it from him, she told him and he kept the pace steady until she called his name. Her body pulsed around him, his breath so labored with the force of his resistance she could tell was torturing him.
“What do you need?” she asked him.
His knees came up and he found an even deeper part of her body that sparked an unexpected groan. “More from you,” he told her. “One more for you.”
“I’m—” She was going to say done, but he thrust his hips again and picked up speed and a second more intense orgasm washed over her as his strangled moan told her he’d found his release with her.
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