by Lora Leigh
“Oh fuck, Win. This feels so wonderful—”
She offered up her luscious lips to him, and he leaned down and took them. She was so hot and willing and wet and her hand had found a perfect rhythm on his dick and before he knew it, she was up and over his legs, straddling him, her hands still at their blissful work, her mouth moving on his, taking his tongue, urging him into the hidden world of something so deep and powerful, it made him tremble.
Eventually, she pulled away, and Mac wondered if his own face showed a similar shocked expression.
“That was certainly an interesting kiss,” she said, licking her lips again.
Mac laughed. “Interesting isn’t the word I’d use.”
Win began to move her hips, and he could feel the brush of her mound against his balls and the base of his shaft, all while her hands kept up with their erotic ministrations.
Her breasts were right in front of his face, little rivers of water running down the pink flesh, dripping off her hard nipples. He licked at them, one at a time. She tasted salty and sweet and he adored how her nipples grew tighter as he flicked his tongue across their surfaces.
She sucked in air. “So how would you describe that kiss, Vincent?”
He put his fingers where his tongue had been and decided he could get used to hearing his name again, as long as it was her voice saying it. He also could get used to her hands wrapped around his dick, her delicate weight pressed into the top of his thighs. He could get used to her kisses and her breasts and the way she made him laugh.
“That kiss was burning-up hot, Winifred.”
“And it was only a warm-up.”
“In that case, I’ve decided I’ll be your muse.”
“Excellent.”
“In fact, I’m ready to muse the hell out of you right now.”
She let her head fall back and erupted in a big, rowdy laugh. Then she looked him in the eye and said, “Do it, sailor.”
Mac reached up over his head and fumbled around until he pulled a string of condoms out of the plastic grocery sack. He used his teeth to yank off a packet, then used his good arm to raise himself onto the ledge of the tub with Win attached to his lap, ignoring the discomfort in his injured shoulder in favor of the pleasure to come. He handed Win the condom.
“Put this on me. And just so we’re clear, this first time won’t be very fuckin’ Zen.”
Win laughed again. Her cheeks were flushed from the hot water. She was so pink and soft and beautiful that she was making him nuts. Mac couldn’t recall ever being this hard in his life. She ripped open the condom and had him covered in a jiffy.
“I want to watch you put me in.”
“Are you being demanding?”
He cupped her bottom in his hands, raised her up, looking down at the sweetest little pussy he’d ever seen, watching with reverence as she wrapped her fingers around him and began to rub his cock up and down her wet slit.
“You are so beautiful, Win,” he breathed. “I can’t wait. I cant—”
Mac thrust his hips and was instantly submerged in her heat and her grip. Her squeaking resumed, this time punctuated by husky grunts and moans, and he grabbed on to her ass and was glad he was born a male.
“Oh, my Gawd,” she groaned. “This feels amazing.”
“You are so tight. Ride me, Win. Give it to me.”
“Uhm, Vincent?” She’d stopped moving on him.
“More ID?”
“No. But I’m going to get splinters in my knees if I keep this up.”
“We can’t have that. Wrap your legs around me.”
Mac swung his feet toward the hot tub steps, grabbed the bag of condoms and walked up and out, his good arm supporting Win’s soft ass.
She sighed contentedly, snuggled down into the crook of his neck and kissed him there. They made it into the house and up the staircase, Win squeezing him with her inner muscles all the while, making him see spots. Mac lowered her down on the guest bed, one of those high four-poster things that made it possible to fuck from a standing position. She stretched her arms up over her head and gave him a lazy, mischievous smile.
It was the strangest moment for Mac—a rush of animal need and sweet tenderness that left him a little off balance. He had to stop a moment and just look at her. So lovely. So female. So Willing. He studied how her pussy lips stretched to accommodate him, and it was a shockingly carnal image. Too good. Too damn good. And he wanted to fuck the breath from her and protect her forever all in the same instant. It was an unexpected combination. He couldn’t stay still another second.
Mac placed his palms on the front of her hips, spread his fingers over her taut, pale belly and entered her over and over, his mind homing in on the only thing that mattered—his cock in her pussy, her moans of pleasure, his building release.
Mac brought her feet to his shoulders, yelping when her heel came down on his scar.
“I’m so sorry!” Win tried to escape his grasp but he shook his head and held her steady.
“I’m fine, baby. I’ve got this all under control.” Mac moved her foot so that it was against his neck and away from his wound, and smiled down at her. “So you like having that pussy mused, Win?”
She cried out.
He lifted Win’s bottom off the bed and held her close to his body, loving the way her head lolled and her curls fell in a dark mess around her face, how her breasts moved with each of his thrusts. Without warning, she opened her eyes and her gaze landed right on his. There was a flash of sadness and wonder in those baby blues, then she came—so hard—and his world was narrowed to the feel of her inner walls milking him, squeezing him, as she screamed out his name.
“Vincent!”
“Oh, sweet Win. Give it to me.”
She screamed some more, returned her gaze to his, and smiled in wonder as he continued to ravage her with his cock. That smile of hers—so open and sweet in the middle of such intense sex—sent him right to the edge. Then he went over, hanging in the thin air of deep, dark oblivion, and Win was whispering to him . . . whispering words that clung to the corners of his about-to-explode brain . . . “Fuck me, Mac!”
He’d definitely heard the c at the end of that name. He was almost sure of it. And he detonated, fell on top of Win, and gasped for breath.
It was far from Zen and Mac promised himself he’d make it up to her, but there was another concern that had to be dealt with immediately. Someone was licking his left ankle.
Even in her blissed-out, boneless state of awe, Win sensed something was wrong with Vincent, and she stroked his back. “Is it your shoulder?”
“It’s my ankle, baby.”
“You got shot in your ankle too?”
She felt the deep rumble of Vincent’s laugh move through her own body. He kissed her cheek softly. “No, but Fifi is going to town on it as we speak.”
“What?” Win pushed up and Vincent slid off her and onto the bed and Win saw the little poodle staring up at her with desperation.
“The name’s Lulu, and I think I forgot to let her out today.” Win was then hit with a horrible realization. “My God, I think I forgot to feed her, too.”
She jumped off the bed, opened a drawer and grabbed the first thing she found to cover her top—a cherry red cashmere cardigan she buttoned twice between chest and belly button. Her jeans were still in the wash and her hiking shorts were on the deck, so she grabbed a pair of cotton pajama bottoms decorated with a scattering of little pink, high-heeled kitten slippers, which she tied at the drawstring waist.
“Is that what they’re wearing in Manhattan this season?” Vincent pushed up on his elbows and smiled at her, and Win stopped in her tracks. In all her thirty-three years on the planet, the only place she’d ever seen a man that beautiful was in her imagination. Vincent MacBeth was all hard flesh and long bone and warm skin, covered in patches of dark, dark hair. His muscles rippled when he moved. He was as graceful as he was big. And his smile was broad and disarming and went all the way up into those
wily brown eyes.
“Actually, it’s what I’m wearing to walk the dog. I doubt I’ll run into any beautiful people in the backyard.” She picked up Lulu and rubbed the poodle’s head. “Sorry about that, girlfriend,” she whispered.
As she headed for the door, Vincent said, “Come back to me, Win.”
She spun around. The change in his tone of voice startled her. He sat just as he had, propped up, sprawled out and gloriously naked, but his smile had become tender.
“I will.” She tipped her head to the side and smiled at him. “Want anything while I’m downstairs?”
“Much more Miss Mackland is all I need.”
The dialogue began to bubble up in her mind. . . .
Max and Eva would barely escape with their lives. They’d find an empty hunting cabin in the wilderness, where Max would light a roaring fire. They’d fall into each other’s arms on the rug in front of the fireplace. Eva would eventually stand to search for a blanket. Come back to me, Eva, Max would whisper. Then the beautiful Lebanese-British spy would tip her head to the side and give Max a Mona Lisa smile and say, Is there anything I can get you while I’m up? And Max would answer, Just every inch of Eva.
Or not.
“Win? I think the dog really needs to go.”
“Huh?” If Lulu could cross her legs and hop around, she’d be doing it at that moment, Win realized. “Oh. Sure. Be right back.”
As Lulu did her business, Win stared out into the woods, letting her mind race ahead, knowing she’d catch up as soon as her fingers could hit the keyboard. Eva would be nothing like what Max assumed her to be at first. Yes, she looked delicate but inside she was tough and crafty. Yes, she could use her beauty to seduce, but it was her intellect that ruled her world. She intrigued Max. She challenged him. She left him unsure for the first time in his life—that was it! Eva would leave Max off balance. Love would be his Achilles heel! The irrepressible Max Mercy would drop his guard just long enough to let Eva into his inner sanctum, and what would it get him?
Trouble—nothing but trouble!
“Hey Win?”
Somehow, Win found herself at the big farm table, her fingers racing along the plastic keys of her laptop, the click click click, suddenly disturbed by the sound of a man’s voice.
She looked up to the second story railing and gasped. It was Max. No. It was Vincent—and he was leaning on his elbows and he was still naked, grinning at her.
“Are you hungry? Want me to open a can of beans or something?”
Win laughed, leaned back in the chair and for the life of her couldn’t remember coming inside and sitting down in front of her computer. She noted that the sun had set. The big open room was cast in shadows and she looked down at her hideous clothing ensemble, the little pink kitten slippers flooded in the blue light of her laptop screen.
“How long have I been working, Vincent?”
“A couple hours.”
“My God.”
“Get anything done?”
“Yes!” Win laughed with surprise. “Yes, I did!”
Vincent tapped the stair railing and nodded in satisfaction. She watched him float down the stairs to the first landing, turn, and float down the next set of steps. Win thought he moved with such grace that he could have been a dancer. But he was some kind of specialized soldier it seemed, and in the dusk he was big and dangerous and stealthy.
She’d always been of the opinion that men, as a rule, looked kind of goofy walking around the house naked, their parts flopping around. But Vincent MacBeth looked powerful and tightly wound and there wasn’t a single thing on his body that seemed to be flopping.
“Oh, my Gawd,” she exhaled, watching as he walked right toward her. His face was cast in shadow but that smile cut through the darkness. He moved with a slight swagger. Then he braced his hands on the tabletop, leaned forward, and brought his face close to hers.
“Your muse needs more, baby.”
Win gulped.
Vincent lifted his hands from the tabletop and that’s when she saw he’d been hiding a little stack of condoms in his grip. He walked around the edge of the table and took her hand, gently assisting her to her feet. He reached down and in seconds had inserted the jazz CD into her laptop and hit “play.” He did it so quickly, it stunned her.
“Dance with me, Win?”
“I—”
“I demand that you dance with me.”
“Okay, then.”
His hands roamed up the back of her cashmere sweater and a treasure trove of sensations rolled over her flesh—his hot and rough palms, the brush of his fingers, the caress of cashmere. As Vincent’s lips came down and fastened onto hers, it occurred to Win that she’d never danced with a naked man before. It also occurred to her that before Vincent, she’d never been in the arms of a man so large and powerful. She’d always gone for the metrosexual urban intellectual types—art directors, photographers, editors, and even a few brokers and lawyers. But never a big, smart soldier like the one now kissing her with tenderness, pulling her close to his spectacular body, using his hands on her back and in her hair to take control.
Win shuddered, seeing with clarity that all these years her subconscious had lusted after Max Mercy but her reality had been more David Bowie! Something was so very wrong with that picture. . . .
Vincent ended the kiss and gazed down into her eyes. His smile was faint and gentle and he seemed to be assessing her, measuring her. When his fingers brushed the curls away from her face, she closed her eyes and sighed.
“Your mind seems to be somewhere else, Win. Should I let you work?”
His question shocked her. He was naked and aroused and kissing her and asking if she wanted to work? She blinked. The truth was, she did want to work. Her mind was on Max and Eva. There was something just at the surface of her awareness that she had to get into words.
“If you wouldn’t mind. Maybe just for a little while?”
Vincent nodded, then gently pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Sure, baby. I guess this is the part they don’t tell you about in the muse recruiting office.”
She laughed. She liked Vincent. He had a sly sense of humor. He was extremely sexual. He was observant. He walked out the doors to the deck and returned fully dressed in his jeans and moss green corduroy shirt and headed into the kitchen, flipping on the occasional light as he went.
He opened the fridge and looked around. Then opened the cabinets. Vincent turned to look at her. “Since there doesn’t appear to be a can of beans in the whole house, how does beef stroganoff sound to you?”
Win wondered if this was a trick question. “It sounds delicious. Are you teasing me?”
Vincent laughed. “I make a mean beef stroganoff, and it looks like we got what I need. You work and I’ll cook. Then we can muse some more after dinner.” His mouth hitched up into a crooked smile. “And look, since I’ve never done this before, I have to ask—do muses spend the night? Do they get overtime? Vacation pay? Are they allowed to watch Monday Night Football during the season? I really should have asked more questions before I signed on for this cruise.”
Win remained standing by the table in her jammy pants and cardigan. She hadn’t moved. She stared at this fine, funny, sweet man who was going to make her beef stroganoff while she wrote, and realized her heart was melting and her chin was trembling and she was near tears at the improbable wonder of it all. She hoped Vincent couldn’t tell what was going on inside her head.
“Football is cool,” she said cheerfully. “Spending the night is completely up to the muse himself. Benefits are negotiable.”
Vincent crooked his head and crossed his arms over his chest. He studied her a long, serious moment, and then grinned. “Write, Win. I’ll be here if you need anything.”
So it was that Win came to write twenty-five pages in an hour, her head and heart full of the joyful mystery of the first throes of love. Max and Eva walked in big circles around each other like cautious animals of prey, and
when they came together it was fiery and all-consuming and caused such a disturbance in their worlds that they retreated to their secure positions, where’d they circle again and start the cycle anew.
As Win wrote, she’d occasionally glance toward the kitchen to admire the way Vincent moved, to watch him frown in concentration at his task, to wonder if he’d ever really loved a woman and been loved by her in return. She wondered if he’d even had the time. She decided she’d do a little digging during dinner.
He described his work as “damage control,” and Win inferred it had something to do with the country’s antiterrorism efforts, but Vincent was short on details and long on the use of vague terms like cleanup and facilitate. The dead-serious look on his face told her that whatever he did for a living, it was grueling, dangerous and messy.
In the candlelight, he looked smoother, softer. His voice was mellow and deep, and she felt mesmerized by him, the way his lips formed words, the way his eyes looked so far away at times, the tiny crease of a frown on his brow. There were many contrasts within this one man—he was playful but somber, giving yet cautious. He’d served her a delicious dinner, and it had served to convince her that she wanted to know more about him—she wanted to know it all.
She told him about her life, which seemed small and inconsequential in comparison. But he listened with rapt fascination about how Artie had discovered her when she was a junior at NYU and working as a bartender, what her southern childhood had been like, her best friend, Carly, and her condo in SoHo. As an afterthought, she mentioned her recent list of not-quite-right men in her life.
“Well, it’s not like you’re an old maid, Win,” Vincent reassured her over coffee. “There is no reason you have to be on a manhunt, is there? Take your time. See what’s out there.”
Win fiddled with her cup and pondered his word choice: manhunt. That term had an air of desperation to it, one she really didn’t feel. It was simply that a man came in handy—someone talk to, take along to cocktail parties, spend Saturday nights with, someone to keep her enthusiasm up, to inspire her.
Win laughed out loud and looked up at Vincent, smiling amiably at her from across the table.