by Amy Andrews
“Rick,” she panted, her eyes shut as her body floated.
But he wasn’t listening. He didn’t appear to be in the mood for talking either as his tongue quested further south, finding the edge of her tank top and swiping along the line where it met her skin, rising over the swell of her breasts and dipping, lingering in the depths of her cleavage.
Taylor moaned something. What, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t sound intelligent inside her head and it certainly hadn’t sounded intelligible coming out. All she knew was she wanted more, needed more. Lucky for her, Rick understood her moans well.
Seconds later, her hands were let loose and before she had a chance to do anything with her sudden freedom, his hands were on her top and he was yanking it down, exposing her breasts.
She gasped as the cool air hit her heated flesh. But it wasn’t cool for long beneath his incendiary gaze and soon she was gasping again as Rick groaned her name and lowered his head to take a nipple deep into the hot cavern of his mouth.
Her back arched and all she could do with her hands then was to reach for his shoulders and hang on tight as he mercilessly tortured each nipple in turn, licking and sucking and grazing his teeth along the sensitive peaks. Making her cry out; making her beg him to stop.
Making her demand that he never, ever stop.
When he was done there he traveled lower still. Exploring the undersides of her breasts, the flat of her stomach and the dip of her belly button, only coming up when he got to the waistband of her shorts.
He sat back on his haunches, his denim-clad legs unashamedly pressing her thighs wide apart.
“What?” Taylor panted, her eyes fluttering open to find a look of utter concentration on his face.
“These,” he said, pointing to her Daisy Dukes, “have got to go.” He reached for the top button and popped it. “Do you have any idea how these teeny, tiny shorts,” he slowly pulled the zipper down, “have been driving me nuts today?”
Taylor blushed at the imagery in his words and the way his eyes were glued to the slow reveal of her underwear.
“Torture, I tell you,” he muttered. “Showing off every single inch of your incredible legs. Cupping your sexy butt to absolute perfection.” He glanced at her. “Lift your hips.”
Taylor was momentarily paralyzed by the husky demand. But then she raised her hips eagerly, wanting him to strip the shorts from her, wanting him to pull them off with his teeth if necessary.
Taylor could see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he reached for the waistband. “A man,” he continued, but his voice was far from steady as he shimmied the shorts down over her hips and buttocks, “definitely designed these to …” he slid them down her thighs, “drive other men wild with passion.”
Taylor blushed again as he finally pulled them off her feet and threw them over his shoulder. His gaze returned to take in her entire body, naked save for a scrap of black lace, taking his time, looking at every inch of her, lingering at her breasts and the juncture of her thighs. She could tell he liked what he saw and it took all her willpower not to wantonly arch her back.
Rick pointed at her underwear. “Those, now.”
Taylor’s mouth went drier than two-day-old toast. She didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d do just about anything he wanted. But first it was time to level the playing field.
Clearly impatient for her to begin, he reached for her underwear but Taylor was too fast, evading his hands as she placed a foot on his chest, holding him at bay. “Oh no,” she said. “You first.”
He grinned at her and Taylor’s heart swelled against her ribs. “If I take my clothes off, this is going to end a lot quicker than you might like.”
His gaze wandered up the length of her legs, settling at the black lace frustrating his game plan and he pushed against her foot, reaching for her again.
Taylor pressed her foot harder into his chest. “Nuh-uh,” she chided. “I need to see some skin first.”
Rick growled low in his throat, placing his hands back on his thighs. “Fine,” he said as he reached for his shirt.
He looked at her foot pointedly and Taylor eased it away long enough for him to whip his shirt off but she was quick to replace it. His flesh was warm against hers and she fanned her toes, nails painted a deep burgundy, enjoying in the pillow of muscle caressing her instep.
“Happy?”
Taylor nodded. She was very happy. Even clothed, Rick’s chest was overwhelmingly male, but naked? It was spine-tinglingly virile. Smooth and broad, its West Coast tan and well-defined muscles made it a study in masculine symmetry. Rick had a chest that would have made a bunch of Old Masters weep and her palms tingled in anticipation.
But not yet.
“Now those,” she said, nodding at his shorts.
Rick shook his head. “I’m hoping my shorts serve as some kind of deterrent.”
“Deterrent?” Taylor asked innocently. “I thought you wanted this?”
The look he shot her told Taylor his patience was wearing thin. “If I keep these on I won’t be tempted to … join you until after you’re satisfied. If you get my drift.”
Taylor smiled. Oh, goody. She was pleased his resistance was hanging by a thread, because she was going to go mad if she didn’t feel him inside her immediately. She slid her foot down his chest and then lower, until it was sitting snug against the bulge in his shorts.
“Yeah. I get your drift,” she said as she rubbed her instep along the hard length of him.
“Taylor.” The warning was sexy as hell, as was the touch of his hand on her foot, stilling her movements. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I just want you to take them off. Then I’ll …” she slipped a hand down her belly, her fingertips brushing the lacy edge of her underwear, “take these off.”
Taylor loved how Rick didn’t need any more persuading. He scrambled off the bed, unbuttoned and pushed his shorts down, kicking out of them in no time. His chest rose and fell as he looked down at her but Taylor’s gaze went considerably lower, to the place where her foot had been mere seconds ago.
“You like what you see?” he asked huskily and her breath hitched.
Taylor’s mouth parted. She nodded at his underwear barely containing his erection. “Those too.”
Rick shook his head. Then folded his arms. Clearly, he wasn’t going to budge on this one. “You first.”
Fine by her—this sexy little striptease had been fun but it had gone on long enough. She needed him. Now. On top of her. Around her.
Inside her.
She lifted her hips and stripped away her underwear. Rick’s breath hissed out and her nipples hardened in response.
“Now you.”
In one smooth movement he’d stepped out of his underwear and Taylor was overwhelmed by the physicality of him. By the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of his hips, the power of his long, strong thighs.
And the hard, proud jut of his arousal.
“Rick,” she whispered and held out her arms to him.
He didn’t need further invitation. Suddenly he was beside her then on her, settling himself into the cradle of her pelvis, kissing her and kissing her. Long, hungry, drugging kisses, evoking a kaleidoscope of colors behind her eyelids, oozing a rainbow of sensations down her body, saturating her in pleasure.
His mouth left hers when they were gasping hard, traveling to her neck and lower again, nibbling down to her cleavage. It took all of Taylor’s willpower to pull him back.
“No,” she said, tugging on his shoulders. If she let him start on her body, she’d be lost to a mindless rhythm that he controlled. And it would be good. So good. She knew that. But there would be time for more thorough exploration later. For both of them. Right now all she needed was the hard, hot length of him sliding inside her, taking them to that place they knew so well. Going there together.
She needed to be utterly consumed.
“Shh,” Rick whispered. “It’s okay.” He resume
d his downward journey.
“No,” she said again, tugging on his blond head as she clamped her leg hard around the back of his thigh. “I need you in me, now.”
He frowned, looking like he was about to protest. Rick was a man on a mission and he wasn’t going to be deterred.
“Please, Rick,” she whispered. “Please. I’m going to die if I don’t feel you inside me soon.”
He kissed her then, long and slow, placing his forearms on either side of her head and raising himself up on his elbows, never breaking the kiss. She felt the thick nudge of him between her thighs and she widened to accommodate him. He found her slickness and she gasped against his mouth, lifted her hips to urge him on, to guide him in.
He slid home and she cried out, “Yes!” breaking their kiss as she threw her head back. He buried his forehead in her neck, gasping against her throat as he pulled out and glided in again.
“God, Rick, don’t stop,” she panted as she reveled in the hard thrust of him, her legs locking around his waist.
He sought her mouth then, groaning against her lips as he plunged inside her again, kissing her hard and fierce as he thrust. Kissing her over and over with each wild buck of his hips, building her pleasure, stoking her passion, swallowing her moans as if they were feeding his soul.
“Yes,” he murmured against her mouth, over and over. Every time she gasped, every time she dug her nails into his back. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, punctuating every thrust as he drove her higher.
And higher, until she finally touched the stars. She cried out, pleasure overtaking her quickly—suddenly—radiating under intense pressure from her center like bolts of lightning, streaking to her belly, her buttocks, her thighs, throbbing and pulsing all round her.
Rick’s cry followed hers, the tension in his back and shoulders giving way to violent trembling beneath her hands as his head came up and his back bowed, temporarily stilling the frantic rock of his hips.
“Yes,” Taylor gasped, grabbing hold of his shoulder blades as she urged him on. “Yes. More.”
He gave her more, his hips pistoning at a frenzied pace now, pounding her hard, squeezing every last drop out of her orgasm.
And he didn’t stop until they were both completely spent, collapsing on top of her, his ragged breath warm on her neck, his bulk a comforting weight as Taylor drifted in a delicious haze.
Chapter Twelve
They spent all night making love and didn’t stir until ten the next morning. Rick’s hand whispered over her hip and Taylor stretched languorously, feeling a delicious ache deep inside before snuggling in close to him again.
“You hungry?” he asked, his lips drifting up her nape.
“Starving.”
“How do pancakes sound?”
Taylor looked over her shoulder into watchful blue eyes. “You know how to make pancakes?” She didn’t recall him ever cooking for her before. Takeout seemed to be his specialty.
He grinned at her. “I do.”
Taylor flopped her head back on the pillow. “How about we do it together?” she suggested.
“Mmm,” he murmured, his mouth at her ear now. “I like it when we do things together.”
Taylor smiled, the pulse between her legs a potent reminder. “Yes. I remember.”
He chuckled. “Okay. Together pancakes it is.” He sat up and, displaced, Taylor rolled onto her back and watched him rise from the bed, reach for his discarded jeans and pull them on sans underwear.
“Seen enough?” he asked, amused, as he zipped up.
“I think I could watch you naked all day.”
He grinned as he reached for his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “The feeling,” he said as he turned it on, “is entirely mutual.”
The cell beeped a dozen times with messages and Taylor watched as Rick scrolled through them. “Popular boy,” she murmured.
“Still the supply thing,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen.
She felt a twinge of guilt that he’d turned his phone off yesterday, neglecting his work in favor of her. Guilt that he was stuck in New York because of her when there were obvious problems for him to sort out in LA.
“You should return them,” she said.
“I will.” Rick put his phone in his back pocket. “After breakfast.”
But Taylor knew she hadn’t gone far enough in her insistence. “You probably really should go back and deal with it. It sounds like they need you.”
He placed his hand over his heart and shot her a wounded look. “Trying to get rid of me already?”
Taylor blushed. “Of course not.” After last night, she’d happily chain him to her bed forever. But Rick had only ever been here temporarily. He was a West Coast boy. “I’m just saying, there are obviously issues and given my protection detail, you don’t really need to be here.”
He strode over to her, leaned down and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I’m staying,” he said. “Now get your butt out of bed and help me with these pancakes, woman.”
Taylor smiled. “Yes, sir.”
*
Rick was beating the eggs when Taylor joined him, looking casual and relaxed in a pair of yoga pants and T-shirt. Her hair tumbled loosely around her face and her feet were bare. She was smiling. She looked good. She looked like a woman who’d been thoroughly satisfied.
“Why are you watching this gossip channel?” she asked as she glanced at the television on her way past.
“It has a lot of fashion news and I thought I might see if there’s been any whiff of problems at Forrester Creations. It may be gossipy but it can be uncannily accurate. They have excellent sources.”
“Nothing to do with that gorgeous blond anchor woman?” Taylor asked as she drew up beside him, the perky twenty-something filling the screen with her fresh-faced beauty.
Rick grinned. “No way,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips. “I’m a sucker for brunettes.”
Taylor smiled at him. “Smooth,” she murmured against his lips, kissing him back. “Very smooth.”
“Mmm,” Rick agreed, deepening the kiss, forgetting the eggs.
“This just in,” the blond said as Taylor’s belly protested its emptiness and she pulled out of the kiss. “New York celebrity psychologist Dr. Taylor Hayes, face of the popular Mind Matters segment, was snapped yesterday in a very passionate clinch on Bow Bridge in Central Park.”
Taylor and Rick turned to face the television.
“What the?” Rick said as a picture of the two of them kissing filled the screen. It was a very good quality close-up and very definitely them.
“Sources close to the good doctor say that the lucky man is Rick Forrester, Dr. Taylor’s daughter’s one-time boyfriend.”
Taylor gasped at the image and the accompanying commentary.
“Where the hell did they get that?” Rick demanded. “I didn’t see any paparazzi. Did you?”
Taylor shook her head, but she’d been so wrapped up in the moment that she hadn’t really been paying attention. “No. But there were people with cameras everywhere, Rick. And let’s face it, all you need is a cell phone these days. If someone recognized me, that’s all it would take.”
“What time is it in LA?” He checked his watch. Clearly the question was meant to be rhetorical as he answered it himself. “Almost seven thirty.” He looked at her. “Do you think they’ve seen this yet? I bet you Bill has. He’s probably getting it put up on Eye on Fashion’s blog as we speak. I’ll check it out.”
Taylor’s heart had sunk at the image on the television too—she didn’t want her face or her personal business plastered all over the gossip channels either, particularly with her stalker still at large—but Rick, whose thumb was busy scrolling across his cell screen, seemed more concerned with how the picture would be greeted back home.
His jaw tightened. “Spencer’s got it,” he said as the television report continued with a rehash of Forrester family gossip from over the years. Rick’s lips flattened into a thin line. “I
’m going to sue them,” he muttered. “How dare they invade our privacy like this.”
Was it just that? Was he angry that his privacy had been compromised? Or was it something else? Was he embarrassed or ashamed? Had he been wanting to keep them and what had happened between them some dirty little secret? It certainly wouldn’t go down well in some quarters back in LA.
Taylor watched as he scrolled through his contacts. “Probably too early to get the lawyers but I can leave a message,” he said. But before he could dial, the phone rang and she watched him read the screen.
“It’s Mom,” he said.
Taylor nodded. So obviously it wasn’t too early in LA. Clearly Brooke had seen Bill’s blog. It was too much of a coincidence that she was ringing now.
“You’d better get that.”
*
Rick watched Taylor’s erect back at she headed for the coffee maker and started a new pot. He was incensed that their privacy had been invaded and that Taylor’s safety had been put in danger, but he was more concerned about her apparently calm acceptance of it.
“Taylor.”
“I’m fine, Rick,” she said, her back firmly turned. “Talk to Brooke. She’s just going to keep ringing till you do. I need coffee.”
Rick raked a hand through his hair. A few minutes ago he was still high from an amazing night with Taylor and now all hell had broken loose and his mother was calling his cell, no doubt ready to voice her displeasure. But Taylor was right. If he didn’t answer her now, she’d just keep trying. Brooke was nothing if not persistent.
He walked away from Taylor and slid his finger across the screen. “Hi, Mom,” he said as he lifted it to his ear.
“Is it true?”
“Good morning to you too,” he said.
“Oh, Rick. What were you thinking?” she said. “I told you Taylor just wanted to get her hooks back into you again. I told you this would happen.”
“Mom, this is really none of your business. It’s private, it’s between Taylor and me.”
“None of my business?” Her voice rose at the end and he could picture her standing in her apartment, fuming. “It’s not private now, Rick. The whole damn country knows now.”