“Why?” He kissed her softly. Whatever was making her panic, he needed to reverse it. Immediately. “Don’t you like that?”
She blushed and wrapped her arms around his neck. He let her pull him with her as she lay back.
“It doesn’t really do anything for me,” she whispered, eyes closed.
He fought the urge to smile. “Are you sure?”
Her eyes popped open and she looked indignant. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“So, you were willing to suck me off in the hall just now, but you don’t enjoy receiving.” He gave her a half smile. “You’re a guy’s wet dream, Rachel Marsh.”
Her eyes went wide and he swallowed any protest she might have had with another deep kiss. When she tried to push at him he easily got hold of her wrists and pinned them over her head out of the way. He stretched his body higher over hers and his cock jumped as it settled so close to her wet heat. She groaned in agreement and tried to shift toward him, encouraging him to plunge inside.
She wasn’t getting out of this so easily, and his cock was just going to have to wait.
“Hold on.” He wrapped her fingers around the wrought iron headboard of his bed. “Hold on or I’ll tie you down,” he added when she resisted.
She held on.
“Let me change your mind.” He rose up on hands and knees above her and let his gaze roam the length of her body. “Please,” he added for good measure, nipping at her sweet, fat bottom lip.
He looked at her for an answer, but she gave none.
“You can tell me to stop at any time. Let me try.” He trailed his fingertips down the line of her neck. “I want to taste you,” he told her, his eyes locked on hers as his fingers moved through the valley between her breasts and just under the swell of one. “I want to lick and kiss and suck until you’re begging for more and pleading for mercy all in the same breath.”
Those beautiful, erotic lips of hers parted on a sharp gasp and she shuddered.
His fingers continued to make a wide circle around her breast, moving in smaller and smaller circles toward her peaked nipple. “What do you say?”
“I can say stop any time?”
He rolled her nipple between his fingertips.
“Any time,” he assured her, sucking on the swollen little nub of flesh.
Her back arched and she sighed deliciously. He slid both of his hands up her arms and curled his fingers around hers.
“Hold on tight,” he told her, kissing her deeply, lingering on the delicious heat of her mouth, empowered by the feel of her relaxing beneath him, trusting him.
He used his knees to spread her legs wide, exposing her. With just his mouth, he took his time working his way down her body. He nipped at her neck, causing her to whimper softly. He lavished her breasts with attention, circling her taut nipples with his tongue, getting them good and wet before blowing on them softly and then pulling them deep into his mouth.
The feel of her body arching high into his touch and the sound of the bedframe creaking with the strain of her pulling on it drove him on. He trailed kisses along her side and nipped at her waist, making her jerk and laugh, but she never let go of the grip she had on his headboard.
“Look at how beautiful you are,” he told her, settling himself onto the mattress on his stomach between her legs, the slick pink of her sex spread wide open to him.
Her eyes closed and she turned her head as though she couldn’t bear to watch.
“Rachel.” He bit the inside of her thigh to get her attention. “Watch me.”
Her eyes opened and she obeyed, looking at him down the long line of her body. Past where her breasts trembled from the strain of her arms pulling against the metal bars of the bed. Past where her belly rose and fell with each panting breath.
Ben slid his hands up the inside of her thighs and used his thumbs to open her wider, exposing her small, swollen clit. He touched his mouth to it with a small, sucking kiss and she stopped breathing. He circled her with his tongue, then sucked harder. The breath she’d been holding came out in a long, ragged “Oh”. He covered her with his mouth again and his laughing at her reaction made her wriggle and gasp.
“Hey.” He bit the inside of her leg to get her attention when her eyes closed again. “I said watch.”
He waited until she did and then dove in, licking, sucking, kissing, even using his teeth to draw out the fine line between pleasure and pain that had her crying out beautifully in no time. The iron bedframe groaned louder under the strain of her pulling as her body arched and bowed. He moved his hands to the backs of her knees, pushing them up high and wide, immobilizing her enough to keep her from either suffocating him or squirming out from under him as he drove her body.
Lusty moans and sighs turned to desperate little gasps. She sat up and clutched at him, whispering, “Stop. Please. I want…oh God…inside. Now!”
The grip she got on his hair only spurred him on. He twisted his wrist out of her other hand and buried two fingers deep inside her, fucking her with them slowly. She fell back onto the bed and cried out as her hips started to rock, undulating against his mouth, riding his fingers. He sucked in time to the rhythm of her body as she started to throb beneath his mouth and around his fingers.
He had to ease his hips off the bed to relieve the pressure off his cock and keep himself from coming all over the comforter.
He went back up onto his knees when her body went limp. Her pussy tightened around his fingers and she groaned as he pulled out of her. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, lying there breathless with her legs still spread for him. He was overwhelmed by the sight of her, her face, neck and chest flushed hot with arousal, a fine sheet of sweat covering her body and her hair a wild mess of curls.
He covered her mouth with his and let her taste herself on his lips, his tongue.
She moaned a little when he stopped. He waited for those killer green eyes to drift open before he asked, “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
Chapter Seven
God, she’d never felt so alive. Every single one of her nerve endings was humming with pleasure and she was close to either laughing hysterically or weeping with joy.
Lips close to her ear, Ben said, “Tell me why you were so afraid of that.”
Rachel cooled instantly.
“Not here,” she whispered, blushing. She could barely look him in the eye. “This isn’t the place.”
A little frown twitched between his eyebrows, then disappeared.
“I think we have more important matters at hand anyhow,” she said, recovering somewhat as she curled her fingers around his erection.
The groan that rolled up out of his throat burned like wildfire through her.
“Yes.” He shivered as she stroked him. “There’s that.”
She wet her thumb with the bead of moisture leaking from the tip and spread it over the hot, swollen head.
“It’s your turn,” she said, shifting one and then the other of her legs between his. His eyes went wide. A knowing smile crept over his gorgeous mouth when he caught on to what she was doing.
He crawled a couple of feet up the bed as she shifted down until she was lying between his legs, face-to-face with his glorious cock. She gripped him, stroking his length, and looked up. Oh, he was watching all right. With a smile on her face, she stuck her tongue out as far as it would go, licked the salty slit at the tip. She was rewarded with the long, shuddering release of his breath.
She slid her free hand up the back of his thigh to stroke the smooth, firm skin of his ass as she sucked the head of his cock into her mouth. The fact that he could—having the advantage of the upper position, strength and size—at any moment plunge deeper than she was able to take him was both wildly thrilling and absolutely terrifying.
She teased and sucked and swirled her tongue until she could see the muscles of his stomach above her trembling with restraint. She wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and eased the pressure off his backside, then su
cked him back in. They quickly fell into a rhythm until he was fucking her mouth, whispering dirty, encouraging things to her, stoking the heat between her legs as she gradually took more of him farther down her throat.
But when she dug her nails into his ass and let go of his cock to cradle his balls, pushing them gently into his body and stroking the sensitive skin behind them with her fingertips, he suddenly gripped himself and pulled free.
She opened her mouth to ask what she’d done wrong, but he grabbed her under her arms and hauled her back up the bed.
“I need more,” he panted, opening a nightstand drawer for a condom. “No…that…you…are amazing.” He laughed breathlessly at her expression as he tore the wrapper open with his teeth. “I don’t want to come down your throat.” He sucked a sharp breath through his teeth as he rolled the condom over himself. “I want to be buried all the way inside you.” He dropped to his hands over her, kissed hard.
Her legs automatically came up around him as he stretched his body over hers.
“Yes, baby, hold me tight,” he ground out through his clenched teeth as he slid into her, inch by amazing inch.
She sighed out his name as he buried himself to the root, loosened the grip she had on his waist and angled her hips as he shifted up her body, burying himself even deeper. She pulled her legs up high and gripped his rib cage with her knees.
“Don’t be gentle,” she told him, clicking her tongue twice and giving him a little kick in the ass as though he were a pony.
He rolled his hips in a tight circle and she nearly came out of her skin at the pressure of the movement on her clit.
“Hold on, cowgirl,” he chuckled, pulling back and then slamming back into her.
She clutched at him as he drove her wildly, ruthlessly, to a screaming climax. And when he rocked his hips through his own orgasm, the aftershocks that rippled through her as she felt every twitch and pulse of his body really did bring tears to her eyes.
* * * * *
“Are your parents still in Homewood?” Ben asked. He was standing at the stove in nothing but a pair of red-and-white board shorts, pouring whipped eggs into a pan.
Rachel was sitting at the little breakfast counter between the kitchen and living room in his apartment, wearing one of his t-shirts and her barely there underpants. She was wide awake despite her body feeling deliciously loose-jointed.
“My mother moved to New Mexico to live near my aunt after I decided I wanted to spend most of my time in London between tours on the boats.” She fiddled with the glass of ice water he’d given her, turning it in place in its small puddle of condensation. “She lives in a green community in a house made out of up-cycled tires. It’s pretty cool really. All the houses are completely off the grid as far as power usage goes. Everyone knows everyone in her little village. Her neighbor on the one side is a retired actress who’s now in her early seventies and writes mystery novels under a pen name.
“I can’t tell you her real name as I have been threatened with a long, slow torture if I do.” She smiled sweetly when he gave her a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder. “I can tell you her pen name is Max LeFevre though.”
His eyebrows went up and he turned toward her, omelette pan in hand.
“I’ve read all of the Gage Knight books.” He looked incredulous. “You’re telling me a seventy-year-old woman writes those?”
Gage Knight was the main character in a paranormal mystery series about a private investigator, who may or may not have had a legion of God’s highest-ranking angels as well as the Devil himself in his back pocket. The books were hip and edgy, and peppered throughout with some of the dirtiest sex scenes Rachel had ever read.
“A seventy-three-year-old mother of three, grandmother of seven and soon-to-be great-grandmother of one writes those,” she clarified.
He narrowed his eyes again. “You sure you can’t tell me her real name?”
She shrugged in mock helplessness. “Sorry.”
His cool, dark eyes sharpened. “What if I torture it out of you myself?”
“I’d love for you to try some time, but not on an empty stomach.”
He slid the eggs onto a waiting plate. “It does kind of take all the fun out of the game if you cave too fast because you’re undernourished and weak,” he told her, leaning across the counter to kiss her, making the room sway once more.
“My mom invited me out there when I told her I was ready to come home,” she said when set the plate in front of her. “My dad’s still in Homewood. He offered to let me stay with him too, but I really love the city.”
He nodded. “I know what you mean. Even when I start working at the Homewood Center full time, I don’t know that I’ll move there. Not right away, anyway.”
“You’ll be the only car on the road heading out of Chicago during rush hour.”
“Which will be all right with me.” He laughed and started cracking eggs for himself into the mixing bowl.
She dropped her fork at the sound of keys in the front door. Ben looked at the clock on the wall above the stove, then at her.
“I didn’t realize it was so late,” he observed mildly, picking up the mixing bowl and whisking his eggs as though his roommate coming home while a half-naked overnight guest sat at his kitchen counter was no big thing.
With no time to safely dash off to Ben’s room without being seen, Rachel made sure the hem of his shirt was tucked around her so Alex couldn’t see her nearly bare bottom.
She watched open-mouthed as tall Alex fell through the door with tiny Bree clinging to him, both of them still dressed in scrubs. Ben, apparently unfazed, turned and poured his eggs into the hot pan. Alex and Bree froze comically, eyes wide and mouths agape, when they realized the lights were on and they weren’t alone.
“Rach,” Bree chirped as the big redhead set her on her feet. “Fancy seeing you here.” She was grinning ear to ear as she looked from Rachel to Ben, who was busy attending to his breakfast.
“Rachel.” Alex nodded to her and dropped his keys onto the table just inside the door. He looked at the discarded clothes she and Ben hadn’t yet picked up off the floor and then at his roommate. “Benjamin.”
Ben flipped his omelette with a quick flick of the wrist and waved without looking.
Alex bent at the knees and clapped his hands once.
“Up,” he said to Bree, who hopped onto his back.
“Bye, sweetie,” Bree whispered, wiggling her fingers at Rachel as she was carried piggyback down the hall to Alex’s room.
Rachel looked at Ben. They stared at one another before he shook his head and she started to giggle. Ben turned to pile meat and cheese into the pan.
“It looks like Petra struck twice this time,” he said, folding his eggs over and sliding them onto the second waiting plate.
She sat up straighter. “What does that mean?”
He got another fork from the drawer. “You mean you don’t know?” He set his plate on the counter and sat across from her. “I find that hard to believe.” When she just looked at him he added, “Your friend fancies herself something of a cupid from what Jude tells me. She’s been using her key parties to set people up. So far she’s got two engagements and one couple buying a house together on her résumé.”
Rachel’s mouth went dry and she put her fork down, the bite still stuck to the end.
She knew Petra had her secrets. To tell Rachel she held sex parties without revealing she had a motive—in this case to set up friends she thought might be well-suited for each other—was typical really. But why would Ben know and not her?
“I thought maybe she was going for you and I this time, you know, what with the sticker on my car key, but maybe she had someone else in mind too.” He shook pepper onto his eggs and then pointed to her plate with the shaker. “How’s your breakfast?”
She started and looked down at the forgotten bite, her mind racing. She could hardly get her head around the implication of what he was saying. Did that oh so casual comment
he’d just made mean he thought Petra was right about them or not?
She picked up her fork because he was watching her expectantly and put it in her mouth. Her eyes rolled closed. It was nothing fancier than eggs, ham and Swiss cheese, and it had gotten a little cold, but it was absolute heaven nonetheless.
He was smiling when she opened her eyes. “I’ll take that as a good sign.”
She nearly choked on her food when a high-pitched, girlie squeal followed by deep male laughter came out of the back bedroom.
Ben hung his head and muttered, “Fucking Alex.”
“What was that?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I hear it way too often.”
Rachel sipped her coffee, knowing she was going to need it. If it was late enough in the morning that Bree was off work, it was too late to sleep before her interview later that morning.
She cut another bite. “You’re going to be tired at work today.”
He smiled. “I don’t have to be anywhere until late morning. There’s still time for a power nap between now and then.” He leaned over their plates and kissed her. “Last night was hands down worth losing sleep over.”
She could feel her heart pick up the pace and warned it to be a little more cautious.
Sounds of talking drifted to them down the hallway. There was a heavy thump followed by more laughter.
“Are you going to be able to sleep with the two of them in the next room?”
“I am blessed with the ability to sleep through air raid sirens if I’m tired enough. And if that doesn’t work…” He shook his head again when there was yet another squeal from Bree. “I have really good earplugs,” he assured her.
He watched her thoughtfully while they both fell silent, eating.
“Are you ready to tell me why you have such a hang-up about that yet?” He pointed in the general direction of her crotch with his fork, his eyes lit with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.
Rachel took her time chewing while she processed her answer, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember why she’d clung to that old hurt for so long.
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