“I should’ve used the tub more,” he said.
He was down to his jeans, the zipper open to show the trail of soft dark hair that dipped into his navy briefs. He had his hands clasped in front of his ribs and it popped the muscles of his arms and chest into relief. The candlelight did stupendously wonderful things as it licked over his body. This was such a lucky coupon. She was a lucky, lucky girl to have thought it up.
She pouted at him. “I just did a ridiculous little dance all bent over and worried about third-degree burns and you’re laughing at me.”
“All I saw was a beautiful naked woman get in a hot bath.”
Oh please, please choose the lingerie-shopping coupon.
“And I’ve just realized you’re going to watch me shower. I wasn’t thinking.”
She was completely submerged and covered by bubbles, the curved end of the bath at her back. “Nothing wrong with that from where I’m sitting.”
He grunted in disagreement and shucked his jeans and briefs in one move. She did try not to make him feel self-conscious for about fifteen seconds, but it wasn’t like she’d tricked him into this and he was a big boy, oh, yes, he was, and he could take a little lechery between friends. The thing was, could she?
Tom moving around naked was a quality night’s entertainment. He tried to ignore her in her bed of heat and foam. Good thing he couldn’t hear her moans of appreciation over the shower water. The glass screen fogged a little, but her view was otherwise all wet, well-formed man. He kept his back to her and that was no hardship. She’d had her fingernails in those tight buns. She’d had her legs wrapped around his narrow waist, and drummed her heels on his thick thighs. The channel of his spine was a sinuous curve, made for her lips to explore and just everything, everything about him turned her on.
He soaped up and she let her fingers slide over her hip and tease her opening. He rubbed his jaw and glanced back at her. There was no way he could see her hand, but she stilled anyway. He shaved. She took that as a good sign she wouldn’t have to sleep alone tonight.
The shave was a special act all in itself. He used soap and a razor, angling his face, this way and that, exposing his throat, working fast, with smooth, practiced strokes, his razor-free hand checking, smoothing. She’d like to lay him in a big old barbershop chair and dress up in a man’s suit pants and waistcoat and do that for him, watch his eyes flare when she put the blade to his skin.
Nice fantasy—she’d probably cut him to ribbons.
The real fantasy was now standing over the tub, not able to hide his erection. “Show’s over.” Oh, it wasn’t even intermission. “How do we do this?”
She slid forward and curled over, he stepped in behind her and sat with his knees up, raising the water level.
He put a wet hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to have to come back here.”
With pleasure. She wiggled until her back was snug against his chest, his dick against her sacrum, his legs either side of hers. He lay his arms along the top of the tub, but the walls were high enough he could rest his head on the sloping side.
“Hmmm,” he said.
She could feel him relax, except for that one part of him. She twisted her neck to face him. He had his eyes closed, so he startled her with “Were you pleasuring yourself?”
“Thought about it.”
He opened one eye. “This is a thing we could do in the bath?”
She put a hand to his face, so smooth. The way he checked for permission was smooth too. A power stroke, professionally executed. You didn’t see it coming, but once it was there it hooked and held you. “If you wanted.”
He said, “Yeah, I want,” and his hand went to her throat where he held her while they kissed, then he slipped it down her body, to cup her breast and tweak her nipple, bringing his other hand into play, hitching her thigh, placing her heel on the tub’s side.
The suds had begun to dissolve and they could both see what he was doing, where his fingers were and how they played inside her, until Flick could only see the colored streaks and stars that exploded behind her eyes.
The orgasm was quick to build if you forgot about how enticing the lead-up was, and hit her hard. A lot of water left the tub. She’d had a grip on Tom’s forearm as it banded her ribs, as if she’d needed it to stop from floating away.
“That was nice.” He kissed her temple, keeping her snug against him.
She was knocked out by the warm water, the hot man, relaxed from the inside out and not at all sure her limbs would work. Tongue didn’t want to. “Uh-huh.” He nuzzled in the crook of her neck and she remembered he’d been in a state when he got in the bath. “We can—”
He cut the words off, turning her face to kiss her. She wasn’t at all sure she could’ve finished the sentence let alone attended to Tom. It was like she’d aged a thousand years with the pruning of her fingers.
“I think I broke you.”
She waved an ancient hand. “Temporary.” It’d better be. In the meantime, she let him bundle her out of the bath, wrap her into an enormous bath sheet and dry her, then lead her to bed.
It didn’t feel so bad to be broken when Tom was there to collect her piece by piece. The shame of it was he wouldn’t be there when she got the bad news that would eventually shatter her, and no coupon could fix that.
Chapter Seventeen
The coupons were in the bowl on the coffee table. But Tom wasn’t sure he needed proof of purchase because Flick was more than willing, woke him with kisses so minty he knew she’d already been out of bed, and so purposeful he knew she had a plan.
He checked the clock on his side table. He couldn’t be late into the office this morning, so there wasn’t the time to thoroughly indulge.
“Quickie or head?” she said, between kisses across his chest.
If he didn’t think about it, and since he wasn’t yet upright or caffeinated, he might not worry so much about losing control and rutting into her mouth. And he had an idea about the quickie—it involved being almost fully dressed on the balcony where he thought Flick might get a thrill from the risk of being seen, at a time he chose, when he knew they wouldn’t be.
“Blow me,” he rasped, morning-husky on top of the invasion of lust, and she did. A raspberry on his neck.
“Funny girl.”
“Let’s see if you think I’m funny in about...five—” A kiss with a sweep of tongue into his mouth. “Four—” Wet licks down the middle of his chest. “Three—” Her hand around his thickened cock. “Two—” A slow pump, with a kiss to his crown.
“Ah, Flick.”
She mumbled, “One,” with her mouth around his tip.
Nothing amusing about this, everything was coursing want. He came up on his elbows to watch, taking a handful of her hair in his hand to keep it out of her face. He got her eyes then. They were full of glitter, sparks of light and shards of beauty. She liked doing this. She wasn’t going through the motions like other partners had, or worse, camouflaging reluctance. Or maybe that was him, too worried about how this played out, the potential dominance of it, the gagging, choking, eye-watering awkwardness of it with a partner he was unsure of.
Kneeling between his legs Flick worked him over, making everything wet quickly, his semen, her spit, using her hand and—how, God, how—taking him all the way to the back of her throat.
She swallowed on him and his brain flashed white and his body took over, and he moved her head and used her mouth, and she swallowed again and again and he emptied, long, shuddering streams of come that she took until she couldn’t and finished him with her hand.
He flopped to the pillows, dragging her up his side, and holding her close. They were both a mess and neither of them cared.
He felt like he’d crossed an artificial barrier of his own making. Giving head didn’t have to be a suffered-through experience for a woman, it didn’t
have to be all about him being in control. With the right partner, he could let go, let her run the show.
“There was a girl in college. She’d taken one of those purity pledges. Wore the ring and everything. She wouldn’t have sex with me, but she’d blow me. She wouldn’t let me do more than kiss her. At first I didn’t complain—I liked her—but it didn’t take long to work out she hated giving head, only did it so I wouldn’t leave her.”
“What happened?”
“I stayed with her too long, because I didn’t know how to leave her and it went bad. We were torturing each other. One night I wasn’t careful. I hurt her. Wasn’t intentional, but it happened. I was young and horny and confused and wanted to be a good guy, but I was a jerk. She never spoke to me again. I’ve only now worked out that’s why I’m knotted up about getting blown.”
“I unknotted you?”
Miraculously. He kissed her forehead. “You did.”
“Well, you know there are a lot more coupon experiences that could include that particular activity.”
“But I have to wait a whole twenty-four hours until I can pick another one.”
“Speaking of waiting—I have my period. It’s probably why I was flayed by the bath last night. I’ll be crampy for two days and then ready to go, but you might not want to bother with that.”
“It wouldn’t bother me.” It would’ve; he’d avoided it before. But all the barriers were down now. Flick wasn’t with him because she had to be. “I believe I’m going to dress you for work tomorrow.”
She pulled away. “If I don’t get showered and dress myself now, I’m going to be late.” She scampered across the bed.
Before she left for her own room, he said, “I feel like cooking tonight, will you be around?”
He got a “yeehaw” as his answer.
That night, after they’d eaten, there was a new question. He’d stewed on the answer all day. “Can we talk about beds?” he asked.
Flick was web-surfing for an apartment, but put her tablet aside.
“I’d like us to use only one of them at a time for the rest of the month.”
“You mean you want to sleep together until I leave.”
“We don’t have to have sex every night, but I like having you in bed with me and I don’t know why I tried to be cool about it.”
She made a cartoon-character-like sigh, lots of rolling eyes and shoulder drama, and next thing he knew she was in his arms. “I cried myself to sleep Saturday night when I was alone.”
He lifted her chin. “You did?”
“I thought you were over me.”
He scowled at her. She’d just taken him to the top of the roller coaster and disabled the hand brake. “You did not.”
“I thought about raiding your room and jumping on you, instituting torture by vibrator, or breaking something in the living room. But you tired me out on the walk so I didn’t have it in me to be diabolical. I just missed you instead.”
There was no good damn reason for that to happen. They spent the night in her bed, cuddled close with an alarm set so there was extra time in the morning for him to dress Flick.
She grumbled when it went off. He made coffee and brought it back to bed, and while she sat propped on pillows sipping it, he explored her wardrobe. Never dressed a woman before. Helping her with a coat was about as far in that direction as he’d taken it.
He moved hangers along the rail, recognizing the clothes he’d seen her wear to work. “If you want to kick in with any advice, I’m all ears.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Check. I’m not sending you off in this.” He pulled out a dress that appeared to be missing lots of parts. It was black and hung oddly on the hanger and seemed to be mostly a tube of fabric. “I would like to see you in this.”
“I’ll wear it when we go out to dinner.” One of the tamer coupons suddenly got more interesting.
“Anything else I need to know?”
“I don’t have any more client meetings, so you can’t go wrong if you keep to the work clothes.”
“Does that mean you had to think about what you wore more carefully when you did?”
“To my continual annoyance, yes. Clothes say much more about a woman in a professional setting than a man. You can wear a good suit and a nice tie and be done with it. I have to think about the kind of person I’m meeting and what the job is. Will they want me to be conservative, or show some imagination?”
Ha, so that accounted for the riddle of Wren’s shoes. Sometimes they were playful and sometimes they were unremarkable. She chose her shoes depending on who might be looking at them. “That has to be annoying.”
“If you like clothes, it can be fun. I find it an added stress, getting it right. I have help to shop for what I need. Other women are more talented at knowing how to style themselves. Some of them are artists. It’s a skill and I’m still practicing. That’s why the dark suits and the good tailoring and the bright scarves. It lets me be a little bit of everything.”
He passed the hangers back the other way. “I need to do the whole outfit?”
“I’ll do the underwear, but otherwise if you don’t pick it, I don’t wear it.”
“I’m suddenly paralyzed by choice.”
She laughed. “And I don’t have that extensive a wardrobe.”
There was a dress he liked. He’d seen it once, in the early days. A dark wine color. It had sleeves to the elbows and a scooped neck, and that’s all he remembered about its style, what he remembered was what it looked like on her. Elegant. She’d had her hair up and the pearls that she often left lying around on, and oh heck, no idea what shoes. They were all in a jumble at the bottom of the wardrobe. He’d have to sort through them to come up with a pair of anything.
He looked for the color. Found it and held it up for her approval.
“I haven’t worn that one for a while.”
“Bad choice?”
“Not at all. It’s less formal than I sometimes need, but today is the perfect day for it.”
“You won’t need a jacket.”
“You’re getting the hang of it.”
“Beginner’s luck.” He went to his knees and rummaged. What went with plum wine? “Any hints here?”
“It’s all yours.”
Would she have shoes this color? Wren probably did. He found a black, shiny shoe—couldn’t go wrong with that, surely—but where was the other one? There was a gray shoe and that was smart-looking, the heel less killer than some. He wanted her to be comfortable. That was it, he’d go with the gray.
He put them outside the wardrobe. “Now what?”
“Anything else you think I need.”
He sat on the floor with his back against the wardrobe and sipped his coffee. What else did a woman wear? What else did this woman wear that he liked seeing her in?
“The pearls on the silver chain. The earrings like silver buttons. You have a pearl thing you sometimes put in your hair. You should put your hair up that way you do with it all neat in front and messy at the back. I like the perfume that smells of oranges and when you do whatever it is that makes your eyelashes look a thousand feet long and your eyes hold all the answers.”
“You think I have all the answers when my eyes are made up?”
“I think you have most of them when they’re not.”
“You have spent more time taking notice of me than I imagined, Mr. O’Connell.”
“You’re difficult to ignore.”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
That was entirely true. “Have I given you everything you need not to embarrass yourself in public today?”
“No, I’m missing one thing.”
Dress, shoes, hair, makeup, jewelry. What else was there he’d missed?
“Let me get dressed and I’ll tell you.”
“Does it work for you?”
“I’ve never worn these shoes with this dress before, but they work.”
He ran a finger over his lips. Lip color was missing.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“I have to choose the lipstick?” All these choices before a woman was even out the door.
“After.”
“After what?”
She stepped in close and he smelled oranges. She had a million eyelashes to hide those rusty, knowing eyes behind. He knew the what when her arms looped over his shoulders. He didn’t have to dip his head so much when she wore heels. It was a soft, slow kiss that didn’t make any demands, but filled him with a buzz of happiness. He hadn’t screwed up dressing her and they both liked the effect.
He chose a lipstick she called neutral after failing to work out whether to match her dress or her skin, and deciding less color was more, and it was a whole day till he could enjoy another coupon.
He walked out of the condo and into a day of drama at the office with his head still full of how many decisions a woman had to make before she even got to work. One of their clients had been arrested in a DEA raid. So long, reputation; hello, lawsuit. It caused chaos, and threw everything else on his schedule out of the window.
The one thing he made time for was to call his headhunter. There was no reason why his open job brief couldn’t include other cities. New York, Washington. Nothing to do with Flick specifically, only that she’d opened his eyes to his own career complacency. He could afford to think bigger.
The Love Coupon Page 19