by Lori Wilde
Almost.
Something in his eyes held her in place. Something she could not quite identify. Hadn’t she learned anything yet? Whenever she ran from him she got into trouble. Better to stay here and see this thing through.
Luke leaned back against the tub, bent his knees up and planted his feet on either side of her hips. Her legs were extended underneath his. The heart-shaped tub was plenty big enough, and her limbs short enough, for her to stretch out completely.
Her breasts floated on the water. Not too small, not too big. Perky and peeking through the bubbles.
Luke was eyeing them surreptitiously, trying not to be obvious, but the heat of his gaze caused her nipples to pucker and extend.
The scented white candles on the counter flickered, the smell of coconut in the air. The music was fluid, sweet. Vivaldi, she guessed, not up on her classical composers.
Or perhaps Pachelbel. Soft and low.
High-tech. High-class. Little Callie Ryder from Winslow, Georgia had never even dreamed of such luxury. Candles and music and champagne and a heart-shaped tub. It smacked of romance.
It smacked of love.
She had to do something to shake this romantic feeling. What they needed was serious sex. Now.
“Soap me up,” she said.
He fumbled for the soap, lost it, caught it and then rubbed it against the washcloth he plucked from the towel rack beside them.
Two apple martinis and a glass of champagne on an empty stomach, a near sideswipe from a careening car, mixed with the sleepy effects of the steaming bath and the blow job she’d given him, conspired to make her woozy and drunk with the moment.
She was alive and in the bath with the most incredibly tender tough guy ever to walk into her corner of the world. Even her most avid listeners wouldn’t have bought into this fantasy. It was too unbelievable.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, “and tilt your head back.”
When she obeyed, he moved above her, simultaneously kissing her eyelids with his hot mouth while his rough masculine hands stroked the washcloth gently along her throat.
He cleaned her arms and shoulders and fingers, brushing and caressing and massaging her skin with the cloth. Then he bathed her feet and her ankles, slid slowly up her calves to her knees and on to her sensitive, throbbing thighs. Callie bit down on her bottom lip as he lingered too long on her inner thighs.
She kept her eyes closed, savoring the sensation. She was good at this, enjoying sensual pleasure. Always had been. She saw nothing wrong with pleasing her body, had no hang-ups, guilt or inhibitions associated with physical release.
Where Callie got tangled up was when the guy wanted more. A commitment. A promise. Happily-ever-after. She really didn’t believe in any of that. Her parents’ sorry marriage had been proof enough that lust makes promises that love can never keep.
So she never made promises about love and things had rocked on just fine. This was the way she liked it.
Just as she liked what was going on below her neck. Luke was doing such a bang-up job of swirling that warm washcloth over her belly.
Was he headed up or down?
Her body tensed and then started tingling as she tried to anticipate his next move.
He surprised her by abandoning the washcloth on her belly and reaching to skim his fingers over her face, outlining her bones with the pads of his fingertips. A blind man learning Braille.
Then he cupped her face in both his hands and he stopped moving. She wanted to open her eyes, to see what was happening, but she was too afraid to meet his gaze. Too scared of the expression she might spot in his eyes.
She could feel his breath on her cheeks. He said nothing. Neither did she.
A minute ticked by. Pachelbel or Vivaldi shifted into Mozart. Him, she recognized. She’d had an instructor in college who insisted on playing Mozart while they took exams.
Finally, she could stand the suspense no longer and cautiously pried open one eye.
Luke’s face was right in front of hers and he was looking at her as if she was one of the seven wonders of the world.
Stop looking at me like that, she wanted to shout but didn’t. I’m not unique or special or great.
He kissed her and cupped her breasts in his warm, soapy palms. Her nipples beaded even harder beneath his hands and he thumbed them ever so slightly.
They exhaled at the same time, breathing out each other’s air.
She thought he was quivering, then realized it was her, shaking so hard the water rippled.
“What now?” he whispered. “What do you want me to do next?”
Tell him to get out of the tub, to dry off, to go sleep on the sofa.
But she didn’t do that. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Just don’t let it mean anything. Make him understand that.
“Luke,” she murmured.
“Yes?”
“This really is just about sex you know.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to read any more into this than there is.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve made that abundantly clear. So just tell me what to do next. Your every wish is my command.”
Her mouth was so dry she could barely answer. She wet her lips. “Touch me.”
“Where?”
“Down there.” She parted her thighs.
He slipped his hand between them, his fingers curling around her mound. He watched her expectantly, awaiting more instructions.
“Put your middle finger inside me.”
He dipped his middle finger over her budding cleft but did not plunge past into her warm moistness.
“In me,” she whispered.
Instead he put the slightest of pressure against her clit.
Go in, go in.
He did not. He just sat there, staring into her eyes, finger cocked and ready to make her beg. Ah, how quickly he was catching on.
She sucked air.
Then, with the joint of his middle finger riding her most sensitive button, he slid the rest of the finger inside her.
She pushed her pelvis against his hand, slid down in the tub until the water was lapping at her ears. She was on the edge of a dark peak, surrounded by the feel of his finger, the warm wetness of the water, the smell of coconut, the sound of Mozart and the sight of his gorgeous, muscular body. It had been a long time since she’d felt so engulfed.
Callie wanted him too much. The passion was consuming her. She’d slipped too far. Water filled her nose.
Sputtering, she sat up, sneezing water and wiping the soap bubbles from her eyes, killing the moment.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
For nothing, for everything. For causing his downfall. For corrupting a principled man.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yes there is, I should never have…”
“Shh,” he murmured, laying a finger over her lips. “Shh.”
Then he was draining the water from the tub, reaching for a towel. “Stand up.”
She obeyed him. He wrapped her up tightly and then gently led her from the bathroom toward the bed.
“Now,” he said. “Let’s get comfortable.”
He arranged the pillows, piling them high and then easing her down onto her back atop them. He lay on his side next to her and began walking his fingers down her arm. “How do you want to be touched right now?”
“Kid gloves,” she whispered and his eyes lit with such feverish delight she knew he understood. “Feather fine. Lots and lots and lots of foreplay.”
“What? Where? How?”
“Stroke me.”
Tentatively, he reached out and with an incredibly light caress grazed the base of his palm over her collarbone.
Callie shivered.
“What else do you like?” he probed.
“Kiss my throat while you’re stroking me.”
And so he did.
His hand was a silken glide, his lips delicious. He swirled his f
ingers over her navel. Softly and sweetly he kissed the leaping pulse at her neck.
Short kisses were dropped down the length of her throat, and then tiny succulent nibbles.
She let her head fall back against the pillows. “Go lower.”
“With my hands or my mouth?”
“Both.”
He dipped his head, trailing his tongue down the middle of her chest to the flat of her sternum before he veered off into other territory. Her nipples beaded hard in greeting.
All the while his lips were finding her breasts, his hand was dancing around the juncture at her thighs. She parted her legs slightly, just enough to let him slip a finger or two between them.
He suckled first one nipple and then the other while strumming her clit lightly with an index finger.
She tilted her pelvis, arched her back. “More,” she insisted. “More.”
And then his mouth and his fingers were in the same place and he had moved around so that his head pointed south. His lips closed around the tiny throbbing head of her cleft while his fingers tickled the entrance of her womanhood.
Lacing her fingers around his neck, she muttered “Yes, yes.”
She rode the flow of emotions, navigating the swell of pleasure and desire and discovery with accomplished ease. His warmth enveloped and she experienced a sense of safety with him that she’d rarely felt before.
He was lifting her up to a place she’d never known existed. She loved the adventure of him and was fascinated by this aspect of him.
Then she was seized by a sudden bittersweet feeling. This moment could not last. She closed her eyes, determined to ignore the sadness. Besides, this was all she needed. This brief slice of delight. She wasn’t a commitment kind of gal. No reason to be sad. She was having fun and he was doing some very nice things with his tongue.
Luke’s feet were pressed against the headboard, his long masculine legs parallel to her face. His hard shaft poked into her ribs.
She had a wicked thought. Time he learned about sixty-nine.
Callie turned toward him, curling her spine outward while at the same time shifting her pelvis closer to his mouth and dipping her chin so she could rim the head of him with her tongue.
He gave a yelp of pleased surprised. His mouth was on her most feminine lips while at the same time she stretched her own mouth over the expansive width of his penis.
His tongue was hot and wet. So was hers.
She swirled. He licked.
Up and down, around and around, they were both moaning and writhing, consumed by pleasure.
On and on they went. He on her, she on him. Licking, sucking, tasting. Glorious sensations rippled through her body, turning her inside out.
They increased the tempo as the pressure built, rising to an inevitable crescendo.
Callie mewled soft whenever he did something right, grunted when he made a wrong move. It didn’t take him long to pick up her rhythms, learn what she liked and give her more of it.
She took him deeper until she felt him pressing against the back of her throat, juicy and slick. She rolled her lips back, stretching wider to accommodate his bigness. She wanted to swallow all of him. She breathed in the heady smell of his sex.
Finally, Luke broke away, pulling his mouth from her throbbing anxious clit. “I can’t stand it anymore. I have to be inside you.”
“Condoms,” she gasped, so addled by passion she was impressed that she had remembered. Thank heavens.
“I’m on it,” Luke said, swinging his legs off the bed and disappearing into the sitting area. He returned in a matter of seconds with the brown paper sack from the airport, but she was already drifting down from the pinnacle.
“Hang on,” he panted, ripping open the box with his teeth and sending packets of condoms flying around the room. One smacked Callie on her belly.
“Let me.” She laughed and peeled open the foil wrapping. He was already in bed again. Callie popped the condom between her teeth and proceeded to use the old “roll the banana” trick on him.
He groaned, took her by the shoulders and flipped her onto her back. He was trembling so hard he could barely mount her.
And then he was inside.
She’d never had a man so thick, filling her up until she feared she might not be able to take any more.
“You’re so wet, dripping wet for me.”
He was so damned beautiful. Hard, lean, a fine spray of dark hair between his nipples. Her hips twitched against his, the muscles between her thighs clenching almost viciously.
Their breathing changed, getting hoarser, raspier. Their coupling was primal now. Fierce and hungry. He plunged heedlessly into her. Driving them closer and closer to the edge.
They were almost there. Both of them. Ready to come together. As one.
Ah-ah-ah. Callie made a noise, desperate, hungry.
He must have misinterpreted her sound of encouragement and thought she wanted him to hurry when she wanted the exact opposite. He began to pump faster, sliding in and out of her, quickening his rhythm.
Why was he speeding up when they’d been so in sync before? If he kept this up, he was going to go off without her. Half-cocked.
He’s too inexperienced to know he’s blowing a perfect game.
And then Luke just stopped.
Callie felt as if she’d been left hanging out the open door of a moving car, her hips and butt still suspended on the seat but with her upper body dangling above the roadbed as the asphalt spun away beneath her.
Bizarre sensation.
She realized her shoulders and head had slipped off the bed and she was indeed dangling.
“You’re falling.” Luke slipped out of her and gently moved her back onto the pillows.
They looked at each other.
“I was going too fast,” he said.
She nodded.
“Tell me these things. Don’t let me be a bad lover,” he pleaded, and the words were bittersweet arrows into her heart.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, “it’s hard for two people to get used to each other’s skin. It takes a while to learn each other. It’s not like in the movies.”
“Tell me more.”
“What about this big guy?” She reached down to cup his burgeoning cock.
“Forget him for now. He survived nine years without your tutelage, he’ll survive nine more minutes.”
She stroked him but kept talking, low and soothing. “Everyone contains so many familiar ways of making love, of being in their bodies, of being with other people. When a new person comes along who does things differently the strangeness can be something of a shock.”
“I shock you?” he asked.
“Mister,” she said huskily, “you have no idea.”
“How do we overcome this strangeness?”
“No way through it…” she started to say.
“Except to do it,” he finished for her.
They smiled at each other.
He stroked her chin and the gesture was so tender Callie had an urge to burst into tears. Hormones, she told herself. That’s all it was. Instead, she kept talking, ignoring the poignant emotions stirring inside her.
She could not afford to like this guy too much. They had no future together. She had no future with any man. Trouts and Harleys and all that. She was the Midnight Ryder. Callie belonged to the listening public. She had Buck Bryson’s time slot. That was all she needed.
Or so she kept telling herself.
Besides, no matter how much Luke wanted her sexually, he really didn’t want her for happily-ever-after. She knew this, even if he did not. She was too wild for a controlled man like him. He needed a perky do-gooder who labeled her clothes and put lavender-scented sachets in her panty drawer. He needed a sweet-natured woman who wanted nothing more than to marry him, take care of him and have his babies.
That most decidedly was not her.
Maybe that’s what was wrong. They were stuck in this moment. Inwardly, he wanted someone he could
make love with, find familiar customs and landmarks with, slide into a future with. Whereas she wanted the opposite. Someone to lose herself in without boundaries. Someone she could slide out of the past with.
And so they were stuck.
Her mind hung in the past; his in the future, the timeless present unfolding into unforeseen depths before them. Here everything was shared. There was nothing to grab hold of and cling onto in the dark except for each other.
So they floated.
Together. On a bed in Orange County, California. Strangers yet intimates. Tentative, searching, scared.
His lips made a gentle connection with hers. Callie sighed into him.
“You’re thinking too much,” he whispered.
She nodded. It was true.
“Let me take you someplace out of your head.”
She spread her legs. “Come inside.”
He complied, moving much slower, taking his time. “Callie.”
Tears pushed at the back of her eyes. The way he said her name filled her with vulnerability. They were no longer having hot sex. They were truly making love.
That thought would have frozen her stiff if he hadn’t been doing all the right things this time, making all the right moves, leading her gently where she so anxiously wanted to go.
Her body vibrated like the steadiness of a plane engine soaring through the clouds. Up he lifted her. Up. Up. Up.
First passion overwhelmed her heart, the hot tears of joy flowing down her cheeks. So long, so long she’d been waiting for this.
For him. The heat spread through her, exploding in a vivid burst of energy.
She heard herself moan, heard him groan as the impact of orgasm gripped him.
His hands shook as he held her torso steady. He thrust into her again and again. His entire being seemed to slide deeper and deeper into hers until she could not differentiate where her body stopped and his began.
Then she felt something earth-shattering. Something she had never experienced before.
It was as if his soul had leaped from his body and shot straight into hers along with his orgasm.
He cried out as his essence poured out of him, imbuing her with streaming currents of his masculine energy.
Together, they melted.
Nothing else existed.
Not Luke the ultraserious bodyguard. Not the sassy, trash-talking Midnight Ryder. Even the room was gone, disappearing in the laser beam moment of blissful orgasmic feeling.