Felicity Stripped Bare

by Vanessa Jaye

  “So what does this mean?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t.

  “Does it have to mean anything more than we want each other?”

  She felt his fingers spread out and edge under her robe. “I’ve never been in love,” he said carefully, not pretending that he didn’t understand what she was really asking. “Don’t even think I know how to.”

  But did he want to?

  He bent closer, pressing his mouth to the corner of hers. “What I do know…is how to make love. How to give pleasure and how to take my own,” he whispered hotly against her cheek.

  “I know the magic of taste.” He trailed kisses down the curve of her neck that ended in a kittenish lick. “And the tease…of a single touch.” She felt his hand on her breast and a thumbnail scrape over her nipple. Felicity gasped and this time he plucked at her then rolled the nub between finger and thumb.

  “It wouldn’t be just sex, Felicity. Not between us.” He must have felt her stiffen slightly because his voice was ragged when he said, “Tell me to stop…” His voice dropped lower, barely more than a stirring of warm air against flesh. “And I will.” He made no other movement.

  Neither did she.

  Then he was pressing her backwards onto the mattress, his face hovering over hers, his eyes gleaming through their thick fringe of lashes. “It’s way too late stop now isn’t? We both know it. We both want this.”

  His mouth covered hers, warm, firm, persuasive and she opened to him, reveling in the sweet punishment of lips that touched her so reverently, so lovingly, when she knew it was merely lust.

  “This is enough, then,” she whispered when he broke their kiss. A few golden locks of hair had escaped his ponytail and she twined their silky texture about her finger. “If I can’t have more, I’ll settle for this.”

  Daniel stared down into her eyes, wanting to make wild promises, make her believe that whatever this was between them, it was more than sex.

  He buried his face in the cascade of her loose tresses, breathing in the fresh clean scent of her. Hiding from her eyes and from himself. He knew at some point he was going to hurt Felicity. Despite what she’d just said, he could tell, by her eyes, she wasn’t settling—she still wanted more, more than he was prepared to give.

  But he couldn’t put aside this selfish, powerful want. The anticipation of finally making love to her was like a needle’s promise to an addict. He craved her, her touch, her kiss. Everything.

  Daniel sealed his mouth to hers again. He drank in her sweetness, siphoned off her passion, then fed it back to her. Her lips were like wine, heady and intoxicating, the skin below her chin slightly salty beneath his tongue, the curve of her neck flavored with her perfume. She was a feast and he would be a glutton tonight.

  He rose up on his knees between her splayed legs and stripped off his shirt, then he pushed off her robe.

  “Beautiful,” tumbled from his mouth. Mine, echoed in his thoughts, but he didn’t want to think; he just wanted to feel and taste.

  His next kiss was complete and merciless, demanding total surrender.

  And Felicity gave it.

  She was filled with sinking want as his mouth devoured and delivered, tasted and nipped. He gentled with his tongue, incited with his lips, trailing wish-soft kisses down her neck as he moved lower.

  Wet openmouthed heat pressed across her breasts till Daniel took a nipple between his teeth and bit down gently. Felicity arched off the bed, cursing under her breath as her hands raked through his hair, holding him closer as he suckled deeply.

  Daniel cradled her ribs in his hands, his thumbs tracing lazy circles on her sides before his calloused palms swept down over her hips, then up her inner thighs. Bracing her wide open as he hooked his thumbs under the crotch of her panties.

  “God, you’re so wet. So fucking hot.” He stroked his tongue into her mouth as the rough tips of his thumb pads rubbed lightly over her.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still hear his heavy breathing, still feel the weight of him and the springy hairs on his chest scratch softly against her naked flesh.

  He traced circles round her throbbing nub, over and over again, varying the firmness and speed, drawing her arousal out like a fine tensile wire almost to breaking. Felicity moved her hips forward then away, seeking, seeking—

  With perfect timing Daniel gave her just what she needed. He parted her flesh, thumbs pushing into her clenching body. Rotating his digits to pull apart and press, then delve deeper while his tongue snaked around her mouth, mirroring the movements of his hands.

  Felicity felt the coiling craziness build inside her, and she moved frantically, her ears filled with the sounds of their lovemaking—the muffled slide of damp skin, the smack of wet hungry kisses and their mingled breathy moans.

  He moved his hands from her hot soaked center, swallowing first her groans of protest then of satisfaction as he settled fully onto her.

  She raised her knees, spreading her thighs further, as the complete length of his thick hard cock lodged against the sodden lace at her crotch. He pressed down firmly, grinding against her, causing every muscle, every nerve, in her body to gather in on itself in a dense crushing mass of sensation.

  Then, exquisitely…nothing.

  A pause…before…the raw explosion of orgasm.

  Daniel ate at her mouth, feeding off her cries; so hard he was almost ready to spill.

  He rose up on his knees and looked his fill. Damn, she was hot. Beautiful. His. From her full breasts with the nipples still glistening with his kisses, to the damp scrap of material bunched between her slit. Daniel traced a finger down the plump cleft, pushing into her sweet little body and was gifted with a guttural moan as she pumped her hips in response.

  He pulled his hand from her wetness and holding her gaze, slipped the finger into his mouth, then slowly withdrew it, sucking off her cream.

  She reached out to him. “Please.”

  “I aim to.” He stood up, toeing off his shoes as he reached into his briefs and eased his cock out. He stroked himself as Felicity’s blatant, hungry, expression egged him on.

  “I call sharesies.” She licked her lips, sliding her panties off.

  Hell if he didn’t wonder how that lick would have felt for real. Daniel groaned and squeezed the head of his dick. He wouldn’t last a minute with her the first time, but it would be a minute of Paradise.

  Then it would be a very, very long night.

  He started pushing the thigh-length BVDs down past his hips. “You have protection?”

  She seemed flustered for a minute, but nodded.

  As he removed the last of his clothing, she flipped over on her stomach and started a part-wiggle, part-crawl across the bed. Damn!

  He was a mere man, flesh and blood. How was he supposed to resist temptation like that? He went after her, capturing her around the hips as she reached into the drawer of the bedside table.

  He took a nip out of one firm ass cheek, and kissed it better as he guided her up onto her knees. Then he urged her legs further apart as he angled his head to delve into the folds of slippery flesh with his tongue.

  He lapped and probed, drank in her sweetness, until she was moving against his mouth with increasing urgency, her moans and mewls causing him to grow painfully harder. He wouldn’t last if he didn’t stop now.

  So he did, and laughed softly at her dismay. Daniel came over her then, his chest pressed against her back, his cock trapped between the damp heat of their two bodies and took the foil package from her hand. He stopped her when she tried to turn over.

  “No,” he whispered into her ear. “Like this…at first.”

  He felt a shudder run though her at his words and then she was arching her back in invitation.

  “Yess,” Felicity all but panted.

  Fuck. He tore open the wrapper, covered himself, then thrust hard and deep into her.

  And almost died from the mind numbing unadulterated pleasure. Hot. Wet. Tight. Fuck.

&n
bsp; He pressed forward a little deeper, trying to stave off the frenzy of lust building inside of him. Then with a grunt of surrender, he pulled out almost completely before plunging back into her drenched heat. He set the pace; Felicity followed. Her delectable ass meeting his groin with a satisfying slap each time.

  Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades as his heart raced to a tempo twice as fast as the strokes he pistoned into her. He moved his hands from her hips to her waist. Turned on by the erotic contrast of his tanned hands against the smooth paleness of her skin as he lightly guided her movements to his rhythm. Another spike of pleasure tapped into the nape of his neck, twining its fine garroting tentacles around his veins. He changed tempo, gyrating rather than pumping, and was rewarded with Felicity’s moans of gratification echoing his own.

  He could take no more; yet more was what his body hungered for—more, deeper, harder, faster. Daniel yelled out, surging into Felicity with a powerful upthrust, sure his chest would burst open with the effort. She let out her own yell of enjoyment, but still moved on him, winding and winding. She was going to kill him with pleasure. He grabbed her hips, held her in place. He was buried to the hilt, but it wasn’t deep enough, he wanted to be right inside her mind, body and soul. He wanted to crawl right up under her skin. He wanted to be one with her.

  Daniel was gasping for breath, on the brink of his orgasm—but not like this. He needed to see her expression, needed to find his reflection in her pale gaze, mingled there with fulfillment. He pulled out.

  “Roll over. I want to see you.” His voice was guttural with urgency, his hands sure as they guided her. When she was on her back splayed before him, he slid his hands under her ass and lifted her to his mouth.

  Daniel feasted, licked and probed. The greedy sounds of his pleasure were drowned out only by her rising ecstasy. Finally, savoring the taste of her, he wrapped his lips around the bobbing button of engorged flesh and suckled while his tongue tried to tame it, stroke it, love it.

  Felicity’s hips bucked under him, but Daniel held her firmly clamped to his mouth as her cries grew more pleading. He was cresting also, flush with the heady pleasure of possession. Enflamed by the sound of his name tumbling from her lips, and the feel of her hands buried in his hair as she moved with manic rhythm. A roar filled his head, he was going to lose control—now!

  He tore his lips away from her swollen slickness and went up onto his knees; swinging her legs to rest on his shoulders, he quickly slammed into her. Thrusting so hard and fast their bodies shoveled across the sheets until sensation crashed into his spine and he let go, pouring himself into her clutching heat as she came also. He was lost in her gaze, caught in her embrace and all that he was, all that he had, belonged to her at this moment.

  Daniel just about collapsed on her, and felt Felicity’s arms wrap around him. He captured her lips, drinking in her loving, and couldn’t stop. He fed off her fulfillment, wanting it for himself and to give her more. But there was something else he sought, it was intangible and elusive yet now seemed as necessary as the air he breathed in. And deep inside, he was certain only Felicity could give it to him. He felt himself swelling.

  “Again?” Her eyes were wide.

  “Oh yeah.” He kissed her several more times, then got up and took in the picture she made—skin flushed, hair wild, lips swollen, eyes shining. He’d done that to her. “Wait right here,” he ordered and went to the bathroom.

  His reflection filled the medicine cabinet mirror as he bent to the wastepaper basket by the sink. He hadn’t fared much better than Felicity, his hair hung in tangled skeins, his complexion ruddy.

  Daniel leaned in closer, noting the four crescent shaped marks on each shoulder and a smug smile split his face. He looked like he’d been used hard then kicked under the bed.

  He could get use to this look.

  Then he caught his own gaze and jerked back. His eyes were glowing, fevered…wild.

  Daniel sobered up real fast. There it was—dwelling deep in his gaze—that vague need that had plagued him since their first kiss. The feeling lurked, crouched like a hungry beast in the depths of his expression, and what it hungered for was Felicity. Every emotion, every thought, every bit of sinew down to the marrow of her bones—all of her.

  She’d done this to him.

  He ran a hand through his hair then turned on the tap and bathed his eyes with cold water. He focused on what he wanted to believe. No matter how incredible it felt—or how much he wanted to make love to her over and over again—what he was feeling, in its most distilled form, was lust. An obsession at the most. Nothing more.

  He ruthlessly squashed the flare of emotion that blazed up at the thought of this ending, and went back into the bedroom.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daniel spent the next hours gorging himself on the pleasures of her body and urging her to do the same with his.

  And when he was done, Felicity didn’t know herself. Only that she was his now, body, heart and soul.

  It was at that point, when her voice had gone hoarse with repeated pleas and her body almost crippled with ecstasy, he’d relented and allowed her to rest. Then wrapping her in his arms, he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep himself.

  Body still humming, she flexed experimentally, and his arm tightened around her, with the leg he’d thrown over hers, pulling her closer. She snuggled back, washed in contentment. Opening herself so fully to the magic of this night had been the sweetest thing. And even though she knew the only part of him that throbbed for her wasn’t his heart, it could be. In time.

  To the steady rhythm of Daniel’s breathing, she fell into dreamless oblivion until, with the sky still shadowed shades beyond blue, he roused her with long lazy caresses and warm, sleepy kisses.

  Afterwards, he got up to leave. Something about an early meeting—like she was paying attention to his words instead of the smooth ripple of his muscles as he dressed. Bone tired, she rolled into the spot he’d warmed all night long and smiled sleepily when he kissed her goodbye…

  “No, no, no, noooo.” Felicity tunneled under the covers as the rumble grew louder, then she jack-knifed up in bed, heart thudding with terrible understanding.

  She flung back the sheets, and lunged for her discarded jeans and T-shirt on the floor and pulled them on. Scrambling round the room like a crazed woman, she finally got one foot into an orphaned slipper and the other into a waylaid running shoe. Oh God, she was going to be sick.

  She rushed through the flat, wrenched the door open and hurried down the hall, flicking sleep-tangled curls away from her face as she hit the stairs.

  On the last step she came to a stop. There seemed to be an army of tool-belted men milling around downstairs. Through the open door she saw Daniel out on the lawn with Rob. From their gestures it was obvious they were arguing. Without further thought, just existing as a mass of pain, she flew outside.

  As she approached the two men abruptly broke off their low-level shouting match. She spared Rob a brief scornful look, but it was Daniel’s presence that halted her. By now tears blurred her vision and each breath was sheer torture.

  “Felicity—”

  She slapped him. Knocked the lies from his lips before he said them. Then, shattered, she spun and raced back towards the house.

  “Felicity!”

  In her rush, she sent a workman tripping into the driveway as a vaguely familiar sedan started to pull in. A horn tooted, the man cursed, and she mumbled an apology but took the stairs two at time, aware that Daniel was hard on her heels. She made it to the flat and had whipped round to slam the door shut, when he came crashing through it.

  “Wait! Hear me out!”

  “I don’t want to hear anything from you! Get out! Getoutgetoutgetout!” she screamed. Get out of my sight, out of my head. Get out of my heart. “Oh God.” She doubled over, wrapping her arms around herself.

  His arms joined hers, holding her stiff body to his, and slowly his words penetrated her fog of ache.

>   “Rob pushed the scheduling up without consulting me. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem—another job fell through and we had to keep the men working. But he didn’t know about last night. He didn’t know I was with you.” Daniel’s grip tightened as he cursed.

  “Not that that stopped me from tearing into him.”

  The argument outside. “The truth?” she asked tentatively, her pain subsiding.

  He eased away, tilting her face up to him. His gaze was serious. “The truth. I know we got off on the wrong foot with the eviction, but from here on in, as long as we’re together, I’ll never lie to you or make promises I can’t keep.” He paused and she understood the warning in that silence. He was reminding her that he didn’t love her. Felicity lowered her eyes, fear of the hurt to come, garroting her heart.

  “I also expect you to be truthful with me.”

  He did, did he? Well that was a big fat lie right there, because he obviously didn’t want to hear the truth about her feelings for him.

  “Hey.”

  Felicity raised her eyes, and her pulse did a little hopscotch at the sight of his smile.

  “Kiss and make up?”

  She laughed, relieved. Willing to pretend the danger didn’t exist. “I’m beginning to think you’re insatiable.”

  “Only beginning to think? Looks like I’ll have to work harder at convincing you,” he murmured, fitting her more firmly against him.

  She “hmmmed”.

  He kissed her. And any more hmmms she had to express were swallowed up in the satisfaction his mouth delivered. When he broke the kiss, his eyes gleamed from beneath lowered lids. “Why don’t I stay up here awhile?”

  “What about your men?”

  “They’re not invited.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Someone might come looking for you,” she whispered, a little more excited than she should be. She moved her hands up to his broad shoulders, loving the feel of his big strong body.