by BETH KERY
She sagged against his chest. Finn flexed his abdominal muscles and straightened his back slightly, fully supporting them on the headboard. He urged her back up to a sitting position.
He wanted her beautiful breasts directly in front of his face when he came.
While she panted and recovered from her orgasm he leaned forward at his leisure and nuzzled the bountiful glory before him with his nose and lips before he slid a hard little bud between his lips. She whimpered and tightened around him.
He groaned.
“You have the most incredible breasts,” he murmured as he moved his head between both of them, licking, sipping, nibbling and sucking, mindlessly ecstatic at the feast before him.
He demanded that she move on him again, this time adding the strength of his hips and upper body, pushing her down on his cock in short, staccato thrusts that made both of them cry out in pleasure.
Esa became lost once again in the web of mindless carnality that Finn spun so effortlessly around her. She sensed the tension mounting in him, felt it in the bulging tightness of his chest, arm and thigh muscles. He completely controlled her movements now, lifting and thrusting the weight of her body down on him with a breathtaking force that she’d been unable to accomplish on her own.
She cried out sharply when he brought her down forcefully one last time, their flesh smacking together loudly.
He held her down in his lap. His handsome face contorted into a rictus of pleasure.
“Esa.”
She cried out sharply, the moment made perfect by hearing her name on his tongue at his moment of crisis.
She felt him spasm deep inside of her. As he held her to him his mouth fastened on her right nipple, drawing on her lustily while he shuddered in orgasm. The sensation sizzled like lightning straight to her core. She ground down on the stiff pillar of his convulsing cock, climaxing again with shattering intensity.
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was that of their heavy breathing as they desperately tried to gain equilibrium.
Esa lay on his chest, wilted, warm and utterly replete. She lightly placed her hands on his sweat-dampened rib cage, feeling it rise up and down as his breathing evened and deepened. With her head turned on his chest she could hear his heartbeat, strong, regular and gradually slowing.
She felt poignantly attuned with Finn as she lay there, as if their bodily processes had synchronized, their flesh separate but somehow unified. When he withdrew from her body she wanted to cry out in protest. But soon enough he’d pulled her down next to his hard, warm length again. He burrowed his fingers into her hair, rubbing her scalp.
Esa purred in contentment.
“Hey,” he murmured with quiet amusement. “Look what I found.”
“What?” she asked groggily, lifting her head from his chest. She blinked, trying to focus on what he held up between his fingers in the dim room, which was illuminated only by the bathroom light. After a few seconds she chuckled in recognition.
“It’s a leaf. I raked my parents’ backyard today,” she said before she dropped her cheek back to his chest.
“Where do they live?” he asked in a low, mellow tone that Esa loved.
“Evanston, right off Lake Shore Drive in the house I grew up in.”
“I thought you said you’d lived in Chicago your whole life.”
“I did. You’re not that meticulous about your definitions, are you?”
“Right,” he agreed wryly. “Chicago, Evanston…Esa, Kitten. No one could claim that you’re loose in your interpretations.”
She grinned into his chest, appreciating his humor but not being in a position to show it because of her chosen role. Her smile faded a bit. She hoped he hadn’t been insinuating she was loose in general…
“Kitten is a-a—”
“Pet name?”
She lifted her head and stared at his face. She snorted with laughter when she saw the mirthful gleam in his eyes.
“I went to school in Chicago until I graduated high school. Doesn’t that count for anything?” Esa asked eventually, thinking it was best to stick to a topic that didn’t require lying.
“Which one?”
“The Latin School.”
“Hmmm.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He began his delicious scalp rub again but Esa wouldn’t be sidetracked. He grinned when he saw her challenging look.
“The Latin School is a rich kid’s school,” he explained matter-of-factly.
“It is not!”
Finn shrugged negligently, as though the matter was beneath his notice.
“My father is a professor and my mother is a real estate agent. We were hardly rich. Why? Where did you go to school?”
“St. Mark’s.”
“Ah hah!” she said with a triumphant look. “You went to a private school as well.”
“Catholic school. Not remotely the same.”
“Did you go to college?” Esa asked.
“Yep. A four-year one with a real campus and everything.”
Esa stilled with wariness when she registered the subtle mockery of his tone. “Where at?” she asked, refusing to be cowed by his entirely uncalled-for testiness.
“The University of Illinois,” he replied after a pause. “Okay, time for you to answer a question for me.”
Esa stilled warily. “What?”
“Why were you driving north in traffic yesterday when your offices are downtown?”
“Oh, well that’s because…” Esa paused, licking her lower lip nervously. This would probably be a good time to tell him that she wasn’t Metro Sexy’s publisher. But she felt foolish for having lied about it in the first place and besides…he’d made it clear that he wasn’t interested in anything permanent. It was clear from his occasional prickliness in regard to matters that had nothing to do with Esa that he was still very much in the jittery aftershocks of a bad break-up.
No call for her to turn back from her impulsive adventure now.
Her mind scrambled for work activities that she’d heard Rachel mention in the past. She finally landed on her sister’s real reason for being in Indianapolis for the next week and conveniently changed locations. “I’ve been having some meetings about possibly doing a…a…South Side version of Metro Sexy.”
Finn looked puzzled.
“You know, a version that’s just for single southsiders—where to eat, good nightclubs, social events…”
“Hmmm,” Finn muttered.
Esa heard the doubt in his tone.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. Part of her laughed at herself for being offended that he didn’t think her idea for a job that she knew absolutely nothing about was an ingenious marketing plan.
He shrugged. “I don’t know anything about publishing but it just doesn’t sound like something the typical Chicago southsider would go for. We’re a more…practical lot.”
Esa chuckled and snuggled back into his warmth. She perfectly saw his point, so she thought it best to put an end to the subject.
Or the lie, to be more accurate.
His arms encircled her and tightened. A small smile curved her lips. God, she could die a happy woman lying here in Finn’s embrace and inhaling his scent.
Her eyes flashed open. What a bizarre—not to mention dangerous—thought.
Finn paused when he felt her stiffen in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She yelped in surprise when he spun her onto her back and rolled on top of her in two seconds flat.
“You’re a liar, Esa Ormond.”
Her eyes went wide at his stark accusation and the abrupt change of her circumstances. Her heartbeat began to pound out a warning in her ears. His eyelids narrowed. The seconds stretched unbearably long as Finn subjected her to his laserlike inspection.
He finally sighed and shook his head slowly. “I’d sure like to know why you get so defensive sometimes.”
She gasped in surp
rise. “Talk about calling a kettle black! You’re the one who got so prickly about that college thing.”
“Guess you subscribe to the best offense is a consistent defense theory of combat?”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” she sputtered incredulously.
He grimaced slightly. “Sorry. I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”
Esa just raised her eyebrows wryly. “Nice of you to realize who was in bed with you. Let me guess. Your ex-fiancée wasn’t only snooty when it came to things like where you worked but where you went to school as well.”
She went completely still when he leaned down over her until his lips almost brushed her own. “I don’t really feel like talking about that right now. Do you?”
He dropped a slow kiss on her upturned lips. It was a closed-mouth kiss—nowhere near as blatantly sexual as he’d kissed her in the past—but Esa found herself wondering if it wasn’t the most erotic kiss of all. He sandwiched first her lower lip between his own, then the upper. He rubbed against her and molded and teased until she squirmed beneath him in renewed arousal.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said huskily before he applied those gold-medal lips to her neck. She shivered.
“W-what?” she asked, no longer certain what they’d been talking about.
He examined her face before he smiled.
“Never mind. I’m about to make love to you again,” he explained patiently. “Are you going to be good?”
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“I mean that if you don’t hold still while my tongue familiarizes itself with every inch of your beautiful body, I’m going to have to tie you down to this bed.”
“You would never do that,” Esa scoffed. She paused, mouth hanging open, when she saw the gleam in his blue eyes and felt his cock lengthen and stiffen against her thigh. He didn’t bother to reply but just lowered his head and proceeded to make good on his threat.
She gasped at the sensation of his firm lips and warm, slightly abrasive tongue on her shoulder. He took a gentle bite out of the muscle before he scraped his front teeth along her neck.
Esa tried her best to keep still but she couldn’t seem to stop from arching her back, suddenly desperate to rub her hypersensitive nipples against the crinkly hair on his chest.
He’d said her body was beautiful. Was it remotely possible that Finn didn’t mind that she hadn’t been to the gym in almost a year and staged a daily battle with the Häagen-Dazs cookie dough ice cream in her freezer…a battle which she usually lost miserably? She ground her teeth together and forced herself to remain stationary when he kissed the sensitive sides of her torso and examined her goose bumps with his sleek tongue.
She would persevere at all costs, excruciating torture though it would be.
Chapter Nine
Finn lay in bed, lazy and extremely sated, while he watched dawn break around Esa where she stood by the windows. He found himself entranced by her still figure, the beguiling, feminine curve of her hip, the contemplative tilt of her head, the elegant lines of her back.
When she’d come out of the bathroom a few minutes ago she’d been wearing his discarded gray flannel work shirt. It fell on her to mid-thigh, leaving exposed a good portion of her long, shapely legs. She’d brushed her hair while she’d been in there because it hung below her shoulders in shiny auburn waves.
He’d wager that most women would be extremely envious of Esa’s natural beauty. She’d awaken after only an hour or two or actual sleep looking downright gorgeous—skin glowing, hair mussed and spilling in a sexy auburn mess around her lovely face…the mysterious smile of a well-satisfied woman on her swollen, well-kissed lips, Finn added to himself with a touch of male smugness.
He had no grounds for being cocky, of course. She was the most sensual, responsive, carnal creature he’d ever had the privilege to make love to, and that had precious little to do with him. But it wasn’t only her sexuality that had captivated him throughout the long night. So had her obvious intelligence, her sense of humor…even the occasional glimpses of her little insecurities.
He liked Esa Ormond—he liked her a lot. Too bad he’d met her at such a crappy time in his life.
His eyelids narrowed on her thoughtful feminine form outlined by the sunrise. It wasn’t just his recent breakup that made a relationship between them highly unlikely. Esa had clearly stated that she wasn’t looking for anything permanent. She was obviously used to having casual affairs, given the circumstances of how they’d met and her job. Which was convenient for him.
Wasn’t it?
He frowned.
“Come back to bed,” he called, eager to chase away his unsettling thoughts.
She turned and gave him a smile that made his demand even more imperative. “I have a better idea.”
He shook his head while he held her stare. “Ain’t a conceivable better idea in the entire world, honey. Come here.”
She laughed low and husky as she came toward him. “Even you can’t have that much energy. Come on, get out of bed. You’ll like this, I promise.”
He couldn’t resist the sparkle in her brandy-colored eyes.
“How long will I have to be out of bed?” he asked warily.
“An hour, tops,” she answered as she pulled the comforter and sheet off him. He caught it and yanked tautly to garner her attention.
“On one condition.”
Her dark eyebrows rose expectantly.
“We get right back in bed the minute we get back.”
She lowered her eyes and trailed her gaze down his naked torso. Despite their multiple rounds of sometimes fierce, sometimes playful, always intense lovemaking, Finn found himself stiffening beneath the sheets once again.
From the look of her widening smile she’d noticed.
“You really do have enough energy, don’t you?” she mused a tad incredulously. She shook her head as though to clear it and resumed pulling on the sheet. “All right, then. You have yourself a deal.”
“Where are we going?” he asked when Esa merged onto Lakeshore Drive. She’d insisted that there wasn’t time to shower. They’d just thrown on their clothes and hurried to Esa’s little sports car as if a sudden emergency had been broadcast to her while she stared out his bedroom window not ten minutes ago.
“Here,” she responded as she shifted gears and the car accelerated forward like a jet.
“Here?” he repeated as he glanced at the four lanes of Lake Shore Drive. The stretch of relatively empty road must have been what she’d seen from his bedroom window. Lake Shore Drive offered a beautiful view of the lake and Chicago’s skyline but it was almost always crowded with cars. Esa had seen her opportunity to drive fast and free and grabbed it, Finn realized with mixed admiration and amusement.
The sun sat like a giant orange ball on the horizon. Lake Michigan rippled calmly, its color a muted steel blue. Esa had put back the top on her sports car before they’d left his parking garage. The early morning autumn air felt cool but pleasant as it whipped through his hair.
He studied Esa as she drove. She had on the preppy glasses she always wore driving. He thought she looked sexy as hell in them, although he liked her without them just as much since it gave him more direct access to her warm, brandy-colored eyes. She’d clipped her hair onto her head but auburn strands still lashed wildly around her cheeks and neck as she drove. She seemed unaware of it.
She looked sublimely content as she hurtled down the miraculously empty ribbon of curving road, the sun rising over the lake on the right and the high-rises towering over them to the left, the tall buildings seeming sober and watchful in the early morning light.
Neither of them spoke until she parked in the empty lot at the Montrose beach.
“You really love it, don’t you?” he asked after they got out and sat on a picnic table, watching the sun begin its slow ascent.
“The lake?” she asked.
“No. Driving that car.”
She laughed. �
�I don’t know. I never thought about it before. I suppose I do. Maybe I’ve been driving in traffic too much lately. There’s something freeing about an open stretch of road.”
“And a fast car,” he added with amusement.
She shot him a look of reprimand. “I’m not actually into fast, flashy cars.”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured doubtfully while he tucked an errant tress of auburn hair behind her ear.
Her big eyes widened. “You don’t believe me?”
“Why should I, when all evidence points to the contrary? A, you do, in fact, own an expensive, fast car; B, I was getting a little jealous of a the damned thing for putting a look on your face that I’ve only seen so far after a round of great sex, and C…you’re extremely good at it.”
“At sex?” she asked dazedly.
“No,” he replied. He chuckled when her transfixed expression changed to irritability quicker than he could say, damn. He came down off the picnic table and gathered her into his arms. “I was talking about your driving. Rest assured, your talent and enthusiasm for driving nearly matches your proclivities in the bedroom. I stress, nearly.”
When she appeared pacified but still bemused he brushed his lips against her parted ones.
“Nobody has ever told me I was a great…driver before,” she mumbled against his mouth.
“Well, you are,” he assured her, letting his lips caress hers as he spoke. “An exciting, skilled…extremely precise driver.” He kissed her once, hard, before he briefly lifted his head. “For my sake though, I wish you’d slow down some.”
“What’s the fun in that?” she whispered before she craned up and touched her grin to his.
They kissed warmly, playfully. That was one thing he really liked about Esa—how easy it was to play with her sexually, how lighthearted and good it felt at times.
It felt like precisely what he needed at this point in his life.