He watched her, drinking in every shift in expression, every hitch of breath, as he carefully, gently, worked his hand inside her underwear and got his fingers on the wet, throbbing core of her.
She shuddered in his arms, hips squirming in ways that made his trapped cock weep. Wes bit down on her shoulder once more and explored the softest, hottest part of her with his hand.
Lucky fucking hand. His cock twitched with jealousy.
Simmer down, he told himself silently. We’re not having full-on sex in the middle of Central Park. That would be nuts. Besides, there’s no way Rosemary would be down with that.
Right?
May the Force be with us—we’re so about to have sex in the middle of Central Park!
Rosemary couldn’t process it. She really couldn’t. Everything was happening so quickly—every minute seemed to bring a new revelation, something shocking that she had to deal with. First she’d found out that Wes had left the academy, not because he’d gotten what he wanted and was through with her, but because he was protecting her. Which was borderline insulting, if she looked at it from a certain angle, but was also sort of touching if viewed from the opposite side. She supposed forgiveness was in order. But forgiveness seemed to go hand in hand with an irresistible desire to jump Wes’s bones. Someone should do a study of the make-up sex phenomenon, she thought dizzily. There really was something to it.
After all, here they were in public. Outdoors! And all she wanted was for Wes to pull her down and put his penis inside her and thrust until they both climaxed.
This entire situation was so out of character as to make her wonder if she’d contracted some strange disease that killed inhibition and caused personality shifts.
But the memories of their first night together were fresh enough in her mind that she knew the fever in her blood wasn’t caused by illness—it was all Wes.
And this time, he’d made sure she couldn’t blame it on any chemistry other than the indefinable attraction between the two of them.
The heel of his hand rubbed exactly where she wanted it most, while his long, dexterous fingers delved between her labia and circled the nerve-rich entrance to her body. He dipped inside, stretching and stroking her, and Rosemary’s mind went blessedly blank, the white noise of intense sensation drowning out her chaotic thoughts and fears.
Her hips pulsed, searching for more friction, and Wes gave it to her. The strong motion of his hand pressed against her pubic bone, pushing her body tighter to his, and Rosemary gasped. She could feel his erection, long and thick, solid in the small of her back. He nudged his groin into her, a little helpless movement that scraped the rough, straining fly of his jeans over the knot of nerves clustered above her buttocks.
Snared between his need at her back and his hand stoking her own desires, Rosemary writhed hard enough to lift the blanket. A breeze snuck under, causing refreshing patches of cool air to waft against her heated skin.
Wes’s arms and legs merely tightened around her, holding her in place and giving her body something to thrash against, and somehow that extra bit of restraint freed her completely. She moaned and pushed with abandon, letting his clever hand twist the knot of her desire tighter and tighter until pleasure broke over her in a vibrating torrent.
She subsided against him, languid, her interior muscles still clenching spasmodically around his now-gentle invading fingers.
“Mmm,” she hummed, floating on a sea of endorphins. “That was nice. I believe I shall forgive you for running away and lying to me.”
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. “Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not joking.” Rosemary managed to lift one hand to pet at his head. “I forgive you. And not just because the sex was so nice.”
Wes shuddered out a breath and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Nice, huh? Well, I’m out of practice. Next time we’ll shoot for ‘awesome.’ ”
Next time. He wanted there to be a next time. Rosemary allowed that to be the first thought to coalesce in her still buzzing brain. She mulled it for a moment, and found that it pleased her.
Almost as much as the iron-hard evidence of his desire for her jammed against her back.
Putting one hand behind her back, she wormed her way between their bodies to cup his erection, making him suck in a harsh breath.
“You don’t have to,” he said roughly. “This was just for you, this whole day.”
“I know,” she said, and she did. For once, she understood exactly where someone else was coming from. He’d hurt her, and he knew it. He thought a day of indulgence where he catered to her whims, worked hard, made himself vulnerable and denied himself pleasure, would cancel it out.
But if she understood anything about emotions, it was that they didn’t work on such smooth transactional lines.
“You want to make me happy,” she said, twisting around in his lap to get a look at his face.
“I really do,” he said, his changeable eyes a pure, steady golden brown like ancient bronze coins. “You gonna let me?”
Curling around him like a cat, Rosemary pulled her rubbery legs over his to straddle his hips. “I am. And you know what would make me happy? An experiment.”
He sucked in another breath and the muscles of his stomach went hard as rock when she followed her words with a slow caress down his torso.
“What kind of experiment?” he gulped when she reached her destination, curving her palm and measuring the length of his erect penis.
“The kind where I try something I’ve never tried before,” she said, her focus entirely on dealing with his zipper, although the strip of bare muscled abdomen revealed by his twisted pullover kept attempting to distract her.
“Like what?” His whole body went rigid as she eased the zipper down. He was wearing boxer briefs, and his erection was so high and tight that the head of it poked out of the top band of elastic, red and flushed.
Rosemary licked her lips.
Instead of answering in words, which were escaping her at the moment, Rosemary scooted down, ducking completely under the blanket, and sucked the exposed head of his penis into her mouth.
Chapter 21
The inside of Rosemary’s mouth was everything Wes had ever wanted. Tight. Wet. Hot—with the added bonus of spine-tingling suspense every time he felt the edge of her teeth.
But she never scraped too hard—just enough to sensitize his already aching skin. Her curious tongue explored the rim and the insanely sensitive spot under the head, then licked back up to poke into the slit at the tip.
That made her pause, and he wished like hell he could see the look on her face as she tasted him for the first time, but all he could do was stare down at the lump she made under the gray fleece blanket and pray that she didn’t need a break for some antibacterial mouthwash or something.
Apparently, the slick evidence of exactly how much she turned him on was acceptable to her, because after a brief moment, she made a purring, humming noise and sucked him down again.
Wes fell back against the gazebo railing and reached under the blanket to pull his underwear down. He needed more of her mouth, on more of his cock, but he was determined to let her go at her own pace.
Which seemed to be best classified as “glacial.” Except glaciers were cold, weren’t they, and nothing about the slow, fiery glide of her tongue over the throbbing veins and tight skin of his hungry dick was cold.
In fact, Wes could feel sweat breaking out at his hairline, the backs of his knees. He could smell sex in the air and it made him want to thrust into her mouth, cram as much cock in as he could.
Fisting the wool blanket at his sides, he forced himself to sit still and endure the searing torture of her inexperienced, enthusiastic, experimental blow job.
He wanted it to go on forever. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that kind of control.
In an embarrassingly short span of minutes, she had him panting and twisting his hips, every lollipop lick and affectionate nuzzle send
ing him closer and closer to totally losing it.
She ran her hands up his thighs and nudged the backs of her fingers into his balls, still trapped in his boxers, and that was it. He shook from head to toe and gasped out a warning before shooting hard.
The first pulse startled a meep out of her, but she didn’t pull away. He felt her kitten tongue licking him through it, gentling him down as the clenching tension eased, a low hum buzzing against his skin and telling him she was okay.
“Sorry,” he gasped when he had control of his vocal chords again. “I should’ve given you more time to move.”
The blanket flipped back and she emerged with a triumphant smile and staticky hair clinging to her damp, red cheeks. “I didn’t want to move,” she informed him. “I wanted to swallow. All the literature is very clear on that point.”
Shit. Was it awful to laugh? He hoped not, because it felt good, almost as much of a release as the mind-shattering orgasm.
“I’m funny now?” she said, clearly miffed. She sat up, tugging her wrinkled shirt back into place and pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Why am I funny?”
“You’re not funny,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and hauling her back into his lap for a kiss. “You’re amazing, is what you are.”
Her mouth tasted like sweet wine, pumpkin pie, and him—Wes licked deep and sucked on her tongue, a primal part of him responding to the flavor with a surge of possessiveness unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
She matched him kiss for kiss, leaning hard against him and silently demanding more—claiming him every bit as much as he was laying claim to her.
I can’t lose this again.
The thought beat at Wes’s brain like a stand mixer whipping egg whites into meringue.
No matter what it takes, I’m holding on to her this time.
Those words echoed in his head, taking on almost a voice-of-prophecy, James Earl Jones basso overtone, when he tramped up the stairs to his Chinatown apartment after dropping Rosemary back at her hotel, only to find his door unlocked.
Most people in big, bad New York City would probably assume burglary. Wes pushed the door open, yelling, “Pops? You here?”
Which was kind of dumb, he realized as soon as he was all the way inside, because he only had one room. Where was his dad going to be, hiding in the closet?
No. Thomas Murphy jumped up from the futon, dropping the book he’d been reading, and strode to the door to envelop Wes in a strong embrace that smelled of cough drops and cigarettes.
Wes closed his eyes against the complicated mess of emotions his father inspired, and just let himself be hugged.
Pops was good at hugging; he didn’t lean in and clap his son on the back in that brainless macho man way—he just hugged. Like the sensitive, emotional Irishman he was.
“How are you, Pops?” Wes’s voice was muffled against the fine nap of his dad’s soft jacket.
“Dandy and delightful, my Weston, absolutely dandy and delightful.”
The heartiness of his voice made Wes take a step back to get a better view of his father’s expression.
“Right,” he said. “Which is why you haven’t shaved in three days.”
Thom Murphy was nothing if not fanatical about his personal appearance. “They say a woman’s face is her fortune, but it’s true for con men, too,” he used to tell Wes. “If you look like a bum, you’ll get treated like a bum. Look like a king? Well. You know the rest.”
Pops rubbed his bristly chin. “I may have come into a spot of trouble, but nothing I can’t handle. Think no more about it. How’s yourself, Wes? Still cooking? Did you graduate from that school yet?”
Classic Thomas Murphy. Wes sighed. He wouldn’t get anything else out of his dad until the man was ready to say more. The fact that he was being so cagey gave Wes a bad feeling about how this visit was going to go down. He was suddenly and fiercely glad he hadn’t lost his mind and invited Rosemary to spend the night with him. Not that he’d ever want to bring her up to his shitty little rathole, but for a moment, he’d been tempted. Just for the sheer hedonistic pleasure of falling into well-deserved sleep with the most gorgeous scientist in the world wrapped in his arms.
But now? Faced with Thom Murphy’s sharp, bright charm and shifty smile, Wes could only be glad Rosemary was way uptown, snuggled into her luxurious bed at the Carlyle Hotel.
If Pops ever found out his hunch had been correct, and she was richer than chocolate cake? He would eat her for breakfast.
“I ditched out on the academy,” he told his dad. “Got a job in a great restaurant instead.”
“Nice.” Pops approved. Of course he did; he was a big believer in the School of Hard Knocks. “So when’re you going to make me something to eat? A man could starve waiting around in his hotshot chef son’s apartment. When was the last time you bought groceries, Weston?”
“I know,” Wes said. “Sometimes I think I might choke on the irony, but this is what it means to be a cook—I’m not home enough to keep food in my apartment. I eat most of my meals at the restaurant.” He dropped his messenger bag on the floor and pushed his sleeves up. “I could probably throw something together, though, if you’re really hungry …”
“Ah no,” Pops said, pacing over to the one grimy window and flicking two fingers between the slats of the Venetian blinds to peer out. “Truth be told, I probably couldn’t eat more than a bite. My gut is that tight, Wes.”
The tentative, doomed hope that Thomas Murphy might actually have come to visit his only son just because he missed him died a quick, inevitable death. “What’s going on?” he asked dutifully. He knew the script.
Ignoring the fact that Wes hadn’t really sold the line, Pops shook his head, still handsomely full of stylishly cut silver hair shot through with threads of black. “I wouldn’t want to drag you into it. You’ve a new life here, a good future.” Here Pops paused for a slow visual scan of Wes’s bare-bones apartment, his meager possessions. “No,” Pops said, shaking his head sadly. “I’m sure you’d never be interested in a lovely little investment scheme I’ve got wind of.”
Wes crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you losing your touch, or are you just not trying very hard?”
Pops dropped the act, his shoulders slumping. Mouth twisted in a wry smile, he said, “I apologize, son. I shouldn’t have insulted you by trying to play you—it was clumsily done, and unworthy of family.”
Not our fucked-up little family, Wes thought, but he kept it to himself. There was no point dragging this out with any extra drama. It had been a long damn day, and all he wanted at this point was to fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours straight.
“So how much do you need?” he said, cutting to the chase.
If Pops was surprised by how quickly Wes brought their familiar little dance to a close, he hid it well. “Two hundred dollars should keep me in tea and biscuits through the end of the month,” he said smoothly. “There’s a lad. My good boy. Didn’t I always say you were a model son?”
If it meant Pops would skip town and go far away from Rosemary, it’d be cheap at twice the price.
“Well,” Wes said, tugging his wallet from his back pocket. “There was that time you wanted me to pretend to be a child model so you could ‘discover’ other new modeling talent at the mall. For a fee, obviously.”
“Obviously. The only one I remember is Sheila, but I think she sticks in my mind because she was the one who finally called the cops on us.” His father’s eyes took on a faraway gleam. “Good times.”
Wes counted out five wrinkled twenties. “I’ve only got a hundred on me,” he lied, palming the rest of his money and slipping it into his front pocket while Pops was still reminiscing over his illfated liaison with Sheila.
“Ah, that’s excellent, Wes,” Pops said, reaching for the cash. It disappeared instantly, Thomas Murphy’s quick fingers plucking it and making it vanish before Wes’s very eyes. Wes almost grinned; he’d learned from the best.
&n
bsp; Which was how he knew to hold out on his dad—if he gave Pops exactly the amount he asked for, on top of giving in so quickly on the “loan” in the first place, his father would definitely know something was up.
And a curious Thom Murphy was a troublesome Thom Murphy.
“Listen, I need to get to bed, Pops. I haven’t slept more than four hours in the last twenty-four, and I’m on again tomorrow. You want to crash here tonight?”
“Ah no,” Pops said, already inching toward the door. “I’ve got something lined up for the night. Some old friends to see, you know how it is. It’s been too long since I hit New York City.”
Wes nodded in understanding. “The kind of old friends who run an illegal poker game out of the back of some club, right? Well, go with God.”
“Not going to wish me good luck?” Pops winked, and Wes felt his mouth twist into a reluctant smile. His dad didn’t believe in luck.
“Nah,” he said. “Luck is nothing but taking advantage of opportunities when they come your way. And nobody on earth is better at that than you, Pops.”
“Right you are, my Weston,” Thom said, slapping his son on the shoulder. “I taught you well, didn’t I?”
Wes had a sudden flash of the nights after a run of the bad luck Pops didn’t believe in, nights they’d spent huddled over garbage-can fires in alleys behind bars or hiding in the cramped bathrooms of railway trains to avoid the conductor looking for tickets they didn’t have as they moved from one city full of marks they’d fleeced, and on to the next.
He looked at his father, the thin, wiry body crackling with energy and fire, his watery brown eyes darting between Wes and the door as if he were planning to make a break for it any second—the man never could bear to stay in one place for too long. Thomas Murphy wanted to be out, doing, seeing, being, playing, conning—he’d never stop, because he couldn’t. Wes knew the truth of that the way he knew he himself could never be happy in his father’s life. No matter how many times Pops showed up, hoping to pull him back in.
Just One Taste Page 19