And Able

by Lucy Monroe

  It was like the time he’d touched her in the hotel, only now she knew the pleasure that awaited her, and she wasn’t suffering from a head injury that dulled the sensations.

  It was a lot harder to remain relaxed, but she soon realized that in some strange way, forcing her muscles to stay loose magnified the pleasure.

  Her bikini bottoms went the way of her top and she didn’t even murmur a protest. She trusted him to have ensured their privacy completely before starting this.

  Brett would never expose her to the humiliation of being caught en flagrante delicto.

  But even though her bottoms were gone, he made no attempt to touch her mound or vulva. It was as if he was intent on stimulating every other part of her body. Just as when his hands roved over her breasts, they somehow always missed her nipples. The bubbling water touched everything, though. She found herself spreading her legs to increase the gentle caress of the bubbles and moaned in desperate pleasure as one of the jets hit her sweet spot from behind.

  “Oh…oh…goshhhhhh…that’s so gooooood.”

  He laughed softly in her ear as his mouth wreaked havoc along sensitive nerve endings. “Let’s turn you around, sweetheart.”

  She didn’t understand what he wanted, but steady hands guided her around so that she knelt on the bench and rested her head on her forearms against the towel. He pulled her thighs farther apart, adjusting her stance until the jet hit her clitoris in a steady stream and she cried out in pleasure.

  His hands went back to work on her, brushing her inner thighs, then her calves, then even the soles of her feet before moving to knead her stomach and then her freed breasts, while his lips and teeth explored her nape and the vulnerable area behind her ears.

  She could feel his erection pressing against her through his shorts. She ground herself against him with frustration, wanting to feel his naked flesh against her. Why did he still have his swimsuit on?

  She couldn’t make her mouth form words to ask. She was rapidly losing touch with coherent thought as the excitement and need built inside her to nearly unbearable levels. She hung, suspended on the verge of climax, the bubbling jet caressing her sweet spot but not giving enough stimulation to send her over. His caresses had turned every one of her nerve endings into a raw conduit for pleasure, but he didn’t trespass on the flesh that needed it most.

  She began to writhe, first pressing her bottom against him and then leaning forward, trying to increase the pressure of the water jet on her clitoris. Neither helped, and she found herself crying out her need, begging Brett to take her.

  Chapter 17

  B ut he didn’t.

  He reminded her to relax.

  “I can’t!”

  “Shh…baby, yes, you can. It will be worth it. Trust me. Please.”

  She shook her head violently. She couldn’t do it, and the kneading massage wasn’t helping anymore.

  “Shh…” he soothed her over and over again as his hands stilled on her completely. “Come on, sugar, you can do it.”

  Then he whispered a litany of sexy words in her ears, telling her how good it would be if she would just hold on a little longer, if she would only relax this one last time.

  Taking several deep breaths that made her chest ache, she forced her rigid muscles to loosen.

  “That’s right, darlin’. You’re doing so good.” He started touching her again, but kept reminding her not to tense up until she was whimpering and her vocabulary had diminished to one word. Please.

  He was playing with her nipples now, but it wasn’t enough. The delicate pinching and rolling of her engorged peaks only added to the maelstrom of need coursing through her. Her breath got choppy, she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs, and her pleas were coming out guttural and low as primal desires wracked her body.

  She bit the back of her hand to stop from screaming in tortured pleasure. But then the jets stopped and she did scream. She needed the water’s caress on her clitoris.

  Rocking her hips back and forth in the now still water, she hissed with frustration. “Brett, turn them back on. Please. I can’t stand this!”

  She felt herself being lifted and then laid on her back, her legs dangling in the water as her bottom balanced on the edge of the hot tub.

  He put the towel back under her head, but she could have told him it didn’t matter. No amount of discomfort could compare to the agonizing need in her lower body.

  He shifted to kneel between her legs, pressing them wide open with a hand on each of her inner thighs. The now cool air made her clitoris tighten and she tried to close her legs, but his hold prevented her.

  Then Brett’s mouth closed over her swollen, aching flesh, his tongue lapping up a wet warmth that did not come from the hot tub. It felt so good, she almost fainted.

  “Oh, yes…please…please…Brett…please…oh, gosh…please!”

  He licked her like an ice cream bar, his talented tongue further stimulating her swollen labia but not quite giving her the relief she sought.

  She arched up toward his face and cried gutturally, “Now, damn it, Brett…do it!”

  And he did, two fingers sliding inside her and pressing against a nerve center that made her scream again with pleasure. His lips closed over her clitoris, his teeth holding it in place for his tongue to thrash. And she exploded with an orgasm so intense everything went black around the edges while her body shook with the climax.

  But she didn’t faint, and the sensations did not abate like they had that afternoon. Her orgasm went on and on, and on, and on, and on, and he didn’t stop what he was doing with his mouth, not for a second. She thrashed violently against him, but still the convulsions kept tightening her insides and making her hips buck under his mouth.

  She lost all sense of time and place while she went through one crashing wave of sensation after another. Finally, she could stand no more and she collapsed against the hard concrete, her limbs totally boneless, small whimpers coming from her throat in involuntary bursts.

  He immediately changed the way he was touching her, sliding his fingers out of her. He gentled her with his lips against her labia, and then with sure hands as he pulled her back into the soothing water. She sat in his lap, with trembling legs straddling his thighs, and received a massage that brought her sawing breaths back under control and her speeding heartbeat out of the danger zone.

  “That was incredible,” she said against his neck, her voice choked with emotional tears she couldn’t begin to stem.

  “Yes.” His voice sounded raw and strained.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Better than okay.”

  “I…you didn’t…do you want…I could…” A yawn choked off her words.

  He laughed. “Yes…definitely you, you incredible woman. And I did. It’s been years since that happened in my shorts, but baby, you are one sexy lover.”

  She nuzzled him. “Thank you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “For what you did.”

  “We both did it, or didn’t you notice?”

  All she’d noticed was that she’d just experienced the impossible at his hands.

  “If you hadn’t touched me like that, I could never have…” Her voice trailed off. She had no idea how to describe what had just happened.

  “Had an extended massive orgasm?”

  That worked. “Yes.”

  “We’ll have to do it again sometime soon.”

  “Don’t know if I’d survive,” she mumbled against his skin.

  “I have it on good authority you would.”

  Tension filled her despite how wrung-out her body was. “Other women have proven it?”

  “Not by me.” He soothed her renewed tautness with smooth, skillful caresses on her back. “But I read a book.”

  “You read a book on doing that?” He had to be kidding.

  “Yep. I was on assignment. It was that or a book on the history of goatherding. The sex manual won hands down.”

  “Glad you r
ead it,” she mumbled as her brain shut down.

  Hotwire felt Claire go lax against him. She’d been limp before, but this had the quality of sleep. For the second time, she’d fallen asleep after making love. Well, now he knew what to do if she ever got insomnia…and he was still going to tease her.

  He couldn’t help feeling smug about the way he’d worn her out. A man liked to know he made an impression on his lover. Considering her response in and beside the hot tub, he’d made a heck of an impression on Claire.

  He smiled in the semidarkness before lifting her back out of the water. He carried her to a bench beside the hot tub and laid her on it. Her naked, sprawling abandon was enough to make his dick twitch with renewed interest despite his recent powerful orgasm.

  He went out to the pool area and grabbed the two hotel bathrobes Ernie had left earlier on his instruction. He pulled his on and then fished Claire’s swimsuit out of where it was floating on the edge of the hot tub and put it in his pocket.

  Then he fed her loose body into her robe. She was plenty relaxed now. Feeling like the general of a particularly successful conquering army, he wrapped the robe around her and tied it. He was careful to cover her completely before carrying her out of the pool area and down the hall to the elevators.

  Thankfully, the elevator was empty when it arrived, and no one else got on as it took them to the floor of their suite.

  She woke up…sort of…when he took her into the shower to wash off the chlorine. She mumbled and grumbled as he rinsed both of their bodies and washed her hair. Her eyes closed while he was rinsing the suds away, and he was sure she’d gone to sleep standing up.

  He turned off the shower and dried her off before tucking her into the king-size bed. She mumbled his name and curled onto her side. He finished drying himself off and joined her. She didn’t wake when he pulled her into his arms, but snuggled into him with a soft sigh.

  It felt good. Better than good, it felt right and she would have to recognize that eventually.

  Claire woke at dawn to Brett’s touch.

  She smiled sleepily. “Hi.”

  He was propped on his side, facing her. His fully alert blue gaze was filled with sensual promise and the kind of warm welcome she couldn’t let herself start thinking meant something more than it did. But her heart did a strange little twist anyway.

  Without warning, he rolled on top of her, his naked body warm and vibrant. “Hi, yourself.”

  She slid her legs apart, making a spot for him in the cradle of her thighs. “I could get used to waking up this way. It’s nice.”

  “Keep thinking that way and we’re going to get along just fine, darlin’,” he said in his slow southern drawl that was like sweet honey to her ears.

  She rocked her pelvis upward, groaning with pleasure at the same time he did. “I’d say we get along pretty well already.”

  “You may be right, but I’m a competitive man. I’m always looking to improve.”

  Images of the night before came into her head and heat suffused through her. “Impossible.”

  He shook his head and then kissed her. He was lazy and slow, but didn’t hold back from making love and bringing them both to the ultimate pleasure as soon as she was ready. Afterward, unlike the day before when making love had exhausted her, she felt energized and ready to face anything.

  When she said so, bouncing out of bed and heading to the shower, he laughed and followed her. They played in the shower like two children, exploring each other and teasing until they made love again, this time fast and furiously, with him holding her up against the tiled wall. She wondered in a brief moment of sanity whether every time would be different and so wonderful.

  Incredibly, he’d remembered a condom in the shower. She couldn’t have imagined making love the way they had, so the thought of preparing for it totally threw her.

  When she asked him about it, he winked and told her, “I guess I’ve got a more active imagination than you, but I can’t conceive of being anywhere naked with you that I wouldn’t want to make love.”

  She just shook her head and dried off, feeling more lighthearted than she could ever remember being. Spending time with Brett felt good.

  They checked out of the hotel after a scrumptious breakfast from room service and headed back to Portland in Brett’s car.

  She watched over her shoulder as the small town disappeared from view. “I wish we could stay longer.”

  Though she didn’t mind leaving before running into the maintenance guy, Ernie. She felt shy about him knowing what she and Brett had been doing in the hot tub the night before, but not embarrassed enough to regret doing it. And she sincerely doubted Ernie had even an inkling of what had really gone on.

  Even she couldn’t quite believe it. She’d known Brett was an experienced lover, but nothing could have prepared her for the way he’d made her feel in and out of the hot tub.

  Her mind filled with memories and she lost herself in them.

  “Claire…” he said with slight exasperation.

  Her head snapped round and she looked at him. “What?”

  “I said, I would bring you back sometime. What were you daydreaming about?”

  “I’m not telling.” But if her blush didn’t give her away, he wasn’t as observant as she thought.

  “I bet I can guess,” he said with that slow smile that always made her heart go crazy.

  “I bet you can, too. I don’t care what you say…nobody can learn how to do something like that out of a book.” Though she hated the thought he’d put in real-time “flight hours” with another woman—or women—to get so adept at it.

  “I told you last night, I’ve never done that with another woman.” His tone was so serious, she had to believe him. “Though I tried a less intense version of the technique that night you refused to take your pain medication.”

  “You were good at it then, too.”

  “But last night was better,” he said, his voice laced with satisfaction.

  “Yes.” It had been incredible. “Why only me? Did you just read the book?”

  “I read it eighteen months ago and the simple answer is, I wanted to. With you. I’ve spent a lot of time fantasizing that scene with you, but I’ve got to be honest…it was way better than my daydreams. And I didn’t think that was possible.”

  She hadn’t thought the whole thing was possible. “You’re an unbelievable lover, Brett.”

  “Don’t give me all the credit, sugar. All I did was follow the suggestions I’d read and a few ideas I’d thought up on my own during some unbridled fantasizing. You’re the one with enough feminine passion to power a small city.”

  Unbridled fantasizing? He thought her passion could power a small city? She sucked in a worried breath. “Do you think I’m a nympho?”

  He burst out laughing and didn’t stop for several miles.

  She frowned at him, not finding her worries remotely as funny as he did.

  “You’re joking, right?” he finally asked, unchecked amusement glinting in his blue gaze.

  “No. And why can’t I be a nympho?” she asked, offended for a different reason altogether.

  “Do you want to be one?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t worry, you are in no risk of going that direction.”

  “How can you say that after last night?”

  “You are twenty-eight years old and until yesterday, the only two lovers you had were high-school boyfriends. That is not nymphomaniaclike behavior.”

  “Maybe I’m like the alcoholic who doesn’t realize she is one until she takes her first drink and then ends up dying from alcohol poisoning within a few short years.”

  So, it hadn’t exactly been her proverbial first drink, but she could imagine becoming addicted to Brett’s lovemaking way too easily. She didn’t like the prospect one bit. Being addicted to a man who was still pining after his lost love was not the way she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

  He shook his head, laughing
like a demented hyena again. “You’re not going to die from enjoying sex with me.”

  “I thought I was going to have a heart attack last night.”

  “You didn’t.”

  No. She’d fallen asleep instead. She had to admit that didn’t seem all that dangerous. “Well,” she grumbled with a pout, “you make it sound like other women aren’t like me.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “Doesn’t that make me a deviant?”

  “No. It makes you unique and special. You do not have abnormal desires, but are so sweetly responsive you make me shake when I touch you. Frankly, sugar, you’re the lover of this good ole’ boy’s fantasies.”

  He couldn’t mean it. “I’m not Elena.”

  He was silent for several seconds, his expression losing any sign of amusement, and then he sighed. “Believe it or not, I’m not looking for another Elena.”

  Oh, she believed him. Once you’d had perfection, you didn’t go looking for the same bolt of lightning to strike twice. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. Or you wouldn’t have brought it up. I need you to listen to this, okay?”

  “All right.” What choice did she have? She was the goober who had brought it up, but if he went into a long dialogue about how different she and Elena were, Claire was afraid she just might cry.

  “I don’t spend my time with you comparing you to her. You are yourself, Claire. I don’t want you to be anyone else and you can believe me when I say that I have never made love to a more responsive woman or one who fit me better sexually.”

  She was more sensual than his lost love? “Never?”

  “Never. You knock me flat on my butt with your passion.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Yeah. Right.”

  He wasn’t flat on his butt when he was turning her inside out with his touching in the hot tub.

  “You don’t believe me? I’ve never once forgotten the condom, not even when I was a randy teen. Being with you blows my rational mind with the power of detonated C-4.”

  He’d never forgotten the condom, not once? “Was Elena on the pill?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” If what he was saying was true, and she didn’t believe he would ever lie to her…the passion they shared was unique for him.