Star Quality

by Lori Foster

  “You were preoccupied.”

  She covered her face with both hands. “I’m going to die of embarrassment right now.”

  The old-fashioned elevator got very little use, and being at the back of the inn, it wasn’t a glaringly public place either despite the open grillwork of the gate that left its occupants exposed through the matching grillwork gate in the doorway of each floor. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who looks mussed,” she mumbled through her hands, spreading her fingers so she could peek at him.

  He grinned. Her hair was a little messier than its usual silky smooth flip, but the biggest giveaway to what they had been doing was in her eyes. She looked devastated.

  Good, because touching her devastated him.

  “No one is going to know what you’ve been doing by the state of your dress.”

  “Anyone who has been waiting for the elevator is going to speculate.” Her voice came out trembly.

  He liked knowing that despite her embarrassment, she was still reeling from his effect on her.

  They were passing the second floor. The area in front of the gate was empty. “No one is around on this floor, and the only rooms on the third floor are your apartment and corporate quarters.”

  Her stance did not relax appreciably, but she lowered her hands so she could look at him fully. “Blake?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why did you stop?”

  The question surprised him. “You wanted to make love in the elevator?” he asked, his voice raspy from desire that had had no outlet.

  “A minute ago, I wouldn’t have cared if we were in the lobby.”

  The admission did things to him that weren’t related entirely to how tight his pants had become in the crotch area. “I like your honesty.”

  “I’m not sophisticated enough for sexual games.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Incredibly, she blushed. “I meant head games, pretending I don’t want you when I do, that sort of thing.”

  He grinned. “I’m glad. I hate that sort of thing, and for the record, I want you, too.”

  “I got that impression, only why…”

  “I want you fully naked and under me the first time I come inside of you.”

  Her eyes widened until she resembled a shock victim. “You’re so blunt.”

  “So you’ve said.” He stalked her to the other side of the elevator, stopping when she was pressed tightly against the back wall and his body barely touched hers. “That makes us a good couple. Blunt is just another way of being honest.”

  The air vibrated between them, and her breath came in shallow pants. She licked her lips and gasped when he followed suit, tasting her while placing his hands on either side of her head against the wall.

  He pushed his tongue inside her mouth, unable to resist deepening the kiss, even though one part of his brain was telling him what a stupid choice that was. If he was going to make it out of the elevator without dropping his pants and impaling her against the wall, he had to keep his raging libido under control.

  Tasting the sweet warmth of her mouth was not going to help him do that.

  The elevator stopped with a gentle jolt, and he managed to pull his mouth from hers and step back. “We’re here.”

  The only sound that came out of her mouth was a low whimper. Her eyes were shut again, and her lips were parted as if inviting further kisses. He would take that invitation, just as soon as they made it into his room.

  He swept her up into his arms and pivoted on his heel. “You’ll have to pull the gates open.”

  She did, her fingers fumbling with the locking mechanism, but finally managing to get both gates pulled open and then shut after they stepped from the elevator.

  It was only a few feet down the hall to his door, but it felt like a mile, each step excruciating. Not because she was heavy, but because holding her excited him. To his already overstimulated nervous system, the feel of her body against his was enticement it took every ounce of his self-control to ignore.

  Once inside his room, he let her stand, but kept an arm around her. She was wobbly.

  “I want you naked, Ivy.”

  She stared at him, her expression uncomprehending.

  He stepped back. “I. Want. You. To. Take. Your. Clothes. Off.”

  The glazed desire in her eyes faded a little. “Just me?”

  “Yes.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture that intensified his desire to push her farther than any lover had ever pushed her before. “Can’t we undress together?”

  “Are you refusing to cooperate?” he asked silkily, knowing that would prick her pride, push her toward proving her mettle.

  She saw his attempt at dominance as a personal challenge. It also excited her. He liked knowing that. It told him they were on the same wavelength in every way.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not refusing; I just want it to be more mutual.”

  “It is mutual.” He cupped her face and kissed her, branding her lips with his barely restrained passion. “It will give me a lot of pleasure to see you undress.” He kissed her again. “And you will enjoy undressing for me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” But she didn’t deny she would enjoy him watching her.

  She’d loved revealing herself to him in the elevator. Her arousal had been strong and blatant. Remembering the way she’d climaxed in his arms sent arrows of awareness straight to his dick. He stepped back.

  “Are you having a problem with our game?”

  “Um…” She licked her lips.

  He reached out and ran his fingertip down her cheek, letting it settle against the rapid pulse at the base of her neck. “If you don’t want to do it, all you have to say is my last name.”

  She glared. “I’m not giving in.”

  “This isn’t a contest.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Maybe it was, but it was more about exploring feelings and needs that had never surfaced with another woman.

  She covered his hand against her neck with her own. “I want to undress, but I want you to undress, too. You’ve already seen me half naked, but you haven’t even taken off your tie, for goodness sake. Please, Blake.”

  Please was not the safe word. Please was part of the game. “Does the thought of you standing there naked while I’m dressed make you feel vulnerable?” he asked, knowing the answer and ready for her to admit it.

  “Yes.”

  “I want you vulnerable. I don’t want any barriers between you and me.”

  “My clothes aren’t a barrier, not in the way you mean.”

  “Yes, they are. You’ve used your uniform and professional image as a defense mechanism with me. Tonight that ends.”

  She flinched as if his words had struck deeply. “That’s not fair. I dress this way as part of my employment with your company. How can you hold that against me?”

  “You dressed for work to go to dinner with me. You were trying to keep me at arm’s length tonight, and I intend to be as close to you as your skin.”

  He waited, to see if she would deny it, or if her innate honesty would carry over even when it made her uncomfortable.

  “I was…” She sighed, her face averting. “I was trying to keep a barrier between us, but I’m not anymore.” She looked at him again, her eyes filled with compelling brown warmth. “That’s got to be obvious.”

  “I want the barrier gone.”

  “It is gone.”

  “Get naked and it will be gone.”

  “Why are you being so stubborn about this? Why does it matter?” she implored, the very tension in her voice telling him she knew damn well why it mattered.

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t want to be that vulnerable.”

  “If you trust me not to hurt you, not to take advantage of your femininity no matter what the circumstances are, it won’t be a problem for you.”

  “But�
��”

  “There are no buts. Either you trust me, or you don’t.” Suddenly this need, this compulsion to push her, to dominate her as his sexual mate, made sense. Ivy Kendall kept herself separate from other people; she’d been doing it since the first time they met. She had emotional barriers that protected her from getting involved, and he wanted her involved with him.

  He wanted everything, and everything included her unwavering trust. Each time he pushed her and she complied, it knocked another chink out of the wall around her and put another piece in the bridge between them. He wanted that bridge rock solid.

  “Do it.” His hand fell away from her, and he took another step back, challenging her with his eyes. “Do it, or say the safe word.”

  Her eyes snapped dark fire at him. “Fine.” She yanked her jacket off, the thin cotton of her blouse not enough to hide nipples still hard from their time in the elevator.

  She started unbuttoning it. “If you need the juvenile thrill of having me naked while you are dressed, I’ll take my darn clothes off.”

  “You’re pretty mouthy for a woman who is supposed to be learning how to cooperate more fully with her boss.”

  “I am cooperating,” she practically growled. “Can’t you tell?” She ripped the shirt off and tossed it on the floor.

  He didn’t watch to see where it landed; his focus was too fixed on the beauty of her creamy breasts revealed in the stretchy lace cups of her bra. “That’s a scandalous piece of underwear.”

  She shrugged. “No one can see it under the blouse and jacket.”

  “I’m seeing it now.”

  She reached behind her to unfasten it. “For a second longer anyway.”

  “Stop.”

  She froze with her hands behind her back, a question in her eyes. Her delicate curves pressed forward in an intensely erotic display, the blush of arousal unmistakable on her fair skin.

  “Peel it away slowly.”

  Her breath hitched, and she did as he said, revealing the flawlessness of her form one delicious centimeter at a time, until she finally let the bra fall to the floor.

  He sucked in air, but he felt like all the oxygen had gone missing from his immediate vicinity. “You’re perfect.”

  “I don’t feel as vulnerable as I thought I would.”

  “Why should you? I’m the one ready to have a heart attack.”

  She laughed, the sound soft and ultrafeminine. Was she amused by him?

  He couldn’t drag his gaze from her gorgeous breasts to tell. They were small, but deliciously round and firm with tip-tilted nipples that were turgid points, colored a deep red from the blood rushing through them.

  He wanted to taste those tantalizing berries, but that would have to wait. “Now the skirt.”

  Without so much as blinking, she reached behind her and undid the button and zipper. The sound of it sliding down set off a burst of libidinous hormones in his body, making his muscles clench in primal preparation for taking his mate.

  She shimmied it down her hips, and it, too, fell to the carpet, revealing curls more red than the hair on her head. They were fluffy from his earlier ministrations, and he knew if he touched them, she would quiver just as she had in the elevator.

  He walked toward her, the draw of her body an irresistible pull. She wasn’t the vulnerable one right now. He was because he needed to touch her more than he needed to breathe, more than he needed to eat to survive, more than he needed warmth, or shelter, or satisfaction in his job. He could live without those things, but he couldn’t live without touching her.

  When he reached her, he reached out and shocked himself by not touching the erogenous zones on her body, the parts of her now revealed to his gaze for the first time.

  He cupped the side of her face with one hand and pressed his other one against her heart. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  Five

  Her eyes filled with tears, an inexplicable agony surfacing in their brown depths. “You said we would be honest.”

  Had he? Or had he said that his bluntness was a good counterpart for her honesty? It didn’t matter. Either way, right now he was telling the absolute truth. “I mean it.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are so many glamorous women in your world.”

  “And none of them come close to matching you for sheer feminine magnificence. How can you doubt my words? The inn could burn down around us and I couldn’t let you go.”

  One tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek, but her sweet lips tilted in a smile that touched places inside him he didn’t even know existed. “Oh, Blake…”

  He kissed her and lost himself in her lips. He was kicking off his trousers before he realized he’d even started undressing, but he had to feel skin to skin, warmth to warmth.

  The minute he was naked, she pressed herself against him, cradling his aching erection against the smooth softness of her belly and pressing her hardened nipples into his chest.

  She moaned at the contact.

  He groaned.

  They fell on the bed, and he started touching.

  Blake’s hands were everywhere. Ivy loved it. He’d been so controlled in the elevator, but he’d lost that control now, and she reveled in his overwhelming passion.

  One big hand cupped her backside while the other fondled her breast. His mouth was voracious on hers, and she responded with a renewal of excitement that made her ache for his possession. She hooked one leg over his thigh in blatant invitation and felt the head of his sex nudge her swollen folds.

  She pressed forward, but he reared back, a loud groan issuing from his throat. “Wait a second, baby. We’re going too fast.”

  Cooperation was all well and good, but she was done with games tonight. “Blake, I want you inside my body right now.”

  He laughed, the sound strained. “I wasn’t going to make you wait, honey, trust me.”

  He was stretching toward the nightstand beside the bed. He pulled the drawer open and fumbled around inside, all the while keeping her from going anywhere with the hand still clamped to her butt. Like she wanted to. It would take a crow bar and a very powerful winch to get her from his side.

  “Got one,” he practically shouted as he drew back toward her, a foil packet in his hand.

  “You brought condoms? To Delicious, Ohio?”

  “I wanted you the first day I saw you. My self-control has been deteriorating ever since. I wasn’t going to be caught flat-footed if it disappeared all together.”

  “Oh.”

  He ripped the packet open with his teeth and pulled out the condom with a shake that sent the packet flipping over his shoulder. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Yes, of cour—”

  He surged into her with a thrust that stretched her, filled her, and took the last bit of breath from her body.

  He pulled back, she sucked in air, he surged forward again, this time seating himself to the hilt. She cried out and instinctively tried to move back from the marauding intruder so intent on dominating her inner flesh.

  He stilled, his body vibrating with barely suppressed savagery. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t talk; her lungs were still frozen, that one breath all she’d managed in the last few seconds.

  He squeezed her, and she took a choking breath.

  “You’re big.”

  “Does it hurt?” His eyes searched her face with desperate appeal. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just…so much.”

  “Too much?” he asked, primal need lacing his voice, but concern for her was there, too. Sweat broke out on his brow.

  “Not too much. I love it.” I love you, she wanted to say, but held the words in check. Just barely.

  “Good.” He gripped her hip with strong fingers, adjusting her leg over him so she was blatantly open to his possession and then started to move.

  His pelvis coll
ided with her mound with every pounding thrust, and she knew another orgasm was not far off.

  The pleasure built and built and built. He grunted with each thrust, the veneer of sophisticated businessman completely gone in the face of this primordial male so intent on dominating her body with his own.

  He didn’t have to be on top for her to feel like he was in complete control. Only she didn’t mind. She wanted this no-holds-barred intimacy. She’d craved it forever, even if she hadn’t known it.

  “I’m going to come!” he shouted.

  And then he started grinding his pelvis against her in a deliberate attempt to take her with him. It worked.

  She screamed.

  He shouted.

  They shuddered together in sweaty, orgasmic bliss, but he wasn’t done. He ground against her, groaning with another body-arching pulse from his sex. He did it again, and each one prolonged her own pleasure, the starbursts going off in her head in one pyrotechnic display after another until it felt as if her mind exploded. She gasped, her heart raced, her body locked in an orgasm that could have been measured on the Richter scale, and everything went black.

  Blake could not believe it. Ivy was utterly limp against him. Her heart-shaped face had gone from tight with orgasmic tension to smooth and serene in the space of a heartbeat. He released her hip, and she fell onto her back in unconscious abandon.

  He had never given a woman a fainting orgasm before. In fact, he’d sort of always thought that particular sexual myth was just that…a fairy tale. Sudden fear made him rear up and over her as he looked for signs of any kind of physical distress. What if it was more than her climax? What if she’d had a heart attack? Or an aneurysm? Or…

  Her beautiful brown eyes slid open, and her swollen mouth creased in a gentle smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi, yourself.” His voice was weak from the unexpected worry and scratchy from shouting his pleasure out loud enough to strain his vocal cords.

  “That was pretty amazing.”

  “Yes. I lost control there at the end.”

  She arched toward him just the tiniest bit at the reminder, and his still semi-erect flesh slipped inside her slick opening. He couldn’t help it; he pressed forward for total possession, or as much as he could achieve in his current state. She didn’t seem to mind, but sighed out in what sounded like bliss to him. Then she tightened around him, and he grunted.