“No,” she said, turning to face him again. “I’d wondered what you’d thought about it.”
She would see shortly, Ben thought, fighting a small smile. “It’s fantastic. The shot of that live oak as the background is perfect. I would have never thought to use it, and yet it captures the tone and variety of my work perfectly.” He nodded. “Very discerning of you.”
“I thought so,” she said, seemingly pleased with the praise. “I kept coming back to it.” A puzzled line emerged between her delicate brows. “It’s very compelling…and it reminded me of you.”
He laughed. “Me?”
“Yep. Dark and forbidding. Vulnerable but strong. Peaceful, even.”
He liked dark, forbidding and strong. He could tolerate peaceful, but drew the line at vulnerable. “What makes you think I’m vulnerable?” he asked suspiciously, shooting her a sideways glance.
She laughed softly and shook her head. “I knew you’d call me on that one.”
She neatly avoided answering it, too, but Ben wasn’t ready to let her off the hook. “Come on. What makes you think I’m vulnerable?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
April sighed, gazed out the window. “Rule Number Two.”
Since Ben didn’t particularly care for that answer and what it implied, he decided to ignore her response. Honestly, he’d like to tell her about the understanding he and his father had reached, but doing so would violate Rule Number Two, and furthermore, he could hardly talk about his own father without telling her that Davy was her dad’s partner.
Sticky stuff. Dangerous waters.
He had a horrible fear that his silence on the matter would come back to bite him on the ass, but he couldn’t get past it really—really—not being his place. It was Marcus’s place. Marcus should tell her, dammit, and if things progressed between him and April the way he hoped they would, Ben wasn’t above paying her father a visit to give him his opinion on the subject. He wasn’t certain it would do a whole hell of a lot of good, but he’d give it a try nonetheless.
April deserved her father’s honesty and in the meantime, it put him at a dishonest disadvantage by creating this lie of omission between them. He didn’t like it.
In fact, it sucked.
“Are you getting hungry?” Ben asked at last, when they neared the place where he’d planned to stop and picnic.
April stretched a bit in her seat. “Yeah, I’m getting a little hungry.”
He heaved a put-upon sigh and smiled. “Back to the little jokes, I see.”
She chuckled. “You know what I mean,” she chided. “Geez, who would have ever thought you would be so sensitive? For someone whose nickname is The Vagina Whisperer, of all things, you sure are insecure.”
Ben rounded another turn and the great tree he’d photographed years ago—the very one April had said she’d been drawn to—came into view. He slowed, watched her from the corner of his eye and waited for her to see it.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed, her gaze widening with delight. “Would you look at that? That looks like—” She glanced at him questioningly, a wondering smile curling her lush mouth. “Is that what I think it is?”
He grinned.
“Oh, Ben,” she said, her voice soft with emotion.
“I thought you might like to see it.”
She leaned over and brushed a kiss against his cheek, causing something in his chest to shift, tingle and quake. “So that’s what the picnic basket’s for?”
“Good surprise, eh?”
She nodded. “Excellent surprise.” She kissed his cheek again, then leaned up and tugged at his earlobe with her teeth, causing his belly to tremble and a shiver to race up his spine. “I’ll be sure and reward you accordingly,” she growled softly.
Ben pulled off the road. She didn’t get it yet, did she, he thought, shifting the gearshift into park. He turned in his seat and ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. For the briefest of seconds, he laid himself bare to her, let her glimpse the emotion keeping him in a perpetual knot. “Just being with you is reward enough,” he said.
And he meant it.
April’s gaze softened. “Ben,” she breathed, then leaned forward and kissed him ever so gently. “I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything.” He drew back. “Come on. What do you say we go spread the blanket and share a bottle of wine?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I say yes.”
Ben got out and retrieved the basket, while April snagged a couple of blankets. His arm slung around her shoulder, they made their way across the dry brown field until they reached the slightly chilly shade of the tree.
“It’s gorgeous in the spring,” Ben told her. “I’ve taken shots of it then, too, but it’s just not as compelling, if that makes sense.” He set the basket down, then took one of the blankets from her and spread it on the ground. The other, he set aside.
“It does,” she said, looking up, admiring the knotty canopy overhead. “When she’s dressed, you can’t see her branches.”
Ben cocked his head. She was right, but he still wanted to tease. “So you’re saying I like her better when she’s naked?”
April grinned. “I didn’t say it, hoss, you did.” She sank down onto the blanket. “Seriously, the branches, the breadth of the tree, I think that’s what makes it so beautiful.”
Ben settled down beside her, poured her a glass of wine, then went about loading their plates. Cajun chicken salad, marinated vegetables, fresh fruit and a carrot-raisin muffin to start, then bread pudding with warm rum sauce to finish.
April grinned at him. “Now this is what I call dinner on the ground.”
Ben shot her a look. “I’ve got a different definition. I’d be happy to show you later, if you’re interested.”
April’s chewing slowed and a smile rolled around her lips. “Oh, yeah. I’m interested.”
They ate in comfortable silence, embraced beneath the towering shade of the tree, cozily enveloped in her bare branches. When April had finished, Ben loaded everything back up into the basket, then lay down and tugged her with him, snagging that extra blanket in the process. She settled her head upon his chest, seemingly content to listen to his heart beat. He covered her up, equally content to let her.
After a moment, she lifted her head and peered up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered softly, her voice rusty with emotion.
“For what?” He painted circles on her back with his fingers. Contentment welled inside him, affirmed what he already knew in his heart to be true.
“For this. For everything.”
“I haven’t fixed you yet,” he told her.
“You have in every way that counts,” she replied, her gaze searching his. She scooted up and kissed his jaw, causing a tornado of heat to rush into his loins. “I’m ready,” she whispered huskily.
Ben let go a shuttering breath. “Ready for what?”
He knew, dammit, he knew. Knew what she wanted and why she’d come to him to give it to her. But for whatever reason—performance anxiety, he supposed—he was suddenly an absolute nervous wreck. He’d done this countless times. And he knew that she was ready. He’d primed her. Awakened her senses, put her back on the path of sexual healing.
And yet, now that the time had come to work his magic, he was suddenly terrified of not pleasing her. Of being just like every other guy over the past eighteen months who’d left her tired but not satisfied.
It was damned intimidating to say the least.
“That dinner-on-the-ground definition you mentioned earlier,” she said, confirming his fears.
Sweet Jesus. Him. Ben Hayes, the freakin’ Vagina Whisperer, was afraid of having sex. He stilled.
Fuck that, Ben thought, as ego and pride quashed the intolerable notion. In a nanosecond, he bent his head, captured her lips and every insecurity vanished like dew in the Louisiana Delta.
April would
come for him because failure was not an option.
And neither was losing her again.
9
APRIL SENSED more than felt the abrupt change in Ben. A confidence and urgency entered his kiss, even his touch as he pulled her up over his body. He slid his hands along her back, shaping her, pressing her more firmly against him.
Oh, have mercy, she thought, as equal parts joy and desire bolted through her. Her blood sizzled in her veins and a warm, tender feeling infected her heart, causing her to smile against his lips.
After little more than three days, Ben had managed to coax feeling back into her numbed sex, and insinuate himself back into her heart. Hell, who was she kidding? For whatever reason, she was reminded of one of those grow-your-own-boyfriend kits, the kind where you only had to add water and a tiny sponge would morph into a life-size man.
Ben had been like that—there, but small…dormant. But the instant she’d invited him back into her life, he’d somehow managed to grow and swell until her heart could no longer deny that she was, is, and always would be head over heels in love with him.
And this afternoon, under a tree—the very tree that she’d fantasized about being with him beneath, one that had weathered hurricanes and droughts and had most likely given shelter to Confederate soldiers—he was finally going to make love to her.
Let me love you.
Oh, she intended to. But she would match him pleasure for pleasure because she had every intention of loving him, too. And given the dream he kept having, she knew that he wasn’t used to it.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?” she asked him.
“You said eighteen months.”
“No,” she said, bracing both hands on either side of his head. She peered down at him, bent and kissed his lids, then the side of his cheek, then slid her tongue along his bottom lip and suckled him gently. “Eighteen months is how long I’ve waited for an orgasm. I’ve waited for you—for this—for ten years,” she told him. “Ten long, lonely years.”
Masculine approval flared in those amber orbs. “You haven’t been alone.”
She bent and tasted him again. “No more wasted time.”
Ben smiled, nodded, then swiftly rolled her over onto her back. “As you wish,” he murmured in a husky voice that bordered on a growl. He settled himself alongside her body, and attached his mouth to hers once more, then slowly slid his hand under her shirt. She gasped and her belly quivered beneath his warm touch. He trailed his fingertips around her navel, then played her ribs like a harp, painstakingly strumming each one until her nipples tautened into hard aching nubs that she longed to push into his hand.
With every sweep of his tongue into her mouth, every slide of his fingers over her body, she could feel her muscles thaw and throb, melt and quiver. Much to her delight and irritation, he seemed to be taking his time, intent on stoking a fire that was already lit.
You’ll come for me, then I’ll take you, and you’ll come again.
That sure as hell looked like a promise he planned to make good on, April thought, resisting the wild urge to laugh.
Desperate to feel something besides her own pleasure, April tugged his sweater up and breathed a sigh into Ben’s mouth when she found warm, bare skin. God, the man felt wonderful. Smooth skin, supple muscle, a feast for her palms. Slowly, deliberately, with the same sort of painstaking care he was using, April worked his sweater up until he had to break their kiss in order to push it over his head. With a flick of her wrist she tossed it away, then quickly smoothed her hands down his sides.
His breath caught and she felt him—him, big fearless, experienced him—quiver. A rush of power ripped through her, causing her own breath to stall and break. A steady, promising pulse had begun to pound in her sex and warmth pooled in her womb, watering the sprout of the orgasm he’d planted over the past few days. With every beat of her heart, she could feel it getting stronger, growing, the bud forming…the promise of a bloom.
Ben gently removed her sweater and tossed it carelessly aside. He stilled and fingered her bra, a sheer pastel butterfly design. The delicate gauzy wings covered her breasts. “Pretty,” he murmured.
April smiled wickedly. “I have the panties to match…but I’m not wearing them.”
Ben chuckled, and quickly popped the front closure on her bra, causing the wings to break apart, the fabric to snag on her pebbled nipples. He bent and nudged the sheer material aside with his nose, then licked her nipple, blew, then suckled.
A pleasure so sweet and intense forced her lids to flutter shut. Her head rolled languidly to the side and she mewled softly, a nonsensical confirmation of his expertise. She slid her hands into his hair, anchoring him there, then arched off the blanket, pushing her aching breast farther into the hot cavern of his mouth.
Ben’s hand found her other breast. He weighed and thumbed, lightly squeezed, then evidently wanting to see if there was a difference between them, he licked a path over and quickly pulled her neglected nipple deep into his mouth. She felt that hot tug in her womb, as well, as though a mysterious thread connected the two. Every stroke of his tongue, every suckle, vibrated it until she genuinely feared she’d fly apart.
Oh, sweet Jesus, April thought as he took his sweet time torturing her. She knew what he was doing—he was loving her—drawing out the pleasure, building, stoking, kindling. And in the meantime, she was burning up inside. Her skin seemed entirely too tight for her body and she was hit with the simultaneous urge to stretch and purr, squirm and wiggle.
They were overdressed, she decided, and quickly went to work at the snap of his trousers. She’d barely touched the zipper when she felt him jump, an impatient nudge that told her he was every bit as ready as she was. Three seconds later, she had him in her hand, hot, hard, thrilling.
Huge.
Perhaps The Vagina Invader was a better nickname, April thought with an inappropriate burst of humor as she stroked the slippery skin with her hand, ran the pad of her thumb over the smooth, engorged head.
Ben sucked in a harsh breath and swore hotly. “Christ, April.”
“I love touching you,” she said, skimming the tips of her nails over him, then slipping her hand down to gently cup him.
With a groan that told her it cost him, Ben pulled himself out of reach, shucked his sagging pants, then made quick work of hers.
Naked, at last, she thought with a shuddering sigh as Ben’s hot skin connected fully with hers. He fed at her breast again, then slowly trailed his fingers down her belly. April felt her thighs quake, anticipating what would come.
Namely her…soon.
As though his shoulders weren’t shaking and he had all the time in the world, he drew a lazy M over her pubic bone, dipping down, tantalizing her clit, then up again. A shock of moisture coated her folds, drenched her, from the teasing contact.
April whimpered. “Ben,” she pleaded. “Enough. Please.”
He chuckled softly, the sound dark and wicked…Her bad boy. “You’re almost there.” He drew another lazy M, dipping down farther this time, dragging some of her joy juice up and painting it over her pulsing nub once more.
She bucked off the blanket, shamelessly opened her thighs more, granting him better access. Open, ready, desperate. She felt his breath pool in her belly button, his tongue slide in a direct path where his fingers played, then with an uncustomary burst of speed, he quickly latched his mouth upon her.
Oh. Sweet. Heaven.
Her eyes rolled back in her head. What little air had been in her lungs swiftly departed in a startled whoosh, and had he not wrapped his arms around her legs, she would have bucked him off her. Instead, Ben held her down and tongued her harder.
“Oh, baby, you taste good.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t reply.
“Sweet…Hot…”
He licked and stroked, swirled and massaged, his tongue every bit as adept as his fingers. April gasped. Maybe more so, she thought as, blessedly—oh, God, finally�
�she felt the sweet tug of beginning climax. Ben loosened his hold upon her legs, let his fingers drift into the fray. He tongued her clit, lapped and laved, then slipped his thumb deep into her and squeezed, pushing his index finger against the tight rosebud of her bottom.
It was beyond anything she’d ever experienced before. The air evaporated from her lungs, a silent “oh” tore from her throat, her thighs went rigid. He pulled another neat trick with his tongue, forming a stiff V over her clit and working it back and forth, back and forth, and all the while his thumb and finger kept perfect harmony.
April thrashed beneath him, could feel the climax bearing down on her, tightening and tightening until with one final push against her bottom, the dam broke and a year and a half’s worth of orgasms burst free.
She cried out—screamed—then laughed hysterically with relief as the pleasure pulsed through her. Ben kept up his ministrations, but slowed them down enough to let her get the most from the experience—let her savor it rather than fight it.
At last, when the final throb echoed away and nothing but a tingling warmth lay in the aftermath of release, he looked up at her. Masculine pride—the baby-I-rocked-your-world kind—clung to his smile. Those pale whiskey eyes were dark with desire and twinkled with just the smallest bit of smug humor. “Welcome back,” he murmured, intensely pleased with himself.
April grinned at him, leaned forward and pulled him toward her so that his sex nudged hers. Her hips lifted in silent invitation. “Welcome in.”
IF SHE EXPECTED HIM to dive in and take his own pleasure without making sure that she got even more, then she’d better think again, Ben thought, resisting the urge to draw back and beat his chest and roar.
Granted, his dick throbbed and his arms were shaking. Even though every single part of him was ready to fly apart the instant he allowed it, Ben knew that she still needed something more. Something better. Something just for her. Hell, if he didn’t come at all—though, quite honestly he hoped that wouldn’t be the case since it would likely kill him—it simply wouldn’t matter.
Getting It Right! Page 10