by Sami Lee
David’s fingers dug into her waist, stilling the reflexive rocking of her hips. “That’s it. Bedtime.”
She sighed with relief when David stood, lifting her against him and striding through the living room like a man in a hurry.
Good, Sarah thought. She wanted him out of control. She needed him to take her hard and fast—to fuck her so thoroughly she forgot everything but the sensation of him inside her.
Just like last time.
The room he took her to was dark, colder than the living room because the warmth from the fire didn’t reach it. David turned on a nearby lamp, its stained-glass shade casting geometric light patterns on the white-painted walls, illuminating a bedroom sparsely furnished with simple timber pieces. He stalked to the double bed, pulled back the patchwork quilt and laid Sarah upon the mattress. The sheets were cool at her back but David was warm and Sarah clung to him. He stared down at her, saw her bra still askew, her breasts heaving, and closed his eyes tight as though the sight pained him.
Suddenly he stood and ripped off his sweater, tossing it to her. “Here, put this on before I lose my mind.”
He wanted her to put clothes on? Confused by his order and not a little distracted by the sight of him in a muscle-hugging white T-shirt, Sarah found herself pulling the garment over herself. Perhaps he liked the idea of seeing her in his clothes. When the snuggly wool caressed her skin and made David’s earthy scent swirl around her, Sarah figured he might be on to something. She arched a brow. “You’re not going to ask to put on my underwear now, are you?”
He scoffed. “Not something I’m into, lady.”
“Good. Come here.”
She grabbed his T-shirt and managed to draw him toward her for another passionate kiss before he pulled away, panting. “You need to get some rest.”
“Sure. Afterward.”
“We’re not having sex tonight, I told you that.”
The fact that he was making a solid effort to keep their bodies separated finally started to penetrate Sarah’s lust-fogged brain. She blinked at him. “Are you kidding me?”
His smile was a mirthless twist of his lips. “I wish I was.”
“But I thought… I assumed…”
“That I was a sure thing?” A little humor seeped into his expression. “My, my, should I be insulted?”
Sarah scowled. “David, I’m practically throwing myself at you.”
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate the effort.”
“The effort!” With a vicious yank, Sarah pulled the quilt over her body, forming a barrier between them. “Don’t flatter yourself!”
He outright laughed at that, which only made Sarah angrier. And more hurt. Somewhere deep inside his rejection stung so badly it brought the burn of tears.
“Hey, hey, don’t do that.” Cupping her face, David angled it so he could see her. “Aw, damn it. You can’t think this is because I don’t want you. Not the case, Sarah. I want you so much I’m hard all over.”
His admission sent desire spiraling through her again, dispelling her mortification somewhat. “Then why not? I won’t expect anything more from you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He released a tired sigh. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”
“I don’t get it.”
With a gentle hand, David pushed back a strand of hair that had escaped her French twist “I wish you would expect more from me. I need you to give me—us—more credit than you have so far. I want to be with you so badly but I’m not just after sex. I want to make love to you.”
That dead-of-night conversation came back to Sarah like a remembered dream. Let’s pretend, for a little while longer. She smiled and rose to her knees, placing a hand on David’s chest. The solid thud of his heart knocked against her palm. “Call it whatever you want. Just don’t leave me in here alone.”
She slanted her face and brushed her lips against his. His heart slammed frantically against her hand. A soft breath fell out of his mouth as he withstood the teasing caress of hers. Sarah continued like that, pressing featherlight kisses to his lips until he groaned and grabbed her buttocks in a reflexive grip. His surrender caused fire to rage between them, a swift flare-up. Sarah was wriggling and desperate in an instant, a relieved moan rumbling in her throat when David sought the zipper of her trousers and lowered it, no longer resisting temptation.
He eased her back onto the mattress and tugged at her trousers until they fell to the floor, leaving her in only his sweater and her underwear. He surveyed the sheer white lace of her panties with a hungry inspection. “Damn, Sarah. You make me crazy.”
The response was definitely mutual. “I want to make you lose your mind.”
“You’re succeeding.” He ran a hand up and down her bare thigh, causing hot gooseflesh to erupt. “Do you remember how I made you come the first time, Sarah? With my mouth and the champagne?”
The mere mention of it had Sarah arching her body. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
The corner of his mouth lifted, a hint of cockiness shining through. “You trusted me then, opened to me completely. Was it only because you thought you’d never see me again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” There was no denying the anonymity of their first encounter had enabled Sarah to behave more boldly than she ordinarily would have. There was also no denying that David’s patience and skill had played a crucial part.
“What if you knew you had to face me the next day, and the next and the next. Do you think you could come like that again if I kissed you here?”
“David.” Sarah writhed on the bed, moving her hips once more in a silent plea. “Don’t tease me.”
Lowering his head, he placed his scorching mouth against her mound, the heat of him penetrating the thin layer of her panties. He moaned and the vibration of his lips made electric tension thrum through her clit. He lifted his head again and said, “Stay with me this weekend.”
It took Sarah a few seconds to grasp his train of thought. “The whole weekend?”
“It’s Friday night. Stay until Monday morning.”
“I can’t. I have meetings, paperwork…” He blew a warm breath over her, the tantalizing sensation causing Sarah’s pussy lips to quiver with need. “David, please!”
“I bet I can make you come, even though it’s not anonymous. Even though you might have to admit it could mean something.”
Sarah reached down and speared her fingers through his hair, urging him downward as she lifted herself off the mattress. “Do it. Prove it to me.”
His lips curved, Sarah felt it when he buried his face in her inner thigh, tormenting inches left of where she wanted him most. “Stay with me.”
“I have so much work,” Sarah spat, frustrated. “I can’t take the weekend off.”
“You’re the boss. You can do whatever you want.”
“I can’t have you, apparently,” Sarah groused.
“Not true.” From his position between her thighs, David pinned her with his dark gaze. “I’m yours. Stay the weekend. I want to make you come over and over and over again.”
Right now, Sarah would settle for once. Her clit burned with need, pulsed with it so ferociously the lace of her panties was an unbearable irritant. But then David pressed his mouth to her once more, sending his tongue out to lave her through the fabric and the barrier became less of an irritant and more of a rough, pleasurable sensation against her inflamed nerves. “Oh! Oh dear God.”
Moving downward, David snaked his tongue into her damp opening, pushing the lacy fabric into her wetness as he did so. He pressed his tongue in and out, prevented from burying it deep inside by the barrier of her underwear. It was both delicious pleasure and maddening denial at once. Then he placed his thumb against her swollen nub and shifted her panties over it, scraping against her pleasure center as he continued to probe her entrance with his wet tongue. An orgasm built swiftly like a plane at takeoff, the soaring height and glorious pressure increasing, ascending inexora
bly faster and faster…
Wrenching his mouth from her, David rasped, “Sarah, please.”
“Oh God, make me come,” she whimpered.
“Promise you’ll stay. Two days, that’s all I ask.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Sarah burst out in frustration. “I’ll stay.”
The words were barely out before David’s mouth was upon her again. Through her underwear he sucked her inflamed clit, his lips adept and purposeful. He burrowed beneath the lace with his middle finger and drove it deep into her channel and the instant he did Sarah came around him, her inner muscles going into uncontrollable spasms as her body rocked wildly.
She screamed yes, over and over. She shouted David’s name. She was fairly certain she reiterated her promise to be his for the weekend. She was, in short, a wild wanton, completely and utterly beholden to the man who delivered the ecstasy she badly needed.
Damn it. She couldn’t afford to need David, not even on a mere physical level. She had a job to do, a life to live that would not fit around an affair with anyone who didn’t inhabit that life. She couldn’t need a man who lived out of the city. The logistics alone were enough to give her a headache.
The risk to her heart, she didn’t even want to think about.
“Jesus, Sarah.” David spoke against her stomach where he’d moved to begin trailing kisses over her skin. “That was incredible.”
“That’s one word for it.” Fear at her out-of-control response to David’s ministrations gave rise to ire. With a forceful hand, she shoved him off her body. “You didn’t play fair.”
Rolling to his side and propping on one elbow, David regarded her with an expression containing more triumph than remorse. “You’re right. I guess I’m not above extortion after all. But fair or not, I’m going to hold you to your promise.”
“You think I’d renege?”
“I think you’d do anything to keep me at a distance. To keep on pretending all we have between us is hot sex.”
“That is all that’s between us.”
“Tell me that when your throat’s not hoarse from screaming my name and maybe I’ll believe you. Say you don’t have feelings for me in two days and I’ll never challenge you on it again.”
Sarah gaped at him, at the earnestness in his expression. Her heart shifted, as if changing positions in her chest. He believed it was truly possible for her to let everything go and have some kind of ongoing relationship with him, while Sarah had doubts aplenty. She was wealthy and he was barely getting by. People would always think he was after her for her money and she couldn’t protect him from that. She was a city girl born and raised and it was clear David loved it here in the quiet country. And she hadn’t even considered her father yet—the father who would take one look at David and see an opportunist and who’d do anything to expose him as one.
No affair, no matter how wonderful it promised to be, was strong enough to withstand those kinds of pressures long-term. “A relationship between us would never work,” she told him sadly.
David pressed a finger to her lips. “Save it for Sunday night and see how you feel then.”
Chapter Ten
Sarah awoke to the sensation of hot breath on her face. Her first thought was of David, but if his breath had been a tenth as pungent as that wafting over her, she wouldn’t have spent half the night fantasizing about kissing him again. On the mouth, on the neck, along his chest and down toward…
Opening her eyes before her imaginings became too graphic, Sarah jumped when confronted with the sight of one of David’s dogs sitting on his haunches staring at her, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted his stinky doggy breath into the space between them. “Buster, you scared the life out of me.”
Propping on one elbow, she gave the dog a scratch between the ears that made him lean his head into the caress in a silent request for more. She could already tell the two collies apart by the placement of the patches over their eyes. And while Keaton had kept his distance, Buster had apparently taken a shine to Sarah. Probably because she was the only one willing to throw the mutt’s disgusting stick. She moved her hand to the sensitive spot beneath his chin and caressed it. In response, Buster dropped to the floor like a felled log, shifting onto his back in an obvious plea for a tummy rub.
Sarah chuckled. “Boy, you should really play harder to get.”
Advice she could have used last night, Sarah mused as she satisfied Buster’s need for physical attention. Her own needs weren’t so easy to sate. The ferocious orgasm David had forced out of her—okay, that she’d practically demanded he give her—had taken only the slightest edge off her desire. She wanted more than a swift climax while she was still wearing her underpants. She wanted David naked, on top of her, inside her, driving brutally into her body until they both achieved the ultimate ecstasy.
But after he’d compelled her to utter that stupid promise last night, he’d left her in bed alone to spend the night having erotic dreams that had her experiencing more than a little tension this morning. All because he wanted her to say “make love” instead of “have sex”, which was an exercise in semantics as far as Sarah was concerned. Darned exasperating man.
“I suppose I’d better get up, hey, boy?” Sarah swung her legs out of bed and stood, causing Buster to scramble to his feet after her. A quick scan of the room didn’t reveal where David might have put her suit pants so Sarah padded in her bare feet down the hall in search of the man who was, good idea or not, her host for the weekend.
She stopped short when she saw a woman leaning over the sink in the kitchen, her brown ponytail falling to the center of her back. Kerri. She wore another pair of fitted jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt in navy blue, and she was washing David’s dishes.
What kind of married woman washed dishes for a man who wasn’t her husband?
“Good morning.”
Kerri spun around, sending suds arcing off her fingers. “Shit. You startled me.”
“My apologies.” Sarah couldn’t keep the coolness out of her voice. Something about the liberties Kerri Sayers took when it came to David got her back up. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I was looking for David.”
“He had to dash into town first thing. He asked me to come over and help you out.”
“Help me? With what?”
Kerri grinned. “With clothes. He mentioned you decided on impulse to stay the weekend and he thought you might need something to wear.”
That was something Sarah hadn’t even thought of. Obviously, she was spoiled by having a secretary do her dry cleaning, which tended to make clothes magically appear whenever they were needed. Either that or David had a way of scrambling her brain. “I still have my suit,” Sarah said. “I could probably…”
Sarah trailed off when Kerri shook her head. “Afraid you might have to kiss that expensive suit goodbye. David thought it would be a nice idea to wash it for you. In the machine.”
Sarah grimaced at the thought of her fine-thread wool pants and jacket being tossed around in the spin cycle. “That suit is dry clean only.”
“I know. Men, huh?”
The comment hung in the air, offering Sarah an opportunity to take up the mantle of sisterly solidarity and in the process find some common ground with Kerri. She found herself unable to share humor with the other woman, something about her persistent presence in David’s life sticking in her craw.
The moment passed in awkward silence. Kerri canted her head and regarded Sarah curiously. “You don’t like me, do you?”
Being so bluntly called out caused Sarah’s throat to burn. She absolutely refused to let the rush of blood rise to her face. “I don’t know you.”
“But you’re getting to know David and don’t appreciate the fact that I already do.”
That made her sound so mean-spirited and ridiculous. “It’s none of my concern who David decides to be friends with.”
Kerri’s hazel gaze swept over Sarah, and she was reminded that she stood in David’s k
itchen wearing little more than his sweater. “Are you planning on making it your concern?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“David’s not like other men.”
Sarah’s hackles rose. “And you’re an expert on what kind of man he is?”
Kerri’s lips twitched, not in a friendly way. “I know he’d never dally with a married woman, if that’s something you think is your concern. He’s also not the type to use people. He’s loyal, solid. I’d hate to see him get mixed up with someone who didn’t appreciate that about him. He’s been there before and he deserves better.”
In other words, Kerri thought Sarah was here to use David. The flush that she’d hitherto managed to keep from infusing her face broke free, burning her cheeks. Wasn’t using David precisely what she wanted to do? By demanding sex and refusing to give anything of herself in return?
The sound of the front door opening shattered the tension between the two women. Soon after David came into the room, carrying a couple brown paper bags. He caught sight of Sarah and smiled. “Hey, you’re up.”
The warmth in his expression, the laser-like quality of his perusal as it fixed on her and her alone made Sarah’s heart skip several beats. She was so breathless her reply was barely audible. “Hey yourself. Where’d you go?”
David held up the bag. “The bakery for fresh cinnamon rolls. And…a few other places.”
His discomfiture was obvious as Sarah’s notice dropped to the other bag, on the side of which was the name of a chemist—which she’d learned was the Australian equivalent of a drugstore. Furtively, David shoved the bag in a nearby cupboard. Only after that did he finally speak to Kerri as though seeing her for the first time. “Hi Kez. Thanks for coming over. Did the clothes fit?”
Kerri cut her a glance. “Sarah hasn’t tried them on yet.”
David’s expression was contrite as he once again addressed Sarah. “She tell you about your suit?”