He peeked over at Lace.
She was full-on staring at him, her blue eyes smoldering. Blue eyes were supposed to be cool, right, ice and all those other clichés? But Lace’s blue eyes were hot as a gas flame.
He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips; the flavor of her—like champagne and strawberries—lingered on his taste buds. He couldn’t wait to taste her again.
Her small foot was tapping restlessly, those sensational high heels pattering against the floor mat of his King Ranch. She was as amped up as he was, her hands balled into tight fists against her thighs. His heart knocked hard against his chest and his throat felt scratchy, tight, and dry. He reached up with one hand, yanked at his bow tie.
God, why was it taking so long to drive the five miles to her house? It felt like five million. He’d waited so long for her, and now it was about to happen, he was terrified he’d ruin everything by coming too soon. He hadn’t had a problem with premature ejaculation since high school, but then again, he’d never been with Lace.
He ran a hand over his mouth, goosed the truck a few miles over the speed limit. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so nervous, not when it came to being with a woman. He’d never had to work for female attention and Lace had really put him through his paces, to the point where he was terrified that she was going to change her mind at the last minute and turn him out. She was so different from any women he’d ever been with—levelheaded, self-contained, even-keeled, and smart as a whip. No drama. No overblown expectations. Independent.
It was her independence that challenged him the most. He was so accustomed to women wanting, needing, demanding things from him, that he didn’t know what to do with someone who didn’t.
“Slow down,” she said. “Kids live in this neighborhood.”
“Sorry.” He had to force himself to let off the accelerator.
“Your heart is pounding ninety miles an hour.”
He jerked his head to meet her hot gaze again. “How do you know that?”
“The pulse at your temple is throbbing.”
He put a hand to his left temple. That wasn’t the only thing that was throbbing. “And yours isn’t?”
She reached over, took his left hand off the wheel, and placed it over her heart. He could feel the boom-boom-boom tempo that matched his own crazy rhythm. Touching her only made it worse. Her heartbeat quickened in time with his.
“Much as I hate to take my hand back, I need to concentrate on getting us there,” he said, reluctantly returning his hand to the wheel.
She gave a little laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m surprised.”
“About what?”
“That you’re so excited.”
“Dammit, Lace, don’t you have any idea what you do to me?”
“More so than any other woman?”
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. It was true. No woman had ever inflamed him the way she did. “You’re special.”
She crossed her legs. “Sure I am.”
“I’m serious.”
“It’s only because I made you wait for it.”
Was it? He’d never had to wait before and he had to admit the anticipation pushed him to the limit of his endurance. “That’s not the only reason,” he insisted doggedly.
“No?” She folded her arms over her chest. “In what way am I special?”
“You’re unique. For one thing, you’re a woman who likes spiders and snakes,” he said.
She laughed and shifted in her seat. The hem of her dress inched up, exposing a sweet expanse of dynamite thighs. He couldn’t wait until those lush thighs were wrapped around him. Pierce squirmed, bit down on his bottom lip, trying to hold back the shudder that passed through him at that erotic image.
“If I had known that turned you on,” she murmured. “I would have put bugs down your pants back in high school.”
He had ants in his pants right now and he couldn’t wait to peel them off. Right after he stripped her panties off her. Up ahead lay her house. His breath was slipping past his teeth in quick, shallow pants. In her driveway, he jammed on the brakes.
“Whoa there, big boy.”
“Sorry,” he apologized, killing the engine. Slow down. Take a deep breath. You’ve got all night.
She reached across the seat and touched his thigh.
Hell’s bells, he almost creamed his pants.
“We’re going to have to do something about that hair-trigger response,” she whispered.
“Wh-what do you mean?” His lungs were pumping up and down but he couldn’t seem to draw in any air.
Mysterious as a sphinx, she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and moved to get out.
“Lace, what did you mean?”
She tossed a sly smile over her shoulder. “Why don’t you come inside and find out?”
MAYBE IT WASN’T nice to tease, but Lace couldn’t resist, and while it might not be nice, teasing was a lot of fun. She led the way through to her back door.
He followed, hurrying up the path to catch her as she unlocked the door. He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist. She paused a second, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Enjoy the moment.
Fumbling around, she flicked on the light and they tumbled over the threshold into the kitchen. He turned her around to face him, planted a long, slow, lingering kiss on her lips. Her pulse was going crazy, shooting hot blood surfing her veins. She wove her arms around his neck, entangled her fingers in his hair, and pulled his head down. He bent her backward as his tongue explored her, sent her arousal off the charts.
When they finally came up for air, they were both panting and trembling.
Pierce blinked, released her, and stepped back. “Before we get carried away,” he said. “I promised to take Lulu out to the greenhouse for you.”
“We can do that later.” She reached for him.
He danced out of her grasp. “I’m a man of my word. I’ll move the tuber and then there’s nothing getting in the way of us.”
Us.
As in the two of them. Lace and Pierce. Pierce and Lace. How many times had she doodled that in her notebook? Couple of hundred? At least. It sounded so good. Too good. It made her start spinning happily-ever-after fantasies again. Take it one step at a time. Right here. Right now. Enjoy this experience and don’t think past that.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s dispense with Lulu so we can get down to it.”
He took off his jacket, tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair, and then turned to hoist the tuber off the table. Tucked it into the crook of his arm as if it was the world’s heaviest football. “Lead the way.”
Stomach aflutter, she headed toward the greenhouse, barely noticing that the light was still on in the garage apartment where Shasta lived. All her focus was on the man behind her. She could feel the heat radiating off his body.
Various types of grow lights—each tailored to suit the plants and growth stages they serviced—were on an automatic timer, so she didn’t bother flipping the main switch for the overhead fluorescent lighting. Different parts of the greenhouse were cast in different colors. Metal halide illuminated blue and promoted leaf creation along with keeping the plants compact. Red LED lights encouraged plants to grow tall. High-pressure sodium lights produced a yellowish glow that stimulated hormone production to increase budding and flowering in the reproductive phase.
Pierce let out an audible breath. “It smells like fertile earth in here.”
“You’re more of a farmer than you give yourself credit for,” Lace said, and shut the greenhouse door behind him.
They stood there in the quiet hum and glow of the lights, the rich aroma of plant sex and potting soil in the air. Pierce cleared his throat. “Uh, Lulu?”
Lace blinked, snapped out of the bewitching spell he’d woven over her, and moved toward the long wooden worktable. “Oh yes. Just put her here.”
He sat down the heavy tuber,
and then dusted his hands together, the blue shine of the metal halide lights casting his face in dusky shadows.
Not a word passed between them. They stared into each other’s eyes and simultaneously moved together. His hands cupped her face, her arms twined around her waist, and their lips merged in hungry desperation.
His fingers caressed twin spots behind her ears, spots that made her wriggle and squirm. She had no idea the backs of her ears were so sensitive to touch. Her knees dissolved into pudding. At this point if he asked her to be his sex slave and live in his closet, ready for his beck and call, she’d do it. He tore his lips from hers, moved down to catch her chin between his teeth.
Restlessly, she tossed back her head and he planted hot, sucking kisses down the length of her neck. His hands tightened around her as if he planned on never letting her go. Closet sex slave was looking more and more like a viable career option.
Goose bumps prickled up and down the length of her body; her desire was an inferno, his mouth the accelerant. Her body remembered what that mouth had done to her that night in the San Antonio hotel room and her nipples beaded, strained against her bra. She was already aching for him to tease her nipples between those wicked lips but then she remembered her vow to solve his problem of a hair-trigger response. This moment was special. She had waited twelve years for this—the moment when the man whom she’d crushed on was finally crushing on her—and she was determined to make it last all through the night.
Resolutely, she wrenched away, left them both breathing hard.
“What?” he gasped.
“I have a promise to keep,” she said, kicking off her high heels and sinking down onto her knees on the hard-packed earth.
PIERCE COULD NOT take his eyes off her. His heart hammered so hard that he could hear it pounding inside his brain. Was he having a heart attack? A stroke? He certainly hoped not, because he’d been anticipating this moment from the minute he’d stepped onto the elevator with Lace at Cupid General Hospital.
She tilted her head back. He looked down into her eyes and every rational thought evaporated. Lace smiled up at him with a seductive, heavily lidded gaze and he knew he was in for the ride of his life. After this, nothing would ever be the same. He caught his breath and the world hung suspended, dark and mysterious, filled with a sweet magic he’d never before encountered.
The musky, loam scent of verdant soil intoxicated him. The aroma swelling and surging in the muggy greenhouse warmth like the cheering of fans in the stands, a heady rush of exuberant noise.
He blasted her with the easy smile that had charmed many a woman into his bed. Her answering grin was just as lethal, a stab straight through into his soul.
Man alive, what a woman. Sexy. Hot. Complicated. Exciting.
He loved how she blew his mind. Time after time. He thought he’d pretty well seen it all. He’d met presidents and royalty, dined in five-star restaurants, and traveled the globe. The extraordinary had become ordinary. He’d grown inured to wealth and success and the trappings that came with it. He’d begun to think there were no surprises left and then he’d come home to Cupid and found the most unexpected treasure of them all in the place he least expected.
Home.
When he looked at her he saw all the things he had not realized he needed. A woman who called him on his bullshit and refused to fall for the charming exterior he’d perfected. A woman who saw past the polished image to the regular guy he was beneath all the hoopla. A woman who stirred in him a sense of joy and wonder about the world that he hadn’t felt since Abe had turned his love of football into a goal Pierce must achieve for him.
How she energized his world when he hadn’t even known it was dull.
And that expression on her face! Full of wise feminine knowing. As if she held the key to the secrets of the universe.
“Brace yourself,” she said.
“What?”
“Against the table,” she directed.
He did as she requested, backing his butt up to the table, bracing his hands on either side of him. The table was solid, sturdy. Good thing because he wasn’t sure he could rely on his knees to hold him up. Not when her sly hands were already plucking at the zipper of his tuxedo trousers.
She made quick work of shucking his pants and underwear to his ankles and then …
Flying f—
He couldn’t even finish the thought, he was so aroused and impressed and crazy for her. It was completely selfish of him to go first, but she seemed to be taking explicit glee in making him squirm. Once he had this raging hard-on dispensed with he vowed to take his time pleasing her.
Pierce hadn’t known it was possible to get this hard, but when her soft mouth touched his skin, his shaft turned to marble. Air leaked from his lungs in a long hiss.
When her mouth engulfed him, he came completely undone. All thoughts flew from his brain and he knew nothing except the feel of her velvet tongue. Unable to believe his great good fortune, he closed his eyes. What a lucky bastard he was. How in the hell had he gotten so lucky? He didn’t deserve this. Did not deserve her. He opened his eyes, glanced down at her, and his pulse stammered.
Even braced against the table, he was knocked off balance. The smell of the greenhouse filled his nose and his body throbbed. He wanted her out of that dress, wanted to see her beautiful naked body. He touched her hair, rubbed the silky dark strands between his fingers. Such beautiful hair!
She spread her palms over the backs of his thighs to steady them both, and when she gently kneaded his balls, Pierce’s eyes rolled back in his head. She was licking him like he was a snow cone melting on a hot summer day.
He certainly could not get enough of her.
His muscles went both rigid and weak at the same time. She flicked her tongue over him in the most erotic way and Pierce groaned loudly.
Her mouth was that incredible.
Lace was that incredible.
Systemically, she dismantled him with her tongue, leaving him wrecked, wasted, immobile. Heat surged through him. An out-of-control wildfire. Pierce groaned again.
So good. So damn good.
Her hands seemed to be everywhere—his back, his butt, his balls. It felt as if she possessed a hundred fingers and ten tongues, all working at once, expertly pushing him to the top of a peak encounter. Climbing Mount Everest couldn’t be this awe-inspiring.
His chest expanded, tightened. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Blow job, hell. She was blowing all his circuits. She must have sensed he was close, because she quickened her pace.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Lace worked her magic, with her fingers and her tongue, leading him into uncharted territory, and she seemed to be having a damn fine time doing it. He’d been with his share of women, but none had ever made him feel this way. He was on sensory overload. Consumed. Overtaken. It felt like the best wet dream in the world.
But this wasn’t a dream.
This was really happening!
She was beyond beauty. She was pure life, pure joy. He’d foolishly thought he could teach her a few things, when he was the one being seriously schooled. She pushed him past his knowledge of himself. He had never before been so physically possessed. She rocked his world.
In the haze, Pierce heard the soft buzzing of the grow lights and then realized the buzzing was coming from inside his own head. Relentlessly, Lace pushed him beyond the boundaries of his endurance. He was aching, gushing, throbbing. He threw back his head and let loose with a primal cry, pleading for release from this sweet torture, for the ecstasy he could almost touch.
Sweat poured down his face, rolled between his shoulder blades. He gritted his teeth, dug his heels into the floor, and twined his fingers through her hair. Soon. Please, please let it happen soon. If he didn’t come soon, he feared his heart would explode.
He couldn’t contain himself. He started thrusting. She took it with a deep-throated chuckle.
A ball of fire rolled down his
nerve endings to lodge in the dead center of his aching shaft and then he left the earth, orbited straight into outer space. He gasped, tumbled, fell jerking and trembling into the delicious darkness. Lost. He was completely lost.
She swallowed him up.
A guttural shout ripped from his throat. His vision blurred. He blinked, looked down. Finally, he saw her through the fog.
Lace was sitting at his feet looking like Snow White in that beautiful dress, smiling coyly, her lips glistening with his essence.
Pierce dropped to his knees, toppled over onto his side. He shuddered, panted for air, and tried to process what had just happened. Lace tugged his head into her lap and humming softly, stroked his hair.
In that exalted moment Pierce knew that there was no going back. He was forever changed.
Chapter 16
Simple: not divided into parts.
LACE looked over to find Pierce’s eyes on hers as his breathing returned to normal. It was clear that he did not think any less of her for her boldness, and in fact, he looked quite happy. She smiled at him. She loved the weight of his head in her lap, could barely believe that he was there.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said.
“Should I alert the media?”
“Love your wit, but the time has come.” He grinned.
“Time for what?”
“To get down to serious foreplay.”
“Aren’t we a little late for that? I think we just zoomed past foreplay.”
“It’s never too late for foreplay.” He sat up, shucked the pants and underwear from around his ankles, and tossed them over his shoulder. He was already half hard again. Talk about an excellent recovery record.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked, her pulse slipping fast and quick like water rushing over a falls.
He pulled her into the curve of his arm, kissed her softly while his fingers went to the zipper at the back of her dress. “You say the most provocative plant words you can think of and I’ll say the most provocative football term in response.”
Lori Wilde - [Cupid, Texas 02] Page 20