Burning Up

by Sarah Mayberry

  “Sorry? Um. Since my early twenties,” Sophie said, forcing her sluggish brain into action.

  “Hmm. So you must have a lot of experience with the, uh, ladies,” he said.

  There was a trap coming, and she knew it, but she also didn’t know how to avoid it.

  “Sure. Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she said, trying to sound worldly.

  “Great. I’ve always wanted to get a few tips from an expert,” Lucas said.

  A spurt of alarm—and something a lot hotter and more liquid—shot through her as she felt him fold down the waistband of her bikini bottoms and start rubbing lotion into the small of her back and the top of her butt.

  “Um. Okay,” she said, knowing she should stop his roving hands but loving what he was doing to her.

  “Mostly I’m interested in oral sex,” he said.

  “Oral sex?” she repeated, biting her lip as he found a particularly tender spot in the small of her back and attacked it with his thumb.

  “Mmm. So, what’s your best advice on technique? Generally speaking, in my experience, it seems to me that it’s all about good tongue work.”

  Sophie froze. Were they really having this conversation? Was she really going to lie here, with his hands on her skin, and discuss oral sex?

  “I like to start out gently, a bit of kissing, maybe some nibbling,” he said, his thumbs massaging the muscles either side of her spine now. “Then I like to work my way in, build things up a bit. Use my hands as well as my mouth.”

  She swallowed. Even though she knew exactly what he was doing, she could still feel damp heat building between her thighs. Just the thought of him between her legs, his dark hair a stark contrast to her pale skin, his mouth open on her, his tongue tasting her, teasing her…She pressed her face harder into the towel and fought the urge to wriggle her hips.

  She should tell him to stop. Right now. She should call a halt to this…whatever it was.

  His hands had dropped to her sides now, his fingers lightly teasing their way down to where the swell of her breasts spilled out on either side of her body. His fingers danced across her skin, hot and knowing, and her breasts grew heavy with desire. Between her legs, desire throbbed. She was so turned on, she felt as though she was about to melt from the inside out.

  “After building things up, I like to move in for the kill. Find her sweet spot, and just go to town,” he said, his voice barely a murmur now. “Fast, then slow, sucking, licking, teasing. Sometimes, I—”

  It was too much. She couldn’t take another second of it. The sensuous torture of his hands on her body, the erotic promise of his words—something had to give. Acting on impulse, she shoved herself up on her elbows and twisted around to face him.

  “All right, okay. I’m not gay. You got me. Happy?” she told him.

  Too late she remembered that he’d undone her bikini top. She felt his hot gaze on her bare breasts, could almost feel his touch on her already-hard nipples, and muscles she didn’t even know she had tightened in anticipation inside her.

  “Never, ever feel bad about not being a lesbian,” Lucas said.

  And then he leaned forward and kissed her.

  She wasn’t sure what happened next. His lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his hands closing around her aching breasts—it all seemed to blur into one big explosion of sensation. Before she knew it she was being pulled into his lap—or did she crawl there?—and her legs were straddling his waist, and her skin was against his, and a ferocious tide of need was building inside her.

  He felt so good. He was so hard, his tongue so wet and knowing in her mouth. She slid her fingers into his hair, fisting her hands in case he tried to break their kiss before she’d drunk her fill of him.

  She needed…She wanted…everything.

  He was playing with her breasts, squeezing her nipples gently, then soothing them with his palms, and she sobbed in the back of her throat and tilted her hips, all mindless instinct and greedy demand.

  He murmured his approval, one hand leaving her breasts to sweep down her belly and slide beneath the waistband of her bikini bottoms. She was wide open to him sitting the way she was, and he slid his fingers through her curls and straight onto her clitoris. She earned another murmur of approval as he felt how wet and ready she was for him. He pressed gently down on her swollen clit with one finger, sending a shock wave racing through her body.

  She broke their kiss, suddenly overwhelmed by the urges gripping her. She wanted to rip off his clothes and get him inside her. She wanted to ride him hard, scratch his back, lick him, bite him. She wanted to be utterly filled by him, stretched, owned.

  It was too much. It was too scary, too uncontrollable. She’d never felt this way before. Never. And she didn’t know how to contain it, how to control it, how to keep it safe.

  “I can’t do this,” she said abruptly, her whole body shaking as she wrenched herself away from him.

  Arms crossed over her chest, Sophie turned tail and bolted for the caretaker’s cottage.

  7

  HER PHONE WAS RINGING when she stumbled into the cottage. She glanced at the caller ID, ready to ignore it since she appeared to be smack-dab in the middle of a nervous breakdown, then paused when she saw it was her mother.

  She’d left a message for her parents that morning, before she’d gone out to the pool. She’d wanted to tell them what had happened before they called the apartment and heard it from Brandon.

  Now her finger hovered uncertainly over the talk button, but suddenly the sound of her mother’s voice seemed like a very needful thing. She pressed the button.

  “Mom, hi,” she said, moving into the bedroom to pull on a T-shirt. Her body was still humming with desire and confusion, and she almost sighed with relief when she heard her mother’s familiar tones.

  “Sophie. I’m sorry we missed you this morning, sweetheart. How are things?” Laura Gallagher asked.

  “Okay.” Sophie tried to gather her thoughts. Not easy, given what she’d just run away from. God, she was such an idiot.

  “Look, Mom, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. Brandon and I have broken up. It was mutual, mostly. And we’re both okay. I’ve taken four weeks off from work to do a private catering job, but I’ll probably look for a new job and a new apartment when I get back to Sydney,” Sophie said in a rush.

  There was a long silence before her mother spoke again. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  Sophie sank onto the end of the bed. “Really?”

  “Sweetheart, neither of you have been very happy for a long time now. Everyone could see that,” her mom said.

  Everyone, apparently, except for Sophie. She felt a prickle of irritation. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that Brandon and I have only been staying together because we were too scared to move on, as well,” she said a little sharply.

  “Did someone else say that to you?”

  “Brandon. And Becky, in a roundabout way.”

  “I see.”

  “Great. So you think I’m a coward, too.” In the back of her mind, she knew she was overreacting, lashing out at her mom because she was so confused over what had happened with Lucas. Because she’d run away from him, hadn’t she?

  So maybe she was a coward.

  “I don’t think you’re a coward, sweetheart. In some ways I think you’re one of the strongest people I know,” her mother said.

  For some reason, tears sprang to Sophie’s eyes. God, she was so messed up.

  “Okay,” she said, sniffing her tears back.

  “Maybe you can’t see it right now, but I think this will be a good thing for you, Soph. I’ve often wondered if you and Brandon would have lasted as long as you did had you not gotten together around the time that Carrie died.”

  Sophie frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.

  “You were very upset afterward. And Brandon was the boy next door. And he was so kind and reliable and patient. I und
erstood what drew you to him.”

  “You make him sound like a security blanket, not a boyfriend,” Sophie said.

  Wisely, her mother chose to change to the subject.

  “I was thinking about you and your sister the other day. Your father got all our old home movies put onto DVD, and we were watching some of them. You two were such tearaways. I’d forgotten how much trouble you used to get into together.”

  Sophie shuffled farther back on the bed and tucked her knees into her chest. There had only been eighteen months between her and Carrie, and they’d been each other’s best friends. Carrie had always been so colorful and bold and adventurous. Sophie had adored her. She knew her parents had been worried out of their minds by some of her sister’s antics, especially when she grew older and discovered boys—and they discovered her.

  “That time you two went into the city and came back with all that racy lingerie! My God, I wanted to die when I realized you must have stolen it all. I was going to make you take it back to each store and apologize in person, you know. But then Carrie took the car out that night….” Her mom trailed off into sad silence. They both knew how the story ended, how Carrie had rolled the car secretly down the driveway, started it in the street and gone joyriding with her boyfriend, Jake. How they’d misjudged a curve in the road and plowed straight into a big old gum tree.

  But Sophie was frowning over something else her mother had said.

  “I didn’t shoplift with Carrie,” she said. “Are you kidding? I’m way too scared of getting caught to try to pull something like that off.”

  “Sophie,” her mother said gently, “you were both giggling like maniacs when I found you in your room. And half the stuff was your size. You even bragged to me about how quick you were and how no one would ever catch you.”

  Sophie shook her head. “No. I would remember that. I know I would,” she said.

  “Well, you were very upset after she died. And I know it was hard on you, since you’d shared a room all your lives. That’s why your father and I wanted to take the second bed out of your room after a few months. But you wouldn’t let us.”

  “It was hers,” Sophie said.

  “I’ll be honest, there was a part of me that was grateful that you calmed down so much afterward. You took up with Brandon, and you applied yourself at school more. But I used to worry that maybe a part of you died with Carrie, too.”

  “I can’t remember any of this. All I can remember is how amazing she was. Larger than life.”

  “You both were. Remember the time when Mrs. Hartley from next door caught you sneaking out your bedroom window to go to the movies? She marched you ’round to the front door and gave you a lecture in front of us. The next day we woke up and every single flower on her prize rosebush had been deadheaded. I never did get you to admit to it.”

  Sophie pulled her knees closer to her chest. Now that her mother had prompted her, she could remember the incident. Remember, too, conspiring in the dark with Carrie to carry out Operation Payback in the early hours of the morning. Since she was already in trouble, Sophie had insisted that Carrie stay in bed so she could honestly say she had nothing to do with it if their parents asked.

  “I’m sorry. I’m upsetting you. I didn’t mean to,” her mom said after Sophie hadn’t spoken for a while.

  “I’m not upset,” Sophie said. Then she felt something hot and wet drip onto her knee and realized she was crying. Swallowing a lump of emotion, she fought for control.

  “You know what? You should come up and stay with us for the weekend,” her mom said.

  “I can’t, Mom. This job I have is seven days a week.”

  “Good heavens. Sounds like slave labor.”

  Sophie considered what she’d almost done with Lucas out by the pool. Nope. Definitely not slave labor.

  “It’s actually pretty easygoing,” she said.

  They talked for a few minutes more before ending the call. Sophie sat for a long time afterward, thinking over what her mother had said.

  Once upon a time, she’d been larger than life, just like her crazy, impulsive, magical sister. Why had she chosen to forget that part of herself? It was almost as though after Carrie died, she’d reinvented herself into some perfect little Stepford Sophie.

  Why?

  With a flash of intuition, Sophie remembered how she’d felt when she’d been in Lucas’s arms earlier. Out of control. And scared. Absolutely terrified—if she were being completely honest with herself—of what might happen if she let herself go, if she gave free rein to the wildness inside her.

  Was that what she’d learned from her sister’s death? To be scared? That impulsiveness and craziness and wildness were dangerous, dangerous urges to give in to?

  Pressing her face against her bare knees, Sophie sobbed hot tears as she allowed herself for the first time in years and years to remember the loneliness of their shared bedroom after her sister’s death. The empty bed. The empty half of the closet. The horrible guilt that she’d known about her sister’s plans to sneak the car out, had even watched TV with her parents in case a distraction was needed.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into her knees. “I’m so sorry I never stopped you.”

  She didn’t try to stop the tears, because she knew they had to come—guilty, scared tears that had been locked inside her for fifteen years. Then, when the storm had passed, she took a long shower and made herself hot tea and toast and sat on the window seat in the living room and stared out at the world as the day faded to dusk.

  Finally she stood, her moves decisive, her step firm as she walked to the bathroom to assess her face. Her eyes were a little pink, but she figured that only a close friend would guess that she’d been crying.

  Good. Because there was something she needed to do.

  Something for herself.

  Something brave and bold and a little wild.

  No matter how much it scared her.

  No matter how strong the urge was to stay in control.

  The sliding door from the terrace slammed back on its well-oiled track as she shoved it open and entered the main house. She strode into the living room, a woman on a mission.

  “Lucas?” she called, her voice echoing in the empty space.

  Silence. He must be upstairs.

  She bounded up the deep, shallow steps, determination driving her on.

  “Lucas?”

  She found him on the bed in the master suite, lying with his arms crossed behind his head, glaring at the ceiling as though it had done him wrong in some way.

  “Listen—” he said when he saw her, but she cut him off.

  “Is your offer still good? The one you made earlier by the pool?”

  He looked confused.

  “Do you still want me?” she clarified boldly.

  He frowned. “Yes, but—” She cut him off again with the simple expedient of jumping on the bed and straddling his body.

  “Shut up and kiss me,” she demanded.

  LUCAS DIDN’T NEED to be asked twice.

  Reaching up, he slid his hands into Sophie’s hair as she pressed her body against his and kissed him, her tongue sliding inside his mouth to taste him with teasing, darting strokes. Her thighs straddled his hips and her breasts pressed into his chest, and he wanted her naked so bad that he ached with it. He was as hard as a rock, and he slid his hands down to her waist and ground himself into her. Probably a civilized man would ask questions about why she’d freaked out earlier, but right now he was pure caveman. And the only thing that mattered was that he wanted her, and she wanted him.

  Intent on satisfying their mutual desire, he glided his hands up Sophie’s torso and under her T-shirt and discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra. Smart lady.

  She groaned her approval as he cupped her breasts, breaking their kiss to sit up and take over the task of undressing herself, whipping her T-shirt over her head. Her full breasts bounced as she rolled to one side, pushing her shorts down to reveal a neat, silky thatch of
curls that drew his gaze like a magnet. He’d been so busy enjoying the view and her enthusiasm for getting naked that he’d forgotten his own clothes, but he suddenly realized that one of them was grossly overdressed. She helped him drag his workout shorts down his legs and over his knee and ankle brace in one hit.

  “Help me with these stupid things,” he said, and for a brief moment there was only the sound of tearing Velcro as she helped him free his bad leg.

  Then they were both naked, and there was nothing standing in the way of the hard, throbbing need between his legs connecting with the wet, hot spot between hers. Grabbing a condom from his bedside drawer, he took care of protection in record time.

  “Come here,” he instructed, hauling her on top of him, and they both gave a sigh of relief as bare skin met bare skin.

  “You feel so good,” he murmured into her neck as he kissed her there, his hands gliding up and down her soft, silky body. The curve of her hip, the roundness of her ass, the dip of her waist—he discovered them all with his hands before taking possession of her breasts. She was everything he’d anticipated and more. Sexy. Vibrant. Hungry.

  She gasped her approval as he toyed with her breasts, her hips circling as she rubbed her wet center against his straining erection.

  More than anything he wanted to bury himself inside her and go for broke, but she was so amazingly responsive, so vocal, so lost in the moment that he wanted to give her as much pleasure as possible before taking her. Her eyes were tightly shut, and the naked desire on her face was an incredible turn-on. Hauling her body up his chest, he pulled a nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, flicking his tongue rhythmically over and over the tight peak. She shuddered, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her hips circling once more as she blindly sought satisfaction. Determined to give her everything she needed, he slid a hand down her belly and into the curls between her thighs. She was so hot and wet and ready for him he almost lost it, and when he delved into her delicate folds, her thighs tightened around his hips and her fingers clenched even harder on his shoulders.

  He found her clit for the second time that day, swollen and ready for him, and he teased it with his fingers, circling, rubbing, flicking. She moaned, pushing herself down onto his hand, and when he finally slid a finger inside her she hissed a four-letter word and began to ride his hand as though there was no tomorrow.