by Lori Foster
Instead she smiled and said, “Hi.”
They ignored her.
Bram ignored them.
It was small consolation to watch their faces fall as Bram gave Lucy all his attention. Exhibiting true gentlemanly tendencies, he helped her into the boat, then handed her the bag. Before he stepped in himself he untied the rope from the grommet. One of the women asked, “Want me to give you a push?”
Distracted, Bram glanced at her as he sat behind the wheel and said, “No thanks. I’ve got it.” Using one long arm, he pushed the boat out and away from the dock, then started the engine and put it in reverse.
Lucy waited until they were well away from the gas docks to say, “OK, so what was so memorable about her?”
Bram glanced at Lucy. “I’ll tell you when we reach the house.”
“Tell me now.”
“Can’t.” He shoved at the throttle and the boat leaped forward, the engine roaring. “It’s tough to talk over the engine,” he yelled.
Lucy turned away from him. She hadn’t really wanted to know anyway. Thinking of Bram making love to a woman with a perfect body would only disturb her. She wanted to think about him having sex with her instead.
Unable to resist, she turned to watch him as he steered the boat, cutting through the waves with barely a bounce. Tonight, she thought, she’d get to find out what all the talk was about.
She only hoped Bram wouldn’t leave disappointed.
“Are you getting hungry?” Bram asked her, watching her face as they carried the few groceries in to the L-shaped dining and kitchen area.
He saw Lucy’s shoulders stiffen just a bit, and she said, “I can eat whenever you’re ready.”
“But you’re not overly hungry now?” Bram kept one eye on her while he put the corn and steaks in the refrigerator. She was aroused, bless her heart, not interested in food, but unwilling to be aggressive enough to initiate things. He’d get her over her shyness soon enough.
Lucy kept busy folding and refolding the grocery bag before finally putting it away in a drawer. She had her back to him, but he didn’t need to see her face to know what she was feeling. He felt it too, in spades.
“No,” she said, “I’m not very hungry.”
“Good.” Bram closed the refrigerator and approached her before she could turn. He caged her in by flattening his hands on the counter at either side of her hips. He pressed into her bottom and nuzzled her neck. “That woman I told you was somewhat memorable?”
“Yeah, so? What about her?”
Her disgruntled tone tickled him, and he smiled against the nape of her neck, then whispered, “She wanted me to spank her.”
Lucy drew tight, her head lifted to attention. “What?”
She sounded just like a schoolmarm, scandalized but at the same time entranced. Bram continued to nuzzle against her. “Yeah, she was a little kinky. Sort of took me by surprise, bringing it up so fast and all. I mean, it’d been our first time together.”
“Did you … that is …” She shifted, and her fingers moved nervously on the countertop in front of her.
“Did I oblige her?”
Lucy nodded.
“I always oblige,” he rumbled softly. “When I’m with a woman, I want her to be happy. And I insist she leave satisfied. If a red bottom will do that for her, hey, I can handle it.” Keeping the laughter out of his tone was difficult. Lucy was downright rigid with indignation.
Very lightly, he bit her neck, right where her pulse was suddenly rioting. “What about you, sweetheart? You have any kinky fantasies?”
“I don’t want to be spanked, if that’s what you’re asking!”
Bram laughed. “I wasn’t that into it myself.” He couldn’t stop kissing her, touching her. “And I’d never ask you to do anything that made you uncomfortable, so I don’t want you worrying about that, all right? But most people have something they like to fantasize about, something a little wicked that turns them on.”
“Do you?”
“Absolutely.” And most of his fantasies centered around her. “I just want you to know you can tell me anything, ask me anything. Okay?”
Again she shifted, those nervous little movements that told him so much. He wanted to squeeze her close, crush her to his heart. Instead he waited.
“Did you date that woman much?”
“A date implies time out somewhere, so no. I had sex with her off and on for about a month.” Bram trailed the fingertips of his right hand up her arm to her bare shoulder. He saw goose bumps rise in his path. “Sex is a hollow thing when it’s between strangers. For a while, when you’re young and stupid, that can seem exciting. It can seem like enough. But the older I get, the more I want … more.”
Idly, Lucy turned her head to rub her cheek against the back of his hand where it rested on her shoulder. The gesture was tender, loving, and his heart twisted.
“Between David and me,” she whispered, “things got really … stale. I guess we’d known each other too long, gotten too comfortable. Doing anything risqué or different seemed silly. Whenever I tried spicing things up, I ended up feeling foolish.”
Struggling not to curse, Bram said only, “David was the fool.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything that went wrong wasn’t his fault. I’m to blame, too. I guess we’d just known each other too long to change things from mundane to erotic.” She gave a self-conscious laugh and added, “The last few years, before I filed for divorce, David had totally lost interest. Sex was something that happened more out of boredom for him than out of love or lust. He didn’t want to cuddle, or hold me, or kiss me. He’d say, ‘Are we screwing tonight or what?’ And I … I just couldn’t.”
Talking about her with David was killing Bram on several levels. He hated the thought of her with another man, even her husband, and beyond that, he hated knowing how frustrated she must have been, emotionally and especially physically. She was the very essence of feminine sexuality, but all her innate responses had been stifled rather than encouraged.
By word and movement and look, Lucy was a very sensual woman. She deserved to have all her needs met, in any and every way. He wanted to ignite her basic nature, enflame her body. He wanted everything she had to give a man.
“I think,” he breathed into her ear, “that we should work on stage one of this week.”
On alert, she asked, “Stage one?”
“Yeah.” His heart pounded and his temperature rose. “That’s the part where I get to take your shirt off you and kiss your pretty breasts and maybe make you half as nuts as I am.”
“Right … right now?”
“Hell yes. I don’t think I can wait much longer.” Bram coasted his fingertips back down her arm, over her abdomen, and lower, to fondle her belly. She was soft, giving, and he wanted to tease her, to drag out the fun. Bram angled his fingers upward and just barely touched the underside of her left breast. “I want to move slowly, for both of us. I’ve wanted you too long to be able to do everything I want to do to you if I get you completely naked. And you’re still a little hesitant about things, aren’t you?”
“It feels … weird, being with you.” She rushed to clarify that, in case he’d misunderstood. “I mean, we’ve been practically related for a long time.”
Bram cupped her breast in his palm and felt her heartbeat quicken. Her nipple was elongated, puckered tight, showing her arousal. “Does this feel familial?” he asked, groaning just a bit with the voluptuousness of the moment. “Christ, Lucy, I’ve wanted to do this forever.”
“Bram …” Her head tipped back to his shoulder and she shuddered delicately.
Bram caught her nipple and tugged the tiniest bit, rolling the swollen tip, plucking at it.
“Oh, God.” Her back arched, her legs stiffened.
She panted, thrilling Bram with the measure of her response. Softly, wonderingly, he whispered, “You need this almost as much as I do, don’t you, baby?” Using his left hand, he again stroked her belly, t
hen lower. The heat of her through her shorts scorched him. The soft, worn denim did nothing to disguise her sex. Bram could feel the swollen, delicate folds and the soft tender flesh between.
He slowed, moving deliberately, carefully. He searched her through the denim while he continued to torment and ply her nipple.
“I want to feel your naked flesh,” he groaned, “but I’m so goddamned close to the edge, one touch of you and I’d explode myself.”
While he watched, fascinated and intensely proud, Lucy’s body flushed with the first wave of a building climax. Her legs trembled and parted more, and Bram accepted her invitation, spurred on by her gasping breaths, the heaving of her chest. “Move with my fingers, sweetheart,” he instructed, and when she did, when her hips lifted into his touch, he growled, “That’s it.”
She reached back and her nails dug into his naked thighs. Bram hissed out his pleasure, knowing she was close and it had been so easy. He released her breast to delve into her halter, shoving it down as he did so. It caught and held beneath the weight of her heavy breasts. Looking over her shoulder, Bram could see her large, darkly flushed nipples, pulled tight with desire.
His vision blurred with heat, his cock flexing in reaction to the sight of her. He had to grit his teeth to hold himself in check, to keep from sitting her on the counter and removing her shorts. He wanted to feel her wetness, wanted to taste her, to know every part of her.
With a harsh groan, he opened his mouth on her throat at the same time that his rough fingertips found and captured the naked, sensitized tips of her breasts. From one to the other, he teased them, pinching just hard enough to take her to the edge, then rolling them softly, gently, soothing her so that the next rough touch would be that much more acute. And all the while his hand between her legs kept up a pressing rhythm, pushing her and pushing her until suddenly she cried out, and the sound was one of the most beautiful he’d ever heard.
His balls tightened in response to the quickening of her flesh and he had to struggle not to come with her. It was a close thing. Though he hadn’t made that kind of faux pas since he was a kid, now it was nearly impossible to contain the tide of emotion and sexual sensation brought on by her orgasm.
Lucy held herself back, biting her lip, keeping herself as still as possible while the climax rolled through her. Bram knew it, but for now it was okay; for now he’d let her get away with it. After all, they were in a kitchen and this was their first sexual experience together.
Later, when he had her naked in bed, he’d get her to let loose completely. He wouldn’t allow any timidity then.
Lucy gulped for air, slumping against him. Her hands dropped away from his thighs, leaving behind small, stinging half-moons from her nails. Bram continued to lightly stroke her, knowing that she was now ultrasensitive and anything more than the most delicate touch would be too much. But letting her go completely was impossible.
“You’re so wet,” he whispered, and his voice shook as much as his hands. “I can feel how wet you are even through your shorts.”
“Bram.”
“Hmmm?” She sounded mortified and amazed, and it amused him. He nuzzled her throat, kissing, tasting her skin. He wanted to drown himself in her.
Her swallow was audible, a sign of nervousness. “I … I think I’m a little embarrassed.”
“I think you’re amazing.” He kissed her ear. “And sexy.” He hugged her tight, rocking her. “And I want more. A whole lot more.” Then: “Why are you embarrassed?”
Very slowly, she straightened up and removed her weight from him; her legs were shaky, but he didn’t force the issue. He just stood behind her, there for support if she wanted it.
With trembling hands, she pulled her halter back into place. Bram wanted to protest; he loved looking at her breasts and he wanted her to face him, to let him get his fill of looking. He wanted to see her nipples and kiss them and suck them. He wanted to hear her moan as he drew off her, licking and tasting until she couldn’t bear it and neither could he.
For years now he’d imagined what she’d look like, whether her nipples were mauve or pink or brown. Were they large or small? Seeing her breasts had been a fragment of a fantasy, pushing him closer and closer to his ultimate goal.
Lucy shook her head. “I’m standing here,” she whispered, “in the middle of the kitchen of all places and half-naked and there you are, fully dressed and—”
Bram smiled at her back. “I can drop my shorts if you want.”
She didn’t refuse him. Instead she warily turned to face him, and her gaze was all over him, but especially on his crotch. He throbbed beneath her intense scrutiny. She might as well have touched him, her look was so carnal, making him swell even more until he hurt with the need for release.
With a deep breath, she said, “Would you? Really? I mean, it wouldn’t embarrass you?”
Bram reached for the snap at his waistband, and she caught his hands. Laughing a little in excitement and disbelief, she said, “I think I need to sit down for this.”
Heated excitement coursed through Bram. He could barely draw a deep breath, but he mustered up the strength to catch her hand and drag her from the kitchen.
When he headed for the front room, she balked. “Bram? Aren’t we going to the bedroom?”
“Not yet.” His voice was a rasp, barely discernible, raw with need. “Let’s get through stage two first, and if we both survive that we’ll eventually make it to the bedroom before the day is through.”
Her own voice low with need, Lucy said, “Stage two?”
Bram reached the leather couch that faced the sliding patio doors and pulled Lucy down into the plush cream-colored cushions with him. He kissed her hungrily, devouring her, and to his immense pleasure, she kissed him back. It wasn’t easy, but Bram managed to lift his mouth away from hers. “This,” he growled, “is where you make me come. And God knows, honey, I need it.”
He needed it so badly, in fact, that his body was already pulsing with the expectation of release, like the first stages of orgasm.
Lucy stared down at his lap, her beautiful blue eyes slumberous, her lips slightly parted and swollen. And with a type of incredible feminine torture, she licked her lips.
Bram groaned. He pulled open the snap to his shorts, now dried stiff from his dip in the lake. Carefully, because he was as hard as he could possibly be, he eased down his zipper and guided her small hand inside. His breath caught and held in his chest, making him dizzy.
“Oh my.”
There was so much heightened pleasure in her words, such gentle sensuality in the way her soft hand curled around him, that Bram knew he was a goner right there and then.
4
Lucy was awed by the size of him. She’d heard stories, of course, but had discounted them as typical male exaggeration. Even after feeling him through his jeans shorts earlier, she hadn’t been prepared for the actuality.
Her hand barely circled him, her fingers not quite touching together. Sharp awareness blossomed in her belly, spreading outward until she wasn’t sure she could breathe. As a mature woman, she knew size didn’t matter. But maturity had nothing to do with fantasies and eroticism. His erect flesh was so hot, throbbing with a life of its own.
Using her thumb, she tested the velvety texture from his hair-roughened testicles, now drawn tight, up to the smooth, broad tip and heard him curse very low.
“Bram?”
His head was pressed back against the couch, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw locked. He looked like a man in pain or incredible pleasure. The muscles in his arms rippled and bunched as his hands curled into hard fists at his sides. “Squeeze me,” he muttered through his teeth. “Hard.”
Fascinated by him, by his totally open response to her touch, she did as he insisted. Never had David looked this turned on, this turbulent. Yet Bram didn’t seem to care that he was partially exposed to her, sprawled out on a couch, at her mercy. He literally writhed from her attentions.
When her fingers
gripped him tighter, he groaned low, then gave a rough laugh. “Christ, having your hand on me is a dream I never thought would come true.”
He gasped brokenly as she slowly stroked down his length, then back up again. He caught her wrist. Molten hot and fiercely direct, his eyes opened and captured hers.
“Like this, baby,” he instructed, guiding her hand to the base of his shaft, then all the way back to the very tip until her thumb brushed over the end and he froze from the pleasure of it.
Lucy watched his face, as enthralled with his expressions as she was with his nudity and his instruction. She’d fumbled around with David for years, trying to learn what pleased him, embarrassed when she hadn’t succeeded. For Bram, it seemed no matter what she did, he enjoyed it. And he was more than willing to teach her, without hesitation, without reserve. His sheer lack of inhibition was a turn-on.
Though the flexing erection she held was fascinating, she couldn’t take her gaze off his face.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes sensually heavy, his high cheekbones slashed with aroused color. “Tell me, Lucy. Anything you want.”
She licked her lips, working up her nerve. But the whole point of coming to the summer house had been to indulge her every fantasy, to rid herself of the social inhibitions caused by being with people she associated with on a daily basis. She would not turn coward now.
She cleared her throat. “Will you … will you take off your shirt so I can look at you?”
Without a word he grabbed the hem of the T-shirt in his fists and yanked it over his head. The shirt got tossed to the other side of the couch, then Bram spread his arms out along the back of the couch and affected a relaxed pose. His small brown nipples were erect points visible through his sweat-dampened chest hair. His arms were long, roped with muscle, and tufts of lighter, softer hair shone in his armpits. With his lids lowered and his body rigid, he offered himself up to her.
Lucy didn’t want to let go of his erection, so she shifted slightly until she could comfortably hold him in her right hand, and with her left she explored his chest. Having Bram watch her, seeing the pleasure in his eyes, made the whole experience more erotic.