“Last night,” she said, breathy and sexy, her lips near my neck, “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of you. Of what you did to me in the dressing room.”
“Yeah?”
She lifted her face to meet my eyes. She nodded, her lips now on my jaw as she slipped a soft hand under the waistband of my boxer briefs, then wrapped it around my hard cock.
I hitched in a breath, and time stood still as she grasped my hard length, skin against skin at last. It was relief and torture all at once. Her touch was electric. As the town car rolled along the concrete stretch of road away from the airport, she stroked my cock and whispered, her breath ghosting over my skin, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. All the things we didn’t do.”
I flexed my hips, thrusting up into her soft, nimble hand. I didn’t want her to ever stop. “Like what? What did you want most?”
She skimmed her hand lower, down to my balls, cupping them, playing with them. Oh hell, that was fantastic, especially as she dragged her nails across my skin.
“What do you think I wanted?” she countered.
I needed her to want me as desperately as I wanted her. It took every ounce of restraint not to answer her with Suck me off. Instead, I gritted my teeth and managed in a low rumble, “Tell me what you wanted. Say it.”
My chest rose and fell as she played with my dick then moved her hand up my shaft, rubbing a bead of liquid over the head. I groaned, closing my eyes as unholy pleasure swept through me.
With a tight grip, she twisted her hand, rubbing me up and down. I opened my eyes. Hers seemed to twinkle with lust and mischief. She had such a naughty side, and I wanted to explore that aspect of Annalise to the fullest. I had never known this part of her. All I knew when we were younger was that she liked everything I did to her, and that she came easily on my fingers, her moans and cries so sexy when her orgasm washed over her. I was learning that the woman with me now was dirtier, bolder, and so damn passionate.
She bent her head closer, pressing her forehead to mine, and whispered, “I want to taste you. Lick you. I want to feel your come in my throat. I want to swallow it all.”
I thrust upward into her eager fist as her words scorched a path through my chest, spreading like fire throughout my body. She’d set me ablaze with the match of her lust.
“Did you get yourself off to that?” I asked. “Was that what did it for you—picturing your lips on my cock? Did you spread your legs wide for me and fuck yourself with your fingers?”
She panted as she pumped me faster. “Yes. I was naked on my bed, knees raised, legs spread, my hand between them, as I imagined taking you deep in my mouth.”
My head fell back against the leather seat, hitting the headrest. That was the hottest image I’d ever pictured, and it was scored into my mind now. This naked beauty with her creamy skin, her sheets of red hair, her full breasts, and most of all, her abandon.
Her need.
“You tasted so good.” She moaned on an upstroke, her lips parted and wet from licking them with the tip of her tongue. I wanted that red-hot mouth on me.
I commanded. “Show me how you did it.”
In a flash, her red hair spilled across my thighs, and her head was between my legs. Her lips greeted my hard shaft with the warmest fucking hello I’d ever had.
“Annalise,” I murmured, dragging a hand roughly through my hair, trying to absorb the enormity of this moment.
My girl.
My first love.
This wild woman.
I’d never had her mouth on me before. Now, as a man, I was finally able to experience the gloriousness of those lips, and in a whole new way. Because she’d never have blown me like this in high school.
This was an adult blow job.
Her warm, eager lips wrapped tightly around my cock. Then, in mere seconds, I was all the way in her mouth. She didn’t bother with little kisses or lollipop licks of the head. She didn’t brush her tongue along the underside of my shaft. No, she went full speed ahead like a hungry, starving creature. The head of my dick hit the back of her throat, and I cursed from the mind-blowing, blackout-inducing pleasure of her mouth.
My entire body vibrated with lust. My nerves were hot, my skin was sizzling, and my brain was lit up from this amazingly sensual woman. I roped my fingers through her hair, grasping her head tightly. Lifting an arm, she grabbed my other hand and guided it to the back of her head too.
That was hotter than hell. She wanted it hard and deep. She wanted me to hold her head, control her mouth, shove in far.
“What am I going to do with you?” I whispered, almost to myself, as I gave in to the way we both wanted it, my hands wrapping around her skull, her gorgeous dark-red hair spilling like silk through my fingers. She wanted me to keep her immobile as I fucked up into her mouth. She wanted me to be unforgiving in my desire.
The blow job was both too much, and never enough.
White-hot sparks sped through my bloodstream. Flexing my hips, I pumped into her as I held her in my grip in the back seat of a town car speeding into Manhattan. She hummed around my cock. The vibration—It made me dizzy. My skin burned. My organs heated. My brain was bathed in pleasure from the most fantastic trip of all—this kind of dirty intimacy with my Annalise. My eyes locked on her swollen lips, racing up and down on my shaft, then she was shifting on the leather seat, her hips rocking the slightest bit, like she needed to be fucked too.
I’d be taking care of her soon enough.
But first this. Her wicked, wonderful mouth. Her eager tongue. Her soft, talented hands that played with my balls as she sucked me without mercy and I fucked her mouth right back.
Unrelenting.
Until I started to lose control. My quads tightened, my spine ignited, and I was helpless to stop the rush. I thrust harder as my vision blurred. “Coming,” I grunted, barely even managing that one word of warning as my orgasm pulsed through me, fast and hot. I groaned her name, and came in her throat.
I shuddered and cursed.
As the aftershocks subsided, she released my dick from her mouth. She sat up, sighing happily as she ran a hand through her messy hair. She leaned back in the seat like she was spent.
I patted my thighs. “Get on me.”
She climbed on me, straddling my thighs, her hands on my shoulders. “You know I’ve always wanted your tongue, Michael,” she whispered against my lips.
“I know. You’ll get it. You’ll get it tonight. But for some reason, I like making you wait for it, getting you all worked up.” I craved her taste fiercely, but I wanted to be able to spread her legs, to feel her bare skin pressed against my cheeks and give her room to wrap those sexy legs around my neck as I licked her sweet pussy.
As I worked open her zipper, I sighed in frustration. “These jeans are so damn tight.” I could barely get them off. But I was up to the challenge, and I didn’t really need them down far anyway. All I needed was just enough room to glide my fingers beneath the fabric of her light-blue panties.
Like that.
Oh, just like that. My fingers slid across her wetness, hot and slippery and fantastic.
“You’re soaked.”
“I know,” she murmured as her fingers curled around my shoulders. “You turn me on. You drive me crazy.”
I drew lingering, luxurious circles across her silky, hot clit. She was near the edge already. A few strokes. A couple of circles. With some fast, fevered sweeps of my fingers, her hips were arching, swaying, rocking mindlessly against my hand until she cried out and came in less than sixty seconds.
Afterward, I kissed her face, her cheeks, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. Then her lips. That sweet, intoxicating mouth that had driven me wild. She opened her lips for me, her tongue seeking mine, and then we were kissing like we were drunk on each other, like we never wanted to stop.
But eventually we did, and I clasped my hand on her thigh. “Now listen. I have drinks with a client this evening. Then I’m taking you to dinner, and I would really app
reciate it if you were wearing a skirt instead of jeans. Can you do that for me?”
She grinned coquettishly. “I can do better. I won’t wear panties.”
31
Michael
Ten years ago
I shouldered my bag and scanned the arrivals and departures board, checking for my flight.
Delayed. For two hours.
I sighed and then shrugged. What can you do? I patted my carry-on. It was all I had brought on my short trip, and now I was returning to base. I had a paperback and music to listen to, so I’d find my gate, grab a seat, and pop in my earbuds as I turned the pages.
Heading for security, I reached into my pocket and took out my boarding pass and passport, and ten minutes later, I was on the other side at the small airport in Marseilles. As I strolled past a coffee shop, I focused on the tasks ahead for the week, and the work I had going on in my Army Intelligence division, doing my best to keep my mind off whether Annalise had responded to my letter yet. Maybe, just maybe, I’d find a reply from her on my return, and perhaps it would be the answer to my greatest wish—her yes. It would be stained with tears of happiness, and it would smell like her.
The sensory memory ran through me of the girl I still loved, now a woman I desperately wanted to see again. I allowed myself that moment, then I blinked, refocused, and turned into the gift shop to grab a bottle of water. Soon enough, I’d have her answer. No need to linger on the unknown until it was certain.
After I paid for the drink and spun around to leave, I spotted the magazine racks. Most of the magazines were French and local, but there were also others, including Vanity Fair. From behind the column next to the racks, a woman stretched out her arm to grab an issue.
I only saw a sliver of her profile, the shape of her nose, but she was haltingly familiar.
My heart slammed against my ribs. It couldn’t be. There was no way. And yet, what if? A fragile sort of hope raced in me as I took a tentative step toward her. I swallowed dryly, peering around the rack for a better look at the woman with the long red hair, flipping through a magazine.
And I knew.
The hair on my arms stood on end. Goosebumps scattered over my skin. She was my ghost, my memory, but she was all real now—creamy skin, green eyes, and red lips that I’d kissed more times than I could ever count.
Ma petite fraise.
My little strawberry. I’d called her that because of her hair, and because her lips tasted so sweet. I hadn’t seen her in eight years, not since I put her on the flight back to Paris and said goodbye, my heart cratering as she flew across the ocean, far away from me.
I hadn’t talked to her in five years, not since I was a sophomore in college.
But here she was, and if ever there was a sign, this was it. I’d never believed in them before, but I’d once believed in her. She was my religion. My first love.
My only love.
I took another step and then parted my lips and spoke—a dry crackling sound that became her name. “Annalise?”
She raised her chin, her eyes widening. Her expression changed from curiosity over who was asking her name to a wistful sort of wonder and surprise. She said my name like a question too, but it sounded more like amazement that we were both here. “Michael?”
I nodded. “Yeah.” My chest warmed, like sunshine was spreading from the inside out. “In the flesh.”
As if to test my statement, she dropped a quick kiss on each cheek, then wrapped her arms around me.
It was like falling back in time, landing softly on my favorite moment in the past. All those moments were with her. All my favorite times. She smelled like raindrops and passion, just like I’d remembered, and I inhaled her scent briefly before we separated.
I gestured to her, standing before me in the shop. “How are you?”
It was such an ordinary question, the kind you would ask an acquaintance, but after all these years, it was the only natural way to begin again. Even after I’d sent her a letter a week ago.
“My flight is late,” she said, and I blinked at the sound of her voice. She no longer spoke with an accent. She sounded almost. . . American as she said more. “I was annoyed, but now I’m not. Her lips curved up in a wide, crazy smile.
Oh hell. I was grinning now too. Smiling like a fool. She still had that effect on me. My pulse thundered under my skin, hammered in my throat. She had to be saying yes. That must be her answer to my letter.
“Mine too. Late, that is. And I’m not at all annoyed now,” I said, as hope rose inside me—the hope that we were flying in the same direction.
But when I asked, she said she was heading to Paris.
“Do you want to get a coffee?” she asked. “Or do you still detest coffee?”
“I would love to . . . get a tea,” I said with a smile, and she laughed, and this was good. So good. Like old times. “You don’t speak with an accent anymore?”
She shook her head. “Remember? I went to the American University in Paris,” she said, and of course I remembered—we still wrote letters that first year of college. “It’s helpful for international work to have perhaps a more neutral sound,” she said, and I felt like there was more to it, but now wasn’t the time to dive into the specifics of speech patterns and how they affected business.
We headed to an ordinary airport café, ordered black coffee for her and tea for me, and sat at a small iron table as travelers filtered past us, talking about their trips, their plans, what they needed before their planes took off. It was white noise, the elevator music to this surreal slice of time.
Sitting here with her.
I wanted to cup this moment in the palm of my hands, to carry it and treat it like a precious object, like it could become what I’d once longed for so terribly—a future with her.
I had so much I wanted to say. Things like You’re beautiful. I miss you. Why couldn’t we find a way to stay together? Why did we have to drift apart? Did you get my letter, and will you please, please, please tell me it’s the same for you?
But when she lifted her hand to reach for her coffee, the breath escaped my chest in a cold rush.
The stone on her left hand was small, but shone brilliantly and horribly, slashing all my hopes.
My throat turned dry, and my chest pinched. I gestured toward the ring.
Annalise cast her eyes down at it, as if she just realized she was wearing it. She fiddled with it for a second then folded her hands in her lap. Out of sight. “I received your letter. I’m . . . engaged.”
Two short sentences that punctured my lungs. It was something I should have prepared for. Something I always knew was a possibility. But my heart squeezed too tight, and I gasped for breath as nothing but hurt coursed through me. As quickly as it surged, though, I tried to shut it down. To remind myself that I’d been rolling the dice anyway when I sent the letter, and the dice had come up empty.
I inhaled deeply, let the air fill my lungs, then put on my best face. “Congratulations are in order, then. Who’s the lucky guy?” I asked, taking the knife and digging it around in my chest a little more, carving out some of that beating organ.
“His name is Julien. We work together. He’s . . . wonderful,” she said, her voice faltering, as if she was embarrassed to admit that.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said, and I was, in a way, because she deserved someone wonderful. I’d just once believed that someone would be me. I’d believed it a week ago, a day ago, a few minutes ago.
I was a foolish romantic.
But really, what had I expected? That after not talking or writing for years, I would send a letter, and we’d magically run into each other then start back up again like some romantic movie?
Well, the thought had been front and center in my mind for the last five minutes, sure. Because when you see the love of your life out of the blue in an airport, it feels like the stars are aligning.
Now, it felt like a cruel twist of fate.
I picked up my tea, took a drink, th
en set it down. We talked and caught up on each other’s lives. We discussed our jobs and our families. She told me about Noelle, and I told her that Ryan and I were working for Army Intelligence, that Colin was finishing up college, acing every class, and that Shannon was slated to graduate soon too and was engaged to be married to her college sweetheart.
The ease with which we had always spoken about everything tugged at my heart, but it reminded me too of all that was lost.
Lost with her.
We wouldn’t have this again. This was all there was, and I shouldn’t feel so let down. I hadn’t expected to see her. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again in my whole life.
Tell that to my heart though. It was beating overtime for her, like it had been reawakened and was wishing desperately that this was a new beginning rather than another end.
Part of me wished I’d never sent that letter.
Dear Annalise,
I hope this letter finds its way to you safely, and that you are healthy and happy. It’s been so long, too long, since I heard your voice or read your handwriting. I miss both with a deep ache inside me, one that never subsided. In spite of the time that has passed, I haven’t stopped thinking of you, not once in all the years since we last spoke. I’m not exaggerating when I say a day hasn’t gone by when I don’t think of you with fondness, love, and desire, more than I even felt before, if that’s possible. It seems utterly small to say I hope you are well, but I do wish that for you and your family.
I’ve finished college now (I graduated six months early and took off for the service) and am grateful for the scholarship from the Army that paid my way through school. Now it is my turn to give back, and I’m doing that, as it happens, in Europe. I’m working in Army Intelligence, and I have just been stationed in Germany. It’s not France, of course, but it isn’t an ocean away either. I am so much closer to you than I ever was before. Perhaps we can see each other again? Perhaps we can do more than see each other? Maybe even start over? I have always longed for you with everything in my heart. Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer, ma petite fraise, my Annalise.
My Sinful Love (Sinful Men Book 4) Page 12