Sally's earlier interruption had allowed him to regain a shaky hold on the reins of his self-control. He wanted this night to last, not end in one quick, albeit intense, burst of heat. He wanted to take his time now that the moment was at hand.
Finally.
But he had one more thing to say.
Taking her firmly by the shoulders, he pushed her back against the door. Her gorgeous eyes fixated on his mouth, her lids half closed over the slumberous blue. Her tiny pink tongue darted out to swipe her bottom lip, making the muscles in his belly clench. He had to get the words out before she did him in completely.
"Allison," he said, shaking her just enough to have her eyes moving up to meet his. "You know I want you."
The slow smile that spread over her lips nearly brought him to his knees. How had he resisted her these past weeks? He must have reserves of strength he didn't even know about, but they were rapidly depleting.
"Listen to me." The snap in his voice caught her attention. "There's a condition."
"Rules, Benjamin?" she whispered, her voice as husky as ever, but a glint in her eye warned him she was already bracing against his terms.
"No more men."
Her eyes widened in surprise. Whatever she'd been expecting, that wasn't it. "What?"
"No more men. If we do this, you're mine. For as long as we're together." He gripped her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. "I don't share."
The weeks of waiting for Allison's emotions to catch up to her body had nearly killed him. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Physically. He recognized her frustration, felt it as keenly as his own. But he'd made her wait, had made them both wait, until he could be sure he'd be more than just another guy to her. She was used to men coming on to her, falling at her feet. He'd wanted her to make a clear-eyed decision to come to him, not just for sex, but for love.
He'd already prepared for the moment, whenever it might happen. Had trusted that it would.
Tonight, he'd finally seen what he'd been waiting for in her eyes. The wait had been worth it to know he was her choice. Him, not just his body. Now he'd find out just how deep that choice went.
Allison gripped the hand he used to hold her chin. "When it matters, Ben, I don't share, either. No more men."
Then she fused her mouth to his in a kiss that blew through him like a forest fire, cindering any remaining doubts and sealing their vow.
In a few short weeks, she'd burrowed inside him, and now it was as though she'd always been there, always belonged there, nestled inside his heart. Fate had gifted him with a second chance. At life. At love. He'd be damned if he'd squander it. Cupid's arrow had found its mark.
Maybe she wasn't all the way there yet, all the way in love with him, but there would be no more waiting.
She would expect the lust, the flash and fire, the speed and urgency. He knew her reputation. She'd told him some of it herself, and Sally had filled in the blanks. Casual flings and easy, friendly hookups with little substance had been Allison's M. O. for a long time. Not romance. Not relationships.
Not love.
Ben meant to change that tonight. The nerves still dancing in her eyes pleased him. Those nerves indicated a desire for something deeper, more meaningful. They gave him hope and told him he was on the right track. He wouldn't be just another entry in her mental database.
He wanted to be the final one, the first and only in a new ledger. A fresh start.
So he would give her the slow burn, the smooth glide. The tender and timeless, the ache before the flash. He would woo her with romance, cherish her body and soul with the endless swell of love in his heart.
Soothing the wild kiss to soft, slow nibbles, he shifted their embrace into the smooth and steady, enjoying the feel of her thrumming against him with need—all subtle curves and slender strength wrapped inside an electrical storm. He'd take these moments to learn her body, her pleasures, despite his own body's clamoring.
Skimming his thumbs over the fragile angles of her cheekbones, he tucked her riot of curls behind her ears, then traced the delicate pink shells, skating over the golden knots decorating her lobes. Her skin, impossibly soft, warmed beneath his touch, and her eyelids fluttered closed for his kiss, one gentle press on each lid. He nuzzled the sensitive spot below her ear, drawing in her spicy scent as he kissed his way slowly down the slender column of her throat. Her pulse beat frantically against his lips.
"Be with me, Ben," she whispered.
CHAPTER NINE
Allison's hands, surprisingly strong, clung to his shoulders, searing him through the fabric of his shirt. Her head fell back on a moan, exposing more of her neck for his kisses. The urge to ravish clawed its way up from his belly, but he put a stranglehold on it, yanked it back. There would be time for that. Years. Decades. This time, their first time, required savoring. Reverence.
He licked the hollow of her throat and couldn't help the satisfied grin when goose bumps rushed over her skin, making her shiver. Placing hot, open-mouthed kisses toward the underside of her chin, he slid his tongue along the strong bones of her jaw, absorbing her flavor. Honeyed and salty and irresistibly female. She quaked in his arms, her breaths coming in short, choppy gasps.
Had he ever been more conscious of his own size than at that moment with her slim body quivering in his enormous hands? He knew her strength, yet the slide of his fingers over her narrow ribcage reminded him of her fragility. In her lower-than-usual heels, she didn't quite reach his chin. All the more reason to go slow, to cherish and protect.
Stroking the long fall of her gypsy hair, he fisted his hands in it. Luxuriously soft, wild with curls, he wanted to wrap himself in its glorious length. With one hand bracing her back, the other traced a path from her collarbone, sliding down to rest over her bounding heart in the valley between her breasts.
Her fingers, still clasped behind his neck, flexed hard, but her gaze stayed steady on his, crystalline pools he'd happily drown in for the rest of his life. He claimed her mouth in another drugging kiss while her heart continued to beat against his palm.
"Let me in, Allison," he murmured, nipping her full bottom lip with his teeth. "Let me in."
She mistook his meaning, one hand sliding into the front pocket of her jeans to fumble for her keys, when what he wanted was the key to her heart. He'd have to find that one on his own. But Allison, who'd twisted unsteadily toward the house, seemed to be having difficulty with the lock. Amused, he loosened his grip on her to remove the keys from her hand and dealt with the door himself.
Once opened, Ben tossed the keys toward the wooden bowl she kept on the entryway table for just that purpose, but with his eyes on Allison, he missed it by a mile. The keys clattered to the tile floor in a jangled heap, and the sound seemed to work on Allison like a gunshot at the start of a race.
The dreamy quality in her eyes sharpened, went dark with desire. Before he could react to the change, she'd pulled him over the threshold and clawed her way up his body. Slow and steady died in the fever rush.
If she'd been a sweetly purring kitten before, now she was a hungrily growling tigress, and he her willing meal. Sweat sprang across his body and his already racing pulse went to warp speed. Every nerve in his body sat up and howled. He wanted. Needed. Now.
Wrapping her long, long legs around his waist, Allison clamped her hands in his hair. Her mouth was a fury on his, stealing his breath, his will, draining every high-minded idea out of his head in an instant.
Slow, sweet, tender—the words lost their meaning under the onslaught of her lips and teeth, and his cock surged inside his stifling jeans, straining against her where their bodies clashed, core to core.
"God!"
He rasped the word into her voracious mouth, stumbling blindly toward the hallway with her writhing over him like quicksilver. Her body hummed beneath his hands, a high-voltage energy source disguised beneath velvet skin and fragile bones. Even her hair seemed to crackle with the electricity they generated, a swirling red tornado wrapp
ing them together.
"Let me—" she said, her hands racing over his body, leaving him breathless.
"Wait," he said, "I can—"
But she'd solved the problem by grasping the panels of his shirt in both hands and tearing them apart.
Buttons flew. She yanked the tail of his ruined shirt out of his jeans, shoving the sleeves down his arms. He clutched her body with first one hand, then the other, to free his arms as she tore the material all the way off, then sank her teeth into the flesh over his collarbone. He jerked in surprise, the whip of lust branding him with her fire.
The feel of her hands and mouth on his bare skin almost sent him over the edge where he stood. He stumbled backward into the wall, holding himself on his shoulders to protect her legs where they wrapped around his waist, and knocked his head into a shelf. Something crashed, the musical tinkle ringing with Allison's wild laughter.
"I need—" he said.
"I know," she panted, "just let me—"
"Skin. Skin, Allison, I want you naked."
"Yes-yes-yes," she chanted as he whipped her sweater up and off with one hand, the other glued to her back to hold her in place. She cried out when their torsos met, and pleasure skyrocketed through his system.
God, the heat. Waves of it shimmered off her bare skin, pale as milk in the dim light of the hall, smooth as cream. Dainty scraps covered her breasts, but not for long.
"The bed," he began, but she shook her head wildly.
"No time," she gasped, "no time. I need you, Ben, now. Now-now-now, please!"
She pushed her hands and feet against the wall, shoving them away from its support and bearing him down, half sliding, out of control. They landed hard with him on his back, her knees digging into his sides, the center of her heat pressed tightly against his belly.
"Ben-Ben-Ben," his name fell from her lips like a prayer.
Dropping forward, Allison sucked his right nipple into her mouth and bit. His back arched off the carpet, and his hands clutched the halves of her ass, digging his fingers into the damn jeans still covering her softness. She dragged her tongue up his chest, his neck, his chin, then dove inside his mouth, plundering the way he wanted to plunder her body. His hips already pumping beneath her, he tangled his tongue with hers, fighting for dominance while he fought the button at her waist.
"I want these off," he said, his voice guttural, rough, scoring his throat.
Her hands, fisted again in his hair, snaked between their bodies, making short work of the fastening of her own jeans, as well as his. She trailed little bites along his lower lip, stopping just short of pain, then licked her tongue along it before diving back into his mouth.
Ben undid the clasp of her bra, something pretty and feminine he ignored completely, then scraped the straps down her arms. With one helpful wiggle, she was free of it and her breasts pressed their pebbled, scorching tips against him for the first time. It was heaven and hell combined, the most amazing sensation and the most agonizing. It would never be enough. He wanted to absorb her into his body, to make them truly one. He rubbed against her naked flesh like a giant jungle cat, her panting moans of pleasure sending his own arousal to new heights.
He couldn't take much more.
Grasping her by the waist, he hauled her up his body and sucked first one then the other breast into his mouth, rolling each throbbing tip between his teeth in turn. Allison threw her head back and keened high in her throat, her hips rocking uncontrollably against him. Why the hell were there still clothes between them?
As if reading his mind, she pushed one hand against his chest to lever herself to standing, her free hand going to the unbuttoned fabric. Chest heaving, she stared at him. His eyes raced over her, over the glistening tips of her breasts, wet from his mouth, over her satiny skin and half-opened jeans. Sitting up, he delved his right hand inside the material and down the smooth, brief expanse of heated skin before he found her silky panties and the already drenched mound of curls. He slid his fingers inside, finding her wet, sultry, ready, as she cried out his name.
Yanking the jeans to her calves, he used his teeth to drag her panties down and finally, finally, she stood bared to his gaze. Clasping his hands on either side of her hips, he pulled her forward and sank his mouth into the glistening folds of her sex, burying himself in the scent and heat of her desire. She quaked above him, her hands clutched in his hair for balance as he ran his tongue down either side of her mound, then slowly, slowly up, trailing over her center to plunge inside.
Over and over, he nibbled and bit and sucked, sending his tongue deeply into her body, making her his. Allison writhed in his hold, whimpering her submission to his mouth and tongue and teeth. When he swirled his tongue over that throbbing bud, then sucked it hard into his mouth, she came apart, her cries echoing down the hallway.
Allison's knees gave, and she collapsed, but he supported her down on top of him. His heart bursting with love and smug satisfaction for pleasuring his woman, Ben stroked his hands over her back and sides and down to cup her buttocks while she shuddered out the aftershocks of her orgasm.
But they weren't finished.
"I want you inside me, Ben," she whispered against his skin, echoing his own desire, her breaths still rattling in her chest. "I need you."
On shaky arms, she pushed herself up to drop a kiss on his mouth that sent a fresh wave of need pulsing over his body. Sliding down his torso, she pulled her own jeans and panties the rest of the way off, then grasped the opening of his jeans and worked the fabric down, freeing his erection from their confines.
The briefest flash of nerves shone in her eyes as she scanned his width and length before it was replaced by pure female satisfaction, but he'd seen it. His hands and feet weren't the only oversized appendages on his body.
Tamping down the stallion's urge to plunge inside his mate, to take, and take, and take some more, he schooled himself to go slow, to let her set the pace. The torture would be sweet.
"Ben." She sighed his name as she ran one hand firmly down his cock, cupping him beneath when she dipped her head to lave her tongue around the head and down the length of his shaft in one long stroke. "You're beautiful."
Her touch, her words. . . He almost came that instant. Fishing a hand into his jeans' pocket, he ripped through dealing with the condom while she watched.
"Take me, Alli," he said, trying not to beg. "Take me now. I can't last much longer."
Allison took his mouth in a kiss that curled his toes and rolled his eyes back in his head. She poised herself above him, and he fought to focus, wanting to watch as he disappeared inside her, as he became one with her for the first time.
Dark blue eyes glued to his, Allison lowered herself onto him until just the tip slid inside her wet, wet heat. She teased him, holding there, pulsing around him. He ground his teeth, his restraint in a chokehold. Every muscle rigid.
Slowly, slowly she lowered a fraction more, moaning as he stretched her, her sheath so tight he wondered if she'd truly be capable of taking him all the way.
Then she began to move. Still slowly, working him a little more deeply inside with each lifting and lowering of her silken hips. She rocked over him, driving him insane by inches as he slid deeper, disappeared more fully into her body. It was the most erotic sight he'd ever witnessed.
He pressed his hands over her breasts, helping to hold her in place as sweat beaded and ran down her torso. She was keening again, or maybe it was him, their pleasure locked together in the dance. Her heart sped, a high-performance engine revving beneath his palm.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she closed her eyes and seated herself fully against him, his shaft buried within her scorching heat to the very hilt. She was panting, as was he, their bodies fused into one, and she crowed her victory.
Allison held there, flushed and quivering. Ben traced her breasts, plucking her nipples with his fingers and watching the rippling shivers racing over her skin. She smoothed her hands up his waist, over his c
hest to his shoulders. Digging her fingers into his muscles, she held on as she once again began to move, her head tossed back, her hair swirling over his thighs and adding another layer of erotic torture.
Faster and faster, deeper and deeper, she took him away with her. He clasped her hips and rose to meet her, thrust for thrust. The pressure built, almost past bearing. At the last moment, he swept his fingers into the inferno, finding the core of her pleasure, and she shattered above him, screaming his name as his own shouts of release melded with hers, their voices creating their own private symphony, until they collapsed, heaving, wrapped together. Mindless, spent, shivering with pure bliss.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Untold centuries later, too weak to stand, they crawled to the bedroom, rolling over each other and giggling like drunks. Allison's heart soared, a hawk set free of its hood and jess, unfettered by doubt. They might not have shared the words yet, but the emotions were there, all around them, shimmering in the midnight darkness.
She'd already promised him exclusivity, a vow she hadn't made in years. Before the sun rose in the morning, she would give him those all-important words. Benjamin Turner was her soul mate. The stories handed down by the women in her family had turned out to be amazingly, beautifully true, and she would never let him go.
Someday, when they were ready, there would be a wedding. Children. A future.
Now, though, she wanted nothing more than to add to the store of shared memories they were already creating. To make love to him again and again until neither of them could see straight.
Reaching the bed, Ben whipped the covers back and dragged her up with him, snugging them together in its warmth and softness. He tucked her head beneath his chin. She pressed her ear over his heart. With their arms wrapped around each other, their legs tangled, he stroked her hair until she sighed her pleasure. He tipped her chin up for a kiss of such aching sweetness it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
With lavish care, he moved over her body, and in his hands she was reborn. He guided her across new continents of pleasure. In his arms, she discovered new depths of lovemaking, an emotional connection she'd never experienced nor imagined. Something spiritual and sacred.
Cupid's Mistake Page 11