by Jule McBride
“Good.” He hated to think about the possible scene if anyone had walked in on them earlier, rolling around on the floor. Even now, the musky sweet scent was entering his bloodstream, and he knew he’d remember it forever.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped at the barn,” she said. “It’s late now.”
But he’d enjoyed watching her. “You like the horses,” he said simply. They’d recognized her immediately and had come to nuzzle her hand. He didn’t ride, and she’d said she was sorry he wouldn’t be staying longer, since the horses were used to inexperienced riders, which many of the guests were, and she would have taken him.
His first thought had been that he might change his mind and stay. Easily, he could imagine her in the saddle, hunched down, her hands in the mane, her thighs squeezing the flanks. But then, once he checked the water samples in the morning, he knew he ought to take off. He liked the idea Ariel seemed to have warmed to—of the two of them spending the next few hours getting hot and heavy, really letting themselves go.
“Too bad we didn’t find anything in the root cellar,” he said now. He’d suggested they stop there, on the way back from the barn, just to check things out.
“We’re not detectives,” she pointed out.
“I do trace viruses around the globe.”
Her eyes widened, as if to say she hadn’t quite seen it that way before. “True.”
Not that he’d found anything new. “It bothers me that the sheriff didn’t check more thoroughly. Or question people yet,” he mused. “Wonder why?”
She shook her head. “His issues with me probably have something to do with it. I just hope the book’s recovered.”
“Me, too.” The conversations he’d had over dinner had clarified how important it was to the women of the house. Without it, Great-gran said she didn’t trust herself to concoct specialty teas for the Harvest Festival, although Ariel’s mother and grandmother had assured her they could make do, if necessary.
When he spoke again, the words were barely audible, touched with desire. “I like the way you’re looking at me, Ariel.”
Awareness sharpened in her eyes. “How’s that?”
“Like you want to screw my brains out.”
“How indelicate,” she teased.
His eyes lasered into hers. “Exactly.”
The humor that had sparkled in her eyes faltered and was replaced by something less easy to interpret, vulnerability maybe. Uncertainty, he decided. Her voice lowered, catching. “As dirty as we are…let’s run a bath.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
“The spring,” she assured. “It loosens synapses.”
“So, I take it that we’re in my room?”
“It’s cooler in here. I left my windows open. I usually do, and keep my doors shut, so cooler air from the rest of the house doesn’t escape.”
“Then c’mon in.”
Turning, he headed for the bath, lifting some condoms from the bedside table as he moved, feeling eyes on his back that were every bit as warm as the water had been outside. He didn’t wait for her, but let her take her time, and as he dimmed the lights in the bathroom and flicked a radio on a shelf to On, he heard his door shut. Good. He’d left it open, anxious to open the other door between their rooms, since she’d gone for a change of clothes, but the last thing he wanted now was intruders. Jazz played softly as he twisted the faucet and tested the water.
He glanced at the mirrored wall, and then, noticing a basket between the two sinks behind him, he found a bottle of bath foam and squirted some into the tub. In the mirror, he could see Ariel enter.
Turning to face him, she leaned against the cabinet and raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“More suds than I expected.”
Not that he really gave a damn. They were alone now. Alone, somewhere other than in a public place, and that meant they could get naked again. He stepped closer, and as he lowered his head to taste her spicy mouth, his hands found her, and his mind exploded with questions he knew better than to ask. Was she as affected as him? Had she been as blown away by how they’d swum together?
He leaned away from her, just enough so he could urge the dress over her head. Her chest was as pale as his was dark, her breasts heavy. Running his fingers beneath them, he tested, teasing her by feeling their weight. The buds tightened, growing rosier. Spreading his fingers wide, he trailed them down her belly, then turning his hand at the last moment to arrow his fingers into her crotch, cupping her mound.
“You’re wet,” he whispered hoarsely.
“The spring,” she whispered. “We didn’t have a towel.”
“It’s you, baby,” he whispered back.
“That, too.” Her voice was edgy with need as she arched for the hand that warmed her. “You’re making me wetter.”
“Wait till I’m inside you.” His labored pant turned harsher when he slipped a hand under the waistband, over impossibly soft curls. He lightly tugged, soliciting a fluttering breath from between her lips. It beat by his ears as delicately as wings, and when he used a finger to part her, the shakiness he sensed in her thighs drove his excitement, taking it up another notch.
“You’re so easy,” he muttered, heat pouring through his veins, pooling in his belly. He pushed a thick finger inside, intending to ready her further, but the slick heat that greeted him told him there was no need. Backing against the cabinet, she opened wider, parting farther, giving him full access.
She whispered, “Easy?”
“To arouse,” he murmured. He pressed his lips deep against her neck, nuzzling. A second finger joined the first. He held them rigid, pushing her open wider…parting her until she uttered a wistful, pliant sound.
As he twisted his hand, hers came between them, fumbling to unbutton his shorts, making him wince as she wrenched the zipper over his hard-on. When the fly was open, she moved her fingers over the ridge. His flesh was painfully aroused, but he might have survived if she hadn’t squeezed, closing her fingers around his length—then hard—and he exhaled a curse, thinking he’d die from this.
Her mouth finding his sent him soaring. She kissed him the way he was used to kissing women—without apologies, taking what she wanted, her tongue asking his to fight like a sword. “Not always easy,” she countered wetly against his lips, the words sounding strangely jumbled and senseless. He didn’t know whether it was the kiss or words that sent blood to his groin. Whichever it was, the sweet, slow ache filled her hand.
He wanted her mouth around him again, just as he needed to hear her voice. “Say you’re hot for me.”
“You want to hear me say it?”
“Even if it isn’t true.”
“You can feel how true it is.”
He moaned. He wanted to screw her all night long. Maybe it was the call of something he’d felt in the spring, but he wanted—no, needed—to drive himself so deep she’d scream with pleasure, then beg for more.
He probed her mouth, forcing open her lips, offering his tongue in tandem with his stroking hands. He was bursting and felt heat exploding in her. Fever had hit her skin and the sheen of glistening perspiration as he pushed the love-slickened fingers deeper; soon she’d have more of him. If he lasted.
“Yes…” Her voice was jagged. She was starting to shake, her thighs quivering, her hips breaking rhythm, her excitement climbing beyond her control. He pushed his fingers all the way up…all the way in. Her hand left him and she reached behind herself, clutching the cabinet’s edge.
“Not like this,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
But she couldn’t stop. She was going to come. Leaning back a fraction, he watched her as he ever so slowly thrust farther inside. He felt her close around his fingers. “Tight,” he whispered, sweat prickling his skin, tickling his nape. Probing her inner ridges, he paused when he was buried deep, then he moved his hand in slow circles, twisting his wrist, forcing her to feel every tantalizing, torturous gesture.
Licking lips that ha
d gone dry, he watched her gasp as he strummed her, using his whole hand until it was drenched with her passion. She was still stroking him, too, and her hand slackened on his penis as she emitted a hungry groan.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s right.” She was straining now, trying to come…
He wanted to hear her voice again—that sound of wild, dark lust meant to be spent in forbidden places, so he asked, “Do you want me inside you, Ariel?” Then he withdrew his fingers, intentionally taunting her, loving the need he’d left in her dazed eyes.
Knowing she was right on the edge, he took a condom from the counter, ripped open the foil and then he glanced around, blowing out a shaky breath when she said, “The water!”
It had almost overflowed. “Damn,” he muttered.
Just as she stepped past him to the bath, he realized he’d almost forgotten the mirrored wall. Now he took in her back—the slender shoulders, nip of waist, rounded backside and endless legs. From the front, he could see her reach behind herself, pull the band from her hair and toss it aside. Her breasts swayed in tandem with her hips as she took the step into the water, ducked and was submerged into a tub big enough that she could go all the way under. When she came up, her hair was slicked back against her head. He followed her, reaching for her as soon as he hit the water. As he seated himself on a hot-bed step, he hauled her near. Her legs stretched around him, and as his stiffened length glided beneath her, he released a strangled male sound. Then his hungry mouth slammed down on hers again.
The water had gotten hotter than he’d intended. But it was no match for him. They’d been teasing each other all night, and now she was his. Panting, he said, “God, you are a witch.” Then, thinking of the water’s heat, he asked, “Too hot for you?”
She looked as if she wouldn’t care if she’d just landed in the fiery reaches of hell. “I was already boiling.”
Reaching, she pushed a control and started the Jacuzzi jets. Hot currents surrounded him in tandem with arms that wreathed his neck, and suds frothed. He urged her onto his lap, feeling desperate.
As she eased slowly over him, thought eluded him. Far off, music played, but only the hitch of her breath mattered. How could any man take such softness? Air. Suds. Feathers. And yet she was burning. She was water and fire, gripping him with her lower body, down…and down….
“What the hell’s happening,” he gasped, fingers tightening on her backside as she hit bottom. She was holding back, the way a man might, and the strain was killing them. She withdrew slowly, and he wondered if she’d been trained in some special torture chamber. “Witch,” he murmured thickly against her neck.
A splayed hand drove hard into his hair, her soap-slick breasts flattened against his chest. Fire spun through him, and suddenly, everything was too hot. Finding her mouth again, he savaged it, his lips covering hers, devouring…until she was kissing him back. Lost, he thought. Raw. Desperate.
“Now,” he said softly. Grasping her, he pulled her down, hard. “Ride me,” he rasped. He thought of her with the horses…her hair streaming behind her, her thighs flexing against flanks. “Ride,” he whispered again, slamming his eyes shut. “Fast, Ariel.”
She clung, her quivering lips locking to his, then her hips bucked and he gasped. The release came quick, in a sudden twisting like a clenched fist. “Bliss,” he whispered simply.
9
ARIEL PRESSED A FINGER to Rex’s lips, lightly tracing the contours with a fingernail. “Lie back.”
When he reclined on his bed, as she’d asked, she smiled, angling her body next to his before propping an elbow on a pillow, so she could better study the man who’d satisfied her beyond her wildest expectations. Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder, toward where floor-length curtains were drawn away from the picture window, exposing the night sky.
Directly beneath his room was the tearoom proper, which was built on an outcropping, and so they seemed to be in a planetarium right now, thrust into the glittering world of moon and stars. This view was what she loved most about the adjoined rooms. Despite the closed windows in his, and the fact they were above the tree line, she could still hear night sounds—hoot owls and crickets, and an August breeze that stirred leaves of the underbrush. Just enough light shone into the room that she could make out shapes of furniture inside, a long dresser, an armoire and the duffel he’d decided not to unpack. Eyeing it for a moment, she tried to ignore a tug of wistful regret…an unbidden fantasy that something would happen and he’d stay, at least for one more day.
Her gaze returned to his face, and now she listened to sounds that were nearer, the rustling of sheets as their feet glided over each other, the rise and fall of his breath. He was watching her, his eyes just midnight slits in the dark. Darkness inside darkness, she thought now, returning the gaze. Strangely, she did feel like that—as if something mysterious were unfolding between them. It was like a hand in a glove, or the first layers of an onion being peeled back before she made dinner, or veils blowing in a breeze. Always more to be revealed. Flavors to be discovered. Lifting a hand, he brushed a drying lock of her hair, pushing it from her temple.
For a long moment, she continued to survey him. His hair was drying, too, and she raked splayed fingers into it, then brought her face closer, studying the overly long, light blond strands that were, for all their thickness, as flaxen as a spider’s web, one spun, she decided, for the express purpose of enmeshing her.
There was an incongruity in his looks that had captivated her from the first, she realized, leaning away. His boyish hair was cut in flat-edged hanks, as if both he and the barber had been in a hurry, and he had shockingly blue eyes, as well as an easy smile. Altogether, the kind of good looks she didn’t associate with medical doctors or scientists.
When she cracked a smile, she saw an answering crinkle in his eyes. “Hmm?” he hummed as his hand slowly moved down her back, finally settling on her backside, then rubbing lazy circles.
Heat from the touch suffused her limbs. “You look like a surfer dude.”
His soft chuckle hit the air. “You think?”
“Yeah. Aren’t guys like you supposed to wear pocket protectors and lab coats?”
“Not when I’m naked,” he said.
A breast was pressed to his chest, and when he spoke, she could feel rumbling vibrations that made a nipple tug, tightening. Binds seemed to circle her chest then, stealing her breath, and she swallowed hard. After what had just happened in the bathtub, she’d have thought herself finished for the night, but now, she wanted more. There was no denying it.
Tomorrow, he’d be gone. So, all she had was tonight. Tomorrow, she’d share the continental breakfast with him in the tearoom, then maybe make love a final time before she kissed him goodbye. Then she’d be able to sleep.
“A surfer dude?” he murmured, looking amused.
She nodded. “Blond,” she explained.
“Muscular,” she continued after a moment, now sensing the lift of his hips as he stretched.
“And your hair’s kind of long,” she added, the distraction of conversation offering her mind a secondary focus, since a flood of sensation was rushing through her. Definitely lawless, she thought. Primitive.
Lifting one of her legs, she scissored it over his, noting how smooth her skin felt when teased by the coarser, rougher hairs of his thighs. As she brought her knee upward, almost to his groin, the hand on her backside roamed again, running freely, cupping under a cheek, a finger exploring the crevice near her thigh.
“Hmm.” His voice was thick with sex, almost lost in the whisper of their joined breath. “You were saying you thought cute blondes lack brains?”
“Until earlier today when I met you.”
“Good answer.”
He was playing with her in earnest now, just as she was playing with him, distracting herself with gliding her hands over the solid muscles of his chest. She shifted, raising her knee higher, sliding it over both his legs.
A hand swiftly caught
her leg and hooked beneath the bend in it, urging it higher still, over his groin. He groaned as the hard knob of her knee, then the softer, smoother flesh of her inner thigh covered the most intimate part of him, and her pulse jagged when she felt his lightning-quick reaction—the flexing of his erection, its burning as blood raced through his limbs, filling and engorging where she’d crushed him.
“Dumb blondes,” she murmured, the halfhearted attempt at silly conversation now seeming like exactly that—silliness.
“That’s the stereotype. Isn’t it?”
“You’re one of a kind,” she whispered.
“You don’t even know me.”
“Maybe that’s when it’s easiest to know a person,” she managed to say, her chest so tight that she wasn’t sure she could catch her breath.
“Now, there’s a paradox.”
And it was. But she’d never have let herself go like this, not with a man she’d been dating. “Maybe it’s easier to lose yourself with a stranger.”
Probably. Because his thoughts were elsewhere. She could see that in the sleepy-looking pull of his heavy-lidded gaze, the parting of his lips. A spear of tongue appeared, licking at the luscious mouth she was hungry to feel on hers, and he seemed to sink farther back, burying his head more deeply into the ample pillows. He finally murmured, “It’s kind of a double standard, isn’t it?”
“Like all dumb blondes being women,” she agreed.
As if coming to his senses, he blinked and rattled off names of smart blondes, ending with Helen Hunt.
“Hillary Clinton,” she countered.
“Salon streaked,” he argued back.
“Ah. So, you know your hairdos.” Judging by his, she wouldn’t have thought beauty techniques to be his strong point.
“The ex-fiancée,” he explained, his long finger further exploring her now, moving downward until he’d found the slick heat of her opening. When he uttered a deep, rumbling sound, she knew he’d registered the flow of her juices, how hot she’d gotten. This was payback, she realized, because he was circling where she was so open for him…then fondling her clitoris, the tip of his finger barely flickering before vanishing once more.