by Rosie Vanyon
“I want you,” he told her gruffly, his blazing eyes making sure she understood just how much, “but not like this.”
Her breath was ragged, her limbs unsteady. There seemed to be something wrong with her brain—it was like a snow globe and her thoughts were the snowflakes. She couldn’t quite grasp hold of a single one. There was only a veil of raw, desperate, consuming need—need for Levi—and it just wouldn’t quit.
“You can have me any way you want me,” she panted. “But it’s got to be now.” She ended the demand on a note that bordered on hysterical.
His nostrils flared and he swallowed thickly. He hesitated, watching her eyes. He must have seen the intense need there, for he captured her hand and took off out of the kitchen, practically dragging her in tow. She didn’t protest, didn’t question, just blindly followed him as he led her purposefully up the wooden staircase, across the landing, and down the hallway. The single focus of her consciousness was consuming Levi—immediately.
The door handle he reached for was the entrance to her childhood bedroom. For a moment, she stiffened, and he reacted immediately to her faltering. He turned, hand on the doorknob, arranging his face in a concerned question, obviously fighting hard to master his lust until she saw barely a flicker of impatience beneath his worry. She let out a shaky breath, smiled tremulously but genuinely, and nodded in reassurance He gave her one more long, assessing look.
“It’s okay...” she assured him.
He saw that it was and opened the door.
Her childhood bedroom was transformed. There was no pink metal bed, no roll-top desk—huh, no floordrobe! Instead, Levi revealed a starkly erotic geisha fantasy. Parchment-colored walls and bamboo floors contrasted with a plain bed of dark mahogany. To the left, a deep red kimono was draped tantalizingly over a rice paper screen. Dusky rose silk bedding and curtains complemented two pillows of deep fuchsia velvet and a single stem of cherry blossom in a simple glass vase. The only other ornament was an enormous oriental-style print over the bed. The image was stylized but graphic, depicting a man and a woman entwined, in flagrante delicto.
Both Levi and Cara paused on the threshold of the room, taking in the setting he had chosen for their lovemaking. There was breath, there were heartbeats, there was need—and they were all quickening. He couldn’t know, she thought, that this room had once been hers, that the walls had harbored her childhood dreams and her teenage fantasies... Or perhaps, at some level, he did know. Maybe on some primal plane, he picked up the vibrations of her past, sensed the yearnings of her younger, flowering self.
In the doorway, Levi held her hand tightly and she was glad of the contact. A little of her earlier rashness had ebbed as echoes of the past wrapped themselves around her and the reality of what they were about to do seeped into her consciousness.
Cara looked up at Levi, took in the strong set of his jaw, the rumpled tumble of his hair, the glitter of famine in his eyes. She fanned her gaze over the breadth of his shoulders, the swell of his biceps, the planes of his chest. He was the perfect male specimen, she thought. And there was no question the chemistry was seething between them. Yes, they had only just met, so she didn’t know the man—didn’t know which football team he followed, where he’d grown up, whether he preferred boxers or briefs, vanilla or chocolate...
But she knew all the important things. She knew that he was a gentleman, that he was protective, that his hand fit perfectly around her own, that he kissed like sweet sin, and that he would be the hottest lover she could ever dream of being with.
There was suddenly no question of backing out, no thought of putting off the inevitable, because it was inevitable, she realized. Their union was as sure as the tides, as predictable as the full moon, and as unavoidable as the dawn. It was almost as though this moment was preordained, that there was more to this encounter than just the two of them and the desire roaring between them.
Certain now, she looked down at their clasped hands, met his eyes, smiled, and stepped across the threshold toward the bed, drawing Levi alongside her.
Once her decision was made and executed, Levi no longer held back. At the foot of the bed, he reached for Cara and pulled her against him, his mouth angling over hers, his palms resuming the exploration of her body that they had begun downstairs.
His fingers blazed a sizzling trail over her neck and chest. His mouth gentled in the wake of his hands as he pried her shirt away from her body, exposing the petal pink lace of the bra she had donned after the storm. She felt exhilaratingly exposed as her shirt fell away from her skin, pooling at her feet. She was at his mercy as he licked her tender nipples through the underwear.
She pushed him back and his eyes gobbled her up.
“I love the swell of these,” he said, gazing at her breasts in their lacy cup. “And this…” His gaze traced the expanse of golden skin across her slightly curved belly and the promise of more treasures where her faded jeans rode low on her hips.
She made short work of stripping him of his shirt and unfastened his belt buckle while she had the opportunity.
“Turnabout is only fair,” he teased gruffly as he reached for the snap of her jeans, and they laughed as each wrestled with the other’s denim. At the rasp of her zipper lowering, his eyes flashed triumph and her craving for him intensified.
By silent mutual consent, they stepped away from one another, then shrugged out of their clothing, toed off their shoes, stripped back the vestiges of modesty, and revealed themselves more fully to one another.
He really was luscious, she thought as he wrenched off his jeans. Toned and defined but not too beefy, tanned but not too dark, sporting a little body hair but not a rug. He was beautifully proportioned with long, brawny legs and a trim waist flaring out to an expansive chest. The makings of a six-pack were apparent when he flexed, but there were slightly softened edges to his sculpted body, making him more real, more human than some pin-up boy or show pony. Standing before her in nothing but his blue briefs, she thought she might die if she couldn’t get her hands on him soon. God, but she needed to touch him.
She hooked her thumbs under the elastic at the waist of her panties, but before she could draw them down her legs, his hands stayed hers.
“Let me,” he said, and she obediently dropped her hands to her sides.
He knelt before her, worshipping, supplicating.
She was practically naked—the last pastel pink scrap of lace hid nothing. He could see, touch, taste everything. And yet there was something incredibly intimate and romantic about the slide of his fingers beneath the waistband of her panties, the slow drift of lace and fingertips over her thighs, the feel of his breath against her center.
She was desperately aroused, screamingly eager, wet and hot and throbbing for him. Her clit was puckered tight and the muscles inside her were clenched with anticipation.
He let her panties slither to her ankles, clasped the cheeks of her butt, and pressed his scorching mouth hard and without warning against her wet sex. His lips were apart and he sucked her inside his mouth—the whole plump folded core of her—and his tongue probed unerringly to her clitoris. The feel of his mouth was the most incredible pressure she had ever experienced. The fast, sure flicking of his tongue inside the full suckling of his lips almost drove her out of her mind. She had not known there was pleasure like this to be had.
Her whole body was flushed with longing, her breath was growing irregular, and her pulse was breakdancing all over the place. She could feel the tantalizing edges of orgasm fluttering around the limits of her excitement. But she needed more. Something to tip her over that exquisite, elusive precipice.
“More...” she gasped, clutching at his shoulders as he pressed his face between her thighs, maintaining her pleasure. But even as she begged, she had no idea how he could deliver what she needed. His ministrations were already utterly and deliciously absorbing.
She clung to him, a single drop of perspiration trickling between her engorged breasts as she gasped
her need.
“Please…” The word was thin and strangled. She wasn’t even sure what she was asking for.
He slid his right hand from her buttocks around her hip and across her thigh. With nothing more than a gesture, he commanded her thighs apart and, lost in a maelstrom of lust, she mindlessly acquiesced. She felt utterly wanton standing before this man, legs spread while he thrilled her with his talented mouth, his hand stroking relentlessly up and down her thighs.
His fingers traveled lightly, teasingly, sometimes grazing the trimmed hair at her center, occasionally brushing the fleshy entrance to her feminine core.
She could barely catch her breath now and she felt dizzy. Her throat was clamped shut and the razzle-dazzle of dancing lights behind her eyelids told her she was close to losing consciousness. She was no longer holding his shoulders for balance and encouragement. Instead, her fingers dug into his skin for support, and as a desperate plea for him to take her where she needed to go.
“Please, Levi, please...”
He didn’t hesitate. On the next upstroke between her thighs, he drove his finger deep into her sex. Plunging the digit once, twice, thrice into her soaked and scorching channel.
And then she flew apart. The orgasm rocketed through her like a searing star shower. There was no room for thought. Her release was pure sensation, so intense it was almost painful, so complete it was practically spiritual. The spasms rocked the depths of her very being and even as they began to subside, she knew what Levi had given her was a gift both precious and rare, and that the experience had changed her so profoundly there was no return.
Gently, lovingly, he helped her to the bed, easing her quaking body down on the silken covers, sliding beside her and gathering her in his arms. Slowly, as though from far, far away, she came back to herself. First she noticed the warmth of his body in the cool air of the room, the scuff his body hair against her smooth skin, the soothing glide of his fingertips over her quivering arm and her hip. His heartbeat beneath her ear was a perfect counterpoint to the rain thrumming against the window. His breath tasted faintly of mint and wine and her own musk. Her breathing slowed to match his lungs’ steady rhythm and her trembling began to abate.
“You look beautiful there,” he murmured against her hair. “Your golden hair spread all across the bed, your skin glowing, your lips swollen...”
His hands emphasized his words, stroking her body more intently as he spoke. Of their own volition, her fingers followed suit, trailing over his skin, mindlessly exploring the bulges and hollows of his body. He shivered when her short fingernails skimmed his nipple, gasped when she trailed her index finger down his hip toward the waistband of his briefs.
There was no mistaking his arousal. The thick length of him spasmed every time her hand drew close, and there was a tell-tale spot of dampness near the tip. Enjoying his responses, she teasingly drew her fingers around his belly and down the edges of his jutting hipbones, across the elastic of his underwear and up and down the arrow of hair between his navel and the stretch of blue fabric. He hissed and growled and squirmed under her ministrations.
“You are going to drive me completely insane,” he ground out, but he made no move to hurry her or change her agenda. She could see the pulse leaping at his throat, the desperate bob of his Adam’s apple, the sheen of sweat glistening on his brow.
She smiled saccharine sweetly at him and deliberately brushed her hand over the bulge in his pants.
“Really?” Cara said. She did it again. “I’m so sorry...”
“Funny, Cara, you don’t sound very sorry.”
Was he actually panting?
She quirked an eyebrow, her gaze all delighted mischief. “It’s hard to be sorry when there’s this tempting package right in front of me, just begging to be unwrapped.”
“If you’d like to unwrap it, Cara, be my guest.”
“Oh, I’ll unwrap it all right, but I like to open my presents in my own sweet time. I enjoy prolonging the anticipation.”
She scuttled up his body and swallowed his groan in her mouth from her position beside him. The taste of him was complex and addictive. His lips were clever and intuitive. His tongue was thorough and tempting. Cara felt as though she could stay here, kissing like this, lost in Levi forever.
But clearly, Levi had other ideas as he turned further toward her and maneuverered his arm free from under her shoulders. Once Levi was propped up on one elbow, he was much more dextrous and she was much more vulnerable to his roaming touch. He was a master of contact, stroking here, squeezing there, lingering a little, skimming and skirting. He was setting her on fire with his every caress.
But two could tangle, she decided. She had to do something to hold on to her sanity while he drove her body wild, and her fingers, her palms, her French-painted nails, and the back of her hand all worked their slow, tantalizing magic on his body. And here and there, her tongue followed. His breath was utterly shredded, his skin flushed deeply, his body bathed in perspiration. She could hear his thundering pulse, smell his animal need. Deliberately, systematically, she tortured his skin, strained his patience, drove him to the very edge of reason. At last, she sipped her fingers below the waistband of his jocks and drifted a single fingertip over the dewy tip of his penis.
The shudder of pleasure and want rent his whole body. His teeth were clenched, his eyes screwed shut, the cords of his neck jutted starkly from his reddened skin, and his knuckles were white where he fisted the silk sheet.
“I…can’t…wait…much…longer,” he ground out. Gruff. Fraught. “I need to be inside you, Cara. Now.”
In one swift movement, she yanked his pants down and pulled herself astride him, hovering a hairsbreadth above his straining cock.
His eyes were wild like a manic beast, his control barely leashed. But he did not touch her. Did not take her.
“Please,” he implored as she positioned her sex gently against his and held him at her opening with nothing but the folds between her legs. His penis jumped and bucked against her. She could feel the damp head slick against her own juicy flesh. But still, he did not move to seize her. She was awed by his self-mastery.
Slowly, impossibly slowly, she eased herself down the impressive length of him, taking him inside the wet heat of her vagina, drawing him into the tightness, thrilling in the way that he filled her. Only then did he uncurl his quaking hands from the bedclothes and gentled them on her hips, half-guiding, half-acceding to the small undulations she initiated.
She felt him begin to move against her. Taking his cue from her restraint, he eased his hips up and down, lifting her slight frame as he moved inside her, creating an exquisite friction between them.
It was only moments before her carefully crafted control began to unravel and she watched his eyes glint. She knew he must notice the frantic edge creeping into her breath, the flicker of impatience in her gaze, the skittish fervor in her moves. As if to confirm her thoughts, his command rapidly slipped loose, too.
In a heartbeat—two—she watched him surrender to his raw, masculine requirements. Seemingly driven by a need deeper than animal pleasure, Levi clamped his hands on her hips and pulled her down on him hard even as he thrust his cock inside her. And he roared his hunger and relief.
She tilted forward, her hair brushing his face, his chest, her mouth seeking his, devouring his lips, sucking, licking, biting. Her legs pumped, trying to get as much of him as she could, trying to keep his hot, hard rod buried in her center, wanting him to stab into the very heart of her femininity.
He shoved his cock inside her again and again, jerking her down against his hips, almost hard enough to bruise. Their breath was all over the place, their limbs entangled, their moans and cries of unsated lust mingling in the air, their movements uncoordinated in their sheer desperation for completion.
Levi paused and, before Cara could even take a breath to protest, he maneuvered her onto her back in one speedy twist and was between her legs, back inside her, more fully than
before. He propelled himself rhythmically into her and she arched up to meet him, perfectly in tune.
The movement was too ideal, the angle too perfect, the friction too relentless, the pressure too intense. It was only a handful of moments before first Levi and then Cara catapulted into splintering orgasm.
Chapter Six
She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly ravished, Cara thought as she finger-combed her hair in the bathroom mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were puffy, her eyes were over-bright, and her aura would put a hundred watt Sylvania to shame. Though she considered herself fairly fit, she hurt in places she didn’t even realize she had muscles in. But they were good aches. Very, very good.
It had been a long time since she had been with a man, she thought. Probably too long. For the past two years, she had been wrapped up writing and selling Lost Treasure, as well as juggling some bread and butter work on a television series and a part-time teaching load. There wasn’t a lot of room in her life for intimacy. Even her cat, Tarantino, had run away from home, moving in with the young family next door and only deigning to visit Cara every few days. Cara couldn’t blame him.
But even if she had last enjoyed a lover yesterday, he would have vanished into the shadows cast by Levi’s scorching performance. The man was a magician, a god, an orgasm machine. Never before had she lost herself in the pleasures of the flesh. Never had she surrendered to a man and the delights he proffered. Levi’s loving was all spice and sex and sin wrapped up in a bundle of playful humour with a surprising heart of tenderness.
Everything about Levi seemed perfect. When they had grown hungry in the middle of the night, he had resurrected their dinner and they had eaten together, cross-legged in bed. When she grew sleepy, he held her close and fondled her hair until she drifted off. When she awoke, he talked softly with her about everything and nothing.