Trying now to be nonchalant, she let go of his hands and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Do you want me to seduce you?”
“Hell, yeah, I do.”
Couldn’t be more direct than that. Meg’s mind whirled in great and happy circles, like a puppy chasing its tail. Suddenly, though, she remembered. “Well, great. What are we going to do? We don’t have any condoms. And I’ll bet that little drugstore in the sub-lobby is closed by now.”
“Oh, do not be so quick to despair, my lady. Observe.” Joe pinched up a fold of his hotel-logo T-shirt and held it taut. “Remember this? And me coming up with it in a bag after I made my phone call to Carl the jerk downstairs?”
“Yes. And how you didn’t buy me anything.”
“Sure I did. In a manner of speaking.” He grinned from ear to ear.
It took Meg a second, but then she realized— “Oh my God!” Not sure if she was more embarrassed or titillated, she clapped her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. “You did not!”
“Did so. Are you glad I did? Or are you going to slap my face because I did?”
“Glad. Definitely glad.”
“Yes!” He twisted around to the nightstand on his side of the bed, opened the drawer and pulled out… “Ta-da! An entire box of thin-and-ribbed-for-your-pleasure-and-mine condoms.”
Meg stared at the box and then at Joe. A silent, eager communication passed between them. “Oh, boyfriend!” Meg went up on her knees, grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and started pulling it up and over her head. “That’s enough of talking and not touching. Get your clothes off, cowboy. You are about to get so lucky.”
“Yee-haw!” Tossing the condom box down, Joe jackknifed to a sitting position and yanked his shirt over his head.
With that, “the first one naked wins” race was on.
JOE’S TOUCH WAS RIGHT for Meg from the first moment he put a hand on her bare skin. Lying on her side, facing him, with her eyes half closed, she gave herself over to the delicious sensation of his hands moving sensually over her body. Happily, there was no first-time awkwardness and no words necessary to tell him to touch her here or like this. This told her their actual coming together, when it happened, would be like a well-choreographed dance of two bodies, of two hearts, perfectly in tune with each other.
“Oh my God, Joe,” she breathed dreamily as she roused herself enough to trail her fingertips down his clean-shaven cheek. “I knew it would be like this for us. I just knew it would be. You are so beautiful.”
Smiling, he propped himself up on one elbow. With his other hand he lightly traced the curve of her body from shoulder to waist to hip and thigh…and back up her side. “I think I’m supposed to say that to you.”
“Oh. Then go ahead.”
“All right. Meg Kendall, I think you’re beautiful and I have since I first saw your booty stuck in my face in that fitting room three days ago.”
“Not that again,” Meg moaned self-consciously. “I thought that was in the vault.”
“It would be if I could get the image out of my mind.” Without warning, Joe grabbed her—eliciting a squeal of surprised delight—and rolled onto his back, which meant she was happily stretched out, full-length and naked, atop him. Now his hands were everywhere…stroking, kneading, roaming.
Meg’s breath came in tiny gasps of mounting desire as she lowered her head to capture his mouth in an eager, punishing kiss. With her elbows anchored against his pillow, she filled her fisted hands with his hair and pushed her body against his, mimicking the act itself.
His moan against her mouth and the ragged breathing through his nose like a bull preparing to charge told her she had him where she wanted him.
Finally, Joe broke their kiss and spoke, though he could barely get words out. “Oh, man. I don’t think I can wait, Meg.”
Heated to the core with want for him, Meg tossed her hair to one side of her face. “Who said you had to wait? I’m ready when you are.”
Joe stared at her in awe, as if he’d just discovered the mother lode of sex. “You are amazing, do you know that?”
“Yes. Now, lie still like a good cowboy.” In one fluid motion, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, straddling his muscled belly like he was a stallion underneath her, and reached for the box of condoms he’d tossed onto the nightstand. As he watched her, she opened it and pulled out one cellophane-wrapped little prize. Grinning triumphantly, waggling it in her grip, she resettled herself full-length on Joe’s chest—as if she were lying atop a surfboard—and tore open the package.
“Are you going to wear it, too?”
She laughed. “Naughty man. If I could, you wouldn’t like me.”
“True.”
With the packaged condom still in her hand, Meg again pushed herself up to sit on Joe’s rock-hard belly. This time, though, she scooted down on him—being mindful of certain parts that can only be bent back so far—until she was perched lightly on his thighs. Between them, the evidence of his desire jutted and grew. Meg raised an eyebrow in admiration.
“My, my, cowboy. Lucky for me you’re not from Texas…where everything’s even bigger.”
“Not so fast, ma’am. I was born in Austin, the capital of Texas.”
“I’ll say. Now, hold still because I’ve never done this before.”
Joe bucked in surprise. “What the hell, Meg? You’ve never done this before? Are you serious?”
She’d kept her seat by tensing her thighs around his and grabbing for his sides. Mercifully, she hadn’t reached for the obvious handhold. “Be still. You nearly knocked me off. I meant I haven’t ever put one of these on a guy before.” She pulled the condom out of the package and studied the lubricated circle of latex. “So this thing will actually be ribbed when it’s unfurled, huh?”
“For the love of—Yes, that’s what the box says.”
“Well, the box should know. Anyway, by the time I’m through, this guy will be in his little Saturday Night Fever suit and hot to trot.”
“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard it put that way and far be it from me to stop you in all this, Meg, but do you really just want to…get it on? I mean this is our first time. You don’t want—”
“Yes, I do want. I want everything. Just not this time. We can go slow and tender the next time, okay? Right now I want rough and ready. Now, hold still.”
“I haven’t moved.”
Again, Meg met Joe’s wonderfully blue-eyed and intense gaze. “I wasn’t talking to that end of you, specifically.”
“I see. Still, you might want to speed things up down there before you, uh, don’t have much left to work with.”
“Don’t worry. I know how to fix that, too.”
Joe flopped back on the pillows. “I have died and gone to heaven and you are my reward for—”
The sudden, strident ringing of the phone beside the bed cut off Joe’s sentiment. Meg cried out in surprise, losing her grip on the condom and snapping it against his most sensitive part—which caused Joe to curse, and ended with Meg also cursing as she relaxed back on his legs. She pointed to his withering manhood. “Oh, now look what’s happened. Damn it all to hell, I finally get you in bed—and then this.” She indicated with an angry, sweeping gesture the bedside phone with its red blinking light. “Every time you touch me or kiss me, the freakin’ phone rings.”
The ringing continued. Joe divided his attention between Meg and the telephone. “It could be Uncle Maury. I couldn’t reach him earlier, even though I called about twenty times. Or Linda, if she’s called him and forced him to tell her where I am.”
“I guess you have to answer it. At this time of night, something could be wrong,” she said, defeat ringing in her voice as she dismounted Joe’s thighs, flopped over onto the bed and pulled the top sheet over her.
“I hope it’s Maury,” Joe said, finally reaching for the handset. “Because if it’s Linda, we might not be able to get Mr. Saturday Night Fever on the dance floor again tonight.”
10
He listened to her strained, tense voice telling him that the number of stars the hotel might have earned from the travel guides was not the point. “I agree. I was just trying to get that image out of your head. Look, the truth is, there’s a situation here with Uncle Maury—I know you talked to him and I know he sounded fine, but he isn’t.” On one level, Joe was thrilled Linda had reached the old guy. Where the hell could he have been all evening? “Look, he might even be delusional right now…. Oh, come on, just listen to me a minute—”
He pulled the receiver from his ear and stared at it.
“Did she hang up on you again?” Meg said drowsily from behind him, the swishing of the sheets telling him she was shifting position.
“You could say that,” Joe said, putting down the phone. “Well, at least we know Uncle Maury’s all right.”
“I heard you say that about her talking to him. That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Joe still stared at the phone, feeling both guilty and relieved.
“Joe?” Meg softly asked. “Are you all right? You want to talk? I’m a good listener.”
That made the decision easy, didn’t it? Joe replaced the handset in its cradle. Goodbye, Linda. He pivoted to see Meg…and froze. Damn, she was something. Despite the myriad emotions he was feeling right now, he was after all still a man who could not help but notice how sexy Meg was without even trying. She just oozed an earthy sensuality, with her lightly tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. A total seductress…naked in his bed…and so far, nothing had happened. Actually, he didn’t see how it could, either, after Linda’s mood-shattering phone call.
Meg shrugged the sheet down far enough to get her left arm out from under the covers, and her movement left the soft mound of her breast only barely covered. Joe swallowed, not feeling the least bit guilty anymore. Just turned on. After all, there was nothing he could do about Linda—it had ended badly. He’d hoped it wouldn’t have to, but it had. Maybe it was cleaner this way. Maybe…He couldn’t take his eyes off Meg. He’d thought she was going to stretch like a cat, but instead she held her hand out to him.
“Give me the phone. I want to call Carl. It’s only fair we both get hung up on in the same night by former lovers, don’t you think?”
Joe chuckled, surprising himself that he could. He passed her the phone’s handset. “And just where are you going to call him? Here or at his place?”
“Both, if I have to. Maybe on his cell phone.”
“You’ll blow your cover.”
“I don’t care anymore. I just want this dealt with and over. So, what do I dial for room-to-room calls?”
Joe studied the phone’s cradle with all its instructions. “Uh…eight and then the room number. Which we don’t know. Hell. Call the front desk and ask them to connect you to his room. Easy enough.”
Meg nodded, pushed zero and put the receiver to her ear. She smiled at Joe. He winked at her. Without looking away from him, she spoke into the phone. “Yes, good evening. Could you connect me, please, to Mr. Carl Woodruff’s room?…Thank you.” Cool as an ice cube, she waited, blatantly running her gaze up and down Joe. “Hey, cowboy, what happened to your little rubbery buddy—Yes, hello…. I’m sorry, what?” Talking to whomever was at the other end of the line, she grinned triumphantly at Joe. “I see. Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff checked out? Really? How long ago?…Thirty minutes ago? Well, I can’t imagine what must have happened. Thank you.”
As soon as she hung up, she curled up in a delicious little ball of naughtiness under the sheet, clamped a hand over her grinning mouth and laughed. “Oops. Trouble in paradise. We are so bad.”
Feeling smug, Joe took the handset from her and hung it up. “No more than he deserved, the jerk. You want to try his cell phone?”
“Sure. He wouldn’t have had time to get home yet.” A perfectly wicked light suddenly shone from Meg’s eyes. “So I wonder if that means—”
“Gotcha. Mrs. Woodruff is still in the car with him—assuming she rode over here with him, right?”
“Right. Ten bucks says she did.” Meg abruptly sat up, apparently forgetting her state of undress as the sheet fell away from her and pooled in her lap.
Joe stared at her.
“Joe? What’s wrong—” She followed his enraptured gaze to her chest, gasped and tugged the sheet up to hold it modestly over her bare breasts. “Shame on you, sir.”
Joe inhaled sharply as if he’d just been given a much-needed hit of oxygen from a scuba tank, shook his head and came to himself. “You have very nice breasts, ma’am.”
“Yeah?” She tugged the sheet out—but not enough for him to be able to feast his eyes on her again—and stared down at herself. “Hey, they are kind of nice, aren’t they?”
“No doubt about it.”
He watched her dial. “Go get ’im, tiger.”
“Thanks. I do wish I could be nicer, but he really doesn’t deserve—Hello, Carl, it’s Meg. Where are you?…On your way home? From where?…Oh, a family wedding. How nice. Where was it? Yes, that is a nice hotel. Very romantic. So, who got married? Your niece?” Meg put her hand over the speaker part of the handset and whispered fiercely to Joe. “The lunkhead! He can’t have a niece. He doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. What a crock of—What? No, I’m not talking to someone. I thought you were. Did you go alone to the wedding? You did?” Meg rolled her eyes. “Well, that couldn’t have been any fun. So, listen, I won’t keep you. I just called to tell you I thought about your proposal and, I’m sorry, but I have to say no. It was nice of you to ask, but I don’t think your current Mrs. Woodruff there in the car with you—Hello?”
Meg held the receiver out and stared at it. She raised her mock-concerned gaze to meet Joe’s thoroughly amused one. “I think we got cut off.”
Joe took the phone from her and hung it up. “Imagine that. Come here, you sweet little naked thing, you. Nothing’s going to stop us this time.”
AND NOTHING DID. Joe could not believe he finally got to hold this delicious woman in his arms and breathe in the perfume at the nape of her graceful neck. The way it mingled with the flowery scent of her skin made him wild. If only the very air could smell like her. Lying atop her, kissing her, feeling her arms around his neck, her breasts pressed against his chest, her soft mound against his hardness, it took everything Joe had to hold back long enough to get to know her body.
Already she was urging him downward on her. Joe obliged, but only as far as her firmly rounded breasts with their deep-rose nipples, already hardened by desire to tight buds. Joe softly took one in his mouth, sucking and nipping and flicking it with his tongue. His reward was Meg arching her back and entangling her hands in his hair. Her breathing quickened until she was panting and saying his name. Her response only inflamed his. Giving up one breast, he kissed his way over to the other, offering it the same indulgent treatment…laving soft circles, with his tongue, around its peak—
“Joe!” Meg bucked under him and arched her back. “Oh my God, you’re killing me. I’ll pass out—”
“Don’t do that. I wouldn’t want you to miss this.” Showing no mercy, Joe encased her ribs in his hands and languidly kissed his way down her, tasting the sweet wine of the taut skin over her ribs, her concave belly, her navel and down, down to the dark, crisp triangle at the apex of her thighs. “Oh God, Meg, you are beautiful,” he said, staring his fill at her goddess’s body. “I have to taste you.”
“Joe,” she m
oaned.
“I know, baby.” Joe dipped his head down and, using his tongue, swirled and separated the protective nest of hair until he found the very center of her. He pressed the tip of his tongue against the tiny bud, holding his place there until she throbbed against him. At that simple touch, Meg made a helpless, gasping noise at the back of her throat that engorged Joe’s own desire to an almost painful fullness.
Under him, Meg spread her legs, opening herself to him. Such a sweet, trusting vulnerability she offered him. Moved beyond words, Joe nevertheless feared he would burst with wanting her. Holding her hips gently but firmly in his hands, Joe pulled Meg to him, all but burying his face in her heat. Reveling in the rich, musky smell of her, his own senses on fire with need, Joe forced a discipline on himself that his masculine brain and body bucked hard against. But he held firm, wanting this to be good for Meg, too.
His touch on her most sensitive of places was alternately gentle then demanding, invasive then yielding…until her muscles tightened, her breathing changed and her womanhood began opening to him. She was close. So very close. Joe concentrated his efforts on the tight bud itself, feeling it grow, hearing Meg’s fingernails raking up fistfuls of the sheet…. Then she cried out as the rhythmic undulations seized her and convulsed her abdominal muscles.
Burning with desire, Joe rode the wave of her satiation as long as he dared, as long as she would allow. When she moved away from him, begging, “No more, no more, oh God, no more,” Joe pulled himself up and held her in his arms, kissing her jaw, her neck, her ear. She again bumped her hips against him.
“Take me, Joe. I need you so badly.”
“I need you, too, Meg. God, you don’t know how much I need you.”
“Then…hurry, cowboy.”
Joe raised his head from her neck. “I’m not really a cowboy, you know.”
Her eyes popped open. “Is this my fantasy or yours?”
Blind Date Page 13