by Sally Felt
He kissed her. Clutching. Drowning. She clutched him in return, fingers gripping his elbow, his biceps, his shoulder as her hand slid over his arm, over his chest.
He kissed her until he worried he would swallow her whole, moving down her neck to lessen the risk. Her hair smelled like flowers, her skin tasted like a hot summer night. She molded against him, her restless fingers clutching his back, kneading his skin as he tried not to bite hers. Her hips moved against his. She let go of the towel at his waist. Her hands on his ass, she brought them together with maddening friction. The towel fell. He growled. She chewed along his collarbone, her hands insistent, her tongue soothing him between bites. Direct. Bold.
She might smell like flowers, but she was anything but dainty when it came to this. He crushed her against the still-open bathroom door, ducking his head to bring their mouths together, to taste her, to devour her. She was right there with him, her intensity numbing the rational part of him that said this might not be the best idea, or at least not the right time.
This was right. It had to be right. Nothing else could make him feel like this. Powerful. Out of control. Out of his mind with wanting her.
She herded him backward across the bedroom threshold without releasing his mouth, her breath hot and sweet and wet and urgent. His calves struck the bedframe and they toppled backward onto the rich, exotic bedding. Tasseled pillows scattered as they crawled up the mattress, Isabelle on top of him, kissing as if it was sex itself. He didn’t doubt kissing Isabelle Caine like this could do it for him. But he wanted more than her kisses.
She sat up, straddling his stomach, her fingers playing over the faint marks on his chest from last night’s passions. Her skin was flushed, her lips swollen. And he’d thought she was beautiful before? She smoothed her hair back from the perspiration on her face.
By supreme effort of will, he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Well,” she drawled, “you did leave a wet towel on my floor.”
The tease was back. His tease. His lioness. He grinned, feeling tension flush away and more primitive needs take its place. He needed to wrap himself around her and inside her, to test his will against her passion. Everything else could wait.
“Some things weren’t meant to be tamed,” he said.
She smiled a purely wicked smile, the kind that had made him kiss her that first night and branded his brain with her image. Unforgettable. Unmistakable. “I like the way you think, Kim Martin.”
She slid down the length of his body, dragging her fingers through the hair on his chest and stomach as she went. As she slid lower yet, he learned he had good reason to be obsessed with Isabelle Caine’s mouth.
Kim made the most intoxicating noises when she let him. One of the few good reasons to let his lips go. Not that Isabelle minded the change in location. He smelled like herbal bath gel and going down on him tasted…
Well, there wasn’t anything quite like it. A little salty, a little citrus, fresh and sharp.
Today had been nothing but ugly surprise after ugly surprise. Her body ached with the stress of it. And here was Kim, gorgeous and naked and clean smelling. Was she sure? Had he not been paying attention? She worked at showing him how sure she was. A woman only had so much willpower against the kind of full-bodied lust he inspired.
She held him with her lips, rolled him on her tongue until his hands fisted in her hair. She backed off, licking his palm instead, loving the tease of his calluses against her tongue. She licked the ridges of his belly—she intended to cover every tight, lean inch of him before she was done.
A white scar connected his tanned torso with his paler lower belly. An irregular indentation marked the lowest of his ribs. A series of marks cascaded over the cap of muscle on his left shoulder. The man might play it safe at the gym, but his scars told a different story. His scars said he was a man who wasn’t afraid to put himself out there, measure risks, take the lead. Sexy as hell. She licked and kissed her way from one to another until Kim began pulling at the buttons of her blouse, blowing her concentration. She straightened her arms, lifting herself higher off the bed to give him room to work, her hair hanging in her face. The heat rising off his bare skin made her want to rub against him.
He was smiling as he sat up beneath her, bringing them both upright, making her laugh. Damn, I love his smile, she thought, brushing her thumb across his lips. Her fingers smoothed the scar in his eyebrow, the one that had been her final warning before the Mirabelle kiss that had changed everything. Kim held still, watching her face. His pupils were large, his eyes darker than before, royal rather than polar blue.
“I make you laugh,” he said. He covered her hand with his own and kissed her thumb.
“Yes, you do.”
He smiled, rubbing his cheek against her hand. His beard teased her palm, his rough skin, the back of her hand. She shivered at the sensation.
“Let’s see what else I can make you do.”
Oh my.
He kissed her, pulling at her lower lip, pushing at her unbuttoned blouse. The herbal aroma of his shower couldn’t disguise the natural scent of him. Fresh. Spicy. All male. She let the blouse slide down her arms. Her bra soon followed. Kim persisted in teasing her lower lip. Gently sucking. Teeth carefully pulling and scraping. No one had ever done that for her and her body responded in a rush of heat. She tried to take his lip in return, but he refused to let hers go. If this was a contest, she was happy to let him take the early lead. As long as he could engage her senses like this, she could revel in desire, and damn the torpedoes. No thinking. No looking ahead. No emotions beyond her appreciation of his skill, his physical perfection, the pleasure already building inside her.
His hands barely touched her. The feathery kiss of his calluses lit goose bumps over her arms, down her face, across her back. His kissing technique was melting her brain, making her skin hot and her lower body heavy with wanting him. She got closer, arms wrapped around his neck, breasts brushing his chest. His erection pressed against the seat of her jeans.
She moaned. Her hips moved against him instinctively.
His coarse hand slid up her spine, her neck. His fingers wove into her hair. She let her head fall back into his supporting hand as he finally released her mouth and began exploring her neck.
Mmmmm.
She lay back as Kim leaned into her, over her, his mouth sliding down her neck as he guided her down to the mattress. He knelt between her legs. His breath misted over her bare breast. He licked her hard, puckered nipple using just the tip of his tongue.
Her eyes closed with pleasure. He licked her again.
“Tease,” she said, eyes still closed.
He laughed softly, sliding his hands beneath her, applying firm friction across her shoulder blades. As he lifted her, bringing her breasts to his mouth, he set about learning how to kiss her to make her sigh, to make her purr, to make her stretch and sway in his arms.
He kissed down to her bellybutton and the feel of his gifted tongue against the sensitive skin of her stomach made her quiver. His fingers made short work of the fastening of her jeans. She raised her hips to help him ease her panties and heavy denim jeans over her hips and down her legs.
He threw her clothes off the bed, kneeling at her feet and raising his eyebrows as if challenging, What are you going to do about it? Oh, no. She would not be baited after he’d gone to such lengths to lull her into a state of drunken arousal, not even with his calloused fingertips atop her instep, stroking shivers over her skin. She considered arching her foot to stroke him somewhere far more private. Instead she beckoned grandly for him to join her, her arm flung across the bedspread in invitation.
He laughed and threw himself beside her. His fingers trailed up her thigh, over her hip and ribs. The rough friction grew too intense as reached her breast and her muscles tightened. He continued upward, circling her shoulder, skimming down her arm.
She wove her fingers among his and brought their entwined clasp to her lips, gently biting his kn
uckles before taking his rough fingers into her mouth, one by one. Climbing was tough on his hands. She used her teeth more firmly than she’d want him using on her own uncalloused skin. He seemed to like it, his face mere inches from hers. The dark rings of his eyes had bled into the pale irises while the pupils expanded, giving him a smoky, dangerous look.
She turned on her side to face him, still working his hand. His erection bumped her hip. For Isabelle, this was the best part of sex. Knowing her own power to arouse. Feeling how badly her partner wanted her. It made her feel alive.
It had been far too long.
“Tease.” Kim said it so quietly she was more aware of the “T” and “S” on her skin than in her ears.
She pulled his finger from her mouth and pushed him onto his back on the mattress. She sat on him, a more distracting proposition than it had been before. Now it was skin on skin, the hottest part of her body deliciously close to the hottest part of his.
“Tease?” she asked.
He grinned up at her, his hands on her thighs. His face seemed flushed around the ears. His eyelids, too, were a bit pink. She wondered if he might show even more color when aroused if he weren’t so tanned. She treated herself to a nice, leisurely examination of his chest, her fingers retracing last night’s explorations and combing the dark, moist hair. Kim’s musculature wasn’t bulky like the men she knew who worked out for the sole purpose of looking good naked. Kim was tight and strong the way a wild animal was tight and strong. He’d earned his defined pecs through action. The pale lines of old scars only reinforced the impression of him as a sleek and wily survivor.
“You are one hot man, Kim Martin,” she said.
He propped himself on his elbow, tracing her collarbone with his other hand. “The question is, is one man enough for such a wild lioness?”
His words set off a rush that engulfed her brain. She kissed him, pulling at his lip as he’d pulled at hers earlier. Two days worth of beard made it as interesting as his rough hands on her skin—hands that gripped her hips as she pressed wetly against him. With just the slightest movement, she could take him inside her. The pulsing rush in her temples matched the heavy throb of her lower body, urging her to do it.
She couldn’t. They weren’t protected.
Before she could force herself to break away and take care of that, he surprised her, exploring her with his finger. The friction of his calluses on her most tender tissue was maddening, incredible, disastrous for her self-control. She bit his lip without meaning to, overwhelmed by sensation. He barely paused before turning the tables, taking her lip for more of his brand of intoxicating torture. There seemed to be a direct connection between his kisses and the need to move her hips. She didn’t want to move lest she dislodge his fingers. She grew wetter every moment as her body tried to grant him full access. She was melting on top of him.
His mouth toured the length of her neck, leaving yet another part of her body wet and wanting. She gripped his arm, feeling his muscles bunch and shift as his fingers continued to work their magic. There were noises, she noticed, happy, sexy noises and she was the one making them.
Orgasm hit her unexpectedly. None of the usual, gradual tightening of her body. What with one thing and another, she’d already been tight. Now she cried out with sudden release. Her body shook with it. A small part of her noticed Kim was moving her. She had to trust him. She had no choice. She’d been engulfed by something larger than she was. Until it was done, she was helpless to pay attention to anything else. She wrapped her arms tightly around his ribs and rode the thunder he had coaxed from her.
When the trembling subsided, she found she was on her back on the richly colored bedspread. Kim was kneeling beside her, bestowing wet kisses along her hip and up her steeply pitched thigh to her bent knee, his eyes watching her face.
She tried to speak. All that came out was a happy sigh.
He smiled. Rather, his eyes did, which was all she could see above the knee of her crooked leg. A smile in those smoky, sex-drenched eyes? She’d thought his appeal couldn’t go further off-scale, but even marinating in bliss, she wanted him.
Eyes, yes. And oh, that mussed hair. She groaned.
“Yes?” he asked as if she’d called his name. He kissed her shin and rubbed his whiskers against her skin.
“Yes,” she managed, though her voice was iffy at best. “A bucket of yes.”
He laughed, kneeling between her legs, sliding his hands slowly up her thighs. “A whole bucket?”
“Big bucket,” she assured him. His arms slid beneath her and he pulled her body up off the bed toward him until her rear rested on his thighs. She admired his flexibility as he bent over to kiss her bellybutton. But when he went lower and began feasting on the aftermath of her release, she about went through the roof. He held her firmly, even as she squirmed and writhed. His beard against her thighs and most sensitive flesh was hard enough to resist. But oh my, his tongue…
She couldn’t say how long he attended her. Her brain went offline during the overload. Perhaps it was the silky feel of his crazy dark hair in her gripping fingers. Perhaps the persistent heat of his erection against her lower back. Or the debauched sound of a wet mouth against wet flesh.
No, she decided as he gave her a moment to return to her body, it was that he’d troubled to do it—seemed to relish dong it—in spite of the delay of his own release.
High time they brought that delay to an end.
She stretched to reach the drawer in her nightstand. “C’mere,” she said, “I want to give you something.”
He laughed, lounging beside her on the bedspread as if he were having the time of his life. As if they had all the time in the world. No hurry. He could wait forever. “A bucket of yes?” he asked.
She tore open the condom packet and smiled at him. Maybe she took longer than strictly necessary to unroll it over him, but he didn’t seem to mind that she slid back down his body to enjoy the scenery. It gave her a chance to savor the hot, musky scent of him, to see up close the trembling of his belly that betrayed his need for her. No hurry. Sure.
She climbed atop him once again. Even through his tan, she could see a flush on his chest.
“You are one hot woman, Isabelle Caine,” he said, a perfect mirror of what she’d said to him.
“Mmm,” she said, satisfied she could give as good as she got, that she could make him scream, could make him beg. She had the power, if she decided to use it. A lioness, indeed. Not to be messed with. She smoothed her damp hair back from her face. It wasn’t about whether one man was enough, at least not if he was the man. Quite the opposite. “I think you know the question.”
And with that, she lifted her hips and slid down the hard length of him.
Chapter Nine
Kim knew the question. Not that he could process language until she was through with him and they lay in sated exhaustion on her king-sized bed.
Was one enough?
It was what they’d been debating all along, him saying yes and Isabelle more or less calling him a liar. Granted, he’d never met a woman who could hold his interest for long. Never met someone who was imaginative enough, competitive enough, just plain horny enough.
Never say never, he thought, looking at Isabelle sprawled beside him. The flush was fading from her creamy skin, but she glowed with perspiration and spent passion. She seemed completely comfortable with her nakedness, and for that alone he could want to keep her in his bed.
There was so much more. How they’d vied for dominance, first one on top then the other, testing, teasing, tasting.
Damn.
And her lack of inhibitions. He’d had no problem finding his way to her most intimate secrets. Her intensely sexy vocalizations made it easy to learn what she liked.
He’d known accomplished women. Aggressive women. But never anyone with her spirit. Her surprises.
She blew him away.
He dragged his languid body closer to hers and kissed her shoulder. Her fingers n
arrowly missed poking out his eye as she blindly groped for his hair, stroking him with lazy satisfaction.
One might very well be enough, if it were the right one.
There was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Need to use the bathroom,” came Charlie Bach’s voice. “Do you need me to run next door?”
“Charlie?” Isabelle asked. “Of course not. How were the interviews?”
“Good,” he said through the door.
Kim was stunned at the casualness of the exchange. Isabelle would allow Charlie into the bedroom while she lay here nude? Not while he was here. “Hold your damn horses, kid.” No way would Charlie have known to knock if he hadn’t heard at least the finale of the fireworks in here. Kim reached across her and pulled at the bedspread until he had enough to drape over her. She smiled indulgently as if it were unnecessary.
Like hell. “Clear,” he called.
Charlie came through the door and headed straight for the bathroom without looking. Didn’t exactly make Kim love him, but he grudgingly gave the kid credit all the same.
“Under the covers,” Kim said to Isabelle. She raised her eyebrow. Draped in the bedding’s rich fabrics to the bare minimum of decency, a tasseled pillow beneath her dark, tousled head, she couldn’t look more regal.
“Please.”
“Honestly,” she said, but she smiled. Good enough.
Her sheets were burgundy, making her pale skin even more dramatic by contrast. He climbed under with her, kissing her and touching her as if he could possibly finish anything he might start. Not likely at the moment.
Just as well, with Charlie in the bathroom, mere yards from where they lay. He heard the shower start.
Kim was still listening when he realized Isabelle was asleep. She stirred and rolled over, putting her back to him. He took it as an invitation to spoon with her, his arm around her waist, obscurely happy to have his body between her and the bathroom door. She made him feel…protective. Or maybe possessive. In any case, she certainly made him feel. More than any woman ever had. More than he thought he could.