by Alice Ward
“Yes.”
He smiled, the gap between his teeth causing my heart to squeeze hard in my chest. Then he kissed me and lifted me to the counter, untying my robe to expose my breasts to his mouth.
I looked over at the kitten, who was snuggled under Maggie’s chin. “Want me to keep an eye on Gonad?”
He grinned against my breast, his lips still sucking, his tongue washing over my nipple. “No,” he said, licking up my chest to my neck before nuzzling against my ear. “Like a hero in one of your novels, I’ll face the claw-bearing demon with nothing but bravery in my heart.”
As he slipped inside my body, connecting us, I took his face in my hands. “My hero.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gray
The next day, my damn dick was raw, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Zoe was walking a little funny too. And not from the post-concussion dizziness that still plagued her at times, but more like a cowgirl who’d ridden a horse for too long. She didn’t complain. Hell, I didn’t complain either. But I was determined to give both of us a twenty-four-hour break.
Hell, who was I kidding. I could barely make it two hours before the need to be inside her proved to be too great.
Zoe moaned, her nose wrinkling as she bent over to drag a piece of string along the floor. The kitten pounced, and she laughed, dragging the little white ball of fur over the hardwood when he refused to let go. Not to be ignored, Maggie grabbed the string too, pulling it with her mouth. Zoe let go and giggled — what a beautiful sound — as Maggie dragged the kitten behind her.
Zoe winced as she went to her knees, pulling at the crotch of the sleeping shorts she wore, keeping them from rubbing against her sensitive flesh. I knew the trick because I’d been pulling at the crotch of my sweatpants too.
Yeah… I needed to try and give us a break.
Looking around the cabin, I searched for a distraction. I could turn on the generator but that wouldn’t help too much. The satellite would still be down, so there would be no TV, no radio, no internet. But she could use my computer or one of the many laptops I had lying around to work on her book, if she wanted.
Then I remembered the box of games I had stored in one of the back rooms. Her back room. The room with all of Jessica’s things. The room I hadn’t been inside since the day I closed the door after storing the boxes away.
Watching Zoe playing with the animals, I knew it was time.
The moment I stood, I felt Zoe’s eyes on me, a curious whatcha doing? in her expression.
“Want to play a game?”
Her brow shot up. “What kind of game? Pin the dick in the Zoe?” She spread her arms wide. “Whack a hole?” She turned red but kept going. “Dick, dick, goose?”
I laughed. A deep belly laugh that caused tears to spring from my eyes. Too fucking adorable. When I could finally speak, I said, “As much fun as all those games sound, I’m thinking we need to give our sexual organs a rest.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Sexual organs?” She said it in a staid British accent that made me realize just how proper I’d sounded. “Here now, old boy, I shan’t have my sexual organs resting now, shan’t I? I’m quite liking getting snogged and stuffed. In fact, sexual intercourse is the bee’s knees.”
I covered my eyes with my hand, letting out a long groan. What a goofball.
“Stuffed? Did you seriously say stuffed?”
She lifted her nose in the air. “Why, certainly, old chap.”
“Would you please stop calling me old?”
She laughed. “Just callin’ it like I sees it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I think you sound more like a New Yorker now.”
She shrugged and did a little hip swirl that would have made any stripper run in shame. “Love has only one language. A universal language, so the accent doesn’t matter, don’t ya think?”
My cock pulsed, and I reminded myself that I was not going to have sex. This was just playing. Games. Fun. “Do that again?”
A little smile curved her lips, and oh shit, I knew I was in trouble. Lifting her hands above her head, she swirled her hips again. “This?” She did it again and blood drained from my head. She rolled them even slower, this time pushing her breasts together with her hands.
Jesus Lord.
As I watched… panted… drooled, she stepped closer to me, grabbed a handful of my shirt. Closer she moved, her legs parting until she straddled my thigh and then… winced.
The expression of pain brought me back to my senses. I stuck out a finger, pointing directly at her nose. “See? You’re sore. I’m sore. We need to do something besides have sex.”
She curled her hand around my wrist, her tongue sneaking out to lick her lower lip. “Well, Mr. Pre-Med. Isn’t there a cure for what’s ailing us?”
Fuck. She was sexy. There was an innate sexual energy living inside her. Every look. Every gesture was pure sex. She might have been innocent, but sin lurked under her skin.
I almost thought… just like her mother, but that would have been wrong on many levels. No. She wasn’t like her mother. Not in any way that mattered. She wasn’t casual about sex. What we had was special. She was loosening up, trusting me. I simply pulled this side of her out. I gave her the key to discover her sensuality. Gave her the space to find comfort and confidence in it.
And damn.
Even though her cheeks were still pink, she was growing comfortable with her role as seductress. I was glad. It was an honor to witness this beautiful flower bloom.
“Monopoly?”
Zoe raised a brow. “Monopoly is the cure?”
I cleared my throat. “Or Pictionary. Um…” I racked my brain, trying to remember all the games in the boxes, but it was hard to remember when Zoe took my still extended finger into her mouth.
“I know a game,” she said, kissing my knuckles now, turning my hand over to run her tongue over the lifeline on my palm.
“Sit and spin?” I guessed, a shiver running through me as she scraped her teeth over the sensitive pad of my thumb. The only question would be if she would sit on my cock or my face. Either worked for me.
We would just have to wait to not have sex until tomorrow.
I reached for her, and she grinned as I hauled her against my chest, grabbing her ass to pull her tighter against my erection. “I knew I could make you succumb to my will.”
We both winced as I rubbed us together. I laughed and let her go, leaning down to rest my forehead on hers. “As much as it’s killing me right now, we really need to give ourselves a day of rest.”
She pouted. “You’re right. I am sore, but I…” Her eyes widened. “I have an idea.”
By the way she laughed, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. “Dare I ask?”
She pulled away, keeping our hands linked but putting space between us. “Embarrassing but true story. A couple years ago, I began to take yoga classes, then began really exploring alternative ways of living.” She licked her lips, turning a little pink again. “As you know, I had kind of planned on being nunnish. Not live in a convent nun, but I wasn’t allowing anyone close enough to me for…” She smiled. “For what we do together.”
I smiled back. “Thank you for letting me get that close.”
“Anyway, I took this really cool class about Tantra.” The confusion must have been evident on my face because she went on quickly. “Even though I didn’t want to have sex with anyone, I wanted to still appreciate my, um, sexuality. To be fully aware of myself as a woman.”
My cock went from half-mast to full granite in an instant. The thought of Zoe Meadows masturbating drained every drop of blood from my brain.
She laughed, turning pinker. “It’s not exactly what you’re thinking. For me, I knew I was placing sex behind a wall, but I didn’t want to become…” She sighed. “An ice queen.”
“You’re not an ice queen.”
Her expression turned sad. “You’re the only man who doesn’t think so. The only man I’ve allowed in… because I wanted to
let him in.”
I understood, and I wanted to take the sadness in her eyes away. “So what exactly did you learn in Tantra class?”
She brightened, and it was like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. “Are you willing to let me show you?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell her no about anything.
She smiled and inhaled a long breath. “So… I took this class, and the instructor had us do simple exercises that helped me reconnect with my feelings. I’d totally shut myself down because I thought it would be better to feel nothing than to be tempted by sex or the promise of intimacy, or whatever. The instructor was really good and didn’t judge me based on my mother. And she understood where I was coming from. She told me that if I wasn’t careful, I would lock the door on my sexuality and become numb.”
“And tantra helped you open the door?”
She shrugged her shoulders all the way to her ears. “Not open the door exactly. Until you, I didn’t even let it open a crack. But it gave me the key that would allow me to open it if I wanted. I didn’t have to be numb. I had some element of control. And control was nice.”
Confusion must have been plastered all over my face. “I’d love for you to show me how.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “Hands on.”
She laughed. “Okay, but there are a couple of conditions.”
“All right. What conditions?”
“Because we are both sore, this can’t lead to sex.”
My dick pulsed, attempting to let me know that it didn’t approve. “I accept that. No sex until tomorrow at the earliest. What’s the other condition?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No laughing.”
The confusion was back. “Why do you think I’ll laugh?”
“You’ll see. But I don’t want you to laugh because this is important to me. It really helped me understand that I could still honor my decision not to sleep with a man but not shut myself down completely in the process.”
“Okay. No laughing. Anything else?”
“Yep. Get undressed.”
That surprised me. “Um, completely?”
The grin was back. “Yes. Completely.” I looked around for the damn cat, and Zoe laughed. “We can do this in the bedroom with the door closed if you prefer.”
I scratched my beard. “So we’re supposed to get in bed together. Naked. Then we’re going to do whatever we’re going to do that opened you up to your sexuality, and… this isn’t going to lead to sex?”
She lifted her chin. “Are you afraid you can’t resist?”
I scratched my beard some more. “Well, um… yeah. I’m one hundred percent sure I won’t be able to resist.”
She laughed. “Willing to try?”
I wagged a finger at her. “There is no try.”
She sighed really loud and rolled her eyes. “Okay, Yoda. Ready to do?”
This wasn’t going to end well. Correction. It was going to end very well, just with another layer of skin rubbed off my cock. “Okay. What do you need me to do?”
“Go into the bedroom and strip. Sit in the middle of the bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pulled my t-shirt over my head and her eyes fell to my chest. She blew out a breath, her pupils flaring.
“In the bedroom, mister.”
I headed that way. When a woman like Zoe told me to take off my clothes, who was I to disagree. Making sure the little ball snatching furball didn’t follow me, I went into the bedroom and finished stripping, tossed a few more logs on the fire, then climbed onto the bed.
Where I waited. And waited.
Where the hell was she?
My heart began hammering when the doorknob turned, and Zoe slipped inside the warm room. She was carrying a candle, holding a hand up to protect the flame. After setting it down on the nightstand, she turned to face me, and good god, let her robe fall from her shoulders.
She had taken the rest of her clothing off, so she was completely bare to me now, her skin golden in the light of the candle and fire.
She was breathtakingly beautiful.
Climbing on the bed, she knelt in front of me, resting her sweet ass on her heels, her hands coming to rest on her thighs.
A long strand of her hair fell over her shoulder, covering her breast. I reached out to push it back, but she gave her head a little shake. “No touching… yet.”
The magnetic force I felt from the moment I first saw her pulsed around us as my hand dropped away. I was powerless against its force. Powerless against her. And I didn’t care.
Looking deeply into her eyes, I watched the shadows of light and dark play over her beautiful face as the fire snapped and crackled in the hearth. “Are you ready?” she asked.
I was more than ready. I was spellbound. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted. “Yes.”
“Tantra is a Sanskrit word that means ‘woven together.’” Her voice was low, forcing me to concentrate on her words. “Meditation practitioners use sexual union as a metaphor for weaving together the physical and the spiritual. Weaving a man to a woman. Weaving humanity to the divine.”
Her voice was a seduction. I moved into a position that mirrored hers, not feeling as stupid as I thought I would.
“In Tantra, there are no sexual aids or equipment. Our bodies contain everything we need to please ourselves and each other. Our hands for touching. Arms for embracing. Lips for kissing. Tongues for tasting.” She smiled again. “And eyes… perhaps to see into each other’s heart and soul.”
I nodded, letting her know I understood. More than that, I was seduced by her words, her presence. But, interestingly enough, not just sexually. What I felt was so much deeper than that.
She reached out her hand, and I immediately reached out for her. “Human touch. Babies die without it. Thrive with it. It’s deeply engrained as an important need.” She began to rub her thumbs over the tops of my hands. “Touch signals safety and trust. It soothes. It activates the vagus nerve, which is connected to our compassion response. A simple touch can trigger the release of the powerful hormone, oxytocin.” Her smile grew. “The love hormone.”
Love. Yep. That hormone was triggering inside me in sharp surges.
She lowered my hands until they rested on my thighs, then her fingers began to move up my arms. Goosebumps sprang up everywhere, the hair on my neck standing straight. I closed my eyes, absorbing the electrical reaction she was creating.
“Look at me.”
The words were still soft, but there was a command in them too. I did as she asked and looked deep into her green eyes. “It’s my pleasure.”
Her pupils dilated further. “There is much that we could learn and explore about our chakras and their energy sources, but right now, I want to focus on here.” Her fingers traced up my arms, over my shoulders, then down, pausing at my chest. “Not just our heart, but also our breathing.”
She inhaled deeply and exhaled just as long. Sensing that I should mirror her action, I did the same and got a dazzling smile in return.
“According to Tantric teaching, the area over your heart is an important energy source. If it is blocked, your body’s energy can’t flow. Your heart is the core of your being.”
My chest grew tight. My heart had been blocked for a long time, even since I was a boy. Jessica had managed to crack it open for a while, but after her…
Emotion burned my eyes. My face. Filled my throat. Zoe must have felt it too, because the end of her nose turned pink as we gazed at each other.
She sniffed and licked her lips, her hands still on my chest. “For people, men especially, life can become about achieving. Results. The race. The win. Today, I want the focus to be on receiving. Receiving my touch. Receiving my compassion. Receiving release from the burdens you carry.”
My damn throat. It was hard to swallow. What the total fuck was wrong with me?
“Breathe, Gray.”
I couldn’t. Air was trapped inside my lungs. I was beginning to think that Tantra was simp
ly another word for torture.
Zoe moved closer to me, her legs spreading apart until she was sitting on my thighs, her knees on either side of my hips. Our sexes nearly touched, her body warming mine. She took my face in her hands, thumbed away the wet on my cheeks I didn’t know was there.
“Touch me, Gray. With only your fingers, tell me how much I mean to you.”
Her eyelashes fluttered, but her eyes didn’t close as I ran my hands up her back, then down her arms, the very tips of my fingers on her smooth skin. I touched her face, the lines of her nose and jaw like I was memorizing her every feature. I felt her swallow as my fingers traced down her throat then spread out over her collarbone.
Her skin was so soft as I traced over the hills and valleys of her breasts then down her stomach. Her hips. Thighs. Down her legs and back again, finding her ass, the dimples on her lower back, the vertebrae leading up to her shoulder blades.
She did the same, exploring my body as I did hers, giving me the gift of her touch, our eyes never leaving one another’s. Between us, my cock stood at attention, the mound of her sex pressing it tight against my belly.
I was going to come. I felt the buildup in my balls. From the way she was breathing, she was going to come too.
Which was ridiculous. We weren’t even dry humping. But dammit, I was close.
“Next, let’s transpose our breathing. Breathe opposite of me. When I inhale, you exhale. When I exhale, you inhale.”
Following her direction, the sense of intimacy between us increased as I took in her breath, watched her take in mine. We’d been as close as two couple could get, but this was beyond intimate. Beyond sexual. We were partners in a dance of life, giving and receiving the most basic element of our existence.
The room warmed as the minutes, hours, days passed us by. I didn’t know how long we sat there, touching, breathing… being.
Our gazes were intensely fixed on the other, neither one of us looking away. All the energy in the universe seemed to have gathered and focused on the top of this mountain as all the rest of the world faded away.
Her hips began to move, small circles at first, her smooth mound brushing the thick vein on the underside of my cock. It would have been so easy to lift her up and ease her down, connect us as I wanted to. Sink deep into her slick heat.