by Lark O'Neal
“Not quite. I have time for one more two seconds.”
Involuntarily, my hips lift, and he slides his fingers into my pants, shifting down, sliding over my slickness, into my body. I close my eyes.
Suddenly, he jerks away. “Traffic. I’m going to pull over for a second.”
Swallowing, I straighten, pulling my shirt around me, offering his to him. He stops on the side of the road. In the distance are the lights of the city, and there is his apartment, where we can be alone.
And explore.
But he pulls me into him and kisses me, his hands on my back, and my hands are on his bare sides. “This is crazy hot,” he says. “To drive in town, I’m going to have to get dressed and you have to move over to the other side of the cab.”
I unbuckle my seat belt and scoot over to the other side of the truck, buttoning myself back together, smoothing my hair. He does the same, tugs his hat on, as if that will take care of the sizzling blue attraction between us, pulling on his coat. I put my coat on, too, and wrap my neck with my scarf.
“Ready.”
We look at each other for one second and burst out laughing.
Chapter THIRTEEN
Inside his apartment, Gabe tosses his keys aside, sheds his jacket and kicks off his shoes, and I’m doing the same. He walks me backward to the bed, unbuttoning my shirt, his eyes liquid.
At the bedside, I stop, suddenly afraid in some wordless way. My palms fall on his chest and he immediately halts.
“Did you change your mind?” he asks, that deep voice rumbling down my neck. I see him swallow, look down at my revealed breasts and belly, then back to my face. He moves his hands to my hair. “It’s okay.”
I curl my hands around his wrists, looking at his face, feeling something so big move through me that it leaves me breathless. “No, it’s not that.”
“What?” he leans in, as if to hear me better. “What can I do?”
“What if we accidentally fall in love, Gabe? What if this is taking us over the edge or something?”
His mouth turns up at the corners in a sad smile. “I guess we have to take that chance.”
“Do we?” I duck under his arm, move away from the bed. “We both said we don’t do one night stands. Now we kind of are. What if it is really, really hard to—”
His arms come around me from behind and he pulls me into his body, my shoulder blades against his belly, his mouth against my hair. “Shhh. We don’t have to do anything. Nothing. I just want to hang out with you.”
The warmth of his back starts to ease my sense of panic. His bare forearm crosses my breast. His breath is in my ear, and he rocks me gently, side to side. I hold on to his arms as he sings something I don’t know, maybe Hawaiian.
The scent of his skin envelops me and his body is so warm and he’s so solid and steady and good. My brain offers a vision of the two of us in the truck.
I turn in his embrace, touching his sides beneath his shirt. In a whisper, I admit, “I am not very experienced.”
“That is not a bad thing,” he whispers in return.
“Are you?”
He laughs softly. “Maybe a little.”
I bend my head into his chest. “I knew it.”
“What would you like to do?”
And it’s very clear. “See you naked.”
He smiles. “That’s easy.” He steps backward and pulls his shirt off then reaches for his buckle and keeping his eyes on me, shucks his jeans, leaving him in navy blue cotton boxer-briefs that cling to his powerful thighs and the unmistakable shape of his aggressive erection.
A very large erection. It makes me catch my breath, and when he tucks his thumbs under the waistband and pushes them down, my throat emits a slight gasp without my permission, and my hand reaches for that tall, swaying cock. He stands still and lets me look. It’s darker than the rest of his skin and there are veins in it and he is not circumcised. I run my fingers down and up, and then over the top. “Impressive,” I say.
“Feel free to play,” he answers in a teasing voice. “My toy is your toy.”
I laugh softly, the weird awkwardness spilling away. “In a minute.” Right now, I step back so that I can look at him, his broad shoulders, his narrow waist and narrow hips and long legs. The nest of black hair and the ruddy muscle looking for attention.
“What would you like?” I ask softly.
He touches himself in the most erotically delicious way. “To look at you naked.”
“Okay. I don’t know how to do that strip tease thing, though.”
“I don’t care about the process. I just want to see all of you.”
So I give him the same consideration he gave me, and I take off my clothes. Shirt, jeans, panties. And stand there.
He strokes his cock easily, not with any seeming intent, but the way you’d pet a persistent cat. It makes me hungry. “Your body is so beautiful,” he rasps. “So strong.”
I run my hands down my sides, across my flat belly, my too-big, muscular thighs.
“What do you want now, Kaitlin?” he asks in a dangerous voice.
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
I want him to touch me, kiss me, fuck me. “Taste me,” I say.
He closes the space between us, and our bodies touch lightly, bare skin to bare skin, my ridiculous nipples grazing his ribs, his cock bouncing into my belly. “Where?” he whispers, and takes my hand and wraps it around his cock, firmly.
I raise the other hand and touch my breasts. “Here.”
His hands slide down my back, circle my butt cheeks, individually, and his fingers slide between, following the curve until they find the hot, wet spot between my legs. “Here?”
I close my eyes. “Yes, there, too.”
“Lie down,” he says, and gently pushes me toward the bed. “Stretch your arms above your head.”
It feels so sexy, so vulnerable. I swallow, breath coming fast as he looks down at me, then reaches for my legs and hauls me down to the edge of the bed, and then he’s kneeling on the floor and his tongue, his hot, wet tongue, is sliding across the aching center of me, flat, then pointed, and I can’t help it, I cry out, and curl a little, half protecting, half in surprise.
He raises his head, move his hands on my thighs in long smooth strokes. “I promise to stop if it hurts or is uncomfortable, but let me play, okay?”
“Maybe I’m not ready for that yet.”
“You are,” he says with a slow, sizzling smile. He holds my gaze and slowly draws his thumb over my clit, then down, sliding it into me. I groan and my eyes fall closed.
“Just let me play with this toy, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, but already, he’s bending again, licking, swirling, using fingers and tongue in the most arousing, incredible ways. My body seems to become something made of heat and light and sensation. He slides up and down, slides in and out, sucks and releases and I’m panting like a wild thing, aching and wanting—
He kisses a line up my belly and misses my breasts, which seem as if they’re going to cry out with longing, as if they’re suspended in the air, with no satisfaction. I feel his thigh against mine, and then his mouth closes over my mouth and I taste myself on him, a strange taste it suddenly seems I should have known by now. I wrap my legs around him, aching for him to come inside of me, to finish this, but he lifts his head. “Touch me,” he whispers.
“How do you want to be touched?” I ask, shyness creeping into my arousal.
“However you want to touch me,” he rasps, falling sideways.
And here is the truth. I have never given a guy a blow job, but I want to give him the same crazy pleasure he just gave me. “Teach me how to touch you,” I say, my hand on his dick, my lips falling to kiss the tip, tasting a saltiness.
“That’s good,” he groans.
I bend and shape my mouth around his flesh, careful with my teeth. I slide my tongue around, just tasting, and he says, “oh, that’s…yeah…” and I do it so
me more, and then I just taste, explore, lick, as he did with me. I use my hands to move the skin, and flicker my tongue over the tip. His fingers slide around my legs and starts moving over the slippery flesh I want so badly to be touched. I move and he moves, I lick and he explores. I suckle and he groans, low and deep, and doesn’t move at all. I do it again, and he stops me.
“Okay,” he growls, and pulls me up, into his lap, our mouths meeting in an extreme kiss, our hands moving, touching, hard. I’m desperate to feel him inside of me, but he makes me wait. I want his hands on my breasts and he laughs softly when I move my chest against his, looking for the abrasion. He captures one of my arms with one hand, then the other, and holds them both easily behind me with one hand.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, anticipating. His lips are close to my breasts, and he looks at them.
“I think your nipples want my tongue in the worst way. Is that true?”
“Maybe.”
He licks one. Then the other. “Like that?”
“More,” I say, moving my hips closer to his cock, but he holds me back, pulling on my wrists.
“Mmm,” he says, and sucks the left into his mouth, into his hot, hot, wet mouth, and the heat rises in my body, pools around my clit that wants pressure, wants a touch, and I break free of his hold, push him back on the bed and say, “Where are your condoms?”
He flicks one off the bed stand, laughing. “Here,” he says, but tumbles me backward and holds my hands, sucking on one nipple then the other, back and forth until my legs are restless and I’m begging, “Please.”
“Please?” he says, and licks my throat, pinches both nipples at the same time and I cry out in exquisite pleasure.
“Gabe, I need you inside of me right now.”
Then he’s between my legs and poised and I look up at him. For one long second, we are suspended there. Before. His eyes so black, his curls tumbling around his Renaissance face, his lips red from kissing. “You are amazing,” he says softly, kissing me.
Then he grips my shoulders and plunges, and I cry out with wild pleasure, wrapping my limbs around him. He half lifts me, plunging again, a hard growl coming out of him. He swears, his hands hard on my ass, and then he’s kissing me and I’m out of control, coming apart as he moves in me, pounding, hard, and his whole body goes rigid and he makes a noise of such low, pure pleasure that it sends waves of more heat through me. I grip him with all I have, and we tumble and tumble and tumble, pulsing and burning and coming apart.
And then, he’s moving again, slow and easy, stroking my sides, my butt, my breasts, kissing me gently, his movements steady, and his fingers are between us and touches my clit so very easy that I would hardly know that—
I come again.
And again, as he teases me through the next one. “Oh, my god,” I shudder, undone, quivering and trembling and completely without strength. “Stop, oh stop. Oh, don’t, oh, my god.”
He buries his face in my neck. “You are amazing,” he whispers. “So amazing.”
I’m panting and trembling, holding on to him, my nose in the crook of his shoulder, my forearms sweating against his back. My entire body is alight, shimmering. “Holy cow. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
For long, long minutes, we lie there like that, both of us panting, moving a hand, a foot, nuzzling closer. I smell his skin, and it’s heady, so heady I feel as if I could faint with it.
Finally, he shifts, and reaches for the covers to pull over our nakedness. I curl up on the pillow, facing him, touch his eyebrow, the scar over his nose, brush his lips. His liquid eyes skim my face and his hand follows, brushing my hair. “That wasn’t business as usual, at all.”
“Even I know that.”
“There’s something here.”
I smile. “I think it’s called chemistry.”
His grin acknowledges that truth. “I get around you and it’s like you have some magnetic draw, like I just want to fall into you.”
I am about to make another joke in a wild attempt to make this just sex, just a fling, but my finger trails over his jaw, and a swell of emotion roars into my chest. It strikes the back of my eyes and I have to look down to avoid revealing how much I’m feeling. “Me, too,” I say softly, then raise my eyes. “I just like you, for one thing.”
“That’s handy. I like you, too.”
“Haven’t you had girlfriends who kind of drove you crazy? Like they weren’t that smart or they had some annoying habit, but mostly you were attracted to them or—”
He’s half smiling. “Yes, I have. All of them.”
“Me, too?”
“No.” He shakes his head, brushes my hair from my face. “I feel really comfortable with you. It’s definitely different.”
“I like that you’re so smart, that you’re about something.”
“I like that you order the same food that I do.”
“I like that you have the best book in the world on your shelf.”
“I like that you don’t drink.”
“Really?” I ask. “That usually a downside.”
“It’s clean and healthy.”
“Or I’m a lightweight, which is more to the point. I’ve just never learned to like it.”
“I’m not into it either. My parents never drank when I was a kid, and it just seems like it causes a lot of trouble for people. But in some circumstances, it makes you stand out more to not drink than to go ahead and have a beer or two. So I figured out what to do.”
I smile. “And you don’t drink coffee, either. We are weirdos, you know.”
“We are. But that reminds me, we have hot chocolate and sandwiches in the truck. Are you hungry?”
“As a matter of fact, I worked up an enormous appetite just now.”
“We’d better eat, then.” He slides close and kisses me, slow and easy. “We have a lot of night left.”
Impossibly, my body ripples at the thought. “Go get the food. I’m going to wash up a little. Do you have something I can wear?”
He stands up, stretching, and I admire his long back, the line of his tan, his beautiful ass. He is more muscular than the average scientist type, but I suppose he climbs around mountains a lot. “Here you go.” He tosses a button-up shirt my way, blue checks and smelling of him.
He watches as I put it on. “When you’re gone, I’ll think of you in my clothes, in my bed, just like that, right there.”
I fall back on the pillows, ruffling my hair, and lifting a knee. “How about this?”
He’s stepping into a pair of jeans, commando, and it’s somehow really hot. “That’s a good pose. Got any more?”
I roll over on my tummy and pull up the shirt to show him my butt, looking at him over my shoulder. “How’s this?”
“Damn, you have a great ass,” he says, falling down beside me to grab a cheek and give one a little sharp bite.
“Ow!” I slap his hand away, but I have to admit, it was arousing. “Go get that food, dude.”
He laughs, shoves his feet into the boots, and dons his parka over bare chest. “Be right back.”
I dance into the bathroom to wash my face and pee, which my sister the doc reminds me regularly should be part of my post-sex regime. I don’t even actually know why, but she insists it will keep me healthier, so what the heck.
As I wash my hands, I look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are so bright they look fake, and my cheeks are red and my lips are ruddy and swollen. There’s a sharp little mark on my neck, and I touch it, flashing back to the moment I felt him make it, take a nip.
Trouble, Bouvier.
But what am I going to do about it now? Might as well just enjoy tonight, and whatever time we have. It’ll be over soon enough.
* * *
When I come back out, Gabe has lit a couple of fat candles and the music is playing, and he’s spread out a picnic on the bed. A gas-fed stove is glowing in the corner, making the room much warmer, too. He’s plumped up the pillows and is sitting cross legged o
n the covers, wearing his underwear and a shirt that’s open down the front. I join him, cross legged on the other side of the dish towel he’s spread out. “What have we here, garçon?”
“Turkey and cheese sandwiches and apples, mademoiselle,” he says, and offers me a mug. “And hot chocolate.”
“Mmm.” The chocolate is thick and rich, but not too thick. “Now, I do love hot chocolate.”
“Me, too. It’s something my mother loves to make even though it’s not really cold enough in Hawaii.”
“Is she from there?”
“Transplant from California when she was a kid, but close. My dad was in the navy when they met, and he came back to marry her when he got out.” The thick lashes fall. “He always talks about the first time he saw her, standing at an ice cream shop. He fell in love that first minute.”
Inclining my head, I prompt, “But? They aren’t happy?”
Carefully, he picks up a sandwich and examines it as if it might be alive. “I don’t know. Maybe. My dad puts a good face on it, but he’s a really vigorous guy, you know—or he was—” For the first time, he looks genuinely sad.
I touch his knee. “Do you want to talk about him? His heart attack?”
He’s still examining the sandwich, not looking at me. “Not the most romantic subject.”
“I don’t care. It sounds like this situation is really weighing on you.”
He sets the sandwich down, wipes his hands. “Yeah, it is. He had a serious heart attack, out of the blue. Or not really out of the blue, because he smoked, much to everybody’s despair.”
“I don’t know a ton about this stuff, but my gran had a big heart attack and they cleared out her arteries and she was fine. She’s still fine.”
“Right. That’s what they did. He’ll probably be great, and he finally did quit smoking.”
I grin. “Amazing what a scare like that can do.”
“Right?” he finally picks up a sandwich half and prepares to take a bite. I’m way ahead of him, chomping down on two halves and contemplating a third. “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“Is too nosy to ask what’s wrong with your mom?”
He shrugs. “Chronic pain. She has spine issues from the accident and has had a bunch of surgeries to fix them, but it never really seems to help for that long.”