He stooped to the floor and pulled some small cellophane packages out of his pocket before laying them on the bedside table.
So there was some premeditation involved, she thought. The idea excited her even more. “Do optometrists give out those little packages with new sets of contact lenses?” she murmured. “I suppose it makes sense. If you’re sexier, you’ll probably have reason to use—”
“You know what?” He levered his body to the bed.
The stimulation of having an unclothed Jack right there beside her made speaking almost impossible. She longed to touch him but was finding herself more than a little shy about where to begin. “No, what?”
“I’m amazed you didn’t ask me about condoms before we ever came in here. I thought we’d have to discuss which brand to use.”
It was a legitimate concern, but for some reason her brain didn’t seem to be functioning very well right now. She cleared her throat. “Now that you mention it, wh—”
“Too late,” he said, sliding off the sleeves of her bathrobe. “We’re not going to discuss it now. It’s a good brand.”
“But—”
“Be quiet, Krysta.” His smile was gentle. “For once in your life, relax and let somebody else take charge.”
It was the sort of command she’d waited a lifetime to hear. And take charge he did. So this was what it was like to tremble in anticipation of a man’s touch. She’d never known. But she’d never known a lover with instincts like Jack’s, a lover who spurned the obvious and embraced the subtle, a lover who specialized in the art of surprise.
He stretched her arm out and stroked her fingers as if they were the most erogenous part of her. And for the moment, they were. Then he moved to her palm, and the inside of her wrist, igniting bonfires along his path.
As he brushed his fingers along the underside of her arm, she imagined that same touch on her inner thigh and moaned in anticipation. “Kiss me, Jack,” she begged.
“I thought you were going to let me be in charge,” he murmured.
Her breathing grew shallow as he continued his ministrations to her other arm. “Not even any…requests?” she asked.
“I’ll consider them.”
She let out her breath on a long sigh. “Then kiss me, Jack.”
He did, sliding down the bed to place his lips against the arch of her foot. As he ran his tongue into the crevices between her toes, she began to throb with the intensity of wanting him. She trembled as he kissed his way with careful intent up her calf and behind her knee. When his lips caressed her inner thigh, she thought she might go out of her mind.
And still he hadn’t removed her nightie. She was ready to tear the material off herself, but he’d clasped both her hands in his, intertwining their fingers as he approached the moist center so ready for him. And then he moved past that pulsing spot without touching her there and came back to her side again. She was wild to have him.
Releasing her hands, he drew the nightie over her head. Except for the slight trembling of his hand as he cupped her breast, he seemed to be in perfect control. She arched into his caress, desperate for his mouth to relieve the aching need swelling in her breasts.
She’d expected him to go slowly here, too, but it was as if he knew the moment for light caresses had ended. He took her breast into his mouth fully and deliberately, giving her such pleasure that tears filled her eyes.
The pace accelerated. His touch was more demanding than gentle as he slid his hand down to her waist. When he moved astride her, she thought he might sheathe himself and take her then and there. And, oh, she wanted that. The pressure had become so intense that all she could think of was having him fill her and end the sweet torture he’d begun.
But he didn’t reach for the package on the bedside table. Instead, he trailed kisses down the valley between her ribs as he slid both hands beneath her bottom. Before she realized his intent, he’d lifted her to his waiting mouth for a caress that splintered all semblance of self-control. She could no more stop the cataclysmic response he brought forth than stop breathing. She cried out as wave upon wave took her with a force that left her gasping and limp in the cradle of his strong hands.
At last he lowered her gently to the bed and returned to her side. He smoothed the tangled hair from her cheeks as he covered her face with kisses. She had no breath, no words to tell him how he’d made her feel, but he seemed to know.
She felt dazed and disoriented as she looked into his eyes. “But I still want—”
“Good.” He lingered a moment and brushed his mouth against hers. “So do I.”
The taste of passion on his lips began the spiral of need all over again. “Now, Jack,” she urged. “I want you.”
He outlined her mouth with the tip of his tongue. “That sounds like an order.”
She groaned in frustration.
With a soft chuckle he reached over to the bedside table for the condom. The soft snap of the latex as it covered his erection sent a hot new surge of longing through her.
“Come here,” he whispered, slipping his arm beneath her and lifting her gently. She hadn’t expected this would be what he’d want now, but she followed his guidance and positioned herself above him.
“Why this way?” she murmured.
His voice was ragged with need. “Because you need to be in control again.”
She hesitated. Was there censure in his tone or was it merely roughened with desire? “Jack, I—”
“It’s okay, Krysta. I’m man enough to let you lead.”
“I believe you are.” She gazed into his eyes as she slowly lowered herself, taking him deeper and deeper inside her. She’d never seen a blue so intense as the color of his eyes as she accepted him completely inside her.
He understood so much, including her need to give to him as he’d given to her. Bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders, she initiated a slow rhythm and watched his eyes darken. Knowing that she was bestowing pleasure built the tension in her once again, and although she concentrated on him, her own needs began to clamor for satisfaction.
But she wanted him to know that he’d already taught her something about making love. She pushed aside her own desires and tuned in to the sound of his breathing, allowing that to guide her into an ever-accelerating motion. She watched his eyes and listened to the soft groans of pleasure as his hips moved in concert with hers. And for a brief time she felt what he felt and knew just when to increase the pressure, when to ease away, and when, at last, to take him on a glorious ride over the brink. To her complete surprise, she careened over the edge with him, as if they’d truly become one mind, one heart, one soul.
As the pieces of her world slowly realigned themselves again, she sank to his chest and laid her cheek over his beating heart. She’d had no idea. Nothing, not even Jack’s own words on paper, had prepared her for such cataclysmic love-making. She thought of trying to tell him all that was in her heart, but decided she could never do justice to what she felt. Jack was the wordsmith, not her, and besides, he was so sensitive to her feelings he must know what he’d accomplished.
She closed her eyes and snuggled against him. He reached a hand to stroke her hair. For the first time in her life she felt completely, utterly at peace.
SHE WAS OBVIOUSLY planning to keep her reaction to herself, Jack thought with some impatience. They lay propped against the headboard, pillows behind them, and they’d turned on the other bedside lamp so they’d have plenty of light to study the photos for the dust jacket.
Jack wasn’t quite sure how to interpret Krysta’s silence about their lovemaking. She’d never been slow to offer her opinion of his behavior before. After they’d made love she’d lain quietly with him for several long minutes. He’d needed some recovery time, himself, so he hadn’t been ready for an immediate critique. But he’d expected her to eventually make some comment about what they’d just shared.
He’d be damned if he’d ask her for one, though. That old “Was it good for you?” rou
tine wasn’t his style. He knew it had been good for her, and it had been spectacular for him. But he’d had the decided impression that he was on trial, and he’d sure like to hear the results.
That didn’t seem likely. Whatever Krysta thought about his lovemaking, she wasn’t talking. So he relaxed here in bed with her, hip to naked hip like newlyweds, the box of valentine candy open with brown candy wrappers scattered over the covers, and Candy Valentine’s publicity photos spread before them. Krysta had suggested getting them out, which was when he’d begun to suspect she wasn’t going to discuss her reaction to the obvious pleasure he’d given her.
So maybe they wouldn’t talk about it. Maybe they’d just do it some more. He didn’t think she’d have a problem with that. Perhaps he expected too much in the way of verbal reassurance. Not everyone was into words the way he was. Hell, almost nobody was.
If he’d been writing this scene he would give Krysta dialogue telling him that he was the best lover she’d ever had. Unfortunately he wasn’t writing this scene. All along he’d been teasing her about wanting to be in control. Maybe it was time to admit his own need for control, which he exercised every time he wrote a book, and which he longed to exercise in real life, truth be told.
“I think this is my favorite.” Krysta held up a five-by-seven proof of her sitting sideways on a stool in the leather suit, her legs crossed, her upper body turned toward the camera, and a decidedly come-hither look on her face.
Jack felt a twinge of jealousy. “How did he get you to look at him like that?”
“Did I say it was a male photographer?”
“No, but I’ll bet it was.”
“And you’d be right.” She shifted slightly, which rubbed her silky thigh against him. “He told me to think of the sexiest guy I knew.”
“Is that so?” He glanced at her.
Reaching down to pick a chocolate out of the box, she kept looking through the photos without seeming to notice that he was staring at her. “This one’s not bad, either.” She held up one in which she was leaning against a post while wearing a full-length white coat with a white fur collar that brushed her cheeks. She was holding the heart-shaped box of candy she’d brought home tonight. Narrowing her eyes at the picture, she took a bite of the chocolate, exposing a creamy center. “Classier, I think. Which one do you—”
“And who might that be?” Jack asked, not giving a damn about the pictures when they had more important matters to discuss.
“Who might who be?” She took another dainty bite of the candy.
“You know good and well. The sexiest guy you know.” He took the proofs away from her.
“Hey!” She reached for the proofs. “We need to go over those.”
“Later.” He held them out of reach.
“Jack.” She made another grab.
He dumped them on the floor, then took her by the shoulders and toppled her backward across the mattress. “Who’s the sexiest guy you know?”
She laughed and squirmed beneath him. “Mel Gibson.”
“Oh, yeah? On what grounds?”
“You obviously didn’t see Braveheart or you wouldn’t ask.” She grinned up at him and popped the last of the candy in her mouth.
“I can see we still have a little trouble sorting out the difference between fantasy and reality around here.” He shifted his weight so he had better access to her inviting body. “The sexiest guy you know isn’t Mel Gibson.”
“Yes, it is.”
Putting a firm hand between her thighs, he kissed her smiling lips and tasted chocolate. Then he lifted his head as he stroked upward and probed deep. “You don’t know Mel Gibson,” he murmured. “All you know is the fantasy he creates.”
She drew in her breath. “I suppose you’re some sort of authority.”
“I suppose I am. I’m in the fantasy business, myself.” He’d aroused her in seconds. He could send her spiraling into orgasm in seconds more. That gave him some satisfaction, at least. “Who were you thinking of when the photographer took that picture?”
“I…” She shifted the candy in her mouth. “I can’t think of anything when you…do that.”
He leaned down. “You’d better give me that piece of chocolate before you choke on it,” he whispered.
“No.”
“Yes.” He delved into her mouth with his tongue and captured the bit of candy.
“I want that,” she murmured.
“But you want this more.” The chocolate was sweet on his tongue as he massaged the tight little bud that gave her such pleasure.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as she drew closer to the abyss. “Jack…”
“So you thought of me when he took the picture?” Ah, she was nearly there.
“I…yes!” She arched upward.
“Thank you, Krysta.” He settled his mouth over hers and drank in her gasps as he pushed his fingers in deep to absorb her contractions.
Afterward, she lay so quietly beneath him that he thought she might have drifted off to sleep. And he vowed not to wake her, even though he was hard and wanting her again.
Then her hand curled around his erection, and all his senses went on alert.
“You’ve wrung that confession out of me by devious means,” she said, her voice silky as the stockings she’d worn that day. “And now I intend to get a confession out of you with the same method.”
He’d tell her anything she wanted to know, but that wouldn’t be much fun. “Good luck. I’m a past master at keeping my own counsel.”
Her hand glided upward, then back down. “I want to know when you bought those condoms.”
He sucked in a breath as she repeated her motion and lingered over the sensitive tip. “What difference does it make?” he asked.
“I want to know how long you’ve been planning this evening’s entertainment.” She wriggled from beneath him and continued her caress. She seemed to understand more about male anatomy than he’d given her credit for. “I want to know if this was part of the plan all along.”
“I don’t see that it…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. In one graceful movement she arranged things so that she could take him in her mouth. “Matters,” he finished, groaning.
After driving him very nearly crazy, she lifted her head to give him an angelic smile. “Oh, it matters.” Her thumb had found his trigger point and she was using her knowledge to great advantage.
He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as he fought to stay in control. It was a mistake. He opened his eyes when he heard the rip of cellophane. She’d used her teeth and one free hand to open the package, and now she was rolling a condom over his throbbing penis and torturing him every step of the way.
“Want to tell me yet?” she asked.
Not yet, answered his highly stimulated body. But when she was finished, he grabbed her shoulders and rolled her to her back.
Her eyes sparkled with fun as she gazed up at him. Her thighs remained clamped together. “Not until you tell me.”
He’d never forced a woman in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. He let her win. “I bought them when you agreed to come on this trip,” he said.
“That long ago?”
“It was a wild dream, not a calculated plot. I was prepared to take every one of them home unused.”
She opened her thighs and drew him toward her. “Doesn’t look like that will happen.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He claimed her with one quick thrust.
She gasped and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Did you think I’d always go slow and easy?” he murmured.
She cupped his face in her hands. “With you, I never know what to think.”
He drew back and pushed in tight again. “That makes two of us.” It was the closest he could come to asking her to talk to him.
She gazed at him in wonder. “You don’t know how you’ve affected me?”
“I can only guess.”
“I was sure you knew. You’ve taken me
where no one else ever has. I—” She drew a breath. “Compared to you, I feel…inadequate.”
“Inadequate?” He looked at her in disbelief. “But you’re the most beautiful, most responsive woman I’ve ever—” He shook his head. “Inadequate. That word has no business being in the same room with you, Krysta.”
She moved provocatively beneath him. “Love me, Jack. Love me until morning comes.”
11
AS KRYSTA YAWNED and stretched the next morning, her toe hit something that clattered to the floor. She leaned over the edge of the bed to discover the heart-shaped box of candy up-ended and chocolates everywhere. Then she glanced at her travel alarm on the bedside table. The travel alarm she hadn’t set the night before.
“Oh, my God!” She leaped out of bed and stepped on a caramel cream and a chocolate nougat. “Dammit! Oh, yuck!”
“I gather you’re not a morning person,” Jack said, lifting his head off the pillow.
She hardly spared him a glance as she tottered on one foot and lifted the other while trying to scrape the chocolate from her sole. She lost her balance and staggered, only to step on a dark chocolate with a cherry center. “I hate candy!” she moaned.
“The food or the author?”
“Both, at the moment.” She walked stiff-legged on her heels into the bathroom. “I have to be ready in fifteen minutes, Jack,” she called over her shoulder.
“If memory serves, I can manage it in less time than that.”
“Will you stop with the one-liners?” She held on to the door frame for balance and poked her head around it to glare at him. Her irritation evaporated at the sight of Jack lying there propped on one elbow, the sheet pulled up only as far as his waist, his hair deliciously tousled, and a seductive grin on his beard-stubbled face. She was falling in love with him. That might not be the prudent thing to do under her current financial circumstances, but the truth was inescapable. Jack was the man she’d dreamed of all her life.
“I’ll be glad to take care of that chocolate for you,” he said softly.
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