“No, it’s not,” he said, some of his restraint slipping. There was another shudder, violent this time, a groan, and then, in one swift movement, he pivoted and wrapped her in his arms.
Emotions were running high and she knew it, but there was no preparing for the wild gleam in his dark eyes or the contained power that rippled through him. With a hoarse groan he clamped both of his large hands on her butt and brought her up against his raging erection.
She cried out, undone on so many levels she couldn’t even begin to count them. As though he knew he’d scared her a little, he loosened his grip and lowered that too-bright gaze to stare at her lips rather than her eyes. He did not, however, stop his hands from sliding up under the hem of her skirt to cup her butt, which was bare but for the negligible strip of lace between her cheeks.
Looking wry and rueful now, as though he just couldn’t believe how she affected him or how much he needed her, he shook his head. “Damn, girl.” One of his fingers slid experimentally under her panties, savoring the lace and her skin at the same time. “You’re killing me here.”
Her need ratcheted higher, climbing slowly to the ultimate destination like one of those old wooden roller coasters mounting that first, tallest hill. “You like my undies, I take it?”
His quick, wolfish grin sucked the little bit of remaining breath right out of her lungs. “You could say that, yeah.”
Waves of sensation shook her and she undulated against him, helpless to control her reactions. “I’m so glad.”
She wanted to drive him wild—to the outer limits of his control and beyond. So she backed out of his arms, trailed her hands up her parted thighs, made a slow show of sliding her skirt up to her hips and shimmied out of the panties, rubbing herself as she did. Once she’d kicked the panties off, she ran her hands back down her thighs and let the skirt fall into place, hiding her curly black triangle from his feverish gaze.
Eric unraveled right before her eyes. Eyes bulging, arms trembling, he gasped and pulled her by the upper arms until she was flush against him, molded from shoulder to hip.
His frantic hands stroked up and down, up and down, rubbing her butt until the entire bottom half of her body felt pliant. She thought he would kiss her and she knew it would be a crazed, rough, biting kiss, but he surprised her and held back, refusing her parted lips and denying her what she needed. But his face inched closer until his mouth was a scant breath away and his eyes were nothing but a glitter of brown crystal.
With a harsh breath, as though it cost him a large chunk of his soul to be patient, he whispered the one question she’d fervently hoped he’d never ask.
“Why are you so scared, Izzy?”
She froze.
Why wouldn’t she be scared? Because he was such a good prospect for a long-term relationship? Puh-lease. Falling in love with a player was right up there with scaling the Empire State Building without a rope in terms of self-destructiveness. She might as well go out and play in interstate traffic and be done with it; it’d be safer in the long run than spending more time like this with Eric when he was guaranteed to break her heart.
“Tell me,” he said.
All the reasons were right there on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t say any of them:
You’re a world-class player.
You’ve broken the heart of more women than I can shake a stick at.
I love you and you’ve never loved anyone.
And the biggie, the one she could never, ever tell him:
You wouldn’t even want me anymore if you knew my real truth.
In the end, she settled for an umbrella answer, one that encompassed everything and revealed nothing:
“Because this is too intense,” she said. “It’s too much.”
There was a long, pregnant pause during which only their harsh breathing broke the silence. “Yeah,” he agreed finally with sorrow on his face and regret in his voice. “It’s a lot.”
“Gee. You think?”
This excruciating conversation would never lead them anywhere. Deciding that distraction was probably her best tactic at this point, Isabella dug her nails into his nape, pulled his face down and, standing on her tiptoes, kissed him.
For thirty seconds he went wild. His hot mouth slanted over hers, frantic and greedy, and they drank each other up with the kind of desperation that drove people to primitive acts like murder or suicide. But he didn’t stay distracted for long and she felt foolish for thinking he would. He broke away and in his eyes she saw the kind of ruthless focus that made him a world-class CEO.
“What’s the real reason you’re so scared, Izzy?” Letting her go entirely, he went to work on her top. “Tell me. Is it because of my track record with women? Is that it? I know it’s not good.”
“Not good? I think the word you’re looking for is abysmaaaal.”
The last word died on a low, earthy groan as he tongued a nipple through the white lace of her strapless bra, but if he could stay focused, so could she.
“Y—you’re not a very good prospect, are you?” she asked.
“No.”
His honesty on this point was a sickening surprise. Disappointment washed over her, chilling some, but not all, of the heat in her blood, but she didn’t have time to reflect on it. In a dizzying flash of movement he scooped her up—as though she was a doll—and slowly swung her around to the bed.
Once there he pulled the duvet out of the way and laid her down on cool white sheets. Then he straightened and slid and kicked his way out of his shorts to reveal more boxer briefs, black this time, but not black enough to hide the size of the erection that strained almost to his belly button for her.
Isabella’s mouth went dry and her head went light, but he didn’t give her the chance to reflect on the pleasures waiting in store for her in the next few minutes. His hands smoothed up her thighs to her hips and slid her skirt off, as careful now as he’d been frenzied the first time they made love. Naked now but for her bra, shameless and needy as a mare in heat, she spread her legs and arched her hips, using her body to beg him to hurry.
His hot gaze, brighter than Arctic snow in the sunshine, skimmed over her, lingering on her thighs, wet sex and breasts, and then he saw the faded marks. Low on her belly.
“What’s this?” He frowned and smoothed his fingers over the faint lines.
Isabella hesitated and then said, “Nothing. I need you.”
The words had the desired effect. He swallowed so hard she saw the distinct bob of his Adam’s apple in the strong column of his throat. He licked his lips and tried to speak, but…nothing.
After several long beats he seemed to get his wits about him and finally looked up into her face. To her surprise, his expression was imploring and vulnerable, almost sad.
Time slowed as he climbed onto the bed and straddled her, his muscular thighs rippling with sinew. Reaching between them, he skimmed his fingers over her sex, slowly…slowly…slowly homing in on the hard button that wept for his attention.
Isabella fought hard to remain lucid but couldn’t silence her cries.
“Can I tell you something, Sunshine?”
“Yes,” she breathed, arching her back and rubbing herself against him, beyond care, beyond pride, beyond anything other than accepting the gift of pleasure that only this one man could give her.
He watched her with heavy-lidded eyes while a faint, lazy smile crossed over his face and then was gone. “You’re right,” he whispered. “I’m a—what was your word? Oh, yeah. I’m an abysmal prospect for all the other women I’ve dated. And you know what? That doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you.”
Isabella, hovering on the edge of an obliterating climax, flung her arms over her head and squirmed, but then his words sank in with a jolt. Quieting down as much as she could, she tried to pay attention because this was important.
“What—what do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, those fingers never pausing in their relentless stroking, “that th
ere’s never been another woman in my life like you and there never will be. If you weren’t so busy being scared, you’d see that.”
There was a pause while the words slowly penetrated her fuzzy brain.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah, oh.”
Inching forward, he leaned over her until he could nuzzle her lips, keeping it light and easy when she would’ve drunk deep. After a few seconds, when she was nearly blind with lust, he pulled back and gave her another slow grin of such unbearable sexiness she wondered dimly whether he could make her come one day just by looking at her across a crowded room and smiling.
“Can you do something for me tonight, Izzy?”
“Absolutely,” she told him in a hoarse whisper.
“That’s the kind of thing I like to hear.”
Sliding his hands underneath her back, he undid the clasp of her bra and slid it away, freeing her breasts with a bounce. His breath caught and his eyes rolled closed. For a minute or two he couldn’t seem to do anything and the wait was excruciating, but then he bent again and cupped a breast in each palm.
Squeezing them together, he flicked his tongue across one nipple, then the other. Back and forth he went, over and over again, licking and then suckling hard and then licking again, and the whole time she felt the tension building between her thighs and her sanity slipping away.
She’d forgotten all about her name, much less the threads of their conversation, but he hadn’t. Panting now, his wonderful pink tongue running over his bottom lip, he raised his head and stared up at her with glittering eyes.
“Can you stop thinking so much, Izzy?” He paused. “For the rest of our trip can you just…see what happens?”
She hesitated.
“That’s all I’m asking, Iz. Please. Can you do that for me?”
As if there’d ever been any doubt about it. “Okay,” she said, praying he never asked her to jump off the Suspension Bridge into the Ohio River because she’d probably be foolish enough to agree to that, too.
“Good.”
Triumph flashed over his face and then he bent low, a man on a mission from which nothing could deter him. Before she knew what’d happened he’d run his tongue over both nipples again, inched it down to her belly button and then gone lower, to where honey flowed hot and thick for him, and she was keening and coming…and coming…and coming.
Chapter 14
Eric made the mistake of looking up to see Isabella’s expression as she climaxed, and the beautiful, half-smiling contortions of her face and pouty lips nearly did him in. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The arched back, the sweet straining column of her neck as she threw her head back against the pillows, the engorged dark nipples, her endless cries were all too much for a mortal man like him. Was he supposed to witness her ecstasy—knowing he’d caused it—and not come in his draws like a twelve-year old with his first wet dream? How much could he take?
More, as it turned out.
Isabella opened her eyes and a slow, seductive smile eased across her face, the kind that made a man’s belly do flips and his skin break out in anticipatory sweat. He swallowed hard, his gaze riveted to her, and watched as she rose up on all fours, her heavy breasts dangling like delicious fruit.
“Lie back.” Her eyes glittered with what looked like eagerness—excitement.
Eric’s heart nearly stopped. “I don’t—” he began, but Isabella was in charge and she was having none of it.
“Lie back,” she said again, and this time she pushed his chest until he complied.
Panting now, he gripped the sheets and told himself to hold on as she slid lower.
But then she cupped him and her tongue stroked up the length of his overheated flesh and he cried out, his back arching off the bed of its own accord, and there was no holding on.
Isabella seemed to like this reaction. Tilting her head to look up at him with those gleaming, knowing eyes, she smiled again and sucked him all the way into her mouth. Those plump lips wrapped around him was the sexiest sight he’d ever seen and he gasped, every muscle in his body strained to the breaking point.
Gripping her silky head as it bobbed over him, he watched her for a few seconds and felt the excruciating pleasure tighten deep in his belly, but then she began to make thrilling little humming noises that vibrated through him—as though she’d never tasted anything as delicious as him—and the heightened sensation was too much. He broke free, desperate to thrust inside her now.
Shaking now—there was no other word for it—sweating, trying to hurry, hurry, hurry, he reached over the side of the bed for his shorts and caught sight of Zeus. That silly dog was sitting there watching him with rapt interest, his little teddy bear head cocked to one side as though he was trying to learn from Eric’s technique. Eric would have laughed if he hadn’t been so close to catastrophic heart failure caused by his lust for this one woman. Muttering, he tossed the shorts in Zeus’s direction and the dog scampered off.
Eric’s hands wouldn’t function. It felt like he was wearing twelve pairs of leather garden gloves, and he just couldn’t manage things that required fine motor skills, like getting a condom out and slipping it on. After the longest delay of his life—he couldn’t get his lungs to expand, couldn’t think, couldn’t move fast enough and his body was going to explode—he worked the damn thing on.
Isabella, now on her back again, watched him with her bright brown eyes half closed, and when he caught her gaze she smiled and opened her arms for him.
His heart threatened to burst.
Beyond desperate now, barely capable of a coherent thought, he wanted to grab her, take her and never let her go, but he forced himself to slow down.
But then she whispered to him. “Come here.”
That was it. Game over. With a cry he rose up over her and drove home, into that delicious body that was so hot and wet, so unspeakably tight and, better than that, right.
Isabella went wild, writhing beneath him…meeting him…matching him…stroke for stroke, surpassing any dream he’d ever had, any fantasy, any hope. Those thighs he’d drooled over tightened around his waist, pulling him deeper, and her hands searched and roamed, digging her nails into his nape, shoulders and butt, hurting and pleasing him. He’d be a mess of scratches later and he didn’t give even half a damn.
And the noises she made. She was destroying him with those choked, breathy sounds that were music to his ears and heart, Mozart for his soul. He’d never be right again after this. Not even close to right.
Yeah, it was all over for him.
Much as he wanted to prolong the pleasure until he passed out from it, he just couldn’t hold on. Five strokes, six tops, and that was it. The hot squeeze of her body was too much, and she did it to him every single time.
He’d slide out to the very tip, until they’d nearly separated, and try to work her, just a circle or two to make sure she was as crazed as he was, but she was in charge the whole time and she was having none of it. She’d rise up to claim him again, and he’d have to plunge in again, harder…faster…stronger.
On that sixth stroke he felt the eruption coming and there was nothing he could do as the wave retracted, gathered strength and hurtled out of his body. Sinking his fingers deep into the fragrant silk of her hair, he whispered her name—it was all he could manage, a lame, half-choked whisper. After that there was only time enough for him to slide his tongue into the sweet depths of her mouth and hold on before the blinding sensations crashed over him.
And he was flattened. Ruined in the best possible way.
He went rigid, paralyzed and helpless with ecstasy.
On and on it went, like nothing he’d ever felt before or likely ever would again, and she was right with him, chanting his name on breathy sighs. Listening to her, feeling her, absorbing her, he wondered—even before his spasms had died away—how soon he could take her again, how many times tonight he could have her before his body gave out, how much was too much to need her.
; Finally it was over and they clung to each other, stroking hands over damp skin, sweaty and exhausted. Changed. Nothing could be the same after this. This time was different from the first time, although he wasn’t yet sure why. He would damn sure figure it out, though.
Disentangling himself inch by reluctant inch, he slid off the bed. Zeus, who was now settled, with Fluffles, on top of Eric’s shorts, looked up hopefully, but he didn’t have time for that dog right now.
After a step or two away from Isabella, Eric had to glance back and make sure she was still there. She looked wonderfully rumpled, a sensual mass of wild hair, swollen lips and flushed skin—more than good enough to eat, and he intended to hold that thought until he got back from the bathroom.
Waiting until she arranged the white sheet around her body and glanced up at him, he fixed her with a warning look. Her drowsy eyes widened with surprise and wary anticipation and he was fiercely glad that he had her full attention as he issued his warning.
“You’re not allowed to leave this bed tonight, Isabella.”
A sexy smile, the kind that scrambled men’s brains, made them saddle up armies and ride out on crusades, curved her tender lips and knocked the breath right out of his lungs.
“I know.”
“Good,” he said after a lengthy pause during which he tried to remember what the hell they’d been talking about. He paused again, feeling half-witted at best, no-witted at worst. “Great.”
They stared at each other, neither moving.
Well, it was nice to have her assurance, but he still felt unsettled. Partially because of her little leap-out-of-bed routine earlier and partially because he knew they still had mountains between them and a lot of things to resolve. Since she was being so agreeable, though, he decided to toss a few more concepts out to her and see how she reacted.
“And we’re going to spend tomorrow night together, after the wedding.”
“Okay.”
Her easy agreement, perversely, made him all the more agitated and greedy. “And then we’re flying back to Columbus for Andy’s baptism on Sunday. I’ll arrange to have my car sent home later.”
Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 14