by Lee Taylor
His eyes dancing with mischief, he pulled her close to him ensuring that her soft folds were pressed against his stunningly hard arousal.
“I have another idea, baby. How about we toast each other? With a little of that wine. You know, sorta seal our deal?”
To her surprise, he picked up the bottle of wine on the table next to the chair and poured them each a glass. He handed her one and raised his glass to her.
“To us, Erin. And God help anyone who tries to come between us!”
His eyes were fierce, smoldering with a residual of anger but mixed with a look that sent shivers of excitement to her belly. He put his glass on the table and pulled the ottoman close to the chair. Resting his feet on it he made a “chair back” of his knees for her to lean against. Positioning her against his knees, he grasped her foot and pulled it up to his mouth. She wriggled at the tickling touch.
His lips twisted in a wicked smile. “How about you settle back against my knees and sip on your wine while I check out some of the more ticklish parts of your body?”
He sucked one toe after another into his mouth biting each as he moved to the next. At every nip she startled and by the time he finished with the first foot, she was leaning back against his knees reveling in the delicious shivers of pleasure rolling over her. God, who would have thought it? That him sucking on her toes could make her stomach sizzle with excitement.
Grinning at her, he put her foot down alongside his hip up close to her bottom. Protectively, she tipped her knee inward to keep from exposing her bare bottom.
Nate chuckled and shook his head. “Uh uh, baby. That’s not where I want your knee. How about we make a compromise to protect your modesty—at least for the moment.” He tucked the hem of her shirt under her bottom, then opened her knee to the side.
Erin trembled and couldn’t stifle a moan when he lifted her other foot to his mouth and began sucking and nipping at her toes while he stroked the sensitive instep. Trying to concentrate, she sipped on her wine, the warmth spreading down her throat meeting the heat cascading over her body. She tried to twist away, remove her foot from his hungry mouth but he held it tighter and bit down hard. She squealed when he bent her knee up tight against her bottom placing it on the outside of his hip. When she inadvertently pressed her knees together to protect her crotch from his hands and eyes, he growled a soft warning. “Uh uh, darlin’. Not like that. I’ve worked hard to get you in this position. Now you need to help me out. Spread your legs, Erin. Wider.”
Erin felt the heat flood her cheeks when she realized what he had done. With a couple of clever moves, her bottom half was wedged against his powerful groin. All it would take was separating her legs, spreading her knees apart and he would have full access to her naked bottom. While she knew she couldn’t resist for long she refused to give in so easily. Pressing her knees together, she held out her glass.
“I… I need more wine, Nate.”
He quirked a brow, then smiled, erasing the dark frown that had gathered when she refused to open her legs. Adding an inch of the dusky liquid to her glass, he saluted her then drained his.
“I can see that you need more, Erin.” His eyes glinted wickedly. “And so do I.”
He added a couple inches of wine to his glass, then leaned forward and took her glass from her.
His voice was low, silky. “Yeah, baby, you definitely need more.”
She frowned, puzzled, then started when he deliberately tipped his glass, dripping a trickle of wine down the inside of her leg.
He groaned in mock dismay. “Damn, baby. I’m sorry. Here, let me get that.”
Bending over her, he stuck out his tongue and lazily lapped at the cool liquid dripping down the inside of her leg. She squealed and tried to pull away but he held her firmly in place with his free hand. His chuckle was low, husky. “I wouldn’t jump around like that if I were you, Erin. You might make me spill more.”
He poured another trickle of wine down the inside of her other leg and shrugged. “See? You better hold still, Erin or you’re gonna have wine all over you.”
Erin groaned at the twinges of sensation flooding her as his rough tongue licked off the wine on the inside of her legs. She forced herself to be still, to keep his mouth from moving closer to her quivering folds that were seeping moisture of their own. How could she feel so exposed, when she was covered from her neck to her crotch? She didn’t have to wonder for long when she felt a splash of moisture across her groin, followed by his soft expletive ripe with insincerity.
“Dammit, Erin. Now look what I’ve done. How clumsy of me. Honey, I have wine all over you. God baby, I’m sorry.” Dragging at the bottom of her nightshirt he pulled it up to her waist. At her surprised cry, he tore his eyes away from the sight of her bare mound and gazed up at her. His eyes were narrowed, gleaming with lust. “Honey I need to get this shirt off of you before I spill wine all over it.”
Ignoring her half-hearted protest, Nate tugged at her nightshirt. In seconds he’d yanked it up over her hips and over shoulders. With an expert twist he captured her arms above her head in the tangled fabric. His eyes lit with lust. Twisting the shirt around her wrists he murmured, “Oh yeah, that’s what I like. Let’s leave your hands just like this, Erin.”
Erin could have broken free but the excitement in Nate’s eyes as he raked his heated gaze over her body sent a flurry of heat racing through her body. His grin was teasing but his rough command brooked no disagreement. He looked like a man with a purpose. A man who was not to be deterred.
His low guttural groan confirmed that he was as excited as she was. Laying back helpless against his knees, her arms captured above her head, Erin pressed her legs together to protect herself from his hungry gaze. To her surprise, he didn’t insist, instead focusing on her breasts. His gaze alone was enough to make the sensitive tips harden. At his husky chortle, she writhed against his knees, wanting his lips on her breasts. Her nipples tingled, her breasts felt heavy, full. Unable to hide from his hungry gaze, she moaned and arched her back pushing her breasts up closer to him, silently begging him to take them in his mouth. Instead he reached for the bottle of wine and poured two fingers into the glass.
Taking a lazy sip, his eyes gleaming he crooned, “God, Erin. Look at you. Your nipples are hardening just from me looking at you.” At her guttural moan, he teased, “What do want, baby? You want me to lick them? Maybe suck on them?”
She couldn’t hold back a groan. She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled against the loose bonds of her shirt twisted around her wrists trying to arch her back further, anything to get closer to his wicked mouth.
“Yes, Nate. Please.”
His murmur was low, a sexy command. “Then Erin, you’re gonna have to spread your legs at least a little or how else can I get close to the most beautiful breasts God ever gave a woman?”
Shaking at the sensations flooding her, Erin separated her legs to allow him access to her aching breasts stunned at the fierce need driving her. All she wanted was his mouth on her, his lips, his teeth. She startled when cool liquid splashed on her chest.
Nate chortled.
“Damn, honey. You moved at just the wrong time. Now look what I’ve done! Now you have wine here, on this nipple but it hardly seems fair to leave this beauty out.” He tipped the glass coating her other nipple with fragrant wine.
The combination of the cool liquid on her heated flesh and his sexy words had her wriggling in pleasure. God, if he didn’t suckle her soon, she was going to lose her mind. She struggled to free her hands. She wanted to reach up and pull his head down to her breasts, to push one tingling nub then the other into his greedy mouth. But he firmed his hold on her wrists and laughed at her gyrations.
“Honey, you are one hungry woman, aren’t you? But I would be remiss if I didn’t at least try to clean you up. And besides there is something about this wine mixed with the taste of your skin that is turning me on like you wouldn’t believe.”
At her guttural moan, he c
onceded and bent over her. With one hand he tightened his grip on her wrists, with the other he began to roll one taut aching nub between his fingers and thumb. At her ragged cry, he leaned over and took the other nipple into his mouth. He ran his tongue round and round the sensitive flesh. At her eager cry, he sucked on it making it long and hard then pressed it against the roof of his mouth as he pinched her other nipple. The mix of pleasure and small bite of pain sent a flash of erotic heat straight to her core. Mercilessly he ignored her needy cries and moved from one breast to the other, sucking, nipping, torturing the agonized nubs until she couldn’t hold back. The first time that Nate made love to her, he’d been as surprised as she was that she climaxed from his focused attention to her breasts. Feeling the rising waves of pleasure shooting from the sensitive tips straight to her core, she cried out.
“Oh, oh, don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”
His murmur was low, husky.
“God, no. I won’t stop. Not now. Not ever.”
When she didn’t think she could handle another erotic attack he twisted one nipple between his fingers and thumb and bit down on the other. With a wailing cry, Erin shattered, stunned as always at the waves of pleasure flooding her. Nate held her in place murmuring soft words, praising her, delighted astonishment coloring his voice.
“God, Erin, look at you. Christ, honey, I haven’t even made it to your sexy belly button and you’re coming all over me.”
Nate gazed at her in wonder. He’d learned very quickly how sensitive, how responsive her nipples were. But even so every time she came like this he marveled. Her breathy pleas, her unabashed orgasms thrilled him. He groaned softly. And dammit, he hadn’t even hit the money ball yet. But he sure as hell intended to. He’d never be satisfied until he was inside of her, deep inside. That place where he swore he ended and she began. A place where there was not so much as a breath of air between them.
He stroked her cheek, running his finger over her swollen lips, then slipped his finger inside her mouth, gratified when she instinctively sucked on it. The grasp of her moist tongue and powerful grip sent his prick into high gear. But he cautioned his unruly member, reminding himself that he had places to go, things to do, before he allowed himself to sink inside of her. He reached for the glass of wine and slowly drizzled a cool trail of musky liquid in and around her navel. Like virtually every place on her sensitized body, this ticklish place never failed to make her beg for more. A plea he was pleased to deliver on.
Running his tongue around the sensitive divot, licking and lapping at the fragrant wine, he sucked and nipped on the tender flesh until she was begging for mercy. But he wasn’t through. Tightening his grip on her wrists that he held above her head, he whispered to her.
“I’m going to let go of your hands, baby, but I want them to stay right here. Do you hear me?”
At her soft consenting moan, he continued.
“Here, honey. Hang onto my knees and don’t let go, you hear? Mmm hmm. Good girl. Because baby, I need both of my hands to do this.”
When she reached up behind her head and grasped his knees arching up even more, her head thrashing from side to side, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. But he couldn’t let her go. Not until he mixed the musky wine with the sweetest juices in the world. Murmuring to her a soft erotic threat that she wasn’t to let go of his knees, he pressed his hands between her legs, spreading them apart. Her resistance only drove his need higher.
He growled low. “Open, baby, open for me. Hmm. God, yes, Erin, like that.”
In an erotic game of push and pull, he separated her legs, pushing against her resistance until she was open to him. The sight of her soft moist folds, slick with musky juices almost undid him. Grasping for restraint, he drizzled the cool fragrant liquid over her tormented flesh delighting in her surprised squeal.
His voice was soft, teasing, thick with need. “How about you just lie back and relax?” Pressing her feet against his shoulders, he cradled her bottom in his big hands and pulled her closer to him. With a rumbling groan he lifted her to his mouth eager to taste the heady mix of wine and wildly aroused woman.
“That’s the way, Erin. Let’s put your legs over my shoulders, give me better access to get all that wine off of you.” He reveled in fragrance of her heated flesh and teased her with his lips and tongue. Holding her tight when she writhed with pleasure, he chortled, “Damn honey, this tastes good. Need to get a case of this wine and send my compliments to the vintner.”
He reveled in her cries, her impeachments to let her come, but he refused to let her climax until he’d had his fill. He wanted her wild with desire. It was only fair. Every nerve ending in his body was demanding release, but first he need to give this glorious woman one more earth shaking orgasm. Only the strength of his shoulders between her legs and his growled command that she keep her arms above her head allowed him the access he needed. When he’d licked and sucked and tasted the heady mix of her and the musky wine, he felt the beginning waves of her orgasm.
As her cries became more intense, more frantic, her screams of agonized pleasure drove his restraint to the breaking point. He knew he couldn’t hold back. His need, his desire was too strong, too overwhelming. Holding her tight against him, he moved them off the chair, to the floor. Kneeling over her, he laid her head on the floor and draped her feet over his shoulders. Holding her buttocks up high in his huge hands, somehow he got his zipper down and freed his raging erection. She cried out, begging him to come into her.
His voice was gruff, harsh. “Oh yeah, Erin. I’m going to come in you. I’m going to ride you baby. Ride you hard! Now, baby, Now.”
Holding her hips up tight against his groin, he entered her. His cry was as impassioned as hers. With one hard thrust after another he drove into her, his need to take her rising to unimaginable heights. When he felt her tighten around him, clasping him as the waves of yet another orgasm flooded over her, he let himself go. Reveling in her tight sheathe, her sobbing cries, he rode the tsunami of pleasure gripping him. He filled her with one burst of semen after another, his impassioned shouts mingling with hers.
Long after he managed to get them both into their huge four poster bed, after he’d cleaned the remnants of the musky wine and their combined juices off her sated body, he held her close. He listened to her soft breaths mixed with occasional sighs. Even in her sleep she clung to him nestled against his body confirming that she was his and he belonged to her.
From the first time he’d made love to Erin, he was humbled at her passionate response to him. It was more than he ever could have expected. He was surprised and profoundly grateful that somehow she had been able to break through her hideous past and respond to him. It was a gift that he treasured. He was a hungry, demanding lover. He always had been. But in a lifetime of bringing women to orgasm, nothing had touched him the way Erin’s abandoned response to him did. It was as though her need for him was as great as his for her. It drove him higher, harder than he’d ever been.
When he wasn’t with her, just the thought of her gorgeous body, her scent, her soft pleas came back to him as though he could hear her, smell her. And like the primal beast that he was, he headed for the source, unable to stay away from her for long. The fact that she responded to him as joyfully, as fully as she did, was a gift he treasured. It almost made him think that maybe there was a God. Something he’d never allowed himself to consider. He’d seen too many examples that confirmed that if a higher power controlled the happiness or lack of it in the human race, it was a cruel, capricious power. Erin had turned his cynical view of life on its ear. Little by little he was coming to believe that he was worthy of this woman. That somehow he actually deserved this much happiness.
As if to shake that incipient belief, the memories of the hideous crime scene seeped into his brain. He allowed himself to remember the way that Laura had thrown herself at him. He knew that Laura did nothing unintentionally—no matter what her state of mind. Snuggling closer to Erin, he s
ilently pledged that he would not allow Laura to come between them, to in any way hurt Erin.
But even as he made his pledge, he acknowledged what he was up against. Laura was the most devious, persistent women he’d ever known. Keeping her at a distance would take every ounce of strength he had. He comforted himself that if pure hatred was a worthy weapon, he had one in spades. And he intended to use every element of it to keep Laura at bay.
Chapter 5
Nate left early the next morning, leaving a note on Erin’s pillow. He longed to crawl back in beside her. To wake her with his lips and body. Instead he slipped out quietly for what was certain to be a hell of a long day. Any day that starts with a 6 a.m. meeting was bound to be brutal. They’d agreed to meet at the morgue. Jim had promised to at least do a preliminary, at least try to get a time of death.
When he arrived, Dan, Jim and Charlie were already in the conference room. Nate threw his folder on the table and joined them.
“What do we have, Jim?”
“Not a goddamned thing, Nate. At least, nothing definitive. I put a rush on everything at the lab, but hell, they don’t even get in until 8 a.m. We flew the specimens up to the Cities, with a demand for priority. That’ll help. Christ, I hope they doped the poor bastard with something. Mike was a prick, pure and simple, but I wouldn’t want to wish that kind of pain on anyone.”
Nate nodded. “How close are you on time of death?”
Jim glanced down at the sheaf of papers in front of him. “Again, nothing definite but we do have the liver temp reading which puts the actual time of death about two hours before Laura called it in. Of course, there are so many other variables that we could be off by a couple of hours.”
“Who took Laura’s call? Which dispatch?”
Charlie broke in, “Toni Anderson, Nate. We have the recording. I had it transcribed for you. I also interviewed Toni. To see if I could pick up any vibes. The transcript is in your folder – third tab down.”