by Karen Anders
He slid his hand down until he found the core of her, hidden from him. He rubbed his thumb rhythmically against the nerve-rich nub. Jenna cried out and he sighed with satisfaction as she bucked hard against him.
Jenna turned toward him, her hands sliding down his chest to the waistband. With sure, tantalizing movements, she pressed the heel of her hand against the hard, long length straining against his fly. The pulsating hardness in his groin nearly exploded when she slipped her fingers beneath the waistband. He ground his mouth hungrily against hers, heat searing through him as she lightly smoothed her thumb over the moist, slick tip of his arousal.
Sam clenched his teeth at the feel of her hands closing around his throbbing erection. His control shredded when she stroked his pulsating flesh in her hands. Sam’s face contorted at the sharp, intense pleasure that ricocheted through him. An impatient moment later, the jeans were pushed off his hips and she was cradling all of him between her hands.
With an uncontrollable need he pressed into her hands, closing his eyes as she cupped him, giving him intense and mind-shattering pleasure.
He pulled out of her grasp, turning her until her back was against his chest once again. Sliding his hand beneath the thin elastic of the thong, he drew the silky garment down her legs.
He lifted her body and kicked the scrap of cloth out of the way. Setting her back on her feet, he knelt down. Dragging his chest over her buttocks and sliding his hand along her back, he urged her forward. He found her sex hot, wet against his mouth. He pleasured her with his tongue. He eased a finger inside her and soft whimpers filled his ears like music.
She moaned and her inner muscles clenched. He used his hand on her inner thigh to widen her stance, and his other arm snaked around her stomach pulling her closer. He took her in a deep, wild kiss, at the same time probing more deeply with his finger. His tongue rubbed rhythmically in accompaniment to his finger. Jenna cried out again and again at the double onslaught.
He wanted her to remember him, drown out any other encounter she’d ever had until he was the only man who could make her this hot, this wild. The sound of her pleasure shattered his own control. He wanted her. Now. Right now. He didn’t want to wait, couldn’t take a few precious moments to move her to a bed. He rose in one fluid movement. Shoving his jeans and briefs off completely, he quickly tossed them aside. Reaching for her again, he bent her at the waist. Grasping her hips, he thrust forward, the tip of his cock pushing just against her tight core. With his eyes squeezed tightly together, he threw back his head and clenched his teeth. His body was full to overflowing, his muscles shaking as he fought the ever-growing ache.
“Please, Sam,” she pleaded. She moved feverishly against him, groaning.
“What about protection?”
“It’s okay. Sam, please.”
With a powerful thrust he plunged into her, driving his hips in one long, strong slide.
Gaining a moment’s control, Sam stopped moving. Sweat beading on his brow and sliding down his chest, with formidable effort he held himself in check. An agony of sensation shot through him when she flexed her hips, her hot, wet tightness gripping him, stroking him, drawing him to culmination.
His next thrust was deeper, and Jenna cried out brokenly, her tight muscles gripping his shaft. She moved against him frantically, accepting his thrust. His hips slammed against her buttocks, and suddenly she stiffened and groaned deeply, her delicate movements clasping him like a glove. It was all it took to shatter Sam’s control. With one harder, deeper thrust, the swelling need crested and claimed him.
8
IT TOOK A LONG TIME before either of them was aware of their position or could speak coherently. Sam gently stepped away from her as Jenna straightened and turned to twine her arms around his neck, one hand entangling in the longer hair at his nape. The way they had lost control was amazing to her. Her previous encounters had been tame compared to this. But the strength of her desire erased the single moment of panic she’d had in the office. Why was she running from what she wanted?
This was how she wanted Sam, unleashing the sizzling passion she detected in his eyes. Their flirting dance of desire, from the moment she met him at the airport, had led her to this—the most amazing sexual experience of her life.
Sam stared at her and reached up a hand to brush away the damp hair against her cheek. Tears stung her eyes at the tender way he touched her as he slipped his arms around her and held her close. With a movement that was as easy as opening a door, he scooped her up and, ignoring the clothes haphazardly strewn behind them, took her to his room. He knelt on the bed and laid her carefully down. She didn’t let go of his shoulders.
He studied her face in the moonlight. After several long seconds he spoke. “Stay with me tonight.” His voice was low. She pulled him closer to her, unable to let him go. Cupping his jaw, the scratchy feel of his beard rasped against her palm, another sensual goad to her tingling body.
She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. An emotion washed over her that she couldn’t identify, didn’t dare identify. He wanted her to stay. Sleep with him, something she’d never done in the past. It seemed too intimate, too trusting. She’d never been needed like this before and the feeling caused gut-wrenching fear.
He pulled her into his arms and she snuggled close to him, pushing the fear aside. For the first time in her life, that awful ugly feeling of loneliness didn’t weigh heavily on her heart.
This was temporary, she told herself as she sighed against the warmth of Sam’s arms. Only temporary.
JENNA AWOKE at the feel of Sam’s hot mouth on her breast. She turned to him, burying her hand in his hair, dragging her palm over his shoulder. He pulled powerfully at her breast, pushing her back slightly so that he could get to her other aching nipple. “Sam,” she said fiercely as he bit her, making her think of the exquisite pleasure and pain of nipple rings. A hard stab of sensation drove into her core as she thrust upward toward Sam, seeking the hardness of his body to alleviate the ache of hers.
Her hand trailed over his hip, her fingers pressing rhythmically into his flesh. She caressed his muscled thighs, skirted his straining erection and stroked his belly. He moaned against her breast, his hands going to the button of nerves between her legs. She cried out as he stroked her and entered her with his finger. She trailed her fingers downward again, closer this time but still avoiding his hard length.
Finally, he groaned. “Touch me,” he begged huskily. “C’mon, sugar, you’re driving me crazy.”
“Bite me again, Sam. It feels so good.” He complied, taking her nipple and rolling it against his teeth. She curled her hand around his cock and jerked her hand up and down. Sam jackknifed against her. She pushed at him and rolled him onto his back, enjoying the way he couldn’t stop flexing his hips, driving his erection against the hand she’d wrapped around him. When her mouth covered the head of his penis, he bucked and cried out her name. The skin was so silky and hot she explored the round tip with her tongue. Sam thrust uncontrollably against her mouth as she took all of him, sucking hard, pulling his hips off the bed with each long movement of her mouth.
He grabbed her shoulders and dragged her up his body. “Jen, please,” he begged, and she eased down on him slowly. He twisted his head and she came up and then teased him again with just a few more inches. “Damn, Jen, you’re killing me.”
She absorbed another inch of him and then another. Her thighs were trembling from the aching torture. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
“Jen,” he pleaded now, thrusting his hips upward, and she drove herself to the hilt. He cried out and captured her mouth in a deep, wet kiss that spoke of his need. One hand went to her bottom, pressing her more firmly against him, and she squirmed beneath his touch, wanting to be even closer. He stroked a finger between her legs and she bucked against him at the touch.
He surged upward, and her gasp became a cry. The rhythm of his thrusts were wildly intoxicating, driving him deeper and deeper within he
r. Jenna gave herself up to the need rocketing through her. Her knees clasped his hips tighter and tighter, until the ultimate explosion wrung a cry from her lips. She fell forward, and he lifted her one more time until he was moaning with his own release.
She made a murmur of protest when he rolled her off him, but soon quieted when he pulled her into his arms.
THE NEXT TIME Jenna opened her eyes, she encountered a sleeping Sam. His eyes were closed, his chest heaving evenly. She sighed while she looked at him, feeling tender emotions curl around her heart.
Sam filled her vision. He lay on his back, his dark hair like ink against the stark whiteness of the pillow, one arm thrown over his head and the other flung straight out in her direction, as if in supplication, so close to her that she could reach out and touch him.
If she could only touch him, everything would be okay. Sunlight from a break in the blinds crossed his hand and bare forearm. The sun turned his dark skin almost…golden.
She pushed herself up on her elbow, and in slow increments she reached toward his extended hand. His palm lay upturned and half-open, the fingers curled in soft relaxation. His hands were big, the fingers long and blunt. They looked like working man’s hands—tough and capable. Her eyes traveled up from his palm to his wrist, where the pulse beat slowly underneath the smooth skin. She longed to touch such vibrant life. Life that pulsed from him with radiant promise and languid heat.
She had defined herself one specific way for all of her life. She’d kept her relationships casual and temporary. In her meaningless encounters, she’d chosen unavailable men. Men who wouldn’t be interested in committing. Men who wouldn’t tie her down. Men who wouldn’t get hurt by her own inability to commit. If they didn’t love her, she couldn’t hurt them.
She licked her lips, wanting so much just to touch him. The sheet had slipped off his shoulder and arm; his biceps, even in sleep, was taut with a velvet swell of bare skin and muscle.
She imagined smoothing her palm across his shoulder. Her heart beat faster. She could see the outline of his body beneath the sheet, the fluent shape of his torso and hip, powerful, relaxed perfection, his leg drawn up a little for comfort.
There was an ache in her, a restlessness. She was on the edge of something she wanted and could not have.
Her hand closed in midair just inches from his and then she drew back.
The shock of his warm hand clasping hers made her eyes flash to his face. He’d turned his head and had been watching her.
He smiled, tugged, and Jenna was enticed forward onto his chest, straddling his body until she was as close to him as she could get.
He gave her an amused look, the creases around his eyes crinkling, the intimate glimmer setting off sensations in her midriff that made her pulse skip and falter. He held her gaze, an almost smile in his eyes, and then he gently reached out and grabbed a thick strand of her hair, absently rubbing it between his fingers. He tugged gently. “Morning.”
“It is that.”
“It was one hell of a night.”
“Yes, it was that, too.”
“Are you always so amicable in the morning?”
“Only when I’m fully satisfied and wholly ravished.”
His eyebrows rose. Watching him stretched out like a big dangerous cat, with his intense blue eyes, tangled lashes and faint, lazy smile brought back vivid memories of how she’d been thoroughly enticed.
“Ravished. I like that.”
“Mmm…so did I.” Jenna shifted restlessly against Sam’s hips. Last night had been wonderful and Jenna’s thoughts returned to her gran’s diary. Her gran had been on a journey for what seemed like a long time to find what Jenna hadn’t even been looking for—mind-numbing, body-crushing passion. She looked down into Sam’s sleepy, dreamy eyes and tried to gain control over her shaken emotions.
Feeling a pang of guilt, she looked away from him, her gaze landing on the pocket watch that Sam must have put on his nightstand. She braced her hand against the bed and reached over, scooping up the watch. Positioning herself against Sam’s chest by folding her elbows and leaning forward, she examined the outside.
“It was my great-grandfather’s. He gave it to my grandfather, who gave it to my dad. When my dad died…” Sam’s words trailed off, and the pain in his voice drew her eyes to his face. She could see the grief, the loss, and both went straight to her heart. How could she not believe that this man who had such a sentimental attachment to a piece of his history wouldn’t understand about her quest to get the diary back and keep them both from prying eyes?
She slipped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts flat against his chest. For a silent moment, she held him. Her own loss welled up in her chest. “Tell me.”
“It was part of what he bequeathed to me. The ranch, the livestock, all of it. If there had been a more modern hospital, my dad might have survived the heart attack.”
“So that is why you’re so dedicated to the renovation of the hospital?”
“That, and to help the people in the surrounding area. It’s what my father would have wanted. Not for himself, mind you, but for the people of Savannah. People my great-grandmother loved. Even now, we’re still a tight-knit community although we’ve grown some.”
“That’s something to cherish, Sam.”
“I do cherish it. I feel as if I have a responsibility to these people passed down from my great-grandfather. He built this ranch and the town with his own blood, sweat and tears.” He pressed on the timepiece and the face popped open.
“I can understand why you feel responsible for the legacy that your father left you. My legacy is music. My gran was a famous opera singer in her time. My mother followed in her footsteps.”
“Why did you choose the violin then?”
“I didn’t want to compete with my mother.”
“Why not?”
“My gran raised me because my mother was too busy with her career. Opera is her life. She needs it—the fame, the adulation. She wouldn’t appreciate me taking the spotlight away from her.”
“Are you good?”
“Vocally?”
He smiled and ran his hand up her hip. “Shoot, yeah. What did you think I meant?”
She flashed him a cheeky smile and said, “My gran said I could have had a career in the opera. Whether I would have climbed to a higher pinnacle than my mother, I couldn’t say. But the violin is what I love.”
“You say that as if it’s the only thing you love.”
“Since my gran died, it is, Sam.”
He nodded. “No room for anything else?”
“No.”
He looked away from her, shifting to the edge of the bed. He closed the timepiece and placed the watch on the nightstand.
When he turned back to her, he cupped her face. “That’s sad, Jenna. Real sad.”
“My mother wasn’t around. I retreated into my music for solace. I’m a self-sufficient, independent woman, and I like my life that way. I don’t think it’s sad.”
“You don’t see any future for yourself.”
“Sure I do. I hope to teach at a prestigious college someday or open my own school.”
“I mean a family, Jenna.”
Her stomach jumped. “Never. I can’t see myself being a mother.”
“Because your own was so distant?”
“I don’t think I can dedicate myself to a family and to my music. I’m not willing to give it up like my gran did.”
He pulled her close and held her. “That’s too bad.”
She leaned against him and agreed with him. It was too bad, but it was the way it had to be. The thought of people depending on her, expecting something from her, frightened her.
After a moment, Sam said, “How about a trip into town? You need those duds if you’re going to take a tour of the ranch with me.”
Guilt assaulted her deep in her gut. He’d been so kind and had even gotten over having her in his home. Yet she was still hiding her real reason for being h
ere. She would tell him the truth, and, at least in that respect, deal with him on an honest basis.
“Sam?”
“Mmm,” he mumbled as he buried his face in her neck, sending goose bumps down her arms and peaking her naked nipples into hard buds.
“I would like to tell you…” The shrill ringing of the phone made Jenna jump, and Sam automatically reached for the intrusive instrument.
“Winchester.”
He listened for a few minutes. A frown appeared on his face. “We’re short? By how much?”
Jenna watched him focus on the conversation and she slid to the edge of the bed, looking for her nightgown, and then remembered it’d been left behind at her mirror.
“Don’t worry, Lester. We’ll get the extra we need. I’ll talk to the contractors.” He paused and his voice got firmer. “I’ll get it any way I can. I’d even sell my soul. That’s a promise. The renovation of the hospital is my number one priority.”
Hopeless regret crept through her at his words, causing a zinging, jagged pain in her heart. She closed her eyes, realizing how close she’d come to exposing her secret, exposing her gran’s private, erotic thoughts to people who wouldn’t understand, nor appreciate a young girl’s search for passion.
Although she sensed that Sam was a good man, and nothing like her uncle or the judge, Sam’s altruistic motives were obvious and stated. He’d be susceptible to exploiting her grandmother’s treasure. Jenna wanted to trust him, but she couldn’t risk her gran’s diary for something that could prove too fragile to survive Sam’s dedication to a very deserving cause.
What she and Sam shared wasn’t strong and enduring. It was just sex—great sex—but sex nonetheless. After four days in Sam’s presence, it was clear to her that he followed through on all matters that were important to him. She would have to put her physical reaction to Sam in perspective and carry on with her own agenda.