Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

Everyplace she touched him, everyplace he held, was fire. Pure desperation. Her pliant body pressed tight to his, his hard mouth taking her soft one. She had her legs wrapped around him again, and he was carrying her, capturing her, but she had him in her grasp, too, and they both knew it. He was walking her backward toward the door, pulling it shut and turning the lock while he held her up with one arm under her slim body. She was light enough, and he was strong enough, and both of those things gave him a hard, sharp thrill. Then her back was against the wall, and he still had that arm under her, but the other was around her head, cushioning it against the wall while he kissed her.

  Deep. Hot. Hard. Nothing gentle about it, because she was his, and she wanted to be.

  They were sliding down the wall, and she was on the floor, and he was over her. His mouth at her pale throat, his fingers in her hair, and still, she hadn’t made a sound. The music swelled, his teeth grazed her delicate skin, and her back arched, strong as a bow, only her hips and head touching the floor. As if, if you got her going hard enough, she could levitate straight into the air.

  She wasn’t holding him now. Her palms were flat on the floor, her entire upper body straining toward him, like she was halfway there already from his mouth at her neck, his body over hers.

  His hand was finally inside the thin layer of stretchy fabric that was her leotard, cupping a small, firm breast and feeling her respond like they were connected, like he was inside her already.

  He heard something from her at last, then. A quick little intake of breath, and it was gasoline on the flames. He was yanking the leotard down, freeing her breasts, his mouth dragging down her body. Her neck, her shoulder, lingering in the most sensitive spots, drawing it out until the body beneath him was thrumming with tension and he knew, as if he could feel everything she felt, that she needed more. That she needed it now.

  He found the hardened peak with his mouth, took his pleasure there, and gave it to her. Navigating only by her breathing, the tiny movements of her upper body, the tension as her muscles tightened. The music playing, the tempo rising, the strings vibrating, and Chloe vibrating with them.

  When he pulled the ribbon of her skirt and watched it fall away, then yanked leotard, tights, and skirt below her hips in one swift movement, she sucked in another of those quick breaths. And when his hand was caressing her breast and he was kissing her mouth again, her body lifting into his? He was gone.

  His hands began to strip her clothes all the way off, and he was stopped.

  Shoes. Ballet shoes, and they were tied on.

  She must have had the same thought, because she was sitting up, her hands going to the pink slippers, unfastening the ribbons, the layers of soft, stretchy fabric around her ankles. His hand was still on a breast, because how could it be anywhere else?

  That was when the thought that had been knocking insistently at his preoccupied mind finally made it through.

  “Bloody hell,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his.

  Chloe’s hands jerked in the act of unwinding pink ribbon, and something worse happened. She was pulling back. He could feel it as if she’d said it. She was retreating, and he didn’t want retreat. He wanted headlong. He wanted can’t-stop-now. He wanted surrender.

  “What?” she said. “Please. No.” Which was a jolt of another kind. And then she said, “Don’t stop.”

  “Condom.” Two syllables. One impossible word.

  “Oh.” She was yanking her clothes up again, and he suddenly realized why, and what he’d been asking for. That she was cold and naked on a hardwood floor. “Yeh,” she said. “I’m not ... it’s been a long time.”

  He had an arm around her waist again. “Chloe. No. It’s all right. It’s all good.”

  She stopped trying to get her clothes on, at least. And he kissed her, slow and sweet. Silken skin under his hands. Soft lips under his mouth, big eyes drifting shut. His. “You deserve better than the floor anyway,” he told her between those drugging kisses. “Better than the wall.” Trying to tell himself so. Trying to let her go.

  “No,” she said. “I love the floor. I love the wall.” And he may have lost his breath. “I love how you feel coming down over me, like it’s ... going to happen. Like you’re going to …”

  “Yeh,” he said. “I’m going to.” She loved it? Then he was going to do it now. He was always careful off the field. Except today.

  “But ...” She glanced at the door. “People.”

  “Door’s locked.” He was kissing her again, and her waist was tight and firm under his hand, but with that curve, that wonderful indentation that told him this was a woman, that it was Chloe, and that she wanted him almost as much as he wanted her.

  “Condom,” she breathed into his mouth.

  “Oh, baby,” he promised, “we’ll get to the condom. But first, we’re getting to this.” His hand moved down, over her slim hip, down the long muscles of her thigh, the curve of her calf. Stroking down her body, feeling her thrill to him even as he pulled her clothes all the way off.

  Later, he promised himself. Later, he’d get everything. Right now, though, he had to taste her. He had to do more than that. He had to lift her hips to his mouth, to drink her up, to swallow her down. He had to make her shake. He had to make her come. He needed it.

  Hands. Hers on him, grabbing at his arms, his shoulders. And his on her. Hands, and lips, and tongue, and teeth. On her flat, firm belly, her slim thighs. Until he had a hand around each of them and was parting her legs, his thumbs stroking up, then up higher.

  “Kevin.” The word was a gasp, and her back was arching again. “I should ... a shower.”

  It was a moan, and he barely heard it, and if he did? He didn’t care. Her skin was warm, and it was silk. And when he touched her at last, felt the wetness, the heat ... her hips lifted straight off the floor.

  He still had one hand around her thigh, and as for her? She was holding his head as if she needed him to stay exactly where he was.

  The music stopped, and it was so quiet. Her fingers were in his hair, holding on, pulling some, because she couldn’t help it. Her body was taut beneath him, one of his hands under her, lifting her into him. Vague noises came from the corridor: hurrying feet, a young voice calling, another answering. And here in the quiet dark, on the hard floor, Chloe was rising into him, her back arching, her breath coming hard, her body nearly shaking with the force of it. And when his finger found its way inside her, she went rigid.

  Ah. He worked her harder, gave her more, used every bit of skill his lips and tongue possessed, sent a second finger to join the first, and her back arched like a bow.

  He knew without looking that her eyes were closed, her mouth open. Her body was quaking, shuddering, and her grip on his hair was nearly painful. She was silent, but she wasn’t one bit still. And when he shifted his mouth, began a gentle suction, she came undone.

  She was shaking so hard that he could barely hold her. Except that he could hold her, and he did. He held her, and he worked her all the way through the long, silent spasms. Again and again. The soaring music, her gasping breath, and the body underneath him surrendering to it all.

  It took long seconds for her to stop trembling, for her hands to slacken in his hair, but when it happened at last, he kissed his way back up her body, loving that he could do it, and finally took her mouth again. She was all yielding sweetness as she lay beneath him, breathless and limp, all reserve forgotten. And if she was a princess? He was a king.

  Her hands were on his shoulders again, and when she spoke, there was a hitch in her voice. “Condom. Home. I need you ... I need you inside me.”

  “Oh, baby,” he said, and he’d never meant anything more in his life, “so do I.”

  A breath of a laugh, and she was sitting up, grabbing her shoes by the pink ribbons, picking up her clothes. Her body lithe and pale in the dim light from the high windows, as sleek as a cat, and as gracefully languid.

  And not satisfied any more than he was, because sh
e knelt there on the floor, naked, looped an arm around his neck, pulled his head down to hers, kissed him with too much sweetness and too much heat, and said, “You could go back. You could meet me upstairs. If you get there before me ... the door isn’t locked. If you wanted to fall on me like a wild animal ... I could take that. I’d love to take it. I love the wall. I love the floor. I want it all.”

  You could say that he left in a hurry.

  The drive was ten minutes. It felt like thirty. He didn’t speed. But he wanted to.

  Did a semblance of reason return to Chloe on the drive home? Could be. But she didn’t listen to it. Maybe because her body was still humming. Or maybe because it was still shaking.

  Forget caution. Forget complicated, and forget careful. Forget that Kevin was her landlord and her neighbor. Right now, she was a body, and that was all. And she needed to be a body. She needed him.

  All she’d done at the studio was to pull on her track pants and sweater and stuff the rest of her kit into her dance bag, but all the same, when she got to the carpark, Kevin’s black Ford was gone. And when she got back to the house, it was there. She put a hand on the bonnet as she went by, felt the heat, heard the tick of a cooling engine.

  He’d just got here, then. Good. She’d jump into the shower and—

  The second she was in the door, he was on her. One big hand slammed the door closed, and then his arms were around her, lifting her, his mouth on hers, and he was carrying her in his arms down the passage, kicking doors open until he found her bedroom.

  “I need a ... shower,” she gasped as he lowered her onto the bed and came down over her. His feet were bare, but other than that? He was freshly shaved, neatly dressed, and smelling of clean man and shaving cream and cotton, and she was a woman who’d spent two hours dancing.

  And yes, a person could point out that she hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to that fact back there on the studio floor, and that he hadn’t seemed to care, but maybe a tiny bit of reason was returning now.

  Or maybe not, because he had her track pants down her body already, was stripping them over her feet and dropping them to the floor, then working on her sweater.

  “No,” he said, and that was good enough for her. She was reaching for him, too, unfastening buttons, but they wouldn’t undo fast enough. And she couldn’t do it anyway, because he was pushing her down onto her back.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed, rising into him again as his hands brushed down her legs, parted her thighs, and the heat flared. “Feels so good.”

  His laugh didn’t come out entirely steady. “We haven’t even started yet. Started again.”

  She was scrambling to her knees, pulling him to his knees with her. “Then let’s start. Now.”

  His last few buttons opened under her eager hands, and then she was undoing his cuffs, had her hands on his hard, bare chest and was kissing his neck, licking him there.

  It had been so long. Much too long, and he was so big and so strong. She needed him on her, over her, inside her. Right now.

  He yanked the shirt off, but her hands were already on his belt, on his zip, and when she looked up at him, his eyes were greener than she’d ever seen them. Shining. Promising. His chest rose and fell, and she knew that he was as desperate as she was. More, because he hadn’t been one single bit satisfied.

  It was going to be all right. He’d already pleased her, and now, she was going to please him. She smiled, slow and wicked, and got ready to do it.

  She was never sexy, other than when she danced, but she felt sexy when she got her hands under the waistband of his boxer briefs and was pulling them down over his hips, over those heavily muscled thighs.

  She kissed his neck again, and now, her hands got bolder. They were stroking over him, testing the size of him, and—you could say he passed. That was going to feel so good. He made a noise, a strangled sound, and now, the power was in her.

  “Lie down,” she whispered in his ear, then bit the lobe, making him twitch again. Feeling all his strength, and all his self-control. Then she was pushing him onto his back, starting to pull his trousers the rest of the way off. Until his hands closed over her wrists, that is.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Me first.” He flipped her so he was on top, then reached into his pocket, grabbed the foil-wrapped packets, and dropped them onto the duvet before he rid himself of trousers and briefs.

  She was catching her breath, starting to say something—what, she didn’t know—but his hands were in her hair, cradling her head, and he was kissing the breath out of her. His big, hard body lay over hers, and it felt like the moment when the music swelled and you were just about to throw everything you had into it, to dance with everything in you.

  Pas de deux. Your partner turning you, holding you, steady and sure, tender and strong at the same time, and most of all … in charge. He was sliding down her body, his hand running up her arm, stretching it up over her head. His mouth was at her breast, and the silver shocks began, one after another, going straight to her core. The pulse that had started all the way back when she’d seen him at the studio door, the thrum that had barely been satisfied despite everything they’d done ... it was all leaping to life again.

  His palm was on her other breast, teasing the peak, not one bit of him complaining that she was too small. He touched her like she was all he wanted. Everything he wanted. That hand was drifting down her side, over her hip, her thigh, and his mouth followed it down.

  His lips on her belly, his hands opening her thighs.

  He couldn’t want to do this again, but he did. Oh, he did.

  No choice now. Following the music, following the choreography, as inevitable as breathing. Leaping into your partner’s arms, feeling him lifting you overhead. Lifting you high. Hands. Mouth. Lips and tongue. Holding you so tight, carrying you with him until all you could do was surrender.

  Making you fly.

  Once again, she was absolutely silent except for her breathing, but her body was telling him everything he needed to know.

  Chloe rising into his mouth, her hands grabbing his head and hanging on. Her hips lifting, then beginning to move in an urgent rhythm when he opened her with one finger, then sent another to join it, and started to work her over there. She rode that hand, his mouth like they belonged to her, because they did.

  And still, she didn’t moan. No music here, and she was silent.

  When he got her closer, so much faster this time, she started to tremble. And when he pushed her higher, she started to shake. He worked her harder, and she was bucking into him, her back arching even more, her hands falling away now, clutching at the white duvet, twisting it. Back and forth. Grabbing. So close.

  Her gasping breaths. Her muscles taut as steel cables. The salt-sea taste of her, and the moment when it was more. When the crashing waves took her over and she was convulsing around his fingers, when he drew out her endless, rolling orgasm. When she gave it to him, gave it up, all the more intense because it was silent.

  He stayed with her all the way through it, but he didn’t stay any longer than that. He was up her body, kissing her mouth, letting her taste herself on him, letting her know where he’d been and how much he’d loved it. He could feel the trembling aftershocks in her body, and he needed to be inside all that heat. Right now.

  He’d been patient. He’d made sure she was ready again. Now, he was done being patient.

  On his elbow, now, reaching for one of the packets, ripping it open with hands that insisted on trembling. A few seconds, and he was there at last. Holding her beneath him, sliding inside her warmth. Taking it easy, taking it slow. Wanting to make it last.

  For a while, he managed it. Until it wasn’t enough. She was so tight, and her arms were flung out to the side. He had to be touching all of her. He needed every single bit of her. He had her hands, was threading his fingers through hers, pressing her hands and arms onto the bed, and it stopped being slow and definitely stopped being gentle.

  No hope anymor
e of taking it easy. She was wrapping those long, slender legs around his waist, nearly up to his shoulders, impossibly supple, changing the angle, pulling him higher, and he’d let go of her hands and was on his palms, driving hard, her breath and his own in his ears, and nothing else. Nothing in the world but the sensation of being inside her, the heat and the ... the ...

  He lost the words. He lost his mind, because she was doing something with her interior muscles now, clenching and releasing, giving him a workout that had his hips stilling, needing to feel it. To get all of that. That incredible ...

  She still wasn’t making noise, but he was. She was pulling sounds from him that he’d never made. Agony, or ecstasy, or both. Too much. Too strong. And then the sensations got stronger, because she was coming again, and he was plunging hard. Going deep. Going all the way.

  He groaned, long and low. She didn’t. And all the same—she went up. Heat. Flames. Fire.

  She scorched him black. She melted him to the bone. She burned him down.

  Finally, she made some noise. Finally, she talked. When she was lying over him, her head on his chest. She’d be able to feel the galloping of his heart, the breath that was only now returning to normal.

  “I was afraid,” she said, “that it wouldn’t work. It’s been so long. And I thought you were ... you might be ...”

  She stopped, and he lifted his head. Even that was a major effort at this moment. “I might be what? I can’t wait.”

  “Well ...” She hid her face in his chest. His palm smoothed down her back, and he felt her shiver again just from that.

  Power, that was what she gave him. So much power. “You’re ...” She kissed him on the shoulder, then took a little bite out of the muscle there. “Nice.”

  What? He’d been nice? Not how he’d felt.

  “I’m a dancer.” She was fully over him now, propped on an elbow, smiling down into his face. “I wasn’t sure about a nice guy. I need it intense and hard and, ah … strong.”

  “Fortunately,” he said, “I am strong.”