by Liz Crowe
“Wait,” she mumbled before he covered her mouth, silencing her with a kiss so intense the room actually got dark. “Wow,” she whispered into his lips. “You’re damn good at that.”
“Hmm, yes, I’ve had some practice. And it was all for you.” His voice sounded raw, rough. He smiled and her heart gave up the ghost, finally, forcing her into action. Panic nearly suffocated her when she realized what she was about to do. As if sensing it, he released her, keeping his hands on her knees but giving her some space. She sucked in a breath.
“Shame on you.” Her voice shook. “Kissing me like some kind of gold-medal champion when all you want is a quick lay.”
She put a hand out, meaning to push him, but he grabbed it and hauled her to her feet. Evelyn realized this moment could be life-changing but was unwilling to calculate the cost or regret. His voice struck a deep well of desire in her, not only to let him do it, but to never let him out of her sight again.
He spoke, rattling her nerves even further. “Guilty. But that’s not all I want from you, Ms. Benedict.”
She tried not to shiver and lost the battle the moment he brushed her lips with his once more. He held her close and the calm he exuded poured over her nerve endings like a warm waterfall. She kept her arms in front of her, knowing if she did anything else, she’d be lost forever.
“I don’t like you.” She spoke into his chest, taking deep breaths of his delicious scent. Every fiber of her being cried out with relief at being back in his arms. “Not at all. You’re a bossy know-it-all braggart and too rich for your own good.”
He smiled and led her back to the couch. “Maybe. But I like you. And my like beats your don’t like by a lot. Just watch.” He loomed over her then pushed her down, dropped to his knees and tugged the soft flannel pants to her feet in one quick motion. “Kissing isn’t the only thing I medaled at.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, mister.”
He shoved her knees apart.
“You’re awfully pushy, you know that?”
With a wide grin, he lowered his lips to her sex.
She gasped. “Oh my God, don’t stop!” She sighed as his lips closed around her clit. Fingers slipped inside her, reaching high, touching areas she didn’t even know existed while keeping up his exquisite suction.
She lifted her hips, needing more, willing him deeper. He groaned against her, changed the angle of his fingers, and brushed something that made her squeal with delight and thrust against his mouth until the orgasm burst across her consciousness, making the room light, then dark, then perfect. Still gripping him with her thighs, she fell back on the couch, gasping and embarrassed.
“Holy Christ.” She put a shaky hand over her face.
He lifted his gleaming eyes and shiny, wet lips and launched up her body without a word, plundering her mouth, pressing her down onto the couch. For the first time, she didn’t mind the taste of her own sex, if it meant she could kiss him forever.
She sighed and parted her legs even wider, relishing everything about him. He broke the kiss, his smile crooked and endearing, his gaze full of meaning she wasn’t ready to explore. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But it’s still just me. No gods in the room. Unless, of course, you want to worship me.”
“Shut up about yourself, will you? You have too many clothes on,” she muttered around his lips.
“Finally, something we can agree on.”
She grinned and started popping the buttons on his shirt. She flicked at a copper-colored nipple, making him moan and thrust his hips against her.
The familiar velvety-smooth skin of his cock made her sigh with contentment. She brushed her thumb over it, felt fluid pearled at the tip. He shuddered then stood so he could slip his tux trousers all the way off.
“That’s quite the impressive tool you have there.” She put her arms behind her head. To her surprise, he reddened and shrugged. “Oh, damn. You’re shy? How cute.”
He knelt back between her legs, his own gaze dark and admiring. “No, not shy. Just worried.” He licked his way up her body as he tugged her ratty sweatshirt over her head before getting down to work, sucking one nipple then the other into his mouth. Every touch of his lips sent tremors of pleasure and something resembling fear to the base of her brain.
“Worried?” she asked then gasped, threading her fingers through his hair, shoving fear aside in favor of more pleasant thoughts. “What about?”
Austin looked up from her breasts, propped his arms on either side of her head, and covered her mouth with his. The room spun from the force of his kiss.
She broke away, wondering how in the world she would ever be the same. This man would kill her, no doubt about it. He would use his many skills with her body, get what he wanted, and be on his way, leaving her heart in tiny pieces around her feet. “Austin…” She pushed him away but put no real effort behind it.
“I’m worried you won’t respect me after this.” He grinned and sat up, his beautiful eyes wide and dark with desire. The remains of her resolve melted inside their green depths.
“Worry about that after you fuck me silly, why don’t ya?” She meant it, but left the words And please don’t ever leave me unspoken. “I mean, you know, after you put a condom on that thing.” Hiding her real emotions behind a wall of flippancy came easy. Nearly as easy as the tears forming behind her eyes. But she clamped down on that, unwilling to let him see how much these last weeks had affected her. How his very existence was blowing apart her senses and her strength and all the logic that had sustained her for so long.
“Happy to oblige,” he whispered. “Hang on.”
She couldn’t hold back the giggle as she watched the handsomest, most successful and sought-after bachelor in the Midwest fumble around in his pocket for his wallet, then a condom, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. She bit her lip as she watched him roll the latex over his impressive shaft, her body zinging from head to toe with anticipated pleasure.
This is a bad idea.
The voice spoke in her head before she silenced it by reaching for him, pulling him down on top of her as she shifted position on the couch. His lips hovered near her ear. “Glad I can entertain you,” he said, low and growly before roaming down her neck and to her breasts once more, nuzzling, sucking, making her hips thrust and her back arch but keeping the one part of him she wanted separate from her.
Her entire body pulsed, thrummed, and her ears buzzed as he slid a hand down between her legs. She parted them, let him touch her, rub her clit until she begged him to do more, stop teasing and get serious. “Inside me,” she gasped. “Now. Please.”
He kissed her as he propped himself on his hands, teasing her with the head of his cock. She wrapped her legs around his waist, angled her hips, and stared into his eyes. “What are you waiting for?” Her voice sounded harsh, needy, and she hated it, let a small thrill of anger run through her mind. But his soft smile and the honest emotion in his eyes made her shiver. “I need you…inside me…now.”
His face changed then and she saw in him the man she wanted. That realization made her hesitate. Needing a man was simply not on her agenda. Not even the amazing one poised between her legs. Poised to rip her world to shreds. She shut her eyes.
Chapter Eight
Austin wrestled around and yanked his inner grown-up control away from the horny cave man who wanted to simply fuck her. To own her, make her cry his name, and beg for more.
He clenched his jaw and stared at her as her huge blue eyes sent a different message from that of her lush, amazing body. Her legs held him tight—her nipples were hard peaks and he could smell her—the rich, heady pheromone of female desire swirled in his head, bringing that raving teenaged boy to a near-painful point of no return.
He broke away from her and sat, his legs shaking with the effort to maintain his distance. His cock throbbed and his balls ached, but he would not do this. Not after what he’d seen in her face.
She might want him, but she would not re
ally be with him. Something in her would resist and fight him, making him insane, but, at the same time, driving him equally mad with lust.
He groaned at his own weakness. Then again, when she propped a foot on his lap and her leg dropped to the side, exposing the pink perfection of her flesh to his gaze.
“Problem?” She sounded angry. But he’d gotten used to that. He watched as she slid a hand between her legs and touched what he’d tasted and wanted to have so badly. She slipped a finger into herself then rubbed her clit, fast, with purpose. He swallowed hard as she used her other hand to pinch one of her nipples, arched her back and kept stroking, the rhythm perfect, sexy and mind-blowing.
He ran a hand up the leg draped across his, kept watching as her hips bucked and she cried out, the heady aroma of her arousal wrapping around him like a blanket. She calmed, stilled, and he grabbed her hand to pull her up, sucking into his mouth the fingers she’d used to rub herself to orgasm. She put her other hand against his face, never breaking eye contact. In one smooth movement, she straddled him, staying up on her knees, the heat of her pussy igniting yet more fire up and down his spine.
He looked up at her. “I won’t do this, Evelyn. Not if you don’t really want it.”
She smiled, reached down to position his cock then lowered herself onto him, one glorious, exquisite inch at a time. “Jesus,” he groaned as she enveloped his cock. His ears kept buzzing, blocking all sound. His vision dimmed until all he saw or felt or smelled or knew was Evelyn.
“Now, isn’t this much nicer?” She sighed, raising up to release him until just the tip of his cock still remained. Words escaped him as his body responded but his brain shut down. He grabbed one of her luscious breasts, sucked and tugged at her nipple, and shoved up hard, needing to be inside her to feel the perfection of her all at once.
“Yes, it is,” he muttered as he moved to the other breast. “Very.”
Her hum of satisfaction as she ground down onto him, taking his entire length inside her, nearly blew his head off, but that was nothing compared to the soft release as she rose again, making him whimper out loud with need. “I thought so.”
He gripped her hips, looked up into her eyes. “I wanted this from the first second I laid eyes on you.” His voice caught as she slid down again, his pubic bone pressed against her clit. “Shit, woman, you are enough to make a man… Oh…God…yes.”
She rose and sat again. Faster, holding onto his shoulders. Her flesh grew hot under his hands and he watched, fascinated, as her fair skin flushed red, while her entire body pulsed with a strong spasm of energy, grabbing his cock so tightly he gasped.
“Austin,” she whispered, eyes closed and head dropped back, the long line of her neck exposed and luscious.
The sound of his name escaping her lips drove him crazy. But he maintained his control, clutching her hips, as she dropped down onto him, using him to bring on her own shuddering, beautiful climax. Her breasts bounced in front of his eyes, and he sensed his own orgasm gathering strength at the base of his spine, roaring up and making him grunt with the effort to hold back.
He wanted to remember everything about this moment. The way the moonlight split the blinds behind her and lit her hair and one side of her face as her body gave a pulse and shudder, surprising him then making him rear up and hold her close, press his face to her breasts, sweat slickening their skin.
Her final convulsive spasms sent him right over the edge, groaning along with her as his cock stiffened and released. His hips kept moving, his mouth seeking hers as she leaned down to meet him. This most intimate connection of lips made his brain spin. And he knew, then, that his life as he knew it before was over.
She shivered as his skin pebbled in the aftermath of the monster orgasm. His eyes burned and his brain fuzzed, but he was damned if was going to let go of her. Finally, she rose, released his cock, and collapsed onto the couch with a moan of satisfaction.
“A fine tool and a man who knows how to use it. Lucky me.”
He sat back, trying to calm his breathing. The moment of truth had arrived. And he dreaded it. She clambered off the couch, stumbled her way into the kitchen, the curvy beauty of her waist and hips making him breathless again. He put a hand over his eyes.
Now what, Fitzgerald? Gonna march in there and tell her to move in with you? You know that won’t fly. As much as you want it to.
Evelyn clutched the edge of the sink after gulping down a glass of water, her body humming with energy. Damn, but the man was amazing. She had to get him out of there. Out of her life. She had no business fucking around with—and skirting dangerously close to getting attached to—Austin Bloody Fitzgerald.
No matter what he claimed about his ex-girlfriend, it would never work between them. It was up to her to make the next moments their last. That or risk heartbreak she couldn’t endure.
She looked up and watched him as he wrapped the condom in a paper towel and tossed it into the garbage bin. Squealing when he grabbed her hips and pressed his still half-mast erection against her ass. “Cut it out. You aren’t that young.” She jerked out of his reach. “How old are you anyway?”
He turned her around, pulling her close. “You make me this way, Benedict. So blame yourself. And I’ll be thirty-six next month. Let’s plan a party. But first, we feast.” He tugged on his trousers, then picked up his beer from the table.
“Great. A cradle robber too,” she said, drinking him in with her gaze. This man, standing here in her tiny apartment, post-mind-blowing sex. She must be dreaming. “I’m only twenty-four.”
He flipped on her television, grinning when the sports network flashed to life. “Nice. I like ’em young and fresh. And that?” He pointed to the TV screen. “Now I’m really in love.”
“Yeah, I have that effect a lot. I like beer and sports and sex.” She shivered, her teeth rattling with nerves and cold. He grabbed his abandoned dress shirt and draped it across her shoulders. She stuck her arms into it, reveling in its soft caress against her skin and the hint of his subtle cologne. She shoved down the nasty comment about spoiled boys letting their custom-made tuxedo shirts get girl cooties, ducked into her room to grab fresh underwear then joined him on the couch.
The resolve she’d talked herself into to make him leave faded when he tugged her against him. His voice rumbled through her. “And smoking hot, don’t forget.” She shut her eyes, feeling his lips against her hair. “So fresh…and mine.” She pulled away and glared at him. “I mean, in as much as someone as independent and fabulous as you can be, that is. Jesus, Benedict, prickly much? Just let me have this, will ya? And pass that tikka masala before I starve to death.”
Unwilling to think, just wanting to go with the moment, she passed him the food and settled in beside him, their thighs touching, the air between them warm and comfortable. That night she slept in his arms and her dreams were of Austin…and of Ross, the mysterious, sexy, German brewer.
Chapter Nine
“I still think you’re crazy for doing this now.” Evelyn fluffed her hair then pulled it up into a severe bun and glared at herself in the mirror over her tiny bathroom sink. Frowning, she bushed the concealer powder over her face, deciding her makeup was too tacky. Her pulse was racing and her ears rang and she was as pissed off as she’d ever been. But, yet, at the same time, a tiny part of her was hopeful this wouldn’t be a disaster.
“I’m crazy, yes. But not for doing this.” Austin leaned in the doorway behind her, picture perfect in dark trousers, a stark white shirt with heavy cufflinks, and a fancy red tie with tiny geometric patterns. “You look amazing. But not quite perfect.” He stepped behind her and tugged her hair out of its up-do, letting it spill around her shoulders. “Now. It’s perfect.”
She stuck her tongue out at him in the mirror.
“I can think of something you could do with that, young lady,” he said, flipping her around and kissing her, forcing the potential horror of this night out of her mind for a few seconds.
She molded
against him, letting herself enjoy it for a bit longer than she’d planned. Gasping, she pushed him off her, noting the way he had to fiddle with his zipper to make himself comfortable. The reality of what she was about to do washed over her like an ice bath, making her stumble and put her hands over her mouth. “I can’t,” she said, her voice small.
Austin smiled and re-straightened his tie. “You can. We can. We are together on this, Evelyn. And trust me, it’s merely a formality. To get my mother off my back.”
“Right. Okay. So…I’m putting myself through this fucking torture so you don’t have mommy trouble. Great.” She stomped into the kitchen, downed two glasses of water then turned to glare at him as he calmly stuck his arms into the dark suit jacket sleeves. “I hate you,” she declared, before squeezing her eyes shut.
When he wrapped his arms around her, the newly familiar warmth of his chest against hers made her sigh, and cling to him for a few minutes, willing herself not to cry. “I’d hate me, too, if I didn’t think I was so fucking awesome,” he whispered, finally, peeling her off him and kissing her on the tip of her nose.
“Yeah. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.” She grabbed her purse and let Austin drape a light pashmina shawl over her shoulders.
“It’ll be fine. A great meal, that much is guaranteed.” She glanced at him and was not reassured by the preoccupied expression on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’m making this all about me.” She put her hand alongside his freshly shaven jaw. He covered it with his palm, smiled at her, and opened her apartment door. The fact that he hadn’t contradicted her over that dug at her a little. But she buried that childish anxiety under the much, much bigger one—the one that had nearly smothered her ever since he’d told her they were invited to dinner “at the club” with his parents.