“It was nice meeting you, too,” I said to her back.
“Sunday.” She lifted her hand in a wave. “Don’t forget.”
Sunday dinner with the Briggs family. I wasn’t even sure how I was going to get through tonight’s dinner with my heart intact. If the rest of the Brigg’s family were as charismatic, funny, loving and accepting as Travis, his mom and sister had been, well then I didn’t have a chance in hell of making it through without falling in love with the bunch.
Chapter 18
Travis
“If ya love life, it’ll love ya back.”
~ Walker Briggs
I stepped out of the shower and a delicious scent hit me.
Mia was here. In my house. Cooking me dinner.
In record time I dried off and threw on jeans and a T-shirt. When I turned the corner from the hallway into the kitchen I saw Mia. She was at the stove, her back was to me. My chest ached with a feeling I wasn’t quite sure how to describe. Seeing her like this was sweet perfection. And not in the women-belong-in-the-kitchen, male-chauvinist bullshit way. In the way that this felt right.
Mia fit here. In this town. In my house.
In near-death experiences, people talked about their entire lives flashing in front of their eyes. I felt like I was having a near-life experience, I was getting flashes of my future—the rest of my life was flashing in front of my eyes.
I crossed the kitchen in two long strides. I was hungry, and as delicious as I was sure the meal was bound to be, my hunger wasn’t going to be satisfied by food. No. Only touching, kissing and loving the gorgeous blonde currently standing in front of my stove was going to satisfy that hunger.
I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. She jumped and let out a little yelp.
“Travis! I didn’t hear you!” Even though her words were strong, her voice was weak, and she made no move to push me away or escape from the circle of my arms.
I wrapped them even tighter around her and leaned forward, inhaling deeply as I softly rasped in her ear. “It smells delicious, but I was really hoping you’d have joined me in the shower.”
I felt a shiver pass down the length of her body. I felt it in her back against my chest, and in her cute ass that was pressed against the straining front of my jeans. Mmmm…she was definitely more delicious than dinner. By a country mile.
“I can’t concentrate on the food when you do that…I’ll burn it.”
Her voice was so thin now that it was little more than a whisper. I reached out and clicked off the stove. “There,” I said, my voice low and full of lust, “that fixes that.”
She dropped the wooden spoon she was holding down into the pan of browning meat and spun in my arms, snaking hers around my neck. Our lips were millimeters apart. I looked into those fiery eyes and thought that I could get lost forever in their depths.
“You have an answer for everything,” she accused with a small smile.
I brushed her hair back from her face. “You keep asking the right questions. It’s not tough to come up with the right answers.”
I kissed her, exploring her lips with mine. She slipped her tongue into my mouth and I pushed mine into hers. It fired up my desire to be inside her to heights of intensity I wouldn’t have thought possible.
Damn.
What was it with this woman? Every time I thought about her, saw her, talked to her, touched her…my desire for her grew and grew. Even though we’d been together once already, I felt a thrill of discovery run through me. This was even better than the first time. How did that happen? How did she do it?
She must be magic.
The thought popped into my head out of nowhere, but I immediately understood the rightness of it. That was it. Mia James was magic.
“I want to take you to bed.” My voice was gruff with lust and it made the request come out sounding a lot more like a blunt command than I’d intended. But from the rough thrill of pleasure that passed through Mia’s body at the words, I didn’t think she minded. Not one little bit.
“Oh, yeah. Yes. That’s, yes, I want you to.” The words tumbled from her like a river rushing over rocks, running into each other and bouncing off again. I smiled. Fuck, yeah. She was tipsy, but it wasn’t on booze. Nope. She was drunk on lust, and it was every bit as intoxicating.
We undressed each other as we stumbled back to the bedroom, kissing and touching the whole way. Hell, if the goal was getting naked and between the sheets, it probably would’ve produced a quicker result if I’d just picked her up, threw her on the bed and stripped down. But this was better. It was like we couldn’t stop touching each other for that long. She was like oxygen. I couldn’t breathe when my hands or lips weren’t on her.
When we did finally reach the bed, we’d managed to tear all of our clothes from each other. We stood in the bedroom, completely naked and in each other’s arms, my hands roaming up and down her back as my lips and tongue explored her mouth in our passionate kiss. Every time my hands made the downward trip over her smooth back, I let them trail just a little bit lower, until finally I was cupping her sweet ass in my palms.
I lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around me. I could feel the heat of her core pressed against my belly, and the hard buds of her nipples rubbing up against my chest as I held her and kissed her with every ounce of passion flowing through my veins. I knew it was time. I needed to be in bed with her. I needed to make love to her.
I laid her gently on the bed, like she was the most precious treasure I’d ever held in my arms. And she was. There was nothing in my life that meant more to me than Mia, nothing I wouldn’t have given up to keep her with me. I would take this opportunity to show her, with every flick of my tongue and every stroke of my fingers, how real and lasting my feelings for her were. The only lingering question, to me, was—how did she feel?
I took my time with her as I kissed my way down her neck and then lower, enjoying her naked body. I wanted to explore it. Each curve and crevice was sexier than the last. Every inch of skin was creamier and softer than the bit that came before it. I felt like a treasure hunter, finding an unexpected trove of gold coins and diamonds, more riches than could be spent in a lifetime. The thrill of discovery, the knowledge slowly dawning on you that your life is going to be different from that moment on—I didn’t have to imagine that anymore. I felt it.
I paused at her breasts and flicked her nipples with my tongue. I made the tip hard, so that I could tease the sensitive buds to even greater heights of arousal. Then I took each of them in my mouth in turn and swirled my tongue around them, loving the way they felt in my mouth. Like a hard candy. A treat.
Moving down so I was positioned between her legs, I kissed my way up her inner thighs. The creamy skin there tasted sweet, and her flesh was soft and supple. It melted under my kisses, like clay just waiting to be formed. The higher my mouth moved, the more trembles I could feel in her muscles when my lips touched them. It was my favorite thing about kissing her anywhere on her body—the way I could feel her respond to me. Her body was an open book. Every feeling that ran through her was immediately apparent in the way that her muscles trembled and her skin flushed red.
She threw her head back and fisted her hands in my comforter as my mouth trailed its way up, closer and closer to her core. Heat radiated from between her legs like a target and my mouth was the heat-seeking missile. I slowed my pace towards the hot V between her legs. I wanted to draw out the experience. To increase the sweet torture leading up to release, and by doing that, increase the explosive pleasure she would feel when I finally did let her explode.
“I can’t wait to taste you,” I growled when I was ready.
She looked at me, clear-eyed and still, like the eye of a storm, and said, “Well, then don’t.”
That was all the encouragement I needed. I covered her sweet mound with my hot, hungry mouth and started devouring her.
I slid my tongue up and down on her wetness. Her hips pressed into my mouth,
like she was as starving for this as I was—which was probably true. I bore down on her harder and focused my attention on her clit, sucking it into my mouth and swirling my tongue around it. I felt it getting more engorged against my tongue, and her body moved more frantically the fuller that her little pleasure button got. I didn’t let up on the pace for even one second. I swirled around it with my tongue, covered it with my entire mouth and sucked then drug the flat part of my tongue across it as if I was licking a lollipop. I did each of these in turn until she was writhing uncontrollably and I could tell she was approaching the point of no return.
“Oh, yes—don’t stop, yes!” she screamed, and her legs clamped around my head. Hell, she might’a screamed out some more words after that, but her thighs were squeezed so tight against my ears, I’d never have known it. I kept my lips suctioned around her bucking mound even as her hips gyrated, grinding her sex harder against my mouth. Fuck, I loved knowing that I had brought her to the edge of incoherence. Right now, she was coming completely undone, and it was all because of the way that my tongue was making her feel.
Hell, it was one thing to make her feel good. Even to give her an orgasm. That was great. But to make a woman like Mia lose complete control—a woman that valued control as much as she did—well, that was a real accomplishment. It was so much more than just a physical release. It was mental and emotional. It had to do with trust, a connection and a bond that was built with every touch, every word that passed between us, every kiss.
It was more than just sex. Simply having sex with me would not have conjured up that response. No, she lost control like that because I’d made love to her, and it started long before we got into bed together. I worked at seducing her every minute that we were with each other, building up that level of trust and chemistry that made a moment like the one we had just shared possible. It was work, and I’d done a damn good job.
I think I was prouder of that than I’d been of anything in my entire life.
Her legs relaxed and the back of her knees came to rest on my shoulders. I kissed my way up her belly, stopping to give some gentle attention to her beautiful and still-hard nipples. I could still taste her sweet juices in my mouth even as I planted hot, wet kisses across her breasts. It was a taste I loved. She was as sweet as a Honeycrisp apple, and I would take a bite of that apple any chance I got.
She raked her fingernails through my hair, the gentle movements sending waves of electricity through my head and down my neck. I looked into her eyes. She smiled. I could tell she was about to say something. I thought it might be a quick thanks, or telling me how good what I’d just done had felt. But when she opened her mouth, the words that came out surprised me with how much better they were than anything my imagination had been able to conjure up. “I want you inside me now, Travis,” she whispered, and hell—she didn’t have to ask twice.
Chapter 19
Mia
“Ya never know what’s right around the corner, why not believe it’s somethin’ wonderful.”
~ Walker Briggs
Tingles of anticipation rushed up and down inside my belly as I watched Travis open the drawer of the nightstand and pull out a condom. God, it was like my body could feel him inside me even though he wasn’t actually touching me. Just knowing what was about to happen filled my mind and soul with the most delicious sensations I could imagine. And, if that was what it was like now, I knew it was going to be twenty times more intense after he plunged into me.
I needed that. I had to speed things up. I couldn’t wait one moment longer to feel his steel shaft penetrating my soft folds. I was taking matters into my own hands.
I sat up and plucked the condom from his hand, letting a sassy smile take hold on my face. I loved letting my playful side out with Travis. I never had to worry that he was going to look down on me for anything I said. In fact, the more vocal and demanding I got, the cuter he thought it was. It was kind of liberating.
“Here, let me do that for you.” My voice came out much needier than I’d meant it to. I put the condom wrapper in between my teeth and ripped it open, not wasting any time.
His eyes widened and fixed on my lips as I opened the package. I grasped the condom between my fingers. With my other hand, I reached between us and wrapped my fingers around his shaft. “Let’s just prepare the field real quick. Shall we?”
I moved my hand up and down on his erection. He’d already been hard, but I wanted to feel him. I wanted to feel the velvety smoothness of his skin over his steel rod before I slipped the condom onto him.
Travis groaned and let his head fall back as I stroked him. It was so hot, watching the beads of sweat that formed around his hairline. My eyes fixed on one as it trailed its way slowly down his face, past his eyes that were closed in pleasure, on to his chiseled jaw and then down his chest to his rippling abs. It was hypnotizing, how gorgeous he was, and how his body responded to my touch. It was an aphrodisiac.
The purpose of this mini hand job was out of sheer desire to touch him, but it had another effect on me. Arousal flooded my veins, more and more with every stroke of my fist. My sex ached, and juices dripped down my inner thighs. It was definitely time; for him and for me.
“I think you’re ready,” I whispered in his ear.
“Oh, fuck, yes. More than ready.” His voice sounded like metal sparking against metal. My inner walls jumped with arousal. I was aching for him to be inside me.
I lay back against the pillows, my legs falling open in invitation as I did. Travis pushed my knees open further, his touch rough, and I arched my back and whimpered in response. God, I’d never imagined how badly I needed a strong man and a commanding touch, to turn me on. I’d always thought of sex in sort of the same category as watching the Sunday night line-up on HBO: fun, something you did once a week and doing it with your partner could be a bonding experience. But this? This kind of mind-altering, earth-shattering religious experience? Nope. I’d never known about that until Travis.
He positioned his engorged head at my opening and I waited for the sensation I knew was coming. The one that would send my brain shooting in a million different directions, spinning out with overwhelming pleasure. When it didn’t come for a few long seconds, I lifted my head to make eye contact.
He smiled. “There it is,” he drawled. “That’s good, baby. I want you to look in my eyes.” With that, he thrust into me, the power of it so unexpected and all-consuming, even though I’d known it was coming. I’d never really get used to it, I thought. And I never really wanted to. That edge of surprise—that oh-wow-I-forgot-it-feels-that-good sensation—was one of the best parts.
I dug my fingernails into his back. I knew I was probably leaving marks. I didn’t care. Scratch that—I did care, just in the opposite way that I probably should. I actually liked that I was leaving my mark on him. It turned me on. It was the sex equivalent of putting a ring on it. It was like marking my territory, and with each thrust into me, my desire to claim him as mine only intensified.
Heat rose in my belly as Travis moved his hips back and forth, pumping into me again and again with earth-shaking power. I arched my back and writhed as he moved in me, the intensity of the sensation making it impossible for me to stay still. I heard sounds and didn’t even realize they were coming from me until I felt them vibrating through my throat. Adrenaline was flooding my system making me so lightheaded I couldn’t think straight.
There was nothing I could do, no way to control it. I chose the only option available to me—I surrendered to what was flooding through my system and rode the wave of arousal onto the shore.
Travis propped up on his elbows over me and looked into my eyes again. “God, Mia, you’re so beautiful,” he choked out. I honestly couldn’t say if there was more intensity in his voice or his eyes. One thing was for sure—he was being sincere. There was no way to fake that kind of emotion. It could only come from one place, and that was the very depths of a heart and soul.
I closed my eyes. I couldn
’t deal with the implications of that right now. I just wanted to lose myself in the waves of pleasure his body was sending through me. I wanted to forget about tomorrow and just throw myself into the moment. So that’s what I did.
I wrapped my arms and legs around him. I couldn’t get close enough. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to be pressed against him—I wanted to meld together with him, our bodies intertwining and mixing, like the smoke rising from two different scents of incense and creating an entirely new aroma, more exquisite than either was on its own. That was Travis and I to a tee, I realized with a start. It felt like together we were greater than the sum of our parts. Damn. Just as I’d decided to forgo all of the philosophical stuff and solely surrender to the carnal, I have that realization. Maybe it was just best to stop trying to control things at all. If my brain, or my heart, wanted to get deep—why not let it?
I stroked my hands up and down his back and opened my mouth. I wanted to say something eloquent, something that even hinted at the thoughts I was having. Something that let him know how powerful this was for me, how significant. But all that came out was, “It feels…you feel…good. So good.”
Wow, Mia. You’re a poet and you didn’t know it. That was some good stuff right there. If there were beatniks in the room, they would be snapping the hell out of their fingers right now.
Still, the words did spark something inside Travis. The energy between us changed. The intensity ramped up a notch. And with that change of energy, came an increased sense of purpose behind his movements. His thrusts had more power behind them—even his grunts seemed to contain more meaning. This was very quickly heading towards an amazing climax. I wanted that more than anything. And I wanted us to crest that peak together.
Taming Travis (Wishing Well, Texas Book 4) Page 13