Making Her His

by Lucy Leroux

  Elynn ate her sandwich. It was a roast beef on a croissant with mayonnaise and tomato, her favorite. Had she told Alex it was her favorite?

  She wasn’t sure, but he always seemed to know what she liked. It was as if he had some sort of sixth sense. He knew her tastes exactly. He had never failed to give her a gift that wasn’t precious to her in some way.

  This is crazy.

  She tried to make herself go find Alex, but she didn’t know what to say to him. He’d kissed her. Passionately. And not just then, but before when he carried her into the house. He’d kissed her then, too. She’d buried that detail when she woke up. It hadn’t seemed real. Did Alex want her in that way? Was he genuinely attracted to her or was it some misplaced lust?

  In a million years, she wouldn’t have guessed that any of those things could ever be true. Alex was out of her league, astronomically so. Any suggestion to the contrary was outright lunacy.

  Wasn’t it?

  He had always been good to her, but from a distance. But lately he was spending more time with her. And he had started touching her. A brush of his fingers here, a caress there, the way he would put his hand on the small of her back to guide her somewhere…

  Don’t forget about the hug at your apartment.

  She’d tried to convince herself that he hadn’t been aroused, that she’d imagined the whole thing. But she’d felt him against her just now, and that hard-on had not been imaginary.

  A shiver ran down her spine. Was she excited or scared? Both?

  Yeah, definitely both.

  The thought of her and Alex together in that way made her dizzy…and hot.

  What had brought on this change in him? A few months ago, he would never have laid so much as a finger on her. For years, he’d respected that invisible ‘No Touching’ sign she radiated in the company of all men, even his father.

  Thoughts spinning crazily, she pulled her legs in close while she waited for Alex to come back so they could talk.

  ****

  An hour passed, and Elynn was still alone. She ate and showered in an effort to occupy her mind, but as the night got later and later, she grew more unsettled. According to the bedside clock, it was close to midnight.

  Why hadn’t Alex come back?

  Maybe she was stupid to assume he would. It was time to find him. They needed to discuss what happened. Riffling through the bags for something to change into, Elynn felt a little dizzy when the only thing she could find to sleep in was a short silk nightgown in the same green as the dress she had worn that day.

  Did Alex want to see her in this? The nightie had a square bodice trimmed in a soft lace that felt wonderful against her skin. Impulsively she took off her bathrobe and pulled the slip of silk over her head.

  Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she took a surprised breath. The woman in the mirror was almost a stranger.

  Elynn had never worn anything so revealing to bed, or anywhere else for that matter. The square bodice surrounded her cleavage like a picture frame, and the short skirt barely concealed her panties. She couldn’t go looking for Alex wearing only this.

  She searched in vain for a matching robe, but there wasn’t one. With a sigh of frustration, she pulled the terrycloth robe over the nightgown. Heart racing, she went to the adjoining door that led to Alex’s room and knocked tentatively. There was no answer.

  You can do this.

  Willing her heart to slow, she turned the knob and went inside. A small bedside lamp illuminated the empty bed and the room beyond. It was a slightly more masculine version of hers—also navy blue and white with slightly heavier versions of the mahogany furniture that was next door.

  Maybe the previous owner liked the same colors as me, she thought as began a room-to-room search for Alex.

  It took a while, but eventually the sheer number of rooms defeated her. She was in the kitchen, about to give up and go back upstairs, when she noticed a light under the door leading to the attached garage.

  He was underneath the old Jag. It was still in pretty bad shape. In fact, it might actually look worse than when she bought it.

  “Alex?”

  Her voice was little more than a whisper, but he still heard her.

  He pulled himself out from underneath the car in a quick graceless scramble. He was still wearing the white shirt and dark slacks from earlier, only now they were stained with engine grease.

  “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “Why do you think? We need to talk, and we would have been doing it a lot sooner, but I got lost. This place is ridiculously large,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “We don’t need to talk,” he said, eyeing her crossed arms as if she was about to punch him.

  Elynn’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Guilt flashed in his dark eyes before his face settled into a cold expressionless mask. “Elynn, go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Hey!” she said reaching out to touch his taught cheekbones. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”

  Alex expelled a loud breath before covering her hand with his much larger one. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said softly.

  “I’m…I’m not sure you should be,” she said slowly, her face heating along with every other part of her body.

  She waited for a response, but he didn’t say anything. Embarrassed, she tried to pull her hand away, but he stopped her. He put his hands on her hips and slowly drew her closer.

  “No? Really? You don’t have an overwhelming urge to kick me in the nuts?”

  “No,” she said, laughing, dropping her head to avoid his intense gaze, but the sight of his big hands on her waist did nothing to calm her down. If her heart beat any faster, she was going to pass out.

  “Why?”

  Why had their relationship changed so suddenly? She had a million questions, but it was hard to find the words when she was feeling so lightheaded.

  “Because,” was all Alex said before he pulled her up and set her down on the hood of the car.

  He took her face in his hands and tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at him. Heart pounding, she studied his face. Suddenly he was unfamiliar, a stranger staring down at her with burning eyes.

  He looks like a fallen angel sent to earth to tempt mortal woman into giving up their souls. Shaken by the turn her thoughts had taken, she let out a startled laugh. A brief answering smile lit his face, but it was gone the instant his hands parted her bathrobe.

  Alex froze when he saw the nightgown she was wearing. His eyes flared with a hunger she had never seen on his face. With a hand that might have been trembling slightly, he caressed the exposed upper half of her breasts, which were displayed like a confection in the low cut square neckline. His fingers ran along the top of the full mounds, which were just a little too large for her frame.

  Elynn gasped aloud when he pulled down the bodice of her gown to expose a dusky pink nipple. Transfixed, she watched him slowly lower his head until his breath fanned the rapidly hardening peak.

  He paused and stared into her eyes long enough for her to realize he was waiting for her to stop him. When she didn’t move, he bent his head and took the stiff swollen tip into his mouth, running his tongue over it before he pulled down the material to give her other breast the same treatment.

  Placing shaky hands on the back of Alex’s head, she dug her fingers into his thick black hair. Heat was pooling low in her pelvis and a surprising amount of moisture was dampening her panties. Flustered, she tried to squeeze her legs together only to have Alex move his hands down to open them wider instead. He slid between them and pulled her closer, his lips moving up to her neck, licking and kissing his way back up to her mouth. He covered it with his, lips and tongue tangling with hers as he stole the air from her lungs and replaced it with his own.

  But he was careful not to press his groin against her, maintaining a small but critical distance between that part of their bodies.

  Panting slight
ly, Elynn stared at him with dazed eyes as he pulled away from her a little. “Alex?” she whispered uncertainly.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked, his face flushed.

  Tongue-tied, she nodded rapidly and was rewarded by another hot grin before he pushed her higher onto the car. She was splayed with her knees up, her feet resting on the edge of the hood. The hem of her nightgown drifted down and pooled at her waist in a fall of heavy silk.

  In a slow deliberate movement, Alex reached out and took hold of her panties. With a wrench, he tore them and tossed the pieces aside.

  Heart in her throat, Elynn raised herself onto her elbows to look at him, mouth wide. Alex’s smile was tentative, as if he was waiting for her to start screaming at him.

  Don’t stop.

  She wanted to say the words, but they were stuck in her throat. Cautiously, she slid a little closer to him and opened her legs a fraction. His mouth relaxed, the relief in his eyes obvious. Without a moment’s hesitation, he buried his head between her legs, aggressively seeking the heart of her.

  He ran his tongue along her inner lips, kissing and licking her before taking a gentle bite. Crying out in surprised pleasure, Elynn thrashed, her head falling back on the hood of the car with a dull thud.

  “Careful.” His voice was muffled as he paused before parting the lips of her sex with his fingers to give himself greater access. “You’re so wet. God, you taste so good,” he murmured, his breath puffing against her intimate flesh, sending shivers up her spine.

  Elynn was a seething mass of sensation. The air was filled with gasps and soft moans that she couldn’t seem to stop making. She should have been embarrassed, but it was as if those sounds were coming from another person.

  Minutes passed in long moments of almost painful pleasure. She could feel her pussy pulsing and a delicious tightness gathering deep in her core as Alex’s fingers rubbed her clit and his tongue moved inside her. It penetrated her over and over again until her body jerked and tightened around him. Crying out, Elynn convulsed as ecstasy pulsed through her and she lost her grip on the here and now.

  When awareness finally returned, Alex was leaning over, brushing down the nightgown and closing her bathrobe. “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand with a hint of a smile on his face.

  Elynn tried to get up, but she couldn’t even lift her head up from the hood of the car. “Can’t move my arms,” she mumbled, her head lolling to the side, too spent and drained to be embarrassed.

  With a husky laugh, he picked her up. He cradled her in his arms, completely unfazed by her weight as he carried her inside and up the stairs. Drowsy and sated, Elynn started to drift off as the heat of Alex’s body began to lull her to sleep. But she managed to rouse herself when he finally reached the guest suite and laid her down on the bed.

  Wide-eyed, she caught his arm and whispered, “What now?”

  Alex’s expression was guarded as he studied her face. “Now you go to sleep. I’m locking the doors behind me. Both of them. Don’t let me in if I try to come back later tonight,” he said, flipping the switch on the connecting door before pressing the button on the hall door, locking it behind him as he slipped out.

  Chapter 7

  “Elynn? It’s Mom. Are you awake? Sweetheart, why is the door locked?”

  She sat bolt upright in bed. With a rush, all of the previous night’s activities came flooding back.

  Oh God. What the hell got into me? And into Alex? And now her mother was here. And where Mary was so was Costas.

  “Be right there,” she called out in a tense voice as she jumped out of bed.

  Digging frantically, she searched for her own clothes, but they hadn’t been returned. With a frustrated growl, she threw on another silk dress from one of the bags lying next to the bed. This one was navy blue with an asymmetrical hemline.

  Like the green dress, it didn’t look right with her normal shoes. With a sigh she put on the low heels she’d worn the day before. All the other shoes in the bags had been delicate high heels she would never be able to walk in.

  “Oh, honey you look lovely,” her mother said when she opened the door. “It’s so nice to see you in a dress. Did you go shopping?”

  Elynn was trying to decide if she should lie, but her mother didn’t let her finish.

  “When we found out what happened, we had to come and check on you ourselves. I’m so glad you’re all right,” Mary said warmly, squeezing her arm and kissing her cheek as they went downstairs.

  “I’m fine,” Elynn said weakly, grateful for her mother’s tendency to run off at the mouth.

  Downstairs, her mother continued to fuss and bustle around her, chattering away happily. She smiled, marveling at Mary’s contentedness. Marriage had done wonders for her. Though Elynn had been very young, she could remember how unhappy her mother had been when her father had died.

  At the time, she hadn’t understood that her dad wouldn’t be coming back. That realization had come much later, after she’d gotten used to it being just the two of them. And then there had been that dark time when they’d first moved out of Windsor, the small town in Massachusetts where she’d grown up. It had been hard on Mary to leave everything she’d had, all the memories of her husband. But now her mother had the life she deserved.

  Costas and Alex were deep in conversation at the breakfast table in the sunroom when Elynn and Mary joined them. She tried to act normal, but she knew her face was red. Walking slowly, she made her way closer to the two men. Alex looked amazing as usual, in beige slacks and a black polo shirt.

  How did he manage to make something so simple look so good?

  Breaking off the conversation, Alex rose and came up to greet Mary with a quick peck on the cheek, surprising her into a blush. It surprised Elynn, too. He was never that physically demonstrative with his stepmother.

  As Mary sat down, Elynn whispered to him in a quick aside, “Did you call them?”

  “Mrs. Braden called them,” he muttered back.

  He gave her a quick assessing glance, his face unreadable. “You look much better, completely recovered. But even so, the doctor is coming by in an hour to give you some scratch tests,” he informed her as he guided her with a hand on her lower back.

  “Scratch tests?” Elynn repeated dumbly, completely disconcerted by the unexpected appearance of their parents and his closed off expression.

  “It’s a simple allergy test. They just give you a quick prick with a dilution of what you might be allergic to and then the reaction is measured. A drop therapy can then be customized to suit your needs.”

  “You’re quite an expert. Do you have allergies?” Elynn asked, still off balance.

  “No. I’ve been speaking to the doctor. Eat. He’ll be here soon,” he said as he propelled her to the table and the empty chair next to her mother.

  Okay, Elynn thought as she sat and accepted a cup of coffee from Mrs. Braden. She could feel her irritation growing. Alex ordered everyone around. Even Costas sometimes, but he usually managed to keep it to a minimum with her. Like everything else about their relationship, that seemed to be changing, too.

  Her mother launched into an entertaining story about a recent charity luncheon, and Elynn’s moment of irritation passed. Shortly afterward, the doctor arrived, and her parents left so she could have the tests done.

  The allergist laid out an array of bottles on the now empty breakfast table. One by one, each solution was applied to her arm with a sharp metal applicator that was used to scratch her skin, exposing her to the allergen so her histamine reaction could be measured. She had strong reactions to dust mites and grasses, but none to wasps or bees.

  Throughout the test, Alex hovered over her with a grim expression. “Stop that,” she hissed at him as the doctor grew visibly nervous under his intense scrutiny.

  “Stop what?” he asked innocently while the allergist closed the last bottle and put it back in his case.

  “Your doom and gloom look is out of place. It’s just an alle
rgy test.” She gave him another glare, then added, “I think you should wait outside. I would rather speak to the doctor alone.”

  “No,” he said curtly.

  Elynn rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him. “Do I have to have shots?” she asked the doctor.

  “Only if you like needles. There is a new way to administer treatment. We mix a cocktail of the antigens right for you. Just put a few drops under your tongue for a few minutes a day. Easy peasy.”

  “Thank you, doctor. Have the cocktail ready later today,” Alex ordered.

  “Oh,” the doctor said. “Sorry, but the cocktail might not be ready today. The lab may take a bit longer than–”

  “Today,” Alex said firmly. “And some antihistamines as well.”

  “But—” the doctor sputtered, his expression meek under the weight of Alex’s demands.

  “Later is fine for the cocktail, doctor,” Elynn said with a pointed look at the glowering Greek man. “I wouldn’t want the lab to rush and make a mistake.”

  The doctor shot her a grateful look and rushed to give her several packages of pills and an inhaler before bidding them a hasty goodbye. After the doctor left, Alex stared at her. Her body heat skyrocketed. Hastily, she looked away.

  “I should take you home now,” he said.

  The drive back to her place was quiet. Elynn waited for Alex to say something, but he was completely silent. And restless. His whole body seemed to vibrate with an unfamiliar tension. Their former comfort and ease with each other was completely gone.

  Peeking at him from behind her eyelashes, she tried to guess what he was thinking. Everything was different now. Even the way he was driving seemed layered with meaning. He was squeezing the steering wheel too tight. An image of those hands on her naked thighs flashed through her mind, and she shifted in her seat.

  Did he regret last night? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

  Though Alex had always been guarded with her physically, he had been warm and friendly. As warm and friendly as Alex got anyway. But not now. And he was damned intimidating when he wasn’t speaking or smiling.