by Cari Quinn
She grinned as he skimmed his hand up her rib cage to tweak her nipple. “Actually, we’re the last guests to stay in this room before they remodel. I had to assure management no children would be visiting.”
“Lucky for us.” Shawn rolled onto his back and tugged her on top of him. He kneaded her butt as her dark curls fell down to curtain them. “You’ve got ass-burn now too, I bet. That railing was hard.”
“Not all that was. Or is.” She gripped his growing erection. “Wow, I must inspire you.”
“You must.”
He caught his hands in her hair to bring her mouth back down to his, but she turned her head away with a laugh as the phone began to ring. “God, it never ends.”
“Yes, it does.” He knocked the phone off the hook. “Now where were we?”
“You were about to blow my mind again.” She licked his jaw. “After I blow yours.”
“Uh-uh. My turn.” He pulled on her curls as if gauging her reaction. His other hand vised over hers on his cock and he moved them slowly up and down his length. “You pushed me outside my comfort zone tonight. So I’m thinking I should return the favor.”
She wet her lips, her gaze drawn to their joined grip around his rigid flesh. Damn, that was hot. “Should I be frightened?”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. “Roll on your stomach for me.”
Though she hated releasing his shaft, she obeyed his wish. But when she’d settled into position, she looked over to see him getting out of bed. “Um, hello, where are you going?” she said, taking the opportunity to blatantly ogle his very fine backside.
He disappeared into the bathroom and returned holding something she couldn’t see. Immediately suspicious, she started to get up.
“Lie down, Rach. And stay down.”
With a heavy sigh, she complied, pressing her face against her folded arms. “If anything starts buzzing, I’m out of here.”
His smooth chuckle cascaded over her skin as he lay down beside her and brushed back her hair. “We’ll tackle that some other time. Right now I have something else in mind.”
He didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t ask. Mainly because his hand roaming down her back felt erotically luxuriant, especially when he cupped her ass. She swallowed, shifting to gaze at him. But his attention was directed on her body, and the liquid he trickled over the small of her back. She shivered.
“Body oil,” he said quietly. “Scented, flavored.” More dripped over her shoulder blades, sliding down to tantalize the sides of her breasts. “Doubles as lube.”
“Oh.”
He laughed again. “If I promise to make you feel good, will you trust me?”
“I always trust you,” she said, her voice catching when he leaned over to lap up the oil he’d drizzled over her skin. He licked and nuzzled her back until she was squirming against the sheets, every one of her erogenous zones humming for his touch.
“If you don’t like something, just tell me. Okay? We’ll stop.”
Nodding wordlessly, she gasped as he squirted the liquid between her ass cheeks. He used his tongue to spread the moisture where he wanted it, sliding his mouth lower until he could kiss her pussy. And that’s exactly what it felt like he was doing. Even when he shifted his lips to parts of her anatomy that had never been explored in quite that way before, she only yearned.
He suckled her rosette, his tongue flicking against her insistently. She made no sounds at first, afraid to like it. To admit she did. Because then he’d want to do more, and she’d want to let him.
Just like that first morning in her hotel room, she considered how far she’d be willing to go. She doubted she’d ever be able to deny him anything. A freaking scary thought.
He spent a long time sampling her, using the fragrant lube to massage her sore behind. He’d been right. That railing had hurt like a bitch. “God, that feels so…” Words failed her as his teeth skimmed the fullness of one cheek while his finger toyed with her back entrance. Even though she truly did trust him, knowing what he planned to do made her tense.
“I’m going to use my fingers. That’s all.” He slipped his coated palm under her body to cup her breast, pinching the nipple between two slippery fingers. The slick fingers of his other hand inched inside her, one inside her ass, one inside her pussy. She suspected he’d done it that way to distract her from feeling anything but pleasure.
It worked. In spades.
Pulling on her nipple, he brushed a kiss along her shoulder blade. Barely a hint of lips. But she trembled, pushing against his hands. Somehow she’d have sworn he had more than two, especially when he shifted and ranged his body over hers, driving her down against the mattress. The movement sent his fingers deeper. He slipped the hand still beneath her down her body until he could flick her aching clit, the triple assault almost more than she could stand.
“Shawn. Please.” A muffled cry left her throat.
“What do you want?” He worked his digits in and out of her in little tantalizing rocking motions, heightening her arousal until she was panting. Her inner muscles clenched around him in both entrances, and he groaned, edging in that much farther. “Tell me you like it. All this cream pouring on my hand’s telling me you do. But I want to hear you say it.”
She concentrated on breathing. On not coming too soon. She wanted the feeling to last. “I like it. I love it. More.” She clutched the sheets as she raised her hips, pushing herself into his hand.
He let out another strangled groan. “Just what I hoped you’d say.”
Rolling her clit between finger and thumb, he continued his sensuous torture. He brought her breathtakingly close to the finish line and then, when she was practically pulsing with pent-up need, slid his hand away and resumed stroking her back. She let out a frustrated moan and tried to grind against the hand buried inside her dual channels, but he pushed between her shoulder blades and forced her torso lower onto the bed. Then he slapped her ass, just once.
That was all it took. The electric current blazed along her sensitive flesh, firing deep inside her pussy. She came hard. Screaming. Again.
She bore down, gasping at the incredible sensations he’d created. The orgasm went on and on. All the while he didn’t stop fingering her or whispering sexy things intended to make her quiver. Her system was primed to respond to his touch, his voice.
To him.
“God, I love hearing you come. The way you pant my name. How you ripple around me, whether it’s my cock or my hand.”
She didn’t reply. She couldn’t breathe, never mind talk.
“Sometime we’ll try more than my fingers,” he murmured against her hair as he settled against her side. “But for tonight, that was enough.”
Just before she fell into sleep, his drowsy voice roused her. “We’re not going to talk about earlier.”
“Which earlier?”
His quiet laughter made her sigh in contentment. “The no condom part of earlier.”
With what had happened after, she’d almost forgotten. She rolled over and twined her arms around his torso. His heartbeat thudded evenly under her mouth, and his skin still tasted like rain. “No.”
He kissed her forehead. “Okay.”
Because she knew it was, she closed her eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
They didn’t leave the suite for days. Not for meals, not to sightsee. Nothing beyond those four walls seemed half as important as what was occurring within them.
She’d thought herself in love once, a decade ago. Now she understood what she’d believed was love then couldn’t touch what Shawn aroused in her with merely a grin or a kiss.
Or when he was inside her. Especially then.
Rachel stared at herself in the mirror, angling her head to see if she looked any different. Stupid, really, but if she felt this changed on the inside, surely something had to show on her face. But nope, other than the dopey grin she couldn’t seem to shake, she appeared exactly the same.
Her outfit, however, skirted
a few lines she rarely crossed. Indecency, for one. She wanted to look sexy as hell, not slutty. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off, but since her best friend was just a wee bit biased, she had no one’s counsel to go on but her own.
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Just follow through. You look fine.”
When she went downstairs to meet Shawn, the doorman’s whistle was another positive signal. Said doorman quickly covered his appreciation in a cough as she arched a brow at him and tied the belt of her short gray coat. Really short. If she tugged and yanked, maybe just maybe it would cover her siren red dress.
The dress she’d tucked in her purse, rather than put on her body.
She’d asked him to meet her in the lobby so this would seem more like a real date, or at least that’s what she’d told him. Truth was, the appetizer to their meal with Chrissy and Ryan had taken quite a few calls to fine-tune. Things had seemed touch and go for a while, but she wasn’t a Cooper for nothing.
In the bottom of the ninth, they always came through.
She laid a hand against her jumpy stomach and kept moving, trying to saunter in a manner befitting her new sex-bomb persona. She grinned as she saw Shawn sprawled in the corner of a burgundy leather settee, his long legs propped up on what was, no doubt, a priceless antique coffee table. A magazine was open in his lap, but he wasn’t reading. His eyes scanned the people milling about, searching. For her.
With each hip-swaying step, her teased and sprayed hair tumbled down her back. Even if her heels were already pinching her toes, and she itched to pull her heavy hair up off her neck, she was so going to do this.
Tonight she was going to help Shawn act out one of his most secret fantasies. One so secret she doubted even he knew it existed.
When he reached for his magazine, a thrill of anticipation arrowed from her breasts into her core. As many times as they’d had at each other this trip, she would’ve expected some of that buzz to be dwindling by now. Not quite. Hell, any more buzz, and she’d straddle him right there in the middle of the prim, upper-crust lobby.
Picking her moment, Rachel shifted to the right, sidling around a couple arguing -- in very low, civilized tones, of course -- whether they should visit the Met or perhaps explore some of the “quaint” shops in Soho. Their word, not hers.
Rachel smiled. Imagine what such well-heeled, well-mannered people would think if they knew she was about to give her lover the ride of his life for all of New York to see.
He didn’t notice her come up alongside him, which was fortuitous because the element of surprise helped her next move considerably. Having long legs also helped, but keeping them tightly closed was a priority.
Seeing as she was, once again, without benefit of her panties.
She hooked the heel of her stiletto on the edge of the coffee table and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Waiting for me?” she purred, flicking her tongue along his jaw as the magazine flew out of his hands.
Shawn was far from inexperienced. She’d seen -- and heard -- more evidence of that over the years than she’d ever wanted. But his dazed expression as his gaze traveled from her red toenails to her fishnet stockings on up to the thigh rubbing suggestively against the settee had her releasing a delighted chuckle. “Like?”
Shawn gulped in a breath, his fingers plucking at the knot in his tie. “Good Christ.”
Though she would’ve happily played this game all night, there were other stops on their agenda. She didn’t want to wear out her welcome here either. Already more than one person had shot her a look that made her inner puritan want to put on khakis and a pullover sweater.
“Come with.” She lowered her leg and extended her hand. He seized it at once and rose, almost stumbling in his haste to follow her out into the night.
She swung their joined hands as they walked away from the hotel. The soft breeze caressed her skin, but she sent up a quick prayer of thanks that it was merely warm and not hot. Had the temperature been any higher, her little plan wouldn’t have worked.
Or perhaps she just would’ve melted into a puddle, as wet as the trickle of moisture now slipping down her inner thigh.
“Where are we going? The View’s that way. God, what do you have on under that coat?”
Rachel smiled. “Are you okay? You sound funny.” He sounded, she thought gleefully, as if he might need CPR at any moment. And his handsome, normally unruffled features were contorted into an expression of sheer agony.
“You’re walking funny too.” Leaning closer, she sunk her teeth into his earlobe. She could do this. Really, they were just words. “I bet your cock’s hard, isn’t it?”
And oh, yeah, those words were so worth the stunned glance he directed her way. “You’re not my Rachel.”
Emotion spread through her, swamping her racing heart. Could there be a sweeter phrase than my Rachel? She didn’t think so.
“Who do you want me to be?” As they started walking again, she linked her arm around his waist. “Tabitha? Veronica?” She slid the tip of her tongue into the hollow of his ear. “Whatever name gets you off, that’s who I’ll be.”
“Uh, I’ve been getting off just fine when you were Rachel.”
She had to grin. “God, you make me happy.”
Shawn turned his head, his green eyes flashing as bright as jewels in the early twilight. “Is that why you’re throwing around dirty words and wearing --”
She tsked-tsked him as he reached for her coat. “Trust me, it’s really important you don’t lift that hem,” she whispered with a throaty laugh.
“You’re not…” He took a breath, tried again. “Naked under there?”
She flicked open the second to last button of her coat, her gaze telling him to find out for himself. That he shielded her with his body before doing the surreptitious cavity search was one more check in his column. She just hadn’t counted on her legs nearly giving way when he pressed his fingers against her very warm, very aroused flesh.
“Rachel.” His groan rippled over her hair.
She drew his hand out from under her coat and guided his drenched finger into her mouth. His eyes darkened until his pupils seemed to obliterate every speck of green. “I tried this thing today. Supposedly, eating pineapple sweetens…your juices. You’ll have to tell me if it worked, since I don’t know the difference.”
“I’ll tell you.” His breath rasped over her lips before he roughly slicked his tongue over hers. She swallowed his strangled sound of pleasure as his hand again dove for her coat. “Sweet. You’re so damned sweet. I need you, Rach.”
She bit his tongue playfully. “Soon. We’re almost there.” Realizing she might have unleashed a tiger she couldn’t restrain, she gripped his hand and eased back. “We’re in public. Remember?” She smiled pointedly at a teenager on a skateboard who nearly took a header off the curb as he glimpsed her miles of leg. “Lots and lots of people around.”
Rather than answer, he yanked her up the sidewalk. “Where are we going? Museum? Bathroom stall? Screw it, I’d even take you behind a bush right about now.”
“Well, see, it involves heights. I know you don’t like them much, but --” She stopped, jerking a thumb toward the towering apartment building in front of them. “Here we are.”
His gaze snapped to hers, all but sparking with electricity. “You rented an apartment?”
“No, silly.” She laughed, using the lapels of his jacket to bring his face down to hers. “This building is as known for its amenities as its apartments. One, in particular. I happened to hear about it on TV last night while you were sleeping off our interlude in the hot tub.” Her tongue rimmed her lips in one slow lick. “Maybe I’ll just give you a hint.”
She withdrew the iPod from her coat pocket, making sure the right song was cued. Then she pressed the earbud against his ear and hit Play.
His exhale was almost comical. “Rachel.”
“So you’ve decided to stick with my name then.” With a satisfied smile, she dropped t
he iPod back into her pocket. “I’m flattered.”
He drove his hand into her hair, likely ruining the arrangement of her carefully tousled curls. “Where’s this elevator?”
She grinned. “Allow me to show you.”
While Rachel chatted up the doorman of the Benedict Arms Apartments, waving her glossy red nails for emphasis, Shawn shook his head in amused wonder.
So much for thinking she didn’t know how to use the wealth she’d been born into. As usual, he’d vastly underestimated his resourceful best friend. His lover. The woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his crazy, unpredictable life.
A few moments later, she crooked her finger for him to follow her to a stairwell. As soon as the door clunked shut behind them, he spun her into his arms and filled his hands with the warm globes of her bare butt.
“Behave.” She smacked his hands away. “We’re here to see the penthouse.”
Her faintly schoolmarmish tone had his already amazingly hard cock twitching. “The penthouse?”
“Yes. Even our examination of the place required an extensive credit check. But what do you know? I passed.” She gave him a flirty grin. “The attached elevator is private and only connects to that apartment. Exclusive access. No one will disturb us.”
Cocking an eyebrow at the extent to which she’d gone for some nookie, he hung back to watch the roll of her hips as she climbed the short flight of stairs. “Damn, baby, you have a pretty ass.”
She flipped her hair back over one shoulder as she motioned him forward, rather impatiently. “I have other pretty things that I may let you see if you get a move on. We have a dinner date, remember?”
His loud groan was the first of the many he’d uttered in the last fifteen minutes that wasn’t sexually motivated. Even if his lover had morphed into a tawdry, dirty-talking sex kitten seemingly in the span of a few minutes, she still wouldn’t abide being late.
Such was the irony of his existence.
Hands on her hips, she faced him. “We’re going to dinner regardless.” She flipped that one button open again, along with the one beneath, giving him a quick, unfettered look at smooth pink skin. God, she’d shaved her pussy too, leaving just a hint of dark hair to tease him. “Whether or not we make each other very happy to be alive first is your choice.”