Her Shirtless Gentleman

by M. Q. Barber

  “It’s only our first date.” She objected without conviction, her tone more confused and uncertain than anything else, and she nestled close rather than trying to pull away from his cradling embrace.

  “I could say third.” By his count, leastwise. He savored the moments they’d spent together. “We talked at the bar. Had coffee Monday.” He forced himself to stop caressing the sweet strip of skin between her shirt and her shorts. So damned soft. “By your standard, you must think I’m a slut, taking my shirt off on the first date. Did you lose respect for me right then and there?”

  She chortled, and her breath held the sweet scent of caramel. “That’s different. You’re a guy. You have different rules.”

  He rolled his head, a rejection and an Eskimo kiss in one. “Rules are for other folks, Eleanora. Folks who can’t be honest with themselves and their partners. I promised you I wouldn’t be fake with you, and I won’t. Which matters more, the number of dates or the quality of the connection?”

  “I’ve never wanted so much as I do with you.” Her whisper came as a hot, eager rush. “I feel like, like I don’t know what’s happening to me. All week, thinking about you, I couldn’t stop, every night, and I—” She stuttered and sucked in a breath, her hips thrusting. “And I don’t usually and now it’s all I think about.”

  He bit down, holding in a groan. His dream girl, confessing to masturbating to thoughts of him for the whole week. Christ, he’d unload his balls with every possible permutation of her image in his head for days.

  “It’s the same for me, thinking of you.” He nudged his hips forward. The pressure of her thigh against his cock loosed the low groan he’d tried to silence.

  She squeaked, the sound half-swallowed as she clamped her lips tight, but she met his push with her own. A woman testing new territory.

  “You’re waking up, Eleanora.” He dotted her face with tiny kisses, the sort he’d wake her with every morning. The blaring nuisance of an early alarm would be a thing of her past. His body woke him at six without fail, and he’d rouse her with kisses and caresses before their workdays began. “Your body knows what it wants. If you trust me with it, I won’t lead you astray.”

  Never. Only into his arms, where she belonged.

  A moan floated from down the row. A giggle drifted in from the opposite direction.

  “Plenty of people testing their cars’ suspension in this lot. Seeing how much motion those shocks will absorb.” Squeaking metal and crunching gravel surrounded them, and the movie soundtrack droned through the open back window of the cab above their heads. “Nobody here’ll take notice of one more.”

  He waited for her answer in stillness, with a mumbled chorus of prayers filling his skull and tingling heat everywhere their skin brushed.

  The nod came first. “Touch me, Rob.” Quiet but sure, she spoke without hesitation. “I want you to wake me up. I spent too many years sleepwalking.”

  Relief and eagerness washed through him. She hadn’t responded like a woman coerced into giving in. She wanted him. She owned her needs.

  “You deserve this pleasure, Eleanora.” He thumbed open her jean shorts and dragged the zipper down. The bigger the stakes, the steadier his hands. Worked in the military. Worked at a keyboard. Worked wonders on a woman. “And I aim to see you get everything you deserve.”

  Sliding into the gap in her shorts, he teased two fingers over her panties and traced the full lips hidden beneath. Fuck yes. Arousal left her panties slick and supple. A deft nudge pushed the fabric between her lips.

  She shuddered, her knees rising. Her instincts won silent applause in his mind. His woman didn’t lack desire.

  He rocked his erection against the outside of her thigh as his fingers worked. Ease her mind, prove to her he hadn’t shoved her out on a limb alone. His arousal kept pace right alongside hers. “You like that?” Grazing her ear, he pitched his voice low and soothing.

  Her sigh promised an affirmative answer. “More.”

  He slipped his fingers up and under her panties. Working in the dark without a map, and God, he’d love to have eyes on her right now. And tongue. On. In.

  Next time.

  She huffed out a breath in the same moment her clit jumped under his index finger. Mission objective located. He rubbed a circle around the edge, testing her sensitivity.

  His position at her side pinned her right arm below her breasts, but her other hand danced with the sheet spread beneath them. She fluttered her fingers and clenched by turns.

  He added pressure and swept across her clit. Her most sensitive skin rocked under his fingertips.

  Rolling her cheek against his bicep, she rocketed one arm upward, bent at the elbow, and gripped his forearm beside her head.

  Damn, she could squeeze. His cock thumped her thigh, untroubled by the layers of denim between them.

  A deep kiss muffled his groan and hers in reply. He dipped his fingers lower, an easy slide, and kept his senses on alert for changes in her.

  Her arousal coated his fingers in wet heat. She squirmed, restless and rocking against him, clamping his arm in pulsing waves.

  He stroked her entrance but didn’t push. Her choice. Had to be.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please, something. More.”

  “Inside?” He circled with a single finger. “Is that the more you want?”

  “I, I think so. Please.”

  Sinking his middle finger into her heat, he pressed his thumb to her clit.

  She arched her back, curving her hips up as if trying to fuck herself on his hand.

  His breath stuttered. The slide of her thigh rubbed along his length, a tortured delight. He thrust as she came back down, his finger inside her and his cock at her side moving in concert.

  “Beautiful.” He teased her earlobe with his tongue. “Sweet and wild.”

  Surrounded by slick, fast-flowing evidence of her enjoyment, he slipped a second finger in alongside the first.

  She moaned, foggy and low, and fluttered around him.

  Orgasm potential in his palm. Not half bad for a man coming off a lengthy hiatus. He’d scale the peak with her, help her claim the mountaintop, and God willing she’d ask him to guide her again.

  Abrupt silence sliced off her moan.

  Fuck, had he hurt her? Scared her? Lifting his head, he tried to catch her gaze.

  Eyes squeezed shut, she pulled her top lip into her mouth. Wishful thinking, if she expected to barricade her moans behind her grimace.

  “Still feeling good?” Nuzzling her cheek, he slowed his pace.

  “Someone’s going to hear.” She lay rigid and unmoving, her hips no longer following his lead. A wisp of church basement scandal clung to her whisper. “I don’t—” Bracing her arm against the sidewall, she flexed trembling fingers. “I shouldn’t.” Her hesitation smacked of more than a recurrence of a matter he’d thought settled.

  “I won’t let anyone embarrass you.” Not even himself, and sure as hell not to give her an orgasm she feared or to force her vulnerabilities to the surface. She’d confessed to masturbating all week but hadn’t used the word. She’d gone out tonight trusting him. He’d take her home by the same route. No detours into distrust or confusion. “I’d never want you hurt or ashamed, Eleanora. You say stop and I’ll stop.”

  She breathed. Deep, slow breaths with a five-count between in and out. Her stiffness melted.

  Light from the moon and the screen outlined the curves and peaks of her breasts. His arm crossed her hip. His wrist disappeared into the dark vee of her shorts. The view down their bodies made him ache.

  Beyond, at the foot of the truck bed, the lane stood empty.

  “No one’s watching you but me. No one’s feeling you but me.” He bent his arm and rolled her farther into his embrace. “No one’s hearing you with your face against my neck.”

  “Nobody else.” She tucked in and rolled her hips, calling him back into action. “Just us.”

  Stretching, he grasped her hand and joined
them in a clasp atop her breast. “You and me.”

  She wrapped her other arm up and over his shoulder.

  “You’re safe here.” He kissed and nipped his way along her forearm. “I’ve got you.”

  Shivering, she nodded and clung to him with surprising strength. “Don’t stop.”

  He worked her with patient fingers. More patience than his cock showed, grinding against her side.

  Mewling sighs answered him. She clawed his back, clutching fistfuls of fabric as if she meant to pull his shirt right off him.

  “You like knowing how hard you make me? That’s all you, Eleanora.”

  She rocked in rhythm, her hips undulating in a wave, and Jesus God save him if her body didn’t clamp his fingers with a virgin’s tightness.

  “You consume my thoughts.” His thumb working her clit would break the sound barrier if he stepped up the pace any more. “I wake up hard with you on my mind.”

  She moaned on every exhale, quiet but audible and vibrating where her face pressed to his neck.

  “That’s it, you can let go.” He squeezed her hand, the two together cradling her breast. “It’s all right to let go. You’re so damned soft and wet and your heat’s burning my fingers. Heaven’s on fire.”

  Straining toward him, she lifted her hips and spread her knees wider. Her thigh jammed his cock. He’d be damned if he finished before her despite the solid provocation.

  “Bite down.” Whatever held her back, he aimed to provide the soothing solution. “You can scream and moan all you want into my neck. No fear, Nora.”

  Pain blossomed, but pain had never felt so good.

  Her muffled cry coincided with a jolt of tension through her body, her heels drumming at the truck bed. She spasmed around his fingers in a wet rush.

  Hard as a rock in his shorts, he groaned and joined her in release. Four shots, his cock jerking with the blaze of cleansing fire. Somewhere in the long line of cars, a teenage boy or two had probably filled his shorts with the same sticky warmth and struggled with embarrassment.

  Age brought perspective. Feeling like a man wasn’t about where he shot his load. His masculine pride belonged to her whimpers and sighs and her body squirming against him. The way she gave him control and trusted him to keep her safe.

  Her shaking took a long while to slow. He planted kisses along her hairline and tasted the salt of her sweat. Murmured nonsense syllables and endearments as her legs fell slack. At her nudge, he uncurled his left arm.

  She rolled flat and used his bicep for a pillow. Her eyelids fluttered. Shrouded in shadow, the hollow of her neck invited deeper exploration. She sighed through her smile.

  “Good feeling?”

  “I’m seeing stars.” Her hushed voice magnified his satisfaction tenfold. A wisp of awe clung to her. “Even when I close my eyes.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Same thing I see every time I look at you.”

  She giggled, and he leaned in for a true kiss, slow and full of gratitude. He rested his fingers over her sex, relaxed and possessive at once. A treasure he wouldn’t relinquish.

  “If you want, I can—you know.” She curled her hand in a loose fist and shook it. “Return the favor.”

  Startled, he twitched like a rabbit hearing a rustle in the brush. So caught up in her climax, she hadn’t recognized his. Pride burned hot. He set his lips against her ear. “No need,” he drawled. “I christened my shorts making you feel good.”

  Dipping her chin, she gazed down their bodies. “I’m sorry. I should’ve offered sooner. God, I didn’t think about you needing—”

  “No apologies, Eleanora.” He dropped a hint of steel in his voice. No fucking way would she blame herself for what didn’t constitute a problem. Not with him. “When we’re together, I want you focused on your own pleasure. If you’re having a good time, you can be sure I am. Nothing makes a man feel like a man more than his woman in rapture.”

  “Your woman.” Curiosity cast her before a fancy three-sided mirror, a woman trying on new clothes. They made a good fit, him and his honey girl. She’d see the truth. “You called me Nora.”

  “I did.” He called to her so often in his solo sessions the nickname had slipped out.

  “I’ve been stuck with ‘Ellie’ since forever.” She stretched and yawned. “I like ‘Nora’ better. Especially for”—a tremor ran through her—“special occasions.”

  “Glad I rate as a special occasion.” He nudged her face in a teasing caress.

  “You’re one of a kind, Rob. That’s where you rate.” Dead serious, his Nora stared him straight in the eyes. “Nobody else even gets on the chart.”

  * * * *

  Too much. She’d revealed too much. He’d take her honesty for clinginess and cut her loose like in the articles her coworkers read to each other off their phones when foot traffic slowed. Men didn’t want to be called a woman’s everything. They wanted to be told they had the biggest—

  “Good.” He quashed most of her fear with a single word, solid and definitive. “You X off every square on that chart, ’cause I wanna reserve ’em all.”

  Nagging doubt called his bravado pillow talk, but he backed up his words with an unholy amount of cuddling. The rest of the double feature played out on the giant screen without a scene registering. Rob loomed larger. Closer.

  His touch sent her into blissful overload. Desire accounted for a tiny fraction of the whole. He stayed.

  He curled her in the crook of his arm, their bodies pressed together, and he didn’t once complain about a disappointing night. They lay together watching the stars as the credits rolled and the cars down front trundled off to carry their sleepy passengers to bed.

  Taking a chance on the way home, she rested her hand on his thigh.

  He lowered his from the steering wheel and clasped hers. His light squeeze kept her quaking nerves at bay until they stood at her front door.

  She ought to thank him for the night out. For the…surprise.

  The orgasm.

  And the still respecting her after.

  Except she stood dumbstruck as a high-schooler ending her first date.

  “I’d like to take you out again, Eleanora.”

  A second date. A fourth, if she started counting by his method.

  “Next Friday, if you’re free.”

  Silly man, changing the laws of math to make things add up the way he wanted. Rules were immutable. Weren’t they?

  “I’ll clear my calendar.” Four words. A victory. Her coworkers would pounce on her the second she bowed out of a girls night two weeks in a row. “Umm.” Plague her with teasing innuendo. “Well.”

  Rob stood waiting. She’d hit the moment. The script dangled between them. Her line. Would you like to come in?

  But to let Rob inside the house where memories of David uncoiled, to promise him something she couldn’t wholeheartedly deliver tonight—the words echoed in her head and lodged in her throat. She tried twice to fit the key in the lock. Finally the pairing clicked, and she pushed the door open a finger width.

  “I’d also like to kiss you again.” Rob laid his hand on her cheek. “Before I leave.”

  He didn’t expect her to offer. Thank God. She sagged into her comfort zone, breathing easier, her muscles pliant, her mind quiet. “Please.”

  Time stopped as he leaned in. Unhurried, he kissed her without pushing. His slow, rolling lips relayed her special status, her importance to him.

  She replayed the moment again and again when he’d gone. Almost nothing he’d done tonight matched the man behavior Sharilyn described when she recounted her dates in graphic detail. But Rob transformed her every time she glanced at him. Thought of him.

  “Rob.”

  Yup. Even saying his name alone in her bed wrapped her in her own femininity. Checks and balances. Rob’s brand of manliness called to the woman inside her, all of the joys and hopes and desires churning so deep she no longer listened to them. But Rob did.

  Her phone chimed from th
e nightstand.

  Sleep tight, Nora. Pleasant dreams.

  No question they would be.

  You too, Rob.

  Chapter 4

  Rob sent her texts all week long, tantalizing tips for their date.

  Think casual. Indoors.

  Wear socks.

  And something you wouldn’t mind getting a little grease on.

  When he picked her up at seven on Friday, she danced out the door in shorts and a scoop-neck tee she hoped clung to all the right places.

  “Evening, Eleanora.” He tugged her belt loop with a crooked finger. “Once again, you’ve shown brilliant instincts. Got your socks on?”

  She swayed closer, letting him reel her in. Her heartbeat had spiked since his truck pulled into the drive. Near enough to inhale his earthy musk, she zipped along like a bill counter spitting out bundles. “Over my feet, inside my tennies, like usual.” Laying her hand on his chest, she soaked up the strong and steady thumping under her palm. “This an elaborate setup for a joke about knocking my socks off?”

  “And how might I do that?” His whispered question roared in her ear.

  She shivered with goose bumps despite the lingering heat of the day. “You could kiss me hello.” She’d fantasized about his mouth every night when her phone chimed with his goodnight texts.

  “Could I?” He settled his hand on her hip, each finger a searing reminder of his proximity. The pinkish perfection of his lips sported a cocky rise.

  She wouldn’t mind seeing other things rising. Her face warmed. “Uh-huh.”

  He leaned in.

  She tilted her head. Her eyelids grew heavy.

  “Good to know.”

  Their lips brushed. A week’s worth of pent-up passion tightened her nipples and tugged her sex. Initiating a deeper kiss, she tasted him with greater confidence than she’d owned last week.

  He cradled her head, pulling her to him when the force of his kiss would have pushed her away.

  She retreated for balance and he followed. Lips fastened together, they slow-danced another step and a third. The door handle dug into her back.