by M. Q. Barber
“You comfortable here, Eleanora?” He groped for an excuse to navigate deeper into her house. The front hall didn’t lend itself to sustained action, and her beautiful breasts deserved extensive attention. The more he sucked and teased, the more she sagged against the wall.
“My legs are pins and needles.” Laughing, she shivered from toes to fingertips. “The good kind.”
“You got my nerves firing too.” With her body vibrating against him, sweet Christ. He ached to sink deep and feel her vibrations from the inside. “Not sure how long I can stand.”
“Arch behind you.” She flapped a hand, her arms trapped in her shirt. “Living room.”
Making out in the front parlor, furtive as a pair of horny teens. Good for now. Room enough to lay her down and feast. Nourishment. He still had that thirst to quench. Forcing his hand to unclench, he freed her arms and let the shirt fall.
She wiggled her fingers in front of his face. Her sassy stare lent her a cute-as-hell glow. “Not so scared anymore?”
“Terrified.” He swooped in for a kiss while he got his hands positioned. Distraction. Misdirection. God, she deserved so much magic. He lifted.
Squealing, she flung her arms around his neck and clamped her legs around his waist.
He ground against the heat between her thighs and groaned. Should’ve accounted for the temptation of everything lined up and ready to go. Pre-flight checks complete. “Hold on tight, honey girl.”
She clung to him. Her breath warmed his neck.
He stepped back. “We’re taking a short trip.”
She nuzzled closer, kissing her way up his jaw as he navigated the hall. “I like where you’ve taken me so far.”
Her arms tensed across his shoulders, and her breath came hot in his ear. Plotting something, his shy scamp. She closed her mouth around his earlobe and tugged. Scraped her teeth on his skin. Copying his moves on her. Christ she learned fast.
He took a shaky breath and squeezed, his spread fingers brushing the denim covering her ass cheeks. “I got ideas for plenty more places I’d like to take you.” Two loveseats and no couch. Springy carpet would have to do if he meant to lay her out. “Right now it’s somewhere with a more relaxed dress code. That all right with you, Nora?”
She dragged her teeth across his neck, nipping as she went. “Someplace dangerous?”
“Mmm, your mouth is as dangerous as your fingers.” Her kind of dangerous pasted his boxers to his cock with pre-come. “Gotta know where you are at all times.”
He set her down but kept her close. Ran his hands up the backs of her thighs and cradled her ass. “So I guess it better be a place where you keep telling me what you like. With words if you got breath for ’em, or those sweet little moans when you don’t.”
“I don’t, I mean, I’m not—it’s kind of quiet.” Arms twined around his neck, she fiddled with the wisps of hair at his nape. “With me.”
Sure didn’t seem she’d expected to stay quiet at the drive-in. Nervous about being overheard. Biting deep into his neck and shoulder. Five’d give ya ten if she thought herself quiet, the blame sat square at her ex’s feet. Lazy, selfish ass hadn’t exerted himself enough to pull a moan out of her.
“Nothing wrong with either way.” Hooking his thumbs into her shorts, he grazed the skin above the edge of her panties. “You do what feels right.”
Someday she might nod without the doubting eyes. So long as he kept providing reasons to believe. For now, he’d take the fingers curving inside his collar and the hesitant caresses.
“This dangerous place we’re going—” Her gaze dropped to his chest. “Is your dress code as relaxed as mine? You’re my shirtless gentleman, Rob. Fair’s fair.”
Excitement hummed in his blood and set up camp in his cock. Every new boldness brought her closer to him, flashing through the cracks of the insecure, jilted wife. He’d never give her cause to worry about him straying.
“Mine’s as easygoing as you say it is.” Beneath his hands, her back radiated soft warmth, a spur to touch every inch. “You want someone who’ll stand buck naked in a rainstorm with an apple in his teeth, I’m your man.”
“Too bad it’s not raining.” Giggling, she slipped busy, teasing hands down his chest and raised his shirt.
Not quite the powerful six-pack he’d owned a decade ago, but he kept himself muscled and trim. His bare chest had seemed to please her at the bar. Hadn’t turned her off, leastwise.
She dropped his shirt by the nearer loveseat.
Reaching the clasp of her bra, he rocked the tight band against her back. “Dress code.”
“Off.” Tone distracted, she rubbed circles on his pecs. Fine place to focus if she liked. “Shouldn’t ever be allowed anywhere anyway.”
“You won’t hear me arguing, honey girl.” He slipped the hooks and pulled her bra down her arms. Christ, she redefined beauty. The bra fell from his fingers. He sank to his knees and cupped her breasts.
“Look at you. Curves flowing right into my palms, deep pink tips and these hard little nips like candy on my tongue.” He stole a kiss from each, leaving her wet and shining in the light spilling from the hall. “Begging for appreciation. Ripe. Delicious.”
He sucked each breast in turn.
She writhed toward him, slow at first but gaining passion.
Confidence, he hoped. Angels knew she made him feel like a god. His cock leapt into overdrive on a zipper-busting mission.
Skimming her waistband, he fingered the buttonhole of her jean shorts. A tiny tug, and the metal slipped through. Palm flat, he brushed lower, into the soft curls he’d played with last week. “Dress code.” The zipper ticked down. “Gotta confiscate these.”
She folded into him, knees buckling.
He lowered her to the floor with steady hands and stripped her shorts. Left the panties, their light lavender a match for the bra on the floor somewhere already. Except for the darker patch in the center.
“Gorgeous.” From her wet pussy to the womanly slopes of her belly and breasts to the pale perfection of her neck and the nervous anticipation in her eyes. All but that last one, and he aimed to bring her hidden bold streak into the bedroom every night of their lives. “You know what I am, Nora?”
She shook her head.
He itched to free her hair from its ponytail. Straddling her on his hands and knees, he leaned in and coaxed the hair tie loose. “I’m a man who sees everything I want in the world staring right back at me.”
Her sigh shuddered through her body. “The places you take me,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here.”
“Is here good, honey girl?” He kissed her cheeks and sat back on his heels. Spreading his knees wide helped some. Sliding his fingers through the sides of her silky panties compounded the problem. Especially when she raised her hips.
“It’s wonderful.” She pierced him with her blue-gray eyes, a thin ring around the blackness swallowing their centers. “I wanna stay awhile.”
“Long as you like.” He breathed out slow and dragged her panties down in a controlled slide. Caressed her smooth legs on his way back up.
Her plump lips clung together, a deeper pink than colored her breasts, waiting beneath golden-brown curls crying out for him to part them.
“Long as you like, Nora. No need to rush.”
He stretched out over her, face to face, propped on his forearms, and angled for a kiss. But his mouth watered for the honey flowing between her legs and filling the room with sweet, heavy musk.
* * * *
Naked. She’d let him strip her naked and gotten him half-naked, too. Any minute now a prankster would jump from behind the curtains to point and laugh.
She didn’t date. She didn’t invite men into her home. Men didn’t kiss and caress her like they’d been starving without her.
But the floor-length drapes hung silent and still while Rob made her squirm. Weight and heat. Firm hands and wet kisses. So incredibly better than she’d imagined night after night
in her bed alone.
He worked down her body in sinuous motion and sucked at her breasts. Left them darker and more pointed than they’d ever been, swollen and beating in rhythm with the pulse between her legs.
He kept going. Lower. Kissed her inner thighs.
“Oh! You don’t have to.” Panic seized tighter than passion in her gut. “I mean, it doesn’t work. On me, I mean.” Her heart begged him not to be dead set on doing that. “I don’t”—she wouldn’t be able to convincingly fake proper enjoyment—“you know.” Not once. “It’s never worked on me.”
Hand splayed across her belly, he hovered above her sex. “How many guys have tried?”
“One.” Her ex-husband, begrudgingly, with a chorus of annoyed sighs as an accompaniment. “There’s—” The words lodged in her throat. Not enough experience or too much—somewhere between existed a magical fantasy world where women lived free of shame. “There was only ever the one.”
Rob rolled his thumb downward, sliding over her clit.
Her hips bucked. God. Two years since any fingers but her own had touched her, and now his tempted her for the second time in eight days.
“Maybe he was doing it wrong. Let me try.” Lowering his head, he placed a light kiss on her sex. “If you don’t like it, we’ll do something else.”
Maybe David had been wrong. Not maybe she was faulty. Not if you didn’t take so damned long to heat up, I wouldn’t have to look elsewhere. Not the shame of her husband rolling over and getting himself off while she curled up in a ball, dry and sore from trying to satisfy him before she admitted defeat. Or the cringing pain of letting him use her body as an apology for her failure and the time he’d wasted on her.
Rob dabbed an arc of gentle kisses low on her belly, above the pale brown tangle of her pubic hair.
She hadn’t considered grooming before her date. She hadn’t thought he’d want to put his face there. Should she have shaved? Waxed? Should’ve asked the girls at the office what men wanted, that’s what she should’ve done.
He captured her gaze in a contest of wills and desire. Sincerity welled deep in his quiet voice and kind eyes. “It’s fine to say no if I’m making you uncomfortable, Nora.” Here lay a man with abiding patience. Growing up on a farm might’ve taught him to appreciate slow nurturing the way she’d learned to value compounded interest. Steady growth. These things took time.
“But maybe you’re the right kind of uncomfortable.” He circled her clit. “You’re beautiful as sin, honey girl, pink and flowing.”
The hint of pressure, the broad tip of his thumb, rocked her hips.
His nostrils flared. “Your scent’s driving me crazy. My cock’s gonna bust through my shorts and the floor beneath.” He rolled side to side, and beyond his sleek back tilted the firm roundness of his denim-encased ass. His groan pushed warm air across her stomach and shivers through her body.
Nothing would happen that she didn’t want. He’d promised.
“Try,” she whispered. Part of her—lots of parts of her—wanted this. Enough to outweigh her cowering fear that he’d give up and label her a lousy lay too. “I want you to try.”
His nod pressed his nose and chin into her skin. “Nice and open for me, Nora.” He laid his hands against her bare inner thighs and pushed with gentle, unrelenting force. “Let me see your beautiful lips for a proper kiss.”
Tense anticipation gripped her. Rob spoke to her in ways no one had before. He told her things her body cried to hear.
Warm and wet, his mouth closed over intimate, tender flesh. The drag of his tongue lifted a moan from her throat and gave it voice.
Images snapped in the hazy flashes between her fluttering eyelids.
Her back curling, pushing her hips toward his face.
His hand running along the inside of her thigh, his palm heated and his fingers spanning the top of her leg.
His tongue extended, the point sliding between her parted lips and emerging glistening.
Over and over again.
Pressure built between her legs. Tension ruled her frame. She rolled her neck and bent her knees. Her calves pressed tight to her thighs, Rob’s arms and shoulders wedged and holding her wide.
She curled tighter, her body drawn to a central point. The point of Rob’s tongue, sliding and circling. He prodded and dipped inside her. Oh God, it was too much, too much, she couldn’t—
Pleasure raced in unending waves. Her shoulders and hips thumped the carpet. She dug into the plush pile, desperate for a solid and familiar base in a frenzied world of intensity and sensation.
Framed to perfection beyond the shudders rolling down her breasts and belly, Rob rested between her thighs in mid-lick. Closing his eyes, he curled his tongue and pulled it back into his mouth. His moan amplified her trembling whimper.
The frenzy retreating from her body stole the fear away and left behind calmer heat. Her wrung-out satisfaction surpassed the aftermath of the massage and a sauna visit they’d done for her sister’s bachelorette party. Trust Rob to discover an incredible way to top the chart.
“Delicious.” He stroked her with light-fingered sweeps. “Feeling all right?”
“Never better.” Her whisper might have held a touch of awe, but embarrassment didn’t swamp her. “You’re amazing.”
Shaking his head, he crawled up her torso. “You, not me. You taste sweeter than the first rush of water to a man who spent the day running drills or tossing hay bales.”
He settled his weight on her, welcome as the thickest down comforter in mid-December. Cozy and snug. A place she longed to stay for hours. Or forever.
She traced the rounded ends of his shoulders. Strong and firm, curving over her, he provided shelter and warmth. He created a clandestine bower, an oasis in her living room.
He stretched, extending his neck over her face and laying a kiss on her forehead.
She inhaled his earthy musk. No stubble greeted the brush of her nose.
“You shaved before our date.” The intimacy of their position hushed her words.
“Mm-hmm.” Ducking his head, he trailed kisses down her hairline and across her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. “Be silly to mar your sweet skin with beard burn.” He rolled his cheek against hers. “Not on your beautiful face and not on your gorgeous, clenching thighs.”
Speaking the words brought about the action. She squeezed his hips between her legs, and the urge seized her to touch him, to undress him as he’d undressed her and lay her hands and maybe her mouth on his bare flesh. His jeans had stayed on last time. Well. He’d come in them last time, too.
“You didn’t, um, jump the gun?” She snapped her mouth closed with a click. Smooth. Smooth as the backside of a porcupine.
* * * *
Silence reigned for half a second.
His laughter erupted in a snort past her ear. Christ. His girl’s euphemisms had their own gentle charm. Pulling himself together, he planted a kiss on her cheek and lifted his head.
Uncertainty swam in her eyes, thin silvery-blue rims around fuck-drunk pupils.
“Nope.” He ground his cock against the wet crest of her pussy through his jeans. “Still loaded and ready.”
Fuck if she didn’t mewl like a kitten.
He groaned. He wouldn’t pressure her to seal the deal tonight no matter how much his cock ached to be inside her. She needed slow, and he’d damned well give it to her.
“Could I—would you mind if—” Her featherlight fingers on his biceps teased like the lick of flames.
Given the chance, he’d immolate himself in her heat with a joyful heart.
“Can I touch you?” She rocked her hips. No mistaking her meaning, but she shied from her own request sure as she leaned into him. Her gaze rose and dropped. Her body tensed to flinch. “I mean, without your jeans between us?”
He raced to define the variables in the calculus of Nora Howard. What he’d learned of her shouted emotional abuse, not physical. Skittishness borne of curt rejection or whatever
bullshit her ex-husband had fed her when he’d been getting his on the side. “I’d sure like it if you did, Eleanora.” He softened his voice to match hers, steady as he cradled her head and slipped his other arm under her back. “You’ve got me dreaming of you.”
His swift roll left him sucking in his breath at the delicate weight of her nude body draped over him.
“I dream about your slim fingers.” His grip kept her breasts flattened to his chest. “Your sweet mouth.”
Her bare legs straddled his hips, a tantalizing pressure centered on his cock.
“The beautiful blush between your legs.”
She jerked upright, her eyes wide and dark.
His hold slipped to her hips.
“You do?” Her tongue peeked between her lips and retreated. She fingered his belt buckle, her grip firmer than her voice suggested.
“I surely do.” He tensed his thighs to redirect the energy begging him to thrust into her hand. “If you’d rather touch me with your breasts or your stomach or your feet, even, you say the word. Your choice.”
“My feet?” Her giggles gave way to speculation. “People do that?”
“They do.”
The heel of her hand came to rest on his arousal. She seemed unaware of the contact, relaxed and giggling once more. “Feet.”
He gave a slow nod to hold her attention. “You do what feels best to you, and I promise I’ll tell you whether I’m liking it.” He flexed his cock.
She sucked in a breath, her breasts lifting, their sweet tips tight and tempting.
“I’m not a hard man to read.”
A delicate flush spread across her cheeks. “You seem like a hard man to me, Robin.”
He would’ve guffawed with delight at her bitty boldness if she hadn’t chosen the same moment to squeeze his shaft. Fuck, her touch sent him soaring. Denim and cotton aside, her hand was the first besides his own on his cock in months.
“C’mere, Nora.” Voice hoarse, he swept his hands up her back and tugged. “I wanna kiss you so bad I can’t see straight.”