Just Fooling Around

by Julie Kenner

  Hadn’t she earned this? She’d seen the liquid heat in those clever eyes. All she had to do was say the word, and he’d be on her like gasoline on dying coals.

  But how to seduce a man like that? She wasn’t Bubbles McBimbo with come-on lines that rolled off her tongue. Her underwear drawer consisted of exactly one thong, a present from a short-lived boyfriend, that had EAT ME on it. Not the image she wanted to present. Not to Chance. Not today.

  She contemplated the monitor, the ever vigilant, all-seeing eye, and then smiled to herself. Security had its price, but security had its pleasures, too.

  Could she do this? Of course.

  Her mind made up, she moved to the screen on the wall, pushed the button to display the living room camera and then retrieved her brother’s old sweats from the drawer. If things went according to plan, Chance wouldn’t be needing those. For a few greedy seconds, she imagined him, and a flash of lust shot right between her thighs. She could imagine his hard body primed and waiting for her; all she had to do was put on a show. Painfully aware of the camera in the room, she watched herself in the mirror as her hand went to the top button on her gown, flicking it open.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the video feed from the living room, and sure enough, there was Chance, focused on the image of her. The sharp look of need on his face gave her all the encouragement she needed; she flicked another button open, and then two.

  Her palms slid beneath the fabric, cupping her breasts, and she tilted her head back, feeling the growing desire guiding her actions.

  Her body began to sway, not like dancing, that would be too obvious. No, this was the simple hip-curling movements that spoke of a woman who was in the throes of sexual arousal.

  Her breasts felt heavy and swollen under her hands, her senses heightened to near breaking, and she pushed her gown off one shoulder, exposing a tight nipple to cold, biting air and she gasped.

  On her monitor, she could see him standing alongside the tiny screen. His back was to her, and she wished she could see the expression on his face, but all she saw were the rigid cords in his neck, the steely line of his shoulders and the firm muscles in his back straining against his thin T-shirt. Although her sampling of men wasn’t as large as she would have liked, and most of her dates ran to the disastrous, Devon knew an aroused man when she saw one.

  Slowly she freed her other shoulder, sliding it from the nightgown, until the warm comfort of the old flannel was shoved to the floor.

  Devon Franklin was bare to the waist.

  In the carved mirror above the dresser, she could see the powerful lust in her eyes, her lids falling heavy. All her muscles turned soft, except for one, the low, hammering pulse between her legs, the one that was directing her movements in spite of the risk.

  Her brain knew that all pleasure came with pain, but this time, it was a statistical certainty that whatever the pain, the pleasure would be greater.

  Her hand slid over her breasts, down the relatively firm line of her torso, gliding further down beneath the yellow cotton panties. Her legs moved apart, and she braced her free hand against the dresser top, taking a deep breath, toying and teasing. She didn’t dare check the monitor, she didn’t dare know what was happening to Chance because she was so turned on, she didn’t want to know the hard chill of rejection. She didn’t want to think about falling tree limbs, or wrong phone numbers, or magically misplaced keys.

  No. Today, she was going to live.

  Daringly, she slid one finger inside her, feeling the wet, swollen flesh, and Devon sighed with relief. Oh, yes. Oh, please, yes. Her fingers moved, knowing the places that gave her pleasure, recognizing the building of pressure, the fluttering clenching and relaxing of muscles. Lost in this magical world, her hips rocked back and forth.

  She could only think of her black-haired stranger with starkly pale eyes. She gazed into the mirror, met those pale eyes and her whole body froze.

  He was here.

  This was no longer safe solo sex on a screen. This was full-body contact, this was sweat and skin…with a high probability of never sleeping with Chance Cooper again.

  Devon swallowed, sliding the wet-slicked finger out of her body, and lodging it safely behind her back.

  One side of his mouth quirked upward with an easy tenderness. She liked that about him, the way he simply accepted things and moved forward.

  His fearless intent, the hard strength of his body and his easy confidence flew in the face of every deterministic model that Devon had ever devised. She started to shake—nerves, emotions and the certainty that she didn’t want to be alone with her fantasies.

  “I thought you might need some help,” he told her. Silvery eyes raked over her bare breasts, admiring her, desiring her. “You’d been gone so long that I wasn’t sure if something was wrong, or you might have been in trouble and—oh, hell, honey, I aced high-G training and breezed through bat-turns and I have never been this knotted up before.”

  His voice was hoarse and unsteady, missing the easy charm his tone held earlier.

  “Can you stay?” she asked, dangerous words that sounded foreign on her lips.

  He didn’t answer, but limped toward her, his gaze locked with hers. She loved the fire in his eyes; hypnotized her. Tonight she wanted the burn.

  She thought he would touch, ached for him to touch her body, but he didn’t. Instead, his hand reached for the braid at the back of her head, capturing the length of it, tugging ever so slightly.

  “I want to see your hair down. I want to see it splayed over your shoulders, long and silky. It’s beautiful and you keep it hidden in plain sight.” His free hand touched the tip of her breast lightly, short-circuiting her nerves, blowing all function to her brain. “Like these.”

  Sadly she possessed no backup generator for her mind.

  “Can I take down your hair?” he asked. The request robbed her of words, of any survival technique. Devon nodded once.

  Gently his hands pulled and discarded the elastic band. Patiently he took apart the braid, one section falling, then another, fanning it out over her back, over her shoulders. She shivered from the warm feel of his hands in her hair, skimming over her skin, and from the sensual brush of the strands.

  Devon never wore her hair loose. It was impractical and silly, and she’d told herself a gazillion times that she should cut it off if she wasn’t going to do anything with it, but now she knew why she’d refused to cut it. Because she was waiting for the one man who knew. The one man who was willing to work his way into her tightly braided hair and, in the process, make her feel gorgeous, admired, loved—instead of cursed.

  The way he looked at her now, as if there was no other woman he ever desired more, she didn’t feel cursed. His nose was starting to bruise along one side, at some point, he’d developed a limp, but he was still more amazing than any other man she’d ever met.

  Maybe it was an illusion. The ultimate April Fools’ joke. Maybe he was a good actor. Maybe, maybe, maybe. For one night though, Devon wanted to go with maybe.

  5

  CHANCE TANGLED one hand through the heavy fall of her hair, wondering what fool had invented a braid. It was an instrument of torture to deprive mankind of something this…lovely.

  Her hair was the color of the Badlands in the afternoon sun: sand and fire and light and shadows. And soft like silk over his fingers.His thumb pressed against her lower lip, watching the dazed awareness in her warm brown eyes, feeling the raging want inside him, and he struggled to keep the brakes on, because this one was different.

  Oh, sure, he needed to kiss her, he ached to kiss her, and his cock was ready for long past kissing, but he wasn’t sure how to start, or where to start. He’d seen lots of naked women, and as a rule, tits, mouths and legs didn’t throw him off…until now.

  But holy shit, she, of the Rapunzel hair, of the Craftsman toolbox, of the gorgeous breasts…

  He was saved from puzzling out exactly how to first touch Devon Franklin because thos
e breasts were soon pressed shamelessly against him. She kissed his mouth, and stole his breath. Chance wrapped his arms around her, trying not to break her, trying not to damage her with the metal on his ankle, but his hands weren’t as gentle as he wanted them to be.

  The long line of her spine, the soft pleasure of her skin, and oh, hell…the hot brand of her nipples against his chest.

  His hands slipped lower, curved his palms around her ass, pushing her into him. Sweet heaven, his cock honed between her legs like it were custom-made to be there.

  Not that she seemed to notice. Her fingers dug into his damp T-shirt, yanked it over his head and then she curled her arms around his neck, kissing him once again. Hot damn, the woman could kiss. Her mouth was greedy and hungry, as if she hadn’t gotten laid in eighty years, and Chance didn’t understand what was wrong with the men of this no-account town because if he lived here, he’d be all over her, two, three, ten times a day.

  He wanted to climb inside her, those soft pliable legs curving around him…his cock jerked enthusiastically and he knew that was a bad sign. If her tongue wasn’t quite so erotic, creating these colorful pictures of him inside her, surrounding him, her body moving just as erotically as her tongue….

  Needing to throttle back to somewhere in-control, Chance broke free from the kiss, took a step back, letting his attention wander to her breasts, which had intrigued him since pretty much the first time she opened the door.

  For a woman of such a practical mind, she had exceptional breasts, rounded and glowing rosy. Fascinated, he brushed his thumbs across the twin peaks, and Devon shuddered, her dazed face a picture of woman-in-want. It was a glorious look, her normally lucid eyes staring at him as if he were the only man in the world.

  It was an awe-inspiring responsibility. Determined to live up to her high expectations, he lowered his head, and took one nipple into his mouth, drawing long and hard, until her hands tangled in his hair. She began to whisper things to him. Words such as liability and sustainability and binders and survivorship, which on their own would have bored him to tears, but when coupled with sexual organs nearly cooked his munitions right then and there.

  His jeans and jockeys were shucked in world-record time, and he dragged her back to him, ready to…

  No, he told himself.

  “Devon,” he whispered, “honey, we’re going to have to slow down if you’re to have an enjoyable experience with this. As a man, I’m pretty well guaranteed to hit the brass ring, but if you don’t—”

  She pushed him down on her bed, rising over him, and the dim light cast golden shadows on her and her dark hair falling around her.

  Her eyes were so sexy and sleepy, and he watched her teeth worry her lip. Doubt, concern. Obviously, she was not a woman who gave herself up to the carnal side of life. He had expected that, but hadn’t fully expected the incredible emotional distress that his cock currently was experiencing at the idea that she might worry herself to the point of stopping this.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “I should warn you.”

  Oh, those were vile words. Disappointment struck at his heart, his gut, and other vital organs. She was married. That had to be it. There were ethical, moral lines that he did not cross, and he was rather proud of his more honorable nature. But to be fair, he’d never had a nearly naked married woman straddling his completely naked body and what had been firm, uncrossable lines, now seemed a little shortsighted. His conscience warred with his cock, and his conscience won.

  “You don’t need to warn me. Warn is a strong word, implying bad things, but let’s cover all the bases, so we’re clear. Are you married? Engaged? Is your heart spoken for? Do you have some disease that I should be more concerned about than I currently am? Are you taking some drug that makes you uninhibited and thus are not in full control of your senses? I think those are all of the circumstances that could discourage me from having intimate relations. So if any of those are applicable, a simple yes or no would be appreciated.”

  “No,” she answered, and he began to breathe again.

  Until he noticed the teeth still working her lower lip in a busy manner that shouldn’t arouse, but did. “I can see you’ve still got some questions.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m footloose, disease-free, got a couple of parking tickets in Fargo and someday they’ll catch up with me, but that’s it.” His eyes widened at his own thoughtlessness. “Condom! And by the way, I have that…in case you don’t.”

  Considering the provisions in her house, he would bet his right nut that she had a condom, too.

  “I have a condom,” she confirmed, but she didn’t sound enthused. Goddamn it. He had liked her enthused.

  “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is? I can’t fix it, unless you talk about it.” To be honest, he could lay here all night, with those no-nonsense legs astride him, damp panties rubbing his belly like some X-rated good luck charm.

  “It’s not that easy,” she told him, sad and forlorn, and he reached up, brushing his thumb over her mouth to make her smile again.

  “I know I don’t look like a man of intelligence. People think I’m just some pretty flyboy who’s a few noodles short of a casserole, but you should know that I graduated pretty high up in my class at AM. I can fix a lot of things. Why don’t you try me?”

  “I don’t believe in duct tape. It’s a cheap fix that wouldn’t withstand a real crisis, and if I’m going to do something, I should commit one hundred percent, not try to bandage it up with a patch that won’t last in the long run.”

  He started to laugh. “Is this a survey on home repair or sexual proclivities?”

  “It’s a metaphor,” she said, sounding miffed.

  “For what?”

  “My life.”

  Damn. Whenever women started talking in broad, nonsensical strokes that involved the words my life or my feelings, it didn’t bode well for relaxed conversation, for sex, or for effective communication between males and females. However, he was interested in hearing her philosophies on life because he suspected it wouldn’t involve body image or shopping, or the evils of panty hose. No, he instinctively knew that Devon Franklin worried about things on a more serious plane.

  So, despite the screaming protest of his cock, Chance pulled her down on top of him, burying her head in his shoulder, and rubbed her back. Up and down, his long comforting strokes might put him in mind of the sexual act, but his heart was actually in the right place. Hopefully she would overlook the heat-seeking missile that was jutting impatiently against her belly.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, just as the yellow lights of the generator dimmed, glowed and then diminished to black.

  “That.”

  “I like the dark,” he said against her hair.

  “I’m cursed. You should know that most men who sleep with me end up running in the opposite direction as fast as their feet can carry them, which usually isn’t very fast, because they get beat up, or attacked by wild dogs, or caught up in a terrorist sting, or chained to strange devices and I don’t mean that in a sexual way. I mean bad. Cursed. Bad.”

  “Listen, darling, I think you’re probably being overly dramatic. My track record isn’t that hot, but you don’t see me throwing in the towel. A sexy woman in the prime years of her life—that’s you—should not be creating obstacles to your future physical happiness. There’s no such thing as curses.”

  “It’s real. Your ball and chain. Your nose. The power, the phones.”

  She sounded so woebegone, so convinced that everything was her fault. It was refreshing to find a female who wasn’t quick to blame the male species, but in this case, he felt guilty because none of this was her fault.

  “Devon, I made the ball and chain as a joke. I grabbed a cannonball from the base and bribed a grease monkey out of his welding gear. And if you bumped my nose, that’s only ’cause I’m stubborn and don’t take rejection easily. Not that it happens often, which is why I’m unfamil
iar with exactly how to handle it. But if you think you’re to blame for any of my stupidity, well, that’s just stupid.”

  She sniffed and smiled and pressed a kiss to his mouth. A soft kiss that willed him back into sexy thoughts again, not that they had been far away.

  “You’re very nice,” she whispered, and it touched him in multiple places—his mind, his heart, and his cock, as well, which went without saying, which was why he felt the need to correct her.

  “Not that nice. Let me tell you the sordid truth about men, sweetheart. You lie naked against them, sexual fulfillment so close that their minds are already imagining it, then they will tell you anything to get into your pants.”

  “So you didn’t mean all that?”

  “Of course I did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get into your pants.”

  “I wish you would,” she said softly, sliding one bare thigh between his two willing ones. Chance dug his fingers into the sheets because although the unmistakable moisture between her legs said yes, he could still hear the worry in her voice. In his opinion, if a woman wasn’t fully committed to the task at hand, then his duty as a first-class lover had failed.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re already 99.9% to liftoff, sweetheart. I don’t know why .01% would stop you now.”

  She lifted her head and he could feel her stare, hear the relief in her voice. “We are, aren’t we?”

  “Don’t think I’ve ever been this close without sealing the deal before,” he offered, pleased to see his words were helping. He’d never had a woman tax his mental skills before, and it was kind of fun.

  “You seem very unafraid.”

  “I might be quaking inside, but I give you my word, I do my best work under pressure.”

  For one moment, she was silent, and he thought his well-honed instincts might have been off, but then her hands reached down and she stripped off her panties. The nightstand drawer squeaked open, and Chance sighed with relief. Sure, he would have tried to seduce her out of that small yet significant piece of cotton, but his conscience rested easy now that she was the one who’d made the final move.