by Andrews, Amy
He could smell himself on her, taste himself on her tongue, and his heart pumped madly in his chest. It took all his willpower not to ram himself back into her wet, willing mouth and let her have her way with him.
“Let me,” she panted, reaching for him again.
Doyle grabbed her hand. “It’ll be over too soon,” he said, pushing the remnants of her clothes down her arms till they slid off and she was completely naked.
“Lie back,” he whispered.
His erection surged at her eager compliance, her body laid out before him, his to enjoy. Her high breasts, the pale nipples aroused, her slim thighs pressed together, the fascinating juncture of those thighs hiding the places his mouth and fingers already knew.
He reached for her foot, lifting her leg up off the bed and fingering the buckle on the strap at her ankle.
“No,” Sal said, twisting her foot away, pressing the sole and the heel of the shoe firmly into his chest. The stiletto dug in a little, a surprisingly erotic stimulus. “I want to keep them on.”
Then she moved her foot down and planted it on the bed, stiletto on the mattress, knee bent. She moved the other leg into the same position, her knees wide apart so he could see every intricate detail of her sex.
Hottest damn thing he’d ever seen.
“Do you need some direction?” she asked, looking up at him, her mouth slightly parted as she panted softly beneath his scrutiny. “It’s here,” she said, sliding two fingers into the wet folds, pushing one inside her as the other found the tiny hidden pearl his tongue had lashed not that long ago. She arched her back and panted a little more, her mouth widening further.
Fuck! Okay, that was the hottest damn thing he’d seen.
Doyle yanked open the drawer beside his bed and grabbed a condom from the box. He ripped it open with his teeth and rolled it on, his eyes never leaving the dip and play of her fingers.
He placed his knee on the mattress beside her and she withdrew her hand, reaching for him, clutching his arms, raising herself up, her lips seeking his. He gave himself up to her, their mouths meshing, their hips aligning, her hands leaving his biceps, sliding onto his back, gliding down to his buttocks as he fit himself against her and she raised her hips in silent supplication.
“Now,” she murmured against his mouth. “Now.”
Doyle didn’t make her wait. They’d both waited long enough. He thrust, entering her with one quick buck of his hips, sliding all the way in to the hilt.
Sal’s gasp was lost in his own guttural groan of pleasure. “Yes,” she whispered, her fingernails digging into his buttocks, holding him there. “Yes.”
Doyle’s mouth devoured hers as he pulled out and thrust again, feeding on it, tasting it, his head filling with its greedy demands, wanting every morsel she had to give, not being able to get enough of it. He kissed and thrust and she kissed and flexed, meeting every demand of his hips, and they built a rhythm that ramped up and up and up until he was flying with her to a place where only her mouth and her taste and her smell and all her hot, wet tightness existed.
Coasting along in that delirious space where two bodies became one and anything seemed possible—immortality beckoned—before things exploded in a fiery ball that flung a person into the heavens only to drag them down again humbled by the experience and utterly, utterly mortal.
She cried out, breaking off the drugging contact of their mouths, her head pushing back into the pillow, her shoulder blades bowing off the bed with each thrust. “God…” she panted. “I’m coming…I’m coming.”
Doyle’s belly tightened as her internal muscles clamped down on his cock, gripping it like a vise, undulating up and down the length of him, demanding he also cede to the primal call of their bodies, pushing him to the same heights, dragging him down, drowning him in heat and want and need and the base imperative to fuck, hot seed boiling up from somewhere deep in his balls seeking release and the ultimate pleasure it brought as it surged out in hot streams of ecstasy.
She came screaming, calling his name, her nails raking like talons down his back, and he followed her into the void, riding the pleasure and the pain, knowing he never wanted to be anywhere else.
Chapter Eleven
Sal didn’t remember much when she woke with a start hours later. Doyle moving at some point, shifting to get rid of the condom, the light falling across the bed from outside going dark, everything but the slow buzz of residual pleasure going dark, him dragging her back into his body again, spooning her, surrounding her, cocooning her as they both fell into the sleep of the deeply sated.
Waking at some point to the hard press of his dick nestled along the seam of her buttocks, rolling over, meeting the eager press of his mouth and the urgent press of their bodies as they lay on their sides, ready again, fucking him face-to-face in the dark, her leg draped over his hip, his dick sliding in slick and slow over and over again, harder and higher with each thrust, taking her to the edge and pushing her over, taking him with her.
She didn’t know what the time was now. There was no digital clock by the bed and her phone was in her handbag. Wherever the hell she’d left that. But from the first fingers of light poking into the room from the high rectangular window above his bed and the deep satisfaction of a well-rested body, she could tell she’d slept long and deep.
In her experience, a good orgasm could do that to a woman.
It was a wonder three of them hadn’t sent her into some Sleeping Beauty–like coma.
It was fair to say she’d been well and truly fucked.
But there was something wrong with this scenario.
She’d experienced sexual satisfaction before, both within the bounds of her relationship with Ben and since. But she’d never slept with the men she’d taken to her bed—a far more intimate marker in her opinion. Sure, she’d dozed in that lovely postcoital cloud, but a few hours later had roused them and told them to leave.
An early start. An emergency call-out.
Any excuse.
But here she was in the first gray light of dawn waking next to Doyle and…liking it.
Liking the way he slept on his back with his arm above his head, one big hand resting low on his belly like it was going to slip under the sheet at any moment and grab the erection she could clearly see outlined beneath the sheet. Liking the way the light fell softly in the dips of his ribs and the scratchy stubble at his jaw. Liking the way his lips relaxed into an inviting pout.
Not panicked at the thought she was still here. Or sick to her stomach. Or like an ice pick had been inserted into her heart.
But enjoying the view. Watching the rise of his chest, the slow bound of the pulse in his abdomen.
Wondering if she should reach down under that sheet herself.
Wondering when they could do it again.
Wondering if it was possible to do this every morning.
Wondering if he was the one Mack had talked about. The one who would heal the hurt and take away her pain.
The one who could replace Ben.
The thought was sudden and shocking and she reeled from it.
She looked at Doyle in a slow-dawning horror. What was she doing? She didn’t do this. Men came to her bed. They had a few hours of mutual pleasure. Men went home.
She controlled that.
They didn’t stay. She didn’t want them to stay. She didn’t want to cuddle.
She wanted to come and then she wanted them to go so she could sleep. Lying in bed and making love all night was what lovers did—not what Sal did.
Not anymore.
And no one could replace Ben. No one.
Mack had been wrong about that one. She’d thought it then, when only the power of his physical will had gotten her through each day, and she thought it now.
She’d promised Ben on the day they married that she’d love him forever, and she had no intention of not honoring that. If he’d left her, cheated on her, treated her badly, voided their vows somehow, it might be different. But he�
��d been ripped from her life by the fickle hand of fate.
He hadn’t chosen to leave her.
And she’d promised him as he sat beside her in that car wreck, looking at her, blood pouring out of his head, her clammy, shaking hand clutching his cold, still one that she would always love him. That she’d never love anyone else the way she loved him, and the least she could do was honor that promise.
And she had. She may have given her body to men, but not her heart.
Never her heart.
So Doyle couldn’t be the one. She’d had her one. She wasn’t looking for another. She wasn’t in the market for a replacement. What the hell was she thinking so close to the date her whole life had imploded? She should be thinking about that. Why wasn’t she thinking about that?
Sal scuttled to the side of the bed.
How could she have done this?
She couldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have stayed. She had to get out.
She couldn’t give Doyle the wrong idea.
They’d slept together and it had been fantastic, but it was done. She didn’t do commitment and relationships and happily ever afters. She did fun and light and one-night stands.
And Doyle needed to know that.
She sprang from the bed, trying not to disturb him in her haste. Tiptoeing around his room looking for the remnants of her dress, her bra, her underwear, and her shoes. Trying to collect any evidence they’d spent the night together.
The walk of shame—all five meters of it across the hallway to her room.
When Doyle woke, it would be as if she’d never been here. Who knew, maybe she’d get lucky, and if she acted like it never happened he’d think that maybe he’d dreamed it?
Because it was better that way.
For both of them.
…
A few hours later, every instinct inside Sal urged her to run and keep running when she emerged from her bedroom to sounds in the kitchen. But running, or hiding in her bedroom, was not an option. She’d made her bed last night, had gone into it willingly, but it didn’t mean she had to lie in it.
It wasn’t Groundhog Day—she had a choice and she was exercising it.
She’d needed last night. They both had. It had been inevitable after the tension—acknowledged or not—building over months.
But today was a brand-new day. They got to begin again.
And Doyle was an adult.
He was just going to have to accept that what had happened was a one-off and that they’d put their sexual attraction to bed.
She had told herself that as she’d showered half an hour ago, ignoring all the delicious aches as she’d washed the last sticky fairy floss residue from her body. She’d told herself that as she dressed in denim shorts and a tank top, trying not to think about her shredded dress. She’d told herself that as she put her hand on the doorknob and twisted.
The aromas of salty, meaty frying bacon and earthy coffee assailed her as Sal stepped out into the hallway. She made her way to the kitchen, her stomach growling appreciatively as she lingered in the doorway, in the exact same spot he’d been in last night when she’d opened her eyes after taking her first fatal bite of fairy floss.
He was in his boxers and no shirt, his broad back, complete with a nice set of scratch marks, filled her vision, and her stomach rumbled in an appreciation that had nothing to do with her nutritional needs.
She dragged her eyes off him, her gaze glancing off the counter where he’d laid her out last night. It looked innocent enough in the cold light of day, but she knew she was never going to eat breakfast there ever again without thinking about what Doyle could do with a packet of fairy floss and his tongue.
Sal shut her eyes and blocked her errant thoughts. They weren’t helping.
“Hi,” she said, pushing off the doorway and heading for the full coffee percolator.
Doyle turned to look at her. “Hi,” he said, his voice low, and she forced herself to look at him the way she always had, with casual indifference. Not easy given the large loom of his naked chest with the light dusting of hair on his pecs and abs. Or the darkness of his jaw, shaggy with overnight growth.
His gaze searching hers for who knew what?
A sign she wasn’t about to go all bunny-boiler on him? An apology? A willingness to say to hell with the bacon, pork me instead?
“Smells good,” she said, injecting a conversational tone into her voice, willing herself to act the way she would have had this been any normal Sunday.
And he wasn’t cooking for her almost naked.
She looked back at the percolator and poured hot coffee into her mug, her hands shaking only slightly. “Want one?” she asked.
He shook his head and reached for his mug. “Got one,” he said, taking a sip, watching her over the rim. “Bacon and eggs?” he asked, putting the mug back down and turning away from her to tend to the frying pan.
Sal almost sagged against the bench in relief. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold his gaze without dropping her own to take in all his tempting skin. It was like he had magnets under all that flesh and her eyes were made of metal.
“Yes, please,” she said. She was starving. Right now she could eat an entire side of pork. She could definitely gnaw on one of his delicious-looking shoulders.
“Nearly done,” he said, his back still firmly turned. “Take a seat.”
Sal was grateful for something to do other than standing there and gawking at the scratches on his back—red and livid. Part of her was mortified to have marked him, part of her wanted to apologize, part of her wanted to drag him back to bed and give him a matching set.
She pulled up a stool, Matilda meowing around her ankles as she stared at those marks, her nipples tight and achy, her belly humming with desire again.
So much for dulling the attraction.
His biceps bulged as he dished up some food onto a plate, and she remembered how they’d looked on either side of her head last night, taking his weight as he’d pounded into her. Her belly clenched and a low buzz fired up between her thighs. Jesus, she needed to stop this or she was going to embarrass herself on this stool—again.
She’d come out here to tell him they were done, that there wouldn’t be any more sexy times, and all she could think about was doing him again.
It was the chest. The scratch marks. It had to be.
He took three strides across the kitchen and plonked the plate in front of her. “You sure you want to sit there?” he asked, a small smile playing on his mouth as he reached into the drawer on his side of the bench and handed her a knife and fork. “You and I don’t have a very good track record where those stools are concerned.”
Sal glanced at him, startled. Had he read her mind? “I’m sure I can control myself,” she said primly.
Liar. Liar. Liar.
She wanted to drag him across the counter and eat bacon off his chest.
He chuckled in a way that told her he didn’t believe it for a minute. “Okay. We can run with that.”
He turned back and dished himself up a plate. Sal kept her eyes on her food. If she saw those scratches one more time, she’d be too tempted to add some bite marks.
He put his plate down opposite her, strode around to her side of the counter, grabbed the stool beside her, then returned to his side and sat down.
Staying the hell away from her and her carnal thoughts—good idea.
They ate in silence for long moments. Sal would have liked to be able to say it was because of the delicious food, but the salty flavor of the bacon was completely lost on her—it could have been cardboard. The real reason was that her brain, her common sense, was waging a war with her body and losing.
Doyle’s low rumble when it came startled her a little.
“Why don’t I just go on ahead and preempt what you’ve got cooking in that busy brain of yours?”
Sal almost choked as she scrambled desperately to make her mind go blank. What she had cooking was not fit to be share
d with the man she was currently debauching in her head.
Coupled with his very distracting chest, Sal was finding it hard to keep up. “Okay?”
“You’re going to say, it was good, Doyle, but we shouldn’t go there again. That we’ve scratched the itch, gotten it out of our systems, released the pressure. And that we have to work together so we should just forget that it ever happened. Wipe it from our heads and start over.”
Sal stared at him. The man was a mind reader.
“Close, right?”
Close, yes. But…not anymore. She’d changed her mind.
Sitting opposite him, wanting him so badly she could hardly see straight, she knew it was never going to work. She couldn’t in all seriousness give him a speech like that knowing it was doomed to fail. She couldn’t hit the rewind button on last night, pretend it didn’t happen. It was there in every breath, every heartbeat, ingrained into the nucleus of every cell.
And her body was demanding more.
She wanted to have more than just last night with Doyle.
It was a shocking realization, and Sal felt a moment’s panic at the import of the decision. She hadn’t contemplated asking a guy for more since Ben, and she was afraid of what that meant.
Ben had been her one, and she didn’t want another.
But it didn’t have to mean that, right?
Maybe it just meant she was evolving into something healthier than she’d been? A woman who could maintain a relationship with a man even if it was just based on sex.
That was a good thing, right?
Mack and Josie would approve. Mack would say almost six years down the track, that it was about time.
That it was overdue.
Healthier. She could go with that…
“Not close?” Doyle prompted.
Sal pulled herself out of her head. “I was thinking that,” she admitted, “but…” Her eyes ran over his chest, letting the desire she’d been trying to hold in check range free through all the muscles and nerves in her pelvis. “I’ve changed my mind.”
He sat up a bit taller, his dark eyes becoming wary as he frowned, his chin cleft winking at her. “Oh?”