She was already swollen with desire for him, slick and ready for lovemaking, but the taste of her was just too sweet to pass up. Josie bucked against his tongue, squirming as he explored her, teased her, branded her as his own.
When he couldn’t wait another minute, Trent stopped. “And now we do what men and women have been doing in the woods together since the beginning of time.”
She sat up on her elbows and gave him a speculative look. “Not so fast.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got a few wilderness fantasies of my own, you know.”
She pushed Trent down onto the clothing and slid her hands over his chest and belly, torturously slow. She eventually trailed her fingers down to his cock, then stroked it with a feather touch. Just when he didn’t think he could take another second of sweet torture—when he was about to pounce on her—she dipped her head and took him into her mouth.
Trent stifled a loud moan, aware on some level that they were out in the open, where anyone might hear. And that thought only increased the thrill.
Josie coaxed him just to the edge of orgasm, then stopped. Brought him to the edge again, then stopped again. The third time, he grasped the back of her head and in a weak voice that came out as more of a croak, begged her to quit.
She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling with pure mischief. It took all his willpower not to mount her right then.
Instead he dug into the pocket of his shorts on the ground beneath them for a condom, then put it on. Having felt how hard and uncomfortable the ground was to lie on, he decided they’d imitate the animals, since they were out in the wild anyway. He turned Josie around and guided her hips against him to enter her from behind.
His cock slid into her as if it were going home, as if their bodies had known each other for years, not just weeks. As it always should have been.
And they moved together so naturally, Trent wished it wouldn’t have to end. Nothing had felt this right before, this easy, this perfect.
When they came, her climax following his by seconds, it seemed as if the entire wilderness had paused. Trent heard no birds or insects, nothing but the sound of their quickened breaths.
He pulled Josie up against him and showered her shoulder and neck in kisses as he wrapped his arms around her waist. If they could only stay this way…
A breeze picked up and cooled their fevered skin, and it seemed that the wilderness came to life again. A few nearby birds chirped. A cricket sang in the grass. As they remained locked in that intimate embrace, Trent held Josie tight and let his fantasy take over again. In the fantasy, she was his, now and forever.
JOSIE RETURNED from the weekend trip feeling as though she needed a retreat to recover from her retreat. Thanks to the biking trip, she ached from head to toe.
She’d come home to find a message on her answering machine from the local counseling center to which she’d sent her résumé months ago. They had an opening for a marriage counselor and were interested in her for the job.
So here she sat in the lobby of Family Counseling Associates dressed in the navy suit she always wore to interviews. She scanned her résumé out of nervousness, glanced over at the oblivious receptionist across the room, smoothed her wool skirt over her legs, stilled her bobbing foot, wiped the dampness from her palms, and wondered for the hundredth time if she was making a mistake.
She should have been thrilled. It was the perfect opportunity, with perfect timing. The center still wasn’t completely financially stable, and Josie was at her wit’s end trying to save it. This job could be her way out. But whenever she thought of escaping the center, it felt more like she was abandoning it.
Sure, she’d come to enjoy the people there, even the work, but… But what?
Her thoughts kept circling back to Trent. Their afternoon together at the creek in the woods had been amazing. She still had trouble believing that she was the woman in his fantasy.
Maybe he’d said it to make her feel good…but no, there was something in the way they’d come together, something reverential about their lovemaking. She believed him.
But he was still the same Trent as before, and she was still the same Josie. Being good together in a physical sense didn’t mean they could have a real relationship. She’d seen plenty of marriages fall apart when couples got married and discovered they had nothing in common except great sex. Josie didn’t plan to make that mistake.
Confused about her feelings, Josie had called Trent a day after they’d gotten back to the city and told him she needed to reschedule their last lesson for a later date. She wanted to make sure she went into their final session with no illusions. Theirs was a business relationship that would be coming to an end—not a complicated romantic entanglement that she should feel any need to hang on to.
“Ms. Marcus?” a woman called from a nearby doorway.
Josie looked up to meet the smile of a matronly woman with steel-gray hair and a well-tailored pantsuit. When she reached the woman’s side, they shook hands and Josie felt instantly at ease.
“I’m Eleanor Griffith. I hope you’re not nervous. We’re quite impressed with your credentials, and we’ve already gotten great references for you, so this interview is really just to see how our personalities mesh.”
Josie kept her surprise in check. “Oh, that’s good to hear.”
She followed Eleanor into a comfortably decorated office and took a seat on a couch where the woman indicated for her to sit.
“We have five other counselors here at this center, all specializing in various areas of family counseling. I primarily work with children, and you would be one of two marriage counselors.”
Josie nodded. She tried to focus as the woman went on about the work environment and the job, but her mind wandered back to Trent. Would he care if she took a job here? If she left the center and severed that final tie to him?
It was a question she shouldn’t have desired the answer to so badly. She had let her ego get too involved in their lessons. To correct the problem, she would simply force herself to face their final session together as a professional task to which she owed her best work.
Trent had to be a client to her, nothing more. If she could remember that, she could enjoy their last night together for all it was worth.
As Eleanor Griffith discussed their philosophy, Josie found herself thinking about the center again. How could she leave now, when Erika was just getting started in her new role there, when the sensual adventure retreats were just getting started, when all the changes she’d made might possibly create a new momentum that would take the business in the right direction? How could she leave when the work there had become the focus of her life? She didn’t know, but she had a feeling that if she didn’t leave soon, she never would.
TRENT WASN’T SURE what he would miss more, Josie or their sex lessons. Part of him wanted to ask her to keep coming back every week, as his lover and friend, not as his instructor. But his common sense told him that with the way Josie had been avoiding him lately, she wasn’t ready for any kind of commitment.
“Tonight we’ll be having your final exam,” she said, standing in his living room, possibly for the last time.
Trent smiled. “Will it be oral or written?”
“We’ll start with a little oral, then move on to a hands-on skills demonstration.”
“I bet you don’t mean oral the way I’m hoping.”
She laughed. “Would you stop!”
“Okay, okay, seriously. Let’s begin, Madame Instructor.”
Josie pulled out a chair at the dining room table and sat, motioning for him to do the same. She took out a pad of paper and began reading notes to herself. After a few moments she looked up at him and smiled.
“First exam question. Is it socially acceptable to con someone you know into giving you sex lessons you don’t need as part of an elaborate revenge plot against that person?”
Ouch.
“When did you figure it out?”
Josie shrugged. “That’s not important.”
“Aw, come on. Did I give myself away somehow?”
“Not exactly,” she said, and he got the message that she wouldn’t discuss it any more. Women’s intuition never failed to amaze him.
“I apologize for deceiving you.”
“It’s okay. I had fun, you had fun, no one got hurt.”
That’s exactly the attitude he’d hoped she would have in the end. Then why did it leave an empty feeling in his gut?
“I was going to tell you, but then I sort of gave up on the revenge thing the first time we had sex.”
“So you really thought you could hold out on me for two months?” she asked, incredulous.
“I figured it would be fun trying, and fun if I failed, too.”
“And here I thought for a while that I was just a really great instructor, then come to find out you didn’t need me at all.”
“That’s not true.” He grinned, feeling sheepish to admit, “I’ve actually learned a lot from our lessons. I hadn’t intended to.”
Josie smiled. “Thanks for saying that. How about you show me what you’ve learned now?”
He reached across the table for her hand, then led her to the bedroom. If this was truly their last night together, he wanted it to be special.
Trent undressed Josie slowly, savoring the feel of her skin, the curves of her body. She did the same for him.
Like two blind people seeing with their hands, remembering with their fingertips, they touched and touched some more. He never wanted to forget the feel of her. He wanted to savor every little inch.
His fingers dipped inside her hot flesh, teasing in and out until she squirmed and her breath quickened. He used his thumb to massage her clitoris at the same time, and he dipped his head to nip at her neck with his teeth. She clung to him and moaned into his ear as she grew wetter and wetter. She was ready for him, but if this was their last night together, he wanted to create memories that they wouldn’t soon forget.
Trent leaned back on the bed and tugged her on top of him, then nudged her hips until she straddled his torso, then his shoulders. She held on to the headboard as he pleasured her with his tongue. He tasted her very essence and plunged inside.
He slid his hand up her rib cage to her breasts and toyed with her nipples, while Josie began to move with the rhythm of his tongue. Moments later she came, then collapsed beside him, gasping and quivering.
As he pulled her against him and pressed his mouth to her shoulder, he took note of how perfectly they fit together. Their bodies were made for each other, made for pleasuring and comforting and playing together. Tonight, if no other night, he wanted to make her see that, too.
He reached for the condom on his nightstand and slid it on.
“I want you inside me,” she whispered, as if he needed any coaxing.
Trent’s body trembled as he pressed himself against Josie from behind. As they lay there spooned together, he pulled her tighter against him and slid inside her. His erection met the hot dampness at her core and he closed his eyes. He saw stars in those first few moments of exquisite stillness, and then when he began to move, the stars burst.
Her tight, wet opening accommodated him just as perfectly as the rest of her body did. For the first time he understood the phrase “one flesh.” They were of one flesh in those sweet, perfect moments of slow lovemaking. He cupped her breast in his hand and imagined that he was making love to his wife.
Josie arched her back, pressed her buttocks more firmly against him, and urged his cock deeper inside her. That simple shift of position set Trent on fire. He pulled away and rolled her onto her back, then positioned himself on top. He wanted to see her face when she came again.
Her legs parted for him and snaked around his hips, locking him in place. He kissed her as he plunged in deep, filling her, and she gasped into his mouth. Her kiss turned hungrier and greedier, while Trent’s own need filled his chest and threatened to cut off his breath. During all these years of lusting after Josie, his fantasies of making love to her were nowhere near as good as the real thing. His feeble imagination couldn’t have begun to reproduce the sweet, wet, intense mating they were engaged in now.
She plunged her fingers through his hair, down his back, over his shoulders, as he worked them both up to the edge of climax, then backed off. Josie let out a frustrated growl, but he put a finger to her lips and smiled to reassure her that this wouldn’t be like some of the previous nights.
“I want you,” she whispered.
Still inside her, he rolled her on top of him and then pulled her to a sitting position. She tossed her head back and immediately began a rhythm of her own, rocking her hips as he stroked her breasts, her smooth belly, her round hips.
He tried to focus completely on the divine physical sensations, but the need in his chest kept growing. And then he realized it wasn’t need at all, but rather an emotion he dared not name.
Trent massaged her breasts and tried with all his might to think about nothing but the soft weight of them in his hands. But the emotion was too strong. He had to face it.
Love.
There it was, plain as day, mocking his ridiculous plan for revenge. After all these years, he had to admit he loved Josie Marcus, Josie the Tease.
She bent and kissed his neck, his jaw, then his mouth, all the while moving him closer to the edge.
“I love you,” he whispered when she came up for air, before he realized he was speaking the words out loud.
She froze for a split second, then continued moving her hips against him. “I love this, too.”
This? Had she misunderstood him? Or was she pretending to misunderstand?
Oh, hell, he shouldn’t have blurted something so stupid anyway. Not when he was half out of his mind with desire.
She quickened the pace and Trent’s entire body tensed. His release came fast and hard, just as her muscles began to contract around him. Her gasps mingled with his own, and then she collapsed on top of him. Her blond curls tickled his face, but he was too spent to push them away.
Trent inhaled the sweet scent of Josie, and he knew in that moment that she was exactly the person he wanted to go to bed with every night, and to wake up with every morning, for the rest of his life.
If only she felt the same way.
JOSIE CAME into the kitchen dressed in her slightly rumpled outfit from the day before. It was the first time they’d spent the entire night together, after making love into the wee hours of the morning.
She yawned as she sat across from Trent at the table. With her hair tumbling over half her face, and her eyes still puffy from sleep, she looked like the woman he’d always imagined waking up with. They’d eat breakfast in bed on Saturday mornings, lie around reading the paper together, then make love.
Or maybe they’d skip the first two and get right down to business. That’s what he would have loved to be doing with Josie at that moment, but she still thought theirs was a student-teacher relationship.
Maybe it was time to tell her the truth, that he was in love with her.
Josie poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the table. Pressing her hands against the outside of the hot mug, she shook her head. “How did humans survive before the invention of coffee?”
Trent smiled. “Early morning sex has a similar stimulating effect. Maybe that was their secret.”
She took a sip and moaned a little more theatrically than the coffee called for.
“What’s on your schedule today?” he asked, hoping she’d have time to hang out and talk.
“I have to meet my mother in a couple of hours to go over center business. She’s going to help me with class schedules, that kind of thing.”
“Has business improved at all?”
“It has,” she said before taking a sip of coffee. “I’ve actually got the money to pay the rent this month, I think. Along with all the other bills.”
“That’s great.”
She seemed t
o be focused on something else, though. “I still don’t get it. If my mother is thinking of closing down the center unless I want to run it, then why did she make it so hard on me? Why did she take all the money, leave the place in near ruin, and expect me to somehow make it a profitable business again?”
Trent had wondered that himself. But Rafaela always had her reasons. “Beats me.”
Josie’s eyes narrowed. “Unless she wanted me here for a reason. Like to work closely with you.”
“Why would she care?”
“She’s been singing your praises to me for years. Except ever since I moved back here. Since then she hasn’t once tried to talk me into throwing myself at you.”
“So?”
“It would be just like her to do something this elaborate to get her way.”
Trent smiled. “She really thinks we should get together?”
“Don’t look so pleased. She also thinks I should seduce cute pizza delivery boys whenever I get the chance.”
“Not even Rafaela could have orchestrated what you’re suggesting.”
Josie sipped her coffee, staring out the window over the kitchen sink. “You’re not giving her enough credit—she’s pretty crafty. And we still don’t have an explanation for her odd behavior.”
The phone rang, interrupting the conversation. Trent went to the kitchen wall to answer it.
“Hello?” he said, and he heard his father’s greeting on the other end of the line.
His dad immediately started to complain about how much trouble women were, and Trent glanced at the clock. It read ten minutes to ten, and for some reason that time seemed important. He searched his memory while his father continued his diatribe, sounding more frustrated than he had in years.
Trent had hoped Rafaela would turn his father’s life around, but from the sounds of it they weren’t even on speaking terms at the moment. Something about her telling him he needed to grow up.
The street cleaners! That’s what he was supposed to remember—that his car had to be moved by ten for the street cleaners.
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