The Daddy Decision

by Donna Sterling

  Or maybe it was the blood racing to her head that was causing the high. She’d almost forgotten this intoxicating rush, although she’d thrilled to it every time he’d lured her to his bed.

  She had to face facts if she wanted to survive her time at Cort’s house: she couldn’t master this overwhelming desire simply by keeping her distance. The hours he’d stayed away had only induced greater longing, which interfered with her work. And the prospect of spending the evening beneath his roof yet apart from him seemed torturous.

  Running from the desire clearly wasn’t the answer. The only other option was to give in to it. To revisit the heat between Cort and her, which had taken on mythical proportions in her mind. Perhaps a dose of reality would put it into proper perspective. This time she would face the heat as an experienced woman instead of an impressionable, virginal, starry-eyed girl.

  She dropped the towels onto a chaise lounge. His clothes, she noticed, had been tossed there, too. All the clothes he’d been wearing. Which meant he was naked.

  And waiting for her.

  Her pulse drummed a crazy staccato. Her temperature leaped. She had to undress. Nervously she reached to unbutton the sleeve of her blouse. His rapt gaze followed the movement of her hand, and the tension within her escalated. He hadn’t said a word to her yet. He’d merely stared. Could she do this? Could she strip completely bare with Cort watching?

  Straightening her spine, she forced her fingers back into action, fumbling with the buttons on her sleeves until one cuff fell open, then the other. That hadn’t been so hard, had it?

  She slid her blouse out from the waistband of her jeans and lifted her hands to the top button near her collar. And paused.

  She’d been eighteen the last time he’d seen her undressed. She was now thirty-three. Friends had told her that she’d lost too much weight She certainly wasn’t as voluptuous. And though she worked out fairly frequently, she couldn’t be as toned as he might remember. Her stomach clenched with anxiety. Would he be disappointed?

  “Take your clothes off, Laura.” His low, gruff voice eachoed from across the water.

  Her entire body warmed; her face flushed. She’d never suffered this kind of self-consciousness before. With other men, she hadn’t felt the need to look like her teenage self. With Cort, she fervently wished she did. He’d worshiped her young body with such devout passion. She couldn’t bear to see his interest, his desire, cool into indifference.

  But he had to have noticed already that her body had changed. He’d felt her through the fabric of her dress. He’d seen her legs and hips sheathed in the sheerest of panty hose. He hadn’t seemed disappointed then.

  With her fingers poised at the top button, she caught her lip between her teeth, hesitated, then murmured, “You understand that I′ve...I′ve changed.” She swallowed against a sudden dryness. “I′m not eighteen anymore.”

  His eyebrows gathered, his eyes narrowed. He replied in the softest of voices, “And I don’t want an eighteen-year-old anymore.”

  Her face warmed with embarrassment at the topic they were discussing, and she glanced away. “I mean, it’s been fifteen years since I’ve undressed in front of you, and um, I’ve lost weight And I have a mark. Right here,” she specified nervously, running her fingertip across her bluejeaned hip. “From a burn. Hot coffee, eight years ago. It wasn’t all that bad, but you can still see where—”

  “Quit stalling, Laura.” The gentleness of his voice didn’t mask his rising impatience. “Nothing you can say is going to stop me from wanting you here, in the pool. With me. Naked.″

  A wrenching need to comply with that directive flared within her. Holding her breath, she looked down at the small opal buttons of her blouse and worked them through the holes with clumsy fingers. Her pulse rushed in her ears, her head spun, but she unfastened every last button. She parted the edges of her blouse, and the warm, moist air billowed against her chest.

  She tried not to focus on the fact that the front of her bra was fully exposed to his view, and that her cup size was now an unremarkable “B” instead of a lavishly full “C.” Afraid to see his reaction, she kept her eyes on her task while she pulled the white cotton blouse halfway off.

  He’d moved closer, she sensed. She braved a glance and saw that he stood waist-high in the pool near her, the ebony curls of his powerful chest glistening with water droplets, his jaw squared and hard. His gaze lingered on the swell of her breasts above the bra. “Keep going,” he rasped.

  Wicked heat sluiced through her veins. She recognized the dazed intensity of those midnight-dark eyes, the gruff determination of that tone. She allowed the blouse to slip down her arms and drift to the floor.

  Cort felt his mouth go dry. He drank in the sight of her gently rounded cleavage; her nipples straining against the satiny white bra; the long, sleek curve of her torso tapering to an incredibly narrow waist. She tipped her head down, and her luxuriant blond hair spilled forward, hiding her breasts from him again.

  She unsnapped her jeans. And lowered the zipper. A glimpse of lace-trimmed white satin mercilessly teased him. With a provocative wriggle, she pushed the tight jeans down her hips; down her long, bare, curvaceous legs. The faded denim pooled at her feet, and she stepped out of it.

  She stood in only a glossy white bra and minuscule panties cut high at the hips, her lustrous hair frothing about her slender shoulders.

  His blood pounded hot and fierce. She’d been ravishing as a girl—the epitome of beauty to the boy he’d been. But now she was a woman—slender, vibrant, golden and smooth. intrinsically feminine. The epitome of beauty to the man he’d become.

  Bewilderment mingled with his desire. Why had she been so unsure of herself? He frowned and studied her face, “You have to know how damn beautiful your body is...don’t you, Laura?”

  She stared mutely at him, as if searching his eyes for a reason to doubt. She really hadn’t known. But how could a woman like her live for thirty-three years and not know that any man would find her body irresistibly gorgeous? What kind of fools had she been with? Or...had she not let anyone close enough to show how he felt about her naked body?

  That question provoked too many strong, conflicting emotions and reminded him of things Tamika and Steffie had said. Something about Laura avoiding serious heat Ending relationships when they got too hot.

  Too hot.

  The changing quality of her stare derailed him from that train of thought. Her hesitancy had waned, he noticed, and a warm, beguiling tenderness slowly dawned in its place. “Do you know how damn beautiful you are, Cort Dimitri? ”

  Something fine and bright ignited a desire subtly different from the one that burned in his loins. He wanted to be the one, the only one, to show her just how much her beauty affected the male of the species, and how that beauty went far beyond the reach of time or scars. “Take off the rest of your clothes.” His voice had diminished into a low rasp.

  She hesitated for only a moment, then slid the bra straps down her arms. And unhooked the front clasp. Tossed the bra aside.

  Hunger sliced through him, and for a wild, blazing moment, he wondered if he could do mis—see her, touch her, hold her, and keep himself under control.

  He would have to.

  She slipped her fingers into the side lace of her panties. And paused again. “You did say we’re just going to...to play, didn’t you?”

  His gaze traveled up her body in slow, tortured increments, past the elegant curve of her lean hips and the jaunty tilt of her high, firm breasts. When he reached her eyes, he saw that her shyness had given way to rational worry. But behind the worry burned a strikingly familiar longing, the kind that had always ignited whenever they’d begun doffing clothes.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “Just play.”

  She nervously fingered the lace edges of her panties. “Then I...I don’t really have to take these off.”

  The impulse struck him to climb out of the water and peel the provocative little panties down her endless leg
s, then run his hands over every lush, silken curve, into every valley, every cleft. “Yes, you have to take them off.” He fought to tamp down the urgency in his tone. “They’ll get in my way.”

  Her lips parted. Her breasts rose and fell in a deeper, harder rhythm. She slid the panties down to her slim ankles and kicked the wispy satin aside.

  He couldn’t have been more aroused if she’d physically caressed him.

  In a feverish haze, he watched her walk with her usual sensuous grace to the wide, rounded steps at the end of the pooL She was entirely naked, her skin smooth and inviting, the curls between her sleek thighs a richer, darker shade of honey than he remembered.

  She was so heartbreakingly beautiful, it hurt to look at her. But he would die before he’d as much as glance away.

  She descended the steps into the pool, her hand on the chrome rail, her gaze on him. The water swirled around her ankles. Then lapped at her calves. Her knees. Her waist.

  Cort struggled to keep from lunging for her.

  “It’s heated,” she murmured, a mere half-dozen arm strokes away from him. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  It took a moment for him to realize she meant the pool. If it weren’t heated, he mused, his body temperature alone would have done the trick. The water seemed to simmer and steam around him.

  She submerged herself to her breasts and glided closer. Her dusky, tea-rose nipples, a shade darker than her lips, crested through the water. The ends of her hair dipped, swirled and wafted around her.

  He sank to his shoulders and drifted toward her.

  She drew back, hesitant again. “Cort, I know you said we’re just going to play, but...” she searched for words “...I’m not sure what you expect.” Self-doubt shadowed her wide brown eyes and weakened her voice. “I...I haven’t done anything like this for a very, very long time.”

  Though he knew he should be as concerned as her friends had been that she’d avoided intimacy, Cort felt nothing close to concern. An obstinate gladness gripped him by the throat, nearly robbing him of breath. “Do you think that fact could possibly do anything but thrill me?”

  Their gazes shifted and danced with a new intensity. And he admitted to himself that what he had in mind wasn’t “playing” at all. He wanted her. Desperately. And he was dead serious about it.

  He lurched backward into the water, away from her, and propelled himself to the far end of the pool. Reaching beneath the diving board, he grasped the remote-control switch. With a few flicks of his thumb, the lights beneath the water and directly overhead turned off, leaving only a few silvery rays of illumination to glimmer across the surface of the pool.

  “Cort?” Laura called, undoubtedly surprised by the sudden darkness.

  He didn’t answer. Silently he slid into the water—the dark, concealing water—and wended his way along the bottom toward her.

  Let the games begin.

  SHE HADN’T EXPECTED the lights to go out. The few left burning cast a dreamlike haze, like dappled moonlight glimmering off the water in some tropical lagoon. The water itself, warm as a Caribbean night against her naked skin, had gone dark and opaque.

  And with a swish and ripple, Cort had vanished underwater.

  Anticipation warmed Laura’s stomach as she searched for signs of his approach. She felt a stirring below the surface, a subtle undercurrent, then a brushing against her thigh. She turned immediately in that direction, but heard a splash on her other side.

  She whirled in time to see his head submerging again. A light pinch on her bottom startled her. With a breathless laugh, she tried to catch his arm, or leg, or whatever body part she could grab, but he was too fast and slippery. She considered launching across the pool to evade him, but she wasn’t that great a swimmer...and she wanted to be well grounded for the next swim-by assault.

  Another teasing pinch caught the back of her knee, sending a shiver up her leg. She lunged sideways and grabbed hold of slick skin, but he slipped from her one-handed grasp and bobbed up for air a short distance away.

  “Hey,” she cried, “you want a pinch? I′ll give you a pinch!”

  He slid beneath the silvery surface again. She held her hand and pinching fingers poised in readiness. Turning in cautious circles, she watched for vague outlines beneath the darkened water.

  Hands ran up her legs in a long, winding caress. Warm sensation careened through her, and by the time she remembered her defensive-pinch strategy, he’d retreated. The water around her swirled and lapped at her suddenly sensitized breasts as she tried to imagine what would come next.

  A bite nipped her inner thigh. A delicious tingle radiated upward, and her heart kicked into overdrive. All thoughts of defense fled.

  So did he.

  A series of bites soon nibbled at her other thigh, while his hands skimmed over her bottom...and his fingertips brushed along the sensitive crevice in a downward curve....

  Her breath left her in an audible rush.

  And he was gone.

  She struggled to drag air into her lungs, feeling light-headed, hot and sensually charged. The next bite landed on the wickedly sensitive muscle between her thigh and pelvic bone. Her mouth opened in a silent cry. His hair floated like silky seaweed against her abdomen, and she trapped his face between her hands—this time to stop him from leaving.

  He surfaced for an instant, just long enough to catch a breath, then ducked back down. A flurry of bubbles rose against her torso and breasts like a rush of fine champagne. Splayed hands gripped her backside beneath the water, and random bites rained from hip to hip, thigh to thigh.

  She shut her eyes and dropped her head back, holding his taut shoulders to steady herself. The bites grew sensuous and lingering, inching ever closer to the most intimate part of her. She tilted her hips in compulsive reflex.

  His rigid tongue dipped between her legs and glided upward in one hot, steady stroke. Sharp, erotic pleasure blazed through to the very core of her.

  He ascended from the water like a sea god rising, and she clung to him in a breathless, sensual daze. Water streamed from his hair and down his dark, arresting face, now etched in silvery shadows. His skin radiated virile heat His chest expanded with hard inhalations, and his fiery blue gaze sought hers.

  Intensity pulsed and burned between them. He uttered not a word, not one word, but his stare said it all. I want you. I want you!

  Her heart drummed the same need to every fiber of her being. I want you. She dug her hands into his wet, sinewy neck, shoulders and biceps, craving the feel of him. I want you!

  But the limit they’d set loomed solidly between them—an obstacle they could not breach.

  He ground his teeth and clutched her hips to his, trapping his arousal between them. A moan rolled from her throat, and for a moment—a wild, decadent moment—he rocked and she gyrated in hot, dangerous friction.

  His grip convulsed at her hips; he released an explosive breath, and his body shifted, dislodging the velvet-smooth, steel-hard column from between them. “Ah, Laura,” he rasped in a tortured whisper, a muscle throbbing near his jaw. “Goddamm it.”

  She reached for him, and he hungrily kissed her with deep, sexual thrusts. She strained and rubbed against his chest, her nipples raking through wet, matted curls. His hands coursed down her back and buttocks, then around to her breasts... savoring, claiming, possessing.

  His arousal whispered across her thigh. She rubbed her knee along its thick, smooth length. He groaned and broke from their kiss. Gripping the underside of her thighs, he hoisted her higher, above harm’s way, and folded her legs around his waist.

  Which brought her breasts to his face. He took full advantage, swirling his tongue round and round until he filled his mouth; sliding his lips up slowly to catch the hardened crest. Tugging...suckling...driving her steadily into that feverish zone where nothing existed, nothing mattered, but sensation and pleasure and hot, clawing need.

  Hot kisses trailed to her other breast. She closed her eyes and arched her back i
n sensual awe, her heavy hair dipping into the water behind her. She heard him groan as her legs locked tighter around him, and she felt the rigid muscles of his abdomen clench against her intimate feminine softness.

  Her hips moved independently of her, it seemed, and she knew she’d passed the point of caution. She needed... she wanted...she moved.

  With fierce pants of breath, he plunged his hand beneath the water, between his abdomen and her. And he made love to her with his fingers.

  Pleasure blossomed between her legs with red-hot intensity. Every slow, forceful thrust tightened the coil of need. Water churned and lapped between them from the motion of his hand. Lights flickered behind her eyelids. Pressure built to an unbearable pitch.

  And then the thrusting stopped. His fingers halted, yet remained inside, hard and long and virile. Teetering at the very edge of completion, she gasped and undulated, constricting her inner muscles to force him back into motion.

  An arm banded around her writhing body, and a hoarse, urgent whisper scalded her ear. “I want to be inside you in every way I can.”

  Her bottom lodged against something hard. The steps. He’d settled her onto a step, where the water barely reached the underside of her thighs, his fingers still wedged inside her. His dark face wavered before her eyes, his gaze hot and fierce.

  Slowly he withdrew his fingers.

  Before she could even cry out at the desertion, his mouth took over. With the languorous licks...feather-light jabs... hot, suctioning swirls, pleasure blinded her. Her body arched. Her legs curled around his massive shoulders. And his tongue drove deep, launching her into hot, explosive contractions.

  The force, the heat, the acute pangs of pleasure propelled her to another dimension, one she’d almost forgotten existed. Her inner woman hadn’t forgotten. He’d driven her here so many, many times before.

  Masterful arms gathered her close as quivering aftershocks racked her. She needed the nearness, the warmth, the kisses he feathered across her eyelids, temples and jaw. The trembling gradually decreased. The haze slowly lifted. And when reality filtered back, she realized he’d submerged them again in the warm, soothing dark water.