His teeth caught her bottom lip and tugged, opening her mouth to the pursuing entry of his tongue. He moaned—or was she moaning?—as their tongues tangled, as they tasted each other again, anew, at last.
Serena was light-headed, everything about her floating and fusing to everything about Dillon. There was nothing separating them but his new blue shirt, her recklessly chosen skirt, a few millimeters of woven cotton thread. Their hunger and their pleasure simmered in what air their bodies allowed between them.
The kiss went on.
He pulled her closer still—how was that possible?—and slowed, and deepened, and slowed some more. She might have moaned again, she really couldn’t say. She couldn’t say anything—words escaped her even as their mouths achingly, reluctantly, sweetly pulled apart and his forehead came to rest on hers.
“Serena.”
A million pounds of effort, but she got her eyes open. His were all she could see, and all she could see was unguarded blue depths, those pools into which she’d dreamed of diving, clear and achingly beautiful.
“Hi,” she said, and he tightened his hold on her.
“Serena.”
She reached up to his black hair, amazed by its coarse thickness, amazed to be stroking it, her fingers memorizing the texture. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
His eyes wrinkled up at the corners a little. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
“Well, you’re in luck.” They disentangled, just a little, and she glanced toward the kitchen. “I’m not sure what I have, though.”
He reached out a long arm and snatched up his messenger bag. “I brought a couple of things.”
She was surprised. “You did?”
“I told you, I was hoping to eat with you. Rude to invite myself without bringing something along.”
Serena felt almost dangerously touched by that. This man, as much as she thought their months of working together had familiarized her with him, was still someone she couldn’t always predict. But when he threw her, it seemed, it was always to the good. Give or take a kitten. She wrapped an arm around his waist and steered them towards the kitchen. “Okay, great. Let’s see what we can cobble together.”
She pulled down a couple of her Fiesta-ware plates while he unloaded grapes, a salami, and a petite baguette onto the counter, then a cheese spread and a bottle of wine. His tone was mischievous when he said, “I didn’t get any veggies.”
She smiled back and slid her small salad bowl and a couple of tomatoes towards the cutting board. “Now you’ll see why I brag on my salads. Oh, and I infused some excellent basil and thyme olive oil last week, it should be just about perfect now.” Turning from the fridge, lettuce in hand, she caught his expression. “Do not laugh at me. My infused olive oils make the most kick-ass salad dressing you’ll ever taste, buddy. People tell me I should start a franchise. Anyway, you’ve tried them before, at Eddie’s.”
“At burger night?”
“Yes, at burger night. I bring a salad practically every month.”
“Well,” he trailed off, abashed.
“Are you serious? You didn’t eat my salad?”
“It’s burger night. Burgers. Beer. Chips and salsa. That’s a very complete meal right there.”
She grimaced. “Does anyone eat it? I mean, Magnolia asks me to bring it, so I do. Are we the only ones who have any?”
Dillon moved closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Kissed her temple, which was way more comforting than she’d have expected, if she’d ever thought about anyone kissing her temple before. “Janice ate nothing but salad and a burger with no bun. Jorge had salad. I’m glad I finally get to find out why your salads are the world-famous creations I’ve heard so much about.”
“You heard about them from me.”
“And I trust your good taste, so there’s no problem.”
“Flatterer.”
“Hungry flatterer. What else can we add here?”
She surveyed the spread he’d brought. With her salad it wasn’t a bad meal, considering he’d been limited by the size and lack of refrigeration of his messenger bag. She retrieved a jar of olives and some locally raised grass-fed roast beef slices from her fridge and added them to his platter.
“Do you want to eat in here or out in my garden?”
“Oh, I have to see this famous garden of yours. Al fresco, please, so I can fully appreciate the flavors from your own labors.”
“Now you’re making fun of me again,” she said, but she pointed the way, humming along with the ‘Best of Summer’ playlist that had shuffled up on her iPod.
Dillon complimented her salad, probably sincerely, and she raised her eyebrows at the first taste of the spicy wine, and the evening had cooled enough to make sitting under her twinkle-light-strung pergola very pleasant. There were even a few chirping crickets off in the distance as it got darker, and more intimate.
Three or four times as they ate and laughed and, frequently, touched, Serena tried to come up with the right thing to say about the past week since she returned to work. But really, Dillon hadn’t brought it up, and she didn’t want to ruin this amazing feeling between them. And again, she reminded herself, he was here. He’d come over, and brought antihistamines. Surely that meant it didn’t need mentioning?
“Hey, how did you find my house?”
He stopped popping grapes into his mouth. “I followed the smell of the—what was it? Basil? Yep, I just sniffed you out.”
“Ha, ha.”
“You sent that change-of-address email to everyone.”
“You saved that?”
He gave her a half-smile and shrugged. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Did I slam the door in your face?”
“Not this time.”
Oh, shit. She’d walked into that one. And the humor had vanished off his face. He was a little wary, but he didn’t retract, didn’t give her a way out. She had to move forward.
“Dillon, listen. Well, first of all, thank you for figuring out about the kitten. I’m so glad—relieved—to know what was the matter.”
He nodded, but still didn’t speak.
“So you had the kitten since the baby was born?”
He nodded again, and while he was tracing the outline of his fork on the tabletop, his gaze didn’t waver.
“Which makes sense. He must have gotten all over your clothes or something, because that next Monday in the elevator was the first time I couldn’t breathe around you. My throat kept closing up, or I’d get hives, or both. And that Saturday, it was both, and so fast, and I didn’t know what was happening, and I was so sick. I had to get into the clear air immediately.” Serena watched him, but he wasn’t talking. She was rubbing at her neck where the hives used to pop up, and forced herself to stop. “I keep medications in my car, so I could only think about getting to them, and it takes a while for them to kick in. I was just sitting there in my car, feeling like an idiot. Kind of like I am now.” He didn’t even crack a smile. Serena took a deep breath and kept going. “And you’re going to think this part is stupid, but remember all I knew was this was a serious problem, as much as I was, well, yearning for you, every time we got close I had this reaction. And the closer we got, the worse it got. I was getting all these mixed signals from my body. So Rachel—my best friend from UT—she told me it was an instinct response and my subconscious was sending me a danger signal that my lust—oh crap, I can’t believe I just called it lust.” Serena tried to figure out what he was thinking, but it was an impossible proposition. She really needed him to talk to her. “I’m sorry. I let Rachel's theories get to me, even though I told her she was wrong. I mean, I knew she was wrong. I knew you didn’t have a sex dungeon or anything.”
“What?”
He speaks! One word, but still. Serena was relieved, and just a little too amused by his astonishment. “A sex dungeon. Or attic, or garage. No basements in Houston. That was her theory—that you might be super nice to work with, but that my, oh, I
think it was my neocortex? Something like that, that my neocortex had figured out about your sex dungeon and was keeping me from getting intimate with you.”
“A sex dungeon.”
“It was a working theory.”
“You didn’t have anything to counter with?”
“I told you—attic. No basements. You can’t imagine how adamant our friend Natalie was about the whole basement issue.”
His eyes narrowed. “Exactly how many people did you tell about my sex dungeon, anyway?”
“Attic. I didn’t mean to tell anyone, but Rachel just caught me at a bad moment, and she told the others.”
“Others?”
“Natalie—she’s a realtor, she found me this place—and Gillian. That’s all, I swear.”
“Well. I don’t know what to say. I seem to have a bit of a reputation. Do you know where I can get a dungeon? Can Natalie help me with that?”
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes—he was smiling. A real smile, and his posture had relaxed, and he was leaning towards her again. Bliss and thanks to the gods above. She ducked her head to hide her triumph, and batted her eyelids at him. “So, am I forgiven?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
One part of Dillon still wanted to pursue the fact that Serena hadn’t just talked to him about the hives, but the part of him that pictured her sitting in her car trying to breathe, and the part of him that was all too happy to be entertained by her ridiculous theory combined forces with the insistent part of him twitching in his pants to override any reservations.
“She,” he said.
“She who?” A little frown crossed Serena’s face.
“Maisy the cat. You called her ‘he.’ She slept on my jacket every chance she got. On my usual messenger bag, too—the one I brought here I pulled from the back of a closet, so it should be safe for you.”
Something extra-gorgeous happened with Serena’s face then, the way she was looking at him. Happy shining pleasure in the soft glow from the lantern she’d set on the table between them. Dillon glanced around the back yard. It was secluded, surrounded by the arms of her house and a high wood fence, and though he’d joked about it, he really could smell some herbs from the pots surrounding them.
“Which one is basil, anyway?” he asked, standing and offering a hand to help her up. She led him to the darker side of the patio and bent slightly to pluck a few leaves from a plant.
“This one is sweet basil. Try it.”
He sniffed the leaves then nibbled. Not bad.
“And here’s some lemon basil, which I love to put in stir fries, that sort of thing.”
It was a lot sweeter than the smell would have led him to believe. “Mmm,” he said, and held one of the leaves up to her lips. She caught it with her teeth, and closed her mouth around his finger and thumb just for a moment. Slowly he drew a line along her eyebrow with his damp fingertip, and Serena shivered a little and moved closer to him.
“I have some mints over here,” she said softly, and he followed, pressing his front to her back as much as possible, as they walked to the back of the garden where a slightly raised bed covered in a sprawl of low plants was visible in the dim light. Serena sat on the timber edging and reached towards the back. “This one is spearmint.”
He sat beside her and opened his mouth, allowing her to put the leaf directly on his tongue. The tang was refreshing and he picked a few leaves of his own, crushing them slightly in his palm to release a sharp sweet scent into the air.
“This?” he asked, since the one he held was shaped differently from the one he’d tasted.
She leaned forward for a whiff. “That’s regular peppermint. Good in teas, ice cream, and toothpaste.”
“Or on its own,” he added, placing a few leaves in her palm. She joined him in eating the mint, and in answer to his unspoken command or prayers, Serena leaned forward for a kiss.
Under the minty freshness she tasted of red wine, and heat, and desire. If any minuscule shred of Dillon was holding onto reservations about moving forward with Serena, this kiss defeated all resistance. He was colonized by his need for her, and he reached for what he wanted.
Within seconds, Serena was in his arms, and he’d scooted them both back so he was sitting in the mint and leaning against the fence. She shifted to stretch across his lap, and while one arm remained wrapped around her back, anchoring her warm softness to his grateful chest, his other hand moved down to settle her legs more securely. Not incidentally, that pressed her hip against his ecstatic crotch. His fingers found the hem of that blue skirt of hers, and it was only natural for him to slip underneath the barrier to her bare legs. God, how many times had he watched her walk across a room in this skirt and imagined reaching under it just like this?
Serena was unbuttoning his shirt and kept leaving his mouth to kiss his neck, his shoulder—oh Christ, she bit his shoulder and his hand was on her thigh and he was no longer of this world. She returned her kisses to his mouth, his jaw. Dillon breathed into her ear, nipping the lobe as she rasped her lower lip along his beard. And her hands. She’d shoved his shirt wide and was stroking his spine with a couple of fingernails while her free hand palmed his nipple and explored the hair that trailed down to his waistband.
“Oh, God, Serena,” Dillon breathed when his hand climbed her smooth thigh to the lace of her panties. She moaned in response, opening her legs enough to trap his wrist between thigh and skirt. His palm pressed into her skin, feeling the muscles flex and tremble as his fingers explored the lace as far as this bliss of an imprisonment would allow him. He feathered light kisses down the column of her neck. Nuzzling aside her hair, Dillon slipped her shoulder free of sleeve and bra strap and dedicated himself to the exposed skin, which tasted of honey in this moonlight. With each breath she was pressing her breasts into him, and he let his tongue trail along her clavicle to burrow down to the rise and fall of her chest.
Head bent, unwilling to move his hand from her thigh to assist in the effort to get at her breast, Dillon used the palm at her back to press Serena upwards and his teeth to draw the top of her shirt downwards, and there—yes, there he was, mouth hovering above satin covered breast. Serena’s breath was coming rapidly now, and she pulled herself up on his shoulders to press the taut nipple into his mouth. Dillon didn’t hold back, sucking it and savoring the tight peak and drawing away enough to breathe heated air over the wet cloth and her moans and her grip on his shoulders and her hip in his lap and her writhing freed his wrist to move further up her thigh to fully palm her ass and trace the lace to the damp cotton between her legs and dear God almighty this was another planet he was on now, because nowhere on Earth could hold an encounter this intense.
Serena’s mind reeled and gasped and rose and fell and she filled every sense with Dillon, his mint smell and spice taste and the feel of his coarse chest hair and the sound of his breath hitching as he bent his dark head to her breast. It was her favorite sexy orange bra, but she’d trade a million rubies to have it gone this instant. And then she realized there was no reason it couldn’t be, and with an effort, pushed herself back.
Rather than fall out of his arms, she straddled him so she could lift her shirt over her head. Before she could remove the bra, Dillon reached behind her and captured her wrists. He brought her hands down behind her to anchor between his thighs and, with a private little smile, flicked his thumbs way too lightly against her aching nipples.
Her pelvis jerked involuntarily forward, seeking the pressure and friction that he was denying her breasts. Fortunately her pelvis was well placed, and as she grasped his thighs with her trapped hands, he met her thrust that proved his own pelvis had an agenda. It was too dark now for her to see much where their legs were joined, but she could feel the leaping hardness of his erection beneath his khakis. Unlike the jeans he’d worn before, these were thin and accommodating enough to give her aching, aching crotch something definitive to rub against.
Dillon squeezed her breasts briefly, firmly, then almost roughly ya
nked the cups down, leaving her free and open and exposed to the night air, and to him. His mouth devoured along whatever trail his hands blazed, and it was so so much, but not nearly enough. Serena took back her hands so she could rip the bra off, then leverage her pelvis more perfectly against his shaft. Her hands danced from his biceps to his shoulders to his hair to his chest to his sides to his nipples to his face. He took one of her fingers in his mouth and sucked hard while his hands encased each breast with a hold that felt like the most natural enclosure her breasts had ever found.
Reluctantly, eagerly, driven, he moved his palms downward, tracing her ribcage and her stomach before going to the rucked up hem of her skirt. “I changed my mind,” he murmured, running his fingers lightly over the tops of her thighs to the apex where her wet mound moved restlessly in an attempt to get past the barriers to his full, hard erection.
She was half-raising herself up to allow his hands to roam more freely, but she sank abruptly at his words. “What?” Where was her bra? Her shirt?
“I thought your orange plaid skirt was my favorite. But I’ve changed my mind. Now this one is.”
Oh God, she just had to kiss him. Leaning forward pressed her chest to his, and that was such a sweet thing that she wrapped her arms around his neck to ensure it would happen for as long as humanly possible. And she went back to raising herself up, and he didn’t disappoint. His palm found her wet mound and he pressed his fingers flat against her and she moaned, she moaned his name, she just moaned. Then his other hand slipped under her panties from behind and with one strong finger he stroked her entrance. Serena rose higher, firmly held between his hands, and took a breast in one hand while angling the other one to his tongue.
She pinched her nipple and he suckled the other and he stroked her cleft and she rode his fingers and he growled and she groaned and he moved to lightly bite her finger and she released that breast to his focus and she pulled her fingers through his hair and he flicked the nub of her clitoris and he rubbed and he flicked and she sank down to bury the two fingers he’d worked into her and she rose again, arching forward, to reach her hands behind her. Breasts thrust forward into his face, pelvis sandwiched between his clever palms, her hands found his cock and stroked and stroked and traced and cupped as she dropped her head back, moaning, panting. Dillon and Dillon's thumb and Dillon's tongue and Dillon holding her and moaning with her and drawing her breast tightly into his mouth while he drove his fingers inside of her and pressing his thumb firmly against her clit as she thrust her clit wildly against his thumb and came with a cry of desperate passion.
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