Perfect Catch

by Sierra Dean

  It had been less than two months since he’d been in her bed—or at least naked under her in her car—yet he clawed at her as though she was the last good thing he would see before he died.

  A rational part of her mind—the part she was coming to think of as the buzzkill center—told her this was a terrible idea. Olivia was sleeping in the other room. What kind of mother brought random men into her house to fornicate?

  Fornicate?

  Clearly the buzzkill center of her brain didn’t know how to put together a convincing argument. Liv was still on painkillers and would no doubt sleep through the night. Though Alice had no plan in place for what the morning would hold—if Alex stayed through to the morning—she couldn’t think of a single reason to stop what they were doing.

  All the arguments she’d had before about distance and the realities of their lives didn’t seem to hold water when his tongue was in her mouth and his hands had found the hem of her shirt. In fact, even her dull, boring, logical brain was starting to be swayed.

  It’s not a good idea, but it feels so good.

  She couldn’t blame it on booze, since one glass of wine was hardly enough to render her stupid. Truthfully she didn’t want to blame anything at all. She wanted to dive into him with eyes wide open and relish what he was offering her. Whether it was comfort, carnal need or some combination of the two, she wanted it. Every minute of it.

  She seized him by the belt, biting his bottom lip to stave him off for a moment. “Bedroom,” she whispered, which was quite different from what she’d been trying to say when he came through the door.

  He allowed her to guide him by his belt buckle through the narrow halls. The whole time he never stopped touching her. She felt the graze of his fingers on her arms, her neck, her back. He’d just managed to cup her ass, both his large hands sliding into her back pockets, when she brought them through her bedroom door. Alex closed it behind them without being asked, nudging it shut quietly with his foot.

  He was still wearing his shoes, which were wet from the rain, and the impressions of his footprints had followed them into the room. Looking down, he was momentarily abashed to see he’d left a trail behind.

  “Oops.” The sheepish smile he offered was as close to an apology as she was expecting to get given the heated circumstances. Alice didn’t care about the floor. It gave her something new to add to the to-do list in her mind.

  But all that was Tomorrow Alice’s problem.

  She stood in front of him, struck shy. He was in her bedroom. Up until that moment the only sexual conquests occurring in her bed had been by her own hand, and usually with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in a starring role.

  With a real man in the room—one nearly as stubbly, but far less lethal—she wasn’t sure what to do with him. She glanced from Alex to the bed, her hands still on his belt, and smiled weakly.

  “Here we are.” She gave a little shrug.

  He’d removed his hands from her pockets when she turned around, and now that they were loose, he was touching her everywhere. He stopped moving only when he found her breasts through her shirt and held them in his palms. Alice’s instinct was to cover up. Sure, he’d seen them before, but they weren’t suitable for being ogled in the light. She’d had a baby for crying out loud, and they weren’t exactly small and perky to begin with.

  Yet he didn’t seem to be assessing them in any negative way. Instead, when his thumbs brushed over her nipples—tight and hard through her bra—he let out a small moan of appreciation, closing his eyes as if he wanted to focus on the feel of them.

  When he opened his eyes again, the light, joking Alex was gone, replaced with a dark, almost frightening desire. The aggressiveness of his need might have scared her off, but her own was an equal match for it. She wanted to be taken just as badly as he wanted to take her.

  “Get your clothes off,” he commanded.

  She didn’t need to be told a second time. The last time they’d been together she’d had both hands on the steering wheel and had been the one issuing commands. Now that the control was with Alex, she got a thrill of expectation wondering what he might do with the power.

  Alice stripped off her pants, wishing she wasn’t wearing the most hideous underwear she owned. If Alex noticed the panties, though, it was only because they served as a barrier between him and his goal.

  “On the bed.” His voice was a growl that sent a shock of expectation directly to her core. She was wet before he even had his shirt off.

  Obeying his request, she lay back on the bed, stupidly grateful she’d taken a moment to make it earlier. Alex removed his wet T-shirt, the material peeling away from his skin like it was an extension of him. She licked her lips as his bare chest was exposed, the hair covering his pecs leading in a delicious line to the waistband of his pants.

  She forgot he was supposed to be the one doing the bossing around and crooked her fingers towards him. “Get over here. But no wet pants on the bedspread.” With one eyebrow arched, she gave him a wicked grin.

  “I could say something about getting it wet anyway…” His voice drifted off, but his own smirk let her know exactly what he was getting at.

  “You dirty pervert.”

  “You’re goddamn right.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was as if Alex had never had her before.

  Their romp in her car was something out of a dream. One of those misty watercolor memories drunk old women at karaoke bars liked to sing about.

  The half-naked woman in front of him, though, she was a thing of vibrant, surrealist color. She was like a painting he couldn’t wait to get his brush all over.

  Bedding her hadn’t been his goal when he’d driven over. He hadn’t actually had a goal, except to see her. She’d sounded so tired, so…un-Alice on the phone, he hadn’t hesitated or asked permission, he just knew he had to make his way to her.

  It wasn’t until he was standing within inches of her that his mind shifted from comforting her to something altogether different. He couldn’t help himself when he was with her. She had a way of driving him absolutely mad. All his chivalrous notions flew out the window the moment he’d touched her.

  Now she was sprawled across her bed, giving him the kind of inviting stare he was accustomed to imagining but never actually seeing. He kicked off his shoes and socks and made short order of his pants, leaving all his clothes in a wet heap on her floor. Dressed in only his underwear, he was now the least clothed between the two of them, and that would need to be remedied.

  The bed bowed beneath his weight, and he crawled across the soft down duvet towards her.

  “You’re still wearing your shirt.” He straddled her, one leg on either side of her hips.

  “Then take it off.”

  He did as he was told, fumbling with the tiny, delicate buttons of her blouse. He wanted to rip the damned thing off and send those itty-bitty buttons flying across the room, but he held back, doing the gentlemanly thing.

  It might have been easier to buy her a new shirt.

  When the two sides were separated, he tugged the garment off her and added it to the pile he’d established on the carpet. “Better.” He let his hands do what they’d been craving the whole time, wide palms covering her breasts, the rigid nipples rubbing against his rough skin, teasing him through the material of her bra.

  The weight of her breasts in his hands felt glorious. He was like a teenager again, wanting to spend hours touching them, exploring their mysterious facets. But he didn’t have full hours to devote to her tits, and there was so much more of her he wanted to attend to. Who knew how long his visitation rights would last this time before she decided this wasn’t a good idea?

  Alex wanted to make the most of every second.

  The bedroom light had been off when they came in, so only the dying light of evening lit the small space. Now that the clouds were out in force—the rain beat noisily on the roof—he could barely make out her form.

  “I’ve wanted you lik
e this…” He stopped talking mid-sentence, worried he might kill the mood by confessing how often he’d thought of her naked.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you.”

  “What did you think about?” She cupped his crotch, her nimble fingers threatening to drive all rational thought from his mind. She circled his shaft through the cotton of his underwear, stroking gently. The friction was enough to make him crazy.

  “Th-that.” Alex closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers and taking a shaky breath. “I thought about that.”

  Alice squeezed, a naughty little pulse of the hand that made his breath hitch. “What else?”

  He opened his eyes a crack to watch her. She was entirely focused on her task. With each passing stroke she would dart a glance at his face to see how he was responding, and when she felt his reaction was positive, her cheeks grew pink and she bit down on her full lower lip.

  This woman was going to kill him.

  And he’d love it.

  Gathering his wits about him so he could get out a proper sentence and not just a chain of grunts, he pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, “I would fuck my hand like you’re doing now and think about you. Your hot little mouth. Your sexy fucking body. I would think about all the ways I’d use you when I got to have you again.” Once the words were out he thought he might have taken things too far because her hand had gone still and a breathy oh escaped her mouth.

  When he pulled back, her eyes were wide, but soon a familiar smile tugged at her lips.

  “Then why are you wasting time talking?”

  He kissed her, in part to silence her cheeky remarks, but more so because her mouth was close and so intent on being kissed. Since it was hard to resist, he didn’t bother trying.

  She kissed him back, her hands—those creatures borne right out of his dirtiest fantasies—continued to stroke him until he was harder than he’d ever thought possible.

  “Woman, if you keep that up, I’m not going to have much of a mind left for foreplay.” He held her hips, pulling her up towards him so the length of his erection pressed against her, only the pitiful, cotton barrier of their underwear keeping them apart. Alice let out a moan, her fist falling away from his cock.

  When he released her hips in favor of a tight hold on her ass, she pushed herself harder, rubbing the heat of her body along his shaft. Torturous little minx.

  “Fine,” he growled. “Have it your way.”

  “I intend to.” Her voice was deep and husky, the words catching on her throat the way her fingertips were catching on his stubble.

  Alex yanked off her underwear with barely a glance down. He relinquished his straddling position on her to get the panties all the way off, then chucked them onto the floor before kneeling in front of her.

  Alice propped herself up onto her elbows to watch him, her concern only thinly veiled. “What are you doing? I thought you said no foreplay.”

  “Sweetheart, if you think I’m passing up a chance to have a taste of you, you’re fucking dreaming.”

  “But I—”

  “Shh.” He had no patience for whatever silly complaint she was going to utter. Why was it women always felt the need to deter men from oral with pointless concerns like, but I haven’t showered today or no, it’s okay you don’t need to do that? Of course he didn’t need to do it. He wanted to do it. He craved it. Women seemed to think men ate pussy out of obligation. A good man ate it because it was the best thing on the planet to have under his tongue.

  He dragged her towards the end of the mattress, giving her plenty of time to wriggle free if she didn’t want it. But she stayed put, her legs spreading at his gentlest urging. To see her laid out like that, open before him, was almost enough to make him come. In the dim light, he could barely make out the details of her pussy but for the neatly trimmed curls and the sheen of her wetness. So wet he couldn’t resist the urge to run his fingers down her seam. Slick, hot and ready.

  But he wanted to make her beg for him.

  With his tongue, he trailed the path his finger had taken. The moment he touched her she gasped, her hips bucking under the new sensation. He lapped at her with slow, teasing strokes until she was moaning. She dug her fingers into his hair, wordlessly demanding he stay where he was. When she arched herself towards him, he stopped.

  “Wh-why did you—?”

  “Didn’t you want me to skip foreplay?” He glanced up at her, licking her off his lips and tilting his head with a coy smirk. “I mean, that’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh my God, you evil prick. Shut up and keep going.”

  He laughed and resumed his efforts, no longer playing nice. Gone were the slow licks. This time he dipped his finger inside her, curling it back towards him in a come-hither gesture, stroking her from within until he found the place he was looking for. When she let out a sharp cry, soon muffled by a pillow over her face, he knew he’d gotten the sweet spot.

  Stroking over and over, he lapped at her clit, circling it, then flicking with the tip of his tongue until her cries—though dampened—reached a fever pitch, and her whole body tightened before she went slack.

  Alice pulled the pillow away, panting.

  “Sweet Jesus, Alex.”

  “We’re not done, yet.”

  Alice had never heard a sentence sound like a threat and a promise all at one time before. It sent a spear of anxious anticipation right to her groin, making a shiver of delight spread through her body.

  She wormed her way backwards on the bed until her head touched the pillows. The foresight to smother her orgasm had proved necessary, and though she wished Alex could have heard what he did to her, she was glad she hadn’t risked waking Olivia with strange screams echoing through the house. He’d almost killed her with his tongue, and now she understood the logic behind the French term for orgasm.

  La petite mort.

  The little death.

  He had made her come like she was falling apart, burst into a billion tiny atoms and then reformed as something new. Someone new. Like a rebirth, or a renewal. She couldn’t remember feeling like that before, torn down and then remade as something perfect. It was amazing what a good man could do with only his mouth.

  Sex, for Alice, had long been something she thought of as fun and moderately pleasurable. After Matt, it had become a dusty memory. And now, with Alex, she caught a glimpse of how some people considered it a spiritual union. She had practically seen God.

  Her last time with Alex had been a tasty appetizer. The main course, as it turned out, had been worth the wait.

  He climbed over her, his weight a wonderful, tangible thing. If she wasn’t desperate to have him inside her, she might have asked him to stop and simply lay on top of her. It was nice to feel the presence of a man so close and touchable, so comforting. If she let herself, she would fall asleep at Alex’s side, curled into a ball, warmed by the sheer, glorious bulk of him.

  “I want you.” She fanned her fingers over his bare back. His skin was damp with sweat and hot to the touch.

  He replied with a rough sigh instead of words. Alex tangled one of his hands in her hair, tipping her head back for a hard, ragged kiss that sucked the air out of her lungs. His lips still tasted like her, but instead of being embarrassed she found herself excited.

  Her hands trailed lower, down his muscular shoulders, over his spine and to the band of his underwear. She paused, struck shy for a fraction of a second, until he ground his hips towards her. The shock of his hardness chased away any nerves she felt. Off came the underwear, and soon there was nothing between them.

  She squeezed his ass, which was tight from years of squatting behind the plate. She was sure he’d pass the bounce-a-quarter-off-it test. The head of his cock, large and demanding, was pressed against her like a guest begging for entry.

  “Condom.” She said it more to remind herself than him. Alice fumbled for the bedside drawer. In a moment of optimism after their dat
e months earlier, she’d bought a box of condoms for the first time in close to a decade. They’d sat unopened in the drawer next to her vibrator, constantly mocking her whenever she reached for the toy. They seemed to say, You could be having real sex right now, if you weren’t such a bull-headed ninny.

  Now she tore at the box with triumph, thinking, I’d like to see you mock me now, Trojans!

  The package got its retribution by proving almost impossible to open. Alex, seeing her struggle, took the condom out of her hands and freed it with the ease of a seasoned professional, slipping it on and angling himself at her entrance again.

  “Don’t you dare tease me this time, Ross,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Darling.”

  He slid into her easily, but the size of him was still surprising and the slightest bit painful. She reached for the pillow, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

  “I want to see you,” he insisted.

  “I can’t make any noise.” She considered her options then grabbed one of his hands from where it was planted next to her ear and placed it firmly over her mouth.

  “Interesting…”

  Alice bit his palm to scold him as she lifted her hips to meet his, seating his cock back inside her. She moaned into his hand and licked the rough skin.

  “Goddamn, woman.” He kept his fingers locked in place and resumed his thrusting, driving into her slowly at first, then with the demanding strokes of a man who desperately needed to come.

  Alice breathed hotly against his palm, her moans being fed back into her open mouth. He came first this time, his free hand gripping her hair as all his muscles went taut and he groaned, his body twitching like a live wire. He reached between them, in spite of his clear exhaustion, and found her tight, sensitive clit.

  It only took a few rapid circles from his thumb to bring her to the edge and push her over again. He withdrew his hand from her mouth as she came, swallowing her scream with a deep, greedy kiss.