by Joan Hohl
“Don’t look at me like that.” His voice was soft, harsh.
“Like what?” Her voice was barely there.
“Like you want to devour me.”
“I do.” In that instant her decision was made. “But only if you promise to devour me in return.”
Exhaling the breath she hadn’t realized he was holding, Mitch groaned and pulled her into his arms. “That’s a promise I’ll be happy to fulfill,” he murmured, lowering his head to take her mouth.
The devouring process had begun.
Heat consuming her, Maggie was only vaguely aware of Mitch moving her toward the bed, of his fingers plucking the pins from her hair, of his hands divesting her of her clothes, of her own hands tugging at his attire. But within minutes, they stood next to the bed, facing each other, the trappings of civilization littering the floor around them.
“Beautiful,” he said, slowly gliding his hot-eyed gaze over her body.
“Yes, you are,” she whispered, returning the compliment with an appreciative examination of his tall and fit muscular body, the awesome length of his manhood.
He chuckled. “Men aren’t beautiful,” he scoffed, raising his hands to cradle her breasts with a near reverent touch. “They’re beautiful.”
“They’re too small.” She sighed, quivering as his fingers stroked the tingling, tightening tips. “They barely fill out a B-cup bra.”
“They fill my palms.” He closed his hands around her breasts, claiming them for his own. “Perfect.”
Obeying the boldest impulse she had ever had, Maggie slid her hand down his torso and curled her fingers around him. “So are you.”
Mitch drew in a sharp breath, thrust his hips forward, closed his eyes and groaned. “I think we’d better lie down…before I fall down.”
“Yes,” Maggie agreed in a wavery voice, feeling rather light-headed herself.
Mitch paused long enough to toss the comforter and top sheet to the foot of the bed. Settling her in the center of the mattress, he sought, captured her mouth as he stretched out beside her.
Maggie’s mind was on the verge of taking a leave of absence when a thought popped in out of nowhere. Tearing her lips from his, she cried, “Mitch, the fax!”
“Screw the fax,” he growled, stabbing the corner of her mouth with the tip of his tongue. “On second thought, I’d much rather scr…” He shook his head. “No, not with you. With you, I want to make love.”
Thrilled, shivering in anticipation, Maggie caught his head with her hands, speared her fingers into his luxurious dark hair. “Does making love include devouring?”
He laughed, a rich, free-sounding roar. “Of course.”
“Then, get on with it,” she commanded, laughing with him as she drew his mouth to hers.
Eight
Mitch propped himself up on his arm and looked over at Maggie, who was curled up beside him, sound asleep. His mind still on stun, Mitch studied her face and her form in awed astonishment.
Maggie had not been a virgin. Mitch had not expected her to be untouched, not in her late twenties. But, to his complete surprise, he had quickly realized that she was woefully untutored, a near innocent to sensual play. To his delight, she had proved not only willing but eager to learn and had shyly, yet trustingly following his lead.
For Mitch, Maggie’s wholehearted responsiveness to his every suggestion acted upon him like the strongest aphrodisiac. Reciprocating in kind to his every touch, every caress, she had unconditionally surrendered to him, and in turn, he had unconditionally surrendered to her.
In the end Maggie had cried out his name in tones of amazement and disbelief while in the throes of utter release. Her cries of pleasure, and the speculation that she had never experienced such an all-consuming release, had heightened his own satisfaction.
At thirty-five, Mitch was far from a novice in the art of sensual pleasures. Yet, for all his worldly experience, never had he known—lived through, died through—such an intense, mind-and-body-shattering sexual encounter, as he had with Maggie.
His body was still pulsating in reaction to the gut-wrenching intensity of his climax. His heart was still thumping, his nerves still thrumming like a vibrating guitar string, his breathing still shallow and irregular.
Damn…he loved it, loved it so much, he replayed the scene in bits and pieces in his pleasure-addled mind.
His gaze surveying Maggie’s sleep-softened features, Mitch relived the taste of her creamy skin, the tickle of her eyelashes against his lips, the moist sweetness of her mouth, her tongue, joined in carnal hunger with his.
His chest tightening, Mitch slid his gaze to her hair, spread like strands of living flames in wild disarray against the pillow—his pillow. And it had been his fingers, coiling, curling, grasping those strands that had caused that tale-telling disarray.
A sudden dryness parched his throat. Mitch’s gaze moved on to her satiny shoulders and lower, to her breasts. Their deliciously tempting tips were still tight and hard from the attention lavished upon them by his tongue, his greedily sucking lips.
Desire reawakening his body, Mitch trailed his gaze lower still. He followed the neat indentation of her slim waist, the alluring flare of her hips, the gentle roundness of her belly, the parted juncture of her thighs.
Sweet heaven.
Mitch closed his eyes. Perspiration sheened his forehead. He was quivering, actually quivering in response to the passion roaring through him.
With every fiber of his being, Mitch wanted, needed to experience that heaven again.
Sliding his rigid body down the enticing length of hers, he lowered his head to bestow the most adoring and intimate of kisses on the portal of her sweet heaven.
Maggie roused to an aching, fiery sensation in the core of her being. Sensual energy recharged her depleted body. Not fully awake, but luxuriating in the new sensation, she moved in sinuous response, parting her thighs and arching her hips.
Soft laughter, followed by a quick, hot caress against the most sensitive part of her femininity brought her fully awake, shockingly aware.
“Mitch…no,” she protested, stiffening.
“Maggie…yes,” he murmured, delving deeper.
She wanted to resist, felt compelled to resist, but the sensations swirling through her from his ministrations defeated her resistance, turned it into raging desire. Writhing, helpless within the grip of erotic pleasure, she grasped his head, dug her fingers into his hair, arched her hips high and gave herself up to the hungry fire of his mouth.
Tension unlike anything Maggie had ever experienced wound tighter and tighter until, gasping, pleading, fearing she’d go mad from the pleasure, the tension snapped and a torrent of even more intense pleasure cascaded through her.
Her breathing labored, Maggie lay exhausted. At least she thought she was exhausted, beyond the slightest movement, until she heard the faint but unmistakable noise of tearing foil. Mitch surged up over her and into her, further intensifying the diminishing pulsations.
It was fast, and furious. And to Maggie’s utter disbelief, she once again went soaring into ecstasy, and promptly into the enfolding blanket of slumber.
“Maggie… Are you dead?”
Mitch’s soft tones roused her consciousness, his teasing aroused her amusement.
“Yes.”
“Too bad.” His voice held silent laughter. “I guess I’ll have to drink the coffee I brought for you.”
“Coffee?” Maggie pried open her eyes to see him standing next to the bed, a cup in each hand. He looked devastating, clad in nothing but faded jeans that rode his slim hips. “Caffeinated?”
“What else?”
Inhaling the aroma rising from the steaming brew, Maggie groaned in appreciation as she levered herself up, then yelped with the realization that she was stark naked.
“Will you hand me my blouse?” she asked, yanking the sheet up to her neck.
“Why?” he drawled, grinning at the fierce frown she’d produced. “I’ve seen
…and tasted…it all.”
“I could say the same of you, yet you’re covered,” she muttered. “Mitch, please,” she pleaded, feeling her face, her entire body grow warm with embarrassment at the flood of memories, her abandonment… How long ago?
“Oh, all right, Little Ms. Modest,” he grouched, his silvery eyes gleaming with amusement.
Sighing with relief, Maggie clamped the sheet under her arms. Wriggling into a sitting position, she watched him as he set the cups on the night-stand and turned to a chair, where her neatly folded clothes lay draped over the high back, obviously placed there by Mitch.
“What time is it, anyway?” she asked, quickly shrugging into the blouse he tossed to her.
“Ten-twenty,” he said, handing a cup to her. “Why, are you going somewhere?”
Cradling the cup in her palms, Maggie raised it to her lips and took a careful sip of the aromatic brew. “Hmm, lovely,” she murmured, taking another sip before answering his question. “If you’ll recall, I told Karla and Ben I’d join them if it didn’t get too late…which, of course, it now is.”
“Does not being able to join them bother you?”
Giving serious concentration to her caffeine intake, Maggie wasn’t looking at him. But the tight edge to his tone snagged her attention, drew her gaze to his face. His expression was closed and every bit as tight as his voice.
“Bother me?” she repeated, frowning. “No, it doesn’t bother me. Why should it?”
Mitch’s lips curved into what she felt sure was supposed to be a smile. It had more the look of a grimace. “Come on, Maggie,” he said chidingly. “What is one supposed to think? Ben’s been hanging around here since he arrived. He escorted you out to dinner, Lord knows how many times the last two weeks. And even though he has kindly included Karla in on the outings, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that he’s attracted, one might even say extremely attracted, to you.”
Maggie nearly choked on her coffee. Fortunately, she managed to swallow before bursting into laughter.
“What the hell’s so damn funny?” Anger flashed in his eyes.
“You,” she said, stifling her mirth. “And your all-seeing but clouded vision.”
“Meaning?” Mitch demanded, bristling.
He looked so affronted, so rattled by his failure to intimidate her, Maggie had to fight another gurgle of laughter. “Meaning,” she said, sweetly, “you obviously missed the real truth.”
He actually growled. “Explain.”
“Ben is not attracted to me, Mitch.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “He’s crazy about Karla.”
He looked both stunned and shocked. “But… Good Lord, Maggie, she’s pregnant.”
“No!” Maggie exclaimed, widening her eyes in a parody of astonishment. “How did it… Well, I know how, but… When did this happen?”
“Cute.” Mitch somehow managed to sound annoyed, amused and relieved at one and the same time. “And you don’t mind…about Ben’s interest in her?”
“Why should I mind?” She shook her head. “I mean, other than a natural concern about whether Ben’s interest in her is genuine.”
“Understandable, of course, but…” He shrugged. “I thought you were attracted to him.”
Now it was Maggie who felt affronted, really insulted. They had just had sex…which, to her at any rate, had seemed more like making love. Could Mitch seriously believe she would go to bed with one man while feeling attracted to another?
To Maggie, it was patently obvious that that was exactly what Mitch believed. Damn his hide.
“I see,” she said, her cool tone reflecting an inner chill of pain. Setting her empty cup on the night table, she clutched at the sides of her blouse with trembling fingers and slid her sheet-draped legs over the edge of the mattress. “If you’d turn your back, please,” she said, not looking at him, “I’d like to use the bathroom.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have to leave,” she muttered, staring at the carpet, and absently noting it was plush, a deep chocolate brown. “It’s getting late.”
“It’s not that late. Maggie, what’s wrong?”
“I told you,” she said to the carpet. “I must go. I need to clean up and dress.”
“Look at me, Maggie.” It wasn’t a request, but a direct order.
From the boss to the… Maggie shook her head in denial of the ugly word that sprang into her mind.
“Damn it, Maggie,” he exploded, stepping closer to her. “What’s wrong?”
She saw his feet crush the carpet before she felt his hands grab her shoulders to pull her upright. Suddenly furious, she jerked her head back and glared at him.
“I’m mad as hell, that’s what’s wrong.”
“What?” Mitch looked bewildered. “Mad about what?”
Chin tilted at an aggressive angle, Maggie lashed out at him. “How dare you insinuate that I’d go to bed with one man, while feeling attracted to another?”
“I didn’t… I…”
“You did.” Exasperated, irritated, Maggie raked him with a withering look. She hadn’t felt so incensed since June, when she’d discovered that note. Inside her mind, she was no longer seeing just Mitch, but Todd and every other insensitive male she had ever met.
“Maggie… I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His hands tightened on her shoulders. She shrugged out of his hold and sidestepped away from him.
“Men.” On a roll, she practically spat the word at him. “You’re all alike, taking what you want from whomever you want, without a thought or care for any pain or mental damage you might inflict.”
“What pain?” Mitch gave her a helpless look. “What mental damage have I inflicted—” He broke off, his eyes narrowing. “Who did this to you…hurt you?” he asked—demanded—in icy tones. “Was it Ben?”
“Ben? Again?” Maggie threw her hands in the air. “I told you I’m not interested in Ben that way.”
“Then who?” Mitch persisted. “And don’t hand me that bull about me insinuating anything unsavory about you. I meant no such thing. It’s more than that…much more. Isn’t it? You’re attacking me for something some other son of a bitch did. Aren’t you?”
Maggie sighed, deflating as fast as she had blown up. She had overreacted, and she knew it. “Yes,” she admitted, hastening to add, “but I did feel as though you were casting aspersions on my character.”
“I wasn’t.” His voice was hard with conviction. “He hurt you very badly?”
She smiled with wry self-knowledge. “He hurt my pride,” she confessed, her face flaming as she suddenly realized she was standing there stark naked from the waist down. If she hadn’t felt so vulnerable, it might have been funny, she with only her chest covered, Mitch with only his…bottom concealed. “May I get dressed now?” she said, shifting uncomfortably.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Mitch, I feel like a fool, standing here half-dressed like this,” she snapped, patience wearing thin. “Will you please point me toward the bathroom.”
“Right there.” He indicated a door on the far wall. “But I expect some answers when you’re finished.”
Dream on, mister. Maggie didn’t bother verbalizing the thought. Scooping her clothes from the chair, she dashed for the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, after making free with his shower in the luxurious black-and-white-tiled bathroom, Maggie strode back into the bedroom. Her confidence was restored by the armor of being fully clothed.
Mitch, on the other hand, apparently felt well protected by the indomitable force of his personality. He sat sprawled in a wing chair, still clad in nothing but the jeans, unbuttoned at the waist.
The sensuous sight of him had Maggie reeling from an erotic blow to her senses.
She sucked in a steadying breath.
He smiled, slow and sexy. “You look fantastic…but I liked you better the other way, with your gorgeous hair all wild and tangled, and your lips red and po
uty from my kisses, and your beautiful green eyes shadowed by passion.”
Good heavens. Maggie’s legs went weak. Heat seared through her, tingling the tips of her breasts, drawing moisture from the core of her being. It was crazy, sheer madness. Nevertheless, she wanted him. Again. So soon.
He held out a hand. “Come to me, Maggie,” he murmured in a low siren-song voice.
Every living cell in her body urged her to obey his whispered plea, relive the ecstasy to be found in his embrace, his possession.
She actually took one step toward him, before common sense came to her rescue, warning her that if she surrendered to him again, she’d be a goner, defenseless against his potent kisses. She shook her head in denial, of him and herself. Until she felt certain she could trust him…
“Maggie, trust me,” he crooned, as if he could read the turmoil of her conflicting thoughts.
She shook her head again. “I told you before, I don’t trust any man. And now, since we—” she glanced at the rumpled bed, then quickly looked away “—I no longer trust myself.”
“He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” His voice harsh with disgust, Mitch sprang from the chair to confront her, his hands planted on his slim hips.
“Yes,” she admitted, holding her ground, facing him with challenge. “But, you see, I allowed it by doing a number on myself,” she conceded.
“How?”
Maggie smiled, faint and self-deprecatingly. “By convincing myself I was in love with him.”
Speculation silvered his eyes. “You weren’t in love with him…whoever the hell he is?”
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “No, I wasn’t in love with him,” she confessed. “I was feeling desperate. I was tired of the upwardly mobile mania. My biological clock was running. I longed for a child, a family, a man I could trust to provide those things.” She shrugged. “It was easy to convince myself I was in love.”
“You wanted marriage,” he concluded.
“Yes, I wanted marriage,” she said, a wry smile twisting her lips. “And I believed I was going to get what I wanted,” she added, feeling a need to at last purge herself, her mind of the humiliating experience. “Everything was arranged. Then, two weeks before the big event, he eloped with his employer’s daughter, and heir. He left me a note, and a mess to clean up.”