by Mindy Neff
She smelled of wildflowers and tasted like a dream. He wanted to touch her all over, faster, harder…more. But he held back, kept his touch slow and firm, determined to drench her in pleasure. From the moment she’d walked into his life, she’d kept him off balance, thrusting him into situations that made him feel hapless.
Here, though, they were in his arena. He held the reins. And the knowledge sent his ego soaring.
Ethan heard her whimper when he pressed his thumbs to the top of her pubic bone. Watching her, still using only his thumbs, he combed through her curls and downward to the slick heat of her.
She cried out and arched against him, and he nearly lost it right then and there. The top of her dress fell to her waist and she tried to lift her hands, but the straps trapping her arms prevented it.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, awed. Her breasts were considerably more than a handful. He cupped their weight, ran his thumbs over the hard tips. “So beautiful.”
Until tonight, she’d worn a bra beneath her clothes. Admittedly, it had been fairly visible beneath several of those tank tops she favored, but visible or not, it had been hiding intoxicatingly voluptuous breasts.
So perfect. Guaranteed to make a man beg.
Dora Watkins had a body made for lovemaking.
“We need a bed. Hold your legs tight around me.” He pulled the straps of her dress all the way down, then slipped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her. Her arms came around his neck, those remarkably soft breasts pillowed against his chest, creating a fiery friction with each step he took, testing his control as it had never been tested.
“I do like those long legs of yours, darlin’.” She wasn’t much bigger than a minute and weighed even less.
“I figured that out the first time you ogled them.”
“I didn’t ogle.” In his bedroom he flicked on the lamp, holding her easily with one arm, then took his wallet from his hip pocket and tossed it on the night-stand. He put a knee on the mattress and laid her down. Without breaking contact, he followed, fitting himself between her legs, torturing himself as he pressed his arousal against her. He hadn’t yet taken off his jeans, which was a good thing. Hopefully, if he kept his body imprisoned, he wouldn’t rush.
It might make him crazy, but he promised himself he’d take his time, get it right. Because suddenly the most important thing in the world to him was getting it right. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before—probably because he’d never been entrusted with a woman’s most cherished gift. And though he might not deserve that gift, he was going to treasure it.
He threaded his fingers through the hair at her temples, gazed down at her. Her eyes skittered away, and that wasn’t like her. “What?” he asked softly.
She shrugged. “I’m…I don’t know.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And I hate admitting that.”
He pressed his lips lightly to her eyelids, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth. “Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’m scared, too.”
“You are not.”
“Yes. I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t want to scare you. But I’m afraid I’ll do both.”
She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his neck. “I think I’m more apprehensive than scared. I’ve never been naked in front of a man before.”
He raised his upper body and his brows at the same time. “What about art class?”
“That was different. It wasn’t…”
“Sexual?” He slid down, traced his lips over the swell of her breasts. “Arousing?” He shifted to his side, lifted the soft weight of her breast in his hand. Her dress was merely a silky band bunched around her waist. He kept his thigh over her lower body, giving her time to adjust to his gaze, to his touch.
She sucked in a breath when his thumb stroked her nipple.
“Do you like that?”
Dora didn’t know if she could find her voice. Her heart was pumping so hard she wondered that it wasn’t visible. “Yes.” A whisper. She touched his bare chest, reveling in the smooth skin and firm muscles.
He gently circled her wrists and drew her hands away from him, pinning them to the mattress. Linking his fingers with hers, he kissed her long and hard, sweeping nearly every coherent thought from her head. “No touching, remember?” he said.
“But I want to know what gives you pleasure, too.”
He ran his hand down the underside of her arm, moved his leg from across her thighs and swept a path of fire down her side, from her chest to her knees and back up again.
“Next time. This time I’m going to show you what your body can feel. All for you. Just your pleasure.”
Oh, that sounded so selfish, and she might have told him so if his hand hadn’t smoothed straight up the inside of her thigh and cupped her like no man ever had.
Hot desire and love rushed through her veins, right to her heart, and then pulsed between her legs. This is what she’d waited for these last twenty-seven years. Just this. Ethan. His touch. His taste.
His fingers didn’t linger long in any one spot and Dora wanted to scream. Each touch was different, yet they all pulled the same taut, incredibly arousing strings in her body, raising desire to a fever pitch. The rush of emotions was almost too much. She tried to focus, found she couldn’t.
And all the while he watched her, seemed to be gauging her response as he molded her body and emotions to his will with skill and style.
“Lift up,” he coached.
As she dug her heels into the mattress and lifted her hips, he slid her little slip dress all the way off, leaving her bare to his gaze.
“You take my breath away.” His voice was raw and reverent.
“Likewise,” she said with a nervous chuckle that came out more like a pant. Turning on her side, she pressed into him, attempting to shield herself from his hot, intense eyes. She suddenly felt shy and needed a moment of respite.
The erotic feel of denim against her bare skin inflamed. She wanted to feel all of him against her, but at the same time the barrier of his pants meant that nothing would happen too soon. She appreciated his thoughtfulness, knew his intention was to take his time with her, ease her into the initiation of lovemaking, yet she wanted to tell him it wasn’t necessary.
With his hand on her hip, he pressed her back against the mattress. “I could almost be satisfied just looking at you.”
The reverent way he said the words, the incredibly exquisite way his gaze skimmed over her, banished the last of her apprehension. He made her feel beautiful, secure, cherished.
He was the man she loved, the man she’d entrusted with her virginity.
“Almost,” he repeated, then using the unfair advantage of his experience, he skillfully employed lips, tongue, hands and his whole body to set her on fire, to send her on an erotic journey that she knew without a doubt she’d never forget.
Sensation sharpened, nearly became surreal. The room faded away, and there was only the bed and the two of them. Outside, a barn owl hooted, and a coyote yipped. But inside, there was only touch and taste and feel. He found pleasure points she never imagined she had—the back of her knees, the underside of her breasts, the side of her neck. When his lips closed over the sensitive skin just beneath her ear she shifted restlessly. When he lightly sucked the skin into his mouth, she moaned.
“That’s it, baby. Tell me what feels good.”
“All of it.” She sucked in a breath when his finger slipped inside her. “Oh!” Colors exploded behind her closed eyelids. She’d told him she’d engaged in everything except actual consummation. She’d been terribly wrong.
She’d never felt anything like the flex of Ethan’s fingers inside her body. She wasn’t sure she could survive this much pleasure.
Her hips shifted, seeking contact. She needed…oh, she didn’t know what she needed. “Please.”
“Not yet.” He withdrew his hand,
and she nearly wept. “Shh.” Firmer now, faster, his palms smoothed up and down her body, from her neck to her toes and every erotic point in between.
“At least take off your pants,” she said with what little breath she had.
Instead of obliging, he grabbed her hips and pulled her tight against his pelvis, holding her there, breathing heavily, his fingers flexing against her behind. “I need a minute.”
“I don’t have a minute, Ethan. I feel like I’m going to come apart.”
He glanced down at her, gave her one of those incredibly tender, incredibly intense looks. “I mean for you to come apart,” he said softly, and rose to remove his pants and take a condom out of his wallet.
For a moment he stood beside the bed, gloriously naked. He had a body that should have been displayed on a calendar—or on a statue in a fine arts museum.
Her eyes widened only slightly when her gaze slid down to take in all of him.
He smiled and eased back on the bed, gathered her in his arms. “We’ll fit,” he assured.
She wasn’t certain about that, but at the moment she didn’t care, because his clever hands were once more sweeping over her body, caressing, squeezing, stroking, bringing her just to the edge of something incredible, then starting all over again. Patiently. Thoroughly.
Dora thought she’d go mad.
She clamped her hands on his shoulders, tried to pull him on top of her. “Ethan…”
“I know.” He shifted between her thighs, positioned himself over her. With one hand against the mattress to steady his weight, he swept the other beneath her hips, and lifted.
“Hold on to me now.” His voice was gritty and strained.
She felt him press against her, intimately, hard and fiery hot. She held her breath as he slowly entered her, just a bit, then withdrew.
She whimpered, was about to beg when he pushed forward again.
It wasn’t enough. “Ethan…”
“Shh, sweetheart.” His lips brushed her temple, his breath ragged in her ear. “Just hold on.”
In and out he moved, slowly, erotically, each time pressing a bit harder, tipping her hips a bit farther. He moved his hand around between them, lightly circled his thumb around the most sensitive part of her body, and Dora came apart, barely aware that at that exact moment he’d thrust completely into her.
Her body pulsed around him, streaking up to another crest, stunning her with the speed and intensity of what could only be described as pure rapturous bliss. Her heart beat so hard, she wondered how a person could do this without having a heart attack.
“Okay?” Ethan asked, his lips sketching her cheeks, her ear, the corner of her eye.
“More than okay. I feel—”
He put a finger over her lips. “If you go into detail, this’ll all be over in a minute.” A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “I was hoping for a bit longer than that.”
She smiled, smoothed her hands down his broad back and over the mounds of his firm butt. “You can move now.”
“Sure? I’m not hurting you?”
She shook her head, squeezed his behind and pulled him deeper inside her. “Show me, Ethan. Make love to me.”
Ethan gently kissed her lips, then holding her gaze with his, he began to move, in and out, slowly, his control hanging on by a bare thread as he felt each inch of his body sinking into hers, felt the warmth of her femininity pulsate around him, grip him, hold him.
Had it ever felt this right? Had there ever been such a tight perfect fit? His body was screaming for release, but his head was sending a completely different message. Hold on. Draw it out. Savor. Feel. Just feel. Make it good for her. For Dora. His Dora.
A possessiveness he didn’t understand swept through his blood as he thrust harder and faster. Reaching for the back of her thighs, he drew her legs up, wrapped them around his waist, heard her muffle a scream against the side of his neck.
“That’s it, baby. Again.” She’d already climaxed several times. He wanted more. He wanted it all.
His mind hazed when she sobbed his name, when she matched his moves, his rhythm, and with innocence and sheer abandon pushed them both over the edge of blissful madness.
WHEN ETHAN WAS ABLE to think again, he looked quickly down at Dora. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” He called himself every kind of fool for losing control that way.
He shifted to his side, brushed the damp bangs off her forehead, placed a kiss to the skin he’d uncovered. An apology.
“Ethan, I’m more than fine.” Dora rolled with him, not yet ready to give up the contact of their bodies. She was satisfied, there was no doubt about it. But still she craved more.
Not knowing if that was normal, if perhaps he’d released some hidden nymphomaniac inside her, she concentrated on bringing her breathing back under control, concentrated on sophistication.
“What’s that look, legs?”
“What look?”
Incredibly, he hooked a leg over and around the back of hers and in one impressively fluid movement, he sat up, taking her with him. Before she could even draw a breath, he was sitting cross-legged on the bed and she was straddling his lap.
The intimate contact the position afforded made her moan.
He cupped her bottom, pulled her more snugly against him.
“What’s going through that gorgeous head of yours?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sorry?”
“Oh, no. That’s not it at all. It’s just that…” She shrugged, the words right there aching to come out. Oh, what the heck. “I want to do it again.”
His smile tilted just at the corner of his mouth, lifted slowly. “I didn’t get it right the first time?”
She hooked her arms around his neck, brushed the tips of her breasts against his chest. He was teasing her, and she could give it right back.
“You got it very right, cowboy. I now know what it feels like to be made love to. And very well, I might add.”
“Mmm.” He ducked his head and kissed the underside of her jaw. “A performance rating. I like that.”
It took a minute to remember her train of thought because his lips were now doing something breathtakingly clever to her ear.
“Wait.” She put a hand on his chest, gave a gentle shove.
His gaze lifted, his blue eyes filled with a desire so intense Dora could only stare.
I love you. The urge to say the words was so strong her throat ached with the effort to hold them back. He wasn’t ready to hear that declaration just yet. She didn’t know if he ever would be, but she could hope. For now, though, there was a different agenda.
“You’ve made love to me. Now I want to know the flip side. I want to know how to make love to you.”
“I think we can manage that.” His voice was no longer teasing. His body began to swell against her.
“I don’t sound too…needy or anything?”
“Needy is good. Especially, uh, in this particular context.”
“In that case…” She scooted back in his lap just far enough to reach between them and take him in her hand.
His breath drew in swiftly.
She raised her eyes to his. “Teach me,” she whispered.
He put his hand over hers, showing her exactly what he liked.
“Ethan?”
“Mmm, baby, that’s so good.”
She reveled in his praise and in the different textures of his body. “This won’t be the end of it, you know. Once I learn how to make love to you, I imagine it’ll be necessary to have a quiz.”
“Definitely necessary,” he said against her jaw. He guided her hand over him, clenching his teeth as his body grew incredibly hot and hard.
“Man alive, Dora, I don’t have an ounce of control around you.”
He released her hand, snatched open the nightstand drawer and took out the whole box of condoms, hoping they weren’t expired.
He’d never brought a woman home to his bedroom. Never wanted the memories of o
ne left in this room.
Now he couldn’t wait to make memories.
“You think that’ll be enough?”
He chuckled against her lips. “I’m crazy about you, legs.”
“Mmm, I’m pretty crazy about you, too.”
“If I’ve died and gone to Heaven, don’t tell me, okay?”
“Okay. At least not for the next little while. Because I need you well and truly alive if you’re going to complete my education.”
“Why do I feel as if I’m the one who’ll get the education?” And that was the end of the conversation, Ethan thought, because her untutored hands were driving him wild.
Next time, he decided. Next time he’d teach her how to torture his body.
Right now he had other designs on Dora Watkins.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan stood in the doorway of Katie’s room and deliberately rapped his knuckles against the wall. The baby wiggled, but didn’t wake. He sighed, feeling antsy. Katie was a late sleeper, making it difficult for him to jump right into morning chores.
He stepped back and glanced over the upstairs railing to the bottom of the stairs where Dora streaked by on her way back into the laundry room she’d converted into a dark room.
She hadn’t been in bed when he’d woken. He’d prepared himself to deal with shy regrets. He should have known better than to think anything about Dora Watkins was shy.
Instead, she’d greeted him over coffee with a chirpy “hi” and an absent kiss that had landed somewhere between his cheek and his mouth—as though he was her brother, for crying out loud, and not the man she’d had hot sex with just hours before.
And now, here she was, flitting about as usual, acting as if she was the sophisticated one experienced in no-strings mornings after.
And Ethan was the one mooning like a lovesick calf.
Annoyed, he went back into Katie’s room, prepared to shake the crib if necessary.
It wasn’t necessary. She stood, holding on to the side railing of the oak baby bed, eight little teeth gleaming as she grinned and bobbed up and down on pudgy legs.