by Lori Wilde
She was so beautiful. Her sloe-eyes dark and mysterious, her hair caught up in a high ponytail showing off her exquisite bone structure, her impossibly perfect ears, her straight regal nose, her full lips moist and inviting, her white bra visible beneath her unbuttoned shirt.
“Want me to get my cell phone?” she teased.
“Nope. This moment is private, and all mine.”
The Sphinx cracked a big grin, and boom, she was no longer the Sphinx. Her smile caught him low in the belly, spread pressure and heat straight to his groin.
Axel felt dizzy and weak-kneed and over-the-moon in love with her. He shook his head to clear it, but nothing doing. He was in so deep he knew there was no getting out of this unscathed.
Moreover, he didn’t care.
She shrugged the shirt down one shoulder, slanted him a sultry gaze that tightened every masculine muscle in his body. Slowly, she slid it off the other shoulder, let the shirt drift to the floor.
Taking in her lithe, muscular body with ample curves in all the right places, his eyes almost bugged out of his head.
And when she turned her back to him, and unlatched her bra, he was salivating.
The bra joined the shirt on the floor, and when she turned back to face him, and unveiled those perfect breasts, he almost cried out in painful joy. He felt as if he’d waited his whole lifetime for this moment.
This woman.
“Kasha.” He breathed her name and let the sound fill his lungs, his heart, his blood, until every cell throbbed with vibration. Kasha. Kasha. Kasha.
“Well?” One elegant eyebrow went up on her forehead.
Speechless. He was speechless. Struck dumb by her beauty.
“Are you going to stand there staring all night, or make your pitch, player?” Heat and affection for him danced in her eyes, and he laughed because being with her felt so damn good.
“I’m so glad you quit,” he said. “I thought this was never going to happen.”
“It still shouldn’t be happening,” she said. “But you’re hot, and I’m weak.”
“Thank God for that.” His palms itched to cup the weight of her breasts.
“You better make a move before I back out,” she threatened, sinking her hands on her hips.
He sobered. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret, Kasha.”
“I’m regretting that it’s taking you so long to get to it.” She eased the waistband of her yoga pants down over her hips, giving him a glimpse of a pair of white thong panties, leaning over in a sexy little backbend that showed off her tiny waist and curvy rump.
“Actually …” He ogled her, admiring how the Lycra fit her like a second skin. “I was thinking I should hop in right about now and finish shucking off those pants for you. Although it does look like they’ve been spray-painted on.”
Kasha folded the waistband down another turn, wriggling her hips. “Easy as peel-and-eat shrimp.”
“Mmm,” he said. “You’re making me hungry, and not for seafood.”
“Me too,” she murmured, soft as silk.
“I like the taste of salty, earthy things. Oysters …” He let his gaze drift to the sweet V between her legs, and was rewarded when she shivered.
“Oh yeah.” Her voice was husky, wet.
He closed the space between them until they were almost touching, breasts to chest. And her heart was pounding so hard he could see her pulse beating at the hollow of her throat. “I’ve been fantasizing about this from the moment we first met. I can’t think of anything but you.”
“That sounds limiting.”
“Not at all. In my daydreams we’re always doing the most adventuresome things.” He lowered his head until he could feel her breath on his cheek, and he stopped just millimeters short of her lips.
“I hope I don’t disappoint, since you’ve built this up so much in your head.”
“You could never disappoint me.”
“You say that now …”
“It’s gonna be great.” He wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her up flush against him. She let out a soft little sound of surrender that unraveled him on several different levels.
Her body was so hot beneath his palms and he thought, I’m not going to last five minutes.
She kissed him. Tentative. Quick.
Axel groaned and captured her lips, not going to let her get away with drive-by kissing. No sir. “All or nothing, babe,” he said, and speared her with his tongue.
She inhaled sharply, those grapefruit breasts rising fast and hard against him. He closed his eyes, struggled for control, instinct urging him to toss her on the bed and slide right into her warm wetness.
Easy does it. Slow and steady wins the race.
She kissed him back, hot and sweet, and he opened his eyes to find her staring at him.
“Christ, I want you,” he whispered against her mouth, a teasing tickle of sensation moving across his upper lip. “I wanted you the minute you strolled into the Gunslingers locker room looking all mysterious and mystical. I wanted you when I dragged you soaking wet from the swimming pool. I wanted you when you latched onto my waist on the Jet Ski. I wanted you—”
“I want you too,” she cooed, her eyes ablaze with lust and need.
“It’s more than that, Kasha. More than want. More than need. I …” I love you. How did he say it without scaring her?
“Don’t,” she cautioned, placing an index finger over his lips. “Don’t ruin the moment. Just be here with me now. Don’t say anything else. Just take me. Do me. Make me feel good.”
Axel didn’t need to be asked twice. He sank to his knees, and on his way down grabbed hold of the waistband of her yoga pants that hovered at her hips, and tugged, stripping them to her knees.
But a clear view of her scars stopped him. He’d caught glimpses of the scars when her shorts rode up when they were out on the lake, but seeing them now, seeing how she’d sliced herself when she was a teen because she was in so much emotional pain, cut him right in two.
She was trembling under his scrutiny, exposed, bare. Her hands threaded through his hair, her head dipped, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged and insubstantial. He cupped her buttocks in his palms, held her steady. Letting her know he was not repulsed.
One by one, he traced over each thin scar as if he could salve her pain with his tongue, heal her past. A hundred and three of them in total, each one about half an inch long, and the width of a pocketknife blade, lined up in rows like soldiers. Fifty-two on one thigh, fifty-one on the other.
When he finished counting her sorrow of scars, he planted his face against her panties and breathed deeply.
Mine, he thought greedily. Mine.
But was she really? He wanted her. Was determined to woo her. Loved her. But how did she feel about him? She made it clear this was just fun. Could he really convince her to take a chance on him, or was he going to end up with a broken heart?
He didn’t care. Loving her was worth the risk. Dylan had taught him that lesson. As painful as losing those you love might be, loving was always worth the shattered heart.
Axel squirmed, overwhelmed by need and desire and love and fear.
As if reading his mind, Kasha dropped to her knees and planted her lips on his chest, right on the tattoo of Dylan’s name, and kissed away his scars the same way he kissed away hers.
And he knew that no matter what happened, one way or another everything was going to be okay.
CHAPTER 22
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting naked in the middle of the bed, staring at each other, both of them trying not to show their disappointment to the other.
How could the sex have fizzled when the chemistry between them was so sizzling? When the kiss at the lake had been off-the-charts fantastic? When their foreplay stirred goose bumps.
“You were wrong,” she said.
“About what?”
“I did disappoint. Epic fail,” she muttered.
“Not epic,” he com
forted. “And certainly not a fail. More like a mulligan. Think of it as a mulligan. We need a do-over.”
“It’s not your fault,” she mumbled. “Sometimes I can’t get there. We put too much pressure on ourselves. Unrealistic expectations.”
“You’re giving up so soon, Sphinx.”
“It’s okay. No big deal—”
“It is not okay.”
She couldn’t meet his gaze. She was in the medical field. Normally sex talk didn’t embarrass her, but she was feeling inadequate and just wanted out of here. “Maybe the kiss was so great because it was taboo. I was your therapist then, but now that I’m not, and the thrill of rule breaking is gone—”
“That’s not it.”
She lifted her eyes and briefly looked at him. “Maybe it is. Maybe that’s the only reason we were so hot before. The forbidden fruit.”
“That’s not it,” he repeated with such certainty that she had no choice but to take him seriously.
“Honestly, Axel, it’s not you, it’s me.”
“Stop,” he commanded. “It’s no one’s fault. We just quit too soon.”
“Well, you came—”
“And you didn’t. That means the party is not over.”
“You have no obligation to satisfy me.”
“The hell I don’t.”
“Check your ego, champ. I’m in charge of my own sexuality.”
“All right, so let’s go again and this time you fully let go. You’re relaxed everywhere but in bed. Your self-control is amazing, but in the sack, that’s not such a good thing.”
“Look, I’ve got things to do.” She pushed her bracelet down on her wrist, eager to just end it.
“You’re not leaving until we make this happen.”
“You don’t owe me an orgasm. You don’t owe me anything. Let’s just chalk this one up to things that should never have happened and—”
He kissed her. “Shh.”
“Your ego is getting in the way,” she mumbled around his lips. “You don’t have to prove yourself to me. All those groupies can’t be wrong. I’m sure you’re normally fantastic in bed and it’s simply because we just don’t mesh …”
When she paused to take a breath, he slipped his tongue between her teeth and made a thrilling little maneuver over the roof of her mouth. The trick—whatever it was—lit up nerve endings from her mouth straight to her womb. Wow, okay, she liked that.
He leaned forward, pushing her back against the pillow, her body burrowing deeper into the memory foam mattress. She readjusted her legs, spreading them apart so he could sink between them. They were face-to-face, his eyes peering into hers as if she was the most interesting thing he’d ever come across.
“You’re sweating,” he said.
“I know.” She ran a palm across her brow, shivered.
“It was an observation, not a criticism.” He kissed her skin where she’d just rubbed away the perspiration. “Just wanted you to know there’s no reason to break out in a cold sweat. I wasn’t serious about holding you hostage until you came. You can leave anytime you want.”
“I know.”
“Are you staying?”
“Depends on what you intend on doing with that tongue.”
“Ah,” he said. “At last we’re getting somewhere.”
“You know this might not end up the way you want it to, no matter how hard you try.”
“Seems to be the theme of my life lately.”
“You’ll get your pitching arm back.”
“You sound so certain.”
“I am.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you’re not the kind of guy who gives up.”
“I’m glad you’re starting to realize that.” He kissed the indentation between her nose and her lip, his body heavy against her.
Kasha sucked in a ragged breath. She could feel his erection growing bigger, stronger.
He moved to nibble her earlobe and she shuddered. “You like that.” It was a statement, not a question.
Helplessly, she nodded.
“Mmm,” he murmured against her ear. “Salty. I like salty.”
“Too much salt isn’t good for you.”
“Are you trying to kill the mood? Roll with it, babe.”
“Okay.” She gasped because he was doing amazing things with his tongue.
“Now here’s the way I see it. For some reason, you’re afraid to let yourself go with me.”
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“The challenge”—he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers gentle against her skin—“is to figure out how to loosen you up.”
“I don’t see how I could get any looser,” she said. “My body is so loose it feels like liquid nitrogen.”
“I’m not talking about your body.” His voice dropped lower, deeper. “I’m talking about that razor-sharp mind of yours. You think too much, Sphinx. That’s what’s tripping you up.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. And it’s my job to find a way to turn off your inner critic long enough to get there.”
“Good luck with that,” she mumbled.
“You’re waving a red flag at a horny bull, you realize that, right?” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I can’t resist a thrown gauntlet.”
“I wasn’t making a dare.”
“No?”
“No.”
“So you don’t want me to do this?” He slipped his hands between her thighs, touched her lightly in just the right place with just the right amount of pressure.
“I do not.”
“You sure?” He tickled lightly, making her squirm and swallow back a moan of pleasure.
“Stop it,” she whimpered weakly.
“This?” he asked, doing something that lit up every nerve ending in her pelvis. “Or this?”
She tingled and burned. “I think … I think …”
“Yes?”
“I can’t think while you’re doing that.”
“Good. Thinking gets you in trouble.”
“I think …” She sucked in a gallon of oxygen, did her best to ignore the zings and zaps his fingers stirred up. “I think we should just call it a day. We gave it a shot. The chemistry is a bust. Now we can move on.”
“Nope,” he said. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
He manacled her wrists to the mattress with his hands. “Withdraw.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“No?” One skeptical eyebrow shot up on his forehead. “Smells like running away to me.”
“It’s not running away,” she said. “I have things to do—”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Grocery shopping.”
“That can wait.”
“Not really. The grocery store closes at ten and I don’t have a crumb of food in the house.”
“You’re intentionally being difficult.”
“And you’re doing what you always do. Push.”
“You keep saying that like pushing is a bad thing.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“When?”
Kasha blinked, unable to think of anything, and finally blurted, “When the door says pull.”
He laughed. “Are you telling me you honestly don’t want to have headboard-bangingly great sex?”
“You’re making promises you can’t back up.”
“Not as long as you keep fighting me. But …” He raked his gaze over her naked body, so bold and appreciative that Kasha shuddered. “If you just let go and let loose, nothing could contain you.”
“I know.”
He canted his head, looked confused for a moment. “That’s what you’re afraid of? Being off the chain?”
“I like being contained.”
“Ah,” he said as if someone had turned a lightbulb on and he could see he was in a great vast library instead of a cubbyhole. “What do you think will happen if you let yourself go?”
&nb
sp; She shook her head, tried to get out of the grip he held on her wrists, but he was too strong for her.
“You want up?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling petulant, but not wanting him to know he’d gotten to her. “Please.”
“Points for good manners,” he said. “But there’s only one way you’re getting up from here.”
“What’s that?”
“Talk.”
She rolled her eyes. “C’mon.”
“Talk to me. Tell me why you’re so closed off.”
“You are seriously annoying, you know that? Most guys would be happy if women didn’t want to talk about their feelings. But you’re at me with a pickaxe and shovel.”
“I’m not most guys,” he said.
No. No, he certainly was not. He ran his tongue along her collarbone, and instinctively she arched her hips, seeking to press against him. Damn him.
“Score.” He laughed raggedly against her neck.
“Look,” she said. “You don’t have to keep trying. It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. We just didn’t click.”
“Bullshit,” he said softly, trailing his fingers over her breasts damp with perspiration. “We click like a Bic.”
“Could we just cuddle?”
“No,” he said. “It’s time to get down to brass tacks. What gets you hot and bothered?”
“Nothing much,” she answered, which was perfectly true. She worked hard to make sure of it.
He pressed his hips against hers. “Role playing? Sex in public places? Feathers? Fur? Handcuffs?”
“It’s not going to work. Accept it.”
“What turns you on, Kasha?” His husky voice brushed her ears.
You. You turn me on. That’s the problem. She closed her eyes. Fought for control.
“Blindfolds?” he whispered. “Tickling?”
“Tickle me and I might pee on you.”
“So is that a thing?”
“No! No tickling, no peeing.”
“Good, because I wasn’t on board with that either.”
“We’re compatible there anyway,” she mumbled.
“Spanking?” he said. “Do you like to be spanked?”
“Only if you let me spank you first.”
“That’s definitely not happening.”