He ripped his mouth free on an explosive breath and slid his hands from her head. Reaching down, he curled his fingers around the curve of her butt and hauled her up.
Tasha grabbed for his shoulders. She brought her other leg up and crossed her ankles behind his waist, cocking her pelvis to align the seam of her skinny jeans to the fly of his Levis.
Eyes locking, they froze. Then Luc rocked his hips. The feel of his erection sliding against her, even through several layers of clothing, made Tasha’s head thunk against the wooden panels at her back.
Swearing under his breath, he stepped away from the door.
She yelped in an embarrassingly Minnie Mouse–like voice as the surface supporting her disappeared. Tightening her arms and legs around him, she raised startled eyes—and found Luc looking down at her.
“We need to take this somewhere more in line with what I have in mind than a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am fuck against the door,” he said gruffly. And with her still clinging to his front, he headed with long-legged strides to the alcove at the end of the room that shared a wall with her apartment.
His every step shifted her in subtle configurations against his hard-on, and it elicited an involuntary, deep-throated moan.
His gaze snapped down, and she smiled sheepishly. “Um, take your time. Don’t mind me.”
“You moaned.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe, bebe. That was definitely a moan. A sexual moan.”
“Yes, well, this is a very...interesting mode of transportation.”
“Yeah?” His sudden grin flashed white, bringing into play those soft slashing grooves on either side of his full mouth. “Want me to just keep pacing around the studio? See if that does it for you?”
“Nah.” But she rolled her hips, then executed a mini bump and grind to show how on board she was with his method of locomotion. “Much as I appreciate the offer, I’d rather get naked with you.”
“Ah, Dios.” He picked up his pace.
A moment later he tossed her lightly onto the bed and followed her down. Straddling her, he reached for the hem of her Henley T-shirt. She crunched up slightly and raised her arms over her head so he could pull it off.
He tossed it aside, then simply looked at her in her bra and jeans for a moment, apparently fascinated by the jiggle of her breasts when she sprawled back onto the pillow. Ultimately, he reached out to trace their rise from her bra cups, starting at the left strap and making his way to the right as if reading a road map written in Braille. Finally wrenching his gaze away from inspecting his dark fingers against her pale skin, he gave her a rueful smile and leaned forward to press a kiss into her cleavage. “Really nice,” he murmured as he straightened back up.
No fooling. And she wasn’t talking about her bra. She cleared her throat. “My turn.” She reached up to slide her hands beneath the hem of his ultrasoft charcoal-colored tee. Rough-edged inside-out seams showcased his muscular shoulders and outlined the garment’s arm holes, and she found herself captivated by the sight of the thin fabric pooling on her forearms as she slid her hands higher up the hot skin beneath it. Not to mention the glimpses of lower abs it exposed. “Lose the shirt.”
Reaching over his back, he grasped a handful of fabric, tugged the T-shirt off over his head and dropped it over the same side of the bed where he’d disposed of her Henley.
She swallowed dryly at all that golden-brown skin stretched over beautifully formed muscle and sinew. She hadn’t forgotten, exactly, what a gorgeous body he had. But she had done a bang-up job of deliberately burying her every recollection of him—the good as well as the bad—in a dark corner of her mind. Then she’d bricked it up, like a cadaver behind the cellar wall, for good measure.
Yet as it was revealed to her now, she realized she’d never truly forgotten it, no matter how deeply she’d hidden the memories from herself—or how assiduously she’d refused to check him out the day they’d swum together. His shoulders and tight abs and the long, hard legs that she didn’t have to see in order to know they’d match the rest—they all added up to her favorite kind of male body. The kind that was built but not muscle-bound. The black hair that hazed his chest and arrowed down his torso to disappear beneath his waistband was just the lemon slice in her cosmo.
She sat up to reach for the metal button on the low-slung waistband of his Levis. The backs of her fingers pressed against the ridged heat of his lower abdomen as she pushed the fastener through its buttonhole, and she slowly lowered his zipper. She hunched to press a kiss into the opening she’d created.
Above her she heard him sharply inhale, and she looked up even as she reached into his open fly.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he growled as her fingers grazed down his long length. “It’s my turn again.” He pulled her hand out of his pants and laid her back onto the bed. Leaning down, he slipped off her shoes and unfastened and unzipped her jeans.
Then he looked down at the denim’s tight fit—and his dark brows drew together. “Man,” he muttered, “these babies are narrow.”
She shot him a smile and raised her hips to shove the jeans down to her thighs. “Grab ’em by the hems and pull.”
He climbed to his feet and pulled her down to the end of the bed by her ankles. Then, as instructed, he grasped the hems. He worked them over her heels—then shook her free of the jeans so vigorously she had to fling a hand out to keep from flopping over onto her face. She ended up rolled onto one hip, facing in the opposite direction.
She sensed more than saw him freeze. “Aw, man,” he said with a reverence that men usually reserved for their football teams. “Great panties.” In the next second, he flipped her onto her stomach, came up behind her on his knees and tugged her up onto her own so her butt was in the air. He sat back on his heels, and she clenched the bed quilt in her fists as she felt his breath warm on her bare bum and the damp lace between her legs. He nipped her left cheek with his teeth—then gave the tiny sting a lick.
And who the hell knew that a muscle in her butt carried a direct line to the needy core between her legs? Well, she did now; it was hard to miss when hot sensation shot straight from the bite site to her vagina. She squeezed her thighs together and looked at him over her shoulder. “Enjoy them while you can,” she managed to say with reasonable lightness, considering the tightness of her throat. “I’m usually more of a boy-shorts kinda girl, so the thong is pretty much a one-off deal.”
“Then I’ll just have to make the most of it, won’t I?” Rising back up onto his knees, he inserted a thigh between hers and nudged her legs apart. She felt the backs of his fingers as he slid them under the thong where it rose out of the division of her buttocks, felt the motion as he stroked the lace above his fingers with his thumb. “Because this is one very fine view.” With a wordless sound of appreciation, he glided his hand up and down the thong’s fabric, his knuckles warm against her backside.
His fiddling with the narrow strip caused it to saw lightly between her cheeks and tug the increasingly wet crotch of her panties against her mons. Tasha’s breath sped up. “Glad you like it,” she choked out.
“Oh, I more than like it.” His free hand smoothed over the curve of her rear, then reached between her legs to run two fingers along her wet lace-covered furrow until his fingertips nudged her erect clitoris. He spread his fingers on either side of it.
Then scissored them closed.
A sharp cry escaped her, and she pushed back into his touch. “Oh. Gawd. Yessss.”
“Damn,” he breathed. “That’s exactly what I remember.”
“Hmm?” Although she twisted to look over her shoulder, she couldn’t quite focus. “Remember...what?” Her eyes drifted closed and she undulated on his fingers.
“How much you like sex and how generous and open you are in your enthusiasm. I fantasized about that more than once.”
“Yeah?” She cracked an eye open to peek at him. She could have told him it was him—that there was just something about having sex with
him that felt so natural and right. Yet the thought of saying anything of the sort made her feel uncharacteristically shy.
And they couldn’t have that. So she gave him a sly smile instead. “Did you masturbate thinking about me?”
His own smile was wry. “Like I said—more than once.”
“Nice.” Reluctantly, she pulled away from his touch, moved up to the headboard and turned to face him. “Show me.”
“I’m not gonna jerk off. I want to make love with you.”
“That works, too.” She eyed his erection behind heather-gray boxer-briefs, pushing at the open fly. “You should take your pants off, though. I don’t see where we’ll be doing much of anything as long as you’re still wearing those.”
“That I can do.” He slid his fingers into the waistband of the boxers and pushed both his shorts and his jeans down to his knees. She’d barely gotten a peek at the goods before he planted his hands on the bed and kicked his feet back to the floor in a modified squat-thrust, kicking clear of the garments that gravity had dropped around his ankles.
He jumped his legs back onto the mattress and knee-walked over to her.
Watching him, she swallowed dryly. He was so damn fine in the altogether, and she just wanted to get her hands on him. Especially that jutting—
Before she could make a move, he was reaching for her. “Let’s get you naked, too.”
She unfastened the hooks on her bra while he slipped her panties down her legs and tossed them aside. Once they’d stripped her out of the last of her clothing, they simply stared at each other.
Then grinned with mutual delight.
He dived on top of her, hot skin sliding against hot skin. Hands on either side of her shoulders, he levered his upper body above hers, an action that slid his erection along the damp furrow of her sex and sent them both sucking for breath.
Then, gently rocking his hips, he bent his head and kissed the side of her neck. “I remember this skin,” he murmured, dragging openmouthed kisses down to where the curve of her neck flowed into her shoulder. He laved it with his tongue. “Remember the way you smell.”
“Sweaty?” she inquired dryly.
“Sweet. Spicy.” He breathed her in. “Good.”
“I remember the ease of being with you.” And she was unsure if she should be so pleased to be experiencing that ease again. Being with Luc had been unlike anything she’d ever had with anyone else. Superior to anything she’d had elsewhere, truth be told. And perhaps it would be smarter to be wary of the way she seemed to be falling right back into that rhythm.
Because look how well it had worked out for her the first time around.
Before she could start pointlessly obsessing over something she kept telling herself she’d moved beyond, he shifted fractionally, and the head of his penis bumped over her clitoris at the end of its shallow stroke. A sharp, wordless sound of approval exploded from her throat.
But he was already moving down her body, and that source of pleasure moved with him. He kissed her collarbones and the upper slope of her right breast, then shifted lower again, bringing his mouth closer to her nipple.
Yet didn’t quite touch it.
“Seriously?” She pushed up on her elbows, thrusting it against his mouth. “Enough of the teasing—I’m not in the mood.” Not when simply being around him these past weeks had felt like ongoing, overextended foreplay.
He grinned against her breast and opened his mouth over her nipple to lave it with his tongue, nip it with his teeth. Swallow it between full lips.
And all the while his black-brown eyes watched her.
“Gawwwwd.” Her elbows melted out from under her, and, wrapping her arms around his head, she held him in place even as her own head arched back against the pillow.
As his mouth worked her over, however, she was bombarded by such sensory overload that she simply had to see what he was doing. She dipped her chin into her neck to look.
She couldn’t see his eyes; they were downcast and heavy-lidded, his thick lashes casting pools of shade on the skin under them, spiky shadow tips dusting the sharply defined curves of his cheekbones. But she could stare at his lean cheeks as they hollowed, and she felt the lightning-strike zing from her nipple to the wet, restless heat between her legs.
It seemed all roads led there, and her hips instigated a slow bump and grind against the mattress. “Now,” she panted. “Inside me now, now, now.”
Her nipple slid from his mouth as he muttered, “Wait.” He moved his hand down her torso with clear intent, and she tried to deflect it from its target.
“No, please. I want—”
But long warm fingers slicked down the lips of her cleft and two sank into her heat. The callused pads of his fingertips rubbed just the right spot inside her, and his thumb came up to feather a circle around her clit.
And she blew apart, breathy sounds of pleasure purling from her lips as her hips arched high, and her inner sheath clamped and unclamped around his fingers. Over and over again.
When the last frantic pulse of her orgasm faded, she sprawled back against the bedspread. And shook her head in denial. “Noooo,” she panted. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“Huh?” He slid his fingers free but kept them cupped over her sex as he pushed up on his free elbow. His dark brows gathered over the strong thrust of his nose. “You have an issue with getting off?”
“I do.” Hooking an elbow around the back of his neck, she pulled him down so his chest was half over her and his chin tucked into the curve of her neck. “Well, not with the getting off so much as the delivery system.” A ragged laugh escaped her. “And I know—very ungrateful. It’s just...I wanted to come with you inside me.”
She could feel his smile against the side of her throat. “That can be arranged,” he said. And rolled fully atop her.
“Hold your horses.” She shoved at his shoulder. “Not bareback it can’t.”
“Oh. Yeah. Don’t go away.” He pushed back to the end of the bed and swiveled to reach his pants on the floor. He came up with his wallet and fished a battered-looking condom from inside it.
She gave the worn foil packet a dubious once-over. “How long has that thing been in there?”
* * *
LUC GAVE THE CONDOM a suspicious look of his own and counted back in his head. “A pretty long time.” He looked at her. “I don’t suppose you’re on the pill?” he asked hopefully. “The DEA docs gave me a clean bill of health when I left Colombia, and I haven’t had any action since then that would put you in danger.”
“I am on the pill,” she said. “But it’s a little too soon to expect that kind of trust. Luckily for you, I came prepared.” Climbing from the bed, she went over to where he’d tossed her jeans. After rummaging through a pocket, she returned with several condoms. “They, at least, look to have been made in this millennium.”
“Hey, I bought these this year.” He hitched one shoulder. “It’s just that where I’ve been, I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to use them.”
She rolled up onto her knees and straddled him, settling her butt on his upper thighs. “Looks like your luck’s about to change.” She handed him one of the prophylactics. “Here, put this on.”
He did so by feel, as he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Her strawberry-blond hair was a wild nimbus around her head, her cheeks were flushed and her long eyes slumberous. “You’re so damn pretty. You know that?”
“Aw.” She flashed a megawatt smile between reddened, kiss-swollen lips. “Keep talking like that, Sweet Talker, and you just might get to second base.”
“Only second?” He reached up and cupped his palms beneath her breasts, vibrating them slightly to both see and feel the resultant jiggle. “I was kinda hoping for a home run.” He swept the pads of his thumbs over her nipples and watched them bead. He did it again, and she wiggled atop him.
“That’s a definite possibility.”
She had sensitive nipples, so following the go-with-what-works theory, he
captured them and lightly squeezed.
Her eyes went heavy, and she scooted forward, eliminating the couple of inches that had kept her from his dick. Holding his cock between her legs, she rubbed her sweet slit up and down his shaft. Then, her eyes fluttering closed, she licked her lips, held him in place with one hand and raised her hips to center herself over him.
Then slid down his length.
Seeing his dick disappear inside of her, coupled with the feel, all slippery, tight and furnace-hot, sent his hips thrusting up off the bed, driving him deeper. It lifted Tasha higher on her knees and her hands slapped down on his chest at the same time that he grabbed her hips.
“I didn’t think I’d be ready again this soon, but I am,” she said. Cupping her hand over her breast, she squeezed it, her fingers spreading wide, then closing with her nipple captured between two of them. She tugged on it as she rose and lowered her hips.
And looked down at him with slumberous eyes. “It’s why I wanted to come with this—” she ground against him “—inside me. Because I remember that—I remember how good it was.” She oscillated her hips.
Oh, God, so did he. But right now his need to get off was growing imperative, and the stroll down memory lane didn’t encourage staying in command. He dug his fingers into her hips to keep her from moving too much. “You believe in simultaneous orgasms?” he asked between gritted teeth.
“Not particularly. At least, I’ve never experienced one. Do you?”
“I didn’t. But if you could just please get off—” He looked up at her. “I’d be right there with ya.”
“Yeah?” A speculative light entered her eyes. “Well, gee. It might take me a bit. You taking the edge off so nicely and all.” She laughed. “I bet you’re wishin’ about now you’d paid attention to my requests for you to get your bad self in me.”
He lost it for a moment and thrust up into her once, twice, three times before he regained control. But his balls were pulling up, and he was hanging on by his fingernails. “Or I could just leave you in the dust.”
Tasha made his eyes cross when she clamped her inner muscles around him. She gave his chest a friendly pat. “You go ahead—you don’t have to wait for me.”
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