by Eva Sloan
“Because it hurt.” She pushed herself up and off the ground, wobbling as she did so. Kevin stood up with her, and she held onto him until her balance kicked back in. “It hurt that you didn’t want me the way I wanted you.”
It was like someone had turned off the sound. The tide crashing on the beach below, the wind gusting through the palms, the birds. It all just stopped, and all there was were the beating of Kevin’s heart in his ears, and the words that had fallen so effortlessly from Susan’s lips. Those beautiful, full, pink lips.
The way he wanted her...
“I felt so stupid, and then I was so afraid I was going to lose you. I just couldn’t bear the thought of…”
The way he had always wanted her...
He knew it was wrong. It was such bad an idea it was terrifying. He knew they would never be the same, and that it wouldn’t last, that she wouldn’t want him like she did right then, not once they were away from paradise, not after she’d had time to heal and move on to the next Man of Her Dreams. But he didn’t care. Didn’t care that it was going to ruin him, destroy him. He didn’t care that he’d be haunted by it for the rest of his miserable days. They’d work it out later. Now, what he knew was that she wanted him.
He was going to take all her pain away.
He reached for her, feeling the cotton of her tank top beneath his fingertips, the slide of the flesh of her arm against his. And he pulled her into him, slowly wrapping his arms around her, loving the softness of her, how her body seemed to fit, molding against his own as he drew her against him. She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted, her green eyes surprised. He dipped his head until their faces were about to touch. The scent of her, how it blocked out the salty tide, even the tropical flowers…
She popped up on her toes and kissed him, completing the circuit, making the electricity of a thousand thunderstorms surge between them, through their lips, as they melded together, mouths opening, tongues touching. As she pressed herself harder against him, her breasts soft and round and warm touching his chest, she laced her arms up and around his neck, cinching him to her all the more. Her fingers grasped his hair, her breaths coming hot and sweet and ragged as they struggled, both trying to force their bodies to merge into one.
~*~
Susan was caught on an emotional roller coaster. One minute she’d been desperate for Kevin to forgive her, the next she was so pissed at him she could’ve screamed. He was so infuriating! So detached. Even when he was holding her, even as she cried into his chest, he still felt a million miles away.
She’d lost him, and he didn’t seem to really care. All he wanted was to ask her stupid questions! Who gave a damn why she had needed him? She had wanted him too, wasn’t that enough?
She felt stupid, blathering on like she was filling in some hapless half-wit about a particularly pathetic plot twist on a soap opera.
And then her world ended.
Not so much ended, as stopped.
When he took her in his arms and she felt his body, strong and warm and solid, against hers, and saw the look on his face, the serious expression, his hazel eyes turning dark, the sudden heat that was radiating off him--everything stopped. All those little sounds, and all the big ones, every frantic bleating thought in her head, it all stopped, and she was awash in silence. And him. He felt so good, and looked like heaven, and the way he smelled--like flesh and sweat and honey.
Kevin leaned down until his lips were close enough she could almost taste them. But he didn’t kiss her. He stood there looking deep into her eyes, breathing in her exhalations, holding her so close in his arms.
So she popped up on her tiptoes, closing the gap between them, and fastened her hungry lips to his. And that was when her life started again. Like the crescendo in a symphony. The very air was electrified, and the wind started swirling about them like a hurricane. His mouth opened as she opened her own, tasting the sweetness of him, the heat.
She lost it, melting as their kiss deepened. Her heart beat savagely in her chest as their tongues touched. Every inch of her flesh burned and tingled at the same time. Was she having a heart attack? But it didn’t hurt. No, it was the most wonderful, enjoyable feeling she’d ever had.
It was that kiss they always show in the movies, when the guy and the girl…
Susan’s hands moved from his hair, where she’d rumpled it to sticking straight up in the air, down his neck and slid over his cotton button-down shirt. Her lips left his and she kissed her way down to his neck, where she licked and nibbled at his flesh. Yummy.
Kevin shook as she pulled open his shirt and shoved it off his thick shoulders. Her mouth moved down his collarbone, and her hands spread over his chest. Her fingers kneaded the mounds of muscle, while her tongue traced down the inside of his pec and slipped over to take his nipple into her mouth, flicking her tongue and sucking.
Kevin groaned and his back arched, and he tried to pull her back up to kiss her. But she had already started burrowing her hands down the front of his shorts. She wanted him, she wanted to feel him get hard, she wanted to feel him inside her.
But Kevin jumped back and grabbed her hands before she had a hold of anything, fleshy or hard. He held her hands straight out at her sides as he breathed hard and deep, his eyes wild, his hair mussed beyond redemption, and his mouth bruised beautifully from kissing her. He looked like he was trying to think, like he was trying to make a decision.
Susan pulled her hands from his and stepped back. He didn’t get to start this and just stop. He didn’t get to retreat away in his head and wordlessly make decisions about what was happening between them.
He wasn’t going to cut her out of this.
She grasped the hem of her tank top and slowly started pulling it up her navel.
Kevin’s mouth went slack, and the thoughts that were clouding his eyes evaporated as the heat returned.
That got his attention.
She pulled the shirt up over her shoulders and tossed it onto the ground. She stood there in her too sexy bra, it finally being just sexy enough, and stared longingly into Kevin’s burning gaze. Deliberately she let her hands glide up the bare flesh of her belly and lingered at the clasp of her bra--thank God for front-fastening bras!
Kevin took a step closer, lust and longing blazing in his eyes. As Susan unhooked the clasp and let the lacy blue material slide from her shoulders, her breasts now naked, coming free of their confines, Kevin gulped and shook his head, yet his feet kept him moving straight to her.
“I give up,” he said, as he took her into his arms again, her bare skin sliding against his, their torsos rubbing and melting together, Susan’s breasts hot and soft and on fire as she pressed them hard against his chest. He kissed her again, deep and urgent and rough, devouring her as his hands found purchase all over her body, grasping and stroking and squeezing.
Susan snuck her fingers to the buckle of Kevin’s shorts and pulled it open as he feasted on her willing lips. She pushed her hand slowly down the front of his underwear until she felt him hard and hot in her hand, and he gasped against her mouth.
“I want you,” she said between kisses, her hand stroking his manhood.
“Here?” Kevin pulled his lips from hers long enough to look around them at the deserted clearing.
“Right here, right now,” she said, taking his chin in her fingers and pulling his face so he was peering into her eyes again. “Just like this.”
Kevin halted, looking like he was teetering between running away and eating her alive. And that one moment of indecision made Susan’s heart stop. That moment seemed to last forever. Like someone had put time on pause, just so she could feel how desperate she was for him.
He dragged her to him and kissed her deep and hard and wet, kissing her like he owned her, like she was his and only his. Susan felt herself getting dizzy as they clung to each other, grasping and pitching to and fro, and then she realized they were suddenly on the ground, her on top, him beneath her. She sat up, breaking free of h
is kiss, straddling his hips as she pushed up off his heaving, naked chest.
She hesitated. What had she been thinking?
But Kevin sat up and took her breasts in his hands, holding them in his warm, strong grasp as he nuzzled his face into them, and then licked and bit and then suckled at her nipples.
“Oh, hell...” She fell into him, her breath catching in her throat, hot and reeling, ready to scream. Her body shuddered as he shoved his hand down the back of her khaki shorts, grabbing and squeezing her butt while he sucked harder on her breasts.
But what if Kevin was right and Liz was wrong? What if she ended up losing him?
Kevin rolled them over so he was on top, and she felt all his wonderful weight on her, solid and warm, his skin smooth over his hard muscles. And he was hard, she could feel him through her shorts, through his, against her hip.
Suddenly he took his lips away and then his body disentangled from hers, and he was abruptly not with her anymore. She opened her eyes and saw him standing, pulling off his shorts, hopping on one leg as he tried to get the tangled clothes off his foot.
Susan loved the way he jiggled. So wondrous and alive, and hers. At least for now, but...
But Kevin turned around and she saw him completely naked for the first time, and hard. She stared up at him, mesmerized by how beautiful he was. How hadn’t she seen this, all these years? And how hadn’t she known he was the one? Not Mark. Mark didn’t even remember what kind of ice cream she ate when she was depressed. But Kevin, this warm, funny, gorgeous man, knew everything about her. The silly little quirks, like blaring the Dixie Chicks on road trips, and the really important things like…well, everything he’d done for her since they came there. He was her best friend, yet he was really so much more.
Kevin fell on his knees beside her, gently pulled off her shoes, then reached for her shorts. Susan was sure she would come right then and there. He made quick work of the clasp, and the zipper, and tugged her shorts from around her hips, down her legs and off over her feet.
Susan was breathing hard and heavy, and she was about to think another stupid, irritating thought to try and stop what was happening, when Kevin eased his hands up her legs, barely touching the aching flesh as they ascended her calves, over her knees and caressed up her thighs. With maddening smoothness his hands found her hips, and his fingers slipped under the elastic of her panties, sliding them effortlessly down her legs, his hands hot and teasing as they relieved her of the constricting material.
He gave her panties a little toss, and climbed up her body, his arms bulging as he moved, until he was hovering over her, slowly letting himself fall down onto her.
They were both wonderfully naked. His flesh smooth and warm against her front side, the cool scratchiness of the tall grass tickling her backside. She wiggled and squirmed, and Kevin maneuvered her so that she was lying on his shorts and shirt.
He kissed her as their flesh became one and she wrapped her arms around his neck, luxuriating in his embrace, in his naked body, in his delicious kiss.
She felt him hard and urgent against the inside of her thigh. He started kissing his way down her body, his manhood slipping away as his mouth licked and sucked and bit, making her breasts into a buffet. He played her ribs like a harp, licking down the curves and valleys of her navel, and down further, pulling her thighs apart with those hot, strong hands--maybe we should stop and talk about this--and licking inside her. No, no talking. Shut up, Susan, don’t distract him, let him keep doing what he’s doing.
Susan arched as he tasted her, as his mouth kissed her and made her writhe on the grass covered ground. She drew her head back and gasped, letting all her how’s and why’s and maybe we shouldn’t’s fall away. Her hands found the smooth flesh of his shoulders. She dug her fingers into his hair again, loving how thick it was. She was burning alive with how much heat and pleasure his beautiful mouth and his talented tongue were giving her.
She heard someone crying out Kevin’s name, and she realized it was her. “Please,” she begged, feeling herself lose all control over her body. “I want you in me. I need you in me!”
As he looked up into Susan’s eyes, his own eyes heavy and dark with want, his mouth bruised and shiny with her juices, a force surged through her, stronger, deeper than mere lust. It made her entire body burn.
Kevin climbed back, sneaking his fingers up into her, making her tremble and gasp, and she lost herself as she pushed up against his hand, losing her mind. Just when she was sure she could take no more, Kevin entered her, slick and hard, rocking slowly in and out of her as she wrapped herself around him, wanting all of him, crazed to possess him.
She couldn’t breathe, she’d never felt so full, so overwhelmed, so thoroughly, desperately satisfied. But he started moving into her faster, harder, and she felt herself grasping at him, digging her nails into the flesh of his back, needing him so much, wanting him like mad, and not satisfied.
She wanted more.
She wanted it all.
She didn’t know exactly what Kevin was doing that was making her body burst into flames, but she knew it was all him, and that he was hers.
Susan kissed his neck, and his ear, biting his earlobe, marveling at how every time she touched him, licked or bit him, he’d fuck her harder. And the way his body felt under her touch, so warm and thick. How his glistening skin slipped beneath her fingers, and his hard, lean muscles contracted and heaved with his efforts.
She fell back against the grass and gasped, pressing her hand to his chest to feel his heart beating, pounding hard and strong, ever so fast against the palm of her hand. She realized he was staring at her, looking deeply into her eyes, his so dark she almost didn’t recognize him. But it was Kevin inside her, Kevin looking down at her, Kevin all along. How hadn’t she seen him for who he really was?
The very best man.
Something rippled through her, gentle at first, and then pulsing, and it coursed through her veins with hellish fire. Was she coming? No, this was not an orgasm. Susan had had plenty of orgasms before. Little moments of vanilla satisfaction, that tingly sensation that spreads through your body for a few moments as you calm down again.
This wasn’t that.
What she was feeling was almost painful. What she was feeling made every muscle in her body convulse, made her sex clamp down hard on him, made every pore of her flesh sizzle. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure she was having a heart attack.
Was she going to die, right there, while Kevin was making love to her?
She shook her head at that last part. She hadn’t meant to phrase it like that. Not even in her head.
Then it hit her, as a wave of hot bliss swallowed her whole, and Kevin groaned and jerked as he came. She was having an orgasm...the wicked-hot-hellish mother of all orgasms!
Kevin writhed on top of her, each movement of his hips into her eliciting more jerking, more moaning, and more hot, searing breath against her skin as he dug his face into her sensitive neck, and kissed her there as his body slowed and finally lay still on top of her.
Oh my God, Susan thought as she kept clutching him to her. The feeling of bliss, of complete satisfaction that glowed from every cell in her body, took her breath away. She felt so happy, so alive, so beautiful. She wanted to feel like this forever.
Kevin slowly pulled himself out of her, making her cringe and jerk as she felt suddenly empty. Still amazingly good, but she’d been so fulfilled with him in her, that his sudden absence made her feel like part of her was missing.
Kevin rolled over on his back and sighed. “I don’t know about you, but that was...” He stopped talking and stared up at the brilliant, cloudless azure sky.
Susan knew exactly what he wasn’t saying. It was amazing. The very best sex, the most incredible moment of her life. And he had given it to her. Her Kevin. The only man who had never let her down, even now.
She moved toward him and drew herself against him, wrapping her arm over his ribs, resting her head again
st his chest, feeling his soft, smooth, sweat-coated flesh against her cheek. He breathed in, deeply, then let it out in a sigh. She was pretty sure it had been the best sex of his life too.
Chapter 7
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, Kevin thought as Susan dozed in his arms. It sucked!
Not that sex with Susan had been bad. On the contrary, it was amazing, explosive, he’d had to really concentrate not to just come the instant he’d entered her. He’d wanted her for so long, had had so many fantasies, so many pornographic machinations. He’d had to think about work: about Baroque archways and Roman columns, about the acoustics of the wooden theaters of Europe, about the facade of the theater he was working on. And only had six more months to finish.
He didn’t even know if he was going to make the move he’d been planning.
But Susan was in his arms, naked, writhing beneath him, kissing him like he was her only sustenance. He ended up losing the fight, losing himself in her, in her body, in her lips, how she’d tasted, the way she felt wrapped around him. How he felt inside her. Like he hadn’t lived before this moment and was just waking up from being asleep his entire life.
And as he came, and she’d been convulsing against him in her own rapturous orgasm, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Being her friend would never be enough. Even if he were her “friend with benefits,” it would never be enough. He had had her, made her tremble, made her call out his name in blind passion, had lost his very soul in making love to her and loving her. But she would never love him. Not like that. No matter how many times he did this to her, no matter how much he would love her, she would always see him as just her friend.
As he slid out of her, his heart pulled apart as he left her embrace, and he knew he had to leave as soon as Liz got there. He had to escape before he lost his mind. But until he left he couldn’t just lock her in her room, tied to the bed...at least, not alone.
Susan sighed and kissed his chest, right over his racing breaking heart, her lips soft and moist.