“I don’t know, it’s the motel soap.”
That doesn’t seem right, he thought. He knew she hadn’t washed her hair, but the scent was as strong there as around her neck. Since she didn’t move away, he kissed her again, this time letting his tongue linger against hers while he ran his hands through her soft curls. When he tried to separate, she wouldn’t let him go. He felt himself beginning to harden, and he made sure she felt it too.
She moaned.
“Nesta, unless you’ve changed your mind,. I need to scoot myself back to the other side of the bed while I still can.”
“I. . .I know, but I reserve the right to change my mind.”
“Have you?”
She fought with herself for the answer. “No, not yet.”
He laughed. “Well, you know where to find me.” He pulled away. He refused to check her thoughts as he turned his back to her and waited.
She sighed and hoped he didn’t hear it. She put the remote on her nightstand and turned off her light.
Within minutes she heard his rhythmic, sleep-induced breathing. Nesta lay in the bed and listened to the sounds that weren’t the two of them making love. There was the loud clicking of the clock on his nightstand and the cars that were coming about forty-seven seconds apart. That is if one Mississippi, two Mississippi really is how you count seconds. Thoughts were rushing through her mind in sound bites the most deranged director would have rejected as too weird. She flashed on an episode of MASH she’d seen years earlier where a character was talking about doing something sexually outrageous so he would have something to think about in the coming years while making love with his wife. She understood now exactly what that character had been trying to say.
When will I ever get another chance to be with a man who looks like that? No, she told herself, it’s not about something as shallow as his appearance. There was something about this man she really liked. There was the way he listened to her silly stories and laughed with her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a man who actually listened. And I’ve never met one who asked to meet my parents. Not that I would be stupid enough to arrange that!
She took a deep breath. That’s another thing, she told herself—he smells so good. What you’re really smelling is yourself, Ian.
“Nesta?”
She almost screamed from the sudden sound of his voice. “Yes, what’s wrong?”
“Did you call me?”
“No.”
“You didn’t just say my name?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Okay, goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
That was weird. It was as if he could hear me talking to him in my head.
He was listening to her thoughts. Oh, you called out to me mentally. What were you saying, little girl? Have you changed your mind?
She rolled over to her right side and smiled. I would die if he could really hear me right now, but I could die happy if I could just lick every inch of that fine body first. She pictured the vibrator she kept under her mattress. I wonder if it would wake him if I just slipped my hand between my legs? No, I’d better not. Damn.
Damn right, damn, he thought. He was so hard he feared it would break. He turned to his left side, but he was careful not to turn in too much for fear he would catapult out the window. Think okra, he told himself, a mouthful of slimy okra. It was a vegetable he’d hated since childhood.
She coughed. There was suddenly a slimy taste in her mouth that reminded her of gumbo.
No, not gumbo, she told herself. Nesta liked most gumbos. The taste reminded her of overcooked okra.
Chapter Seven
She finally drifted to sleep. When he heard her rhythmic breathing, he relaxed and soon found himself in the land of Nod.
The clock showed 3:33 when Nesta heard from the limonade via her bladder. When she returned to the bed, she stopped just before she slipped in beside him. She removed the gown and let it drop to the floor. He was sleeping hard. She wondered if she would have proceeded had he been awake.
She climbed into the bed and molded herself to him from behind.
“Ian, Ian?”
“Huh?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Huh?”
She waited, and while she waited she let her hands learn his body. They moved in tandem up his arms, over his shoulders and down his chest. His skin was taut and his body hard, but the touch couldn’t have been softer.
She tweaked his nipples and felt them grow into hard little pebbles. Nesta ran the flat of her palm over his chest, memorizing the ripples. She tried to pinch an inch on his waist but couldn’t find even the skin loose enough. Moving in to find his navel, she sensed that he was finally fully awake.
“Nesta, are you sure?”
Her breath caught when she tried to speak, but finally she said, “I am sure. Still interested?”
He took each of her hands into his and guided them to his manhood. “Does this answer your question?”
She jerked back her hand as if his heat burned her. She tried to calm herself enough to think, but it wasn’t easy with every nerve in her body wired. We haven’t even done anything yet, and my body has never felt this involved before, she thought as she became aware of the wetness between her legs.
“It does, but it brings up another one,” were the words that finally broke through her dazed arousal.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not sure if I can. . . accommodate all of that.”
He turned in to face her. “We’ll just take our time. If you’re ready, and you will be, it’s just physics.”
She laughed. “I took a semester of physics, and I don’t remember this part.” She gently cupped him.
He kissed her before he answered. “Then you missed the best part.”
She liked that he ran his fingers through her hair and held her head as he kissed her. Most of the guys she knew hated it when she cut her hair, but he seemed to like the shorts curls. He buried his head in her hair and took a deep breath.
She wished she’d paid more attention when her roommates and suite mates had those seemingly endless late night talks about sexual techniques. It had seemed so foolish at the time. She figured feelings would dictate her moves, and if the man was right the moves would be right too. Silly me.
He didn’t want to be in her head. He didn’t enjoy the time he spent in his own head, but she called out to him and he had to listen. She was questioning her ability to please him. The thought made him want to laugh aloud. How could she waste even one thought on such foolishness? All you would have to do to please any man is show up, little girl.
She felt his pulse beating in his neck, and she had the oddest desire to bite him there and taste his blood. Where did that come from? she wondered.
Where indeed? he wondered as well. Maybe she’s picking up on my job. Maybe she’s sensing all the Sangsue in my past and interpreting them as past lovers? He hoped not. He didn’t want her to see the past whores and the hookers, but there had been a lot less of them than the Blood Suckers—and he definitely didn’t want her to see them!
His hands reached between her legs, and he felt the wetness he sought.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do since meeting you,” she said.
“What?”
She lifted his head a little and removed the band that held back his thick braid. Then she combed her fingers through his hair.
“You like my hair because it’s tightly curled like yours,” she teased.
“I like your hair because it’s your hair. But yes, my hair is very curly—that’s why I braid it. I wear it long because the extra weight tends to straighten it. And when I moved to Sacramento I noticed all the men in my group had locked or long braided hair.” It was more the latter than anything else, but he didn’t want to elaborate about choosing his hairstyle in an attempt to fit in.
“I like men with long hair.”
His hands hadn’t slowed in car
essing her, but her hands had stopped. “Is something wrong?”
“Ian, do you have any protection?”
“No, I don’t carry. . .protection.” He couldn’t tell her that he knew he couldn’t get sick. And he’d stopped worrying about pregnancy decades ago when, after the birth control pill, women stopped mentioning it.
“I used to have one in my purse.” She hopped off of him, but was back with her purse before he could sit up. His eyes were closed, but he heard her rummaging around in her bag. “I think this is it.”
“Shall I turn on a light?”
“No, this is it.” He heard a sound that he decided was her tearing the wrapper.
“Oh hell.”
“What?”
“It’s been in there too long—this thing is so dry it would probably hurt. And it probably has holes in it.”
Ian could have kicked himself. If I had lied and told her I had something in the room, I could have transported to a store and back before she would have thought anything wrong.
“We’ll have to wait after all.”
“There are other choices.”
“Not the old I’ll pull it out, baby?”
He laughed. “No, that’s not what I was thinking, but that works too.”
“You know what they call people who use that method?”
“What?”
“Parents.”
He’d suspected she was going to say that, but he laughed as if hearing it for the first time. She had that effect on him. “No, I had something else in mind. I know you’re a talker, but how are your oral skills in other areas?”
“None of my sexual skills are that noteworthy.”
He heard the sincerity in her voice. “Nesta, I was trying to be clever. But did somebody tell you that you lacked—skills?”
“Yes.”
“Trust me, he was an inept lover. You’re much too open and sensuous to be bad at anything sexual. Trust me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I am.”
He pulled her back to the bed and pushed her flat against the mattress. He positioned himself
at her feet. Ian opened her legs and dived in mouth first with the relish he was feeling, which was considerable. Her taste was as wonderful as he was expecting, clean and salty-sweet. Her floral scent was strongest between her legs, and he wondered if it was something she put in her bath.
She moaned as soon as his mouth touched her mound. It was the first time anybody had ever done that to her, and she’d expected to be embarrassed, but that wasn’t at all what she felt. When his tongue flicked her clit, she bit her bottom lip to avoid screaming out. Nesta felt a thrill that ran through her body and exploded in the back of her head where it met her neck. She involuntarily squeezed her legs against his ears. It was the encouragement he needed to begin gently sucking the tiny stiff nub. The floral aroma doused his face and he sucked it in as if it was the moisture that dampened her. It was a scent so faint he felt as if he could get more if he could just suck harder.
She moaned as she ground herself into his mouth. The sensations rippling through her were unlike anything she ever felt. Each wave of joy that ran through her branded her nerves, making them hyper sensitive for the next wave.
It was too much. She feared she would lose what was left of her sanity. She relaxed her legs.
“I thought the configuration we wanted resembled the number sixty-nine.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“My mouth is going to move; would you rather I talk?”
He turned around, being careful not to put his full weight on her.
There was no way he expected her to deep throat him, but he appreciated her immediate enthusiasm. “That’s feels great, Nesta.”
“Mmmm hmmm.”
He added a finger to her clit, and she gasped. She mirrored his move with a hand to his sac. He wanted to meet the fool who had caused her so much self- doubt; she was a natural.
Her taste was so sweet, so uniquely her—he couldn’t get enough of it. He rolled his tongue and used it like a piston.
“I’m gonna cum,” she moaned. At least that was what he thought she said.
He added pressure. She stopped what she was doing and held on to him as if she thought she was going to fall. “Ahh-hhh.” Her whole body shook. He didn’t stop, and she screamed when the next wave hit. He still didn’t stop. She tried to catch her breath. “Ian, I feel like. . .”
The next wave brought release in three tiny fast squirts. He grinned, knowing how it probably embarrassed her. He considered the sweet nectar sprayed on his face high praise.
“Please stop,” she whispered. “You’re going to kill me.”
He licked her thighs on both sides before he sat up.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
He took her hands and put them on his hardness, and then he wrapped his hands over hers.
“This won’t take long,” he told her.
And it didn’t. After he came, she reached over him to the nightstand and handed him some tissues.
They positioned themselves in the classic spoon and slept like well-fed babies until the telephone woke them several hours later.
“No, don’t answer that! It’s probably my father.”
He couldn’t have answered had his life depended on it. He heard the ring, but he had no idea what it was or what it had to do with him.
She half jumped, half crawled over him. “Hello, no, I’m just waking up,” she said, with him trapped under her. She listened while he kissed her neck and ran his fingers through her curls.
“No, Daddy, I’m not hungry. Why don’t you and Mama just go eat breakfast. . .okay, go look at the chapel and when you get back over here, I’ll be dressed and ready to go. I have to go next door to check on my client too. I’ll need to find out if he needs to go anywhere this morning.
Okay, see you later.”
She hung up the phone and sighed. When she tried to move off of him, he held on tightly.
“Don’t I get a good morning?”
“Good morning, Ian. I’ve got to go take a quick shower before my parents get here.”
“Shall I join you?”
“No, you shall not! You need to gather up your clothes and get over to your room immediately.”
“Why immediately? They won’t be here for at least another half hour.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Every task takes at least a half hour, and I heard you say they were going to see the chapel.
"Are they here in town?”
“Just about.”
“All right, that adds a half hour. We’ve got an hour to play in the shower.”
“I can’t think about playing anywhere with you while my parents are on my mind.”
He loved the way she felt in his arms and he didn’t want to let go, but he understood. “Okay, sweetheart, but know that I’m here if you want to talk later.”
“Thank you, that’s so nice. Does it mean you think it’s bad news?”
“No, it means I think it’s probably something they consider important.”
She wanted to talk about it, explore all the possibilities before seeing her parents, but she was more afraid of them catching her with a man in her room.
“Go,” she told him.
He went to his room and got between the sheets of the closest bed. Feeling her anxiety, he wasn’t expecting to be able to fall asleep, but the next thing he knew he was jumping up to fight an intruder in his room.
“Hey, it’s me!”
She was bent over the desk in the room, writing him a note. He was shocked.
“What’s wrong? Why do you look like that?” she asked.
“Did you tiptoe in here?”
“No, I just walked in. Why?”
“You weren’t supposed to be able to enter my room and walk all the way over there without me hearing you.”
She laughed. “I didn’t tiptoe, but I’m not an elephant, Ian.”
“You don’t understand. I work in. . . enforcement. I should have heard you.”
She finished what she was writing and sat on the end of his bed. “You were just comfortable, that’s all. Here’s my cell phone number if you need something or you want me to bring back food.”
Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel)) Page 6