by Susan Ward
“Female, not that it’s any of your business.”
Hmm…no guy. Maybe I could take this road in the direction I wanted to. It was startling how much the long dormant man inside my body wanted her.
“Then she won’t miss you tonight,” I chided, took her in my arms, and kissed her.
The touch of her mouth brought me fully alert, the sweet movements of her lips half surprise and half wonder. I’d startled her, but she wasn’t resisting. In fact, she was melting into me. Gently I parted her lips, deepening the kiss, and she gave another jerk of surprise, followed by more melting.
One hand slipped beneath her sheet to roam her breast, the other to her bottom to mold her into me. Slowly, leisurely, I savored the feel of her, wanting every drop I could get.
I turned her on the bed until she was under me, and surrounded her with the feel of me. She was panting and breathless, overly hot in her body in way she couldn’t hide from a man, and fuck, I’d done hardly more than kiss her.
“Jack…” she moaned into my mouth.
I lifted my face and I was sure my eyes were glowing. “Say my name again, lovely Linda, and then no more words. Just me being good to you. You being good to me. Two strangers from the beach in an encounter we both want.”
She didn’t answer.
I lowered my mouth to hers again anyway and plundered her lips with mine. I felt the sweet confusion inside her. I could tell she wasn’t a virgin—far from it—as her hips ground into mine. Her eager, awkward moves were something else. She was a girl who knew nothing of love or tenderness.
It made me take her mouth with the longing ever present in me, a wistful blend of hungry desperation and gentleness. Everything about her felt a remembered pleasure, and all I wanted to do was consume it and pull this luscious creature into me.
I rolled back until I was kneeling, taking her scarf with me, and the sheet dropped away, letting me see every inch of her.
My gaze roamed her slowly, and it was moving how she lay and let me drink in the sight of her. “Fuck, you are beautiful, Linda. I knew those big brown eyes would never lead me false.”
I pulled off my shirt and dropped it on the floor. Her inky-lashed lids went wide, and fast breaths spurted from her lips as I removed her panties.
When my hand went to the fastening of my jeans, she looked away and I laughed. “Don’t stop looking, Linda. Look. Touch. Do what you want. It’s all good with me.”
Her dark eyes shimmered, and oh, I’d seen that look in a woman before and knew she was thinking something sexual. I leaned down, continuing to remove my pants as I kissed her—her jaw, her chin, her neck—and watched how her eyes fluttered open then closed. Then finally closed.
My pants hit the floor. I ran my hands up her smooth thighs, and took one breast in my mouth as I caressed the other. As I lightly stroked her, I felt the desire shoot through her like a flash fire. The second my fingers touched her cunt, they were dripping wet, and after a few delicious strokes I pulled back my hand. Much more and Linda was going to come before we started.
I sat back on my knees between her thighs, and those bedroom brown eyes finally opened again. The pulse in her neck jumped as she slowly took me in from head to toe, pausing in each direction at my erection, before her eyes locked on mine again.
I slipped my arms under her and lifted her into me, lightly teasing her slit with my cock as I covered her lips again.
She wrapped her arms around me, touching and learning the feel of me as I ran my length against her wetness. Her moves against my body were heated and nakedly unknowing of real pleasure, even as her mouth lightly trailed my neck.
The tentative play of her kisses sent me forward until the tip of my erection was hidden by her dainty folds. I moaned, any thought I had of stopping this instantly dying as I released her on the bed.
I held her slim hips in my hands as I ran my tongue around her navel, with nips and swirls along the path to her hip bone. She was scented of her and nothing else, an airily tangy spice like her, and I paused with my face between her thighs, breathing in deeply her aroma before I sent my breath to brush her mound.
She was perfectly shaved, and I glided my fingers down one side and up the other, taking in each detail, before I circled her bud without touching.
Her fingers wove in my hair.
“I love the way you smell,” I whispered before I kissed her sex. “I bet you taste just as wonderful.”
I attacked the feast before me with my tongue, breath and fingers, tending each sensitive inch of flesh there, going rock hard as she rocked against my face. Her fingers tightened and her hips moved faster. She was on the edge again so quickly.
“Oh, Linda, you need this even more than I do.”
My tongue lightly fluttered against her clit and her thighs began to shake. Her body was more responsive than any I’d ever touched. Even Lena’s, and I never thought I’d ever find a woman as alive in her flesh as she had been.
“Do you like that?”
She nodded, and her head was still moving as I went to work with my mouth on her again, consuming every drop of juice and making her even slicker from taking her wetness from her. I ran my tongue up her mound, did a swirl, and lifted my head.
“Or do you like that better?”
She didn’t answer me; she didn’t have to, because her head began to roll on the pillow, her hips rocking as her fingers tightened in the sheet. I watched her body beg me to love her with my mouth again, then I sank my tongue into her.
Her arched up, her fingers rough in my hair, and she moaned. “Oh please, don’t stop.”
I paused only long enough to say, “Never,” before my mouth moved slowly down the inside of her leg. Another ripple went across her body. Jesus Christ, her body was on fire, the heat of her blocking out the feel of my own heat. My cock was throbbing, and my own flesh damn near an inferno.
I slipped a finger into her and brought my tongue back with it. Her muscles clenched, tighter and tighter. She wanted to let go and somehow couldn’t. I closed my mouth over her, my tongue in with my finger, and she cried out, shattering the quiet of the room.
Rippling wave after rippling wave.
Ragged moans from her lips.
Shuddering and shaking, at times trying to ease her cunt from me, only to push up into my face again.
She was rolling, orgasm on top of orgasm, or maybe just one, the longest I’d ever shared with a woman. She tried to squirm her butt away, and I held her there, because she was ascending and hadn’t reached the downside of the slope yet.
She was overwhelmed by every moan and tremble. More than once she tried to break her body’s heat from my mouth before she was through, but I didn’t ease back until I felt her climax slowly melt down.
I lifted my face to watch the rapture dance across her features. “Your body is wonderfully responsive.” I stretched out beside her, pulled her atop me, and kissed her neck. “But you don’t know a thing about letting yourself enjoy pleasure, do you?”
I lifted her up and eased myself into her then stilled. With my tongue and lips I explored her breasts, and her body shimmied on my cock, but I stopped her.
I sucked harder.
She rolled her hips.
I made us still again.
I devoured her breast.
Her body quaked.
Her inner walls clenched.
I eased out of her and plunged hard, once, then paused to slowly do it again.
“Don’t move your body,” I ordered her quietly, my fingertips gentling on her face. “Just let me move you.”
I guided her up my length, hitting all the inner spots of her arousal, and her damp flesh quivered beneath my hands. Then her thighs tightened around me, hips fighting me, urgent and demanding.
I sat her back on me and kept her from riding me. “Oh no, lovely Linda. Tonight I want to please you.” I turned her onto the bed beneath me and made love to her until nearly morning, until both our bodies were drained. Then I slept throu
gh the dawn for the first time in four years.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I woke the next morning alone in the bed. I would have thought I’d dreamed the night before if not for her scent and the imprint of her body in my sheets.
I broke up into unexpected laughter.
Alone in my bed, yet again, only this time I didn’t worry this girl had taken off on me. I could hear her moving around in the bathroom.
I sat up against my pillows, grabbed a cigarette and calmly smoked and waited. I was surprised my head wasn’t throbbing. I’d been on a bender for days. I was more surprised I wasn’t nervous.
Fuck, I hadn’t been with a woman since Lena died.
I no doubt should have felt worse on every account than I did. I loved my wife as much as I ever had, even waiting in bed for Linda. I knew nothing about this girl. It had been ages since I’d had to wing through the morning after with an anonymous bed partner. The girl was young, and I had fucking run my life into a ditch since Lena’s death which should have set off warning alarms that this wouldn’t end well.
I slowly puffed, wished I had coffee, and told myself, nope, not feeling awful. In fact, I was feeling pretty damn good.
More in control.
Definitely less horny.
Absolutely better than the booze made me feel.
Almost sort of happy, even if this turn on the road was a lark at best. If I felt bad in any regard it was that I wasn’t feeling badly and probably should have.
Then the bathroom door opened.
My gaze shifted to her.
And I wasn’t even feeling badly about not feeling badly.
She was fucking beautiful.
I took a long drag of my smoke, slowly exhaled, and I had to beat back a smile as her shapely shoulders squared and her chin lifted.
Ah, she was ready to take charge of whatever this was we were doing. Yep, I knew that look in a woman’s eyes.
Should I let her?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
“So you are real…and very beautiful,” I announced. “I wasn’t sure I didn’t dream you.”
“Nope, I’m real.”
I let my gaze roam her body. It was almost swallowed up by my shirt, and her dark curls were an unruly mess. “Oh, better than real. A man can get lost looking into eyes like yours.”
She remained near the door, a crinkle in her brow,
“How much of last night do you remember?”
I took another long drag. “All of it.” It wasn’t nice, but I couldn’t resist. I gave her another leisurely once-over. “Some of it.” That brought color to her cheeks. I laughed. “The good parts. What answer would you prefer, Linda?”
She laughed, though I could tell she was surprised I remembered her name. Shaking her head, she took a cautious step toward me.
“Do you remember us meeting?” she asked.
“Of course. I don’t get picked up by many women wearing only a sheet. What was that about anyway? Who wears a sheet to a party?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “It was a toga party. Do you remember me bringing you home?”
I grinned. “Do you want me to remember or do you want me to forget?”
“Depends. Are we still having an encounter or is this now a date?”
Yep, she was quick, and the way she was staring at me tipped her hand that she was testing the water, wanting to stay and unsure if I wanted her to.
“Which answer gets you back into bed?” I whispered.
Her eyes glowed. “Encounter. Oh, definitely encounter.”
I pushed down the sheet beside me. “A woman after my own heart. Come here.”
Instead of climbing in, she sat on her knees atop the cover. Interesting next move. It wasn’t the one I wanted, but interesting.
“So how long are you staying?”
Her eyes went wide in surprise. “What? Do you just pick up women randomly and expect them to stay?”
“Nope, you’d be the first in a very long time so I’m a little rusty at this. I just like to roll with my encounters. See where they go.”
She laughed, then scrunched up her face. “Is that some sort of ’60s free love kind of philosophy?”
Ah—an insult.
She not only wanted to stay, she wanted me not too sure of myself, and wanted me to like her.
I cupped her chin. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Linda. Some of the best things in my life have come from random moments I’ve least expected.”
“Then, you’re lucky. Most of my random moments end up scaring the hell out of me.”
I ran my thumb along her lower lip. “Maybe your luck is changing, Linda. I’m your last random moment, and I think it’s going pretty well so far.”
The way she stared at me was my undoing. Clear, searching and hopeful eyes. Parted lips. Shallow breathing. A girl who wanted to fuck again.
Slowly, I eased her beneath me on the bed and her kisses and touch passionately answered the controlled moves of my body. Touching her was like dropping a match on an accelerant. Her hands roamed me, anxious and wanting, and her rapid arousal made me rapidly hard.
Against her neck, I whispered, “Slowly, lovely Linda. We have all day.”
She melted beneath me and unfurled, pliant in my fingers. However this chance encounter had started, whatever it was, it didn’t matter. The way her mouth and body gave in to my lead made me more than ready to make love to her again.
Later, she lay curled on my chest as I slowly stroked her back.
“You have sage eyes.”
Linda lifted her head from my chest and made a face. “My eyes are brown, not green. I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment.”
“I meant it as a compliment. Your eyes are wise.” I gently kissed her. “You’ve seen a lot for a girl so young, you carry it in your eyes, and yet you are one of the gentlest women I’ve ever run across. And definitely kind.”
Her cheeks reddened and she hid her face back against my chest. Crap, I was trying to be low-key romantic and for some reason that upset her. I could feel her closing up emotionally.
“How do you know?” she rebuked. “You just met me. Maybe I’m not kind at all. Maybe I’m just looking for a story to tell my girlfriends. Maybe I just want to get laid by a musical genius with a really hot body for his age.”
I realized the insults were her defense mechanism and that she thought I’d been toying with her. “Thanks a lot. I’d be completely offended if not for the hot body part.” I lifted her chin so she had to look at me. “Don’t be flippant. I’m being serious here. You’re a pretty amazing woman.”
That only made her more uncomfortable. Minutes passed before she relaxed. She traced my chest with a finger, kissed me, and looked up again. “Why were you drunk last night? I read somewhere you’ve been sober for ten years.”
Crap, not what I wanted to talk about.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “An alcoholic is an alcoholic forever. We don’t need reasons to drink. It was a relapse. Reasons are crutches to enable drinking. I prefer to focus on the reasons not to drink.”
Her eyes grew cloudy. “You seemed very sad at times. Why were you sad?”
Shit, another unpleasant question.
“Do you really want to know?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on me, and damn, the girl was hungry to know more about me, not in a rude and invasive way, but in a sort of trying to understand me process. Not completely bad, even if it wasn’t how I would have preferred it.
I tightened my arms around her, tucking her more closely to my body. “It’s hard being alone in this house with my regrets. It caught up with me last night. It was my son’s birthday.”
Her expression changed into that oh fuck, how could I have asked that? kind of a thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have answered her truthfully.
“We all make mistakes, Linda. We all have to live with them.”
She rubbed her cheek against my flesh and I could tell she was feeling awful
. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry. Everyone says I’m curious to the point that I’m rude.”
“Not rude. You’re a caring person. That’s a rare thing to find these days.”
“How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t know you, huh?” I moved away from her to sit cross-legged on the bed facing her. “You are twenty-one years old tops, though you try to act older, and you try to act tough so people won’t see how unsure and easily hurt you are. You’re in college somewhere. Either working your way through school or on scholarship. You’re very intelligent. I’m betting on scholarship. Someone hurt you really badly. You carry that pain. It’s in your eyes. And because of that you let men use you, you give yourself cheaply, when all you really want is to somehow end the pain.”
Her entire face turned burnished red.
“I’ve told you. There is one thing I know: women. But more than that, it’s troubled souls. I read those pretty well, too.”
Her eyes flashed. “How boring people must be for you, being able to see everything and never needing to know anyone. You can live the rest of your life completely alone with only random encounters because you read us all so well and we must bore you.”
Everything inside me came to a screeching halt. I was hitting landmines in her and I didn’t want to because I liked her. Jesus Christ, it was ridiculous that I was stumbling Jack with her. Linda had picked me up on the beach—I was definitely not in hard first date kind of territory—and I wasn’t doing a damn thing right this morning.
There was heavy silence in the room and I debated which way to go. Finally, I smiled and reclined on a hip. “So where do you go to school?” I asked casually, changing the direction.
Her gaze sharpened—ah, she wasn’t expecting that.
“USC. And if we’d bet money, you would have won. Full scholarship.”
Wow—it was impressive, full scholarship from USC.
“What do you study?”
“Why are you asking? Do you really want to know this?”
“Sure I do. You’re an interesting woman. I can only read you”—I made about a half inch space between my thumb and index finger—“this much.”