Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “You don’t like that, do you?”

  He took a while to answer. “I grew up listening to my mother’s stories of Belfast and the mighty English fist. No, I don’t like it. Not for Northern Ireland, nor for Vistaria.”

  She didn’t know how to respond, for she had caught a glimpse of the passion he had for his country, the dedication he brought to his work. She represented a country that most of his fellow Vistarians viewed as a threat. Yet she sat here beside him on her way to—

  “Tell me about your dreams, Calli,” he said, making her jump a little.

  “Dreams?”

  “You said you dreamed of us. Together.”

  “I did.” The quick montage of images, faded by constant review, flipped through her mind, but still they had the power to stir her, to catch her breath with their power and their raw sensuality.

  “Tell me about them,” Nick coaxed, his voice low.

  She licked her lips, suddenly shy again. Even when she had lived with Robert, she had not discussed such intimate details as dreams and fantasies. She couldn’t recall if she’d even had them.

  He glanced at her and smiled a little. “Ah, Calli, it’s clear you’ve never been with a man who cares about such matters. But I do. I want to know what’s in your heart, your mind, your soul and every inch of flesh and blood in between.”

  She deliberately changed the direction. “You said you dreamed of me, too.”

  “I can tell you my dreams but I’d rather show you and for that I need both hands free.”

  “Show me?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, his voice lower still and suddenly a little hoarse. “I have the details memorized.”

  She shivered, despite the sun.

  “Give me the one image that has stayed with you,” he said. “I know there must be at least one. A moment from your dreams. Just as you did that night at Ashcroft’s, when I touched your breast. You said you had dreamed it, only—”

  “The reality was better than the dream,” she finished. Despite her awkwardness at discussing such intimate details aloud, she grew warm, moist and her nipples began to tingle. She shifted her legs, the thighs rubbing each other and the heated folds of her cleft moved against each other. Delicious friction. “Your hand on my hip,” she said, and her voice was husky, too.

  “Tell me what it looks like in your mind.”

  She cleared her throat a little. “We’re lying together. Naked. Your hand is around my back and I can feel your...you, against me. Your other hand slides under the back of my knee and pulls my leg up against your hip. Then it moves up my leg, and curves around my hip. The heel of your hand and your thumb sweep across the skin just next to the hip.”

  She risked a glance at him and saw him swallow, his Adam’s apple dip sharply. The corner of his jaw flexed a little, as if he clenched it. She dropped her gaze down to his crotch, to the folds of denim. Was he aroused? She couldn’t quite tell, but it seemed so.

  “Yes, I’m hard, Calli. I’ve been that way since I saw you at the end of the alley.”

  Her heart gave a giant leap. She looked at his face, but he watched the road again and the sunglasses and the shadow thrown by the brim of his hat hid even more. “How did you know...?”

  “I know you, remember?” he said with a smile. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” she confessed. What was the point in denying it?

  “Ah...you’re such a delight. A realist and a romantic in one long, delicious package. You’ve just let the realist stay in charge for too long. Since the long-departed Robert, I’m guessing.” He did spare a swift look at her then. “Did he prey on the romantic in you?”

  “I suppose that’s what he did do,” she said slowly, thinking it through. “He convinced me he loved me and that we’d be together forever...only he had to get through medical school, first.”

  “So you moved in with him, left college, supported him and loved him,” he finished. “Until he got his internship.”

  “Yes,” she said, very softly.

  His hand came down on her thigh and squeezed gently. Empathy. He knew. He had seen it all without explanation.

  His hand stayed on her thigh, moving a little. Restless.

  She swallowed back her sudden excitement. She wanted him to move his hand higher and her clit gave out a throb, almost in pleading. She resisted the urge to spread her thighs to give him better access, for that would be too telling...too...Too what, Calli? she asked herself. He knows I want him.

  But before she could give the explicit signal his hand lifted away.

  “Why don’t you take off your panties?” he asked, his tone conversational.

  Her heart gave another almighty leap. Thready, silvery excitement slithered through her. The pounding anticipation made her voice thick and unsteady as she said: “How safe is it here? Can you put the gun aside?”

  He seemed to consider that. “Aside, but not too far aside,” he said.

  “Do it. And take off your jacket too,” she told him.

  He shot a look at her, an indecipherable glance with the sunglasses obscuring his eyes. “So....” he said slowly. He reached inside the jacket and pulled out the same automatic pistol she had seen in the palace last night. After checking the safety he slid it onto the shelf below the windscreen. Then he pulled off the hat and threw it into the back of the jeep. His dark red hair, which looked almost black in dim light, ruffled in the wind, the deep red highlights gleaming.

  “Sunglasses, too,” she insisted.

  “Of course.” He took them off, folded them up with one hand and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “Better?” he asked, looking at her. The indigo eyes narrowed a little against the sun.

  “Much better,” she assured him. “The jacket.”

  “You’ll have to help me.”

  “With pleasure.”

  He grinned a little and held out his right arm so she could tug the jacket down over his hand and let him slide his arm out. Then the left arm. He leaned forward and she pulled the jacket away from him and dropped it into the back of the jeep, over his hat.

  His shirt, what looked like a normal short-sleeved business shirt, billowed around his shoulders and chest, moving in the small breeze created by the passage of the jeep. She studied his thick, tanned forearms and the wide wrists, as he held the steering wheel.

  “The shirt, now,” she said, her heart beat picking up speed.

  “You first,” he countered.

  Fair’s fair. She pushed her sandals off with her toes and reached up under the cotton wrap skirt, the same one she had been wearing since the previous evening. She had not had time to do more than throw on a shirt and a light jacket over her clothes when they had packed. With trembling hands she drew her panties down her legs and dropped them into the back of the jeep. She felt wickedly bare, accessible. Her thighs relaxed, falling open. She breathed heavily now.

  “The shirt,” she said.

  “You do it.”

  Oh my....

  She sat up on her knees, anchoring herself with her hand over the back of her seat and reached over to slip the first button undone. Nick stayed silent, his eyes on the road ahead, as she undid the second, the third, the fourth, fifth. She had reached the waistband of his jeans, now. She pulled the shirt out of the jeans and undid the final button. The shirt flew open like a parachute blossoming in the wind stream, revealing the broad expanse of his chest. Tanned skin over well-defined muscles and below the two dark, erect nipples his abdomen rippled, the ‘six-pack’ clear and hard.

  “Oh...” she breathed and rested her hand on his shoulder, feeling the heat and soft yield of his flesh.

  “What?” he asked quietly.

  “I knew you were strong, but not this strong.”

  “You like what you see?”

  “Oh, yes.” She pulled at the sleeves of his shirt, quickly removing it altogether, leaving him topless. His shoulders had powerful round caps of muscles; his biceps and triceps flexed under the skin with each movement of
his hands on the wheel. A scar, pale and faded from age, marked his right shoulder. She touched it.

  “Bullet,” he said softly.

  “A long time ago,” she guessed.

  “I was fifteen. Later, I will tell you the story. But for now, it’s your turn. The shirt.”

  That was easy. She turned to sit down again.

  “No. Stay on your knees. I want to see it all.”

  She kept her position and fumbled with the buttons one by one, then tugged at the knot of the tails at her waist. Awkwardly, she shrugged her arm out of the sleeve, then changed her grip on the seat so she could remove the other. Abruptly the wind caught it and tugged it out of her hand. The shirt went sailing high up into the air.

  Nick laughed. “I’ll give you another,” he promised. “I know how limited your wardrobe must be.”

  “Fine. You next.”

  “What do you want me to remove?” he asked, his voice dropping.

  She swallowed, the excitement pounding through her making her throat dry.

  “Your jeans. Undo them.”

  He considered that for a moment. “I’ll give you three buttons for your top.”

  Buttons... She didn’t think her excitement could lift to a higher level without actual physical contact, but the mental image of him slowly undoing the buttons on his jeans caused her pulse to leap.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  His hand fell to the top button on his jeans and flicked it undone. Then it dropped down to the next hidden button on the fly and slipped under the denim to ease the button undone.

  She held her breath.

  The third button slipped open and the parted sides of the jeans sagged open, revealing more tanned skin, the ripple of muscles. She couldn’t see anything else.

  “Your top,” he said, very low.

  Wickedness, wantonness, threaded through her. She sat down on her heels, still sitting sideways and slipped the straps of the top from her shoulders, letting the jersey settle down her breasts. Nick watched from the corner of his eye, snatching quick glances.

  She pulled the top from her skirt and crossed her arms, then gathered the top up in her hands. After pausing for a teasing moment, she pulled the top over her head and dropped it into the back with the rest of their clothes. Her nipples, brushed by the currents of cool air, crinkled immediately and she gasped a little.

  “Beautiful,” Nick said, his voice so distorted with excitement it was almost unrecognizable.

  She raised up on her knees once more, deliberately letting her breast rub against his arm and thrilled when she heard his breath catch. With a daring that seemed a little shocking, but terribly exciting, she leaned against him properly and ran her hand over his chest and stomach, then lower, to slide inside his jeans, where she felt the silky hardness of his cock, beating against his stomach. Her touch made him groan.

  She fumbled with the last of the buttons on his jeans and pushed the denim aside with trembling, impatient hands. He lifted his hips, accommodating her. His cock sprang free. She grasped it, marveling at the thick length, the rounded head, so dark with blood and visibly throbbing. She swept her hand the length of him.

  “Ahhh, Calli, I can’t....” Nick said desperately. “No, I can’t wait.” He pulled her hand away from him and braked. With one hand he steered the jeep off to the side of the road as much as he could. As soon as the jeep came to a halt he killed the engine, reached over and picked her up by the waist and brought her across his lap, straddling his hips. Her back was against the steering wheel, pushing her towards him.

  His hands on her hips trembled, but he guided her and she felt the blunt tip of his cock against her pussy. She was slippery with moisture, as ready as he.

  “So hot....” he muttered and pulled her down as he thrust upwards into her.

  She cried aloud at the penetration, at the thickness of him and the nearly forgotten but impossible to forget sensation of a hard cock inside her and her fierce satisfaction. Nick’s eyes closed and she saw the tendons in his neck straining as he pushed into her.

  He opened his eyes and licked his lips. “Christ, Calli, I thought I would have more finesse than this, but you are too much.”

  “I like it that you can’t wait, that you can’t control yourself enough.”

  His hands left her hips for a moment to fumble at the button on her skirt, pulling it away, leaving her naked. “I wanted it the other way. I wanted you screaming my name, as you writhed beneath me.” He ran his hands over her body, up to her breasts, which he cupped. He stroked the nipples with his thumbs, making her gasp and buck. Her whole body clenched in response.

  “I’ll have my way yet,” he said, “but not this time. This time I’ve waited too long.” He gripped her hips again and she felt him lifting her, his cock sliding out of her.

  “No!” she said quickly.

  He pushed back inside her again. Hard. It made her groan with satisfaction.

  His lips moved to her chin, searing a moist path over her chin and down her throat, to the well-defined dip between her breasts, just above the St. Christopher medallion. He licked the skin with a murmur of appreciation.

  His hands found her breasts and stroked them. He avoided the nipples, but ran his fingertips around the swell at the bottom of each breast, over the tops. His hands fluttered, driving her mad with the need for him to touch the nipples themselves.

  But instead, his tongue flicked out to stroke one nipple, sending a lightning bolt of pleasure through to her clitoris, making her clench around his cock. He gave a little murmur of appreciation and continued his assault on her breast with both hands and his mouth.

  He stroked the nipple with his tongue, then took it into his mouth. He teased it with his teeth—little nips and swirls of the tip of his tongue as he sucked the nipple in. Then he transferred his attention to the other nipple, while a hand played with the deserted one, rolling it, stroking it, running his fingers across the tip one after another.

  For endless minutes he showered attention upon her breasts. Calli relished the attention, for Robert, the only lover in her life until this moment, had rarely spent so long a time on her enjoyment. The pleasure coursed through her with a strength she’d never experienced before. Her heart raced, her breath came shallow and unsteady. She twitched, writhed, her whole body focused upon what Nick did to her breasts, her nipples. The endless stroking, the swirling caress of his tongue...each touch of her astonishingly sensitive nipples brought her closer to orgasm. She gave a little moan, the sound slipping from her involuntarily. She gasped now, little hitches of breath as the pleasure built and built. Her head fell back against the windscreen, and her eyes closed. She was close, so close....

  She felt Nick’s hips move under her. His cock throbbed. The muscles of her pussy had been convulsively clenching and relaxing around him. She was slick, hot, and having him inside her while he ravished her breasts pushed her closer to her climax.

  “Oh...Nick...!” she breathed. She wriggled against the wheel, the pulsing surge of pleasure building swiftly. “Don’t stop...please don’t,” she gasped.

  He kept stroking and sucking on her breasts, while one of his hands brushed down her stomach, between her legs. She caught her breath in anticipation, knowing he intended to stroke her clitoris. The stroke, when it came, was subtle, delicate. Just one—but enough to make her buck hard. Her climax exploded through her, stealing her vision, straining every tendon in her body, but it did not end there. Nick’s tongue still stroked her breasts, and his hand again brushed her clitoris, a butterfly touch, and she convulsed again, a fresh wave of electrifying pleasure pulsing through her. And a third time. This time she heard herself cry out, her throat aching from the primordial sound.

  “Make it quick,” she begged. “Hard.”

  “It can be nothing else.” He gripped her chin and turned her lips to his. He kissed her quickly, then gripped her hips and lifted her again. She felt him throbbing inside her, and knew his orgasm was seconds away. She saw
it in his eyes, in every straining muscle in his body...and then he pushed into her again and his body seemed to lock, his hips thrust upwards, and his mouth opened in a soundless cry.

  She held still, marveling at the power of his climax, at the raw pleasure of it, as she felt his hot seed spill into her. The sensation was as heady as the climax itself.

  His hips lowered back to the seat and he fell back against it, his chest heaving, his hands loose on her hips.

  She collapsed against him, utterly spent.

  In the silence she heard a bird coo, somewhere in the trees above them.

  Chapter Eleven

  After a moment or two, Calli grew aware of Nick’s hands, stroking her still. This time his fingers swept along her back, following her spine and over the curve of her buttocks. His touch didn’t stimulate but the very pleasant sensation kept her nerves tingling.

  Where their flesh touched, she felt heat between them and a hint of sweat. Her cheek rested against the back of the seat, right next to his head. Her arm felt like a deadweight but she lifted it enough to cup his cheek and moved her head to kiss the other one.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “I believe I should be saying that,” he returned. His voice sounded raw. He moved so he could turn his head to look at her. This close, his indigo eyes mesmerized her. “We should get off the open road,” he said.

  “We should,” she agreed. “But I think all my bones just melted.”

  He gave her a wicked smile. “I thought mine had, but it’s just temporary.” He moved his hips and Calli felt his cock move inside her. She caught her breath at the exquisite sensation. He was thick and hard. “See?” he added.

  “You would prefer to drive even in this condition?” she asked.

  “I would not have stopped in the first place except that you pushed all good sense from my mind.” He grasped her hips and helped her rise from his lap. When he slid out of her, she couldn’t help the little noise of disappointment she made. He swiveled and placed her in the passenger seat, showing some of the strength promised by his physique.