Where the damp towel clung to his hips, muscles delineated his taut abdomen. His arms hung at his sides, but he wasn’t relaxed, because his hands were fisted.
Aria was sitting up against the headboard with her arms linked around her knees. She flipped back the covers with one hand. “Care to join me?”
Ethan’s hot, determined stare actually made her shiver. Her thighs clenched. She felt like the proverbial mouse caught in the visual crosshairs of a very hungry cat.
He loosened the simple knot and tossed the towel on the closest chair. Now she could study him from head to toe. His erection reared thick and firm against his belly. A river of emotion swept over her. Want. Need. But not love, not that. She was determined to do this the way a man would.
Light and easy. Enjoy the carnal bliss. Take pleasure in the moment.
Ethan climbed into bed and dragged her into his arms. His skin was still damp, but hot. Oh, so hot. It was a wonder steam didn’t rise up from the two of them.
“Well, this is different,” he drawled, nuzzling her neck.
“What do you mean?” she croaked. It was difficult to string words together in a coherent sentence. Ethan’s naked body was a feast for the senses, and at this particular moment, her senses were on overload.
“Doing it in a bed,” he chuckled. “Maybe third time’s a charm.”
“I never knew you were so conventional.”
Ethan grabbed a hank of her hair and tilted her head so he could nibble the sensitive spot just below her ear. “And I never knew how easily you could make me lose control. I’m not sure I like it.”
She found his sex beneath the covers and wrapped her hand around it. “If you want an apology from me, big guy, you’re going to have to wait a very long time. I like driving you crazy.”
He reared up on one elbow and gave her a hooded smile. His unoccupied hand caressed her breast and nipple, making her moan aloud in an embarrassing fashion. “I’m beginning to see that,” he said.
Vulnerability choked her. She closed her eyes, not wanting him to see everything she was feeling in that moment. Actually, she didn’t want to feel what she was feeling. Doggedly, she shoved aside every yearning, heartbreaking, bound-to-be-unfulfilled wish and concentrated on the physical pleasure that cascaded through her limbs.
Ethan’s big hands on her body created magic and chaos wherever he touched her. Tenderness and demand. Hunger and gentleness. Despite the relative newness of their physical relationship, he seemed to know intuitively which strokes, which caresses, gave her the most pleasure.
The first climax caught her by surprise, hot and sharp. He held her close and played with a strand of her hair until her breathing stilled. Then he drove her up again. Each time she tried to touch him intimately, he moved her hand, as if determined to be the one in control of this encounter.
Only when a second orgasm left her weak and spent did he roll over, grab a condom and, moments later, move between her thighs.
“Wait.” She thrust a hand, palm flat against his chest.
Ethan’s pained expression was incredulous. His face was flushed, all sharp angles and taut skin. “What?”
She looked up at him, trying to find answers in his bittersweet-chocolate eyes. “We may be temporary, Ethan. But I won’t let you call all the shots. We do this on an equal footing or not at all.”
The flicker of his eyelashes told her she had hit on at least a shred of truth. Ethan didn’t want to move past a certain level of intimacy.
Sex came in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Every time a man and a woman came together, the possibility existed that a connection was being forged, strengthened.
But Ethan didn’t want to be bound to anyone.
The standoff she hadn’t intended to initiate seemed to last forever. Finally, a huge shudder wracked his big frame as he cursed and flopped onto his back. “Fine,” he said gruffly. “I’m not in charge. I’m all yours.”
That last bit wasn’t exactly true, but she wasn’t inclined to quibble over semantics now that she had gotten her way.
Twice now, Ethan had coaxed her into a firestorm of incredible pleasure. She wanted to return the favor. But even more than that, she wanted to show him, without words, how much he meant to her.
He might not want to listen to her talk about romance and love and forever, but she could at least give him a taste of what he would be missing when he decided they were done.
Despite his apparent compliance, his fingers were clenched in the sheets. She wanted to smile, but she didn’t dare.
Instead, she removed the unused protection, so she could caress his sex skin to skin. His shaft was thick and long. The slit at the crown oozed fluid. When she rubbed it with her fingertip, his body quaked.
“Aria,” he said, the word like sandpaper.
She leaned over and kissed his nose, his chin, his mouth, long and deep. “Yes, Ethan?”
He bit her bottom lip, not as passive and compliant as he appeared. “I want to be inside you when I come. Don’t fool around too long.”
“I have faith in you,” she said. “I think you can hold out.”
His eyes closed, the lashes ridiculously long and thick for such a masculine man. “I never knew you had a sadistic streak.” The wryly muttered words made her determined to play the game until the end.
She cupped his sac in her hand and squeezed gently, monitoring the emotions that contorted his features. He was breathing like a distance runner, his chest heaving.
Carefully, she spread his legs and moved between them, kneeling and leaning forward over him so that her breasts brushed his chest. She put her hands on his shoulders. “Look at me, cowboy.”
When his lashes finally lifted, the searing expression in his eyes made her own sex clench and ache despite her recent abandon. He gripped her butt. “I want you, darlin’.”
She leaned down and kissed him recklessly. “Soon,” she promised. “Soon.” Rubbing her body against his, she gave him everything he wanted except penetration. When he caught a nipple between sharp teeth and tugged, she cried out, momentarily sidetracked.
Pleasure shot from her breast straight to her womb. Suddenly, her patience eroded. “I’m ready,” she said. “Hurry.”
His feral grin mocked her about-face, but she didn’t care.
He tumbled her aside and reached toward the bedside table.
Twelve
Ethan yanked open the drawer. “Damn it.” Desperately, he rifled through the pile of TV remotes and old batteries and paperback novels.
Aria leaned her chin on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“That was the last condom. And it tore when you took it off.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in her voice was a mere fraction of what he was feeling.
“I’ll check the bathroom.”
His erection hurt like a toothache. He hobbled to the other room and started yanking open drawers and cabinets. Dental floss and shaving cream and Band-Aids, but no condoms.
Frustration pounded in his veins. This couldn’t be happening.
Aria appeared in the doorway—all slender, pink-and-white and naked. “Can I help?”
He couldn’t even look at her. “Go back to bed.”
“You really don’t have any?”
He had his back to her. Their gazes met in the mirror, his hot and angry, hers abashed and unsure.
“No,” he said curtly. “Apparently that was the last one.”
“I thought sexually active men bought those by the dozens.”
“The amount of actual working knowledge you have about men could probably fit in a shot glass,” he snarled.
Aria lifted her chin. “I know enough to realize that when they don’t get...satisfied, they turn into rude Neanderthals.”
She had him there. He turned around and exhaled, dropping his chin
to his chest. “I’m sorry. You should go to your room, I think.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t be that clueless. “I can’t make love to you without a condom. I won’t take the chance of getting you pregnant.”
“Of course not,” she said, her eyebrows drawn together in a cute little frown. “But there are other ways.”
His erection hadn’t subsided at all during this conversation, but now it bobbed eagerly. He cleared his throat. “I’m listening.”
“I’m cold,” she said. “We can discuss this underneath the covers.”
He followed her to the bed, though he stopped short of climbing in with her. Given his current state of mind, his self-control was iffy. “It’s seventy degrees in here.”
“Maybe I’m nervous.” She had the covers pulled up to her chin.
“Are you?” he asked. It seemed impossible after all that they had shared up until this point.
“Of course I’m nervous, you big, gorgeous testosterone-laden dummy. I’m trying to keep this evening from fizzling out, and you’re not helping me.”
Her indignation made him smile, despite his physical discomfort. He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said you were clueless about men. That was kind of mean.”
She sniffed. “Yes, it was.”
“So what is this idea that’s keeping you here instead of going back to your room?”
“Well, um...” She flushed a rosy pink all the way from the tops of her breasts up her throat to her face and into her hairline. “I’ve heard that men like to... Well, or fantasize about, um...”
He tipped up her chin. Those amazing Aegean-blue eyes were filled with what seemed to be a combination of excitement and mortification. “Just say it, Aria. What are you trying to say?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “I thought since you’ve already made me come twice, and since you don’t have any more condoms, that you might like to, um...pleasure yourself on my breasts.”
His head exploded. At least that’s how it seemed. Her words were a shock wave that reverberated inside his brain and left him paralyzed. Did she have any clue what she was proposing?
He dropped her hand and stood up, wishing he was wearing a robe. And then it occurred to him that he didn’t even own a robe. He lived in Texas, for God’s sake. And he was babbling. Internally, but still.
Aria stared at him with big eyes. “Ethan?”
“I’m thinking,” he muttered. He was thinking that of all the amorous activities he’d ever engaged in with a variety of women over the years, that particular thing hadn’t been one of them. Somehow it seemed either extraordinarily private and special, or maybe the total opposite—disrespectful.
Hell. Aria was tying him up in knots. He’d been hard for about a million years now, and this was the fork in the road.
Choice A? He sent her away to her own bedroom and he spent a very restless, uncomfortable night, no matter whether he took matters into his own hands or not.
Choice B? He accepted Aria’s invitation and waded deeper into waters of intimacy with this extraordinary woman, a woman he was determined to keep at a safe emotional distance.
She sat up, allowing the sheet to slide away, exposing her breasts. “Have I shocked you? Am I being unladylike? You didn’t even want me to touch you earlier tonight, so perhaps I stepped way over the line just now.”
“Don’t say that,” he snapped. It hurt To look at her.
“Then you explain to me why you’re still standing over there.”
He opened his mouth and closed it. “I don’t need you to...” He trailed off, his chest heaving.
She lifted an eyebrow, staring at his erection. “You need something. Look at that poor guy. He’s been waiting for hours.”
The hint of humor restored his equilibrium. “He’ll get over it. He’s resilient.”
Aria frowned. “Am I way off base here? What’s the big deal?”
The big deal was a very big deal. It was one thing to come inside a woman when both of you were carried away in the throes of lust and passion. It was another situation entirely to have a woman watch something as intensely personal as a man ejaculating on her breasts.
His chest heaved. His entire body began to tremble. He wanted Aria. And he couldn’t have her. Not in that way. Not tonight. But he also dared to want what she offered in the meantime.
The notion was deeply disturbing and wildly exciting, which was enough to give him pause. Was he getting in too deep?
She held out her hand. “Come to bed,” she cajoled. “Please, Ethan.”
He couldn’t evict her from his bed if he tried. And he couldn’t walk away. He didn’t want to...at all.
Swallowing his misgivings, he nodded jerkily. Before he could take more than a single step toward the bed, Aria tossed back the covers and spread her legs. Her smile was open. Uncomplicated. Loving.
That last one should have alarmed the hell out of him. It should have set off all the warning bells. But he was too far gone.
He kneeled on the mattress and kissed her ankle, chuckling when she protested. “Ticklish, are we?”
She grabbed his hair. “Yes...” The word ended on a sigh.
Her smooth thigh beckoned. He worked his way up from her ankle to her calf to her knee and finally to the mother lode, where he parted her sex with the tip of his tongue.
Aria moved restlessly. “I can’t,” she said. “Not again.”
“You underestimate yourself, sweetheart. Or maybe you underestimate me.”
In minutes he had her trembling and panting and crying out his name as he sent her over the edge a third time.
Her sensuality struck deep in his gut. He loved giving her pleasure. He loved watching her face as she came apart in his arms.
He loved her.
No. No, he didn’t. Or if he did, it was affection. Born out of a years-long friendship between them both.
Her breathing slowed at last, and she opened her eyes. “Wow. You’re really good at that.”
He shrugged. “I like watching you. It turns me on.”
Her mouth fell open in a little O of surprise, as if she couldn’t believe he would be so honest. She nodded slowly, her gaze drifting to his sex. He was so hard he wondered if he’d ever be not hard again. Wanting her was a living, breathing force inside him.
He was desperate to be inside her. Aching. Wanting to possess her completely. But he wouldn’t take chances.
So he would take the incredible gift she offered him. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I am. With one caveat.”
His stomach clenched. “And that would be?”
For once, there was no smile on her face at all. No teasing. Not even a hint or notion that she was playing a game. “I don’t want you to close your eyes. Ever. Not even at the end. Can you do that?”
He nodded slowly, understanding immediately. They were doing this together or not at all. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I can do that.”
It was awkward at first. As he had known it would be. Aria didn’t know where to put her hands. Ethan wasn’t sure he could do this with someone watching.
He kneeled in the vee of her thighs and draped her legs over his knees. Now she was open to him. His breathing was ragged, too loud perhaps in the quiet room.
When he placed his left hand on his thigh and took his shaft in his right hand, her gaze was riveted. “Does that feel good?” she asked, the words barely audible.
Nodding, he ran his thumb up and down the shaft slowly. He was so hard it was painful to touch himself. Having Aria stare so raptly only made it worse.
The inclination to close his eyes was almost overpowering. He hadn’t realized that keeping his promise would be so difficult. “Touch your breasts,” he said. “Let me se
e how good they feel.”
She blinked in surprise, but she didn’t challenge his command. Hesitantly, she cupped her modest curves in her palms and pushed them toward each other, plumping them into two lovely mounds.
Holy hell. Fire shot through his groin. He gasped and tugged his hand roughly over his sex.
Aria’s voice penetrated the haze of arousal. “Ethan. Open your eyes.”
Until her sharp-edged command, he hadn’t even realized his failure. He nodded. “Sorry.”
Holding her gaze was the most incredibly difficult thing he had ever had to do. And the most incendiary.
He was a man. He jerked off. That was life. But this was different. Every stroke of his own hand on his own flesh felt like Aria was touching him. Her gaze was almost tactile. When she licked her lips, he could feel her tongue on his lips. His climax writhed toward the surface like an angry, insatiable beast.
His hand moved faster.
He gasped for breath. The force of his movements rocked the bed.
Every time he tried, unknowingly, to close his eyes, her voice drew him back. Those blue irises held him captive, channeled some mystical feminine sorcery that increased the pleasure a thousandfold.
“Aria!” he groaned and shot his essence across her soft curves, coming and coming and coming until he thought there would be nothing left of him.
When it was over, he took a moment to clean them both and then he collapsed on top of her. The room was silent but for the wild beating of his heart in his ears. Aria stroked his hair, murmuring his name over and over in comforting tones.
Good Lord. What had she done to him?
* * *
Aria slept fitfully in Ethan’s arms for most of the night. He held her tightly, his face buried in her hair. It was so wonderful and sweet and unprecedented, it scared her to death.
Around five thirty or six in the morning, she slipped away and returned to her own room, where she tumbled into bed and slept for another hour. Even that was not enough to erase the extraordinary memory of what had happened between them.
When she awoke for good sometime after seven, every moment of last night played in her head like a Technicolor movie, complete with sound effects. Only this cinema was far more real, because it captured the eroticism of touch and the arousing scent of warm skin and an avalanche of heart-wrenching emotion that left her feeling raw and unsure of herself.
Hot Texas Nights Page 11