by Tawna Fenske
We shove through the door in a tangle of limbs and heated breath. Any fears I might have had about frankness killing the foreplay burst into a white-hot ball the instant our lips touch. We kiss like we’re starving for it, tearing at each other’s clothes as we stumble down the hall.
Even Magma jumps out of the way, dodging the frenzied fumbling of the idiot humans making a beeline for the bedroom. By the time we get there, we’ve peeled down to the barest essentials. Lily’s in a black bra and panties, while I’m sporting only boxer shorts and a lone sock I’m trying desperately to kick off my foot without letting go of the gorgeous woman in my arms.
“James.” She gasps the word against my mouth, hands sliding under the waistband of my boxers to grip my ass. She gives a rough squeeze as I unhook her bra with one hand.
Drawing back, she smiles into my eyes. “This is really going to happen.”
I nod, hardly believing it myself. “Barring any house fires or police intervention.”
“I’m not stopping. Not even for flooding or locusts.”
Me neither. A trio of clowns could tumble out from under the bed to beat us with fly swatters and I’d keep right on peeling off Lily’s bra, tossing it aside so I could bury my face in the hollow between her breasts.
“Oh, Jesus.” She clutches my hair with both hands as I lay her back on the bed and devour the most perfect breasts in the history of creation.
Her nipples are hard and peaked and gloriously smooth on my tongue as I savor one, then the other, moving between them until I’m dizzy and mindless. She’s squirming against me, struggling to get her panties off over her hips. She grabs for my boxers again, shoving them down as she arches to keep her breasts pressed into my face.
“James,” she says again, panting my name with a hunger that echoes what’s ricocheting through me right now.
I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Lily Archer. It’s consuming me, devouring me, twisting me up into a thousand flaming knots of pleasure.
We’re both naked now, and I can’t stop memorizing her with the tips of my fingers. Can’t stop filling my hands with her breasts, with the soft curve of her hips, with the slick heat between her thighs.
She lets go of my shoulders and reaches behind me, fumbling for something in her nightstand at the same instant I reach for my pants hooked over the footboard. I pull out a condom and bring it up between us like a trophy.
Lily laughs and holds up her own prophylactic. “Looks like we’re both prepared.”
I kiss her again, claiming her lips with mine. “Pretty sure neither will go to waste.”
Dropping my condom between the pillows, I roll her onto her back again as she tears open her packet and sheathes me with expert hands. Her thighs fall open and she draws me between them, moaning as I kiss my way up her sternum and along the column of her throat.
“Please, James,” she moans. “I need you inside m—oh God!”
I fill her in one slick stroke, too lust-crazed to go slow. I open my mouth to apologize for rushing, but she clamps her legs around me and pulls me in deeper. “God, yes.”
Her gray eyes are wide and glinting with gold flecks, red hair spilling across the pillow. I’m positive I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman in my life.
It takes every ounce of self-control I possess to slow things down, to move in and out of her at a pace we can both savor. I’m drowning in pleasure, taking big gulps of air as I rise to the surface and go under again. She’s so slick, so tight and hot and perfect that I’m scared I’m going to lose it in the next fifteen seconds.
“God, Lily.” I groan the words into her hair as I drive in again, conscious of the dizzying buzz in my brain. I force myself to breathe in and out, to commit every detail to memory. The scent of her hair, the thud of her heartbeat against my chest, the soft clench of her body around me.
Slow down, I order myself, even as she rises up to meet me.
“Like that, yes. Oh God, yes.”
This can’t be happening. She can’t be this close already, this tense with the threat of bursting. Neither can I, but here I am. Here we both are, right on the edge of exploding.
“So good,” she pants, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “God, I had no idea.”
I’m not sure what she means, but I feel it, too. This sense of wonder, this certainty that none of this is at all what I expected.
She arches up, and I drive in hard, fusing us together in the perfect melding of hard and soft, give and take, hunger and satiation.
When she clenches tight around me and cries out, I feel myself go under again. I drive in deep, gripping her hip to hit just the right angle. Her eyes go wide, and she rakes her nails down my back.
“My God.” She says it like a prayer, like what’s happening here is a rapture neither of us saw coming.
“Lily.” The wrecking ball of pleasure slams into my chest, and I groan out loud. “Lily.”
I ride each wave with her cries in my ears, ringing like a song I’ve never heard before, but know by heart from the first note.
When we’re finally spent, I lie there on top of her for several breathless seconds. I’m trying to get my bearings, trying to figure out what the hell just hit me.
“Holy God, that was—that was—” She laughs, wheezing a little as she slaps a hand over her eyes.
“Sorry, I’m crushing you.” I try to roll off, but she rolls with me, bringing us face to face in the pleasure-soaked stupor of what just happened.
Lily’s smile is slow and languid, like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm. “That was—unexpected.”
I don’t have to ask what she means, because I know. I know, but I ask anyway, because I want to hear the words. “How do you mean?”
She shakes her head, and a red curl slips over her forehead. I brush it back, no longer capable of not touching her.
“I didn’t think it would be like that.” She opens her eyes, and there’s a wonder in them that’s as familiar as my own heartbeat. “I didn’t know.”
I nod because it’s the only thing I can think to do. I expected naked passion, but not tenderness. Animal heat but not raw connection. Lust but not—
Love?
No.
No, that’s just afterglow talking. Just the post-sex musings of a lust-fogged brain, something I’ve felt a million times before.
But I haven’t. I know damn well I haven’t, and I wonder if she sees it in my eyes. I fight to shove the mask in place, to hide the tidal wave of emotion I’m positive is scrawled across my face like crude graffiti.
“God, James.”
I could never get tired of hearing her say my name. I kiss her lips, conscious of her breath still coming in soft little gasps.
“I knew you’d be good in bed,” she says softly, gaze fixed on the hollow of my throat like she’s steeling herself to meet my eyes again. When she does, the emotion glittering in those gray depths steals the breath right from my lungs. “I knew you’d be good,” she says again. “I just didn’t know we’d be that great together.”
I nod again, still incapable of forming words.
But my thoughts are forming fast, spilling over each other like smooth rocks tumbling in a stream. This is so much more than I banked on. So much more than I was looking for.
I should be terrified. I should be throwing my clothes on and getting the hell out of this room. I should find a pair of pliers and rip out my own tongue to keep myself from voicing the ridiculous, love-drenched words threatening to burst out of me in the fragrant warmth of this bed.
Instead, I pull her against me and bury my face in her hair.
Chapter 11
LILY
“Did you know sex is more likely to kill you than a volcano?”
I blink myself back from my latest James-filled fantasy as Blanka taps her notecards and grins. “It’s in this new study I read,” she adds.
“Please tell me you’re not planning to say that to a room full of kindergartners.”
; She laughs and shuffles the notecards while I rearrange the functional model of Mount St. Helens that’s resting on my knees.
“I suppose not, but it’s fascinating,” she says. “Kids this age get freaked out about volcanoes, but statistically speaking, humans are sixteen times more likely to die from sex than from a volcanic eruption.”
Considering some of the earth-shaking sex I’ve had with James in the last couple days, I’m not surprised.
Again, probably not something we should share at school career day.
We’re here representing our local branch of STEM Women’s Advocacy, a group devoted to encouraging girls to pursue interests in science, technology, engineering, and math. We do our spiel here every year, wowing them with volcanic explosions and videos of tidal waves in hopes of getting more young girls interested in STEM.
“Do you want to show the slides from Hawaii before or after we blow up the volcano?” Blanka asks.
“Let’s do it after this time. I’ve got some little Hawaii stickers we can hand out at the end.” I pat my purse, which makes a funny rattling sound.
Blanka cocks her head. “What do you have in there?”
“Er, handcuffs?” Probably should have removed those before making an appearance at kindergarten career day.
“Why am I not surprised?” She grins and whips a pen out to jot something on one of her notecards. Hopefully not about handcuffs.
I glance around at the other career-minded professionals waiting their turn to present. There’s a fireman decked out in full firefighter gear seated next to a woman holding a laptop and a cup of coffee. Probably a computer programmer or something. Across from them is Bradley Parker in his doctorly scrubs, and I give him a friendly wave and wonder how he’s doing on his quest to find a serious relationship. Preferably with a woman who doesn’t bring bondage equipment to a grade school.
“So James is into handcuffs,” Blanka murmurs.
I shrug and adjust the volcano again. “He’s proving to be surprisingly open-minded.” And willing to try new things, which I never would have expected.
“He’s turning out to be a good…” Blanka frowns, searching for the right word. “Beneficiary?”
“A good wh—oh, friend with benefits?”
God bless Blanka. She speaks eight languages fluently and has been living in America longer than not. But colloquial phrases and slang terms are a challenge sometimes, a trait I find utterly endearing.
“Friend with benefits,” she repeats, grinning at me. “Things are working out just like you’d expected.”
Things are so far from what I expected that I can’t even remember my expectations anymore. The sex is great, sure, but that’s not what’s been knocking my socks off. I love talking with him, making each other laugh with stories about our lives and careers. I love spending time with him, too, and discovering all the quirky ways he’s willing to embrace his previously undiscovered inner goofball. The toilet papering, the zebra, an hour spent playing Ms. Pac-Man together in the resort’s rec center.
And last night we went bowling—bowling, seriously. He’d never been, and it seemed serendipitous that Lava Lanes was having cosmic bowling night complete with black lights and gutter guards for new bowlers.
“Uh-oh.” Blanka looks at me and shakes her head.
“Uh-oh what?” I run my tongue over my teeth, searching for stray bits of spinach from my lunchtime salad. “Do I need to floss?”
She shakes her head. “Uh-oh you’re into him.”
“Into James?” I throw as much nonchalance as I can into my shrug. “Of course I’m into him. He’s smart and attractive and fun to be around.”
“And terrific in bed?”
“Obviously.”
She gives a smug nod. “The fact that sex wasn’t the first thing you mentioned is proof this is different,” she says. “That he’s different. You’re actually falling for him.”
“That’s not true.”
Is it?
I’m saved from arguing when a familiar voice rings out down the school hallway. “Lily? Oh, good, I hoped you’d be here.”
I turn to see Bree gliding down the hallway, looking way more elegant than any pregnant woman has a right to. She’s got Jonathan at her side, and he grins when he spots me. Then his eyes land on Blanka and go wide with wonder. It’s just a split second, and Blanka doesn’t notice since she’s got her head down scribbling something on a notecard.
“Nice job redecorating my cabin,” Jonathan tells me as he approaches. “James named you as an accomplice.”
“Guilty,” I admit, not feeling one bit guilty. “I hope it wasn’t too much of a pain to clean up.”
“Nah, I’m just glad you took care of the stick.”
“Stick?”
“The one you pulled out of his—”
“Hello, we’re at an elementary school.” Bree elbows her brother in the ribs. “Show some tact.”
“What are you two doing here anyway?” I jump to my feet and pull Bree in for a hug, happy to see another friend here.
“Career day.” She jerks a thumb toward the closed classroom door. “Austin got called out on cop stuff, so he asked me to fill in and talk about marketing. I brought sailor boy along to talk about being a hero.”
Jonathan gives her a pained look. “Humanitarian work. That’s what I’ll be talking about.” He engulfs me in a brotherly bearhug, though I can’t help noticing he keeps glancing at Blanka.
“Have you met my colleague?” I sweep a hand toward her, and she finally looks up from her notecards. “Jonathan Bracelyn, this is Blanka Pavlo.”
“Sorry.” She scrambles to her feet looking sheepish. “Had to fix a couple errors in my notes.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Jonathan sticks out his hand, though I can tell he’s itching to give her one of his trademark bear hugs. “You’re a volcanologist, too?”
That’s interesting. James must have told his brother what I do for a living. Or maybe Bree did, but I’d love to believe it’s James. That he’s as impressed by my professional credentials as he is by my prowess in the sack.
Blanka’s on her feet now, returning Jonathan’s handshake with a flush in her cheeks. “Hydrologist, actually. It’s nice to meet you.” She shoots me a little side-eye, which translates roughly to, Who the hell is this brother, and where have you been hiding him?
“Jonathan spends most of his time globetrotting and doing humanitarian work,” I offer while Bree and Blanka do their own hug-and-greet. They’re not super close, but they’ve crossed paths at girls’ nights and Amber’s wedding. “He’s been hanging around a little more lately, though.”
Bree smiles and brushes her hair from her eyes. “If I’d known the secret to getting him out here was a series of family weddings, I’d have been matchmaking all along.”
I know for a fact Bree spent months matchmaking to get Mark and Chelsea together, and I have my suspicions about Brandon and Jade. And Amber and Sean. And—
“Looks like we’re all grouped pretty close to the end.” Jonathan’s studying a list tacked next to the door, which I’ve somehow failed to notice.
“That’s the lineup?” I peer over his shoulder. “We must be at least forty minutes from any of us presenting.”
“Good, I can visit the little girls’ room.” Bree does an anxious little shuffle. “I swear, this baby spends all his time tapdancing on my bladder.”
“His?” I lift an eyebrow, curious if she’s just spilled some major beans.
“Or hers,” she concedes. “I’m convinced it’s a boy and Austin’s convinced it’s a girl.”
“Will you find out beforehand?” Blanka asks.
“We plan to.” She smooths a hand over her barely-rounded belly. “They’ll do an ultrasound at my next appointment, so if he cooperates—”
“Or she,” Jonathan chides with a grin.
“Or him/her,” Bree adds. “We’re fully supportive of whatever gender representation our child might express.”
/> The opportunity for science geekery is too much for Blanka to resist. “Several studies indicate intersex individuals constitute anywhere from one to two percent of the population,” she offers. “That means having atypical or ambiguous genitalia or variations in sexual chromosomes is about as common as having red hair.”
I twirl one of my own copper curls in illustration. Several folks seated nearby shoot us curious glances, probably wondering what the hell we’re planning to teach their kindergartners.
“Bathroom.” I loop my arm through Bree’s, remembering her distress. “I’ll come with you. I need to wash my hands anyway.”
“Great!” She lets me tow her down the hall as I glance back and see Jonathan sidling closer to Blanka. He looks even more enchanted by her than he did before, which just goes to show geeky science girls are hot.
“This was my grade school growing up,” I tell Bree as I lead her toward the restroom. “I chased a lot of boys around the playground.”
She laughs. “I’m doubting they worked too hard at not being caught.”
“Girls have cooties,” I remind her. “At least until a certain age.”
“And then boys stop caring about the cooties.”
“Exactly.” I steer us around a corner past the school library. “How are wedding plans coming along?”
“Barely started,” she admits. “I know it’s sort of old-fashioned to feel like you need to get married before the baby comes, but it’s important to Austin.”
“And to you?”
She laughs and flips a dark curl off her forehead. “I suppose there’s something sort of charming about it. I had sort of an unconventional childhood, so I like the idea of giving my kid a more normal start.”
“Here we are.” I usher us into the restroom, blasted by the scent of industrial soap powder and soggy paper towels as Bree scurries into a stall.
“Thank God,” she says as the door bangs shut behind her. “I had no idea pregnancy would shrink my bladder to the size of a raisin.”
I don’t actually have to pee at all, so I move to the bank of sinks to wash my hands. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask Bree, but I’m not sure how to do it. I wait until she’s flushed and emerged from the stall to take my best stab at it.