Once past her knee, he spread his fingers, mapping a path along her inner thigh and then stopping, dammit, stopping. Stopping with his fingertips barely brushing the dip where her leg ended and sensation began.
She closed her eyes and shuddered, opened them again and moved her bare foot to the floor, the other to the bench between Blue"s spread legs. On these laces he wasted no time, and in seconds she was left wearing nothing but her thong.
"Turn around," Blue ordered, and she did. "Back up here," he added, and again she complied, holding her breath until she felt the brush of fingertips up the backs of her thighs to her bottom.
She held her clutched hands between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, wondering how she would survive this night when she wanted to weep with the waiting. And when she knew this would not be the only night she would cry wanting Blue Miller"s touch.
At the creak of the bench, she tensed further, then gasped at the feel of his mouth: his lips nibbling the fleshy cheeks of her bottom, his teeth taking tiny nips of her skin, his tongue slipping beneath the elastic band of her thong and following it down her crevice.
His hands gripped her hips and urged her to step closer before the palm he moved to the small of her back pressed her down. She bent at the waist; her hands on her thighs kept her steady as Blue wedged a knee between her legs and spread her apart.
She heard the click of a pocketknife, briefly felt the cold blade before he sliced through the silk, once, twice. The thong fell to her feet. And then his hands seemed to be everywhere at once, her spine, her thighs, her bottom, deep between her legs where one long index finger separated her l.a.b.i.a.
She ached, she burned, and he did nothing but circle the tiny bud of hardened flesh before pulling away to spread the moisture that seeped from her core. He pushed into her then, the blunt tip of one finger seeking out and finding the soft pillow of her G-spot inside.
He rubbed and stroked, pulled out and pushed in, one finger first, then with two, until she whimpered and gasped. And then he withdrew, but only long enough to enter her with his thumb, holding her there and running the flat pad of two fingers up between her lips to find the hood of her c.l.i.t.
He squeezed. She cried out, and he immediately let go, frustrating her further when he did nothing more than coat her with her own juices, sweeping the fluid back from her v.a.g.i.n.a to rub in circles over the b.u.t.ton of her a.s.s.
Anything. He could do anything. She ached with the need to come. She wanted him to take her, any way, every way. But he didn"t take her at all. He pulled back, and she straightened, frustration growling loudly from her belly up her throat.
"d.a.m.n you, Thomas Miller," she whispered, emotion clogging her throat.
Behind her, Blue stood, nearly strangling on a desperate laugh. "Ah, Jess. You"re still the wh.o.r.e all men want to find in their bed, do you know that?"
She bristled, and turned to face him, her breathing labored, her pulse racing. She looked up into his eyes, seeing the reflection of her own flashing as hotly as his, seeing a hunger that told her she could snap her fingers and bring him to his knees.
The power she held over him thrilled her. It equaled the power he held over her. "No, Blue. I"m only a wh.o.r.e in your bed. Never in anyone else"s."
Chapter Six.
He wanted to know what she meant.
He couldn"t believe any woman who loved s.e.x the way Jessie did wouldn"t act on her urges, respond with the same fire, no matter the man. He didn"t want to believe her. He couldn"t believe her. Believing her meant falling into whatever trap she"d come here to set.
He"d never zipped up his fly after his earlier back porch fun, so he made quick work of skinning off his boxers and jeans. And then there he stood, naked in front of the only woman he"d ever wanted to marry. Anger warred with pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t, battled the sort of physical longing he hadn"t experienced for years.
In the end, he said nothing. He simply took her hand and took the two short steps from the dressing alcove into the outdoor shower.
He turned on the water, adjusted the temperature until steam rose and billowed, backed up beneath the spray and drew Jessie close. Her hands went around his back to cup his shoulder blades; she rested her head in the center of his chest and sighed.
Gathering her hair into one hand, he slipped an arm around her, and then he stood there, afraid to move and hating himself for what felt like a monumental weakness. He was supposed to be long over this woman, but nothing had felt this right in years.
Though he"d hoped the heat from his body would warm her, still Jessie shivered. He took another step back and turned to the side, letting the water sluice over them both until the steam enveloped the enclosure, wrapping them in its fine mist.
He didn"t remember her being so small or so thin, and that physical fragility bared the claws of his protective instincts. It didn"t matter that a cold day in h.e.l.l would dawn before she came to a man for protection. She"d always made him feel like she needed him.
And right now it was hard to separate those feelings from what was going on with him physically, what with her gorgeous b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed to his chest and his c.o.c.k throbbing where he"d shoved it against her belly, there where she wiggled and squirmed as if wanting to take him inside her however she could. The thought that she wanted him that much... he released a purely feral groan.
And then he felt her grin where her mouth met his chest, right before her shivers became a full-body shake. He reached over and upped the flow of hot water.
"The water"s not going to help," she said.
"I thought you were cold."
She shook her head. "No. I"m wonderfully warm."
He stiffened and bit back a curse. "Don"t tell me you"re scared."
"No. Not scared." She snuggled in even closer. "Never scared."
He closed his eyes, unnaturally relieved and wanting nothing less than to examine the reason. "You"re still shaking."
Her entire body trembled. And if her attempt at a laugh was intended to make him feel better, she failed. He felt as though he"d lost total control over the situation and what little was left of his mind.
"Believe me, I wish I could stop. This is not exactly the smooth seduction I"d planned." She lifted her head from his chest, tilted it back enough to look up into his eyes.
All he saw were stars... the reflection of the ones in the sky and those sparked by what Jessie was feeling. She"d never been good at keeping things from him, which was why he"d felt poleaxed when she"d told him good-bye.
He wished he had the strength to show her exactly how abandonment felt. Leaving her wet and trembling and naked in the dark would go a long way toward fulfilling the dream he"d once had of revenge.
But he didn"t have it anymore. And he didn"t resent her anymore for never telling him the truth of why she"d left him. This woman was not that girl. She was so very much more.
And only just now, with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed to his body, her legs twined with his, only now with the way her hands ma.s.saged the very tired muscles in his back did he realize he"d let the past anger go. This moment was about nothing more than the here and the now.
He lowered his head and kissed her.
It was a fantasy kiss, a dream kiss, a kiss like so very few he"d shared in his life. It was a kiss of uncertain exploration, as if neither of them trusted anything about this moment or the rest of the night still to follow.
It was a soft kiss, gentle and tender, and his heartbeat roared in his ears.
What a fool, thinking making love with Jessie could be about revenge. She"d hurt him; he"d wanted to strike back. Now he wanted to do nothing more than make this night one neither of them would ever forget.
He pulled free from the kiss and moved his mouth to the soft skin of her neck, tasting her there beneath her chin, along the line of her jaw, to the spot below her ear that he remembered so well. She gasped as he"d expected, digging fingertips into his rib cage and tossing back her head.
Blood surged to his groin and he widened his stance, pressing his erection even harder into her belly"s soft give. His hands slipped down to cup her bottom, his fingers reaching deep between her cheeks to tease her tender and intimate flesh.
He wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees, to feast on her gorgeously ripe b.r.e.a.s.t.s, to lap and eat at her s.e.x, to shove his tongue into her as far as he could and love her with his mouth until she exploded all over his face.
But she stopped him before he could get his mouth anywhere near her luscious curves. Stopped him by doing no more than stepping away, putting a breath of s.p.a.ce between their bodies and opening her mouth in the center of his chest.
His hands went to her waist while her tongue swirled through the wet hair on his chest to find his nipples, one then the other, teething and tonguing skin and muscle until his eyes rolled back in his head. His c.o.c.k strained upward, reaching for his belly. He"d grown so f.u.c.kin" hard he could hardly move.
It was not until he smelled more than wet skin and damp cedar that he realized Jessie had squirted a ribbon of shower gel in a line across his chest. She pushed him back out of the spray, pinning him to the wall as she went to work ma.s.saging him with her fingertips, digging into the muscles of his chest and shoulders until he felt as if she"d nailed him in place.
He couldn"t move; he didn"t want to move, afraid he"d distract her from the incredible job she was doing of washing away the years of s.e.xual encounters he"d pretended were enough. She opened her palms then, and spread the lather in ever widening circles, moving down his torso to his abs and lower, her hands slipping down either side of his package, into the crease of his thighs.
She forced his legs open, urged his hips forward, rinsing him clean. And then she dropped to her knees, raining kisses back and forth between his thighs as the water pummeled down on her back.
He d.a.m.n sure didn"t want her to choke before she got to where she was going and, then, oh, G.o.dd.a.m.n, but her hand was around his shaft, squeezing hard and stroking as her lips wrapped around his ripely swollen head.
He"d wanted to take care of her pleasure first, but she"d just made it impossible for him to think. All he could do was feel-her hand like a glove and all that sweet pressure, her lips working madly to suck him dry.
He thrust forward because he had to, thrust again before he could hold himself back. And when she urged his legs apart with her free hand, he gave up on anything resembling control and obeyed.
She teased him without mercy, fingering the seam separating his b.a.l.l.s and slipping behind, pressing hard against the skin stretched as taut as that of his c.o.c.k. He ached, and his ball sac drew up, tightening around the stones of his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es as Jessie"s exploration reached deeper.
And then nothing mattered anymore because he couldn"t have stopped her or stopped himself. "Ah, Jess," he cried, his hands flat on the cedar wall at his sides, holding him upright as he filled her with his c.o.c.k and his come.
Chapter Seven.
Wrapped in the circle of his arms and cushioned by the pallet he"d made on the floor, Jessie lay curled against Blue"s body. His nearness warmed her, as did the roaring fire at their feet, and she grinned. What a sight, his mad dash through the house, gathering quilts and pillows while still in the buff, his dangly bits swaying in the breeze.
While still in the backyard enclosure, she"d wanted more than anything to get into the hot tub with Blue, to straddle his body with jets of water pulsing all around. But once they stepped out of the shower"s steam, Blue wasn"t having any more of the water. He wanted her in bed.
Back at the house, he"d started the fire, dragging every piece of bedding he owned to the hearth. She adored his total lack of self-consciousness; she always had. She loved his comfort with his bare body, and the way his confidence put her equally at ease in her own state of undress. She was strangely satisfied, even without a single one of the o.r.g.a.s.ms she"d expected to have experienced by now. Tingly and frustrated, yes. But comfortable. And content.
For the moment, she couldn"t imagine any other place she"d rather be. She was not being stupid; she was fully aware of the danger of deluding herself into thinking she and Blue had a future. As it was, when she left in the morning, she"d mourn losing him a second time. More than making Christmas memories, her time here had shown her that the s.e.x between them was more than physical. It was the mating of souls she"d never know again.
She scooted even closer, hooking a knee over his thigh, moving her head to the center of his chest, walking her fingers from his breastbone down his abdomen to his p.e.n.i.s that lay thick and soft on the pillow of his b.a.l.l.s.
She held him in her hand, enjoying the flaccid weight and the way he stirred anew at her touch. Skating the flat of her palm from the base of his growing shaft to the head, she slipped down beneath to cup his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and marvel at the soft skin of his sac.
One arm bent and cradling his head, Blue growled low in his throat, tucking her even closer with the arm around her back. "My b.a.l.l.s are going to be aching by the time you leave. They haven"t had seen this much action since..."
Curious, Jessie picked up his trailing thought, blowing a stream of breath over a flat nipple before asking, "Since when?"
He hesitated for several seconds, then huffed out a snort. "Since that"s none of your business, Ms. Buchanan. Yeowch!" he yelled when she tugged at a sprig of hair between his legs.
"Tell me," she demanded, knowing that the fantasy of Blue remembering the s.e.x they"d shared as anything out of the ordinary was just that. A fantasy.
"Tell you what?" he asked gruffly. "How long it"s been since I had s.e.x?"
She thought about that for a moment before admitting to herself that she had no rights at all where he was concerned. "Stupid of me, I know. I don"t know why I asked."
"Because you wanted to know?" He chuckled then, but the sound seemed to be more a case of laughing at her than with her or at any sort of shared joke. Then again, what did she expect, tramping off into territory beyond the physical terrain she"d come here to explore.
Laughter was the least she deserved, she thought, sighing as she moved her hand away from his groin back up to his belly. She"d barely reached his navel when he stopped her, grabbing hold of her fingers and wrapping them around his half-hard p.e.n.i.s.
"It"s been a while, Jess. And even longer since it"s been any good." He took a deep breath, exhaled, thrust lightly into her closed fist. "When it got to the point where I did better by myself, I decided it wasn"t worth the ha.s.sle."
She wanted to feel victorious. All she felt was sad. Sad for Blue, and bitter that things couldn"t have been different, and angry with the other women who hadn"t loved him the way he deserved to be loved. And now here she was, doing the very same thing. "I"m sorry."
"For what? The fact that I"m not getting any?" He turned his head toward her, forced hers up so her gaze met his. "Don"t be. It"s my choice. And it"s not like I"ve been in any danger of becoming a monk."
She smiled at that, then cuddled her cheek back down on his chest. Tiny hairs tickled her lips and her nose. "I know. I just feel like I failed you somehow. If I"d been here for you... but I guess that"s rather conceited of me, isn"t it? Thinking I had any impact-"
"You had a lot of impact. More than I should"ve let you have," he added harshly. And then he shrugged. "But, what did I know? I was eighteen and apparently didn"t know much of anything beyond what gra.s.s seed sold best in what month."
He cleared his throat and pulled her up onto his body, wrapping his arms around her back and twining his legs with hers. "One thing I didn"t get, Jess... I was so wrapped up in school and football and the store..." He shook his head. "One thing I wanted to kick my own a.s.s for not seeing was how bad things were with your dad."
"No one saw it. Or understood. You had to live it, to be there, to know what it was like." She trembled, not wanting to revisit the abuse that she"d suffered. She was beyond that now and she would never go back. "I missed my mother so much, but she was in a better place, not having to wonder when he"d go off, not having to bear the brunt of his tirades... or his fists."
Blue stroked his hands down her back, one then the other, as if his touch could soothe what was left of the pain. "You should"ve told me. That p.i.s.sed me off more than anything, hearing the gossip in the store. I wanted to hear it from you."
"Why? So you could take care of things?" She shook her head; the vehemence of her conviction was impossible to hide. "I had to take care of things myself. Leaving September was the only way I would ever feel strong enough to live my life my way. Not his way. And"-G.o.d, she hated to say it-"not your way. I couldn"t risk that you would ask that of me."
He held her tighter, saying nothing; she heard the click of his teeth as he ground his jaw. She felt his muscles tense along his neck, what with her head tucked up beneath his chin, and she wondered what he was thinking. His heartbeat thudded from his chest and into hers where she lay atop his body.
She raised her head, propped her chin on her laced hands resting on his collarbone. "I didn"t want to leave you, but I had to get out. I had to go."
"I know you did, baby. I know." And then he held her quietly while they watched the fire, stroking her softly as if taking the past away.
She"d missed his tenderness so very, very much, missed the way he"d always had of making her feel so... special. As if she were the most precious thing in his busy life, the one part above all else that he needed to survive, that didn"t have to be shared beyond the two of them, that required they meet no expectations but those that were their own.
She"d taken all of that away, no doubt hurting him in ways she couldn"t imagine, and that one thing she would always regret. That, and the way coming back now had opened up those vulnerabilities again. Why had she selfishly not thought of what this weekend might do to Blue? How many mistakes could she possibly make when it came to this man?
Still, she knew-they both had to know-that things had happened the only possible way for two eighteen-year-olds on divergent paths whose lives had reached that big fat fork in the road to adulthood. But here and now, she sighed, snuggling down into Blue"s side. Those days belonged to another lifetime, and this one was so much better.
Finally he said, "You realize, don"t you, that I"ve got you here naked and I"m still not gettin" any."
She looked up into his eyes, beyond the teasing glint to the hint of uncertainty lurking behind. "And I suppose you want me to do something about that?"
"Actually, yeah. That would be pretty d.a.m.n great," he said, his smile growing wide enough to show off the dimples she"d missed seeing.
She pursed her lips, pretending to consider. "I"m not so sure I agree. It seems that things have been a bit onesided around here in the way they"ve been going down."
He huffed. "Think so, huh?"
And then he was on his all-fours kneeling over her, straddling her and leaning down to kiss her full and hard on the lips. Before she could disentangle her arms or get more than a taste of the kiss she so wanted, he was drawing a line down the center of her body with his tongue.
She let her hands fall back beside her shoulders, let her eyes close and did nothing but feel. She felt the heaven of being naked beneath Blue"s body and the magic of his mouth as he tickled and teased her with quick licks and nibbles, aroused her with long lingering open-mouthed kisses on her belly"s soft swell.