Asking For It (22 page)

Under the rug. Gone now. Forget about it
.

"But if I'm here to give you physical pleasure, Kate, you're sitting too far away."

She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest.

Clearly, despite the agreement they'd just made, Griffith had more work to do. How he was to do it, however, without a Porsche or a twentieth-floor view of West Los Angeles, he had no idea. Once again, he had nothing to fall back on but his own self.

This was obviously not enough, but he wasn't giving up. Releasing a deep breath, he scooted closer to Kate with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Kate," he said.

She threw him a warning look.

"Now, you're going to have to let me use your name," Griffith admonished. "Strictly in passion, I promise."

She snorted again, but this time with a hint of amusement.

All right, that was good. Amusement. Now, what? Griffith had nothing to offer except...whatever she most wanted from him. Like her laugh just then. He'd have to watch, see what pleased, and try to give her more of it.

Feeling more optimistic, Griffith scooted yet closer. "Now, I wasn't wrong about that, was I? You do want passion?"

She threw him a sidelong look.

"All right, maybe not passion," Griffith corrected himself. "Not straightaway, anyhow. Maybe we ought to start with..."
Tenderness
? No, no, no. She'd established she didn't want that. "A bit of play," Griffith proposed, and tilted his head to watch her reaction.

The corner of her lips twitched.

That was a go, then. Griffith let his own lips curve generously upward. He chucked her lightly under the chin. She looked up, warning sparks in her eyes, but Griffith figured that was all part of the play. He touched his lips to hers again. This time he kissed teasingly, nipping from one side to the other.

Did she like that? It was all he had to give her, this...attentiveness. He felt her shudder with something between a laugh and arousal.

Amusement and arousal stirred within him, mirroring her response. Hey...this was fun.

Griffith caught her lower lip between his teeth, then opened his mouth over hers, shifting her from the amusement further toward the arousal.

She made the transition without protest, opening her mouth beneath his and clinging to his shoulders. Rather than seek his own pleasure, Griffith paid close attention to hers. Did she like his tongue curling over hers? Yes? Like that? Ah. And that?

It was the most amazing kiss he'd ever experienced. Every time he felt her shudder or shift or grab him closer, a fresh burst of pride and desire zigzagged through him.

And they were only kissing.

Although, admittedly, they were about to move beyond that. Griffith could feel Kate's movements growing restless against him. She wanted more.

He smoothed one of his hands under her shirt. With a shamelessly practiced movement, he unhooked her bra.

She tensed. Griffith hesitated.
Didn't she want this
? But then he realized it was the tension of anticipation. She was waiting for him to cup his hand around her breast. Letting out a breath of gratitude, he did just that. Soon he had the softest, sweetest breast in his hand.

She tensed yet more, but arched her back, clearly wanting her breast in his hand, perhaps wanting him to do something with it. Griffith rubbed his thumb over her taut nipple. A wavering cry came out of her mouth.

It was like no experience of breast-fondling Griffith had ever known. When his movements made her twist or grip his shoulders with steely fingers, he felt her pleasure as his own. And that made him seem to understand exactly what to do, how tight to squeeze, when to stop and how to soothe. She was pressing kisses against his cheek, his throat, wherever she could reach, occasionally using her teeth when the sensations threatened to overcome her.

Griffith could have spent the rest of the night doing nothing more than play with Kate's breasts.

Or at least, he thought he could be satisfied with that until she began tugging on his shirt, one of Arnie's oversized things. Griffith hissed in a breath, astonished by the sensitivity of his chest to her fingers as they sneaked under the knit.

"Off," she breathed.

Using a hand behind his neck, Griffith pulled. Kate helped, tugging on the material he brought over his head. And then those hands were all over him, burrowing under his chest hair, spreading across his pectorals and sliding with violent sensation over his own rigid nipples.

"Kate." He sounded like a man being strangled.

She laughed low. "Now that's how I want to hear my name."

"Kate," he said again, grasping onto control. He had to stay in control if he wanted to keep her interested. He caught hold of her hands and held them tight against his burning skin.

"What?" she asked.

"You're driving me crazy."

Her expression was frankly astonished. "And you think you weren't doing that to me?"

"Yes, but it's okay for
you
to go crazy — "

Whatever Griffith might have added was lost beneath Kate's bark of a laugh. "What? Why am I the lucky — ?"

But Griffith didn't let her finish. Drawing her hands apart from each other and bringing her close, he pressed his mouth against hers in another deep, damp kiss.

She melted, as he'd hoped. He let go of her hands and worked on the buttons of her blouse.

But once he had her shirt unbuttoned and slipped it off her shoulders, she appeared to consider his chest fair game again. He braced himself against the fingers of pleasure that streaked from her touch, and set himself the task of undoing the waistband of her jeans.

Ah, women's jeans, so much easier than men's. There was nothing but a single button and one quick zipper. As Griffith lowered that zipper, he could feel Kate arch again. This time he knew it was anticipation. "Knees," Griffith murmured, "Get on your knees."

She instantly complied, a fact he would go over at length and with pleasure much later. For now, Griffith drew her jeans down over her hips. Ah, those hips, how many times he had watched them, usually strutting away from him, but always tantalizing. And now...

And now, he had to keep a grip. He had to stay focused on her needs. He had to finish getting these pants off her. Griffith let out a long, careful breath. "Could you — ? Ah, yes."

Understanding what he wanted, she shifted so that he could pull her pants, together with her silky underthings, all the way down her legs and off.

She shivered, and Griffith pulled her into his lap. The feel of her naked skin against him, so smooth, so feminine, was nearly his undoing, but he concentrated on her reactions once again. "Yes, yes," he murmured, waiting for her shivers to calm. His hands trembled where they splayed across her naked back. "Let's...lie down," he suggested.

"Okay," Kate murmured back.

She clung to him as Griffith lowered them both to the blanket. Then they were side by side, facing each other.

How strange that as many times as he'd lain in this position with a woman it had never felt...intimate. Griffith dropped a soft kiss on Kate's lips. "Let's..." He moved his hand in big circles on her back. Her skin looked like sugared cream in the darkness. He wanted to lick every inch of it.

But Kate didn't appear to be in the mood for long preliminaries. She was wriggling against him, obviously wanting, but not wanting to ask.

Instinct told Griffith that even though she was asking, he'd better tread carefully. With his own loins burning, he slowly slid his hand from her back to curve over her hip. She rocked those hips against him.

More
.

Griffith clenched his teeth. He would give her more, but slowly.

"Griffith." It was a low demand. She placed one leg over his thigh.

Griffith couldn't resist an invitation like this. His hand went between her spread legs.

With a cry, she shoved her hips against him. He took the hint, walking his fingers in the hot, wet playground between her legs. His whole body was burning now. His erection was a pillar of need. But all he really knew were the unsteady breaths issuing from Kate's lips, the rock of her body against his, and the slick evidence he was giving her pleasure.

With a shift of his weight, Griffith turned her onto her back. He uncurled her leg from his thigh and laid it so she was spread nice and wide. She looked up at him from slitted eyes.

Confirming her suspicion, Griffith used her new position to find exactly where she wanted his fingers, how deeply to stroke, when to speed up and when to slow down. Her slitted eyes closed all the way and she moaned her delight.

Griffith felt like exploding, but he concentrated on her, on where she liked him and how. Only when her movements became restless again, only when her eyes opened and fixed on him with mute appeal did he take his fingers from the pleasure places between her legs.

He jerked open the button on his own waistband, and the four buttons beneath. Kate rose onto her elbows and watched as Griffith hustled out of his jeans. When he was done, she hummed and reached out for him.

Griffith had to steel himself against his reaction to her light, curious touch. As it was, he couldn't resist pushing himself into her hand, delighting in the testing, tentative pressure.

"Yes," Kate said, and looked up at him.

Griffith almost lost it right there, her fingers light and sweet on his sex, her eyes like pools of eternal mystery. But his goal loomed urgently in front of him. He had to make her the one to feel pleasure, her the one to want it — and thus him. Yes, he so wanted — even needed — her to want him. Just him.

"Yes?" He leaned over to kiss her, a kiss to seek and to learn. Did she want the ultimate pleasure? Was it time?

She clung to him, her thighs parted to hug him. Even discounting the static caused by his own raging desire, it was rather clear she was ready.

But Griffith couldn't do it this way, with Kate supine beneath him. The leaves he'd stuffed under the blanket would do nothing to cushion his weight. So, gathering her close, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him so that she now lay on top.

"Oh!" Abruptly, his wanton lover was gone. "Oh, no. I can't."

"Yes, darling." Griffith pushed her legs apart and put his fingers between them. He found her pleasure point while kissing her lips. "You can."

"Oh." She widened her legs. "Maybe I..." She gasped in a ragged breath. "Can."

The condoms. Where the hell had he left them? Griffith's brain was a haze of desire. It was mindless memory that had him groping with his free hand toward his discarded pants. He fumbled into the front pocket and pulled out one of the plastic packages.

He would have preferred to get the thing on without interrupting his play between Kate's creamy thighs, but it was physically impossible. Fortunately, she seemed to understand there was a task to perform. She sat up and saw the little package in his hand.

With an impatient sound, she plucked the thing from him, ripped it open, and rolled the condom onto his erect member.

"Please," Griffith muttered with a shudder.

"Yes, please," Kate groaned.

He took her shoulders, drew her down. His mouth opened over hers and his tongue plunged inside, the way he wanted all of him to plunge in.

She took his tongue, rolled her own around it. Her slick sex slid over his.

Oh, God. They had to — now.

Griffith lifted her hips, positioned himself, and though his body screamed for instant relief, lowered her slowly.

He was immediately glad for his care. Despite their play and her apparent readiness, she was tight inside. Griffith could hear her breath hiss out from between her teeth, but her hips rocked, letting her body take more of him, a quarter of an inch at a time. He gritted his teeth and let her work the problem at her own pace.

It was worth the effort. With each fraction of himself that went inside of her, a notch went up in her pleasure. Griffith could feel it; he could feel her body softening and then tightening around his. He could feel the change in the rhythm of her breathing, the urgency of her movements.

When she'd taken him fully, Griffith allowed himself a moment to savor that, to feel the fireworks of sensation crackling all over him. Then he began to move.

Every impulse screamed for him to grab her hips and pump himself into her, seeking his own peak. It's what he would have done two weeks ago, with whatever woman he'd found in his bed. He did not do anything of the sort now. Instead he played the dancer, alternately taking the lead and following, his own sensations inextricably twined with his partner's.

It was amazing. It was incredible. It was like no sexual experience Griffith had ever had. The pleasure wrapped his body in tight coils, from his toes up to the hair on his forehead. The most amazing part was his perception that his sensations were a male mirror of Kate's. He felt pleasure because she did. He climbed to paradise because she did.

When her body tightened, urgent, frantic, his hands gripped her close, his hips jerked powerfully. She arched. Her face was the most beautiful image Griffith had ever seen, a picture of fulfillment. His heart seemed to grow to the size of a mountain. Need and pleasure shot together into a flaring beam of light. He held Kate tight, unwilling to go without her. And then they were both flying. Together.