Beauty Shot (Hope Parish Novels Book 5) (11 page)

“I was waiting
for the right person.”

“Deke…”

“You’re
the right person. I know that. Knew it from the moment I saw you.
Even if you can’t ever let go of this age thing, I still want
to be with you.”

She smoothed her
hands over my chest. “How did I get so lucky?” I ducked
my head, a fire burning my cheeks. “You don’t have to be
so embarrassed.”

“You’re
a grown-ass woman, and I’ve never done it. It’s a little
embarrassing for me.”

“Why did you
wait? Most guys would have gone for it by now.”

“I grew up
with great parents. They always worked things out, took great care of
us. It was really my momma who made me want to wait for that right
person.”

“Your mum told
you about the birds and the bees?”

“Yeah.”

There was that blush
again. “Oh, Deke, you’re melting my heart.”

“Good. She
explained to me that sex was both a biological and an emotional
process. She reminded me that animals do it, that all creatures
reproduce, but she said that humans have a choice. They aren’t
just ruled by their hormones. They’re ruled by their hearts.
Sex can be mindless and about gratification, especially when you’re
a guy and all you think about is sex. And believe me, that’s
true. It wasn’t easy to curb my appetites. I jerked off a lot.
But I made the decision to abstain until I found someone who meant
something to me.” He looked deep into my eyes. “That
someone is you, Minnie.”

I kissed her.

“You make it
impossible to resist you.”

Her kiss…God,
tonight her kiss was enough to undo me. We’d barely begun, and
she was already primed to take me to the edge, and I realized I’d
never been there before now. I might have thought I was, but I
couldn’t remember any encounter, any other woman, any other
kiss. She made a sound in the back of her throat, the kind certain to
draw a man’s attention and get him hard, and my body heeded the
call. She felt so good.

Instinct slid my
hands up under her shirt, one smooth sweep of my palms up to her bra,
and for a second she stopped breathing. I rubbed my thumbs across her
nipples, making them hard and feeling the wonderful soft weight of
her breasts in my hands and the amazing texture of lace over silken
skin. She groaned into my mouth.

The sound shot
through me like wildfire. Geezus. I didn’t question it any
further—nothing had ever felt more right.

I recognized lust,
and it was running hot through my veins, but there was something
more. Something beyond the burning ache I felt for her. Something
fiercer, something with an edge of desperation I was trying to ignore
and could barely comprehend. If this was love, I didn’t want to
know. It was too soon. The emotion was too heavy and too demanding,
too seriously naïve, and it made me a little crazy.

Kissing her was
already making me crazy. Her mouth was hot and wet and had gone from
sweet to demanding. She wanted more, and I obliged, gently sucking on
her tongue, setting a rhythm I matched with my hips. If she’d
had any doubts before, she knew now what I wanted from her.

Everything.

I wasn’t
ignorant about what to do. I had read up on it. I had wanted to find
out how a woman responded to a man, what kinds of things turned them
on, and there was a wealth of information about it on the net. I paid
special attention to that soft, hot core of her that was the very
source of her pleasure.

“I’m
going to take you upstairs. That damn elevator opens right into your
place. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down.”

She giggled and I
smiled down into her face. I didn’t want to let her go, so with
a quick movement, I swept her up against me. Her eyes widened and she
laughed again, her face relaxed and so, so sweet. I went up the
stairs and kissed her when we hit the hall. I was still kissing her
when I entered her room.

#

Minnie

I was losing it.
Sinking into desire and confusion—and desire kept winning,
every second, every heartbeat.

I wasn’t proud
of how I had behaved, what I had said to the press. I’d hurt
him and I’d never forget his eyes and how they had wrecked me.
I wished I could take it all back, but it wasn’t possible.

When his lips lifted
from mine, I said, softly, “Again, I’m very sorry, Deke.”

“Accepted,”
he said with that devastating grin, and his mouth lowered again to
mine.

I kept trying be
very peeved with him for being so irresistible. But what he was doing
with his mouth made anger a slippery emotion. The taste and smell of
him made a muddle out of my attempt to do the right thing. Who wanted
to be right when he was kissing me like this?

I’d lasted
merely seconds when he looked at my mouth, but had truly been lost
the minute he’d said he’d been waiting for someone
special.

I was older than
Deke and thought we weren’t compatible, but he was changing
that every minute I was with him. He wanted me. He wanted me
passionately, with his tongue halfway down my throat, his hands all
over me, his breathing ragged. No rules, and nobody in control.

The realization
added a dark thrill to the whole heart-stopping experience of having
Deke make love to my mouth. There was no other explanation of how he
was kissing me. It was beyond my experience, transcending even the
word. His slow, deliberate thrust of his tongue was simply
intimate-speak for something much more daring.

He released me, let
me slide against all that brilliant muscle, and I groaned when he
trailed his hand up under my skirt, and a moment’s panic
stirred to life in my veins—too late. He had been unerring, his
hand moving between my legs, where he cupped me with his palm, and at
that point he knew as well as I just how much I wanted him.

I had a moment of
doubt. Not because I thought he would be clumsy or inept, but because
he was so earnest, and I was so damned vulnerable, and everything I’d
worked for, everything Verity had worked for, was on the line here. I
didn’t want to be like Angela. I was too deeply into Deke to
pull away, especially when his fingers slowly slid beneath my panties
and began moving over me so very, very gently. The kiss came to a
sudden, heart-catching stop, leaving both of us standing very still,
breathing into each other’s mouths, hardly daring to move.

“God, you are
so soft,” he murmured against my lips. “So beautiful.”

His words were
hushed with emotion, charging my senses, and I knew the touch of his
hand would not be enough, would never be enough. I wanted him the way
I had him in my most carnal fantasies. I wanted him filling me up,
driving me to the satisfaction of release. I wanted him to make me
feel more like a woman than I had ever felt with a man my own age—and
had no doubts he would be even better.

#

Deke

I felt the surrender
in her body, felt her soften against me in so many stirring ways, and
I knew the battle had been won, if there had even been a battle. She
was so feminine, sublime, the kind of woman who drove men mad. She
was where the
Wild
Things
were. Living up to that concept with every cell of her being just as
I expected.

Breaking off the
kiss, but holding her where she stood, I murmured, “There’s
something wild in you, Minnie. I want that.” The truth put a
fierce edge on my desire. I reached for my jeans and pulled out a few
condoms.

“No surprises,
Minnie.” My voice was husky when I held them up. “I want
to be inside you and feel you come all over me.”

“No
surprises?” she said softly, her hands slipping up under my
T-shirt as her gaze slid away from mine. “I don’t usually
have an orgasm with a man inside me. So, I’m letting you know
so you don’t think it’s you. All right?” Her
confession was barely a whisper, and it was with obvious effort that
she lifted her eyes back up to meet mine. “All I have to do is
look at you and you…”

Turn me on.
She didn’t have to say it. I knew. I got exactly the same way,
hot all over.

She wasn’t
blushing. Bold and fearless Minnie. Geezus, I wanted to be deep
enough inside her to reach everything she could give. She didn’t
come with a man inside her? She’d all but said her sex life was
uneventful—and although I was experienced with my own dick, I
had never touched a woman, or pleasured her.

So, uh, no pressure.

I wasn’t one
to worry about getting her off with my dick. If that didn’t
work, I would be inventive. The internet was a powerful learning tool
for just about anything.

I was also a very
fast learner.

Holding her gaze
steadily with my own, I gently rubbed my thumb across her mouth and
said, “No worries. I made sure one of my surfing projects was a
woman’s anatomy. I was fascinated, turned on, and attentive,
shug.” Then I leaned down and sucked on her neck.

Then I moved to her
jawline, her throat, across her collarbone, and all the while I was
pushing her shirt up under her arms, exposing her breasts. When I got
to her nipple with my tongue, she stiffened on a gasp, then melted on
a groan when I pushed the cup up and covered her with my mouth and
began to suck.

Her reaction was
erotic as hell, but not as erotic as having Minnie in my mouth. The
taste of her skin was incredibly good. I devoured her with the gentle
suction of my mouth.

“The bed…I
want to feel you on top of me.”

I slid my hands up
under her skirt again, cupping her bottom and stripping her underwear
off her, then lifting her against the wall. Stepping between her
legs, I pulled her against my crotch, seating her firmly against me.
I pumped my hips uncontrollably, and she gasped, no doubt from the
rough fabric of my jeans against my hard-on. I couldn’t handle
direct contact right now. My mouth settled back on hers and I took it
without control. I kissed her and we breathed each other in for a few
minutes.

“Back up,”
she said softly and as her feet touched the floor, I reached for my
belt buckle. I needed some relief; I needed her.

When her hands came
down to help, I let her take over and moved my hands back up to
caress her breasts and take her mouth in another soul-shattering
kiss.

Oh, yeah, this was
how it was supposed to be—her small hands working my belt
buckle, unbuttoning my jeans. Her fingers pulled the tab on my
zipper, grazing my erection, every move she made turning me on and
winding me up tighter.

When she pushed my
pants down low on my hips and took my dick in her hand with
languorous, rhythmic strokes, I groaned with the pure, mindless
pleasure of it. Sliding my hand back up between her legs, I returned
the favor, playing with her ever so gently, teasing her and
exploring. It was heaven.

Her soft, swollen,
slick core was just how I wanted her, her most primal response in
readiness for me—just because I was touching her. I knew we
would be great together. I’d known it back in Suttontowne.

“Deke,”
she whispered, her mouth moving over my face, leaving a trail of
frantic kisses. “Oh, Deke.” Her voice was soft, her words
nearly inaudible.

I sheathed myself
with the condom. She was so ready, I knew it without even having to
ask or touch her. When I entered her, she sighed in my ear, a sweet,
shuddering sigh, as if at long last she, too, was coming home. She
gloved me in her tight, hot, wonderful body, cradling and clamping
down on me.

My chest heaved, my
knees buckling. It felt more fantastic than anything had ever felt in
my life. Geezus, this is what I’d been missing?

I thrust, and she
clung to me. She was warm and loving and whispering in my ear—soft
words, and my name over and over, like a litany of her most secret
desires. Her breast were full and soft, pillowed against my chest, my
hot hands on her bare bottom and hot between her legs, taking her
higher and higher with each thrust of my driving hips.

She was going to
come for me. I could feel it in the tightening of her legs around my
waist, in the arch in her back, in the clutch of her hands on my
upper arms. She was reaching…reaching, her breath coming in
short, ragged pants. When her release hit, it hit me like a riptide,
dragging me under on a wave of intense, searing pleasure as she
contracted around me. I jerked against her, deepening our contact,
burying myself deep, and I came, endlessly, pouring into her, until I
had no more.

It was everything
I’d fantasized and more.

All I’d ever
wanted. I found her mouth and took it with a long, lazy, devouring
kiss, my heart racing like a freight train, my breath coming hard,
the soft, lazy ripples of her orgasm playing over me like the
sweetest torture.

I cupped her bottom
and pulled her close, away from the wall, then toed out of my boots
and kicked off my jeans. Walking across the room, I eased her down
onto the bed. Baring her shoulder, I pressed another kiss to her
skin. Then I kissed her neck, and her cheek, and her eyebrows. She
was beautiful, so beautiful, her body hot beneath mine, still pulsing
with the pleasure we’d shared.

Minnie stirred, and
I quieted her with another kiss, stripping her shirt and bra off,
aching at the sight of her beauty. “Shh,” I murmured,
stroking her, long gentle sweeps from her waist and up over her
breasts. “Don’t move. Not yet.”

Her lashes rose,
revealing the gaze of a slumberous, satisfied woman, and heat coiled
in my groin.

Ten minutes, I
thought, leaning down over her, running my tongue over her skin, ten
more minutes—or God, maybe five…or one—and I’d
be ready to go again. I loved the way she smelled, the way she
tasted. Her skin was so soft, silky, everything I’d ever
dreamed it would be.

“Shh.” I
kept kissing her—and thinking, God, she came for me,
effortlessly, like a wave coming to shore.