The sound he made accompanied a tremor, a stiffening of his body, and not just the part she had between her lips. He thrust just a little. She could feel his struggle as he held himself in check.
The taste of him was as unique as his scent. His noises just as singular. She closed her eyes as she licked him, long strokes with the flat of her tongue, all the way down, then switching her hands to his cock as she licked his balls which seemed to please him a great deal. His pleasure infused her with a flush of heat. A sense of power.
“Oh, God, Gwen.” His voice sounded as tense as his thigh muscles. “Please.”
She lifted her lips. “Tell me.”
He touched her face. “Nothing. Everything. Just more.”
She grinned and took his crown once more, this time she sucked until he groaned, determined to make him beg.
It happened quickly. He wasn’t able to stop the small thrusts. She did everything her mouth could do to him, her fingers playing the counterpoint. It was greed that kept her so busy, to make him thrum in her mouth, to force his gasps.
“Stop, Christ, stop.”
She pulled away her lips, although she couldn’t let go altogether.
He made her when he leaned forward to capture her arms. “Come, now. Where’s the goddamn thing.”
She grabbed the condom before he could haul her up. Slipping it on his moist erection made him hiss and the second it was in place, he practically lifted her to her feet.
“Here,” he said, letting her know he wanted her on top.
She hesitated, but he wasn’t having any of it. He had her on the couch a second later, her knees on either side of his thighs.
“God, I need—” He rose up to kiss her, his tongue fierce as it thrust.
It was both of them she tasted. Even as Paul kissed her savagely until she was poised above him. One hand disappeared from her lower back, and then he grunted and thrust up.
A moment of hesitation, making him strain for more, and then she gave in, not a surrender at all because she wanted him inside her. Filling her.
She rode him, controlling the pace, blessing her Pilates for giving her the strength she needed. His kisses urged her to move faster, harder, but she wouldn’t give in, not yet.
Her movements were purposely slow, but quick wasn’t the goal. Not when she could make him go insane with her squeezes, with the maddening tempo.
His hands were everywhere. Her back, her breasts. A brief grasp of her hair to steady her, then back to her nipples, where he twirled and flicked, ruining her strategic assault.
Hell, it was no use. All her finesse was gone, and it was all about the finish. Cunning man, he reached between them and found her clit. It did the trick. She was riding him now, full out.
With a suddenness that shocked her, he stopped. “Gwen, look at me.”
She shook her head as she squeezed him, urged him to get on with it.
“Look at me,” he said, and this time he took hold of the back of her hair. “Please.”
His face flushed, he stared at her, into her, as he kept her perfectly still while he thrust again and again until she thought her heart would beat out of her chest.
She watched his expression contort into a mask of pure tension, the fight between his cock and his desire to hold back one more second.
As he lost control, he drew her to him, his staccato thrusts rubbing her clit into an explosion of her own. She held on to him as she trembled, as her body spasmed. He kissed her face, all over, just mad kisses until he found her mouth.
They held each other until their hearts calmed. Until the kisses gentled.
“Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do,” she said.
He chuckled, never having heard that as an après-sex comment before. “Appropriate, though,” he said, feeling that he knew a great deal more about her than before.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” he said, lacking the verbal and mental skills to explain. “Don’t expect me to be coherent.”
“Fair enough.”
“I have to say, for a couch, this wasn’t so bad.”
“What do you mean?”
He let his hand smooth down her arm. “It didn’t scratch up my ass.”
He felt her lips curve into a smile.
“First thing I checked out in the department store.”
“Dropped trou, did you?”
“It was a major purchase.”
His head lifted as he grinned, but he couldn’t really see her face so he let it flop back again. “Popcorn and a treat. Best movies ever.”
“It’s not what I expected.”
“No?”
“We were supposed to be friends.”
He lifted his head once more. “Aren’t we?”
“We hadn’t exactly discussed the benefits package.”
He really needed to see her face. He lifted her chin, which upset the balance of things, but had to be done. “Are you sorry?”
The look she gave him was honest, if not quite as satisfying as a whimper and instant denial, but that was Gwen. “I don’t know. I don’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. God, I did. But—” she sat up, tugged the blanket a bit to cover her lap “—I’m not sure where it leaves us.”
“Does it have to leave us anywhere in particular?”
Her shrug said as much as her troubled gaze. “I’d like to say no, but that’s not how I operate. I’m not a casual sex kind of person.”
“Nothing about you is casual.”
She poked him lightly with her elbow. “If that was supposed to be a compliment, it sucked.”
“It was.” He ran a hand over his face, then sat up a bit straighter. “I admire it, though. I like that you have high standards.”
“I suppose—no, I don’t understand that, either.”
“Case in point,” he said. “But I’ll try to explain. You don’t settle, and you expect the best from me. Which makes me want to give you my best. I’ve never had that with a friend before, benefits notwithstanding. The truth is, somewhere during the past few weeks, I realized I wanted more.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I kissed you.”
She sighed in the nicest way. “Yes, you did.”
“And as I recall, you kissed me back.”
This time, he got a nod.
He stroked her face with the back of his fingers. “What do you want?”
She captured his hand and held it there for a moment. “I don’t know. I was just getting used to the friendship part.”
He thought about that. About what being friends with Gwen had started out as, and how different it was from anything he’d experienced before. It had never occurred to him that he was moving too fast. In his life before Gwen, these things tended to happen quickly, skipping over the friendship altogether. The only exception in recent memory had been Autumn, but she didn’t seem to count anymore. It felt as if meeting Gwen had forced a spotlight on Autumn’s game-playing, and in that glare, it had lost all its charm.
“Hello?” She looked him in the eyes, waiting.
He wanted the sex. It balanced things for him, but he skittered away from that thought. No, he’d wanted her. “I should have waited.”
“Please don’t feel bad. I was right there with you. I could have said no.”
“That’s fair. Tell you what. Let’s play it by ear. I’ll try to be more focused on the friend thing.”
“I like that. I’m still learning so much about you.”
“Huh. That’s a pretty shallow pool.”
“No, it’s not. I thought it would be, but you’ve turned out to be an interesting guy.”
“Don’t let that get out. It’ll ruin my reputation in this town.”
She grinned. “We’re in Pasadena. You’re still safe in Hollywood.”
After looking at a face that had changed so much in such a short time, he pulled her into a kiss. Nothing fancy. Just a hope, perhaps that while the whole nine yards might be off-limits, this might not be. Kissing her was something he didn’t want to give up.
Finally, she drew away. Pushed some hair back from his forehead with the tips of her delicate fingers. “It’s late.”
“One thing, and then I’ll go.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Friends with kissing, that could work, right?”
She looked at him with those green eyes of hers. He could practically see the debate inside her head. Finally, she smiled, and he knew her answer.
“Yes. Friends with kissing could work.”
“Yippee,” he said, mocking his own exuberant reaction so she wouldn’t get scared and change her mind. “I’ll wash up.” He stood, left her the blanket, gathered his pile of clothes and went into the bathroom. As he cleaned up, he tried to remember why he’d considered her so plain. Probably the contrast to Autumn. But now that he knew Gwen so well, the scales had shifted. There was little better than winning a smile from Gwen.
Naturally, when he got to the door he wanted to try the whole friends with kissing thing. Just to make sure they both understood the concept.
Wrapped in her blanket, he tugged her close and kissed her. Not a peck, either, but a long, hot kiss that made them both moan. When he broke away, it was with real regret, but also hope. Oh, yeah. Friends with kissing was a great start. He just prayed he could stand it while he waited for her to see the wisdom of a comprehensive benefit package.
IT WAS FOUR DAYS until he saw her again. Monday night trivia, and of course, he arrived only minutes before the game. She had saved him a seat, and there was a game player waiting, but what he mostly wanted was a beer.
He sat down, pleased to be in the hubbub and chatter of the now-familiar gang from her work. He knew everyone at the table tonight, which was cool.
First thing, he turned on his machine. Second, he leaned over and kissed Gwen a proper hello, although it wasn’t nearly the kiss he could have planted on her. Then he went to type in his nickname. When he looked up, no one at the table was talking. In fact, they were all staring at him. With a thunk, he realized that he’d just done a very stupid thing.
He cleared his throat and looked desperately for a waitress as he cast about for some way to fix this. She worked with these people. She clearly didn’t want them to know they were kissing friends, and here he’d been so pleased that he’d shown such restraint.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Gwen said, her voice pleasant, her glare not so much.
His whole face got hot, but when he dared look at her, there was no real anger in her eyes. Braver, he looked at his tablemates. They were obviously bewildered, but no one shot him furious glares or threw anything at him. The last test would be Holly.
She was all shock, but pissed off, too. Not at him, though. At Gwen. Holly leaned over his back, forcing his head down to the table.
He heard Gwen say, “Ouch,” and figured Holly had given her a shot in the arm.
“What was that for?” Gwen said.
Holly grunted, but in a feminine way. “You know perfectly well.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. We’ll talk later, I promise. But the game’s starting now, and I think you’re killing Paul.”
Holly eased up but gave him a shriveling glare. “Some nerve.” She gave him a pop, too, and it hurt quite a bit. “She’s my best friend. I should have been in the loop.”
“Sorry,” he said, wishing the beer would get there, wishing he didn’t want to rub his arm like a little girl. Glad it was out in the open, and that he could touch Gwen tonight. He’d missed her, even through a ridiculously busy few days. There’d been no reading, no movies, not even any baseball games. Just work, a phone call here and there and some nice memories to put him to sleep.
After the first question came up on the board, Gwen leaned over so her mouth was close to his ear. “Smoothly done, Casanova.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back. “I didn’t think.”
“I forgive you.”
He turned fully to her, the whisper be damned. “Do you now? How magnanimous.”
She nodded, pleased with herself.
He leaned toward her, shifting his glance between her eyes and the big board while he moved his hand to his game machine. He made sure she was looking at him, though, when the next question popped. That’s when he kissed her again. A long one. If there’d been any doubts before from any of her coworkers, they were dispelled by the smoldering lip-lock. Of course, he answered the trivia question at the same time, and when the answer period was over, he let her go. He couldn’t suppress his grin, knowing he’d won on two counts.
She looked up at the board. Then at him. Then she socked him in the other arm. It hurt a lot worse than Holly’s punch.
GWEN KEPT HERSELF as calm as possible as the game continued. It wasn’t his fault, that kiss, not really. They hadn’t discussed the public face of their relationship. Friendship. Besides, it had been a spontaneous gesture that had been not only sweet but a little breathtaking, so she couldn’t be mad at him. She’d learned long ago to defuse tricky situations by acting as if they weren’t tricky at all. But now that they were pressing buttons, trying to win, drinking beer, in essence back to normal, the gravity of what he’d done hit her.
These were the people she worked with. To most of them, she was the boss, although in her office there wasn’t much of a caste system. There was a great deal of camaraderie, but when things got dicey they all knew her word was final. No one objected and the atmosphere at work was mostly jovial, if task oriented.
She’d only brought one man into the fold at all, and that had been on two occasions. Alex had been nice, but mostly a rebound guy, and their dalliance hadn’t lasted long.
Paul, on the other hand, had been allowed in on the basis of being her friend. No hint had been given that there was more. Well, Holly had wanted it to be a love affair, but that was Holly. No wonder she was cranky. Gwen wasn’t even sure why she’d kept things so quiet.
Although she hadn’t seen Paul since that night on the couch, they’d spoken every day. Poor guy, he’d been slammed with work and clients and entertaining, but he still managed to sneak in his daily call.
While it had been nice to speak to him, she hadn’t been prepared for dreaming about him. Not just any dreams, either. Vivid, sexy, naked dreams.
Naturally, she didn’t tell him. Not when she was so confused about what this thing was between them. At least she still had a grasp on the fact that sexual attraction was not enough. Although it sure felt as if it would be. No, there were issues to be dealt with. Big ones.
For example, the incongruity of the two of them together. Even now Kenny kept sneaking stares, his expression perplexed, although he tried to hide it. And there was Steph, shaking her head with what looked to be disbelief.
Gwen shifted her attention to the game, her drink, anything rather than see the reactions around her. It wasn’t a surprise. Come on. She might have a lot of good qualities, but beauty wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t something she could hide or disguise. What pissed her off was that it had never been a part of her relationships at work. Never.
She pressed the button on her machine, realizing too late it was the wrong name. She swore, not just at her bad answer, but at her concern over what her friends thought. Ridiculous. She had nothing to apologize for. Nothing to feel weird about.
“What is going on with you?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, so near to her.
“You’re going to win,” she whispered. “I hate that.”
“Get used to it, darlin’. I rock at this.”
She gave him a glare, then said, “Cheater” semidisguised as a cough. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“Oooh, how?” He looked entirely too excited.
“I don’t know yet. It won’t be the fun kind of revenge, mark my words.”
He laughed, which got everyone looking at them. Gwen kissed him, which he really didn’t deserve. But what the hell, right? He made her laugh, and he made her happy. If anyone didn’t like it, they could just screw off.
FINALLY, PAUL WAS UP TO BAT for the first time.
Gwen stood in the bleachers right next to Holly. She wanted him to knock it out of the ballpark, but barring that, to not strike out. He’d been touted as a ringer. He certainly looked like one. Terribly buff in his T-shirt and jeans, he even managed to make the batting helmet look sexy.
“Go, Paul!” Holly was shouting so loud Gwen had to cover her ears.
“I don’t think they heard you in St. Louis.”
“I’m just being an excellent teammate,” Holly said. “You should be shouting, too.”
“I’m encouraging him in my own way.”
Holly bumped her shoulder. “He can’t see you crossing your fingers.”