Authors: Dawn Atkins
She came right up to him and put her small hands on his chest, fingers spread. She smelled so good. It made him think of spring flowers and sweet cries of pleasure. “You’re exactly what I need, Jackson.” Her words spun through him, her gaze tore him open and he rocked in the white-hot breeze of raw desire.
Behind her, the saxophone moaned like a beast in heat.
Heidi slid her fingers under his T-shirt and stroked his chest. “You feel good,” she whispered.
He fought his reaction, noticing that her lipstick line was definitely crooked and the mole on her cheek had
smeared?
It was drawn on? Her right eye was bloodshot as hell and both lids sagged. The woman was high as a kite.
“I think you’re the one who feels good,” he said, his blood thudding in his ears. “Feeling-no-pain good.” He dropped the groceries to the carpet, cans clunking together, and grabbed her wrists, stopping her lovely fingers mid-stroke.
“You think I’m not the kind of woman you have sex with,” she said, her eyes sparking at him like an acetylene torch, “but I swear I am. Let me show you.”
It was tough not to smile. Even harder not to kiss that crookedly painted mouth. “Heidi, listen—”
She shut him up with a finger to his lips. He wanted to suck it until she moaned. “Not another word. Just watch.” She backed away, swaying to the music while she slowly, slowly pulled the strings of her shirt, one by one, until the sides fell away, revealing a shiny strapless deal covering her breasts.
Shit. She intended to strip for him. “Really…you don’t need to. I get the point.” He stepped toward her.
She held up a hand. “I practiced. Just stay there and let me do it.”
So he did, groaning inside, not sure he could bear what he could tell would be alternately funny and insanely arousing.
She fixed him with a stare that made him feel like something she’d caught in a trap and intended to eat raw, then yanked her shirt off her shoulders and he wanted to offer himself up for exactly that. She let the shirt fall off her arms, then caught the edge of it so she could tease the floor. He felt the move as though it was his skin she was brushing with the flimsy fabric.
She took a quick turn around the pole, then did a sinuous slide down and back up, mimicking the strippers, but with real feeling in her face. The contact with the pole seemed to arouse her. She took a harsh breath, then bent toward him and wiggled, which made a pale crescent of one breast pop out of the top, revealed almost to the nipple. Lust thudded through him, making him sluggish, unable to hold a thought except that he wanted to touch, to hold and have her.
His reaction must have been obvious, because her face went pink and her eyes shone with triumph. She might be loaded, but she wasn’t numb and she looked like a woman on a mission. Maybe she wasn’t quite as innocent as he kept telling himself she was.
Or maybe his lust was taking over, making it all right to drag her into his arms and do all the things he wanted to do—take her, make her cry out in helpless pleasure.
Then she slowly slid the shirt between her legs, rubbing it against herself so that the contact registered in her eyes. She cupped herself through the fabric and rotated her palm over the mound of her sex. This wasn’t the fake self-touch the strippers performed. She felt it and so did he.
A groan escaped. How could he endure this to the end?
She smiled a smile that lit her eyes, enjoying torturing him, swung the blouse over her head like a cowboy’s lasso, then released it. It landed on his shoulder and he got a whiff of his own deodorant, which on her somehow smelled better, sweeter.
Then she tugged at the strings on her pants, swaying her hips to the throbbing music. Oh, God, now what? Inside, he moaned along with the sax.
The pants shivered down her legs, snagging at her knees, revealing tiny red shorts so tight they made little
sausages of her trim thighs and outlined the split in her sex. This was torture. He wanted to clutch her hips, fall to his knees and kiss her through the fabric, please her with his tongue.
She stomped the pants the rest of the way down, her body jiggling firmly, then she stepped out of the silky puddle and stood there, a little uncertain, looking hot and sweet in that crooked tube top and those crotch-pinching shorts and oversize shoes. Her thigh muscles rippled as she swayed from the pain meds and nerves. He watched a continent of blush spring out above her breasts and flood the creamy ocean of her neck.
“Very nice,” he said, applauding softly, his palms clammy. “Thank you.”
“But I’m not done,” she said, as if she’d just remembered something else. She reached into her hair, tugged, grimaced, then managed to release the pins so that her hair sank to her shoulders in haystack tangles. She shook her head to settle it, then began to dance, rocking her body in a wave that ended with soft toe kicks. Her face showed that she felt the friction of the shorts against her sex, where he wanted to be right now.
She picked up the discarded pants and rubbed them across her ass while she shimmied in a classic burlesque move. Then she dropped the pants and backed against the pole and slid slowly down to a squat, her knees angled outward, a muscular move popular with the dancers, which had the effect of pointing him to her spot, inviting him in, to touch, to taste, to enter.
He took a step forward, unable to stop himself. He longed to explore her softness, see how wet she was, and how swollen, touch her just so. He dragged his gaze upward to her face, where her eyes echoed her body’s message.
Do it. Take me. Make love to me. Please.
He wanted that, to push and thrust into all that softness, all that woman, to let her calves lock around his ass, hold him in place, make him give her all the pleasure she wanted.
Now she pushed to her feet, trembling from the strain—that move took conditioning—and spun herself around the post, leaning her head back…which made the breast slip out completely, so his eyes feasted on the small brown nipple. She spun again, evidently not noticing. “Whoa,” she said, and staggered, off-balance.
He rushed to catch her.
“Thank you,” she said, standing into his arms, the heels bringing her nearly to his height. The smeared lipstick made her look like a kid who’d been sloppy with a strawberry popsicle and perspiration had smeared the drawn-on mole even more. Her freckles glowed through the overdone makeup and her powder-soft scent was as innocent and fresh as a spring breeze. Her body felt good against his. Taut and firm, but also soft as fruit, pressing against him. He knew that if he reached down, her ass would be perfect against his palm, round and ripe for a taste.
“How am I doing?” she whispered, her warm breath teasing him.
“Great,” he ground out roughly. “Except for…” He used his thumb to wipe away the lipstick smear.
She grasped his thumb between her teeth, gripped his hand and sucked it into her mouth.
He fought for air. “Maybe you’d better lie down,” he forced out.
She released his thumb. “With you?”
Oh, yeah
. His cock surged. He was about to buckle and drop.
She blinked at him, a slow flicker of lashes heavy with gunk.
Bul-ink, bul-link
. Round as a baby doll’s eyes, a
Bombay Sapphire blue with a dark edge, and they sparkled with desire.
She put her arms around him, pressed herself against him, breasts to thighs, and looked up into his face. “Take me to bed.”
Then she rose on tiptoe and kissed him, pushing her tongue right where he couldn’t do anything but take it in. He was only human, dammit. He grabbed her and kissed her back, lost for a moment in the softness of her flesh, the overwhelming need she started up in him, like revving an engine, grinding its gears, burning out all the oil in the machinery of it.
She trembled against him, tilted her mouth to grant him better access and he tasted the soft tissue just inside her lip, felt the hard smoothness of her teeth, the heat of her eager breath.
He was really getting into it when he tasted medicinal clove and brushed the rough surface of what had to be a temporary crown. She’d been to the dentist, he reminded himself, and she was high on meds. He shouldn’t be messing around in her mouth.
He broke off the kiss.
“Don’t stop,” she said, going for his lips.
“You need to sleep this off.”
“No, I don’t.”
He knew what he had to do and did it. He squatted just enough to grab her by the upper thighs and haul her up over his shoulder.
She shrieked. “What are you doing?”
“Putting you to bed.”
And getting the hell out.
If he’d carried her face up, he’d never be able to resist her mouth. This way, he only had to deal with her sweet behind against his cheek.
She pounded his back with her fists and kicked, catching him in the ’nads with one pointy toe.
“Ouch. Damn. Watch it.”
“Serves you right, you big gorilla.”
She was good and mad. At least that. He burned with the awareness that all he had to do was turn his head slightly and he could put his mouth on her butt, sticking out of the tiny shorts. His palm cupped her upper leg. If he slid his fingers upward, he could slip so easily under the fabric. The idea made him ache all over. He’d captured her like some caveman and he could hold her down and stroke her to madness.
Nope. No. No way. He closed his eyes against the curve beside his face, so firm, so close, so willing.
Though probably not now that he’d tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of shapely potatoes. In her bedroom, he whipped down the covers, bent forward and let her fall onto the bed.
“That was totally uncalled for,” she said, blinking up at him, banging her heels against the mattress.
He sat beside her and had to touch her, so he settled for taking off her shoes, letting himself enjoy the smoothness of her foot, elastic with muscle, familiar from the other night. She had those great round toes he wanted to taste. One small breast was still showing and he fought to keep from staring at that rebellious little cupcake with the tempting cherry on top.
“I’m not that buzzed. Why did you stop?”
To distract them both, he massaged her instep, pressing down hard.
“Oh, that’s good,” she moaned. “You have great hands. I want them on me. Everywhere.” The last word was a hungry whisper.
His cock surged against his zipper, wanting out, wanting in. He knew if he kept up this innocent rub, he’d soon be sliding up her calves, thighs and higher.
She pushed up on her elbows. “You think you know me, Jackson, but you don’t. Maybe I’m not wildly experienced, but I’m no virgin and I won’t get weird on you afterward, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Don’t think this isn’t hard for me.”
Her eyes took on a smart-ass glint. “Is it? Is it hard for you?” She leaned forward and pressed her hand against his zipper, where he was indeed hard as a pole at Moons. Her eyes widened. “Very.” She hesitated for a second, then she seemed to force herself to act and she tightened her grip on him, watching his face.
He groaned and closed his eyes while she slid her fingers around his cock, testing, exploring a gift through its wrapping.
With everything in him, he wanted to rip open his zipper, tear off his boxers and get those sweet digits doing some serious stroking.
But she wasn’t herself. She hadn’t even noticed one breast was hanging out. Well, not hanging—peeking. She’d feel like an idiot when she emerged from this drugged funk. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her onto the mattress. “You need sleep.” He got to his feet.
“You’re so…infuriating. Stop telling me what I need.” But her voice was soft and her eyelids sagged. She was dozy. He watched as she stretched out her legs, pale and inviting against the midnight blue sheets. She was a delicious dish spread before him.
He pictured himself tasting her, touching her. Could he ever get his fill? He rocked on his heels, tempted to fall on
her, forget all these heroic impulses and go with what his parts were yelling at him to do.
“Rest up,” he choked out and got the hell out of there, his hands shaking, his cock aching. In the kitchen he threw cold water on his face, rubbed it onto his neck and took a deep steadying breath. He’d just passed up the hottest sex of his life. This better be the right thing to do.
It was. She was out of it. And for all she claimed that she just wanted sex, he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t bear the possibility of screwing up again. Sex was great and all, but there were more important considerations.
Right now they were damned hard to remember. He headed to his room to lock the door and lift some weights. Heavy weights and lots of them. And then a shower—a cold, cold one.
H
EIDI WOKE TO SUNLIGHT
in her eyes and the sound of the shower running. She’d slept through the night, evidently. What had happened? Her fuzzy brain chased memories until it hit the mark. Oh, yeah. The striptease, after which she’d been summarily tossed over Jackson’s shoulders and put to bed like a cranky child. How frustrating. How demoralizing. She’d even grabbed him
there
and he’d stopped her hand. Was she that talentless, that unappealing, that resistible?
No. He’d stared at her, eyes gleaming with primal desire, hungry to have her. He’d thought she was high on pain meds and didn’t want to take advantage of her. He’d been
heroic,
dammit.
Her jaws and thighs ached like she’d worn them out with hours of great sex. Instead, it had been dental work and a squat-thrust against the beam. She was as sexually frustrated as ever.
Now Jackson was taking a shower—again, it seemed, since she had a vague memory of waking from her post-striptease nap to the sound of water running before falling off for good. Now he was scrubbing all that muscular terrain and that impressive-feeling member. He was whistling the music she’d played for her woozy dance. Was he thinking of her?
She was perfectly sober now. What if she joined him? Ripped off this tube top and shorts and ducked under the water? A charge of adrenaline made her pop out of bed and onto her feet. She moved fast, scared she’d lose her nerve, and was soon at the slightly ajar bathroom door. She listened for a second, her heart beating fast. Jackson’s whistle mixed melodically with the running water that splashed from his body to the shower floor in lush blasts.
She pushed the door more open. The small room had just enough space for the sink, toilet and shower stall, which Jackson’s broad frame seemed to fill to the corners. Through the frosted glass, she made out his tan back and perfect behind, the muscles swelling and subsiding as he soaped his chest.
All she had to do was strip and offer herself to him.
Wait. Not offer herself. Take him. Touch him in a way that convinced him they both wanted the same thing. That sounded so damned assertive. So confident.
She took a half step forward, but the sight of herself in the partially fogged mirror stopped her dead. She looked horrid. Her foundation was too heavy, her eye shadow garish, the waterproof—and evidently sleep-proof—mascara had clumped and her lipstick line was crooked. The beauty mark looked like a smudge of dirt under one eye and her hair was a tousled mess. She’d slept like the dead on her back all night, but the tube top had somehow slid down, revealing a breast. She yanked it up.
She’d tried to seduce Jackson looking this way? How had he kept from laughing? She remembered how he’d wiped her lipstick as though he were cleaning up a child who’d gone wild with ice cream. All she needed was a fright wig, and two pink balloons stretching her top and she’d make a fine sexpot clown for Barnum & Bailey.
Embarrassed heat blended with the humid density of the room so that she could hardly draw a breath. She was a silly woman who’d pulled a silly stunt. She had to get out of here before Jackson caught sight of her. She backed up, but her arm caught the door. It creaked, then banged softly against the wall.
Jackson spun, then shoved open the shower door. “Heidi?”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were in here.”
That was so obviously not true, but Jackson didn’t seem to care. Her goofy appearance didn’t deter his stare, either, and his face lit with desire. “Did I wake you?”
She shook her head.
“Are you feeling okay?” Meaning, was she in her right mind? He looked as though he was fighting some terrific inner battle.
Again she shook her head.
“Then come here,” he said, his voice rough with need, succumbing to something. He shoved the door open so hard it clunked the wall and bounced back. He blocked it with his arm and held out his hand for her. Again. He was always offering her a boost. She liked that, independence be damned.
She let him pull her closer to the shower door. Spray bounced off his body into the air between them, making a rainbow in the mist. The water hissed and splashed in a glory of white noise.
And there Jackson stood, startlingly erect. Her past sexual forays—furtive and cramped on a sofa, a car, a guy’s twin bed—hadn’t allowed her to really examine an aroused penis before. Here was Jackson’s in full view. It wasn’t beautiful—she’d never found the male member beautiful—but it was dramatic and promising and proud of it
self and the pleasure it could give to him and his lover, who was about to be
her
.
“Come here,” he growled again and tugged her into the stall. Water poured down her body, soaking her hair and clothes. Jackson’s gaze poured down, too, and she shivered with a hot chill.
“You’re driving me nuts,” he said roughly.
A thrill coursed through her. Jackson had slept with lots of women, but she, Heidi Fields, was making him crazy. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
“Then I hope you’re happy.” And he crushed her to him, kissing her so fiercely she could barely stay upright. She was finally getting what she’d wanted.
He tilted her chin to get at her mouth, alternating between a soft brush of his lips and a deep dip, his tongue sweeping over hers, taking it, taking her mouth. The way she took his.
They kissed and kissed, warm water rushing down in a private waterfall, until he finally broke off, still holding her tight. She was vividly aware of his erection through her shorts. “You sure you’re okay?” He sounded winded and looked as dazed as she felt.
She managed a dizzy nod.
He nodded back, then stared at the silver tube top. “This has to go,” he said, tugging the fabric up.
She lifted her arms so he could yank it off her body, the metal threads light scraping her skin, and toss it over the stall wall. The entire time, he kept his eyes on the prize—her breasts. Her
tiny
breasts. With the nipples tightened to knots, they looked even tinier, she knew. She had the urge to cover them with her hands and turn to show him her best feature, still encased in the circulation-compromising shorts, but Jackson looked at her as though her little offerings held the secret of eternal bliss.
He cupped them tenderly, as if they were precious and delicate and he’d worked forever to get at them. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
“You exaggerate.”
“Huh-uh. They’re perfect for you.” He ducked his head to reverently kiss the top of each one in turn.
She smiled.
Then he sucked a nipple into his mouth and she thought she might collapse from the glory of it. She moaned, heat rushing through her, feeling like pure womanhood. Instinctively, she arched her back, tightening her breasts so they tingled and ached, especially the one Jackson held in his mouth. Warm water stroked her skin, heating it, while Jackson’s mouth turned her insides molten. Along with first one nipple and then the other.
They were going to have sex right here in the shower, standing up. What about protection? She had to say something before she lost her mind altogether. “I’m on the pill,” she murmured. “Are there…health issues?”
He stopped what he was doing to her breast and raised his gaze. “None here.”
“Good then,” she said. “So we don’t need condoms.”
“No,” he said, then lowered himself to his knees before her, his eyes following down her body until he was looking at her abdomen. “We don’t need condoms.” He rolled her shorts down her hips, down her thighs, until they dropped to her insteps, and she stood naked before him.
He looked up at her face, his expression full of hunger and promise, letting her see that he would have her until he was good and finished.
Lust coursed through her and her legs went from rubber to syrup. If he weren’t holding her hips, she’d have landed on her best feature on the stall floor.
He returned his eyes to her stomach, bracing her bottom with spread fingers. His lips parted, his tongue emerged, signaling his intent to kiss her
there
.
She held her breath and closed her eyes, waiting for the exquisite moment.
Yes, oh, yes.
He touched her spot dead on with the tip of his tongue. A charge jolted through her, shooting everywhere, flying out her fingers and toes and bursting out the top of her head.
“Oh…Jackson…oh,” she cried, breathless and happy, but nervous, too. He was going to try to make her come, she knew, and this was so sudden…so new.
He sensed her tension, because he stopped and looked up at her. “Let me make you feel good.” He massaged her butt. Mmm.
His confidence melted her doubts the way his touch melted her bones. She nodded down at him, water bouncing from her hair to his face, and she gave herself over to him and his tongue and hands.
He squeezed her bottom at the same time he flattened his entire tongue against her clitoris like a hot, wet cloth that he somehow rolled over it, skimming and swirling. She began to jerk and rock uncontrollably. She reached down for his hair, something to keep her tied to earth before she flew away completely. She leaned back against the bumpy solidity of the tile wall.
For her, this act had always been hasty or clumsy or cursory, but Jackson buried his face in her, digging in as if to extract every ounce of pleasure for them both.
Then his tongue slid lower, more intimately, easing into her entrance, so that she had the warm pressure of the width of his tongue on her clit, while the pointed tip pushed inside. Meanwhile his hands massaged the area around where his mouth was working. Sparks shot off in wild directions.
She made garbled sounds and jerked convulsively, like a puppet shaken from above. She was embarrassed by the rawness of her reaction, tried to tone it down, but she could only let go, release, respond the way her body insisted. She was in his hands…and beneath his tongue…. And he was on his knees before her, worshiping at her center.
She was going to come. She realized it suddenly and it was the most natural thing in the world. She often struggled for an orgasm, inhibited by the tension, the rush and—now that she was in Jackson’s deft hands, she realized—the ineptitude of previous lovers.
He seemed to sense how close she was and shifted to quick, short squeezes and licking her full length with more pressure.
Her climax hit in a huge wave, rolling through her, rippling outward from her core. Jackson held very still, while she rocked and bumped and cried out, her voice echoing against the tiles, sounding like several women at once. She felt like several women. The newly independent person who’d left home for her own life. The innocent young thing who’d just discovered what sex was all about. And the powerful sexual creature who could bring a man to his knees.
She gasped for air and sagged against the wall. They’d used up the heat so that the water cascading over her skin was tepid. Inside she burned. “That was…amazing,” she breathed.
“Mmm-hmm.” Jackson rose and kissed her, his erection urgent against her stomach. Reaching under her arms, he lifted her off her feet, bracing her against the tile. His turn. “I want in.”
“Oh, please.” She wrapped her legs around him and held onto his neck. He positioned her bottom so he was nudg
ing her entrance with the head of his penis. She was wet and slick and he slid in easily.
“That is so…
good
.” Like the greatest itch in the world had just begun to be scratched.
“Yeah.” He thrust upward, filling her, the angle such that his shaft bumped her clit, tightening that marvelous muscle that was greedy for more. He moved just right—not too much pressure, not too much speed—in an even rhythm, his face tight with withheld urgency. He looked as if he’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her. “Am I hurting you?” he gasped.
“No. This is perfect.”
“Yeah, perfect.” His mouth seized hers and wouldn’t let go. He’d trapped her against the wall, pinned her in place with his body. She felt powerful and helpless at the same time. No matter how she struggled, he would have her, had to have her. And she would have him.
Her nerves sang with electricity, her sex pulsed with a need that ticked higher and higher, tighter and tighter. Her skin began to prickle and she felt another orgasm on its way.
She broke off the kiss and cried out so that the sound seemed to crash from the walls into her ears again, “Jackson, oh, I’m—”
“Coming,” he finished for her, his body tensing, too. She felt the throb of his climax just as her own release arrived. His body jerked, pushing up into her, giving in, giving out, giving up all he had. The thought of him succumbing to her aroused her like nothing else. She had this strong man desperate to have her.
Jackson clutched her to him, wrapping his arms around her as though she were a pillow he wanted all to himself or a child he wanted to protect, while he lifted her away
from the wall. The steamy air smelled of shampoo and soap and sex. It was heaven.
They just stood there for a few seconds—suspended in the miracle of it. The perfection of what they’d done. Slowly, Jackson slid from her body and she dropped her legs to the floor. It had been so wonderful. It had been how she expected to feel with someone she loved. Of course she barely knew Jackson. This was her breakaway sex. But the feeling stayed, puzzling her. Worrying her a little, too.
“You happy?” He grinned. “Now that you’ve had your way with me?”
“Oh, yes.” She
was
happy. And triumphant. And uncertain how to act next. Would they keep going? Do it again? Talk about it?
Jackson’s face flickered with confusion. Maybe he felt the same. He reached past her to punch the faucet off. The misty atmosphere and dreamlike sound faded and the air cooled. She heard the unromantic gurgle of water down the drain.
“That’ll be some water bill,” Jackson said. He gave an awkward laugh.
“I feel clean enough for two days’ worth,” she said, staying light.
Now what? Surely they wouldn’t stop doing something that felt so incredibly good. She wanted to try new positions, reciprocate with oral sex, make love in a bed, on the floor, in the kitchen. She wanted it all.