He’d made sure his bedroom was tidy and the sheets were clean before he went to pick her up because he’d planned all along to end up here. He hadn’t thought they’d start out there but, what the hell. He pulled down the tan, brown, and black patterned comforter and the crisp cream-colored sheet, and rearranged the pillows so it looked inviting.
Apparently he took too long because when he was finished, she’d already kicked off her shoes and was beginning to undress.
“Uh-uh. That’s my job,” he said, stilling her hands. She dropped them and he slowly drew the hem of the top up over her breasts and shoulders. “Hands over your head, baby.”
She grinned as she complied. “That’s my line.”
“Tonight it’s mine,” he said and the top was off and onto the floor. Unlike most women he’d ever known, she didn’t draw her arms across her breasts, hiding them. She stood there, holding his stare, the remains of the grin playing across her luscious mouth.
He’d discovered another surprise. She wore a pale pink, lacy bra that barely contained her beautiful breasts. He’d had her pegged for the plain cotton kind. The contrast between the no-nonsense Danny and the pink lace was hot.
Her nipples were a darker pink and in tight buds, poking out through the lace of the bra. He didn’t wait to get her bra off but took one breast in each hand, caressing, molding them, feeling the tips of her nipples harden as he cupped her breasts. They fit into the palms of his hands as if created for him.
Capturing her gaze with his, he murmured, “I want you to tell me if you like what I’m doing. Do you like being touched like this?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed out.
“And this?” he asked as he dipped his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking, teasing it through the lace. She didn’t answer, only gasped with pleasure. Moving to the other breast, he heard her moan, sounding almost breathless as he did the same there.
Now he wanted to touch her skin. He reached around her to unfasten the bra, fumbling when he couldn’t find the hooks.
She guided his hands to the valley between her breasts. “Front hook,” was all she said.
When he’d rid her of the bra he started on the button and zipper to her trousers. Underneath she wore some sort of panties that barely covered the subject but which matched the bra. “You’re one surprise after another, aren’t you?” he murmured as he tugged at the panties to finish undressing her.
“Why?” She covered his hands with hers, stopping him from further explorations, her curiosity now apparently as aroused as her body.
“Lacy girly underwear. Who would have thought?”
She smiled — no, smirked. “You expected Kevlar?”
“You have a smart mouth, don’t you? Give me a minute to get out of these clothes and we’ll find something better for you to do with it than taunt me.” He sat them both down on the edge of the bed and toed off his loafers. His blue shirt, khakis, boxer briefs, and socks followed.
When he was undressed, he pressed her down on the bed, positioning himself between her legs, still wearing a white T-shirt. She pulled at the hem of it to get it up over his head, but he waved her off, taking her hands in his and pinning them beside her shoulders.
Ignoring the questioning look on her face he began to kiss her again until she was diverted from the subject of his T-shirt and making small, sexy sounds at the back of her throat, and pressing herself against him. Releasing her hands, he skimmed his over the curves and dips of her body. He wanted to acquaint himself with every inch of her, get to know every taste of her from her mouth and breasts to everything south of there. Then he wanted to get lost in her.
Moving one hand down her body he found the thatch of dark blonde curls at the top of her thighs. He could tell she was aroused even before he touched her. Moaning, almost keening with want, she bucked her hips at him but he only inserted a finger. She was tight, hot, and wet, slick with desire. “I love it that you’re so ready, so wet for me,” he whispered into the ear he was nibbling.
“I want you,” she whispered back. “I want all of you.”
“Oh, baby, not as much as I want you.” A second finger joined the first, and with his thumb he found the nub hidden in the folds of her sex. Synchronizing his tongue in her mouth and his fingers in her sex, he moved in and out, slowly at first, then gradually, as she moved with him, increasing the speed until he felt her internal muscles clamp around his fingers as she called out his name and climaxed.
She nestled her head into his shoulder as he kissed her neck and the spot behind her ear that she seemed to like. When he thought she’d come down from her orgasm, he rolled off her body. She made a noise of disappointment that stopped when he picked up a condom from the bedside table and turned back to her again. Motioning to her to help, they ripped open the foil packet and he let her unroll it onto his erection, gritting his teeth to keep from exploding in her hand at her touch.
Her expression was sexy and smug as she tugged at him to return to her. When he was between her legs she wrapped them around his waist and rubbed her wet and wanting sex against his penis. “Please, Jake,” she whispered. “Now.”
She didn’t have to ask again. He entered her slowly, wanting to feel every hot, slick, receptive inch of her, wanting to always remember what it felt like the first time he claimed her for his own. She arched her back to bring her body closer to him, rocked her hips against his, kissed her way down his neck to the base of his throat. Oh, God, did she feel good. Every place he touched her, every time she touched him.
Even through his T-shirt, he could feel her dig her nails into his lower back as they spiraled higher and higher but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the intense feeling of being inside her, of hearing her moan with pleasure at what they were doing. He was lost in a whirl of sensation as with slow, then faster thrusts he climbed to the edge of the precipice and, as she contracted around him, milking him rhythmically, he fell, taking her with him.
When they had come back to normal rates of breathing, he eased himself out of her and went to the bathroom to take care of the condom. He took a few extra seconds to compose himself before returning to the bedroom, knowing that, no matter how good the sex had been — and he sure as hell hoped she thought it had been as spectacular as he did — she would be asking him a question he didn’t really want to answer but knew he had to.
From across the room he could see she was watching him with a curious expression. “Something wrong, baby?” he asked, crawling into bed next to her and pulling her so her back was against his chest and they were spooned together. He would rather not see her face when he answered the question she was about to ask.
She took his hand and nipped at his knuckles. “The T-shirt. How come you didn’t want me to take it off?”
“Are you saying it have been better for you if I’d taken it off?”
“Hell, no.” She squirmed out of his embrace and faced him. “If you can’t read the signals well enough to know it was amazing for me, you’re not very observant. It’s not that. It feels like there’s something you’re not telling me and I don’t like being the only one in the room not in on the secret.”
He flopped onto his back and put one arm up over his eyes. She laughed.
That wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d expected. “Something’s funny?” he asked, not bothering to hide the hurt he felt.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. But I think it’s funny you still believe if you can’t see me, then I can’t see you.”
“Is that what I’m doing? I didn’t know.” He lowered his arm but kept staring at the ceiling, not looking at her.
“Either that or you’re trying to distract me from my question. If that’s what you’re doing, I think it’s only fair to tell you I’ve been worked on, worked over, and talked at by some of the best trying to distract me. I don’t distract.”
“Goddamn cop training,” he muttered. “All right, I’ll answer the damn question.” He turned toward her, took a deep breath, and said, “I kept the shirt on because a roadside IED tore the living daylights out of one side of me when I was in Iraq. The results aren’t pretty.”
“And that’s it? That’s all?”
“The few women I’ve been with over the past four years all seemed to agree that I didn’t match their idea of what a lover should look like. Starting with the woman I came home to who, I thought, I was going to ask to marry me.”
“Oh, hell. Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. My almost-fiancée had my injuries to deal with plus my PTSD — nightmares, temper on a razor’s edge, flashbacks. She couldn’t handle it. Not that I blame her. I couldn’t handle it, either. It was bad. We ended it about three months after I came home.”
Danny nestled closer to him and put her arm across his chest, running her hand up and down as if examining him. “You said ‘women’ plural.”
“Yeah, a couple other women. They didn’t say it, of course. But after the first time we went to bed, they found reasons not to see me again.” He kissed the top of her head. “So it had to be what my body looked like. Unless it’s that I’m not good in bed … ”
Danny snorted. “I think we can eliminate that reason from our consideration.” She raised her head and stared at him. “So what was it about me that led you to believe I’d do the same thing? I’m not sure I like being included in that group.”
“Nothing. I swear. You didn’t do anything to make me think that. But I couldn’t take a chance. I wanted — want — you so bad I couldn’t risk it.”
Her hand now at the hem of his T-shirt, she said, “Let me take this off.”
“Danny, I … ”
“No arguments, Jake. It’s coming off.”
He sat up, stripped the T-shirt off, and dropped it on the floor. He kept his eyes closed when it was gone, afraid to see the expression on her face. He didn’t realize what she was doing until he felt her pushing gently on his shoulders. When he was flat on his back, she straddled him and, working from his waist up, she touched his chest, his left shoulder, and the inside of his left arm, running her fingers over each scar.
When he heard her whisper, “My god, look what they did to your beautiful body. You must have been in hell,” he opened his eyes. What he saw wasn’t disgust or pity. Her eyes were wide with, well, he wasn’t sure. Maybe sympathy. Maybe affection. Certainly something he wasn’t unhappy to see.
He watched as she kissed and caressed every wounded spot, beginning with the surgical scars and moving on to the half dozen other places where they’d dug shrapnel out of him. She didn’t miss anything, dipping her tongue into the hollows where he’d lost muscle and parts of a couple ribs, softly stroking her fingers over the puckers in his skin where it had healed oddly.
If he’d had any tears left in him to cry over what happened, he would have shed them then as she made her pilgrimage from one spot to another, gently blessing each scar with her mouth.
But she wasn’t finished. Before he knew what she was up to, she’d slid off him, and, continuing her ministrations to him, headed down his body, this time with kisses growing more sensual than healing with every inch. Reaching his navel, she swirled her tongue around it, before raising her head to look at him, as if asking his permission to continue.
“Oh, baby, yes, that feels so good.” He could barely get the words out, she made him so breathless with her attention. The salacious smile she gave him made his cock twitch which she apparently noticed because she took it in her hand and began to fondle and rub it in a slow rhythm, a maddeningly slow rhythm. He could feel himself growing larger and harder with her touch and knew from the smug smile, which had overtaken the sexy look, that she could feel it, too.
Just when he was about to turn the tables and flip her on her back, she put him in her mouth. Her teeth sheathed, her tongue licking, her mouth sucking, he knew it would only take a few minutes to send him over the top if he didn’t stop her soon.
“Danny, I don’t want to come in your mouth. Please.”
Giving one final suck on his cock, she slid back up his body. “Where do you want to come, Jake?”
“You know.”
“Yeah, but I want to hear you say it.”
“Inside you. I want to be inside you.”
“I think we can arrange that,” she whispered and reached over to the bedside table, where she picked up not one but three condoms. “Hmm, prepared for every contingency I see. I like that in a man.”
He grabbed a condom from her, ripped open the packet, and rolled it on. Then he turned her onto her back, saying, “That’s enough talking.”
• • •
Still tangled in his arms and with her legs around him, she closed her eyes, avoiding looking at him, trying to settle her breathing — and her feelings — after the second round of sex. It had been amazing, like the first time, not just physically but emotionally. He’d taken her to the moon and back with his hands, his mouth, and his body and taken her breath away by making himself so vulnerable, exposing himself to her reaction as he had.
The story about his injuries could make a rock weep. And the wariness on his face when she’d taken off his T-shirt, afraid he’d be hurt again, had about broken her heart. How in hell could any woman have been so cold as to turn away from him after what he’d gone through?
He didn’t want her pity; she knew that. But he’d been cautious about asking for her acceptance. When she’d forced his T-shirt off, she’d seen a strength she’d seldom known in anyone, man or woman. Hell, she wouldn’t expose herself like that to many people, but his willingness to lower his defenses appealed in a way she hadn’t known mattered to her.
She’d figured he would be fun to be with. Was even pretty sure, based on that first kiss, that he would be sexy as hell in bed. But there was more to her reaction than that and it alarmed her. She couldn’t let this be anything more than a fun way to spend what little free time she had. She wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship — she sucked at relationships — and she didn’t know if he was interested either, not after what he’d described to her about his recent experiences. Besides, they both had ball-busting jobs that took up all their lives and then some. When would there ever be time for anything else? More accurately, was she willing to find the time? After working as hard as she had to get where she was, was she willing to slow down enough to let someone like Jake in?