Between the Sheets (20 page)

Ty still wore his jacket, but sweat trickled from his hairline down the side of his face, across the stubble of his cheeks.

“Go over to the couch,” he said. “The velvet one.”

She walked away, aware that Ty, who was gorgeous, was staring at her very average ass, and she resisted the urge to put her hands behind her, covering herself. As she walked she heard the snaps of his jacket opening and the thud as the heavy coat hit the floor. She imagined him taking off his shirt, dropping it on the floor. His belt, his pants. He would toe off his boots and shuck down his underwear and then … at last … cover all of her bare skin with his.

She’d never had sex like that. Two people fully naked. That was sad, suddenly. To be her age and have only had frenzied and half-dressed sex in the back of cars or in dorm rooms or apartments shared with girlfriends.

But that was how she had liked it; the clothes seemed to remind her that she had parts of herself that were better hidden.

Nudity was something she didn’t entirely know what to do with.

At the couch she turned to face him, surprised to see him—except for the coat in a heap on the other side of the room—fully dressed. Relieved, actually, to see him fully dressed.

“Turn around,” he murmured, his eyes trailing over her breasts, across her shoulders. Down over her hated belly.

She lifted a hand to cover her stomach, the rolls there.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “I told you to turn around.”

The command, the blush rolling up from his neck, they
were powerful convincers, and she turned away from him, facing the couch.

“Get on your knees,” he whispered. “Hold onto the back.”

Her heart pounded between her legs as she did what he told her to do. Now, she heard the snap of his shirt buttons being popped, the rustle of clothes falling off his body, and she looked over her shoulder at him, stunned anew by the rough, masculine beauty of him. The heavy muscles in his chest, across his arms, the narrow waist.

Chest hair that she could imagine against the tender skin of her back.

A low sound rolled out of her throat and their eyes met over her shoulder and she couldn’t control any part of her reaction to him.

“Hurry,” she breathed.

“Be quiet.”

Oh
, she sighed, turning to water.
Oh, he knows what I want
. She turned, putting her forehead against the back of the couch, unable to stop her restless hips, her restless body.

The couch creaked as he put one knee between hers. The rough scrape of his jeans against the inside of her knee sent sparks over her skin, from her knee to between her legs, where she was hot and wet and
waiting
.

A long moment passed without another touch, and impatient, she shifted back against him, pressing her ass against his body, feeling that he’d unzipped his pants and put a condom on over a very hard erection.

Moaning, she hung her head.

His heavy hand landed on her ass, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that she had to bite her lip from crying out.

“You ready?” It was just that hand against her ass
and the denim against her knee. The memory of his erection in latex. He didn’t touch her anywhere else.

“Yes.”

His knuckles brushed her as he positioned himself, and suddenly anxious and needy and desperate, she reached back to grab his thigh.

He stopped. The tip of his cock pressed against her.

“Don’t move,” he told her. “Both hands on the back of the couch.”

She slapped her hand back on the couch.

The longer he waited the more desperate she became, and she arched her back, trying to ease him in by degrees.
Something
, she thought,
just give me something
.

“Don’t. Move.”

He spanked her again and she had to lock her arms to keep from falling onto the couch.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Just … hurry.”

His laughter flowed over her spine, sending goose-flesh across her skin. “Like this?” Without warning, he slammed into her.

She screamed, bracing one hand against the tissue-paper flowers so she wouldn’t go headfirst into them. Again. And then again. The couch rocked as her body opened itself up to all the pleasure she could take.

He curved his hands over her shoulders and found some leverage as he fucked her relentlessly.

“Yes,” she whispered, her breasts mashed against the back of the couch as he covered her, rocking into her, tip to root, over and over again as if measuring her from the inside, cataloging the depths of her pleasure, the scales to which he could make it grow.

“Yes. Yes. Yes,” she whispered, feeling tears build in her eyes. Tears because it was all falling away, because without having to humble herself or compromise she was getting exactly what she wanted.

He lifted her torso, his hands sliding from her shoulders
to her breasts. He was not gentle and it was exactly right. His big hands cupped her, the calluses on his fingers were crazy-making, and she stroked him, shifted her hips forward and back, squeezing him between her legs.

“You …” he breathed in her ear before he bit her neck. “I want to fuck you everywhere.”

“Yes.” She wanted that, too. She wanted everything.

He lifted her again, this time her whole body, and he spun, sitting on the couch so she sat, impaled in his lap, her back to his front.

He arranged her boneless legs so they were on the outside of his, splayed open. Both of them reached down between her legs. His fingers finding her clit, hers finding him where he was pushed so hard inside of her.

Both of them groaned, curling against each other, finding a thousand ways to touch, each one better than the last.

“Stop,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head, her fingers mapping the outline of his sac.

He pinched her clit and a lightning bolt sizzled through her. Her hands flew back against the couch as she felt like she was leaving earth. Leaving her body.

He moved her legs again, this time inside of his, and he tilted her up and forward. “Fuck me.”

Breathless, on the edge of what felt like the orgasm to end all orgasms, she put her feet on the floor and began a slow undulation against him.

“Yes, oh, God,” he groaned, catching her hips in his hands, squeezing her in a way that made her feel like she was torturing him. Which was perfect. Which added an element to her pleasure that she’d never felt before.

Her hair had come loose and she shook it out of the way so she could look over her shoulder at him. He was
perfect. His muscles flexing, his skin red, his eyes trained on her body. He had his lower lip caught between his teeth like he was a man on the rack.

Very suddenly, it just wasn’t enough.

She stood so quickly, he didn’t stop her, and then she pulled him down onto the floor with her, on the rug that was abrasive and rough against her naked skin, but she didn’t care. There was nothing in this world that she cared about more than his body covering hers.

He slid back inside and she lifted her legs around his hips. He rested on his bent elbows, his cheek pressed against her hair.

“You ready?” he breathed into her ear.

She nodded.

It was wild. Hard and fast and nearly punishing. Both of them straining against each other. They ended up on the other side of the rug, her head hitting the opposite couch. He was groaning in her ear, telling her how hot she was, how perfect, how good she felt, how he didn’t want to leave her, and she was speechless against the growing painful tension in her body. She put one hand overhead to stop them from slamming into the couch and the other she slid between their bodies, her fingers knowing just where to touch herself.

“Yes,” he hissed, easing himself up onto his knees. “Show me how you do it.”

So she did, her face turned into her arm; she made herself come while he watched. It took nothing. Three hard, fast touches and it was over, she was up and over the wave, falling breathless and different, on the other side.

“So beautiful,” he whispered when she was done, panting, sweating, and shaking.

“You,” she gasped, and he needed no other invitation. He braced himself over her and pounded into her until he, too, tensed, his face locked down, his eyes squeezed
shut. She touched one of the rigid muscles in his arms, traced the vein standing out against his skin from the inside of his elbow up to his shoulder.

He had a tattoo there. A motorcycle thing.

He was primal and wrong in about a million ways—but in this he was unbelievably perfect. He roared and growled and shook, and she wrapped her arms around him, clutching his easy wildness to her chest.

Finished, he hung his head against her chest, kissing her left breast and then her right one before pulling himself out of her body.

The haze and fog of desire was slowly dissipating and she felt very keenly the rug burn on her shoulders. The wet ache between her legs.

It’s so messy
, she thought.
And awkward
.

The aftermath of really good sex was everything she hated.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded and sat up, fighting the wince.

“Your back,” he breathed.

She had a hard time reconciling the kind, worried expression on his face with the man who’d smacked her ass and fucked her across the carpet.

“It’s fine,” she said, patting his shoulder. Bones creaking, she stood up and her knee popped.
Oh, that wasn’t sexy
. She felt his eyes on her as she walked across the room to put on her clothes. On the way back she grabbed his shirt and handed it to him. He’d taken off the condom and pulled up his pants.

He was watching her with a wary smile, as if he just wasn’t sure what she was going to do. “You’re not very good at this, are you?” he asked.

“I thought I did all right,” she said, gesturing toward the rug and the couch as if it were the wrestling mat they’d just battled upon.

“No.” He stood. “At
that
,” he jerked his thumb behind him, “you’re amazing. The undisputed champ.”

Well, didn’t that just wreck her.

“The after part. You’ve got a shitty dismount.”

The hoot of her laugh was a surprise to both of them.

“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted with some difficulty. “I don’t … I don’t really know what to do. Or say.”

“Well, let’s start with a drink.” He walked across the room to their mugs and the bourbon. He splashed some into both and walked back over to her. “Here.” He handed her the mug and sat down on the leather couch.

She sat across from him on the velvet one.

“Okay.” He stretched out his long, lean body, still without a shirt, and that was all right with her all of a sudden. “I’ll start.” He lifted his mug toward her. “Thank you very, very much for that.” He took a sip, his eyes twinkling over the mug at her.

“Thank you,” she said, doing the same. “That was—”

“Awesome?” It was perhaps a terrible time to be thinking this, but the way he grinned at her, she saw Casey. For a boy who didn’t look much like his father, there were moments of similarity that could leave no question about DNA. That grin was something they shared.

“It was awesome,” she agreed, and then because he’d been so sure in handling this, so capable and somehow knowing, she mustered up her courage and beat back the black shadows of her doubt and terrible persistent self-denial. “And exactly what I needed.” She met his eyes, feeling a strange and terrible gratitude to this near-stranger. “Exactly.”

He nodded graciously, and then the grin was back and he left his couch to come to hers.

Leaning over her, surrounding her with the scent of
sex and sweat and him, he pressed a warm closed-mouth kiss to her forehead, her cheek, and then, tipping her face up, he kissed her lips.

For the first time tonight he kissed her lips and she gasped with the pleasure of it, the chapped dry lips against hers, the wet slide of his tongue, the spicy taste of his mouth.

He leaned back again, just as her body was warming up under his attention. Like clay that had to be handled before it could be used. She felt malleable to his touch.

He flopped back to the other end of the couch and had another sip of his bourbon. Belatedly, she realized she had hers, and embarrassed by how quickly she was turned on by his touch, and disappointed that that wet, messy kiss wasn’t going to go anywhere, she took a big gulp.

Chapter 14

He needed a second. It was hard to admit but he was showing his age, and after sex like that … he needed a cooldown. A few laps around the track at a slower pace. She looked all tousled and fucked and gorgeous, everything they’d done to each other written large in her dilated eyes, her messy hair, the blush to her skin—and he just needed a second.

“What are you going to do with Casey this week?” She curled her body in tight until she was just a little ball in the corner of her couch. He wanted to pick her up and put her in his lap, smooth out her hair. Kiss her collarbones, the down-sloping curve of her shoulder.

Maybe he wouldn’t need as much of a cooldown as he’d thought.

“He’ll come to work with me,” he said. “We’re finishing up Cora’s patio.”

“How did you end up being a carpenter and a mechanic?” she asked. “That’s where Casey found you, right? Your grandfather’s garage?”

The fact that she remembered lit a small match in a very dark place inside of him. “I’ve always been good with my hands.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed, which had been his intention. He reached out and grabbed her foot. “You’re so far away.”

She scooted closer, halfway across the couch, and he pulled her stiff and awkward body closer. Until she had her legs across his lap and she was leaning sideways
against the back of the couch, chewing on the edge of her thumbnail before catching herself.

There was no part of her that looked comfortable, as if she was enjoying this, and he wondered if maybe they shouldn’t just leave things at filthy sex on the floor. But their lives were already brushing up against each other in a dozen places and, well, he didn’t want to leave it at filthy sex on the floor.