Color Blind (Team Red) (10 page)

I really, REALLY needed to talk to my best friend about her serious understatement of David’s assets. My body, almost six feet of it, looked so small and fragile wrapped in the strength of his. There was only seven inches of height difference between us, but he had over one hundred pounds more in very nicely distributed weight. Long, denim clad legs held me securely bracketed between his thighs, and strong, muscled arms cuddled me against the front of all that awe-inspiring deliciousness. Mine, a little piece of my brain shouted.

I turned my head toward Red’s location. In my mind, I watched myself slowly turn in my lover’s arms. “Red, could you come closer so I can see David more clearly?”

My dog came forward a few more steps and my vision slowly filled with my David’s face. His jaw was square-cut with sharp, model perfect cheekbones scoring downwards, to a strong, defined chin. There was just enough shadowed contouring in the cheeks to look sexy, but not hollow. And his brows were dark slashes over deep set eyes. His jaw was clean-shaven, but I imagined one of those close-cropped beards on him- he had a face that could pull it off and it would add a little bad-boy sexy to his dark good looks. There was an almost unreal symmetry to his features, like an airbrushed photo. Too flawless to be real. His lips were perfect, lush, with a slightly fuller lower lip. Then he smiled. It transformed his face from Hollywood handsome, to Sex God swoon-worthy. Oh. My. Goodness! He had a dimple. Why had no one ever told me he had a dimple?

My focus shifted to look into his eyes; they were intense, direct. Wait! He tweaked a single brow and I added the word ‘devilish’ to the list of adjectives I was compiling. Through Red’s eyes, I could see David’s intelligence, passion, and humor. He was too masculine to be considered beautiful, but he was one of the most perfectly gorgeous men I could remember seeing.

“Hey, pal,” David said. “Give her a good look at her own face, will you?” I was happy to see the affection in his look as he spoke to Red.

“I’d much rather stare at you. You are waaay prettier than me,” I joked.

I caught the rueful twist of his lips that told me he didn’t care for comments about his looks. Poor baby, life is so hard when you look like a sex symbol. Red’s gaze focused on me just in time to catch my grin… and, there it was - The Smile. The one David talked about. I had seen it in pictures, but I had never seen it mobile and encompassing my features like it was doing now.  I saw the tears that had dried in faint salt trails over my cheeks, and thought to myself that I have never looked happier than I did in that moment.

I concentrated on the scars, especially the one that slashed across my right eye socket from the inside corner of my brow line to the outside corner of the eye. The injury was worst over the cheekbone, approximately an inch or so from the corner of the eye, where the tree branch had impacted hardest, and deepest, before scoring over the eye. It had been a violent, painful injury, but I was happy to see the wound had healed to a somewhat puckered, less angry line. There was a slight disfiguration where the skin was pulled crookedly, and some eyebrow hair and eyelashes were replaced by an ultrathin, bisecting seam of scar tissue, but if I were honest with myself, it wasn’t that bad. I was not a hideous, malformed monster.

The doctors had done a really good job of patching me up. There were a couple of additional scars from the accident, but they were barely noticeable. There was no scar to indicate the left eye had been blinded too. The wood shards had penetrated at the inner corner, never piercing the skin itself.

The visual abruptly disappeared and darkness swallowed me
. “Sorry, Teresa. That’s as long as I can go; my head is starting to hurt again.”

“Thanks Red. I don’t want you to overdo it. I appreciate you letting me see David.” I held a hand out and scratched his ears when he pressed his face into my palm. “Go grab yourself a treat, and plan your cat trap.” I grinned, pretty sure that would perk him up.

Predictably, there was a lilt in his tone,
“Success will be mine.”
His thoughts held the maniacal twist of Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil. Time to cut off the Austin Powers movies, I thought with a sigh.

Paws, pounding down the staircase, helped me mentally track Red’s progress through the house. He had bypassed the pantry to head straight outside. My dog was on a mission of his own!

I settled back against David, holding the vision of his features securely in my mind. Mentally tracing the line of his jaw.

“That was truly a gift I never expected. And I am so gonna kill Janey for not letting me know you had a dimple; for not telling me that you are so good-looking. I mean, she rated you a thirteen on the one-to-ten scale, but Lover, you should have gotten a forth extra point for the dimple alone.” A thought occurred to me and I started laughing, “Good gracious, I bet when you and Bas walk into a room together, all the women’s jaws drop. I can only imagine what the two of you, standing side by side, must do the common female.”

“Aren’t I lucky that you are an uncommon one then?” His thighs squeezed together and his arms tightened as he held me. Absorbing my warmth? Enjoying my weight pressed against him? Hell, leg cramp? I mentally shrugged off the question and simply enjoyed the embrace as he rocked me a little and gathered his thoughts. “Shit, Teresa. I’ve been judged on my looks all my life. It’s so refreshing to be with you. Not once have you asked me if I play basketball (I involuntarily grinned, people used to ask me that too). You don’t look at me with a predatory gaze, like I’m a slab of meat…”

“Oh, that may change,” I interrupted. “I am definitely thinking thoughts that involve pouncing, and prime cuts.”

His laughter was rich, and earthy, filling the room with dark, carnal promises. “Oh, Sweetheart, you are the exception to all my rules. I’m thinking a few of those thoughts myself.” A shift of his hips, reminded me (yeah, like I had really forgotten) of his predatory nature. My model-perfect lover had been a warrior for over twenty years. He may act like a mild-mannered computer nerd, but I had heard stories from Bas about David’s hair-raising exploits while field testing his drones and the assorted topographical mapping programs. My sexy geek had a wild side.

“Take me to bed, or lose me forever,” I smiled over my shoulder, quoting one of my favorite movies.

David’s chuckle rumbled through his chest, the jerky vibrations stuttering against my spine. “I won’t lose you, Love,” he murmured, against my hair. His humor subsided and he pressed a tender kiss to my temple. His voice became serious and filled with quiet certainty, “If you were lost, I would move heaven and hell to find you. There is no place you could ever be that I couldn’t get to you.”

“I love you so much,” I whispered.

Good gracious! The man spun me around and scooped me up like I was no heavier than a bag of sugar. Before I fully realized what had happened, David was standing, with me in his arms, striding confidently toward the bed. Beauty, brains and brawn; I hit the trifecta with this one. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I let out one of those stupid, half-laughing, girly screams when I found myself airborne. I landed on the huge bed we had delivered last week.

David surprised me with the most luxurious bed I have ever slept in. Measuring eight-by-eight feet, with deep memory foam and more springs than a slinky store, this bed was large, solid, and impressively comfortable. It was such a novelty to wake up without my feet hanging over the edge. And let me tell you, it had been a bitch to get up the stairs and through the doorway! The delivery guys more than earned the tip David slipped them when everything had been set up.

“What are you grinning about?” David asked, from beside the bed. The slide of the nightstand drawer was loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“I was thinking that we could host an orgy, this damn bed is so large.”

“Yeah, we probably could host a dozen of our closest friends and never even roll into one of them,” he exaggerated. There was a considering pause. I could practically hear the wheels turning in the quiet room.

“No, David,” I said, answering the unasked question. “I’m not a prude, but I AM a one-man woman. I have no interest in anyone in this room. It was just a passing comment regarding the size of the bed, not a secret fantasy. I don’t want to share you.”

“Fifteen or twenty years ago, I probably would have been all over that idea. What young guy doesn’t have the two women in his bed fantasy at some point? Now? I feel the same way; you’re mine and I don’t want to share you either.”

“Well, do you plan to talk me to death, or are you gonna rock my world?” I teased with a cheeky grin.

His only reply was a soft chuckle. Listening to David undress had a whole new dimension. For the first time, I could mentally see the shirt sliding off those wide muscled shoulders, down corded arms, and hanging suspended for a split second before dropping away from long, elegant hands. The belt buckle made a jangling sound as it was unfastened. A whisper of cloth, the rasp of a zipper, the thump-thump of two boots tossed toward the closet. The rough glide of denim down strong, lean legs.

There was a shift on the bed as his knee pressed deeply into the mattress beside me. I reached for the hem of my shirt to pull it up, but David’s hands intercepted the movement and pushed my arms up over my head. The tail of a scarf tickled my palm, and I reflexively grasped it. “Don’t let go,” he ordered, before he looped the scarf around my wrist. Twice. There was a slight tug as I felt him thread the length of silk between the dowels in the headboard, then he wrapped my other wrist, pressing the loose tail into my open hand. “Let’s see how good your control is, Sweetheart.” There was a challenging smugness to his tone.

Oh, he was evil. Have I mentioned that I like that in a man? Instead of tying my hands, the fiend was going to use my stubbornness and pride to make me hang on. Essentially, I was not going to be able to remain passive, and at his mercy; by giving me control of the scarf, he made sure I would need to concentrate on maintaining a grip, no matter what he decided to do to me. Payback was gonna be a sweet agony; I could hardly wait for my chance at revenge.

My arms secure, because heaven knows, I wasn’t going to let go, David speared his fingers under the hem of my shirt, inching it up my torso as his hands began the slow, sensual process of unveiling. As he bared my belly to the cool air, he wafted hot breath over the sensitive skin, causing little tremors that rippled over my whole body. I heard the smile in his voice, and instantly pictured that sexy dimple. “Oh Babe, you are so responsive tonight,” he praised, bestowing an open-mouth, sucking kiss to the skin just below my navel. His hands pushed the shirt higher, exposing the lace and cotton of my bra. He didn’t stop his upward movement until the shirt passed over my head, effectively trapping my arms. Not coincidentally, I’m sure, his body now crouched over mine, his knees pressing against my hips, and his fingers wrapped over the silk on my wrists; tightening for just a moment. I could feel the tension in him as he gazed down, drinking in the view of me trapped and bound beneath him. With a quick twist, the front fastening of my bra parted away from the rise of my breasts.

He leaned back and there was the faintest sound of a lid being popped off a jar, just before the faint scent of spearmint and pear teased my nose. I jerked in surprise when his finger applied a generous dollop of a cold lotion, or gel, to the aureole of each breast. My nipples pebbled at the cool sensation, especially contrasted against the warmth of his hand. He bent forward and slipped a flavored finger into my mouth. I obligingly sucked the glaze off, being overly thorough about sliding my tongue back and forth along his finger. There was a slight tingling sensation that didn’t really numb my tongue as much as coated it with newly discovered nerve endings. I squeezed my thighs together against the rush of liquid heat that suddenly pooled at their apex.

The Devil, formerly known as David, sounded far too pleased with himself. “Are you ready, Lover? Your world is about to be rocked, rolled, ravished, and utterly ruined,” he promised. “Before I’m done, you will be hoarse from screaming my name, and boneless from orgasms.” He slowly lowered his naked weight over me until I was pressed into the bed. “And, if either of us can walk a straight line in the morning, no one will be more surprised than me, because I plan to be buried balls-deep in you for the rest of the night, or as long as you can hold on to that scrap of silk.”

Nice to know he respected my willpower enough to assume he wouldn’t be able to walk either, I thought with some satisfaction.

His fingers raked through my hair, and gripped tightly, holding my head immobile. There was no warning before his lips took mine in a hot, lascivious, breath-stealing kiss; tongue spearing deep into my mouth with a rare edgy hunger. We’d never tried tying each other up, but I was guessing this bondage visual really did it for him. Good to know. Being restrained was having quite the effect on me too.

His mouth drew away from mine slightly, pausing to lick the seam of my lips, sampling the essence of pears and mint that lingered there. He buried his nose it the crook of my neck and inhaled the scent of my skin. His moan of pleasure caused an eruption of goose bumps to ripple over my flesh. “Oh, Teresa, I am going to ride you hard, fuck you deep, and lick every drop of cream off your thighs. I can hardly wait to feel you wrapped around my cock with the taste of your cum in my mouth.”

Oh man. David was one of the few men I knew that rarely let an f-bomb pass his lips, but put the man in a bedroom, and he could out curse a sailor… oh, wait a minute.

My body arched and writhed when he bit the base of my neck, firmly, using teeth to hold me in place as he rotated his hips, and ground the thick ridge of his erection hard against my thigh. The coarse hair on his chest scraped across my nipples, which were gaining sensitivity. The lotion he applied seemed to draw more nerve endings to the surface. He dragged his body down the length of mine, roughly, to intensify the friction. His teeth forged a path of soft bites over my throat and onto my shoulders, his tongue laving each passion mark with a swirling wet heat.

My breasts ached, the peaks rigid and burning… no, not burning, more of an icy-hot tingling. David lifted himself in a sitting position straddling my knees, he pulled his blunt nails over my skin from collarbone to the bottom of my ribcage, scoring faint lines that would fade in moments. He purposely avoided the aureoles as he repeatedly raked fingers down my body: arm to hip, Sternum to belly. Repeating the patterns at random.

I was totally unprepared when his fingers pinched the nipples, firmly, tugging and pulling them - releasing just as quickly before his nails, once again, resumed scoring across my skin. Another pinch. Release. Score. Pull. Pinch. Release.

With a speed and violence that surprised me, David speared an arm under my back and arched my chest high off the bed, pulling my arms taut, but not painfully so. It was a reminder that I was restrained, even by my own hand, leaving my body at his mercy. Oh God! He covered a nipple with his open mouth and sucked hard and deep, then delicately drew away to bite the tip. He spent a few minutes alternating between each breast, switching between tender attention and brisk flicks of his tongue, sending a bolt of desire straight between my clenched thighs. Ever aware of my body’s response, David growled, “Next time we tie your legs apart.” At complete odds with the swiftness in which he had arched my body up to his mouth, he lowered me tenderly to the mattress, soothing my breasts with long, leisurely licks.

I inhaled sharply, as another smear of the lotion was applied to my painfully sensitive nipples. The scent of pears under my nose, prompted me to part my mouth ready to suck his finger clean again. “No, for your lips this time. Don’t eat it off.” The finger traced teasingly over my mouth. My jaws were cupped in his large hands and he leaned forward. I listened to him draw in the scent of the lotion mixed with my breath. The heat from his mouth intensified the icy-hot tingling of my lips.

“Are you wet for me?” He whispered, his breath in my mouth, promising a kiss, but never delivering. His face drew away as he sat up, astride me. Hands started to work the fastening on my jeans, and I felt the tickling brush of David’s knuckles against the delicate skin of my stomach as he slipped each of the buttons free. Teeth bit gently into the rounded curve of my belly; my legs quivered. I lifted my hips to facilitate the removal of my jeans, and he made fast work of slipping them off. This time he spread my legs with his body, splaying his knees wide to prevent me from rubbing my thighs together for some much needed friction.

“I can’t think of anything that smells as good as a woman,” David told me, shaping my hips and thighs with warm hands. Curving around to grasp my knees, parting me further, almost to the point of pain. “Nothing can compare to the taste, either.” My body arched, high at the stab of his tongue into my weeping core. No preliminaries, just the licking and nibbling of his mouth. Lips captured my clit and I cried out as he suckled me, giving me an edge of teeth before kissing and sucking again. He ate me with the consuming hunger and lasciviousness of a man who relished the flavor coating his tongue. He demanded my release, and I was only too happy to give it to him. I climaxed with a wailing moan and locked muscles, straining up to his lips, pulling every last sensation from his wicked mouth.