Authors: Mary Margret Daughtridge

SEALed with a Ring (21 page)

"But can I touch it? Just touch it? With my mouth?"

She leaned over with one arm across him to brace herself.

"Wait," he said. "Let's sit you where your neck and throat can stay as relaxed as possible. Kneel on the floor. I'll come to you."

"You won't push my head down, will you?"

"You'll be in complete control. All the time."

He hadn't known who she was or what she was. She had been a temporary woman whom he would forget. He'd been audacious, pushing the limits over and over—and in that way he certainly hadn't changed—and yet he'd somehow made a safe space to let herself go.

She believed him. He wanted her to be free. Free to look at stars. Free to trust her sensual side. "Can we stay out here?"

He raised up on his elbow. "Tell you what. You look at the stars. I'm going to do a little undercover work."

He ducked down and pulled the comforter over his head. He continued his lazy stroking of her breasts, one and then the other.

She felt his lips, the faint scraping of his chin. For long moments he licked at their hardened peaks, tantalizing the very tip. When at last he took it into his mouth, she groaned.

He lifted his head. "Good, huh?"

A waft of chilled air hit the wet skin. Her nipple con tracted with a tight ache she felt in her bones. She gasped.

The heat of his mouth when it closed over her again took her breath away. He suckled. Hard.

Every muscle in her body tightened. Her back arched off the lounger.

"Very good, huh?" she heard him murmur. Felt his breath against her skin. Could have sworn she felt him smile.

He gave the other breast the same merciless loving attention until she was panting steamy puffs into the cold night air. And writhing. And making hungry little sounds that surprised her.

She pushed down their covering. "Getting hot."

She urged him up until their mouths met. She ran her fingers under the soft cotton of his T-shirt, seeking the warm, solid feel of him. The long muscles of his back. The deep groove of his spine.

It wasn't quite enough. She snagged fistfuls of his shirt and dragged upwards, but she succeeded only in tangling her hands.

She grunted in frustration. "Off!"

He chuckled at her imperious tone. He withdrew his lips long enough to whip the shirt over his head one-handed.

He came back down, and it was exactly what she wanted. Exactly the muted drag of hot skin on her skin, his vital heat, the knowledge of bone and sinew and coiled strength feeding some hunger that existed deep in the deepest part of her soul.

She pushed at his chest, intent on rolling him over so she could gain control of the kiss.

He went, and caught himself just in time to keep from tumbling off the narrow lounger.

"Wrestling isn't on the list of approved uses for this lounger, I'm afraid. Let's do it this way." He lifted her up out of the way while sliding under her. "How's this?"

They fitted exactly. She centered the notch of her thighs over the hard bulge of his erection. Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she dragged her breasts through his sprinkling of chest hair, relishing the light rasp against their sensitive tips. When she lowered herself, he obligingly opened his mouth for her exploration.

Long, leisurely mating of mouths, lips lingering, tongues tangling. Sighs sifting breaths between the drawn-out hiss of breakers.

"My turn." He rolled them onto their sides, again in a casual display of strength lifting them both so that they lay in the center of the lounger. He had the most remarkable awareness of where his body was, and more amazingly, where her body was. Fleetingly, she wondered what it would be like to dance with him but instantly forgot it as his hand insinuated itself under the elastic waist of her pants, stroking her belly and then lower.

Stopped. Tentatively cruised lower.

On a whim she couldn't explain, JJ had left work early on Tuesday to get a Brazilian wax. She wasn't used to the strange feel of it herself. His one questing finger traced the seam of the outer lips.

They said when all the pubic hair was removed, the area became even more sensitive. They were right. She shuddered violently.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

Chapter 34

"JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH." AND HE MEANT THAT WITH full reverence. Again, he drifted his fingers over the petal smooth feminine essence he had found. He had seen her in the shadowy swimming pool and remembered seeing the dark strip at the juncture of her thighs, as if an extra portion of night covered her secrets. "What… when?"

"Tuesday."

"Are you going to get upset if I ask you why?"

"An impulse. I just wanted something to make me different."

He knew about women wanting to change their ap pearance to give themselves confidence, especially when they felt a little low or unattractive. That wasn't what he heard in her voice though. "Different, how?"

She pulled away. Not on the outside—on the out side, they touched everywhere—still, he felt her shrink inside herself. "Does it bother you?" she asked. "It will grow back."

The last thing he wanted to do was make her self conscious. He brushed his lips across her velvety cheeks, kissed the tip of her nose. "Surprised, that's all." His dia phragm shook in a silent, self-amused chuckle. "I thought I knew what you looked like." His fingers found the mois ture at her heated center and spread it over the silken inner folds. "I was planning this for later, but you know what this means I'm going to have to do, don't you?"

Know what he had to do? "Uh-uh."

He pulled the comforter up to her chin. "Stay right there." He rolled off the lounger, catching himself on his hands.

In seconds she felt him untuck her feet. "Scoot down." He placed his hands on her hips to guide her. "Perfect."

"Lift up." Grasping the elastic, he eased the stretchy pants over her hips and down her legs.

"You'll get cold."

His smile was a glisten of eyes and teeth as he peered over her raised knees. "Trust me. I won't."

He gently pushed her knees apart. The comforter be came an obscuring tent, one he disappeared into.

Unseen hands of a magic, invisible lover drifted over her calves, traced delicate patterns on her inner thighs, trailed unreal, dreamlike strokes across the epicenter of her desire.

Above her, the heavens sparkled with cold glory.

And then his mouth was there with hot, insistent pres sure, tracing every hill and valley, seeking the pathway of every nerve. Scalding, soothing, stirring currents of pleasure that surged and sank in waves as timeless and inevitable as the sea.

Time stopped. Forget her clock with the spacious minutes she loved. She had found the unmarked time that lay between those minutes. She was oddly disem bodied. No, that wasn't the right word.
Dis-worlded
, if there was such a thing. Drifting in unfathomable mys tery, she had no point of familiarity to cling to. She was utterly lost. She felt found.

He entered her with a finger. Withdrew. Two fingers.

She heard a sound like deep pleasure.

The ocean shushed and crashed. Slow rising tide of sensation, slow layer upon layer, held in thrall by hot, silken swirl, and then her climax was upon her, lifting her, crashing through her with shudders and shocks. One wave subsided only to build into the crest of another.

He stayed with her until he had drawn the last quiver, the last of the tiny internal shocks.

She opened her eyes and saw stars.

She opened her arms to him when he slipped back under the comforter.

He was hard enough to drive nails. The thought of losing himself in her tight heat was a red throb, but
she
opened her arms to him
. He had never before thought of the meaning of welcome with open arms. It humbled him and enriched him at the same time. Much as he wanted her roused and ready, he couldn't take her from the satisfaction of her afterglow.

He drew her softness close. As close as she drew him. She nestled her head into the crook of his neck, languor ously drawing her fingernails back and forth across his chest. After a while, he realized the scraping across his nipples wasn't accidental.

She rose over him and added kisses. The skin of his cheeks was cool, a shivery contrast to the humid warmth under the comforter. With her lips, she dabbed dots of heat over his face, which changed to dots of cool as soon as she moved on and the moisture of her breath evaporated. She kissed his eyes, his nose, his forehead and moved on to the other cheek.

He waited to see if she would avoid the scar. He would be all right if she did; he honestly didn't know which he preferred. She answered the unasked question by moving her lips across it and then tracing it lightly with her tongue. The sudden warming was like she had touched it with a branding iron. Branched lightning of pain seared through his skull.

Against his will, he stiffened. His gasp was only par tially stifled. He sat up, fighting nausea.

"What's the matter?" She sat up beside him and reached out. "What happened?" Lest she touch his face, he batted her hand away. She dropped it. "What's going on?"

Slowly the pain receded, leaving a cold, hollow trac ing behind. The sensation wasn't pain, but in its own way, it was almost as unpleasant. "It's all right."

"It isn't. You're not. It happened when I touched the scar. I'm so sorry, but you should have told me."

"Not your fault. I didn't think. Cold, heat, shaving, sometimes nothing at all sets it off."

She thought about the delicious contrast between his chilled skin and his hot-feeling mouth. She had been kissing his cheek, wanting in her heart to kiss it better.

"Can't the doctors do anything?"

"The doctors hoped this last surgery would fix it—the scar had healed crooked. They hoped that a nerve had become entrapped and, by doing a scar revision, they could free it."

"I take it that's not working."

"It's still healing. There might be inflammation that needs to subside. It's going to get better."

He said that, but his eyes were dark, wounded-looking.

"We shouldn't be out here. Crammed in here, I could accidentally touch it at any time."

"I'm telling you, JJ… it's all right."

She pushed the comforter aside and stood. The deck boards were cold, wet, and gritty beneath her bare feet. Her pants were too clammy to put back on. Even the comforter was already heavy from the ever-present moisture in the ocean air. She had seen masterfulness and strategy when he had bundled her up and swept her off her feet. Now she saw detailed attention to her comfort and prioritizing her desires over everything. She gathered up the comforter. "Save your breath. I'm tak ing us in."

"Okay." He opened the slider for her. "We go in on one condition."

"What's that?"

"We keep the lights on."

He had a thousand fantasies, and the last hour had just added a thousand more. The most recent ones re quired light.

She lifted the bundle in her arms. "I need to put these things in the dryer."

His impulse was to take them from her and throw them on the floor. Slow, he reminded himself. She resisted being overwhelmed. He started toward the kitchen area.

A light came on automatically when the door to the closet where the washer and dryer were stacked was opened. JJ quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her sarong style.

As she bundled the comforter and her clothes into the dryer, he leaned against the wall, enjoying the sight of her, anticipating all he wanted to do. It reminded of something he needed to ask. "Are you protected?"

"Against what?"

"I mean, are you on the pill?"

"Yes, but…"

"I know. There's still the issue of disease. Trust me, in the last few months, every inch of my body has had the once over. I don't have anything. And there hasn't been anyone in… I don't know… anyway, not since Afghanistan."

"But would you remember?" Her disbelief was obvious.

"Yes!"

JJ crossed her arms under her breasts. "Remember every one, do you?"

"For God's sake. I'm not lying. I'm not that shallow, either. I may have forgotten a couple of girls' names over the years, but I remember being with them. In fact the day I got this, the little girl I told you about with eyes like yours? She reminded me of—" There was that feeling again. That certainty that he knew something—if he could just put the pieces together.

"What?"

Of you. No, that was backwards. JJ made him think o
f the little girl, not the other way around. But the little girl had reminded him of someone, he thought. Someone he associated with a feeling of loss… regret… failure. "The worst mistake I ever made—"

"Which was?"

He didn't know. He could remember being in a hotel… with Do-Lord… but where? There had been so damn many hotels in so many countries. Suddenly he could see Jax and Pickett in front of a hotel, loading a car with baggage. When would he have seen that? Their wedding? JJ said the wedding was where they met, but, as usual, the images felt jumbled, out of order.

They resisted all his efforts to sort them. He was probably making something out of nothing. The truth was, he constantly had feelings of déjà vu around JJ, as if something about her reminded him of someone, as if his unconscious were tapping him on the shoulder. But he couldn't ask her if there had been more to their meet ing than she had told him. It would prove everything she thought about him.

"The time you failed to use protection?" JJ prompted, smiling with false helpfulness.

"No, it was—" He stopped himself. He read the dis belief in JJ's eyes. There was no way to defend himself against her suspicion. If there was one thing that wasn't smart, it was talking about old girlfriends. "Never mind. Forget it. I'm happy to use protection. I always have been. It's easier to get in the mood when you're not wor ried about some pathogen hitching a ride."

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