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“Oh.” Her voice was deep, flirty. “Then don’t stop now.”
Before he could stop her, she began lowering his zipper. The sound mesmerized him. Like someone scratching their way out of a dilemma. His every sense went on alert. The feel of her luxurious hair against his skin. The sound of her breathing coming from her mouth in small pants. When she looked up into his eyes, he saw fire.
He felt something inside him clutch, then give way. He’d seen her willingness. Her longing. Through her sensitive touch he’d found she not only had gentleness and passion, but empathy as well.
It had been a long damned time since he’d wanted anything—anyone this badly.
His erection popped free. Mary sighed deeply and took him in hand. Her obvious pleasure at touching him was contagious. He rolled her to her back and ran his hands down her rib cage and up to cup her breasts.
Her mouth brushed over his briefly, setting fires where she kissed. Just enough to burn through any of his remaining boundaries. He covered her mouth and kissed her back relentlessly. Her lips and tongue stoked the flames of his desire and burned any questions or regrets away like so many cinders blowing in the wind.
“Mary.” A single word. A single breath.
And he was lost.
The blood coursed through his veins, leaving his brain and rushing to his extremities. He was out of control. Defenseless against his own needs.
Desperate, he slid her arms free of the bra, pulled it to her waist and then filled his hands with her lush flesh. Her breasts were firm and as soft as rose petals. As he thumbed over the nubby tips, her chest rose and fell. She moaned through pursed lips. His fingers had found perfection, but his mouth hungered for its turn.
He lowered his head to take what he wanted. When his mouth closed over the hard and pebbled peak of one breast, she arched upward with a gasp. Pulling her deeper into his mouth, he laved his tongue back and forth over her nipple. It grew harder—and so did he.
Ignoring the growing ache in his groin, he kept his attention focused on Mary, on her reactions to his moves. As he moved to the other breast, she whimpered and moved restlessly under him. He took a nip of the tip, just a tiny bite. She jumped but made it clear she liked what he was doing, digging her fingernails into his shoulders and holding him right where she wanted. Blowing air over her to both soothe and stir, he kissed and suckled her breasts until she begged.
“Jake, please. I want…I want…”
Yes, Jake knew what she wanted and was determined to please them both. Why he shouldn’t seemed lost in a haze of need and desire.
He flattened the palm of his hand on her belly and felt her muscles quivering under his touch. Inching his fingers beneath her panties, he soon reached his goal—all that glorious heat in the lush curls at the center of her thighs. He brushed aside any silky material standing in his path. With her help he pulled the undergarment down and off, frantic that nothing should stand between them.
He shoved his own slacks out of the way with one hand while he used the other to stroke and torture. Her thighs fell open and she lifted her hips off the bed. Finding her already wet and hot, he bent his head and dipped his tongue into her sweetness.
Mary groaned, struggled and urged him back up her body. He obliged her, blazing kisses over her belly and across the valleys and curves of her body. Then she reached down and gripped him with both her hands, using a gentle touch that drove him wild.
He jerked and went rigid. Her touch ruled his moves. But he didn’t want gentle from her. His whole body felt like molten lava and Jake knew he couldn’t last much longer. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands up over her head.
Looking into her face, he found her glazed eyes fixed on him. “Now, Jake,” she said through a sob. “I beg you. Hurry.”
She lifted her hips, inviting him inside. With a last bit of clarity, he reached into his pants pocket for his wallet. He found the silver-wrapped condom and had it freed and installed within seconds.
Moving over her again, he let the tip of his erection nudge her swollen flesh. She writhed. Whimpered. He leaned his hips forward, brushing his length against her for a second time while she cried out her pleasure.
The sound enflamed him, engulfed him, as blood pulsed and pooled in the part of him begging for quick release. His own ragged breathing blocked the tiny niggles of guilt already building deep inside his chest.
When he brushed her entrance for a third time, she bucked upward. Her whole body pleaded for him as she rubbed herself against his length and called out his name. Every inch of her wept with wanting, and she begged him to hurry.
With amazing self-control, Jake gently pressed his hard length inside her entrance. Testing. He needed this to be good for her. Better for her than for him.
Her internal opening surrounded him with tiny tremors. Like welcome-home hugs. Hearing her making explicit noises of pleasure, he pressed a little deeper into the shock waves. But he wanted her to be just as wild with need as he was. With some regret he made a slow withdrawal, only seconds later to inch forward again.
She tensed but murmured encouragement. Her body was like a warm, welcoming paradise, tight and wet. The greatest gift he’d ever been offered. He pushed deeper, trying not to rush.
Feeling her body start to contract around him, he slid himself farther toward ecstasy. So hot. Slick. Tight.
Just before he succumbed to the madness, it hit him. Too tight. There might not be any barrier, but no one had ever come this way before. He suddenly knew for certain that he was the first.
Her first? Was it possible?
He used the last bit of his resolve to lean up on his elbows and look down at her. Her face was the picture of abandon. Her hair a wild carpet spread out across the pillows.
This was too big a gift for him to take without words.
“Mary.”
Not sure he could stop if she asked him to, he still felt he had to try. Had to say something.
She’d closed her eyes and arched her neck, pushing her engorged breasts up invitingly. He tried not to look. Fought to forget their sweet taste.
“Mary, listen to me.” Desperation colored his efforts.
“Please. Please. Please.” She undulated her hips and threw her legs over his thighs, bringing him closer to the edge.
“Mary, look at me.”
Her head swung back and forth. Her arms went around his back, trying to urge him down into her. He wanted what she seemed to want. To slam his body into hers and bring them to the quick ending they both craved. Why did he hesitate? It was a hell of time for another attack of conscience, but he was already up to his ears in guilt. He had to keep trying to make her listen.
Jake fisted his hands in her hair and forced her attention. “Are you sure? Sure it’s me you want? You don’t even know me.”
She stared up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, her lips slightly parted and her chest heaving. His mouth went dry as she bit on her bottom lip and tried to smile.
“Time doesn’t matter. I know you,” she managed on a hoarse laugh. “I chose you because you’re a good person. A kind and careful soul who cares about being somebody’s first.”
Jake started to shake his head, to deny what she’d said. He was far removed from anyone who resembled such a description. But she didn’t know it. Couldn’t know it.
Her internal canal began convulsing around him, milking him and seducing him to complete the lesson. “Mary. Damn it. I can’t do this.”
“Shush. Jake, please. I’m so close to something and I know it’s going to be spectacular. Please…”
She didn’t have time to complete her plea because Jake gave in to the temptation jolting through him. Dripping with sweat, he thrust hard into her and embedded himself to the hilt. He couldn’t think. Could only let go.
Could only cry out when he felt the contractions take her and she screamed his name in pleasure. He pumped hard into each one of her rolling earthquakes.
Faster and faster. Higher and higher. Until they were each a sobbing, shouting explosion.
As one, they shuddered and fell over the edge. Together in body—if not in mind.
Amazing.
Sprawled over the bed, tangled in Jake’s arms and legs, Mary waited for her heart rate to slow. She couldn’t move. Didn’t want to.
Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable.
Why hadn’t she known about this before? But then again, she hadn’t met Jake before now. Grateful. Yes, totally grateful that she’d waited for him, she turned her head to make sure he was all right. His skin was damp, glistening with sweat. And his breathing was as erratic as her own.
“Thank God,” she murmured.
Jake opened his eyes and rolled to look at her. “For what?”
“Thank God you were the first.”
He shifted to one side, pulled her snugly against him and pressed a kiss to her hair. “You could’ve told me.”
She laid a palm on his chest, felt the pulse beat of his heart. “What? That I was a twenty-nine-year-old virgin? And how long would you have stuck around after hearing that?”
His chuckle rumbled up through her hand. “Maybe you’re right. And I would’ve hated missing what just happened here.”
“See? I have a lot of strikes against me. And I wanted you. Badly.”
“I wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “I saw you in that sparkly orange top and nearly swallowed my tongue.”
“It’s burnt umber, not orange. Red-haired women aren’t supposed to wear orange.” But this red-haired woman was going to wear that top as much as possible from now on.
She started to turn over but winced with the discovery that lots of interesting places on her body ached.
Jake’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I didn’t even manage to get your bra all the way off. Hell of a way for a first time to go.”
He rolled out of bed, ripped off his own rumpled shirt and then reached back and undid her bra. She started to follow him to her feet, but he put his hand down and held her still.
“Hold on. I know what you need right now.” He slid his hands under her body and lifted her into his arms. “Let me take care of you.”
Feeling like a princess, like her little mermaid, Mary grinned into his shoulder as she threw her arms around his neck and hung on.
He carried her into the bathroom and stepped with her into the bathtub. Then he turned on the shower tap, thankfully warm. The spray covered them in a shower of liquid calm.
Slowly, Jake lowered her down his body to stand on her own shaky legs. “Hang there a second.” He kept one arm tightly around her and reached for the soap. “You’re going to find out that good sex is always messy, Miss Mary Ariel.”
“I like the sound of that. I wish my parents had called me Ariel. Maybe I’ll change my name.” Along with her whole life—starting tonight.
He placed a wet kiss on the mermaid’s face and Mary laughed, feeling careless and coy.
The bar of soap rubbing across her breasts made her nipples tighten. Did he notice? Jake never changed the motion. His knuckles brushed the soft undersides of her breasts. He ran his hands down her spine and around her backside. He seemed intent on smoothing soap bubbles over her skin and she wasn’t sure he was paying attention.
Until…he reached between her legs. His touch was as light as a cloud, and he bent his head to place gentle lips against her wet temple.
An electric buzz rushed through her veins like a warm wind. Desire, close to the surface since their first kiss, kicked off her pulse again. Her heart pounded with the need, the heat.
“Jake.” The word was only a whisper of sound. A plea. A question.
But it didn’t have the desired effect.
He pulled his hand away and stepped back, studying her under the spray. Suddenly she felt more embarrassed than she had in her whole life and raised both palms to cover her breasts. No man had ever seen her stark naked before. It was one thing to have sex in bed—in the dark. It was quite another to be faced with full-frontal nudity under the bathroom’s fluorescent light.
Jake’s eyes clouded over and instead of ice blue, they looked gray and unfocused. “That’s it.” He handed her the soap, turned his back and pushed aside the shower curtain ready to step out of the tub.
“Is it me?” she asked quietly. “Now that you’ve seen me in the light are you regretting what we did?”
He shook his head, then turned back and reached for her. “Maybe I have some guilt. But I’ll never regret one moment of what we did. Don’t ever think that. You are a gorgeous woman. And if I had a choice.”
Pulling her close, he lasered a kiss across her lips. A kiss that spoke of need and desperation. A kiss that spoke of tomorrow.
By the time he let her go, his breathing was coming in hard pants and his erection was poking her in the stomach. “You’re going to be sore for a couple of days. You have lots of time left in your future to experience everything. Let’s take things slow for now.”
She sighed but nodded her acceptance of his decision. It wasn’t her first choice but if he could wait, so could she.
Jake stepped from the tub. “Take your time. When you get out we’ll have breakfast before we each head back to Honey Creek.”
He put a towel over the bar for her to use after the shower. “This is the only dry cloth left in the room, and it’s all yours. I’ll air-dry. Oh, and when you get out of the shower, you might want to make a decision about your clothes.”
“My…?”
He grinned and pointed to the pile by the sink.
“My new silk pants? And my brand-new heels? They look ruined.” The pants would probably be easy to replace, though she regretted the heels.
“Sorry you picked last night to wear your new clothes.”
“All my clothes are new.” Hmm. That sounded a little too sharp and full of self-pity and it wasn’t how she truly felt. “Besides, those clothes were lucky for me.”
“I told you never to call me here.”
At the same time as Mary was stepping from the shower, Truman was making lame excuses.
“But, boss, I’m using a pay phone outside the Bozeman hospital E.R. No one will find out.”
The boss tried to keep sudden anger and frustration from spilling over through the phone. “I’m not paying you to get your nose broken. I wanted you to follow that new guy around for a while and report back on his behavior. What’s the idea of jumping him?”
Groaning, Truman raced to explain, “He looked like he was spying on somebody. I only wanted to scare him off. Make him regret he came to our part of the country.”
“Yeah? And that worked out so well, didn’t it?”
“It’s not my fault.” Truman’s whining voice set nerves to jangling. “He’s gotta be some kind of pro.”
The idea wasn’t a novel one. “I’m beginning to believe you’re right. I thought at first he was a private investigator and I wanted to know who hired him. I’m more convinced now that he’s probably a fed. DEA or FBI maybe. Makes me think I’d better bring in a pro myself.”
Truman issued a laugh, but the sound rang hollow and too loud across the line. “You get him, boss. What do you want me to do next?”
“Go on vacation.”
“But, boss.”
