Authors: Jami Alden
Tags: #sexy romance, #alpha hero, #reunion romance, #high school sweethearts, #sexy contemporary
"Come on, Kelly," he murmured, pressing a soft kiss against her cheek, "it's like you said. Karen is insecure, not to mention a bitch by nature. You were special, and she resented that. Your brains made her feel stupid, not you. All of us feel stupid next to someone like you. We can't help it."
"I hate that!" she exploded. "Resenting me for making you feel stupid is like me hating Heidi Klum because I'd never be chosen for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. We're both freaks of nature."
"Hey, I never said I resented you. I just feel dumb next to you. But then, I'm pretty sure no one's ever going to get me confused with Einstein."
She turned and smacked him on the shoulder. "You're dyslexic, not dumb, and I hate it when you talk like that."
"Hey, we're talking about your baggage, not mine." Nick's voice had a new edge she hadn't heard before.
"Okay, fine. Then maybe we should talk about how I haven't been there for my family when they needed me. My mom—“
He gave her a hard look. "You think your mom would have wanted you to risk your career to come home and watch her die?"
Kelly just shrugged. She'd always felt, and Karen had eagerly fostered the belief, that her mom had never forgiven Kelly for not coming home in time to say good-bye.
"Nobody knew she was going to go so fast. We all thought she had more time. Your mom was so proud of you when you got into med school, there's no way she wanted you to jeopardize that."
This was a surprise to Kelly. She'd always had the impression that her mom had regarded her as something of a genetic anomaly. "I never thought she really cared one way or the other," she murmured.
Nick kissed her forehead. "She used to brag about you all the time. But I already knew how great you were. If it wasn't for you, I would have never graduated from high school."
Her mom had been proud of her. She was going to have to tuck that piece of information away in her heart and reexamine it later.
Right now she was focused on Nick, who had managed, with his warm hands and reassuring words, to talk her out of her sour mood and make her tension disappear. She felt relaxed, safe, content. As his fingers dipped under the lapel of her robe the first faint twinges of arousal pulsed between her thighs.
"Sorry to dump on you like that," she murmured into the scented skin of his neck. "I know you didn't come over here to listen to me bitch."
"I'm still your friend, Kelly," he said, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Besides," he said with a grin, "what I came over for works much better when you're not so uptight."
"I'm not uptight," she protested, pulling his shirttail from his waistband, eager to feel his hot skin against her palms. She jumped about a foot when his fingers grazed a ticklish spot on her rib cage. “Okay, maybe I'm a little uptight," she conceded.
"I know just the thing to calm you down." Nick took her hand and pulled her into the bedroom.
She did her best to relax as he led her down the short hallway to the bedroom. Earlier that day she'd bought some candles and flowers. The house came furnished, but barely, and Kelly had done what she could to make her room look less like a cheap hotel room.
She stood quietly as he pushed her robe off her shoulders and draped it carefully over the back of a chair. He quickly rid her of her bra and panties and pulled her against him. The heat of arousal licked its way through her belly, between her thighs, along the tips of her breasts rasping against the soft cotton of his shirt.
"Lay down," he whispered huskily.
Kelly obliged, stretching against the soft cotton of her own six hundred thread count sheets. Furnished or no, some luxuries a girl just didn't give up.
She watched him through slitted eyes as he moved around the room, lighting candles and stripping off his clothes. She hadn't been able to see him very well last night, and now she drank her fill. The wide chest rippling with muscle, the burnished skin glowing in the candlelight.
The room quickly filled with the scent of green tea and cranberry candles. She breathed deep, the knot of tension in her belly finally starting to unravel.
Putting all thoughts of Karen aside, Kelly focused on Nick, magnificently naked in her bedroom. His eyes were dark and mysterious as they swept over her breasts and belly, finally coming to rest on the juncture of her thighs. She felt that look like a caress, felt her body dampening, softening. It was almost scary how easily he could turn her on.
Apparently the feeling was mutual, judging by the mammoth erection he was sporting. She leaned back against the pillows and parted her legs, certain that any second now he would climb on top of her and sink deep inside her already-wet sex.
But instead he just smiled at her and went into the bathroom.
"What are you looking for?" she called out when she heard him rustling around. "I put some condoms in the bedside table."
"I found it," he said. He appeared in the doorway, waving a bottle in a triumphant little shake. "Roll over."
She obeyed, looking over her shoulder to watch him. He uncapped the bottle and squeezed a generous amount of something—the fragrance hit her—her lavender-scented body oil.
"Put your head down," he chided.
"What are you"" Her question ended in a low groan as he spread the oil over her feet, up her calves and thighs. Pressing his fingers into the muscles of her legs, he moved his hands back down and captured her
right foot in his hands. Running the pub kept her on her feet, and the press of Nick’s thumb against the ball of her foot was absolutely luxurious. He gave her other foot the same treatment, then worked his way up her Achilles tendons, her calves, her thighs, until her legs were like limp noodles and she was melting into a puddle of oil.
He lightly ran his palms over the curve of her ass, then knelt over her, knees bracketing her hips as his hands slid along the muscles beside her spine. With each stroke, his cock brushed against her ass. Her skin was slick with oil, and his hard flesh sliding against her slowly drove her insane.
Her languor diminished as she began to move in time, raising her hips slightly so his cock slid against her dripping cleft. Maybe if she got the angle right he could slip inside...
Nick splayed his hand against the small of her back. "I'm not done yet, Kelly," he whispered, bending down to nip her neck. The slight punishment sent a shiver down her back. "Just hold still and let me take care of you."
She obediently stilled her movements and blew a frustrated breath into the pillow. "You're torturing me."
His low chuckle surrounded her. "When I torture you, Kelly, I promise you'll know it."
She grumbled but let him continue his ministrations. She sighed in relief when he finally flipped her onto her back. Hard, oil-slicked palms captured her breasts, kneading and stroking her soft flesh. His eyes gleamed with a predatory light as he watched her nipples harden into gleaming red points. He leaned down to tease one, then the other with just the tip of his tongue.
She arched off the bed and threaded her fingers through his hair, trying to hold his head in place. "I want you inside me now," she said.
His face lit with a wicked smile. "Not yet," he said firmly. His mouth left her breasts, his tongue tracing under each before sliding down her belly. His tongue dipped inside her navel, traced the shallow dip.
Then his mouth, open and wet, grazed the flesh of her inner thigh. His hands pushed her knees up, opening, spreading her to his gaze, to his touch.
Her belly tensed as his mouth nuzzled into her mound, his tongue rimming her soft inner lips. Oral sex was always tricky for her. While she enjoyed it, she always had niggling doubts in the back of her mind. Was he enjoying it? Was she taking too long to come?
As though reading her thoughts, Nick stroked her with a long, slow lick of his tongue. "You taste so good," he murmured.
She let out a low moan as his tongue swirled around her clit, flicking against the firm flesh in a rhythm that had her writhing against the sheets.
"So sweet, juicy." His tongue slid down, slipping in and out in a delicious tongue fuck.
Oh God, that is it, she thought as his lips fastened on her clit again. She could feel her orgasm building as her hands moved up to pinch and rub her nipples, every sinew tightening as she pressed herself into his mouth.
"Oh, just like that," she moaned, "don't stop." Oh thank God, this wasn't going to take long at all. She shouldn't have worried. She was already going to come, just one more lick of her clit, that's all she needed...
And then he stopped.
She nearly howled in frustration as he slid his mouth down to the flesh of her inner thighs. One big hand moved up to cover her own where it rested on her ultra-sensitive breast.
"What are you doing?" Kelly couldn't help the sharpness of her tone. "I was close, really fucking close!"
Nick chuckled, which only made her angrier.
"Why are you stopping?" she practically shrieked.
"I'm not stopping," he said, his tongue sliding against her slit. "I'm just slowing you down a little bit."
She let out a frustrated whimper as he slid one long, thick finger inside her. Her muscles clamped down around him as she tried to force him to finish what he started. But he withdrew, executing a swirl at the end that had her arching off the bed.
"You know what your problem is?"
Another slow lick.
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me." She felt his hands on her ankles, drawing her calves up over his shoulders. She was spread out before him like a feast.
He made a low sound of appreciation as he bent his head to her.
"Your problem""he tasted her clit""is that you're too goal oriented." One finger slid inside her as his tongue continued to tease.
She struggled to breathe. "Is that so?"
"It's like you're afraid if you lose focus, you're not going to get there," he continued. "But you have to trust me to get you there."
How could he sound so calm and matter-of-fact while he was slowly turning her into one giant, exposed nerve ending?
A second finger joined the first as his lips sucked at her. She gave a hoarse cry.
"I could do this all night and never get tired," he murmured. "Would you like that? Imagine me, licking and sucking you for hours."
Mimicking his words, he licked and sucked, fingers slowly sliding and thrusting. "I'm getting so turned on," he rumbled, and Kelly could feel the vibration throughout her body. "It's all I can do not to come against the sheets."
He groaned and buried his face against her. She imagined how she felt to him, wet and slick and pulsing against his fingers, the throbbing bud of her clit against his stroking tongue and suckling lips. Her orgasm hit her almost without warning, sending her arching off the bed with a wild cry that sounded foreign to her ears.
He stayed with her all the way through it, his tongue circling her until finally her tremors stopped. He gave her one last, loving lick and withdrew his fingers.
He retrieved a condom from the bedside table and sheathed himself.
Before she even had a chance to recover he was over her, gripping her hips in his hands as he slid inside her still-trembling sheath. He held himself still for several moments, buried deep inside. His hands cupped her face as he leaned down to kiss her. His kiss was both tender and carnal, the slow strokes of his tongue matching the thrust of him inside her.
Kelly moaned into his mouth, twining her arms and legs around him as though, if she held him tight enough, she could keep him inside her this way forever. Her hands slid down to the hard muscles of his ass, loving the way they flexed and rippled with each pumping stroke.
She loved the helpless groans that tore from his chest as he drove inside her, reveled in the power of her own body to give him pleasure.
Their bodies slid against each other, skin slick with the mixture of sweat and oil. The rasp of his chest hair against her nipples, the unbearably erotic sound of flesh meeting flesh, the salty sweet taste of Nick's skin all combined to drive Kelly to yet another peak. She arched up, grinding against him as he pounded inside her. She milked him hard as she came, biting down on his shoulder to muffle her cries.
Nick watched Kelly come back to reality as he held himself still hard and throbbing inside of her. His shoulder stung where her sharp little teeth had marked him. He wanted to come, felt his climax building in the base of his spine. But his urge for release warred with his desire to get her off again. Watching Kelly come was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. It was like she was launched into another world when she came, and he wanted to send her there again and again.
"I want to feel you come, Nick," she whispered.
He nearly lost control at that, but managed to hold back. “Not yet. I want to watch you get off again." He punctuated this by withdrawing almost completely, then working himself back in, millimeter by millimeter, until he wasn't sure which one of them he was tormenting.
Kelly gazed up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, her body going unnaturally still. Placing her hands around his hips, she blew out all of her breath. Then suddenly her lower abs started moving—undulating, really—in a slow, steady rhythm. His eyes involuntarily closed at the sensation. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before, like a firm, slick fist was kneading him from inside her body. Her hand came down to cup his testicles, cradling them gently in her fingers.
In seconds he was coming, his body jerking helplessly against her. He was wrung out, sucked dry as he collapsed on the mattress beside her.
"What the hell was that?" he gasped when he could finally breathe again. He forced his eyes open through sheer willpower.
Her full lips formed a sly cat-that-ate-the-cream smile. “Yoga," she said matter-of-factly. "I always wondered if that would work."
"Work? It almost fucking killed me."
She tucked her hands behind her head in exaggerated triumph. Her smile was an adorable combination of shyness and smug satisfaction. He rolled over on his back and pulled her against him, tucking her head snugly under his chin.