An Accidental Gentleman (23 page)

The soft cotton sheets matched the rich plum of his tie. Tucking her legs beneath her, she beckoned him forward. “You can’t wear your tie to bed. Too much camouflage. How will I find you?”

“Can’t have that.” He whispered, low and tender, as he stepped to the edge of the bed. “I always want you to know where I stand.”

She crushed his collar in both hands to stop the tremble in her fingers. The things he meant seemed bigger than the things he said. Intimacy added another level to the words. A reason to look deeper. Learning this complex language would take longer than a single night.

Flipping his collar up, she tossed lightness into her tone. “I was thinking more you’d be lying down.”

The tie slipped loose, and his shirt buttons fell to her fast fingerwork. As he shrugged free, she toyed with the drawstring on his shorts. When he met her gaze, she pulled in a slow tease. No rules said she had to surrender all control. Just share with him. Trade off a bit.

As the shorts dropped, his cock sprang up in a hurry. Catching her peeking, he smirked. “Some parts take lying down less well than others.”

The tip gleamed under the light. He’d been ready awhile. With both of them wanting, no sense delaying the fun. She matched his smile.

The bulk of her clothes lay on the living room floor. The bra remained to go. He’d seemed to enjoy the stockings. Kissing her through them, Jesus. Those would stay. She reached for the demi-cup’s back hooks.

“Wait.” Gathering her fingers, he stopped her and squeezed. His eyes glowed as green as a copper flame. “Let me.”

With a nod, she handed him the power. He’d dialed up the intensity tonight, and he didn’t seem inclined to downshift. The promise of seeing what he would do tweaked her pulse.

As he lowered her hands to her sides, he rubbed his thumbs across her wrists. He stroked all the way up her arms and smoothed her bra straps. Head bent, he pressed a single kiss to the upper curve of each breast. “I haven’t shown you near enough appreciation here yet.”

He caressed down her sloping breasts—so much more impressive in this bra than they were on a normal day—and slipped a single finger into each cup. With gentle nudging, he lifted.

Her speedy breaths raised her breasts higher, and his stare quickened her breaths, a circle promising to leave her breathless again soon. God, would he never take—

Groaning, he swept one breast into his hot mouth. His fever sank into her, achy and greedy, as he sucked as much of her breast as he could hold. In a rippling wave, he worked his tongue over her. He scraped his teeth downward, an agonizing march of anticipation. And yes, fuck, God yes, he took her nipple between his teeth and tugged.

When he let go, she cried out from the loss.

“Christ, Katherine. My new favorite color.” He placed a gentle kiss on her tingling nipple and pushed her unkissed breast higher. The hooks fell to his fingers, the bra to the bedspread. “You turn a beautiful shade of deep rose for me. I’ll have to make this one match.”

Her breast heated before he laid his mouth to her.

In his hunger, he toppled her onto her back and climbed over her.

She unfolded her legs and welcomed him between. The weight of him, fuck, a soaring joy along every nerve but especially the knotted bundle in her clit thumping merrily with her heart. Rocking and squirming, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and tried to pull him down. She could take more of his weight. She could take him all.

He pushed up hard, his hands planted in the mattress to either side of her. Gulped in oxygen while her wet nipples throbbed in the cooling air.

“What did I tell you the first time, Katherine?” His voice rough and commanding, he dragged her arms up the bed and pinned them above her head. “These hands stay where I can see ’em.” A twist transformed his smile into a wicked promise. “Don’t you move, now.”

She convulsed. Her back left the bed, her hips and shoulders taking the strain. Valves fully open, her engine ran hot and demanding. Brian would keep up. Her bad boy. Her good man.

He loosed her wrists. “Fuck, are you—you can move, Katherine, I didn’t mean—I would never—”

“I like you bossy.” Hell, she’d almost come from his take-charge attitude. But soothing him would come first, before they came for each other. “You can be a little bossy. I wore a dress for you, didn’t I?” Reassurance would help him bring his bad boy out to play more often. Then she’d have the best of both worlds, the considerate man and the insistent lover. “Just you, though. I don’t know another man I’d trust to boss me.”

Hunched over her on his arms, he seized her neck in his teeth. Nipping, biting, he claimed every inch from her ears to her collarbone. “Because I’m your man.”

He was. God, he was, entirely hers and not for a few stolen minutes. If arousal hadn’t overridden her, she might’ve cried for the joy of his love. “I wouldn’t date anyone else.”

“No one else.” His words landed with the weight of a bank vault, sealing out any other option. Once the lock tumbled, he flashed her a mischievous smile. “So you want another date fantasy, do you?”

“Worked the first time.” And then some. This time, she burned with so much need she’d set herself ablaze in a minute. “Better hurry, though.”

He turned away and dragged open the nightstand drawer. “I have—”

“Do we need them?” Condoms, obviously. If he hauled out handcuffs, she’d be shocked as hell.

He fell and caught himself on his elbow. “I thought—unbroken condoms. We both said—”

“Right, and I’ve always used them.” Without fail, an automatic get-the-fuck-out for any man who put up a fuss. Except now a stronger urge spurred her to step out of the old pattern. To show Brian tonight meant more to her than all of those nights ever would. “But I’m also on the pill. And I’m clean. No diseases, I mean.”

Wide-eyed and still, he balanced over her without breathing. Finally he sucked in a quick burst of air. “Me, too.”

Jesus, she’d spooked him. Made the wrong offer, one he didn’t want to claim. “Oh, good. I’ve never dated a man on the pill before.”

Chuckling, he bent and kissed her forehead. He curled his arms tighter, until his elbows brushed her shoulders. “You’ve never dated any man before.”

“No. I haven’t.” Brian, though—he’d tasted her tonight. She lay in his bed, another first. Her vulnerability no longer bled through the cracked case of a broken machine. Something stronger took shape in its place. She’d never see what made the toast jump if she stopped now. “But this is new and different, right? For both of us. So maybe it should be”—amazing, perfect, terrifying—“new and different.”

He lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m ready for that. I want new and different with you.” He pressed his hips into the cradle of hers. As his cock branded her with heat, he rocked against her clit. “This much, in the language you can feel. But only if you’re sure, Katherine.”

“I’m sure I want to take intimacy for a test drive.” She raised her knees, sliding her feet along his soft cotton sheets. Matching his rocking, she connected them like live wires. “And I’m sure—” Her back arched. Fuck, he’d caught a gasp-worthy angle. She hauled in a deeper breath. “Sure I want to take that test drive with you. Because I’m sure of you, even when I’m not sure of me.”

He kissed her. Hard and driving, he chased her tongue with his own. “Then I’ll give you every reason to be sure of
us
.”

He opened her with his fingers and centered himself. Teasing, prodding, he sent her spiraling into hazy anticipation.

“So, in this fantasy.” He pushed into her, sliding until he filled her. “Christ.” As he groaned, his low rumble shivered through them both. “Fuck, I love how wet you are for me.”

“You turn me on.” She pressed kisses against his jaw. “In more ways than I know how to count.”

His breath whooshed past her ear. “I meet an amazing woman. Strong. Capable. Loyal.”

The Katherine he saw—the woman she longed to be. The true face she’d never shown to a lover.

He welded their bodies together with slow, deep thrusts. “So beautiful she knocks me flat. And somehow, somehow, she takes a chance on me.”

As their bodies gathered speed, so did he, pouring out words in a dizzying stream.

“She lets me show her everything I see in her, all the things she doesn’t see in herself.”

His fingers tightened around her wrists. As she arched, he pressed her flat with the weight of his chest.

“And this amazing woman comes home with me. Sees the man I am and shows me the woman she is.”

She dug her heels into the backs of his legs, adding leverage, driving him deeper. Gathering him up to give him no escape, no chance to take back the words.

“And when we make love, when nothing lies between us and I see so deep in her eyes it’s like following a ray of sunlight down to the lakebed?”

His stare, his copper-green flames, burned away the old. He illuminated his depths and her own reflected in him. Dark mysteries at the center shone brilliantly with his inner light.

“That’s my fantasy, Katherine. To know you intimately, from the storm-tossed surface layer to the swells and valleys so deep you’ve forgotten how they’ve shaped the woman you are.”

Fuck. He pried her mind loose, sent her swimming in unfamiliar waters. She lost her grip. Lost, lost—and he grabbed her hands.

“All of you, mine. All of me, yours.” He laced their fingers together as he drove her harder. “The two of us one body, one current. One.”

Gasping, they jumped together. She raged as violently as his surging sea, her shuddering body impossible to control. The fire washed through her and the sea followed. Cleansing. Unstoppable.

As the storm passed, he called her to safe harbor with his eyes. Intent on her, his gaze unwavering, he rolled sideways and wrapped her in his arms. He brushed his lips to hers.

She stole a gentle kiss in return.

His eyelids sank. Or maybe hers did. Opaque barriers blocking her beautiful view of his smile and the flush in his cheeks.

She’d wait a while, until they’d both recovered, and then she’d ask him to show her again. A cozy nap, here, together. In Brian’s bed. In his arms. In his life.

Exactly where she belonged.

* * * *

The thickness of Brian’s blackout blinds held back the morning sun to the best of their meager ability. Glimmers filtered in around the edges. Their sharpness struck the metal of the bedside lamp and pierced his eyelids.

Katherine no longer filled his arms. He lay on his side, with an empty embrace, and the moment he opened his eyes, reality would take hold. Drifting eyes-closed in the sun’s orange haze, he imagined she’d gotten up to use the bathroom. Sauntered out to the kitchen and started the coffee.

At least her scent clung to the sheets. And the sweet rhythm of her breath—

Holy fuck.

With furious blinks, he threw off the sunny filter blinding him to the truth. Not a trick of his ears. She’d migrated out of his arms, yeah, but she’d stayed. Peaceful, asleep, the sheet leaving her shoulders bare, she lay on her back with her face turned away and her hair a pointy-clustered nest.

Beautiful.

Half-expecting her to slip away before sunrise, he’d resigned himself to the idea that he was destined to be in love with a woman who wasn’t ready to commit. Who might never be. Payback for all the times he’d been a player.

Yawning, he stretched and flexed every protesting muscle. No need for a workout today when he’d exercised so well last night. He’d managed a second tour for her, a feat his dick hadn’t accomplished in more years than he’d care to admit. Christ, don’t let their first night together be the last.

He eased closer, gaining ground by millimeters. When she woke, she might struggle with unaccustomed morning-after awkwardness. She might flee and avoid him, take the time apart to build up regrets and doubts. This moment might remain a rare one.

Her hair flowed under his hand like tall summer grasses, as soft as the fuzzy seed-tops on the clumps that crept to the edge of the sandy beaches. The last brush of gentleness before exhilaration took hold. He hadn’t surfed in so long he’d almost forgotten. Hard work paddling out. Thrilling rush riding in.

The rush had to be earned. Every time. A wise man wouldn’t paddle out once and expect to ride back for the rest of his life. The happiest riders didn’t blame the waves for staying true to their nature. Patient, watchful, they read the signs and merged with the beauty when the moment arrived.

Starting at the back, he finger-combed her hair into behaving. A few strands refused to take orders. Others he tucked behind her ear as he traced the outer shell. His fingers grew a will of their own and spread his touch to her cheekbone, to the tip of her nose and back.

She rolled toward him. All of the beauty in her freckled face on display for him alone, she batted her eyelids as she woke.

Ten seconds, and she hadn’t leapt out of bed.

Twenty. She regarded him in silence.

Thirty.

Fuck patience.

He dared kisses along her forehead and down to her ear, the quiet flutters of morning, the barely held in check mourning for the disappearing act she’d be sure to pull any second. “Good morning, Katherine.”

She fumbled an arm free of the sheets and touched his mouth. The banked embers in her eyes ignited. “Say that again.”

“Good morning.” He shaped his lips with exaggeration, the better to kiss her fingers.

She shook her head. “No, my name.”

“Katherine.” His voice dropped into the low tones he felt rumbling from his belly to his balls. Hell, he’d say her name a thousand times if she asked. “Good morning, Katherine.”

A smile erased her blank mask. Her fingers left his mouth. Closing her eyes, she let out a humming purr.

Adorable. The way she ought to look every morning, because every morning she ought to be well-loved and waking in his bed. He tickled her neck. “I had no idea you were so vain.”

Her easy giggle sent blood to his cock.

She levered herself onto her side and folded her arm into a triangular prop for her head. “I like the way you say my name, even though you aren’t making me come right now.”