Loving Again: Book 2 in the Second Chance series (Crimson Romance) (20 page)

“Please, Sam. Be careful.”

His hand froze in place. “Did something happen to your breast?”

“Not my breast. Your incision.”

“My incision’s fine. The doctor said if I was careful, I could begin to do normal things.”

“And you thought immediately of sex.”

“Well, that’s normal, isn’t it? And I asked him about it. I have to keep my weight off my arms but that’s okay.” He grinned at her. “You can do most of the work. All I have to do is relax and enjoy myself.”

“I asked him, too.” He didn’t try to hide his surprise — his delight — that she’d asked. “I knew you’d ask and I wanted to make sure we heard the same answer.”

“Did we?”

“Yes, but … ”

“So, while I’m on vacation we can make up for lost time. I thought we’d start now.”

Now she was startled. “Vacation? Recuperating from a gunshot wound is a vacation?”

“Well, I’m not working so it must be a vacation.”

“And your idea of how to spend your time on this vacation-slash-recuperation is, what, sex and a little light reading?”

He pushed up the rest of her sweater with his good hand and began to massage the other breast. “Yup. Maybe just sex without the reading.” He pulled at the button on her jeans and managed with one hand to get the zipper down. “Have I ever told you that I love it that you don’t wear a bra?”

She smiled. “Yes, usually when we’re half-undressed and headed for bed.”

He kissed her neck and ran his hand up her bare back.

“Sam, what am I going to do with you?”

“I thought that was obvious. But if you want me to be specific, I thought we’d … ”

She drew his mouth to hers, her lips parting, making a foray with the tip of her tongue, teasing, tasting, as the kiss deepened.

Without breaking contact with any part of her, he moved back toward the couch.

“What’re you doing? I thought we were going to bed,” she whispered against his lips.

“Here’s closer.”

Two pairs of jeans hit the floor. He was about to lower himself onto the couch when he stopped. “Oh, hell. We have to go upstairs. I don’t have any protection.”

“Look in your back jeans pocket.”

He picked up the jeans and found the condom tucked there. “How’d that get there?”

“I put it there. It was sort of a welcome home thing. But you didn’t notice it. Guess I should have been more obvious about where I put it.”

“Wish I’d found it earlier. I wouldn’t have worried so much about that suggestion I sleep in another room.” He shed his boxer briefs, then stooped to inch her scrap-of-lace thong off her. She helped by trying to wiggle out of it, making her breasts bounce close to his mouth, which went dry at the thought of suckling them.

But she took over before he could act on the thought. Gently pushing him down onto the leather couch, she straddled his body. With painstaking care, she opened his shirt so she could touch his bare skin, stroke his chest, massage his undamaged shoulder.

Then, after rolling the condom over his erection, she planted her fists on either side of his head and moved her body against him, grazing his chest with her breasts and rubbing the cleft of her sex against his penis.

He groaned. “God, woman, you’re killing me.”

“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this.” With little love bites, she nipped at his mouth, his jaw, his neck.

“Please, just let me … ” He touched her, felt how ready she was for him. Stroking her, inserting his fingers into the wet center of her, he tried to position his hips so he could enter her but she wouldn’t let him.

“Not yet. Just kissing now.” This time, however, when she moved to kiss him, he guided himself into her. She gasped, pushed his good arm back over his head. “I thought I was in charge here,” she said.

“Okay, baby, you be in charge. What do you want?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“This. Just this.” She began to move her hips slowly and deliberately. He let her set the rhythm at first. Sipping and licking her way from his mouth to his neck and back up again, she eluded his attempts to change the pace, to hold her close, pushing away his arm when he tried to pin her, to keep her close to him. When he swore under his breath in frustration, she just laughed.

Finally, he ended her game by corralling her with his casted arm and holding her to him. His mouth took possession of hers; his tongue played sexy games. With his cock deep inside her, thrusting harder and faster, she came in a shuddering climax and so did he.

When they returned to earth, he snuggled her against him, kissing her damp forehead.

“I’ve never made love in the living room before,” she said, when her breathing calmed.

“Sex on the nearest horizontal surface with half your clothes on isn’t what I’d call making love,” he said as he gave her breasts one last caress and pulled down her sweater, which had bunched up around her neck.

She returned the favor, readjusting his shirt. “And what would you call it, cowboy?”

“I think you know.”

“You want to hear me say the word, don’t you?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say it, have I?”

“Probably not.” She waited for him to change his mind but he was apparently not going to back off. “Okay, it’s fucking. Sex on the couch with us half dressed is fucking. Happy?”

He kissed her cheek, his grin so broad he thought his face would crack. “Yeah, I’m happy but not because of that. I’m happy because I love you, because we’re … ”

“Hey, stop that.” She was laughing.

“Stop what? Telling you I love you? Don’t you like hearing it?”

“No … I mean, yes, I like hearing it. I didn’t mean
you
should stop. I meant Chihuly should stop. He’s licking my toes and it tickles. What do you call sex on the couch with a dog licking your foot?”

“Our idea of normal, baby. It’s our idea of normal.”

As anyone who appreciates studio art glass knows, the Bullseye Resource Center and factory is a very real place. For over a decade, I’ve benefited from living a half-hour away from the place where some of the most beautiful glass ever created for an artist to use is manufactured. I can’t say “thank you” enough to the staff, teachers and talented artists there who’ve always answered my questions, fed my passion and helped me grow as an artisan and as a teacher.

Which means I have to apologize for two things: first, for turning your workplace into a crime scene in my story. And I’m sorry I couldn’t respond to the request for a staff vote on who the murder victim would be. I was afraid it might be me.

However, as real as Bullseye is, all the events and people portrayed in this novel are fictional. Only the fabulous glass is true to life.

Peggy Bird lives with her husband in Vancouver, Washington where she writes and does kiln-formed glass across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon where her three daughters, assorted grandchildren and grand-dogs, and Bullseye Glass live.

If you liked Sam and Amanda’s story, you might enjoy Liz and Collins’ story,
Beginning Again
available now from Crimson Romance. In 2013, Crimson Romance will release
Closing Arguments,
the story of Margo and Tony.

In the mood for more Crimson Romance?

Check out
Night Blooming Jasmine
by Alicia Thorne
at
CrimsonRomance.com
.