Nan Ryan (40 page)

She said haltingly, “Johnny … I … I … want you to … to—”

Johnny said commandingly, “And I want you too, sweetheart.”

He reached out, then curled long dark fingers around the glittering diamonds-and-sapphires and gently pulled her to him, by the necklace. He bent his dark head. His lips hovered just above hers. He said, his voice as humid as the summer night, “I want to undress you, sweetheart. I want you to wear nothing but this necklace I bought for you.”

Johnny kissed her then, kissed her the way a highly passionate man kisses the one woman he cannot resist. No awkward, questioning caress. No gentle, building prelude to ardor. No slow, sweet warm-up to desire. Johnny kissed Nevada with such devastating heat and hunger, she melted breathlessly to him and kissed him back with all the fierce craving she had ever felt for him.

With deft steadiness of hard muscles and strong shoulders, Johnny swung Nevada up into his arms and, reluctantly tearing his lips from hers, moved lithely toward his
garçonnière.
.

Stepping through the open door, he kicked it closed and crossed the darkened room to his big bed. He lowered Nevada to it, placing her directly atop a trio of tumbled white pillows pushed carelessly up against the bed’s tall mahogany headboard.

Leaning over her, Johnny cupped her flushed face in his hands, brushed his lips to hers, nibbled playfully on her soft bottom lip, and said into her mouth, “Nothing but the necklace. All night.”

Nevada didn’t answer. She couldn’t. But if Johnny wanted her to wear only the diamond-and-sapphire necklace, then she could hardly wait to get undressed. She loved this big, dark man with all her heart, all her soul, and she could think of nothing lovelier than to make love to him wearing the beautiful necklace he had bought her.

His hand lightly caressing her upturned cheek, Johnny sat down on the bed feeing her, one long leg folded under him, the other foot on the floor. For a long tension-filled moment he stared at her, the moonlight coming through the tall windows by the bed, washing over her. How breathtakingly beautiful she looked there amid his white pillows in her shimmering blue dress. How breathtakingly beautiful she would look there amid his white pillows without the shimmering blue dress.

Johnny leaned forward, touched Nevada’s throat with his hand, and kissed the corner of her mouth. “You’re beautiful, Nevada. Let me love you, baby. Let me love you till dawn.”

“I want you to, Johnny” was all she could manage as his long arms went around her and a murmur of acquiescence escaped her lips as his hands moved eagerly, lovingly down over her back and to her waist.

Nevada made no pretense of wanting him to stop when he began to take her clothes off. Nor did she help him. She lolled there on the pillows while the only man she had ever loved undressed her with a kind of lazy ease that made it wildly exciting.

Johnny took his time.

Starting with her dancing slippers, he leisurely removed first one, then the other, and placed the shoes on the floor. Next came the silky stockings and when they slipped Ianguidly down her legs and off, he kissed her tiny feet until she dissolved into gasps of nervous laughter.

The laughter stopped when he lifted his dark head and looked again into her eyes. Snared by his intense gaze, Nevada felt her breath grow short when his hands moved purposefully up under the folds of her billowing blue gown and effortlessly came away with her lacy petticoat. He draped it carelessly over the foot of the bed.

Idly she thought that Johnny was far too adept at undressing a woman and she’d have to warn him that he was never to undress any other but her. The thought fled when she felt those warm fingers brush her bare flesh and then in seconds he was easing her satin drawers down her hips, past her knees, and off her bare feet.

With infinite care Johnny folded the intimate undergarment and laid it atop the night table. When his heated eyes came back to her, Nevada felt herself flushing. Curling her legs to one side, she pushed the silk skirts down over her feet. It seemed odd that Johnny hadn’t taken off her dress first, then the underclothes. He was doing it backward. Or was he? Suddenly it was strangely exciting to be wearing her dress with nothing under it. Naked beneath the soft, sensuous slither of silk, her flesh grew tingly and sensitive.

Then she was back in Johnny’s arms and he was kissing her and she closed her eyes, growing warm and pliant. Her lips parted to welcome the thrust of his tongue. His breath was hot against her cheek. It ignited a fever deep within her. Pleasure surged through her when his hands—those dark, deft hands—moved beneath the folds of her skirts.

Her arms twined tightly around Johnny’s neck, Nevada arched to him, threw her head back and sighed as he nibbled on her throat and moved his warm, questing fingers up over her bare knees. Those trembling knees instinctively fell apart and she shivered with expectation. Johnny allowed his splayed fingers to move in teasing, tempting circles up the outsides of her pale thighs but withheld the touch for which she most yearned.

Nevada felt as though she might surely burst into flame and she prayed that Johnny would soon—very soon—touch her where the fire burned hottest, touch her where she hint.

A skillful lover, Johnny continued to kiss and caress the trembling woman in his arms and by the time he lifted the blue silk dress from her, leaving her totally naked—save for the glittering diamond-and-sapphire necklace—Nevada was squirming and thrashing about on the pillows.

She was ready for the kind of lovemaking Johnny intended.

So Johnny only allowed himself a fleeting moment to admire her naked beauty. She was so temptingly lovely he longed to have her lie there on his pillows for a while. His fleeting gaze adored her. So small, so white, so feminine. The lustrous hair dressed atop her well-shaped head, the swanlike throat, the ivory breasts tipped with pale pink, the flat belly, the thick raven curls between her pale thighs, the shapely legs, and cute little toes.

All gloriously bare, save for the glittering necklace, she looked sweet enough to eat.

Johnny gathered the naked Nevada to him and began kissing her again. And the kisses were not confined to her parted lips. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears. He kissed the sides of her throat. He slid his open teeth along the necklace’s twinkling stones. Released it, then bent his head and kissed the flesh it rested on.

Smiling, he said against her dewy skin, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“For what?” she murmured breathlessly.

“For wearing nothing but the necklace I bought you.”

“You’re … welcome,” she whispered, as his heated lips climbed the soft mound of her breast and closed around its aching peak. All the air exploded from her lungs as he began to gently suck on the hard nipple. With his lips tugging so sweetly on her, she was hardly aware that Johnny was lifting her farther up on the pillows against the headboard, gently urging her into a kneeling position.

She was only aware of supreme pleasure as his lips moved across her chest to kiss her other nipple. Her hands went into his dark hair and she murmured, “Darling, my darling,” as his teeth raked tantalizingly over the sensitive crest and his tongue toyed with her before taking her fully into his warm, wet mouth to suck vigorously.

Nevada watched in breathless fascination that dark handsome face bent to her, the wide, mustachioed mouth enclosing almost the entire swelling white breast as though he would devour her.

Johnny, sensing her deep enjoyment, and enjoying having the hardened nipple in his mouth, continued to kiss and suck her breasts until Nevada was almost beside herself with ecstasy. At last his lips released their sweet treasure and moved down over her delicate ribs.

And while he kissed the bare, flushed flesh he had unclothed, Johnny continued to lift Nevada. Up, up he lifted her, his lips never leaving her flesh. On fire, carried away, Nevada never realized that she was now standing against the pillowed headboard until Johnny said, “Sweetheart, open your eyes and look at me.”

Her eyes came open and she looked down at him. Johnny’s dark upturned face was on the level of her lower belly. His hands were clasping her hips. Her own hands, though she hadn’t realized it before, were anxiously gripping the tall headboard’s smooth top edge.

Johnny felt his heart hammering painfully in his chest as he looked up at the beautiful naked nymph standing before him, the diamond-and-sapphire necklace winking seductively at him, her kiss-pinkened breasts rising and falling with her rapid breaths, her slightly parted legs allowing provocative glimpses of the swollen sweetness protected by the dense raven curls. Nevada automatically bent her trembling knees and attempted to slide back down, but Johnny stopped her.

“No, sweetheart, don’t. I want to kiss you,” he said hoarsely. “I want to kiss you right here,” and moving a slow hand down he placed gentle fingers lightly in the dark triangle of curling hair between her ivory thighs.

Nevada was … shocked.

“Johnny, no … you—”

He brushed a kiss to her belly. “Let me, let me love you. I want to taste your sweetness, baby.”

“Johnny …” she whispered in shocked excitement when he urged her legs farther apart with a gentle hand. “No,” she softly gasped as he leaned his dark face to her and nuzzled his nose and mouth into the thick raven curls. “No …” she whispered breathlessly when he kissed there, his mouth pressing a light, gentle kiss to the ultrasensitive female flesh.

“Yes, baby,” he said, never lifting his head. He spoke with his mouth still upon her, his hot breath against her fanning the flames of her desire. “Give this to me,” he coaxed in a low, husky voice. “I have your scent and it’s so good. I long to taste you. Give it all to me, Nevada.”

Beside herself, Nevada wasn’t sure which excited her most—his smooth hot lips kissing her in such a forbidden place or his deep, drugging voice saying such intimate things. The highly sexual combination was overpowering. She couldn’t possibly resist.

Her own voice no more than a small, frightened whisper in the hot darkness, she said, “You can have it, Johnny. It’s all yours. I’m all yours.”

As if that was what he had been waiting to hear, Johnny opened his mouth and touched his tongue to her. Nevada called his name and spasmed from the heightened pleasure. An expert lover, Johnny took it very slowly, for a time doing nothing more than pressing his open mouth and the tip of his tongue lightly to her. Gentle, restrained kisses of intimacy that soon had Nevada bending her shaky knees and eagerly pressing herself to the promise of his masterful mouth.

Attuned to the slightest movement of her hot body, Johnny knew exactly when she was ready to be taken the rest of the way. So.he took her. His hands sliding around to grip her bare bottom, he held her to him and sank his face deeply into her. He feasted on her, stroking her with his tongue until she was panting and tossing her head and murmuring his name in wild delirium.

More wildly aroused than she’d ever before been, Nevada, the diamonds and sapphires glittering on her sweat-slick throat, stood there atop his bed, naked in that darkened room, while Johnny, fully clothed, loved her in a way she had never imagined.

She could feel a frightening tension spiraling up and her body growing hotter and hotter, the hottest of all where he was kissing her. So hot it hurt but wonderfully so and she wanted Johnny to kiss her there for eternity. He must never, ever take his marvelous mouth from her, she would surely, surely the if he did.

Just when Nevada thought the pain-pleasure could grow no more intense, it did. Her hands abandoned their tenacious hold on the mahogany headboard and went into the hair of Johnny’s moving head.

Frantically gripping the luxuriant dark locks, she pressed her pelvis to him, and almost in tears, murmuring mindlessly, “Please, Johnny, please, please …”

Johnny’s supportive hands tightened, cupping the rounded cheeks of her bottom. And he licked and loved and lashed her until he took her over the top. She cried out in her climax, spasming and jerking, her tear-bright eyes frightened, her fingers punishingly pulling Johnny’s hair.

He stayed with her while she attained her total ecstasy. Remained just as he was until every tiny tremor had passed and she sagged limply against the headboard. Only then did he take his mouth from her.

His lips wet from her release, Johnny drew her down to him, draping her small, bare body securely to his chest. Her cheek pressed to his shoulder, he gently rocked her, soothing her, murmuring her name tenderly, and pressing kisses to her damp temple.

And when her pulse had slowed and her breathing had returned to normal, Johnny laid her across the bed, leaned down, kissed a bare thigh, and rose. He undressed in the hot darkness, then stretched out beside her, gathering her to him.

The limp, sated girl in his arms felt sure she’d never want to make love again. Apologetically she told him as much. Johnny merely smiled and told her he didn’t mind, it was all right, she need only to lie there and relax.

But then he started kissing her, lightly at first, then more passionately, and Nevada changed her mind about never wanting to make love again. Amazed that desire could flare again so quickly, she soon found herself beneath Johnny, her legs eagerly parted to receive him, her head lifting from the pillows to accept his burning kisses.

And then sweet, glorious pleasure as he sank into her and began the slow, steady surging of his slim brown hips. And a moment of surprise that although he did indeed weigh twice what she did, she felt no discomfort. Her pelvis eagerly lifting to meet the downward thrust of his, Nevada looked into his black eyes. Smiling, she said, “It is possible, after all.”

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

“You on top.”

He grinned. “I’m not very heavy when I’m moving.”

She laughed and looped her arms around his neck. And then the laughter stopped as they gazed into each other’s passion-heated eyes and made slow, erotic love, their perspiring bodies slipping and sliding sensuously in the age-old act.

And so it was all that long, hot, humid summer’s night. Just as promised, Johnny made love to Nevada until dawn. On that one lovely night of unbridled passion, Nevada was sure she learned more about lovemaking than most women learn in a lifetime. But, then, they didn’t have Johnny Roulette for a teacher.