Seduction by Design (17 page)

She stood and stepped out of her skirt with a feminine grace that made him smile. With one irrevocable motion, she divested herself of half-slip and panty hose. Then she was standing before him in panties and bra. She wasn’t brave enough to meet his eyes, but she watched his hand as it came up to take hers.

“Lie down,” he directed softly. She lay down on her stomach as he had done, and pressed her fevered cheek against her hands. Without actually watching, she could follow his actions as he poured lotion in his hands, rubbed them together, then laid them on her.

Each stroke was calculated. His fingers were quick and light or slow and hard, but constantly changing tempo. Under his practiced touch, she concentrated on holding herself still when she wanted to squirm and writhe with increasing restlessness.

The brassiere strap across her back came away with one deft flick of his wrist. Her breath came unsteadily when his fingers drew a line from under her arms to her waist with agonizing, enticing leisure. With no objection from her, her panties went the way of the bra when his hands encountered the garment. Indeed, of their own will, her hips lifted to accommodate him.

All control vanished when she felt his hands on the backs of her thighs. Her breath quickened to rapid panting as he worked the creamy lotion into her skin. The backs of her knees, her calves, and the soles of her feet knew the strength and tenderness of his touch.

She ground her forehead against the quilt and stifled a moan of pure, animal pleasure when she felt his hair-roughened thighs closing around her hips as he straddled her. His hands slipped under her to fondle her breasts as he stretched above her. Instantly she knew that at some point he had rid himself of his underwear. He was a delicious weight to bear. She could feel the hair on his chest tickling the skin on her back.

Placing his mouth against her ear, he said with unbridled urgency, “Hailey, let me love you. Now, my love, before I die of wanting you.”

He levered himself above her until she turned to lie facing him. His eyes ran the length of her. Everywhere they touched, her skin felt like it had been prickled with the sparks that fly from a sparkler. Then, slowly, as one humbly accepts a long awaited tribute, he lowered his body over hers.

He kissed her. The kiss was exquisitely sweet. His tongue barely penetrated her lips, outlined the shape of them, investigated the inside of them, rubbed against her tongue. Greedy now that all the shackles had been loosened, her own tongue darted past his lips.

Her kiss unleashed his driving passion. Randomly, his mouth ran over her, partaking of her flesh like a man starved. Her breasts knew the blissful torment of his lips, her nipples the gentle lashing of his tongue. He kissed his way over the flat plain of her stomach to her navel, where he used the erotic powers of his mouth to full advantage. Her fingers burrowed in his hair and she cried his name when his kisses burned along the tender flesh inside her thighs.

“Hailey.” He said her name with the reverence of a prayer as he covered her again. She welcomed him, moving as he guided her with the adjustments of his own body. Kissing her deeply, he probed her tentatively and met only pliant acceptance. “Hailey, sweet Hailey,” he murmured as he claimed her in the timeless and most eternal of ways.

She knew only a flash of pain and fear when he breached the last barrier of her innocence. Then she was caught up in the wonder of it all as wave after wave of incredible feeling washed over her. “Tyler.” She hadn’t even realized that she had said his name until he stilled and lifted his head to look down into her radiant face.

“Am I hurting you, Hailey? Tell me and—”

“No,” she said, capturing his face between her palms and lowering it to kiss him. “No, no. I never knew … I never imagined …” She arched her throat as another sensation seized her and lifted her hips to know more of him.

“Take all of me, Hailey,” he groaned as he laid his head next to hers. “That’s it. Yes, my love, move with me. That’s it. Oh, God, so perfect.”

The universe could have been extinguished for all she knew, for all she cared. The revelation that burst upon her brain was like a blinding light that could have replaced the sun. This had been ordained, prescribed by Fate, predestined. And as thrilling as it was, it wasn’t the act itself from which she derived this transporting ecstasy, but from the man. Never would she share this with another.

She loved Tyler Scott.

Their movements were perfectly matched, a blending of spirits as well as bodies. She surrendered her love, her life, to him. He filled her, expanding her soul until they exploded in a simultaneous celebration of life.

For long moments, they lay still, locked in that most intimate of embraces. Her face turned into his and they breathed each other’s breath. When the pounding of his heart, which she felt inside her own breasts, had calmed, he kissed her brow.

“It is not you who has been seduced, my love. But I.”

CHAPTER 10

A
re you trying to get me drunk?” she asked as he pushed another glass of cold, white wine on her.

“Naturally. Isn’t that what debauchers of virgins do? Get them drunk and then get them naked?”

“I’m already naked.”

He grinned and raked her with lascivious eyes. “So you are,” he drawled. Leaning forward from his sitting position, he buried his face in the hair that rioted around her head in enchanting disarray. “And I’m already drunk. On you.”

The kiss was long and deep and some of the wine was spilled onto the carpet. When at last Hailey pulled away, she sighed contentedly. He chuckled softly. “Does it feel that good?”

Her eyes were misty and slumberous, a green watercolor in her flushed face. “Yes,” she whispered convincingly. “It feels that good.”

His hand came up to marvel over the softness of her cheek. “To me, too, Hailey.” Carrying her with him, he fell back against the pillows they had taken from the couch and piled on the quilt before the fire. She stretched along his length, propping herself on her elbows and leaning over him as he caressed her arms and shoulders.

“I was afraid that I’d be … well, awkward … not good for …”

He stilled her lips by placing an imperative index finger over them. “You were perfect.” He searched her troubled eyes for a long moment then said softly, “Acceptance is crucial to you, isn’t it, Hailey. Why? You do everything well. You’re beautiful.”

“I wasn’t until I met you,” she said with tender gratitude.

His finger followed the hairline across her forehead. “You’ve always been, you just didn’t know it. What fool made you feel you weren’t beautiful? A man?”

“No,” she answered slowly, self-consciously. “Not one particular man, that is. I’ve never felt—”

“You’re saying the human race in general made you feel unattractive? I don’t buy that, Hailey. Sure, you must have had some years during adolescence when you weren’t a raving beauty. But do any of us look our best during that time? No, you had that complex germinating inside you long before then.”

“I suppose so,” she said, privately viewing her childhood. “I never was fawned over, petted, the way Ellen was. I was the elder. It was up to me to set a good example. When Ellen fell out of favor, her transgression was quickly forgiven because she didn’t take punishment well. She would carry on until Mother and Daddy were miserable over whatever meager punishment they had doled out. I took punishment stoically, never letting them know how bad I felt. Perhaps that was my mistake.

“And then, Ellen truly was an adorable child. Naughtiness only made her more appealing. I was merely good. I guess the adage ‘The squeaky wheel gets the oil’ applied to the way our parents treated us. I never caused any trouble, so I was easy to ignore.”

“Who could ignore you?” he asked. His eyes dropped to her breasts which rose and fell so alluringly close to his eyes. “Especially men.”

Hailey laughed. “When you’re three inches taller than most of the boys in high school, you’re generally ignored. As a sex symbol, at any rate. While I was in college, I was taking care of my parents, too, and that curbed my social life considerably. And by the time I graduated and went to work—”

“You had built up a wall of insecurities as a defense against the slings and arrows, so to speak. You wouldn’t let any romantically inclined gentleman close enough to penetrate it.”

Her smile was gaminelike when she looked down at him through lowered lashes and said demurely,
“You
penetrated it.”

He laughed with pure delight, then lowered his voice to a seductive rumble. “I love it when you talk dirty.” She laughed with him, tossing her hair back over her shoulders in a careless gesture that she didn’t even know was sexy.

The laughter subsided and she shyly averted her eyes. “Tyler, teach … teach me to … I want to please you.”

He looked up at her and thought that she couldn’t please him any more than she did already. Her hair, the eyes that revealed so much, the glow of her skin polished with the golden light of the fire, combined to create a picture of female loveliness that made him wish he could paint, or write poetry, so she would be preserved for future generations to enjoy.

But he would be consumed by jealousy if he had to share her with anyone. After tonight he would be tempted to lock her away from the rest of the world. He had always been greedy, selfish, proud of his possessions, his accumulated wealth. Yet he would give away anything he owned in exchange for her. Her soul, her mind, her body.

Her lips were swollen and moist from his loving. He knew their provocative talents. When he had first kissed her, he had met maidenly resistance. Now, her mouth opened to him freely, giving, receiving. But out of that same mouth came clever witticisms and educated insights. She stimulated his intellect as much and as often as she stimulated his body. He was constantly challenged by her keen mind. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear now. She sought another kind of reassurance.

How could she be so unaware that she lacked nothing in sexuality? He was already aroused merely by the sight of her. Her breasts were ripe for loving. The dark apricot nipples were delicate. He wanted to feel them between his lips, under the coaxing of his tongue.
Hailey, don’t you know, don’t you see your own prowess?

“This will be the shortest lesson in your life,” he said. “You already have pleased me.”

“I want to learn more.”

He drew her down to him and covered her mouth with his. Her hair fell on either side of his face, a fragrant curtain that he wished could cloak all of him. As though he were taking small, savoring bites out of a juicy peach, his lips opened and closed over hers. His tongue systematically investigated the interior of her mouth, surveying it, cataloging each texture, memorizing each mystery.

He drew back and waited and then congratulated himself on the excellent teacher he was. Hailey practiced her new skills but brought to them an application uniquely her own. Tyler shuddered with the agony of constraint.

His lips ravaged her ears, her throat, and she mimicked him, but surpassed him in talent. She wielded her dainty tongue like a weapon until he choked her name and hugged her to him, stilling her, until he could once again exercise control.

Her breasts filled his hands and he rubbed the lush mounds until he felt the centers swelling in his palms. Then his fingers circled them slowly until they were hard, throbbing buds of desire. He soothed them with his tongue.

Hailey looked at him in wonder when he lowered his head onto the pillows. His fingers continued to stroke and brush. “That, too?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She looked at his impressive chest and tentatively fanned her fingers over the crinkly hair. “I like the way you look, Tyler.”

“It’s mutual … ah, Hailey …”

Her nails lightly raked his nipple and it grew hard. Then she kissed her way across his chest until her lips found it.

“Yes, yes,” he moaned when her tongue dared to push past her lips to taste him.

Without waiting for further instruction, motivated only by the evident pleasure she brought to him, loving him, she kissed her way down that intriguing arrow of hair on his stomach. His hands lost themselves in the violent mass of her hair and he repeated her name like a chant as she kissed each rib in turn.

His hands left her breasts. One went around her to cup her hips, the other found that dark auburn delta at the top of her thighs. His hand flattened over her, applying a rotating pressure she felt as much from the inside as without. Searching with tenderness, he loved her with his fingertips.

“Please, Hailey, please.”

She knew what he wanted of her. Love made the unthinkable possible. She touched his body reverently. The miracle of him wasn’t lost on her and she gloried in it. Wanting to feel that life force bursting inside her again, she rolled to her back and guided him to the threshold of all her desire.

“Hailey, no,” he said with concern, even as she thrust herself against him.

“Yes, yes.”

No longer the teacher, Tyler learned from her. He tried to keep a rein on his desire, but her demands wouldn’t let him. In a final helpless surge of passion, he took them both to a final shattering fulfillment.

Self-disgust was written on his face when he left her and collapsed onto his back beside her. “I’m sorry, Hailey. I knew I was hurting you. I didn’t mean to make love to you again so soon. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. Will you forgive me?”

She laid her head on his beating heart and closed her arms around him. “I would never have forgiven you if you hadn’t.”

“You look kinda cute like that,” she teased as she stepped out of the shower. Tyler was at the basin, his hips wrapped in a towel, the lower half of his face lathered with shaving cream.

“You don’t look bad yourself,” he said, eyeing her in the mirror. She curtsied impishly. “If you’ll stop acting like a brat, I’ll tell you that that shower was the most erotic experience I’ve ever had. It outdid even my wildest fantasies. I honestly don’t know how we kept from drowning.”

He chuckled as the razor took one long stroke from the base of his throat up to his jaw. “I see you can still blush. Despite all your wanton ways, Miss Ashton, you are still a prude.”