The Rebound Guy (2 page)

“Wait-wait—” Eric foiled her attempt to get them horizontal on the couch by pivoting her hips against his and keeping them both upright.

“Not here.”

“Where?” Her breath caught. Was he expecting someone?

“The bedroom. Let’s do this right.” He surprised her by capturing her mouth in another kiss. A kiss that made her feel wonderful and began to melt the lump of ice that had formed around her heart that afternoon. He tangled his hand in her hair and dove into her, his tongue claiming hers, fierce and relentless.

Lauren’s heart raced and something deep inside her ignited, sending a bolt of liquid heat to her core. With each thrust of his tongue, the sensation rose higher from her womb to her heart, infusing her with an urgency she’d never felt before.

“Eric, I need—” She gasped the words between kisses as he steered her around the couch and into the darkened bedroom.

“Whatever you need…” he whispered, pushing her onto his bed. He lowered himself over her and worked the buttons of her blouse open with one hand, exposing her breasts in the dim light of his LED alarm clock.

The red glow made her feel wanton and sexy, and any thoughts of what she needed to tell him fled when his hands spread her shirt open all the way.

He took one taut nipple into his mouth, and she forgot everything.

The pressure of his lips on her flesh made every muscle in her body tense. She held his head, trapping him against her to keep the sensation of his hot tongue on her skin. Her breath came fast and shallow as he rolled her hard nipple against his tongue. She felt the pull of it all the way down to her clit. “Eric—” She moaned his name and sighed when he slid one hand into her jeans and found the hot, wet spot between her legs. The intrusion into her slick folds made her arch toward him, seeking more.

“No underwear?” He rasped the words into her ear as he circled her swollen clit with one finger. The teasing pleasure of it made her pant.

“They’re in my purse. I…took them off in the ladies room at…Houlihan’s. I wanted to…be ready for you.”

Words alone had never made Eric come, but these almost did the trick. He’d never heard anything sexier in his life, and he couldn’t believe it was Lauren saying them. He couldn’t believe it was Lauren lying beneath him, wet and primed for him. He had to be dreaming.

Of course, it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d played this scenario in his mind. Fourth of July he’d been lying with her on the warm sand, feeling her tremble each time another fireworks display cracked the air above them. He wanted her then, wanted to feel her body shudder when she came and hear her whisper his name as he claimed her.

And he’d hated himself in the morning, both for chickening out after that one phenomenal kiss and for considering she might want more from him. Mark Dalton had been following her around all weekend like a love-struck puppy, and Eric had even encouraged the big lout to ask Lauren on a date. If Mark hadn’t been called back to his law firm to deal with some client’s probate emergency,
he’d
have been sharing the beach towel with Lauren instead of Eric.

Eric raised his head, found Lauren’s eyes in the darkness. “I want you,” he said, all giddy “I’m-about-to-get-laid” thoughts aside. With his hand in her pants, his fingers buried in her heat, he probably didn’t need to say it, but he wanted her to know his head was in the game, not just his dick. “I want you, but I want to know what’s really going on here.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip in that way that had begun to drive him insane with lust. He wanted to bite that lip, suck it into his mouth and taste it again. She reached for him and he took her into his arms. Together they rolled to the side so they lay chest to chest, one of his knees between hers resting tight at the apex of her thighs where damp heat seeped through her jeans.

“It’s over with Mark,” she said, the words coming out in a breathless tumble. “Eric, please don’t turn me away tonight.”

As if he could. He kissed her hard and trailed her slick moisture up her belly. “I won’t turn you away. I just want you to be sure.”

“I’m sure, Eric. I’m sure.”

Together they unzipped her jeans and Eric slid his hand down inside again. Lauren moaned and writhed as he pressed his palm against her mons. Anticipation had made her hotter than she’d ever been. The sensation of his long fingers sliding over her clit and into her sex made her come.

Her inner muscles clenched around his fingers, tightening deliciously as he inched upward. She bucked against him, urging him deeper. She cried out in frustration as hot waves of pleasure broke over her.

“I wanted you,” she whispered and turned her face to his chest. She kissed the smooth skin, tasting his heartbeat and his salty sweat on her lips. “I wanted you inside me.”

“It’s okay. We’ve only just begun.” Eric punctuated his words with a deep thrust that renewed the pulsing inside her. She responded with a startled gasp and clung to him, desperate for more.

“You feel good against me.” Eric’s whisper in her ear made her body tingle and her nipples ache. She arched, pushing her hips forward to take his fingers deeper. Did he know how good he felt to her?

He surged forward again and she moaned, brought her hand up to his face and caressed the dark stubble on his lower jaw. She guided his head down to her breast, urging him to suck again. The rasp of his unshaven cheek against her hypersensitive skin made her tight and wet.

Slowly, he drew his fingers out of her, trailed her thick cream along her inner thigh and her belly.

“More! Don’t stop.” God, was she begging? “I haven’t even started yet.” He shoved her open jeans down her hips and she craved the roughness of it. She’d never been so eager to be naked. Kicking the heavy fabric down, Lauren helped him push the tight denim over her knees until finally she was free. She moved to sit up and pull off her blouse, but he stopped her, rested one hand on the center of her chest above her heart and pushed her back into the pillows. “Leave it on, I like it.”

Lauren liked it, too. So much so that she hadn’t thought about Mark since they’d hit the bed. Or had she? It didn’t matter. Mark didn’t matter.

She closed her eyes against the unwanted images of her now ex-boyfriend and concentrated on the sensual friction of Eric’s hands on her. Giving him access anywhere he wanted to go, she moved with him, as he explored her body inch by inch.

When he ran his hands up her thighs and over her hips, she shivered. He skimmed his fingers over her belly and followed his hands with a trail of kisses that set her nerves on fire. She wrapped her legs around his thigh and squeezed to ease the ache in her clit when the first stirrings of a second orgasm began deep in her womb.

When he suddenly vaulted off the bed, she cried out and reached for him.

“Stay right here, don’t move. I’ll be right back.” His wicked grin in the crimson glow reassured her he hadn’t changed his mind. Lauren smiled as he peeled off his jeans and slid his briefs down over his hips.

His erection sprang thick and long from a nest of dark hair. Lauren shifted on the bed in anticipation. She’d imagined Eric naked. In fact, she and Tara and Roxy had even speculated on what a nice guy like Eric might be like in bed.

She couldn’t believe she was about to find out.

He produced a condom packet from a nearby drawer and tore the wrapper with his teeth. “Are you ready for this?” Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded. She watched him from under lowered lashes, her body trembling as he knelt between her legs and tore the rest of the foil wrapper from the condom. He rolled the latex over his cock and Lauren bit her lip again. Who knew good, sweet Eric, who blushed at dirty jokes, was hiding such enormous equipment under his sensible Dockers and faded jeans?

He lowered himself to her, guiding the tip of his penis to the right spot, just above her opening. He held there a moment and his eyes seemed dark and dangerous. Lauren imagined he was about to unleash the beast that lived under that good boy exterior—the beast she needed to ease her broken heart.

“I want you to talk to me.” He placed one hand on her hip as she rose to meet him. “Talk to me and tell me how it feels. Tell me what you want.

Tell me everything.”

“I want you now, Eric! Now.”

Anything for a friend
, Eric thought as he slid his cock into Lauren’s waiting heat. She opened to him slowly, her head thrown back to expose the long, sexy column of her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut as she accepted his length, and she curled up around him, raising herself to match his movements as he sheathed himself in her.

As he lowered his body over her, she shifted her hips and wrapped her legs around his back, pressing him deeper. He whispered wordless encouragement in her ear as he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her close. Joined together now, their bodies finally one, he started to move.

“Tell me.”

“Eric, you feel so good. I want you deep…please…”

Every breathless word made him hotter and harder. He licked her throat, nipped at her jaw, and felt her tense in his arms when he bent to suck one nipple, then the other.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked when she whimpered against his shoulder.

“No—oh! I had no idea you were so big.”

What every man likes to hear
. He thrust harder, letting her feel every inch of him. The friction built and her body tightened around him. Her nails raked up his back, exciting the nerves, making him move faster. He took her mouth again as she moaned his name. He swallowed her breath, tasted her arousal.

Somewhere deep in his balls, his orgasm began and he realized he needed to race to meet it. He wanted it fast so he could revel in the act of coming inside her, delivering himself into her body. He braced himself with one arm on the mattress and steadied her beneath him with the other.

She panted his name, and when she grabbed his ass and held on, raising herself up against him, he let loose. A ragged gasp escaped him coupled with her name as he exploded and, just as he’d fantasized, he felt her shudder in his arms, her body trembling in sweet release as her third orgasm squeezed him to ecstasy.

•

Hours later, the sex play began again in earnest. Eric, rejuvenated from a brief sleep, set to work exploring Lauren’s willing body with his tongue.

She gasped as he worked his way from the back of her neck, down her spine, kissing, sucking and nipping at her flesh. She clutched the rumpled blankets and tensed when he spread her legs again and settled his lean hips between them. His erection parted her folds from behind, the cool, slick latex of the condom a contrast to her feverish heat. He slipped into her again and remained sheathed, still and tight inside her.

One hand worked under her, cupping her breast.

His gentle thrusts pressed her body into the mattress, and her clit rubbed against the sheets.

“Harder, Eric, please…” She panted and whispered and sighed to him as he worked her up again. He increased speed and accuracy, hitting that spot inside her that made her ache with need.

“That’s it.” He coaxed her body off the bed, pulled her hips against his. “Tell me how it feels inside you.”

“Hot…hard. Oh, God, I’m coming again.”

He chuckled in her ear, bit her shoulder lightly, and gave her all of him at once. “Me, too. Your voice makes me come, hearing you ask for it.”

She tensed beneath him before the next wave hit, then bucked hard, seeking to take him and hold him while he spent himself in her. His body, all tight muscles and hard planes, shuddered against her for a long, intense moment, then he lowered them both to the bed, wrapping his legs and arms around her while she trembled in the wake of it.

“God, Lauren, what you do to me.” 

Lauren awoke to the sound of Eric’s shower, the water thrumming against the bathroom tiles on the other side of the wall behind her head.

She stretched, releasing the kinks in her neck and back, and luxuriating in the feel of having been thoroughly loved. The scent of his cologne clung to her and the warmth of his lean, hard body lingered between her legs. The last of the four condom wrappers tumbled from the mattress as she rolled over and faced reality square in the bloodshot eyes.

She’d slept with Eric. She’d used him to assuage the gut-wrenching pain of finding Mark with another woman.

How could she begin to apologize?

The water shut off abruptly, and Lauren’s heart did a somersault in her chest. She sat up, clutching the sheet and her blouse around her.

The clock beside the bed read 7:55. They’d been in bed for ten hours—

very little of it asleep.

The bathroom door opened with a puff of steam, and Eric strolled out in his underwear, a damp towel draped over his broad shoulders. His dark hair stood out in all directions, spiky and shiny from the shower, and his lower jaw was smooth from a fresh shave.

Something squeezed Lauren’s runaway heart, and she blushed at the thought that only a few hours ago, she’d been straddling him, riding him to a mutual orgasm that had left them both breathless and exhausted.

“Good morning,” he said with the exact same tone he used when they met in the elevator of her office building. Why had she expected differently?

“Um…good morning. How—”

His head disappeared under the towel and he rubbed vigorously.

When he emerged, his hair was nearly dry, and it looked sexy and soft.

What woman wouldn’t kill to be able to do that? He bent over the bed and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “I’ve got to go to work. There are clean towels if you want to take a shower, and cereal in the kitchen.

I’ve only got Cheerios, hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh…thanks…I—”

“You don’t have your car here…do you want me to call you a cab?”

“No. I’ll do it, later.” Lauren grew cold by degrees as she watched Eric pull on a clean pair of pants and a crisp white shirt from his closet. What had she expected the morning after a night of incredible sex with him to be like? Hearts and flowers? A marriage proposal?