Three Little Words (10 page)

She gasped his name in a desperate plea for more or less, but Greg only smiled in response. The smile told her all she needed to know. This was
more
, and nothing less. This was real. They were happening. This thing between them wasn’t a fluke or twist of fate. Hell, they’d already moved beyond a one-night stand.

Her orgasm broke like a storm. The first wave cracked her wide open, leaving her gasping and quaking, every muscle in her body reverberating as a deluge of pleasure rolled through her. She clung to him as wave after wave of sensation buffeted her. His soft hums of approval buoyed her. The gentle strokes of his talented fingers sent ripples of contentment coursing through her. She blinked blearily and mustered a weak mewl of gratitude as he raised his head. Wetting her parched lips, she tried to conjure up a word or two of thanks, but the moment his handsome face swam into focus she lost what little breath she’d recovered.

Sliding his hands under her ass, Greg stared her dead in the eyes as he lifted her hips to his mouth at last and murmured, “One.”

“Oh!”

The first brush of his mouth nearly sent her sailing. She arched off the bed when lips closed soft and teasing around her clit. Josie’s eyes rolled back as he thrust his tongue into her, fucking her with short, hard bursts of power and determination, demanding she take every ounce of pleasure he wanted to give. Incoherent words ping-ponged around in her head, pleas and promises all jumbled up with purrs and protests. His fingers bit into her thighs as he pushed them wider. He settled between her legs and groaned his approval when she rose to meet him. Drunk on desire, she undulated against him, reveling in every hot, greedy lap of his tongue. He used the edges of his teeth as a weapon, nudging her to the brink then backing away with soft flicks.

Still-quivering muscles liquefied in surrender. Zinging hormones rejoiced. He feasted on her, his eyes shining with purpose, his mouth relentless. He thrust into her drenched pussy once more, stoking the fire inside her until her core temperature climbed degree by mind-melting degree. He circled her clit, drawing the sensitive flesh into his mouth then letting it slide from between taut lips. She ground against him, desperate for more. More of his lips, teeth, and tongue. More of the crazed syncopation of her body moving in time with his.

Josie cried out when he withdrew from her completely. Gulping and panting, she stared at him, wild with excitement. “I want you inside me.”

The intensity in his eyes made her mouth run dry. He returned his hungry gaze to her pussy and she squirmed, torn between wanting more of his mouth on her and the need to feel him buried deep inside.

He dragged his already soaked finger through her insanely wet folds. “I want to taste you when you come,” he murmured. He trailed slick moisture between the cheeks of her ass then tipped his chin up to meet her gaze once more. He pressed against the tight opening of her anus, and a low, instinctive moan escaped her. “Then I want to be inside you.”

He breeched the snug opening with one unflinching thrust and she broke with a cry of undiluted pleasure. He lowered his mouth once more, drawing on her clit and flicking the sensitive flesh with his tongue. The combination of sweet suction and the exquisitely unbearable fullness of his finger in her ass proved to be too much.

Mindless to all but the pleasure he gave but still aching for more, Josie cupped her breasts and tweaked her nipples. He brushed one hand away and claimed the aching point for himself. Sinking his finger deep into her ass, he pinched the pebbled bud of her nipple. Hard. Sharp shafts of pleasure-laced pain arrowed to her core. Greg groaned long and low. His obvious approbation resonated deep inside her, echoing in the place he hadn’t yet filled and expanding deep within until she found herself unable to contain it. He coaxed her through the first wracking shudders of her climax with long, leisurely strokes of his tongue then plunged another finger into her cunt, filling her deep.

His name bounced off the walls. He soothed her with soft nips and lazy swirls, his hands moving restlessly from breasts to belly to thigh. Her calf cupped in his palm, he draped her leg over his hip as he rose over her. The sound of foil tearing penetrated her endorphin-induced haze. She blinked away the post-orgasmic fog, and drank in the broad expanse of his shoulders as he loomed over her. His crisp, curling chest hair faded to a line of dark silk funneling the length of his torso. Surprisingly ripe biceps bulged as he braced himself above her. The thick head of his cock nudged her entrance.

Greg stared deep into her eyes, unblinking and unyielding. The evidence of her arousal glistened on his lips, cheeks, and chin. She tried to wet parted lips with a parched tongue and failed.

“Kiss me?” she whispered at last.

He flexed those
whodathunkit
muscles and brushed his lips over hers. When she raised her head, intent on getting something better than a faint approximation of a kiss, he reared out of reach.

“That was two, Josie.”

The head of his cock filled her, stretching long-unused muscles to their limits before demanding another inch more. She arched her back and pushed into him, welcoming the invasion, surrendering to his possession.

She gasped and her nails bit into his skin. “Oh, God, you’re trying to kill me.”

When he filled her at last, he lowered his forehead to hers and exhaled a long, tremulous stream. Bracing his weight on his elbows, he gently smoothed tendrils of hair from her forehead. “I’ve waited a long time for a girl like you.”

Taken aback by his bold statement, she bristled. “A girl like me? What do you mean, a girl like me? You don’t even know me.”

The smile widened and his eyes dared to sparkle. Sparkle! As if his presumptions were amusing. Incensed, she attempted to wriggle out from under him. The futile effort led to nothing more than a growling groan from him and a curious lightning bolt of white-hot desire for her. Stunned by her body’s response to being pinioned under an over-opinionated man, she blinked up at him. Dismay mingled with surprise, but neither emotion stood a chance when he shifted his weight to take her hand. Fingers entwined, , he planted their clasped hands beside her head and swooped in for a kiss. A long, slow, sensual expedition of a kiss that left her panting and aching and struggling to remember exactly what he had done to tick her off in the first place.

“My kind of girl,” he whispered, his lips grazing the corner of her mouth. She tried to turn into the kiss, but he was too quick for her. He strung butterfly soft kisses over her cheek, along her jaw, and down her neck. Lingering at the base of her throat, he traced a mind-splintering pattern linking her clavicles. “A little bad, but basically good.” He claimed her other hand and stretched them high above her head, sinking deeper into her and shoving her into the mattress with his full weight. “I’m a good man, Josie, but you make me want to be a bad one. With you,” he added as he began to move. “Only with you.”

Her eyelashes fluttered and her eyes rolled back. He captured her mouth again, but this time the kiss was fueled by possession rather than persuasion. Each deliberate, disciplined stroke of his cock unraveled her more. The pads of his fingers covered her knuckles. Chest hair teased her nipples and tickled her stomach. The hard muscles of his thighs bunched and flexed.

She surrendered to the driving rhythm of his tongue and his cock. Synchronized for her pleasure. The satisfaction he’d given her splintered like ice. Within moments, she was reduced to nothing but insatiable appetite. Raw, greedy lust gathered like steam in a kettle. Her nails bit into the backs of his hands, her heels dug hard into his calves, and her pussy clenched around him. Every muscle in her body conspired to hold him captive until he gave her what she wanted most—magic.

The third orgasm washed over her like a gentle wave. Floating on a swell of shiny, sparkly awareness, she eased her grip on his hands and forced her eyelids apart. Greg watched her intently, his face a mask of pure concentration, his eyes bright and feverish with need. A lazy smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. Arching into his next thrust, she held his gaze. He stilled. The connection between them was a living, breathing thing, as pulsing and alive as the hot, hard cock buried deep inside her.

“Three,” she whispered, and the thread of his control snapped.

Jo struggled to find purchase, digging her heels into the mattress as Greg threw his head back and finesse out the window. He plunged into her, each thrust more reckless and wild than the last. Their knuckles grazed the headboard with one, but smacked hard with the next. She yelped, but he yelled, vocalizing his release with a shout flavored with equal amounts of anguish and ecstasy.

She closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of each shudder. His grip on her hands loosened and she slipped them free. The hard muscles in his back quivered and danced under her fingertips. She giggled when he gave the cheeks of his ass a lazy clench in response to a playful grope. His face tucked in the crook of her neck, he pecked random kisses to any patch of skin he could reach without moving.

“I’m not really bad,” she whispered, looking at the ceiling. “I mean, I don’t know what he told—”

“Will hasn’t said anything,” he said with gratifying haste.

“I wasn’t even all that bad back then—”

“I know.” His muffled answer came with a half-hearted stir, but she stilled the motion with gentle pressure applied to the center of his back.

She sighed. “And you know what still galls me the most? I was only doing what most men did—playing the field, avoiding entanglements, keeping things light and easy, trying to focus on my career….”

This time he raised his head enough to peer at her. “I didn’t mean—”

“But women don’t get to play the field, do they?” Blowing past his feeble protest, she barreled ahead. “We’re expected to be good girls. We’re supposed to want a husband and a passel of kids. We’re not supposed to be ambitious. The world is horrified by a woman who likes sex for the sake of sex.”

Greg’s head popped up. “I am not,” he stated unequivocally.

The fast retort blunted the edges of her rant. Her nails tripping up his back, she conceded. “No, of course you aren’t. At the moment.” When he opened his mouth, she held a fingertip to his lips. “And we like to pretend the world has changed in the last twenty years, but it hasn’t. Not much.”

He blinked then pressed a sweet kiss to the pad of her finger. “If there’s going to be in-depth discussion of society and all its ills, I might want my pants. I’m a little vulnerable at the moment.”

The gruff admission killed the impulse to fight. A prickly blush heated her cheeks, but she hadn’t the energy for flight either. “Sorry. I just….” Exhaling slowly, she made her apology by giving him the words she’d never spoken out loud. “The hell of it is, I did want it all. The husband, the family.” She tucked her chin to her chest to avoid his probing gaze, but she couldn’t stop toying with the whorl of salt and pepper hair behind his ear. “I didn’t realize until it was too late.”

“Why too late?”

“My mother suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. Early onset. Swift decline. At least in terms of memory loss.”

His brief nod conveyed a deeper understanding. “But not physically.”

“I moved home to help make things easier for her. I didn’t want to, but I did. I always feel so guilty, you know? The not wanting to part.” She trailed off, but he encouraged her with a tender kiss. “Who wants that, right? I’m sure my mother didn’t want the life she had, either.” She gave a weak shrug. “She didn’t approve of my lifestyle.”

“I’m sure she appreciated what you did to help her.”

“Are you?” Combing his hair with her fingers, she sighed. “I’m not. Don’t think my brother appreciated it much, either.”

“Fools.”

Greg executed a perfect barrel roll, stealing her breath. Flushed with the pleasure of his pronouncement, she flipped her hair out of her face and braced her hands on his chest for balance. A boyish grin lit his face, but the craggy crevices etched around his eyes and mouth made him damn near irresistible. The play of his hard thighs bracketed between hers proved provocative. The solid breadth of his chest provided the perfect landing pad. She slid off him onto her hip and trailed her fingers through the crisp hair on his chest, not so interested in talking anymore.

Eager to wrap up this not-so-thrilling foray into getting-to-know-you land, she skipped a few pages to bring the story up to speed. “One year turned into two. Two into five. The next thing I knew, I was forty, forty-five….” She paused, letting the moment stretch out as she craned her neck to look him in the eye. “Fifty.”

“Time does fly.”

His soft-spoken acknowledgment spawned a hot prickle of tears, but she quickly batted them back. “Yes.”

Greg drew lazy circles on her back. When he spoke at last, he seemed to be talking to himself more than her. “I’m going to move fast, too.”

“Oh?”

He held her gaze. “I want three things from you, Josie.”

Her breath caught and her heartbeat slowed to a purposeful throb. “Three?”

“I want you to stay with me today. Tonight. Say yes.”

“Yes.”

His eyes lit with pleasure as he bobbed a quick nod. “I’ll call the front desk and let them know I’m keeping the room.” He wrapped one warm, possessive hand around her shoulder, holding her close and sure. “Second thing… I’m not nearly as easy as you. I want dinner tomorrow night. A date. Conversation, maybe some dessert. You’re going to have to court me a little if you expect me to keep putting out.”

Pleasure bubbled up from deep inside her. “Gotcha.”

He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger and tugged, pulling her closer until her lips hovered above his.

“Number three?”

“I’d have been happy just to kiss you last night.”

The rasp in his voice acted like a ripcord. He cradled the back of her head in his palm and brushed his nose against hers, searching and seeking but leaving no doubt whatsoever about what he wanted. Her. Them. Together. For more than one night. Or two. If she counted the previous night, she’d committed to a minimum of three already.