True Bliss (14 page)

He didn't say he hoped good old Morris Winters hadn't found a way of spending her trust fund on his political campaigns.

"I don't want the money at all. I'm going to make it without it. I am," she said.

"I believe you."

"Should I take my dress off?"

Sebastian's elbow slipped off the arm of the chair.

She frowned again. "I feel funny."

He felt funny, too. "Come here." He might have made a mess of this so far. There was no reason to keep on making a mess. "Come on. I want to kiss you."

"Before I take my dress off?"

Sebastian got to his feet and pulled her into his arms. She'd feel what she'd already done to him, but evidently she wasn't in the mood to be leisurely.

Bliss wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and pressed her face to his shoulder. She was shaking! "What's wrong?" he asked her, rubbing her back, grimacing at the strength of his erection. "Why are you trembling?"

"Cold," she muttered.

It had to be eighty degrees in this room. "We'd better get you into bed."

She shook harder.

"Do you think you're getting sick?"

"No. Don't stop holding me. I think I need . . . Oh, the tension's too much. I need a release."

She needed a release? Sebastian caressed her shoulders, the tops of her bare arms. "Me too, love. I've waited so long for this."

Bliss extracted her arms and smoothed his chest. She concentrated while she unbuttoned his shirt. "I'm not going to think any farther than right now."

The desperation he heard excited Sebastian. He could scarcely

believe his luck. She was as aroused as he was. "Right now's enough," he told her. "For now."

"Does your head ache?" Bliss studied his nose closely.

Sebastian took advantage of the opportunity to kiss her. He discarded finesse. The pounding pressure building in his gut wasn't interested in finesse. Her mouth opened and her tongue met his. Their faces moved, slanted, their tongues reached for more.

Her spine was long, her waist small, her bottom rounded just the way he wanted it to be rounded. And she didn't even flinch when he urged her pelvis against his and ground their hips together.

She wanted release. He wanted release. They were going to get it. The trembling that overtook him came without warning. He flexed his jaw and fought for control. Wherever he touched her, she seemed to burn him. He couldn't let her go, couldn't stop if the lodge fell down around them.

"Sebastian?"

"Yes, oh, yes." He pushed a thigh between hers, pulled her dress up around her hips, allowed himself the luxury of a study of her very long, very smooth legs—all the way up to skimpy, orange lace and satin panties. Her buttocks tensed beneath his hands. The riding motion of her body on his thigh almost sent him over the edge.

Bliss's head fell back. She made incoherent sounds and clutched at his shoulders beneath his shirt. Her fingernails scraped his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut and enjoyed the pain.

"It feels so . . . so . . ."

Sebastian didn't ask her to finish the thought. He grasped her firm little bottom, smoothed the warm cleft through satin and lace, and kissed her throat.

Her skin was soft. He flicked his tongue beneath the neck of her dress and over the swell of a breast.

Bliss pushed away from him. Still trembling under his skin, Sebastian opened his eyes. He breathed through his mouth to steady his heart. "What?" he asked her. "What, sweetheart?"

She spread the fingers of her right hand on his bared chest. "You are so marvelous. I can't believe we're here, like this."

"Oh, believe it, love." He made a grab for her but she evaded him. "Bliss, honey, I'm dying. I need you."

"Yes, of course."

Yes, of course? She'd always had an oddly old-fashioned way of putting things. "Come to me. Come to me now."

Keeping her eyes on his, she crossed her arms in front of her, took handfuls of the black dress and pulled it over her head. She tossed it aside.

Sebastian's legs almost buckled.

Her hands went behind her, to the clasp of the wispy orange lace and satin bra that matched her panties.

"Wait," he told her, taking his fill of the way she looked. Long and lithe, gently flaring hips, the smallest of rises at her belly, the thrust of her mound and the suggestion of dark hair through lace. "We ought to do this together."

She dropped her arms.

Sebastian shed his shirt, then removed his jeans and shoes in one motion. When he stood naked before her, her lips parted and remained parted. Her eyes passed over him, lingering at points she couldn't possibly miss—and she swallowed.

"You need me," she whispered.

"You noticed." His attempt at a laugh didn't work. "I think we need each other. We've waited too long for this." But tonight the wait wasn't important, only being with her was important.

Bliss came toward him and he gasped with shock as she closed a hand around him. Watching his face, she stroked with a delicacy that winded him. "Oh, sweet lady. Oh, my sweet lady." Failing her tonight was out of the question. "Just a minute, Bliss. Slower, okay, love? I'm only human."

She released him at once.

Sebastian covered her uptilted breasts, dipped under the tops of low bra cups to graze her stiffened nipples.

"I feel so wonderful," she told him, almost as if she might cry. "Open, Sebastian. I feel open. Inside and outside. I never knew this was what I was waiting for. It couldn't be like this with anyone else."

"No." Following his fingers with his tongue, he bared a dark pink bud and made a wet circle without touching the urgent center. She cried out and moved, tried to thrust herself into his mouth. He smiled and brushed his beard-rough cheek over the tip of her nipple instead. "I want you to feel this all the way to your spine, my love. All the way to your womb."

"Sebastian," she moaned. "Please."

While she begged, she performed her own torture, finding and holding his penis again, cupping a hand under the weight of him and squeezing.

Unbidden, his hips began to move. "I don't think you'd better do that," he told her, hissing through his teeth. "Not if you want me to last as long as I want to last—with you."

"How long will that be?"

He paused an instant and looked at her, but her eyes were closed as she made a finger map of his male assets. "We got out of sync here, honey. I'm naked."

Her eyes opened at once. She released him and her hands went behind her back once more. The hook on her bra parted and she shrugged her shoulders forward, shedding the garment, spilling her wonderful breasts. Dropping the bra, she braced herself against Sebastian's waist while she pulled down her panties. She raised one leg to pull a foot free, then raised the other leg.

He couldn't resist the opportunity to slip his fingers between her vulnerable folds. The full flesh there met his touch, and the slippery evidence of how ready she was.

Bliss almost fell. Her foot hit the floor with a thud and her knees sagged. Sebastian worked the place that rendered her helpless, and relished the jut of her hips and the weak moans of pleasure she uttered.

When she started to pulse he withdrew his fingers and tipped her back over an arm. She clutched at him, but when he closed his teeth and lips on a nipple she let go. She let go and held her breast to his mouth. Shifting, she silently begged for the same sucking at her other nipple. Sebastian obliged and reached between her legs again at the same time.

Bliss sobbed. Standing on tiptoe, she contracted strong little muscles around his fingers and he felt the spasms break. Her eyes opened, fixed on his, and her color rose. "Foreplay," she whispered, breathless.

She was one of a kind. "Foreplay," he agreed. "Great hors d'oeuvres. I want to taste you."

She frowned, but he smiled and dropped to his knees in time to complete her climax. Holding her open with his thumbs, he gripped her groins and worked her the rest of the way, exulting in her shriek when release came.

The next instant, her knees joined his on the floor. "Incredible," she said. "Incredible, Sebastian. What do you like best?"

His shy little friend had come a long way. "I like everything. With you, I want it all."

She made to hold him again, but he stopped her, and kissed her instead. "You have a great mouth," he told her. "Use it on me, please. I'd like that."

He wasn't used to telling a woman what he wanted. He wasn't used to being asked what he wanted. But he could get used to it.

Bliss bowed over him. With the tip of her tongue, she touched the tip of his penis—quickly. He gasped, and reached over her back to smooth her buttocks.

"Is that what you want?" she asked.

He fought for control. "You're a witch. Great start, witch."

Her tongue curled around, and those straight little teeth tested as if to see just how hard he was. "Harder by the second," he said. "About to explode."

She kissed him there, many small, feathery kisses, and she stroked the insides of his thighs. "Good?" she asked.

"Damn good. I mean, very good." He groaned. "Take me in your mouth, Bliss. All the way in. Oh, yeah."

The warm, wet inside of her lips slid over him so slowly his hips rose. Just as slowly, she reversed the process, only to manage to draw him in again, almost to the hilt.

Sebastian played with her swollen breasts. "I think we'd better

move on," he told her. "I want to be inside you before this is over."

Her mouth left him aching. "Here?" she said. "Or the bed?"

He'd get used to her matter-of-fact approach. He already liked it. "I think I'd like that comfortable chair of yours."

She frowned, but followed where he led, to the chair, to sit astride his hips. He flipped the end of his penis through damp, dark red curls and the folds they hid.

Bliss shuddered, mightily this time. He tilted her over him to press a nipple into his mouth while he fondled the other breast. He nudged at the entrance to her passage, eased just inside and felt her clamp tightly around him.

He inched a little farther.

"Sebastian?"

"My turn to tease," he said. And she'd never know how much it was costing him.

"You've forgotten something."

The next restrained thrust took him deeper. The sensation was electric, through his testicles, up into his belly.

Bliss used her toes against the floor to make his task more difficult. She lifted away from him.

He laughed and started to pull her down on him.

"You've forgotten something, Sebastian."

The trembling under his skin, became a shudder. He couldn't keep this up. "What, sweetheart? I haven't forgotten anything."

"The condom."

The condom? He clasped her waist. "Condom?"

"I think it's wonderful you're so responsible."

"What the hell? . . . Oh, wow. Bliss, honey, I didn't even think. What's wrong with me?"

"Passion," she said, her brow furrowing. "The throes of passion made you forget."

He hadn't forgotten. It didn't matter, not with Bliss. He wanted them to have a child. "I want—" God, what was he thinking about. "Oxymoron," he muttered. How far ahead of himself could one man get?

"Oxymoron?"

"Me, and thinking. At the moment, anyway. Oh, forget it." He sat her on the end of his knees. "Bliss, you must think I'm a dolt."

"No. It's okay. Your wallet's in your jeans, isn't it?"

Wallet? He wetted his dry lips. "Yes. Why?"

"Well." She shrugged and lowered her eyes. "You're prepared. Shall I get it for you?"

He couldn't imagine what she was talking about.

"It was stupid of me. But that's why I ran away earlier. I saw the condom in your wallet and I kind of lost it." She peeked at him. "Stupid, right. Obviously a man like you is prepared for . . . Well, for certain things."

Sebastian narrowed his eyes. "What things."

She blushed. "You know. Making love."

"The condom in my wallet."

"I saw it. The shape of it. I'm not a complete ninny. I know what I'm seeing when a man has a condom in his wallet."

"I see." He lifted her to stand on the floor and swept up his jeans. Still sitting down—the safest place for the moment—he produced his wallet and studied it. "Ah. Yes, I see what you mean. I should be more careful."

"No," she said anxiously. "No, not at all. I'm very impressed when people show responsibility. There isn't enough of it in this world."

Sebastian fingered the fine, soft black leather. "Not particularly flattering." He deliberately bared his private parts—still very much on parade and ready to march. "But they say perception is everything."

"I don't understand."

He flipped open his wallet and removed the packet he always carried there. This he put into Bliss's palm. "I carry it for good luck."

Her expression went from cautious curiosity to pink embarrassment, to pale anxiety. "Oh, Sebastian."

"Oh, Sebastian is right." An abrupt urge to laugh began to

lessen his need for other things. "See what I mean by not being very flattering?"

She opened the packet and took out a gold ring.

"Never could bear to be parted from it," he told her. "I always hoped I'd finally get to put that wedding ring on your finger one day."

"Oh, Sebastian."

Finally he'd robbed her of original words. "And you thought it was a condom. Size-four-and-a-half and it was still loose on that skinny finger of yours."

Nine

Bliss pushed up onto her elbows. She tucked the top sheet firmly around her body and leaned forward to peer across the room. With the footrest of her threadbare old recliner up, and the back stretched as flat as possible, Sebastian slept.

Clamping the sheet under her arms, she crawled to the bottom of the bed and retrieved her glasses from the cedar chest.

The night before she'd closed the thin white draperies she kept drawn back from the French doors during the day. Gray-blue dawn pierced the light fabric to dust the room with shades of shadow. She didn't check the clock, but sensed it couldn't be much later than five in the morning.

Bliss pushed at her hair and sat on her heels.