Chapter 8 #2
Damien’s own hands were busy unzipping the back of her dress.
But whereas she was fumbling, overeager, nervous, he was quiet, studied, intent.
Goose bumps rose on her flesh as his fingers trailed over her back.
His room was at the end of the hall, remote, the sounds of the resort buffered by palm trees and flowering plants.
The whirr of the ceiling fan and the uneven tempo of their breathing were the only sounds in the room.
All her doubts, all her concerns, fear about how she should behave and how he might react to her pregnancy, her body the way it was now, had all evaporated when Damien told her he hadn’t been with a woman in three years.
She’d seen it then, what he had been telling her.
That they both needed each other, just here, just now, to touch and taste and push on each other in uncomplicated pleasure.
She wanted that. She wanted him.
Buttons free, she spread his shirt and sighed as the palms of her hands caressed hard, warm muscle. “You have a lovely chest.”
His lip quirked up. “What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Mandy glanced down and saw that with the zipper undone, her dress had slipped a bit, only to come to a crashing halt at her cleavage. Nothing could get past her newly blossoming breasts, and her plump flesh was bursting out of the top of her strapless bra.
“This isn’t my natural state, you know,” she told him, pushing his shirtsleeves down to his wrists. “Every day I wake up to find they’re a bit bigger, like I’ve taken an air pump to them.”
Damien’s thumb ran over the swell above her bra. “I like the end result.”
“Yes, well, easy for you to say.” Mandy gripped his wrist as his thumb brushed lower and lower, skirting her nipple. She gave a sound of disappointment. “But at this rate, I fully expect one day to roll over and have them clap.”
He laughed, expression relaxed and amused. “I love your sense of humor.”
She was about to tell him that back in England, at The Wycombe Abbey School for Girls, she’d been quite the comedic thespian, but she only had time to open her mouth before he ripped her dress down to her waist, and she promptly forgot how to speak.
Or breathe, when his head descended to her chest and his tongue traced above the rim of her overburdened bra.
Back and forth it went, as if it was on a leisurely stroll in the park, and Mandy shivered, appreciating fully how much more sensitive her breasts were now.
Torn between wanting to just enjoy his teasing tongue and urging him to dispense with her bra and head south to her nipple, Mandy gripped his wrists and squeezed.
Damien lifted his head, and Mandy expected him to shove her dress down, strip himself, and slide right into her standing up.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
But she had expected Damien to be urgent, to take charge, to rush through to the release they were both seeking.
He was taking charge, yes, but he wasn’t interested in rushing. Which had its pros and cons.
As she tugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor, Damien pulled the clip out of her hair. He stroked in it and smiled. “I love your hair. It’s just like you. Sort of free, with a mind of its own, but always in control.”
Was that the way he saw her? Mandy thought that was just a lovely way to describe her, even if she felt control was the last thing she possessed.
Unable to resist touching him, she smoothed out his dark eyebrows, traced his cheeks, brushed along his lips in a caress that was too intimate, but felt so, so right here with Damien.
His lips pressed in a kiss over her fingers and she smiled, knowing she felt as raw and vulnerable as he looked.
“If you think I’m in control, you’re a sandwich short of a picnic,” she whispered to him. “But thank you for that.”
He drew her fingertip into his mouth and sucked, sending a rush of heat through her body. Her nipples pushed painfully against her bra, and Mandy leaned closer to him, pulling his scent of night breeze, sand, and male muskiness into her nostrils.
“Of course you’re in control. You’re an awesome assistant.”
When she pulled her finger back, he followed it, until his mouth was brushing along her jaw. Mandy’s eyes fluttered closed. “Should that be my title? Awesome Assistant? I can post a sign on my cubicle.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, such a light teasing touch that she shivered. “How about Asshole’s Awesome Assistant? Or ASS for short?”
She laughed, their breath mingling together as his lips hovered above hers, his nose alongside hers, forehead brushing hers. “You’re not an asshole at all, but you’re a very funny man when you want to be. Though I refuse to allow you to call me ASS.”
“That didn’t quite land the way I meant it to,” he admitted. “It sounded more sexual in my head.”
She laughed lightly. “Then I will take it as such.”
If anyone would have told her two months ago that Damien was a man she could banter with, be relaxed and completely abandoned with, she would have laughed herself sick. And goodness knew, she hadn’t needed any more of that.
But it was all so easy, so right, so comfortable with Damien, that she was taking, but she was giving just as much. He made her feel sexy, she made him laugh, and they were both the better this night for it.
His answer was to stop the torturous teasing hover over her mouth and kiss her, a full open kiss that had her wrapping her arms around his neck to get closer.
Mandy loved the way he kissed, as though he had nothing to lose, nothing to prove, like he just wanted her more than anything he’d tasted before.
Then his tongue found hers, with hot, wet urgency and Mandy wanted more. She pressed her breasts against his bare chest and ransacked his short hair with her fingers, pulling back to catch her breath and moan. It wasn’t enough, not when she needed, had to have all of him, over her, inside her.
Her body pulsed and throbbed, ached and suffered, as he kissed her again and again, a delicious promise that felt blissfully good but was never enough to fulfill the hunger coursing through her.
“Damien.” His hands weren’t even exploring, but were just resting on her back while he kissed her, and Mandy wanted more, more, more, with an intensity that shocked her and set her hands shaking.
“Yes?” He stopped doing everything, stepping back to look at her in question.
Mandy yanked her dress down over her hips and let it drop to the floor. “For a man who threatened to unzip me outside on the pavement, you don’t seem all that interested in getting me naked now.”
“Oh, I am,” he said, his pale blue eyes darkening in the soft glow of the bedside lamp he’d left on as he looked her up and down. “You have no idea how interested I am. But I’m savoring this.”
The warm breeze from the ceiling fan fluttered over her as she stood in her bra and panties, her breasts full and tingling from his inspection, her thighs shifting together restlessly. “Don’t savor for too long.”
His head slowly went back and forth, eyes not meeting hers but still studying her body with revelry. “Forever wouldn’t be long enough to look at you. You’re beautiful.”
And Mandy’s heart squeezed and her breath caught, and at that moment, she would have given him anything he wanted, suspecting that of the two of them, he was the one who actually needed this more.
But she needed, too. Desperately. So she held her breasts with one hand, popped open the bra hook with the other, then let it join her dress on the floor.
Damien’s jaw clenched. He swallowed hard.
Mandy waited, her nipples hardening, her fingers splayed across the front of her hips. She waited, while he stared and stared and her panties grew damper and damper, and her fingers itched to move lower and her breasts ached to be touched and her eyes fell into slumberous half slits.
Then finally, when she thought she would scream or cry or whimper or puddle on the floor in a drenched mass of sexual longing, he moved.
And cupped both of her breasts, while his mouth closed around her nipple and sucked hard.
Okay, that was worth the wait. “Oh!” she said, unable to think of a better word to sum up the feeling that she was going to die of pleasure.
He pulled back, not releasing her nipple until the last second so it gave a wet, sucking pop. “Mmmm,” was Damien’s opinion as he switched from right to left.
She would have to second that. This time he plucked, then sucked, making her toes curl on the hard ceramic tile.
His thigh shifted, pressing against her swollen clitoris, which was damn cruel in her opinion.
She moaned softly, her fingers peeling down the waistband of her panties, ready to be naked so she could then get him naked and they could be naked together, which would clearly be the best possible outcome of all of this.
But he stilled her hands. Frustrated, she shifted them to the button on his pants, but he held her hands firmly against his hard abdomen, preventing all movement, while he continued to lave his tongue across her nipple.
“Damn it, Damien, I want us naked.” Mandy jerked at her hands, but he was stronger than she was.
“It’s not time for that yet.”
“What’s it time for?” Besides death by excess desire? Mandy was a healthy woman and had enjoyed the few relationships she’d had. She’d thought she’d known what lust was like. She’d thought she’d understood urgency, the rush of sexual longing.
She had been stupid.
The way Damien made her feel, with so very little effort, made those previous experiences pale into bland. Like salsa without the jalapeno. On the Mexican menu of sex, Damien was four and a half chili peppers, full of flavor and heat.
He lifted his head from her chest, leaving her nipples wet and aching. “It’s time for you to lie down on my bed, so I can spread your legs and taste every inch of you. Then start all over and do it again.”
Mandy sucked back her drool.
Make that five chili peppers. If he got any hotter, her eyes were going to water.