Chapter 14
Anticipation
Josh stood at the slider, hands in his front pants pockets, staring out at the infinity pool and the expanse of dark sea beyond.
He vibrated with energy. Lexi had been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes, and his mind was on an endless loop, filled with images of her.
The brightness in her expression when she laughed, the dusting of faint freckles across her pert nose, her mahogany lashes against her creamy skin when she cast down shy eyes, those same eyes brilliantly green and alive with mischief. Her without a stitch on.
The door clicked, and he whirled. His jaw swung open.
Lexi flipped off the bathroom light and walked slowly through the shadows toward him.
One table lamp was on, casting the room in a warm amber glow.
When she entered the pool of light, it played over her loose hair.
And now he had a new image of Lexi to add to his virtual slideshow.
“Stop,” he commanded. She did. He gulped, then rasped, “Let me … admire you. For a minute. Please.”
The expression on her face told him he could take his time, and he did.
He wanted to burn the tantalizing image into his memory banks forever because he’d never seen anything quite like her before.
She wore a sheer pale blue robe with puffed sleeves that ended just below her elbows; the hem hit her mid-thigh.
It was tied in a pretty little bow between her collarbones and hung open, offering him a view that sucked the air from his lungs.
A front-clasp half-cup bra in the same pale blue was all see-through lace that displayed her rose-colored nipples.
They pushed against the wispy fabric, tempting him, filling his fevered brain with all kinds of ideas.
Skimming his gaze down her body revealed a deep-cut pair of panties in the same sheer lace. He continued down her shapely legs to spiky black open-toed shoes he hadn’t seen on her before. They tied around her slender ankles in bows he wanted to pull apart with his teeth.
“I didn’t pack the lace-topped thigh-highs, so the outfit isn’t exactly—”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” He crossed his arms over his chest because he didn’t know what else to do with them. “Turn around,” he growled.
She pivoted, and he snarled at her to stop so he could take in the back view. A thong, not panties, bared her bite-worthy ass under the gauzy stuff.
“Holy fuck. You are beyond perfect, Lexi.” He ordered her to turn once more so she faced him, and she didn’t hesitate. “You make me so damn hungry for you. I want to eat you up.”
Gliding over the carpet, she closed the distance between them until she was right there, those big eyes looking up at him. “Tell me where you’d start,” she purred.
Oh fuck! He clung to a measly thread of self-control, telling himself to slow down, to let the moment unfold, to let himself enjoy what she was offering before it was over all too quickly. To not tear her clothes off and take her right there.
Slowly, he began tugging on the bow, aware that his fingers trembled.
“I’d start here,” he murmured, “so I could get a closer look.” He gave himself an inner pat on the back for sounding reasonably calm.
She arched a teasing eyebrow. “Mmm, that sounds like an interesting plan.”
He untied the bow the rest of the way and let the robe fall completely open.
With his fingers, he traced lines that began at the base of her throat and went outward, under the garment, along her shoulders.
Heat smoldered in her deep green eyes. Holding her gaze captive, he slowly pushed the robe from her shoulders and down her arms until it fluttered to the floor at her high-heeled feet. Lexi’s creamy skin was on full display.
“What would you do next?” she goaded.
He swallowed. Hard. So many desires exploded in him at once that he couldn’t answer her question.
“Maybe you’d want to take off my bra?” she suggested.
There. She’d given his useless brain a path.
“Yeah, I’d like that,” he croaked. He began fumbling with the clasp and paused, frustrated.
His fingers were usually much defter than this.
Then again, he’d never been in the presence of a goddess before.
This woman lit fires inside him like no one before her had ever done.
He needed to slow the hell down.
He lowered his gaze from her bra to the V-shaped strip of lace that doubled as panties, then pulled her against him, grinding his granite boner against her so she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Spreading his hands over the small of her back, he glided them down, over the lace waistband of her tiny thong, to her velvety skin.
He stroked her ass cheeks. “Fuck, you feel good.” His vocabulary was growing more limited by the second.
Bracing herself against his pecs, she began to toe off her high heels. “No!” he snapped. “Leave those on.”
A sultry smile spread across her lovely face. “So at this point, you would have me stripped down to my underwear—and my sandals. Tell me what you’d do next.”
Lexi was catnip—a naughty girl in a good girl’s skin, and the combination nearly undid him.
His cock grew so hard he thought it might burst its skin, but he gritted his teeth, willing himself to play along.
“I’d get rid of this bra.” He slowly pulled the straps down her arms but didn’t take it off.
He circled his thumb over the lace covering one nipple while his other fingers walked down her smooth stomach and crept under the waistband. “Then I’d see how wet you are for me.”
Her eyes flared, and a frisson of triumph wended its way through him. She was the speechless one now. It was time to torment her as much as she was tormenting him.
He cupped her, and her hands flew to his shoulders as if to steady herself. She shifted her stance, spreading her legs.
Hell yeah! He slipped a finger into her tight, wet heat. “Damn, baby, you are fucking drenched.”
He added a second finger, and she gasped before closing her eyes and dropping her head back, exposing the delicate column of her neck.
She let out a whimper of pleasure. Entranced, he watched her expressions shift as he worked his fingers in and out at a relaxed pace, her hips bucking lightly against his hand, her nails biting into his shoulders.
“That’s all for me, isn’t it?” he crooned. “I’m the one who gets your panties soaked.”
“Yes, Josh,” she hummed. His name fell from her lips over and over in sensual sighs, and his ego swelled until he felt like a fucking god.
He planted his lips on her creamy throat, flicking his tongue over her sweetly salty skin, taking sharp nips and soothing them with gentle licks.
A little heat, a little sweet, the way his Lexi liked it.
His. All the while, his fingers kept up the friction, and despite her growing frustration, he wouldn’t give her more.
Her needy pleas and moans mingled and looped in his mind, and his cock ached and wept with the noises she made.
“Wanna know what I’d do next?” he mumbled against her skin.
“God, yes!” she cried and nearly sent him flying over the edge.
“I’d lead you to the bed.” His breathing ragged, he pulled away, trying to get himself under some modicum of control. She raised her head and stared at him, her half-lidded orbs gleaming like polished emeralds.
He walked her backward until her knees bumped the edge of the mattress. “Next I’d take off the rest of your clothes. Not the heels, though.” He unsnapped the bra and slipped the straps from her shoulders, freeing her breasts.
Oh fuck, you are so beautiful!
Curving her back, she jutted her tits into his greedy palms. Lips parted and moist, she continued watching him lazily while he squeezed and caressed what she offered, her body subtly undulating like a gauzy curtain in a soft breeze.
The ghost of a smile played on her lips.
Yeah, she was running the show. For now.
When he couldn’t take any more, he rid her of the thong and let his hungry gaze drift over her, from her sexy heels to her soft auburn waves.
He fought to pull himself back from the ledge of his self-inflicted torture, fought for control in this erotic tug-of-war.
She was the living, breathing embodiment of every woman he’d ever dreamed of, every woman he’d fantasized about while fucking his fist, but so much better than anything his imagination could have ever conjured.
Lexi, vibrant, pulsing with life, wet with need for him.
She was his.
“Once you got me to the bed, what would you do?” Her words were breathless things, halting, uneven, matching the stutters in his chest.
“Then I’d have a decision to make,” he grunted.
She lifted a questioning eyebrow.
Base urges flooded him. “How best to fuck you.” And God, he needed to fuck her. Needed to hear her scream his name as she came.
He turned her away from him and cupped her breasts from behind, rolling her pointed peaks between his fingers and thumbs. He licked the shell of her ear and rumbled, “Would I drape you over a chair, spread your legs, and take you from behind? Or …”
Dropping to the mattress, he lowered her onto his lap so she straddled him, her hands on his shoulders, her nipples inches from his chin.
“Or would I let you fuck me while I pulled these tempting tits into my mouth and sucked them so hard I made you come?” He blatantly eyeballed them, then bent to swirl his tongue around her swollen pink tips.
Raising his gaze and locking on hers once more, he continued exploring her contours with firm strokes.
“You know I can do it,” he challenged. Then he dropped his voice, whispering huskily, “You are so damn sensitive, and I know exactly where and how to touch you.” And he did too because he knew her body so well. Already. Better than he’d known any other woman’s.
Her eyes shuttered, and desperate little moans bubbled up in her throat. He reined in the beast that wanted to burst from him and devour her whole.
While his hands kept doing what they were doing, he rolled his hips so his steely length rubbed her entrance.
Repeated the motion. He wrapped his hands in her strands and tugged her head back, ready to sink his teeth into that soft, soft skin.
This girl brought out the animal in him.
“Want me to come inside you like this, baby?”
One side of her sexy mouth quirked. She looked at him along the bridge of her nose. “Little hard to do with your pants on.” He released his hold, and she lifted her head and deftly unbuckled his belt.
He smirked right back. “One button, one zip, and I’m impaling you, gorgeous.
” Without warning, he tossed her onto her back, yanking off his pants and underwear while she squealed a surprised laugh.
With his shirt still buttoned, he climbed up her body, sinking on top of her and hauling her hands above her head.
He dropped kisses intermingled with licks along her jawline.
“Or maybe I drive into you without mercy. Make you thrash under me. Watch your beautiful face as you come apart because of what I’m doing to you.
” Her breasts heaved beneath him, and her eyes filled with a challenge, a fiery lust that made his blood burn for her.
“Oh yeah. You like that idea, don’t you?
” Drawing up his leg between hers, he forced them apart and pressed his knee into her wet juncture.
She rocked against it. Meanwhile, he kissed a path from her collarbones to her earlobe.
“I could make you come on my knee.” He ran the tip of his nose along the sensitive skin beneath her ear.
“So many ways to fuck you. Which one, baby?” he taunted.
“How should I take you?” He pulled her earlobe between his teeth and bit. “Tell me what you want.”
She wriggled her hands from his grasp and frantically worked at his buttons. “I want to feel you against me,” she huffed.
“Demanding much?” he snickered, flinging his arms wide, giving her access, pausing to snatch silent breaths of control. “I’m all yours.”
Once she had the shirt undone, she spread it wide, scooped her arms under his armpits, and yanked him down so his torso was flush with hers.
Plastering herself against him, she bucked hard, then wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her pointy heels into his ass.
Little mewls and keening noises escaped her.
Jesus, the sounds she made! He drank them in like a man who’d been crawling through the desert for days.
This woman was all sweet hotness and sex, and she made him fucking insane. He couldn’t get enough.
Lowering his knee, he repositioned his body. Taut muscles vibrated with anticipation. And then an alarmed inner voice cut through his lust-filled fog, reminding him what he was about to do.
“Baby, I’m bare here.” But I’m desperate to be inside your sweet, sweet body.
“I’m on the pill,” she panted. “But are you, um …”
“Yeah, I’m clean,” he rushed to reassure. “I haven’t been with anyone since the last time I was tested, and that was last year.”
“And I was tested after Conrad in case he … It came back negative. I haven’t been with anyone since.”
He mined her eyes. “Do you trust me?”
“I do. Do you trust me?”
“I do.” An errant thought popped into his brain: He might be exchanging very different I-dos with her someday.
Unable to hold back any longer, he plowed inside her. Gasped. Groaned.
He was a goner. Completely enraptured. And he didn’t care.
He found his rhythm and rode her hard, teeth gritted, neck strained as he tried to drag it out, tried to make the overwhelming sensation last, pulling every last cry of his name from her lungs as she reached that peak.
When his orgasm crescendoed, it rocked his body like an earthquake rippling through the ground.
He collapsed on top of her in a panting heap, his cognizant mind shredded into untold shards.
Didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he was, didn’t know who he was.
One thing he did know: He didn’t give a fuck whether he’d known Lexi two days or two decades. He was never going to let her go.