Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“ N o,” Freddy said. Ry’s question opened a new freshet of passion within her. “No. I wanted to see you. Be with you.”
“Ready to risk a little?”
“Maybe.”
His gaze smoldered. “We don’t have any excuses this time. There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need doctoring because I’m saddle-sore or full of cactus. You’re dealing with a completely healthy male animal, no handicaps to slow me down.”
Heart pounding, she deliberately moistened her lips. “Then if you don’t need doctoring… what do you need, cowboy?”
His reply was husky. “I thought you’d never ask.”
If he hadn’t held her steady, she might have crumpled like a rag doll when his demanding lips found hers.
But she needed his mouth against hers, needed it with a ferocity that made her wind both arms around his neck and hang on, moaning at the sweet invasion of his tongue.
The heat of the room seemed fitting, matching the heat inside her, calling forth moisture that slicked her skin, readied it for love.
He snapped open the clip holding her hair and dropped it to the table beside them.
Then, as he kissed her into oblivion, he combed her hair with his fingers, starting at her scalp and stroking downward.
It was one of the most sensuous feelings she’d ever known, being kissed while he caressed her hair.
Slowly he released her and guided her back to the chair, where he got to one knee and pulled off one of her boots. Then, holding her gaze, he tugged off the other. Her breathing grew shallow.
“We’ll have to be inventive,” he said. “I’m not prepared for this wonderful gift you’ve given me.”
“Oh!” And she, a grown woman, wasn’t, either. Embarrassment crept up her cheeks. “Then maybe we shouldn’t?—”
“Yes, we should. Within boundaries.”
“Ry, I think I should go.”
“No, you don’t.” Taking her by the elbows, he brought her upright and pulled her close. “Only a man with no imagination would let you go out that door tonight.”
“But—”
“I’m not that man.” Cradling her bottom in both hands, he picked her up. Despite her misgivings, she wrapped her legs around him, tightening the contact. His manhood, held captive in snug denim, swelled in response.
“Ry, this is crazy. We should?—”
“Quiet, madam foreman.” He sat on the edge of the bed, holding her firmly in his lap, keeping her pressed tight against him.
He kissed the corners of her mouth, her chin, the base of her throat, detonating land mines of sensation everywhere he touched.
“From the first day, when I rode behind you and watched your tempting backside posting up and down in the saddle, I’ve dreamed of touching you like this, and I’m not waiting. I know what I’m doing.”
She couldn’t argue that one as he popped open the first snap of her shirt and eased her back just enough to flick his tongue against the widening vee he’d created. With a sigh, she bared her throat in surrender.
“And then you massaged ointment on my thighs,” he murmured as snaps gave way to his questing fingers. “Do you have any idea the image you created, bending over my lap like that?”
“I didn’t want you… to be in pain.” She was having a hard time thinking as he reached for the front clasp of her bra and her breasts began to ache in anticipation.
“There are many kinds of pain, ma chérie .”
“Some can be… sweet.”
“If you know that someone will soon relieve it.” He lowered his head and took her nipple between his teeth, biting gently. She moaned.
He cradled her breast and licked the heated surface. “You’re so cool-looking on the outside, but on the inside—” he nibbled at the turgid peak once more, “—you’re so hot, you could burn a man.”
Desire roughened her voice. “Are you afraid?”
“No.” He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I love the fire.” He unhooked her belt and pulled it through the loops. “I love to build it and I love to see it burn.”
Through eyes heavy-lidded with passion, she met the challenge in his gaze.
Astraddle him like this, she was already open to him, completely vulnerable to his plans, save for some insignificant layers of material.
He unfastened her jeans and pulled the zipper down.
They were old jeans, soft and pliable from long wear.
They easily accommodated the hand that Ry slipped inside the opening.
Unerringly, he found her sensitive spot with the heel of his hand and pressed against the damp cotton of her underwear.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, holding back a small cry.
“Oh, no,” he said. “We’ll have none of that.
Not in this secluded little cottage. Not when the guests are all inside with their air conditioners running.
” He rotated the heel of his hand against her with lazy precision that wound the spring ever tighter.
“I want it all, Freddy. Lose it for me. Let me see the tigress in heat.”
She closed her eyes and whimpered.
“That’s better.” A breath later, he’d pushed aside the cotton barrier and slipped his fingers deep inside her. “Now let’s turn up the flame.”
She moaned as he initiated an insistent rhythm.
“Yes.” His breathing quickened. “More, Freddy.” He rubbed her tight knot of desire with his thumb. “Give me more.”
She didn’t recognize the small cries of need he wrung from her.
It was as if she had no choice but to moan and sigh as his clever fingers probed pressure points she’d never guessed existed.
The flames licked around her, through her.
She gripped his shoulders as the only anchor in a whirling maelstrom where she wondered if pleasure had the power to make her fly apart into a million pieces.
She sensed the moment coming, almost heard it like the rumble of a distant waterfall, and then she was pitched headlong past all restraint, flung gasping into the convulsing world of release.
As she shuddered in his arms, he kissed her back to sanity, cupping her face and stroking her hair away from her damp forehead. “You are so beautiful,” he said. “I thought so before, but now that I’ve seen you like this...”
Dazed, she laid her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Ry.”
He cuddled her, holding her like a precious artifact. “I knew there was that kind of passion in you.”
“I didn’t,” she murmured.
“You didn’t?” The male satisfaction in his voice made her smile.
She lifted her head so he could see that smile. “You wanted me to lose it. I sure did.”
“I wanted just what I got, you in a frenzy, so wet and flushed, so willing for me to...” He trailed off and sucked in his breath.
The desire in his eyes told her most of what she needed to know, and a quick glance downward supplied confirmation. He needed her, and she wanted to give. Ry wasn’t the only one who’d had fantasies.
She began slowly, reaching inside the open front of his shirt to find his nipples buried in a swirl of chest hair. She scratched across the tips lightly with her fingernails and was rewarded with another sharp intake of breath.
She gazed into his eyes. “I think you might need doctoring, after all.”
The look he gave her was hot enough to start a fire in wet kindling. “Could be.”
Her shirt was damp. She flicked open the snaps at her wrists.
“Let me slip into something more comfortable.” With a shrug of her shoulders, the shirt slipped to the floor.
She flung her bra after it. “There.” When she glanced at Ry to gauge the effect, she was rewarded by the flash of primitive lust in his gaze.
Still astride him, she rose to her knees, her hands cupping her breasts. “See anything you like, cowboy?”
With a groan, he pulled her close, tasting, nipping, suckling.
She’d thought to tease him, to drive him a little crazy before she gave him relief, but his teeth tugging at her nipples renewed the fire deep in her loins, and she began to quiver with her own need.
She pulled away, breathing hard, and applied herself to the task of unfastening his belt.
He pulled her back, toppling them both to the bed as he ravished her breasts.
Before she realized it, he’d nudged her out of her already unfastened jeans and stripped away her panties. Free of restriction, she wanted him in a way that threatened to destroy all reason. Had she imagined she could control a conflagration this powerful?
No longer caring about anything but bringing him inside her, she opened the fly of his jeans and reached beneath the elastic of his briefs. Stroking the fullness there, she begged him to love her. Now.
Gasping, he looked into her eyes. “You tempt me, wicked woman.”
“Love me, Ry. Please love me.”
He took a long, shuddering breath. “Fantasies first. That time, when you were putting on the ointment, you gave me a picture that won’t go away. Give me the reality.”
Of course she would. She would do anything for him, despite the aching, driving passion clamoring for his attention.
He lifted his hips and she divested him of his clothes.
He was magnificently, achingly aroused. Her fingers closed over the hot shaft.
She leaned down, knowing he was watching her.
Her tongue tasted salty desire, and the need to love him overrode her need to be loved.
His groan as she enclosed him made the sacrifice of her own satisfaction pale to nothing.
He shifted position, but she was so involved in his pleasure that she didn’t realize his purpose until he touched the burgeoning point of her own excitement and a spasm of pleasure zinged through her.
Then his mouth was there, loving her with a thoroughness that made her dizzy.
Somehow, despite the exquisite distraction, she ministered to him, too.
His moment came first, and she rejoiced in the great shudders that shook his body.
Soon after, he lavished her with an equal gift that left them sated and panting.