Wicked Games

“It’s going to take a lot of getting used to. You being gone and all that. Especially since you’re turning out to be quite handy. I’m sorry I never knew this before.”

His grin was amazingly wicked. “I have talents you can only imagine.”

“Is that so?” she asked, wishing she still had her wineglass there because she really, really needed something to do with her hands. As it was, she was having a hard time not slipping them underneath his sweater and shirt. She wanted so badly to get close to his body.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely so.”

“Well, then. Do you care to share what you know?” she asked, settling on toying with a strip of peeled cucumber skin. “Or are you keeping your skills secret?”

Doug slowly lowered the gravy boat. He stood where he was for a very long moment, his hands flat on the countertop as if he wasn’t at all certain what he was doing or why.

But as Kinsey looked on, he came to a decision. She saw it in the tensing of his shoulders, and in the way he finally tossed back his head, blond hair flowing, like a stallion having selected his mare.

The analogy made her laugh, or would have if the look he gave her didn’t make her feel as if he was considering the best way to mount. And even though that was what she’d wanted, where she’d wanted this evening to go, she couldn’t deny the sting of surprise at the speed with which they’d progressed.

He turned and walked toward her, determination in his step as well as in his bright gaze. Once he stood directly before her, he set both hands at her waist. She moved hers to his biceps, a placement that allowed her to feel the flex of muscle an instant before he lifted her to perch on the edge of the tiled island.

Her hands found their way to his shoulders as he stepped fully between her spread legs. His hands still at her waist, he cocked his head and gave her a smile that had her wondering why they’d never taken the time to get to know each other more deeply.

That smile raised a myriad of questions. And his eyes were as bright as green lights. “My kitchen skills are pretty much limited to dessert. And as great as the chicken smells, I’d rather start with what I know best.”

She responded with a bit of a grimace. “I didn’t remember to make dessert.”

“Trust me, darlin’. What I have in mind is better than anything you could’ve whipped up.”

It was a good thing she wasn’t easily taken in by a sweet-talkin’ man. “You say that without having tasted any of my cooking.”

“Yeah, but I’ve tasted you.” And then he moved forward and pressed his lips over the hollow of her throat.

She leaned her head back to give him better access, wrapped her legs around him and hooked her heels at the base of his spine. Her fingers dug into the tight muscles of his shoulders; he was more tense than she’d imagined, and she began to knead the hard knots.

“Mmm,” he murmured, his lips creating a soft buzzing tickle on her skin. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

“It can’t feel half as good as what you’re doing with your mouth.” He’d moved down her collarbone, pushing aside the loose neckline of her fluttery top, kissing his way along the bared skin.

He nipped at the edge of her shoulder and growled. “It would feel a hell of a lot better if you’d lose this top.”

She couldn’t get it off fast enough. It was less a necessary piece of clothing than it was a tease that had accomplished its purpose.

And now Doug could easily get to the rest of her, which he did immediately, pulling the thin strap of her knit camisole down one shoulder and working his way beneath the hem with his other hand.

He surrounded her—his hands, his mouth, his clean and subtle scent. The breadth of his chest, which blocked any movement she might want to make. She didn’t want to move anywhere at all, except closer to the beautifully exquisite sensation of his touch.

His skin was on her skin, and all she could think about was the night they’d both been drunk and only half aware of being on the veranda at the house on Coconut Caye. His hands had been all over her then, beneath her clothing, in her hair, inside her body in ways she still imagined vividly when she went to bed alone.

With his hands now on her rib cage beneath the curve of her breasts, she thought again of that previous contact, realizing her memories were nothing compared to the bliss of the real thing.

He was deft in the way he teased her, making sure she enjoyed his touch. He tested her reactions, his mouth whispering his kisses along with his words. Both thrilled her beyond belief.

“Is that good?” he asked, his lips drawing on the skin just beneath her shoulder. “Do you like that?” he added, before she could do more than softly moan. “What do you want me to do?” As if his tongue wetting a line along the upper curve of her breast wasn’t enough. “You’re so beautiful. Soft. Sweet. Like silk. And you smell so damn good.”

She whimpered because she couldn’t help it. Her shoulder was bare, the strap of her top long since having fallen to her elbow. He took hold of the edge of the material and began to peel it from her breast. His other hand cupped her other breast fully, his palm circling over the very tip of her budded nipple.

And then her top was around her waist and both breasts bared. Oh, but she felt reckless in such delightful ways, reckless enough not to give thought to anything but the physical joy of the moment, and to the man offering her this pleasure. Doug leaned down, his eyes wide, his gaze locked wickedly on hers, and took her into his mouth.

She remembered everything then, every detail of the way he knew how sharply to tug, how sweetly to kiss, how softly to curl his tongue around her nipple. He’d learned so many things about her in that one dark night of sea breeze and sex, and he remembered. He remembered.

When had any man ever remembered, ever paid the sort of intimate attention needed for such perfect recall? Kinsey moved her hands to her sides, bracing her weight on the counter. She scooted her lower body closer into his and tossed back her head. Eyes closed, she kicked off her shoes and slid her heels up and down Doug’s backside, feeling all that taut resilient flesh beneath his very GQ attire.

The sensations of slipping and sliding, of being tongued and tasted, the reality that dinner was going to have to wait…She wasn’t sure anything she’d ever felt had been so perfect, any man she’d ever known this amazingly right.

When he moved his mouth to her other breast, she knew that having him now mattered more than waiting to be certain, than wondering if she was making a mistake she’d regret not having the resolve to avoid.

She threaded her fingers into his thick hair. “Doug?”

“Hmm?” he breathed against her skin.

She shivered. “The food is going to have to be reheated anyway….”

He slowed his very attentive movements, finally looking up, his eyes bright, his hair falling dashingly over his forehead, his mouth red and wet from the kisses. He kept his hands on either side of her rib cage, holding her there as if he expected her to bolt.

As if she wanted to be anywhere else.

“What’re you saying here, darlin’?”

She met his gaze candidly. “Just that dessert sounds really good right about now.”

He closed his eyes, as if to assure himself he wasn’t living a dream, then looked back at her with an expression defined by one simple word.

Hot.

“Kinsey Gray, you have made me a very happy man.”

The very words a girl wanted to hear. “I expect total reciprocation.”

“Trust me, darlin’. You’re about to be the happiest woman alive.”

3

KINSEY GRAY HAD BEEN responsible for the best time Doug had ever spent naked with a woman, and he doubted that she had a single clue.

His fault completely, because he’d never said a word, and he should have. Damn it, but he should have. His excuse wasn’t a good one, but it was real and it was honest and it was the only one he’d been able to come up with.

And that was simply that, when they’d returned from last summer’s vacation off the coast of Belize, he hadn’t known what to say. He also wasn’t sure how much she remembered of what they’d done on the veranda while under the influence of palm fronds in the breeze and the moon on the water and way too much of Nolan Ford’s stock of sweet Caribbean rum.

Doug remembered all of it, or so he’d told himself anytime they were together and he wanted to take her to bed. Kinsey, however, had never made a move of any sort that led him to believe she wanted to revisit a connection that had nearly left him blind.

At least she hadn’t before now.

But now. Oh, now. Now, with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, she was definitely sending out the signals he’d been twitching for months to pick up. And the more he thought about having Kinsey served up for dessert, the worse the twitching got.

He scooped her straight off the cooking island’s slick tiles and headed back the way he’d originally come. She had a hell of an oversize sofa that was just the ticket to take them where he wanted to go.

She giggled, raining tiny kisses all over his face, blowing away the hair that kept falling into his eyes. “I love that you’ve grown your hair.”

So much for the haircut he’d been planning. “You’re making it hard for me to see where I’m going here, darlin’. If you hold up a minute, I promise we can get back to the kissing here shortly.”

“Such a spoilsport,” she said, pouting, but she did lean to the side and rest her head on his shoulder, giving him a clear field of vision.

Funny how the kissing was suddenly less important than the way she felt cuddled against him, the way she seemed to be so tiny when he knew she was fiercely independent and didn’t need him for anything.

When they reached the sofa, he turned and tumbled her on to his chest, his body bouncing once before he sank into the plush cushions. Kinsey bounced, too, and her bouncing was a hell of a lot more fun against his front than falling onto the stuffing had been that was against his back.

Oh, yeah. He could get used to this. Softness all the way around.

Straddling his thighs, Kinsey levered herself upright with her hands on his abs. Her top ringed her ribs like a white cotton tube, baring both her belly and her breasts. She was stunningly gorgeous, with her straight blond hair hanging down to hide her nipples, her bright blue eyes and her legs, that went on forever, gripping his thighs.

A total Scandinavian turn-on, he thought, right about the same time he decided her hair was in the way of his northern lights fantasy. He reached up and fanned out the strands behind her shoulders so he could get a good look at dessert.

And then she blushed.

He wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed because he was staring, or because his hard-on was making itself known there where her legs were spread apart over his. He reached up and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “You’re so cute when you do that.”

“And you’re so cute when you do that,” she responded, sliding her hand over his belt buckle to cover his rapidly expanding fly.

Well, that answered that, didn’t it? Thoughts that went way beyond simple lust fired his grin. This woman was a horny man’s most erotic dream, and he never wanted to come awake again. “Feel free to take a closer look.”

She took him up on the dare, making quick work of his buckle before easing down the zipper of his fly. Her focus remained on her fingers, and as she unfastened his pants, her upper arms pressed her breasts together into two plump mouthfuls.

He was absolutely starving, ravenous, insatiable, but he was looking forward to seeing how far she would go. Besides, what was another minute or two when he’d been waiting for this for a very long time? At least for the sixteen months since he’d last had her.

In fact, why hadn’t he gone with his gut and pursued her before now?

Maybe because it had taken this long for him to learn that being pursued could be so damn sweet.

He crossed his arms behind his head, raising his head a tad so he could watch as she worked to get his pants down. As seriously as he enjoyed the physical kick to getting blown, looking at a woman’s mouth—Kinsey’s mouth—in action was a huge part of the turn-on. Any guy claiming otherwise was lying through his teeth.

Doug had a big thing about telling the truth. And seeing Kinsey scoot on her knees to the foot of the sofa, watching her slender fingers take hold of the waistband of his pants and his boxers, following every movement she made as she stripped him down to his bare essentials, was better than any skin flick he’d ever seen.

His pants were binding his ankles when she slid back up his body, her bare breasts pressing on either side of his thickly rigid cock. She leaned down, her hair like strands of white silk on his skin, and pressed biting, sucking kisses all over his belly.

“Kinsey, I’m dyin’ here, darlin’.”

Without even lifting her head she answered, “I do believe that’s the point,” and then went right back to torturing him in ways he’d never considered possible. Where the hell had this woman been all of his life?

His cock strained upward, pushing into her chest. She slipped one hand between their bodies to hold him, squeezing rhythmically as her kisses came closer but never in contact with his erection. More than anything he wanted to feel her sweet lips around him, and he told her so with a sharp upward thrust.

She tsk-tsked against his skin, her hair now hanging between his legs and tickling mercilessly. Then again, it could’ve been her lips and her tongue and his wicked expectation causing the tingles.

Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this before he grabbed her and flipped her onto her back. He wanted to be inside her in the very worst way. He didn’t think he’d ever ached like this after nothing but a few kisses and a hand job that would’ve admittedly been a whole lot better if she’d actually stroked.

When he heard the phone ring, he groaned, but Kinsey didn’t stop what she was doing, except to slip both hands underneath his thighs. She pushed his legs up and toward his body until he lay there with his ankles caught up tight where his pants wrapped around them and his knees in the air and all of the family jewels exposed.

The phone stopped, and Kinsey sat up and grinned, not looking at his face, but at his package, which sent another surge of blood that direction. He pulsed, bobbed, and her grin widened. Oh, yeah. He knew it.

He was going to die.

A slow agonizing death by sex, he thought, might just be worth it, especially when she squirreled around down there between his spread thighs where all of America could have been getting a close-up view of every hair on his—

“Mmm,” Kinsey murmured, licking her lips and preparing to kill him. He watched as she opened her mouth into the most perfect O known to mankind. Then she wrapped those beautiful lips around the head of his cock.

Yes, yes. Oh, yes. This was what it was all about. This was what he’d been wanting, been waiting for, been…oh, good ever-lovin’ sweet…He groaned, and the sound came straight from his gut.

“You like?” She pulled away to ask the question.

Him? Like? He’d like it a whole lot better without having to talk about it. “You have no clue.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She ran the tip of her tongue, the sweet little pointed tip only, around the head of his erection. “It’s quite nice from this angle.”

Was she talking about his taste? His size? What? Why was she talking at all? “That angle totally works for me.”

“Hmm.” She blew a long stream of warm air over the wetness her mouth had left behind, and he pretty much had to start thinking about elephant dung to keep from coming right then and there.

“I’m going to try something a little different here. Tell me if you like it.”

“Go for it, darlin’.” Elephant dung, elephant dung, big stinkin’ elephant dung.

His cock twitched, his balls drawing up into his body like two blue hockey pucks. Kinsey adjusted her position so that she was coming at him from directly above, and damn if she didn’t swallow him whole.

Un-friggin’-believable. She had all of him in her mouth. The grip of her hand was as firm as that of her lips as she slid up and down, sucking the life out of him. But he was going to be the only one here getting anything out of this if she didn’t stop. Oh, Mama, stop… “Kinsey?”

“Mmm?” she murmured, vibrating him from belly to balls.

“You are amazing.” Suck in a breath. “You are incredible.” Suck it in, bub. Suck it in. “But you are really going to have to cool it down there or dessert’s gonna be over, and you’re still going to be hungry.”

She chuckled. She had him in her mouth and she actually managed a laugh. But then slowly, as if she were counting each lick of a Tootsie Pop, she pulled her mouth from the base to the head of his cock and, pop, he was free.

He reached down between his legs and pressed hard against the pounding rush of blood. He squeezed his eyes shut, his panting breaths his only chance at salvation. He heard Kinsey rustling around, and when he finally found the control he needed to open his eyes without his geyser spouting…

Oh, hell and a half. Here we go again. All that rustling had been Kinsey stripping off her clothes.

Damn, but he’d wanted to do that.

Damn, but he didn’t care anymore.

Not when she stood there at the edge of the sofa, her bare skin glowing with the last of a summer tan. All of her skin, it seemed, but for a tiny strip where two strings would’ve tied a triangle of a bikini bottom over her mound.

Her nipples were a luscious peachy-pecan in the center of breasts too perfect to be real. Lucky man that he was, he knew that particular truth, however. His mouth began to water; his John Henry began to bob.

Enough with the ankle bondage and Kinsey not being underneath him. He sat up and swung around and was out of his sweater before his shoes hit the floor. He kicked them off; his pants followed. His shirt lost more than a button or two; his patience went flying off in the same direction.

She was just standing there, enjoying his struggle and looking as if being naked was as natural as not. Once he’d dug a condom from his billfold, he wasted no time in letting her know how much he liked her lack of inhibition, pulling her to stand between his legs and using his mouth the way he’d been waiting to forever.

As she took the condom from his hand and opened the packet, he held her hips and settled his mouth over her sex. He licked his way in and out of her folds until she whimpered and squirmed and did everything she could to push him down on to his back.

“Not yet, darlin’,” he mumbled into her sweetly swollen pussy. She tasted wonderful, clean and salty, as if she spent her days sunbathing after a Mediterranean swim. He swirled his tongue over and around her clit, then used his fingers to spread her open and push his tongue inside her.

She gasped even as she widened her stance and shoved her fingers into his hair to hold him where she wanted. He didn’t mind, but it wasn’t as if he was going anywhere just yet. He was having too much of a good time tasting and teasing and slurping her up to let go.

Except Kinsey decided she had other ideas, and moved a step away. He looked up into her mischievous eyes, a blond nymph toying with his condom packet as if he were a donkey and she held his carrot in her hand. In a manner of speaking, he supposed she did.

He sat back, his legs spread in a wide V, his hands laced on his belly behind his erection, which was more than ready for some action.

She tapped the condom wrapper to her chin as she considered all he had to offer. When she seemed to make up her mind, she dropped to her knees before him and rolled the sheath to the base of his shaft.

Thing was, while she was down there she made sure to let him know she wasn’t the least bit intimidated or put off by the male anatomy. For at least five minutes worth of what seemed like forever, he sat like a statue through kisses and forays she made with her fingers and tongue. He felt every end of every nerve fire off round after round of sensation that was not the least bit wholesome, but was sweet in ways that had him biting down on a mouthful of instructional expletives.

Just when he was ready again to grab her and toss her on to her back, she moved away, pushed his knees together, turned and straddled his lap in reverse. Sweet, gorgeous, baby, doll. The movement gave him such a memorable view of her ass that he swore he’d take the picture to his grave.

Then, reaching between her legs, she took hold of his cock and guided him to where he needed to be, lowering herself until he was completely buried in the hottest sweetest piece he’d ever had the pleasure to know.

Pleasure. No, that was weak. The word failed to cover half of what he felt when she took him inside. But he had to keep this physical. Feeling he could deal with; feeling rocked his world. Feeling meant he didn’t have to think.

He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, finally setting them at her hips, where he could guide her angle, control her speed. He hated having to hold her at all; sitting back and just enjoying the view suited him just fine.

Seeing the sloping arch of her back, the wide-open space between her legs that revealed exactly what she was giving him and where his cock was buried…

He groaned, watching Kinsey slide down until his entire shaft disappeared, her hands braced on his knees for leverage and balance. Her tiny breathy moans had him clenching his gut and slipping one hand between her legs the next time she rose enough to give him the room.

He slid a finger through her wet folds to her clit, fingering the tight knot, testing her response, whether she liked soft and slow or hard and persistent or teasing butterfly flicks.

She liked all of it, judging by the way she pushed against him, ground against him, covered his hand with one of hers and pressed hard.

She cried out, softly at first, then with more volume as her contractions hit. She tightened around him, shuddering as she came, and then he couldn’t wait another single second. He unloaded hard and fast, thrusting upward and spilling himself until he was totally empty and spent.

He sank back into the sofa; Kinsey settled on to his lap, turning to face him without ever springing him free. How she managed, he had no idea. But he was glad that she still held him inside.

For a few more seconds, he needed this connection. He needed it more than he’d thought he could need anything from a woman. No. Anything from Kinsey.

And it was his Kinsey-specific need that made it hard to let her go.

Made it hard to admit that he wasn’t ready to go.

Made it hard to know if he ever would be.

KINSEY PULLED her bathrobe back up on to her shoulder and jabbed her fork into her salad. She was famished; earlier, she’d been too edgy to eat. Dessert first was a policy she’d have to adopt. At least when dining on Doug.

Dining on Doug.

She liked the sound of that, and she had certainly enjoyed the reality. “Mmm,” she moaned around a bite of chicken. “I don’t know why I was so worried. This is actually pretty good.”

One of Doug’s brows winged up as he looked at her over his glass of wine. “I thought you said you weren’t worried.”

“Did I?” she asked in all innocence.

“Yes. You did.”

“Hmm,” she hedged, ignoring his laugh at her lie. “Well, maybe I was a bit. But now I’m thinking I’d like to do this more often.” She reached for another slice of chicken breast. “You can be my guinea pig. At least for as long as you’re here.”

She hated adding that last part, but she had to face that one round of sexual Olympics was not going to convince him to continue calling Houston home. One round hadn’t even convinced her that she wanted him to stay.