“I know.”
“You don’t have a clue,” he said harshly. “You pull that sheet back and you’ll get a jolt of reality you never bargained for.”
She took a quick glance at his legs beneath the covering of the sheet. Smiling softly, she shook her head. “Do you think I care about your scars?”
“I think you will, yeah.”
“You’re wrong.” She gazed into his face, and, near tears, said, “Parker, you can’t possibly comprehend what you’ve done for me. No, listen, please,” she said when he was about to interrupt. “I may only have the courage to say this once.”
She removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes, moistened her lips, smiled ruefully. “I’ve never played sex games like this before. I’ve only read about this kind of play. I thought it only occurred in books. What you said the other night on the beach, while crude, was correct. With Noah, I never felt free to express myself sexually. What happened between us just now? Would have been unthinkable to me a few weeks ago.
“That was totally out of character with the woman who entered Terry’s Bar and Grill looking for you. I didn’t know until now what I’ve been missing. I’ve been craving that kind of passion. Sensual meltdown. Absolute and unapologetic sexual abandon. You gave me that. But it’s incomplete. It won’t mean anything unless we share it. Let me share it,” she finished huskily. “Please.”
He continued to stare at her, but his expression was no longer tense and set. In fact, he looked more vulnerable than she would have believed possible. “I’m not pretty, Maris.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Tentatively, she leaned toward him. He didn’t stop her. She began at his neck and kissed her way down. Her lips whisked across his skin, her tongue licked it softly. He
r mouth wetly covered his nipple and he hissed a profanity and sank his fingers into her hair.
She pressed another openmouthed kiss just below his navel as she pushed the sheet down below his hips. He groaned her name when she encircled his penis with her hand. It throbbed with life and vitality. She stroked it slowly, varying the tension of her fingers as she worked her way up. She rubbed her thumb across the tip, smearing a pearly bead of semen that had leaked from it.
“Isn’t this how Frenchy got her nickname?” she asked in a voice unintentionally smoky.
“Maris…” Her name vaporized on his lips when she bent over him.
She reveled in the musky taste and scent. She loved feeling the quickening in his belly, hearing his hoarse exclamations of arousal, experiencing the feel of him inside her mouth.
His grip on her hair tightened, not enough to hurt, only enough to let her know it was time to switch positions. She bridged him with her thighs and remained poised above him while he took his penis in his own hand and rubbed the smooth head against her, baiting her desire until she had to have him inside her. Then she sank down, sheathing him slowly, her body stretching to take all of him.
He took several rapid breaths and as he exhaled, he whispered, “Wait.”
So she remained still. He slid his hands up and down her thighs. His thumbs met in the mesh of their public hair and stroked her V until her head fell back against her shoulders and she moaned his name.
Only then did he angle his hips up, encouraging her to ride him. She did, changing tempos and angles, holding still when he indicated that’s what he wished her to do to protract the pleasure. During those pauses, she used the walls of her body to milk him; his eyes would darken, he would swear lavishly, then he would nudge her into motion again.
Leaning down, she guided his head to her breast. He rubbed his rough cheek against it, then his closed lips, before caressing her nipple with his tongue. Lightly and rapidly. Until she called his name and pressed her hips deeply into his belly, securing him inside her.
He pulled her down onto his chest and they came together. As he pulsed inside her, he splayed one hand over her bottom, and cupped the back of her head with the other, and, holding her possessively with both, kissed her mouth. They couldn’t get close enough, deep enough, into each other far enough to satisfy the passion.
When it finally waned, she stretched out on top of him. She could feel the rugged terrain of his scarred legs beneath hers. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, think about that now. She had scars, too. Less visible than his, but there nonetheless. Later, there would be time and opportunity to ask questions and to listen and to sympathize, and then to return their previous unhappiness to the past where it belonged.
Right now she wanted nothing to intrude on the present. She wanted to bask in the knowledge that she had pleased Parker well. She hated Noah Reed for all the times he had rejected her overtures, making her feel awkward and undesired, and then if he did respond for making her feel somehow insufficient.
But she didn’t waste this precious time thinking about him, either. The thought of him was fleeting, like a twinge in one’s side, that’s painful only for an instant before it disappears.
Instead she concentrated on the wonderful pressure of Parker still nestling inside her. She kept her thighs tightly closed, her belly pressed firmly against his to maximize the closeness.
Moving only her lips, she kissed his throat. “The end?”
Several moments elapsed before he replied. “Not quite, Maris.”
But she had already fallen asleep.
Chapter 29
Daniel stood at the kitchen window, eating a sandwich and staring out at the rainy night. Periodically lightning illuminated the countryside, but it was a friendly storm, unthreatening and nonviolent, a summer thundershower that would dissipate quickly and leave the skies clear by dawn.