Seeing Red

He increased the pressure and the tempo. He laved her, loved her, until she was shattered by her orgasm. He held her, drew on her with tenderness but also unquestioned mastery, and didn’t stop until her body went limp.

When she opened her eyes, he was standing at the side of the bed, one knee planted on the edge of it between her open thighs. He was looking down at her with a slight frown, and suddenly she realized why. There were tears on her cheeks.

When she’d climaxed, not only had her senses become untethered, her emotions had as well. She had expected Trapper to be skilled. She hadn’t expected him to be so unselfish, so sweet.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” She sniffed and wiped away the tears as she came up on her elbows. “Yes.”

“Tears of joy?”

“Something like that.”

His features relaxed. “It was good for me, too.”

“So I see.” His erection couldn’t possibly have escaped her notice. A bead of semen was clinging to the tip.

“Could I impose on you to do that thing with your thumb again?”

“Absolutely not.” She came up the rest of the way, and reached around him to place her hands on his butt. Leaning into him, instead of her thumb, she applied her tongue.

“I fantasized about that,” Trapper said in a drowsy voice.

He had already told her that her hair felt as silky against his belly as he’d imagined it would. Now he was sifting his fingers through it although it wasn’t completely dry. They had pulled back the covers and had gotten into bed. They were half lying, half propped against the headboard, legs braided together under the sheet, her head on his chest.

Idly she explored its contours. “You seem to have an extraordinary number of fantasies.”

“Guilty.”

“All of them erotic.”

“Got me again. But my fantasy women never had a face before.”

She stopped her play and tilted her head back to look at him.

“Recently,” he said, sweeping his thumb over her cheek, “the rock star of my fantasies has this bewitching beauty mark.”

She swallowed. “Does she?”

“Hmm. Eyes the color of a Hershey bar. And lips…” He rubbed the lower one. His voice dropped in pitch. “Two minutes after you knocked on the door of my office, I was fantasizing your mouth taking me.” He pressed her lower lip with his thumb. “I thought it was sexy then. Now…Damn.” He continued staring at her lips, gliding his thumb back and forth across the lower one.

Eventually, though, he withdrew his hand. His forehead furrowed. He cleared his throat. “Kerra—”

“You won’t respect me in the morning.”

He smiled, but his eyes remained serious. Realizing that he was done teasing, she moved off his chest and onto her own pillow.

“It’s about Marianne.”

“That’s none of my business, Trapper. I should have kept my observations to myself. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“But I want to explain, without losing my temper the way I did before.”

“Bad timing on my part. You were already mad at me.”

He acknowledged that with a nod, but she could tell that he wished to stay on track. He’d given thought to what he wanted to say, and he wanted, perhaps needed, to say it.

“Usually I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks about me, or what I do, or how I conduct myself. But since you’ve met Marianne, seen the kind of person she is, I want you to know how much I hate that she got hurt. No,” he said sternly. “That’s too lenient. I hate that I hurt her.”