“No,” she answered slowly, self-consciously. “Not one particular man, that is. I’ve never felt—”
“You’re saying the human race in general made you feel unattractive? I don’t buy that, Hailey. Sure, you must have had some years during adolescence when you weren’t a raving beauty. But do any of us look our best during that time? No, you had that complex germinating inside you long before then.”
“I suppose so,” she said, privately viewing her childhood. “I never was fawned over, petted, the way Ellen was. I was the elder. It was up to me to set a good example. When Ellen fell out of favor, her transgression was quickly forgiven because she didn’t take punishment well. She would carry on until Mother and Daddy were miserable over whatever meager punishment they had doled out. I took punishment stoically, never letting them know how bad I felt. Perhaps that was my mistake.
“And then, Ellen truly was an adorable child. Naughtiness only made her more appealing. I was merely good. I guess the adage ‘The squeaky wheel gets the oil’ applied to the way our parents treated us. I never caused any trouble, so I was easy to ignore.”
“Who could ignore you?” he asked. His eyes dropped to her breasts which rose and fell so alluringly close to his eyes. “Especially men.”
Hailey laughed. “When you’re three inches taller than most of the boys in high school, you’re generally ignored. As a sex symbol, at any rate. While I was in college, I was taking care of my parents, too, and that curbed my social life considerably. And by the time I graduated and went to work—”
“You had built up a wall of insecurities as a defense against the slings and arrows, so to speak. You wouldn’t let any romantically inclined gentleman close enough to penetrate it.”
Her smile was gaminelike when she looked down at him through lowered lashes and said demurely, “You penetrated it.”
He laughed with pure delight, then lowered his voice to a seductive rumble. “I love it when you talk dirty.” She laughed with him, tossing her hair back over her shoulders in a careless gesture that she didn’t even know was sexy.
The laughter subsided and she shyly averted her eyes. “Tyler, teach … teach me to … I want to please you.”
He looked up at her and thought that she couldn’t please him any more than she did already. Her hair, the eyes that revealed so much, the glow of her skin polished with the golden light of the fire, combined to create a picture of female loveliness that made him wish he could paint, or write poetry, so she would be preserved for future generations to enjoy.
But he would be consumed by jealousy if he had to share her with anyone. After tonight he would be tempted to lock her away from the rest of the world. He had always been greedy, selfish, proud of his possessions, his accumulated wealth. Yet he would give away anything he owned in exchange for her. Her soul, her mind, her body.
Her lips were swollen and moist from his loving. He knew their provocative talents. When he had first kissed her, he had met maidenly resistance. Now, her mouth opened to him freely, giving, receiving. But out of that same mouth came clever witticisms and educated insights. She stimulated his intellect as much and as often as she stimulated his body. He was constantly challenged by her keen mind. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear now. She sought another kind of reassurance.
How could she be so unaware that she lacked nothing in sexuality? He was already aroused merely by the sight of her. Her breasts were ripe for loving. The dark apricot nipples were delicate. He wanted to feel them between his lips, under the coaxing of his tongue. Hailey, don’t you know, don’t you see your own prowess?
“This will be the shortest lesson in your life,” he said. “You already have pleased me.”
“I want to learn more.”
He drew her down to him and covered her mouth with his. Her hair fell on either side of his face, a fragrant curtain that he wished could cloak all of him. As though he were taking small, savoring bites out of a juicy peach, his lips opened and closed over hers. His tongue systematically investigated the interior of her mouth, surveying it, cataloging each texture, memorizing each mystery.
He drew back and waited and then congratulated himself on the excellent teacher he was. Hailey practiced her new skills but brought to them an application uniquely her own. Tyler shuddered with the agony of constraint.
His lips ravaged her ears, her throat, and she mimicked him, but surpassed him in talent. She wielded her dainty tongue like a weapon until he choked her name and hugged her to him, stilling her, until he could once again exercise control.
Her breasts filled his hands and he rubbed the lush mounds until he felt the centers swelling in his palms. Then his fingers circled them slowly until they were hard, throbbing buds of desire. He soothed them with his tongue.
Hailey looked at him in wonder when he lowered his head onto the pillows. His fingers continued to stroke and brush. “That, too?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She looked at his impressive chest and tentatively fanned her fingers over the crinkly hair. “I like the way you look, Tyler.”
“It’s mutual … ah, Hailey …”
Her nails lightly raked his nipple and it grew hard. Then she kissed her way across his chest until her lips found it.
“Yes, yes,” he moaned when her tongue dared to push past her lips to taste him.
Without waiting for further instruction, motivated only by the evident pleasure she brought to him, loving him, she kissed her way down that intriguing arrow of hair on his stomach. His hands lost themselves in the violent mass of her hair and he repeated her name like a chant as she kissed each rib in turn.
His hands left her breasts. One went around her to cup her hips, the other found that dark auburn delta at the top of her thighs. His hand flattened over her, applying a rotating pressure she felt as much from the inside as without. Searching with tenderness, he loved her with his fingertips.
“Please, Hailey, please.”
She knew what he wanted of her. Love made the unthinkable possible. She touched his body reverently. The miracle of him wasn’t lost on her and she gloried in it. Wanting to feel that life force bursting inside her again, she rolled to her back and guided him to the threshold of all her desire.