Five
Dane went down on her. Holding her hips, he held her to his lips, seared her with his mouth and tongue.
“Oh, God. I can’t . . .”
Like a flock of disturbed birds, all thought left her, and the only sound in her brain was the beat of her wild heart. Her body quaked and trembled, and she held his dark head as if it were heaven itself.
Which it was . . .
He licked her long and deeply, lifted his head, and replaced his fabulous mouth with two fingers, unmoving as if there to hold his place. “You’re going to come now, Esme,” he murmured, his voice hoarse and ragged. “Hard and fast, over and over again.”
His eyes were midnight blue, and she didn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. Her eyes fixed on his, saw the determination embedded there, the feral glow of male power. “I’m going to take you deeper.”
He slipped his fingers into her and pressed her nub gently with his thumb. She moaned, thrust toward him . . .
“Easy, easy . . .”
She thrust again, high, demanding. Groaning, she grabbed handfuls of his hair, curled her fingers in it, but still he held back, toyed with her, caressed her. Lower now.
Her head fell back against the pillow, every sense in thrall, expectant.
He swept her with his tongue, long and lavishly, nuzzled her . . . His groan vibrated against her, carried into her.
“You’re incredible,” he murmured against her burning, quivering flesh. “So open. Ready.” He pulled her engorged, hardened nub into his mouth, sucked—
Esme exploded.
“Oh, God—” She hurled the words, hoarse and guttural, into the moonlit room and fell back.
Dane growled against her shivering, vulnerable flesh, burrowed into her heat, took her deeper, took her high. Again.
Unable to stop herself, she came again, thrust herself up, wave after wave of sensation pulsing through her depleted body.
Dane lifted his head, stared down at her with ink-blue eyes, and stroked the hot, delicate tip of her. “Again, Esme. One more time.” He tugged her clitoris, the barest of pulls, a rasp of friction on her drenched, sensitized vulva . . .
“I can’t, I can’t.” But even numb, spent, she felt it build, hover in the depths of her, far, far below.
“You will.” He tugged again, skillfully, mercilessly... achingly gentle, as if the soft flesh of her sex was a silken thread.
Silk delicate enough to float in the heat and wind emanating from her burning, thrashing body.
Silk strong enough to reach her depths, find the coming, the rapture, the scream . . .
Esme swung her head from side to side, clasped the sheets with rigid fists. “No!” she cried, when he circled her, pulled her silk again. Once. In absolute perfection.
She imploded, convulsed, a third stunning climax rolling and shuddering to her core.
Barely able to breathe, she looked up from under heavy-lidded eyes into Dane’s dark, tension-ravaged face as he pulled away from her and rolled on a condom.
He centered himself at her wet, still pulsing opening, and entered her in one strong, penetrating stroke. Esme’s body, beyond ready for him, took him fully, and she widened her eyes, watched his face as he at once left her and joined with her, watched the taut, otherworldly expression that claimed his handsome features, the slow closing of his eyes as he thrust into her. She savored the thickness of him buried deep within her, then the strain and heave of his muscles when he emptied himself, gained his own blinding release.
For a time their bodies, slick and scorched from sex, were sealed to each other, their breathing the only sound in the large room. Then Dane cursed mildly, mumbled something about condom duty, and left her to go to the bathroom.
When he came back, he stretched out beside her, pulled her close and kissed her temple. “You, Esme Shane, are spectacular.”
“What I am, is exhausted.” She snaked a hand across his chest, played in the curls there.
“And satisfied.”
“I hope that wasn’t the lead-in to the was-it-as-good-for-you-as-it-was-for-me question.”
“Wasn’t a question.” He ran his hand over her belly and squeezed her waist. “I’m neither blind nor deaf.”
She smiled. “You really are arrogant, you know.”
“Hmm.” He nuzzled her neck.
And such an amazing lover, you could be addictive. She rubbed her eyes, sighed, and wondered if there was a rehab center for withdrawal from Dane McCoy. Fortunately, she had a few days before she had to find out. She nestled closer to him, and her gaze drifted to the window. The pale clouds that had covered the moon drifted away, and Esme, her energy spent, her senses languorous, watched the moonlight spill into the bedroom.
Her thoughts moved from satiation to curious.
“You’re a wonderful lover,” she said. “I’ve read about that techniq—”
“Don’t,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t start analyzing.” He circled her nipple with a slow lazy finger, and her breath caught. God, she couldn’t want him again this soon. And he couldn’t possibly be . . . up for it if she did.
Maybe she could locate some of his old girlfriends and they could form their own self-help program. She stretched under his hands, and he bent to lightly kiss her peaking nipple.
“Let’s go for a swim. Then come back here for”—he circled the nipple with his tongue—“more of the same.”
“I didn’t bring a suit,” she said, trying to talk while he nibbled on her.
His head came up. “The beach is private, you don’t need a suit.” He rolled out of bed and stood over her, six-feet-one of gorgeous masculinity, panther-like, confident, and waiting for her. His sex, heavy between his legs, tempted her to initiate that “more of the same” he’d mentioned, right now. She couldn’t take her eyes off him and couldn’t resist reaching out to touch him, cup him. “A swim sounds wonderful,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “But when it’s over, it’s my turn to . . . play. Agreed?” She squeezed him gently.
He tensed and briefly closed his eyes, didn’t hide his reaction to her fondling, and she saw his stomach contract. He gazed down at her, but his back was to the window, and she couldn’t see his face. “If I didn’t agree to a proposition like that, I’d have to turn in my man badge.”
She smiled and pulled back her hand. “From what you just gave me, I’d say there’s little or no chance of that.”
The sandy beach was moon-silvered, the night warm—the water of the Gulf cold, once you got out a ways. Esme lasted sixty seconds and ran for the beach, toward the blanket and towels he’d brought from his bedroom.
Dane forced himself to stay in the water, get his goddamn sex-ravaged brain working again. If he planned to slow himself down, he’d need all the cold water he could get. Otherwise he’d never let Esme out of his bed, be all over her like a dick-brained teenager—which is exactly what he felt like.
He went under again, came up, shook his head, and finger-combed his hair back. His gaze shot to the beach and Esme waved at him, made a show of shuddering, and mouthed, You’re crazy!
He was crazy, all right, but not in the way she meant it.
He watched her dry herself, her skin all shivery and pale. Her generous breasts, so recently in his hands, now plump and loose under the white beach towel she’d wrapped herself in.
God, she was gorgeous. All curves, all woman, all heat under his hands. The way she’d exploded under him, holding nothing back, giving him . . . all of her; if he’d had the stamina he’d have held her there forever.
Even the cool Gulf water couldn’t stop him from getting hard.
He dove again, swam swiftly away from the beach, then turned and headed back. If he’d hoped muscle power would trump brain activity, he was wrong. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Dane had read that a woman in climax was at her most beautiful, but he’d never believed it before tonight, until he’d watched Esme reach for it, her eyes heavy lidded, her mouth slack and moist, her nipples stone hard, like hot ice in his mouth. She’d glowed, like roiling, melting gold, her long black hair a spray of sin across his pillow.
He’d wanted to hold her in that place, that just-before-coming place, for hours.
Hell, he might yet.
If he didn’t freeze his balls off first. He looked at the sky in time to see a drift of dark gray clouds cover it, then headed for the shore, and in a few easy strokes he was there.
Esme smiled at him and shivered theatrically. “You’re a better man than I am, McCoy.”
“It’s not that cold if you hang in there.” He reached for a towel.
She wore hers sarong-style and was covered from breasts to knees.
He should have brought smaller towels. He started to dry himself.
“Let me.” She took the towel from his hand.
She dried his back first, then came around to his chest. Starting at his shoulders, she worked her way across his chest and headed down.
Looking up at him, she nodded at his more unpredictable anatomy, and said—damn near purring—“Do you mind?”
“I’d mind if you didn’t,” he said, which was the absolute fucking truth. He couldn’t wait to feel her hands on him.
Esme wasn’t shy—thank God—and she took her time. When she finished with him, it would have a taken a seven-mile swim off the coast of Antarctica to bring him down.
She dropped the towel to the sand and ran a finger lightly along his now fully-at-attention cock. “You’ve been . . . gifted.” She took the weight of him in her hands, looked into his eyes, and squeezed him gently. Her smile altered subtly, shifted to intense. “Very gifted.” Again she traced him.
His mouth turned into a desert, and every atom in his body waved a white flag. He spread his legs to hold ground, but if she expected an answer, he didn’t have one. Hell, he’d had nothing to do with what nature endowed. All he did was try to make the most of it. Although at the moment, Esme was doing it for him.
She dropped to her knees in front of him, set her hands on his legs, pressed her thumbs in the crevice of his thighs.
His breath lumped in his throat like a goddamn medicine ball.
Jesus, she was going to do him! And he’d probably topple like a mile-high bald cypress. “I don’t think this is a—” Her mouth found him, and his germ of an idea that this particular outdoor activity might not be workable was crushed by a tongue stroke.
He was toast.
Her hands slid around him, grasped his ass, and held him to her lips, her tongue—as if he needed holding. He spread his fingers on her head, forked them into her straight silky hair—managed not to crush her skull when she took his tip in her mouth, tasted him, took him deeper.
His head jerked back, and he sealed his eyelids to a tight close, let her take complete control over a piece of his anatomy that generally had a stubborn, one-track mind of its own. The sacrifice was worth every lick, stroke, and tug.
He heard the low murmuring in his throat, felt the build up, and hit the red zone. He had to move, or—
“Baby, you’d better . . .” He didn’t have to finish.
She rolled on the condom he’d brought from the house and licked and kissed her way up his stomach to his chest. Taking a nipple in her teeth, she gave it a sharp bite, then looked up at him, her gaze sultry with challenge, and dropped her towel. “I’m ready for you,” she said, and stretched out on the blanket.
Spreading her legs, she ran her finger through heaven. “Really ready,” she murmured.
For Dane, “ready” didn’t do his pounding erection justice, and he didn’t need a second invitation. He covered her, grasped her buttocks, and centered himself, his raging, overheated body offering no time for finesse, for slow hands—or leisurely penetration. He went in wild, one powerful, mind-bending stroke, and she took him to the hilt. Her walls squeezed him, and he tore apart, came in a seething boil of a rush that blanked his brain and damn near stopped his fucking heart.
When he managed to drag some air into his lungs, it didn’t bring clearheaded sanity. It brought confusion. And a problem.
He didn’t want Esme Shane to leave.
She was stroking his hair, running her fingers through it in a gesture that was as sensual as it was soothing. “I’m . . . glad we did this,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over his heart, which was still pumping like a bastard in search of its natural rhythm.
He moved to her side and immediately missed her warmth, the softness of her skin. He kissed her shoulder. “The swim or the sex?”
“The swim was cold, the sex was . . .”
“Not?” he finished, touching her hair. “Although the swim thing worked well enough for me.” She turned to smile at him, the hazy, drugged smile of a tired, ultra-relaxed woman. Just then a breeze, cool and sharp, came off the water, and drops of rain hit his cheek and bare shoulder. Tropical rain could come suddenly in the Gulf—and heavily. “We’d better go,” he said. “Or we’ll get soaked.”
He gathered up the blanket and towels, and they started toward the house, picking up their pace when the rain and wind paired up to create the beginning of a summer storm.
Back in his bedroom, Esme, still wrapped in her towel, picked up her silk shift and robe, frowned, and scanned the room’s floor. “Have you seen my slippers?”
Dane came from behind and put his arms around her. “What are you doing?”
“Getting my things,” she said, stating the obvious, and leaning back into him.
“Why?”
“Because”—she turned in his arms—“I’m going back to my room.”
He hadn’t expected this, didn’t want it. “My bed’s plenty big enough for two.”
“Your bed is big enough for a small army.” She touched his face, grinned. “And I appreciate the offer to share, but it’s late, and I’m planning an early start tomorrow.”
“If you’re worried about Peggy or Janzen, don’t be. They mind their own business.”
That comment made her frown, then she smiled—a bit weaker, though. “And I take it you give them some ‘business to mind’ from time to time?”
“I’m not a priest, Esme.”
She laughed then, but it was a cool laugh and didn’t lighten her eyes much. “And I never took you for one, but we had sex, Dane, healthy, recreational sex. Great sex.” She kissed his mouth lightly, one of those feathery relative-type kisses that old friends and family exchange. Then, spotting a pair of fuzzy mules at the foot of his bed, she picked them up.
What the hell was going on here? he wondered. “So if the sex was healthy and recreational, what the hell would sleeping together be?”
She paused. “Personal.” She walked to the door, turned back. “Will I see you at breakfast?”
Smooth Esme was back, full force, every defense manned and barricaded; add to that, her change in attitude had taken him completely by surprise. He didn’t know what the hell to do with her, so he was left to answer her question. “I generally grab a coffee from the kitchen and go to work.”
“Work. Of course. Marilee said you work very hard.” A fact that apparently didn’t please her, because she frowned before adding, “Later in the day, then. We can have dinner, then maybe have sex again. Would that work for you? Some bondage maybe. I’m not fond of it myself, but—” She shrugged, raised a questioning brow.
Dane couldn’t find his voice, and someone had put clamps on his damn brain. “I, uh . . . I’m not into that stuff.” Jesus, he sounded like a choirboy. Obviously, as openminded as he was about sex, he was generations behind the ex-therapist. Hell, the next thing she’d be talking about would be—
“Leather, then? Spanking? A riding crop? Alligators in black lace? Something out of the ordinary?” She raised her brow even higher now, and he didn’t miss the twist of her lip.
Okay, he was slow, but not that slow. “How about you dress up as Little Bo Peep,” he said, matching her brow-lift for brow-lift. “And don’t forget to bring the sheep.”
She laughed, lifted the latch on his door, and robe, shift, towel, and slippers clutched to her chest, she said, “Tomorrow, then?”
Smiling now, he said, “You can count on it.”
He was still smiling when she closed the door, stopped smiling when he looked at his big—very empty—bed. She’d snookered him, and he’d damn well liked it.
He liked her.
Esme closed her bedroom door, leaned on it, and deflated like a punctured dirigible. Considering she was an intelligent, creative, educated, and extremely sensible woman, she’d put herself in danger of making the biggest blooper of her life—being attracted, hugely, frighteningly attracted—to Dane McCoy.
She dropped her slippers, kicked them out of the way, and plunked herself on the bed, her mind whirring, her body still humming from Dane’s lovemaking.
“Get a friggin’ grip!” she muttered to herself. “Like you told the man, it was sex, just sex.” She squeezed her eyes shut, added, “Okay, monumental sex, triple orgasm sex, unforgettable sex.” She stopped, before the urge to rush to the window and shout her satisfaction to the uncaring raindrops on the other side of her window overwhelmed her.
When she got herself settled down, had purged the last of Dane’s sexy, ocean-scented body from her lungs by refilling them with fresh air, she managed a tenuous grip on reality. She’d got herself into this mess with her oh-so-cool-sex-professional routine, so she’d best get herself out of it, before her not-so-cool heart took a fatal body blow.
She stripped off the towel and dove naked under the covers. The first thing she had to do was remind herself that McCoy was a certified workaholic—and she’d already married one of those, and been one herself. Going back for more of the same, reliving that self-defeating craziness, wasn’t an option. Maybe he was the world’s greatest lover, maybe he did have a body—and smile—that would tempt an eighty-year-old nun, but he was not for her.
She was simply in the phase-one attraction stage; that dangerous time when emotions whacked away at common sense like a machete in tall grass. It would pass; not to worry, she advised herself, finally warming under her nest of covers. Until it did, there was nothing wrong with their enjoying each other, sexually speaking.
Because no way was she getting hooked on a man whose only goal was money, a man who dedicated endless hours of work—the time of his life—to making more of what he already had too much of.
Smart women did not make the same mistake twice. No way.
In a few days she’d finish her project and be out of here—and Dane McCoy would be nothing but a memory.
She punched her pillow, flushed. A very sexy memory.