Annette Blair (32 page)

By the time Jason came in, still wearing his black jeans and T-shirt, peace and fate had seemed to form a bond to calm her. “I see you haven’t changed your mind,” she said, eyeing the awakening Harvey, as Jason stood on the threshold of the ultimate rabbit hole.

“I see
I’m
overdressed,” he said, devouring her with his gaze. “God, you’re beautiful, and wearing my favorite color, too.” He lowered himself to sit facing her, reached out and traced the shadow of a nipple beneath her camisole.

“Take off your shirt,” she said, rising to her knees to help. Afterward, she sifted her fingers through his luxurious mat
of dark chest hair, kissed each nipple, saw that his jeans were becoming very tight, and went for his zipper. “Lay back so I can get these off,” she suggested.

His boxers were black, too. They went the way of his jeans, Harvey springing proudly to life the second he was set free.

Naked, obviously aroused, Jason sat up. “No fair,” he said, stroking her between her legs, through her panties, until she knew the fabric must be wet. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he said.

Kira reclined on her arms. “Take them off me.”

Jason removed her top, pulled her over his lap so she straddled him, and took to suckling her. She threw her head back and rocked against the big guy, slow and easy to make the sensations last.

“No one can see us, right,” Kira said, “Even though we’re surrounded by windows?”

“We own the land to the sea. Nobody’s out there.”

“I feel as if we’re on display,” she said.

“Yeah. Sexy, isn’t it?”

She opened her eyes to catch Jason’s grin. “Yeah,” Kira said. “Almost kinky.”

“I think your lady-boxers are ruined,” he said, stopping suddenly and bringing her out of her pleasure-filled trance.

“Huh?”

“You got them nice and moist with need,” he said. “Lay back and rest. That’s it, and I’ll just get them out of the way, shall I?”

“Hmm, sure.” Kira closed her eyes and waited for Jason to slip into her, but he lifted her into his arms instead, making her gasp in surprise.

She hadn’t even realized he’d stood.

He placed her gently into the pool of hot water, her every nerve ending coming alive with the massage of a thousand bubbles. She watched Jason step in as well, his wolf’s eyes silver-hot with arousal. She admired his rugged beauty, nearly perfect, except for the scars on his knee,
and the one crossing his brow, making him all the more dear.

No, not dear. No emotions allowed. Pleasure. Pleasure only, Kira reminded herself.

“This is like sitting in bicarbonate,” she said, swept away by the bubbles, teasing her like tiny fingers . . . everywhere.

“The tub has whirlpool jets, too,” Jason said, pushing a button and heightening her pleasure in the experience.

Neither of them had turned on the recessed lights, so as the gray day dimmed, and the view turned dark, becoming nothing but the sound of the sea fighting the moon’s pull, candlelight bathed them in an aura of sensuality.

Jason played her so slowly, Kira wanted to beg for release and weep with joy. No one had ever taken such time, given such absolute attention to increasing her pleasure. Foreplay took on new meaning. Kira rose to the brink a dozen times, but Jason never let her fall into the abyss.

Beneath the water, amid the bubbles, she tried to play him the same way, reveling in the lowering of his lids, the set of his jaw, the way he controlled his own pleasure, as much as he controlled hers. She loved his guttural voice when he begged her to stop, as if the world depended on holding back.

“When I let go, sweetheart,” he said, “I’m going to be deep inside you. Gimp jock’s promise.”

Sweetheart,
he’d said, but Kira wouldn’t let it matter.

Jason pulled away before he came, sat higher in the spa, looked about as if for rescue, and grabbed her vibrator, his grin suddenly evil.

He removed the cover, hit the switches, and toyed with each embedded pearl. He let the rabbit ears play against his hand, his expression confounded, until he grinned. “Aha! Now I know where these belong,” he said. “Let’s see how they work. Here,” he said, patting his shoulders, “put your feet up here.”

“You’re joking!”

Jason took matters into his own hands and lifted Kira’s feet to his shoulders, then he played her with the rabbit beneath the pulsating waters, working himself into one hell of a case of lethal infatuation.

He caught his breath and tried to concentrate on how great Kira looked coming. “Hey,” he said, pulling the plug on the vibrator to save himself. “I thought you said this didn’t work. Looks like it works great.”

He’d surprised her into opening her eyes.

“Are we done?” she asked.

Guilt pricked him. “No,” he said. “Of course not. Let’s put it on high,” but Kira lowered her legs and threw herself into his arms.

“Nobody,” she said, looking into his eyes. “No other man, has ever—”

Jason watched her eyes fill with tears; clearly, she was the most beautiful woman in—

Before he realized what he was doing, he cupped her face, pulled her close, and opened his hungry lips over hers.

For half a beat she seemed as startled as him, but he kissed her again, and again, and she welcomed the assault.

A kiss, but magic, like his first. Shiny, new, and gleaming gold. A moment to treasure, a newfound simmer.

She had lips like ripe plums, and he was a man starving.

She tasted of honey and joy, sunshine. Freedom. Destiny. He hadn’t kissed a woman for more than a year, hadn’t slipped inside one for nearly as long, but he wanted this woman, this one woman, so much, he feared he could expire of want.

But first, he wanted her lips, couldn’t get enough of kissing, licking, suckling them.

He found her warm wet center with a finger and matched the rhythm, their tongues mating in the truest sense.

She arched her hips, while he all but consumed her with his mouth.

For more than a year he hadn’t been able to bear the
thought of touching his lips to another’s. Now he couldn’t bear the thought of taking them from Kira’s, of kissing anyone but her.

How dangerous the sentiment; how enticing the notion.

He should stop. He couldn’t.

Jason continued to devour Kira’s mouth, celebrating his lack of willpower.

IN
the midst of that kiss, which had gone on so long, it might be their first, or their fortieth, Jason slipped inside Kira for the very first time ever, there with the hot water bubbling about them, sensitizing them to every level of rising pleasure.

Bliss.

The feel of her slick womanhood bore no comparison to anything of earth, only heaven. Jason had never known a sensation so incredible.

Kira broke the kiss by throwing her head back and offering her breasts.

Jason feasted on her ripe rosy nipples while entering her, and leaving her, in a painstakingly slow and methodical dance, like a form of torture, until he could feel his climax coming.

But he gathered his strength to stop, and rose, water streaming from their bodies, her ass in his hands, him, a steel rod inside her, and stepped from the tub.

She roused from a sensual haze to squeal and hold on. “Where are we going?”

“To the quilt in front of the fire.”

“Wait. I brought massage oil.”

He backed up; she grabbed it, and he carried her into his living room, her legs around his waist, his pace erotic, as he moved inside her in a new and thrilling way.

When he set her down on her quilt, he slipped from her tight silk glove, both of them gasping in disappointment.

“I want to make it last,” he said, “though it might kill me.”

She giggled and stroked Harvey’s bold length. “Didn’t think I’d find anything bigger than the pink rabbit.”

“All for you,” Jason said with pride.

“Just like a jock,” Kira said.

“I
am
a jock. Face it, Fitz. You’re about to get . . . dazzled . . . by a jock.”

“Promises, promises.”

“The only promise I can make is that I’m nothing like Charlie.”

“I’ll say.”

He growled possessively.

“What were you planning on doing to me when you got me here?” she asked leaning on her elbows.

“I was going to give you a massage.”

“Hah, I had the same plan. You first.”

“Why me?”

“I have
magic
oil.”

Jason stilled. “Please don’t make Harvey disappear, not now. Where’s your wand?”

“Beside the whirlpool. I can get it?”

“I think not.”

They laughed. “You first,” she said. “Lie on your stomach. You’ll like my magic touch. You’ll see.”

Jason jumped when the oil hit the small of his back, but it warmed and disarmed him at once, and when she rubbed
it into his butt, the oil got hotter, and Harvey got harder. “Mmmm, magic.”

She massaged down his spine, and up, his shoulders, arms, his hips and legs. He might have been able to sleep, she massaged him so completely, if he wasn’t so achingly hard.

When she told him to roll over, Harvey did a happy dance, but Jason was skeptical. “Be careful not to get any hot stuff on the big guy. He’s plenty hot already, and watch the family jewels, too, will you?”

Kira grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll massage you everywhere . . . but.”

Jason sat up and rolled Kira onto her back. “Never mind the
buts
. My turn, and don’t touch anything important with those lethal hands, because we don’t want you spoiling this with hot oil in the wrong spot. I have plans. Big plans.”

Massaging her didn’t last, because Kira was on her back looking up at him, with trust and longing, while Harvey teased her entrance, and she arched . . . and swallowed him whole.

Jason shouted with shock, and victory, and buried himself to the hilt. Then he stilled and took deep, deep breaths to last more than half a minute. “How did that happen?”

“The law of inevitability,” Kira said with smug satisfaction, her inner muscles working a sensual magic of their own.

“No kidding,” Jason said. “I’m set to explode.” The feel of her gloving him was . . . incredible. “Er, maybe we waited too long.”

“Gee, Sherlock, you think so?”

He stopped. “You’re sassing me like in the stairway. Is something ugly going to come out of your mouth and eat my head?”

“Only if you don’t start moving, Ice boy. Now. Fast.”

“The lady wants it fast,” Jason said, so he thrust, fast, and hard, inside her, where he’d ached to be. In Kira . . . this was Kira, taking him, begging him . . . fulfilling him.

She climaxed on the instant, making him harder, if that were possible. Jason held on, so she could climax a second time, before he spilled his seed deep inside her.

They slept, and woke, and made love again, through the night, moving from the quilt to his bed, as if they’d been starved for each other.

Sunday at noon they stopped long enough to find sustenance and were reduced to calling downstairs and asking Rose to send something, anything, up to them.

“Bessie is going to figure this out,” Kira said. “We haven’t come out all weekend. I hope she isn’t upset.”

“Please,” he said. “She’s down there on her knees—”

“Why?” Kira asked. “Praying for us to reform?”

Jason was sorry he’d spoken, because Gram was likely praying for the opposite. “Yeah, something like that,” he said, “but don’t worry, she’s too polite to say anything.”

“Great,” Kira said.

Jason kissed Kira’s brow. “Gram is hardly upset. I’m certain she’s thrilled. And since we can’t tell her this is no-strings sex, we’ll let her be happy for a while.”

The blunt reminder caught Kira off guard, which she supposed meant she needed it.

A few hours later, while they soaked, sated, in the whirlpool, and swapped life stories, Jason sat up. “I have an idea,” he said. “Any chance you can do a spell for me to go back to hockey?”

After everything they’d shared over the past twenty-four hours, Kira couldn’t believe Jason could talk so easily about leaving, but she appreciated the reality check.

“I can’t change your future,” she said, putting on a good face, “but I can cast a spell that will give you the courage to accept your destiny, whatever that is.”

“Great,” Jason said, “since hockey
is
my destiny.”

Kira got out of the whirlpool and remained naked, sky-clad, wearing nothing but a cloak of stars. This way her magic would not be hindered by clothing, and Jason would remember what he’d left behind after he returned to hockey.

“Since you perceive that hockey is your destiny,” Kira said, “I want you to visualize yourself playing your best, your knee stronger than ever. Imagine the crowd watching, cheering. You might want to close your eyes to concentrate.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t take my eyes off you, not now, but I can always imagine myself playing hockey, whatever else I’m doing,” he said.

“Okay, fine,” Kira said. “You concentrate and I will, too.”

Jason watched Kira take up her amethyst-tipped wand, and swirl it, her magnificent body burnished and glistening in the light of a dozen candles, the black night and bright moon behind her, turning her into a goddess before his eyes.