Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (35 page)

“Owen, I can walk.”

“And deprive me of the opportunity to show how strong and manly I am?”

“I’m already impressed. Put me down. I’m heavy.”

“Hardly heavier than that solid oak door I hung earlier. And you’re a hell of a lot nicer to carry. God, you smell good.” And he dropped his head to nuzzle her jaw, his arms tightening as he did. Then his steps slowed and he was kissing her again. Deep, slow, wet kisses that made her quiver and thread her fingers through his thick hair, pulling him closer. Finally tearing his lips from hers, he said, in a voice rough with need, “I really need to get you upstairs. Hold on.” And he bounded up them with the speed of a competitor in the Hustle Up the Hancock race.

Within seconds they were in the master bedroom and Owen had flicked on the wall sconces before he’d even lowered her to the floor. The light wasn’t glaring, but after the enshrouding semidarkness, she felt a rush of self-consciousness.

And he was so magnificent. Strong and beautifully proportioned. In the face of such masculine perfection, the flaws in her own body seemed glaring.

Owen was looking at her. She had a pretty good body but it didn’t come close to matching his splendid physique. Was he noticing the telltale signs she saw when she stripped in front of the mirror, the unmistakable evidence she’d borne three children? Oh God, was he disappointed? She averted her gaze, fixing it on a spot to the right of her foot.

His fingers reached out and traced the curves of her breasts. She trembled in response, her nipples tightening into hard points at this, the lightest of touches. His thumbs
moved to circle and rub, and pleasure unfurled inside her in velvet-colored ribbons.

“God, you’re so incredibly beautiful.” His voice was hoarse.

“Please,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You don’t have to exaggerate.”

“Exaggerate?” He caught her chin and tilted her head up. Reluctantly she met his frowning gaze. “I’m not exaggerating, Jordan.”

When she remained silent it was his turn to shake his head … in disappointment. Releasing her chin, he reached for her hand instead and guided it to his erection jutting from his groin. “Feel this, Jordan. Does this feel like the reaction of a man who isn’t absolutely dying to be inside you? Who hasn’t been spending hours imagining this absolutely lovely body since the first day he met you? And now that he’s seen you naked, isn’t hoping some act of God will destroy every stitch of clothing you own?”

“No.” Her lips twitched and then curved into a smile. It was kind of hard to argue with the proof at hand. He was so lovely and hard and big. She swallowed as her inner muscles clenched with need. “I’m sorry, I was being silly.”

“Damn straight you were. So that’s settled. You’re beautiful. Gorgeous. And I want to fuck you every way I know how. After that, we can invent some new ways. Is that all right?”

Her shoulders shook. Bless him for striking just the right tone to banish her nervousness. “I guess so. If you insist.”

He grinned. “I do. Come here, sweetheart.”

Their progress across the room to the bed was accomplished in a dance of slow steps, deep kisses, and searing caresses. His hands roamed freely, leaving her loose-limbed, melting with arousal.

Entwined, they tumbled onto the bed, Owen, at the last second, demonstrating his agile grace. Like a diver executing a perfect midair twist, he turned so that his body landed
first, cushioning hers. A flawless maneuver in which his hands never lost their grip, one wrapped in her hair, the other cupped about her ass, holding her as he kissed her feverishly, as the hot satin of his erection rubbed her clit.

His open mouth traveled across the line of her jaw to torment the exquisitely sensitive spot behind her ear with slow licks of his tongue that brought her to the very brink. She writhed against him, her hands moving down. “Please … I need you inside me.”

“Condoms. In my bag by the stool. Take one,” came Owen’s hoarse command, his breath against her dampened flesh making her shudder.

An open toiletry kit rested on a stool that Owen was using as a bedside table. In it, she spied the shiny square packets. Abruptly, a memory came to her of the foil packets she’d found in Richard’s jacket pocket, and she stiffened.

“Jordan?” The mattress shifted as he raised himself up on his elbows. She felt the weight of his gaze.

Resolutely she pushed the memory away. Richard was not going to destroy this as he’d destroyed so much else in her life.

She reached out, grabbed a handful, and let them rain down onto the stool, keeping one. Condom in hand, she turned back and looked at the breathtaking man lying in the bed, waiting for her.

“Six, huh?”

She planted her forearms on his chest, loving the feel of his chest hair against her breasts. “I have very high expectations. And you seem sufficiently cocky, Mr. Gage.”

He grinned. “Indeed I am, Miss Radcliffe.”

She bit her lip as her fingers went to work, tearing at the foil and withdrawing the condom. “I hope I can get this thing on you. I’m a novice at this business.”

“I have every confidence in you,” he murmured huskily. “Go on, give it your best shot.”

Scooting back until she straddled his muscular thighs,
she wrapped her fingers about his straining cock, feeling a heady rush of feminine power at the low hiss that escaped him. Slowly she stroked him up and down, tracing patterns on the bulbous head, then down the thick shaft to fondle his balls. Each slow trip of her hand had the muscles in his abdomen flexing as his hips pumped helplessly against her.

Centering the condom on the velvety tip, she began to roll it, pushing it down slowly. Reaching the sensitive spot just beneath the head, she teased it, scoring it lightly with her nails and smiled as he let out a strangled moan.

“Jordan, I do believe you’ve gone straight from novice to expert.”

“Really?” she said, drawing her fingers slowly around the base of his shaft.

“Yes, absolutely yes,” he assured her with a low groan as he pushed against her hand. “God, do that again.”

She’d forgotten what it was to feel so much, her every sense heightened.

She’d forgotten what it was like, the exquisite sensation of a man entering her, his penis filling her inch by inch, stretching her, as she turned liquid around him. Liquid and tight, pulsing and quivering, her nerve endings sparkling bright with pleasure as Owen began to move in long, sure thrusts. Entering and withdrawing, every stroke eliciting soft gasps of wonder. The pleasure redoubling as her own hips found the rhythm and matched him point to counterpoint.

She’d forgotten the heavy weight of a man’s body pressing into hers, the shifting heft of muscles beneath her questing hands, the hair that tickled her tightly beaded nipples as he moved against her, arousing her unbearably until it felt like streams of hot light were radiating through her.

She’d forgotten the slick slap of body against body. The salty taste of sweat as it ran down the corded column of a throat. The scent of man mingled with soap, the hint of
aftershave along a jaw, and farther down the rich loamy musk emanating from his groin. The smells, the tastes set her head to reeling, intensifying the mind-blurry whirl of their erotic dance as they grasped and stroked and sighed in mutual delight, as they explored and learned each other.

She’d forgotten the fever of hands grasping and clutching as their bodies shifted and pressed, limbs tangling and twisting. Each movement ever more urgent, driven by blinding need as they climbed higher and higher, while inside everything grew tight, until with that final glorious, near violent thrust, she shattered with pleasure, went soaring in a million light-filled pieces, while above he shuddered and bucked, surrendering to her body.

She’d forgotten all of these things.

And, as piece by piece she fluttered back down to earth, to Owen’s heaving embrace, to the random kisses he scattered over her forehead, cheeks, nose, and lips, Jordan’s smile as she returned them was bittersweet. For while with one act Owen had restored so much that she had lost, some of the incredible, wondrous sensations he’d summoned she’d never experienced before tonight.

Odious as the comparisons were, they were inevitable.

Even at his most ardent, Richard, her husband of nearly ten years, had never matched the exquisite intensity of Owen’s lovemaking. Owen made love with an open passion that encouraged her to be equally free and uninhibited. A fierce hunger marked it, too, thrilling her. It had felt as if he simply could not get enough of her body, was consumed by a need to taste and touch her everywhere. He’d made her feel extraordinary, as if she held some unique power.

His lack of inhibition, his total focus on her body and in giving her as much pleasure as she could take, had made an act Jordan had always enjoyed something altogether different and new. With Owen it was transformed into a union that was not just deeply erotic, but one that also touched her very essence.

All this from a man who had offered to be her lover, not her love.

For that reason, when Owen’s breathing had calmed and he’d rolled to his side, an arm still looped about her and a sated smile playing over his heavy-lidded, relaxed features, she slipped from the shelter of his body with a murmured excuse and escaped into the bathroom.

Once there she drew several deep breaths before looking into the medicine cabinet mirror suspended over the sink. The reflection that stared back at her showed a very different Jordan: her hair a riotous mess about her face, her cheeks still stained with the flush of passion, her lips lushly red and swollen from Owen’s devouring kisses.

She looked like a woman who’d just been most thoroughly loved.

But most of all it was her eyes she didn’t recognize. A wide and luminous blue, they reflected the intensity of all Owen had made her feel. All he’d given her.

And it was that which shook her to the core. His generosity. Despite his claim that they were simply using each other in a consensual relationship, his devotion to satisfying her until she shattered with pleasure proved his generous nature. How was she going to keep from falling in love with a man who pleased her both in and out of bed so very much? When she’d ventured downstairs to join Owen earlier this evening, she’d known that she was leaving the safe little world she’d made for herself since her divorce. What she hadn’t properly calculated was how dangerous the journey might be.

But she wasn’t going to succumb to cowardice and crawl back into her shell. She might be scared, but only a fool would decline the chance to experience the joy Owen had given her in his bed.

She would simply have to take care to protect herself as best she could. And knowing the day would come when he
would leave, she only hoped he wouldn’t walk away holding her heart.

Owen glanced at the alarm clock. He was going to give her eight minutes. Ten and he’d start missing her too much. Eight minutes would be ample time for her to regroup. Though after the explosive sex they’d just had, he was feeling a little offbalance himself.

It was because he’d been wanting her for so long. That explained the extraordinary sense of rightness when he was sheathed deep inside her. The feeling had been incredible. But that was because she was so incredible and so responsive. A fact that should come as no surprise. Jordan was an innately sensual woman; she just kept it under wraps. He felt strangely honored that she’d shown him what lay beneath that cool and poised persona she presented to the rest of the world. What a colossal fool her ex-husband had been to leave her for another woman.

And though his and Jordan’s affair would end, at least Owen wouldn’t be hurting her by offering false promises. He’d established the parameters for the liaison from the outset so that Jordan would know exactly what she was getting into.

It occurred to Owen that he was trying to justify himself. He’d never had a moment’s worry with the other women he bedded. The reason had to be the odd jumble of emotions wracking him. Mind-blowing sex could do that to a man. And Jordan had definitely managed to blow his mind and body.

Her effect on him would pall. It was inevitable. But until then, he was planning on enjoying what he had with her to the fullest.

Six minutes. Definitely time to bring Jordan back to where he wanted her: in his arms.

He swung his legs out of the bed, pulling off the condom
and dropping it into the wastebasket by the closet on his way to the bathroom. He rapped lightly on the door. “Jordan?”

The door opened and he sucked in his breath. How, in the space of six minutes, could he have forgotten how exquisitely lovely she was? Bathed in light, her curves called to him, begging to be kissed and caressed. The breasts, which he’d suckled and stroked, puckered anew under the weight of his gaze, begging for his touch. His desire spiked. He wanted to fasten his mouth on those tight nipples as she arched into him, as his hands caressed the rest of her soft bounty. The urgency of his need to possess her again, to hear her cry of pleasure as she climaxed, took him by surprise.

He told himself to keep things light. It was how he operated best. They were friends. Friends with benefits. He could do friendly. And he damn sure liked the benefits. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She gave a quick nod. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Good.” He smiled and looped an arm around her shoulder, all casual as he marched her back to his bed where, if he had his druthers, they’d remain for the next week or so. “Because I was getting worried.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Worried?”

“Mmm,” he replied, nodding. “You may have forgotten, but protocol dictates that you tell me how terrific it was for you. Otherwise I might feel inadequate.”

“Owen, I have a feeling you know exactly how terrific it was.”

“Ahh, but I need to hear it.” Strangely enough it was true. This was clearly a night for utterly alien needs.

She stopped at the edge of the mattress to gaze at him. She looked so solemn standing there. Beautiful, too, with her dark red hair tumbling about her shoulders and that glorious, perfect pale ivory skin. Titian would have done her justice.