Falling (10 page)

Cris put down his plate and glass, took hers away and slid onto the bed beside her. She rested her head on his shoulder and he took her hand in his.

"The most important thing in this room is you, Jennifer. I swear I can hear your heartbeat. I can smell your fragrance, feel your warmth. I adore touching your body…" He suited action to words by letting their clasped hands rest low on her belly, just brushing her mound. "And having you naked next to me is an amazing delight."

"Okay. Likewise."

"But…" He clasped her fingers tight and tapped on her skin with their combined fists. "What you
look
like is supremely unimportant. I see
you
, not some image you have of your body. If all I cared about was someone who looked like a supermodel, I'd be a miserable son-of-a-bitch who was missing out on the greatest wonders of life. The wonders of touching and loving a woman, with all her secrets and curves and magic places."

He nestled against her, keeping their hands linked. Of course, that did leave his other hand free, and it went on safari, finding those aforementioned curves, secrets and-oh God yes,
there
-magic places.

Her lids drooped as Cris played. "You have full breasts. I love full breasts. They're women's breasts, not some half-formed fruit that has yet to ripen. And you have hips, an ass, the most gorgeous thighs I love to feel against me…"

He moved just as Jen was about to melt into a puddle of happiness. She went from melting to explosion imminent in about ten seconds as he slithered between her legs and lifted them, resting them on his shoulders.

And incidentally positioning him right above her pussy.

"You are all woman,
querida
. And from where I'm sitting, right this second, I wouldn't change a thing." He turned his head and nibbled on the inside of her thigh, making her moan and shudder.

Turning back to stare down at her sex, he blew a breath on her heated flesh. "Ahhh.
Dessert
."

*~*~*~*

The pattern was set that night, and Jen slid effortlessly into an affair that rocked her world. She had no idea she'd turn into a wanton, sex-crazed woman whose panties were perpetually damp at the mere thought of a man.

Although he was still managing to attend to his duties at the hotel, he made sure he spoke to her often, touched her a lot more than absolutely necessary and stole a brief kiss in various corners now and again. He flirted shamelessly, then sighed as other demands tore him from her side. She was desolate and relieved at the same time, because just being near him brought on acute sexual arousal.

And of course he knew it, took full advantage of it and kept her simmering on the stove like a dish of paella he would feast on whenever he was hungry. Which was all the time.

The minute he was done for the day, he was hers. And Saturday night passed in a haze of the most intimately hot sex Jen had ever experienced. Sleep was ignored in favor of orgasms, something she supported wholeheartedly.

Since the next morning was a late one, both snuggled lazily until Cris's body grew heated and hard, and he regretfully left the bed and headed for the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, Jen looked up at him. "I don't believe this." She was sitting on the tiled step in Cris's large shower, holding his cock and squeezing it with her hand as he stood beneath the water, letting it pour over his body.

"Don't believe what, Jennifer?" He looked down, his eyelids heavy, his full lips parted. He was still gorgeous, wet or dry. Didn't make a damn bit of difference.

She watched droplets tumble from his manly nipples, taut now as she teased his cock. She tasted a little soap along with a lot of man as she took him in her mouth, ignoring the water, the shampoo in her hair and everything but the wonderful hard length she loved to suck.

And to fuck. They'd done that more times that she could remember, and she'd come…well, if it was possible for her to come her brains out, she'd done that last night.

"I don't believe that I can want you more now than I did yesterday. Or the day before." She licked along his length, teasing him, flicking her tongue just beneath the swollen head.

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. It sounds trite, I know, but there it is. I want you so much."

"I want you too,
mi vida
. More now than ever. " He pulled back, reaching for her and urging her to her feet. "Can you take me again?"

She was sore and had admitted it. But now?

"Yes, I can take you again. I want you again. Always will, I think." She touched his face. "You've discovered the real me. And the real me wants you inside me. Now."

Not as easy as it had always sounded in books, fucking in the shower involved caution, a certain amount of muscular coordination and a whole lot of need.

Fortunately Jen realized they had all three and within moments she was opening for Cris, legs spread wide as he dipped down before her and thrust his cock upward, penetrating her with a groan of pleasure and then gently moving within her moist darkness.

Would it always be like this? Could it possibly continue to get any more wonderful than right this moment, with the cold tiles abrading her shoulders and his hardness holding her a willing hostage against them?

She had no idea, and couldn't even begin to guess. All she could do was lose herself once again in the pleasure of him, the experience of being so naked with him.

It went far beyond clothes. It was a stripping bare of her emotions, a release of her desires-a freedom to be the true passionate woman she'd learned was inside her.

Cris had taught her that over the last few days.

And as she peaked, cried out a gasp over the sound of the shower, and felt his spasms follow hers into ecstasy, tears gathered at the back of her eyes and she closed them tightly.

This was her last day. All too soon this idyll would be over.

How could she possibly stand the pain?

Chapter 13

Staring at her suitcase, Jen wondered where the days had flown, since it seemed like only yesterday she'd unpacked and found that damn bug in her bathtub.

And met Cris.

She sighed, a deep heartfelt expression of the gnawing sense of sorrow growing within her.

The next day she'd catch her flight back north and face…David. The man she lived with and the same man who'd left precisely one brief message on her phone since she'd arrived at the Palms.

She guessed he'd not spared her much thought since he knew she'd checked in and her plans were on track. It was like him to assume everything was okay unless he heard differently.

Which was, she now realized, exactly the opposite of the way she felt. She loved the way Cris had found little moments to touch base with her during the day, letting her know he missed her and was looking forward to their time together later on.

He never told her about the heart attack on the third floor early one morning. He'd simply answered his phone, kissed her and said something about hotel business.

She'd gone back to sleep and hadn't learned of the dramatic event until later. Fortunately all had turned out well, but she wondered aloud why he had kept it to himself.

He looked surprised. "Why bring my business troubles to you, Jennifer? We have such a short time together. I would not spoil it in any way, and even if I had, there wouldn't have been anything you could do to help. Why worry you?"

She understood, sort of. They were truly ships that were passing in the night. They had stumbled into a magic world, each fed by the other, finding bliss together, pleasures beyond imagining.

But it was transitory. Both knew she would have to leave.

The typical summer romance.

Sadly, neither were teenagers who could move on and perhaps forget in time. Jen knew she would never forget Cris.

And as she folded and packed her clothes she realized something else. She could not go back to her life as it had been.

After rolling her swimsuit neatly and tucking it between her sandals, she sat down on the bed beside her open case and stared out of the window into the golden white sunshine.

What am I going to do?

Be honest. Be honest with David and with yourself
.

Easier said than done.

Yes. But necessary if you want to live the rest of your life as yourself.

I know.

So perhaps it's time to get off your sex-crazed ass and make some decisions.

I don't have a….okay, yeah, perhaps it is sex-crazed.

Jen thought for a moment, suppressing a tiny shiver of excitement. The one that developed low in her belly at the mere thought of Cris touching her. It was one more unique feature of their affair, this visceral response to him on a physical level. It had never happened to her before. Certainly never with David.

If she was brutally honest with herself, sex with David had never been as hot or as wonderful as each and every time with Cris. She knew the memory of his hands holding her wrists above her head, the strength of his grip and the intense focus on his face as he pounded them both up to the crest of their limits…no, she could never
ever
forget that. It was already a full color centerfold in her private memory album.

She closed her eyes, reliving the sensation, using it to fight the sadness that threatened to swamp her. How could she leave? How could she walk away from this-this brilliant joy she had discovered?

The answer was, of course, she couldn't. She could not walk away from it because it would be with her. Forever.

Even if she left Florida and never returned, the golden sunlight of these past few days and the blinding delirious passions of the nights with Cris would linger in her senses.

She would taste him on an indrawn breath and feel his skin against hers in the darkness of her bed. She would hear his voice in the murmur of a stranger and smell his masculine scent beneath every whisper of that light cologne he favored.

He was part of her now, and she knew-beyond question-that he always would be. She knew herself pretty well, her habits, her responses and most of her emotions. When she found something she loved, she clung to it, cherishing it and accepting it into her heart.

After such a short time, it would be the height of foolishness to believe that Cris was such a one, or to let him that close to her heart so soon.

And yet…she did and she had.

Bowing her head she tried to find some iota of reserve, some red flags of caution sticking up from the turbulent river of her thought processes.

There were none. The river flowed strongly, tumbling over pleasure and delight, making the sound of happy laughter and whispers of desire. It was headed firmly along its valley, full and shining. It had washed away the shadows that had haunted her thoughts when she'd arrived at the Palms.

And it was named Cris.

*~*~*~*

His ears weren't exactly burning, but he was willing to bet that she was thinking about him. Because he sure as hell was thinking about her. He could do little else, apparently, since this perfectly ordinary blonde had somehow managed to sidestep every single barrier he'd erected around his heart. He'd violated his own rules, touched her, taken her, spent endless hours exploring her both sexually and emotionally and made a sandwich on her naked body.

What the
hell
was the matter with him?

He was acting like a seventeen-year old kid with a bad case of lust. And he was a grown man with a divorce behind him, a good position with a distinguished hotel chain and every possibility that his life would continue to be highly satisfactory.

And yet he'd managed to go and fall in love. In four days.
Four days
.

He was, without a single doubt, certifiably fucking nuts.

Given that fact, which seemed undeniable, he could then move on to a serious inquisition of why he'd fallen in love with Jennifer Hodges. Followed by the most important item on his mental agenda…what he was going to do about it.

The numbers that appeared on his laptop screen could have been Cyrillic for all he understood them. He was reviewing the month's expenses to date and matching them with a file of receipts, plus a few paper copies from smaller vendors. Or at least that was what he was supposed to be doing. His office was small but quiet, a nook protruding from the ground floor of the hotel into a shaded portion of the gardens. Sunlight usually shone through one of the three glass sides to the room, but today it was darker. Heavy clouds were building to the west.

There'd be one of those crackling fierce storms tonight, he was sure of it. Then he shook his head at the irony of it. The storm, however strong it was outside, couldn't hope to match the storm going on within him as he came to terms with the fact this was his last night with Jennifer. Tonight, or at the crack of dawn tomorrow, they would have to say goodbye.

It was going to tear him apart in a way that was alien to him. He'd not enjoyed the separation process with Angelita, although it had been mostly amicable. But it hadn't caused the sort of pain that already rippled down his spine at the thought of never seeing Jennifer again.

Of having to hold her close and know it would be for the last time. That he'd never hear her laugh again or see her smile or watch her face as she let go and tumbled into a climax beneath him.

Because once she left, she would not return. Cris knew that. She was, at heart, an honorable woman. She'd made what she felt was a commitment to this David of hers.

He'd sensed that before he'd even touched her, and was still amazed at the depth of her responses to him, Cris, as their affair deepened so quickly into such intense passion. He had wanted to ask her about it, about whether he was messing up her life, taking her to places she had no business being in.

Yet as he came to know her so intimately, he believed she would never have shared so much of herself with him, given herself so willingly, had she not wanted to-with a desire that matched his.

They
worked
. Even if there had been no physical fulfillment, he knew they'd have enjoyed each other's company. They thought similarly on the important things and differently on things that mattered less but could be discussed at length.