Get There: (Originally Published in the Print Anthology a RED HOT VALENTINE'S DAY) (7 page)

Ty put a hand on each side of her, close enough that his fingers brushed her hips. He kissed her panties, then her inner thighs until Edie spread them wide. She slid on the counter, easing toward the edge, but didn’t fear falling. Ty would catch her before that happened. She let her head loll back, her eyes closed, as she concentrated on the pleasure of him pressing her clit.

The rasp of his tongue on the satin, the sound of him licking her, urged her hips to rock under his touch. Her panties blunted the sensation but took away none of the pleasure as Ty moved from her inner thighs to her cunt and back again. The hot wetness of his mouth moved away, replaced a second later by more coolness as he poured a bit more champagne, the last, she guessed, onto her panties.

Edie giggled, then gasped when Ty’s mouth pressed her again. His finger slid beneath the elastic, pulling her panties away from her skin. Heady seconds passed as he used the motion of the fabric to further arouse her.

“Ty,” she said finally. “I can’t stand it any more. Use your mouth on me, please.”

“Gladly.”

In seconds her panties had followed the rest of her clothes. Edie opened her eyes to watch him put his mouth on her, at last, without the barrier of anything between them. The muscles in her thighs and belly leaped when he leaned to brush his lips across her swollen clit. When Ty kissed her there, Edie arched her back again, giving up to the sweet sensations flooding her.

Ty’s big hands gripped her hips to keep her in place as he feasted on her. The counter was big enough for Edie to lay back, her elbows propping her. Her head just cleared the raised edge of the bar between the kitchen and family room, and though the lip of wood made a hard pillow, she couldn’t quite bring herself to care just then.

“God, it’s been so long.” Ty said it low, but Edie had no trouble hearing him.

His hair tickled her belly and thighs as he settled into licking her cunt, back and forth, up and down. He circled her clitoris with his tongue, then paused to suckle gently, tucking it between his lips while he slid one thick finger deep inside to nudge her G-spot. Edie clutched at smooth marble, her mouth open in a silent cry. She bit down hard on her bottom lip as Ty’s stroking finger urged her pussy to bear down on it. His tongue flickered gently against her clit as he added another finger, twisting them as he fucked in and out of her.

“You’re so wet for me.”

It always moved her how awed he sounded, how grateful. It was one more thing about Ty she adored. How much he loved her body’s reactions to him.

“I want to make you come, Edie.”

“I’m close,” she murmured, concentrating, and her voice trailed off into the moan he loved so well.

He was the only man she’d ever been able to talk to like this during lovemaking. With Ty she could say what she felt, she could scream or cry out, or moan. She could be as loud as a porn star or give him her pleasure in near-silent groans and the twisting of her fingers in her hair. With Ty she never worried how she looked or sounded when she was coming. She didn’t have to be anything but what she was.

It began as it always did, with a burst of warmth concentrated in her clitoris. Edie drew in a breath, long and slow, and let it out again as her body tensed. Ecstasy sparkled, tiny lightning flashes, and she rolled her pelvis up to meet Ty’s questing mouth.

His fingers hooked upward inside her and heat exploded. Her cunt spasmed, and she cried out as her climax washed over her in one, two, three waves of pleasure so strong they left her limp and wrung out.

The aftershocks rippled through her as Ty, breathing hard, kissed her pussy again and withdrew his fingers. He pulled her close to kiss her mouth, and Edie was already reaching for his cock between them.

“I want you inside me.” It wasn’t a request.

She stroked him first, but not to get him hard. He already was. She ran her hand up and down his shaft, using the satin of his boxers to tease him, because she needed a couple seconds to come down from her orgasm. And because she wanted to tease him as he’d teased her, she thought with a grin as Ty’s hips jutted forward under her touch.

“You like that?”

“It’s good.” Ty wasn’t as vocal when it was his turn. He’d told her once it was because when all the blood went to the head below, he wasn’t much good with the one above. “Really good.”

Smooth satin stroked over his cock, but that wasn’t good enough. After months of nothing but long-distance loving, Edie craved Ty’s skin against her. She pushed the boxers down and took him in her hand, loving the heat of cock in her palm. She weighed his balls with her other hand, loving the way he shivered as she ran a fingertip along the seam between his cock and sac.

Edie scooted to the edge of the counter, which was just the right height for what she planned. Marble squeaked under skin as she moved. With one hand gripping Ty’s shoulder for balance, she used the other to guide his cock to her well, where she dipped the head into her folds. She teased them both, nudging his cock head half an inch inside her, wetting him, then pulling him out. In again, an inch this time. Her body opened, embracing him. Wet from the orgasm he’d already given her, there was nothing but slick acceptance. Only delicious friction.

In. Out.

Ty bent his head to press against her shoulder, his breath caressing her breasts and nipples, still sticky from the champagne. Edie, her fist gripping his penis tightly at the base, eased him in almost the entire way. This time she didn’t urge him to pull out. They stayed that way for a moment, both breathing hard.

“I love you, Ty,” she whispered against the side of his face.

“I love you, babe. Missed you so much.” Ty shifted his hips, pushing, and Edie released his cock so he could fill her.

Ty didn’t move right away, but he did kiss her. A gentle slanting of mouth on mouth, tongue on tongue. He cupped the back of her head, his big hand cradling it. She locked her ankles behind his back, holding him to her.

This was a moment she didn’t want to forget, not ever. Not when they were old and gray. Not tomorrow, or next week. Not the next time they had an argument. This moment, this joining, was meant to stay with her forever, just like this.

“Make love to me,” Edie said into his mouth, and Ty moved.

So much about sex, real sex, was different than in stories. The wet sound of their bodies slapping, the rub of marble on her ass, the way her hands slipped on Ty’s sweat-slick skin and made it hard to keep hold of him. How her body would ache in strange places after this coupling. But there were other things mere words had never been able to replace. The smell of him mingled with the tang of their sex. The thick softness of the hair on his head, the matching crinkly crispness of his chest hair and the thatch between his legs. The way her body bloomed under his touch, easing his way so when he moved inside her each stroke of cock in cunt sparked a thousand electric impulses all over her. The heat of his breath on her face as he kissed her.

The sound of his voice, murmuring her name.

Edie slid a hand between them to touch herself, and Ty let out a low grunt of desire. She wasn’t sure she could come again, but he loved it when she tried. Her clit, still sensitive from before, came to life under her touch and she had to do little more than let Ty’s thrusts rock her body against her hand.

“So close.” Ty bit his lower lip, eyes closing briefly.

Edie leaned up to lick the sweat from his upper lip. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. Every thrust rocked her harder on the countertop. When she leaned back to give Ty a deeper angle, he shuddered. He was close, she could tell, and that more than anything else tipped her closer to another climax. He thrust harder and faster.

Then Edie was slip-sliding into another burst of pleasure. Ty echoed her cry, his voice gone hoarse. He moved inside her once more and slowed. His arms, propping them both, trembled, and when she slid her feet over the backs of his thighs she felt his muscles leaping there, too.

“Not like it is in the movies,” he said, head bent, then lifted his laughing face to hers.

“Oh, it’s better than in the movies,” Edie told him. “In the movies they have to do it twenty times just to get it right.”

Ty kissed her slowly, holding her close. “I wouldn’t mind doing it twenty more times.”

“
Hmm.
But you got it so right the first time,” she teased and squeezed his fine, firm ass.

“Practice does make perfect.”

His sweet sentiment was slightly ruined by the rumble of his stomach. Edie pushed him gently away so she could hop off the counter and make her way to the sink, where she grabbed a tea towel she didn’t recognize and ran it under the faucet so she could do a hasty cleanup. She turned to see Ty watching her as he leaned against the counter, his arms crossed and a smile tipping his mouth.

“What?”

“Just thinking,” he answered. “About how I’m going to get to see this every day for the rest of my life.”

“Me, naked at the sink?” She rinsed out the cloth again and wrung it damp, and tossed it to him.

Ty did a neat one-handed catch. “If I can get it. But just you, naked or not, at the sink. In our kitchen. Every day.”

Edie stood on tip-toe to kiss him. “Just in the kitchen?”

He pulled her snug against him. “All the rooms.”

Edie put her head on Ty’s chest, content for the moment to stand in his warm embrace. “That sounds good to me.”

His stomach grumbled again, and they both laughed. Edie kissed his chest, then the Celtic knot tattoo on his bicep before she bent to retrieve her clothes. She stepped into her panties and pulled on Ty’s T-shirt without bothering with the bra. Ty pulled on his jeans, and shirtless, went to the fridge.

“Hungry?” He pulled out a tray laden with cheese, sliced fruit, and chocolate and set it on the kitchen’s center island. He disappeared inside the fridge again and returned with a handful of plastic-wrapped potatoes for the microwave and a platter of thick steaks so juicy her mouth watered just looking at them. “These will only take a few minutes on the grill.”

“We have a grill?” Edie clapped her hands. “In February?”

“We have a grill,” he confirmed with a grin. “On the deck. And I will gladly brave the weather to cook these steaks.”

“My hero.” She kissed him again, giddy with being here, with him.

H
am and the moving truck wouldn’t arrive for a few days, but Ty had found a local superstore and stocked the kitchen with paper plates, plastic ware, and napkins. He’d even bought a plaid blanket, which Edie set out on the family room floor for their picnic.

It wasn’t the first meal they’d shared, but it was the first in their new house and it deserved attention. Ty lit some candles and brought out the bouquet of roses he’d hidden inside a cupboard. The balloons were now sneaking into the rest of the house.

“I left my present for you in the car,” Edie said when he handed her the small gift bag. “Darn it, Ty. This is too much.”

“It’s not too much,” he told her. “You can give me your present later. Open it.”

He held his breath as she pulled out the small velvet box. He’d bought her a ring months ago, but these earrings had had Edie’s name all over them. He’d spied them in the window of the small antique shop he’d passed on the way to the superstore. Small oval emeralds set in gold with a pair of wee diamonds at the top and bottom, they should have been too small to have caught his eye from a moving car, but when he’d slowed to stop at the light and turned his head, there they’d been, glinting.

He loved how she bit her lower lip when she was trying not to grin and give away her excitement. When she lifted the box’s lid, her bit-back grin faded. Ty sat up, concerned.

“You don’t like them?” To his surprise, tears glittered in her eyes and he reached for her automatically. “Babe?”

She waved a hand and shook her head, but let him gather her into his arms. She nestled her face against his chest. Her shoulders shook. Ty stroked her hair in silence. He didn’t know much, but he knew the best move a man with an armful of weeping woman could make was to keep quiet.

“They’re beautiful. All of this is incredible,” she said. “Perfect.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day. I had to do something special.”

“If I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have done something special, too.” Edie said, and looked up at him with wet eyes, but with the smile back on her face.

“You can make it up to me.”

“Oh, really?” She leaned to kiss him, and her lips tasted of salt. “However shall I do that?”

“Do the dishes.”

Laughing, Edie punched his chest lightly then gathered up the paper plates and put them in a pile. “Done. You’re easy to please.”

Ty snagged her wrist and pulled her closer, leaning back to pull her along with him. When she’d settled on top of him, he pushed her hair off her face and looked into her eyes. “Let’s go to bed.”

Since he had a king-sized bed and she’d only had a double in her small apartment, they’d agreed to use his. It was on the moving truck along with everything else. He had, however, found more than earrings at the antique store.

“I thought we’d have to camp out here. I sent a sleeping bag and inflatable mattress in one of these boxes.” She waved at the stacks and piles in the den.

Ty linked his fingers through hers and shook his head. “You don’t want to sleep on the floor our first night in the new house, do you?”

She narrowed her eyes, studying him. “Ty? What did you do?”

He grinned but would say nothing, only tugged her to her feet and led her up the stairs. Their fingers still linked, he took her to the room at the end of the hall and nudged open the door. Then he stood back and did as his mama had always said he should. He let Edie go first.

She let out a low, breathless gasp and whirled. “Ty!”

He had no question about if she liked his present this time. He’d known she would the moment he saw the matching twin beds in the back of the shop. Curved blond wood with an inlaid pattern, they matched Edie’s Art Deco waterfall-design armoire and dresser almost perfectly. And, pushed together and attached with a couple handy bolts and screws, they were just the right size to hold a king-sized mattress and box spring.