It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life (9 page)

“Oh well, what’s life if not a challenge, hmm?”

Head at the crescent of his thighs, she slowly sucked him inside her mouth. “Hmm, so good,” she murmured, drawing him deeper inside, the tip of his member tickling the back of her throat.

Josh snagged a hand through her loosened hair and surged into her mouth. “Oh Mandy, you’re making me crazy.”

Drawing away, she looked up into his taut-featured face, feeling more powerful and sexy than she’d ever felt before. “Good, because I want to make you crazy. I want to make you come.”

He reached down and wrapped a staying hand around her wrist. “Later. For now, it’s your turn. Tell me what you want, Mandy. Better yet, show me.”

Startled, she stared up. Josh on the cusp of his climax, his eyes and chiseled features stark with desire, his powerful chest damp and glowing, had to be one of the most beautiful sights she’d ever seen. “Show you?”

He nodded, a slow, sensual smile spreading over his face. “I want you to show me what feels good to you, exactly how and where you want to be touched, tasted.”

More comfortable in the role of giver than receiver, she’d been bold up until now. But the prospective of shedding her remaining clothing and inhibitions, of opening herself to him completely, drew a host of mixed emotions—excitement and foreboding, eagerness and fear.

What if I’m not pretty enough, not slim enough, not…good enough?
Feeling hesitant, she suddenly couldn’t bring herself to look up into his eyes. “What if…I’m not sure?”

He reached down and cupped her cheek. “I’m not buying that for a minute. I think you know exactly what you want from me. And I’ll give it to you, Mandy, I’ll give you whatever you want for however long you want it, only first you have to say the words.”

Mandy took a deep breath. Feeling as though she were in a roller-coaster car poised atop the precipice, she hesitated and then lay down on her back. Slowly, very slowly, she lifted her hips off the bed and slid her trousers and lacy panties down and then off.

Tossing them aside, she said, “I want you, Josh. I want you to touch me and taste me like…like this.” Her voice trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished, the good girl stifling the erotic words her inner bad girl wanted to scream to the rooftop.

Slowly, very slowly, she slid her hand from her breast to her belly, stopping just above the triangle of curls crowning her thighs.

He nodded his encouragement. “You’re doing fine, sweetheart. Go for it.”

Josh’s smile was all the prompting she needed. Opening her legs wider, she slid her hand between her thighs and found herself with her fingers. He’d been right when he said she knew exactly what she wanted. She’d touched herself enough times that her dampened finger went straight to the spot.

The nub of her clit was firm beneath her fingertip and achingly sensitive. She slid another finger inside herself and brought it out, using her essence to moisten herself. Squeezing her eyes closed, she moved her finger back and forth, up and down, and then circled.

“Mandy, open your eyes and look at me.” The mattress dipped as Josh joined her. She felt his breath strike the side of her neck, smelled the musky tang of his sweat-scented skin.

The tingle was fast building to a full-blown ache. She moved her hand faster now, a steady rhythmic pressure.

Almost there, almost, but not quite…

“Look at me, baby. I want to see your eyes when you come.”

This time, she did as he asked and opened her eyes. She looked up and saw him leaning over her, a hand braced on either side of her head. Their gazes locked and the warmth of his eyes, the obvious pleasure he was taking in watching her, sent her careening toward the pinnacle and beyond, her world exploding in a starburst of pulsing, radiant heat. She squeezed her eyes closed again if only because the sight of him above her was too blindingly beautiful to bear.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw that he’d shed the rest of his clothing. Gloriously naked, he reached across to the night table, yanked open a drawer, and took out a foil-wrapped condom.

Mandy’s orgasm was ebbing from full-throttle combustion to the batting of butterfly wings, but the sight of him rolling the latex over his erection had her forgetting to breathe.

She pushed up on her elbows. “Hurry, Josh, hurry. I want you.”

Even in the midst of her passion, she took note of the slight trembling of his hands, and her heart warmed at the sight. Surely a player, someone for whom sex was just a game, wouldn’t have shaking hands, would he? Before she could answer that question, she was sprawled on her back, Josh’s body covering hers, his cock—so beautiful, so hard, and so sublimely ready—sliding inside her, filling her as, until now, she’d only fantasized about being filled.

He stopped, holding himself utterly, tantalizingly still. Palms anchored to either side of her head, he speared her with his gaze. “You want me to what?”

She lifted her hips in a silent appeal, hoping it would be enough, but he still refused to budge. Perspiration filming the backs of her knees, she ground out, “You know what I want.”

He didn’t deny it. “Say it, Mandy. I need to hear you say the words as much as you need to say them.”

“Please.” On the brink of a second climax, she held back, desire warring with what she’d always thought of as basic decency.

Tipping the scales was the amazing sensation of Josh still inside her. Looking up into his stark gaze, demanding yet tender, she knew that this once in her duty-driven life, desire would win out. And suddenly, she no longer cared. If anything, she was glad.

“Please what?” He stared down at her, waiting.

“Okay, you win. Please, fuck me, Josh. Please…fuck me
now!
”

He pulled out and then thrust into her again, burying himself in one sweet, sure stroke that had her gasping for air, experiencing for the first time the ecstasy of complete, transcendent connection. Sliding an arm beneath the small of her back, he raised her higher still, the tilt of her pelvis and his buffering arm absorbing the shock of his thrusts as he drove deeper still, again and again.

“Come for me, Mandy. Step off the edge of that cliff and come. I’ll be on the other side to catch you, I promise.”

“You promise?” The question emerged as a moan.

Chest rising and falling, he managed a jerky nod. “Go ahead and try me.” He reached down between them and found the bud of her clitoris with his thumb, circling it once, twice…

“Oh, God. Oh, Josh…” Mandy dropped back against the lumpy mattress and came and came and came.

As if in answer, a sinewy arm wrapped about her waist, drawing her up against a rock-hard cock. Damn. Opening both eyes, she looked down to one very large, very masculine hand fanned across her left breast. The second identical hand rested on her waist just atop her pubis, tapered fingers pointed decidedly downward. Beyond the hands, her only covering was the rumpled white sheet riding her waist.

Oh-my-God. She felt a jet of warmth splash between her thighs and a flush that was part embarrassment and part turn-on spread over her body like a Southern California brush fire.

Before things burned out of control, she rolled over onto her back. “Merry Christmas right back at you.”

“I hated to wake you, but it is Christmas. What would you like for breakfast before you head out?”

Before you head out
. Judging from the words alone, it sounded as though he couldn’t wait to boot her out the door, and yet his rueful smile and the boner pressing against the outside of her thigh gave her the confidence to say, “You. I want you for breakfast.” Turning to face him, she reached beneath the covers and found him with her hand. The little telltale bead of moisture on the head of his cock confirmed he was more than ready for her.

“Hmm, definitely you for breakfast.” She gave him a playful squeeze, her thumb slipping in his slickness.

“As much as I would love to spend Christmas Day in bed with you, I don’t want to make you late for your plans.” He reached down and gently disengaged her hand. Carrying her hand up to his mouth, he kissed the palm before giving it back. “So what’s to going to be—French toast or omelets or cinnamon rolls or all of the above?”

She tucked the sheet around her, her post-coital glow doing a rapid fade-out. It wasn’t like hit men took holidays. If she left Josh alone, chances were she would have just delayed his death by a matter of a few hours—a few, red-hot sexy hours, to be sure but hours all the same. Blowing a second chance to save a man’s life balanced against her embarrassment over exposing a blue-blooded guy like him to her very blue-collar family made the choice an easy one.

“None of the above. Listen, my folks have a big open house every year for family and friends and neighbors starting around two o’clock. No pressure, I’ll introduce you as a friend I met on the job.”

His gaze shifted away. Using a strand of her hair to tease her nipple, he said, “I don’t know, Mandy, I’m not so good in big groups.”

It was hard to concentrate with him playing with her breast, but she reminded herself that a life was at stake, Josh’s life, and keeping him alive required all her due diligence and then some.

“Right, you’re shy. Well, no worries. My parents’ place is on the small side—okay, tiny—and they invite a hundred or so people every year. I guarantee it’ll be as packed as any bar and even noisier. No one will be able to hear themselves speak let alone you.”

The hand toying with her breast slid down her stomach and lower, settling between her legs. “It sounds like a family affair. I don’t want to intrude.”

He cupped her pubis, gently squeezing, and Mandy bit back a moan. “You’re…you’re, uh, coming, and this time I’m not taking no for an answer.”

He stopped to stare, face an open question. “What do you mean,
this time?
You just invited me.”

“It was just a figure of speech. A colloquialism, I guess you could say. What I meant to say is you’re coming home with me, no ifs, ands or buts.”

“In that case, the least I can do is make you breakfast.” He sat up, the sheet sliding to his narrow waist, and Mandy admitted that killer or not, there was no way she was letting him out of that bed, not yet anyway.

She pushed up on one elbow and wrapped an arm about him, pulling him back down. “My mom makes tons of food, literally. If we have breakfast, we’ll spoil our appetites. The one requirement of any Delinski family function is that every guest eats her…” She slid her palm down over his washboard stomach, impossibly sculpted and firm and flat, and admitted she knew exactly what she wanted for breakfast, not to mention lunch and dinner, too. “Make that,
his
share.”

Grinning, he turned over and eased her back down on the pillow. “In that case, what do you say to a noncaloric breakfast?” Showering kisses on her throat, collarbone, breasts and stomach, he moved down the length of her. He looked up at her from the tent of her raised legs and smacked his lips. “Suddenly I’m starving. Mind?” Without waiting for her answer, he dipped his head and kissed the inside of first one thigh and then the other.

Mind?
She sucked in her breath. The only mind she could think of was the one between her ears, and she was on the fast track to losing it. The softness of his lips provided an exquisite contrast to the sandpaper roughness of his beard stubble, landing the warm, fluttery feeling in her belly even lower.

“Are you kidding? This has got to be the all-time best Christmas ever. Better even than the year my parents splurged and got me the Barbie town house.”

Mouth curving into that sexy, lopsided grin she was coming to like entirely too much, he slid a long finger inside her. “Better than the Barbie town house, huh? That’s one hell of a compliment.”

Biting her bottom lip to keep from moaning, she shook her head. “I’ll have you know it came with an elevator and the full complement of amenities.”

Even with a mob killer on their trail, she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling, not to mention turned on as hell. Gorgeous, sexy, kindhearted and fun to be with, Josh was her fantasy lover come to life—and she meant to keep him alive no matter what she had to do.

“Amenities, huh? That’s some pretty stiff competition.” Finger still inside her, he found her with his mouth, settling the tip of his tongue over the spot where she’d pleasured herself the night before, circling and sucking until what little sanity she’d managed to hold on to threatened to break away. “My God, you taste amazing. I could have you for breakfast every day of the year.”

Every day of the year.
She sank hard fingers into his hair and lifted her hips, her world for now reduced to the rhythmic pull of his warm, wet mouth, the back-and-forth movement of his stroking finger, and the possibility of promises yet to be realized.

He paused to look up at her, gold-tipped lashes brushing the high bones of his cheeks. With his blond hair wildly rumpled and golden beard, he was the embodiment of every sexy fantasy lover she’d ever dreamed up only a hundred times better because he was real. “What time did you say your folks’ open house started?”

Mandy scoured her sex-soaked brain for the answer, time having lost any immediate meaning. “Around…around two, I think. Why?”

He glanced down to his wrist watch, an expensive Rolex a Baltimore bartender could never afford, and his smile broadened. “It’s only ten-thirty. We have hours yet.”

Perspiration filming the backs of her knees, Mandy lifted her hips, wanting more, wanting all of him. “Whatever will we do with all that time?”

She caught the flash of his grin just before he lowered himself between her legs once more. “I know a broken-down bed in a cheap rental probably seems like a poor substitute for a swank town house like Barbie got. Just remember, Ken may have deeper pockets, but at least I’m anatomically correct.”