Long Slow Second Look (15 page)

"I'm sure I don't want either one," he said, shocking me.

I stared at him, feeling as if he'd stabbed me straight in the heart.

He reached across the table to clutch my hand. "But I'm even surer that I'll give both my best effort to keep you in my life. No. I don't want to remarry. No. I don't want to start all over raising kids again. But yes, I want and need you. And yes, I want to give you what you want and need from me. I want to make you happy."

I was only slightly appeased. "What kind of relationship can we have when I know you don't want the things that are important to me?"

"I'll let you in on a little secret. I never wanted to be married or to have kids. I got married to please Julie. I had kids to please her. And I didn't want or need her nearly as much as I do you. Although I never wanted to be a father, once she got pregnant, I was fully on board. I love my son and daughter with all my heart. If we have kids, I promise you I'll love and cherish them as much as I do my other two."

He squeezed my hand. "I never cheated on Julie and I damn sure won't cheat on you. I'll treat you with even more consideration and respect than I did her because my feelings for you run far deeper than mine for her ever did and I know how miserable I'd be without you."

His statement would have meant more to me had he loved Julie.

"Does that ease your concerns any?"

My main concern was that I was in love alone and that if I ended up pregnant he'd resent our child and me because he'd have to get married and play dad again. "I don't know. I think I need some time to consider my options."

He compressed his lips. "What options?"

I pulled my hand free. "You ask that as if you don’t think I have any."

"That's not what I meant and I think you know that. Why the hell do you insist on putting the worse possible spin on everything I say?"

"If you believe that, what are we doing here?"

"I know why I'm here. Why are you here? Because you want to get married to someone at some point and I just might do? Because you're horny and we're sexually compatible? Or because you're in love with me?"

I inhaled quickly. I was in no mood to admit I was in love with a man who didn't want to marry me or have kids with me.

He slumped back against his chair. "So what do you feel for me, Amber?"

"What do you feel for me, John, besides sexual attraction?"

"How many damn times do I have to tell you this is and never has been strictly about sexual attraction before you believe me?"

"Maybe I'd have an easier time doing that if you stopped telling me what it isn't about and tell me what it is about!"

He narrowed his gaze. "What do you want me to say? That I'm in love with you?"

"Are you?"

"If our relationship progresses as I hope it will, I'll propose and I'll be as good a husband as I know how to be and a supportive and loving father to any children we have."

"And why would you do those things?"

"I told you. I need and want you and I want to make you happy."

"Why?"

"Why what, Amber?"

"Why do you want to make me happy?"

"Because I need and want you."

But he clearly wasn't in love with me.

"Isn't that enough?"

When I was in love with him? No. It wasn't.

"I told you I'd give you anything you want within reason. Hell, I'll give you anything I can afford—even if it's not within reason. You have my promise of fidelity. I've put marriage and kids on the table. What the hell more do you want from me?"

Love! I rose. "I need to consider my options."

"Do they include the man you spend the night with?"

"Does that bother you?"

"You know damn well it does. What the hell are you doing, Amber? You once told me that we could talk again once marriage and kids were on the table. Well now they are and you still want to give me some shit? What's wrong with you? You must feel what I feel. If you do, you know we belong together. Why are you erecting unnecessary roadblocks between us?"

"I have to protect myself, John."

"From what?" He gripped my hand and drew me protesting close enough so that he could pull me down onto his lap. He put his arms around me and buried his face against my neck. "I am not going to hurt you! I'll give you anything you want. What more can I say to please you?"

I drew away from his lips and turned to look at him. "Are you in love with me, John?"

He watched me with a shuttered look in his dark gaze. "I don't know that I've ever been in love," he said after a long silence.

"That doesn't answer my question. Are you in love with me?"

"I don't know."

"Well, that's what I need and want from you. Love. When you can tell me you're in love with me, we can talk."

"Why the hell do you keep raising the bar on me? First it was come see me when marriage and kids are on the table. Now it's tell me you love me and we can talk?"

"That's what I need from you, John. Love."

"Are you in love with me, Amber?"

I shrugged.

"If you're not in love with me, why do you need me to be in love with you?"

I tried to stand up but he wouldn't let me. "Let me go, John."

"Answer my question."

"Let me go!"

He sighed. "Even if I'm not in love with you, I want and need you more than I ever have any other woman. Why can't that be a starting point on which to build? Why must you wring a confession from me that I'm not prepared to make?"

"Because I want…I need you to be in love with me."

"I'm as close to being in love as I've ever been. Stay with me and we can see where we end up. Given the actual amount of time we've spent together, that's not an unreasonable request."

I knew he was right but I loved him and ached to hear him say he loved me too. "I know. I'll sleep on it and—"

"Fuck that sleep on it shit, Amber. Sleep with me and let me convince you."

"I don't want to be convinced."

"Yes you do," he said, sliding his hands up from my waist to cup my breasts.

When I turned to look at him, he kissed me with enough passion and force to coerce my surrender. I parted my lips and accepted his tongue in my mouth.

While he continued to kiss me breathless, I felt his hands slipping under my blouse and up my back. Seconds later, my breasts spilled out of my bra and into his warm, eager hands.

Yes. Yes. Oh, yes!

He massaged each mound and pinched my nipples

I arched into him, feeling hot all over.

He continued his attention to my breasts until my pussy flooded and I ached to have his cock powering inside me. Despite my intentions not to sleep with him again, when he lifted me to my feet and took my hand in his, I eagerly followed him to the bed.

He quickly undressed me and then stood staring at me in silence for so long, I cupped one hand over my pussy and placed the other arm over my breasts.

"No. No. Don’t hide your body from me," he said, his voice thick with passion.

"You're staring at me as if you've never seen me naked before and aren't sure you like what you see."

"I haven't ever seen you completely nude before," he said.

Of course he hadn't because he'd always just pushed my dress up and fucked me against the nearest wall.

He blew out a breath, still staring at me. "Damn. I had no idea what I was missing when I allowed my impatience and need to be inside you to lead me to making love with our clothes on. You have a…damn, Amber, you're even sexier with your clothes off."

His mama hadn't raised a fool. He knew how to close a deal. I smiled and relaxed.

After brushing my hands away from my body, he stroked his palms down from my breasts to my belly.

I tensed. He was almost certainly used to bedding women without an ounce of excess weight. "My belly is—"

"Perfect—like the rest of you." Placing one hand on my stomach, he slid the other hand between my legs and eased two fingers inside me.

I bit my lip and closed my thighs to trap his hand. "Johnny."

He removed his fingers and stepped back to take off his clothes.

I walked over to the bed. Sitting on the side, I watched him undress. Lord, he had a big, muscular body with wide shoulders, an impressive chest and abs, long legs, and a thick cock beckoning my pussy from a thick mat of dark hair. Although he was only semi-erect, just looking at him made me wetter.

"Oh, Johnny, you have a beautiful body."

He stepped close to the bed and drew me up into his arms. "Touch me," he invited.

Feeling his nude body against mine for the first time sent an absolute jolt of need through me. I reached between our bodies to place my hand over his cock.

"Get me hard," he whispered, bending his head to rain kisses on my neck.

I closed my eyes and pumped his cock until he lengthened and grew against my fingers. Then, eager to be fucked, I lay on the bed with my legs parted.

He bent to press a long, moist kiss against my mouth while he fingered me. "You are so sexy."

With my pussy burning for the invasion of his shaft and thoughts of insisting he use a condom a distant one, I reached for him. "And all yours, Johnny," I whispered.

He hesitated and then earned my gratitude by bending down to pick up his pants. He quickly removed a condom from his wallet before he sat on the side of the bed. He silently handed it to me.

My hands shook and I was a breath away from telling him we didn't need it when I caught myself and reluctantly rolled it over his hard flesh.

"You're the only woman I want and need," he told me as he slipped between my thighs and pressed his warm lips against mine.

A jolt of love, need, and passion filled me as I returned his kiss.

When he finally dragged his mouth from mine, I gasped and struggled against the urge to tell him that I loved him. Seconds before I would have whispered the truth to him, he kissed me again.

We lay with our legs entwined and his hard shaft lying against my body as we kissed and caressed each other. Then as the need for him grew, I reached between our bodies to close my fingers around him and positioned the head of his cock against my entrance.

I shivered in anticipation of the sweet wonder of feeling him sliding into me.

He lifted his hips slightly and then eased forward.

I closed my eyes and inhaled as he slowly pressed his shaft into my pussy.

Oh Lord, the pleasure I felt when he was fully seated inside me and I experienced his weight on me for the first time was totally delicious. Filled with his cock and surrounded by what felt like a wall of bliss closing in on me before he had even started to move in me was mind numbing.

He lay unmoving on top of me for several minutes, filling my ears and heart with whispered words of need and desire that bound me to him even more. "You're so sexy…I want you…I need you…I have from the moment I saw you…I've never felt like this with anyone else. I'm not going to let you go back to him. You're mine…and I'm yours…all yours, sweet."

By the time he pushed into me, I was already so aroused I shuddered, moaned, and greedily fucked myself on him. "Johnny…oh…Johnny mine."

He gripped my hips and held them still. "Slow down, sweet, or you'll make me come too quickly. I want to savor lying on top of you for the first time."

"You can savor it another time." I dug my fingers into his tight ass. "Fuck me…please…fuck me."

"No. I want to show you this isn't just sex for me and never has been." He brushed his lips against my neck. "I'm going to make love to you."

I clutched him closer. "Only people in love make love. Everyone else fucks or has sex."

"I'm going to make love to you," he said again.

And he did. He was gentle, sweet, and unhurried. He kissed, licked, nipped, and caressed me until my entire body was as sensitive as a raw nerve. Then he slipped his hands under my ass and increased the movement of his cock inside me. Each stroke and caress intensified my rapidly approaching climax until he shifted his body, tilted my hips, and hit my spot with a series of deep, rhythmic thrusts.

Oh God. I blew apart into countless tiny orgasmic pieces. Sobbing with pleasure and careening out of emotional control, I came hard.

My climax was the most enjoyable and powerful of my life. Its' aftermath left me lying limp but happy under him as he continued to push and pull out of me until he ground his hips roughly against mine.

I was so lethargic I couldn't muster the strength to hold him as he came. I just lay under him like a very happy lump on a log, wishing he were coming inside my pussy instead of spilling his seed in the condom.

When he pulled out of me, I moaned in protest and tried to clutch him closer.

He disentangled himself from me and slipped behind me. "Give me a moment."

I nodded happily.

He removed the condom before settling back against me. "Damn. That was off the charts." He pulled the sheet over our nude bodies and brushed his lips against my neck. "How long are you staying?"

"We're leaving Monday morning."

"Who is we and why the hell did you sleep with him last night when you knew how much I need you?"

"We is me and my friend Sherlyn and for your information, buster, I slept alone last night."

He turned me around to face him. "You're not here with a man?"

"I'm here with my friend who happens to be female. Her name is Sherlyn."

"Why did you let me think you were with a man?"

"Because you deserved it."

"So there is no man?"

"The only man in my life is you."

He rolled on his back and pulled me on top of him. "I'm here to Monday as well. Share this room with me."

Darkwater would probably say I'd succumbed too quickly. And he'd be right, but I was a woman hungry to spend as much time as possible with the man I loved. "I think we should keep separate rooms."

"And I think you should stop thinking and just feel how right we are together." He yawned.

"Am I boring you already?"

He nipped my ear. "I spent last night worrying about you with another man. I don't think I slept for more than an hour or so."