Love Handles (24 page)

“I like it in bed.” She pushed him away, stumbling to her feet, and rubbed her back. “Or somewhere padded.”

He came after her and pulled her with him onto the sofa. He wanted her on top of him, to feel the full weight of her body along his, nothing held back. “Take off your clothes—” Then he remembered how badly he wanted to finish what they had started in that shore in Oakland the week before. “Wait. Come with me.” He rolled aside and got to his feet.

She looked up at him, her hair strewn across the cushions, and raised an eyebrow.

“You'll like it.” He held out his hand.

She took his hand—warm, smooth fingers—and followed him to the bedroom.

When he bent over to switch on the lamp on a side table, Bev came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, slid her hands up his chest. He straightened, strung tight, pausing to enjoy the feel of her body pressed up against his. For two shapes with so little in common, their bodies fit together amazingly well. For a moment he forgot about the destination to savor the journey. The bodies enmeshed. No gaps. Just yielding flesh and muscle and bone.

Then Bev pulled his shirt up, slid her hand over his abs, and pinched his left nipple.

Electricity spiked through him. He spun around, captured her face in his hands to kiss her. Rich, sweet lips, open for him and wet and hungry. He rotated her in his arms and kicked the door shut, revealing the full-length mirror hung on the inside. Standing with their eyes locked on each other in the reflection, she lifted her arms over her head and wiggled her ass.

“Nice,” he whispered, nibbling her neck. “I mean, naughty.” He pulled the ugly sweater up and exposed a red lace bra that appeared two sizes too small. Groaning, he slipped the neckline over her head and buried his face in her hair, silently thanking her and fate and even Ed for contributing to the genetics of her glorious breasts spilling out of flimsy—he dipped a finger under the top swell of flesh until he felt her hardening nipple—“Silk.”

A small moan rose up from her throat as she threw her head back. “Went shopping yesterday.”

He withdrew his hand—soon, soon—and hurled the sweater across the room. Her hair fell down her back in a tousled curtain, black on white. Inhaling the scent of her scalp, he ran his hands down her body and met her eyes her in the mirror. “You are so damn beautiful.”

She met his eyes, looking alarmed.

“What's the matter?” He pulled her closer and ground his hard cock through the jeans against her bottom, while his fingers teased her nipples through the lace.

Gasping, she shook her head and leaned into him. “You—terrify me.”

“Serves you right.” He brushed her hair aside so he could kiss the back of her neck, still searching for the source of the intoxicating citrus smell that followed her everywhere. It seemed to be everywhere on her skin, sweet and sharp and rich. He dropped kisses along her shoulder then dragged his tongue up the side of her neck to her ear and inside, tasting and breathing and whispering her name.

He watched her reaction in the mirror, surprised to see her staring at him with those stunning blue eyes. Below her face, the red bra with the full breasts spilling out of the cups snared his attention. He looked lower, to the curve of her bare abdomen, and down to the hint of red lace under the waistband of her jeans.

The jeans were as loose as her sweater had been, which she probably intended as a turn-off, but now, sagging low on her hips and exposing her panties, they reminded him of what delights he hadn't explored, delights he'd been obsessed with since that morning in the store's dressing room.

He opened his hands over the indentation of her waist and held them there, willing his body to be patient, go slow. They slid lower, his thumbs stroking her belly while his fingers dove under the gaping waistband.

She sucked in her breath, tensing her abs, and he squeezed the handful of woman in his hands and nibbled the side of her neck.

“No running away this time,” she whispered, and he shook his head.

“Too late for that.” He unbuttoned her jeans and slid his hand down over her pussy. “Don't even think about it.”

Faintly, from the back of her throat, she whispered, “I meant you.”

“I’d die first.” She was hot under his palm. With a fingertip, he traced the elastic bands of her panties, his large hand a tight fit inside the jeans. Having his hand down her pants, and watching her aroused face in the mirror, he worried about losing his control.

He slid his hand away, pleased by her whimper of disappointment, and jerked the pants down over her hips to expose her glorious ass.

“You seemed to like the thong,” she said, her voice rough. “In the dressing room.”

Stunned with lust, Liam took a step back to get a better view of the narrow band of red silk slicing her perfectly round ass in two. Smiling at him, her fear draining away from her face, Bev kicked off her shoes and each leg of the jeans, jiggling her hips and breasts with each move. He closed his eyes to get a grip. The thunder of his heartbeat in his ears and drowned out what she said next.

“What?” he whispered.

Turning to face him, she slid her hands up his chest to the top button of his shirt and began unfastening. “Your turn.”

He barely heard her the second time. The sight of her backside in the mirror, pinched by inadequate scraps of red lace, drove all the blood out of his brain to a presently more essential organ. Vaguely he was aware of Bev sliding his shirt apart and moving the fabric down his shoulders. While he swiftly unhooked her bra and bent over to feel the weight of her breasts on his face, she tugged the last of his shirt off his wrists.

She stepped around him to reverse their positions. Now she stood behind him, peering out from the side, her hands sliding up over his belly and chest, her pelvis grinding into his ass while they looked at each other in the mirror.

Except Bev wasn't keeping her eyes on his face. Embarrassingly enough for him she was caressing his chest and watching the muscles ripple under his skin.

“I thought you didn't like jocks,” he said. Even after a decade exposing his body in public he didn't like to be stared at. Too much of the pudgy kid he used to be lingered in his soul. His mother had always loved him unconditionally, but not the other kids, the P.E. teachers, his father—

She flattened her palm over his abdomen, slid the tips of her fingers down the stripe of hair that led down under the waistband of his jeans, searching. “Like isn't the word,” she said, then wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed.

With a groan he spun around, took her in his arms, and lifted her off the ground. “I know what you mean.” He carried her over to the bed and dropped her onto her back.

She laughed up at him. “Glad you lift weights. No guy’s ever picked me up before.”

“Why do you think I do it?” He leaned over and jerked the panties off her hips in a single motion. He heard her gasp of surprise but didn't slow down until he saw all her dark curls and a hint of rosy flesh underneath. Her feet lifted off the bed, held together by the panties, and her thighs fell apart right under his gaze while she freed herself from the fabric. He shoved her knees wider and kissed his way up her sweet inner thighs until he had nowhere to go but down.

She thrashed under him. “Oh, God.”

He lifted his head, slid his hands between her thighs to delicately work her folds apart. Savoring the sight, he dipped a finger inside her, drew the moisture up. “You are so beautiful,” he said quietly. Then licked her.

She arched her back. “Oh—Liam!”

His mouth sucked, his fingers teased.

“Ahh—” Bev's words melted into high, breathy sounds that drove him on. His jeans were killing him. He didn't know how much longer he would last—just so it was longer than her. She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer. Such soft skin, so sweet—he licked and savored the taste of her, feeling her climb the steep slope to climax, pushing her higher—

“Not yet!” She pushed his head away. “I want you inside.”

“Easy.” He glanced up at her wild eyes, slid his fingers in and around, circled with his thumb. “Let it happen.”

“But—not yet—”

He lowered his head and stroked her long and hard with his tongue, and she cried out and gave up the fight, throwing back her head, digging her heels into the mattress, abandoning herself entirely.

Liam barely stayed behind long enough to tear off his jeans and get a condom on. She fell back to earth, eyes unfocused, but then saw his cock hard in his hands and said, “Hurry.”

“Coming,” he said roughly.
Thank God
.

He climbed up her body, straddled her, and rubbed his cock against her belly, risking it just once because he couldn't help it, then bent down to kiss her while he took her with his hand and with one last, sweet agony, shoved himself deep inside her.

She cried out. He felt the surge of satisfaction at biting the forbidden fruit, claiming it at last, accepting the inevitable mistake.

The feel of her legs clamping around his hips shot him higher, and he thrilled in the sight of her giving in to him, not holding back, her voice gasping with hot, noisy pleasure, and when she raked her nails across his back, the pain drove him further into madness.

She was everywhere and everything, drowning him. He held on as long as he could, flying wildly with her to the limits of pleasure and pain, with this creature that was woman and girl and mysterious wild thing, until they both shattered.

“Bev,” he gasped, not letting go, and they fell together.

Chapter 15

B
ev stared at the ceiling through the strands of his blond hair. He was heavy and warm, his skin slick against hers, and as much as she wanted to stroke her hands down the muscles of his back and take more of him, the moment was fading. The fun was over and now it was time to pay. Any second now one of them would utter the lie, the lie that they hadn’t just ruined something, that sex wouldn’t change anything, that they would be able to do it again.

She slid her hands forward from their caressing perch on his broad shoulders and pushed him away.

“Sorry,” he said, collapsing next to her. He kept his arm tight over her belly, buried his face in the thrumming pulse at her throat, tickled her with feather kisses.

Inside her chest a fist wrapped around her heart and squeezed. She closed her eyes, savoring another second of him.

This could not go on. She wiggled away, avoiding his gaze. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He held on to her waist while she sat up on the edge of the bed, and she heard him inhale sharply. “You are so beautiful,” he said, tracing her spine with a fingertip. A large, gentle hand brushed her hair to the side, and suddenly his mouth was on her neck, below her ear, soft and hot.

She wasn't strong enough. His lips teased the nerves under her ear and around her hairline while his fingers caressed her shoulder. “Lemons,” he whispered. “God, you smell so good.”

He was like a shark mistaking the surfer for a seal, dragging her from shore, preparing to consume her whole in the second bite. Her mind flailed around for something to make him let go, let her stagger back to shore, maimed but alive.

She turned her head, closer to the mouth nibbling on her earlobe, and said, “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

The kisses stopped. His hand stilled. After a long, tight moment he choked out, “Bev—”

“Gotcha.” She pulled away—no resistance now—and walked to the bathroom where she could recover. She locked the door and dropped her face into her hands, light-headed from the effort of leaving his bed. The weak confusion of her heart was the old, familiar ache of mismatched needs. Like so many men—and lucky women too—Liam was capable of a sexual and emotional disconnect she had never mastered. Unlike those lucky people Bev's heart and mind and body were braided together like pigtails. Now when she looked at Liam, she imagined he felt the same way. She felt that he felt the same way.

And she was wrong.

“Bev?” He tapped on the door, sounding uncomfortable, and that just wouldn't do.

She splashed water on her face, dried herself in a towel—hesitating, because it was suffused with the smell of him—and went over to open the door with his towel wrapped around her. “I thought you were going to feed me dinner.”

He had pulled his jeans on, which was telling. No belt, though. “Look, about—”

“Forget it, Liam. I was just—I don't know. Reminding both of us what we're screwing around with. Making a point.”

He glanced down at her body in the towel, closed his eyes, and looked up at her. “I just broke up with somebody—”

God
.
Not the I’m-not-ready-yet defense
. “And so did I. You don't have to go there. I'm going to get dressed, have a bite of whatever it is that I smelled when we walked in the door and go.”

“But if we understand each other there's no reason for you to run off.” He grinned and dipped a finger between her breasts, tugged at the towel. “What's done is done. We'll figure out how to keep it quiet at the office—millions do it every day.”

She clutched the towel in her fist and stepped back. “In a minute, Liam. I'd like to clean up.” And she shut the door again, screaming inwardly that only one of them understood the real problem.

She didn't want to eat spaghetti, but if she ran out of there like she wanted to do, he'd figure out how deeply she was sinking and look down on her. As much as anyone else in the company, she needed to earn his respect. If he thought she’d weep into her pillow every night because they’d had a quick fuck, she’d never be able to take command in the office. Already she had George and Rachel and the patternmakers in her camp—she could not afford to lose him now.

She got dressed and found him in the kitchen. “Sure smells good.”

He had pulled a t-shirt on but was barefoot. And no apron. “Hey there.” He watched her carefully, spoon hovering over the pot.

“What is it? Farmer's market or Ragu?”

He hesitated, looking at her. “Too early for local tomatoes,” he said. “But they were nice and ripe.”