Uncommon Passion (8 page)

openmouthed kisses along her cheek to her ear. His hands left her hips for her jaw, cupping her ears so that

her heart and breathing sounded like waves. She curled her fingers through his belt loops and pressed

against him. With each quick inhale his abdomen brushed hers, while his chest pressed firmly against her

breasts and his shaft notched between her thighs. Hard to her soft, everywhere.

Ben paused, hands on her jaw, breathing deeply, and for a moment her attention crystallized on the heat

between her legs, the sense of longing. One hand left her jaw to skim down her back and press against her

tailbone. The pressure sent sensation crackling through her, and she gasped.

“What is this?” she asked. She wanted to rub up against him. She wanted to see him, touch his bare

skin. She wanted . . .

He gave a low laugh she felt rumble in his chest as much as heard in her ears. “Chemistry,” he said, and

lifted his head to look at her. “This is some kind of wicked chemistry.”

His mouth was swollen, wet from hers, and the thought that she’d used her mouth to make it that way

sent heat wicking through her.

“Still with me?” he asked.

Yes. Oh yes.
“I want more.”

A smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Come on,” he said, and helped her down from the back of

the truck. Sliding the passenger seat as far forward as it could go, he climbed in the back bench seat and

sprawled out with his broad shoulders wedged against the window.

She took the hand he held out and clambered awkwardly into the space to kneel beside him. “Is this

okay? No one will see us, right?”

He shook his head and pointed out the windshield at the dirt tracks curving up the hill. “Private

property, in pastureland that’s fallow, plus I can see any vehicle that comes over the hill. C’mere.”

Looking into those spectacular blue eyes as she parted her legs and straddled him felt as intimate as the

hot, licking kisses. She looked at his pulse, thumping at the base of his strong throat. “Can I touch you?”

“Sure,” he said.

She bent and put her hands on his shoulders and her mouth to the side of his neck, just below his ear.

Lips open, she touched him with the tip of her tongue. She’d never used her tongue to taste and touch at

once. The skin just below his rough jaw was surprisingly soft and damp with salty sweat. A groan

reverberated soft in her ears, and against her mouth, then his hands settled on her hips. Another long,

vibrating moment while she scraped her teeth ever so gently against the tendon, then his big hands

tightened. She filed his response away, and moved on.

Desire expanded inside her, and when she moved to his mouth she felt a matching response in the hot,

slow kiss. She slid her palms over his shoulders to his pectorals. Heat and strength radiated through the

cotton, into her skin as she toyed with the pearl snaps running down the length of his chest and abdomen to

disappear behind his belt buckle.

“Go on.”

The click of the snap releasing sounded loud in the truck’s cab. Heat flared in her cheeks, but she didn’t

stop. He leaned forward when she spread the fabric so she went all the way, tugging his shirt down his arms

and off.

Her breath scudded from her throat. The scent of clean skin and sweat, his taste lingering on her tongue,

the sound of his breathing. She trailed her index finger from the hollow of his throat down his breastbone,

over abdominal muscles covered with the thinnest layer of skin to his belt buckle. His hand covered hers,

held it flat against his button fly. Heat and hardness strained against her palm.

“Not yet,” he said. “My turn first.”

He went to work on the buttons of her blouse, his touch very matter-of-fact, and in a few moments the

shirt hung open, revealing her basic beige cotton bra. One dark brow lifted, and she nodded, not trusting

herself to speak. He reached behind her, unhooked the fastener, and in seconds she was bare from the

waistband of her cotton skirt to her hair. Then he unfastened her braid, first tugging the elastic from the

end, then working the sections loose to send it tumbling around her shoulders. Her hair, as long and thick

and straight as a horse’s tail, slid forward into her face, sheltering her a little. Based on the way his shaft

flexed against her, he liked the peek-a-boo game it played with her breasts. Heat flickered to life between

her legs, and she shifted.

Call-and-response, her body to his and back again. Layers upon layers of pleasure and sensation.

He wove his fingers through her hair so the ends protruded like the bristles of a brush. Then, his gaze

locked with hers, he stroked the soft undercurve of her breast, the touch gentle, slow, his rough knuckles a

hard counterpoint to each caress. Her mouth went dry and her nipple hardened. He wrapped more hair

around his other hand and did the same thing to her other breast until her eyes drooped, then closed, and

her breathing shallowed.

Crickets chirped, the leaves rustled in the trees, and what little water flowed through the brook burbled

under the breeze as her attention slowly focused to the
strokestrokestroke
of her own hair on her flesh.

Molten heat coursed along newly awakened nerves, then pooled in places she didn’t know could hold such

desire.

His hands cupped her breasts, not nearly as shocking with her skin already sensitized, her body growing

hot, needy. But when his thumbs slowly brushed her nipples, back and forth, back and forth, her head

dropped forward, sending her hair into her face.

“Talk to me,” he said.

She tipped forward and rested her open mouth on Ben’s. His tongue flickered out, caressing her lower

lip, then dipped inside to touch hers before retreating again.

“It’s good,” she breathed. “So good.”

His lips moved under hers. “Yeah,” he said. The word came out knowing, confident, masculine.

His palms cupped her knees, then slid up her thighs and under her skirt to grip her bottom. A few

moments of shifting and he lay back on the bench seat with Rachel draped against him. The precarious

position rolled her nearly full length against his body from chest to knees, her bare breasts to his exposed

torso. He cupped the back of her head with one hand and held her mouth to his for kiss after hot, wet kiss.

She flattened her palm against his abdomen. Hot, damp skin stretched over shifting muscle.

His fingers worked her skirt up to her hip, then slid into her panties to gently stroke her belly, then the

damp curls at the top of her sex. She shuddered, and his movements slowed. “You’d never been touched

here.”

“No.”

“No wonder you didn’t want me to go down on you.”

Her eyes opened enough to meet his blue gaze. He wasn’t apologizing, or justifying, or blaming her. Just

stating facts, calmly and certainly, as his fingers spread her soft folds. The first time she’d been unprepared

for the hot flashes of pleasure expanding under his fingertip. This time she knew, anticipated, needed.

“I wasn’t paying attention to you. But I am now,” he said as his finger arrowed in on a particularly alive

spot.

Her breath caught as she shuddered, and the flames leapt higher in his eyes. Her thighs clenched and her

hips shifted forward, into his hand. She rolled forward and rested most of her weight against his body. One

finger dipped lower, and this time when his finger slid against that bundle of nerves, moisture eased his

way. He set a slow rhythm, taking his time, careful and measured, and heat built between her thighs. He

kissed her and he touched her, tongue and finger and body working together to draw her down into the

vortex.

But she was taking more than she gave. “I still want to touch you,” she said.

This time when she reached for his belt buckle he didn’t stop her. The buckle was a straightforward

silver, the seams and pressure points of his button-fly jeans nearly as white as the clasp. She fumbled with

the buckle but the fly opened easily, the button holes frayed and worn. As she moved down the placket the

backs of her fingers rubbed against something hot and hard and still foreign.

She flicked him a glance. His gaze was still relaxed, heavy lidded, sensual. He lifted his hips, and she

tugged his jeans and cotton shorts down just far enough to release his shaft. The wind pushed air through

the truck’s open doors, over their bodies. Her hair lifted, then caught on her mouth.

“May I?” she asked as she tugged the strands free.

“All yours, honey.”

She gathered her wayward hair and swept it behind her shoulder, then trailed her fingers down his

ridged abdomen to the shaft straining up from the thicket of brown hair between his legs. Hesitantly she

wrapped her fingers around it, squeezing, exploring texture and hardness, the softness of the sac below.

After a few moments his hand covered hers. He looked deep into her eyes as he taught her how to touch

him, gripping the shaft more firmly than she would, cupping his testicles, then back to the shaft, where he

set a slow rhythm. Then he lifted both hands to her head and drew her mouth down to his. This time she

took the lead kissing him, and learned yet another way to build the pleasure. He jerked under her as she

licked the soft curve of his mouth and moved her hand up and down.

Finally his hand landed on hers, halting her midstroke. His hand slid back into her panties. With two

fingers he circled her soft opening, but when the fingers delved inside, she inhaled sharply.

His gaze searched hers. “Hurt, or surprised?”

“Surprised,” she said. “Don’t stop.”

Those winter-sky-blue eyes never left hers as he gently, slowly worked his fingers in and out. His

thumb brushed her clitoris with each subtle movement. Before long her eyes closed, so she felt his hand

slide into her hair to cup the back of her head and hold her mouth to his. He didn’t kiss her, just let the

sweet, tantalizing promise of his mouth brushing hers provide the counterpoint to the smooth stroke of his

fingers inside her. Then his fingertips slid over a hot, electric spot inside.

This time the noise was part gasp, part throaty moan. He did it again; again and without conscious

thought she responded. Arched her back so her aching nipples brushed his chest. Touched her tongue to

his. Undulated in his grasp. Her sex brushed his shaft as she moved, the heat and promise teasingly close,

never far from her body, her mind.

“Feel good?”

She gave a half laugh, half gasp, because it felt like nothing she’d experienced before.

Nuances. Nuances would be the death of her.

He withdrew his hand, and she opened her eyes. Moisture gleamed on his fingers and she watched,

dazed, as he touched her nipples, transferring the juices to her skin. Then he lifted his head and licked

them. Between the muscles in his chest and abdomen flexing and the sensation of his tongue and teeth on

her nipples, every nerve in her body lit up. She was past the point of need she’d reached the last time. Her

blood slipped hot and thick in her veins, and sensation simmered between her legs.

“Why did you stop?”

He groped on the floor for his wallet, opened it, and extracted a condom packet. “Because when you

come I’m gonna be inside you,” he said as he opened the packet and rolled the latex down his shaft. His

hands gripped her hips as he centered her over his shaft. “Slow,” he cautioned.

This time the stretch was delicious, a promise fulfilled. She sank down, pausing when the burn

threatened to become pain, felt her body clench around this unfamiliar thickness, then lifted up again, slid

down. He wasn’t all the way inside her, but it felt good. Powerful, something to claim, not hide from, or

reject out of hand.

“Tilt your hips back,” he said. His voice seemed to be part of the descending twilight, deep blue and as

smooth as the rhythm. She did as he suggested, and on the next descent his shaft glided over that hot spot

inside.

“Oh. Oh yes.”

His fingers tightened on her hips. She couldn’t tell if he held her to prevent her from rushing or because

he liked the feedback of feeling her slide down his shaft, but the next time she took him all the way inside.

“Go on,” he growled. “Take it.”

Yes. This. Oh yes, this. Keep it slow at first, feel heat and pressure build. Feel your head drop back.

Feel your skin heat up and glow. Feel him inside you, yours for the taking. Feel want grow into demand,

demand swell into need.

Feel.

She was gasping, trembling, overwhelmed, unsure what was coming or how to get there, knowing only

that she had to have it. Ben flattened one hand at the base of her spine while the other skated over her hip.

Once again his thumb pressed firmly against her clitoris. With her next downstroke her skin tightened and