He took her by the hand and led her upstairs to the bedroom. She meekly acquiesced. He seated her at the vanity, turning the
chair around so she could watch him in the candlelight. She was supposed to be seducing him, but he was taking over, turning
the tables on her.
While she watched, he stripped off his clothes. His bare, taut buttocks flexed as he moved, the pale skin contrasting the
tan above his waist. She went breathless staring at his abs. Compelled, Jillian could not look away.
He was glorious. All biceps and triceps and glutes and hamstrings. Take that, Adonis. She couldn’t ever remember having such
a well-built lover. She would remember this body for a long time to come.
And his face!
Straight out of a fantasy. His jaw was square, his cheekbones prominent. His wheat-brown hair shining in the candlelight;
the scruffy cut suited his dreamy, artistic nature. Architect, carpenter, a man who knew how to use his brains.
And his hands.
She got to her feet and slowly began to take off her clothes. She had performed lots of stripteases before, and she’d never
been self-conscious. Not even the first time she’d tried it.
But now, she found herself hesitating, fumbling at her buttons, feeling unsure. What was wrong? What was different?
She rushed through the process, anxious to get it over with. He didn’t seem to notice that he’d received the abbreviated version
of her burlesque moves. Even the look of frank appreciation in his eyes when he saw her naked did nothing to allay her uneasiness.
He smiled tenderly.
“Tuck,” she whispered, and he came across the room toward her and cupped her breasts in his warm palms. Her nipples became
even harder beneath his hands, and he thumbed them ever so slightly.
They exhaled at the same time, breathing out each other’s air.
She thought he was quivering, then realized it was her, shaking so hard her knees wobbled.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get comfortable.”
He arranged the pillows on the bed, piling them high and then easing her down onto her back atop them. He lay on his side
next to her and walked his fingers down her arm.
“How do you want to be touched right now?”
“Kid gloves,” she whispered, and his eyes lit with such feverish delight she knew he understood. “Feather fine. Lots and lots
and lots of foreplay.”
“I can do that.” He reached out and with an incredibly light caress, grazed the base of his palm over her collarbone.
Jillian shivered.
His hand was a silken glide, his lips delicious. He swirled his fingers over her navel. Softly and sweetly he kissed the leaping
pulse at her neck. He dropped down the length of her throat and then took tiny succulent nibbles.
Then his tongue went traveling south to the peaks of her jutting breasts. His tongue flicked out to lick over one nipple while
his thumb achingly rubbed the other straining bud, drawing it in to the extraordinary blaze of his mouth.
His thigh tightened against her leg, and his abdominal muscles hardened to pure, smooth steel.
“Tuck,” she whispered his name on a sigh. She loved his name. It rhymed so nicely with a very naughty word.
Tuck, Tuck, Tuck
. “Tuck, that feels so good.”
Her eyes flew open and she lifted her head up off the mattress. She had to see what he was doing to make her feel so good.
Her gaze latched on his lips as she watched him drawing her nipple in and out of his mouth.
She let her head fall back against the pillows. “Go lower.”
He dipped his head, trailing his tongue down the middle of her chest to the flat of her sternum before he veered off into
other territory, her nipples responding to his touch.
While his lips were finding her breasts, his hand was dancing around the juncture of her thighs. She parted her legs slightly,
just enough to let him slip a finger or two between them.
He suckled first one nipple and then the other while strumming her clit lightly with an index finger.
She tilted her pelvis, arched her back. “More,” she begged. “More.”
And then his mouth and his fingers were in the same place, and he had moved around so that his head pointed south. His lips
closed around the tiny throbbing head of her cleft while his fingers tickled the entrance of her womanhood.
His tongue laved her sensitive skin as he suckled her deeply. She writhed against him, trying to push her body into his, needing
more. Barbed ribbons of fevered sensation unfurled straight to her throbbing sex. Her inner muscles contracted, rollicking
with desire for him.
“Tuck,” she whispered weakly. “Tuck.”
“Yes, sweetheart. What do you want? Tell me what you need.”
“I want it all. I want everything.”
“Like this?”
“Yes,” she hissed as he moved his mouth back and forth, his hair a silky glide beneath her fingers. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Tuck worked his magic with his fingers while his tongue led her into uncharted territory. She was on sensory overload as he
gently guided her to a paradise she’d only dreamed of before now.
But this wasn’t a dream. The warm wetness of his mouth, the sweet taste of his kiss still lingering on her tongue, the earthy
smell of his masculine scent, the sound of the wind roaring outside the window. This new awareness of him awoke something
inside her, and all the old failures and disappointments fell away.
He was beyond good-looking to her. He was pure life, pure joy. His mouth moved over her without caution or fear. He pushed
Jillian past her knowledge of herself. She had never before been so physically possessed. His movements shook her world. The
walls of the room seemed to ripple. Could a blizzard cause an earthquake?
No. The ground did not tremor, only her body.
She rode the flow of emotions, navigating the swell of pleasure and desire and discovery with accomplished ease. His warmth
enveloped her, and she experienced a sense of safety with him that she’d rarely felt before.
He was lifting her up to a place she’d never known existed. She loved the adventure of him and was fascinated by this aspect.
Then she was seized by a sudden bittersweet feeling. This moment could not last. She closed her eyes, determined to ignore
the sadness. Besides, this was all she needed. This brief slice of delight. She wasn’t a commitment kind of gal. No reason
to be sad. She was having fun, and he was doing some very nice things to her with his tongue.
Tuck’s feet were pressed against the headboard, his long masculine legs parallel to her face. His hard shaft poked into her
ribs.
She had a wicked thought and turned toward him, curling her spine outward while at the same time shifting her pelvis closer
to his mouth and dipping her chin so she could lick the head of his penis with her tongue.
He gave a yelp of pleased surprise. His mouth was on most her feminine lips while at the same time she stretched her own mouth
over the expansive width of his penis.
His tongue was hot and wet. So was hers.
She swirled. He licked.
Up and down, around and around, they were both moaning and writhing, consumed by pleasure.
On and on they went. He on her, she on him. Licking, sucking, tasting. Glorious sensations rippled through her body, turning
her inside out. They increased the tempo as the pressure built, rising to an inevitable crescendo.
Jillian mewled softly whenever he did something right, grunted when he made a wrong move. It didn’t take him long to pick
up her rhythms, to learn what she liked and give her more of it.
She took him deeper until she felt him pressing against the back of her throat, juicy and slick. She rolled her lips back,
stretching wider to accommodate his bigness. She wanted to swallow all of him. She breathed in the heady smell of his sex.
He broke contact. “Jilly, I gotta have you now, but I don’t have any condoms.”
She moved around in bed to face him and looked into his proud face, reaching up to trace her finger along his cheek and feeling
something monumental move inside her. It was an emotion unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She couldn’t name it. She
stopped trying to figure it out, just let it sweep her away.
“I have a condom,” she said, “in the pocket of my pajama pants.”
“I’ll get it.”
He retrieved it and hurried back. Then he was kissing her again. Her mouth, her nose, her eyelids, her ears. He was over her
and around her and then, at long last, he was inside her.
“Jillian,” he whispered her name, soft as an ocean breeze, caressing her with sound as he rotated his hips from side to side,
maintaining tight, intense contact.
Now, with him deep in her moist wetness, she felt every twitch of his muscle. He lit her up inside. She had no thoughts beyond
wanting him deeper, thrust to the hilt inside of her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked him into her. Her fingers gripped his buttocks, pushing him farther. Her
turn to own him. Her turn for control.
Frenzy.
Everything was urgent and desperate and frantic. She felt like her breath encompassed the entire world. Need. Such need. To
find, to press, to hurt, to soothe, to fly free.
They came together, and it was like pouring gasoline onto a fire. Infused, she could not tell where he began and she ended.
No separation. Their connection was one hundred percent, and it filled the world. There was no space for anything else. Their
oneness banged through their whole bodies. No moment existed in which they were not part of it, of each other.
She bristled with joy. It felt strong and resilient. It rippled through her body, burning her to a crisp. She was warm and
gooey and completely scorched, and she loved it.
When it was over and they were two once more and Jillian lay panting in his arms, the total obliteration of what had just
happened scared her witless.
Lucid thought surrendered to utter emotion. The wipeout had been pure. Complete. Unadulterated lust had knocked her into a
trance from which she feared there was no awakening.
O
H SHIT, WHAT HAD HE DONE?
Tuck stared at the ceiling, listening to Jillian’s soft, measured breathing beside him. He wasn’t ready for this. Okay, so
his body had been ready, but certainly not his mind, not his emotions.
You’re just scared.
Hell, yes, he was scared. You bet your sweet ass he was scared.
It was the Baileys Irish Cream, the snow, the romance of the fireplace. It was
When Harry Met Sally
. It was her distractingly wonderful smell. It was the stew and the cornbread and the coziness of married life he missed.
Tuck searched for something, anything to blame, except for the truth.
Himself.
They could put this behind them, he tried to convince himself. They could go back to being friends. This didn’t have to get
complicated or sticky. They were sophisticated adults.
It was a one-time thing. An error in judgment. It didn’t have to define their relationship from here on out.
Except that Tuck yearned to reach across that bed, pull her to him, and make love to her all over again.
Don’t do it; don’t compound the mistake.
He had to get up. Get out of here. But there was nowhere to go. A blizzard wailed outside. They were stuck.
His hand reached across the bed and felt the warm, round shape of her underneath the quilts. He turned on his side, propped
himself up on his elbow, and stared down at her.
The night-light cast a soft glow over her sleeping features. His breathing grew shallow, and his eyes drank her in. This slumbering
mystery woman who enticed him enough to make him forget about Aimee.
Guilt clamped down on him then. Guilt and shame. He didn’t want to feel remorse, but there it was, doing battle with his desire.
And still, he couldn’t stop wanting Jillian. She was so captivating, so alluring. She drew him in like a magnet. Any man would
want to sleep with her. She was a temptress, and she didn’t even try to be one. It was just innate in her DNA. Exotic and
erotic.
He traced his gaze over her, comparing her long, leggy body to Aimee’s. But there was no comparison. They were opposites in
every way. Jillian dark and tall, Aimee blond and small. Jillian cynical and courageous. Aimee sweet and accepting.
He ran his hand along her body, learning the slope of her shoulders, memorizing the arc of her breast, the scoop of her waist,
her taut, flat stomach.
“Tuck,” she whispered his name like a prayer in the cold, dark of midnight. She was a warm beacon, opening her arms, welcoming
him to her.
He was damned. He could not stay away from her heat, her vitality. He sought her lips and branded her with his kiss. She made
a soft noise of approval low in her long, slender throat.
His hand found her nipple, and she shivered beneath his fingertips. She felt so good, so right, and yet he was so scared.
Terrified of what he was getting into. It felt like quicksand. He was drowning, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—turn back no matter
how hard he tried.
Tuck tugged her to him, pressing his erection against her leg and running his hand down her spine, feeling each vertebra as
his mouth trailed over her skin.
Jillian sighed and threaded her fingers through his hair.
Tuck slipped his hand down her back to the round smoothness of her butt. God, what a magnificent ass she possessed. Urgent
need welled up in him, just as strong as before. Need he both regretted and longed for.
Kissing her hard, he stroked one hand along her buttocks, the other across her stomach, sending it lower until he slipped
a palm between her thighs.
Her eyes were trained on his face. He could feel the heat of her gaze. He looked deeply into her, felt something slip inside
him. Something brave and worrisome.
And then he found her sweet spot. She was warm and dripping wet for him. He groaned his approval.
Jillian whispered Tuck’s name again and swallowed him up with her eyes.
He felt light-headed. He told himself it was the alcohol, but he knew it was not. Jillian that made him dizzy. His mind was
filled with a hundred scenarios of how he wanted to make love to her next. Carry her into the bathroom, maybe bend her over
the counter, let her watch in the mirror while he took her from behind. Or maybe hoist her legs on his shoulders and hang
her head off the bed. Or perhaps stand on the floor, drag her to the edge of the mattress, tuck a pillow under her butt, and
impale her completely. Or …