Because the only thing he could see, now, was the darkly damp spot just where her panties covered her labia.
His instinct to touch her there was so strong that before he could assess the action, weigh it, before he could decide if it should be his next move or not in this crazy, erotic game he and Janica were playing, he was running the pad of his thumb gently over her covered mound.
Her heat seared him as she moaned and pressed her hips into his hand.
“Yes. Please. Luke,” she begged. “Right there.”
Barely able to hear her over the blood roaring loudly in his ears, he hooked his thumbs into the side straps of her underwear and pul ed them down just a little bit. Leaving her panties covering her labia—Jesus, he'd never teased himself with a naked woman like this, never wanted to reveal her as if she were his very last Christmas present ever so he had to make it last and last—he slid one hand around to cup her ass, while the other began its descent down into the top of the damp yel ow fabric.
His four fingers covered her neatly trimmed, soft pubic hair, damp from her arousal and the intense heat of her body. As slowly as he could, wanting to savor every single moment, he slid his hand lower, until his fingers were barely covering her clit.
He heard the breath leave her body in a soft gasp, felt her hands come to the tops of his shoulders to hold herself steady.
He held his hand there, just over the top of her swol en nub and it was as if her heart had stopped beating in her chest and was now only beating between her legs. One after the other he felt the hard thud of her heartbeat through her clitoris on his fingertips. The slick arousal seeping against the tips of his fingers gave proof to the intensity of her desire. Sweet lord, he never wanted to forget this moment when he'd touched her for the first time. For so many years he'd pushed this urge away, had tried to deny how much he wanted her. But so many nights, she'd been there in his dreams.
Just like this, only imagination instead of flesh and blood woman.
He lifted his gaze to her face and what he saw in her face rocked him to the core. Her eyes were closed and she was flushed with pleasure. He'd never seen anything as beautiful as Janica looked right then. But more than anything else, he was struck by how right she looked standing there, nearly naked. In his arms.
Panic slithered beneath his skin. What was he doing, feeling so much? He'd come to bash down his demons for one night, to lose himself in her body. Not to fal inShit. No. He had to get back on track. Had to keep his focus on her body. On his throbbing cock.
Not on either of their hearts.
He began to move his hand again, one slow
centimeter at a time, further down her labia. She was soaking wet and so obviously sensitive to his touch that although she wasn't speaking any distinct words, he could hear her giving soft voice to her pleasure above him, one continuous low moan of ecstasy. Suddenly, an image flashed into his head. It was so clear, so powerful, and so certain to keep him focused on sex and only sex, that even as the thought came that it wasn't fair for him to use her like this, that she hadn't ever asked him to come into her home and use her as his sexual plaything, he was yanking her panties down to her knees, and shoving her thighs open as wide as they would go with her legs stil bound by the thin yel ow fabric.
A heartbeat later, he had his mouth on her clit and two fingers inside her slick canal.
His cock throbbed hard once, then twice, and he thought he just might come right then and there. He'd never loved the taste of a woman more. She tasted like sugar and honey. Like heaven, even as he knew the hard thrust of his fingers inside her was going to send him straight to hel .
Her body relaxed and opened up to him even more as he laved her clit with his tongue in rough strokes before sucking it firmly with his tongue, her hands moving into his hair as she pressed her hips harder against his mouth. And then he could feel her vaginal muscles begin to tighten and clench around his fingers, could measure the heavy weight of her clitoris against his tongue, and knew she was about to come.
More than anything, he wanted to take her over the edge. He wanted to be there with her when she cried out. Wanted to hear his name on her lips and know that he had made her feel better than anyone else ever had.
Shit. What the hel was he doing? He'd come here for simple pleasure, to take what Janica clearly gave so freely to everyone else, and had ended up on his knees in front of her.
With nothing more than a kiss, she'd made him a slave to her pleasure instead of his own.
It nearly kil ed him to force himself to abruptly move away from her and stand up.
Her eyes flew open and her legs trembled hard enough for her to stumble back onto the couch.
“Luke, what—”
“You're not ready yet. But I am.”
She looked shocked by the words coming out of his mouth. Even as he undid his belt buckle, he felt the tug of something in his gut, a twinge that told him he was being a complete asshole, and that she didn't deserve it.
He'd always been a considerate lover, was always gentle, careful to make sure he took care of his partner's pleasure first. But tonight he wanted to know
—needed to know—what it was like to have a hot, talented mouth on his cock make him come first. Before his lover.
A lover who was so ripe with arousal that she would do anything, absolutely anything he asked.
Even if he had no damn right to ask it.
Even if he was being driven by al the al wrong reasons.
Even if they both hated him in the morning. Certain that Janica had the talented mouth he'd been craving, and that she was so close to climax she could taste it, he pointed to the wooden slats in front of his boots and pul ed down his zipper.
“Get on your knees.”
Lying half on, half off her couch, her underwear tangled around her knees, her pussy throbbing with the desperate need to come, Janica couldn't believe what she was hearing. And from Luke Carson!
Had he real y just said,
Get on your knees
?
She looked up at his face, wanting to make sure that it real y was Luke standing before her, rather than some dominant stranger that had taken his place when she was on the verge of losing it beneath his mouth and fingers.
No one had ever talked to her like that before. No one had dared order her around, either in or out of bed. Not only did she run her own design firm, she took control of everything else in her life, including her lovers. But as she lay there, staring at him, the rush of anger that should have been coming at his outright order wasn't coming. Life had never been a puzzle to Janica before. She'd never been the type to waste her time philosophizing. Her motto had always been to just “shut up and do.”
Tonight, however, any which way she looked, everything was a puzzle. Not only Luke's behavior, but hers too.
Why wasn't she talking back to him? Why wasn't she informing him in no uncertain terms that she'd do whatever she wanted whenever she damn wel wanted to do it?
And most of al , why did letting Luke take the reins
—temporarily at least—make her feel so safe? Almost comforted. Protected.
Al the while, as her brain wrestled with itself, Luke's eyes were on her, moving from her soaked pussy to her breasts and then her face.
At first glance his eyes were hard, and yet, when she looked closer, in the smal spaces between heartbeats, she could see something else in their green depths. Something that made her heart clench tightly in her chest.
Luke was in pain. And it was deep. Dark.
And there was something else there, too. An emotion that she'd seen in his brother, Travis's eyes when he looked at Lily. Her heart nearly stopped beating. She understood sex. Was perfectly comfortable to with two bodies coming together in mutual desire. But the kind of thing she was seeing in his eyes...she'd never had a man look at her like that, naked or otherwise. His voice broke into her careening thoughts. “Now, Janica.”
She snapped to at his raw words. She'd ached for him for so long, but until tonight—until just moments ago—it had been a primarily physical ache. Now, it was an emotional one too.
But even as she thought it, she knew she was lying to herself. She'd gone way beyond physical with Luke years ago, even though it had only been one-sided. Shifting on the couch, she tried to get up to go to him, but her legs were stil tangled up in her half-off panties. Moving to slide them off the rest of the way, she was stil ed by Luke's commanding voice.
“Leave them.”
Her nipples peaked even more at his words, at the picture she knew she was presenting to him, bound by her damp underwear, so enslaved by her own lust for him that she would do anything he asked.
Anything at al
Licking her lips, she took a breath to prepare to fight her instincts, which were surely going to tel her to battle him. But, again, nothing came.
Because, as she realized with a shocked jolt of awareness, she wanted to do exactly what he told her to.
Suddenly, fear roiled through her. Not at what Luke wanted from her—Lord knew she'd fantasized about taking him into her mouth a hundred times—but at how badly she wanted to give herself over to him.
No!
She couldn't do it.
Al her life she'd taken care of herself. Because she'd had to. If she stopped now, if she gave herself over to Luke, then what would she lose hold of next?
Pushing herself back into the couch, she started shaking her head as she said, “I ca—”
But when she looked up at him again, the rest of her words caught in her throat. He wasn't saying a word, but it was almost as if she could hear his thoughts as he watched her struggle with herself.
Tonight, this, what we're doing, won't change anything.
You'll still be you and I'll still be me. I'm only asking
you to give me one night. I'm only asking you to give
me this. And then tomorrow everything will go back to
normal.
Lord, how she wanted to believe it, wanted to believe that come morning she'd be back in complete control of her world, of her place in it. That she'd be back in control of herself. And her heart. Just as she always had been.
And wasn't it the truth that if she ran from him now, if she ran from what she was feeling, al it would do was prove just how out of control she was?
Of course she could do this, of course she could let Luke lead their erotic dance for one night without losing herself. She was strong enough not to lose herself in him, in his needs.
In her own needs.
Stil , getting up off the couch and moving toward him, her legs partial y bound by fabric, wasn't the easiest thing she'd ever done. Not just because it was physical y awkward, but because of the ongoing fight she was having with her pride the entire way. Until the moment he dropped his pants and boxers to the floor. And she saw the most beautiful cock in the world.
He was so thick.
And so wide.
And so long.
She'd seen cocks in al shapes and sizes and colors. But Luke's was...
She shivered. There were no words for it. Nothing that would do him justice, anyway.
She was so completely focused on his erect shaft, pointing upright, almost laying against his stomach, that it was almost an afterthought to realize that she was now standing in front of him. Not taking her eyes off of his penis, she instinctively dropped to her knees. Reverently, she raised one hand to him to touch him softly with the pad of her index finger. She ran it down the shaft, over the raised veins, felt them throb beneath her light touch.
He was so hot, velvety smooth skin stretched over steel.
So beautiful.
And al hers.
For one night.
Salivating at the thought of tasting him, of running her tongue up, down, and around his cock, she forced herself to take it slow by wrapping her hand around his huge shaft first. Her hands were fairly average-sized for a smal woman, but even once she added her second hand above the first, she didn't come close to spanning the ful length.
Final y, she raised her eyes and found him staring down at her with such desire it literal y took her breath away. Unable to do anything but react, she tightened her grip on his shaft. His arousal slipped out and onto her fingers.
“Use your mouth.”
His words were gritty and fil ed with stark need, less a demand now than a plea of his own.
Didn't he already know that nothing could have stopped her from taking him in her mouth? Stil , there was something impossibly sexy about his tel ing her what to do. And when to do it.
Just this once.
Tonight with Luke, al rules were off.
Which worked perfectly for a woman who had never much cared for fol owing the rules.
A moment later she was leaning in closer, breathing in the clean, heady scent of his arousal, and then hot, hard flesh was on her tongue and she was taking him into her mouth, opening up as wide as she could to accommodate not only his thick head but the wide shaft that fol owed as wel .
His hands had threaded through her hair, holding her against him. Her hands were on his thighs and his quadriceps bunched and tightened beneath her fingertips with every inch deeper that she managed to take him into her throat. With gentle pressure, he rocked himself further into her and she made herself relax the muscles in her throat to take even more. Just looking at him, she'd known it would be impossible to take his entire shaft. Her lips and throat had never been stretched like this. What, she wondered wildly as her body gushed arousal, was it going to feel like to take him inside her pussy?
Her mouth stil on him, she groaned at the delicious thought of his cock stretching her wide. His penis throbbed hard once, then twice in her mouth. His fingers tightened in her hair.
“Don't do that again,” he growled. “Hel , don't even move.”
Suddenly, she could taste more of him, and knew that her inadvertent groan must have reverberated al around him.
Feeling wicked, she hummed real y, real y softly. His cock moved in her mouth, and she tasted him again. God, he was delicious.