Real Men Do It Better (7 page)

“My first during a storm.” He’d had a girlfriend at the time of the accident. She’d been great during his recovery, but the lingering aftereffects had alarmed her. When he’d seen how skittish she’d become around him, he’d done what she was too nice to do and ended the relationship.

Since then, with the few women he’d approached—or had been approached by—he was a curiosity. The worst was the woman who’d boasted in his favorite local bar about fucking the neighborhood freak.

Karen wasn’t like that, but Gabe told himself to expect nothing from her beyond tonight. For all he knew, she’d had sex with him only to satisfy a kink in herself.

“Does that give me a special status?” Humming with pleasure, she stretched out alongside him. Her pinkie ticked his nipple. “I must at least qualify as legend, since I took a blow from Thor’s hammer and lived to tell. I’m sort of the Energizer Bunny of sexual relations.”

“Shut up.” They laughed while they kissed. He found great delight in the simple gestures of being able to run a hand along her arm, sink it into her thick, brown hair. He kissed her chin, her nose.
Maybe …

No. He would just enjoy her while he could.

Her fingers had found the scar on his shoulder from the accident, but she asked no questions. Just as well. He remembered little of the incident, except the sudden shock and a momentary sense of being lit up and torched from the inside out, then waking a day later in the hospital. The lightning had come out his feet. His soles had been burned so badly he hadn’t walked for weeks.

Karen sat up and slipped off her nightshirt, then snuggled in again. “Umm,” she said, nosing against his shoulder, smiling with her eyes closed.

He kissed them. Her lashes fluttered. “Who was at the door?”

“Office Dan, checking up on me. He’s so predictable. Not,” she added, “that I didn’t appreciate it, except for the bad timing.” Even in the dark, he could see the glow her face took on, thinking about what the cop had interrupted.

“He’s got a thing for you?”

“How’d you guess?” She thumped him in the chest with a fist. “We heard you up here, you know. Did you purposely make noise?”

“That was Kong, I swear. He jumped off the bed when I got on.” Gabe reflected. “Why? Did Officer Dan figure out that you had a man in your bed?”

“He’s suspicious. But that doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, yeah? You seemed pretty set on hiding me.”

“Like I said, I’m not fond of being an object of curiosity for the tongue waggers. But I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings. If it bothers you, next time you can wave your naked wing-wang out the window and—” She stopped abruptly and bit at her lower lip. “I don’t mean to assume that there will be a next time. Probably not.” She worried the lip some more. The bridge of her nose creased as she squinted at him. “Right?”

“Right.” He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted the other option until right then. Karen was quirky, unpretentious, independent, and damned cute. Aside from the mind-blowing sex, he hadn’t enjoyed a woman’s company this much in months. Best of all, she’d accepted him, not without question, but certainly without making him feel like a Ripley’s Believe It or Not exhibit. Even in the most incredible of circumstances.

She was a rare find. He could easily come to treasure her.

But he’d withdrawn into himself since the accident. It wasn’t easy to put an offer out there.

“Unless…,” he said.

Karen looked up. Her body, so warm and pliable, stiffened.

“Unless we—you know. See more of each other.” When she hesitated, still brittle, he backpedaled, saying
fuck fuck fuck
in his mind. “While I’m here, anyhow. A temporary arrangement.”

“Temporary.” The way she mulled the word, with her lashes lowered, he couldn’t tell whether she loved or hated the idea.

But what woman wanted a clock-stopping, battery-frying, jobless bum around on a permanent basis?

“I can do temporary,” she said, and reached between his legs.

Despite the sense of disappointment—of loss—his body sprang to life. He throbbed, the electric pulses gathering in the tip of his cock as she rubbed and squeezed through his briefs. In no time, without the extra charge of the lightning storm to blame, he felt as if he could shoot a thousand volts into her when he came. Her already tender pussy couldn’t take that—not a second time.

“Let me.” He removed her hands from his dick and levered them up above her head while nudging her onto her back. The prickly heat of his body blanketed hers. She arched against his weight. Her soft groan welcomed his mouth to her breasts as he nipped and tugged, rolling his face between the full orbs, going from one pebbled nipple to the other.

She tugged against his restraint, but he wouldn’t let go. With his mouth and delving tongue, he hushed her complaints. She responded by wrapping her legs around him, thighs spread wide apart as she squirmed into fiery contact with the ridge of his erection. Making small whimpering sounds, she rubbed against him. Tempting him to take her. Teasing him when he refused.

He ran his tongue over her lips. “Minx.”

“I don’t like being held down in place. I need freedom to move.”

“No? I bet I can make you like it so much you’ll stay exactly where I put you.”

She huffed. “Yeah?”

“Easy,” he boasted.

Her eyes gleamed. “Put your money where your mouth is.”

“Not a good idea, unless you want to be squeezing coins into your panties for the next week.”

She laughed, flashing teeth. “At least I’d always be able to make change.” Her thighs squeezed his hips. “You’re something else, Gabe Tomzak. Who knew Thor would be such a wise-ass?”

He began kissing a path to her navel. She quivered when he tongued it, then sucked love bites into the soft skin of her belly. “Who knew a mere mortal woman could hurl thunderbolts with the best of them?”

She purred, coiling against him. “I don’t know about hurling them. But I am a pretty good catcher.”

Raindrops pattered the roof. He used a light touch to part her swollen labia, easing his way with the liquid that had collected there like morning dew. “You sting, don’t you?” He traced the small wet opening. “Right here.” Inserted a finger with a ticklish delicacy. The slick walls tightened. “And inside.”

She nodded, tilting her head back as a tremor emanated outward from her core. He’d released her hands, but all she’d done was grab fistfuls of her pillow while sensations rippled through her, making her body twist and turn and arch, every movement a plea for more.

“I can help you.” He slid lower, between her thighs, put his hands under her bottom, lifted her to his mouth, and puffed a warm breath against her reddened sex. “I’ll make you feel better.”

She gritted her teeth. “Then your tongue isn’t a conductor? Sure felt like it when we were kissing.”

He licked her. “How was that?”

Her body softened. “That was wonderful.”

“And this?” He licked again, letting his tongue slowly unfurl inside her.

“Mmm.”

“How about…” The tip of his tongue teased at her clit before he enfolded the nub in a gentle, sucking kiss.

Her ass had flinched in his hands. “That,” she said, rising up a little as her muscles clenched. “Umm, m’God. I really felt
that.
But how am I supposed to know what’s electricity and what’s natural chemistry? Is there any difference?”

A warm pleasure opened in Gabe’s heart, putting out searching tendrils of wonder and gratitude. He kissed the inside of Karen’s thigh, where her skin was satiny smooth.
This woman is something special.
She’d known him for mere hours and already she’d made him believe that maybe he didn’t have to be defined by his condition, that what they were experiencing might be a true attraction. Even something a little like love.

“With us, there may not be a difference.” He put his mouth on her, wanting to bestow all the bliss she deserved, but the low-level current had seemingly gained energy from his emotion. He could do nothing to stop it as the charge passed through his tongue into her open, defenseless body. She yipped and slammed her fists down on the bed.

So much for the cure.

The rain drummed. Thunder gathered in a low rumbling chorus.

Quickly.
He used his thumbs to spread her, his kiss to incite her, his tongue to invade her, and an instinctive singsong from the back of his throat to quiet her bucking hips. She thrashed, then went still, holding herself as tensely as a jumper on the ledge. The suctioning pleasure increased. Her legs tried to close around his head. He gripped the back of her thighs, keeping her open to every intense sensation.

The darkness had enveloped them. He was back to a one-track mind, bent on making her lose it as fully as he’d lost himself, in a luxury of female flesh and aroma and the thrill of feeling her body tighten to his command. He strummed her tiny clit like a virtuoso until she was gasping and pushing herself against his mouth, coming in a sweet flow that filled him with satisfaction so strong he was able to tell her searching hands and willing mouth no, and no again, while lightning slashed the night sky.

She’d given him a gift beyond sex. He needed no more.

6

“Cock-a-Doodle? You answer calls for Cock-a-Doodle?” Gabe laughed uproariously.

More than the occasion warranted, though Karen was wryly tolerant. On this clean, fresh morning, everything was brighter and better than before. The earthy scent of grass and mud and straw. Her fingers, caressing the supple, oiled leather of Spindrift’s English saddle. Sunshine glanced off the puddles and rebounded on the metal sculpture in the barnyard doorway. She found herself laughing, too.

“Cock-a-Doodle-do,” she said. “A hundred times a day.”

“Sheez. A hundred times a day? I’ve got to get me some of those pills.”

“Hah. I’d be a charcoal briquette before noon.” She nipped her assumption in the tongue. “That is, if it was me you were…” She trailed off, reminding herself not to move so fast.
Casual. Be casual.

Gabe wasn’t put off. He smiled at her from across the barn, teeth gleaming against the healthy red of his lips and the brown stubble of his morning beard. “Oh, it’d definitely be you I was fucking. No other woman can take me.”

The brashness was back. But for once, she’d found a man who could back up his egotistic statements.

She giggled. “I’ve been wondering where my talents lie.”

“What about this?” His hand traced the air near her abstract sculpture, following the curves as if they were a woman’s.

“That’s, eh, not quite right.” But she was seeing the piece with clearer vision, she realized. She knew exactly where she’d gone wrong. If she hadn’t wanted to waste a minute of her time with Gabe—
cool, stay cool
—she’d be working on the sculpture right now, blowtorch in hand.

“I’m no judge.” He scratched his head, studying the configuration of steel and rust. “But it looks like a woman to me. Maybe even a self-portrait.”

Karen stared. “You think?”

The sculpture
was
feminine. She’d never considered it to be autobiographical, except now that he’d said so, she realized there might be a measure of truth in the observation.

She cinched the saddle girth. “How come you said that?”

His shrug was self-effacing. “I don’t know.”

“Something made you say it.” The knot of worry that she’d only produce what she saw in her head and not what she felt in her gut had loosened. Maybe she was going in the right direction after all. Gabe had recognized the sculpture’s essential meaning, if only on an instinctive level.

“The way the metal twists, right there.” He waved at a bend in the figure. “How it flares out here. That makes me think of you.” He cocked his head at her, the blue of his eyes sparkling with wicked intent, his smile slow and predatory. “I think of you, in bed, going wild with my tongue stuck up your juicy little cunt.”

Air sliced her throat when she inhaled. The hell with
brash.
He was brazenly confident. And there
she
was, stumbling over her tongue and worrying she’d say the wrong thing, while his boldness had her insides running with sticky sap.

Two could play that game. Mostly because it was more fun that way.

She unsnapped Tinker’s lead and walked the horse toward Gabe. “Want to be there again tonight?”

He waited a beat too long. “Tonight?”

“Or tomorrow. Tomorrow’s better. Dinner tomorrow night.” Oh, she was cool, all right.

He dropped a possessive hand over her butt. “I’ll be there.” One hard knuckle raked the seam of her jeans, sending a mini shock wave through her private parts. “And here, too.”

She whirled away. “I’ll be expecting you.”
Armed with condoms.

They led the horses out of the barn. Spindrift curvetted with excitement as Karen mounted, but Tinker remained placid as Gabe set his foot in the stirrup. Even though he’d explained that he usually didn’t give off as many shocks as he had the past night, she’d still noticed how he was careful with what he touched and how he moved. She’d given him a Western saddle—no irons, all good, thick leather, except for a few buckles and rings. If there were residual sparks lurking in Gabe, Tinker was so lackadaisical he could use the spur of a good shock.

They rode across the pasture, toward the fringe of trees beyond, where they could pick up a dirt road that would take them to Torch Lake, three miles away. Since Officer Dan had most likely appropriated the bike for the Lost and Found, Gabe had announced a plan to walk back to his cabin. Over breakfast—cold cereal because the power was still out—Karen had come up with the idea of a horseback ride.
Not
because she hated to see him go. Turning the one-night stand to a one-week stand was good enough for her.

She’d have her fill by then. Absolutely.

The setting was tranquil, rife with the pale golds and greens of spring. Birds twittered and pecked, flying up from the grass as the horses approached. They rode without speaking. The nod and swish of the horses’ heads and tails became a rhythm inside Karen, fitted to the steady beat of her heart, the memory of rocking toward rapture in Gabe’s lap.