He fingered the material snugging the base of my spine, then gave a tug to the bow tied at my neck. “Let’s get rid of these too.” His fingers moved to my skirt, loosening it until everything puddled on the floor.
Reardon nudged me forward, his knuckles brushing my breasts. “Look at yourself. Watch my hands on you.”
In the mirror, I gasped. Watching his fingers sliding up my body, the sensations doubled.
“Beautiful.” Large hands–tan against my pale skin–molded my breasts until the nipples peeked out between his fingers.
“Reardon.” I tilted my head for a kiss.
“So much I want to give you.”
Oh God, yesss
.
Leaning to the side, he reached for something...hmm...ahh
...
his hands returned. Oh! I closed my eyes, opening them again when a...what?
He ran a long black box between my breasts, warming it with deep slides through my cleavage. When he opened it, my gaze flew to his.
He uncoiled the gem-studded rope of pearls, running it over my skin. I never was a pearls sort of girl, always thought they were a southern sorority accessory. But these? They were something else. One long strand of lustrous mocha colored beads separated by tiny diamonds. The necklace didn’t end in a clasp, but with delicate platinum tassels.
Tassels he flicked over my nipples repeatedly until chills chased across my body.
Bringing one of the pearls to my mouth, I bit it.
Reardon’s eyebrow rose.
The pearl didn’t crack but my voice sure did. “Um. Just makin’ sure?”
The strand looped around my neck, he teased, “You did it all wrong, darlin’.”
He walked around me and ran his hands to my bottom, arching me to him until my tits jutted forward. He licked my nipples into shiny pink buttons. Tucking a few pearls in his mouth, he brought the tip of my breast inside with the precious stones and his tongue. Lap, lap, lap.
“If it’s gritty…” He licked the circumference of my breast and went to work on the other side. “…it’s real.”
In the mirror, I watched Reardon behind me again. His palms pressed the pearls into my skin, massaging them back and forth. “
Mmm
. The way these glow remind me of you, when you come.”
This would be the dirty talk portion of the evenin’.
His lips settled near my ear. “These are yours, as am I.”
My heart banged when he rearranged the necklace to hang evenly from my neck. “Since you like my ties so much, I’m gonna give you a lesson.”
“Am I getting graded on this?” I moaned.
“
Shhh.”
He snapped the tasseled ends against my nipples, a score of fiery whips.
“Aaah!”
“Still can’t keep quiet, Shay?”
My mouth parted for a low whimper.
“Need something in your pretty mouth to shut you up?”
Jesus, yes please.
His hands worked surely, fashioning a knot at my neck, his voice rumbling from behind with an erotic tutorial, slipping, sliding, adjusting.
“This is a four-in-hand,” he explained. Two fingers scissoring open the inverted triangle of heavy pearls, he pulled on my nipples with the pearls curled inside the hill of his palm. “I like it, because it’s slim and smart...and tight
.
”
Finishing with a flourish, the tie dangling between my breasts, the tails tapping my clit, he repeated with a soft jerk on the necklace, “You like my ties, right?”
My eyelids slammed shut, my body a taut wire fraying apart with every word, every tease, every coarse caress. “Yes, Reardon.”
“Good girl.” Skimming his hand down my spine, he bent me forward. I grabbed the mirror. My nerves tingled, heat fanned from my pussy, and he entered me with two fingers, using his inverted four-in-hand move.
I undulated against him, the brush of the necklace shivering across my nipples. “Yeah, yeah, Reardon.”
Hauled up to his languid kiss, I was bowed by the fast tempo of his plunging fingers. His unrushed kiss clashed with the thrust-thrust-thrust inside me. A few swipes of his thumb against my clit made me scream in orgasm, “Oh, Fuck!”
He kept swirling, slowing.
In the mirror, his heavy lidded eyes found mine. Withdrawing from me, he licked his fingers. “Hungry?”
“Famished, baby.”
He pulled an indigo satin dressing gown over my shoulders.
Huh? So, hungry wasn’t a euphemism for
let’s get it on
? Since when?
Ever the gentleman, he tied the sash about my waist. “I’d considered keeping you naked through dinner.” Oh shit. Did I say gentleman? Adjusting the lapels to showcase my cleavage and the cravat of pearls, his hands wavered. Pushing them through his hair, he gave me a boyish smile. “I think that’s about all I can handle at the moment.”
I twirled my fingers down his chest and tugged on his belt. “Aw, you hungry, baby?”
He pressed against my hip. “Starving, Shay.”
Regardless of his obvious, straining erection, he was intent on food, the kind eaten at a table. From the dining room, I heard a scramble, a crash, and, “Damn it!”
Just like when he’d dropped his cell, mid-phone sex. Sexual frustration would do that.
In the kitchen I found him standing over shattered plates swimming amidst pools of food. He crouched over the debris, squinting at me. “Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He nodded to the phone. “Andolini’s?”
In a routine so very normal it was endearing, I placed the pizza order while he cleaned up, a smile on my lips when he shooed me away from the mess.
Outside I sipped my wine, searching my pockets for smokes. But I didn’t have pockets. I had his robe on. I sniffed the collar. Another smile curved my mouth when I thought about his tie-tying session.
“Looking for these?” He flicked the 100’s to me, bowing to light my cigarette. “Sorry about the food.” Stepping from foot-to-foot, he shoved his hands into his pockets, shy as a boy on his first date.
“I’m not.”
He sent me such a sweet smile it lit my heart. “I had it all planned out.”
“Planning’s overrated.”
He folded me into him until we were flush. “Seems so.”
“Besides, I like pizza. I’m not a fancy type of girl.” Stubbing out my cigarette, I turned to give him a flirty kiss. I glanced down at the pearls nestled by my breasts. “But as far as fancy goes, these are gorgeous.”
He complimented the girls instead of the necklace, “That they are.”
We took our meal to the crow’s nest, having our pizza picnic on a soft flannel blanket.
He served me a slice. “Pardon my fingers.”
I wanted to tell him his fingers didn’t need any pardon, more like given their own wing in the Hall of Fame, especially after what they’d done to me earlier.
We fumbled for another slice, our hands brushing and pulling back, returning to battle over the piece with the most toppings.
We goaded each other over books we read and shows we watched, his CNBC, my reality TV.
The night contracted around us, bringing us closer.
I wished I’d known Reardon before his marriage to Leila, before his brother had gone off to war.
I wished…
He was mine, and we were each other’s firsts.
“What do you do for fun?” He sprawled beside me.
“Watch television–”
“Bad television,” he joked.
“Shut it,” I threatened. “Listen to really loud music sometimes, but I can’t sing for shit. Hang out with Au...Addy.”
“Addy?”
“Yeah, Adelaide. Known her since I was in rompers. She runs The Drugstore in the Old Village, since her momma passed. I help her out, but it ain’t really what I’d call fun.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. She makes me serve the snootiest customers.”
“Ah, I can see how that would be a problem for you.”
“You makin’ fun of me, Mr. Boone?”
He held up his hands. “I wouldn’t presume. Miss Shay, please do continue.”
“She takes me to task over stocking shelves and mopping the floors.”
“Hmm
,
torture.”
I flew to his lap, throwing my arms around his neck. “Keep it up, buster.”
“What you gonna do?” He grabbed my waist.
“Maybe I’ll torture you.” I repositioned myself directly over his cock, swirling my hips.
Sitting me farther back on his thighs, he groaned. “Yes, that would be hard
.
”
My smile was victorious, until his next words. “Weren’t you going to mention August DuBose?”
I sputtered, “But you...he
...
how did you–”
“Remember the day in my study before the party?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s put it this way, you’re not as good as you think at pantomime.”
My eyes narrowed. “Shrewd.”
“Part of my job. Plus, you were very, very bad at the mimin’–”
“Okay! I get it.”
Tracing a line from my elbow to my wrist, he lifted my fingertips to his mouth. “And you like gardening, of course.”
I curled my scrubby fingernails over. “Yeah.”
“You do it a lot?”
“I made a garden for Delilah. It’s where I go when I need to be with her.” A few tears took off down my face as I rubbed my cheek against his chest.
“Sounds beautiful.” He rocked me gently while the pain eased. “I’d like to see it sometime.”
“I wish you could.”
He nodded, his lips downturned.
“Remember what I said, about infertility and infidelity runnin’ in my family back when I told you about Delilah?”
“Yes.”
“I recently found out my daddy had an affair.”
“When?”
“I was ten. Momma had had her third miscarriage. I guess, he just couldn’t, it was too much.”
His arms tightened around my back. “When did you find out, before or after you met me?”
“Right after.”
“Do you think?” He squirmed. “Shay, if you’d known before, would you have made a different decision, about me?”
“I don’t know.”
Worry creased his face. “Then I’m glad you didn’t find out first.” Scrubbing a palm down his face, he sat up straight. “Shit, I’m a selfish bastard, aren’t I?”
“No, I–”
“I wish for your sake it had never happened. That’s what I should’ve said.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Reardon.”
“Leila had an affair too.”
“What?”
He shook his head at my outrage. “I was to blame.”
“It’s never totally one-sided.”
“Is that what you really believe?” Reardon’s hands cupped my face.
I ducked away. “Not really. I know who’s at fault in my case.”
“Not true. Not from what you’ve told me. Palmer has some answering to do. And so do I.”
“Is her affair the reason you got divorced?”
“No. It was over long before that.”
A small movement was all it took to connect our lips. I raised my head and closed my eyes, pressing up until the glide of our mouths made us both gasp.
“Bedtime.” He stretched to his feet, bringing me with him.
Downstairs, the only light came from the moon bathing the vast bed in a warm white glow. I turned in time to see Reardon pulling on boxer briefs. “What are you doing?”
He raised his hand to the back of his neck. That pendant of his was sent swinging. “Putting you to bed.”