“Okay, I’m heading out.”
Jensen stopped chopping onions to glance at his granddad. The old man sauntered into the kitchen, sporting a freshly pressed white shirt, khaki trousers, and what was left of his hair slicked into place.
Jensen gave him a low whistle, then grinned. “You look ready for more than just bingo.”
“Maybe,” Granddad agreed. “I sure ain’t staying in and eating beef stew on a Saturday night.”
“It’s going to be some damned good stew,” Jensen called after him as he headed out the back door.
Jensen turned back to his chopping, moving on to carrots. Cooking might not be the most exciting thing to do on a Saturday night, but it was a hell of a lot less upsetting than the events of last night.
He’d much rather chop veggies than be back with that woman.
Ha! Now if that wasn’t the biggest lie ever told. He didn’t feel proud of it, but he’d imagined himself back with her half of last night and most of the day today. Despite all his efforts to forget about it, to write the encounter off as a fluke-which it had been-he kept thinking about it. Which was why he stood here chopping carrots with more force than necessary as if they were the very cause of all his wayward thoughts and troubled feelings.
He finished the carrots, scooped them up, and added them to the simmering stew. Then he busied himself with cleaning the kitchen. Once that was done, he found himself alone with his thoughts, and nothing to do.
Maybe he should have joined his granddad for bingo, although he knew his grandfather would have had an even bigger issue with that. Bingo at the Congregational Church. Definitely not what his grandfather had in mind for him.
Glancing around the kitchen, he couldn’t find anything else to keep him occupied. He moved to the living room and collapsed onto the sofa. Pressing the remote, he flipped through the TV channels, finding nothing to hold his interest.
“Who are you kidding, anyway?” he muttered, finally switching off the TV and tossing the remote onto the coffee table. Nothing seemed capable of keeping the mystery woman from his thoughts for long.
He paced over to the window. A breeze rustled the leaves of the huge oak on the front lawn. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the mountains. The crisp evening air was just the thing to cool the need in him.
Right, probably about as well as the cold shower had done.
But as soon as he stepped outside and the wind ruffled his hair and he smelled the earthiness of fallen leaves, he did feel his muscles relax. He strolled down the drive, focusing on the crunch of the gravel under his feet. The rustle of the leaves overhead calmed him. The bite of the cold slipped through the thin material of his shirt, and even that seemed to relax him.
This had been Katie’s favorite time of year. She loved the colors, smells. She loved Halloween. She was the only adult he’d known who planned her costume for months in advance.
He pulled in a deep breath. Now, this felt right and normal. Thoughts of Katie. That’s what he knew and understood. He didn’t understand the wildness of the previous night.
In fact, he didn’t want to understand. He wanted to enjoy his twilight stroll and lose himself in his memories of Katie. He walked for a while longer until the cold actually started to become uncomfortable rather than invigorating. Then he headed back to the house, feeling calmer. More normal.
“Hi, there.”
Jensen stopped midstride as he heard the husky, purring voice that he’d finally gotten out of his mind. Or rather, the voice that he thought he had gotten out of his head-obviously he was fantasizing again. But slowly he pivoted in the direction of the fantasy voice.
He half-expected to see nothing, just the swaying of tree limbs, the shadows in the twilight. But there she stood, leaning against the porch railing of his childhood home.
“Hello,” he managed, realizing he sounded as stunned as he felt.
They stared at each other for a moment, until she pushed away from the railing.
“So do you want to invite me in?”
This seemed to be the patented phrasing for her pickups. So do you want to… Fill in the blank. Of course he knew the real question she was asking. Just as he’d known last night, too.
“Are you having problems with your home?” he asked, stalling, also using the same approach of last night. He couldn’t let her inside, even though his body was more than willing to invite her in. Hell, one part of his body was already pointing the way.
Damn, this was not good. Not good at all. But she did look so, so tempting. As tempting as he remembered. Although she looked different somehow, too. Then he realized the leather pants and jacket were gone, replaced by a long skirt, tiered with different-colored materials. She wore a faded jean jacket. The style was more chicly hippie than tough biker tonight. Even her hair appeared longer and thicker, framing her delicate features. He liked the look. A lot. Of course, he’d liked the other look, too.
She smiled widely. “No, my home is fine. I just want to see yours.”
He nodded, then, almost against his will, he found himself stepping toward her. Once he reached her, he wedged past her and climbed onto the porch. Her scent enveloped him as he passed, spicy and delicious. The smell ignited him, making his body react. He pushed the front door open, then stood back to allow her to enter.
What the hell was he doing?
She didn’t hurry, so obviously she couldn’t see the war waging inside him. The part of him that was repeating, send her away as the other part blithely ignored it, urging her inside. Or maybe she did see, and she already knew which side would win.
She sauntered by him, her body not making contact with his, either. It didn’t matter-his body reacted. Even more.
“So,” he said, as he followed her into the living room, trying to stare at her narrow back, and not the sweet sway of her hips and bottom, “how did you find me?”
“Oh, I just sniffed you out,” she said, tossing a smile over her shoulder.
He nearly groaned. God, this woman was sexy.
She paused in the living room, turning to face him, her pale eyes roaming down his body.
He shifted, praying that she didn’t see the outline of his erection through his worn jeans. Good thing his shirt was untucked. Although her eyes did linger for a moment in that general vicinity.
He cleared his throat. “I was just making dinner. Would you like to join me?”
Her gaze came up to meet his eyes. “Sure.”
Even though he knew he must look like a rattled teenage boy, he strode from the room as if he was afraid she’d attack. Or worse, that he wanted her to.
He busied himself with checking on the stew, wrestling with the lid of the old kettle, which hadn’t had a handle for as long as he could remember.
He glanced at the woman. She smiled slightly, watching his struggle. He had the feeling that the small grin was about both his struggle with the lid and with her being there.
“My granddad really needs new cookware,” he said, for no other reason than to fill the excited air between them.
She leaned against the kitchen table, idly fingering the back of one of the ladder-back chairs.
“Do you live with your granddad?”
Jensen nodded, his gaze locked on the gentle caresses of her long, elegant fingers over the smooth wood.
“Is he home?”
He shook his head. “Gone. Bingo.”
The woman smiled-a wide, hungry, very predatory smile. Blood rushed through him at the sight, centering in one part of his body. A part that was already stealing its own fair share.
“Then we’re all alone?”
“Yeah.” At least he’d managed that one word without sounding like an overeager, yet scared shitless, teenager.
Her smile widened-she had an amazing smile. A smile he couldn’t look away from. That is, until her hands slid down over her thighs, catching the loose fabric of her skirt.
Slowly she knotted the material, each bunching of the skirt drawing it higher and higher until her calves were exposed. Then her knees. Then the smooth, creamy skin of her thighs. Finally she stopped, the material billowing just high enough to glimpse the pouty curve of her sex and small thatch of tight curls hiding the moisture beneath.
His breathing stopped. His body hardened, ripcord tight. He stared, unable to look away from her sweet body.
“I thought… ” Her words trailed off, and that finally brought him out of his dazed amazement-and trance.
When he met her eyes, he saw just a glimpse of apprehension there. Uncertainty. Somehow that, combined with the utter brazenness of hiking her skirt up, made his blood ignite. He wanted this woman. God, he did.
“I thought maybe we could have a repeat of last night.”
For just the briefest moment, sanity held, and Jensen hesitated. They couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t have another day like today. The guilt, the regret, the longing for more.
Longing for more-that was what got him. The other two emotions hadn’t tempered that one-not in the least. He still wanted this woman-as much as his next breath.
“Do you want me?” she asked, and again he thought he heard uncertainty in her voice.
He stared at her for a moment. Was she kidding? What man could turn down this invitation, offering herself to him as she was.
A man whose love of his life died in his arms, his lucid brain informed him.
But still, he took a step toward her. Then another and another, until he was standing directly in front of her, looking into her pale, pale eyes. Rather than down at her still-raised skirt, which brushed his thighs. He could feel it through the denim of his jeans.
Like last night, fingers traced the curve of lips, of cheeks, of jawline. Except tonight, it was his turn to explore her, tracing her features. Just as she’d done to him.
She remained perfectly still under his exploration, but her eyes seemed to touch him back. Pale moonlight caressed his skin.
“Why me?” he finally asked. This woman could have any man she wanted-why had she picked him? Why had she tracked him down? Why had she wanted him again? Had she spent the whole day remembering, just as he had?
“I… ” She touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her lush top lip as she struggled for the words. “I don’t know.”
The words were hardly satisfying, but they were enough. It was fair that she, too, didn’t understand this all-encompassing need between them.
He caught her chin between his fingers and captured her mouth. Just as the night before, the meeting of their lips erupted into a blazing, wild fire.
Lust just wasn’t a strong enough word to describe what coursed through him. It was as if, from the moment he saw her, he had to possess her. He had to drive himself into her tight body repeatedly until there was no doubt as to why she’d come back to him.
He wanted to make her his-in the most elemental way possible.
His hands left her face, moving to her waist. He lifted her onto the scratched oak of the table. Then he positioned himself between her spread thighs. She gasped as his pelvis ground into hers.
He paused. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, you feel good.”
He smiled at that, immediately thinking of things he’d like to do that would make her feel much, much better.
But again he caressed her face, tracing the delicate point of her chin, then the fullness of her lips.
“You know,” he said, moving in closer so their mouths were nearly touching. “I’d begun to believe that last night was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.”
“Is it real now?” she asked.
“Yes. Between you being here now, and the torn panties in the front seat of my truck, I do believe it is.”
She pulled back and blinked up at him. He could see she hadn’t expected that response. Then she laughed, the sound full and rich and making more desire curl through him. He smiled, too. Then he kissed her again, catching the warm, rich sound into his mouth, into his body.
The laugh immediately transformed into a moan, a sound no less appealing and even more arousing.
Knowing it showed zero-to-no finesse, he couldn’t stop his fingers from drifting to the part of her body she had so daringly and deliciously offered to him.
The damp curls tickled his fingertips. Fiery heat burned them. Instantly, he was overwhelmed by the scent he’d experienced back in the bar. A scent that made his head spin, his body tighten with barely restrained need, his mouth water.
He pushed her backward on the table. He barely registered the flutter of newspaper scattering to the floor. He was too focused on the sight of her bared to the waist, the scent of her enveloping him, luring him to her.
A scent he wanted to taste on her skin. He leaned forward, kissing her, taking small tastes with little flicks of his tongue. She did taste every bit as good as she smelled, as she looked. And he wanted to taste more of her.
His mouth left her lips, moving to her jaw, to her throat. Encountering the barrier of her T-shirt and her jean jacket, he moved farther down, positioning himself between her thighs.
He pressed a kiss to her bare knee, trailing open-mouth kisses up her inner thigh. As he edged closer to the place he most wanted to taste, he felt her tense, her legs not moving, but the muscles under her smooth skin growing tight.
He lifted his head, really enjoying the position they were in. Him practically kneeling between her spread thighs, she lounging back amongst the remaining sections of newspaper, looking down her body at him with intense moonstone eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked, purposely leaning closer so his lips were lined up with the moist curls between her thighs. God, she smelled delicious. Like hot spices, like pure sex.
Again, he noted that her muscles tightened, barely contracting, not noticeable to the eye, but there nonetheless.
“I’m… ” She nodded.
He wondered at her sudden hesitation. Shyness certainly didn’t correlate with the woman who’d just bared herself to him. The woman who came here with this exact intent.
And it was going to happen. Most definitely. Just like last night, it was impossible to stop it. Even as small scraps of his mind told him he shouldn’t. For his own sanity.
What was sanity? Who needed it?
He shifted forward a little more, his lips just grazing her. The tickle of her curls, the searing moisture, the scent. Damn.
This time, she sat up. Her knees pushed against his shoulders.
He moved back, looking up at her. Her pale eyes held easily readable uncertainty now. Her full lips pulled down at the corners.
“You don’t have to do that. I’m ready for you.”
He blinked at her words. Businesslike and informative. Not at all what he was feeling. He was on fire; he was out of his mind to get his tongue on her.
“I’m glad you’re ready. But I’m not.”
She frowned at that, her gaze flicking down toward his crotch, which she couldn’t see from her angle on the tabletop.
He chuckled ruefully. “Okay, I’m ready. But I’m not ready to stop touching you.”
He slid his palms up her thighs, nudging her back into a reclining position. He moved back toward the apex of her thighs.
“Or to stop tasting you,” he murmured as he ran his tongue up the pink fold of her sex.
Elizabeth cried out as Jensen’s tongue parted her, tasted her. She had to brace her arms to keep from falling back on the table and writhing under his amazing mouth. What was he doing?
She wasn’t so naïve that she hadn’t heard of a male pleasuring a female with his tongue and lips. But she’d never experienced it. It wasn’t something she’d wanted from… anyone other than this man.
He swirled his tongue, focusing his attention on her clitoris, his tongue hot and raspy against her. Then the velvety brush of his lips, then followed by the occasional fleeting hard edge of his teeth. Then that amazing tongue again.
“Jensen,” she murmured, knowing his name sounded like a religious word on her lips. But she’d never known. Never believed that she could want this so badly. That she could enjoy the want so much.
Then his lips closed around the straining bud, the center of all her sensations. He pulled on her, suckling the hypersensitive flesh to the point of near pain.
She moaned, bucking her hips. He licked her, more swirling, more long rasps.
She collapsed back against the table, unable to hold herself any longer. And still he continued, each sweep of his tongue more intense than the last. Until she could barely catch her breath-she could barely even remember to breathe. Then he suckled her again.
Lights, brilliant starbursts of color, exploded behind her closed eyelids. Through her body. Wave after wave of lights, of pure sensation, of ecstasy.
Then Jensen was levered over her, entering her in one thrust. Her body clenched him, as if seizing onto him in desperation. In an attempt to keep some hold on her sanity. But the thickness of him, the stretch of her body to accommodate his size, only heightened the other sensations radiating through her. A kaleidoscope of release.
She cried out again, her voice sounding hoarse, as if she’d been crying out over and over. Maybe she had. She couldn’t recall. She couldn’t remember anything beyond Jensen, and his body moving inside hers. Powerful strokes, rocking her toward something that was life-changing.
You should be scared, she thought, even as she anchored her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper inside her.
You should stop. She’d have laughed at the ludicrous impossibility of that thought if she’d been able, but only another gasp, another moan, another strangled repeat of his name escaped her lips.
She opened her eyes to find Jensen watching her, his eyes hooded but his expression intense, as if he was memorizing her every reaction. And that look, that intensity, was the trigger that threw her over the edge again, headlong into the abyss of release.
“Jensen,” she breathed, then locked him tight to her, keeping him buried fully inside her as she shuddered around him. And he pulsed in response, his body tensing as his wet heat filled her.