Earth Bound (10 page)

But he seemed to surprise them both when he leaned forward and licked her most intimate flesh.

That was it. That was all it took for whatever reservations she’d had to evaporate. This—whatever it was—was going to be wonderful.

She made an incoherent noise and stretched out along the seat.

He took his time, like he was learning the geography of a new place. Once he’d taken in the broad contours, he focused on her clit.

She exhaled, long and low, and let the autumn air run over her. It smelled like hay and rain. The damp, as the sun set and the humidity in the air turned to dew, mixed with the sweat breaking out on her skin. It made her feel clean, but of course she wasn’t. A man was licking her to ecstasy in the front seat of her car. And that contradiction? Well, of all the things she’d done in her life, this moment was probably the most erotic.

Parsons—because even now, she couldn’t think of him as Eugene—had an extremely talented tongue. He scrolled patterns on the most delicate parts of her, caught on folds and sensitive places she didn’t know she had, until she was shaking with the need to come.

She shifted on the seat, ran her hands down her torso, and rubbed over her breasts. When his chin nudged against her, she urged, “More.”

He hummed in response, evidently telling her relax.

But she didn’t know how to relax. All she knew was that she needed release.

She shifted again, trying to get him to turn his attentions lower.

“
More
,” she repeated, more urgently.

But the stupid, infuriating man didn’t give it. She rocked against him, trying to get the rhythm she needed. But it wasn’t enough.

She pushed her hands lower, but he lifted his mouth from her while he caught and trapped her wrists in one of his hands.

She made a noise, half frustration, half gasp. “Listen, asshole,” she managed to get out. “I need—”

He pushed a finger into her.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she breathed out.

 
He added another finger, and they began to work together: her bucking against him, him thrusting into her.

When she found release, it went on forever, until he’d made her feel gorgeous and sated and very, very tired. Until her back ached with the force of her climax.

His face still rested against her leg. When he spoke, however, he sounded utterly normal, like he might in a meeting. “Do you know that hotel Mulligan’s? On El Camino?”

She nodded weakly. Then she realized he couldn’t see her, so she said, “Uh-huh?” She knew the one. It was rather… seedy.

“Meet me there.”

She pushed up onto her elbows.

Parsons had stood and was straightening his glasses. He hadn’t even bothered to take them off as he’d serviced her. It wasn’t totally night yet, though it would be in a few minutes. Other than the dark spots the dew had left on his knees and his chin, which was shining from her arousal, he looked perfectly together.

“I’m going to get some condoms,” he said as he ran his hands down the wrinkles on his shirt. “Then I’ll meet you there in a half hour.”

“Why would I meet you?”

“Because I’m going to fuck you until neither of us can see straight.”

She gasped as she felt the words in her core. They were a vow, and spoken more intensely than anything he’d ever said to her before.

The only answer she had for him was “Oh.”

He looked at her for the first time since finishing. “We never talk about this at work.”

He’d said it several times. The boundary was important to him.

“And we never talk about work there,” she agreed.

“There?”

She shoved her hair over her ear and shimmied her skirt down her hips. She shuffled down the edge of the seat until her feet were on the ground between his. She couldn’t have this conversation with him while she was so exposed.

“Do you really want to pretend this will be the only time?” she asked after a few beats.

“No.” Then he nodded, curt, decided. “I’ll see you soon.”

He raised his hand as if to touch her, but he let it drop without doing so. Then he was gone.

It was only after he’d driven away that she realized he hadn’t kissed her.

She was there.

Parsons stared at the Dodge parked in front of room nine as he sat in his own car, a box of condoms on the seat next to him. If he’d had to put odds on it, he would have put her showing up here at under fifty percent.

But over thirty.

Then he’d arrived, and the possibilities collapsed into certainty. She’d come.

He could sit outside and ponder all the reasons why she might be there, or he could go do what he’d promised her on that access road.

Putting his mouth on her virtually in public had been the most insane thing he’d ever done. But as soon as he knew he could have her, he’d had to touch her, to give her pleasure. Maybe he’d also needed to demonstrate what he wanted from her in an appropriately raw gesture. It had been crude and excessive, and it was through only the barest remnant of wit that he’d kept himself from ravishing her in her car.

And somehow it had worked, had led to this.

He grabbed the box and hauled himself out of the car.

The room was dingy, done in shades of mustard and brown that hadn’t aged well. But he didn’t give a damn about the décor. All his focus was on the woman in the center of the bed.

She was in her slip and stockings, which was a shame—he’d wanted to undress her himself. She said nothing as he shut the door behind him and stepped into the room. She only watched him with her amber eyes, the very picture of a sexpot, her lips slightly parted.

He’d wanted to taste those lips from the first moment he’d seen her. And tonight, he was going to.

He set the box of condoms on the dresser, waiting for her to react. It was a visceral reminder of what they were about to do here, and if she was having second thoughts…

He wanted her to want this as badly as he did.

Her gaze flicked to the box, then back to him. She lifted one knee, her slip sliding down her thigh until it snagged on her garter.

Well, then. He toed off his shoes and pulled his tie free. Once he’d unbuttoned his cuffs, he rolled his sleeves up to his forearms and took off his watch.

She made no move toward him. Perhaps she
was
having second thoughts. He set his hands on his hips and studied her expression, looking for what he feared might be there.
 

But as he did, she scooted to the end of the bed, her slip riding up to almost her hips, but not quite far enough for him to see where he’d tasted her. Her hands caught on his belt and pulled him to her.

The relief that rose in him when she did was sharp, nearly painful.
She hadn’t changed her mind.
 

His belt came free with two quick tugs, and she was unbuttoning his pants. She pulled out his shirttails, her nails scoring his thighs and making his breath hiss in. Then she gave him a look from under her lashes, one that sent every last drop of blood straight to his cock.

Starting from the bottom, she began to very deliberately open his shirt, button by agonizing button. If he hadn’t become used to the sensation of being crazed with need for her these past few months, the torment might have killed him. As it was, he couldn't help but groan each and every time her hands brushed against him.

Once she’d finished with the last button, she pulled open his shirt… and made a disapproving noise when she encountered his undershirt.

He shouldn’t take that noise so much to heart, but he did. She
wanted
to see his bare skin, perhaps as much as he wanted to see hers. He shrugged the rest of the way out of his shirt. Then he pulled his undershirt over his head as she finished taking off his pants and boxers.

Once he was naked, he climbed over her, forcing her back onto the bed. He simply looked at her for a long moment as she stared back. She might be pinned beneath him, but she was somehow utterly in control of the entire situation.

He slipped off his glasses and set them on the side table, since he was close enough to her to catch all the details. The scent of her around him, the deep pull of her breaths, the sensation of her fingers skimming along his skin were what he wanted to be focused on, not merely the visuals of what they were doing.

This would be a good moment to finally kiss her, but he still wasn’t quite ready. Once he touched his mouth to hers, he might not want to come up for air. Instead, he tugged the straps of her slip from her shoulders, pulling the bodice down. Her brassiere was cream and lace, and his skin tingled, knowing this had been beneath her dress all day at work.

No, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking of work. That was the agreement. Here, this, was enough.

He thumbed her nipples through the fabric and savored her sharp inhale. He did it again, then lowered his mouth to the pulse flickering at the base of her neck.

So good. All of her tasted so good. She lifted toward him, her hands coming to clasp at his back, and he took the opportunity to unhook her bra and free her breasts. The straps had left deep marks in her shoulders and upper chest. That feminine bit of fabric had spent all day biting into her skin. He rubbed a thumb over one of the marks, which must have hurt like the very devil, but she didn’t flinch.

She shifted beneath him, dislodging his hand. “You’re very good at that.”

The first thing she’d said since he’d come in, and it was a joke. He responded in kind. “Engineers are skilled with their hands.”

“So I've heard.”

“You sound skeptical.” He cupped her breasts and rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, her eyes closing as he did. “I’ll have to prove it to you.”

She had no smart retort, possibly because he’d taken her nipple in his mouth, tracing the shape of it with his tongue. For several moments she writhed beneath him. Then her hands rested on his sides and slid up his chest, tangling in the hair there. He suckled her hard and her nails scored his skin. He groaned, settling deeper between her thighs. As her legs spread, making room for him, her slip dragged between them.

He caught the hem of it and pushed back onto his knees so he could shove it up to her waist. And stopped breathing when he did.

She’d taken off her panties, but left on her garters and stockings, the belt and straps framing the dark curls at her center.

Sonofabitch
. He hadn’t been expecting that.

He was shaking, he knew he was, but he made his hands steady as he reached out to touch her inner thigh, skimming along the strap of her garter. He put his hands on her knees, savoring the silken feel of her stockings for half a moment, before he opened her to him. Her curls were damp, the folds of her sex gleaming a deep, delicious rose. She caught at his arm, tried to pull him down to her.

He held back. He wanted to fuck her, so badly—so, so badly. But even more he wanted to see her climax again. Wanted to feel her clench around his fingers, wanted to hear her moans, wanted to see her bow under the crushing pleasure he brought her.

He slipped one finger into her wet heat, then another, and set his thumb on the hood of her clit. She moaned and lifted toward him. He caught her nipple in his mouth, tonguing it as his fingers worked at her, drove her on, begged her to give him her release.

As in the front seat of her car, he found her to be damned responsive. Quickly, a deep groan left her throat as she rhythmically pulsed around his hand, her orgasm washing over her.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He brushed his mouth over hers, soft, consuming the last bit of her pleasure. He traced the shape of her lower lip. It was stupidly full. He rolled her upper lip between his teeth, testing the swooping bow. How many times had he fantasized about this? How many meetings had he been distracted in, wondering how she might taste?

It was everything he'd imagined and more.

He’d been right—she had a tantalizing mouth. When at last he ventured inside, her tongue met his with the boldness he’d come to expect from her, and she gripped the back of his neck tightly, holding him exactly where he wanted to be.

How long it might take him to get his fill of her mouth, he’d never know, because too soon she was breaking away.

“Now,” she urged. “Please. Please.”

She’d never before said please to him, and it shattered the last threads of his control. He snatched up a condom, fumbling to get it open. Her fingers tangled with his as she tried to help him, all finesse lost to the both of them in their urgency.

Finally, finally, it was on and she was falling back onto the bed, taking him with her, her nylon-clad thighs coming around his hips.

The first thrust was… He had no words. He hadn’t experienced need like this before, and he’d never feel release like this again. At least until the next time they met.

The fact there might be a next time, that he could have another moment like this with her, kept his thrusts from being utterly wild, completely without control.

Her nails were sunk deep into his back, the pain the sweetest he’d ever known, and her hips rolled as she pushed him on. He could hardly breathe for the climax building in him.