All Work and No Play (21 page)

She dropped the shirt on the floor next to their other clothes and, though she’d said she’d wanted to take turns
removing clothes, she had to touch him first. Jane put her palms on his chest, starting at his ribcage. He was warm and solid and real. Slowly, she stroked upwards, feeling his muscles, over his pectorals and shoulders. His arms were lean but strong. She cupped her hands around his biceps, then ran her palms down over his corded forearms.

He was so strong. So much stronger than she could ever be.

Jane ran her hands back up Jonny’s arms, feeling the way his hairs caressed her palms. Back over his shoulders, down his chest. She followed the line of hair on his flat stomach downward, and heard him suck in a breath when she got to the top of his low-slung jeans. Here he was paler, the start of the untanned skin she’d noticed the first time they had made love.

‘Is it my turn yet?’ Jonny asked.

‘Not quite.’ She grasped his belt buckle and slid the tongue of his belt out of it. His jeans were button fly and as she unfastened them the backs of her fingers brushed against his boxer shorts and the hot firmness underneath. She pushed his jeans down his legs; he helped her by toeing off his shoes, stepping out of his jeans, and kicking them aside. Jane squatted down and pulled his socks off his feet.

She’d never seen his feet. He had gorgeous feet. They
were well-shaped, with defined tendons and long toes. Even his ankles were sexy, she decided as she stood, taking her time so she could look her fill at his legs on her way up. Not too bulky, but hard and muscular and masculine, with planes and curves of calf and thigh.

‘You’re distinctly more dressed than I am,’ Jonny said.

‘It’s my fantasy,’ she replied, and she tugged his boxer shorts down.

Jonny kicked them off, too, and he stood nude in front of her, and Jane couldn’t breathe.

Every single inch of him was perfect. Every little bit. Even his navel, even his knees. And his penis, so aroused it stood straight up in the air, velvet-skinned and intricately veined, was so even more than perfect that she bit her lip and had to swallow.

‘Jane,’ Jonny said gently, and it was only when he spoke that she breathed and realised she’d been standing stock-still staring.

‘You’re so incredibly beautiful, Jonny.’ Her voice was shaky.

‘I want to see you, too.’

Involuntarily, she put her hand on her chest. ‘I’m not even wearing good underwear this time,’ she said.

He shrugged and smiled. ‘I’m not wearing any.’

‘I’m—’ She turned abruptly. ‘This bath’s about to overflow.’ She twisted the taps.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘Jane,’ Jonny said again, and she could hear concern in his voice.

‘I’m fine,’ she said without thinking, and then she shook her head.

It was her fantasy. In her fantasy she told him what she really thought and felt.

Jane turned around again to face Jonny. She tried to look at his face and not at his body, but it didn’t make much difference, because his face was just as incredible as the rest of him.

‘You’re perfect, Jonny,’ she said. ‘You’re a model. And I’m—’ She waved her hand over her clothed body, as if her imperfections were too many to count. ‘I’m not going to measure up.’

The expression on his face was difficult to understand. It wasn’t sympathy, as she’d feared. Instead it was …

It looked suspiciously like incredulity.

‘Haven’t you figured out yet that you’ve been my perfect woman all my life?’

The words were unbelievable. But it was impossible to doubt their truth, because they came from Jonny.

‘Really?’ she couldn’t help saying anyway.

‘Tell me you want me to take your clothes off, and I’ll prove it to you.’

She took a deep breath, and knocked the last of her wall aside.

‘I want you to undress me,’ she said.

‘Finally,’ he said, and his tone was so mock-frustrated that she had to laugh.

He began to unbutton her shirt. She watched him deftly handle the buttons, though she kept on being distracted by the fact that his penis nearly brushed her with every movement he made. She couldn’t argue with his words, and she couldn’t argue with his arousal, either.

She looked into his face. He was concentrating fully on what he was doing as he drew her shirt off her. And she could see it: in the mirror of his eyes, she was perfect.

He caught the silver heart pendant between his fingers. ‘You’re wearing it underneath your clothes,’ he said.

Jane couldn’t quite respond to that. The fact that she hadn’t taken off the gift he’d given her seemed even more revealing than being naked.

‘My bra,’ she whispered. He reached round the back and unfastened it, and slid that down her arms, too. She felt her breasts exposed to the warm, steamy air and saw his face become softer, his eyes wider, as if he were looking at something precious.

He touched her, just below her breast, and then on the bottom curve of it. He was warm and gentle and reverent.
His thumb ran across her swollen nipple and she pulled in a shuddering breath of pleasure.

‘The rest, please,’ she said.

She remembered how they had torn at each other’s clothes the first time they’d had sex. This couldn’t be more different—a slow, meticulous unwrapping. But it was just as sexy, just as overwhelming. Jonny wiggled her jeans down her hips, taking her knickers with them. She wasn’t wearing shoes or socks, and she stepped out of her clothes and then settled her feet back on the cool floor.

Jonny straightened. He looked at her. She looked right back at him.

‘I’ve been wanting this for a very long time,’ Jonny said.

‘Me too.’

Jane felt as if she’d never been truly naked with anyone else, ever before. She held herself still and didn’t speak, or cover herself, or turn to see to the bath. She just stood and looked and let Jonny look at her.

They caught each other’s eye and both of them smiled.

‘Sorry,’ Jonny said. ‘I can’t help staring.’

His appreciation and his desire for her were both so obvious in his face and his body that Jane couldn’t help letting out a laugh of amazement and joy. Jonny’s smile widened.

She could see it in his eyes. She really was his perfect woman.

‘What do you want to do next?’ he asked her.

Jane remembered when they’d made love. How he’d touched her and given her pleasure and then surprised and thrilled her by sinking to his knees in front of her.

‘I want to see if turnabout is fair play,’ she said.

She stepped closer to him and wrapped her hand around his erection. It leapt in her hand and it felt even harder and hotter than she remembered it. She gave him an experimental stroke, upwards to the head and then back down the shaft to his coarse dark hair, and she heard and felt Jonny catch his breath.

‘I want you in my mouth,’ she said to him, and at her words his penis throbbed again. The reaction on his face was even sexier, though; his lips parted, his eyes widened, his nostrils flared.

‘Okay,’ he said, and his voice was low and deep.

His obvious enthusiasm for the idea gave her the courage to say what she was thinking. ‘I’m not sure I’m any good at it, though.’

He raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘I can’t imagine how you could go wrong.’

‘I’m just—I’ve never been very brave.’ She flushed, because she knew that sounded stupid. ‘I mean, I know
that oral sex doesn’t require a lot of courage. But I never really felt comfortable enough to experiment.’

Jonny kissed her on her forehead, and then softly on her lips. ‘I’d love to be your experimental subject, Jane.’ He kissed her again. ‘I love your mouth,’ he murmured. ‘You can’t possibly fail.’

Can’t possibly fail.
She ran her thumb over the tip of his penis and felt the slight moisture that had gathered there, and heard him groan at the back of his throat.

She’d been overtly sexy before with Jonny, but that had been an act. She’d been pretending to be confident in her abilities and desirability, and she’d been following instructions. But this time she was herself. No mistaken identities. This time it was for real.

Jane kissed Jonny on the chest, then downwards. His stomach was rising and falling rapidly with his breathing; the soft hairs tickled her lips. And then she was perched on the side of the tub, her face level with his penis.

He was even more beautiful up close. She relaxed her grip on him and ran just one finger up and down his length, feeling his soft skin, seeing how it stretched over the veins and the hard ridge beneath, how it had a slight curve, how the colour darkened to purple at the tip.

She’d never examined a man like this before, her eyes hungry for every detail. It had always seemed embarrassing.
But this was just fascinating. Curious to know what Jonny tasted like, she leaned forward and swiped her tongue lightly over him.

He tasted salty, sweet, but mostly like Jonny. She swirled her tongue around the tip of him, closed her lips over him, and sucked.

‘Jane, that’s—incredible.’

She was doing it right, then. She licked up the side of his erection as if it were a hard, throbbing lolly and then back down the other side, letting her lips take little nibbles.

Lollies were nice, but never as nice as this. Jane sucked and licked and teased and lapped, darting her tongue against the sensitive head, exploring his contours and ridges. She lightly dragged her teeth against him and he groaned.

‘You’re very good at this,’ he said. His voice was strangled.

Now that she wasn’t worried about getting it wrong, she seemed to have a million ideas. Slowly, she took as much of his length inside her mouth as she could, and then, even more slowly, slid him back out again. He felt wonderful inside her mouth. Alive, trusting, restrained strength. His sounds of pleasure encouraged her to go deeper, harder, a little faster.

‘I’m not going to be able to stand much more,’ he said
to her raggedly. She put one of her hands on his thigh to steady herself and she could feel his muscles trembling. Not taking her lips from him, she looked up. His face appeared almost as if he were in pain—his eyebrows drawn together, his eyes unfocused, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

She was doing that to him, and it felt great. She put her other hand around the base of his penis and stroked him in time with what she was doing with her mouth. Jonny let out a guttural moan and he began to move, tangling his hand in her hair and tensing his thighs, his strength no longer restrained, wild and not gentle, and when he shouted out her name and exploded white-hot into her mouth she felt flooded with power, drenched with pleasure.

And then she felt his hands pulling her up, up to him and he kissed her and wrapped his arms around her and held her to his slick chest. His heart pounded against her breast; his breathing was harsh and quick.

‘Was that good?’ she asked him, not because she didn’t know already, but because she wanted to hear it.

‘I think you have a natural talent,’ he gasped.

She smiled and rested her head on his chest, feeling his breathing slowly calm, feeling his hands stroking up and down her back from her shoulders to her buttocks and up again.

‘Ready for the bath?’ she asked him.

‘Definitely.’

They stepped into the hot, frothy, scented water and after a few minutes’ worth of careful manoeuvring, settled with her legs loosely around his waist and his around hers. She lifted a handful of bubbles and began to spread it over his chest, washing away the perspiration she’d put there.

He scooped up suds himself and caressed them into her shoulders and then, wonderfully, over her breasts. ‘You said you’re a tomboy but I’ve never met a tomboy who had bubble bath that smelled like flowers.’

She laughed. The hot water and the smell and Jonny’s body and the pleasure she’d just given him aroused her, but relaxed her too. ‘My baths have usually been man-free zones.’

‘You never took a bath like this with Gary, then?’

‘No, never.’

Jonny continued soaping her, but his face was serious. ‘Jane, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘What?’ A small stain of apprehension filtered through her contented mood.

‘I’m through pretending to be your boyfriend. I’m not going to be anything but honest from now on. But I need to know one thing first.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I need to know that you’re not planning to get back together with Gary. That you’re really ready to move on.’

She hadn’t expected that. She blinked and laughed. ‘You’re joking. I don’t want to get back with Gary.’

A small furrow appeared in his forehead. ‘So this whole charade to make him jealous—’

‘It wasn’t to make Gary jealous. It was to prove that I wasn’t a failure.’

‘How could you possibly be a failure?’

The question was so simple and said with such genuine puzzlement that she reached forward and gave Jonny a big hug. The water sloshed around them, tickling her breasts as they pressed against his chest.

‘I’m no good at relationships, Jonny,’ she said when she let him go. ‘I never got close enough to Gary to make him love me, and I never let myself really care about him, either. He seemed like the perfect person to marry because we worked so well together, we seemed to get on, and we had interests in common. But it wouldn’t have been any sort of a marriage. Much as I hated it, he was right to leave me for somebody who could give him the emotional support he needed.’ She sighed. ‘I couldn’t even relax enough to have a bath with him.’

‘And why is it different with me?’

‘Because you’re you. And I’m not trying to impress
you, or live up to anything with you, or have a perfect relationship with you. We’re friends.’

‘Who are having sex.’

‘Well, not right at this minute, but yes.’

‘I think that’s exactly what we’re doing right at this minute.’ Jonny’s thumbs circled her nipples and sent a shudder of desire through her that raised waves in the soapy water. He raised his legs a little so that she slipped forward, closer to him. She could feel his penis, erect again, resting on her stomach below her belly button.

Then he slid his hand downward into the water. Between her legs.