Blind Her With Bliss (8 page)

“No, don’t close your eyes. Watch me.”

She lifted her heavy lids, staring down into the amber depths of his eyes. “I promise to do my best.” An
embarrassed
smile quivered the corner of her mouth.

His tongue came up her slit, drawing a startled gasp of pleasure from her.

“Your best effort is all I ask.”

One hand spread her wide, exposing her sensitive bud, while the other dipped two thick fingers into her slick channel. His lips came down on her, his tongue flicking the sensitive pearl. Bliss surged outward like hot currents along her nerves, heating her blood and making it hard to breathe. The visual stimulation of Damon’s flickering tongue added another dimension to the heavy ache pulling at her internal muscles.

 
“You like that?”

The sensation was amazing. She nodded, biting down on her bottom lip, unsuccessfully trying to hold back the lascivious sighs of lust he drew from her. Gooseflesh rose on her thighs as his fingers worked in tandem with his talented mouth. As her tension mounted, her hips bucked against his assault, but he never lost contact with her. Her hands fisted in the comforter, anchoring herself against the waves of ecstasy threatening to drown her.

Every time his fingers pushed, Julie tipped her hips, urging him deeper. His teeth nipped at her delicate flesh, sending pinpoints of delicious pain to her fingers and toes, only to have his tongue lave and soothe. He continued the masterful onslaught, driving her into a tortured frenzied pitch of need until she was circling the precarious precipice of elation. All she wanted was to tumble into that blessed bliss of release, but each time she teetered on the torturous edge, Damon pulled back.

She gasped out his name, begging him to bring her to release. Damon’s tongue flicked repeatedly over her clitoris, sending waves of pleasure washing over her. His fingers pushed and retreated until her muscles
spasmed
around them and she shouted out in wild abandon as her orgasm tore through her. Damon was relentless, and just as the bliss waned, his fingers and teeth and tongue pulled her back to the edge and threw her once again into the black abyss of delirium. Each time she shattered in ecstasy, he gathered the fragments, only to tear her apart again. How many times she climaxed, she didn’t know. But he continued until she begged him to stop—begged him never to let go of her.

“So this is all you’ve got?” Damon asked.

Julie sat cross-legged on her bed. After hours of lovemaking she was completely comfortable with her nudity especially since it left Damon’s incredibly sexy body stretched out naked in front of her, his head propped up in his hand. What
was
making her uncomfortable was having Jason’s past spread out between them.

“Yeah, I’m not even sure why Elvis had this stuff.” Julie waved her hands over the meager contents of the box—everything except the video tape. Thank goodness she’d tucked it away for safe keeping after watching it earlier. Betraying her best friend by showing something so intimate to a man she barely knew just seemed wrong. Still, after all they’d shared that afternoon, the familiar twinge of guilt for her deceit nipped at her conscience.
“A bunch of mementos.
There’s hardly anything here worth keeping.”

She kept her attention focused on the man who had walked into her life so unexpectedly. They’d laughed and sighed, called out each other’s names in ecstasy. Every inch of that wondrous body of his had been tasted and explored—including the tattoo on his left shoulder.

Julie had successfully dismissed the implications of the ink all afternoon. But Damon’s insatiable curiosity about the visit to Elvis’ office had alarms in her head blaring warnings she could no longer ignore. Despite her attempts to distract him, Damon kept bringing the conversation back around to the box the owner of Starry Knights had given her. Julie had finally relented. But keeping the video secret until she understood why the man in the video and the man on her bed both wore the same markings seemed prudent.

 
“How’d you know Jason anyway?” Damon asked.

“We were best friends.”

Damon traced a finger around her areola,
peaking
the nipple. “Best friends with benefits?”

She laughed as she grabbed his hand and kissed the palm. “Jason was like my brother. Our mums were best friends and did everything together. Jason and I used to share the same playpen, but nothing more.”

Damon bent and kissed her knee. “What about later?”

She laughed. “Best buds don’t date, Damon. Neither of us even considered it.” But now, thinking about it, Julie wondered if perhaps there was something more to that. She blew out a breath to clear that line of thinking. There was no way Jason could have been gay and her not know it.

“It’s true, we did everything together,” Julie continued. “Between the two of us we ran the Key Club, the yearbook, the thespian and honor societies and a bunch of other stuff in high school. The only time we kissed was during a production of
Bye, Bye, Birdie
, and that was so staged that by the time we’d done it for three months, there was no heat to it.” Emotion clogged her throat. “Well…and that New Year’s Eve kiss my junior year in college.” Tears unexpectedly welled in her eyes.

“So you guys did date for awhile?”

She let out a nasally laugh and shook her head. She wasn’t sure if the sudden tears burning her eyes came from the pain of losing Jason or the memory that came slamming back.
“Nothing sexual about that one, either.”
She lifted her shoulder, trying to shake off the unexpected sadness without success.

Julie had never shared with anyone outside her sisters and Jason what had happened to the first man who’d broken her heart. But there was something about Damon.
Something that compelled her to share her sorrow with him.
Something daring her to give him a piece of her heart.

Perhaps it was the tender way he brushed the tears from her cheeks or the compassion shimmering in eyes, either way, she knew she could trust him with her deepest secrets.

“It had to do with another guy.” Julie swallowed hard, working to soothe the hot coal of pain burning in her throat. “I’d been dating him for almost a year. I’d wrapped my life and my heart around his. I thought he’d done the same.” Unable to meet his gaze, Julie watched Damon’s fingers drawing lazy circles on her thigh. “He was graduating in the spring and moving out west. I was looking at grad schools out there so we could be together. So when he made these elaborate plans to come to Maine and see me during the Christmas break, I was sure he was going to propose.” She shrugged, trying to act like it didn’t matter as much as it had.

“Instead of giving me a ring, he broke up with me.
Told me he had been dating his high school sweetheart back in his hometown for a couple of months.”
Her cheeks puffed as she let out a shaky breath. “I
gotta
tell you,
that
stung. I knew I was naïve, but blind to the fact that going home nearly every weekend had nothing to do with seeing his family? I’m still not sure how I could have been so stupid.” She picked up an old photo of her and Jason and fiddled with the edges. “I was such a mess. My sisters weren’t very sympathetic. I guess they’d figured it out during the summer when he refused to let me visit him. The only person who allowed me to grieve was Jason. He cancelled his New Year’s Eve plans and took me out instead.” She inhaled a shuddering breath. “Jason spent a horrible night consoling me. We kissed at midnight, but it was to comfort, not seduce. He was such a good friend.” Damon’s long fingers smoothed over her thigh, and it was her undoing. A sob escaped.

“Please don’t.” Though she wasn’t sure if she was crying for the loss of her best friend or her broken heart, Julie wanted Damon’s understanding not his pity.

In a graceful move, he swung to a sitting position in front of her.

“I can see the pity in your eyes.” She shook a finger at him. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Not about losing my best friend and especially not about a fiancé that never was.”

Damon’s fingers blazed a leisurely path up her side and over her shoulder, to settle comfortably behind her neck. His thumb caressed her jawbone as he leaned forward and took possession of her mouth, his persuasive tongue exploring and soothing. He pulled away from her and tenderly kissed the tip of her nose. “Julie, I’m not feeling sorry for you. I’m just thinking what a loser your old boyfriend was, and what a lucky guy I am.”

“I’m the lucky one, Damon.” Julie’s fingers tangled in the silky curls of his hair, her gaze sweeping his face. She had been wrong. There was no pity there, only the heated spark of lust in his hooded eyes. Her belly clenched and her nipples stiffened at the memory of what they’d done together.

Leaning forward, Damon sucked her pearled nipple into the wet heat of his mouth. Tiny sparks of pleasure shot out to her fingers and toes. She wanted to give into this, to lose herself once again in his masterful seduction. But the tattoo on his left shoulder, staring up at her, demanded her attention.

She’d immersed herself in Damon’s lovemaking, wanting more of what he’d been offering, refusing to acknowledge the very real possibility that Damon was the man on the tape with Jason. Damon had set her body on fire proving over and over again that he knew his way around a woman’s erogenous zones. And though it made no sense, Julie couldn’t keep pretending it wasn’t feasible that this man with the talented tongue wasn’t also Jason’s lover. Her stomach clenched once again, not with the salacious abandon of desire, but with the very real possibility that Damon knew a hell of a lot more about her best friend than he was letting on.

She should just stop this fiasco and not let her heart cloud her thinking. Heads needed to be clear to work through a puzzle. But the heat of Damon’s lips on her skin sent currents of desire straight to her pleasure centers, turning her brain cells to mush. She should be asking him about the tattoo—not thinking about the way his body fit so naturally with hers.

 
“Hey, yoo-hoo, Julie.”
Damon waved a hand in front of her eyes.

She hadn’t been aware that he’d stopped kissing her breast.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

Ignoring the nervous tremble of her lips, Julie forced her mouth into some sort of a smile. “I don’t suppose a nice guy like you has any horrible relationship stories.”

 
“I’m male. We always have horrible relationship stories. You
definitely
don’t want to hear mine.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and plowed his fingers through his hair.

She spun to her knees and leaned against his back, snuggling into his neck. “I just can’t imagine you leading anyone on then breaking their hearts. You seem like a pretty stand-up guy to me.”

“People aren’t always who they seem, Julie.
Including me.
There aren’t many guys I know who don’t have something illicit in their past that they regret.” He laughed with obvious disdain. “But I probably have more than most.”

Did she really want to know if this man who had loved her over the past several hours had also had an affair with her best friend? Damon’s actions didn’t feel like an act to uncover information. But perhaps the seduction thing was a means to that end. He had been unusually curious about the contents of the box after all.

“Sounds like you just had your share of fun. Come on, dish.” She continued to press him.

“Let’s just say my college years weren’t fertile soil for establishing good morals and leave it at that.” His clipped tone brooked no more questions on the subject. “Aren’t we trying to figure out what all this has to do with Jason?” He turned back to the contents of the box behind them.

His abrupt change in subject surprised her. Disappointment and confusion weighed down her shoulders. Maybe Damon did have something to do with Jason. She leaned back, hoping the distance would clear her head. “Do you really think there are clues buried in here?”

Damon picked up a couple of photographs. “I’m not sure we’re going to come to a different conclusion from the police, but we should probably go through all of this again. Elvis must have given it to you for a reason.”

“No, you’re right.” Julie rolled away from Damon and sat cross-legged once again, staring at the jumble of things in front of her. Until she understood how Damon, Jason and Elvis were connected—and she did believe they all knew each other—she would troll the waters of Damon’s sexual past with caution. No sense baiting a shark without the right equipment to catch him.

“Okay, here’s what I know,” she said. “Jason was finishing up his medical internship. He had every intention of coming back to Delmont to take over his father’s private practice. He was excited about that. He told me. Why would he suddenly feel like he had nothing to live for? I don’t understand why everyone thinks that was possible.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Jules. There sure as hell doesn’t seem to be a smoking gun in here.” Damon shuffled around the photos. “You didn’t happen to find a tape or anything?”

Julie choked on her incredulity. “Why would you ask that?”

Damon looked at her and made a peace sign with both hands, shaking his head side to side. “I am not a crook.” He laughed. “You know…Nixon and the Watergate tapes?”

She breathed deeply, trying to still her hammering heart. It was a joke. “This isn’t funny, Damon. My friend’s dead. The box is marked ‘Tilling’. Jason wanted my family to have this stuff. But why Elvis grabbed it from Jason’s condo the night he died is beyond me.”

“Maybe you’re not the only one who thinks something’s just a little off about this.” Damon’s brows furrowed with concentration. “Obviously, Elvis thought someone might find something in this junk. Though I don’t know how old pictures and a yearbook will offer any clues.” Mischief lifted the corners of Damon’s mouth. “I bet you’re in here somewhere.” He began leafing through the book’s pages, but Julie snatched it away before he got too far.

“Don’t you
dare.
” She held the yearbook at arm’s length. “I don’t know you well enough to expose that part of myself to you.”