Like Jazz (28 page)

“A distraction?” I briefly sucked her lower lip into my mouth before letting her respond.

“You’re definitely distracting, but no. I’d like to take you to bed now,”—she traced my upper lip with her tongue—“tonight,”—she teased the tip of my tongue with hers—“tomorrow night,”—she licked my lower lip—“and the night after that, if you’ll let me.” She kissed me soundly.

“You’re sure?” I murmured through a haze of desire.

“I trust you. I want you,” she said, as I kissed her neck. “I’m willing to see where this goes.” She took my hand and delivered long, wet kisses along my index and middle fingers, pulling each into her mouth and sucking them slowly and thoroughly. “And where these go.” Grasping my hand, she placed my fingers between her legs, delivering an incredible kiss as she did so. Far too soon, she removed her lips from mine, leaving me breathless and aching with desire. “Are you?”

“Definitely.” I tasted her mouth again. After several moments, Sarah broke the kiss, smiled deliciously, and walked me into the bedroom.

I couldn’t help but smile when I caught sight of the way Caitlin was welcoming me from across the ballroom. She was wearing a floor-length, violet strapless sweetheart dress with a decorated bodice that showed off her figure. Apparently the older couple she was speaking with didn’t hold her interest enough that she couldn’t give me a tantalizing smile, clearly undressing me with her eyes as her gaze slowly traveled from my head to my heels and back up again. The black-tie affair was well attended, and it took me a good ten minutes to make my way past the various guests that stood between us, as I had to talk to some of those I passed and stay for a few introductions along the way. The older couple was gone by the time I reached her.

“Hello, Caitlin.” I leaned down to kiss her cheek. “You look ravishing, as always.” I’d gotten to know her from attending a few Foundation events over the past couple months. I appreciated her sense of humor and the ego boost she never failed to deliver.

A glass of wine in one hand, she held the other out in front of her, palm up, and swept it down, gesturing at my outfit. “And you, my dear, look positively edible.” Her grin was lascivious.

“Now, now. You wouldn’t be trying to get me into any sort of trouble, would you?”

“Mm-mm-mm,” she responded, making a sound like she was eating something delicious, her eyes never leaving my body. “You know what they say. While the cat’s away.” She waggled her eyebrows at me and I laughed. I stopped a passing waiter and grabbed a glass of champagne off his tray, nodding to him. He nodded back and moved on. The idea of Sarah as a cat intrigued me: a long, lean, powerful creature it was hard to tear my gaze from.

*

My thoughts traveled back to the idyllic morning Sarah and I had spent at her house, one of many we’d shared over the past few months since the night of the shooting. As usual, I’d awoken after she had. She was a morning person and we were definitely on different schedules where that was concerned. The phrase “rise and shine” never applied to me. I usually needed at least two cups of coffee and an hour to come to, but for Sarah, it was apropos.

I tended to wake up using my ears and limbs first instead of my eyes, which meant listening for her breathing or reaching out to feel her next to me. I’d quickly learned to channel my disappointment at realizing neither of those most mornings by focusing on the already brewed coffee waiting for me. Far better yet, I could often focus on the fresh soapy scent of her already showered body as she gently pestered me further awake. The latter did more to turn me into a morning person than I ever thought possible, since a simple touch or mischievous look from Sarah could instantly stir me awake in more ways than one.

That morning, after I’d reached out to find her spot empty, I was quickly covered by a warm heaviness that meant she’d been sitting in the nearby armchair awaiting signs of life from me, pouncing once she’d spotted them. I felt her crawl up my legs and over my back, trailing kisses as she did so. When she reached my head, she pulled my earlobe into her mouth, then traced her tongue along the inside ridges of my ear, sending wondrous tingles up my spine and forcing an involuntary shudder from me. I could feel her smile against the tender skin beneath my ear as she whispered.

“Morning, beautiful.”

Since I was practically pinned, I reached my chin toward her. “Morning, sweetheart.”

Sarah met my lips with hers for a brief kiss. She climbed off me and moved onto her side, resting her head on her hand while leaning on her elbow. She studied me with a smile as she caressed my hip. I turned onto my side to face her, rolled onto my shoulder, and greeted her with a lazy grin.

“Been up long?” I asked, gently tracing her lips with my thumb.

“What do you think?” She kissed me sweetly.

“Of course you have. Be right back.” I gave her a peck, then jumped out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. After relieving my bladder and washing my hands, I opened the door. As I grabbed my toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles, I looked back at Sarah while she appraised me from the bed.

“So, are we still on for tonight?” I asked before brushing my teeth.

“You mean dividing and conquering? Absolutely.”

After a few moments, I spat some toothpaste into the sink. “Good. Because I shouldn’t even be on the board if I can’t relieve you of some of your fraternization duties.” I watched Sarah through the mirror as she flopped down onto her back, releasing a dramatic sigh.

“When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you have as much expertise to serve on the Foundation’s board of directors as any of us, maybe even more, given your SEC background? It’s hardly just about having you fill in for me occasionally,” she said to the ceiling. Then she lifted her head to look at me. “You make me crazy when you say things like that.” She caught sight of my grin and saw I’d been teasing. I winked at her in the mirror and finished rinsing my mouth, which I quickly dried with a towel.

“Such is my intention.” I flung myself onto the bed and straddled her, holding my weight on my hands and knees, peering down at her from above.

“Making me crazy? I didn’t mean it as a compliment.” She placed her hands around my waist and gave me a look of mock indignation.

I removed her hands and pushed them out to her sides, placing her in a cross position. Weaving my fingers with hers, I pressed our palms together and let my body weight pin her hands to the bed. Leaning down, I delicately traced her upper lip with my tongue, then followed suit with the lower one. “How crazy?” I murmured. As she surged up to kiss my mouth, I pulled back just out of reach. With a little mewling sound in protest, she dropped back onto the bed and her eyes began to burn with desire. I cocked an eyebrow and slowly lowered myself until I was barely touching her lips with mine.

“How crazy?” I asked again with my mouth hot against hers. I briefly shifted to my left leg and moved my right thigh between her legs before balancing my weight again. Moving my mouth to one of her ears, I caressed it slowly with my tongue. Her breathing turned ragged and her head moved slightly away from my lips as she struggled to handle the pleasing assault on her sensitive skin.

“You’re killing me,” Sarah said, before I claimed her mouth with mine and pushed into her with my thigh.

Her thigh-length, dark-blue satin robe was sexy as hell, given the expanse of tanned leg it revealed, but unwarranted for what I had in mind. I pulled my mouth away and tugged her hands, moving them, still trapped in mine, beneath her lovely ass.

“Do me a favor,” I said as I used my teeth to pull on the satin belt that held her robe together, easily untying the simple knot.

“Mm-hmm?”

I used my nose to push each side of her robe off her body, exposing her completely. I trailed my tongue and lips across her flat stomach, then moved higher. As I circled a nipple with my tongue, Sarah arched toward me, begging for more contact.

“Keep your hands where they are,” I said, before capturing a breast with my mouth. She inhaled sharply and her legs writhed beneath me. She tried to wriggle her hands away, but I continued to hold them beneath her.

“You’ve…you’ve got to be kidding.”

I sucked and nipped and teased the one breast before shifting my attention to the other. “Unh-uh.”

“You really are trying to kill me. I have to touch you.”

“Later.”

I pulled my hands from under Sarah and let them roam her masterful body: an intoxicating blend of muscle and softness, angle and curve, femininity and athleticism. I moved higher, leaving a path of lingering, wet kisses, and lost myself in the warmth of her neck before I had to have her luscious mouth again. Alternating between teasing and passionate, my kisses continued for a luxuriously long time as my wandering hand grazed coarse hair before moving lower to briefly trace the delicate folds hidden beneath.

“You’re amazing.” I kissed her deeply. When she moaned, the combination of sound and vibration that rumbled through her made me throb with desire, and I was soaked.

I shifted my mouth to her chin and across her neck, letting my hands rove along her stomach, shoulders, hips, thighs, and breasts, in no particular order. I trailed my lips across her stomach, licking along the tiny swell above her triangle. When my fingers returned to their earlier exquisite destination, another moan from her undid me, and at that moment, I had to taste her. I pushed her parted legs further astride of me and tongued the length of her. Sarah didn’t usually orgasm without being simultaneously touched inside and out, but she liked to be taken to the brink with direct clitoral contact, and I was pleased for the opportunity to send her there.

As I stroked and sucked, her hands slid into my hair and I smiled at her inability to keep them beneath her. While continuing my ministrations, I reached up and curled my fingers in hers, and she tightened her grip on me as I brought her closer to the edge. Untangling my right hand from hers, I found her slick entrance and slid one finger easily inside. I slowly removed it and added another, before ever so gradually picking up the pace. Sarah began to buck against me with each penetrating stroke, encouraging my momentum. Soon she was moaning, and it didn’t take long for her muscles to clench repeatedly and her hips to rise off the bed as I shattered her and she cried out in pleasure.

Some sated moments later, Sarah said, a little breathlessly, “Unbelievable. Come here, you.” I crawled back up her body, planting little kisses along the way. Still sweating, I hovered above her on my elbows, gazing down upon her in wonder. I couldn’t help but marvel at the many things that made up this incomparable woman: her beauty, her intellect, the vulnerability I wanted to believe she entrusted only to me.

She brushed some hair from my forehead and smiled at me affectionately, holding my face in her hands. “My hardworking gal,” she said. Then she grinned devilishly, and this time when she surged up to meet my lips, I didn’t pull away. She moved out from underneath me and quickly crawled atop my back, leaving me facedown on the bed. Settling her legs between mine, she used a knee to raise my leg past my hips and keep it there.

She purred into my ear. “My turn.” Her voice was a low rumble that set my pulse racing. She kissed the sides and back of my neck. Then, without preamble, she inserted her right arm past my waist between my pelvis and the bed, coating her fingers in my wet center before circling my clit adroitly. Her mouth continued to cover my neck, back, and shoulders with warm, sensual kisses, and she used my body weight to increase the pressure where I needed her.

Suddenly she changed positions, mirroring with her left arm what she’d been doing with the right. From behind and underneath me with her right hand, she found me open and ready and entered me smoothly. She was no longer kissing me, needing to coordinate her movements to heighten my pleasure, but I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on enjoying it if she had been. As it was, I wasn’t going to last much longer. I was pushing hard against her and couldn’t get enough of her fingers thrusting into me.

I opened my legs still wider, and Sarah took advantage of the invitation. My body was humming with excitement. What she was doing to me felt incredible and I didn’t want her to stop. And yet, with Sarah sending me into ecstasy, I couldn’t hold out for much more. I was panting and moaning, and with one final shove of her hand, I tumbled over into orgasm, arching my back before dropping helplessly into the sheets.

Sarah crawled over me again and trailed her fingers along my back and shoulders, as she leaned into me and whispered. “God, I love making love to you.” She kissed my ear and snuggled up next to me. I turned onto my side to face her, still pulsing from the after-effects of my climax.

“Lucky me,” I said, kissing her mouth.

“Mmm. It’s a massive turn-on.”

“Is it?”

She raised her left eyebrow and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

I rolled onto my back and pulled her on top of me, kissing her thoroughly.

Then Sarah sat up, straddled my hips, and started caressing my breasts. “I’ve been neglectful.” She rubbed her palms across my nipples before taking one into her mouth.

“Jesus.” I was in awe of the sensations this woman could elicit in me. She teased and sucked and gently nibbled my aroused peaks until I was practically senseless. I wanted her mouth on me, but more than that, I wanted to be inside her again. Pushing up on my hands, I forced her up until she was kneeling on either side of me. I lightly tapped her right knee and said “lift” as I slid my left leg to the outside.

“What do you need, beautiful?” she asked as her fingers deftly took a deliciously familiar path along the inside of my thighs.

“I need…” I held myself up with one hand and brought my mouth to Sarah’s for another dizzying kiss.

“Tell me.” She stilled her movement but kept her hand where it was.

I moved my hand to her core and flicked my thumb across her clit. “I need to be inside you.” I continued stroking with my thumb as I dipped my fingers into her wetness.