Nan Ryan (5 page)

But they had both kissed her.

Was Johnny Roulette bashful? Was that why he was asking her to kiss him? He seemed so confident, so sure of himself. Could it possibly be that this big handsome man did not know how to kiss?

Touched, Nevada swallowed hard, put her fingers into the thick wavy hair at the sides of Johnny’s head, and lowered her tightly closed lips to his.

5

Johnny Roulette
did
know how to kiss.

Nevada found out that he knew quite well, knew far more about kissing than Jimmy Bradford or Harry Douglas. Or her. After only a few seconds of allowing her to press her firmly closed lips to his, Johnny took slow, sure command.

His warm full mouth opened beneath hers and his arms tightened around her, urging her closer. His well-trimmed mustache tickled her pleasantly, just as she had imagined. For a fleeting second her nose twitched and Nevada felt she might burst out laughing. But not for long. Not when his sensual lips began to play with hers, teasing her, thrilling her, surprising her so completely that her eyes flew open and she made a weak sound of protest, signaling it was time for him to stop.

But Johnny didn’t stop. He was only getting started. Turning a deaf ear to her muffled outcry, he slid a big hand caressingly up from her waist over the slender curve of her back, even as the wet tip of his tongue slid aggressively, tantalizingly along the seam of her closed lips. Lips that naturally parted under such powerfully pleasant persuasion.

With the parting of her lips, Johnny Roulette ended that first sweet stirring kiss and slowly pulled back. Smiling easily, he winked at Nevada, lifted a hand, and proceeded to pluck the remaining tiny blue satin bows from her upswept hair. When all half dozen bows lay upon the beige damask tablecloth, he found the pins holding her hair in place. He languidly slid them from the inky curls and watched, entranced, as the long black tresses tumbled down around her lovely face and bare shoulders.

Nevada didn’t make a sound. She sat there on Johnny’s knee, spellbound, not quite sure what he might do next, but quite, quite sure she would like what he did next.

Johnny ran long tanned fingers through Nevada’s unbound dark hair, sighing contentedly and smiling as though the simple act gave him great pleasure. Carefully he drew a large portion of the shining hair to his face, inhaled its perfumed fragrance, and sighed more deeply. Then he opened his hand, released the raven locks, and watched them fall and settle alluringly upon the bare swell of Nevada’s ivory bosom.

She held her breath when he laid his big spread hand almost reverently atop the flared hair and the naked flesh beneath. Suddenly it was so quiet and close in the warm stateroom she could hear her heart drumming in her ears. It was beating much faster than usual and she wondered if Johnny could feel its furious pounding beneath his hand.

He must have, because the easy smile left his handsome face and she saw a muscle flex in his smooth olive jaw. His hooded black eyes gleamed in the candlelight as his face moved closer to her own. And his hand supped beneath the curtain of her hair and moved with slow deliberation over her breast and back down to her waist.

“Now,” he said, his deep, low voice tenderly commanding, “really kiss me, Nevada.”

Then his lips were on hers, warm and open, and Nevada realized she just thought he had kissed her before. Johnny Roulette’s masterful mouth did new, strange, and wonderful things to the inside of hers in a slow, burning caress that caused her to sigh and squirm and run her nervous hands over his muscular shoulders and up to the back of his head.

Anxiously she grabbed handfuls of the black wavy hair that grazed the top of his white collar. She gripped the thick dark locks frantically when she felt Johnny’s teeth—those white even teeth that made his smile so spectacular—gently nip at her trembling bottom lip before he sucked it into his mouth.

Johnny’s provocative kiss caused her mouth to open wide and at once his tongue, like silky fire, thrust inside to stroke, to ignite, to set her ablaze. Dazed with wonder, Nevada’s eyes fluttered open to see that Johnny’s were tightly closed, the sweeping black eyelashes fanned flat against his dramatic cheekbones.

As though he sensed her every move, those sweeping eyelashes lifted and he was looking directly into her shocked eyes. The effect was devastating. Both sighed and deepened the already flaming-hot kiss.

While the flickering candlelight bathed the pair in its pale illumination, the long, ardent kiss continued between the big dark man seated on the tall-back velvet chair and the tiny fair-skinned woman sitting on his knee. Nevada, her long gleaming hair spilling down to her waist, was completely swept away by her first
real
kiss.

If not swept away, Johnny Roulette was nonetheless enjoying the smoldering kiss. He had kissed dozens of women just the way he was kissing Nevada. And he knew already, could tell from her strangely pure yet passionate kisses, that Nevada was going to be one sweet fiery lover in bed.

At long last their heated lips separated and Nevada, wrung out, trembling with emotion, feeling as though she were literally afire from head to toe, weakly nodded yes when Johnny said, “Darlin’, I think we’d better have supper.” He brushed a kiss to her cheek and added, his lips remaining on the flushed dewy skin, “You’ll need your strength, because we’re going to have a grand time tonight.”

And they did have a grand time.

When Nevada made a move to return to her own chair across the table, Johnny refused to let her go. Hugging her tightly to him, he said, “No, baby, you just stay right here. I’ll feed you.”

He didn’t have to say it twice. Flattered and thrilled, Nevada smiled sweetly at him, content to sit upon his knee for as long as he wanted. While she laughed and shook her head and clung to his neck, Johnny, with one hand, filled a china plate with food; his other arm stayed possessively around Nevada’s waist.

There was much laughing and teasing and carrying on during the late-night meal. Johnny would lift a forkful of food to Nevada’s waiting open mouth, then, not giving her a chance to chew and swallow, he would kiss her again. She found eating very difficult and kept shaking her head no to more food.

Johnny didn’t eat. He drank instead and enjoyed to the fullest watching the lovely glowing girl on his knee happily sample the tempting dishes. She possessed an endearing childlike quality; she acted as though everything was brand-new and exciting for her. Her enchanting manner brought to the bought-and-paid-for tryst an illusion of sweet romance. It seemed almost as though it was the first time she had ever sat on a man’s lap in this silk-walled stateroom. As if this playful prelude to passion was actually a genuine delight for her.

While she giggled girlishly, adventurously sampling the varied foods, Nevada rolled her eyes and lifted her bare shoulders appreciatively. And unwittingly offered Johnny Roulette glimpses of her breasts, bare and beautiful inside the low-riding satin bodice of her gown. When she moved, the satin pulled and slid and revealed, more than once, a flash of a soft pink nipple topping the creamy flesh.

Grinding his teeth, Johnny continued to feed the lovely laughing girl until finally Nevada pushed the poised fork away, patted her flat stomach, and said, “No more, Johnny. My dress is getting so tight I’m afraid I’ll split the seams.”

“Just one more strawberry,” said Johnny, laying the fork aside, choosing a fresh ripe berry and dipping it into the silver sugar bowl. He lifted it, and his heavy eyebrows, questioningly.

And laughed loudly when Nevada nodded happily, leaned up, and closed her lips quickly around the sugared berry, murmuring, “Mm, delicious.”

But his laughter subsided when, reaching for a linen napkin to clean the sugary residue from his fingers, Nevada stopped him. “Let me, Johnny,” she said, and taking his hand in both of hers, lifted it to her mouth. The muscles in his lower belly tightened and he drew a labored breath when, her eyes shining like a naughty imp’s, Nevada sucked on his fingers, one by one, until all the sugar was gone.

“How’s that?” she asked, licking her lips.

“How’s this?” was his reply as he pulled her to him, buried his mouth in the curve of her neck and shoulder and sucked playfully, making her dissolve into happy laughter.

They continued to play. And to enjoy themselves immensely. Johnny Roulette liked this laughing dark-haired beauty on his lap. Not only was she extraordinarily pretty, she was also sweet-tempered, uncomplicated, and fun-loving. She was no more interested in his past than he was in hers. She had not asked a single probing question, a fact he found both refreshing and surprising. Most women, the moment they met him, wanted to know all there was to know about him. He regarded their inquiries as tiresome intrusions. Apparently this one was a true professional who knew exactly why she was in this opulent stateroom with him.

To give him pleasure for the money he was paying for her time and services.

She had done just that from the moment downstairs when he handed her the dice to toss. Yes, Johnny mused contentedly, his appreciative gaze resting on her satin-draped breasts, he had finally gotten lucky tonight. He had won for the first time in months. Won big. Won money that he badly needed after the long dry spell. And he would wager his favorite gold studs that his gorgeous little Lady Luck was just as good in bed as she was at the tables.

Could any man ask for more?

Pleased with his run of good fortune, Johnny kept kissing his living, breathing good-luck charm hotly between drinks of champagne from a shared glass. Nevada’s appetite for food had been sated but she continued to be thirsty, so she gratefully took long cooling sips of the chilled wine. And had no idea that she was growing increasingly tipsy.

For that matter, Johnny Roulette had no idea she was either. He was far too inebriated himself to recognize the condition of his captivating companion. The only thing he was completely sure of was that he wanted to feel this doll-like creature’s small soft hands on him without further delay.

Drunk though he most certainly was, Johnny deftly removed all the gleaming gold studs from his pleated shirtfront. When they lay in the palm of his hand, he placed them atop the table. The movement caused the open white shirt to part and Nevada’s eyes were drawn to his dark muscular chest. She swallowed hard when Johnny encircled her wrist in his fingers, raised it to his lips, kissed its pulse, then drew her hand inside his opened shirt.

“Touch me, sweetheart,” said Johnny, releasing her hand.

“Johnny,” she breathed, amazed by the heat and strength beneath her fingertips. “Johnny, Johnny,” she softly murmured, her wide eyes slowly lowering to look at the bare brown flesh he had exposed. Tentatively she allowed her fingers to glide over the thick crisp hair covering his broad chest. Like a child with a fascinating new toy, she stared and stroked, pushing his shirt farther apart, her bottom lip sucked behind her teeth in awed concentration.

Johnny Roulette was astonished by the pleasurable torment her small hand was causing him. His heartbeat promptly quickened and he reached out, captured her chin, and urged her mouth to his.

It was a fiery lingering kiss, and during it, Nevada, anxiously molding her parted lips to his, moved her hand down from the hard flat muscles of Johnny’s chest to the smooth bare flesh of his abdomen. And softly winced with wonder when she realized that her flattened palm lay directly atop a strong pulse point in his stomach. She pressed her eager fingers more closely to that rhythmic beating and sighed with joy when the fierce throbbing surged right through her fingertips and she was no longer certain whose heartbeat she was feeling. His? Hers? Theirs. Two heartbeats becoming one.

Two hearts becoming one.

Nevada sighed softly with rising ecstasy. The chilled wine, the warm night, the heated kisses had worked their subtle seductive magic on the young, inexperienced girl longing for love. She was deep in a beautiful dream. Dwelling in a glorious loveland. A floating Eden where she wanted to drift for all the rest of her days, wrapped in the strong protective arms of the awesomely masculine, ruggedly handsome Johnny Roulette.

She was so lost in that romantic dream, it seemed the most natural thing in the world when Johnny, holding her in his arms, rose from his chair and crossed the room. Pausing before a white interior door, Johnny lowered his dark head and kissed her deeply, then said, “Love me, baby.”

“Forever, Johnny. Forever.”

6