On the Steamy Side (5 page)

He probably lost hero points for taking her up on her offer when she was clearly still nervous. So be it.

Devon had never aspired to be anyone’s hero.

And the next instant she was reaching back with both hands and grasping his hips to bring their bodies into even closer contact.

Devon bent his head to her warm, wet neck to hide his gasp at the aching perfection of being pressed so tightly to her. He palmed her shoulders then crossed his arms over her breastbone, mouth exploring the delicate skin of her neck.

He hadn’t gone completely soft since that kiss in the bar, and now he was as hard as he’d ever been in his life. When she made a purring noise—a goddamn purr!—and nestled back against him so that his cock rode the sweet dip at the small of her back, Devon was the one who trembled.

He didn’t know it was possible to be that hard and not go off.

But apparently so, because she shimmied against him, wet skin and silky hair sliding deliciously, and Devon groaned. The weight of the water pulled at her curls, drawing them straight down until the inky strands reached to the small of her back.

He could feel his heartbeat in his cock, heavy and fast.

Blinking away the water droplets, Devon hung his head over her shoulder and watched his own hands smooth over the gentle slope of her chest to cup her full, round breasts. He loved her body, all womanly and welcoming, curvy and soft where he’d grown used to the angles and jutting bones of his fashionably thin dates.

And the way she arched against him when his thumbs skated over her nipples! The unconscious sensuality of her response melted Devon’s mind.

He plucked her nipples to make her moan, fascinated by the way her every reaction registered throughout her entire body.

Sudden, desperate curiosity seized him. He caressed down her sides, making her shiver, and tested the fit of her hips to his palms. Perfect. His fingers wandered to her bel y button, stroked the taut skin of her abdomen, then dipped lower to play in the nest of curls between her thighs.

Even in the warmth of the shower, with mist all around them, the heat of that secret spot sent excitement raging through Devon’s bloodstream.

She shuddered in his arms, twisting, although if she was trying to escape from his touch she was doing a piss-poor job of it. When Devon probed deeper and found her clit, her lips parted on a silent moan.

Devon sank two fingers into the hot, wet depths of her, thrilling with dark satisfaction when her hips jerked into his hand.

Her head fell back against his shoulder, eyes closed, mouth open. When he flexed his fingers, the ones buried inside her, she turned her face to his neck and the groan she gave vibrated against his skin.

Calling on all his skill—which ought to be considerable after the last few years; a hit TV show made a guy very popular with the ladies—Devon gently stretched his fingers apart, rubbing his knuckles against the nerve-rich skin of her opening. His thumb found her clit again, pressing and circling in a rhythm that faltered when he felt her mouth open against his neck.

The first hesitant touch of her tongue to the place where his neck joined his shoulder went to Devon’s head like a shot of bourbon.

Skill be damned, one open-mouthed kiss from this chick and Devon was the one getting weak in the knees.

He had to have her. Now.

Pulling his fingers from her body elicited another heartfelt groan. Devon panted and clasped her hips, struggling not to clamp down tight enough to leave bruises.

“Last chance to back out,” he rasped.

The sudden stillness of her body gave Devon a wicked pang of fear, but she loosened again almost at once. A deep breath expanded her ribs against his arms, then she leaned away from his chest and deliberately planted her palms on the tiled wall in front of them.

The move pushed her delectable ass so firmly into Devon’s groin that lights went off behind his eyes.

He almost missed the look she sent over her shoulder.

Hair black and sleek with water, cheeks flushed, eyes fever-bright with desire. She opened lips swol en from rubbing against him and said, “No regrets.”

Devon almost came right then and there. Throttling himself down, he bent over her back and laid his mouth to the beautiful curve of her spine.

It was hard to pry his locked fingers from her hips even for so essential a task as reaching blindly behind them for a condom, but Devon managed it. He ripped the packet open with his teeth and rolled the latex down, cursing the seconds it took, precious seconds when he wasn’t touching her.

But it was all worth it when she stretched her back and languidly parted her thighs, allowing him to catch a hint of her pink folds beneath the sweet cleft of her dimpled buttocks.

The shower beat down on his back and shoulders, a steady drum of water that numbed his skin and filled his ears with white noise. As Devon took himself in hand, gingerly so as not to over-stimulate, and guided himself to her core, he felt all the sensation in his body focus on that one spot, where his throbbing cock was notched against her.

With a muffled moan, Devon surged forward and into her. There was no resistance, only softness and slick heat opening before him and enclosing him in a tight fist of pleasure.

“Ah,” she said, her voice high and gasping. “Ah, ah.”

He thrust once, then again, and each movement of his hips against her brought another sweet, shocked exclamation from her throat.

Her legs trembled against his; her hands scrabbled at the wet tile. Devon could feel the thunder of her heartbeat where his mouth was pressed, open and panting, against her heaving back.

Feeling none too steady on his feet himself as pleasure coiled tighter in his belly, Devon was suddenly seized by the very real fear that their knees would falter at the exact same moment and they’d go crashing to the shower floor.

With a muttered curse, he pulled out, mourning the loss of her snug, velvety heat the instant he stepped back.

“Why’d you stop?” Her plaintive voice forced him to scoop her up for a kiss.

“I don’t want to break my dick when we take a dive on these slippery tiles,” he said when he could tear himself away from her mouth.

There was something undeniably amazing about the fact that she blushed at that, when they were standing naked in his shower, in the middle of some of the hottest sex of his life.

“Oh,” she said, uncertainty hitching in her voice. “So you want to stop?” Devon laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“Oh, Christ,” he wheezed. “You kill me.”

“It’s not that funny,” she said tartly. “What am I supposed to think?”

“That’s the problem,” Devon said. “You’re not supposed to be thinking at all. Let’s get back to that, shall we? Here.”

He swept an arm across the low bench jutting from the side wall of the shower, knocking Bumble and bumble shampoo and Aveda body wash to the floor.

She jumped at the clatter of plastic bottles, but her eyes got really big when Devon settled himself on the ledge, long legs stretched out, erection spearing up fiercely from its nest of dark hair.

Devon patted his thighs and gave her a cheerful leer, hoping to jump over the fit of nerves this little interruption had brought on.

“Want to come sit on my lap?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. “I promise I’ll give you a lollipop after.”

“My Aunt Bertie taught me never to take candy from strange men,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. God, what a picture she was, water coursing over her naked form, beading and dripping from the tight buds of her nipples and pooling in the shallow divot of her navel.

Devon licked his lips.

Her eyes followed the movement of his tongue. She mimicked him, maybe unconsciously, and her voice was strained when she said, “And boy, let me tell you, you are about as strange a man as any I’ve ever encountered.”

Devon let his gaze heat with his desire for her. He moved one lazy hand to cup his balls, rolling them gently in their sheath of flesh. Pangs of arousal shot up his spine and he arched his back slightly, never taking his eyes off hers.

She licked her lips again and said, “But since I’m on a new campaign to do the opposite of what Aunt Bertie always told me . . .”

With that, she stepped into the open vee of his thighs, ran her fingers into his wet hair, and bent to take his mouth with hers.

It was heatstroke, Lilah thought to herself. She was delirious from the heat of the water. Or the thickness of the sodden air meant she couldn’t get enough oxygen for a decent breath and her brain was slowly suffocating.

Something had to account for her trampy behavior. Lilah could hardly believe herself. First, okay, the decision to have a one-night stand. Definitely a little on the loose-woman side, but in her defense, the provocation was enormous.

He was, quite simply, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Far more appealing than his sheer masculine perfection, however, was the raw desire he didn’t bother to hide whenever he looked at her. The way it made her feel to be wanted like that—well. Was it any wonder she was being so forward?

Inviting him into the shower, shamelessly bending over for him, displaying herself to his gaze. Even now, she knew she should be shocked at herself, but if she were honest, all she really felt were sharp prickles of heat racing up and down her limbs, prompting her to go even further.

Lilah stared down at temptation incarnate, sprawled on the shower ledge like a decadent Roman awaiting the start of an orgy.

And he was hers for the taking.

The glass doors of the shower were completely fogged, enclosing them in a private world of heat and moisture that felt very far away from normal, everyday life, making it easier to let go.

His thighs were hard and strong where they rubbed against the outsides of her legs, the coarse hair there sensitizing her skin. She kissed him again, shivering despite the heat and luxuriating in the slick press of his tongue. When she had to either breathe or pass out, Lilah lifted her head and let her hands slide from his hair, petting the wet locks that clung to her fingers.

Lilah wanted to climb him, like honeysuckle up the side of a wall. The ledge he sat on wasn’t wide enough for her knees, though, and as she surveyed the situation, she wondered what he could possibly intend her to do.

Sit in my lap, he’d said, and with a flash of heat that made her lightheaded, Lilah thought she dimly saw what he meant.

Oh, Lord love a duck, this was going to end badly. She’d slip for sure, or her not-inconsiderable weight would be too much for him, or, or . . .

Lilah set her jaw and deliberately blanked out her over-stimulated brain’s nervous babble.

Buck up, girl.

Without giving herself a chance to chicken out, she straightened and turned her back on him, lowering herself to his lap and taking in his hard, hot erection all in one swift move.

Too swift almost, as the width of him opened her up and surged deep. Her gasp was drowned out by his shout, though, and his hands flew to steady her hips as Lilah wobbled and would’ve tumped right over at the overwhelming sensation of being impaled.

“Oh, like that, yes,” he moaned, his mouth hot and sharp against the nape of her neck, and Lilah shivered and relaxed around him.

Not sure where to rest her hands, she let them fall to the tops of his hairy thighs on either side of her.

He didn’t seem to have any such trouble; his hands roamed freely up her quivering sides and around her heaving ribcage, weighing her breasts and testing the resilience of her sensitive nipples with gentle tweaks. Lilah couldn’t make her hips be still. Her inner muscles clenched and released, and when he pinched her nipples again, the tide of pleasure snatched her up and wrung her out, climax breaking over her like a wave.

When her body went limp, he petted his way down her arms, lifting the useless noodles to link behind his neck. Lilah drowsed, content as a cat, and let him arrange her like a doll.

His . . . cock—she forced herself to think the word, getting a little thrill of naughtiness from it—was still as hard as ever, an iron rod deep inside her that teased and tormented with short, pulsing thrusts that wouldn’t let her arousal die.

He smoothed his hands down her body again, almost like he was sculpting her, until his hard palms wrapped around her trembling flanks.

“Ready?” he asked.

Before Lilah could summon the brainpower to ask what she was supposed to be ready for, he lifted and spread her thighs wide, settling them again on either side of his legs. Her toes left the floor and all her weight pressed into his lap, sending his cock harder and higher into her body. Lilah gasped, her nerve endings sparking and firing, desire mounting again.

In this position, every minute shift of his hips made her sob out a breath, the sensation so intense she was hardly aware of it as pleasure. His hands returned to her breasts, warm and smooth and sure, and the counterpoint made Lilah feel utterly taken and surrounded by him.

Every feeling his long, deft fingers, wicked mouth, and steadily pumping hips gave her swirled together into a maelstrom of light and color. Lilah lost track of time. She lost track of herself. She knew nothing but the way he played her body.

When she came the second time, it was slower, more excruciating, pulses and tremors that felt endless and overpowering. His hoarse cries echoed off the shower walls, his hands went rigid and still—and then they both hung there, gasping in the cooling fall of water.

When Devon walked into Market, he didn’t necessarily expect to be greeted with a red carpet and a phalanx of trumpeting heralds.

Sure, he’d become used to a certain level of fawning admiration over the years of his meteoric rise to fame and fortune as the darling of the gourmet food world and the Cooking Channel’s biggest star.

That, plus his undeniably perfect face, was usually enough to get him the best seats/floor tickets/ungettable reservation. Special attention to his needs and desires was a fact of life.

Well, most of his life. There were still a few places left in Manhattan he could go to remind himself of what the real world felt like. A certain dive bar on the Lower East Side, for example. And here—at Market, the all-organic hit restaurant owned and run by his former executive chef, Adam Temple.