So did his self-control.
The feel of her squeezing him, milking his cock as she screamed and grabbed the bed posts…too much for his overwrought body. He needed her too much. Needed to mark her somehow. It was crazy and primitive and he’d never felt such an urge in his life, but Noah wasn’t about to deny it, not when white fire shot up the length of his erection, starbursting ecstasy through his body as he shouted in satisfaction and came deep inside her fluttering pussy.
Slowly they caught their breath. A minute slid by. Another. Noah didn’t resist the urge to kiss her cheeks, the tip of her pert nose, her swollen mouth. He caressed the line from her hip to her waist until he wandered up to her breast, settling over her shoulder. He held her close. And didn’t move.
He could stay like this, with her, forever.
Being with Lauren was beyond anything he’d ever known. He wanted to grab her, blurt everything, especially his love. Then make love to her again.
But she lay still under him, growing tense. She unhooked her legs from around his waist. Unease skittered down his spine, disturbing his perfect bliss. Even though his half-hard dick was still inside her, he could almost feel her pulling away physically—emotionally—and shoving her defenses back into place.
Well, hell…
“Who are you?” she murmured.
Before coming here, he’d planned to make love to her, then reveal his identity. Let her deal with it so they could start having sex, start sharing their hearts. But now…he had a bad feeling it was going to require more than one tango between the sheets to make her completely his.
What if taking her to bed once wasn’t enough to erase her qualms about getting involved with him? What if she still just saw Noah Reeves, boss, buddy, and all-around good guy?
“Who are you?” she demanded again. “I could swear I know your voice…”
He hesitated, his insides clenching as he tried to listen to his gut. It told him revealing all now would not help his cause. At all. It also chided him to try even harder to disguise his voice.
“Later,” he whispered, moving in to kiss her again.
She tore her mouth away. “Now.”
He heard the panic in her voice and held in a curse. “Shh.”
“No, I won’t shush. I can’t believe I just—just…”
“Made love with a stranger?”
“Did I? I can’t make love with someone I don’t know.”
“You know me,” he admitted quietly, careful to disguise his voice. “But you don’t know me. You don’t see me.”
“Then let me see you now.”
Noah hesitated. She had perfectly valid points. Good ones, even. But she wasn’t ready. If she turned away now, he’d never get another chance. Lauren could be frighteningly closed and private when it suited her. She’d shut him out completely.
He wasn’t about to let her go.
“Didn’t you like it?”
Between her forehead and the set of her mouth, Noah knew she would have given him an incredulous stare if she could have. “Like it? I don’t think I’ve ever climaxed so hard in my life. You’re good. Obviously. But you…took me.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to do it again. But make no mistake, I made love to you, too,” he protested gruffly.
Damn, it was hard to change his voice every time he opened his mouth, especially with his mind racing. He wished he could just talk to her as himself, rip off her blindfold, show her who he was, tell her what he felt. Figure out why she was resisting the idea of making love.
But she wasn’t ready to deal with any of what he wanted.
Lauren shook her head. “No.”
“You want it softer and sweeter, so you know I’m making love to you?”
“No.”
Now she sounded positively panicked. Noah frowned.
“You just want sex? Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?”
She hesitated, drew in a ragged breath, and sent him a shaky nod.
He froze as a suspicion took shape in his mind. Was Lauren against having a man in her life for anything more than sex? Against love? If so, he didn’t need a PhD to know her divorce had to be the cause. She’d never acted bitter. Sure, she’d been sad, reserved for a while, but resolved to move on with life. Her rejection of love surprised him. Was she scared? Of loss? Of more pain? He’d get to the bottom of the issue…just as soon as he made a point.
“I want more,” he murmured against her neck. “I want love.”
* * * *
The stranger’s sandpaper whisper reverberated in Lauren’s belly, rattling her self-control.
No love. Absolutely not. Love didn’t last. Love hurt when the relationship was over. Ali MacGraw had been really wrong when she said love meant never having to say you’re sorry. Lauren had apologized to Tim for everything she could think of…but in the end, she’d played second fiddle to a shiny new job, another promotion, trips to far-flung places. Men weren’t built for lasting love.
She hated the broken hearts and dreams left behind.
This man above her, still buried balls deep, would be no different. He might want her now, but his desire wouldn’t last. Neither would his “love.”
But his skill with her body, the way he could make her flush with a word and ache with a mere kiss…all dangerous—to her self-control, to her psyche. Even to her heart, since he could use her body to get to her emotions. And when the game was over and the challenge was gone, where would she be?
Alone and broken hearted. No thanks.
Lauren tensed, squirmed under him, wriggling her hips to dislodge him from her sex.
The friction of his cock rubbed the sensitive inner walls, igniting flickers of sensations. She gasped. Those flickers turned to sparks when he moved against her, bumping her clit, creating more delicious friction. Inside her, she felt him engorge. He grew thick, long, until he occupied every part of her sex again, pushing all the way against her cervix. So hard, as if he hadn’t come at all. As if he was completely prepared to go full throttle again.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stunned her with a leisurely withdrawal, easing out one torturously slow inch at a time. The head of his cock scraped against her slick flesh with every breath.
He touched his mouth to hers. A soft brush of lips, a tangle of sighs. With a firm, gentle stroke of his mouth, he urged her lips wider, tempting her to accept him deep. Lauren didn’t have the will to stop him, and he didn’t waste time before possessing her mouth in a velvety wet embrace. His tongue lazed its way inside, catching her own. The kiss was so unabashedly intimate it made her toes curl. It compelled her to respond, flooded her with not just heat, but warmth.
With a helpless ache, she writhed under him as he eased back inside her, and she squeezed his cock with her sheath. Sensations tore past her awareness and buzzed in her brain.
Oh my God.
He ripped his mouth away and moaned against her neck, into her ear. The sound sent flashes of pleasure dancing down her spine. His five-o’clock shadow rasped against her jaw. And his hands… Help me now! Those hands of his swept down from her shoulders, lightly tracing her collarbones before caressing straight to her breasts. Despite her mammoth orgasm a few short minutes ago, Lauren felt the blood rush to her nipples. They stood up and welcomed his fingers, which accepted the invitation immediately and toyed with the sensitive tips.
Gentle, teasing strokes over the hard points. Unhurried. Like he wanted to learn her, find out exactly what pleased her. The warmth from his fingers as he brushed and plucked at her nipples became heat. The ache seeped past her defenses and multiplied.
Even as he withdrew again nearly all the way, he touched her like she was fragile and precious. A soft sweep of fingers here, a tender caress of his lips there. Her body swelled under every touch. But what she felt was more. Much more. The longing to touch and be touched had been there, but now a desperation to matter to someone—to this man—swathed her in sweet longing.
No. This couldn’t be happening. Her body
was hers to control, not his to toy with at will. Unfortunately, her body didn’t exactly agree with her logic. And if she wasn’t careful, she feared her heart would yell “timber” and fall.
Her breasts plumped for his touch, the sensitive areolas bunched up around nipples so needy that when he bent his head to take one of the hard beads in his mouth, she gasped. And arched to him.
He accepted her offering, and a warm burst of emotion broke free in her chest. She couldn’t wrap her arms around him, so she hugged him with her legs, keeping him close.
Violently aware of the head of his cock barely tucked inside her sex and the throb of her desire pounding at her, Lauren raised her hips to entice this stranger to bury himself deep inside her again.
She didn’t just want the man. She needed him.
The pleasure of his hot lips over her, the deft curl of his tongue against her, had her moaning. The soft, insistent pull of his mouth at her nipple quickly reduced her to a whimper. She could feel her sex clenching, silently begging. Lauren struggled against the cuffs again. She wanted to put her hands on him, sink her fingers into his hair, then move lower to feel the muscles of his back work as he thrust into her. The idea of grabbing him and pulling him back inside her so he could fill her again amplified her need.
She had this wonderful, terrible feeling that with him buried deep within her, she’d feel complete.
Already, the peak of desire rose dangerously. Her breathing shallowed. Of their own volition, her thighs parted wider and she raised her hips. Still, he held himself away, kept her on a torture rack as she waited, panting with unfulfilled desire. He switched his attention to her other nipple, plucking it with his lips, nipping gently with his teeth while his hands drifted down her body to clench around her hips.
Without warning, he buried his face in her neck and eased into her. Slowly. So damn slowly, Lauren was sure she was going to lose her mind. When he had an inch inside her, her heartbeat pounded in her ears, roaring out all thoughts. In two inches, and she grabbed the headboard and moaned. In halfway now. Something soft and dangerous expanded in her chest. Damn, he was killing her with his slow pleasure. Hyping up nerves that hadn’t seen action seemingly in forever and shutting down normal logic. In six inches, and he was still moving forward in that relentlessly unhurried pace. She thrashed her head from side to side as the desire racing through her blood turned from hot to scalding and the need to feel him everywhere overcame her. Finally, he was in those last few inches, pressing against her cervix, bumping her clit—and somehow breaking down barriers to her emotions.
She screamed, then started gasping for breath.
“I’m going to love you like this every chance I get,” he muttered roughly in her ear.
Before she could say no—or say anything—her body rejoiced.
He repeated the whole process of agonizing withdrawal, followed by an endless, tormenting advance inside her. And all the while, his fingers and mouth toyed with nipples that stood so straight, he had to know they were saluting a job well done.
The friction alone set her on fire, but when he added a little bump and grind at the end, her clit throbbed, pulsed, swelled. She placed an open-mouthed kiss on his bare shoulder, tasting hot male, sweat, and desire on her tongue. Her pulse careened out of control. Emotions were a cacophony of words and needs all bouncing within her, dying to burst free. Perspiration broke out across her skin as he repeated his slow-motion stroke a third time, then a fourth.
God help her, she probably wouldn’t last a fifth.
Lauren bit her lip and tried to direct her mind elsewhere. Hockey games, Emma needing stitches after falling on a sprinkler head, really boring meetings.
During which she usually sat across from Noah and found ways to stare at him while pretending not to. She imagined Noah tunneling into her right now, those stunning eyes of his hot with passion as he gripped her hips, held her still for his invading cock. He sent her careening toward insanity—toward ecstasy—as he whispered that he wanted to love her every chance he got.
Lauren’s pleasure ramped up in a millisecond. Now beyond her control, her arousal soared higher, twisting in her belly. On another downward stroke of his slow, insistent cock, she exploded in a new and dazzling climax, squeezing down on his erection so hard, he couldn’t move inside her. Then he pulsed and spilled his hot seed. His tormented groan ripped through the night, joining her sharp cry.
Tears singed the backs of her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her and held her against his body, as if he’d never touched anything more important. As if nothing would ever be more important than what they shared.
An illusion, a mirage. Not true. Means nothing. She chanted it all in her mind as the pleasure he’d given her slowly ebbed. She wasn’t sure she believed it. Sex with someone who refused to tell her even his name couldn’t actually mean anything, right?
In a normal world, yes. Lauren got the feeling she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, at least where this man was concerned.
The silence overcame the room quickly, punctuated only by his harsh breaths and her shuddering cries as she tried to keep her tears at bay. She didn’t succeed.
Mr. Mysterious had completely taken control of her body in a slow, thorough imitation of real lovemaking. But if what they’d just shared had been a fantasy, how the hell had he torn a gaping hole in her defenses so quickly? Worse, thoughts of Noah hadn’t just aroused her or sent her over the edge, they’d ripped her emotions wide open.
She didn’t understand. The horrified knowledge of the melting ice around her heart scared her to death. She felt open and raw and vulnerable in a way she didn’t think she’d ever been.
“Get out,” she rasped.
“What?” His arms tightened around her. “Lauren—”
“Go.”
Tears seeped down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with a tender caress of his thumbs. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t act like you care. This was sex. Just sex. You’ve had it. Now get the hell out!”
“Just sex?” he growled, his voice finally rising above a whisper.
Something familiar about his voice tugged at her, but she was discombobulated and strung out on a flood of feelings she’d been holding in since long before he’d sneaked into her house.
“Yes,” she hurled back at him defiantly.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I let a total stranger fuck me. Twice.”
He went taut above her. Anxiety shot through her. She’d pissed him off. His body language shouted his anger. What would he do? Lauren didn’t think he’d harm her. He wasn’t crazy or violent. If nothing else, she’d felt his essence, harsh when necessary, giving when he could be, while he was deep inside her.
But she hated the thought that she’d hurt his feelings.
Damn, why the hell did she care about how he felt? Unless she cared, too…
Not a good development.
“I made love to you, and you know it. For a minute there, you made love back to me.”
“No,” she choked.
“Yes, and you’ll do it again.”
“Never.”
He withdrew and eased off the bed. From the sounds of his rustling clothes, he dressed quickly. Suddenly he secured her wrists to the headboard loosely with something else, something soft and pliable. Velvet ropes? He unhooked the cuffs.
“By the time you work these ties free and remove the blindfold, I’ll be gone. But I’ll be back.” He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth, and she breathed in a lungful of hot male and sex-scented air. “And when I return, I’m going to make you eat those words.”
Chapter Four
Monday started bright and early with an eight a.m. meeting Lauren had been anticipating for weeks. The restaurant chain’s