Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

Pissed off by her tone and the condescension behind it, he muttered, “At your service, ma’am,” and shoved down his jeans, actually hoping the sight of his tented boxers would offend her. It did. She turned her head aside.

He kicked off his jeans, peeled off his shorts, and crawled onto the bed, stretching out on top of her. He wrestled with the sheet, cursing its tenacity, before he got it out of the way. Her legs parted. He moved into position, thrust, missed, thrust again.

It was easier than the first two times. Faster, too. Quickly over. If you looked up slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am in the dictionary…

He didn’t even give himself time to catch his breath before levering himself up. As he did, he glanced at her averted face. And froze. Fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks like silent admonitions. Her lower lip was clamped between her teeth as though to keep it from trembling.

Well, shit. How bad could it have been?

Apparently pretty bad, because her chest hitched on a sob.

“Hell, did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“You said you wanted it over with.”

She tried to say something, but the words got lodged in her throat. She swallowed convulsively.

Griff, at a loss, didn’t say anything. Instead, he laid his hand against her wet cheek. At his touch, she tensed beneath him. When she raised her hand, he expected her to remove his from her face. Instead, she covered his hand with hers, then turned her face into his palm so that the heel of his hand was under her chin and the tips of his fingers were curved up over her hairline.

Her breath struck with hot gusts of emotion. Tears were captured in his palm. He watched her throat as she struggled to contain the choppy sounds of weeping. And then, when she couldn’t hold them back anymore, she clamped her teeth again. Except this time it wasn’t her lip that was caught between them. It was the meaty pad at the base of his thumb. She sank her teeth into it.

The effect on Griff was instantaneous. He sucked in a quick, audible breath.

Her teeth let go immediately. He lifted his hand off her face. Their eyes connected with an impact as startling as the bite. Her eyes, swimming in tears, widened fractionally when she felt what he couldn’t control. Didn’t want to control. He swelled inside her with an infusion of blood so hot and insistent, he had neither the time, the willpower, nor the desire to withdraw.

He filled her completely. Or was she shrinking around him? It was difficult to tell. And it didn’t matter. Because, God, it was a rush, the most erotic damn thing ever to happen to him.

He pressed his hips forward, tentatively, testing her reaction. Her eyes closed briefly, then reopened. Her eyelashes were wet, forming spiky clumps, very pretty. There was a black speck in the iris of her right eye that he’d never noticed before, but he’d never been this close to her before. He had never really looked into her eyes. He hadn’t allowed himself to look into them.

Still tentative, he angled his hips forward and up. Her breath made a soft hissing sound as she inhaled through her teeth. Her eyes closed. Encouraged, he slid his arm beneath her, scooped her ass into his hand, and tilted her up at the same time he pressed deep. A hungry sound vibrated in her throat, because by now her lips were rolled inward, tightly compressed. She was breathing rapidly through her nose.

He pulled back, almost out, then sank into her again. She groaned. He did it again. His strokes were long, slow, and deep, and she responded with corresponding movements that soon had him calling on deities in mindless gasps.

Her hands, which before had always stayed motionless at her sides, were moving restlessly. She took fistfuls of the sheet, twisted it, then released it and reached for more, for something, and found the front panels of his shirt, still unbuttoned. She clutched the fabric, tugging until he could feel it pull taut across his back. Her throat arched as her head dug into the pillow. Her hips lifted to meet his thrusts, more shallow now, and faster.

Then holding her tightly to him, grinding against her, he came hard, and so did she. Even when he was spent, lying on her like a dead man, her tiny orgasmic aftershocks nipped at him. It was like being kissed right on the tip of his cock. He was too whipped even to smile, but in his mind he did.

Eventually they were still.

He cupped the back of her head in his hand and rolled onto his side, carrying her with him. And he held her like that, one hand securing her head beneath his chin, the other still firmly on her ass, holding her in place, keeping him inside her. The sensations were indescribable. He was torn between wanting to stay there like that until they petrified, and looking at her.

He wished there was a way to get out of their clothes without moving. He was suddenly desperate to be skin to skin. He wanted to look at her breasts. At all of her. To touch, explore, nuzzle, and pet all those tantalizing spots he hadn’t let himself even think about.

Later. Right now, her lethargy was so absolute, she appeared to be asleep. He angled his head back so he could look into her face. Her lips were slightly parted, damp and soft looking, swollen and red from her biting them. Where the fuller lower lip met the upper one, there was a shallow dimple. Jesus, that was a sexy spot, begging to be caressed by the tip of his tongue.

He was lowering his head to do just that when her body went rigid. Her eyes sprang open, and in a flurry of thrashing limbs she separated them and sat up. “Oh, God.” She buried her face in her hands. “Ohgodohgodohgod.”

“Laura-”

“Don’t say anything! Just please don’t…don’t…Oh, God.” She was groping for something at the side of the bed, and he saw it was her underwear. She wrestled the panties on and left the bed, disappearing into the bathroom and soundly closing the door behind her.

He got up and clumsily pulled on his boxers, went to the bathroom door, and knocked. “Laura.” Without waiting for permission, he opened the door.

She was working her skirt up over her hips and shoving her feet into her shoes at the same time. Once she had the skirt fastened, she grabbed her jacket off a hook on the back of the door. In perpetual motion, she pushed him aside and went past, snatched her handbag from the top of the bureau, and flung open the bedroom door.

“Laura, wait!” He trailed her down the hall. Halfway across the living room, he hooked her elbow with his hand to bring her around. “Will you wait a damn minute? Talk to me.”

She yanked her arm free, wouldn’t look at him. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Only everything.”

“That didn’t happen.” She patted the air with both hands, emphasizing each word. “It did not happen.”

“It happened.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head furiously. “No, it didn’t. I-” She covered her mouth with her hand to catch a sob. “Oh, my God.” Spinning away from him, she walked quickly to the door.

He lunged after her, but she was out like a flash.

“Laura!” he shouted.

She didn’t look back.

FOSTER WAS ON THE TELEPHONE WHEN LAURA CAME INTO HIS office. She hesitated on the threshold, but he waved her in. Her arrival gave him a welcome excuse to conclude his conversation with one of the board members. It had begun to bore him.

Running the airline wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. Key personnel were so good at their jobs, they could do them without his supervision. From a management standpoint, it was gratifying to know he’d made wise choices in hiring them. But their reliability made him superfluous.

These days he often felt like the token handicapped employee.