Rachel Gibson: Lola Carlyle Reveals All

Air rushed from his lungs as if he’d been hit in the stomach. He looked down at her hand resting on his chest and whispered on a heavy breath, “Friends? Jesus, are you torturing me on purpose?”

Lola looked up into his face, his black hair and brows. The deep furrow at the bow of his top lip and beautiful mouth. “Being with me is torture?”

“Yes,” he answered on a strangled groan. She took a step back, but he pulled her against his chest and said next to her ear, “Being near you is the worst kind of torture. I’m obsessed with you. The smell of your hair and the touch of your skin. When you’re near, I’m afraid of losing control.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was so close it fed her hope and warmed her heart. “I want you to lose control.”

His fingers brushed her bare back above her bandeau. “Honey, that is one thing you don’t want.”

“You’re wrong.” She kissed the side of his throat. “I want you to lose control and take me with you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He placed his palm against her cheek and pulled back far enough to gaze into her face. “I’m afraid that once won’t be enough. That I won’t be able to stop loving you until one of us is dead.”

She grasped his wrist and kissed the heel of his hand. Then she bit him. “That sounds good to me, Max,” she whispered.

He took her jaw between his fingers, tilted her face up, and lowered his mouth to hers. He pressed kiss upon hot kiss on her lips, then his moist tongue invaded her mouth and spread fire through her blood and warmed the pit of her stomach. She combed her fingers through the sides of his hair and held the back of his head. Standing within the partially refurbished parlor of his home, Lola felt the instant he lost control. The kiss turned hotter, wetter, feeding. He kissed her as if she alone were responsible for the breath in his lungs. He released her jaw and his hands moved over her, up and down her body, touching as much of her as he could. Her arms, waist, and back, above and below her bandeau. Her behind and hips. Grasping her through her skirt and finally working the side zipper until it slid down her legs to her feet.

A deep groan rumbled from his chest and he tore his mouth from hers. Their heated gazes locked, their tangled rasping breaths the only sound in the stillness.

His fists grasped the bottom edge of her top and he pulled it over her head. “This is what you want?” he asked, and dropped it at her feet.

“Yes.” She dug the end of his shirt from his pants and pulled it over his head. His shirt joined hers on the floor and she slid her hands up his bare chest, sliding her fingers though the fine hair. She brushed aside the cool gold chain around his neck, and she placed her open mouth on the side of his throat and sucked. Hard.

“Then you better hang on tight,” he said as he bent at the knees and shoved his shoulder in her stomach. He rose and upended her as if she weighed nothing. “This could get rough.”

“Max, what are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed before I completely lose it and toss you on the hard floor.”

“I can walk,” she protested as he carried her from the room. First one sandal, then the other dropped from her feet.

“Not for much longer.” Then he followed that audacious boast with a kiss on one bare cheek.

She placed her hands in the small of his bare back as he carried her up a set of narrow stairs, past several closed doors, to a room at the back of the townhouse. He kicked the door closed behind them and moonlight poured from the big arched window onto a wrought-iron bed covered in a plaid quilt. He set her on her feet, and she stood before him wearing nothing but her purple bustier bra and thong underwear.

For an endless moment he said nothing. He just looked at her, his gaze going all sleepy with lust as he tossed his wallet and a black pager on the bedside table. Then he unlaced his boots and dropped them on the floor. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know what you were wearing beneath your clothes at that bar.” He pushed his pants to his feet, then he shoved them aside with his socks. “I had a hard enough time keeping my hands from diving down that top and giving Scooter a pleasant memory.”

She looked down at the satin bows on the front of her bustier. “Do you like this?”

“Yes.” When she glanced back up, he was completely naked and moving toward her. “I like it, and I like you,” he said, and she shivered as he pulled her against his warm body, his penis hot against her bare belly.

His fingers sank in her hair, angling her head back, and he kissed her mouth, her throat, then her mouth again. In between burning kisses, he murmured the things he wanted to do to her. Things that, if she hadn’t wanted him so badly, would have brought a blush to her cheek. Sexually explicit words that left Lola arching her body against his. He shoved his bare thigh between hers and brought her crotch into hard contact with his rigid erection.

“Max,” she whispered as he moved against her, sensation collecting and pooling right there where the tiny barrier of silk was the only thing keeping his hot flesh from hers. His clever fingers worked the hooks on the front of her bustier. One by one he opened them until her breasts popped free. Before the bustier hit the floor, his hands were on her. Touching, possessing, rolling her nipple beneath his palm. His mouth fed her hungry passionate kisses, and he grasped the back of her thigh and urged her leg around his waist. His smooth erection stabbed at the minuscule crotch of her thong, now slick with her desire for him. He slid both hands down her sides to her behind and cupped her bare cheeks, pulling her tight against his body and smashing her breasts against his chest.

With his hands on her behind, he carried her to the bed and fell with her in the center. Max landed on top, pinning her with his weight and desire. He planted two hands by her shoulders and looked down at her, his gaze ravenous with his loss of control. His thin gold medallion swung between them and bumped her chin. She raked her short nails up the corrugated muscles of his belly and sternum, through the short hair on his chest, to his dark flat nipples. His breath left his lungs in a heavy whoosh when she brushed her thumbs across them. “You have a beautiful body, Max.” She pushed his chest until she had him on his back, staring down into his face. Into his blue eyes, narrowed with passion. His strong jaw was clenched, and his mouth was moist from her kisses. “Looking at you makes me go all hot and hungry.” She leaned down and her breasts brushed his chest as she licked his earlobe. “It makes me want to nibble all your parts.”

In a flash, he reversed their position until she was once again on the bottom looking up at him. “Tonight, I nibble your parts.” He kissed her eyelids, her nose, and her jaw. “Starting right here.”

He kissed the sensitive skin in the hollow of her throat and worked his way down. He slid his hot open mouth down the top of her breast, and he licked the tip with his soft tongue. From deep within his chest, she heard his low groan of need and arousal. He sucked one of her hard pink nipples before he palmed the sides of her breasts and pressed his lips to her cleavage. Then he moved to place wet kisses down her stomach, past her navel, to low on her belly. He reached for the waistband of her thong, pulled it down her legs, and tossed it on the floor.

He made himself comfortable between her thighs, then gave her a big moist kiss just above her pubic hair. Hot little tingles spread outward across her flesh as if she’d been zapped with a white-hot current. His touch seemed different from the last time they’d made love. More personal. More possessive. She felt it deeper in her heart and in her soul. It swelled within her chest like a balloon, and she felt as if she might float away.