A Thrill to Remember (9 page)

He skimmed the scrap of satin down to her ankles, his hands brushing against the enticing silkiness of her nylons.

“Step out of your panties,” he demanded.

She obeyed.

“You really are as mercurial as the wind,” he said. “One minute aggressive, the next coy, the next acquiescent. Who are you, really?”

“My identity is secret, just as you are a complete mystery to me.”

She liked not knowing him. Controlled, sensible, honest-to-a-fault Meggie liked adventure and rowdiness and subterfuge in the bedroom. As long as he remained behind the mask, as long as he was the sensual, roguish Don Juan, he could provide her with all the things she needed. But what could he do for her as plain, ordinary Caleb Greenleaf? The unsettling thought disturbed him and quashed his libido.

But not for long.

“I’m naked, and now you must get naked, too,” she declared.

The mental image of her standing completely unclothed before him dispelled his self-doubts and goaded illicit visions of untying his leather pants, freeing his ferocious erection and plummeting deep inside her feminine recess.

But not yet. She deserved much more than a blazing quickie.

She began unbuttoning his shirt, her cool fingers tracking lightly over the heated flesh she slowly unveiled. She plunged her fingers into the curls of hair on his chest.

Caleb groaned, clasped her to him and delivered a series of searingly desperate kisses to her smooth, flat belly. She moaned and slid her body down his until she was on her knees in front of him, her breath flowing hot and fast against his skin.

She explored him with her honeyed tongue, tasting the skin she uncovered while completing the task of removing his shirt. She stripped it off his shoulders and over his biceps before flinging the garment across the room. Splaying her palms against his chest, Meggie muttered a pleased sound of discovery and traced her fingers down his torso to the hard planes of his stomach. His body tensed and flexed in response to her inquisitive, reverential exploration.

“I wish I could see you,” he croaked.

“No,” she said sharply. “No lights.”

He wanted to ask why, but dammit if she didn’t start licking his ear in the provocative way she’d done in the ballroom. The very same maneuver that had caused him to press the room card key in her hand and invite her up for a midnight romp. It seemed they both operated better in disguise.

Was secrecy what fed the flame between them? What would happen once the mystery was gone?

Caleb didn’t want to think about that eventuality. He didn’t want to think about anything. He just wanted to be in the moment.

As a man accustomed to spending much time alone in the wilderness, appreciating and living in the moment was his specialty. He could give both Meggie and himself the gift of total concentration. He would. Just for tonight, no more doubts, no more fears of what might happen once she discovered a familiar face behind the Don Juan mask.

“Nibble on my neck,” Meggie requested in a jagged whisper.

His blood pulsed, fiery and brutal. As if hypnotized, he followed her instruction. Nestling his mouth to the hollow of her slender throat, he bared his teeth against her fevered skin. She cried out and squirmed against him when he took her flesh into his mouth and nipped lightly. He shivered in awe that he’d produced this reaction in her.

The taste of her succulent saltiness wasn’t nearly enough. He was famished for her. Had been for years. He nibbled on her like a banquet feast, sucking and licking, swirling his tongue over the sweetness of her. Caleb plunged his fingers through her hair and cradled her naked body in his arms.

She was all soft swells and generous curves. Her nipples thrust hard against his chest, begging for attention. He left her neck and went straight for the eager buds, curling his tongue around one puckered peak and gently tugging. She hissed like a hot griddle doused with ice-cold water.

“You inflame me.”

“Shh. Don’t talk, just lick.”

He laved her with his mouth. A tremble shuddered through her and a slow, deep groan unfurled from her throat.

“That’s it, don’t stop.”

He savored her, claimed her and ached to possess her on a baser level. He gorged on the sugary taste of her, indulging his whims.

Caleb caressed her with his hands, kneaded her skin, massaged her, quickly learning which spots produced the most explosive reactions. He discovered where she liked it firm and where she preferred a whisper-light touch. Which stroke made her quiver and which made her sigh with restless longing.

Steadily, relentlessly, he pushed her toward the edge of reason. He experienced it, too—the heady anticipation, the measured buildup, the escalating wildness.

She strained her hips against the hard ridge of his erection. He knew what she wanted because he wanted the same thing. Wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Passion throbbed between them, blistering them both. They hovered on the verge of stepping completely out of bounds of all rational behavior.

Whimpering, she sought his mouth and kissed him with a yearning, soulful need.

Scuttling his hands up her naked back, he crushed her to him, hugging her breasts—still damp from his tongue—tightly against his chest. Their hearts raced in unison, ratcheting upward in a building crescendo. Frenziedly, he dragged his mouth from hers, gasping for air and attempting to stay his frantic lust.

God, how he wanted to see her face, to examine her eyes and learn exactly what she was feeling. Did she want him as much as he wanted her?

Stupid question.

Even as he sought a small respite from this ever-increasing whirlwind of want, Meggie clearly had another plan in mind. To garner his notice, she bit down lightly on his earlobe and tugged the susceptible flesh with her teeth.

“Show me what you like, Don Juan. Take my hand. Guide me where you want me to go.”

“Ah, señorita, it is my place to please you, not the other way around,” he managed to gasp. If she were to suddenly start plying those lips of hers in his most sensitive areas, he wouldn’t last two seconds.

“This can’t be one-sided like that night in the cabin. I have to know I can please you as much as you please me.”

He shook his head.

“You must. It’s very important to me.”

“All right,” he said with an exasperated groan. “If it really means that much to you.”

Spellbound, he plunged his fingers through the silky strands of her hair and began with a long, heartfelt kiss simply because he could not get enough of the flavor and texture of her mouth. He leaned backward, taking her with him until he was splayed flat on his back and she was straddling him.

After a few heated minutes, he tenderly broke off the connection and gently steered her moist, parted lips down his chin, over his throat and, in measured increments, along his chest.

Her tongue fluttered across his ridged nipples, and she did to him what he’d earlier done to her. She was making every single one of his most forbidden fantasies come true, and he loved her for it.

She tracked a path from his nipples to his belly, scooting her bare fanny down his leather-clad thighs as she moved lower, ever lower.

Although he wished he could see her, there was something unspeakably erotic about total darkness—not being able to spot her next move, unable to predict what else she had up her sleeve, because he wasn’t privy to the naughty gleam in her eyes.

Everywhere her mouth touched, his skin sizzled. He moaned as her lips traveled to where his belly hair disappeared into his waistband. When she stretched her mouth over his hardness through the pliant leather of his pants, he almost came right then and there.

He raised his hips and hissed with sharp, greedy need. “That’s it.”

She drew back and her fingers went to work on the drawstrings at his fly. Without faltering, she tugged his pants past his hips and chortled out loud when she realized he wasn’t wearing underwear.

“You’re going commando.” She giggled, obviously delighted by the fact.

“No boxers or briefs for Don Juan.”

“Guess with those drawstrings you don’t have to worry about anything…er…important getting caught in a zipper.”

Her lighthearted, teasing tone touched his heart. She was happy. He’d made her happy.

She wrapped a hand around his rock-hard penis and his smile vanished as he fought his natural instinct to explode at her searing touch.

“And my, Don Juan, may I say, what an impressive package you have.”

“The better to—” He almost said “make love to you with, Little Red Riding Hood,” but he figured “make love” was the last thing she wanted to hear. Instead he used a crude street term that seemed to rev her engines, for she made short work of his pants, peeling them right off his body.

“That’s right, talk dirty to me.”

She returned her attention to his throbbing organ, and he was unable to speak at all, much less talk dirty. She stroked him with her fingers, squeezing and rubbing, revelling in the raw and ready hotness of his sex, exploring the paradoxical velvet and granite texture.

Tentatively, she sheathed her mouth around him, tasting his masculine essence with the tip of her tongue. She ran her lips up and down his shaft in a maneuver that caused his entire body to quake helplessly.

Oh mercy. Mercy.

She took her time, trying out a variety of experiments. She blew hot little puffs of air against his skin. She swirled her tongue around the head of his penis. She sucked and licked, teasing him, drawing him ever closer to the brink of climax.

He shuddered when she discovered the sensitive ridge lurking below the proud, jutting tip. In that moment, he almost called out her name. In fact, the first syllable was past his lips when he remembered the game and her rules. He bit down on his tongue.

“Mmm.”

“You like?”

“If you keep doing what you’re doing, then we’re both in trouble.”

“Good.”

Before Caleb knew what was happening, she took his engorged shaft as deeply into her mouth as she could possibly manage in a blinding, white-hot kiss that turned his world inside out. He whimpered as she engulfed him in a way that made him absolutely maddog crazy for release. For her.

His hands searched for her in the darkness, clutched her hair in desperation and tried to get her to break contact. If she didn’t quit he simply would not be able to stop the force of nature that had kidnapped his body.

But she would not be denied.

He gasped, he writhed.

She moved faster, sucked harder.

He could not think. Could not reason. Could only let himself be swept up in her vortex.

Up, up, up, she took him. Climbing higher and higher. When she gently cupped his balls in the palm of one hand, he knew it was the end for him. Every muscle in his body tensed. He stopped breathing and for one brief second in time felt as if he hung suspended on the edge of the world.

The searing orgasm red-hot and mind-blowingly powerful, shot up through his shaft in a blinding rush. Intense, blistering pleasure shuddered throughout his system in a kaleidoscope of sensation.

He tried to pull her away but she ignored his attempts. The moist, warm recesses of her mouth stole his restraint, and he could do absolutely nothing but ride the roller coaster down, down, down as he plummeted earthward into heavenly release.

Meggie! Meggie!

What a gift. What a surprise. What a woman.

Emotion pressed into the corners of his eyes, and for the first time since turning out the lights, he was grateful she couldn’t see him.

Panting, she raised her head and whispered in his ear. “Make love to me with your mouth, Don Juan. Make love to me right now.”

TAKE A RISK , she had told herself when she’d accepted Don Juan’s key card. Take a chance. No telling what you might discover about yourself.

Boy, had that been an understatement.

She knelt beside Don Juan, trembling in the darkness, stunned and amazed at what she had just done. She’d never done anything so intimate with a man before.

How would he react? What would he do?

In answer to her question, he gave a groan and she felt him get to his feet. He fumbled for her in the darkness and latched his arms around her waist with a possessiveness that both frightened Meggie and delighted her. Without speaking, he scooped her into his arms and gingerly made his way to the bed.

What was it about him that drew her? What made her yearn to throw caution aside and proceed with the reckless abandon of a horny teenager? He fascinated her like no one else on earth, and she didn’t even know his real name.

This is just for tonight, Meggie. Don’t for a moment forget that. You can lose your head if you wish, but don’t give this guy your heart.

But of course not. She had learned her lesson the hard way. Don Juan was a dalliance to help her repair her shattered self-esteem. As long as she understood that, she wouldn’t get hurt.

By providing her with a safe outlet for sexual exploration, Don Juan was giving Meggie her femininity back. Because of his precious gift, when she did find the right man and fall in love, she would come to her new lover with a free heart. Whatever happened tonight, the knowledge that she would be better prepared for a loving relationship in the future because of Don Juan buoyed her hopes.

She could find love again. She would. And next time, it would be with the right guy.

Tonight, however, was about cutting loose, experimenting and finding out just how far her limits stretched.

Don Juan deposited her gently in the middle of the mattress. He stepped back and she reached for him.

Sudden fear struck her. What if he wasn’t taking this affair as casually as she? She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she wanted to be hurt.

“Don Juan?”

“Yes?” His sexy, disembodied voice floated from the blackness, causing her to shiver with expectation.

God, how she loved the way he spoke. Never mind that the accent was fake. She knew he wasn’t really Spanish, but she ignored that knowledge for the sake of fantasy, and reminded herself she would not ruin everything by delving into reality.

“This is just a game for you, isn’t it? I’m just one in a long string of your lovers. Right?”

He said nothing. Silence roared in her ears. Oh, no. What if he wanted more than she could give? She wasn’t about to get involved with another rogue, no matter how sexy or how good at foreplay he might be.

“Right?”

“Remember,” he whispered at last. “I’m here for one thing and one thing only. Your pleasure. Do you understand?”

Relief washed through her. Yes. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him. Thank heavens they were on the same wavelength, because it would have been next to impossible to walk away from him at this point.

She felt the mattress sag from his weight as he settled himself on the bed. From nowhere, it seemed, his fingers made contact with her arm and roved up her shoulder to her collarbone and then down to her aching, engorged breasts.

“I want to reward you. To thank you for the perfect present you just gave me. I wish to reciprocate.”

Meggie hitched in a deep breath as his fingers trailed lower, inch by exquisite inch.

“You are so beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful.” She laughed. “You’ve only seen me in a mask, with a costume on. For all you know I look like Quasimodo.”

“And I could say the same. Isn’t that part of the attraction? Not knowing what is behind the mask and getting excited anyway?”

“Yes,” she admitted, and moistened her lips with her tongue.

His fingers were getting closer, ever closer, to the place where she wanted him to be.

“I could be anyone. No?”

“Yes.”

“That excites you, doesn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

He stroked her lower abdomen, stoking the flames that were building inside her. After several minutes of this, her entire body was rigid and she wanted to grab him by the hair and tell him to get on with it.

When she didn’t think she could stand the teasing one second longer, he let his hand drift to the hair at the juncture between her legs. Gently he stroked a finger over her right upper thigh.

“Open for me. Nothing is more erotic then the moment a woman parts her legs for her lover.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. Meggie shifted, moved her legs apart, welcomed him in, opened herself to the greatest vulnerability a woman could experience.

“The holiest of holy spots. The gate to heaven.”

He made her feel attractive and powerful and womanly. His reverential sigh brought a tightness to her chest. No wonder women fell at Don Juan’s feet. He was irresistible.

And then his hot, wet mouth was on her. He kissed her belly, while his cheek caressed her soft, bushy thatch of hair.

She realized then he wasn’t wearing his mask, and panic gripped her. What if she saw his face?

Calm down, calm down.

The room was dark. She would insist he put his mask back on before turning on the lights. Besides, she couldn’t freak out right now because the things he was doing to her down there were way beyond her realm of experience.

“Sweetheart,” Don Juan murmured. “I want to drink you up.”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

He was between her parted thighs, his head lowered. She tensed, waiting.

And then he slipped his tongue inside her dewy folded flesh and licked her. One small quick flick, as if getting a drop of ice cream before it melted off the cone and ran down his hand.

She gasped.

“Mmm, you taste delicious.”

A sigh escaped her.

“You are so hot, so wet.”

“You make me that way.”

She felt his lips, which were pressed against her, curl up in a grin. Oh, he was arrogant about his prowess, but with good reason.

He unwrapped her like savoring the opening of a birthday present, using his tongue to explore layer after layer. The ridges and folds of her womanhood blossomed beneath his seductive ministrations. She felt the delicate tissue swell in sultry response to his devilish sucking as his saliva mixed with her natural juices.

He changed tempo. Whereas before he’d been delivering light, rapid flicks over her protruding cleft, he dawdled and pressed more firmly.

Slow, long, deep strokes. Down, then up, in a mesmerizing configuration.

“Aaah.”

“So you like things nice and slow.”

She nodded her head and twisted her fingers through his hair. “Stop talking.”

He laughed and returned to his task. He varied his patterns. One minute circles, the next a grid, after that a haphazard zigzag. Meggie felt a gigantic pressure building beneath the hood of her cleft, building and growing and throbbing.

Ever so slightly he nibbled on her inner lips, and she just about leaped off the bed, the sensation was so excruciatingly incredible.

“More. More.” She trembled and clutched the bedspread in her fists.

Sucking very gently, he drew her cleft into his mouth. In and out. In and out. Tugging. Releasing. Tugging. Releasing.

Entranced by the erotic decadence of the act, Meggie could do nothing but enjoy. How was it she didn’t feel tense and anxious about this? What was different about Don Juan?

Because he’s a stranger.

Odd that she could let down her guard with a man she didn’t know, and allow him do the most private things to her when she’d had trouble relaxing and letting go in the midst of a long-term relationship.

You weren’t in the right relationship.

She’d been with Jesse for all the wrong reasons, and she knew it. Jesse had been her ticket out of Alaska, and she’d lived vicariously through his wild ways. But now, no matter how irrational her actions might seem to her practical self, she was having her own adventure, embracing life on her own terms.

It felt damn good. No more taking care of other people’s needs first. This time, she was doing what was right for Meggie.

Don Juan glided his silken tongue around the tiny base of her, and then skated up to the tender, surging tip. The hood of her cleft slid back and the sensitive nubbin strained for his attention.

There was danger here. One slip of his teeth and the fun would be all over.

But he understood. He was a careful lover. Oh, so very careful. Everything he did elicited unbelievable tides of carnal bliss.

She shivered and quivered and groaned.

He blew a steady stream of cool air against her, before returning to the hot licking. He alternated: chilly air; scalding, wet tongue. Frosty, fiery, icy, boiling, until Meggie thought she wouldn’t be able to bear this sweet torment one second longer.

But he wasn’t finished.

On and on he went until she lay limp, wrung out, and when he gently inserted one finger inside her, she lost all self-respect.

“Make me come,” she cried out. “Please. Make me come. Now!”

The ache that had been coiling tighter and tighter inside her unfurled then in one blinding, clear starburst that radiated outward in an exploding rush.

No one had ever brought her to orgasm this way. Tears sprang to her eyes, and as she shuddered and trembled, Don Juan positioned himself beside her on the bed and drew her into his arms.

He kissed her tenderly, hauntingly. He tasted of her feminine flavor. Full and rich, robust and healthy. Nothing had ever tasted so sexy. Meggie snuggled into his body, rested her head against his chest and, in her warm, sated state, happily fell asleep.

NEVER IN HIS LIFE had Caleb known such total rapture. And to think he had been so very afraid that making love with Meggie could never live up to his teenage fantasies. Instead, their glorious encounter had exceeded all his previous expectations.

The woman was better than his most provocative daydream. One more night with her was not going to be nearly enough. That much was clear.

He lay in the darkness listening to her breathing. She was spooned into him, her fanny curled against him, his arm thrown over her waist. He squeezed her tighter and his gut clenched.

He wanted more of this.

Of her.

But first, he had to come clean and tell her the truth—that he, Caleb Greenleaf, was her secret Don Juan lover. What was the best way to do that? Let her wake up, look over and see his face?

Nah. He immediately discarded the idea. Too jarring. He didn’t want her to regret their night together, and if he didn’t handle this just right he ran the risk of having her never speak to him again. He had to find another way, a better time and place to reveal himself to her.

But where and how?

He would have to think about it. In the meantime, he was going to have to slip from the room while she slept.

Inwardly, he groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was leave this bed and her warm, soft body. He wanted to languish here, savor this moment. He wanted to wake her with kisses and make love to her all over again, not just with his mouth this time. He wanted to be inside her, consume her, claim her as his own.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to learn the truth. If she had been, she wouldn’t have insisted he douse the lights.

Caleb wondered if deep down inside somewhere she knew that he was Don Juan and she simply couldn’t face the reality. That thought caused a twinge of anxiety to pierce his heart. His fingers gently stroked her sleeping form, and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of these new emotions.

He wasn’t going to pursue that line of thought. For now, he would do what he had to do, even though the thought of leaving her was killing him.

Much as it hurt, he had to go.

MEGGIE AWOKE WITH A START, confused and disoriented. The hotel room was still dark, but sunlight shadows were seeping beneath the drawn curtains, casting enough illumination to let her see that the space on the bed beside her was empty.

Breathing in a deep sigh, she pushed her tangled hair from her face and sat up.

“Don Juan?” she called, thinking he might be in the bathroom. If he was in there and not wearing his mask, she didn’t want to see him.

The thought of coming face-to-face with her lover caused her pulse to accelerate. She threw back the covers and hopped out of bed. But she needn’t have worried. He didn’t answer, and no sounds came from behind the closed bathroom door.

She knocked. No response.

Whew. That was a relief!

Okay, so if she was so happy that he’d abandoned her, why the heavy sadness settling low in her belly? Was this the morning-after-a-one-night-stand blues? She stepped into the bathroom and flicked on the light.

“Eeek!”

Who was that woman in the mirror? Her lips were slightly swollen, her hair a rat’s nest, her mascara-smeared eyes like a raccoon.