Breathless (19 page)

D
anny’s belly clenched with need and he turned away from the kitchen window so she wouldn’t see how hard he was. She might have been staring at him, but he’d been here long enough to know that, if she knew what he wanted, here, now, she’d kick him off the job and call in the competition.

After calling 911. And rightly so.

Not to mention that she was dressed for a date with someone else. Rather than her usual light browns and greens, today she wore a purple top without a bra. She looked spectacular.

For some other guy.

Unless she came outside and he made his move.

He cleared his throat, not sure he’d be able to speak, let alone be coherent. “You want to check out the deck? Step carefully. I spilled some nails earlier.” Come out here and leave the mug behind. Come out here and let me touch you. Come out here with your excited eyes and edgy energy.

Thank God he’d worn his roomiest khaki shorts and boxers. He’d given up on his jeans and tighties a few days ago. He dropped to a crouch to give his heavy balls some room and groped behind him for his water bottle. He sluiced some down his chest to wash the salt off, then tipped the bottle to drain it. Maybe the cool water would wash away his urgent need to touch her. The urgent need that might frighten her.

“Good heavens,” she muttered. He barely heard her through the window.

“Yes?” He rose and faced her, holding the liter bottle in front of his crotch for camouflage. With some luck, she’d mistake his woody for a shadow.

He moved closer to the window. He wanted his voice low when he coaxed her to come out and join him.

At the sight of Danny splashing water down his chest, Mariel’s voice deserted her. Danny Glenn
was
perfect and exactly the body type she needed. Jayne had known it all along, which ticked her off. Jayne had a lover, she shouldn’t have noticed Danny.

Mariel pressed her mons to the counter and enjoyed the delicious pressure, the secret thrill while she allowed the sight of water sluicing down Danny’s chest to mesmerize her. Her nipples hardened, but she doubted Danny could see through the curtain of her hair. She pulled it back to fall down her back, exposing her hard tips to his gaze. She moved her hips from side to side, increasing the friction near her clit.

Who knew a countertop could prove this exhilarating.

Sculpted to perfection, Danny’s working man’s body was hard all over. His shoulders, tanned and powerful, gleamed in the sun. He had a six-pack, but only when he moved and stretched. His forearms were strong and muscular, and his hands were to die for. Long, strong fingers that ended in square tips with clean nails held the bottle he’d emptied across his chest.

Which was why her voice had disappeared into the lowest reaches of her belly, never to be resurrected. She swallowed as she became aware that she hadn’t yet been able to tear her gaze from that empty bottle, where something else grabbed her attention.

The shadow from the bottle seemed remarkably phallic.

She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. Evidently, all the moisture her body produced had moved south of her waist and pooled between her legs. She bit her lip as sexual need suffused her.

“Dear heavens,” she said again. Her voice! She’d found it!

She’d promised Jayne she’d ask Danny about modeling for her, but she hadn’t mentioned the first part of her plan. Her plan to seduce Danny.

The plan she needed to put into motion now. She braced both arms on the counter and leaned forward an inch or two. The action pressed the sides of her breasts in and caused the lace of the camisole top to droop. Danny had a full view of her cleavage if he cared to look.

He flushed a deep blood red and she watched as he, too, swallowed. Heat filled her cheeks, but still, she had to get through this conversation.

She had to ask.

She had to.

And not just because she’d promised Jayne. Because if she was going to enter this competition, she needed a body.

A man’s sculpted-to-perfection body.

And Danny Glenn’s body was exactly what she needed.

Gathering her nerve, she left the kitchen window and stepped outside onto the deck. Her empty hands filled with the itch to touch him. She turned back to get her mug of tea but remembered that she’d stepped out here to be bold and brave.

“Going on a date?” he asked, with a flick of his eyes down her body.

She shook her head, unable to speak as she let his gaze move more slowly up and down.

If only he’d stop looking at her with such intense focus, she’d remember what she needed to ask him. She wanted to turn and run, but if she did, she would never screw up this amount of courage again.

So, instead of skittering back into the kitchen, she ran her hands down her thighs. The impulse to lift her skirt to show him her curls flitted unanswered through her mind. His eyes flared into twin flames as he watched her hands move. The side of his hard, sexy mouth lifted. “You look different today. All dressed up and pretty.” He dropped his gaze to the hem of her short skirt. Her other skirts were longer and never hugged her legs and butt.

“I, uh, made some tea,” she blurted. “Would you like some?” Her hands fluttered in front of her. Stupid, she’d left her mug on the counter and he stared at the movement she couldn’t seem to control. “It’s supposed to be good to drink hot drinks in the heat.” She was flustered and babbling, and her hands kept moving and—“Something about making you sweat more so your body cools.” Asking him if he wanted hot tea was not the question she needed to ask. She darted a glance at his eyes, but nerves attacked, and she looked away again just as quickly.

He flashed a grin that sucked the air out of her lungs. She gasped as he chortled. “I think I’m sweaty enough.” He ducked his head as if the natural bodily reaction to too much heat, sun, and work embarrassed him.

She suddenly remembered why she was out here. What she wanted. And more to the point, what she wanted to do.

Seduce Danny. She fingered the hem of her skirt with a nervous twitching motion. “I don’t mind if you want to use my shower before you leave. In case you have a date or something.”

She twisted her fingers around each other as she clasped and unclasped her hands.
A date or something?
How lame. But there it was: a blatant invitation to get naked in her house. She cast him another glance and he looked thunderstruck. Any moment now he would realize what she’d said and laugh at her.

Shy, docile Mariel Gibson, the high-school art teacher, brazen enough to ask if he had a woman. Not only that, but she was dressed like a woman who knew what she was after. Some bold, brave woman when she was nothing of the sort. Pathetic.

“No date, Mariel. I’m not seeing anyone. Except you every day.” He lifted one side of his sexy mouth again. He had a dimple just east of that corner. He used it like a flag to draw attention to his mouth, his grin, his sexy as sin perfect jaw. “Is that what you wanted to ask?” He shifted the water bottle.

The phallus she imagined was no shadow.

Danny Glenn was rock hard. And smelled delicious. And he’d called her Mariel in a warm, intimate tone that rocked her back a step.

She blinked and felt a hot chasm of need open to swallow her whole. She half turned to run into the house, but his hand on her arm stopped her.

“Mariel, stay. Please.”

She wanted to run inside, but she’d grown roots that held her to the new deck. She looked at him, and his yellow hazel eyes glowed with humor and dark need.

His voice went throaty and dark, a muscle jumped in his jaw and the backyard narrowed down to these few feet between where Danny stood, poised and ready, and Mariel, frozen and rooted to the spot. “You looked at me, Mariel. You looked and you saw.”

She swallowed again but still couldn’t speak.

“Surprised I’m hard for you?” Danny put his empty water bottle on the deck railing behind him with a precise, even movement.

He faced the railing, giving her his profile. Then he settled the bottle on the top rail with great calm, slowly. His fingers slid down the bottle to the bottom, just so.

“Because I’m not surprised I’m hard,” he said clearly. “I’m hard for you morning, noon, and night. Have been for months.”

She swallowed quickly. This couldn’t be happening. She was still in her car with her eyes closed, deep in a fantasy.

“Dear heavens,” she muttered for the third time. The air was gone, the glaring of the afternoon sun faded to something rosy. No, that was the blood rushing into her head, making her eyes swim with lust.

She blinked. Danny was haloed with an aura of sexual need and desire that coaxed and tantalized. “What was the question?” she asked.

He turned to face her again. Stood still, but for his hands. They flexed at his sides as if he wanted to grab her and drag her off somewhere. She took no time to warm to the wildy erotic idea.

“No more questions. Time for answers.” He stepped toward her until his chest butted up to hers. Touching this way, Danny was hot, hard, immobile in his stance. His scent made every feminine instinct she possessed respond. She closed her eyes, drank him in.

“Answers,” she repeated. She needed an answer to a question, but she could no more remember what she wanted from him than—no!—that was wrong, she knew exactly what she wanted. The seduction of Danny Glenn had been her intention, but somehow that intention had become his.

She felt a bull’s-eye on her chest, knew the pressure that built there would take her to exciting heights.

She wanted the heights. So, instead of saying the wrong thing, the thing that might change the mood or ruin the vibes, she kept silent and waited.

“I’ll give you answers,” he murmured, as his hand came up to wrap a piece of her hair around his finger. “I want to kiss you.” His voice, a low croon, took her to bed.

“You what? Where?”

He chuckled, low, seductive. “I want to kiss you all over, Mariel. I want to kiss your lips, your neck. I want to kiss your ear, your breasts. Your belly.”

“Oh, I’d like that.” She nodded, far too many times. They wanted the same things. She wanted him in her room, in her bed, where she saw him kiss her from head to toe. She blinked in shock, needing to pull back from the erotic image. But there he was, incongruous in her frilly, girly room. She blinked away the images. Had to.

He stood so close! His chest brushed against hers with each breath. He tugged on the hair he held, swept the ends across her cheeks like a fan. He moved in close while her belly swooped and dived.

His face came near enough to kiss, then diverted to her ear. His tongue touched her lobe. He drew in a deep breath and went still. Very, very still, as the scent of her juices caught him. He sniffed and she felt moisture pool again. If he touched her there, he’d come away with wet fingers. She pressed herself to his crotch, urging his exploration. His hands roved across her back, down to her ass and kneaded her.

“Then I want to fuck you, long and slow,” he explained, so softly she barely heard him.

The feel of his breath tickled her ear and neck, fanning the hair with each exhalation. “Does that shock you, Mariel? Because I don’t want to shock you. I don’t want to see you run back into the kitchen the way you always do.”

She swallowed hard. “I do?”

“You do.”

“Oh, I won’t run. Not today.” Not while she was being brave and bold. “Um, what else do you want to do?” Her hips moved forward and back and she set her feet apart. Cool afternoon air brushed at her curls.

“Then I want to fuck you hard and fast. Fuck, fuck, fuck you,” he said as if she might not have heard him clearly the first time. The softness of his tone seduced her as much as the raw images he put in her head. He was clever, her carpenter, talented at seduction.

She turned her head just enough to see his eyes. They were too close to focus on, but she felt their heat. “Then touch me,” she whispered. “Fuck me.”

She lost all purpose, all thought as weeks, months,
years
, of self-denial fell away. This was no small rebellion. This was no easy seduction. This was life altering. If she took this step, she would never be the same again.

She lifted her lips and brushed them against his ear, his neck, and at long last, his jaw. Her hand moved to his fingers, twined with them. Time hung for a long moment while she drank in the scent of his skin, the heat of his flesh, the roaring in her ears of her own blood, pulsing and rushing.

Then suddenly, Danny was on her like water on a river bank. He flooded her, washing away the bits of debris from her uptight, sheltered life.

He wrapped his arms around her, took her right hand up to his mouth and kissed her palm. She melted at the drawn-out sensation of firm tongue against warm flesh. When he spread her fingers and licked her in each V, she closed her eyes and drank in the eroticism he brought to her mind. “May I?” he asked.

“May you what?” She could hardly think.

“May I kiss you now?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, please.”

D
anny cupped the back of her head and tilted her to meet his lips. Hard, firm, his lips enticed and coaxed, carried her to some high place where she hovered over the deck more aware than ever before that she was a woman and Danny Glenn was a hard, hard man. Her soft parts opened and gave way; her soft lips, the flesh of her mouth, her breasts and nipples plumped and flattened against all his hardness.

She heard him sigh once. Then a shudder ran through him. Relief? Then he kissed her forehead with quiet reverence, as if he were afraid she might change her mind. “Don’t deny me, Mariel. Please.”

“Anything. Anything you want.” This was happening. Really happening.

He kissed her again, more times than she could count. Exploring kisses, tender kisses, hard kisses and soft.

The flavor of Danny aroused and tantalized. His hands spread across her ass, cupped and molded her to him, tugging her hard against his erection. Swept up into him, she lost track of where and who she was.

She wasn’t Mariel any longer. No, she was a nymph—voluptuous, young, sexual, wet, open, moist.

Danny dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her thighs, burying his face in her soft belly. She cupped his head, held him to her and waited, breath held, for what he’d do next.

Whatever he wanted, she would give him. He ran his calloused hands up the outside of her calves, lifting the hem of her skirt to find her naked and open.

She braced her feet wider apart so he would know she was his for the taking. He brushed at the curls with his fingers, then asked her to lean back against the deck railing, while he undid his tool belt and set it down.

His fingers skimmed and tingles raced, while she raised her face to the sky.

Mariel melted in the sun with a man on his knees before her. He combed through her curls, tugging in much the same way she had earlier in her bedroom. The gentle tugging created answering need deep in her womb.

Next, he leaned in to nuzzle her pussy with his nose and chin.

She couldn’t possibly be fantasizing to this degree. Danny’s hard hands slid to the inside of her knees, where they pushed her open wider. She could stop him now, but the feel of his head in her hands, cupped like a bowl against her belly, opened her up, let her sinews and muscles go liquid where she stood.

Her knees loosened and suddenly her ankles were three feet apart; his finger parted her outer folds. She bit back a moan and shivered at the trickles of awareness that sparked out from everywhere he touched. She felt wild and rebellious.

“You’re so wet, you’re glistening.”

“Yes.” She waited, breath held for his next move. But he waited for a long moment until she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Touching you. Learning the feel of your skin, getting the scent of you in my nose, down my throat, filling my head with you.” He burrowed his face into the apex of her thighs and rubbed his nose across the hair that covered her. She held his head and let him move, his chest rising and falling heavily as he scented her. She wanted to melt onto the deck, splay her legs open, and let him pleasure her. She trembled while the moment hung like a gossamer thread of anticipation overhead. “I love the scent of you, Mariel. Your hair, your body. I want the scent of your cunt on my skin, the feel of your juice on my chin, the taste of you in my mouth.”

The words were too much and not enough. Moisture pooled, and her lowest belly warmed to melted honey. “My head’s been full of you for weeks,” she confessed. His fingertips, parting her folds, inspecting her inner flesh, undid her.

He looked up her body and into her soul. Her soul looked back.

“You’re sure you want this?” His voice moved to husky. The sound of sexual desire hummed through the words, while one wicked hand slid up the back of her leg to cup the split in her ass. He spread her pussy with the other hand, holding her open, his mouth a breath away.

She rolled her hips toward him, felt the welcome heat of his breath on her clit. “Lick me, Danny. Please.”

He did and she moaned and writhed as he suckled on her tender flesh.

“You taste so good.” His tongue delved deeper while she heard the sounds of his mouth working and laving and driving her wild.

“But I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said, as she braced more solidly against the rail at her back. “You should know that.” Oh, hell, she sounded like an untried virgin. Or the next best thing. She gulped.

His dimple flashed before he pressed his face against her pussy again. His chin pressed against her mound while he rolled his head there, enticing her with the erotic image while his hands squeezed her ass. He pulled her cheeks open while she tilted toward him. “You can tell me to stop at any time. I’ll stop, Mariel. I promise.”

She nodded because she had no breath with which to speak.

His gaze clouded. “You live a quiet life. You’re, ah…not a virgin, are you?”

Her cheeks heated. “Technically, no. I’ve had experiences.” She raced to grasp the memories. “Not bad, but not good either.” A boyfriend in college who’d known less than she did. They’d figured three times would be the charm, but when things had gone from bad to worse, they drifted apart. The most they’d shared was relief it was over. “But I’ve never had this before.”

He grinned and a chuckle rose from his chest, throaty and sexy.

“Then you need gentle and soft this time. But I’m still gonna fuck, fuck, fuck you.”

Those words made her belly clench in anticipation. Wild. Hot. Yearning anticipation. “Yes, please,” she sighed. “Gentle and soft would be perfect.” She considered fast and hard. “Hard might be okay too.”

He grinned and she felt his fingers slide along her ass toward her cleft. “That’ll come later. When you’re ready.”

“Ready? How will you know?” But she already was. Her hips were easing toward him, her channel felt more open, wet, soft.

“Trust me.” He slid a fingertip into her and she moaned with the exquisite sensation. “You’ll be aroused to a fever. You’ll shimmy and shake and groan. And nothing but fast and hard will do.” He pulled his fingertip out, then pushed in again, deeper. Again, deeper, until he was all the way inside. He plunged in and out, while she felt her muscles relax and moisten even more.

“So pink and responsive. You’re beautiful. A ripe, perfect plum with a pretty little hole made just for me.”

She bore down, needing more than a finger. She groaned.

“I’m going to eat that plum until you come like a queen. Would you like that, Mariel?”

Danny saw Mariel’s slit flood cream. She clenched her muscles in an effort to stem the flow. Her breath caught and he imagined the feel of her muscles working. She sighed and her breath hitched when he slid his finger in deep, so he did it again and again.

Like a fluttering of butterfly wings he felt her clench around his finger. “I can feel you working it,” he murmured as he tipped his tongue out to catch some of her tasty juices. The flavor burst, ripe and hot on his tongue. He swirled and lapped for a moment, but he couldn’t let her come out here. She might scream and thrash, and draw unwanted attention.

With one last flourish, he whispered his intention to stop so they could go inside. When she nodded in agreement, he rose to his feet and took her hand in his.

“About that shower? Might be a good idea.” He ducked his head again. “We need to go inside anyway.”

She pursed her lips. If she had to wait while he took a shower, she might chicken out. He led her through the slider into the great room. They’d been in her back garden all the time! Exposed to the neighbors’ yards and windows.

Her pussy throbbed in need, while her belly felt hot and heavy. Her knees were stiff while she walked. “I’m glad everyone around my house works later than I do.” It was an area filled with first-time owners and young couples. The houses were old, compact, and most, like hers, needed renovations.

When they’d cleared the door and stood in the quiet of the interior, he turned her into his arms and held her easily. Then he snugged her hips against his and she felt his hard cock press against her, but his smile was easy. The smile of a man who knew he’d get what he wanted when he wanted it.

“No one’s ever around in the daytime but me. I wouldn’t have touched you if I thought you’d be on public display.”

She felt surprisingly safe with him. “Thank you.” She raised up for a kiss, and it was her turn to press and retreat and skim and delve and…want.

She kissed him freely, cupped his tight butt and squeezed. Then she moved to his cock and squeezed again, surprised at his size and breadth. “Oh, I hope you get me good and ready for this. You’re huge.”

And hot, and hard. She bloomed completely, open and eager for him now. She took his hand and led him to the island he’d built for her.

There, she pressed her mons to the edge and lifted her skirt to show him her ass. Then she leaned over and offered herself.