Calculated Exposure (16 page)

He pressed the tips of two fingers inside her as a reminder of what they
could
be doing. “Hmm?”

“I…I want you in there, but don’t you have math to do?”

He released her earlobe, but pressed his body closer to her back so she could feel his swollen arousal probing her jean-covered rear. “It can wait.”

“I think dinner can wait, too.”

“We’ll probably be more hungry when we’re done.”

She didn’t doubt it.

When he pulled his hands free of her pants, he gave her rear an appreciative pat and sent her on her way. “Irish girls don’t have asses like that.”

She placed her hands over the noted area.

He swatted them away.

“Is that good or bad?”

“Depends on how you like asses,” he mused as she snapped on a lamp inside the bedroom. “Personally, I admire a bit of junk.”

“Oh, I’ve got junk in spades,” she mumbled, feeling a bit self-conscious. “It’s where I store all my Latin passion.”

Whatever trepidation she’d had, his eager hands quelled. He shimmied her jeans down her hips, and disposed of her soaked panties next. Now, her shirt was the more pressing concern. He peeled it over her head with all the reverence of a child unwrapping a Christmas gift and immediately unhooked her bra.

Her gut contracted at his gentle touch, which gradually became more intense.

He palmed her breasts, squeezing her nipples between splayed fingers, and resumed his torturous laving of her neck.

Enough!

She turned in his embrace, and instead of questioning her, he merely removed his glasses. Then his shirt joined hers on the floor.

He poised his hands to manage his shorts’ button, but Erica pushed them away. “Let me help.”

“Quid pro quo, huh?”

“No. You’re slow.” She unzipped the shorts and freed his cock from his boxers. He was so hard and she knew he would feel so good. She allowed herself one small taste of him, but immediately realized what she’d done and pulled her head back.

He must have noticed the philosophical about-face himself, because his eyes widened.

Shit.

That had never been a reflex before, but she didn’t waste time pondering it. She pushed him toward the bed before he could speak on it.

His lips teased up into a grin as he studied her face, probably seeing the wanton lust written all over it. When his calves pressed against the bed frame, he sat, and she stripped him naked. “This time, I ride
you
.” She reached into the nightstand drawer.

“I’m not complaining.” He positioned himself at dead center on the bed and leaned back on his forearms.

This time when she slipped the condom onto him, her hands were steady, and she kept her eyes locked on his.

His expression was something halfway between anticipatory and impatient. She may have been leading the dance, but he was still the one in charge. She wanted what he offered and every move she made was to get him to give it to her.

“Lie back,” she commanded.

He complied, but only after a long stare and a twitch of his lips. “Okay.”

His hands reached for her ass as she straddled his thighs, but she grabbed his wrists and pressed them to the bed. “Nuh-uh.”

“Okay.” He grinned in a
we’ll see
sort of way, but that smirk quickly morphed into clenching teeth as she seated herself onto his cock as far as she could go.

Closing her eyes, she gripped his wrists tighter and waited for her body’s go-ahead.
Slower, chica.

When she opened them again, Curt was watching with keen interest. He didn’t shift hips or go before she was ready. She wanted to reward him for that.

She released his wrists and flattened her body against his chest. The tip of his cock probed her g-spot, and she winced both from pleasure and the realization that with her nerves online the way she were, she wouldn’t last long. With one hand pressed onto the bed at either side of his face, she rasped, “I bought something for us.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. Maybe I’ll show you later if you’re good.”

“Darlin’, I’m always good.” An expert swiveling of his hips reminded her of such.

She stifled the moan building up in her throat and instead punished him by clamping her muscles hard around his shaft. “Behave. I was all set to reward you, but you’ve got to follow the rules.”

“Seems to me, no matter what I do, I get a reward.” He grabbed a palmful of ass with each hand and gave her a squeeze that was on just the right side of painful. “I thought this was all about
not
behaving.”

“It’s about
you
behaving.” She clenched again, and he gasped.

“Fair enough.” He smiled and removed his hands, going as far as to lace his fingers together at the back of his head.

She sat up and rode him now in earnest, and watched his gaze follow her breasts as they rose and fell. Watching him and feeling his reaction to her was doing as much for her aroused state as being on his cock was.

God.
She put her head back and closed her eyes. It was too much. She had to stop watching or…

“Are you getting there, darlin’?”

“Uh.” She clamped her fingers into the muscles of his thighs and tried to push back the tidal wave that approached. Her attempt was ineffective, because already she’d started to quake.

“Erica.”

She opened her eyes and bumped his ribs between her knees. “You’d better not,” she warned.

“Yes, ma’am.” He had the audacity to laugh.

And when she came, panting and shuddering, all she wanted to do was lay there next to his naked body and sleep, but that hadn’t been her plan.

Just one minute, and I’ll finish.

She lay there, half on him, half off him for a couple of minutes and he dragged gentle fingertips up and down her spine.

“Are you
trying
to make me sleepy,
rubio
?”

“Nope. Just enjoying the view. What I can see of it, anyway. Nice curves.”

“Glad you think so.” She heaved herself onto her arms and crawled to the bed’s edge, conscious of Curt’s gaze on her rear end. When she sat up again, it was with an unopened tub of lubricant.

“What is that?”

“Silicone, amongst other things.”

“You don’t need that.”

“I disagree.” She held the tube out to him.

He took it, but his expression was mystified.

He understood better when she turned around on her hands and knees and looked back at him.

“Fuck.”

“That’s the general idea.” She wiggled her ass and he pressed a hand against one cheek, but when his press wasn’t forthcoming, she panicked.

There she was, laid more bare than ever before, gifting him with the only sort of virginity she had left, and he
hesitated
.

She started to sit back, but a firm hand nudged her shoulders downward to the bed.

Goosebumps tingled as he trailed fingers down her spine and lingered at the base before parting her cheeks.

After a long pause, she felt the warm slick of oily liquid pooling at the top of her buttocks and down into the valley between them. She hissed as his finger probed the rim of her anus, distributing the product and barely breaching her muscle.

He inched closer, and when his sheathed cock grazed the inside of her, she wondered if he’d plow in, full speed ahead. But no, he was cautious. There was that calculated, skillful exploration she should have expected of him, because even at his most vigorous, he’d always been careful. He never caused her pain unless she wanted it.

This was an instance where she most certainly did
not
want it, but she wanted the experience. That’s what going to Ireland had been about in a way: putting herself outside of her comfort zone and hoping to discover something wonderful. She was committed to going along for the ride…or being the ride, in this case, because she liked this man that much. It wasn’t even about the sex. It was about offering him something voluntarily. Something that wasn’t convenient.

Her toes curled as he probed her with first one finger, then another, stretching her. The sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant, especially not in conjunction with the pressure of his other hand on her clitoris. No, that was quite nice.

She changed her mind.

She wanted his cock back in her and his talented fingers working her back door at the same time, but he obviously had other ideas.

He reclaimed his fingers, pulled her hips back, and slowly pressed the tip of his cock against her tighter entrance, lingering there, teasing for a moment and she ground her teeth in preparation.

She took a deep breath and relaxed as his fingers flitted over her hips, down her spine, and to the backs of her thighs. He rubbed, parting her more without even approaching ground zero. Then he was there. The gate breached, and he slipped himself in more and more, until her impulse was not to force him out, but keep him in.

“How are you, darlin’?” Curt whispered as he pulled himself out.

“Wonderful,” she managed, and it was truth, at least once he engaged her empty sex with two of his fingers.

Holy shit.

As he pistoned in and out of her back entry while scissoring his fingers inside her wet slit and flicking at her clit with his other hand, she suddenly felt very dizzy–and like she’d wasted an orgasm. Now this, which would probably render her walk crooked for several days afterward, this was a special treat.

“I’m not going to last very long, darlin’.”

All she could manage was a pant followed by a whimper when his fingers eased off her clit. He thrusted deeper, faster, and now tapped her g-spot with the fingertips of his right hand with a hummingbird-like speed. When she clamped her muscles around his fingers, biting her own bedspread as she came again, he shuddered behind her, spilling his load.

He paused there before slowly easing out and rolling onto his back.

“Jaysus.”

“Like that?” Erica asked. She flattened onto her belly, boneless. Submissive.

“It’s nice, but between you and me, it’s not my favorite.”

She sat up, stunned. “What?”

His eyes were closed as he pushed up to put his back against the headboard.

“Feels good being clenched that tight, but there’s something so damned hot about knowing there’s a chance I could knock you up, even when I try to be so careful.” His eyes opened and her pulse thundered in her ears.

“I’m sure that frightens you,” he said, voice utterly bland. “I think it’s a testosterone thing. Some animal instinct. It’s like a claiming, I guess. Men are gross that way.”

She leaned on her forearms and studied him. “You feel that way with every woman?”

He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head in response. “I’ve done a lot of anal. I don’t want to do it with
you
, unless you prefer it.”

Huh
. The man was absolutely confounding. She cleared her throat and pushed back so she was sitting on her heels. “Good to know.”

She had no words. Her thoughts were mostly a series of exclamation points and question marks streaming in her brain as if they were printed on a ticker.
A claiming
, he’d said. And what had Carla said? That she must have been doing something right? She still didn’t know what it was. That scared her even more than his admission that he was aroused at the thought of impregnating her.

That she wouldn’t mind so much.

He had a lot going for him. Smarts. Looks. An unusual patience for her quirks. What she would mind, however, was if he got bored and left her empty. Used up, just like she’d been when she left Tate.

“Uh…” She watched him pinch the end of the condom and work the sheath off. “I’ll get you something to clean up with.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m going to jump in the shower. Maybe we can go for a walk?”

She paused there at the edge of the bed. “A walk?”

He bobbed his head toward the window as he stood. “There’s a little lake back there, right?”

“Yeah. Has a little one-mile trail. I’ve lived here three years and have never walked it.”

“Well, there you go.” He paused behind her as he passed and pressed his lips against that favorite spot of his on her neck. It made her want to melt that he’d kiss her there after they’d done something so kinky.

“Uh…I’ll finish dinner while you shower.”

He turned around and winked. “I’ll hurry then.”

Oh, she was gone. Absolutely gone.

Chapter 12

Erica and Curt sat thigh-to-thigh on the bench beneath the single pole light near the lake trail, tucking into the sandwiches she had wrapped in foil and toted outdoors under her arm. They didn’t speak for a long while, just enjoyed good food and Curt feeling, for once, that this woman wasn’t going to talk him to death about things that were not of consequence. When she talked, she said things he wanted to hear. Usually.

“So, what were you working on when I came home?” she asked, probing a finger around the frayed edges of a hole in his jeans.

He set his sandwich down on the bench beside him and blew a raspberry. “That’s…complicated.”

“You mean you can’t distill it enough for a photographer to understand?” Her voice was light, but there was a tightness in the set of her jaw. A darkness in her gaze. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, not even unintentionally. If he was going to have a long-term go of this thing–something he had absolutely no idea how to manage–it seemed reasonable he be honest about things up front and give her the chance to accept or rebuff. He wanted it to be her choice.

“No, darlin’. The math bit isn’t particularly complicated once you know what you’re looking for. What’s complicated is the reason why I have to do it.”

“You said it wasn’t related to your PhD?”

“No. That’s all done except for a couple small engagements. I…” He tipped his head back and counted the constellations he knew. “I work for a think tank, right? My current project is for a large manufacturing company. Essentially, I’ve been tasked with figuring out how to best steal from the company.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”