IllicitImpulse (13 page)

She touched her forehead to his and laughed.

Too far away. She lived too far away.

They moved as if trying to catch up to something that would
wink out of existence in another minute. Not quite running down the hill she’d
come up so reluctantly, she found herself taking almost two steps to every one
of his until they reached the stoplight. She stared at the firm set of his jaw
as he watched the traffic, his hand viselike around hers. She wanted to stay
there a bit longer, savoring this new, sweet sensation of being protected, even
if the threat was just sparse traffic at a moderately busy intersection.

A green light allowed them to continue the headlong rush
she’d started with the pulse of her hand around his, an instant’s connection
between her eyes and his. This was yes. Firmly yes. A long-overdue yes.

Yes.

Just ahead the traffic signal began to count down the
seconds before they’d have to stop and wait again. She started to slow down, in
deference to his lovable caution, but he lengthened his already long stride. To
the cars going by, they were just another couple trying to beat the light, and no
one else could know how different this was. The fact that she was running in
these spectacular shoes. The fact that he was running at all. The madness of it
almost made her lightheaded.

A couple. They were a couple. Even now on the street, not
quite home.

Finally.

Stopped again for yet another light, she rocked giddily back
on her heels and laughed and his arm was around her and she crashed breathless
into him and his mouth was on hers and… Jesus. Who knew he could kiss this way?
He took his time, linking their fingers together one by one and answering every
single what if, if only, when, where, how.

Jesus.

She let her hand swing in his on the way to that last
intersection. While they waited for the light, she shifted her weight from one
side to the other, all but dancing in place as she stole a glance at this
stranger who used to be her best friend. He caught her looking—he’d always
catch her, wouldn’t he?—and snaked his arm under her coat, smoothed his palm
against her blouse, the long fingers seeking out her bra strap, tugging at it
as if he meant to unfasten her here on the sidewalk. She wasn’t sure she’d stop
him. She knew she would welcome the warm strength of his hands on her and he
likely knew it as well.

“Soon,” he whispered to her as if he could hear what lay
beneath her conscious thoughts. “Soon.”

This time, she closed her door behind them before she
dropped her keys. Her purse fell away into the dark, followed by her coat, and
she wondered if they would even make a sound when they landed.

Delirium descended over her when his breath caressed the
skin of her throat. She tugged his hair, gasped at the searing heat of his
mouth and leaned back, her head against the door, wanting him to have
everything. She closed her eyes and slowly the world dipped and swayed beneath
her. She tightened her grip on his shoulders as he lifted her.

How long since she’d invited a man here? Weightless and
dizzy, she couldn’t remember anyone before him. With every step toward her
bedroom, he seemed to claim a place of his own in her home. When he set her
gently down on her unmade bed and sat next to her, she knew he’d always
belonged right here.

She propped herself against the headboard. For years, she’d
wanted to pull his glasses off and see his face. Really see it as it would look
just before he fell asleep at night. She’d never wanted to learn a man as much
as this one. At the same time, he made it so easy just to be there, to relax
and be still and savor each moment of this experience, not looking forward into
tomorrow or back through the past. If it was this way forever, she’d always be
content. No fear of anything, not even this gateway to the future. Just the
resolve to remember this first step into the future, the hope that every detail
would be just as rich in twenty years as it was tonight.

She reached for him, flattened her palm on his chest to feel
his heart beating. He lifted her hand away and brushed his lips against her
wrist, where her own pulse must have fluttered like butterfly wings. Her
fingers trembled when she took hold of his glasses. She felt the effort he made
to stay still. Goose bumps slowly rose on her arms.

This person who knew her so well made her feel so innocent,
as if he were the first man to whom she would offer the fragility of her
beating heart.

Not innocent. An innocent wouldn’t watch with this kind of
desire as he rose and undressed. Innocence feared this kind of hunger. She
embraced this familiar fire and longed to feed it.

Grace set his glasses on the nightstand and leaned back
again to watch. She unfastened the buttons on her blouse, letting her fingers
caress the lace of her bra in anticipation of his touch. He revealed a long,
lean torso, moving with a smooth efficiency that brought a smile to her face.
She’d expected his grace but not the understated power of his arms or the
shadow of dark hair on his chest. She let her blouse slide from her shoulders
and kicked her shoes onto the floor before reluctantly turning her attention to
her skirt.

Soft clinking distracted her as she wiggled her way free
from the last of her clothes and she caught him struggling with his belt
buckle. He was always so confident—the calm, steady presence that never failed
to put her at ease. He couldn’t be nervous, could he?

She adjusted the sheets, dislodging the heap of laundry at
the corner of the bed, and patted the space next to her. Still in his boxers,
he settled in beside her, pulling the linens over them both. She sighed,
delighted by the comforting warmth of him. Then his long legs tangled with
hers, and the rush of need descended over them again.

He overwhelmed all her senses, his soft, fragrant hair, his
firm mouth taking charge of hers, the heat of his chest bringing her nipples to
aching points. When she whimpered into his kiss, he unhooked her bra and they
separated just long enough to get rid of it. She bared her throat to him,
wanting the heat of his kiss on her sensitive skin and gasping when he obliged.
His hands engulfed one breast and the curve of her ass and she moved into him,
wanting this to go on forever and still wanting more.

His tongue swept over the hollow of her collarbone, but he
went still when she ground her hips against his hard-on. She reached between
them and into his boxers for him, just stroking him at first, indulging years
of curiosity as he held his breath.

His cock was an easy, perfect fit for her hand, as if he’d
been made for her alone. She let her palm slide over the satin-smooth skin,
taut over the firm shaft that went on and on in her grasp. Her thumb caressed
the curve of his cock head. She rubbed the first silken drops of his pre-come
between her fingertips and his flesh. He whispered her name, and the harsh
sound made her own aching center pulse in response.

His body leaned toward hers and she rolled slowly onto her
back, reluctantly releasing him. Beneath him, she tugged awkwardly at her
panties, wriggling from side to side until she could kick them off and take
hold of his boxers. When they were naked, she wanted to pull him down onto her,
wanted him inside her, but he smiled gently at her in the shadows and propped
himself above her on one arm.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered and when she obeyed, he
grazed her earlobe with his teeth. She sighed, the sound of surrender swelling
into a moan as his weight settled alongside her. With his free hand, he
caressed her skin, taking in the curve of each breast and the valley between
them, moving as if he wanted to memorize every millimeter of her. She
concentrated on his touch, determined to move at his pace.

His broad palm swept slowly over her belly, leaving waves of
wildfire in its wake until he reached the rise between her legs. She opened for
him, yielding to the slight but persistent pressure of his long, strong
fingers. He caressed her swollen lips, stroked slick folds, and in her ecstasy,
she heard him whisper sounds of approval and encouragement. She answered in
broken whimpers and startled gasps, alternately excited and eased by his lips
and tongue and teeth at her ear.

She longed for completion, to truly move as one with him.
Her body ached to be united with his, but his stubborn attention to her
distracted her in the best of ways. The intensity of the sensation undid her,
unraveling her words into fragmented sounds of pleasure.

She opened her eyes then, still riding his hand,
half-expecting to see him in a sensual daze. He looked down at her and smiled,
relaxed but in control, just as she’d imagined he had looked that long ago
night at Tal’s.

She reached for his cock again, grinning with satisfaction
when he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the surge of
pleasure. She pumped and stroked him, alternating between a firm grip on him
and gently sliding from his thick root to the petal-soft skin around the head
of his cock. She wanted all night to study what would make him respond, further
threaten all that self-control, but before then—

He tapped the slick flesh between her legs lightly, all his
fingers together like a perfect, tailor-made paddle. He spanked her there once,
twice more, until she trembled, a breath away from climax. She gasped and he
tapped her again, the wet sound of her flesh very loud, her dark, earthy scent
teasing her tongue out between her teeth.

“Please. Please, I want you.” She felt heat rise to her
face. How had he made her shy? But he nodded in the bedroom’s half-light.

“Okay. All right.”

She reached awkwardly into the drawer of her nightstand, not
wanting to move out of reach as he idly traced her clit. Blindly she pawed
around inside, swallowing a moment of panic just before finding her chain of
condoms. She pulled one off the chain, tried not to think of how long they’d
been there, and offered it to him. He struggled with the wrapper for a moment
before chuckling.

“I think you’re going to have to get it. My hands are too—”

She laughed and took the condom from him. The slick wrapper
gave her a little trouble too, but she managed to get it open, turning it over
to find the right side before returning it. She thought she could hear the
rabbit-swift rush of her heartbeat in the awkward silence that followed, and
the nonsense part of her mind coyly offered up the thought they’d just
encountered their first inside joke.

They were awkward for an instant then, their knees coming
together as he settled atop her. She caught her breath at the length of him
against her belly before he entered her in one long, slow drive. He filled her
so perfectly, molding her inexorably to him, reaching deeper and farther within
her than she could imagine. She treasured it, this feeling of him in her, and
then he began to move. He seemed to want to savor it too, slowly plunging and
withdrawing, his weight rocking gently onto her. Caressing her as no other man
had, more carefully but more thoroughly, still he bent to her ear to whisper to
her.

Wonder. Praise. And her name. Always coming home to her
name.

She gave herself over to climax so easily, sorry that she’d
arrived so soon, already dreaming of her future with him in bed before he
pumped himself into her a little harder, faster. Mindless abandon preceded
wordless surrender, and when he came, going still before those last few
convulsive thrusts, he cried out for her again.

She pulled him down to her and kissed his damp forehead as
his own aftershocks rocked him. She whispered his name and ran her fingers
through his hair, and as he caught his breath, she wondered what he thought.
She wondered what he felt.

Then her eyes met his, naked without his glasses but not at
all vulnerable, and she realized how little she really needed to know and how
much time she would have to make sense of it all.

* * * * *

You should always have bread, milk and eggs in your
refrigerator.

At first blush, the rule stood in conflict with one of her
favorite rules—
You can’t sneak out of your own place
. She’d rationalized
the inconsistency by saying that the fridge rule was mostly about her. An empty
fridge meant having to go out for breakfast after a long night. Having to
improvise hangover cures. Reluctance to leave a new friend’s apartment the
morning after.

Now, on this morning after, she was forced to reconsider the
rules. Not just this one. All of them.

She still wished she had something in the fridge. Last night
she hadn’t given it the first thought, but now she wanted to offer him
breakfast. Not to cement her place in his life or even because he would do it
for her, but just because he was here and because whatever breakfast she
managed to throw together might please him.

Was it even still morning? She couldn’t read the clock on
her nightstand without moving. She hated to wake him for something so trivial
as knowing for certain what the time was. Instead she tried to divine the time
using the brightness of the sunlight outside her window, but his glasses, now
resting where she’d put them on the nightstand, distracted her. They seemed
right there, as if that spot next to her bed had been waiting for him as long
as she had.

Breakfast would wait. Hell, even lunch would wait. Right now
she was content to feel the regular fan of his breath against the back of her
neck, steady and quiet and easy like the clock she couldn’t see but relied on
all the same. The last of the morning could slip away. The afternoon could
follow behind it. She could stay right here until the sun set.

The seasons would dance by her window on a hundred mornings
like this. She smiled in spite of herself at the thought of dividing her time
between her bed and his fireplace. From behind the stage curtain at the back of
her mind peeped the question of whether he’d try to figure out where she might
hide his Christmas presents.