No Strings Attached (6 page)

“Yes. I think so. I don’t know, really. I just know I like the way your hands feel
on me.”

He moved closer to her, wrapped his arms around her, his forearms resting just under
her breasts. Her breath caught.

“I guess we’ll have to explore that together, then.”

She found it hard to breathe having him wrapped around her like this. “I guess we
will.” The thought of it thrilled her. James had always been tender, sweet in his
lovemaking. He’d never been rough with her. Not that it was a bad thing. But she would
dishonor his
memory because it would sound like a complaint. And she had no complaints. She’d loved
her husband. Making love with James had been ten slices of heaven. He’d treated her
like an angel every time he touched her.

She swore she’d no longer dwell on the past or on James.

Now she was ready for something a little different. She didn’t know why. Maybe because
she could? She’d spent a long time deciding to go for this. This was her chance to
explore. And oh, she wanted everything. Having Clay here with her, his body intimately
pressed against her, his warm breath against her neck, was more than she had ever
fantasized about.

She settled against him, felt the hard ridge of his erection against her butt, and
shuddered, expectation ratcheting up both her nervousness and excitement.

“Are you sure you’re not cold? I can shut the door.”

She turned in his arms so she faced him. “Don’t. I like the breeze coming in. Everything
is perfect.” She was almost afraid it was too perfect. Something was bound to go wrong
and she didn’t want it to. She had thought about this moment for so long.

But then Clay kissed her, and all her worries melted away with the touch of his lips,
the slide of his tongue, the masterful way he stroked her libido to fever pitch with
his mouth. He knocked her senses sideways and she was lost in him.

When he reached for the zipper on her dress, she began to tremble. But this time,
he didn’t pause, didn’t question whether she was ready or not. This time, he wasn’t
going to stop. Thankfully.

He drew the zipper partway down, then stepped back. She looked up at him, at the smoldering
look of desire on his face—a look she’d never seen in a face that had grown so familiar
to her over the years.

He reached again for the straps on her dress. This time, when he pulled the straps
down her arms, the top of her dress went with them.

She should be nervous. She wasn’t. Not even when he bared her to the waist. She hadn’t
worn a bra, didn’t need one, really, since the
dress was so tight. She reached behind her and finished unzipping the dress. It fell
to the floor and she stepped out of it, then kicked off her shoes.

Clay removed his shoes, then undid the button on his pants and drew the zipper down.
Only then did she start to feel those nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
She’d been with only one man her entire life. What if she really didn’t know how to…do
this? What if she was lousy at it? What if after they had sex Clay found her lacking?
She’d be mortified.

But all thoughts of uncertainty fled when Clay began to unbutton his shirt, revealing
a wide expanse of beautiful chest and flat, ridged stomach. He shrugged off the shirt
and let his pants fall to the floor. He was so different from James—muscular where
James had been lean and wiry. She hated that James kept entering her mind, but he’d
been the only man in her life. Visions of him still swam in her head.

Until Clay tugged his boxers down his hips. His erection bobbed, thick and rigid,
impossible for her to ignore. She felt heat and moisture between her legs, as well
as the urge to rub the swelling throb of her clit.

But tonight she wouldn’t have to touch herself, wouldn’t have to imagine a man between
her legs satisfying all her desires. Tonight there’d be reality instead of fantasy.

Tonight there was Clay.

She drank in the sight of him, so incredibly beautiful from his dark hair to his muscular
legs to his erect cock that made her mouth water. He bore scars on his arms, some
she remembered him getting on the job because they often worked side by side on shared
projects. He’d blow off most cuts and gouges and scrapes no matter how deep. He was
tough.

He sat on the bed. “Come here, Ella.”

She moved forward on shaky legs and stopped in front of him, her breasts level with
his face. Her nipples puckered and he apparently noticed that, because his lips curled
up.

He reached out and traced his finger around each nipple. Her breath caught, her body
shuddering all over at the contact. It had been so long. So damn long. Tears rushed
to her eyes and she blinked them back.

This is just sex. Quit making such a big damn deal out of it. It doesn’t mean anything.

He slid his thumb over her nipple, a soft back-and-forth action. Her sex quivered
with delicious sensation. For the first time in years, she felt her body swelling,
coming to life, arching toward a man’s touch. It felt achingly familiar and yet oh,
so different.

He widened his legs and pulled her between them. His thighs were warm pressed against
hers. He moved his hands from her thighs to her hips, ignoring the panties she still
wore, sweeping his touch over her waist as if he were memorizing every inch of her
skin. This slow exploration made her pulse skitter, her body temperature rise.

“You have a beautiful body, Ella. It’s a shame no one’s touched it in so long.”

He swept his hands around her back and drew her toward him. She braced her hands on
his shoulders as he fit one nipple into his mouth. Slow, easy, teasing her as his
tongue snaked out to lick around the areola, tantalizing her with his warm, wet tongue
until she couldn’t take it any longer. She dipped farther in, sliding her breast against
his tongue. His low hum of approval melted inside her, made her tingle in anticipation.

He fit his mouth over the bud, sucked gently and rolled his tongue over her nipple.
She tilted her head back and moaned at the nearly unbearable pleasure of it. With
each tender suck her pussy quaked. She had no idea that connection could be made.
Had it just been so long that she didn’t remember?

That had to be it. She’d felt pleasure with James. Sex had been good with him. Really
good.

Stop. Thinking. About. James.

Not now, not when the pleasure was so great, when it was only Clay she wanted to think
about. She wouldn’t compare one man to
the other, wouldn’t think about being in bed with Clay and what it meant. It meant
nothing.

It meant everything. It would be the first time she was going to be with another man
besides James.

Clay leaned back. “Something on your mind?”

She was panting, her body on fire from his mouth on her breast. “No. Yes. I’m sorry.”

He released her and she sat next to him.

“It’s James,” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s okay to think about him, Ella. You can’t try to pretend he didn’t exist. You
loved him.”

She looked down at her hands. “It doesn’t seem right.”

He tipped her chin with his finger, forcing her to look at him. “Was he the only man
you were with?”

She nodded.

“Then it’s natural you’d feel strange about this. I don’t expect you to erase James
from your memories. You shouldn’t feel that way, either.”

She loved that they could talk about James. Sitting naked on the bed together, they
were having a conversation about her dead husband. She’d never be able to do this
with anyone but Clay.

“Just let it come naturally and quit putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect.
If he occasionally pops into your thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Most guys would hate that.”

He leaned in, kissed her. “I’m not most guys.”

She was beginning to see that. “Thank you.”

“I’d like to think he’d be okay with this. That he’d trust me.”

She smiled. “I know he would.”

“Then quit worrying about it and let’s have some fun.”

She exhaled. Clay was right. She was obsessing over every little thing. Frankly, she
was surprised he hadn’t already kicked her to the curb for being too much effort.
She might not even be worth it.

“Okay, now,” he said, lying back on the bed and pulling her into his arms. He dragged
her on top of him. “Where were we?”

“You had my nipple in your mouth.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You were sucking it.”

He shifted her upward. “I remember. You tasted good.” He lifted her nipple to his
mouth.

And just like that, she fell into heat and arousal, all other thoughts fleeing her
mind. Contact was an explosion of heat. She held on to his shoulders, watching him
suck and lick one nipple, then the other, until she was too weak to hold herself up.
She collapsed on top of him and pressed her mouth to his, her tongue diving in with
a passion she’d held in reserve before.

But not now. She’d cleared her head, dismissed her reservations. It was time to focus
on one thing—Clay.

He rolled her over onto her back and laid his palm on her rib cage. Again, she felt
her heart pounding against his hand. She lifted her gaze to his. For some reason,
watching him look at her was incredibly sobering. He seemed to be so serious, but
not at all with the same intense look that he had during business meetings. Because
this time, there was an underlying look of passion in his eyes, turning their normal
sea blue to a dark, stormy color.

He finally skimmed his hand down her belly, his fingers tantalizingly close to her
panties. He slid his fingertips just underneath. She held her breath, her gaze riveted
on his face, while he tucked his hand inside to cup her sex.

She expelled her breath and sucked it in again as a whirlwind of pleasure surrounded
her.

“You’re wet. Hot. God, you feel good, Ella.”

She fought to swallow as he moved his hand farther, sliding along her pussy lips,
his fingers teasing, dipping into the wetness there and coating her. She arched against
his hand and he rubbed the heel against her clit.

She gasped. Instinct forced her to grab his wrist and guide his
hand to the spot that gave her the most pleasure. “Yes. Right there. Oh, Clay, that
feels so good.”

He pressed his lips against her temple, his warm breath teasing her ear. “I like to
hear you talk, Ella. Tell me what feels good to you.”

He slid a finger inside her and she lifted, still holding on to his wrist.

“That? Or do you want more?”

Another finger joined the first, and he pumped in and out. Ella tilted her head back
and rocked her hips against his fingers. “Yes. Oh, God, yes, I like that.”

He swirled his thumb over her clit while he finger fucked her, and the sensation was
incredible. It had been too long, and she was so ready to come.

“Yeah. Squeeze my fingers with your pussy, baby. Come for me.”

Tension spiraled up and through her as she held back, wanting to prolong the intensity
of this pleasure. Clay continued to work her pussy and slid his hand against her clit.
She turned her head and looked into his eyes, at the dark desire she saw there, and
she had no hope of holding on any longer. She let go, her orgasm seizing every muscle
of her body. She tightened, then released, pleasure flowing through her like the sweetest
electric current, making her shake all over as rivers of sensation rocked her. And
throughout, Clay tunneled his fingers in and out of her, intensifying her climax until
she lay spent and limp as a rag doll on the bed.

She smiled up at him, wanting to tell him how grateful she was for what he’d just
given her, but knowing it wouldn’t come out right. So instead, she rolled to her side
and reached for his cock, wrapping her fingers around the hot, hard center of him.

He hissed at the contact, then looked down where her hand was connected to his cock.
Ella stroked him, learning the feel of him, loving every sensation from hard to velvety
soft.

“Squeeze harder,” he said.

She shuddered at the commanding tone of his voice and wanted to please him the way
he had pleased her. She gripped him tighter and he thrust within her hand, making
her imagine him inside her,
doing exactly the same thing. She rolled her thumb over the soft mushroomed crest
of his cock. It was slippery, moist with his fluids. She paused, never having done
it with James before, but for some reason she felt bolder with Clay. She didn’t know
why, but wasn’t about to question it. She lifted her finger to her mouth and sucked
his taste from her thumb.

Clay’s nostrils flared and he sucked in a breath. “Christ, Ella. Are you trying to
make me come?”

She smiled as she licked his taste off her fingers. Salty, with just a hint of tart
sweetness. It made her want more. “Maybe.”

He rolled her over onto her back and spread her arms wide, latching onto her wrists
with his hands. “I think I’d rather come while I’m fucking you. Plenty of time to
play later.”

She liked the sound of that. Of both ideas, actually. Fucking and playing. She wanted
everything with Clay, wanted to know what it was like with him, wanted to know if
she’d missed anything, if there were things he could teach her.

He climbed off the bed and returned a few seconds later with a condom. She lay there,
curious, while he tore open the package and watched him roll the condom onto his cock,
realizing she’d never seen a man apply one before. She and James had been each others’
firsts, and she was using birth control, so they’d never used condoms.

This would be a new experience.

He kneeled between her legs and Ella raised her knees, expecting him to push inside
her. Instead he dropped down and began to kiss her thighs.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He pressed a soft kiss to her inner thigh, so close to her sex she felt his breath
on her clit as he lifted his head to look up at her. “I want you ready, Ella. So close
to coming you’re ready to scream at me. Then I’ll fuck you.”