Stray (11 page)

Encouraged by the sound that escaped my lips, Jon turned to the other side, drawing that strap down faster and seizing the breast in a rougher assault of lips and tongue. I don’t know how long he stayed there, pleasuring first one side and then the other, before he lifted himself slightly and pulled the bra all the way off of both arms.

When he’d done that, Jon returned to his task, but a big hand slipped under my thong to find me drenched with my own juices. He growled as he pulled it down and thrust a finger inside my wet channel, curling it into my g-spot as if he’d had a homing device.

The waves of pleasure that he started with the first touch of his tongue to my nipple began to bunch as, with another thrust of his finger and a gentle nip at my breast, the orgasm shattered me. I think I cried out, but his mouth was on mine, kissing me passionately as I bucked and writhed under his hand and, with a final shudder, clutched his broad chest to me.

“Oh, my God,” I said, when I could speak. Jon’s soft chuckle brought me back to myself.
I was so going to fire Bob
, I thought. Poor substitute didn’t even come close to describing it, and we hadn’t even had sex yet.

“Happy to be of service, ma’am,” Jon whispered.

“Oh, God,” I said again. Jon had rolled to one side and was propped on a shirt-clad elbow, watching me. I dimly remembered being embarrassed to be looked at as I climaxed sometime in the past. It hadn’t been Greg, someone else that I couldn’t quite recall. Greg didn’t care if I had an orgasm or not, and was usually too busy getting off himself to notice when I did. I suppose I was lucky it always took him a while, or I wouldn’t ever have had one. Fuck Greg, now I knew what a real man was like. I shoved Greg out of my thoughts again and reached for Jon’s shirt buttons.

He watched as my fingers fumbled with one after the other of his buttons. I inhaled his male scent with delirious pleasure as I opened each one. When I reached the last one and pushed the shirt off his free arm, he helped me get it off of that side. Then he sat up and took the other side off by himself, tossing the shirt toward Mrs. P’s antique quilt rack at the side of the room, but missing.

I beheld the whole of Jon’s naked torso for the first time. Like his face, it was magnificent. Well-defined muscles flexed in the lamplight, making me remember my fantasy. The tattoo was even more intricate than I remembered, but I traced every inch of it with my tongue as I smoothed my hand over Jon’s pecs and downward over the washboard abs, skimming lightly before reaching for his belt. With his help, I soon had him out of his pants and shorts, and the erection that sprang forth when released was no disappointment. I must have gasped when I saw it, and Jon must have been used to that reaction.

“It’ll be okay,” he said softly. “I’ll go slowly at first, to let you get used to it.” It was such a practical statement that if I hadn’t been mesmerized by the beautiful but oversized cock in front of me, it might have killed the mood.

I knew what he meant, though. My first thought after, ‘My God, that’s beautiful’ was ‘how is that thing going to fit’? Because I was mesmerized, though, all thoughts fled as, without conscious volition, I bent forward to taste that first drop of pre-cum. Moaning, I pushed my mouth down further, until I had the entire head enclosed, and began to swirl my tongue around it. I might have continued that for hours, if Jon hadn’t lifted me at some point and laid me back down, then covered me swiftly with his body to hold me down as he kissed down the centerline between my breasts, over my navel, and further.

He came to rest with his mouth breathing softly on my exposed clit. The little hussy had been standing at attention ever since that first orgasm, and now he licked and teased, making me gush from my channel again and cry out when he sucked it. My hands clawed at the sheet, and then at his shoulders as he drove me to a second orgasm, still without penetrating me with anything other than his finger. My channel was clenching on nothingness, desperate to be filled when at long last, he got up and briefly searched his pants pocket, then handed me a condom. Easing himself back down beside me, with his erection jutting upward, he waited patiently for me to fumble with opening it and attempt to roll it on. I couldn’t stretch it over him, though.

“Help,” I giggled.

“You’ve never…?” he said.

“I’ve never done the putting-on. I was just a kid at first, and then I was in a committed relationship. We both got tested and I went on the pill. There hasn’t been anyone since him.”

Wordlessly, Jon rolled the condom down as I watched, then rolled over to take me in his arms again. He reached between my legs, I supposed to judge whether our delay and conversation had interfered with my readiness. He found me still slick, and my gasp as his fingers entered me must have convinced him I wasn’t so easily distracted. He moved his body over me, resting on one elbow, and spoke softly.

“Open your legs for me, sweetheart, and pull your knees up a little.”

Excitement gripped me as I obeyed, and then Jon guided himself into me, just the tip at first. I knew I would stretch down there. After all, the channel was designed with the full capability of pushing out a baby. But the sensation that washed through me as my muscles adjusted to his girth was new to me. One part fire, one part nirvana, the feeling of fullness grew until I wasn’t sure I could take another inch. At that point, he stopped and waited. I felt a tear roll down from the corner of my eye into my hair.

“Are you all right?” he asked, with a tenderness that I’d never experienced before.

“Oh, God,” I responded again. I seemed to have lost my vocabulary, my ability to think and my soul. Before I’d even adjusted to the fullness inside me, I began to shake as another orgasm rolled through me and gripped him tightly.

“Oh, God,” he echoed. Well, at least we spoke the same language.

Jon began to move, slowly and carefully, withdrawing and then pushing back in, but without force. I wanted to look at him, to see the expression on his face as he made love to me, because I couldn’t call this fucking. It was too intense, too full of tenderness for that word. The problem was that it was so intense I also couldn’t force my eyes open. Not until he spoke my name.

“Erin, sweetheart. Look at me.” With an effort, I dragged my eyes open, to find his dark ones staring into them. “You are so beautiful,” he said. “I want you to know, while I’m here inside you. This isn’t just a one-night stand. I want to know you.”

With that, his thrusts became faster, filling me with more force until he stiffened with a groan that triggered one more orgasm for me and collapsed him on top of me heavily. If that was lovemaking, whatever had been going on with Greg hadn’t deserved the name. And I wanted more.

Despite his words, I didn’t expect this to ever happen again, and the tears that started then reflected that despair. This man had just ruined me for any other. What was I going to do now?

“Erin, why are you crying? Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said, unable to express what I was feeling. He would think I was crazy. You don’t fall in love with someone over casual sex, or if you do, you’re a crazy stalker bitch. I wasn’t a crazy stalker bitch, I’d have to get over it. My plan to scratch my itch and then forget him was shattered, though. I would never forget a moment, not even a second, of what had happened that night in my bed, not in a million years.

Well, I
’d stepped in it now. I didn’t usually fall for a girl until after I’d ended it with the previous girl, but Erin was irresistible. It was as if her every erogenous zone was an on-switch that produced instant orgasms. I wanted to keep flicking that switch, watching the incredible transformation of a beautiful woman into a…what? I couldn’t even describe it, didn’t have the words. All I knew was that when she came, whether I was inside her or not, a powerful urge to keep her for myself and never let her go rippled through me as an almost visceral reaction. I’d never felt it with another woman, certainly not Ashleigh, with whom I was going to have to break up immediately.

I knew Ashleigh thought I cheated, and in fact, I just had, though it didn’t feel like it to me. Emotionally, I was done with Ashleigh, hadn’t ever been emotionally attached in the first place. I was just going through the motions until my plan was in place. But, I couldn’t cheat on Erin. It felt low and asshole-ish.

I doubted if I was in love with Erin; that particular emotion had never raised its scary head before. But, right was right and wrong was wrong, and it was wrong to cheat on her. As long as I was sleeping with her, dating her, whatever I wanted to call it, I couldn’t sleep with anyone else, not even the girl I hadn’t broken up with yet. That was next on my agenda.

I called from the car on the way to the resort after leaving Erin curled in a sated ball in her bed. The front desk was going to have something to talk about again, and it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t spend another night where Ashleigh could get her hands on me, or there was going to be trouble. Ascertaining that there was a suite available, I booked it, told the clerk that I wouldn’t require help tonight but that I would need a bellhop as soon as Ms. Egren was out of the room the next morning. For the foreseeable future, I’d stay at the hotel, because I was about to put my plan in motion. Ready or not, I was going to force a vote to remove Egren from the Board and replace him with yours truly. After that, I’d put a stop to that ill-conceived new hotel, before we spent any more money on planning for it.

There were two things bothering me about a premature bid for leadership of the Board. Someone in this town had been swinging the planning commission vote in favor of the resort and against town sentiment. I didn’t yet know who. If it was Doc McGraw, I was sunk. I didn’t have enough proxy votes to win if he voted his with Egren. It seemed inconceivable that he would, but there it was. Whether he liked it or not, I was going to have to talk to him, or get someone else to, so that I’d know the truth before I called for the vote. The way I saw it, I had one shot and one shot only. If Egren knew what I was up to beforehand, he’d have time to gather enough more votes to block me, one way or another.

By the time I got to the resort, the warm glow that I had from seeing Erin that evening had worn off, and I was pissed about it. We’d had a great time at dinner. She was a good sport, even after I ordered escargot to challenge her. Her reaction to the Death by Chocolate turned me on so much that I almost took her in the elevator. To find that she was as hungry for me as I was for her was a huge rush. Not that most women turned me down, but it was refreshing to have someone not act all coy and shy when they wanted exactly the same thing I did.

It was too late to confront Ashleigh if I wanted to get any sleep tonight at all, so I took the coward’s way out and didn’t go back to the suite where we were both registered. Instead, I picked up my key to the new suite, and headed for bed. I slept naked anyway, and the suite had complimentary toiletries, of course. I could even wear the complimentary terry robe and call for room service before my luggage, still packed I hoped, was delivered to me with a change of clothes. However, six a.m. was going to come very soon. It was past two already. I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

I dreamed of Erin’s soft skin and incredible, sexy voice as she moaned and writhed under me. God, she was beautiful! Had I said that before? Her gray-green eyes went completely emerald when she came, at least I thought so. They always clamped tightly shut except that last time, when she gazed into mine as I moved inside her. I’ve heard about the ‘flash of green’ that’s supposed to happen as the last tiny speck of setting sun sinks beneath the ocean. If it’s as beautiful as the green of Erin’s eyes, I’d want to watch the sunset on the ocean every day for the rest of my life. Hard to do from a Colorado mountaintop, though. I drifted into a state of complete relaxation, still dreaming of Erin.

My lovely dreams were turned into a nightmare when the phone rang and Ashleigh’s most strident voice assaulted me through the receiver.

“What are you playing at, Jon?”

I rolled over to look at the bedside clock. Five forty-five. She’d robbed me of fifteen minutes of precious sleep and my morning looked to be a cluster-fuck. So, I answered in kind.

“I’m playing at getting rid of your ass,” I snarled. “This is the last straw, Ashleigh. If I want to sleep alone to get some peace, I will. You have no right to call me up and yell at me before six in the morning. Don’t call back.” I slammed the receiver back onto the hook, knowing that all she would hear was the snick of disconnection, not the loud bang that I would have preferred. Then I called the front desk.

“Don’t put through any more calls from Ms. Egren. And please have the bellhop bring my luggage right away.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

“Yes, have room service bring up my usual.”

“Very good, Mr. Miles. It will be about half an hour.”

Good. I had time to shower and get myself into that robe before facing anyone in person. Half an hour later, on the dot, the server had just pushed the cart into the room when Ashleigh shoved her way in right behind him before the door swung shut. I held up my hand to forestall the tirade, tipped the server, and closed the door after him.

“Don’t start,” I warned. Of course, it did no good. I knew it would infuriate her even more if I ate my breakfast while she let loose her tirade, but I didn’t care. The last shred of anything I had ever felt for her had been swept away with that early phone call.

While she screamed and berated me, I calmly ate my eggs benedict and observed her dispassionately. At twenty-six, she looked ten years older, the tanning and smoking taking a toll on her skin that I hadn’t noticed before. She hadn’t bothered with make-up, which was probably why I could see how old she looked now. Her hair was snarled and uncombed, making it even more difficult to take her seriously.

If I wanted to shock her into silence, all I had to do was get up and guide her over to the mirror where she could see what she looked like. But I didn’t want her to collapse in my suite. I waited until she wound down, and then I told her calmly that it was over, that there was nothing she could do, and that I was sorry if I’d been a jerk. There was no ‘if’ about it. I had been a jerk. I deserved every insult she threw at me, no matter how vituperative. But, now she’d had her say, I’d appreciate it if she would go quietly, rather than make me to call the front desk and have her forcibly removed.

Ashleigh was so stunned by the threat that she didn’t even have anything to say in response. She threw me a look of half-rage, half-despair before yanking the door open and leaving abruptly. I called the front desk and asked them to have someone watch her suite. I needed to go in and get anything the bellhop had missed, and I didn’t want to see her there.

Next on my agenda was finding a way to determine what Doc McGraw would do if he voted his own shares for my takeover bid. He’d hung up on me, refused to answer my emails and had even thrown me out of his office and instructed his receptionist to call the police if I showed up there again. It was risky, but the only thing left to do that I could see was confront him at home. If I was lucky, he wouldn’t shoot me on sight. If I was unlucky, well, at least there’d be a doctor on hand. I knew he would be in his office by eight, which was why I had intended to get up so early in the first place.