The Sex Solution (10 page)

He held out his hands. The material surrounded his wrists and tightened. A few subtle brushes of her fingertips against his skin, and she’d tied the restraint in place. She pulled out another scarf and told him to close his eyes.

The silk scarf slithered across his eyes. Soft fingers brushed his cheek as she pulled the material tight and fastened a knot at the nape of his neck.

He’d never been blindfolded by a woman before. He preferred to feast his eyes and so he’d never opted for that little adventure. He hadn’t imagined it could be as good as watching a woman get really turned-on.

But the next few moments, as she moved around him, her arm brushing his, the soft sound of her movement close by, came pretty damned close.

With his vision and his sense of touch gone, he had only his hearing to focus on. His ears seemed to tune into every distinct sound. Her breaths just to the left of him, moving closer, closer…so close that it stirred the hair on the back of his neck, and another part of his anatomy.

He heard the clatter of plates in front of him and wondered if her arm extended around him. If she might accidentally brush him with her luscious breast when she leaned in just so….

Anticipation rippled through him and his blood rushed faster. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her. He
knew
she was there, and that she was turned-on, and it turned him on all the more.

He became acutely aware of his own body. He felt the heat of his palms. Heard the thunder of his own heart. Tasted the deprivation on his own lips. It was all he could do to sit still and wait for the sample test to begin, and pray to the Big Guy Upstairs that everything went as quickly as possible.

Out of sight, out of mind,
he told himself.

Thanks to the blindfold, she was out of sight, and so he merely needed to push her out of his mind and focus on something else to regain his composure.

Like the way the sun felt beating down on him as he worked his cattle during a blazing hot summer. Or the pride that came from the knowledge that every inch of pastureland, every horse, every steer—they were all his.

His.

He tried to conjure the picture of his place, from the two-story log cabin he’d designed and built himself to the large barn and the two adjoining corrals.

Nothing worked. He still pictured her, and he still wanted her despite her being all wrong for him, with her tight red dress and her bold, provocative words.

In fact, he wanted her
because
of those things.

He’d always been a sucker for red-hot women in the past. An addiction he’d felt certain he’d managed to kick. Until now.

“Sniff,” she instructed him, her soft voice echoing in his ear, stirring his already heightened senses. “Breathe. Sniff again.” She grew silent for a few moments. “Now rate the scent anywhere from one to five, five being the most appealing, and give your score out loud.”

He concentrated on complying with every request. Sniff. Sniff again. Rate. Until he’d gone through the routine three different times. He was on number four when he leaned forward to sniff and his nose brushed soft, fragrant skin—

“I’m sniffing you,” he blurted, jerking back and nearly toppling the chair.

“Of course.”

“But I’m supposed to be sniffing the lotion.”

“You are. I’m rubbing the lotion on my pulse points. Different fragrances smell different when they mingle with the body’s natural pheromones. You have to smell it during the sample tests the way you would if the product were actually in use.”

He hated to admit it, but it made sense. Still he was wary. “You said smelling, no touching. I
touched
you just now.”

“It’s not my fault if you got too close.”

“I can’t see a damned thing. One minute you’re on one side of me, the next you’re on the other. How am I supposed to know if I’m getting too close?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters.”

“Because you’re turned-on?”

He didn’t miss the hope in her voice. He frowned. “Because I’m dizzy, and bumping into things just makes it worse.”

“You’re really dizzy?”

“Way dizzy. I’m this close to losing my dinner.”

“That’s not good.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I suppose we could bend the rules just this once, in the name of good health. I wouldn’t want you to get sick. I’ll untie your hands. That way you can still feel things and maybe that will help you get your bearings.” Her fingers went to his wrists and the scarf fell away. “But make sure to keep the contact limited. This test is supposed to focus solely on smell.”

With his wrists free, he felt a small measure of control return. He drew a deep breath, then stood and reached for her arm.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he tugged her in front of him. Her soft breasts came up against his chest and her hips brushed his growing erection.

“Making sure you stay put.” He slid his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the table. Dishes clattered and wood creaked as she settled into place. Reaching behind him, he felt for his chair, then pulled it up close and sank down.

There was a moment of silence before her fingers closed around his hand. She guided his touch to her neck. “This sample is right…here.”

Her hand fell away as his fingertips trailed up the curve of her neck and then drifted lower. He traced the shape of her collarbone before leaning forward and drinking in her scent. Once. Twice. A third time.

“What do you think?” Her voice was breathless and soft and stirring.

“I can’t think.” Not with her scent filling his head and her heat seeping into his fingertips and his heart pumping so damned fast. “I don’t want to think.”

Right then, he wanted something altogether different.

He wasn’t sure what happened in that next instant. Maybe it was the blindfold that blotted out reality and made the future he’d planned for himself seem a distant, far-off dream. Maybe six months without a woman had finally caught up to him and scrambled his common sense. Maybe both.

He didn’t know. He only knew that he had to touch her. Right here. Right now.

His palms cupped the backs of her calves, his fingers curving around, molding their shape. He stroked, relishing the feel of her soft, smooth skin as he moved up, stroking the outsides of her knees, her thighs. He reached the hem of her short dress and halted, his fingers playing at the edge of the material. He smoothed his hands over the tops of her thighs and dipped inside, urging her legs apart.

Her breath caught as he touched his lips to the inside of her knee.

He licked and nibbled his way up the inside of her thigh until he reached…

“Damn, you’re not wearing any panties,” he growled accusingly, his lips just shy of the slick, damp folds between her legs. Her provocative scent filled his nostrils and his erection throbbed.

“I never wear panties. I mean, I do, but not with this dress. It’s too clingy and tight. Even a thong shows through.” Oddly enough, she sounded almost apologetic.

A crazy thought because she’d obviously changed from the girl he once knew.

He knew that, but there was just something about the tremble of her voice that made him want to believe her and chase away the sudden tension that filled her body, until all that remained was desire.

He slid his hands beneath her, cupped her bottom and pulled her to the very edge of the table.

He bit the soft flesh on the inside of her thigh, relishing her loud gasp before he touched his mouth to her. She cried out at the sudden contact. She gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging into his hard muscles.

He trailed his tongue up and down her slit. She tasted wild and ripe and he couldn’t get enough. He devoured her, licking and tasting and sucking every delectable inch until she cried out, her hips thrusting against his mouth.

He pulled back then, just long enough to yank the blindfold from his eyes. She stared down at him, her green eyes wild and full of wonder, as if she’d never felt a man’s mouth on her.

As if.

Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he reached out and slid his middle finger deep inside her before withdrawing and sliding back in. She was warm and slick and so damned tight around him. It took all of his control to keep from coming right there, but more than his own need, suddenly he wanted to fulfill hers. Because she was so turned-on and he knew by the desperation in her eyes that she needed release.

With his thumb, he pressed on her swollen clitoris and stroked. Back and forth. Up and down. The nub ripened and grew taut. Wetness flooded between her legs, easing the way for his finger that moved in and out. Soon her body tensed and her hips strained against his hand. Her lips parted on a loud moan and her eyes fired brighter, and she came apart.

The chair toppled backward when he bolted to his feet to lean over her and catch her cries with his mouth. He kissed her then. Deeply. Thoroughly. He slid one arm around her, holding her to him while he kept one finger deep inside. She clenched and unclenched around him in a delicious rhythm that made his erection throb so hard it hurt.

“I’m on fire,” she murmured against his lips.

He knew the feeling. He felt ready to burst into flames himself.

“You have to do something.” Her soft words were like a match to a fuse. “We have to do something.”

Suddenly he couldn’t move fast enough. He’d always been a man who could control himself with a woman, but just like that, he lost it. He wanted to be inside her. He needed it. And that was all that mattered.

“I want you so much I can hardly breathe,” she murmured, her voice breathless.

His own breaths sawed past his lips in a fast, furious rhythm as he withdrew his hand and reached for his zipper. He was so hard that the button wouldn’t budge on the first tug.

“Dammit,” he growled, yanking. The metal popped off and flew across the room. He reached for his zipper. The teeth hissed open and his jeans sagged onto his hips. His thick erection sprang forward.

“I want you so much I feel dizzy,” she went on, her words feeding his desperation. “And so hot.”

The sensitive head of his penis brushed her slick heat and he groaned. His hand dove in his back pocket for his wallet and the condom stashed there. She grasped him, her fingers closing around his pulsing thickness, stroking. His grip on the wallet faltered.

“And my heart is pounding so fast. And so loud.”

He knew the feeling. He could hear the drumming of his own heart.
Bam, bam, bam!
Followed by the voice, “Is everything all right in there—”

Wait a second. A voice?

Austin’s fingers on the wallet halted as reality pushed past the lusty haze consuming his senses.

“It’s pounding really loud,” she murmured.

Regret washed through him. “That’s not your heart, Thumper. It’s the door.”

“The door?”

“Someone’s at the door.”

“Someone’s at the door?” Her eyes fluttered open and she stared past him. Her gaze widened as reality seemed to hit her.
“Someone’s at the door.”

“It’s Pastor Standley,” a muffled voice called. “I can hear you all in there. Is everything okay?”

“F-fine. Just a minute,” she called back. She frowned as she watched Austin stuff his massive erection back into his pants. “Talk about rotten timing.”

“Or divine intervention.”

“If that’s supposed to be an ‘I told you so,’ save it. This is not a sign from anything higher than the second floor.” At his raised eyebrow, she added, “Uncle Spur. He’s pressing charges against the pastor’s mother for propositioning him. I’m sure that’s why he’s here now.”

“You can press charges for that?”

“Don’t even think it. You want this as much as I do.”

He eyed her a moment more. “Actually—” he pressed her hand to the bulge in his pants “—I want it more.” He gave her a quick, hungry kiss before pulling back and helping her off the table.

He turned away then, leaving her to straighten her own clothes while he went to answer the door. Otherwise, he was sure to lose what little control he had, press her back onto the table and finish what they’d started.

He wanted to, but he didn’t
want
to want to.

He
wanted
to concentrate on finding himself a nice, wholesome, respectable girl and winning his bet with Miss Marshalyn.

Unfortunately, the notion didn’t seem half as appealing as it had before Madeline Hale had come rolling back into town, back into his life and right into his hottest fantasies.

M
ADELINE CLOSED
the door after reassuring Pastor Standley that she would talk to Uncle Spur about dropping the charges against his mother.

She walked back over to the table and sat down. The past evening rushed through her mind, right up to the point where she’d had the best orgasm of her life.

The best, and the first when it came to oral sex. Sure, she’d been on the receiving end before. But no man had ever pleasured her to the point of explosion. The guys she’d been with had been too intent on their own pleasure, too eager to get to the actual act to hold off just for her benefit.

Austin was different. He gave new meaning to the word
foreplay
and she couldn’t wait to see in what other ways he’d outperform the few lovers in her past.

Unfortunately, she was going to have to wait. He’d made some excuse about having to get up early and then left right after opening the door to Pastor Standley.

But he’d promised to be on time for their next session.

She recalled his earlier words:
“Actually, I want it more.”

A smile curved her lips as she gathered up the saucers and headed for the kitchen. While she hadn’t actually seduced him—she’d been the one to have an orgasm—she’d at least driven him beyond the point of denying the attraction between them. She knew now that he truly
did
want her.

Just as she knew that he liked red, despite his earlier denial. He’d gone over the edge after sniffing sample number four—the lilies and jasmine scented with succulent berries. It was a sensual, hot-blooded, full-bodied aroma. Passionate. Racy.
Red.

Lifting the plate, she inhaled. Her nostrils flared and her stomach fluttered madly.

This one definitely drew a major response. Then again, the others were potent, as well. As she sniffed her way through the other four saucers before depositing them in the sink, the sensations in her body didn’t diminish. If anything, her blood rushed faster and her heartbeat pumped at an alarming rate. She was definitely on to something. The realization sent a rush of adrenaline through her.

She spent the next half hour cleaning the dishes, straightening her makeshift lab and making notes in her test journal. Then she headed upstairs. After peeling off the red dress, she stepped beneath a cold shower. Water sluiced over her heated skin, but it did little to ease the desire still pumping through her body.

Because she didn’t just want her own orgasm. She wanted to come along with Austin. To feel him slide into her body and explode in her arms. To feel his heart pound the same fast, furious rhythm as her own. To know deep in her heart that she was the one responsible for his orgasm. That she truly had changed into a woman that Austin Jericho couldn’t resist. He was the last doubt that lingered in her mind. Her one regret.

But not for long.

Tomorrow night she would make sure there were no interruptions. Just sex. Mutually satisfying sex.

T
HEY WERE
NOT
GOING
to have sex.

Austin told himself that for the umpteenth time later that night as he turned onto his left side and did his best to get some much-needed sleep. He clamped his eyes shut, but she was there, the memory of her in that next-to-nothing red dress, her body tight and slick around his finger, her cries of ecstasy echoing in his ears.

He opened his eyes and stared at the wall. The tree outside his window cast a shadow there, the branches trembling with a small breeze.

The temperature outside had dropped a few degrees, but it wasn’t nearly enough to cool the heat that burned him up from the inside out. Even a cold shower and several glasses of iced tea had offered little relief. He was still hot. Still horny.

Still crazy.

Despite the fact that he knew Madeline was all wrong for him, he
still
wanted her. In the worst way.

He shook his head, sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. After yanking on a pair of jeans, he walked down the hallway of the sprawling, one-story ranch house. When he’d first built the place, he’d done it with a loan from the bank. But after a few successful years with his cattle, he’d had enough to pay off his loan. He owned it outright now. All five bedrooms with an equal number of bathrooms, a massive kitchen with fully stocked cupboards and every modern convenience, and a comfortable den complete with a gigantic fireplace.

It was all his, and it was a far cry from the ram-shackle old house with the sagging porch where he’d spent his youth.

He walked into the den, over to the large window that overlooked the back forty. A small dwelling sat in the far distance, barely visible from where he stood.

But Austin didn’t have to see it with his eyes. He saw it in his mind. The rotting walls, the wood completely decayed in several spots. The No Trespassing sign nailed to a tree out front. Though it stood vacant now, the place had changed little from the house he’d grown up in.

Most of the windows had been boarded up to keep the cold out. Austin and his brothers had hammered the wood into place themselves one day with nails they’d pried out of old Mr. Waller’s fence. The noise hadn’t even stirred their dad, who’d been snoring from the front porch where he’d passed out hours before after yelling and cussing up his usual bitter, drunken storm. He’d been as immune to the winter weather as he was to the high heat of summer. He’d felt nothing except the liquor flowing through his veins, and heard nothing, not even the cries of his three boys who’d been cold and hungry and desperate.

Austin had stopped his crying early on. Tears didn’t do any good. They didn’t put food on the table or make warm clothes appear or force a bitter man to give up the bottle, so Austin had stopped praying for all three. He’d stopped worrying about tomorrow and wondering why things were so messed up for him and not for the other kids in Miss Jacobs’s kindergarten class.

Instead, he’d started to take what he could get. He’d eaten when he could and worn whatever hand-me-downs he’d managed to scrounge up, and he’d stayed away from his father as much as possible. He’d stopped caring about what he didn’t have. He’d stopped caring, period. Because he’d never had anything to really care about.

Until he’d swiped a bucket of freshly picked apples from Miss Marshalyn’s back porch and gotten himself caught. She’d hauled him into her kitchen with the intent of calling the sheriff. Instead, she’d given him a lecture about respecting other people’s property, along with his first good whiff of candied sweet potatoes.

From then on, he’d been hooked. He’d started picking the apples for her and setting them on her porch in the hope that her back window would be open and he would get another whiff. After a few bucketfuls, she’d invited him inside and given him a bowl of those famous potatoes.

For a price, that is. Nothing came for free, or so she’d told him over and over, and she’d made him whitewash her front fence in payment. The chores had started then. Every day he would show up and she would give him a new task, and an overflowing plate of supper when he finished.

Even more than the food on his plate—two-thirds of which he’d always saved for his two kid brothers—he’d simply liked sitting in her kitchen, smelling the smells of a real home and feeling the warmth from the stove.

First Miss Marshalyn had filled his belly, and later she’d filled his head. With notions that anything was possible if he worked long and hard enough. She’d even given him a taste of what it was like to actually
have
something of his own.

Austin’s gaze went to the bookshelf in the far corner and the kid’s faded metal lunch kit that sat on one of the shelves.

It had been a hot Sunday like any other and he’d spent the early part cutting her grass while she was at church. When she’d come home, she’d not only fed him lunch, but she’d presented him with a brand-new, gleaming red
Dukes of Hazzard
lunch kit.

To an eight-year-old boy who packed his lunch in a used paper sack—when he actually had something to pack—it was like getting a cherished toy at Christmas.

But it wasn’t a gift, she’d told him. He’d earned the kit with his hard work. Even more, he’d earned the lunch she proceeded to pack for him every day thereafter—more than enough for him
and
his two brothers.

He turned his attention back to the window and the house that sat in the distance. While Miss Marshalyn and her lunch kit had made his childhood less bleak, it hadn’t really
changed
anything. It had merely slowed him down on the destructive path he’d been following.

He’d still been the oldest of the no-good, no-account, troublemaking Jericho brothers, and his father had still been the town drunk.

Trouble.

That’s what the sheriff had called Bick Jericho every time he’d pulled the man in for public intoxication.

“You ain’t nothin’ but trouble, Bick Jericho.”
And since Austin, Houston and Dallas had been Bick’s boys, the sheriff, and a good majority of the townsfolk, had been dead certain the brothers were no better than their old man.

While Austin, himself, had never been much for drinking, he’d grown up every bit the hell-raiser his father had been. Bitter because the world had dealt him such a shitty hand. Angry because he’d been stuck with a sorry excuse for a father.

“Born trouble, that’s what you are,”
Sheriff Gentry had told Austin the night he’d landed behind bars after totaling his souped-up Harley and nearly killing himself in the process.

He’d been roaring down Main Street, a little too reckless and much too fast, and he’d lost control. He’d crashed into the sheriff’s parked car, sending it straight to that great big Chevy lot in the sky.

“You were born one-hundred-percent trouble just like your worthless old man.”

He’d believed the sheriff, until Miss Marshalyn had shown up to bail him out. She hadn’t put a price on her help that night. She hadn’t bargained for good behavior. She’d simply said, “You have a choice. This—” she’d pointed to the bars “—or that.” She’d pointed to the door.

She’d given him not only a choice that night, but a chance, and he’d realized then that trouble was something a man
made,
not something he
was.

It was a choice, not a birthright, and so Austin had decided then and there never to make trouble again. Instead, he’d set his sights on making a real home for himself, and a family.

He had the home. Almost. Since Miss Marshalyn’s husband, Jim, had passed away, she didn’t need all that property. For Austin, it would complete his spread and give him enough size to compete with the big-boy ranches.

As for the family…any of the handful of nice, respectable women he’d narrowed his choices down to would do. All he had to do was pick one and take things to the next level by asking her out.

That’s what he needed to do.

But what he wanted to do was watch Maddie Hale get all hot and flushed and make those tiny moaning sounds in the back of her throat when he licked her hot slit just so….

H
E STIFFENED
—in more ways than one—and sank down into a leather chair. He touched his mouse pad and watched his computer spring to life. Typing in his code, he brought up the vaccination charts on the newest additions to his herd. He needed to stay focused. To think about work and the future and the fact that he didn’t have time to waste on a woman who didn’t suit his needs. Particularly a woman who was so…temporary.

Maddie was out of here soon, and so it stood to reason she would only be interested in sex. But Austin wanted more. He wanted the morning after.

His head knew that. Now if he could just get a certain throbbing body part to agree.

H
E WAS LATE AGAIN
.

Not that it mattered. She knew he would come tonight. In more ways than one. And so she took the extra time to prepare for the evening ahead.

She touched up her fading makeup
again.

She took yet another look at her now-drooping hair.

She watched the clock while she felt drops of sweat sliding down her bare arms, the ninety-something Texas heat and the fact that she’d been slaving away in a hot kitchen all day causing her discomfort.

Drawing in a deep breath, she adjusted her off-the-shoulder, red lace tank top. Sexy and alluring had been the idea when pulling on the outfit over two hours ago. Instead, she’d wound up damp and sticky. And hungry.

At least when she’d baked at her dad’s shop, she’d had a whole oven of goodies to look forward to, so the experience had seemed worthwhile and rewarding. Mixing up lotions was definitely not the same.

That’s the point, she told herself. She was doing something far different now. Far,
far
away from her desperately small hometown. And the result of her hard work—a promotion and a prestigious position with V.A.M.P.—would last longer than the ten seconds it took to savor a cookie or a muffin or a brownie.

She would take power and prestige over a rush of sugar any old day.

At least that’s what she told herself as she sat on the sofa, her stomach grumbling and her thighs aching as she waited for Austin Jericho.

She blew out a deep breath and busied herself rearranging the test samples. Each one had been formulated to create a different sensation upon contact with the skin. The first tingled, the second tickled. Number three heated, while four cooled. A fifth had the wet, slick feel of water.

Then again, she could do the tickle first, then the tingle. Next the cold, then the hot. Water last.

Or cold first. Hot. Tingle. Tick—

The thud of footsteps on the porch stalled her thoughts. She bolted from the couch, her heart pounding as if she’d just discovered the fountain of youth itself.