Trusting Again (6 page)

Without thinking, she moved her leg to accept him, to bring him closer to her, canting her hips to feel him pressed hard against her where a moist heat was burning. As she felt him grow harder and bigger against her, a hunger came out of nowhere, surging through her and she returned the kiss, exploring his mouth, playing with his tongue, every cell in her body responding to him.

He nibbled his way from her mouth to her cheek, to her jawline then her earlobes, licking, then kissing, the sensitive spot right behind her ear. When she moaned and rubbed her hips against his, he whispered, “
Querida
, we shouldn’t be doing this on the street.”

She shook her head, more to clear it than to indicate an answer. “No,” she gulped in air before continuing, “you’re right. We shouldn’t.” To her ears, her voice sounded vague and far away, like she was having an out of body experience.

As she moved away from him, she saw a sweet smile play across his mouth, watched desire flash through his eyes. He gently kissed her forehead, his hands still on her shoulders. “Shall we go to my house?”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments, not sure if she wanted to change her mind or race him there. When she tried to speak, she could hear how breathless she still sounded, how high pitched her voice was. She swallowed, gave a cough or two to clear her throat — her head was a lost cause — and tried again. “Remind me how to get there?”

In spite of the two times he’d given her directions, she made three wrong turns getting to his house driving through a city she knew like she knew her own name.

Marius Hernandez, she decided, should have a warning label on his forehead: Exposure to this man can result in confusion, dizziness, and erratic behavior. Women who kiss him should not operate machinery immediately afterwards.

Because of her detours, Cynthia arrived well after Marius had gotten home. As she walked through the front door he’d left open, he said, “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind.” He’d shed his jacket and, from the aroma, started the coffee brewing.

“Sorry, I got turned around and ended up going south instead of north. Must have had more wine than I thought.”
Yeah, right, it was the wine,
she thought.

“That’s okay. You got here just in time. Coffee’s almost ready. Let’s have it outside. It’s always a shame to waste a nice evening — we don’t have too many of them.”

“Oh, you out-of-staters are always complaining about the rain. You never complain about all the lush trees and flowers we have because of it, do you?”

“No, and we don’t complain about the beautiful skin the women in the Northwest seem to have because they can’t bake themselves to leather in the hot sun.” He opened the sliding glass door to the deck for her, a wicked smile on his face. “I’ll bring the coffee out in a couple minutes.”

When he returned five minutes later, she was at the railing. “I could look at your view forever.”

“It’s almost as beautiful as you are,
querida
.” He put two mugs of coffee down on a small side table. She saw that he’d remembered she liked cream in her coffee.

“
Querida
is such a pretty word. What does it mean?”

“Sweetheart or dear. Spanish endearments always sound pretty, I think.”

He was so close to her that it was tempting to nestle into his chest. Instead she asked, “Does your family speak Spanish at home?”

“My mother does. She was born in Honduras. My father had to brush up on the language when he fell in love with her — no one in his family had spoken it regularly for a generation. My brothers and sisters and I were raised with both languages, although we mostly speak Spanglish at home. No self-respecting Spanish-speaker would claim it as their language.”

He turned her around so she was facing him. “But I know the correct Spanish to describe a beautiful woman when I’m standing next to her.” With the pad of his thumb he outlined her cheekbones, her eyebrows, down the crest of her nose as he said, “
Bella, preciosa, encantadora, maravillosa
. You are all those things.”

The impulse to move into his arms, press her body against his, was becoming overpowering. Then he made it worse.

Taking her face in both hands, he said softly, “If I kiss you now, I won’t want to let you leave tonight. You know that, don’t you?”

Closing her eyes to the intensity she could see in his didn’t help. She could feel his desire wash over her in waves. Barely nodding her head, she managed to get out “Uh-huh.”

“So,” he whispered, his mouth now almost touching hers, “shall I kiss you?”

In answer, she put her hand at the back of his neck and pulled him the few millimeters it took for his mouth to reach hers.

• • •

When he’d given in to his need to taste her, to kiss her, on the street outside the restaurant, he was sure she’d change her mind about coming to his home for coffee. Her hesitation when he’d asked the second time almost made his heart stop. But here she was. and she was kissing him just as she had before.

He was trying to keep himself under control, to go slowly but his hands seemed to have a mind of their own as they slid down her sides, stopping to graze her nipples, feeling them turn hard and pebbly with arousal. His mouth moved from lips to cheek, then to her ear, where he paused to outline the edge of it with his tongue. When he breathed on the place where he’d licked, she shivered.

Both of her arms were around his neck now, drawing him closer. Even through his shirt he could feel her nipples hard against his chest. She was returning the kiss with more passion than he thought he could bear, nipping at his mouth, exploring with her tongue, making small sounds of pleasure as his hands and mouth explored her. He was harder than he ever remembered getting, just from kissing her.

The kiss could have gone on forever, but he wanted more than that. Tonight, he wanted to find out how to get her to make more of those soft, sweet sounds in her throat that turned his cock to steel, wanted to explore every inch of her body, wanted to bury himself deep inside her and hear her call his name when she came. Tonight, he was greedy; he wanted it all.

Breaking from the kiss, he said, “Follow me.”

“The coffee … ” she began.

“Can wait ’til morning.”

Taking her hand, he led her back into the house and down a flight of steps to his bedroom. He didn’t turn on the overhead light, just one small bedside lamp before yanking back the sheet and comforter. Through it all, he kept hold of her hand, stroking her thumb with his, soothing her. She’d looked startled when she’d seen his king-size bed, as if she might be thinking she made the wrong decision.

After he’d made the bed ready for them, he embraced her and kissed her forehead. “Second thoughts,
querida
?”

She smiled. “No, why did you think … ?”

“The way you look right now.”

The smile became a laugh. “I’m just surprised that everything in your bedroom reminds me of coffee.”

It threw him off balance. “I don’t understand.”

“The furniture is as dark as espresso, the comforter is the color of a latte, the chairs over there, foam on a cappuccino, the rug … ”

He joined her in laughing. “I may be in the business but you’re the one obsessed. I just like brown.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “If the décor isn’t too distracting, can I … ? He reached around her and unfastened the band that held her braid together. When it was gone, she shook her head and he pulled some of her hair over her shoulder so he could rub it between his fingers.

“It feels like silk. Like I knew it would,” he said. “And your skin,” he kissed her throat as he unbuckled the belt she was wearing, “it tastes as sweet as I imagined.”

The belt dropped on the floor. Then he skated his hands up her back until he got to the buttons at the neckline of her top. When they were unfastened, he took the hem of the blouse and lifted it over her head.

He wasn’t surprised to see she wore a white bra with thin straps, cut low between her breasts. No lace, no tiny pink bows. Plain. But the hard diamond points of her nipples showed through and he couldn’t resist taking one in his mouth, just for a moment, just to suck through the thin fabric and scrape gently with his teeth, just to make her moan. Her back arched to him, moving her breasts closer, tempting him. He unhooked the bra, slid the straps down her shoulders and threw it on the floor before giving in to his need to linger there.

On his knees, he licked and tasted, suckled and swirled his tongue over first one breast then the other before moving down to her waist. Her skirt was off next and he continued his way down with his mouth, then his fingers under the white cotton panties she still wore.

But when he gently touched her wet center, he could feel her legs begin to wobble. She objected with a groan when he stood, but when he moved her back to the bed, she fell onto it and let him take off her shoes. Clad now only in her panties, she watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it out from his trousers and dropped it on top of her clothes. When his trousers and boxer briefs were in the same pile, he started toward the bed. Her eyes had widened at the sight of the erection that was now free from his clothes. On a sharp intake of breath, she licked her lips and his cock jumped in reaction to the smoky desire in her eyes.

“Do you like what you see?” he asked.

“You have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen outside a life drawing class,” she said. “You could have been a model for the ancient Greeks.”

He smiled at the compliment. “I bet you say that to all the naked men you see
.
”

“Is this where you tell me you think artists have loose morals because they draw nudes?” She put out her hands and when he took them in his, pulled him into bed with her.

“No,
querida,
this is where I tell you you’re as beautiful in my bed as I knew you’d be.” As he talked, he played with her hair. “I’ve wanted you here since I met you. It was your eyes at first.” He leaned in and kissed each eyelid. “Then I learned how sweet your mouth tastes.” He brushed his lips over hers. “Now I know how your hair feels.” Using the strand of hair he’d been fondling, he grazed her nipples, making them peak into pink pearls. “And how pretty your breasts are. How very pretty.”

He bent his head and substituted his mouth for the tress of hair, his tongue circling the bud of her nipple, then his mouth sucking gently, pulling at the tender flesh. “What else will I learn about you tonight, do you think?” he asked as he moved to the other breast.

She arched towards him, putting her breasts in better position for his mouth. He followed with his hands sliding up her ribs, cupping her breasts. When he looked up at her, he saw she had her eyes closed. “Open your eyes,
querida.
I want to see them.” When she did, he flicked his thumbs across her nipples, heard her draw in a deep breath, saw the desire in her eyes. Saw she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Moving his hands down from her breasts, he hit the waistband of her panties. “You’re overdressed; let’s take care of that.” He slipped his fingers under the elastic and tugged. She raised her hips and the panties were down her legs and onto the floor in seconds.

Her hands were trembling as she reached for him, for his penis, but he intercepted them, lacing his fingers through hers and putting their joined hands above her head. He knelt on the bed, straddling her hips, barely touching her body with his. She was restless, excited, her breath quickening.

They were both so aroused, he knew he could enter her now, could bury himself deep inside her and it would be good. But he wanted her not only wet and hungry for him, but breathless from coming and crying out his name.

“I want to find out everything you like,
mi amor.
Do everything you like.” He dipped his head and ran his tongue along the edge of her ear, barely touching it. He felt her tremble. “Like that. I think you like that. And this — you like this, too.” He bit gently on her ear lobe then began to lick the soft spot behind her ear. This time she moaned.

“Where else are you so sensitive?” He began to kiss his way from her ear, along her jawline to her throat, sucking on the pulse spot there before moving again down her body, between her breasts. “Here?”

She sighed. “Oh, yes.”

“And here, I know.” He swirled his tongue around one nipple, then the other.

Although he had her hands imprisoned above her and her legs immobile beneath him, she was restless, kept trying to move, to rub her sex against his penis, her moans now gasps as she gulped in air. She bucked her hips up harder, working for release.

“Slowly,
mi amor,
slowly.” He’d reached her ribs with his kissing and knew he’d have to lower her arms to go further. He released her wrists at the same time he moved his legs to free hers. She separated her legs to give him access to the delta of tawny curls between her legs, now soaked with her arousal.

Using his fingers and his tongue, he separated her labia, hunting for the nub of her clitoris with his mouth, finding it, hearing her gasp as he twirled his tongue around it, slowly at first, then faster. When her breathing quickened again, he entered her with his fingers, caressing a place inside her so she cried out in pleasure, bringing her to the edge of orgasm.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “I’ve never … ”

He did it again. “Do you like that?”

Her response was to buck her hips up, riding his hand, rubbing against him, crying out her pleasure as she tumbled over the cliff in climax.

He moved beside her and kissed her half-closed eyes then reached across her for the drawer of the bedside table. Opening the packet he took from the drawer, he removed the condom and pressed it into her hand.

“Help me,
querida,
please?”

Her cat-stretch as she came down from her climax was so erotic, he wasn’t sure he could contain himself. It was all he could do to keep from immediately burying his face in her hair and his penis in her body. Mother of God, this woman did things to him he didn’t know any woman could. And she did it without seeming to know how she affected him.