Wilde for Him (24 page)

When his tremors subsided, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her damp neck, his emotions in a tangled mess. "Christy," he whispered, her name a soft litany as it escaped his lips.

She wound her fingers in his hair and gently tugged his head back, an enchanting smile on her lips. "Did you say what I think you just did?"

She looked so beautiful with her face flushed with satisfaction and her eyes shining with adoration—for him, he realized. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he teased.

"Oh, I think you do." She kissed him softly, her lips so sweet and coaxing. "Say it again."

He was beginning to think he couldn't deny this woman anything, and he didn't even try. "Christy," he murmured against the tender press of her mouth on his.

"Mmmm," she purred as she nibbled on his bottom lip. "I love the way that sounds, so sexy and husky." Sighing contentedly, their bodies still joined, she pulled back so she could look into his eyes. "You can't go back to calling me Christine. You know that, don't you?"

Her sassy, confident tone amused him. "We'll see about that."

She laughed and gave him one last affectionate kiss on his lips. "I could use a nice hot shower. Care to join me?"

"You scrub my back, I scrub yours?" he asked, lifting a brow.

"Yeah, something like that," she said with all kinds of sexy innuendo in her voice, the earlier incident with the snakes now completely forgotten. "I've never had a shower buddy before, and I'm thinking it could be fun."

He grinned, more than willing to give her another first. "Count me in."

CHRISTINE decided that taking a shower with Ben was a luxurious, not-to-be missed experience. The stall enclosure, finished in beige granite, was roomy enough for two, with dual his-and-hers showerheads on opposite sides of the walls and a small bench seat. She didn't normally use both spigots, but then again, she'd never had company in the shower, either.

At the moment, she was standing face-to-face with Ben, with the spray of water hitting them both in the shoulders and back, massaging muscles and sluicing their skin with moisture. Between slow, lazy kisses, Ben gently scrubbed her chest, arms, and stomach with a soapy bath sponge fragranced with her favorite vanilla body wash, while she ran her palms over his muscled chest. The more sensitive areas of her body were treated to the slick caress of his hands and fingers, and he was very thorough in making sure she was clean everywhere.

She sighed and enjoyed the relaxing, arousing process, knowing she'd get her turn to do the same to him very soon. She kissed him again, then looked into his dark, seductive brown eyes as a slow, contented smile curved her lips.

He returned her smile with one of his own as his hand glided over her breast, spreading the soap over the plump flesh and her tight nipple. "You're looking awfully… satisfied."

"For now," she replied impudently, knowing it wouldn't take much for her to want him again, even after those two amazing orgasms she'd had in the kitchen.

He chuckled, the deep, male sound echoing in the cubicle. "You're determined to wear me out, aren't you?"

She lifted a brow. "Are you complaining?"

"Not at all, sweetheart." He crouched down in front of her, letting the water drench him completely as he trailed the sponge down her legs, then back up again, his hands and fingers following the same path. "I aim to please."

Nudging her knees apart, he leaned forward and slid his tongue along the folds of her sex, delving deep. She gasped and tangled her hands in his hair, pulling his mouth closer, opening her legs wider. "And, oh, do you ever please me," she murmured, then groaned as he added just the right amount of pressure and gentle suction to that taut bud of flesh still tender from previous climaxes.

Heat flashed through her, along with a liquid desire that spiraled straight down to her core. Just that quickly, just that effortlessly, he kindled an intense, wanton need within her.

God, she was so easy when it came to this man.

And she embraced every single minute of it.

Ever since her first sexual experience in college, she'd blamed herself for her lack of any physical response when it came to intercourse. She thought things would be different with Jason, but when she'd failed to derive any real pleasure from their quick encounters, it had only reinforced her belief that she was frigid. Then, when she'd discovered the intimacy issues between her mother and father and how it had affected her parents relationship, she'd seriously begun to wonder if she just wasn't destined to follow in her mother's path and would forever settle for mediocre sex.

Now she knew better. Ben had shown her that she wasn't the one with the problem, but that the men in her previous relationships had been all wrong for her when it came to physical intimacy. It was all about compatibility, chemistry, a strong attraction, and equal parts give and take. Especially that. She'd come to learn that her former partners had been much too selfish, and she'd been far too passive.

Not anymore. Now she knew what hot, mind-blowing sex was like, and she'd never settle for less again.

Those thoughts disintegrated from her mind as Ben's mouth continued to tease and torment her, his tongue gliding rhythmically within her soft, swollen flesh along with the trickle of water from their shower. His touch sizzled like lightning over her nerve endings, and when her legs began to tremble with the onset of her climax, he curved his big hands around to the backs of her thighs to help keep her upright as she gave herself over to the lust and ecstacy rushing through her body, pushing her higher, then higher still before letting her free-fall back down to earth.

When she opened her eyes again, it was to find that he'd risen to his full height, his eyes blazing with pure male arrogance and his long, thick erection prodding insistently against her belly. He layered his warm, pliable lips overs hers, and she tasted herself in his sweet, soulful kiss.

When he finally lifted his head moments later, she released a soft, sensual sigh. "Mmmm, that was nice. Very nice." Reaching between his thighs, she wrapped her hand around his shaft and nipped at his bottom lip. "I have to say that it's a huge relief to know that I'm nothing like my mother when it comes to sex."

He blinked at her, his expression suddenly wary. "Excuse me?"

Okay, that had just slipped right out without her really thinking through the impact of her comment. Judging by the uncertain look in Ben's eyes he obviously had no desire to think about her mother and sex in the same sentence. Yet, there was just enough curiosity lingering in the depth of his gaze to give her the fortitude she needed to explain, to divulge the secret she'd kept for so long to the one person she trusted the most. Ben.

That in itself was a huge revelation, and she exhaled a deep breath to settle her suddenly racing heart. "My mother isn't very fond of sex."

He digested that for a second, then asked, "And you know this how?"

"Because I had the unfortunate luck of overhearing a very heated argument between my mother and father." Needing something to keep her hands busy while she talked, she took the sponge from his hands, reapplied a generous amount of liquid body wash, and began scrubbing his shoulders and arms.

"I'd just graduated from boarding school, and when I moved back home for the summer before starting college, I realized that my parents were sleeping in separate rooms, which I found odd, but of course I didn't say anything." As she ran the sponge over his broad chest, the warm water from his showerhead rinsed the suds down the length of his body.

She concentrated on his taut abdomen, keeping her gaze cast downward while she took her trip back into the past. "But one day I came home early from visiting a friend and heard loud voices coming from the master bedroom. My mother was accusing my father of having an affair, which he openly admitted to, and I remember him saying to her. 'Can you blame me? You won't let me touch you and we haven't had sex in over fifteen years. There's no intimacy between us, yet you've made it clear that if I file for divorce you'll make sure I can kiss my political career good-bye; Then he stormed out of the bedroom and literally ran into me. Both my mother and father knew I'd heard everything, and that's when my mother decided I was old enough to know the truth."

Ben tucked his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her gaze back to his. "And that was?"

Touched by the tenderness in Ben's eyes, she went on. "My father left the house and my mother sat me down and told me that three years after I was born she got pregnant again, but five months into the pregnancy she miscarried. She ended up hemorrhaging so badly that she had to have a hysterectomy and couldn't have any more kids. After that, she said she had no interest in sex. She didn't want it, didn't need it, and she had no desire for it. And judging from what I heard, that translated into her not sleeping with my father anymore."

Ben visibly winced. "I can't even imagine. I'm not one to condone affairs outside of a marriage, but a part of me can understand why your father did it."

She nodded in agreement. "Me, too. Physically and emotionally, he wasn't getting what he needed from my mother. So, since my mother didn't want a divorce because she liked the social aspect of being married to a politician, and my father didn't want to tarnish his reputation with a nasty separation, they came to a compromise. They would stay married for my mother's sake and my father's career, and out in public they'd pretend they were a happy couple. Since my mother didn't want sex, she allowed my father to maintain his affair so long as he kept things discreet, which he has."

Ben looked completely taken aback by her parents' elaborate cover-up. "That's quite an arrangement."

"I suppose it works for them for whatever reason, but it's obvious to me that neither one of them is happy. My father has been with the same woman all these years, a paralegal at a law firm here in Chicago who understands the rules, and somehow accepts them to be with my father." She slid the soapy sponge down his thighs, then automatically worked her way back up to his chest. "As for my mother… now that I'm no longer the main focus of her life because I have one of my own, she spends her days with her rich, affluent friends, and drinks way too much at night when she's alone. She'd never admit that she has a drinking problem, but even I can see that she's abusing alcohol in order to deal with other issues in her life. I've tried to talk to her about it, and so has my father, but she refuses to get any help."

Reaching out, he tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear, his touch as gentle and reverent as the look in his eyes. "I'm sorry you've had to deal with all that."

"It's okay." She shrugged as she rinsed the sponge. "I refuse to let my mother's issues become my own. I've learned to stand up to her, and live my life for myself, instead of what she envisioned for me. Now turn around so I can scrub your back."

He did as she asked, and just when she thought they'd exhausted the topic of her mother's and father's issues, he said, "I find it interesting that your dad was so angry about Jason's infidelity when he, himself, is having an affair."

Adding more soap to the sponge, she started in on his shoulders and followed the strong line of his back down to the base of his spine, then up again. "I know it seems hypocritical, but my father has always been very protective of me, and while he knows that having an affair is morally wrong, he made sure I knew that he didn't want his daughter to marry someone that wasn't one hundred percent devoted to her."

"As it should be," Ben replied gruffly, apparently a strong advocate of monogamy.

"My mother, on the other hand, felt quite the opposite about the whole infidelity issue, as you well know," she added wryly. "She told me that was just the way men were and sex wasn't important, that they could get sex anywhere, anytime, and that being a good wife was what mattered in a marriage, especially when you married a prominent man, which she fully expected me to do."

Ben's only reply to that was a grunt of disgust.

She smiled as she stroked the sponge over the tight, muscular curve of his butt and the crevice in between that led to the crux of his thighs. "At the time, a part of me couldn't help but wonder if she was right about sex not being important, and considering how all my sexual experiences up to that point had left me cold, I was beginning to think that I was just like my mother in that regard. That sex would never be that thrilling, exciting encounter I'd always hoped it would be."

He turned back around to look at her, his expression sinfully sexy as water streamed over his shoulders and down his amazing body. "Now you know differently, don't you?"

"Yeah, thanks to you," she said as she trailed a finger down the firm line bisecting his abdomen.

"You've always been a sensual woman, Christy," he said, then grinned much too arrogantly. "It just took the right man to bring it out in you."

She laughed, then sobered, her feelings for Ben suddenly overwhelming her. "I'm glad that man was you."

He grew just as serious. "Me, too."

She stared into his gorgeous eyes, wondering if he felt even a glimmer of the same emotion for her that she did for him. She knew without a doubt he cared about her, but there was something that seemed to hold him back emotionally, and she wondered if it was the loss of his fiancée in the war that kept his feelings for her insulated, unable to give himself to another woman. Then there was the fact that she was just a client he was having an affair with until their time together was over.

Wasn't that exactly what she'd asked for? A hot, temporary tryst that didn't interfere with her newfound independence and freedom. So why was she beginning to want so much more with Ben? And why did her heart feel more involved than she'd ever intended?

Unsure whether or not she was ready to face the answer to those questions when she had no idea where she stood with Ben, she instead gave him a crooked smile and teased, "And here you thought you were the only one with a dysfunctional family and past."