You Dropped a Blonde on Me (38 page)
“Spanx,” she corrected with a more relaxed giggle.
“Whatever. I don’t care that you’re forty-one—”
“Almost,” she corrected.
“Whatever. I don’t care about any of the things your free time seems to allow you to concoct in your head. And if that’s too much for you to wrap that always-in-motion brain of yours around, say so now, and we’ll have a cup of coffee after I take a cold shower.”
With his words, something settled in Maxine—clicked. Something solid, something that made sense to the tizzy her head was always in. In that instant, her brain quieted, her fears lifted. Maxine wrapped her hands around his wrists at her jaw and closed her eyes, letting her mouth find his as her answer.
She felt the smile on his lips, the tightening of his hold on her when he laid her back on his bed, pulling her length to meet his. His minty-fresh breath tickled her nose when he asked, “Now, about those Spanx.”
About those. “Maybe I should just go take them off. Unless you’ve done some professional wrestling in your time . . .”
Campbell nuzzled her neck, licking the tender skin with silken rasps of his tongue. “No way I’m letting you go to the bathroom. I don’t have a key.”
Her nipples tightened when his mouth left her neck, the moist path he’d left on her skin making contact with the air. “Are you implying I’d lock myself in there?”
Campbell rested his chin on hers. “I’m not implying anything. I’m stating a fact.”
“That’s it,” she said with another one of those giggles he was so good at dragging out of her. Maxine slid from the bed, lifting the skirt of her dress and shimmying out of her Spanx with a grunt, tossing them on the bed beside him. “Committed enough for you?” she asked with a whole lot more confidence than she felt.
He patted the bed beside him with a lascivious grin. “We’ll see.”
Maxine’s hands went to the front of her dress, smoothing the silky material as though she could smooth away her not-so-flat belly. Okay. It was now or never.
But what was the rush?
Campbell certainly wouldn’t be in such an all-fired rush once he saw what was underneath her dress. A blind man wouldn’t be in a rush . . .
“Max,” he purred, rising to stand before her. “I’ve seen parts of you in broad daylight.”
“But you haven’t seen all of me. I was semi-clothed.”
“I’m going to take off your dress.”
She closed her eyes with a tight scrunch of eyelids, and lifted her arms toward the ceiling. “Okay.”
A chuckle came from the dark. “Maybe you might try not behaving like this is some form of torture. You know, so we don’t harsh the romance vibe.”
Her eyes remained firmly closed. “Yeah. You say that now. But wait until you see my stomach. Nothing could harsh a buzz faster.”
“Look at me, Max.” His command was thick, insistent, but no way was she falling for it.
No. She couldn’t bear the look on his face she’d created in her mind’s eye. Rather like one of those cartoon characters whose eyes bulged in horror with a loud “zoink” written in a bubble over their heads. “Oh, no. This is on you. If you scream and end up fetal, you’ll get no help from me.”
Campbell untied the halter straps around her neck, letting them fall away. “I haven’t screamed in a long time. There isn’t much I’m afraid of.”
“Spoken like a true warrior. I bet most every warrior says the same thing before he rides his trusty steed off into battle. I’d also bet he isn’t singing the same tune when he loses an arm and his entrails are wrapped around a tree.”
“I can’t tell you how sexy that image sounds. Who needs Viagra with you?” he asked on a laugh, tugging at the top of her dress until cool air drifted over her half-bra.
Maxine clucked her tongue, admonishing his gusto. “You’ll need Viagra when you see what I have goin’ on under here. So just keep at it, tiger. In no time, you’ll be taking one for the team.”
His hands skimmed the bottom half of her dress. She heard the rustle of the material against his callused fingertips and winced. “Ready or not . . .”
Not. But if she were always “not,” she’d die the crazy cat lady. “Hurry it up. My circulation isn’t what it used to be,” she half joked, wiggling her numbing fingers.
The whoosh of air when Campbell pulled her dress up bathed her body in shivers. She felt rather than saw him take a step back and cringed. His sharp intake of breath jolted her in her heels. Oh, God. She had heels and a half-bra on and nothing else. “I told you, didn’t I? But just like one of those crazy horror movies where you’re screaming don’t go down in the basement, you just had to go down to the basement. Did you think I was making it up? You have no idea the kinds of tricks I know to hide almost anything unsightly—”
Campbell silenced her by slanting his mouth over hers and hauling her to him, kissing her until she was breathless. He unhooked her bra, running his full palms over her breasts until her nipples ached from the friction. His tongue devoured hers, rasping against it, tugging it with his lips, sipping at her mouth until she thought she’d die from the rush of new sensations he evoked in her.
Maxine groaned when he moved from her mouth to her collar-bone, skimming her flesh with hot lips and tongue. Her arms fell from above her head, numb but willing, to allow his broad shoulders to give them support. Pleasure throbbed through her veins as he moved over her shoulder, down along the tops of her breasts, leaving behind his own groan when he cupped her breasts together, laving each turgid nipple.
Hot streaks of electricity shot to the place between her thighs, leaving her swollen and forgetting everything but the feel of his lips and tongue pulling her toward a sensual abyss.
White lights flashed behind her eyelids as his mouth left her nipples, caressing the skin of her midriff, moving lower and lower until she understood where he planned to end up. The thought alone made her grab at Campbell’s shoulders to steady her weakening knees. The muscles of her legs burned, tensing and flexing while Campbell moved closer to the most intimate place on her body.
His fingers feathered across the tops of her thighs with a whisper of a touch, testing her reaction, waiting until she adjusted. Maxine gripped at his hair, clenching fistfuls of it, wrapped up in what was to come.
When he parted her swollen lips, laying a tentative tongue over her clit, Maxine nearly screamed from the sharp, sweet sting of desire sitting low in her belly. His mouth was like heaven, his fingers, stroking, plying her, coaxing a building heat, like the closest thing to magic she’d ever experienced.
Her head fell back on her shoulders, no longer mindful of her nakedness or the fact that her high heels were digging into her toes. She wanted this. Wanted Campbell. Wanted.
He dragged his tongue over her clit, swirling it around the swollen nub until she quivered, increasing the pressure until he’d pulled her flush to his mouth, cupping her ass with powerful hands that kneaded her flesh.
Thick tendrils of pleasure swirled along her skin, every nerve in her body crying for satisfaction. An ache, familiar yet bolder than she ever remembered, left a scintillating pressure deep within the farthest reaches of her desire. It grew as Campbell stroked her with his tongue, dragging his fingers over her now slick flesh until her chest became so tight, she couldn’t get air to her lungs.
Each pass Campbell took with his heated tongue, each wave of his hot breath, each moan he made from between her thighs made her arch backward, offering herself to him.
The explosion of her senses came when he suckled her clit, nibbling at it with gentle teeth, encompassing it with his lips, bringing a scream Maxine had to fight to keep from escaping her mouth. The mind-bend of pleasure he brought was all she focused on.
Her only need, his tongue and her satisfaction.
A sizzle of fire shot through her, spreading outward until the slow burn turned into a flaming entity. Her gasp of completion was husky to her ears, filled with her hot need. Spirals of pleasure accosted her from every angle, making her hips buck against Campbell’s mouth. The frantic need for climax eased as he stroked her hips, letting her rock against him until she slowed with a shudder of a breath.
Her legs, no longer willing to hold her up, crumbled. Campbell caught her, scooping her up and laying her on the bed. She fought for air, her lungs filling and releasing with choppy breaths.
Campbell pulled her to him, letting his hands roam along her heated skin, caressing, soothing her while she wrapped her brain around the utter bliss he’d just brought her.
Maxine’s head fell back over his forearm and he leaned in to kiss her, leaving the taste of her most intimate pleasure on her lips. There was nothing to describe what had just transpired. No special word. No particular phrase. Yet it had been one of the single most decadent moments in her life.
Realizing that was when embarrassment caught up with her, making her eyes finally open. Campbell had done all the work. “You—I mean, I—we—”
With a press of his finger to her lips, he smiled, his eyes expressing he understood her dilemma. “Just relax.”
“But . . .”
He sighed with a ragged breath. “We have a technical difficulty.”
Her groan was of humiliation. “Does it need Viagra?”
Campbell grinned when he barked a laugh. “Uh, no.” He took hold of her hand and placed it between his legs. “There’s no doubt you do it for me.”
Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Everything was in clear working order.
“It has nothing to do with Viagra and everything to do with no condoms. Don’t say it. I’ll beat myself up plenty tomorrow. But I think this is a testament to my integrity. The fact that I have no condoms says I had no devious intention to accost your woman parts, at least not tonight. I had plans, but you know what they say about those.” Campbell shook his head with a wry grin. “No, you can apologize later for your egregious error in judgment. Right now, I think we should just focus on what an idiot I am.”
Her giggle began as a snort and built to laughter, leaving her holding her stomach. “Ohhhhhhh, this is priceless. Hold that thought.” Maxine burst into another fit of laughter, taking the comforter with her to cover her cooling flesh as she made her way out to the living room for her purse.
At the doorway, she held up the gleaming foil package with a smug grin. “You might not have had nefarious intentions, but I did.”
His eyebrow rose. “So this was a planned bag and tag?”
Campbell saw the struggle of emotions on her face, noted her avoidance of his eyes. “Sort of. I bought them today at CVS. I don’t even know if they’re the right size,” she confessed with so much red on her cheeks, he wanted to kiss her. “I was uber vixen on the way over here, but the thought of you seeing me naked caught up with me. As evidenced by my babble.”
When she was open and honest, there was nothing sweeter than Max. It twisted his guts all up in unfamiliar knots. “C’mere.”
Dutifully, she sat at the edge of the bed, clutching the foil packet. “You’re beautiful,” Campbell said, clear and deep. “Every over-forty inch of you. And never make the mistake of telling yourself otherwise. I don’t give a shit about the circles you traveled in that instill the kind of Botoxed crap preoccupations in women over forty. They’re all wrong. Everything about you is beautiful.”
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