wind; his legs were long, the hard muscles pressed against her. As an attacker in the night, Zach was incomparable. His breath mingled with hers just before his mouth closed on hers with unerring skill, the cool taste of peppermint blended with the warmth of his mouth. A delightful crackle of lightning flashed through her bloodstream. Very pure, very potent desire.
“Open,” he murmured roughly.
Her lips obediently parted. His tongue thrust inside, firm and soft and deep. His palm cradled the back of her head to ensure her closeness, her accessibility. Submissive instincts surged through her. They didn’t often play dominant/submissive; they liked things equal, but…there was a time and a place.
“Dinner?” she breathed.
A very nice, practical thought, when her hands were already sliding around his back, clutching at his shoulders as her tongue sought further play with his. Her makeshift stranger had brazen hands. In long, slow, intimate sweeps, he was molding her body to his, pressing the velour to her skin. He really was going to have to let her lips go and allow her to breathe, though, she thought.
He did, momentarily. Quick, scattered kisses were pressed on her cheeks, her closed eyes. “You know what that does to me? Knowing you have nothing on underneath that?”
His mouth locked on hers again. This time he put a modicum of space between them, just enough so his knuckles could brush against her breasts as his fingers pushed down the zipper of the jumpsuit from neck to waist.
This particular jumpsuit had always fit loosely. His palms slid smoothly inside from her neck to the shoulders, pushing the fabric just ahead of his caress, and with very little effort the thing fell in a soft whoosh to the floor. Black was turning to dark gray as her eyes adjusted. She could make out a shadowed form in front of her pulling a sweater over his head. Her fingertips reached for the irresistible warmth of flesh, of smooth, hard contours. Her touch was possessive, and Zach’s breath suddenly roughened next to her throat. Her knees felt oddly double- jointed, something that shouldn’t happen to old married women. Zach was just…an intruder for the moment, an intruder with nothing on but a pair of jeans; his smooth-skinned chest was rock-hard, his heart pulsing beneath her palms.
A rush of excitement flowed through her. A callused palm claimed her breast; then he rolled its tip between his thumb and forefinger. Flickers of intense pleasure vibrated through her body. There was such a hush in that darkness. Just the sound of his breathing and hers. The sound of flesh against flesh. The sound of hearts beating out of control. How had the fuse ignited so fast?
“Zach. We’re in the front hall,” Bett murmured weakly.
Obviously, he didn’t care. Beds were very nice and comfortable; he clearly wasn’t interested.
Was she supposed to be? She’d almost gotten used to being inhibited, to a distracted feeling of
Silence was golden; the darkness was delicious. Bett flicked open the snap of his jeans. At that instant, however black the room was, she could make out the luminous quality of his eyes. He hadn’t uttered a word of complaint in all these long weeks. He hadn’t made out in any way that he’d found her any different in bed, that he might be unhappy that she had been less than…totally giving. She saw it now. She saw his patience…and his impatience.
She skimmed off his jeans, her palms sliding the fabric down at the same time that she stroked the hard curve of his legs. When his jeans were off, she was kneeling on the floor; Zach knelt down beside her, arranging a very odd mattress of velour and denim and Orlon sweater. The tile still felt cool and hard beneath that as he urged her down, a cool that her body welcomed. Her senses were that much richer because she couldn’t see, but only feel, and taste, and smell, and hear him. That one lost sense heightened all the others.
His palm stroked with sudden softness, stilling the fierce rush of their passion. His fingers threaded through her hair and his soft, liquid eyes sought hers. Bett lowered her lashes and raised up on one elbow, her lips closing first on his mouth, then on his chin, then on his throat. She shifted, slowly, so that her lips could reach the spot right over his heart. Her tongue gently caressed one of his tiny nipples, then the other. They hardened to small points, exactly like her own. Lifting up, she swayed over him, brushing her breasts teasingly against those two hard, dark, tiny points on his chest. Zach’s hands clutched responsively at her hips, urging her back down to him. In the darkness, she smiled, gently pushing aside his hands, her head dipping down again.
She could feel wanting in her toes, her thighs, her chest. And power-sheer feminine power. She brushed her hair out of the way, but nevertheless strands stole down to tickle his abdomen as her lips pressed and lightened and smoothed. There were very few places on his body where his skin was soft, not touched by the sun. They belonged, she’d decided a very long time ago, to her. Zach suddenly sucked in a breath and forgot to let it out again.
He reached for her, but she ignored him. Loving was raging inside of her. A man could call it wanting, a woman never. He’d been so patient, so giving, so gentle through this trying time. Zach was human, not superhuman; it had all taken an effort. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him for it, without wasting any time on words.
Her fingertips trembled over his most sensitive flesh, drawing a shudder from him as they stroked through rough, curling hairs. The lapping of her tongue cooled his overheated flesh. Zach had taught her any number of games to play with her tongue. To tickle, cool, soften, stroke, tease. His six-foot-one-inch frame was a big playground. She raised up and crouched on her knees, her palms slowly caressing the length of his hair-roughened legs. Her mouth was settling in for a new brand of creative kisses she’d just invented when his whole body convulsed.
She sat back, extremely pleased with his reaction. She was even more pleased when he roughly pulled her down next to him. Her body stretched to make full contact with his, sensitive nerve endings igniting like fireworks. “If you were any hotter, you’d be on fire,” he murmured.
“You don’t want to play anymore?” she whispered.
“A serious business, playing. You just went past Go, two bits. Now you get to collect.” His voice changed to a husky whisper as he leaned over her. “Dammit, I’ve missed you!”
Surely he didn’t think he was alone? Her legs wound around him, drawing him in, her hands busy, in long, languid strokes on his shoulders and neck and back, anywhere she could touch. A sweet, sweet wildness kept building in both of them. The front hall of all places; the strange blackness all around them, the cool tile beneath her, the smooth sheen that covered their flesh-all of it induced wanton delights, fresh bursts of trembling desire.
He covered her finally, surging inside of her, filling her. Her whole body arched; his mouth seared on hers; and a rush of hot liquid fire flooded through both of them.
By ten o’clock, the front door was unlocked and the porch light on again. Bett was stretched out next to Zach on the couch, dressed, cuddled and sleepy. Her eyes were closed. “Don’t you think she should be home by now?” Zach asked idly.
Bett opened one eye. “You sound distinctly like an overprotective father with a shotgun across his lap. It isn’t as if we both have to wait up for her.”
“She’s a grown woman. Neither of us has to wait up for her.”
Bett smiled, snuggling closer. “I’m too sleepy to move. You’ve totally worn me out.”
Zach brushed back a strand of hair from her forehead, kissed her and then rearranged her, one of her legs tucked between his, his arm around her waist. Her body was limp, soft, pliant. “I want you again,” he murmured.
“You couldn’t possibly.”
“I do.” His palm cradled her hip, drawing her close enough to prove what he said.
“You have the most endless capacity for fooling around of any man I’ve ever met,” she remarked sleepily.
“Ah. The voice of experience talking.”
She poked him.
“They could have had a flat tire,” he worried.
She chuckled.
