Counselor Undone (20 page)

She gave a closed-mouth smile at his hopeful tone, but shook
her head.

He let out a long, slow groan. “You do realize you worked
until there were piles of snow on the ground? No one is crazy enough to still
be here but you.”

She placed her hands on either side of his face. “Then take
me home.”

He dropped his forehead against hers and expelled a loud
sigh of frustration.

She lifted his head, looked at him with hooded eyes, and
repeated in a husky voice that made clear her intent, “Take. Me. Home. Michael.”

* * *

Michael pulled Jordis by the hand so fast her wedge heels
slid across the snowed pavement as if she wore skis. Jordis laughed so hard she
was practically hyperventilating by the time they reached her apartment.

He grabbed the keys from her hand and unlocked the door. He
dragged her inside, relocked the door, and threw her keys on the table in the
entrance. His back went against the door, and he pulled her to him. “You know,
I don’t appreciate you laughing at me.”

“I can’t help it. Were you in a bit of a hurry, Mr. Remington?”

“Yes. Still am.” He kissed her. Lips and tongues dueled.
Hands roamed frantically over cheeks and hair and shoulders. He managed to pull
his mouth away from hers long enough to admit, “I promised myself the first
time I made loved to you, I’d take my time and love you so thoroughly you’d
scream my name over and over. But, right now, I’m so on edge I just want you
hard and fast.”

She dropped her coat to the floor and leaned her body
against his. Sliding her hands inside his coat, she pressed two quick kisses
against his lips. “Hard and fast works for me. Provided . . .” She slid one
hand down to rub the sizable bulge at the front of his pants. “. . . you still
make me scream your name over and over.”

Michael flipped them so she was the one with her back
against the door. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

His hand went under her chin and pushed up, and he dropped
his parted lips against hers. His tongue worked methodically inside her mouth
while his other hand went simultaneously to the wall, searching for a light
switch. He wanted to see her face clearly when she offered him hard and fast.
“Lights?”

She reached towards the wall opposite the one he’d searched
and flipped a switch that illuminated the entryway in soft yellow light.

He glanced at her eyes. Their color had darkened way past
deep green, but hadn’t quite reached brown. He’d never seen that shade on her
before. If it went with the hungry look on her face, he intended to inspire the
color often.

Michael shrugged his coat off and let it fall next to hers.
His hands found the side of her thighs and inched up her skirt. When he got it high
enough to slip a hand between her legs, his right hand went in search of
Nirvana. Her groan of satisfaction let him know when he’d found it.

Tiny strings and a miniscule triangle of fabric gave him
ready access to what he wanted. He slipped a finger inside the barely-there
underwear. The dampness he encountered forced him to concentrate on his
breathing to prevent a premature end to an evening he planned to make last for
several hours.

When he found his control, he asked, “Why do women bother to
put on these little pieces of nothing?”

Breathing with difficulty, she replied, “Because our
clothing doesn’t look half as good with undergarment bulges and panty lines.
Are you complaining?”

“No, ma’am.” A complaint was the furthest thing from his
mind. “Pull your blouse out of your skirt for me.” She complied. He pressed the
finger inside her thong inside her. Her head fell back against the door. “Now,
unbutton it.”

Her fingers unfastened the buttons as quickly as her unfocused
mind would allow. Once she was done, he dropped his head to her neck to nibble
his way across her collarbone. He stopped at the two bumps at the center of her
neck, sucking gently in a way that made her clench around his finger. He smiled
to himself. He’d found one of her erogenous zones. He filed the information
away for later exploration.

Loving the picture before him, Michael slid one bra strap
down as far as her open blouse would allow and used his index finger to pull
the cup off a lovely breast. He put the index finger in his mouth, pulled it
out and rubbed her nipple with the wet tip. He watched it bead for him and
goose bumps form along her chest.

While he played with her exposed nipple and her unexposed
bud of desire, her eager hands got insistent against his hardened package. His
heavy breathing mingled with hers.

Jordis unfastened his belt and slid it free of his belt
loops. The clank of the buckle against hardwood floor echoed around the dim
room as she undid his pants.

When her hands slid into his boxer briefs, he removed his
finger from its nipple play and grabbed both her wrists with the one hand. “
Bellezza
,
you need to let me drive or I’m going to embarrass myself.”

“You can drive all you want,
caro mio
. I just want a
chance to check out the merchandise.” She smiled at the surprised look of
pleasure on his face.

“You’ve been studying Italian?”

“I looked up a few words. I got tired of not knowing what
you were calling me and you didn’t seem to want to tell me. ‘Sweetheart’ sounds
so much more romantic in Italian.”

He chuckled. “You know something?”

She shook her head from side to side.

“I think I may be in way over my head with you.” He kissed
her deeply. “You sure about that hard and fast?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good.” He added another finger to her core and immediately
increased the tempo of his attention.

Her hips moved in response and sexy vocalizations hovered in
her throat.

Michael grabbed his wallet from his back pocket. Not wanting
to stop his manual stroking, he flipped it open with one hand and held it out
to her. “Grab a packet for me,
cara
.”

She smiled at his intentional use of the Italian endearment
and quickly pulled an accordion of condom packets from his wallet. Not waiting
for instructions, she tore a packet open with her teeth and held it out to him.
“I’d help you out, but I wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself.”

Laughing softly, he flipped his wallet behind him. A thud
and jangle of keys indicated it had landed on the entryway table.

“Impressive.”

He pushed his pants and underwear below his knees, and
sheathed himself quickly. “Baby, you haven’t seen impressive yet.”

Toeing off one shoe and freeing a foot from the tangle of
garments around his ankles, he yanked her skirt up past her hips, pulled aside
her black triangle, and slid into paradise.

They both let out a deep moan. Jordis’s hands gripped his
shoulders and her head fell back, but he didn’t tarry in the moment. He lifted
one of her legs, bending her knee over the crook of his arm, and immediately
started a totally different kind of stroking.

His gluteus muscles flexed repeatedly in a steady rhythm
that made her roll her hips in complement. Her hands slid down his back, and
she pulled him tighter against her, sending his control once again to the edge.
He adjusted his breathing and wrangled his completion back into standby mode
before lifting her leg higher to seat himself deeper.

A keening sound started low in her throat, letting him know
he was in the right spot. “Michael!”

“I know, baby,” he panted. “Stay with me a little longer.”

He dropped his head into the crook of her neck, and she
lifted a hand to the back of his head, holding him there. Their tempo and
breathing accelerated until their bodies beat a steady knock against the door.
Her erotic lilt grew louder. They clutched each other, and he thickened inside
her. The increased tightness of her sheath intensified his pleasure to the
point of pain. He tamped down the primitive yowl building inside him and worked
it out between her thighs.

“Yes,” she cried. “More.”

He gave her more. Her voice rose an octave, his name getting
shriller by the second.

“More?” he asked.

“
Yeeess
.”

Their knocking against the door grew fiercer, a rapid aural
pulse playing like a possessed metronome to their sexual tune. His pants mixed
with hers. A solo groan harmonized periodically with percussive breathing, and
name calling rounded out the melody. The tune played over and over, louder and
louder, until she was nearly screeching his name in a subdued repetitious cry
meant to keep her neighbors from hearing more of the show than they probably
already had.

When her voice waivered in a tone that suggested her release
was close, he gave two long, deep thrusts and commanded, “Let go, baby. Let it
go.”

Her spasms against his staff followed immediately, pulling
his release out to meet hers. He dropped his mouth to her lips. The kiss
captured the wail she could no longer suppress and kept him from emitting his
own shout of ecstasy, which he suspected would sound more like the squeal of a
ten-year-old girl.

He released her leg and pulled her close. His heart beat
frantically, but his spirit rested easy. She didn’t know it, but he had no
intention of ever letting her go.

Whipped.
His
brain taunted. That’s what he was, and he was thinking of a particular kind of
whipped that came in a compound word and followed the offensive term for kitty.

He’d always hated that expression. He never understood it.
In his other life, nowhere on the planet could a man find sex good enough to surrender
his soul. He’d been enlightened at the school of Jordis, and his reincarnated
psyche seeped into and displaced the jaded shell of his former self.

He kissed her again, tasting her mouth from corner to corner
before he asked, “Do you know what
bellezza
means?”

She gave him a soft smile and nodded. “Beauty.”

“And that you are.”

He proceeded to show her how beautiful he thought she was
from the front door to the living room couch to the hallway wall.

* * *

When they finally reached her bedroom, Jordis’s limbs felt
like jelly. She didn’t think she could take any more pleasure. He’d removed her
blouse, bra, skirt, panties, and shoes along the way. They’d been left behind
like a trail of bread crumbs leading back from a den of iniquity. She lay
before him wearing nothing. When he crawled up her body from the bottom of the
bed and kissed her inner thighs, her eyes closed. With a satisfied groan, she
grabbed his head and pulled him up for a kiss.

“Hey, what are you doing? I wasn’t finished down there.”

Her cheeks dimpled. “Darling, if you give me one more
orgasm, I’m going to die of heart failure.”

“How about just a small one?” He placed his thumb and index
finger centimeters apart in front of her face as a visual aid.

She gave a short laugh. If he were half as good with his
tongue downtown as he was with the part of his anatomy that made him male,
there would be nothing small about any orgasm he gave her. “You were wrong
before.”

His perplexed expression made her laugh in earnest.

“I’m the one who’s way out of my league with you. You’re
insatiable.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. He placed a kiss along the
top of one breast. “You’re delicious. You can’t fault me for being gluttonous
when I’m with you.” He grabbed the condom he’d thrown on the bed before she’d
collapsed onto it.

Her eyes widened. “You can’t be serious?”

He kissed her softly. “Don’t worry. This time I’ll take it
nice and slow. You don’t have to do anything except let me enjoy you.”

Her smile turned as liquid as her limbs. When he looked at
the condom packet and frowned, she asked, “Something wrong?”

“I should have taken you to my place.”

“Why?”

“This is my last condom. I only had four in my wallet.”

She wanted to laugh at his childish pout. Her heart fluttered.
The image of what his son would look like when he didn’t get his way flashed
through her mind. She went sentimentally soft, and in that moment, she knew.
What she’d been fighting these last few days—maybe these last few
weeks—had been about something a lot deeper than lust. Emotion
overwhelming her, she felt a rising need to have him inside her again.

“Don’t worry about it.” She stretched for the drawer handle
of the bedside table, but her arms couldn’t quite reach.

He leaned slightly and slid it open for her. A box of condoms
peeked up at him. He quickly looked back at her. His expression went from surprised
to relieved to perplexed in a matter of seconds.

Remembering his comment about being jealous and possessive
for the first time in his life, Jordis explained. “It’s a new box.” He stared
at her quietly. “And the first I’ve needed since I gave Keith back his ring.”

That made him smile. “I love a woman smart enough to be
prepared.”