Country Roads (17 page)

“No, with you!” she said, somehow curling her trembling body up far enough to get her hands into his thick, waving hair and pull him upward.

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” he asked, even as his eyes went dark with anticipation.

“So sure.”

He nearly sent her through the roof when he gently slid one finger down between her thighs and inside her.

“I guess you’re right,” he said, making her whimper with pleasure when he lowered his head to kiss her softly where his finger had been. He came to his feet and reached into his trouser pocket, dropping a foil envelope on the bed before he removed his clothes as swiftly as he had hers.

He rolled on the condom and spread her knees apart so he could stand between them. Then he began to slowly, exquisitely enter her as he angled forward onto the bed, coming down onto
his forearms so his chest brushed her breasts without crushing them. He kept moving deeper and deeper into her until she felt stretched and filled and gorgeously unsatisfied.

He stopped, and the bed began to vibrate with the shaking of his muscles as he held himself in check.

“You don’t have to be so careful.” She rolled her hips, seating him even deeper and making them both gasp.

“You don’t have to be so impatient,” he said, dipping his head to nip at her earlobe. He withdrew as slowly as he had come in and she twisted underneath him, trying to get him to move things along before she blew up in sheer frustration.

“Paul!”

“Demigods like to savor wood sprites,” he said, but the cords of his neck stood out in a way that said he was having a hard time curbing his appetite.

“That’s what the rest of the night is for.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and impaled herself on him.

“Julia! You’re going to kill me!” He gave up the struggle and seized her hips, thrusting hard and fast.

She flung her arms up over her head and gave herself to his rhythm as the hot, tight longing deep in her belly wound tighter and tighter. He let go of her hip to flick a finger in just the right spot between them, and her orgasm blasted through her, bowing her up off the bed and digging her heels into his sinewy buttocks. He kept moving, driving her to another climax.

And then he went deep and still for a long moment before he bent backward and shouted his finish at the ceiling.

Julia closed her eyes as he slid out of her and gently shifted her so she was fully on the bed. She wrapped herself around the afterglow still pulsing deep inside her. She heard the whisk of a Kleenex from the box on the table, and then the opposite side of the bed dipped under his weight.

“Asleep already?” His deep voice came from very close, and she pried her eyelids open to find him lying on his side, his head propped on his crooked elbow as he smiled at her.

“Recovering,” she murmured, smiling back at him as she ran a finger along one of his strong cheekbones. She uncurled and fell onto her back. “I feel so
good
.”

“You look pretty darn good too.” He picked up a strand of her hair and brushed it over her breast.

She giggled and gasped at the same time as her nipple reacted to his erotic tickling. Then he dropped the hair and spread his hand over her abdomen, where it burned like a brand against her skin.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, flexing his fingers the tiniest bit so she felt their imprint. He stroked over her hipbone and down her thigh, then moved back upward until he feathered a touch along the bottom curve of her breast.

“Try your hardest. I can’t move,” she said, although in fact everywhere he touched sent ripples of sensual delight dancing over her skin.

For a moment, he let his palm rest on her breast. Then he draped his arm over her waist and pulled her up against him, nestling his face against her neck. She shivered as his breath fanned over her throat.

“Are you cold?” he asked, lifting his head.

“No, no. The temperature is perfect.”

Everything was perfect: the weight of his arm claiming her, the warmth of his body snugged up against her side, the bone-melting relaxation following a major orgasm. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner,” she murmured.

“Too much sooner and we wouldn’t have known each other’s names.”

That wasn’t what she meant, but she was struck by it. “That’s really weird, isn’t it? Here we are, stark naked together, and we
know virtually nothing about each other.” His breathing changed rhythm, and she wondered what that signified. She tucked her chin down to try and see his face, but it was buried in the crazy tangle of her hair.

“Around here I feel like I know too much about everyone.”

“Mystery is part of the attraction. Sex is how you find out more.” Her eyes were closed, and she was rambling out of a sense of contentment and a desire to have his voice rumble in her ear.

“So what did you find out tonight?” he asked.

“That I got some details in my drawing wrong.”

“What drawing is that?”

“The one of you walking out of the river, holding a big fish. Claire asked me to donate it to the charity auction next week.”

That got his face out of her hair. “Didn’t you say something about it being nude?”

She nodded, knowing her eyes were brimming with amusement.

“You’re pulling my leg.” He sat up, pulling her with him. “All right, show it to me.”

“I wouldn’t really donate it,” she said, sliding off the bed and padding into the sitting room to retrieve her sketchpad.

He propped himself up on the pillows and enjoyed the view of madly waving red hair tumbling down toward the curve of her rounded bottom. She seemed to have shed her earlier attack of shyness entirely.

Waiting for her, he felt ease soak deep into his body. With Julia, he didn’t have to be the responsible brother or the respectable mayor or the do-good lawyer. It was a welcome respite, if a brief one. He couldn’t expect someone like Julia Castillo to hang around Sanctuary for long.

She walked back in, already flipping the pages of her pad. Turning the book around, she held it in front of her body as she came across the bed on her knees.

He reached out to take it from her, but she drew back. “Nope. You have to look from the right distance.”

“But you’re covering up my favorite sculpture.”

She blushed adorably. It always surprised him that he could embarrass her. She was so fiercely sure of herself in some ways, and so vulnerable in others. He focused on the drawing, and felt both awe and laughter expanding in his chest.

He was nude all right, shedding water as he strode out of the shallow water. He didn’t know how she managed to give his skin the sheen of wetness with just some shading of her pencil. She had idealized his body, making him look like a male model, but the face was definitely his. He wasn’t sure he liked the tilt of his head; it held a touch of arrogance. True to her word, she had given him a nice big fish to cover his private parts.

“Is it a bass or a trout?” he asked.

She smacked his shoulder lightly. “Careful, or the drawing will go to the auction.”

A moment’s recklessness tempted him to tell her to go ahead. Then he thought of the ripples of shock and disapproval that would run through the crowd at the gala. It just wasn’t worth it.

He looked up to meet her green eyes and realized she was waiting for his opinion. “You’ve made me look a lot better than I really do. Except for my face. That’s all me. Do I really look that high-and-mighty?”

“Sometimes, but it works for you,” she said. She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes as her glance swept down his body. “I don’t think I made you look better at all. I need to make a few adjustments, but they’ll just add character to the drawing.”

Her frank assessment made a certain part of his body stir again. She jerked her gaze back up to his face as another blush
swept up her shoulders and neck to brighten her cheeks. She worried her lower lip, and he wondered what she was thinking.

“I’m staying until next weekend,” she said, her gaze still on his face. “Claire’s giving a reception for my new work Friday night at the gallery. And I’m going to the charity auction. Are you?”

Elation surged through him. He’d been hoping for two more days with her. Now he’d have an entire week.

He would show her the sights of Sanctuary. Maybe seeing it through her fresh eyes would give him a new perspective.

“Well?”

“What?” He had forgotten what she’d asked.

“Are you going to the auction?”

“Yes, and I’m wearing a tux. I hear I look handsome in it.”

“Not as handsome as you look in nothing.” She waggled her finely arched brows at him.

He pulled the pad out of her hands and tumbled her backward on the bed. After that there wasn’t much in the way of conversation for some time.

J
ULIA SAT PROPPED
up in bed, watching Paul in the mirror as he scrubbed at his wet hair with one of the hotel’s towels. A slant of early-morning sunshine turned his skin to gold. His unbuttoned khakis sat low on his hips, and he was bare chested. Dropping the towel, he pulled a comb out of his back pocket and lifted his arms to work on the thick, damp waves. It made the muscles of his back shift and flex in ways that sent a yearning to touch him rippling through her fingers.

Yanking the sheet out to wrap around herself, she slid off the bed. She needed to buy a sexy nightgown or two. Her oversize T-shirt didn’t cut it now that she had an audience. She tucked the corner of the sheet in and trundled up behind Paul, laying her hands on the moving muscles she’d been watching. “I can’t believe I can touch you anywhere I want to,” she said, sliding her hands down his warm, satiny back and then around his waist to pull herself flat against him.

He stopped moving, and she felt him take a deep breath. “As long as the privilege goes both ways.”

“That’s the best thing about it.”

He lifted one of her hands and brought it to his mouth, turning the palm inward and tickling her skin with the tip of his tongue. The heat and slickness made her nerves sing, and she tightened her one-armed grip on his midriff.

“Sweetheart, I’ve got an appointment in twenty minutes.” His voice was a register lower than normal. “So you need to hold off on the touching privileges or I won’t be able to zip my trousers.”

She let her hand dip lower to find his burgeoning erection. “I bet it would take less than five minutes to fix that problem.”

“You’re on.”

She crowed with delight as he turned in the curve of her arm.

“Hey, you didn’t wear a sheet last night,” he said, throwing a disapproving frown at her toga.

“It was dark then. It’s daylight now.”

She saw his hand move toward the tucked-in corner and all of a sudden the entire sheet was whipped away from her and sent flying. She fought the desire to cover herself with her hands against his devouring gaze.

“I say we can do this in three minutes,” he said, placing her arms over his shoulders and sliding his hands down her bottom, to the backs of her knees. His fingers wrapped her legs like steel bands as she went soaring upward, her thighs spread around his hips, her hot, sensitive center pressed against the hard length of his arousal. As soon as they touched, moans tore from both their throats.