Fielder's Choice (21 page)

He set her on her feet next to the bed. She cast him a beguiling look from under her thick lashes. With a slow, deliberate move, she dropped the strap of her gown. It ribboned down her arm like a whisper of invitation. She teased the other strap off her shoulder, and the gown fell in a billowing pool of lace around her ankles.

She wore nothing beneath it.

Laughing, she stripped him out of his tux and trousers and threw them across her bureau.

His hands circled her waist, and she shivered under his touch. The feel of her body nearly undid his already tenuous resolve, but he intended to make this evening last, even if he had to call up every reserve of energy and marshal every nerve in his body in order to do it.

He sat on the bed and pulled her up onto his lap so she straddled him. He leaned down and took one already hard nipple in his mouth and felt it go tighter as he tasted it with his tongue. He moved his hand from the curve of her breast to her waist, down to the soft flesh of her thighs. His fingers met hers as he reached to stroke her. She was already slick and unbelievably warm. She moved her thumb across the tip of his erection, spreading the bead of moisture around the hood and down his shaft. He arched back, nearly delirious with pleasure. With her free hand she pulled his mouth to hers and bit at his lower lip, rolling the very tip of his erection between her thumb and finger at the same time. Pleasure that was nearly pain shot through him. He pulsed hard in her hand.

He lifted her hips and lowered her over his body until the still pulsing tip of his shaft was just inside her. She cried out, and he pulled her fully down, felt her warmth and her tremor as her muscles sheathed him. He rocked her then, and she bent her legs so she could move against his thrusts. He loosed one hand from her waist and wedged it between them to stroke her with a slow, firm pressure. He felt her flesh harden and pulse, peaking under his finger, and he didn’t have to hear her moan to know that she was coming hard. She cried out, shuddered and then went still. The sound of her pleasure and her release was like no music he’d ever heard. It reached deep into him, as if the notes reverberated and marked a path straight into his heart.

After a moment she dropped her forehead to his chest, her breaths still coming in short gasps. Then she tipped her head up and kissed him. Never releasing his mouth, she lifted slightly, and he felt her reach around her back, under her bottom, to stroke his balls. She nudged him with her hand, and he spread his legs a couple of inches to give her better access. The pleasure was torture. She squeezed his balls in her palm, and the tide that he’d been fighting to hold back began to rush. He was on the edge.

And then it hit him. In his frenzy to be inside her, he’d forgotten to put on a condom. Though his body screamed no, no, no, his brain said yes, and he closed his hands around her waist and lifted her off him.

“A moment,” he said, touching her lips with his finger.

She sighed and lay back across the bed, her ribs rising and falling with her panting breaths. He pulled a condom from his wallet and tore open the package.

She sat up and took his hand in hers, stopping him.

“You’ve done the hard work of remembering.” She pried the package from his hands. “At least let me do the work of putting it on.”

He didn’t know if he’d be able to handle the touch of her hands on him, but he wanted to try.

She rolled the condom down his shaft in a torturously slow motion, not touching any other part of his body. The isolated sensation made the pleasure all the more tantalizing. Matt bit back a groan and focused on her. Her skin was damp and flushed in the glow of a single bedside lamp as she bent over him. Realizing that he’d done that, brought her such pleasure that it colored her skin, he released the groan, proud and awed and surprised at his reaction. Then she lifted her palm and cradled his balls as she wrapped her lips around his engorged erection. He shuddered, loving the feel of her hot mouth, but after just a moment, he pulled her head up.

“Not tonight. I want to see your eyes when you come.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

He laid her across the bed and pressed her legs apart. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. From the dark curls framing her sex to the gentle rise of her belly and the perfect mounds of her breasts, to the round-eyed gaze in her eyes and the parting of her perfectly bowed lips, she was sensual perfection. She smiled at him as he slowly, gently, stroked her. Her smile gave way to gasps of pleasure as he made her come again with his fingers. He rested his hand against her, felt the slowly diminishing pulses and watched as she relaxed back against the bed. She lifted her hand to stroke his chest, then lowered it to circle her fingers around his erection.

“Now, Matt.”

“Not yet, baby. Relax.”

Her shaky laugh sounded desperate, but he didn’t give in. He stroked her, circling her flesh slowly, pinching at the swollen, peaked hood, and then he inserted a finger inside her.

She tugged at his hand. “If you don’t come inside me now, I will hex your every at-bat for the rest of your life.”

He laughed but just stroked her again, moving his finger until he saw that he’d reached the perfect spot to torment her with pleasure. Pleading, she arched up against his palm, and he smiled.

“Now, baby, now you’re ready.”

He paused and slipped only the first inch of his erection inside her. Her hands fisted in the sheet, and she rocked her hips, trying to draw him deeper. He pulled out, and she cursed. The tug of her desire was more arousing than any fantasy.

He thrust into her again, and she pushed back against a pillow with a primal moan. He lifted her hips, tilting her until he could see from her expression and feel from the quivering of her body and the grip of her muscles against his shaft that he was stroking the perfect spot inside her. He thrust in and pulled out, building up a relentless rhythm, movements beyond mind, beyond will.

Without warning, she twisted under him, pivoting her body until her ass was up against his thighs. He stroked her doggie style until she cried out that she couldn’t take any more. But he didn’t believe her. He pulled her to the edge of the bed, to where he had better leverage. And, with the owls hooting their calls into the dark night and the hum of distant music, he drilled her until neither of them had the strength to utter a sound.

They collapsed across the bed. He lay on his side and pulled out of her, disposed of the condom in a tissue from the bedside table and then turned and pulled her up against him. She curved into him, resting her head on his chest.

As his breath slowed, he felt the uncomfortable transition from the world of the body and overwhelming sensations they’d shared to the world of mind and words. Though they hadn’t spoken, from the way she sat up in the bed and tugged the covers to her, from the almost shy look in her eyes, he was pretty sure she felt the awkwardness too.

Often sleep was the bridge between sex and ordinary waking life, but Matt wasn’t sleepy. And though it was late, he craved to know more about her, to enter her world not just by pleasing her body but by hearing about what mattered to her, what drew her, what she loved.

He took her hand in his, laced his fingers with hers and kissed her knuckles one by one. Perhaps getting her to talk about someone she loved would be a place to start.

“Why don’t you tell me more about this feisty grandmother of yours?” he said.

“Only if you tell me about baseball,” she countered, pressing her lips together and raising a brow.

One thing about her, she never missed the opportunity to negotiate. He sure as hell didn’t feel like talking about baseball.

“Truth or dare?” he proposed.

“No. I never liked that game, not really. Besides, all my clothes are off; I have nothing to bargain with.”

Little did she know that in that moment she came close to holding the pulse of his life in her hands.

“Okay,
one
thing about your grandmother.”

She scooted upright in the bed and pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts. It was a sweetly modest gesture and it touched him. He turned to his belly and rose up on his elbows, resting his chin in his hands.

“Nana was a pioneer, just like her great-grandfather. He was a leader way back in the gold rush. She told me she had a vision when she saw this place, a vision of what it could be.”

She waved her hands, a graceful gesture, but he saw the nerves under it. The sheet slipped, exposing her breasts. Her nipples were perfect—rosy, brown, inviting. He forced himself to look back at her eyes as she tugged the sheet back up.

“Other people said this valley and the hills surrounding it were too cold, too foggy, too windy—well, let’s not get into the wind factor tonight.” She screwed her face into a scowl. “But Nana proved to everybody that not only would olive trees grow here, they could produce award-winning olive oil. And the grapes, the body care line, those were all her brainchildren.”

Her eyes clouded and she stopped.

“What?”

“I think sometimes that what she really wanted more than anything was a place for us—for me and Simon and Damien. A place for us to romp away from the city, a place where we could feel the wind—did I say I wasn’t going to mention the wind?” She wrinkled her nose in an adorable way. “I must have it on my mind. Anyway, she wanted a place where we could hang out in nature. She believed that to grow up properly, healthily, kids had to spend loads of time with the land and animals, with growing things.” She tossed her head, and her hair fell away from her face. “I think she thought she’d see a great-grandchild or two before she passed on.”

Alana stretched up into a catlike yawn, and the sheet fell again. Maybe she was trying to undo him—if she was, she was doing a damned fine job. She gathered the sheet back around her and grinned, but he saw the lines of tiredness around her eyes.

“I guess we didn’t oblige.” She yawned again. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling. It’s your turn. Tell me about baseball.”

He moved up to the head of the bed, pulled the sheets down, talked down his first impulse to take her in his arms and make love to her again, and patted the place beside him. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I can tell you in the morning.”

“That’s cheating,” she murmured as Matt wrapped his arm around her and talked down his second impulse, which was the same as his first.

Alana curled up against him, and he pulled the sheet up over the two of them, tucking it around her against the chill of the evening.

She let out a soft sigh, and in a few minutes he heard her breathing lengthen into the cadence that said sleep was only a few breaths away. She snuggled closer. Just as he was falling into sleep, she murmured, “Nana would’ve liked Sophie.”

The sound of trucks woke Matt. He opened his eyes and focused on the carved ceiling above his head. Sometimes on the road he’d have to leave himself a note on the hotel nightstand to remind him what city he was in. He didn’t need a reminder today.

He leaned up in the bed and turned to Alana. Her hair was spread across the pillows, dark curls against white linen. Her lips, plump from hours of lovemaking, were pursed in a sleep-drenched smile. She didn’t stir as he rose from the bed.

Shock bolted through him when he saw it was already seven.

He hadn’t planned on spending the night. But then he hadn’t planned anything that had happened after he’d arrived at the ranch. At least Sophie was tucked away safely down in the kid's camp.

And what he’d felt while making love with Alana was way more than he’d planned, way beyond physical attraction. He wanted the sex, yes, but what he really wanted was more of her. The depth of his wanting shocked him because he thought he’d defended against it.

He’d been wrong. Again.

He pulled his briefs and tux pants off the bureau, knocking over a picture frame. He picked up the photo. It was a close-cropped shot. Alana wore a dress that made her look like a goddess, a goddess whose lips were locked with a dark-haired man’s in an apparently deeply sensual kiss. He picked up the photo next to it. She stood on a balcony that looked out over vineyards, smiling at the camera. The same man had his arm draped possessively over her bare shoulders.

He wondered who they might have asked to take such an intimate photo. The photo next to it was of a different man—tall and brooding—standing beside a Lamborghini, the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Of course she had men in her life. Apparently several.

He didn’t want to jump to conclusions—after all, Parker had been her cousin, not a lover. But still...

He shoved down the bile of jealousy that rose into his throat. He and Alana had no agreement, had hardly spoken about their lives. She’d done nothing to mislead him. And he’d never countered her comment about no-strings sex, about the freedom that such affairs provided. At the time he’d agreed with her, even though part of him resisted. He had no right to intrude into her life.

But what stopped his thoughts was the drawing beside the photos. Sophie’s hand-colored depiction of Alana in the butterfly garden was unmistakable. So was Sophie’s depiction of herself clutching Alana’s outstretched hand.