Hot Number (15 page)

Sadie took a deep breath, trying to distract
herself. “For an amateur, you certainly seem to have mastered
considerable technique,” she managed.

He didn’t answer as he shifted his position
to the top of the table. Suddenly, his palms stroked down her back,
moving in a firm, long stroke all the way from her shoulders to her
bottom, where they stopped and briefly cupped her cheeks. She
gasped as he held her in his big hands. With his fingers so close
to her damp sex, another shudder traveled the length of her
body.

Just a little farther down hits the sweet
spot.

“Are you cold?” he asked. “I can boost the
heat.”

“No, no—it’s fine. I’m rather warm already,”
she choked out. “In fact, if I got any warmer, I might dissolve
into a puddle.”

He chuckled as he began another long stroke
that again ended with her bottom in his hands. She shifted as the
pressure from his kneading fingers intensified the pulse of arousal
in her sex. God, she did feel like she was melting—from the inside
out.

“As for knowing what I’m doing,” he finally
answered, “not really. I picked up some technique from a girlfriend
who was in massage therapy school at the time. Plus, I got a lot of
massages after I was wounded in Iraq.”

Sadie jerked her head up out of the cradle
and craned her neck to look up into his face. “You were
wounded?”

“You’re supposed to be relaxing,” he said,
gently pushing her head back down. “It wasn’t a life-threatening
injury. A blast of shrapnel nailed me in the shoulder. It trashed
some muscle and ripped up a few blood vessels. But it’s pretty much
okay now.”

Sadie shivered again, this time from the
image of what lay behind his words. Though she’d seen news clips of
the fighting over there hundreds of times and witnessed dozens of
small protests on her campus, hearing about it from someone who’d
been there—someone she was starting to care about—made it
frighteningly real.

She winced as Nick worked on a knot between
her shoulder blades. “Where did that just come from?” he growled in
a mock angry tone. “Don’t make me do this over again, Ms. Bligh, or
you’ll be sorry. And stop worrying. I’m fine.”

“I’m glad. I’d hate it if you weren’t,” she
said, trying not to sound too emotional.

He dropped a lingering kiss between her
shoulder blades before returning to his work. Her heart gave an
extra thump, and she had to fight a sudden and ridiculous urge to
cry.

A few minutes later, Nick finished with her
blissfully happy back, pulling the sheet up to her neck. She heard
him move down to the bottom of the table and felt the sheet rise
over her left leg. He carefully draped the material back until her
leg was fully exposed, along with just a bit of her butt. She heard
another squeeze from the massage oil bottle and then both his hands
grasped her leg at the knee and stroked upward to the top of her
thigh. His fingers swept higher, so close to her damp folds and her
aching clitoris that she sucked in an agonized breath. He did it
again and again, each time coming a bit closer, but never touching
her sex.

The tension in her body came roaring back,
now all focused on the bundle of nerve endings and slick flesh
between her thighs. She silently willed him to touch her, to spread
her legs wide and stroke her, but he seemed determined to play out
the fantasy to the end. As he worked on her calf and foot, and then
moved on to her right leg, her mind alternated between singing for
joy and crying in frustration. Much more and she
would
have
an orgasm on the table. That would certainly be another first for
her.

“Time to turn over,” he said quietly. He
pulled the sheet up and out until it formed a barrier between them
while she flipped onto her back and wriggled down so her head was
fully on the table. He let the sheet drop on her, and she took a
moment to appreciate the picture he made—his broad shoulders and
chest, naked, tanned, and with light sheen of perspiration
highlighting his muscles. His eyes were smoky and hot, and he
looked ready to eat her alive.

She blushed, dropping her gaze, and then
gasped out loud. His jeans had edged down even lower around his
hips and the tip his erection—broad and flushed—pushed up over the
top of the fabric. He was huge and hard, and the thought of taking
him inside her was both unsettling and intensely exciting.

“Close your eyes, Sadie,” Nick murmured.
“We’re not finished yet.”

When she’d settled in, he tucked the sheet
around her and moved down to massage the front of her legs, using
the same technique he’d used on the back. But this time, with each
upward, sliding stroke, his fingers grazed her moisture-drenched
folds until she thought she’d lose her mind. She breathed in short,
panting breaths, clenching her teeth to keep from begging him to go
farther, to thrust those fingers deep into her sex, to rub that
fragrant oil onto the slick bud that cried out for his touch.

“God, Sheriff,” she finally whimpered.

“You like that?” he asked, a hint of dark
laughter in his voice.

He knew damn well how much. “Stop being such
a jerk,” she murmured, clenching her fingers into the sheet.

“One more area to massage,” he said, and this
time he pulled the sheet right off her.

She waited with her eyes squeezed shut,
suddenly rigid with nerves and anticipation. After a few moments,
she forced herself to open them.

He gazed down at her body, his features so
hard they looked cast in stone. “Fuck, Sadie.” He made it sound
like a prayer. “You’re so beautiful. I hope you know that.”

He stared at her breasts, and she felt the
tips grow harder, desperate for the wet heat of his mouth. She’d
never thought of herself as beautiful, and who knew how Nick would
have reacted if he had met the old Sadie first. But she didn’t care
about that. Not anymore, because now she felt beautiful and all
woman. And she needed him with a fierce desire that left her
breathless.

Instinctively, she arched her back, thrusting
her chest up toward him. His hands, slick with the scented oil,
cupped her breasts. Holding one in each hand, Nick circled her
nipples with his thumbs, flicking the stiff peaks until they
throbbed. Sadie moaned as more moisture pooled between her thighs.
She couldn’t lie still any more. Almost involuntarily, her legs
drew up and apart in silent invitation.

“Nick, please,” she whispered in a soft
moan.

He answered her by flicking his tongue across
her left nipple, then sucking it deeply into his mouth. As he
teased and nipped, driving her insane, he slipped his right hand
down across the flat of her belly and through her drenched curls
until his middle finger slipped smoothly inside her. Sadie groaned
as he massaged her sheath while sucking her breast deep into his
mouth.

She sobbed out a breath as she spread her
legs wide, dying to feel his cock inside her. Just one long, deep
stroke and she figured she’d be gone.

But Nick clearly had other ideas. To her
surprise, he pulled away. Before she could protest, he tugged her
hips until he’d shifted her bottom almost to the end of the massage
table. He dropped to his knees and draped her legs over his
shoulders. It all happened so quickly, and she was too dazed with
passion to do anything but let him arrange her body as he pleased.
He made a deep, satisfied noise in his throat as his fingers spread
her wide, exposing her to his gaze.

“God,” he murmured. “I love looking at you,
and I love the way you tasted last night. You’re so damn hot.”

Sadie almost fainted. Sheldon had rarely
talked when they made love, and he’d certainly never said anything
like that!

A second later, Nick’s mouth was on her
aching bud, sucking her gently. She gripped the sheet as the
pressure built in wave after decadent wave. He dragged the flat of
his tongue over her clit, then he started licking her in a
relentless, maddening rhythm that drove her wild.

Sadie flung her arms wide, crying out with
the intensity of her approaching climax. Nick had made the massage
all about her. He hadn’t massaged her into never-never land for
himself—just so he could take his own pleasure inside her.

But, mercy! She couldn’t wait until he
did.

When her panting moans told him she was
perched on the edge, he slipped two fingers back into her, filling
her, stretching her. With two more quick flicks of his deft tongue,
her orgasm rolled up and over her. When the spasms of the most
shattering climax she had ever experienced subsided, Sadie felt a
little like the warm, smooth oil that glistened on her skin.

* * *

Sadie turned and came up onto one elbow,
looking dazed and sexy as hell in the aftermath of her orgasm. “I
think a girl could get quite accustomed to a regular massage,” she
said on a sigh. Her languid, satisfied smile told Nick he’d been
more than successful in attending to her needs.

He helped her down from the table, wrapping
his arms around her and pulling her tight against him, just to make
sure she wasn’t as wobbly as she appeared. “You okay?”

She cleared her throat. “Umm, I’m trying to
come up with some word far stronger than bliss. I don’t usually
have to search for words like this. Give me a second, though, and
I’ll have it.”

He laughed and kissed her pretty mouth,
thinking of all the things he’d like to do to those lush lips. For
now, kissing was enough.

She melted against him for a second, then
pushed back, her expression brightening. “I’ve got it.
Rapture—that’s the word.”

He laughed again. “Whatever you say, Ms.
Bligh. I didn’t really expect you to do a Google word search. Then
again, I’ve never met anybody quite like you.”

She gave his shoulder a little punch. “Jerk.
But I’m prepared to forgive you because that massage was about the
closest thing to nirvana that I can imagine. You are a truly
generous lover, Nick Saxon.”

“I’m glad you’ve ditched the sheriff
thing.”

“Who says I’ve ditched it?” she answered
absently. Her attention had drifted downward to the gap in his open
jeans. As Nick followed her gaze, he saw his cock pointing
north.

Hell, he’d had a massive hard-on since the
minute he walked into the room, but he hadn’t noticed that he was
actually coming out of his clothes. Not surprising, he supposed.
Giving Sadie that massage had been about the sexiest thing he’d
ever done, and they hadn’t even fucked yet. He was having a hard
time imagining how good
that
was going to feel.

She surprised him by running her thumb
lightly across the tip of his straining erection, sending a shudder
through his body.

“I think we’d better take care of this soon,”
she whispered, her breath soft on his chest.

He swallowed hard, practically shaking with
the effort to hold himself back. “A sauna’s next on the menu. If
you’re up for it.”

She studied him, as if analyzing the
question. “I wonder about the advisability of that. My core
temperature has already climbed into the red zone once this
evening.” Then she gave him a wicked grin as she ran her palm up
and down his shaft through the jeans. He gritted his teeth,
resisting the temptation to push her up against the table and do
her right there.

“Still, why not?” She continued the slow
stroking motion and he thought the top of his skull was going to
explode. Or his cock, if he didn’t get it into her soon.

“You know, you could always pull my jeans
right off,” he rasped. “Or would you rather keep torturing me
through them?”

Sadie didn’t need a second invitation. She
dipped her hands inside the jeans at his hips and pushed them down
to his ankles. Then she did the same for his briefs, sucking in a
breath as her eyes fixed on his now-freed erection. Nick stepped
out of the pool of clothes at his feet, lifted her up in his arms,
and carried her out to the hall. She was a warm, tempting bundle of
generous curves, with skin as soft and smooth as white satin. At
this rate, it might be a miracle if he lasted another thirty
seconds.

“Steam sauna or infrared? Mac has them
both.”

She laughed. “Infrared makes me think of an
oven. Let’s get wet.”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah, let’s get steamy.”
Nick flicked a light switch and pushed the door of the sauna wide
open with his foot. Humid air immediately enveloped their bodies.
He perched her on one of the low wooden benches and ladled water
onto the hot volcanic rocks, sending steam billowing into the
air.

“Mmm, the bench isn’t as hot as I’d
expected.” Sadie stretched out languorously, propping a wooden neck
rest behind her. Her legs fell open, giving him a beautiful view of
her slick, pink lips.

“The benches are made of aspen because it
doesn’t conduct heat very well,” he managed to reply. He found it
hard to talk while his dick was hard enough to pound nails.

Grabbing a towel from a pile on a corner
table, he wiped his brow and sat down beside her. He began gently
stroking the inside of her leg, heading for paradise.

She reached down and stilled his hand. “No.
It’s your turn now, Sheriff.” She smiled apologetically. “I mean,
Nick.”

Before he could reply, Sadie dropped to her
knees on the wooden floor and slipped in between his legs. Her wild
curls, already damp from the steam, cascaded in a soft mass over
his groin as her lips kissed the base of his cock. When she slid
her tongue up the full length, from base to tip, he groaned his
pleasure.

Her head came up and she gazed at him with
questioning eyes. “Am I doing this correctly? I’m a novice at this
sort of thing, you know.” She gave him a hesitant smile. “I don’t
mind at all if you instruct me. In fact, I would sincerely welcome
it.”

Something in his chest went tight at the
vulnerable expression on her face. “You’re doing just fine, baby.
You don’t need me to tell you a thing.” She ducked her head, her
smile turning a little smug, and went back to work.