Rebound (10 page)

It was like someone
had turned off the sound. The tide crashing on the beach below, the
wind gusting through the palms, the birds. It all just stopped, and
all there was were the beating of Kevin’s heart in his ears, and
the words that had fallen so effortlessly from Susan’s lips. Those
beautiful, full, pink lips.

The way he wanted
her...

“I felt so stupid,
and then I was so afraid I was going to lose you. I just couldn’t
bear the thought of…”

The way he had always
wanted her...

He knew it was wrong.
It was such bad an idea it was terrifying. He knew they would never
be the same, and that it wouldn’t last, that she wouldn’t want him
like she did right then, not once they were away from paradise, not
after she’d had time to heal and move on to the next Man of Her
Dreams. But he didn’t care. Didn’t care that it was going to ruin
him, destroy him. He didn’t care that he’d be haunted by it for the
rest of his miserable days. They’d work it out later. Now, what he
knew was that she wanted him.

He was going to take
all her pain away.

He reached for her,
feeling the cotton of her tank top beneath his fingertips, the
slide of the flesh of her arm against his. And he pulled her into
him, slowly wrapping his arms around her, loving the softness of
her, how her body seemed to fit, molding against his own as he drew
her against him. She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted,
her green eyes surprised. He dipped his head until their faces were
about to touch. The scent of her, how it blocked out the salty
tide, even the tropical flowers…

She popped up on her
toes and kissed him, completing the circuit, making the electricity
of a thousand thunderstorms surge between them, through their lips,
as they melded together, mouths opening, tongues touching. As she
pressed herself harder against him, her breasts soft and round and
warm touching his chest, she laced her arms up and around his neck,
cinching him to her all the more. Her fingers grasped his hair, her
breaths coming hot and sweet and ragged as they struggled, both
trying to force their bodies to merge into one.

* * * *

Susan was caught on
an emotional roller coaster. One minute she’d been desperate for
Kevin to forgive her, the next she was so pissed at him she
could’ve screamed. He was so infuriating! So detached. Even when he
was holding her, even as she cried into his chest, he still felt a
million miles away.

She’d lost him, and
he didn’t seem to really care. All he wanted was to ask her stupid
questions! Who gave a damn why she had needed him? She had wanted
him too, wasn’t that enough?

She felt stupid,
blathering on like she was filling in some hapless half-wit about a
particularly pathetic plot twist on a soap opera.

And then her world
ended.

Not so much ended, as
stopped.

When he took her in
his arms and she felt his body, strong and warm and solid, against
hers, and saw the look on his face, the serious expression, his
hazel eyes turning dark, the sudden heat that was radiating off
him--everything stopped. All those little sounds, and all the big
ones, every frantic bleating thought in her head, it all stopped,
and she was awash in silence. And him. He felt so good, and looked
like heaven, and the way he smelled--like flesh and sweat and
honey.

Kevin leaned down
until his lips were close enough she could almost taste them. But
he didn’t kiss her. He stood there looking deep into her eyes,
breathing in her exhalations, holding her so close in his arms.

So she popped up on
her tiptoes, closing the gap between them, and fastened her hungry
lips to his. And that was when her life started again. Like the
crescendo in a symphony. The very air was electrified, and the wind
started swirling about them like a hurricane. His mouth opened as
she opened her own, tasting the sweetness of him, the heat.

She lost it, melting
as their kiss deepened. Her heart beat savagely in her chest as
their tongues touched. Every inch of her flesh burned and tingled
at the same time. Was she having a heart attack? But it didn’t
hurt. No, it was the most wonderful, enjoyable feeling she’d ever
had.

It was that kiss they
always show in the movies, when the guy and the girl…

Susan’s hands
moved from his hair, where she’d rumpled it to sticking straight up
in the air, down his neck and slid over his cotton button-down
shirt. Her lips left his and she kissed her way down to his neck,
where she licked and nibbled at his flesh.
Yummy.

Kevin shook as she
pulled open his shirt and shoved it off his thick shoulders. Her
mouth moved down his collarbone, and her hands spread over his
chest. Her fingers kneaded the mounds of muscle, while her tongue
traced down the inside of his pec and slipped over to take his
nipple into her mouth, flicking her tongue and sucking.

Kevin groaned and his
back arched, and he tried to pull her back up to kiss her. But she
had already started burrowing her hands down the front of his
shorts. She wanted him, she wanted to feel him get hard, she wanted
to feel him inside her.

But Kevin jumped back
and grabbed her hands before she had a hold of anything, fleshy or
hard. He held her hands straight out at her sides as he breathed
hard and deep, his eyes wild, his hair mussed beyond redemption,
and his mouth bruised beautifully from kissing her. He looked like
he was trying to think, like he was trying to make a decision.

Susan pulled her
hands from his and stepped back. He didn’t get to start this and
just stop. He didn’t get to retreat away in his head and wordlessly
make decisions about what was happening between them.

He wasn’t going to
cut her out of this.

She grasped the hem
of her tank top and slowly started pulling it up her navel.

Kevin’s mouth went
slack, and the thoughts that were clouding his eyes evaporated as
the heat returned.

That got his
attention.

She pulled the shirt
up over her shoulders and tossed it onto the ground. She stood
there in her too sexy bra, it finally being just sexy enough, and
stared longingly into Kevin’s burning gaze. Deliberately she let
her hands glide up the bare flesh of her belly and lingered at the
clasp of her bra--thank God for front-fastening bras!

Kevin took a step
closer, lust and longing blazing in his eyes. As Susan unhooked the
clasp and let the lacy blue material slide from her shoulders, her
breasts now naked, coming free of their confines, Kevin gulped and
shook his head, yet his feet kept him moving straight to her.

“I give up,” he said,
as he took her into his arms again, her bare skin sliding against
his, their torsos rubbing and melting together, Susan’s breasts hot
and soft and on fire as she pressed them hard against his chest. He
kissed her again, deep and urgent and rough, devouring her as his
hands found purchase all over her body, grasping and stroking and
squeezing.

Susan snuck her
fingers to the buckle of Kevin’s shorts and pulled it open as he
feasted on her willing lips. She pushed her hand slowly down the
front of his underwear until she felt him hard and hot in her hand,
and he gasped against her mouth.

“I want you,” she
said between kisses, her hand stroking his manhood.

“Here?” Kevin pulled
his lips from hers long enough to look around them at the deserted
clearing.

“Right here, right
now,” she said, taking his chin in her fingers and pulling his face
so he was peering into her eyes again. “Just like this.”

Kevin halted, looking
like he was teetering between running away and eating her alive.
And that one moment of indecision made Susan’s heart stop. That
moment seemed to last forever. Like someone had put time on pause,
just so she could feel how desperate she was for him.

He dragged her to him
and kissed her deep and hard and wet, kissing her like he owned
her, like she was his and only his. Susan felt herself getting
dizzy as they clung to each other, grasping and pitching to and
fro, and then she realized they were suddenly on the ground, her on
top, him beneath her. She sat up, breaking free of his kiss,
straddling his hips as she pushed up off his heaving, naked
chest.

She hesitated. What
had she been thinking?

But Kevin sat up and
took her breasts in his hands, holding them in his warm, strong
grasp as he nuzzled his face into them, and then licked and bit and
then suckled at her nipples.

“Oh, hell...” She
fell into him, her breath catching in her throat, hot and reeling,
ready to scream. Her body shuddered as he shoved his hand down the
back of her khaki shorts, grabbing and squeezing her butt while he
sucked harder on her breasts.

But what if Kevin was
right and Liz was wrong? What if she ended up losing him?

Kevin rolled them
over so he was on top, and she felt all his wonderful weight on
her, solid and warm, his skin smooth over his hard muscles. And he
was hard, she could feel him through her shorts, through his,
against her hip.

Suddenly he took his
lips away and then his body disentangled from hers, and he was
abruptly not with her anymore. She opened her eyes and saw him
standing, pulling off his shorts, hopping on one leg as he tried to
get the tangled clothes off his foot.

Susan loved the way
he jiggled. So wondrous and alive, and hers. At least for now,
but...

But Kevin turned
around and she saw him completely naked for the first time, and
hard. She stared up at him, mesmerized by how beautiful he was. How
hadn’t she seen this, all these years? And how hadn’t she known he
was the one? Not Mark. Mark didn’t even remember what kind of ice
cream she ate when she was depressed. But Kevin, this warm, funny,
gorgeous man, knew everything about her. The silly little quirks,
like blaring the Dixie Chicks on road trips, and the really
important things like…well, everything he’d done for her since they
came there. He was her best friend, yet he was really so much
more.

Kevin fell on his
knees beside her, gently pulled off her shoes, then reached for her
shorts. Susan was sure she would come right then and there. He made
quick work of the clasp, and the zipper, and tugged her shorts from
around her hips, down her legs and off over her feet.

Susan was breathing
hard and heavy, and she was about to think another stupid,
irritating thought to try and stop what was happening, when Kevin
eased his hands up her legs, barely touching the aching flesh as
they ascended her calves, over her knees and caressed up her
thighs. With maddening smoothness his hands found her hips, and his
fingers slipped under the elastic of her panties, sliding them
effortlessly down her legs, his hands hot and teasing as they
relieved her of the constricting material.

He gave her panties a
little toss, and climbed up her body, his arms bulging as he moved,
until he was hovering over her, slowly letting himself fall down
onto her.

They were both
wonderfully naked. His flesh smooth and warm against her front
side, the cool scratchiness of the tall grass tickling her
backside. She wiggled and squirmed, and Kevin maneuvered her so
that she was lying on his shorts and shirt.

He kissed her as
their flesh became one and she wrapped her arms around his neck,
luxuriating in his embrace, in his naked body, in his delicious
kiss.

She felt him
hard and urgent against the inside of her thigh. He started kissing
his way down her body, his manhood slipping away as his mouth
licked and sucked and bit, making her breasts into a buffet. He
played her ribs like a harp, licking down the curves and valleys of
her navel, and down further, pulling her thighs apart with those
hot, strong hands--
maybe we should stop and talk about this
--and licking inside her.
No, no talking. Shut up, Susan, don’t
distract him, let him keep doing what he’s doing.

Susan arched as
he tasted her, as his mouth kissed her and made her writhe on the
grass covered ground. She drew her head back and gasped, letting
all her
how’s
and
why’s
and
maybe
we
shouldn’t’s
fall away. Her
hands found the smooth flesh of his shoulders. She dug her fingers
into his hair again, loving how thick it was. She was burning alive
with how much heat and pleasure his beautiful mouth and his
talented tongue were giving her.

She heard someone
crying out Kevin’s name, and she realized it was her. “Please,” she
begged, feeling herself lose all control over her body. “I want you
in me. I need you in me!”

As he looked up into
Susan’s eyes, his own eyes heavy and dark with want, his mouth
bruised and shiny with her juices, a force surged through her,
stronger, deeper than mere lust. It made her entire body burn.

Kevin climbed back,
sneaking his fingers up into her, making her tremble and gasp, and
she lost herself as she pushed up against his hand, losing her
mind. Just when she was sure she could take no more, Kevin entered
her, slick and hard, rocking slowly in and out of her as she
wrapped herself around him, wanting all of him, crazed to possess
him.

She couldn’t
breathe, she’d never felt so full, so overwhelmed, so thoroughly,
desperately satisfied. But he started moving into her faster,
harder, and she felt herself grasping at him, digging her nails
into the flesh of his back, needing him so much, wanting him like
mad, and
not
satisfied.

She wanted more.

She wanted it
all.

She didn’t know
exactly what Kevin was doing that was making her body burst into
flames, but she knew it was all him, and that he was hers.