Rebound (25 page)

Kevin laughed, just a
little laugh, and he cleared his throat. But he leaned back and
smiled as he laughed harder and bigger, until his chest shook.

“It’s not funny!”
Susan could feel the tears that had begun to sting her eyes
suddenly evaporate. She was so angry with Kevin that she was a
heartbeat away from slugging him.

“Your therapist broke
up with you? How does that even happen?”

Susan’s mouth
tightened into a thin line, and she knew she was scowling something
fierce. “Instead of talking to her about my problems, I talked to
her about work.”

Kevin gave out a
whoop and clapped his hands together. “Yeah, that would do it.”

“It’s not funny!” But
even to Susan it did seem pretty funny, and her voice didn’t fool
even her. “It’s really not.”

Kevin had taken one
step forward and was now close to Susan, looking down on her with
those burning eyes, his unique Kevin-scent permeating her senses
and soaking her brain with him. She made a fist with her hand,
ready to punch him in the chest, but instead she opened her hand
and hesitantly, delicately, placed it over his heart, feeling it
beating against her palm. Hard and fast and strong. She gripped the
smooth white cotton of his shirt as he reached out and took her
into his arms again. She shook but couldn’t tell if she was just
cold or if her emotions had just gone wild.

Suddenly he was
kissing her. His mouth so wet, so gentle, so very delicious. Better
than she had remembered. Better than she had even dreamed about
late at night when she woke in a sweat with the sheets twisted
around her legs. His hands slid up her rib cage and around her
back, pulling her into him until her breasts pressed hard against
his heaving pecs. She felt their bodies melding together as he
picked her up in his arms to kiss her all the deeper, all the
wetter, his tongue slipping into her mouth, flicking against her
tongue, making her whimper with want.

Abruptly he pulled
away, breaking their lip-lock, making her whimper all the louder,
like a puppy begging for a treat.

He was holding her at
arm’s length, looking hard into her eyes.

“I’ve got to know,
before we go any further--” His voice quivered as he spoke, and he
paused for a moment, his expression nervous. “I’ve got to know that
you love me.”

Was he asking her a
question? Susan’s mind was still bending and swirling around in her
head, still drunk from the kiss. And hadn’t she already told him
she loved him, that she was in love with him?

The look on Kevin’s
face told her she hadn’t.

Oh, right, they’d
started fighting instead.

Susan grabbed hold of
the untied black bow-tie that hung around his neck and pulled him
closer to her.

“Yes, Kevin Mathew
Jacobs, I really do love you.” And she pulled him the rest of the
way to her, until her lips crushed his, and he was whimpering this
time.

She feasted on
Kevin’s beautiful mouth.

She wrapped her arms
around his neck, and his hands glided down the back of her dress,
cupping her bottom as he pulled her further into him. Susan felt
something burst into flame inside her, worse than any burning she’d
ever had for him. This was hot enough to kill, it was going to
incinerate her on the spot.

Kevin’s lips were no
longer kissing her, and his arms were disentangling her from him.
The sudden loss of contact made her both annoyed and confused. Did
he want her or not? Or was this all just some joke to him? She
could feel the heat of her want change, flickering back to the heat
of being pissed at him.

Kevin stepped
back and held her where she was standing, just for a moment, and he
knelt on one knee. He reached up and grabbed absently at the thin
air over his heart. Susan felt the skin between her eyes
crinkle.
Is he
having a heart attack?

Kevin looked down to
where his hand was still searching for something, and he made a
noise somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. “Don’t move!” he said,
springing to his feet and grabbing the tuxedo jacket Susan had
taken off and thrown at him. He jogged back, skidding to a stop
right where he’d been kneeling, and fell to one knee again, this
time reaching into the pocket of the jacket and pulling out a small
black velvet box, which he opened and held out to Susan.

His voice was rasping
with exertion, but his words were crystal clear. “Marry me.”

Susan stood stone
still for a few beats, not knowing whether she should answer or
not. Had it been a question? Or had he just told her to? Either
way, Susan was going to say yes, yet she couldn’t quite get enough
air in her lungs to say the word.

“Not for any of the
reasons I could think of, but because you really want to be my
wife.”

Wife? The word seemed
to glow and shimmer in the moonlight. The way Kevin seemed to be
moving closer, even though he was still on one knee, made Susan’s
heart flutter in her chest. That’s when she realized she was moving
closer to him, and that she was now on her knees, looking up into
his beautiful face, close enough to feel the warmth of his
breath.

“Of course I want to
be your wife.” She leaned in to kiss him.

Kevin leaned back,
pressing his forefinger against her puckered-to-kiss lips. “That
was a yes, right?”

Susan smiled against
the press of his finger and nodded, springing up and kissing him
deep and hard and wet, tasting him as if it were the first time,
and he was the only thing she wanted in the world.

Somehow Kevin slipped
the ring out of the box and onto Susan’s finger. Somehow he got her
off the terrace and through the crush of the party and down to the
lobby where Francesca’s car was waiting for them, the driver
holding the door open as they wafted out on a stingingly cold gust
of winter wind neither of them seemed to feel.

After the driver
closed the door and jogged around to angle himself into the
driver’s seat, he said, “Mrs. Costa said to take you two wherever
you want to go…so, where to?”

Susan and Kevin were
already lip to lip, arms wrapped about each other, her legs swung
up into his lap. Kevin disengaged his lips from hers long enough to
smile and tell the driver, “Four twenty-nine East Coulter Ave.”

Susan smiled. “My
place?”

“I’ve been wanting to
have you in your own bed ever since the first time in Cancun.”

She licked her lips
and smiled.

God,
he
’s
something else.
She was about to ask herself if she’d
even made her bed, but as Kevin leaned in and kissed her, again and
again and again, whether she made her bed or not, whether there
were dirty clothes strewn all over the floor or not, it didn’t
matter. Having Kevin in her bed--and tonight--that was all that
mattered.

* * * *

Kevin stood behind
Susan as she tried to unlock her door. His hand on the back of her
neck, his strong, warm fingers slowly caressing her flesh, caused
ripples of delight to travel up and down her body. Needless to say,
Susan wasn’t going to get the key in the lock anytime soon. Kevin
took the key from her trembling hand and inserted it into the lock
and turned. The door swung open and Susan just stood there, as if
Kevin’s fingers had magically paralyzed her.

“Would you like to go
inside?” Kevin finally whispered, his breath hot as it tickled her
ear. “Or would you rather make love in the hall?”

Susan gasped as
Kevin’s hand moved from her neck and trailed down her bare back.
Susan nodded her head toward the door. Kevin gave her a faux look
of disappointment. “And I was so looking forward to giving Red over
there--” He motioned behind him, to the neighbor across the hall.
“--a show.”

“You’ve met
Mona?”

He took Susan’s hand
and pulled her into the apartment, closing the door behind them,
plunging them into near complete darkness. Susan reached for the
lamp by the door, but Kevin took her hand and pulled it to his
mouth, kissing her fingers as he spoke.

“Met her a couple
weeks ago, when you blew me off.”

“I didn’t mean
to--”

“She let me into the
building, thought I was the Chinese delivery man.” He nibbled on
her fingers, making Susan groan. “She really likes the delivery
man.”

Susan was shaking all
over, and her knees got weak and wobbly when he took her index
finger into his mouth and sucked so very gently.

“How do you...know
that?” Susan didn’t really care, she just knew that if she stopped
talking she would start howling like a wolf in heat.

Kevin lingered for a
moment, sucking on her finger, his tongue swirling around the
flesh. Finally he let her finger fall from his mouth and pulled her
near.

“You should’ve seen
the outfit she was wearing. Victoria’s Secret gone wild.” And he
kissed her, lightly at first, more of a teasing grazing of the
lips. But then he pulled her so tightly against him that she could
feel his hard want for her, and his heart beating wildly in his
chest. His teasing lips locked onto hers, his mouth opening to
devour hers.

And his hands, one
cupping her ass, holding her to him, the other glancing over her
bare back, fingers delicate and maddening as he caressed them up
and down her back. She trembled, she shivered and quaked, and
finally she had to pull away, not able to take it any longer.

Kevin watched as
Susan slowly pulled the spaghetti straps of her dress off over each
shoulder and let it fall in a shimmering puddle on the floor. She
stood there, her eyes locked in his dark gaze, wearing only one of
her sexy bras and a pair of French cut panties that left less to
the imagination than she really cared to think about.

Yet the effect was
exactly what she’d been going for. Kevin couldn’t take his eyes off
her. She reached back and unhooked her bra, then let it slowly
slide from her shoulders, leaving her naked, except for the
panties. She smiled as she backed up and saw Kevin moving forward
with her, looking for all the world like an absolute beast. For a
shimmering hot instant she thought he was suddenly someone else.
He’d never looked at her like he was looking at her now--like he
owned her.

Susan suddenly backed
up against a wall, missing the doorway to her bedroom completely.
She jumped with surprise--the smooth, cool paint of the wall almost
felt like someone grabbing her. She didn’t have a chance to turn
around, for Kevin was upon her, his hands sliding up her sides and
doing that teasing flesh play to the tingling mounds of her
breasts. His weight suddenly pushing her against the wall, his
mouth slowly kissing a trail from her bruised lips, down her jaw
line, to the sensitive flesh around her ears. She latched her arms
around his neck, and then started clawing frantically at his shirt,
trying to get it off, but having no effect at all on his
buttons.

Kevin pulled himself
away, just enough to work the buttons of his sleeves, and then down
his torso, pulling his shirt off over his broad shoulders and the
golden skin that stretched so enticingly over the rest of his
beautifully sculpted body. His hips still had Susan pressed hard
against the wall, and the cool of the wall was making her break out
in gooseflesh.

Susan couldn’t keep
her hands off him. Her fingers danced over his skin, her hands
stroking his flesh, the hard muscles beneath, the unbelievably sexy
man at the core.

She needed him. Her
hands went to his pants, pulling them open, reaching into his
underwear to hold his hardening member. Kevin gasped and kissed her
hard, his manhood pulsing, thick and long, in the palm of her
hand.

He pulled away, his
lips bruised, his manhood jutting out of the top of his underwear.
He fell to his knees and took Susan by the hips, his fingers
grasping the feather light silk of her panties and pulling them
down around her ankles. He kissed the underside of her breasts,
trailing down her ribs, tickling her as he slid down her abdomen,
and even further until he was between her legs, pulling one up over
his shoulder to spread her open, his mouth locking onto her
shuddering sex, his tongue slippery and hot, as he licked inside
her.

Susan’s hips
undulated and bucked, her head thrown back against the cool wall,
her hands knitted into Kevin’s short cropped hair, pulling him all
the further into her. Susan lost track of time. She wouldn’t be
able to say whether Kevin had had her against that wall for ten
minutes or ten hours. All she knew was he would bring her so close
to climax, and then he’d slow down until her blood stopped boiling,
and her body was at a steady simmer, then he’d start licking with
rougher, deeper licks.

Lost in this erotic
reverie, Susan didn’t notice when Kevin picked her up and carried
her to the bed. All she knew was they were suddenly in her bedroom
and she was slung across her bed, now completely naked. The bed
linens had been changed, pulled down halfway like a hotel’s turn
down service, and the sheets were so soft it felt like heaven.

Liz
works fast.

Susan looked up to
find Kevin pulling down his pants. His body looked spectacular in
the dim blue light cascading in through the bedroom window, making
his skin glow in the darkness.

Susan felt her back
arch as he moved onto the bed, holding himself above her, slowly
easing down onto her, their legs entwining, his hips pressing
against hers, and his chest and belly melding to hers, sending
shivers of ecstasy and burning need rippling through Susan’s body
like the beating of a drum.

Kevin lowered his
face to Susan’s and kissed her, slow and deep.

She needed him inside
her and now! But she couldn’t pull her lips from his to tell him,
not even for a moment.

Kevin pulled her atop
him as he rolled them over on the bed. Susan could feel his need
pressing up hard against her. She wiggled and felt it slide along
where she wanted him to be. Kevin’s mouth left her lips as she
gasped, and his tongue licked down her neck and then his face
plunged into her cleavage, licking and sucking and nibbling at the
sensitive flesh. His hands slid down her back and cupped the orbs
of her ass, pulling and lifting until his manhood slid up inside
her, making her gasp and whimper and cry out his name.