Revenge Wears Rubies (32 page)

Galen stepped back to admire the results of his efforts. She was as naked as a nymph, and as beautifully shameless. Her mahogany hair cascaded down her back, and her skin pinked under his study, but she made no move to cover herself.

“You’re wearing too many clothes for a bath, Galen.”

She stepped closer, and their roles reversed as she slowly and gently finished undressing him. Neither one of them hurried, but it was only moments before they were stripped of every ornament of civilization and facing each other as they’d been born.

Galen bent over to kiss the curves of her breasts, lingering and enjoying the weight of them in his hands, sucking the sensitive sides and the crease underneath, tweaking those pert little nipples. He began to kiss each bared inch, and knelt before her to place her right foot on his shoulder, opening her sex to his full view. The pink lips glistened in the lamplight, and he could already see the jutting pink pearl of her clit above its small cap of red flesh. With every breath he inhaled her musk, and with every exhale he watched her swell and ripen in anticipation of his touch.

He leaned forward to taste her, his hands holding her hips to help her keep her balance. And Galen quickly lost track of time as he made a languid journey to sample her sex, tormenting her silk pearl with his tongue until she was struggling to stay upright.

Her thighs were shaking, and her hands fisted into the curls of his head. “Galen, please . . . I don’t want to rush . . .”

“No, dearest.” He kissed the inside of her thigh, nipping at the quivering tendon that betrayed the tension there. He stood slowly, sharing her need to take their time and make the night’s pleasure last for as long as it could. He stepped over the side of the tub, and then held onto her to help her safely into the water, so that they were facing each other with the water reaching their knees. “One day you must teach me a better trick, Haley. You must teach me how to put the past out of my mind, as you do. You must teach me to forget. . . .”

“I forget nothing.”

Galen surrendered to the lie, because it was too sweet, and he needed to believe her.

Chapter
19

“I want to see you this time. I want to taste you again, Galen.”

She loved his body, so vastly different from her own, yet the same. His cock was a thing of beauty, and just looking at it increased the tension in the heated coil between her hip bones. As she reached for him, it pulsed and jumped against her palm, and she marveled at its power, watching its color deepen with his arousal. It was a part of his body, but it seemed to have a life of its own as it flexed and stiffened at her touch.

Fingers traced its lines, following the map of veins and sinew, then gripping him intermittently, enjoying his sighs and grunts, aware of the effects of her hands, but newly discovering how far she might take this game.

She kissed the swollen tip, rewarded with the salty-sweet taste of him on her lips, licking it off of him and then pulling him into the warm harbor of her mouth, tasting, savoring, while her fingers began to stroke his shaft. Her other hand slid up his bare thigh and then reached up to cup his sac, working the flesh there and the weight of his testicles until she could feel them drawing up and tightening in ecstasy.

She tried to use the same tricks he’d used on her, his mouth to her most sensitive flesh, finding the junctures of his anatomy that yielded the best responses, his hips moving involuntarily, his hands gently reaching down to hold her hair, and Haley knew he was deliberately not pressing her—allowing her to find her own way and add to his own enjoyment.

“Haley, hold . . . I’m going to—”

But this time, she wasn’t going to let him stop her. This time, Haley wanted to experience all of him. She wanted to drink his very essence and savor her lover’s crème. Like a starving child, she wasn’t going to be denied this sweetest of sweets, and Haley simply clung to him, moving ever faster, until she knew he couldn’t deny her what she desired.

He came in luxurious hot jets, and she drank from him, relishing the delightful heat of his body, draining him completely until she was sure she could taste his rapture.

He knelt in the bathtub, pulling her down with him into the water, so that she was lying atop him, his breathing heavy and hard.

“That was wonderful,” she sighed.

“I’m sure I was about to say the same thing,” he noted with a wicked smile of satisfaction. He kissed her, lightly at first, but then it was a soft whirlwind as new tendrils of hunger spawned and strengthened inside them both. Her hand slid down under the surface of the cool water and encircled his cock, and Galen was amazed at how quickly his body responded, the familiar heat invoked without effort, as his already sensitive penis began to stiffen and swell once again.

The water gave him an advantage, allowing him to shift her underneath him with her head on a cloth on the edge, buoyantly floating her hips up to meet his. Her legs parted, and Galen lifted her calves up onto the sides of the tub for leverage and positioned himself until he could reach down and tease her with the head of his cock. The bath augmented every moment but also slowed them down with gentle resistance, and Galen watched her face as her sex grew slicker and slicker at his ministrations. She tried to buck her hips upward to catch him, but he wouldn’t allow it.

He pressed forward only as far as her entrance, watching her taut lips grip him, each small thrust making her shudder with need, and she arched her back and Galen buried himself inside of her, ramming his cock home only to grip her hips and hold her there while he allowed his mind to catch up to his body. The coolness of the water made her core seem molten, and Galen closed his eyes at the magic of it.

“God, you’re so hot inside . . . a man wants to die in this kind of fire, woman.”

Her muscles clenched him, and he felt her excitement re-coat his cock in a silent invitation to take all that she offered—and more.

“Haley, I must have all of you.”

“Yes.”

She was on the brink of release but felt no frenzied race to finish what he’d started. Every nerve ending was singing, and Haley felt a languid bliss like no other. He stood in the water, carefully bracing his feet against the sides of the tub, and held out his hand to help her to hers. Like a mermaid rising from the seas, she moved proudly out of the water, relishing the way his eyes roamed over her skin and lingered on her breasts and mons. His open appreciation of her charms sent a new wave of shimmering heat down across her skin to pool between her hips.

She anticipated his desires, and when he turned her and placed her hands on the smooth lip of the tub, she sighed in anticipation as she bent over and spread her legs for balance.
It will be like the carriage—only better . . .

At the unexpected sensation of warm oil pouring into the crease of her bottom, Haley gasped. But when his fingers slid across her bottom, circling each ripe curve and then sliding against the folds, she gave into the hypnotic feel of his large hands working her flesh and finding every responsive part of her.

Haley closed her eyes as more oil followed, and his thumb circled the tiny pucker there, pressing it and allowing her to adjust to his touch on this most intimate of portals. His touch was relentless but gentle, and she groaned at the surprising thrill it was giving her.

His right hand slipped around her hip and then down over her velvet soft curls to reach her clit, and Haley opened her legs even wider to seek more of his touch. The oil had coated her, but he dipped his fingers inside of her core to ensure that she was fully aroused. Then his fingers gently squeezed the skin over her clit, sending an electrical arc of fire and desire across her skin, and Haley tilted her hips to try to give him the access he needed.

Galen’s fingertips began to flicker against the tight bud of her clit, the friction made delicious by the slippery oil and her own juices—all the while, he’d never neglected her bottom, and Haley began to want more of him there, too. She groaned as the coil inside of her began to slowly tighten, and Haley marveled at his powers to command her body to respond to his.

Then the pressure changed, and Haley realized that the swollen head of his cock had taken his thumb’s place, and she started to stiffen in surprise. “Galen, I—”

“Haley,” he whispered, his voice low and soothing, “I . . . must have all of you.”

“Yes.” She dropped her head in a sigh, giving in to all of it, aware only that she trusted him completely.

His fingers moved faster over her clit, each time barely brushing over the tip only to jostle the nerves beneath until she was sure she would climax. And when the large ripe head of his cock breached her, the cascade began. But this time, it was a tangled spiral of pain and pleasure blending until she thought she’d faint as she climaxed against his fingers as his cock pressed deeper and deeper inside of her.

It was like the first time, as her body adjusted to the invasion, accepting the heat of him and slowly stretching to accommodate him. The oil made him slick and he began to ease forward and backward, demonstrating once again how this simple movement could provide her endless fulfillment.

Her climax echoed on as he drove into her with languid, careful strokes timed with the spasms of pleasure that edged into pain. He teased her clit and then penetrated her with two fingers, matching the rhythm of his cock, and Haley cried out as her release suddenly increased its speed, racing past her control, growing stronger and stronger instead of ebbing as she’d expected.

At her cry, he held onto her hips with both hands, as his cock seemed to demand that he work the tighter passage in earnest. Galen groaned behind her, and Haley could only clutch the porcelain surface of the bath as the sweet wash of his crème splashed up inside of her, adding another dimension of fire to the moment. She was so tight and full of him in such an impossible way that she wondered who could ever have imagined such bliss in the first place. She knew the taboos, but he’d shattered her reserve and she felt like a woman adrift.
How can something so odd be such a slice of paradise?

“Did I hurt you?” he asked quietly, withdrawing very slowly but with more ease as his cock’s girth had naturally lessened.

“Yes—No!” she answered quickly, hearing the surprise in her own voice. “I mean . . . I . . . liked it.”

He bent over her and placed a kiss reverently on each cheek before helping her to straighten. He used a bathing pitcher to pour water over both of them, and Haley laughed as the cool water sluiced across her skin. Within seconds, the evidence of their lovemaking was washed away, and Galen poured an extra pitcher over his own head. “You make a man dizzy, just looking at you, Haley.” He pressed the excess water from his curls. “Especially like that.”

“Like this?” Haley glanced down, unsure if disheveled and wet could garner any man’s truthful praise or if he was teasing.

“Wet and wanton, shameless and beautiful”—he stepped closer to her—“I could look at you forever.”

He pulled her against his chest and held her in a simple embrace, so caring and complete. She closed her eyes at the thrill of his body to hers in quiet communion. But at last, he released her to begin their exodus from the bathtub.

He climbed out first, wrapping a towel around his waist, then helped her out to sit on the edge of the tub. Without preamble, Galen gently began to dry her with the towels he’d set aside, and she started to blush at the domestic act—so tender and unexpected.

He lightly pulled the dry cloth around her back and down her arms and legs, across her breasts, lingering wherever his touch elicited a quickened breath or a sigh, and Haley closed her eyes as he parted her thighs and the warm cloth dipped even there, and she shuddered as his hand lingered long enough to reawaken the tension between her hips. Haley reached down to still his wrist, her eyelashes fluttering open as she realized what was happening. “Galen . . . you should stop . . . I’m . . . I don’t think I can . . . again . . .”

He shook his head. “Come again for me, Haley.”

He knelt before her, then put her hands over his to ensure that she was indeed still in command. “Let me give you pleasure.”

Galen used a damp cloth and continued to follow the shape of her open sex in the lightest stroke, while his index finger offered a teasing whisper of pleasure alongside the hidden core of her, never pressing her directly, but tormenting her with a phantom hand across her clit.

It was a long, slow release, almost elegant in its structure, so fragile and perfect she wept. Galen pulled her down into his arms and kissed her, as gently as if she were made of glass, a fragile, fey creature he’d somehow captured and now hoped to keep.

It was a sweet kiss, and her lips parted under his at the first touch of his satin soft skin to hers. His tongue barely touched hers, and even this careful contact heightened her craving to submit to him again and again. But this time the yearning was familiar and comforting, and Haley clung to him and the knowledge that she alone possessed his heart.