Straddling the Line (10 page)

The tour was done, as of
now.
She pushed him back, reveling in the power she suddenly had over this man. Or maybe not so suddenly, she realized. Maybe now, he was just giving up his control. He was giving it to her.

“Bedroom, you say?” She trailed one finger down his chest, hooking it into his belt just above his throbbing erection. Another shudder went through her as a warm wetness rushed to that spot between her legs. She worked his belt out of the first loop and slipped it free of the buckle.

His eyes drifted shut, and he sucked in a hard breath. “Yeah. The bedroom.”

“Do you have…” Condoms could suck the romance right out of a room, but she’d promised to be safe. So this was her, being safe. While she began to unbutton his jeans.

“Several.” He grabbed her hands and moved them away from his pants. So maybe he wasn’t giving up all of his control.

How nice was it to
not
have to argue or plead or cajole about condoms? To be with a man smart enough to know they were non-negotiable?

Things were about to get interesting.

He led her farther back. The lights behind them shut off as one small light came on behind a full wall of glass bricks that completely hid the bed from the rest of the wide-open spaces. The glass curved back toward the end of the space, which was a wall of windows that reached from floor to ceiling.

A bed the size of a small country sat in the middle of the room—for this truly was a room—with another abstract painting in softer greens and blues hanging overhead. The sheets were a pristine white with hospital corners so perfectly crisp that she was afraid to mess them up.

Still holding her hand, Ben stepped around the far side of the bed. An old-fashioned reading lamp stood on a table next to the bed. He let go of her to open one of the drawers and pull out a box of condoms—ribbed for her pleasure, she saw. Of course Ben would have planned ahead.

Condoms, check. Bed, check. Desirable, gorgeous man, double check.

Things were about to get
very
interesting.

Josey’s hands shook as she peeled off his T-shirt. Finally, she was going to see what all those muscles looked like.

Her breath faltered as she revealed the true magnitude of the body that man was packing underneath his clothing. He was
chiseled.
She’d known his biceps were a sight to behold—all that drumming—but his chest? She had to touch it. He had a small thatch of glossy black hair between pecs of steel. Her fingers traced the six-pack of his abs all the way down to the V of his waist as it cut down hard under his briefs.

He sucked in another breath when she ran her fingers under the fabric. When she ran into something soft yet very, very hard, he grabbed at her again. “Whoa, whoa. I thought you wanted to take it slow.” The strain in his voice was unmistakable. Ben Bolton was a man just barely hanging on to his self-control.

“I never said that.” She gave him a shove, sending him back into the bed. “Maybe I don’t want it slow.” She grabbed hold of his briefs and yanked them off. “Maybe I want it a little rough, a little gritty.”

The word
gritty
died on her tongue as he sprang free from the last of his clothes. He was huge. Well, all of him was huge—this part was to perfect scale.

She didn’t have long to gawk. Ben sat up with a sickeningly easy grace and snatched her hands, pulling her down onto the bed as he rolled over. Before she knew it, she was pinned underneath a naked, aroused man. All that hugeness hung heavy against her leg as he nuzzled her neck.

“My place, my rules. And the first rule is, ladies first. I want this to be memorable.”

As he kissed down her neck, Ben let go of her hands and moved lower. Oh, yes, she wanted a memory. But not just one.

No, she didn’t just want this night in this bed.

She wanted more.

The clasp on the front of her bra gave, and cold air rushed to beat Ben’s hot mouth. He hovered above her for a cool second before he rasped his tongue over her nipple. The total shock of the sensation didn’t have time to fully register before he lowered his whole mouth onto her and fiercely sucked at her flesh. The exquisite pleasure cut through her moodiness. Her hips bucked, but he used his full weight to push her back down to the bed.

“Slow down, woman,” he said as he kissed the space between her breasts. “We’ve got all night.”

She tried to say something, but he latched onto her other breast at the same time he nudged her legs apart with his knees. Then that hugeness was pulsing against her black lace, and Josey officially stopped caring about more or less. She just needed to let go of the climax that had been building all night. Heck, if she was being honest, it had been building since she’d first seen Ben Bolton fill a doorway.

That’s all she wanted right now. She needed to be filled.

Lucky for her, Ben was up to the task.

“I like these,” he murmured against her belly, his hands slipping underneath her panties to cup her backside and pull her legs farther apart. “You’re beautiful in them.”

“I wore them for you,” she managed to say in between gasps.

Ben’s mouth moved lower and lower. He nipped at her thigh and traced a path to where she’d neatly trimmed her bikini line. He paused, and Josey found herself wishing she’d gotten a Brazilian. Ben was probably used to girls who were waxed bare, but she didn’t have the time, money or pain threshold to do that—man or no man.

As this panicked thought started to whirl around her head, Ben hummed, a noise that sounded suspiciously like satisfaction. “So beautiful,” he said as he parted her and ran his tongue—slowly—over her very center.

She let out a cry as he licked her.

Beautiful.

Here, with him, she felt beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with bikini lines or lace panties, but had everything to do with the way he made her feel. Like she was someone special to him. Someone more.

Her body rocked against his, but he wrapped his arms around her legs and held her open as he licked and sucked and kissed harder and harder. Their bodies fell into a rhythm. There was nothing for Josey to do but find something to hold on to and enjoy the ride. She buried her hands in his hair and held on tight.

Higher and higher she flew, until there was nothing left in her world except the pulsing point of contact between her flesh and his. With expert skill, he pushed her past anything she’d ever experienced before until her whole body pulsed with an exploding tightness and she cried out. Even as the climax unleashed its full force upon her, he swept his tongue over her, refusing to let her go numb and weak.

“
So
beautiful,” she heard him say as he sat back on his heels and wiped his face. She knew she should say something, but nothing came out. Not even his name.

If he was offended, he didn’t show it. Instead, with one corner of his mouth ever-so-slightly curved up, he leaned over and grabbed the condoms off the side table. There was nothing slow about the way he ripped the wrapper open, or the way he rolled it on. But the moment he was sheathed, he took his sweet time kissing his way back up to her lips. All his hugeness pulsed against where she was wetter than she’d ever been before.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast for you,” he breathed, his lips just barely touching hers. His voice was low and husky.

“Just right.”

He pulled back a little and ran a finger over her slick opening before fitting himself to her. “
You’re
just right.”

She braced herself for the pain of losing her virginity all over again, but it didn’t happen. Ben eased into her at a gentle pace, and Josey was amazed to feel her body take him in without so much as a whimper. All she felt was the sensual joy of his body joining hers. The way he filled her was breathtaking in its satisfaction.

“Josey,” he whispered against her neck, and it felt like a prayer.

Then he began to move. Back and forth, he rocked into her. She took everything he gave her and came back for more. And more. And more. Their bodies found that rhythm again, but faster and faster this time, until they’d left “slow” in the dust.

This time, when the world exploded around her, she cried out his name when she came.

With a guttural noise of satisfaction, Ben thrust harder and harder. Still vibrating through the climax, Josey couldn’t do anything but hold on to him. He drove deep and groaned as a third, smaller climax hummed through her body. Ben collapsed onto her, making it hard to breathe, but she didn’t care.

She’d never felt so whole in her entire life.

He kissed her neck as he pulled out, but he didn’t roll off her. “We fit,” he said, sounding a little amazed.

She couldn’t help but smile.
Fit
wasn’t a big-enough word to describe how their bodies had become one—how he’d taken his time to make sure she’d been ready for him. To heck with not being able to breathe. She wrapped her arms around his back and held him tight.

“We do.”

She felt his lips curve against her skin before he lifted himself free of her. “I’ll get the lights,” he said as rolled out of bed and walked out of the room.

Wow. How did he get a butt that fine? Was it the weights, the treadmill—or the motorcycle?

Alone, Josey scooted back until she found some pillows. On the other side, lights flickered on. She could just make out Ben’s dark shape, but the particulars were sadly lost to the glass wall’s distortion. She pulled the sheet around her, her head swimming and her body tingling. He’d driven her here, but she hadn’t been presumptuous enough to pack a change of clothes.

Now what?

Eight

B
en pulled an extra set of towels out of the cabinet and sat them out the counter. Women liked fresh towels, he’d learned. And…yes, a forgotten robe hung on the back of the door. He used it only in the winter, when the drafts created an indoor wind chill. He didn’t want her to put her clothes back on, because that meant she’d want to leave, and he wasn’t ready to let her go yet. That alone was weird. He hadn’t brought a woman back here in a while, and it had been even longer since he’d been with one who looked half as good after as she did before.

The way her body had taken him in was something, but it had taken every bit of his willpower to go slow enough. One thing was clear—she really didn’t screw guys she didn’t know.

He made sure the toilet was flushed and no huge globs of toothpaste disgraced the sink before he headed out. Josey was wrapped in the sheet, the perfect combination of sensual and innocent. Her cheeks reddened as her gaze surveyed his territory again. Perfect, he thought. No way was he taking her home tonight. He had to know what she looked like when she woke up in the morning.

“Can I get you anything?” She sat up a little straighter in the bed, taking the sheet with her. “There’s towels and a robe in the bathroom,” he added, hoping that made it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere else tonight.

“Water?” Her voice was a little scratchy, but that didn’t stop her eyes from taking a few more laps around his body.

Ben fought the urge to flex, just to see what she’d do.

“One water, coming right up.” He turned to head to the kitchen. Behind him, he heard the rustle of sheets. Modesty—in small doses—was attractive in a woman. Did she really want the water, or was she just creating some cover?

Didn’t matter, he thought as he opened the bottle of San Pellegrino and poured it into two glasses. He headed back to the bedroom, where he remade the bed while he waited. Minutes passed. What was she doing in there? He glanced back down the aisle—all her clothes were still there. Okay. At least she wasn’t intent on bailing.

“Ben? Do you have a comb?”

Ben couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Who brushed their hair before they went to bed? Women, that’s who. “Top drawer, left side.”

“Thanks.”

She had a lot of hair—this was probably going to take a while. Ben climbed into bed to wait. Man, he was exhausted. The clock said 11:56 p.m.—just about his regular bedtime, but he usually laid awake in bed for a while until his brain managed to shut the hell up. Right now, he couldn’t even keep his eyes open. Unusually energetic sex could do that to a man.

On the other side of his eyelids, the lights went out. He managed to look up to see Josey—in his robe—taking a long drink from her glass. “This is water?”

“San Pellegrino. The stuff that comes out of the tap here tastes like lead.” He yawned and patted the bed beside him. If he hadn’t been so freaking tired, he’d be happy she was going to stay. He’d be happier if she took off that robe.

The robe slid off her shoulders. He could see the curve of her arms and waist against the light coming in through the windows—sexy as hell, without giving everything away. “Josey,” he said before he knew he was talking. Being as he had no idea what was coming out next, he shut his mouth.

She slipped in beside him, her body curling around his without hesitation. The warm weight of her breasts pressed against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her even closer, until he could feel her heartbeat.

“Josey,” he said again as he kissed the top of her head.

A few moments passed, and he started to drift. So when she said, “Ben,” it jolted him back awake.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you buy all those things for the school?”

The way she said it—quiet, serious and
not
sleepy—forced his brain to click back on. He got the feeling that, if he wasn’t careful, he’d walk right into a trap.

He must have taken too long, because she went on, “Was it just to impress me…”

Hell, yeah, he’d wanted to impress her. He wanted to turn her on, sweep her off her feet and make her think he was the best she’d ever had. Any man who didn’t put that sort of effort into impressing her wasn’t worth a damn in his book.

Her heartbeat had picked up a little speed as her fingers clutched at his chest. “You didn’t have to spend all that money just to get to tonight. I would have…anyway. I wanted to.”

If he lived to be a hundred and forty, he would never figure out women, because she was making it sound like he’d bought her.

“That’s not why.”

His words came out a little more pissed than he intended, and she shrank away from him.

Aw, screw it.

He lifted her off the bed. She didn’t weigh very much—it was easy to set her on his chest, belly-to-belly, full-body contact. “You want to know why I told you I wouldn’t give you any money and then bought you stuff.”

Maybe he’d scared her too much, because she didn’t answer. She just nodded. At least she didn’t scramble down off him. Despite his exhaustion and confusion, she felt good on top of him.

Why.
A damn fine question. When he put it like that—why
had
he spent so much of his hard-earned money? He could say it was just to impress her—it wouldn’t be a total lie—but it wasn’t the whole truth.

He closed his eyes again, and the sight of Josey’s face when he’d brought all that stuff swam before him. But that wasn’t the only thing there. He saw the way Don Two Eagles’s contempt became begrudging respect, how those kids went from terror to excitement—how they’d all looked at him and seen someone important. Someone who mattered.

“My old man is ashamed of me.” The bitterness of the words cut at his mouth.

“What?” She managed to sound indignant. He took that as a compliment. “You run a company and have a beautiful home and—”

“I’m not the son he’s proud of on a Friday night. I’m a bean-counter brainiac. I’m not anything he wanted me to be.”

In the dark, she rested her chin on his chest and looked at him. “But the band—”

“The only time he ever heard me play was the night Bobby sang lead. He could care less about me because I’m not him like Billy is and I’m not Mom like Bobby is. I can’t be what he thinks I should be.” Lord only knew how much time he’d wasted trying.

“But—”

“Doesn’t matter.” Which was the truth. Here, with her welcoming body covering his, Dad mattered less than he ever had. “And everyone else? They think I’m an arrogant asshole with a heart of stone who only thinks about the bottom line.”

She made a little noise of disbelief, but those were the unvarnished facts. People always expected him to be someone else—dangerous biker, drummer, creative welder, smooth-talker—but he wasn’t any of those things. He liked the simplicity of numbers. He lived in an old factory with artists who cleaned it for him. He played in a band. He didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep, and he always kept the few he did make.

He was holding a beautiful woman. And she was holding him back.

“So why did you get all that stuff?”

She didn’t sound spooked by the question this time, which meant he wasn’t as spooked to answer it.

“I guess I wanted to prove to someone that I wasn’t any of those things. I wanted to prove it to you.”

Funny, that was the truth. He wouldn’t have thought about it like that if she hadn’t pushed him—but wasn’t that one of the things that drew him to her? She expected better of him. And he wanted to be better for her.

“I didn’t come home with an arrogant asshole.”

His head popped up and he looked at her. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could make out her eyes. Had he ever heard her cuss before?

She leaned up until their faces were parallel. “I came home with a man who lets artists pay their rent in paintings. A man who bought drums for complete strangers so they wouldn’t have to share
just
one. A man smart enough to run a company and crazy enough to play in a rock band. A man who makes sure ladies are first. I came home with a true gentleman.”

She kissed him, one of those soft-and-gentle things that should have made him horny but just left him with a strange sort of lightness.

“Good night, Ben,” she murmured as she slid to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“My Josey” was all he got out before he drifted, trying to think of what that strange feeling was.

Happy. That’s what it was. He felt happy.

*

Ben woke up at his normal time, with the light streaming in through the windows. He turned to where Josey was stretched out on her stomach next to him. The sheet was slung low over her hips and most of her hair was off to one side, leaving the smooth expanse of her back uncovered. It had been a long time—way too long—since he’d woken up wanting a woman. He leaned over and brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. He should let her sleep. That would be the gentlemanly thing to do—and she seemed to think he was a gentleman.

But he wasn’t.

He trailed his fingertips up her back, watching as each muscle twitched in involuntary response. When he did it a second time, her eyes fluttered open.

“Hi.” Her voice was soft and breathy as she reached over and touched his cheek.

He went from half-hard to rock-hard in seconds. He should let her wake up a little, he tried to tell himself. He wasn’t some sex-starved teenager who couldn’t control himself.

But something about this woman made him do impulsive, crazy things. He caught hold of her fingers before she could pull them back and kissed her palm. She gasped, her eyes going wide. Then she exhaled, a coy smile on her face.

That was all the invitation he needed. He rolled, pulling her with him until she was right where she’d been last night—on top of him.

She stretched out like a cat after a delicious nap, making the sheet fall away. Yeah, he’d sort of seen those breasts last night, but the difference between light and dark was literally day and night. Her nipples were a deep wine color that almost perfectly matched her lips. This time, he wasn’t stopping at just a taste.

He leaned up enough that he could capture one of those perfect breasts. She ground her hips down on him, enough that he could feel her warmth against his erection. When he fastened onto her, a small groan shuddered out of her.

Logically, he knew he should slow down. He should take his time to savor her, make sure that she was ready for him. But the way she moved on top of him—where were the condoms?

He used the last of his self-control to lift her bottom off him and lunge for the nightstand. He snagged a condom on the second try. Quick enough, he got it rolled on and she settled her weight back on him.

“Go slow,” he pleaded as her wetness sheathed him. “I want to watch you.”

Her eyes drifted shut as she nodded. She had complete control this time, and he was dying to see what she would do with it. She rocked down onto him with great care, making small gasps as she took him in.

The going was slower this time. That was his own greedy fault, but he watched her face for any sign that it wasn’t working. None. Her mouth parted as she panted until she surrounded him completely. Once there, she paused to stretch back, giving him plenty of time to feel her firm breasts, her firm backside.

She’d be the death of him, because he’d die for this kind of pleasure. Something about the way she arched her back, the way her small movements felt huge—the way her tightness felt so damn good around him—was different than anything he’d ever felt before.

“You’re so beautiful.” It was a pitifully inadequate statement of what was blindingly obvious. But it was all his brain could come up with right now.

He forced himself to pay attention when all he wanted to do was let go. She bit that lower lip when something felt extra good. She liked it when he tweaked her nipples with just a little pressure. And when she came? Ah, she shuddered to a stop and then fell forward onto him, her chest heaving. Her body clenched down on his until he had no choice but to give himself up to her.

She fit, like she was made for him.

She leaned back and kissed him as she slid off. “Good morning,” she said with a smile that was a little less sleepy, a little more coy.

“Just good? I’ll try harder next time.”

She grinned at him.

Man, what he wouldn’t give to spend the day lounging around with her, but it was Thursday. He’d already had more fun in half an hour than he normally had for the whole day. “When can I see you again?”

The way her cheeks colored that dusty pink—so freaking beautiful. “I have some meetings today, and tomorrow I have to go out to the rez.”

“What about tomorrow night? I have band practice after work, but nothing after that. You could come over.” Something in her eyes dimmed, and he realized he hadn’t asked the right question. “For dinner,” he added.

“You cook?” She looked amused—and interested.

“I’ll come up with something.” Which sounded better than, “Gina makes most of my food.” Friday was the day Gina and Pat normally came up to clean. An extra-special dinner wouldn’t be too difficult a stretch for the two of them. “We could watch a movie or something.” Or have sex again. Maybe even both.

The coffeepot beeped from the kitchen. Damn. It was already six-forty-five and he hadn’t showered yet. “I have to go to work,” he said with another quick kiss as he got out of bed. “Where do you want me to take you?”

“I don’t think the Dean of the College of Education would appreciate me showing up for our accreditation meeting wearing a motorcycle jacket,” she said with a sparkling grin. “I need to go home.”

“But you’ll come back?”

“Yes,” she said, getting out of bed and taking his sheet with her. “I’d like that.”

*

By the time Ben left her on the curb outside her apartment with a kiss, a promise to see her tomorrow night and a complicated set of instructions on where to park and how to operate the freight elevator, Josey had less than an hour to shower and get to the university.

On her way there, she called her mother to tell her she’d be back out to the school late Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. “Oh, Ben Bolton might be coming by on Sunday afternoon,” she added as a carefully calculated afterthought.