The Lumberfox (Geekrotica) (3 page)

“Uh, no.”

“Something else?”

She struggled not to say something cute and looked straight into his eyes instead. “Definitely something else.”

Just the act of owning up to her own lust was empowering, and she flushed warm and sat up straighter, nowhere close to the giggles. And why not enjoy herself? He was right. They were trapped here, cocooned from the storm, and it was easy enough to pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist, that it was a mad, modern-day fairy tale. Judging by the family photos she'd seen on the mantel and a few crayon drawings to Uncle Ryon stuck to the fridge, he was safe and sane, and her mom now had his driver's license number. Hell, maybe he really was as amazing as he seemed.

Ryon pulled her knees around to face him, and they sat that way, legs crossed and knee-to-knee in front of the fire. Tara realized she was breathing in time with him, their mouths open slightly, the crackling fire the only other sound. Tentative, she reached out to run a finger down the inside of his arm, touching the lines of fading ink. Much to her satisfaction, goose bumps rose, and his hand made a fist on his thigh. When she touched his other arm the same way, he caught her hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles one by one. He had a mermaid on the outside of that arm, and she wondered which of them was the siren in this situation.

“I'm ticklish,” he murmured against her fingers.

“I can tell.”

“What about you?”

His tongue darted to the cleft between her knuckles, and she was shocked when a jolt of heat shot through her like forked lightning and wetness spread lower down. He must've seen her shudder, as he did it again, slowly and deeper this time. Jesus, it was like he was licking her most secret center, the sensation somehow connecting from her fingers to darker, hidden places. Tara swallowed hard and struggled not to break eye contact or fidget or say something silly, and Ryon slowly turned her fist over and unfurled her fingers, planting tender kisses on each fingertip, down her palm, and up her arm. When his beard brushed over the inside of her elbow, she bit back a giggle.

And that's when he went in for the kiss—when her lips were pursed and her nerves dancing. It was firmer, this time, more urgent, and he didn't nibble at all, just sought immediate, demanding entry. She kissed him back, just as hard, wrapping her hands behind his head and enjoying where the longer top of his hair flopped down over the shaved part, a contrast of smooth and prickly. Hungry for more, she tasted and teased with her tongue, dipping deep and drinking in the strange wonder of raging passion for a near stranger. As if untying a bow, he untucked her feet and hooked them over his thighs, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her like the most delicious cage.

And, dammit, she let him, because it was wonderful.

Wanting more, she settled firmly into his lap and circled her legs around his waist, squeezing his sides with her knees as if urging a horse to a gallop and opening her lips wider as he lapped at her and explored every part of her mouth.

He pulled away for a brief, burning second. “Goddamn, I like kissing you.”

She set her forehead to his. “I know.”

And he kissed her again, deep and sloppy and hungry, as if quoting Han Solo was the hottest possible thing a woman could do.

Ryon's hands settled on her waist and drew light circles up her sides, inching under her tee shirt and cami and making her shiver where the air struck. It was warm in his apartment, but the heat of the fire made every slice of shadow a cold shock.

“You trying to steal second, scoundrel?” she purred.

He already had her tee-shirt halfway over her head when she realized what she'd done and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

“Arms up. Be a good sport, princess.”

But her arms were already up, and she soon had them crossed over her chest to combat the chill. Glancing at the parted curtains of a tall window, she saw nothing but white. No flakes, no breaks, no swirls. Just a solid wall of white edging into dusk. Ryon tossed her black tee on top of the clothes pile and smoothed her hair back over her shoulders, revealing thin, white, lacy straps that she knew very well stood out over the black lines of her bra. It had been months since anyone had stripped her down far enough to discover a cami that didn't even attempt to hide what waited underneath.

“Black, huh?”

She shrugged. “To answer your question without being funny, yes. I wear a lot of black.”

“Under white. That says something about you.”

His eyes narrowed, the orange of the flame behind her dancing against the dark blue, daring her to give him any excuse to peel the cami off her and expose the frilly demi bra below. And she almost said something silly in her own defense, but instead, she ovaried up and began unbuttoning his shirt from the neck down.

“Let's see what you wear under plaid flannel, then. Five bucks says it's a band shirt.”

His fingers traced the line under her cami's lace-edged hem. “I can't decide if that's supposed to be funny or not, but the tension's still here, so I'll allow it.”

When the last button was undone, Tara looked down. The National. Of course. He let her slide the button-down off his arms and stretched his shoulders as she tossed it aside. He was built, for a geek, but that went with everything else she'd seen of his life: thoughtful, beautiful, and not afraid of hard work. The tee stretched over his biceps, a few blank spaces on his arms showing skin still waiting for ink. She couldn't help herself—she traced fingers over his shoulders and down his pecs, dragging fingertips over ridged abs that thrilled her.

She smirked. “Do you even lift, brah?”

But before she could laugh, he'd yanked the cami up and over her head. With one muscled forearm behind her shoulders, he tenderly bulldozed her to the rug so that she lay on her back before the fire. His chest was even harder pressed on top of her, a hollow between his stomach and the soft curve of hers. One of his knees drug up between her thighs. Jesus, they were all lined up, and she was practically popping out of the demi cups of her bra as he devoured the skin from her throat in a straight line down to the cleft between her breasts.

“No warning at all that time--”

With a grunt of both satisfaction and want, he contracted away from her and flicked the button on her jeans, baring those two inches of flesh that were somehow the difference between
Maybe
and
Oh, God, now
.

Putting his lips to her ear, he murmured, “The safe word is Wookiee.”

With absolutely no irony, she cupped his jaw, fingers caught in his beard, likewise set her lips to his ear and whispered, “Laugh it up, fuzzball.”

His growl was nothing like a Wookiee's, and he leaned full over her, lined up chest to feet, and took her mouth in a passionate kiss that somehow rendered all their previous kisses soft and sweet. She could barely breathe but for him, his breath and his skin and his scent surrounding her. Her leg clamped down over his and her hips pressed up against him. Her fingers searched under his tee shirt, climbing curves and hard ridges of muscle, tracing bones with heat and yearning. Goddamn, he was the hottest thing she'd ever seen and felt, the sexiest man she'd ever touched, and she could barely believe she'd ever assumed he was just a bad driver who didn't know how to deal with snow.

Ryon Brubaker knew exactly how to deal with snow.

And with bodies, considering how he was tracing the top curve of her breasts with his lips, slipping his tongue under the lacy edge of her bra as his cheek grazed her clavicles. She'd never made out with a guy with facial hair, and it was intriguing and erotic, the way the roughness scraped and enflamed in counterpoint to the softness of lips and tongue. The chill of the air, the heat of the fire, the strange place and her hunger: every sensation was heightened, combined, willing new nerves to fire and making her feel more alive than she had in forever. And that was before he edged down the bra cup and took her nipple in his mouth, grazing it lightly with his teeth.

Tara's body arched up as jolts of pleasure burst and expanded.

“Force lightning,” she moaned, and Ryon pulled away.

“Are you... being clever?”

Her smile curled up like a cat in a sunbeam. “Being cunning.”

His eyes narrowed, his lips twitching into a wicked smirk.

“I can be cunning, too—linguistically speaking. And you owe me another article of clothing...”

Kissing down her stomach, he dipped his tongue into her navel for the briefest moment before grasping her zipper with his teeth and tugging it down. She gasped and arched her back as he tugged the tight jeans down around her hips and over her butt, lifting her legs straight up as he slipped them off and tossed them on the pile of clothes.

“Ballerina?” he asked, massaging the arches of her feet as she pointed her toes.

Tara snorted, lifted her arms overhead, and extended her body out flat so that her arms and legs hovered over the ground, stick straight. “Diving team.”

She didn't remember that she was in nothing but bra and panties until he ran his fingertips from her neck, down over her clavicles, between her breasts, into the ticklish valley between her ribs, over the swell of her tummy, and directly into her black and white polka-dotted panties. A little moan escaped her as one of his fingers dragged between her lips, already slick and wet and welcoming. He kneeled beside her, his face a mask of want and concentration, focused only on her and the small sounds that she couldn't quite control.

“God, that's lovely,” he muttered, and the next thing she felt was his breath through the satin as he stretched out on his stomach and licked her through her panties. His palm spread across her mound, that one finger crooked and plunging between her lips as his beard rasped the insides of her thighs and his tongue played with the black lace edges. When she opened her eyes, she had an eyeful of his elbow, inked with a spider's web and his eyes closed in rapt devotion further down.

In that instant, she had to see all of him, and she reached down his back for the hem of his tee, yanking it up and over his head with his help. As it slipped off his arm, she could see her own wetness gleaming on his finger and in his beard where she'd dampened the thin material. As he set back to his work, sliding his finger in through the side and playing with her clit, she ran her hand down his back, a rippling canvas of muscle and hard curves. When she hit his jeans, she slipped her hand in under the waistband and inside his boxer briefs, caressing the curve of his ass and around to his hipbone.

“What about you...” she started.

He spoke directly into her cleft. “Only you. Enjoy it.”

So she did.

It was a wondrous thing, the sensations invading her eyes and hand and pussy as the fire crackled gently and the room warmed perfectly to where she couldn't figure out where her skin ended and the air began. She was concentrating so hard on the soft skin of his butt that she gasped when he moved her panties fully aside and slicked his tongue across her, broad and wet and hungry. He pried her thighs apart gently, his finger circling for a moment before pushing into her with deliciously elegant focus. He didn't stop until his knuckles pressed into the soft flesh, his tongue urging her to open more as his finger pulled back out with the same infinite slowness. Like a flawless machine he built speed, finger working in and out and tongue lapping, licking, tasting, pressing, pushing her into a rhythm she would have been helpless to fight, even if she'd wanted to.

Goddamn it, she didn't. She spread her knees wider and tilted her head back, eyes closed, to savor every second. He didn't ask what she liked or wanted, didn't stare at her nervously, didn't shy away from any touch. No, Ryon drank her in like a shot of his favorite Scotch and seemed to know exactly what to do and when and how, as if he could read her mind and heart by the juice dripping down his finger.

She could feel it building now, her breath ratcheting up and her back arching as his rhythm sped up and his finger pushed into her and pulled out with more urgency, curling at just the right moment. Teeth gritted and feet flexed, thighs burning and stomach muscles clenched, she arched up and cried out, riding the wave as long as she could, as long as he held her there, captive between mouth and palm, drawing it out like the last note of a favorite song.

When she opened her eyes, he was watching her intently, his face pillowed on her belly. His pupils were dilated, his mouth wet with her juices. And damned if he didn't manage to look both utterly tranquil and completely smug, like a Zen master who'd finally solved the koan and wouldn't tell anyone else the answer.

She was about to say something silly when the oven timer went off. Ryon jumped to his feet and jogged away, and Tara was surprised that although his arms and shoulders were completely inked, his back was still a blank canvas. Smiling to herself, she considered how much fun it would be when he saw hers. The oven opened and closed, and she realized that the air was perfumed with the scent of baking chicken. As her stomach growled and her inner muscles continued to echo the shudders of her climax, she sat up and grabbed his button-up shirt. It was a little big for her, but it made her feel damn sexy, buttoned low and hanging just over her butt.

“Smells delicious.” She sat at one of the stools and dragged a finger over the star-like sparkles in the black granite.