Unwrapped

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Unwrapped

ISBN # 1-4199-0866-9

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Unwrapped Copyright© 2006 Lacey Alexander

Edited by Heather Osborn.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: November 2006

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Content Advisory:

S – ENSUOUS

E – ROTIC

X

-

TREME

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme).

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic.

S-
ensuous
love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E-
rotic
love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. E-rated titles might contain material that some readers find objectionable—in other words, almost anything goes, sexually. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry in terms of both sexual language and descriptiveness in these works of literature.

X-
treme
titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Stories designated with the letter X tend to contain difficult or controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

UNWRAPPED

Lacey Alexander

This story is dedicated to my readers.

Your support means the world to me!

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Armani: GA Modefine S.A. Joint Stock Co.

Bengals: Cincinnati Bengals, Inc.

Coke: The Coca-Cola Co.

Popsicles: Unilever Supply Chain, Inc.

Victoria’s Secret: Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand Management, Inc.

Unwrapped

December 1

Simon’s skilled hand eased beneath the sheet—and then between Emily’s thighs.

She parted them, whispering, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, sugarplum,” he said, his voice both sexy and teasing. He’d called her that ever since they’d met, three years ago, at a mutual friend’s Christmas party.

When they’d said goodbye that first night, he’d told her visions of sugarplums would be dancing in his head, and the pet name had been born. Then again, she’d always thought his Australian accent made
everything
he said sound sexy.

“Move against my fingers,” he instructed her, the words coming low and throaty.

His touch felt
so
good, radiating through her in ribbons of heat, but she
wasn
’
t
moving against his hand, at least not automatically, like she supposed most women would. She never had.

She could scarcely understand it. She
adored
being close to Simon, yet…sex always embarrassed her to a large degree. She’d never been able to completely let herself go.

Now, she tried to lift her pelvis against his touch.

His fingers stroked deeper and the sensation spread outward, through her rear, her legs, the small of her back. Oh God, it felt so wonderful, beginning to take her over, own her.
Yes
,
oh yes
.
Touch me
,
Simon
.

“That’s right, my sugarplum girl. Fuck my fingers.”

Emily sucked in her breath as her muscles tightened instinctively.

Oh damn. Why? Why, when he talked like that, did it at once arouse her and yet stop her dead in her tracks? In most other ways, she saw herself as a smart, confident woman, yet sex consistently filled her with conflicting emotions she didn’t know how to fight.

5

Lacey Alexander

She went still—and Simon sighed. “Sorry,” he said, but his tone echoed his frustration. Which, in turn, made her feel guilty and inadequate. A familiar pattern.

She answered his sigh with one of her own. “I’m sorry, too, Simon. I don’t mean to be this way—you know I don’t.”

He peered at her through the darkness—she always made a point of turning out the lights for sex—his handsome face somber in the shadows. “It’s not your fault if I don’t excite you.” Then he rolled to his back in the bed and, despite her qualms, she missed having his hand between her legs.

Her chest had hollowed at his words, so she turned on her side to press her palm to his bare shoulder, instantly needing to assure him. “Simon, it’s not you—it’s me.”

A fact they both knew very well. She’d been a virgin at the ripe old age of twenty-three when they’d met. And he’d been so tender and gentle, slowly coaxing her desires free. When they’d finally made love nearly a year after meeting, it had been the sweetest, most profound experience of Emily’s life. And she’d been so thankful to find a man so patient, so caring—caring enough to wait, and caring enough to put up with her inexperience and nervousness.

In short, Simon was amazing.

And she was a letdown.

Now, two years after giving him her virginity, and a year after moving in together, she just wasn’t getting any better at sex. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want it—her body
burned
for him. It was simply that she’d been raised by very old-fashioned parents who had taught her she had to be a good girl…or else.

She wasn’t sure what came after the “or else”, what would happen if she
wasn
’
t
a good girl—she’d never deigned to find out. But it was ingrained in her soul-deep, always had been. And even if her body
begged
her to move against Simon’s hand, even if something deep inside her sparked to dirty life when he said the word “fuck”, there remained a large part of her that simply couldn’t seem to let go of being a good girl at the core.

6

Unwrapped

And now she was afraid she would lose him.

Out
of bed, they got along fabulously and were everyone’s favorite couple. They shared a passion for hiking and long drives in the country and quaint little bed-and-breakfast hideaways, and they’d taken a fabulous road trip across the country—all the way from their home in Cincinnati to San Francisco—last summer. He supported the work she did as an advocate for the homeless, even though she didn’t make much money, and she was proud of the way he was swiftly moving up the ranks of his prestigious downtown accounting firm. She’d even learned to enjoy soccer and basketball, his favorite sports. She remained thrilled to be the woman on his arm for any event, be it a fancy company banquet with his coworkers at Crain and Wilborn or a charity auction she had organized through
her
work.

But sex mattered. She knew that. Sex was important to men, plain and simple.

And really, it was important to her, too—she just…hadn’t quite been able to express that. It was as if a vixen lay trapped in the body of a nun, struggling—unsuccessfully—

to get out.

She kissed his chest, once, twice. Soaked up the warmth of his skin. As his arms closed back around her, she relished his strength and felt her body surge with the moisture of wanting him. “I’ll try harder,” she whispered, and she meant it.

Normally, Simon would argue now, tell her that she didn’t
have
to try harder, that he loved her just as she was, that their sex was fine.

Yet this time he stayed quiet—and it didn’t even hurt, because she knew he was entitled to more than she gave.

Maybe he even senses it
—
the way I want to be
,
the vixen lurking inside me
.
Oh God
,
I wish
I could be the lover he deserves
.

Now, she supposed, was her chance to try.

As she kissed her way down his chest, onto his stomach, a fresh yearning grew.

Especially when her arm brushed over his erection under the covers.
Oh
. He was so 7

Lacey Alexander

hard for her, so big. He felt so good when he was inside her, and she wanted him there now.
Tell him that
.
Just say it
.
He
’
d love it
,
and it would be a good start
.

Yet she couldn’t—the words felt locked inside her.

Above her, though, Simon’s breath grew soft, ragged. Because she was moving lower. And lower.

She’d kissed him there before, at his urging. On his cock. She could
think
of it that way, but she just couldn’t
say
it, damn it.
Why
,
why
,
why
?

Don
’
t worry about that now
.
Just go down on him
.
That’s how he would phrase it—he’d ask her to go down on him.

Kissing lower, she finally reached it—his cock. She said it again in her mind, trying as hard as she could to desensitize herself to the word.
Cock
,
cock
,
cock
. She studied it in the shadowy darkness, trying to meld both her gut responses, even though they seemed at odds with one another—that his erection was at once beautiful…and utterly sinful.

His shaft jutted so big, so prominent, so very close to her face.

But it
’
s
not
sinful
,
she argued with herself.
He
’
s a man
,
and that
’
s what men have
,
and
there wouldn
’
t be babies if they didn
’
t
.
And it
was
definitely beautiful. She grazed her palm down its length, her chest tightening with pleasure when he moaned. She
loved
to make Simon moan.

“Feels so good, baby,” he breathed, further exciting her.

I can do this
,
I can use my mouth on him
.

She lowered one soft kiss to his arcing length. So hard against her soft lips, like kissing warm steel. The heat from it pooled low in her belly, spreading down between her legs.
Mmm
,
yes
.
I can do this
.

She kissed him again and again—soft, sweet and impassioned—edging upward on his shaft toward the head. She ran her fingers gingerly over the tip, wiping away the thick dot of moisture there—and listened to Simon’s throaty plea waft over her. “Suck me, baby. Suck my cock.”

8

Unwrapped

Inside her, just like before, everything tightened. Simon was rubbing her bottom now as she bent over him from the side, the sensation radiating inward, but her age-old enemies were setting in. Nervousness. Awkwardness. Fear.

She let out a sigh. She wanted to take him in her mouth—but she couldn’t, just couldn’t, for reasons that ran too deep for her to understand.