Under Fire Read online

  She replied by reaching behind her to shove the door open in invitation. He stooped to pick up her purse then followed her inside, closing and locking the door behind him.

  She stood in the middle of the room, a slight frown tugging her eyebrows. Second thoughts? God, he hoped not. He’d never been a fan of cold showers.

  A table lamp emitted a soft, buttery glow over the room from atop a square white table, flanked by a pair of blue-and-white, thick-striped chairs. He tossed her purse on the cushion of the matching sofa, then crossed the plush carpet to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

  Jana’s brief moment of considering that she could be making an epic-quality mistake evaporated the second Ben’s mouth claimed hers in another bone-melting kiss. When she’d first approached him, she honestly hadn’t believed for a second she’d seriously consider a one-night stand with a man she’d just met. She couldn’t decide whether she’d been stupidly naive or unconsciously determined, but before she could solve the puzzle, Ben was gently guiding her backward until her bottom came in contact with the wall.

  She slid her arms around his waist, her fingers spanning his rib cage. Beneath the fabric of his shirt, the muscle in his back flexed and danced at her touch, filling her with a unique sense of feminine power, rivaled only by the heated surge of arousal that had her squeezing her thighs tightly together. The coolness of the wall against her skin conflicted with the heat his body generated. He surrounded her, filling her senses with his taste, his touch, his scent. The brush of his fingers against her stomach as his hands tugged her thin blouse from the waistband of her skirt had a pool of something she couldn’t define—tension? need?—gathering in the pit of her belly.

  The answer to a question she couldn’t even remember no longer mattered the moment the warmth of his hands cupped her breasts. Through the lace of her bra, he dragged his thumbs rhythmically over her sensitized nipples. She moaned and tore her mouth from his, her head thumping against the wall as she arched her back, desperate for more of his touch.

  “Taste me.” Her harsh, whispered demand took her momentarily by surprise. She’d never been much of a talker during sex, preferring instead to communicate her needs with action. Could that have been part of her problem, she wondered?

  He made a sound that rumbled up from deep in his chest, dissolving any remaining ability for coherent thought. The instant he dipped his head and gently nipped and laved the slope of her breasts, she forgot her doubts and concentrated on the urgency filling her. With agonizing slowness, he unbuttoned more of her blouse, then pushed the fabric aside until it gathered halfway down her arms. His mouth over her nipple, he suckled her through the lace. She cried out from the shock of such exquisite sensation.

  Her breathing faltered, then resumed with short, hard pants. She couldn’t seem to draw enough oxygen into her lungs. The world tilted. No, it spun, she decided. Spun her right off the edge of reality.

  She gripped Ben’s shoulders to steady herself. Too late she realized nothing could put an end to the crazy, chaotic wonder gathering with the force of storm clouds inside her.

  He moved to the other breast and took her into his mouth. Her knees threatened to buckle, and she attempted to brace herself. Only she couldn’t. If she did, the incredible pleasure she felt by pressing her thighs together would end.

  Ben straightened, but he didn’t stop touching her. His hands slid to her throat, then up farther until he cupped her face in his work-roughened palms. The appreciative look in his eyes alone did for her what no lover had ever accomplished; it made her squirm with a need so deep every square inch of her body hummed with anticipation.

  Could Chloe and Lauren have been right? Was there indeed something absolutely liberating about making love to a man for the sole purpose of experiencing pleasure? Even the way Ben looked at her, with a heady mixture of awe and desire, stripped her of her usual anxiety, and filled her with a wild, reckless sense of abandonment. Tonight, she reminded herself, had nothing to do with performance, but only with absolute pleasure and gratification.

  His.

  Hers.

  And no regrets, regardless of the outcome.

  “I’m going to taste you.”

  His words were an enticing integration of velvet and steel. Smooth, yet strong. Like his kisses. Or his touch. Comforting yet demanding.

  “Every inch of your skin, Jana. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  4

  EVERY INCH?

  Jana had never hyperventilated in her life, but she supposed there really was a first time for everything. With any luck, an overload of carbon dioxide wouldn’t be her only first tonight.

  No. She wouldn’t think about that. If she did, whatever magical, sensual spell Ben appeared to cast over her so effortlessly could easily break. Instead, she locked reality away and reached for the buttons on his shirt, pressing her lips to the warm, bare skin she exposed.

  “So?” She shoved the shirt from his shoulders and down his arms, letting it drop to the floor. “What’s stopping you?”

  With the tip of her tongue, she traced his flattened nipple then grazed it with her teeth, wanting him to experience the same delicious sensations running rampant through her. She tasted, laved and kissed a trail down his torso. A groan erupted from deep inside him, encouraging her.

  Before she managed to taste another inch of the luscious length of his athlete-strong body, his hands gripped her upper arms. He hauled her against his chest, holding her tight. His mouth covered hers, coaxing, yet demanding with a sense of urgency that she open for him. A request she wouldn’t dream of denying.

  Using his body to support her, he pressed her back against the wall again. His hands skimmed her breasts to settle at her waist. The hiss of leather rasped in her ears as he unfastened her belt and carefully withdrew it from the loops of her skirt.

  Ultimate fulfillment might be a mystery to her, but she understood desire. She’d even delighted in the most fascinating tingles a time or two during foreplay. Yet her limited knowledge had never come close to the scrumptious way Ben was making her feel with only his caresses and kisses. Hot. Achy. Breathless. Craving what had always been elusive. An awareness so powerful, every nerve ending in her body came alive.

  He unfastened the snap and zipper, then stepped back to push her skirt past her hips. The material slid down her legs like a sensuous caress to puddle at her feet. After toeing off her pumps, she kicked them and the skirt aside, then stood in front of Ben wearing only her matching white lace bra and panties, and a pair of thigh-high stockings. She’d expected to feel exposed, even a little self-conscious. The appreciation in his eyes effectively kept her doubts at bay.

  “You are incredible,” he said with a reverence that obliterated any final shred of common sense she might have been considering. “Absolutely incredible.”

  She smiled as she closed the few inches between them and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and moving her body against his. Friction, stimulated by heated male flesh and lace, rasped her nipples and sent an electric shot of warmth zinging down her spine.

  Another tiny tremor shook her.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  She gently nipped his neck before tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “I’ve never been hotter.”

  The color of his eyes deepened. “You keep talking like that, we’ll never make it to the bedroom.”

  She gave him the most sensual grin in her pathetically small arsenal. “Nothing says we have to make it in the bedroom.”

  With his arms around her, he slowly slid his hands beneath the elastic band of her panties to cup her bottom, drawing her even closer. “An adventurous woman. I like that.”

  She arched her back and pressed her fanny into the warmth of his calloused hands. “Hmm,” she murmured as his fingers gently kneaded her flesh. “What else do you like?”

  “Fantasies. Tell me your fantasy, Jana.”

  She would, if she had one to share. She’d alre
ady admitted her sexual reality was a big fat zero. Her sensual self-esteem hardly needed a reminder she lacked the imagination to even conjure a decent fantasy. “I have a better idea.”

  His hands inched down, moving with agonizing slowness toward her center. He dipped his head and caught the lobe of her ear gently between his teeth. “Tell me.”

  Hot breath caressed her ear at the same moment the tip of his fingers brushed her moist curls in a feathery caress so light she couldn’t determine reality from one of those fantasies he kept insisting she discuss. Why on earth did he expect conversation when all she could think about was the most interesting sense of acute pressure slowly building inside her that kept her pressing her body toward his gently teasing fingers?

  She pulled back slightly and reached for the clip still securing her hair in place. While he watched, she carefully removed the clip, then tossed it on the carpet next to her clothes and shoes. With a slight shake of her head, she freed her hair from the knot until it fell past her shoulders. “You show me your fantasy instead,” she quietly told him.

  The sinfully wicked intent in his eyes had her catching her breath. “Tonight, you are my fantasy.”

  She barely had time to absorb his highly erotic statement before he took both of her hands in one of his. He effectively pinned her against the wall by raising her arms just above her head, leaving his free hand to do whatever he chose. This was, after all, his fantasy.

  He traced her mouth with the tip of his finger, then dragged the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip before he gently moved downward to caress her throat. His lips touched where his fingers had been, then followed the same path as his hand. His caress and the moist heat of his mouth traveled southward, teasing the slope of her breasts, down through the valley of her cleavage.

  The palm of his hand was hot against her skin, rough and calloused, yet tender and reverent in execution. He created a path of heat over her rib cage while his tongue, lips and teeth strayed to her breasts, creating more havoc with her senses.

  Just when she thought she would go crazy from the need burning low in her belly, he released her hands and eased slowly to his knees. The heat of his mouth and tongue never left her skin, which had grown even tighter, hotter. She flatted her palms against the wall for support. He hooked his thumbs onto the sides of her panties and slowly pulled them from her hips, tasting the skin he exposed along the way with a veneration that had her heart squeezing just a little.

  He tossed the lace panties aside, then, drew his hands upward along the backs of her legs, caressing her inner thighs. She nearly came out of her skin.

  As if she were as delicate as a hothouse flower, he gently eased her legs apart. The earlier pressure returned, more forceful and twice as demanding the instant he touched her wet folds and slid his finger inside her.

  Her breath caught, then expelled in a rush, carrying with it a deep moan filled with such an earthy sound, it took her by surprise. Sensation overruled thought with every stroke. All that mattered were the incredible currents of energy rippling under her skin and the demands of her body urging her onward toward…toward…

  She closed her eyes and shoved reality behind the locked door again. Tonight she wanted the sensual ride to carry her as far as her body would allow her to travel.

  She stopped thinking and only…felt.

  The beauty of total arousal. The stroke of his fingers. Glorious tension. The press of his lips against her moist curls. Fire growing inside her. The glide of his tongue as it circled her most sensitive place.

  She experienced it all and greedily wanted more.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

  He expertly stoked the simmering warmth into a full-fledged inferno that made her hotter than ever before. The upsurge of the flames pushed her steadily closer to…to…

  He stopped.

  Her knees threatened to buckle, but his hands quickly shifted to her hips and steadied her. Her eyes flew open.

  He stopped?

  “No!” she cried out in protest. She reached for his shoulders, but he was already rising to his feet.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said again once he stood in front of her. She didn’t care if she was pleading with him to finish what he’d started. How could he do this to her? She’d been so close, or at least closer than she’d ever been in her life. Dammit, she’d told him not to stop!

  The man had the audacity to smile at her. “Why?”

  Her mouth fell open and she stared at him through a half-dozen thunderous beats of her heart. “Why?” she finally parroted. Surely she didn’t have to explain it to him. He couldn’t possibly be that obtuse.

  He nodded. “Why?”

  If he stooped to pick up his shirt, she just might kick him square in the backside.

  “Because!” Definitely not her most intelligent reply.

  His smile deepened into a grin before he planted a hard, quick kiss on her still swollen lips. “Because you were so close to orgasm?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. She had no idea what kind of game he thought he was playing with her.

  One of his hands massaged her bare hip while he reached up with the other to smooth away the hair clinging to the side of her face, moist with beads of sweat. “Do you still want to know why it’s everything everyone says it is?”

  If he hadn’t stopped, she just might have had the answer to her own burning question.

  “Anticipation,” he said when she remained stubbornly silent. “Not just a build-up of physical pleasure and final release, but something so intense it heightens all of your senses.”

  “If I was looking for intellectual stimulation, I’d read a book or attend a lecture,” she complained.

  “Every single nerve ending in your body comes alive until you explode,” he continued as if she’d never spoken. “The languid, liquid warmth that fills you is purely physical. Seduction of the mind is just as important for complete sexual gratification. A total orgasm.”

  “I would’ve been happy with half an orgasm.”

  His lips twitched as he drew his hand over her shoulder and down her arm to lace their fingers together. “I could’ve made you come, Jana, but it would’ve been only physical.”

  “You really want to go where no man has gone before?” She managed a barely-there laugh despite the sharp edge of frustration slicing away at her sensual psyche. “In order to get there, you were supposed to stay on the south route of Pleasure Parkway. What is it with men and directions, anyway?”

  He smiled, but otherwise ignored her sarcasm. She couldn’t help herself. His arrogance was too sexy to ignore.

  He lifted her hand to his mouth, then pulled his tingle wrist trick again. This time, she almost melted.

  “I promise you,” he said, his deep, rich voice a husky rumble of sin, “I will give you everything you’ve been missing.”

  “I DON’T KNOW if we’ll be able to use the condoms.”

  If there was another woman in the world more sensual than Jana, Ben hadn’t met her. Or one that was as unashamed of her body, either, for that matter. Stark-naked, she stood in the doorway between her tastefully furnished bedroom and the small bathroom, the overhead light behind her silhouetting her curves.

  He’d never been more turned on, or hard. He hadn’t exactly been filling her with a line of BS, but he’d intentionally brought a premature end to their lovemaking fifteen minutes ago and suggested they move to the bedroom for one simple reason—he’d been too close to losing control.

  If he hadn’t stopped, he was ashamed to admit even to himself that he might have made a monumental mistake and made love to her without protection. He’d been coherent enough to realize that Jana had passed the crucial point of no return and was probably not in a state of mind to object.

  “Why? How old are they?” He rested his back against the padded headboard, the floral sheet draped over his lap.

  She turned to the side for more light and peered at the box. The quick stream of breath she
blew on the box sent a puff of dust floating in the air around her. She sneezed.

  “That old, huh?” He liked the idea she’d had a box of condoms in her bathroom long enough to collect dust. Arrogance? Maybe. Had to be, he decided. Anything else defied logic.

  “Six months,” she said with a shrug. “Could be eight. Wanna hit that light?”

  He turned on the bedside lamp, then waited for her to join him. She tossed the box of condoms in his direction; he caught it with one hand. She climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips as if she’d been doing it forever. After what they’d just done, shyness would be hypocritical.

  “See if you can find an expiration date.”

  He set the small box on the nightstand next to the alarm clock. “They don’t have the shelf life of Twinkies, but anything under a couple of years is probably safe.”

  Placing his hands on her bottom, he nudged her closer. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?” he asked her, although conversation landed dead last on his list of immediate priorities. Topping it was the matter of Jana’s first orgasm.

  In the soft, rose-colored lighting from the frilly lamp, her green eyes sparkled with mischief as she wiggled her bottom and scooted even closer. His body flexed instantly and insistently.

  She moaned softly, then moved against him. “I had a question, but it’s a close second to what I’d rather experience.”

  Always willing to accommodate a woman’s sensual demands, he moved one hand up her spine to the back of her neck, applying the slightest amount of pressure. She leaned toward him and he nuzzled the slender column of her throat.

  “Tell me what you’d rather experience.” He dipped his tongue inside the soft hollow at the base of her throat. She trembled in his arms.

  Rising slightly on her knees, she yanked the sheet out of the way. With no barriers between them, she settled back down, her hot, moist heat brushing against the tip of his penis. A tiny cry of surprise escaped her throat. Her movements were tentative, but she shifted again. She moaned with such pure delight, he had to count to ten to maintain his control.