CJ closed her eyes briefly, allowing the words to wash through her mind. He was attracted to her and he liked her and wanted to be in her life. Just the words every girl wanted to hear, she thought, and felt sadness slide over her. CJ was used to that sadness and usually soaked in it, allowing it to fill every corner of her mind and body, but she didn’t want that now. She was tired of being sad and lonely and depressed. She was even more tired of the anger that rode with it like a dark shadow, a smoke that burned through her. Just this one time she wanted to fight it, to push it away, pretend she was the CJ she used to be and take what life, or in this case her dreams, were offering.
Opening her eyes, she met his gaze, and then reached back to set her glass on the counter before moving her hands up between them and pressing them to his chest. She watched Mac’s eyes widen slightly as her hands grazed his chest, and then he reached past her to set his own glass down and closed his arms around her, drawing her nearer. His head started to lower as if he planned to kiss her, but she pulled back slightly to avoid it. She wanted to touch him first, to explore the wide, strong chest she’d been lusting after since meeting him.
Much to her relief, Mac stopped at her slight withdrawal and straightened again, simply waiting. It made her smile as she ran her hands over his chest, feeling and exploring its hard expanse. Her fingers glanced over firm pectorals, up to his deltoids, and then down his biceps. His shoulders were wider than hers, his biceps easily twice the size of her own toned upper arms, and she longed to see them without the T-shirt covering them.
CJ had barely had the thought when the soft cloth was suddenly gone, leaving him bare-chested before her. The shift made her blink in surprise, and then she grinned, thinking that dreams rocked as she shifted closer and pressed her face to all that male flesh, inhaling his scent before pressing her lips to the taut skin.
Mac sighed at the soft caress, his hands moving up and down her back now, urging her closer as she trailed her lips over his pectorals, brushing across one hardening nipple and then stopping to nip lightly at it. The teasing move had Mac sucking in a gasp of air, and then he gave up passively holding her, caught her face with his hands, and urged it up so that he could kiss her. CJ didn’t fight the move this time. Curious, she willingly raised her head, offering her lips and closing her eyes as his mouth descended toward hers.
The first touch of his mouth on hers had CJ holding her breath as it moved gently back and forth. A languid heat slid through her body, warm and gentle. When he drew her closer and his tongue slid out to run along the seam where her lips met, she hesitated, but then opened for him, and in the next moment the whole tone of the kiss changed. Warm and gentle turned to hot and demanding and the languid heat turned to lava, bubbling up in her body to chase the excitement now pouring through her.
CJ had thought she’d experienced passion before, but this was beyond anything she’d ever encountered. It was hot and fast and overwhelming. Every nerve in her body seemed suddenly to be alive and on fire and she stopped being passive and joined in the kiss. Her own mouth was now demanding and her hands moved over him, trying to touch him everywhere. She explored his hard chest, clasped his wide shoulders, and then her hands slid along his strong arms before dropping down and around to clasp his hard butt cheeks, to squeeze and tug him closer even as her body pressed tighter to him.
His mouth was magic, his tongue talented as it thrust and laved the inside of her mouth, tangling with her own. His hands were moving as well, sliding up her body, pressing her hips tighter still to his before one slid between their upper bodies to find and cup the curve of a breast through her swimsuit.
CJ moaned into his mouth at the touch, her back arching into the caress as he palmed and squeezed her breast and then found and tweaked the pebbling nipple through the cloth. It was CJ who reached up to catch the shoulder straps of her swimsuit and tug them to the sides until they slid down her arms. Mac immediately turned his attention to helping to free her of the straps, and then his hands replaced the material now gathered around her waist. His kiss became even more hungry as he palmed the aching globes revealed, and then he slid one leg between both of hers and CJ gasped as it pressed against her core.
CJ didn’t get a chance to feel disappointment when his hands suddenly left her breasts. Just as she realized they were gone, he was clasping her by the waist and lifting her to sit on the countertop. His hands dropped to her knees then, urging them open so that he could step between them. Only then did he finally break their kiss. CJ murmured a protest at the loss, but it ended on a sigh and she tilted her head back and to the side as his mouth blazed a trail down the length of her throat, licking and nipping along the way to the slope of one breast and continuing on until he found the nipple. CJ cried out and arched when his mouth closed over that. Her hands were on his shoulders now, digging into the skin there.
Realizing what she was doing, she forced herself to ease her hold and then retrieved one hand to glide it into his hair and cup his head to urge him on as he licked, nipped, and suckled at the excited bud until she was aching with need. She was vaguely aware of the sounds she was making—the sighs, the moans, the pleas for him not to stop—but those sounds ended on a choked gasp when he suddenly slid one hand up the inside of her leg to press it against her core through the swimsuit.
They were both completely still for a moment, until CJ realized he was waiting for her either to make him stop or give some indication that he should continue. Once she understood that, she didn’t hesitate, but reached down to cover his hand and squeezed gently. That was all he needed to begin suckling at her breast again, even as his hand between her legs began to move. CJ groaned, her arms sliding around his shoulders and tightening, her bare feet pressing into the front of the cupboard, and her hips sliding forward slightly on the countertop, pushing into his touch.
When Mac eased the cloth of her swimsuit aside so that he could touch her without it in the way, she cried out and threw her head back, her entire body clenching. Mac immediately let her nipple slip from his mouth and raised his head to claim the sound, drinking in her whimpers and excited cries as he caressed her. It was too much . . . and not enough and CJ wrapped her legs around his hips, urging him closer so that her sensitive nipples were rubbing against his chest, and then she reached down to find him through the front of his jeans, and began to rub his hard length through the thick cloth.
Mac groaned into her mouth in response, his hips bucking into the caress, and she felt her way to the button and zipper of his jeans, eager to open both. One moment she was struggling to get his pants undone, and the next his pants were gone, vanishing like his T-shirt had earlier. Free to touch him now, CJ closed her hand around his erection, marveling at how hard and soft it was all at the same time, like velvet over steel. She squeezed gently, and then stroked him once, twice . . . halfway through her third stroke, he caught her hand in his, forcing it away.
CJ was just thinking that this was her dream, and she should be able to do what she wanted, when Mac broke their kiss and suddenly dropped out of her hold. Blinking her eyes open, she glanced down with confusion to see that he’d dropped to his knees between her legs and was now—
Gasping, she reached back to brace her hands on the countertop as he caught her under the knees, drew her butt to the edge of the counter, and then buried his face between her legs. She’d barely recognized that her bathing suit was suddenly gone when his tongue rasped over her trembling flesh, pushing all thought from her mind and making her buck and cry out. Her legs instinctively tried to slam closed. His shoulders prevented that, but it was an instinct that she had repeatedly, though it was quickly followed by her feet pressing hard into the cupboard front as she lifted her hips into what he was doing as he used his lips and tongue to drive her crazy.
The man was teasing her, lashing the bud that was the core of her excitement lightly with his tongue and then shifting his attention to suckling on the protective lips around it before lashing her again. Just when CJ was ready to pull his hair and push his face more firmly against her, he suddenly shifted gears and began to suck hard on the bud even as he slid one finger into her.
CJ cried out then, a harsh guttural sound that seemed to be ripped from her very depths as her hips tried to buck on the countertop but were held in place by Mac. Gasping for breath now, every inch of her trembling with mounting excitement, CJ arched on the countertop, her body so stiff and tense she began to fear her back would snap under the pressure, and then the tension snapped instead and she convulsed, a long ululating cry sounding her release. Lost in the wash of pleasure, she didn’t even notice when Mac straightened before her and spread her legs even farther as he stepped up to her. She did notice, though, when he thrust into her.
A long gasping groan slid from CJ’s lips as he filled her, and she grabbed desperately for his shoulders, then pressed her forehead to his chest as she tried to catch her breath.
For one moment they remained like that, just holding each other with him deep inside her, but then Mac leaned his upper body back and bent to claim her mouth when she instinctively raised her head. This time it was a slow, languorous kiss, a luscious exploration that was almost soothing until he began to move his hips, slowly withdrawing himself from her and then just as slowly easing back in. His angle with each exquisite move resurrected the passion she’d just spent, stirring it languidly back to life with each stroke.
It was CJ who changed the tempo in the end. First, she deepened the kiss, tilting her head and thrusting her tongue out to tangle with his aggressively, and then she dug her heels into his behind, spurring him on. She got the exact response she’d hoped for; Mac began to surge into her more quickly, thrusting as deeply as he could over and over with mounting need and speed. Feeling her behind slip backward on the countertop, CJ gave up her hold on Mac to throw her hand back in search of the wall to brace herself, but pain startled a soft cry from her throat and had her opening her eyes . . . to darkness.
Fourteen
CJ was not seated on the kitchen counter of her cottage on a sunny summer afternoon. Instead, she was horizontal on a soft surface in darkness. Her bed at Millie’s bed-and-breakfast, she realized as her hands moved over the sheets tangled around her body. Good heavens! She must have been thrashing around like a fish out of water. The sheets had become a tight, cinching belt around her waist, her T-shirt was up under her armpits, leaving her chest bare, and where the hell had her panties gone?