Leave Me Breathless

Chapter Ten


The last thing he’d planned on was falling asleep with her snuggled at his side, her head on his shoulder like they were…a couple or something. One moment, they’d been lying in her bed in the peaceful semidarkness; the next, a swath of sunlight was hitting him right between the eyes.

Might as well make the most of it. He rolled over and groped for her warm body only to touch the coolness of empty sheets. Lifting his head and focusing, he not only saw visual evidence she was missing, but an aroma was drifting in from the kitchen that awakened parts of him that were famished for more than her body. He always woke up starving.

He wanted a shower, but first he tugged on his jeans and, leaving them unbuttoned, ambled out into her living room to investigate…bypassing a trophy saddle on the way.

Jesus, yes, the girl liked to ride. He could damn sure attest to that.

She was chopping vegetables at the counter in a silky pink robe thing that barely covered her ass. Moving quietly as he could on his bare feet, he sneaked up behind her and slid a finger under the hem.

Macy gasped and whirled, hazel eyes wide. “Dammit! Don’t do that to a woman with a knife in her hand.”

“You don’t scare me,” he murmured, leaning in to taste the sweetness of her neck. She smelled like warm, sugary vanilla. Tasted like it too. The scent had always barely teased him when he was around her, but now, this close, he could get drunk on it. Drunk on her.

Her knife clattered to the counter, and she sighed and wound her arms around his neck. The position raised the hem of her robe, and he took advantage, sliding his hands over the firm globes of her ass.

He loved how she was soft and strong at once, her muscles solid as any athlete’s, the strength belied by the delicacy of her stature. Perfection, he thought yet again. He really wished he would stop it with that. Nobody was perfect.

She might damn well be as close as he’d ever get.

One quick tug and her robe fell open, baring those high, sweet, pink-tipped breasts. Something sizzled angrily on the stove, but it was nothing compared to the sizzle happening down south. He was as hard right now as he’d ever been last night, the sight of her luscious tits revving him until he was like a race car in the red.

“I’m going to burn the bacon,” she murmured as his lips sought a nipple. For some reason, she made him think of cake frosting. A confection. Far too rich for his palate, but damn if he wasn’t going to steal a bite if he could.

Thank God he’d put his pants back on. Thank God he’d put his wallet back in the pocket last night. Thank God there were more condoms in there. She was already shoving at his jeans, pushing them down his hips so that his erection sprang free. He pulled away from her and groaned as she encased him with her slim fingers. The first time she’d done that months ago, he could’ve blown in her gentle grip like a teenager. Just to be in her hands, Macy’s hands, when he’d thought he never would be, had almost been too much for him.

“Hang on,” she whispered and, stretching over to her left, turned off the knob on the stove and moved the pan to a cool eye.

He chuckled, but the sound abruptly died when she hit her knees in front of him. All the air pretty much waved bye-bye to his lungs. He shuffled backward until his ass met the edge of her kitchen island, and he braced his hands against it, trying to catch his breath. As she finally came face-to-face with the snarling, skeletal Grim-Reaper-ish ghost low on his abdomen, she paused long enough to glance up at him and smirk. Thank f*ck, it didn’t deter her. Her wet little tongue flickered over his tip and then circled it, and he let his head fall back with an agonized groan.

After three long, damp strokes up his dick, he was panting. Once he was glistening with moisture from her clever tongue, her hand curled around his base, her lips sucked in his crown. Slowly. Not even inch by inch but centimeter by centimeter. She worked him deep as his knees nearly gave out.

“Macy,” he choked out, threading his fingers through silky hair still tousled from their wild escapades last night. He wanted to grab the back of her head and shove it, had to make a fist to keep from doing so. She whimpered as her hair pulled tight. “Sorry,” he whispered, loosening. “I can’t stand it.”

She had yet to show him what he couldn’t stand. Her tongue rolled around his shaft, teased at his piercing, and he growled. Her hand stroked him at his base. Her other hand came up to cup his balls. His entire friggin’ life was focused between his legs in that moment.

But he didn’t want to come down her throat. For that matter, he didn’t want to come in a f*cking rubber, either.

There were far worse decisions to have to make, he decided, than where and how to release inside Macy’s willing body. But this kitchen island sure was an ideal height…

He was almost too far gone to stop her. Almost. Grasping her hands, he pulled them away as she glanced up at him questioningly. His cock fell from her mouth with a wet sound that almost made him change his mind. The memory of how soft, tight and perfect her p-ssy had felt wrapped around him was the only thing that gave him strength. He wanted to be there again, wanted to be there as often as she’d let him before she decided to move on.

Move on…maybe to some other undeserving a*shole. The thought sent razor blades shredding through his chest.

He hauled her up to her feet and grabbed her around her slim waist, whirled and planted her on the island. She gave a soft laugh as a strand of dark hair fell over her eyes…stunningly beautiful, dreamy, come-f*ck-me eyes. He insinuated himself between her thighs and reached for the back pocket of his drooping jeans. She glanced down at his dick. No drooping there. He was damn near pointing straight up.

Macy’s pink tongue slid over her swollen top lip. He’d love to let it slide over him some more, but he was humming with too much adrenaline, too much pent-up energy. As much as he’d like her to suck him off, right now he needed to f*ck. Hard. He needed her to never forget what he felt like inside her.

She reached for his cock while he tore the foil, one corner of that luscious mouth kicked up. “Magnum,” she commented.

“You know it.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

His task completed, he pulled her close, spreading her legs wide around his hips. “Seth,” she breathed, the tiniest hint of urgency in her tone. “Go slow at first, okay? It…had been a while and…”

“It’s okay,” he whispered. He needed her, he needed her hard and fast, but one tiny hint of vulnerability from her and he also wanted to soothe her and protect her. And never, ever hurt her.

She took his gentle intrusion with her head back, her nails digging in his shoulders, her graceful throat exposed so he could watch the pulse flutter at the side of her neck. He could feel that same pulse in the clinging depths of her p-ssy. Her brow furrowed, but whether it was pleasure or pain or a comingling of the two, he couldn’t tell. He held still while she shifted to angle her hips better for him. When she found it, he knew. Her expression smoothed over.

“Oh yes,” he murmured, nuzzling the side of her neck. He moved one hand from her thigh to draw teasing circles around her areola with his thumb as he withdrew from her almost all the way. Only the very tip of him claimed the last inch of her. He slid back in, easier this time. She was so swollen, so tight. So perfect, contoured in just a way that stroked all his hot spots. Like she’d been made for him.

Every ounce of restraint he possessed was engaged right now, straining against the need roaring through his veins, holding it at bay. He wouldn’t let go until he knew she was with him.

Her internal muscles squeezed him and he growled. Goddamn, he loved it when she did that. The girl had muscles in places that—

She did it again, and all thought shut down.

“Macy…” It was a plea. It was a prayer. If she needed it, he’d turn it into a f*cking chant. He just wanted her, wanted to plunge into her over and over, needed to make her his.

“Yes, Seth, yes.”

She’d scarcely gotten his name out when he let go. Just like last night, her strong gripping heat brought out the beast in him, and he was hungry for her. Maybe someday he could imagine actually making love to this woman, but now wasn’t that time. Her cries were music in his ears and when he looked down to watch himself disappear over and over inside her pink folds, so wet and pretty, the sight was almost his undoing. How many damn times would she undo him?

When she came, he felt it. Never in a million years would she ever be able to fake him out—she gripped him so hard and drew him so deep when she climaxed he couldn’t breathe. Her thigh muscles went rock hard around his hips. Her nipples pulled tight. Color roared high in her cheeks. Right in front of him, she blossomed all over, and it was a thing of f*cking beauty.

He followed her lead. How could he not? His chest constricted as his release shot through. For one moment, their gazes locked, and then their mouths melded furiously as he pumped his seed into the barrier between them. She drank in his moans and muffled curses and stroked his back as she squeezed the last drop from him with her own aftershocks.

“Oh my God,” she sighed, that soft coming-down sigh he already recognized and loved. She drew his head down to rest on her shoulder as he struggled to catch his breath. Wrapped in her heat, in her arms, in her legs…Christ.

It had never been this way before. And that was why he needed to get the f*ck out of here.

Needed to, but wouldn’t. Because when it came to girls like Macy—like Brooke—he was a hopeless frigging sap.

He damn sure wished that name would quit crossing his thoughts. Whatever emotions Macy was pulling out of him, he wanted to push, shove and kick them back where they belonged. Her questions last night hadn’t helped.

Macy was nothing like Brooke. They might’ve come from similar, wealthy backgrounds, but Brooke had been high maintenance to boot. He wouldn’t have been able to afford that girl, something he realized now but as a kid with stars in his f*ckin’ eyes, he’d thought the world was his oyster. With her at his side, he could do anything. When she’d left, she’d given him a sharp slap of reality.

He lifted his head before he could fall asleep on his feet cradled in Macy’s embrace. The glazed hazel eyes staring at him now didn’t contain one ounce of the disdain he’d seen in the expression of the first and only woman he’d loved that day years ago. All he saw now were the ravages of very recent pleasure. Macy leaned forward and kissed him sweetly, stroking his tongue with hers, and the dark spot on his thoughts was washed away.

She eased back and stroked his eyebrow with her thumb. “You looked far away,” she murmured.

“I’m back now.”

“Where’d you go?”

He shook his head. “Nowhere you need to worry about.” Only then did he step away from her, allowing himself to slip free of her body. She gasped softly and snapped closed her legs, pulling her robe over her flushed breasts.

There was something so sexy about a well-f*cked woman. Especially when she came back to herself after an amazing orgasm and realized she was still sprawled wantonly on a piece of furniture in a moderately inappropriate place. Or a backseat. Macy had that look now, the slightly embarrassed I can’t believe I just let him take me here look.

She cleared her throat and hopped down, her dark hair shielding her face. He grinned to himself and headed to her bathroom to take care of the condom. When he returned, she was back in her original position when he’d first entered the kitchen, whipping up pancakes.

“Hungry?” she asked.

Now that his sexual appetite was out of the way—well, for the most part—hell yeah, he could focus on less important parts of his anatomy, like his stomach. “And she cooks too,” he said, pinching her on the bottom. She laughed.

“Well, a little. Don’t get too excited.”

She had him excited all right. It had little to do with her abilities in the kitchen. Of the culinary variety.

“We didn’t burn the bacon after all,” he observed, picking a piece and biting into it. It was good and crispy, just the way he liked it.

She laughed softly and he paused to watch her profile. As she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hand visibly shook.

“You okay?” he asked, smoothing his hand up her back and massaging her shoulder.

She nodded almost before he could get the words out. She wouldn’t look at him. “Mm-hmm. Great.”

What the hell had happened here? He’d kind of sneaked up and laid siege to her, but she’d seemed to be into it. Maybe last night was supposed to have been last night, and this morning, she wanted him the hell out of her house.

No strings, right.

Okay, he could do that. It’s what he’d promised her last night. But he found again that he didn’t like it. A thousand and one things he could do to her pliant body zoomed through his mind. He wanted all day with her to knock some of them out.

“Coffee?” she asked, pulling mugs down from a cabinet.

Obviously she hadn’t planned to kick him out right away. He was being a dumbass. “That’d be awesome. Black.”

They sat down to eat at her bistro table in her sunny little nook, but the pleasure of the food was eclipsed by that of watching her hair sparkle in the sun. It was brown and silky, though the morning light cast a reddish halo around it. Several times, he glanced over his coffee mug to catch her staring at him. She would always drop her gaze to her plate or avert it out the window. She barely touched her own food.

“You’re not eating much,” he said.

“I’m actually not that hungry. I thought I was…but I guess I’m not.”

“Feel okay?”

Her brows dipped briefly. “Oh, sure.”

“Macy.” Ghost reached across the table, sliding his hand over hers. Immediately, she turned hers over and grasped it. Might as well get it out there. “If you’re feeling weird about all this, you don’t have to worry. Don’t think anything is different from what we talked about last night.”

It really hurt to say. And maybe he was insane, but he thought the expression that crossed her face as she stared down at their joined hands was hurt too.

“I know that.” Her voice sounded thick, as if her throat was closing in. “I had a really good time, though.”

“Me too.”

Her soulful gaze flickered up to his and back down. Dammit, they hadn’t even scratched the surface. Why did her words have echoes of good-bye in them? Why the hell did sex always complicate things? It was just one body part going into another. Why couldn’t it just be about the physical act, please and thank you, catch ya later?

But that was exactly what she was doing, wasn’t it. Again. He should have friggin’ known better than to go here with her. She’d already pulled this hot-and-cold shit on him once months ago. His running to another state hadn’t cleared his memory of how pissed off he’d been. He’d thought surely she wouldn’t run the same game on him now, but it looked as if she was ready to make him into a fool for the second time.

Damn if he was going to hang around and let her. Abruptly, he released her hand and shot out of his chair. Surprise flared across her face.

“Thanks for breakfast, but I’d better get dressed and jet,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the door. “Gotta be at work in a couple hours, and I want to call Nana first.”

“Oh…okay.” Putting her palms flat on the table, she rose also, her movements slow and a little timid.

Curse the morning-after good-bye. It seemed ten times as awkward when all he really wanted was to drag her back into her bedroom and have his way with her for the rest of the day.

She dropped her gaze and busied herself clearing dishes. He lingered for a moment to help her, then headed to her bedroom to throw on his shirt and boots. When he finished and turned toward her bedroom door, she was standing there, having silently appeared behind him at some point.

“I meant what I said,” she told him. “I had a really great time—I mean, that’s an understatement.”

F*ck, she was beautiful, and he wanted her. He wanted her right now. Wanted to tackle her into her unkempt sheets and make her cry out his name again.

So he did. Be damned if he would be making any walk of shame today.

Her startled gasp against his lips only fueled him as he crushed her to him and toppled them both back onto the mattress. She might as well give up on wearing her little robe around him; he yanked the sash and spread it open, palming her breast while she shook and writhed under him. Her thighs gripped his jean-clad hips and she rubbed her p-ssy against the hard shaft of the erection he’d never really lost from spending himself inside her.

He needed to finish what he’d started last night. He’d given her the option, and she’d chosen for him to f*ck her, but right now he was craving another taste of the sweetness between her legs.

He kissed her with slow, deliberate sweeps of his tongue. He wanted her dying for him to do the same thing to her *. Judging from her gyrations, her whimpers, she wanted just that. Pinning her wrists to the bed, he kissed a path from her lips to her left nipple, budded so tight. He licked it, sucked it, gave it the lightest pinch of his teeth.

Her head tossed. She was strong; sometimes her arms would jerk, and he’d nearly lose his grip on her. But he held her fast. Her thighs rubbed up and down his hips, the heels of her feet pressed into his ass. She moved under him as if he were inside her, a slow, sensuous rhythm. If that was the way she liked it, he’d make note of it and use it on her later.

If there was one.

He slapped the thought aside. He’d make her come so hard there would be no question about later. She’d be the one coming back for more.

When both her nipples were wet and distended from his attentions, her milky skin splotchy with pink heat, he slid his open mouth down her belly. Lower, lower, flickering his tongue against her flesh. The farther down he went, the harder it became for her to move, until she was merely squirming as he pinned her legs down under his arms. As he nuzzled against her closely trimmed pubic hair, the scent of her arousal short-circuited his brain.

“Oh God, please…” she cried, the first words that had burst forth from her yet. Her wrists again threatened to break his grip.

“If I let your hands go, will you be a good girl and not touch me?”

“Why not?” she gasped, tilting her hips up toward him.

He evaded her. “All I want you to feel of me is my mouth and my fingers.”

“Yes!”

“Even when you come, don’t touch me.”

The sounds tearing from Macy’s throat were lost between whimpers and sobs. She managed to nod her head.

“Now, ask me nicely.”

“What?”

“Ask me for what you want, Macy.”

“P-please…lick me.”

“Oh, okay.” He licked the smooth inner side of her thigh.

“Shit. Not there.”

He damn near burst out laughing. “My bad. Where? I can’t read your mind, woman.”

“Lick my p-ssy, Seth.” He could swear her face went two shades darker red.

“Thank you. I believe I will.”

Christ, she was wet. And swollen. And sweet as the strawberries she’d put out on the table this morning. He kissed her tenderly, sweeping his tongue through her folds and collecting the taste of her juices. Her staccato sobs of moments ago turned into long, drawn-out sighs of pleasure.

His fingers loosened on her wrists, then released. Her arms remained obediently on the bed. He grazed his fingertips against her belly as he lowered first one hand and then the other, feeling her stomach muscles pull tighter under his touch. So sensitive. He tucked one arm under him for support and left one hand free to touch her. When she was ready.

“Feel good, baby?” he murmured against her.

“Sooo good.”

He explored lower, letting his tongue slip over her entrance where her flavor was even sharper, tangier. Her thighs stiffened, and he remembered what she’d said earlier about being sore. She needed this right now. He moved his tongue in slow, soothing strokes around her tiny opening. The need to slide up and plunge his cock into it was there—it never left—but he ignored it. This was all about her.

“So sweet,” he whispered. “I could do this all day.”

“I could let you all day.”

He moved his mouth up to suck her *. As he drew on her with her moans echoing in his ears, he fluttered his tongue over it, sending her cries even higher. Her thighs opened wider. When he glanced up the length of her body, her hands were on her breasts. Hot as hell.

When her first orgasm swept her away, he slid a finger deep so he could feel her contractions. Incredible. He could swear her taste and scent sweetened and when he drew his finger out, it was coated in her honey. He slid it into his mouth for a taste, then back into her with another, hooking them upward to tease her upper wall.

She’d somehow not touched him through her climax. Now she seemed to realize she couldn’t get him to stop without disobeying that order.

“Seth— I can’t take it,” she said, trying to squirm away.

“You can,” he assured her. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Oh my God…”

He drew out his fingers, nice and wet from her arousal, and gently lowered them to tease the pucker of flesh below her p-ssy. Just like that, her breath caught in her lungs and, without even touching them, he sensed her thigh muscles go rock hard again. But she didn’t push away; she didn’t disobey and push him away.

“Have you ever been f*cked in the ass, sweet Macy?”

He carefully watched her reaction. She pulled her lips between her teeth and shook her head, her forehead creased.

“But you’ll let me, won’t you,” he cajoled as he exerted the slightest pressure with his finger. She was impossibly tight. Her chest suddenly heaved as if she’d just remembered to breathe.

“I… You’ll hurt me.”

“Afraid of a little pain, cowgirl?”

Her mouth quirked at that. “No. But I tend to avoid it if I have the choice.”

“Well, you do, you know.” A little more, and a little more, he pushed until the tip of his finger softened her tight ring enough to gain entrance. Millimeters. A centimeter. An inch. Macy’s hands were gripping the bedspread, tugging it almost to her face. Her breath sobbed out. She didn’t speak. Didn’t stop him.

“How do you feel?” he whispered.

Her lips parted, her eyes opened, turmoil and agony writhing for dominance on her face. “Dirty,” she bit out.

“That’s what you wanted me for,” he all but growled. His dick was going to cuss him for a bastard if he didn’t get inside her. But he’d just have to take it. This was about leaving her wanting more. “Wasn’t it? To get you dirty. That’s why you know you’re going to let me do it. After I leave and you cool down, you’ll tell yourself you won’t. But one day, you’ll beg me for it, because you know there’s more, and you know I can give it to you.”

He could swear the word that left her lips was “f*ck,” and he couldn’t resist a grin. Already loosening her tongue. He was knuckle-deep in her sweet heat, and sweat beaded on her brow. He eased his mouth back down to her * and teased it with languid sweeps of his tongue, groaning at the sharp spice of her need. Oh yeah, she wanted it all right. She was practically dripping. While he distracted her with slow swirls of his tongue, he inched his finger deeper until she’d accepted all he could give her.

When she came, muscles clamping desperately on him, he slowly pulled it out. The keening moan that tore from her throat was a sound he’d hear in his dreams from now on.

It seemed forever before she settled. Her eyes were wet, her nipples beaded, her skin rosy. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She lay limp, panting, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her skin in the light from her windows.

“I really can’t take any more,” she said weakly.

“That was hardly all day,” he complained, lifting on his elbows, his knees and then climbing off the bed to his feet. If he stood and stared down at her for a moment admiring his handiwork, well, he figured there wasn’t a dude on earth who’d blame him or who wouldn’t do the same. Most of them would probably try to sneak a picture on their cell phones.

She drew her knees together, hiding her flushed slice of heaven from his view. Damn. He imagined the pout on his face as she did so was akin to a kid learning there was no Santa Claus.

Once she’d caught her breath, Macy giggled, lifting a hand to cover her face.

Well, that was a guaranteed way to dispense with any awkwardness with her. And he didn’t want to find himself in that situation again. He trotted into her bathroom to wash his hands. Then, bracing on the bed with his hands, he leaned over and brushed his lips across her cheek. She turned her mouth to his. Knowing she tasted both of them as she kissed him offered no relief to his raging hard-on.

He pulled back. She whimpered, curling her fingers around the back of his neck, attempting to hold him to her.

“I have to go, lovely.”

“But…” Her gaze drifted down to his fly, where he strained against his zipper. He smiled and traced her delicate jawline with his thumb.

“I’ll catch you later.”

Before she could reply, he was gone.