Straddling the Line

Seven

The motorcycle seemed to go faster and faster, until the world around her was nothing but a blur. They couldn’t be on the highway anymore. They had to be flying, faster and lower than she’d ever flown before. For a lost second, she felt like the little girl she’d once been, flying on the back of a horse headed to the place where she could be herself.

Except she wasn’t, not anymore. Now, she was a grown woman going home with a grown man. That’s what she wanted right now. To hell with what anyone else thought. She may not have the best idea of who she really was, but Ben was the only man to ever ask—and that’s who she wanted to be with.

She clung to Ben, every part of her front touching every part of his back. The motorcycle hummed between her legs, making it hard to breathe. Faster, she thought. Go faster.

Finally, the blur became streaked with light. Josey took that to mean they were near the city, but she couldn’t make out anything else.

She clung to Ben, trusting that he knew how to ride this machine. This whole thing was perfectly safe. There was absolutely no reason to be panicked about any of this. Least of all the fact that Ben was driving like a bat out of hell so he could take her to bed.

Despite the body-tingling vibrations shaking her to her core, she could feel his heart hammering away underneath his jacket. Yes, she was a little nervous about this. It had been far too long since her last lover. But the feel of her arms around his broad chest and the way his last kiss still burned on her lips was enough to push her past her worries.

To be wanted was a satisfaction in and of itself. Ben wanted her so bad that the world was a blur. He couldn’t wait, and truthfully, neither could she.

The world stopped spinning as he slowed down and made a series of turns. Soon she could even make out her surroundings—large warehouses in an industrial neighborhood. Ben brought the bike to a fast idle when he pulled up alongside a nondescript building. He punched a button, and a steel door rumbled up. He walked the bike inside and pushed two more buttons. The steel door slid down, and moments later the whole floor was lifting them up.

“Where are we?” she asked, finally venturing to unlock her arms from around his waist now that the bike was no longer hurtling in a horizontal direction—although she found the vertical a little disconcerting. Who had an elevator big enough for a motorcycle in their house?

“My place,” he said, unstrapping his helmet. He put the kickstand down and waited, but Josey wasn’t sure she trusted her legs right now. After a second, he slid off without knocking into her. He took her helmet off for her. “Also known as the former headquarters of Crazy Horse Choppers.”

He lived in the old factory? Visions of a place that looked exactly like that stainless-steel office—only with a bed in it—flashed before her eyes. Was there anything even remotely sensual about stainless steel?

The freight elevator—for that’s what it was—lumbered upward. They passed the second floor. A heavy bass beat cut through the gauzy red fabric that covered the elevator shaft.

Ben caught her confusion. “I rent the second floor to a couple of artists. They clean my place twice a month, and I let them pay me in paintings when they can’t make rent.”

“Really?” He was an art patron? Maybe that wasn’t so far off from savior of the school. “Who else is here?”

He stepped closer to her and unzipped her jacket, the edges of his fingers grazing the inner curves of her breasts. Vibrations—different from the mechanical rumbling that had burned between her legs—caused her upper body to tremble. The corners of Ben’s mouth curved up. He’d noticed. “The first floor is the band’s—storage, practice. Been thinking about building a recording studio in there…Billy uses the third and fourth floors to store all his old bikes. And I live on the top floor.”

Two entire floors of emptiness separated him from the rest of the world. And now that her jacket was unzipped, she was just that much closer to naked. In a freight elevator.

He leaned in, one hand on the seat in front of her, the other behind her bottom. He wasn’t touching her, but only by millimeters. Otherwise, he had her most intimate areas surrounded. The tip of his nose brushed against her forehead, then down to her ear. “Did you like the ride?”

“Seemed fast.” Like speed-of-sound, life-flash-before-your-eyes fast.

His lips caressed her neck. “I can do slow, if that’s what you want.” He shifted, and he went from not touching her to touching her—a small difference, but one that sent shock waves through her center. One of his fingers was between her and the leather seat. She gasped when he moved again—the smallest movement possible, but one that hit that secret spot in just the right way. “Very slow,” he murmured, his lips tracing the curve of her jawline.

A bed? Who needed a bed? Josey pushed his jacket aside and dug her fingers into the swath of muscles he called shoulders. Ben exhaled extra hard against her skin and rolled his hand so that he was cupping her. Tightly.

Her body bore down against his hand as he pushed back against her. He rolled his fingers against her jeans, and she had to bite down on something to keep from screaming. His shoulder did the job. Did people get naked in freight elevators? At the rate they were going, would they even make it to naked?

The elevator answered the question for her. It lurched to a stop, breaking all the wonderful tension of the moment and coming way too close to knocking her off the bike—and Ben’s hands.

He caught her around the waist before she fell. “We’re here,” he said with that mischievous smile as he guided her off the bike.

Thank goodness, because between the bike ride and the slow, slow touches, she was so close already. Any reservations she might have had about coming home with him were long gone, burned away under the heat of some hard facts. The fact was, she had never physically needed a man so much in her entire life. The fact was, Ben Bolton was more than willing and, she had no doubt, extremely capable. The fact was, she wanted him, and that alone was enough of a reason.

His hand tight around her waist and his body pressed to hers, Ben held her for a second while she checked to see if her legs were up to the task of standing before he let her go and opened the gate. Josey braced herself for the expected onslaught of gray as Ben opened the elevator gate. He wheeled his bike out, which was weird enough. Who parked in their house?

“Hang on just a second,” he said as he rolled off into the darkness. “Let me get the light.”

Seconds later, fluorescent lights flickered on over to her left, and Josey found herself next to a full garage. Bright red tool chests—five of them—formed a wall in back, with work benches loaded with all sorts of power tools. Ben rolled his bike to the center of the open space and parked it.

“You live in a garage?”

He gave her a big smile as he closed the distance between them. Her face flushed as he leaned down into her, his lips grazing her temple. “Not quite,” he said as he reached behind her and punched some buttons.

One by one, rows of lights flickered on down an aisle that was nearly thirty feet wide. Every fifteen or twenty feet, couches and chairs sat grouped around rugs. White modern chairs sat on a huge black shag rug; chocolate-colored leather sofas crowded Persian rugs. She counted three pseudo-living rooms that stretched back for what looked like a half mile. The space was huge, like measured-not-in-square-feet-but-square-miles huge. She craned her neck upward, searching for a ceiling. Eventually, she was able to see the duct work, but it was maybe twenty feet over her head. The light was bright and airy. Open. Free.

“Whoa.” Josey stood in openmouthed shock. This was not what she’d expected. Not even close.

“Come on,” Ben said in her ear, causing her to start. For a moment, she’d been so stunned she’d forgotten he was there. She wanted him—oh, how she wanted him—but the magnitude of this place was something else. “Let me show you around.”

Before she could be disappointed in this pronouncement, he planted his hand firmly around her waist and guided her to the first seating area, the one with white velvet divans and the shag rug. When they got there, two sets of lights flickered on either side of the aisle.

There was more. Much more.

“You’ve seen the garage. Then there’s my drums and the game room. On the other side in the back is the guest room, then the gym and movie room.”

“Oh.” Which was not terribly verbose, true, but sounded a heck of a lot better than saying, “You have your own movie room?” She did a slow turn. They weren’t rooms, per se, but one area was divided from the next by low walls that looked like they were constructed entirely of glass bricks. The glass caught the overhead lights and reflected brightness around the room. The game room had a TV that looked big enough to be a supporting wall—and the movie room had a similarly huge screen. The main difference was the seating—recliners for the movies, low rockers for the games. A third TV—a smaller one—hung over a rack of free weights, in front of the treadmill.

She spun back to find Ben watching her, his eyes blazing. Without another word, he slid her jacket off her, his fingers brushing against the bare skin on her arms the whole way down. He leaned over her to drop the jacket on one of the sofas—and, in the process, brushed his lips over her neck.

“I like to watch whatever I want, whenever I want,” he breathed against her skin. The shiver that ran down her body pushed her into his chest. “Hmm,” he hummed against the pulse that was pounding wildly at the base of her neck. But he didn’t kiss her, darn it.

Instead, he took her hand and led her toward the next area with the Persian rug. When they got there, the lights behind them shut off and the lights around them turned on. “Pool table and bar,” he said, nodding toward the left side as he pushed her down on a leather sofa. His hands stroked her shoulders as he added, “Library and office on the other side.”

Had a house tour ever sounded sexier? His voice was low, almost silky, with just a hint of the roughness that made her vibrate with desire.

The pool table and bar were deep mahogany. The lights caught the collection of crystal stemware, making the room gleam with a warmth that invited her to belly up to the bar. The library had a wall of books and another plush, expensive-looking rug underneath a leather recliner that looked comfortably broken in. The office was more Spartan, with just a carved desk and enough technology to run a small corporation in it.

Ben knelt before her, running his hands down over her thighs. This was some sort of torture—he was touching her, making her ache, making her want him more with each featherlight caress—but none of this was him throwing her down and ravishing her. The weight between her legs was painful.

Instead of reaching up and addressing that weight directly, he tugged her boots off her feet. “You seem stunned.”

“It’s stunning.” She’d been in fancy New York apartments with their custom interior decorating jobs and opulent wealth. Heck, her grandparents’ apartment hadn’t been anything shabby. The stunning thing wasn’t so much the opulence—it was that it was Ben’s opulence.

In New York, this sort of apartment would run the superrich upward of twenty million dollars. Even though they weren’t in New York, it still had to have set Ben back at least a couple million. Obviously, his own margins were not nearly so sharp or skinny. Obviously.

“I’m glad you like it.” He ran his fingers over the now-exposed soles of her feet. What should have flat-out tickled sent shivers of pleasure racing over her. He leaned forward and kissed the top of her thigh through her jeans. The shudder was harder this time, her body dying to respond to his. But he stopped and pulled her to her feet. She all but sank into the rug.

“Just a few more.”

More?

Ben led her to the next living room. This one had an abstract rug and furniture that looked well-loved—like he actually used these. As they neared, the lights behind them flickered off and the next set came on.

“Wow,” Josey said. A long table was on her left, with seating for twelve. For the first time, she noticed what was on the wall behind the table. A painting that had to be at least twenty feet long and twelve feet high took up the whole wall. An abstract riot of red ran circles around an off-center yellow sun. “Was that one month’s rent?”

“That I bought outright.” Ben’s arms circled her waist. “The smaller pieces are rent.” He grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and this time, she didn’t stop him. Don’t stop, she thought. House tour, seduction—it was all one and the same. “The kitchen is next to it, and on the other side is my closet.”

She would have felt self-conscious at this combination undressing and tour, but she remembered the way he’d kissed her that first time at the school—after grilling her about salaries and students. Always processing the facts, she thought as he hooked his hands into her waistband and undid the button on her jeans.

He slid his hands down over her panties as he pulled her jeans free. Heat radiated from his palms against her bare legs. “The bathroom is behind the kitchen. The bedroom is on the other side.” He followed the jeans down, kissing between her breasts and then down her belly.

Normally, she’d be looking for the bedroom, because they’d need a bed. But in this place? It was no understatement to say that he literally had fifty different places that would do just fine.

She stepped free of the pants. Thank heavens she’d had the foresight to wear the matching bra and panties, and that the matching was of a black lace sort. Black lace seemed appropriate to her surroundings.

Ben stood, leaving a trail of heat up her backside as his chest warmed her front. “Obviously beautiful,” he said, and she heard the way his voice shook. Then he kissed her as he pulled her hips against his.

From a primal part of her brain, she crowed in victory. He could act all cool and collected, stripping her nearly bare while he showed off the industrial palace he called home, but no man could emerge unscathed from the full impact of black lace.

The tour was done, as of now. She pushed him back, reveling in the power she suddenly had over this man. Or maybe not so suddenly, she realized. Maybe now, he was just giving up his control. He was giving it to her.

“Bedroom, you say?” She trailed one finger down his chest, hooking it into his belt just above his throbbing erection. Another shudder went through her as a warm wetness rushed to that spot between her legs. She worked his belt out of the first loop and slipped it free of the buckle.

His eyes drifted shut, and he sucked in a hard breath. “Yeah. The bedroom.”

“Do you have…” Condoms could suck the romance right out of a room, but she’d promised to be safe. So this was her, being safe. While she began to unbutton his jeans.

“Several.” He grabbed her hands and moved them away from his pants. So maybe he wasn’t giving up all of his control.

How nice was it to not have to argue or plead or cajole about condoms? To be with a man smart enough to know they were non-negotiable?

Things were about to get interesting.

He led her farther back. The lights behind them shut off as one small light came on behind a full wall of glass bricks that completely hid the bed from the rest of the wide-open spaces. The glass curved back toward the end of the space, which was a wall of windows that reached from floor to ceiling.

A bed the size of a small country sat in the middle of the room—for this truly was a room—with another abstract painting in softer greens and blues hanging overhead. The sheets were a pristine white with hospital corners so perfectly crisp that she was afraid to mess them up.

Still holding her hand, Ben stepped around the far side of the bed. An old-fashioned reading lamp stood on a table next to the bed. He let go of her to open one of the drawers and pull out a box of condoms—ribbed for her pleasure, she saw. Of course Ben would have planned ahead.

Condoms, check. Bed, check. Desirable, gorgeous man, double check.

Things were about to get very interesting.

Josey’s hands shook as she peeled off his T-shirt. Finally, she was going to see what all those muscles looked like.

Her breath faltered as she revealed the true magnitude of the body that man was packing underneath his clothing. He was chiseled. She’d known his biceps were a sight to behold—all that drumming—but his chest? She had to touch it. He had a small thatch of glossy black hair between pecs of steel. Her fingers traced the six-pack of his abs all the way down to the V of his waist as it cut down hard under his briefs.

He sucked in another breath when she ran her fingers under the fabric. When she ran into something soft yet very, very hard, he grabbed at her again. “Whoa, whoa. I thought you wanted to take it slow.” The strain in his voice was unmistakable. Ben Bolton was a man just barely hanging on to his self-control.

“I never said that.” She gave him a shove, sending him back into the bed. “Maybe I don’t want it slow.” She grabbed hold of his briefs and yanked them off. “Maybe I want it a little rough, a little gritty.”

The word gritty died on her tongue as he sprang free from the last of his clothes. He was huge. Well, all of him was huge—this part was to perfect scale.

She didn’t have long to gawk. Ben sat up with a sickeningly easy grace and snatched her hands, pulling her down onto the bed as he rolled over. Before she knew it, she was pinned underneath a naked, aroused man. All that hugeness hung heavy against her leg as he nuzzled her neck.

“My place, my rules. And the first rule is, ladies first. I want this to be memorable.”

As he kissed down her neck, Ben let go of her hands and moved lower. Oh, yes, she wanted a memory. But not just one.

No, she didn’t just want this night in this bed.

She wanted more.

The clasp on the front of her bra gave, and cold air rushed to beat Ben’s hot mouth. He hovered above her for a cool second before he rasped his tongue over her nipple. The total shock of the sensation didn’t have time to fully register before he lowered his whole mouth onto her and fiercely sucked at her flesh. The exquisite pleasure cut through her moodiness. Her hips bucked, but he used his full weight to push her back down to the bed.

“Slow down, woman,” he said as he kissed the space between her breasts. “We’ve got all night.”

She tried to say something, but he latched onto her other breast at the same time he nudged her legs apart with his knees. Then that hugeness was pulsing against her black lace, and Josey officially stopped caring about more or less. She just needed to let go of the climax that had been building all night. Heck, if she was being honest, it had been building since she’d first seen Ben Bolton fill a doorway.

That’s all she wanted right now. She needed to be filled.

Lucky for her, Ben was up to the task.

“I like these,” he murmured against her belly, his hands slipping underneath her panties to cup her backside and pull her legs farther apart. “You’re beautiful in them.”

“I wore them for you,” she managed to say in between gasps.

Ben’s mouth moved lower and lower. He nipped at her thigh and traced a path to where she’d neatly trimmed her bikini line. He paused, and Josey found herself wishing she’d gotten a Brazilian. Ben was probably used to girls who were waxed bare, but she didn’t have the time, money or pain threshold to do that—man or no man.

As this panicked thought started to whirl around her head, Ben hummed, a noise that sounded suspiciously like satisfaction. “So beautiful,” he said as he parted her and ran his tongue—slowly—over her very center.

She let out a cry as he licked her.

Beautiful.

Here, with him, she felt beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with bikini lines or lace panties, but had everything to do with the way he made her feel. Like she was someone special to him. Someone more.

Her body rocked against his, but he wrapped his arms around her legs and held her open as he licked and sucked and kissed harder and harder. Their bodies fell into a rhythm. There was nothing for Josey to do but find something to hold on to and enjoy the ride. She buried her hands in his hair and held on tight.

Higher and higher she flew, until there was nothing left in her world except the pulsing point of contact between her flesh and his. With expert skill, he pushed her past anything she’d ever experienced before until her whole body pulsed with an exploding tightness and she cried out. Even as the climax unleashed its full force upon her, he swept his tongue over her, refusing to let her go numb and weak.

“So beautiful,” she heard him say as he sat back on his heels and wiped his face. She knew she should say something, but nothing came out. Not even his name.

If he was offended, he didn’t show it. Instead, with one corner of his mouth ever-so-slightly curved up, he leaned over and grabbed the condoms off the side table. There was nothing slow about the way he ripped the wrapper open, or the way he rolled it on. But the moment he was sheathed, he took his sweet time kissing his way back up to her lips. All his hugeness pulsed against where she was wetter than she’d ever been before.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast for you,” he breathed, his lips just barely touching hers. His voice was low and husky.

“Just right.”

He pulled back a little and ran a finger over her slick opening before fitting himself to her. “You’re just right.”

She braced herself for the pain of losing her virginity all over again, but it didn’t happen. Ben eased into her at a gentle pace, and Josey was amazed to feel her body take him in without so much as a whimper. All she felt was the sensual joy of his body joining hers. The way he filled her was breathtaking in its satisfaction.

“Josey,” he whispered against her neck, and it felt like a prayer.

Then he began to move. Back and forth, he rocked into her. She took everything he gave her and came back for more. And more. And more. Their bodies found that rhythm again, but faster and faster this time, until they’d left “slow” in the dust.

This time, when the world exploded around her, she cried out his name when she came.

With a guttural noise of satisfaction, Ben thrust harder and harder. Still vibrating through the climax, Josey couldn’t do anything but hold on to him. He drove deep and groaned as a third, smaller climax hummed through her body. Ben collapsed onto her, making it hard to breathe, but she didn’t care.

She’d never felt so whole in her entire life.

He kissed her neck as he pulled out, but he didn’t roll off her. “We fit,” he said, sounding a little amazed.

She couldn’t help but smile. Fit wasn’t a big-enough word to describe how their bodies had become one—how he’d taken his time to make sure she’d been ready for him. To heck with not being able to breathe. She wrapped her arms around his back and held him tight.

“We do.”

She felt his lips curve against her skin before he lifted himself free of her. “I’ll get the lights,” he said as rolled out of bed and walked out of the room.

Wow. How did he get a butt that fine? Was it the weights, the treadmill—or the motorcycle?

Alone, Josey scooted back until she found some pillows. On the other side, lights flickered on. She could just make out Ben’s dark shape, but the particulars were sadly lost to the glass wall’s distortion. She pulled the sheet around her, her head swimming and her body tingling. He’d driven her here, but she hadn’t been presumptuous enough to pack a change of clothes.

Now what?