Apparently her well-guarded virginity was all she had to offer Dave, because after they got home, he complained about her lack of response. “It’s like you’re not even there,” he’d said. “I could get the same satisfaction from one of those inflatable dolls.”
Determined to make a go of her marriage, she’d supplemented her white cotton underwear with sexy little nothings from the specialty boutique Saundra Schlossnagel’s mother had added to Ooh La La, then borrowed a couple of X-rated videos from Amy Fassbinder, but nothing seemed to work. What had Dave wanted that she couldn’t give him?
Jase didn’t seem to find her lacking. In fact, he was as hungry for her as she was for him. She moved her hands down to Jase’s shoulders as his shaft nudged her leg.
Slowly, inexorably, he bent her back on the four-poster till they were lying crossways to the headboard, his leg between her thighs, his shoulders pinning her beneath him.
She raised up to claim his mouth, and he gave her a quick kiss as he shifted himself so he was totally over her. A fountain of flame erupted behind her breasts and flowed to the female core of her being.
This was it. She guided his manhood into position. This is where he belonged.
He smoothed her hair and bent down to kiss her once more. Then, reaching down to slick her with saliva, he touched her in just the right spot.
She threw back her head and gasped as a bolt of lightning shot through her and Jase thrust home. Then, encircling his body with her legs, she drew him as close as she could, trying to suck his whole body inside herself.
His dark eyes glittered as he rose above her and began his rhythm.
Now it would be fast.
She met his every stroke, clutching at him with her inner muscles.
She was panting now, little intakes of air accompanied by wispy moans. The window air conditioner was rumbling at top speed, but she was so hot that she felt as if she was going to burst into flames. The bed might break beneath them, but there was no way she could stop. Everything feminine in her was hell-bent on speeding her to the ultimate conclusion.
Suddenly she was soaring beyond the room, beyond the earth, beyond the moon. They were as one being now—she was him and he was her. The waves of release seemed to roll on forever.
Afterward, she lay in his arms, her eyes shut, her fingers trailing down his thigh, her voice a seductive whisper.
“Stay the night.”
Jase lifted her hand and carried it to his mouth to taste the tender palm, just as he’d wanted to do when he’d given her the roses. “Forever.”
The air-conditioning hit their glistening bodies and Laurel began to shiver, so Jase pulled the sheet up over them.
Then he turned off the overhead and returned to bed.
Because total darkness is also an aphrodisiac.
Chapter Nine
Laurel awoke to late morning sunlight streaming through the slits of the blinds. Startled to find herself naked in bed with an equally naked man, she relaxed when she realized he was not just any man, but the man of her dreams.
She sat up against her pillow and rested her arms on her knees to think everything over. She’d made love all night long outside the legal bonds of matrimony, which meant, according to every precept she had grown up with, she was a fallen woman—a slut. She looked toward the window. Maybe she would become the latest town scandal. Who was sleeping with whom might not matter in Hollywood, or even in Dallas, but it did in Bosque Bend, where everybody was into everyone else’s business. If her parents were still alive, they’d be mortified.
Her lips tightened in defiance. But they weren’t alive, and they both had sins of their own to answer for.
She settled back in the bed. Did she herself have any regrets? She looked over at the big man slumbering beside her.
None at all.
Her eyes studied her lover, memorizing him for when he wouldn’t be around anymore. The sheet had slipped down past his waist while he slept, revealing his brawny torso, every inch of which she’d explored last night. She’d licked and kissed the large cicatrix on his shoulder as if to heal it, run her fingers along his muscled arms. Jase was an adult now, nicked and scarred, powerfully built and sexually demanding, and everything that was woman in her responded to him.
His jaw had darkened considerably overnight, making him look almost villainous. Dave had always seemed younger when he slept, more boyish and vulnerable, but Jase looked harder and more dangerous. The taut planes and hard angles of his face took on something of a satanic cast, and his unsmiling mouth seem unforgiving and cruel.
Laurel shivered. Last night he was hers, but how long would that last? How would he react when he learned the truth about Daddy? Would he reject her like Dave had? Would he shun her like everybody else in Bosque Bend?
Suddenly afraid, she leaned closer to him, wondering, searching his face for mercy. As if sensing her scrutiny, he opened his eyes and smiled. “So, you’re here. It was real.”