Chapter Four
They were back inside a couple of minutes later, continuing the tour. The apartment really was a breathtaking example of an art deco interior, which Juliet would have appreciated a lot more had it not been for the constant sexual awareness of Ryder.
The strong tug of desire following her around.
As it was, though, she found it hard to concentrate on the boldness of the highly lacquered, geometric floor pattern or the beauty of the Tiffany light fixtures. The rich wood, chrome, and marble that had all been used to dazzling effect didn’t really have their full impact.
It was hard to see the polished, sleek lines so typical of art deco when his big deep voice rumbled over her like a physical caress. Then there was his heat and his scent. Passionfruit and beer.
So damn distracting…
She came out of her stupor as soon as she entered the main bathroom. The classic black and white colour scheme and the Ziggurat skyscraper tile pattern in the shower made her want to strip her clothes off and get in. But it was the mint condition mirrored vanity unit that left her gasping.
“This is gorgeous.”
Juliet placed her beer down before running her hands over the mirrored surface. She crouched before it, her image reflecting in all the blemish-free glass as she caressed the crystal drawer knobs. “The crinkled serpentine shape of the front is spectacular, and it’s in such good nick.”
She stood again, admiring how the light from above gleamed and sparkled in all the mirrored surfaces, highlighting its pristine condition.
Finally she dragged her eyes off it, lifting them to meet his in the massive wall mirror mounted directly above the vanity—another authentic bevelled piece of the era. “Where did you get it?”
He was leaning casually in the doorway behind her. “It came with the apartment.”
“Wow.” Juliet’s hands glided over the mirrored surface.
It should have been screamingly feminine, but all his stuff lined up against the wall—shaving foam, razors, aftershave, deodorant, mouthwash—transformed it. She picked up a small silver dish holding a cake of soap, lifting it to her nose and sniffing.
She flicked her gaze up. “That’s why you smell like passionfruit.” She tried to sound casual, but her voice betrayed the sudden rollover of her stomach as he pushed off the doorway and prowled closer.
“My mother makes it.”
He stopped behind her, almost touching but not quite as their eyes locked. He was bigger and broader than her, the shape of him in the mirror dwarfing the shape of her, her reflection dissolving into his.
Warmth radiated from his body like a furnace, seeping into her back, flowing like warm treacle down her spine, oozing between her legs, infecting everything in its path with a sluggish, wanton heat.
Except her nipples.
They beaded like he’d applied ice cubes to the two tight points reflecting back at them. His gaze dropped and lingered, her nipples screamingly taut beneath his sustained scrutiny. He glanced up again, their gazes meshing once more, the air in her lungs as thick as soup.
He took one more step, his body coming into full contact with hers. Juliet sucked in a breath as one hand slid onto her hip, the other pushing his beer bottle onto the vanity next to hers. The movement glided the length of his erection against the cleft of her ass, and she swallowed.
“How do you know all this stuff?” His voice was low as he dropped his head to nuzzle her neck, maintaining eye contact the whole time. “About art deco.”
Juliet barely suppressed the moan rising in her throat as his lips excited everything they touched. She didn’t want to talk about architecture or interior design. She wanted to arch her back and roll her hips, push her ass into the delicious heaviness of his cock.
She was so turned on—by their reflection, by the state of her nipples, by the press of his lips—she could barely form a coherent sentence.
“I studied fine art.” She dropped her head to the side to give him better access, panting softly as his tongue swirled against her skin. “I did a couple of architecture subjects.”
“Put your arms around my neck.” His whisper was hot in her ear. Goose bumps scattered over her scalp and neck and fanned farther south to her nipples.
“W…why?” Her senses were muddled with beer and passionfruit and the low rasp of his voice.
“Because…” His low murmur promised so much. “We’ve done the kissing bit, now comes the feeling up bit.”
Juliet’s internal muscles rippled as tentacles of desire wrapped around them. She was hopeless to do anything, her body completely disconnected from her brain.
“Like this.” He slid his left hand onto her left arm and guided it up behind his neck. “And this.” He repeated the movement on the other side.
Juliet swallowed at the sight before her. Her back snug with Ryder’s front. His big, hard body behind her. Her arms up behind his neck. Her breasts thrust out.
“Keep them there.”
It wasn’t an order. It was a plea. The urgency in his low, rough voice plucked at the taut muscles slung between the jut of her hipbones. She wouldn’t have moved her hands even if she had been physically able.
“Watch.” His voice dropped lower and rougher again as his hands trailed down her ribs on either side. “Watch how beautiful you are.”
Juliet’s pulse whooshed through her ears. Her breath, dry and hot, caught in her throat as his fingers played with the hem of her shirt. He smiled at her in the mirror. “You said above the waist, right?”
She swallowed. “Yes.” It was a parched whisper, her throat dry as the sand on Coogee Beach.
He tugged at the hem slowly, unhurriedly pulling it up. The material was brutally elastic, the kind that moulded to everything, kept everything in place…
The undersides of her breasts came into view first, pale in contrast to the even golden tan kissing the rest of her skin. The timbre of his breathing roughened, the press of his cock more urgent as the material inched higher. The two white triangles of her full, soft breasts came next followed by the tight pebbles of her nipples before her breasts swung completely free of the confines of fabric, fully exposed to view.
To his view.
Ryder’s breath hissed out, his pupils dilated as he stared at her, her shirt rucked up high, forming a tight band across the top of her breasts.
“God.” His voice rasped into the charged atmosphere. “Look at you.”
She did look, warmth stealing into her cheeks. He was fully clothed and she was half exposed. She looked utterly wanton.
“You’re beautiful, Juliet.”
She couldn’t speak, she could only watch as his palms slid onto her belly, her abdominal muscles visibly jumping beneath his touch, liquefying as his hands smoothed upwards.
Her breath stuttered out heavy and loud in the silence. So did Ryder’s, his gaze glued to their reflection, to the slow sweep of his hands as they left the flat plane of her stomach and the bumps of her ribs to cup the soft weight of her breasts.
Juliet moaned at the touch, her eyes fluttering closed at the wild clench of her sex, the muscles of her inner thighs and ass dissolving.
His mouth pressed to her ear. “Look at us, Juliet.”
Juliet’s belly flopped at the us. Not look at you. Or look what I’m doing to you. But look at us. She opened her eyes, her breath hitching at the sight of his hands framing her breasts, biting back a cry as he dragged his thumbs across the achingly hard tips of her nipples.
“You like that?” His gaze flicked to hers in the mirror, locking with hers, drilling into hers, demanding an answer.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“They’re so hard.” He stroked her nipples. “Yet so soft.” His hand squeezed her breasts at the same time his thumbs brushed over her again, and she cried out this time, not bothering to bite it back.
“Jesus.” Juliet was pleased to hear he sounded as shaky as she felt. “You do like that.”
She was panting now, her lips parted, watching him in the mirror, watching her nipples darken at the stimulus, needing him to keep touching her, achingly aware that he held her pleasure in the palms of his hands.
“You want more?” His mouth brushed her temple, the side of her neck, as his thumbs flicked back and forth over the tips of her nipples, showering thousands of tiny sparks across her skin.
She gasped and arched her back, every flick of his thumb a tiny zap to her clit.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Her voice was husky, but she’d found it.
Of course she wanted more.
“Good.” His low growl vibrated against her earlobe as his fingers trailed up her breasts, pinching her nipples between thumb and forefinger.
Juliet cried out at the exquisite pleasure and pain of it, a hot jolt sizzling like an electric shock between her legs. “Easy,” he crooned as she fought to suppress the sounds of desperation pushing at her throat.
But it was impossible to go easy as Ryder plucked and pulled, rolled and twisted. Arousal thrummed through her veins and leadened her eyelids, but she forced herself to watch him. To watch herself. To see her flushed cheeks and the uneven rise and fall of her chest and the manic glitter in her eyes.
To see the corresponding glitter in his.
She’d never seen anything like the way Ryder was looking at her, utterly mesmerised by what he was doing, his gaze glued to his hands touching her so intimately. Glued to the thrust of her chest and the responsiveness of her nipples.
She’d never thought the reflection of a fully-dressed man caressing a half-naked woman could be such a turn on until she was that woman.
Test driving a guy didn’t usually involve such levels of exposure. Making out with him, usually in the dark, on a couch or a bed or against a wall, was more of a blind grope than anything else.
Eyes shut, mouths open, hands everywhere.
It wasn’t about looking at each other as much as it was about feeling good, hiding everything that really mattered behind kisses and touches and moans of pleasure.
Standing in front of a mirror with the guy? There was nowhere to hide. Everything she felt was on display. And not just the physical arousal of her body in all its nuances, but her thoughts as well, writ so plainly on her face that she should never ever take up poker.
It made her feel vulnerable in a way she’d never been with a man. It should have frightened her. She was out of here in two months.
But it only excited her more.
He pinched harder suddenly, clamping her nipples, and she gasped, her back arching, their eyes locking. He released them quickly from their torment, sensation flooding like a waterfall to the wild pulse fluttering between her legs.
Was it possible to come from nipple stimulation alone?
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” His voice was rough as he pinched again. Harder. Holding longer before releasing. She moaned and ground her ass back into him.
The pulse started to hammer.
“It’s starting to hurt down there, huh?”
Hurt? It was agony. She barely knew this man, he barely knew her, but he knew that about her?
He pinched harder this time, twisting just a little and holding. Juliet whimpered at the ecstasy wrapped up in a hot dash of pain. “Your pussy’s desperate for cock, isn’t it?”
Juliet had never been a fan of the word pussy. She’d certainly never been turned on by it. But the way Ryder said it, all low and dirty and so damn knowing, caused a surge of arousal from the pinched tips of her nipples to the roar between her legs.
She wasn’t just desperate for cock. She had a vibrator at home for that. She was desperate for his cock.
“I can help you with that,” he offered, releasing the pinch.
Juliet gasped as her nipples flooded with hot needles of pleasure. His right hand slipped from her breast and she moaned, protesting the absence.
“It’s okay,” he murmured as it smoothed down her ribs and her stomach, her muscles undulating beneath his touch. His fingers stopped as they encountered the wide band of her tights sitting low on her hips. “I’m going to need your permission to go below the waist.”
His voice was gravelly as his middle finger slipped just beneath the band, brushing lightly against her skin.
Juliet stared at their reflection. One big hand lay flat against her belly, the other cupped and fondled her breast. Her nipples were a dark reddish-brown from the torment. She didn’t recognise the woman who stared back, her face all flushed, her mouth parted, her head fallen back against his chest, having lost its capacity to support itself.
“Juliet?”
His urgent prompt dragged her gaze down, to where his finger pushed lower, disappearing entirely beneath her tights while his remaining fingers stayed firmly on the outside. It found the lacy edge of her underwear and stopped, brushing back and forth.
“Just the one finger.” His voice was like gravel. “That’s all I need.”
Juliet moaned and closed her eyes against the wickedly delicious thought of it—watching him get her off, with just one finger.
That’s all I need.
Fuck… Even his arrogance was sexy.
She opened her eyes, thrilling at the sight of him pawing her, one hand on her breast, the other down her pants. “Yes.” Her tongue flicked out to wet dry lips. “Hurry.”
He smiled triumphantly, his nostrils flaring as his middle finger slipped under the barrier of her underwear. The waistband of her tights dragged lower, dipping in the middle, as he slid into the slick folds of her pussy.
Juliet cried out at the delicious invasion, arching her back and curling her fingers into his neck.
“Jesus Christ.” He pressed his face into her nape and groaned. It echoed down her spine and she shivered. “You’re so fucking wet.” He lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers in the mirror, hot and heavy.
She was. She could feel the warm slick between her legs, smell the musky aroma of her arousal. He’d done that to her with his mouth—kissing and dirty talking her into an embarrassing state of wetness.
The man should be working a sex hotline. Women would pay good money to come to that voice.
“So wet,” he muttered again, staring at her reflection as his finger found the hard nub of her clitoris and circled. She moaned and he smiled triumphantly. “Oh yes, right there.”
Juliet nodded as muscles deep inside her pelvis rippled in pleasure. “Yes. God. Yes. Right there.”
The wall mirror cut off at hip level so she couldn’t see his hand getting her off. All she could see was the dip of her tights and the strong bulk of his wrist, the tendons shifting beneath the skin with each stroke of her clit.
But she didn’t need to see it. All she needed to see was the expression on his face—lust and arousal. And the expression on hers—pure and utter delirium.
Juliet flexed her hips, chasing the pleasure he was building as his finger worked her clit, hot and urgent. Her ass brushed his erection and he groaned.
“Yes.” His nostrils flared in the mirror. “Show me how you like it. Tell me what you need.”
She wasn’t sure if it was her heart hammering so hard or his, or whether they were beating in perfect, frantic unison. She just knew her entire body thrummed to a primal beat.
“Harder,” she choked out.
He groaned and went harder, his finger almost brutal against the taut bundle of nerves as she rocked her hips shamelessly in rhythm to the stimulus. “Yes.” His voice was a low grunt in her ear. “Ride my hand.”
Juliet moaned, unbelievably turned on by the suggestion, dragging in much-needed oxygen as she bucked and ground, trying to wring every moment of pleasure from the hard pressure of his finger.
“Next time,” he said, keeping up the rhythm, his gaze locked with hers, “I’m going to get on my knees in front of you and use my tongue. I bet you taste good down there.”
The imagery of him going down, the intensity of his stare, and the hard clamp on her nipple pushed her over the edge. A white-hot pinpoint of intense pressure deep inside flared and ruptured.
She gasped, stiffened, a nonsensical cry falling from her parted lips. “Ryder! Oh…oh…”
“Yessss.” Satisfaction purred in his voice as he watched her reach her climax in the mirror. “Come for me. I want to watch you.”
Her orgasm broke over her, blooming outwards, cascading through her buttocks and thighs, undulating up her spine, twisting through her pelvis, clamping tight and releasing in rhythmic spasms that pulsed out wave after wave of incandescent pleasure.
His gaze was as intense as the relentless drive of his finger, watching every nuance of her face as she shuddered and bucked through the onslaught, whispering, “Yes, yes, yes,” over and over in her ear as he pinched and released her nipple.
It was too much. Too much pleasure. Too much everything. Her heart beat like a kettle drum, her breathing blew like a hurricane, her ears rang with the deep rumble of his approval.
Her nostrils were full of their scent—passionfruit and musk—and her legs threatened to buckle.
It utterly consumed her.
Then, as quickly as it had started it cut out, ripping one last cry from her throat before evaporating like the water droplets in a rainbow. “Stop.” She slid her hand to his wrist, grasping it, the slick flesh between her legs suddenly unbearably sensitive.
He stopped, withdrew his hand, slid it onto her hip, his other hand leaving her breast to grasp her opposite hip. He smiled at her slow and easy in the mirror as she struggled to reassemble all the scattered pieces of her body.
“That was spectacular.”
Juliet gave a half laugh. “It was all right.”
He grinned, clearly unconcerned at her understatement and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “You were…” He shook his head, his gaze dropping to her breasts, lingering on the flushed tips of her nipples for a moment before he gently pulled her shirt down. “Magnificent.”
She unlocked her arms from his neck, sliding them onto the mirrored surface of the vanity. Her legs were about as substantial as wet noodles, and she didn’t quite trust they’d keep her upright.
“You were magnificent.” She shook her head at what had just occurred, not quite able to comprehend how much of herself she’d exposed to him considering none of her clothes had hit the floor. “I was just…an upright starfish.”
The thought obviously amused him and he laughed. “Does this mean I passed the test drive?”
“Seriously?” She quirked her eyebrow at him. “You aced it, slugger. Go to the top of the class.”
“Even though I went below the waist?”
Juliet snorted. “I’ll forgive you. Just this once. But for what’s it worth, I think you could have probably gotten me off just with the nipple thing.”
“Really?” His eyes narrowed speculatively as they checked out her chest again. “Man. I am good.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head.”
He grinned. “It’s too late for one and the other one couldn’t possibly get any more swollen at the moment.”
His body was still jammed against hers, the thickness of his erection obvious against the small of her back. “Yes. I can tell.” She rubbed the cleft of her ass against it, satisfied to hear the quick intake of his breath and feel the dig of his fingers into her hips.
“Can you text your flatmate and let her know you’re going to be a little late?”
Juliet checked her watch. She had ten minutes to get home. Time sure flew when a man was fingering you to orgasm in front of his bathroom mirror. “No.” She rolled her eyes. “How will she know it’s not the serial killer texting her, pretending to be me?”
He gave a strained half laugh as he held her tight against him. “You chicks have these serial killers all figured out, don’t you?”
Juliet grinned. “Starting to hurt down there, huh?”
He grimaced. “I should have known that was going to come back and bite me on the ass.”
She smiled and turned in his arms, raising on her tip toes, kissing him hard and quick, only a stretchy piece of Lycra and a scrap of silk and lace between his big, hard cock and her wet, throbbing core. When she tried to separate, he hung on, bending her back over the vanity as his tongue swept into her mouth in a thoroughly dirty kiss.
By the time he released her, she was breathless and the embers between her legs had flared to life. “I’ve got to go.” Her voice trembled with the need to have him.
He wiped his thumb slowly over his mouth as if to savour her taste a little longer before taking a step back. “Of course.”
Juliet cleared her throat, wishing it was as easy to clear the fog from her brain and the traitorous whisper still in her cells. She stepped around him and headed out, turning once she’d reached the doorway.
His ass was leaning against the vanity, his legs stretched out in front of him. For a man who was sporting a hard-on the size of Sydney Harbour Bridge he was looking pretty damn casual.
“Thanks for the beer. And the…test drive.”
“My pleasure.”
“Actually, I think it was all mine.”
“Hell no, woman.” His slow, easy smile lit his face. “Watching you get off like that…” He shook his head. “Hands down, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Juliet was stupidly flattered. He probably said that to all the girls. “You must have really bad porn where you’re from.”
He laughed. “Nothing beats a real live woman in the throes of a real live orgasm that you’ve been responsible for.”
“Ryder.” If he was trying to make her horny again, he was succeeding. “I really have to go.”
His gaze told her he knew exactly what he was doing, but he held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Fine. Can I see you again?”
There was nothing on earth that could have stopped her. “I’m free tomorrow night.”
Something flicked quickly in his eyes before he nodded. “Shall we go to the pub?”
She frowned. “You have something on.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Juliet leaned her shoulder into the door frame. “You do.”
“Just a poker night with some of the team. It’s on every Wednesday night. I won’t be missing anything.”
She shook her head. “No.” Whatever was happening between the two of them, it could only be temporary. It made no sense for him to be giving up his routine for her.
“I don’t give one fuck about the poker game.”
But Juliet did. “No. How about Thursday night?”
“Yes but—”
She cut it him off. “Thursday it is. In the meantime, let me make it up to you by offering to dog sit Tiny for you tomorrow. Save your apartment from potential ruin.”
As if the Great Dane had been waiting around the corner, ready to hear his name, he appeared. He sat beside Juliet without being asked and she cooed at him for a bit before returning to the conversation. “Drop him to me at the shelter until you’re ready to pick him up.”
“I need to leave here at six to be at Henley on time for training, and I have club commitments all afternoon. I was going to go from them to the poker game.”
Juliet shrugged. “That’s okay. Drop him to mine on the way to training. I’ll take him into work and can keep him until you’re done with poker. The apartment has a biggish courtyard.”
“Really?” He shoved his hand through his hair, hope giving his face a boyish kind of innocence. That was no mean feat considering he’d just performed a very adult act upon her person. “That would be awesome.”
She smiled. “One good turn deserves another.”
“Quid pro quo, huh?”
“The least I can do.” Her gaze dropped to the zipper of his shorts, still sporting a significant bulge. “Think you can deal with that thing all by yourself?”
“I think I can manage after twenty-six years.”
She lifted her chin in the direction of the Ziggurat tiling. “Cold shower?”
“That’s one option. Although I do have an awesome new fantasy for my spank bank. It’d be a shame to waste it.”
The thought of Ryder jacking off while he thought of her was wildly exciting. She’d love to be a fly on the wall for that. Or…
“True. On the other hand, you could not do anything about it. And I…a real live woman could help you out with it tomorrow night after poker. Think how much more intense it will be after you’ve denied yourself for a while.”
The bob of his throat was visible from across the room. “Denial sucks.”
“But I could make it worth your while.”
He sighed. “If it doesn’t kill me first.”
Juliet smiled, knowing she had him. “What’s your number? I’ll text you my address.” She plugged it in as he dictated, then pushed off the door frame. “See you in the morning.”
“You couldn’t be naked when you answer the door by any chance?”
Juliet cocked an eyebrow. “Never know your luck in a big city, cowboy.”
She swore she heard him groan as she walked away.