Chapter Thirteen
The bottom stair creaked under her foot and Joss froze. She didn’t dare even breathe. It sounded like someone had felled a tree and it had crashed through their fence. Her pulse tripped along at a frightening pace. She waited for the house lights to spill into the backyard. For Gus and Damien to charge through the door and demand to know what the hell she was doing.
But nobody came. No lights turned on. It was just her and the night and her fibrillating heart. She breathed again, almost tempted to turn around and go back to bed. Forget this crazy idea and take the edge off her frustration the old-fashioned way. But after tossing and turning for the last hour, she didn’t want to go back to an empty bed.
She didn’t want to deny herself any longer.
She needed it, damn it. She was a grown woman. With a grown woman’s appetites. Being a widow and a mother did not make her sexless.
And Troy wanted her. She knew it on the roadside that night with the lug wrench. She knew it in the bathroom that day. She knew it on the hood of his car under the stars. And she sure as hell knew it tonight when he’d brought her son home after giving him the time of his life.
Yes, he was younger than her. Yes, he was a drifter. Yes, he’d be gone in a couple of weeks. But it was just sex. She wasn’t going to his room at two in the morning to get down on bended knee.
Well…not in the proposing marriage way anyway.
Joss took a steadying breath and tiptoed up the remaining stairs, the moon lighting her way. Her heart was beating even faster as she reached the small landing at the top and it wasn’t from exertion. Her hands were trembling so hard she could barely knock. Considering how loudly her heart was banging she wondered if she even needed to.
But knock she did. Quietly…
Then, nothing. No acknowledgment. No covers rustling. No footsteps. She was conscious of the tip of her ponytail swishing against the middle of her back as she laid her ear to the door, straining to hear anything.
But there was nothing. Just the insects and her heartbeat as she straightened and stood in a quagmire of indecision.
For the love of Mike, what was she doing? Why was she here?
She glanced down her body. What was she wearing? She’d ditched the gown for just her spaghetti-strapped tank top and boxer shorts. Probably not what one of his buckle bunnies would wear to a seduction…
But she didn’t own sexy underwear or satiny negligees anymore. And even if she had, she didn’t have any moves to go with them.
God. What was she doing? She had no game at all.
Humiliation and thwarted desire twisted inside her as the door remained stubbornly closed and Joss conceded it wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t knock again.
She had some pride.
If the man could sleep like the dead with all that frustration built up inside him then maybe she’d been mistaken about how much he wanted her. Maybe he just wasn’t that into her and she’d been mooning over him like some poor, desperate, sex-starved widow.
She cringed at the thought and turned away, taking a step just as the door opened.
“Joss?”
A surge of overwhelming relief at his whisper made her snippy. “Jesus, you took your time.”
Her whisper was more like a hiss in the still of the night.
“You have any idea how hard it is to get into underwear one-handed?”
Of course the man slept naked. Why wouldn’t he?
Her eyes traveled over acres of bare skin kissed by moonlight save for the hard plastic of his splint and the cotton strip of underwear that clung to hips and thighs and hugged his package like they’d been tailor-made.
With supreme effort she dragged her gaze up to his face. His jaw was stubbly and he had a mark on his cheek, which she figured was from the bedclothes. He was a tall, lean streak of cowboy and, as an honorary southern woman, she did want her some of that.
She took a deep breath and recited what she’d practiced on her way up the stairs. “I’m assuming your legendary status extends to the bedroom?”
His gaze ran over her just as thoroughly. Goose bumps broke out in its wake, dusting her skin from top to toe, pebbling her nipples into hard achy points. He stared at them the longest and she almost moaned on his doorstep. His gaze returned to her face and he regarded her with slumberous eyes for several drawn-out beats. “Tell me what you want.”
Joss’s breath hitched. He didn’t know? “I want to…have sex with you.”
He shook his head. “The specifics, Joss. What do you want right now? What do you want first?”
This wasn’t how she’d fantasized it would go down and she’d fantasized about it a lot. She hadn’t expected him to just stand there, stripping her naked with his eyes, doing nothing.
Waiting for her to tell him what she wanted.
She’d thought he’d take control. Had hoped he would. She was rusty at this seduction business after all. But his bluntness was a surprise turn-on, cranking the exquisite burn of desire between her legs.
It made her shaky and wet and her nipples tingled. It made her bold.
“I want you to rip my top off and suck my nipples.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “That specific enough?”
Not so rusty after all.
The long slow bob of his Adam’s apple in the moonlight was gratifying as he grabbed her arm and dragged her inside.
The heat and the soapy aroma of him surrounded Joss as he backed her against the door. He didn’t rip her top off. He didn’t do anything for a moment. Just looked at her. Then, very slowly, very surely, he slid her tank top up, his thigh slipping between hers just as slowly, just as surely. He pushed it up until it was just under her neck and his thigh was wedged high and hard.
Her breath hitched and her nipples, already unbearably taut, puckered to agonizing points, screaming for relief. Part of her wanted to cover up, afraid her B cups may not compare to younger, perkier breasts but the other part wanted to thrust them out in silent invitation.
“Jesus,” he whispered, his gaze devouring the sight of her. “You’re beautiful.”
It had been such a long time since anyone had called Joss beautiful and she wanted to cry but then he bent his head, his hot mouth closing over the hard tip of one breast and it was a different noise wrenched from her throat.
Not a sob. Not a quiet whimper or a low keening moan. Not ladylike. It was a guttural, primitive bellow.
The sound of a woman who hadn’t had her breasts touched by a man in a very long time. A woman whose breasts had always been exquisitely sexual.
“Shhh, baby,” he whispered against her mouth, kissing her quiet, kissing her long and sloppy before breaking away again and bending his head to her other breast.
She came back to herself. Aware of who she was and where they were. Aware that her son and father-in-law weren’t that far away and she’d probably just roused the entire neighborhood. She bit back the next primitive noise pushing against her vocal cords for release, gasping and moaning into his shoulder instead, sinking her teeth into the big rounded ball of it as he pinned her to the door with the wedge of his thigh and the flat of his tongue.
Sucking and licking and swiping, grazing her nipples with his teeth, pressing his thigh hard between her legs until she was so close to orgasm she could barely stand upright.
“Stop,” she said, wrenching his head from her breasts, panting for breath and sense. This time she wanted him to be inside her when she climaxed.
She wanted them to come together.
“What now?” he asked, his eyes glazed, his voice raspy with desire.
The words rushed to her tongue. Graphic, descriptive, dirty. I want to ride you like a cowgirl. But she couldn’t say them. She wasn’t a woman who hung around rodeos hoping for some cowboy action—she was an ER doctor for crying out loud.
“Tell me,” he whispered, hot in her ear, the fingers of his right hand trailing across her chest, around a nipple, down her belly.
Her eyes fluttered closed. His fingers breached the waistband of her boxers.
“You can say it.”
They found the band of her underwear and the muscles directly below clenched tight. Oh God. She clamped her hand on top of his, opened her eyes. “You,” she murmured. “On your bed. Inside me.”
Slowly he eased his thigh away. Joss whimpered at the loss as he picked up her hand and gently tugged, pulling her away from the door. He walked backward, unhurriedly, his eyes glued to the bounce of her exposed breasts, looking his fill. Joss trembled beneath his stare, enthralled by the look in his eyes.
The room may have been dark but her night vision was excellent.
The backs of his knees hit the bed and he stopped. Sat. Sunk back onto his good elbow, his splinted arm resting across his abs. His hot, hungry gaze traveled from her knees all the way up.
“Take off your clothes.”
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. It’d been four years since she’d been naked in front of a man.
“Joss?” He levered himself upright, his hand sliding up the back of her thigh, stopping halfway, his thumb stroking. His gaze moved from her breasts to her face. “I want to see all of you.”
Joss nodded. She wanted him to see all of her too. She wanted to see all of him. It didn’t stop her hands trembling as they crossed over and yanked her top all the way off, nor her thighs quivering as her thumbs hooked into the sides of her boxers and underwear. He slid his hand away so she could push them down and off as one.
She was sure he’d been with women who made stripping in front of a man a work of art. A tease. An integral part of foreplay. That wasn’t her. She was relieved she didn’t land on her ass as she’d kicked her ankles free.
“Joss.”
He stared at her, his gaze raking her from head to foot, a hot wave of pleasure rippling through her belly as he leaned back on his elbow again. His eyes lingered on her unbearably taut nipples and the apex of her thighs, already slicked with her arousal.
“Do you think you could do the honors?” The huskiness of his voice flooded her pelvis with sensation, as potent a stimulus as his tongue on her breasts.
He wanted her. She could hear it.
He lifted his hips off the bed slightly. “It took me long enough to get into these bloody things.”
Joss’s gaze was drawn to his underwear. To the erection stretching the fabric to the limit. Her knees almost buckled at thought inside her.
She planted a knee on the mattress, stroking her fingers up the lean muscles of his thighs to the waistband of his underwear and tugged. He lifted his hips as she peeled them away and she stood again, looking down at him in all his glory.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, her gaze snagged on the rigid perfection of him.
Joss had seen a lot of penises in her life. It was an occupational hazard and, as such, she tended to view them through the lens of a doctor. They were functional organs. Blunt and harsh and efficient. Practical but dangly and…primitive.
Ugly even.
Not something that inspired art or poetry. Not pretty.
She’d been dead wrong.
Troy Jensen’s cock was beautiful. Long and lean like him, lying taut and primed against his belly, the head in perfect proportion, a slender vein full and bulging along the length of the shaft.
He chuckled low. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever called it that.”
She supposed a more practiced woman would have used sexier language. Big. Huge. Mighty. Or other grandiose terms. But she called it like she saw it.
He crooked his finger. “Come here.”
Joss’s breath heated in her lungs but she stayed put. She needed to think now because as soon as she got on that bed, she didn’t want to think again.
Just feel. Let herself go.
“Condom.”
She’d been on the pill when Andy had died and had stopped taking it. Her one-night stand had used a condom. Frankly, she wanted nothing more than to feel all of him, inside all of her. But what kind of doctor would she be if she didn’t practice what she preached?
“Wallet.” He pointed to the bedside table.
Hands shaking, Joss leaned over and extracted the foil packet tucked into one of the credit card slots. She held it up, looking at him, at the desire in his eyes and the hard, potent jut of him.
She hesitated. “I’m—” Her voice cracked and she cleared it. “I’m not going to last very long, I’m afraid.”
He chuckled again. “Hey, you’re talking to the eight-second guy, remember?”
She smiled but it was short-lived as she tried to articulate what she needed. “Can I just…” She petered out, her cheeks heating as she dropped her gaze to her feet.
How could she even ask for that? Speak it out loud?
“Joss.” His voice was low but insistent and she glanced at him. “Anything. You can have anything. What do you want?”
She may have had him by seven years but she felt like an ingénue standing before him. “I want to…” God! Her pulse tripped madly through her temples. “I don’t want to…go slow. I don’t want foreplay. If you kiss me I think I’ll explode into a thousand pieces. I’m too achy and trembly and needy…”
Sweet baby cheeses. She was screwing this up. “I don’t think I can contain myself. I just want to…”
His hot gaze bored into hers. “You just want to fuck?”
God yes, that. The way that word rolled off his tongue like it had been invented especially for him. “Yes.” She nodded. “I need to feel you in me. Now. I just want to…put the condom on and…sink down on top of you until you’re so deep inside I can barely breathe.”
His right hand slid onto his cock, gripping the shaft. “You want to ride me, darlin’?”
Joss’s cheeks turned crimson but she couldn’t look away. He spoke so plainly and touched himself with such ease. Such boldness. It turned her on and he knew it—and that cocky young cowboy was just what she needed right now.
Still she didn’t trust her voice. Didn’t trust that she wouldn’t beg. Or possibly whimper. She just nodded.
“Then hop on board.”
Hop on board. Every nerve cell in Joss’s body fritzed out at the casual suggestion. Just, hop on board. Then the realization it really was that easy filtered through and her system sparked to life.
Joss fumbled with the condom, tearing it open with shaking fingers as she put her knee back on the mattress followed by the other one, spreading her legs as she caged his thighs between hers. She was excruciatingly aware of the mad tingle of her arousal. Of her wetness.
He angled his erection up for her and her mouth watered. She wanted to taste it. Touch it.
Later…
She placed the condom over the head and he rolled it on. “All yours, baby,” he whispered, his hand sliding to her hip, urging her closer.
Joss shuffled closer, her gaze locking with his as she grabbed the base of his erection. He sucked in a breath but she barely heard it as she aligned herself. She gasped as the hard nudge of him slid along screamingly sensitive flesh.
“Yes…baby.” His gaze heated as his hand tightened on her hip. “Just there.”
It was just there. And it felt good. So good. Hard and full, notched at her entrance.
It felt better when she flexed her hips to take more of him, just one flex and she was sinking down. Slowly, so slowly, all the way down.
He groaned as she took him to the hilt. A low, continuous guttural noise that wrapped around her, stroking rough fingers down her spine. “Joss,” he whispered, his hand gripping and releasing her hip. “Jossss.”
Her name sounded like a benediction on his lips, filling her heart as she bottomed out on a low moan. Her back arched as she adjusted to the intrusion, absorbing the long-forgotten feeling of being stretched and full.
Reveling in it.
Suddenly boneless, her neck lost the ability to hold her head upright and it fell back, her eyes fluttering closed.
“You’re magnificent,” he said.
Joss roused to his words, trying to pull all the scattered parts of herself together as the pulse low in her body craved more.
Craved friction and movement. Craved completion.
But her bones felt like lead, her brain like custard and in the end, it wasn’t her who moved, it was him. He curled up, his hot mouth closing over one of her nipples, and she cried out, her internal muscle clamping hard around him as the lead in her bones melted to marshmallow.
His good hand reached behind her, tugging her ponytail, keeping her head tilted and her back arched, presenting her breasts to him on a platter. He flexed his hips, withdrawing a little, her protest moan quickly smothered by a gasp at his re-entry.
It was a perfect thrust. The perfect angle. And he did it again and again, pumping in and out with slow deliberate strokes.
Joss wasn’t exactly doing the riding but she was beyond caring as he picked up pace, hitting the right spot over and over, twisting the tension inside, cranking up the heat, pulling things tighter and tighter. Her heart crashed and her lungs grabbed for air as she sunk her nails into his shoulders for purchase.
His mouth moved to her other nipple and her orgasm was on top of her, flaring from the base of her spine and rippling through her thighs and abs and glutes. Her head snapped up as it coalesced in one cataclysmic implosion.
“Troy!”
It was desperate and needy, more a cry for help than anything else because in that moment the pleasure overwhelmed her. It swamped her in heat and silk and electricity until she feared she would drown in its intensity.
He released her nipple, seeking her mouth. “I know, baby,” he muttered against her lips. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
And he did. He had her. Kissing her greedily through the maelstrom, holding her tight as he rocked her higher and higher, swallowing her gasps and cries, just as she swallowed his when he joined her in the rapture.
Their frantic hearts beating as one.