Chance of a Lifetime (9 page)

He wanted to order her to do things he had no right to demand, particularly if she had no one to back her up and help her change things. He needed to ease off. No more questions. He already had a pretty good picture of what was going on. She’d drawn her knees up to her chest and was rocking on the point of her buttocks, gazing up at the stars. It was a defensive posture. Her fingers clutched her painted toenails, the silver of the cuffs catching the moonlight against her ankles.

She made a very appealing sight, with her head tilted like that. He followed her gaze so he saw the shooting star at the same moment she did.

“Oh—” She glanced at him. “It belongs to you. You saw it at the same time I did.”

“So why should I get it?” He fished a quarter out of the heap of his jeans. “Call it.”

“Tails.”

“Tails it is.”

He saw her fight against a smile. “You didn’t even flip it.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. Make your wish.”

“It seems selfish to take it for myself. Your dreams may be more important. Maybe you’d wish for the cure for cancer.”

“What would you wish for, if you could wish for something just for yourself?”

When she didn’t respond, he reached out, caught hold of the cuffs, lifted her hands to draw her attention back to him. As he did, his thumb caressed the top of her knee.

“What would you wish, Stacie?”

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He wondered if it was the moonlight that made him see the brief glint of tears in her eyes. “I should wish for—”

“Stacie—” With a hand behind her head, he hauled her over to him and put his mouth on hers, capturing her lips, tangling with her tongue. He still held the cuffs in his other hand. He’d been sitting cross-legged, so when she fell against him, her fingertips grazed his pubic hair, tangled there, tugging. Stirring his cock to life, particularly since she was lying half over his lap now. “I’m sure you send out prayers and wishes for your parents like raindrops in Seattle. Probably for world peace as well. For the neighbor’s husband’s colonoscopy, for their dog’s neutering surgery.” When she ducked her head on a nervous chuckle, he brought her back to him with a firm hand to her chin, making her look at him. “You can have one goddamned wish of your own. What is it?”

They were under a blanket of stars where all wishes could be voiced without censure. Stacie struggled to believe that. But with a ghost of a smile, she said, “That would be cheating. You’re not supposed to tell anyone what your wish is.”

He gave her an exasperated look. “I’ve never believed that dreams can be taken away by sharing them.” Then his voice softened. “In fact, it may be the best way to make sure they come true.”

She swallowed. His eyes were so close, searching hers as if he was looking to find her soul. She’d never been looked at so intently by a man in her life.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked quietly. For some reason, she knew he was referring to John. Or perhaps every man she’d known before the cop next to her.

“No. He just didn’t see me. No one has in a long time. But you do.” That’s what she’d liked about his eyes from the beginning. He’d been looking at and seeing everything about her since the moment he’d stopped her.

“If I could have one wish,” she said at last, her voice a shaky whisper, “it would be that this was real. But I’m afraid if it became real, it wouldn’t be the same.”

He feathered a hand over her brow. “It wouldn’t be. It’d be better.”

63

Joey W. Hill

She couldn’t tell from his expression if he was serious or just flirting. “That’s very romantic,” she said at last.

“You’re not a romantic?” He raised a brow.

Desperate
, she thought.
There’s a difference. A difference I can’t forget. Or I’ll ruin how
special this night is.

Jake noticed she didn’t answer him. Just smiled that smile which frustrated the hell out of men. As if women understood the great truth of the universe. That most promises were empty ones.

A man would stubbornly go his own way, like a great white hunter hacking his way through the jungle of his life with a machete, never seeing that what he sought was standing right there with him, with her arms wide open, hoping he’d figure out what mattered the most, the way she had.

Even when his failure to see it broke her heart, a woman like Stacie kept her soul open anyway. A fragile creature who could be fulfilled by something as simple as knowing a man was attempting to love her the best he could. She’d ask for little but need so much it could make a man feel like he was drowning…or that she’d pulled him out of the ocean where he’d been dog paddling for far too long.

“I want you to dance with me,” she said. “Dance with me under the stars. Is that romantic enough?”

Leaving behind his disturbing thoughts, he glanced down at himself. “I’m a little underdressed.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Me too. I don’t mind if you don’t.”

She offered her hands to him and he lifted her to her feet, her palms sliding onto his chest as he gathered her in and began to sway. Their thighs touched so that he felt the lingering dampness of her skin from their joining. His cock rubbed her as she moved, making her curl her fingers on his chest like a cat kneading. When she pressed closer, capturing his cock with light nips between her legs, her pussy teased him. He circled 64

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her waist with an arm and brought her up to her toes, insinuating himself more securely between her legs. Her lips parted, moist.

“You keep that up, honey, I’m going to have you flat on your back again.”

She smiled, turned with him, her bare toes stepping on his lightly as they learned to coordinate their movements. “You use a lot of pet names. I like that. Do you do more than slow dance, Lieutenant?”

He grinned and though he was reluctant to let her go, he eased her back into the first round of a shag step, working around the fact her hands were cuffed to guide her and turn her. She didn’t know the steps, but he took his time and she followed well, giving him time to enjoy the delight in her eyes.

“Some older stuff…” He took her down the aisle of corn in the camel hobble of the stroll then brought her back with the tango, dovetailing it perfectly into a more intimate Latin step that brought his knee between her legs and allowed him to put his hand down low, cupping her ass with his palm to hold her there. He teased her as he shifted, making those hands of hers clutch on his chest more tightly, with less finesse, telling him she was arousing exponentially to the stimulus. When he guided her hands back over his head to press her bare body against the length of his, his cock pressed against a pussy that had gotten much wetter.

Slowing their pace, he held her close and felt curiously humbled when she laid her cheek on his chest, caressing his nape with her fingers. Though he knew she was aroused enough to go for another round, he followed his intuition and didn’t push it.

He found he preferred to experience it this time like a sailboat, riding the rhythmic, slow swells of wake. An easy journey toward the ocean of need where their bodies would join together again.

“You’re a nice man, Jake.”

He laid his jaw on her hair. “How’s that?”

“To know a woman’s fantasy is as much about this as the rest. To be held.” Stacie closed her eyes.
Just held.

65

Joey W. Hill

She listened to his voice rumble through his chest, smiling when he said gruffly,

“I’m as selfish as the next guy. Just using the excuse of cuddling to rest up.”

Stacie tightened her grip on his neck. It was such a perfect meshing of sensations.

This sweet quietness. The pleasurable swirling in her lower belly from the memories they’d recently created, so vivid they couldn’t help but be rippling through her awareness, keeping her nerve endings sensitized to his every touch on her body. The current sensation of his strong hands on her back, one low on her hip, caressing the top of her buttock. Then there was the promise of more pleasure to come, hardening against her hip.

The past, present and future, all possible with the same man. While she knew the dangers of dwelling on the fantasy of a future, she didn’t mind the risk. Some pleasures were worth the pain and this once-in-a-lifetime experience was one of them. Pain would come in life, whether she protected herself from it or not. But this type of moment might never come again.

When they turned, she brushed his instep with her foot so his ankle touched hers.

For the first time, she wished for the cuffs to be off so she could touch him freely, but she liked being at his mercy as well, knowing when he was hard enough he’d take her to the ground again, just as he said he would. She’d wrap her legs around his hips, feel his buttocks move, tighten and plunge under her heels, the curve of her calves.

Lifting onto her toes, she brushed her lips against the pocket of his collarbone.

Using the tip of her tongue to tease him, she felt his biceps harden against her sides as he increased his grip on her. When she took a nip, she earned an indrawn breath. She remembered what it was like to be on her knees before him, his cock stretching her mouth. She shuddered, more fluid dampening her thighs.

“You’re ready for me again, aren’t you?” His voice was harsh with needs of his own. She liked it, liked the way he talked to her about his needs and her own in a raw and real way. His cock was now an iron bar against her hip and she ached to have it back inside of her.

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Nodding, she lifted her gaze to him, making a soft noise at the desire in his eyes, the promise of what he would do next unmistakable in his expression.

He’d reacted hard and fast to desire each time, driving them up and over as if they were on that zero-to-sixty-mile-per-hour roller coaster, giving her a spiraling, twirling thrill of sensation from which she still felt dizzy. Even in the aftermath she’d felt off balance. Like when she spent a day out on a boat and the memory of the sea’s movement kept her body swaying even when she was back on land. An element whose hold was so strong it wouldn’t let go.

He didn’t take his gaze off her as he took her down to the ground, easing her to her back and laying himself down fully on her, his knees gently insinuating him between her thighs. Because her hands were still hooked around his neck, their bodies were never more than a breath away as they came down to earth together.

Grounded. The word passed through her mind. It could have mundane connotations. It could also be this, this sense of wholeness, of utter contentment. Being joined to his body made her feel as if the connection went far deeper than that, deep into the core where the secrets of Creation were woven into the stratus of the Earth.

“Are you sure you want me this way?” His thumb touched her cheek, traced her lips, making her open her mouth and taste his fingertip with her tongue. “I could go back to the car and get… I know we did it twice without—”

“How do you want me?” She gazed into his gray eyes. “No choices, remember? I’m all yours. How do you want me?”

“Like this. My cock deep in your pussy, nothing between us.”

His broad head was at her entrance and she moved, trying to draw him in, but he raised his hips a little, drawing out the anticipation, a light smile on his lips telling her he knew he was teasing her, though she could see the strain in his jaw line. “Ask for me, Stacie.”

67

Joey W. Hill

“Please. I need you.” There were so many levels to that statement, she couldn’t voice them all. Or, if she did, it would make the thought, the possibility, evaporate away. And that was going to happen soon enough.

From the way his expression stilled, she knew he understood.

The tone had changed. It was too close to dawn. This was it. The last time.

She’d have taken him any way he wanted her because of that. But he’d been her perfect fantasy since the moment he got out of his car. So perfect, she had the disturbing thought that she might wake in her bed in the morning and find the whole thing was a dream. Particularly when he now made it clear he intended to exceed her expectations until the very end.

This time, his hands were gentle, one moving down, the other cradling her face as he guided himself into her. His fingers teased her opening as he slid in, filling her, making her hips rise and undulate to take all of him.

When he rested deep inside of her, his cock in to the hilt, testicles pressed against the base of her ass, he stopped. Looking down at her, he reached over to his discarded jeans, fished out the key and took her hands from around his neck to uncuff her.

“I know you said it would be over when they were off,” he murmured. “But I need to feel your hands on me.”

How could she resist such a demand, his lips so close, his body joined to hers?

Particularly since she could think of nothing she wanted more at the moment than to touch him.

When he removed the cuffs, her fingers touched his palms and he let the bracelets fall to the ground, twining his fingers with hers such that in the first moment his touch held her as much as the restraints had. Lowering his head, he closed his lips over hers.

She melted under the power of that kiss, moaning into his mouth as he coupled it with a slow stroke into her body, teasing her clit. His lips and tongue, firm, clever, persuasive, seduced her all over again. As his touch whispered along her wrists, the 68

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pulse points fluttered beneath his fingertips, sending frissons of energy down her arms into her chest and lower.

He curled one hand under her neck, his thumb sweeping her jugular, his other hand lowering to her hip, gripping her thigh and lifting her leg higher, rocking her up for a deeper angle of penetration that made her cry out into his mouth. When he answered with a growl, she reached for him, feeling the breadth of his shoulders under her palms for the first time. Bare, warm muscle and bone. The strong line of his throat.

Then she touched his jaw, moving her fingers over his lips, his face, into his hair, feeling the short ends as her body bucked in slow waves beneath his thrusts. Savoring every inch of him, inside and out, she glided down the slope of his back, her hands resting on the taut curve of his buttocks. Her body reacted by becoming a spring-loaded coil of erotic tension as she felt those muscles tighten and release under her touch. Curling her legs over the small of his back with a helpful hitch from him, she reveled in his strength.