“I knew you were.”
“Good. Very good. Great even.”
“That I knew you were kidding?”
“That you’re standing in the middle of the bedroom in your underwear,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She looked down at bare legs, her bare feet and the T-shirt barely covering anything past her hips. “You feeling better about world events yet?”
“Life is good. Very good. Could be better.”
“How so?”
“If instead of there...” He pointed at her feet on the floor. “You were here.” He tapped the pillow next to him.
“Well... I wouldn’t want you to lose your sunny outlook on life,” she said. He looked so inviting in her bed, warm and strong and male and everything she’d wanted for a long time. She slipped in next to him and lay on her back, her head on the pillow.
“Comfortable?” he asked as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one arm.
“Very.” She turned her head to look at him and found his face only inches from hers.
“Are you?”
“I am,” she said. “Your shirt’s nice.”
“Cotton. Preshrunk. I go for the fancy shit.”
“I might keep it.”
“I’d like that.” He raised his hand to her face and traced her lips with his fingertips. “Although if you decided at some point tonight that you hated it and wanted to burn it, I wouldn’t complain about that, either.”
“I don’t think that’s likely.”
“No?”
“Why burn it? I’d use it for washing my car.”
He nodded, grinning his cocky half grin. “Good idea.”
“Harrison Ford.”
“What? Where?” Erick glanced around the room.
“No, you. I was trying to figure out earlier who you reminded me of. You look like a young Harrison Ford. But with a beard.”
He lowered his head so that their lips were barely an inch apart and whispered two words to her.
“I know.”
4
CLOVER STARTED TO laugh but his kiss put a stop to that nonsense. At first the kiss was gentle, nothing but his mouth moving over hers as he explored her top lip with his lips and her bottom lip with his teeth. She felt ridiculous just lying there with her hands gripping the sheets at her sides, so she forced her fingers to uncurl and placed her hands on his shoulders and back. He had such warm, smooth skin that once she touched him with her bare hands she couldn’t stop. His tongue slipped between her teeth and she slid her palms down his long back and up again. The knots of nervousness that had knit up her entire body since Erick rang her doorbell slowly started to loosen. She should do this more often. Like...every night of her life.
Erick pressed closer to her. She felt his long, hairy legs against her not-quite-as-long and thankfully much-less-hairy ones. She ran her bare foot up the back of his calf as he kissed her along her jawline and all the way down to her neck.
“You feel good,” he said into her ear.
“I do feel good,” she said.
“You feel good to me.”
“I knew what you meant.” She smiled up at him. “Just saying, I’m feeling better.”
“Good.” He smiled down at her. “I want to make you feel good. You look really sexy in my shirt and on your back.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m feeling sexy...ish.”
“Let’s try this.” He gently lifted her head and pulled her ponytail holder out of her hair. She’d meant to do that earlier in the bathroom and had forgotten. He tossed the elastic onto the nightstand and ran his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp lightly and smoothing her hair down her back.
“Very nice,” he said. “First time I’ve ever seen you with your hair down.”
“I’d hate to get it caught in a wood chipper,” she said.
“I like that you wear it up all the time. Makes seeing it down much more interesting.”
“My hair is interesting?”
“You are interesting,” he said. “Very, very interesting. I’m going to figure you out.”
“Not much to figure out.”
“Oh, there has to be something mysterious here. How could a woman who is so beautiful have no idea how beautiful she is? I’ll think about that tomorrow. Right now I’m thinking about this.”
He kissed her and she opened up for him without hesitation. She loved the way he kissed her. It was sensual, yes. Sensual and warm and slow. But tender, too. She hadn’t expected the tenderness in his kiss. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe she was feeling all the tenderness. He had called her beautiful and sexy and those words were like aloe on a sunburn, instantly taking the sting out of a throbbing wound.
Clover tensed as Erick shifted his body so that he was half on the bed and half on top of her. She could feel his erection pressing against her thigh through the black boxer briefs he wore. She tried to ignore it as he kept kissing her but it was so hard and insistent and right there. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, in her neck, in her throat. She had forgotten how intense kissing could be, how terrifying in the best sort of way. She felt panicky, aroused, excited, eager, but didn’t know how to tell Erick that in words. She let her body do the talking. She carefully moved her thigh, letting it graze against the hardness pressed against her.
“Minx,” he said, and laughed softly. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that.”
“Hard not to notice it,” she said against his lips. “Very, very hard...”
She raised her head to kiss him again and he stopped her with a question.
“Do you want to touch me?” he asked.
“I am touching you.” Her hands were on his shoulders. He lowered his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Oh...you want me to touch it.”
“No. I asked if you wanted to touch me. I didn’t say you could. I’m asking if you want to. So... Clover Greene, do you want to touch me?”
“I do,” she said. “But—”
“You can also touch my butt, yes.”
She giggled and the sound surprised her. She sounded so young, so nervous.
“How is it you’re only eight years older than me?” she asked.
“Well, you were born in 1985 and I was born in 197—”
“I feel like a kid around you. That’s what I’m saying. And you know it.”
“You have a kid at twenty-one, you grow up fast. When did you start your company?”
“Five years ago.”
“I started mine sixteen years ago. Why did you start yours?”
“My grandparents sold their old vacation house and split the money with the grandkids. It was enough to start the nursery. You?”
“I had a one-year-old daughter, a wife with a drinking problem and we lived in a trailer with no heat. It was either work my ass off or freeze my ass off.”
“I...I didn’t know that about your ex. I’m sorry. Ruthie never told me.”
“Ruthie’s mom sobered up a long time ago. Ruthie doesn’t know how bad it was. She doesn’t need to know.”
“You had to grow up faster than I did,” she said. “I guess that’s why you seem so together.”
“Hey, I had to work and make money. Had no choice,” he said. “You had a choice. How much did your grandparents give you?”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
He whistled. “How many people get a windfall like that and start a business with it? Maybe one out of a hundred? One out of a thousand? Everyone else would have spent it on cars or a house or socked it away for retirement. Instead you built a business with it, a business you work at twelve hours a day and seven days a week. You didn’t have to work as hard as you did, but you did it, anyway. That’s much more impressive than working because you have to.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I know about it,” he said, stroking her cheek. “I’m older and wiser, right?”
“I didn’t say you were wise.”
“It was implied.”
r />
“You make me feel young,” she said. “That’s all. In the good way. In the ‘nervous to be making out with a guy’ way.”
“That’s a good way to be nervous. But I’d rather you be relaxed than nervous. I don’t want to scare you.”
“You don’t.” She shook her head. “It’s not fear. It’s...excitement.”
“No, this is excitement.” He pressed his erection into her thigh again. She inhaled sharply and clung tighter to his shoulders.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I want to touch you very much. Can I, please?”
“That’s the politest way any woman has ever asked to rub my cock in my life. Your manners are impeccable, Ms. Greene.”
“My parents raised a lady.”
“Does that mean you’ll stick your pinky out while you’re stroking me off?”
“Probably.”
“This I’ve gotta see.”
Erick rolled onto his back and underneath the covers pulled off his underwear and tossed it across the room. He lay flat on his back with his hands behind his head...waiting.
“O...kay...” she said. “You are naked in my bed.”
“I can put my watch back on if you want.”
“No. Naked is good. But can I turn off the light?”
“If it makes you feel better.”
“It would.”
She switched off the lamp and slowly scooted across the sheets toward him. He put one arm around her back and slid even closer to her.
Without saying another word, he kissed her. It was a deep, long, sensual kiss, much deeper and harder than he’d kissed her before. With the lights off, everything seemed to mean more, to matter more. They were no longer playing. And Erick was naked, completely, not even wearing that smile. She took a ragged breath as she placed her hand on the center of his chest. It pleased her to feel how hard his heart beat against her hand. He was nervous/scared/excited, too.
Tentatively she slid her hand down his chest to his stomach and stopped there while he kissed her neck under her ear.
“Take your time,” he whispered. “I have all night.”
“Thanks for being understanding,” she said.
“I don’t know why you’re so nervous with me but it doesn’t matter. You set the pace. I’m just happy to be here.”
“Are you? Happy, I mean?”
“As happy as I’ve been in a long time.”
Clover slipped her hand under the sheet and wrapped it around his erection. Erick took a quick breath in.
“Okay,” he said. “Now I’m happy.”
She smiled but didn’t say anything. She wanted to concentrate on the task at hand. The very pleasant task at hand. Gently she ran her hand over the length of him a few times just to get the feel of him. He was incredibly hard from base to tip, so hard she felt his cock pulsing against her palm. He was big, not huge but definitely a good size. She imagined putting it inside her and knew it would fill her and stretch her and she’d love every inch of it. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for that yet. Was she? If they had sex he’d probably want her to take all her clothes off and that would be awkward. But maybe not. But probably so. She was overthinking it again and forced herself to concentrate only on Erick’s beautiful body and forget about hers.
She squeezed him lightly and watched his face to see what happened. He must have liked it because his head fell back and his throat jumped like he’d had to take a quick breath or swallow hard. Even in the dark she could see his lips were slightly parted and she could hear him panting as she stroked him, lightly at first but then harder as it became clear to her he liked what she was doing. Down and up and down and up...she slid her hand down and up him again and again. Erick reached over his head and gripped her headboard with one large hand. He moved his hips with her hand, lifting them as she stroked downward and pulling back when she stroked up. It was obscene, watching him move like that, like he was fucking her hand. He was fucking her hand and she could tell he would come soon if she didn’t stop. She had no intention of stopping.
“You should maybe stop,” Erick said, and his voice was tight and hoarse, like it hurt to talk.
“Why?” she asked, her hand still on him but no longer moving.
“When I get close to coming I say really inappropriate things. And you’re getting me there.”
“Inappropriate how? We’re in bed together. Unless you start spitting out math formulas or threatening to assassinate world leaders, I don’t know what you’d say that would be inappropriate.”
“I have a very dirty mouth. You don’t know how dirty.”
“Can I find out how dirty? Now you’ve got me curious.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You warned me,” she said. “Can I keep going now?”
“God, yes, and please and thank you. But lick your hand first. Wet helps.”
“Lick my hand?”
“See? It’s already happening.”
“I’ve never licked my own hand before,” she said as she licked her palm. “I mean, unless there was chocolate on it.”
“Maybe next time.”
She felt more confident this time when she wrapped her fingers around him. Clover had no doubt in her mind at all he was enjoying himself and, more specifically, enjoying her as she enjoyed him. She started slow again, massaging him and working her way up the shaft and down to the base with a firm grip. As she slid her hand up again she pulled him very gently and he let out a soft groan from the back of his throat.
“Fuck, that feels good... I want to pound your pussy so hard you can’t walk tomorrow.”
“Wow,” she said, blinking. “You weren’t kidding.”
“It just comes out,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. It was...sexy. Intense but sexy.”
“Don’t take it literally,” he said, panting. “I’m not trying to fuck you. These are fantasies, not orders.”
“I like your fantasies,” she said, surprised by how much she did like it.
“Good, because if you keep doing that I’ll keep talking.”
“Keep talking,” she said. “Please keep talking...”
She rubbed him harder now and he ground his hips up and into her hand. He seemed to really like the pulling maneuver so she did it again and was rewarded with a “Fuck” and “God, I want you to ride my cock.”
She swirled her fingers around the tip and then tugged lightly on the whole shaft.
“If you’re as wet as I am hard, you’re drowning over there,” he said.
She opened her fingers to knead him. Clover felt breathless and shaky and if she wasn’t careful, she was about to start saying a few things herself.
“I want to fill all your holes up with my come.”
Every dirty little thing he said kicked her body temperature up another degree and another. She couldn’t remember being this turned on in her life. Nobody had ever said this sort of stuff to her