Sex and Love Read online

  I crawled to the foot of the bed, which was so high my tippy toes could barely reach the floor. Jude’s expression warned me, still, not to touch, and a perverse part of me thought I’d be damned if I’d let him know how much the denial of that touch pained me. Fine, I thought. Fine. I wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t lift a finger to stroke over that smooth golden skin, not even if it killed me. But I vowed that, before I was done, he’d feel the intense craving just as much as I had.

  Bracing the cheeks of my ass against the slippery bed linens, I spread my legs wide, and then my cunt wider still, my artist’s fingers exposing my pink secrets like the inside of a ripe, juicy fruit. I heard his breath hitch, saw his cock jerk, and felt a swell of smug satisfaction as he swallowed with a dry mouth at the visual I presented him.

  Like I mentioned, I’m a natural redhead, and the truth of this can be seen every time I strip down. I painted, in my mind’s eye, the blend of reds swirling in front of Jude’s irises, the rosy flesh of my finger, the soft blush of my inner lips, the bright pink of my hard, tight clitoris. And surrounding it all, the wealth of silky copper, exploding in a series of tight curls, like fireworks in a night sky. I like to picture things like this, to know what other people see when they look at me. In this case, the passionate swirl of red, the color of my life, making my pussy tingle and my nipples pebble tightly, and urging me to give him more.

  Licking the index finger of my right hand, even as the fingers of my left framed my tender spot, I slowly trailed it down my body, grazing the valley between my breasts, the slight swell of my belly, and the edge of the glistening curls between my legs. When I slowly rubbed that same finger over my clitoris, causing my breath to come faster and the jiggling globes of my breasts to sway, I heard Jude moan, watched him pump faster, faster, the tip of his hard cock turning a ripe shade of purple and becoming shiny and slick with precum.

  I licked that finger, sampling my own flavor, then returned it to its busy work. Tasted again, savoring the taste of my own sweet cream as it spread over my tongue. Even as I felt the swell of orgasm begin for me, which my own sure fingers could bring so much more easily than Trevor’s thrusting cock ever could, I saw Jude’s muscles give a telltale quiver, one I knew from experience signaled his impending orgasm. As I came, the blood rushing through my cunt like a red waterfall, I slid off the bed and dropped to my knees in front of Jude, guiding his quivering dick low with hands that had never been more sure; the thick, salty come of his release spilled over the flesh of my breasts, such as they were, a reminder to him that it was me who had turned him on so, who had given him his release.

  Jude and I remained as still as statues in that odd state of desire so sweet I wanted to lap it up like honey, gooey and good. My thoughts became a riptide, pulling me under, threatening to drown me, and squeezing out every breath.

  Behind me I heard Megan’s voice begin a series of soft, pretty little cries, a rising crescendo that signaled her impending release. Mixing with her moans in a grand symphony were the frenzied grunts issuing from Trevor’s lips—an excitement I’d never before sensed from him. It reminded me that Jude and I weren’t alone, though it took some effort to release myself from the spell that he had woven around me.

  The moment was drawing to a close. Trevor was the happiest I’d ever seen him. But the spell wasn’t broken, not for me anyway, disproving my theory that my attraction to Jude was merely physical. An awkwardness as foreign to me as all of the lands I had yet to visit fell between us, though relations with each of us and the other two seemed fine. But as we dressed and moved toward the door to say our respective good nights, I noticed a distinct awkwardness between Jude and me, born of the odd direction the night took. Being the woman who dislikes anything uncomfortable, I bid good night to a sated Megan and a jubilant Trevor and walked down the stairs of the building alone. In the parking lot, shivering a bit, I waited for Jude to follow me through the front glass doors. Once he had, without asking, I hitched up my skirt to climb onto the back of his motorbike. I had no intention of allowing the stilted awkwardness between us to continue on, especially not when feelings intense and unexpected, whirled around within me so brightly I couldn’t think straight.

  He looked at me questioningly, cocking his head to one side, arching an eyebrow. In response, I told him, simply, “Take me home with you.”

  Chapter Four

  Some of our usual comfort returned by the time we were cozily ensconced in Jude’s surprisingly welcoming home. The spacious, half-century-old bungalow had been inherited from his mother’s sister, and many of the furnishings and other household items remained the same, fussy florals and chintzy fabrics should’ve made the badass man living with them look ridiculous, but somehow, they didn’t. I doubted anything made Jude look ridiculous, cursed as he was with physical perfection.

  We curled up on one of the aforementioned floral couches, one at each end, our feet tangled beneath an insanely colored, hand-crocheted blanket. We’d sat this way millions of times before, but I was surprised at Jude’s initiation of the position tonight. I expected something more along the lines of relieving the sexual tension still humming along my goose-bumped skin by fucking against the front door or something. Now, as I lay in what to me felt like a distinctly platonic position, a glass of Bailey’s, a drink that to me tasted like liquid sex, in my hand, I wondered if I had imagined the whole thing. But I had a feeling, an odd one rolled around in the pit of my stomach, which wasn’t entirely normal; something was up, that was for sure.

  Well, if I had imagined it, and we were just friends as always, then I saw no need to pussyfoot around. “Why didn’t you join in?” The words flew out of my mouth before I fully thought them through, but I wasn’t overly concerned. We’d talked about sex millions of times over the years. His physical recoil at my question surprised me, though, and I found that I, too, was a bit wary of the answer, wondering if, somehow, there was a deeper meaning behind his standoffishness, an answer other than the one I expected to hear.

  Or maybe not, I thought, as I leaned forward, the swells of my breasts rising out of the low neck of my dress, which Jude’s eyes fastened on immediately. Deliberately, I took a deep breath, causing them to rise and fall, and nearly cackled with glee at his sharp intake of breath.

  Hmm. Maybe that heated moment earlier, during which I felt as if Jude and I were the only two people in the world, wasn’t as imaginary as I feared.

  Still, he blinked, though, when I nudged at him with my foot, reminding him he hadn’t answered my question. Blink, blink. Blink. I was perversely gratified to find satisfaction in his shock. I hadn’t recognized the feeling swirling around in the pit of my stomach as anger until now. How could he have subjected us, Megan, Trevor, and I, to such an intimate, revealing state and not join in, effectively placing us in his control? And why had he been so reluctant to let me touch him? Another control game? Watching me want him, revealing a desire so hidden I hadn’t even known it was there, all the while keeping his under control?

  It felt good to say it, to get it out. I just realized how vulnerable I had felt, even though the sex had been undeniably good, with someone watching and yet holding back.

  Yes, I fully realize I can be classified as moody, as emotional. Call me what you will, it doesn’t bother me.

  “What are you talking about? What we did…”

  I cut him off. “We didn’t do anything,” I reminded him, sitting up straight on the couch, the creamy goodness in my glass sloshing over to land with a wet splat on my arm. “You didn’t let me to touch you, except at the very end. And you wanted me to; I know it. I want to know why.” A blotchy column of red crept up Jude’s neck and stained his face. I had never seen him blush before and wondered what the blood coursing rapidly through his veins meant.

  He was silent for a moment, and I couldn’t read the planes of his face in the late-night darkness of the room. When he said, “I don’t know,” I had no choice but to believe him, as I always had. Although, I won
dered if my suspicions were simply in overdrive when I suspected he was holding something back. But I was distracted by the light, by the butterfly touch of his fingers on my foot, by the fingers tracing the high arch with exquisite delicacy with a touch just firm enough to keep me from screeching with laughter at the tickle.

  Was he trying to distract me, I wondered? Something still felt off. But here and now, I was being offered what it seemed I had wanted for a long time, and I would be a fool not to take it.

  He shackled my ankle with his fingers, holding me tight. He sat forward slid his other hand up the inside of my thigh, and any other questions I might have asked were lost in the tornado of sensations, which tumbled down on my head like the house on the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz.

  A beam of light from a car passing by outside caught his face. Our eyes met and held, even when the light passed, and we were in the dark again. I felt his gaze struggle to see me clearly, even through the hot summer night air hung a curtain as thick as velvet between us.

  Then the curtain parted, and Jude was on top of me with his weight pressing me so far into the worn squishiness of the ancient couch that I felt as if I was about to be swallowed alive. As his avid mouth slid sweetly over mine, tasting of sugar and liquor, smoke and man, I decided I wouldn’t mind a bit if it did, if it swallowed me whole so I could stay here, just like this, forever.

  I would later discover that this craving, this need had made its extraordinary appearance at the very ordinary dinner hosted by Megan was going to cause me a lot of trouble, but at that moment, with what I wanted held tightly in my grasp, I couldn’t have known and probably wouldn’t have cared.

  “You still don’t wear underwear,” Jude whispered into my neck. I shivered at the realization that this was real. I could smell the sweat on him, caused by his earlier orgasm, and it brought back memories of the times we’d fucked all night long, allowing each other only brief snatches of sleep, catnaps just long enough to revive our insatiable sexual appetites.

  I wondered, even as his lips trailed down to lay light, fluttering kisses over my collarbone, if he smelled the same to Megan, who’d had such a hold on the heart that lay beneath the prickles even then, the hold that had eventually come between the intense heat that Jude and I had shared. I hadn’t minded at the time, apart from the loss of rights to that spectacular body, since he and I hadn’t much of a chance to develop an emotional connection. But tonight, as my skin absorbed the sensations caused by his roaming fingers and his avid mouth, I felt a flush of triumph. I felt as if I was getting some of my own back, and again, this may not have been the most rational thought but, as I’ve said, women and sex do not make for a rational equation.

  “Close your eyes,” he told me, and I grumbled at the order. I like to look, I like to see; given what I do for a living I think that’s obvious. And I wanted to look at him, to see his eyes fog as my hands stroked his length, I wanted to see his jaw tense at the sight of my flesh.

  Seeing the argument on my face, tasting it on my lips, he pressed a finger to each of my eyes, stroked a calloused pad over my fluttering lashes. “Close your eyes, Desi,” he repeated. Those featherlight flickers of sensation over my brow were so soothing that, eventually, I obeyed.

  It was a struggle to keep them closed, though, as new sensations assaulted my body. I squeezed them tightly shut at first, so focused on keeping my promise that I tuned out my own pleasure. But gradually, I understood that without sight all the other senses were heightened. The sound of Jude’s breath, raspy and deep, and his murmurs of approval as he undressed me slowly. The unique taste of the flesh he offered, the press of crisply curling hairs on my tongue. That sweaty smell that turned me on so, and the dense odor of sex rising into the air as it wafted off of our skin. The feel of those lean muscles, tensing before again becoming fluid under my inquisitive hands.

  My nipples spiked as my dress was pulled down, the air icy cold in contrast to the fevered heat of our skin. Wet warmth surrounded first one, and then the other, causing me to cry out in surprise. His fingers skated, featherlight, in the valley between my tits; I arched my back, cramming my flesh into his mouth. I may not have had much for him to sample on, but he seemed more than content with the mouthful he had, sucking so hard on my right peak I felt the answering tug all the way down through my womb.

  He kissed my stomach, the smooth dip of it. “This is new,” he commented as fingers traced the tattoo of an artist’s palette, a rainbow of colors instead of just my favored red, colors that danced over the tight skin of my left hip.

  “Jude…” I didn’t actually have anything I wanted to say, the name simply slipped off my tongue like chocolate melting in the hot sun. In response, he settled between my legs, pushing them apart, the rasp of his seven o’clock shadow burning the tender skin of my inner thighs. I sneaked a peek through slit in my eyelids, and savored the image of his golden skin, so dark against the milky paleness of my own. Shadows were absorbed, it seemed, by his hair, his eyes, his mouth, turning him into something dark, a creature of the night, a demon of lust.

  The thought made me shiver, and even as his teeth found the sensitive skin that joined my legs to my belly, he caught me peeking, saw me watching him, watching him pleasure me and driving me wild. He grinned in response and, with his eyes fastened tightly to mine, slid a finger over the pulse between my legs. My back arched, and my heels dug for purpose into the slippery fabric of the sofa, trying to gain ground, but the finger had moved on from the burning bud to discover and trace the small, silky curls of my outer lips and the tight, wet skin of the inner ones. One more teasing brush over my clit, and the questing finger slid into me, much surer than Trevor’s had earlier, twisting and turning until it found the small sponge of flesh that resided high in my cunt, a spot so sensitive that I writhed beneath the weight pinning me down, not sure if I wanted to get closer and feel more, or to run away and remove myself from pleasure so intense it caused pain.

  I came hard and fast from that pressure deep in my vagina, hard and fast with no warning. It’s hard to explain, but an orgasm centered on a woman’s G-spot is different than one from the clit, not less and not more. It didn’t leave me shaking, like the pressure on the hard nub of my sweet spot would have, but I was still weak, weak and wrecked and clawing my way up for breath, the responding surge of liquid between my thighs pulling me under like a riptide and threatening to drown me.

  When Jude dipped his head and lapped at that cream, lapped at it like a kitten at a saucer full of milk, I screamed, thrashing my head from side to side. Sobbing as he fastened his mouth tightly to my clit, sucking it into that wet, willing cave, I came again, the pulse flooding my body; he pressed the heel of his hand against my pubic bone, staunching the flow before it lost control.

  When I came to and looked into his eyes, I thought he’d stand, remove his clothes, then cover me once more and sheath himself in my waiting heat. I was right about the first part, at least. I allowed a low growl to escape my throat as the black T-shirt was cast aside, exposing a muscled chest densely matted with black hair, and tight denim was worked down over those narrow hips and that tight butt until they fell to the floor.

  Instead of settling himself back between my legs and thrusting deep to ease the ache in my cunt that the orgasms had only exacerbated, he wrapped arms, ropy and hard, around my waist and rearranged my position, rolling me with smooth movements until my naked belly quivered against the prickly upholstery of the couch. Then all was still.

  Pushing myself up onto my elbows, I twisted and craned my neck to see. Jude stared at my rear, at the curved mounds of flesh, with an intentness I didn’t understand but made me shiver all the same. When I moved he jolted from his reverie and gently pressed me back down, down to sink into the waiting softness.

  I sniffed the night air, cold and crisp, as my body tensed in anticipation, of what I wasn’t sure. I found out when a finger, one of those fingers of his that I decided had to be magic, slowly, moved its way down my
spine. It veered off its path to teasingly trace the jutting bones of my shoulder blades, bones softened by plush skin pulled tight. Then it resumed its path, tickling lower and lower until the curve of my spine swelled up, just a bit, and became a valley that divided the curving hills of my ass. I thought his hand would stop there when it reached that intimate crack, but it didn’t; instead, it delved into the mounds of flesh and nuzzled through the tight channel to explore.

  When the pressure stilled and at the same time increased right against the pucker hidden deep, I let out a startled, somewhat strangled noise. Jude’s hand froze, and I knew he’d remove it if I asked him to, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, really, just…different. And very unexpected. After a still, thick moment though, I relaxed again and, knowing he’d wait for permission, murmured my assent.

  The pressure began again, thickening until the tight, stubborn skin gave way, and the foreign flesh intruded into what I had always considered a deep, dark secret. I’d never really understood the male sex’s obsession with the ass, with placing their sex…well…there, but I had to admit I was slightly intrigued. So I refrained from pulling away.

  I focused on the finger invading my flesh, rotating slightly, loosening the tightly clenched muscles. I decided it was pleasant enough, felt good even, but it was never going to be enough. Squirming a bit, since my clit, which had become cool from lack of attention, protested, I hoped he’d get the hint, and he did, sliding his free hand over my hip, across my belly, through the tangle of curls, and finally onto the small bump, where he rubbed. I sighed in pleasure.

  Funny, I’d always been a staunch advocate of women taking charge of their own sex lives, of asking for what they wanted without fear. And I’d found that, in general, men enjoyed this; it took a load of pressure off them, since they aren’t and never would be mind readers. But with Jude, I felt unaccountably shy, relying on the very mind reading skills I didn’t believe even existed. Perhaps it was a twisted test on my part to see how attuned he was with me, how much, essentially, he loved me. And as he finally answered my prayers and sheathed himself to the hilt, after rolling that familiar tube of latex down the length of his dick with clever fingers that he cruelly removed from their teasing caress over my skin. Of course, I sighed and decided he passed the test. Of course, it’s likely that his expertise, the seemingly psychic ability of his to touch me exactly where I most wanted was a consciousness gleaned from the scores of lovers I knew he’d had, but right then, at that moment, I indulged myself and pretended it was all about me.