Maybe he felt it, perhaps even misinterpreted it, because he raised his head and looked down at her. “Izzy?”
That was not a look of concern on his face. It was a wicked look, delivered with a cocked brow and a crooked smile. Her throat went dry, and she shivered again. Anticipation alone was making a wreck of her. “Yes?”
“Whatcha got on under that blanket?”
“Oh.” She glanced down at herself, enfolded in his bedding. “Nothing, actually.” Meeting his eyes, she elaborated, “Not a stitch.”
“I’m going to have to see that. I’m not phoning it in this time.”
No, he wasn’t. And neither was she. That decision had been made the moment she’d put herself in his arms, maybe even before then, and she was surprisingly unconflicted about it. Thinking he might expect her to make the move to take things to the next phase—the naked phase, and, really, the point of no return—she started to get to her feet, but instead, he took hold of her. The bedroom tilted around her. Somebody shrieked. Probably her. Then she landed on her back on his mattress. Before she could sit up, he grabbed a loose end of the blanket, yanked, and sent her spinning. She ended up face down on the bed, choking on a startled laugh, bare as the day she was born.
“Good God.” She raised her head and swept her hair out of her face. “I don’t think anybody’s ever gotten me naked quite so quick—”
“Don’t move.”
She stopped in the process of rolling over. “Don’t?”
“Yeah. Give me a minute to enjoy the view.” The mattress groaned as he sat beside her, fully clothed, playful grin in place. But his eyes? His eyes stayed on hers for a long moment—long enough for her skin to turn tight and prickle for his touch. Long enough for her to remember she’d had an orgasm in his bed last night, pretty much exactly where she lay now, with nothing more than his voice in her ear and her imagination working overtime as he delivered on an extremely unconventional scenario of her own suggestion. A flush warmed her face at the memory, then flamed to an uncomfortable burn as his grin turned up a notch. She wasn’t the only one remembering. And still he simply sat, watching her blush while the rest of her grew unbearably antsy. It was all she could do to lie still. When his focus slowly drifted down her body her groan of relief, or need, or apprehension—more things than she could name—sounded pitifully heartfelt.
Slightly mortified, she folded her arms and rested her overheated forehead on them, took some deep, calming breaths and tried not to think too much about…anything. Was he looking at her butt? Was he thinking about their bedtime story and turning it from fantasy to reality? She’d never been spanked for real—certainly not with a cock—and wasn’t sure that what worked like a charm as a phone-sex scenario wouldn’t hurt like the dickens in actuality. Her heart pounded. Her body felt too warm. On the precipice of what promised to be the most earthshattering sexual experience of her life, she might just have a panic attack.
“Izzy?”
“Huh?” She didn’t raise her head. Couldn’t.
Rough fingertips trailed along her side, and she jumped.
“Hey.” Even a woman in the early stages of a sexual panic could detect compassion and amusement in the single word. His hand flattened across her lower back, a touch that had the effect of stirring her up and calming her down at the same time. “I always thought I had a decent imagination, but you’ve proved me wrong.”
“I have?” She murmured the question to the dark space between her lips and his pillow.
“Yeah. You’re even more beautiful than my wildest fantasies, and last night was a pretty wild one.” Blunt, trim fingernails scoured a path over the swell of her backside and down her thigh.
“Well”—she tried for a breezy laugh, but it came out like a dry cough—“I wanted to go wild in Captivity.”
“I know.” Fingernails skipped over to the other leg, skimmed from the hollow behind her knee all the way to the small of her back. “I hope you don’t mind if I depart from the script now that we’re in the flesh.”
What kind of departure? “You know me. I’m…um…flexible.” Stay calm. Picture yourself skating in long, slow figure eights. Inhale as you compete the top part of the eight, exhale as you complete the bottom circle. Rest a beat as you return to the center.
“Oh, yeah.” This time his amusement dominated. “You’re flexible. That’s what you are.”
The mattress shuddered as he got to his feet. Her mental ice skater tripped over her skates and tumbled into a Blades of Glory spinout that made her both breathless and dizzy. She raised her head, craned her neck as she watched him walk to the foot of the bed. “Would you like to hear what I have in mind?”
Or you could surprise me, and I could pass out. “Sure.”
He knelt on the floor at the end of the bed and rested his forearms on the mattress, on either side of her legs. “I’m worried I might have been a little rough with you last night, while we were playing.” He ran his palms over her calves. “This morning, I think it’s my duty to kiss everything better.”
“You…you’re going to…kiss me?”
“I might lick any especially delicate areas.” With his eyes fixed on her, he leaned in, lowered his head, and kissed the back of her knee. The combination of warm lips and rough beard had her skin tingling. The tingles radiated out from the point of contact, shimmering up her thigh and lingering in vicinities north of there. “What do you think? Is that wild enough for you?”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to find out.”
He smiled. The kind of cocky, masculine smile she should have objected to on principle, but she couldn’t find her voice when he looked at her like that. “It won’t hurt a bit, Izzy. I promise.” So saying, he kissed the back of the other knee.
More tingles. Many more tingles. She closed her eyes to savor the sensation, and then—
Two strong hands clasped her ankles and dragged her down the bed in one lightning quick motion. What the…? As soon as she caught her breath and stopped scrambling for purchase, she twisted around to aim an exasperated look at him. But he simply smiled that self-satisfied smile and lowered his face between her legs. She felt the tickle of his beard and the press of his lips along the inside of her thigh. Every muscle below her waist melted.
“More?” he asked, apparently so confident of her answer he didn’t bother raising his head.
“Yes.”
The next kiss came even higher on the inside of her other thigh. Without really meaning to, she inched them a little farther apart.
“Where else are you hurting, Izzy?”