He certainly was. Her tight, hot sex was pure heaven. He grabbed her hips, pulling her down harder.
She looked at him, her hair falling forward, color in her cheeks, her eyes shining in the dimness. She was so beautiful.
“This just gets better, huh?” she breathed.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, thrusting up into her. “Better and better.” This had to be the best position. Except for looking down at her body. Or lying on his side, facing her. Or all the other positions they hadn’t tried. Yet.
“Mmm.” She sucked in her breath, then did a slow roll on his shaft, bending him, intensifying the rush of blood pulsing through his member. He was buried to the hilt in her. He moved in and out, rocking to press her clit with his shaft, loving the way she moaned each time.
He reached for her breasts and she bent forward so he could cup their weight and lick each nipple in turn.
She did a rolling twist with her hips that made him moan in sweet agony. He kissed her mouth, tugged at her tongue, held her breasts and lightly teased the nipples, giving her, he hoped, some of the hot rush that poured through him.
She rose to a full sit and he pressed his finger to her clit. Her head snapped forward. “Oh, yes. Do that.” She smiled the smile of a woman galloping toward a pleasure she knew was waiting just for her. He loved that look. He wanted to see it over and over.
He pushed her clit as he pumped upward, hard.
She gasped, then tensed, as if electrified by sensation, and he knew she was coming.
He let her spasms pull him into his own release. Closing his eyes, he pulsed into her, in time with her squeezing muscles. They were together in this crackle of electricity, riding its surging pulse together.
He usually made sure his lovers came first, but this mutual pleasure had happened as easily as breathing. And so much more fun.
She flopped against his chest with a great gasp of an exhale. “Oh. Wow. That was…”
“Great,” he said into her hair, which smelled of spice and flowers, her sweet sweat and the salty metal of the sea. “God, you smell great. I can’t-” sniff “-get-” sniff “-enough.”
He hadn’t felt this way before, had he?
Maybe with Heather. Back in college. Listening to Candy catch her breath, he couldn’t help thinking of his first real love. Heather had had the same wild energy as Candy. She’d had a thing for thrill rides, the more frightening the better. She’d loved sex, too, said it felt like the click-click-click to the top of the first coaster drop. She loved the anticipation, loved shrieking into the dive.
The breakup had been unexpected and painful, even though she’d warned him-laughing-that she had emotional ADD. I never stick long. He’d thought it would be different with him. It hadn’t been.
He’d been shocked by how bad he felt and for how long and had stayed clear of women like Heather ever since.
Until Candy. He felt the uneasy rumble inside, like the distant thunder of a storm on its way. Don’t ruin this, he told himself. Stop thinking. Easy enough to do with the liquor still numbing his brain. Yeah, he was still drunk.
But for now he was content to breathe in Candy. God, she smelled good.
MATT WAS TAKING big, greedy sniffs of her hair and Candy smiled at how sweet that was. She felt stunned and so grateful. She’d had her share of quality sex, but this had been something else. Effortlessly great.
She’d suspected that Matt would be hot, but not so…oh…what was the word? Aware? In tune? It was as if he inhabited her body, knew exactly where she needed the most attention and for how long, when to go faster, harder and when to hold stock-still.
And all without a word. She liked the talkers-the men who took the time to pin down what she wanted and who guided her, too, in what they preferred-but Matt was in a class by himself.
What would she call him? A body reader. Yeah. She released a huge breath, sated from two close-together orgasms, enjoying the thud of Matt’s heart beneath her, the way he held her gently but securely, how their mingled sweat made them slick as seals, the way he smelled of lime and spice and sea and sex.
She’d loved how he’d swept her into his arms and carried her to the house like some dashing rogue from an old historical novel, intent on her willing ravishment.
She felt his muscles go limp and he let out a soft snore. So cute. He’d fallen asleep.
Or passed out?
Oops. That. Matt had been in a Tsunami-for-Two haze and she’d let him sweep her into his bed. Stone-cold sober, she’d behaved like the party girl she’d sworn not to be.
While Matt snored softly beneath her, she lay alone with the hard reality that she’d slept with her boss. Despair swelled in her chest. The sexy sweat suddenly felt clammy, the sweet postcoital intimacy a guilty crime. She had to get away, escape from her mistake.
She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Matt, who in his sleep made a patting gesture, as if to reassure her. He lay there, naked.
She sighed, covering him with the side of the bedspread to prevent temptation, then tucking it under his chin so he wouldn’t become chilled in the night.
Could he possibly be too drunk to remember this?
No way.
Now what? In a weak moment, she’d given in and now there would be hell to pay. She put on her bikini and tiptoed out of the house, heading home. The playful moon seemed to taunt her. If she’d had a shoe, she’d have thrown it.
6
CANDY AWOKE TO THE SOUND of Sara whispering into the phone as she thumped down the stairs that ended a few yards from Candy’s foldout bed.
“I faxed it, Uncle Spence,” she said. “I’m telling you.”
Candy squinted at the wall clock. Quarter to six. Uncle Spence was an early riser.
“No,” Sara continued into the phone. “Yes…Like I said…Just check with Amy. I’m sure she has it.” Reaching the bottom step, Sara caught sight of Candy and cringed in apology.
Candy mouthed, “It’s okay.”
Sara moved into the kitchen and began making coffee, the cell phone propped beneath her ear.
Candy flopped back onto the pillow, memories of last night flooding in like an early tide, gunky with seaweed. Would what happened in Malibu stay in Malibu?
Hardly. It would ride all the way to L.A. with them and up sixteen floors to the SyncUp office and ruin everything. Her and Matt’s working relationship. Her chance for promotion. The tentative improvement in Matt’s impression of her. Everything.
For a moment, she wanted to curl in a ball and burst into tears. Instead she sat up. This was a mere setback. A pothole in her career path she would patch up and march over.
First, she’d go over to Matt’s as she’d planned and act normal, treat last night like a drunken boo-boo. Never mind that she hadn’t had a drop of liquor. They would laugh about it and move on. Proceed with Plan A.
She’d show Matt her work, do his makeover, teach him more about networking, then talk about the festival events she’d promised the girls she and Matt would do.
What other choice did she have?
Matt would probably be relieved. He’d be hungover and blaming himself, even though Candy knew it was her fault. Matt had been in unfamiliar territory-Drunkand-Crazy Land, which was Candy’s weekend hangout.
She made up the sofa, the sheets sticking out a bit, like her own doubts, then headed for the kitchen for coffee. En route, she paused to turn on Matt’s computer.
She would get her notes together, call Freeda for her files, then head over to Matt’s at 7:30, as agreed. Matt said he was up by 6:00, plus the hangover would wake him early. Soon, they’d be back on track-the sex a fading faux pas.
The sex. She sighed. She could still feel Matt inside her.
Sara handed her a mug of coffee. “Sorry I woke you.”
“If you’d stop answering, Uncle Spence would stop calling.”
“It’s not that easy. He catches me just often enough to keep at it. I’m like a slot machine. What do they call that in behavior modification theory? A variable schedule of reinforcement?”