He pressed her legs apart, and stared down at her. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
He pushed her gently back, until her back was pressed to the flat rock, her legs wide. Laid out like a sacrifice on the altar of sexual misbehavior. Open to the sky. A warning to foolish, unwary girls.
But she wasn’t choking up, she wasn’t panicking, like usual. It was magic. She couldn’t stop. At least not yet. It was too wonderful.
“I knew that your pussy would be like this.” He knelt down in the pool to get closer, and kissed the inside of her thigh. “Those dark red folds, bursting out of your slit like some hothouse flower. Exotic.”
She laughed, shakily. “You’ve got flowers on the brain, Jack.”
“No.” His teeth flashed, in one of his rare, gorgeous grins. “I’ve got your pussy on the brain.” He nuzzled her labia, light kisses that promised and teased. “I was half expecting your clit to be pierced.”
She jerked up onto her elbows. “Hah! You won’t catch me sticking a metal pin through the most nerve-dense part of my entire body!” She peered at him, eyes narrowed. “I bet you’re disappointed, right? I’m not quite as wild as you’d fantasized?”
He played with her inner pussy lips, spreading them tenderly wide like butterfly wings, and the tickling caresses were driving her mad.
“Actually, no,” he said. “I’m relieved, to tell the truth. We’re on the same page about how we like to treat those nerve-dense parts of our bodies. That bodes well.”
“Yeah? For what?”
“Orgasms,” he said, and leaned down, pressed his lips against her clit. Swirled his tongue. Oh, God. He was so…good.
She jerked helplessly against his face. She wasn’t ready. It was too intense. She was scared to death. She pushed his face away.
He rose up, kissing his way up over her mons, the tiny swatch of decorative red pubic hair, over her clit hood. Then over her belly, her rib cage, her breasts.
“Get comfortable with it,” he said, resolutely. “I’m going to lick your pussy until you’re a lake of lube.”
“Jack.” She grabbed his hair to hold him there, licked her lips, and dragged in a jerky breath. “I don’t know if this is such a good—”
“I have to.” He unwound her hands, sank down. “It’s going to be a really tight fit.” He slid his tongue boldly between her pussy lips.
The rasp of his plunging tongue, his matter-of-fact words, the thought of him inside her, it kicked her over the top and into a powerful orgasm. Her pussy pulsed around his thrusting fingers, throbbed against his swirling tongue. Long, sweet, echoing ripples went on and on.
He pulled her back down into the pool after the spasms had moved through her, and she sank into his arms as if she had no bones. He held her so she floated right over the thick, prominent jut of his erect cock against her thigh. In silent pleading.
She draped herself over his shoulder. Trying to catch her breath.
“Jack. Um, I hate to say it, but we can’t have sex,” she whispered.
He stiffened, nuzzling her shoulder. “No?”
“We have no latex,” she pointed out. “I certainly didn’t bring any.”
Breath hissed in sharply, between his teeth. “Ah, yes. That.”
“A small detail, but an important one. I don’t have contraception, either. And we haven’t even discussed our sexual histories yet. I’m sorry. I don’t know how I let things go so far.” She couldn’t stop herself from apologizing, even though the situation was only half her fault. “Just for the record. I’m, ah, fine,” she offered. “No STDs of any kind.”
“Me neither,” he said.
“No lovers, either. For a really long time,” she added.
“I noticed that,” he replied. “You’re tiny. Like a virgin.”
“But I’m not, ah…I’m not babyproof,” she said.
He stared at the river. Wiped water off his face, expressionless. “Forget it.” His voice was remote. “I’m disappointed, but I’ll live.”
His cool tone made her feel punished, and frustrated. “Besides, it’s just too soon for going all the way,” she rattled on. “Call me silly and old-fashioned if you want, but I barely know you, and things are really weird between us anyway, and I just don’t want to give it all up to you if you just want to…ah, I mean, if the relationship has no future.”
His eyes narrowed. “I should think you would be good at those.”
She stiffened, suspicious. “At what?”
“Relationships with no future. What other kind could your type possibly have?”
She shoved away from him, her boneless languor gone. A wave of hot water splashed up into Jack’s chest and face.
“Screw you, Kendrick,” she said savagely, leaping up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Oh? You want to know a secret? A couple of minutes ago, I truly, sincerely wanted to suck your dick. You want to know something else? I don’t want to suck your dick anymore.” She yanked her jeans up over her bare ass. She couldn’t seem to make her trembling fingers work. He got out of the pool and moved toward her. She kept her face averted. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled.
“Aw, shit,” he muttered. “What a mess.”
“Yes. My feelings, exactly. I’ve known you for about one day, and every time you see me, you insult me. Big, nasty, mortal insults. And it’s ten times worse when you seduce me first. Freaking sadist.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you. Nor did I succeed in seducing you, evidently.” He got up out of the pool, and she whipped her gaze away.
“Keep your back turned,” he said. “I want to take this wet underwear off before I put on my jeans.”
“Do as you like. I’m leaving.”
Vivi made her way up the flower-lined, moss-choked streambed. She could barely see where she was going. Slowly, the path came back into focus. The cleft of rock she had to clamber past. The thicket of posion oak. The tunnel of blackberry brambles to slither through. Then back down to the riverbed, for the rock hopping.
She was mortified. He melted her down. Turned her into hot goop. And then made her feel cheap and easy for giving in to it.
Hell with him. It was a mistake she would not make again.
Her knee-jerk instinct was to gather up her stuff and her dog and get the hell out of there, but her van was still stuck, and the Fiend was still out there, and she had no place to go, except back to New York, to park on her sisters’ lives. Once she’d started planning her hideout in the flower bower, she’d ceased to send in registration fees for upcoming crafts fairs, or to churn out new stock. So she couldn’t even do the circuit, at least not for a while. Working the crafts fairs took a certain amount of lead time and advance planning.
So even if her van were unstuck, if she left now it would just be for aimless, money-draining, gas-guzzling wandering the road. And she would be too scared to stop. The gas would run out when the money did. And it wouldn’t take very long.
And there she’d be, a sitting duck.
No. She was a grown-up. She’d been through hell in her life, and come out battered, but okay. She would not be chased away like a stray cat. Her safety was more important than her hurt feelings.
But neither would she play the nymphet sex toy for that arrogant prick. Thank God she hadn’t gone down on him. She’d be feeling ten times worse about it all if she had the taste of his come in her mouth.
And she’d come so close, too. Her mouth had been watering. Bad enough that he’d spent all that time with his face between her legs.
That took the strength out of her wobbly legs. She sat down heavily on a rock. Clenching her thighs around pulses of remembered pleasure.
Only the thought of him finding her there on his way back was scary enough to nudge her up off her ass and get her stumbling home.