"Please," she gasped moments later as his tongue feathered one stiff crest. She thrust her hips forward, grinding them against his rigid manhood.
Moaning low, he smoothed one hand down her body and between her thighs. He caressed her gently, moving his fingers between the velvety folds. "Almost, but not quite," he told her, smiling gently into her face before lowering his head and kissing her stomach.
His hands stroked the insides of her thighs, urging them to separate, though without any hint of threat, coercion or violation. He nipped her skin lightly with his teeth and bathed her navel with his tongue.
She cried his name sharply when he kissed the cluster of pale curls between her thighs. Then his tongue, soft and inquisitive and agile, entered her. He kissed her deeply, again and again, until her head was thrashing on the pillow and her body was quickening to the strokes of his tongue.
Rapturously she submitted to the spirals of sensation that were winding her being tighter and tighter. At the height of her release, she clutched handfuls of his hair and gasped his name.
A film of perspiration had broken out on her face when he raised himself above her. He sipped at it while he positioned himself between her thighs and lifted her hips against his.
Holding her there, he pressed into her by slow degrees, letting her body gradually adjust to his hard length, so that by the time he was buried snugly inside her, the only difficulty either had experienced was in holding back the passion that demanded immediate fulfillment.
"You feel wonderful surrounding me," he whispered, softly kissing the lips she had bruised with her own teeth. He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, reveling in the ecstasy of being inside her. "You feel sensational."
She murmured his name in a breathy voice while her fingers ghosted lovingly over his face.
She was unaware of the tears that glistened in her eyes, but he saw them.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded her head quickly. "Yes, yes, yes."
"Well, I'm not," he said, baring his teeth.
"I'm about to die. But, God, it's a helluva way to go."
He began moving inside her, stroking her until they were both senseless and all that mattered was succumbing to the tumult of emotion that seized them. When they did, he pressed his forehead upon hers and chanted her name.
"Want me to-"
"No."
Judd chuckled. "You didn't let me finish.
"Whatever it is, I don't want you to do it because you'd have to move. And if you move, I'll have to," she said, yawning listlessly, "and I don't think I can."
Judd did move, but only to pull her into the circle of his arms and prop his chin on the top of her head. Stevie moved, too, curving her arm around his waist.
"Why did you taunt me on the tennis court this afternoon?" she asked.
"Because you were playing poorly, and the reason you were was that you didn't consider me a worthy opponent and, therefore, weren't putting forth any effort."
"I was playing poorly, yes, but not because I didn't consider you a worthy opponent."
"Then why?"
"My head wasn't in the game."
"Where was it?"
"Here."
"Here?" Judd angled his head back. "You mean here, like we are now?"
"Hmm."
"You just won't let me lie, will you?" he said around a resigned sigh. "In all honesty, that's the reason I was taunting you." Stevie lifted her head off his chest and looked up at him, her expression questioning. "Making love to you is all I've thought about since the other morning when we were interrupted."
"Me, too."
"All you had to do was ask, lady."
"I did."
He looked chagrined. "Oh, yeah, you did, didn't you? Well, you know what I mean."
Smiling, she returned her head to his chest and began idly plucking at the hairs tickling her nose.
"I can't believe I'm lying here like this with you, naked and sated. I've often thought that if I ever got you alone, I'd kill you slowly."
He placed his lips close to her ear. "If you hadn't come when you did and given me the green light, you might have succeeded." She giggled and gave his buttock a hard pinch. "Imagine the headlines," he went on, undaunted,
"'Famous Tennis Pro Screws Famous Sportswriter to Death.'"
"Will you behave? This is serious. I don't think you realize how badly your nasty articles have wounded me."
His soft laughter subsided. "Why didn't you just consider the source and blow them off?"
"Because almost everything you've written about me is true."
His hand ceased strumming her spine. He eased her off him, placed her on her back, and rolled to his side. Propped on one elbow and leaning over her, he asked, "What are you talking about?"
"Off-the-record?"
"In journalistic circles, when the interviewer is in bed with the interviews in a state of undress and sexual repletion, it's generally understood that whatever is said is unprintable."
"Oh. Thank you for clarifying that."
"You're welcome. Now quit stalling and run that by me again. What do you mean, everything I've written about you is the truth?"
"A lot of it was. You've often said that I don't belong on a tennis court. In a way, you're right, Judd. From the very beginning my father discouraged me from playing because tennis was 'a rich kid's sport.' I played anyway, but what he had said stuck with me. It gave me a complex. I wasn't like the other players. I wasn't as… as privileged.11 "That's nonsense."
"Maybe, but that sense of inferiority compelled me to prove myself. I had to work harder at it than anyone else, always playing catch-up. I was accepted into most clubs because of my ability on the court, not my pedigree.
"I always had to be better," she stressed, making an appeal for his understanding, "because acceptance depended on it. That's why, when I was financially able, I always dressed well and played up to the spectators. Don't you see, Judd? I was saying, 'Hey, look at me. I'm worthy of your attention.' I was desperate to win approval.
And, yes, sometimes I even resorted to being cute just to ensure that I wouldn't be ignored.
"You saw through all my machinations," she told him in a voice husky with emotion. "You had me pegged from the very beginning. Your columns struck terror in me because they were so incisive. I feared that if my insecurities were visible to you, they must be to everyone else. I'm the classic sufferer of the impostor syndrome.
You were my worst nightmare, the person who would expose me."
His eyes were fixed on her lower lip, but he wasn't contemplating its sexiness so much as he was arranging his own thoughts.
"If all that is true, Stevie, it was an accident.
If I tapped into your insecurities, it was by chance and had nothing to do with incisiveness.
Fact is, I took digs at you because I resented that a cute, young thing like you could do what you did so well and reach the pinnacle of your sport, when I'd had to fall back on writing about how others were doing what I wanted to do myself.
Hacking out that dumb column is a far cry from a career in professional baseball."
"It is not dumb," she said, laying a sympathetic hand along his cheek. "I only said it showed no talent or finesse because I was angry.
You've cultivated a faithful reading audience that wouldn't miss a single acerbic word. No writer can do that for any length of time unless there's substance behind his writing. Your readers aren't fools, you know."
"Thanks for the compliment." He finally surrendered to the temptation and kissed her lower lip. "But I know, deep down, that I haven't done a single worthwhile thing since I had that water-skiing accident."