“So how much did you really have to drink tonight?” Fumbling to unhook the strap, he tried to get his body to calm down. Hank gritted his teeth and recited the Miranda Rights in his head because if anyone needed that warning right now, it was him.
“Only one glash. I don't like to drink.” Laid out on the bed, Beth arched her back and stretched her willowy arms toward the wine-colored fabric headboard. A soft moan escaped as she extended her upper body.
White-hot desire ripped through Hank's body as suddenly as a thunder clap. If there was a reason why he shouldn't sink down to his knees and run his hands up her supple thighs, he sure as hell didn't remember it. The shoe dropped from her foot. He stared at the high arch curving upward from her sole and fought to remember why this was wrong.
Beth sat up, pulling her foot from his grasp. “Claire and I are sishters now.” She clapped her hands and giggled. “That's awesome!”
Yeah. That's why Beth was off limits. She was his sister's best friend and she was blasted out of her mind. So while there was nothing more he'd like to do than strip her down and fuck her silly, he couldn't do it.
“We did not get married.” He took a step back from the bed and the possibilities it provided.
“That's not nice.” Beth raised her other leg. “I have one more shoe, then you can help me get my dresh off.”
Hank's insubordinate cock jumped at the idea. If he looked in the mirror right now, he was afraid he'd see a bug-eyed, panting, cartoon-style caricature of himself. Furious at his reaction, he grabbed her ankle and yanked off her shoe without undoing the strap. “Time to sober you up. Come on, in the shower you go.”
She grinned wickedly. “I'll scrub your back if you scrub mine.” Her hand traveled up her right leg, disappeared under the hem of her dress and stopped just short of her pussy. “Unless you'd rather just watch.”
Blood rushed south from his brain and his balls tightened immediately.
Her fingers danced underneath her dress, tormenting him with mental images of her sneaking a finger into her panties. The unknown tormented him. Thong? Bikini? Lace? Satin? Was she slick already, waiting for him to bury himself deep within her?
Another soft moan sent his blood pressure through the roof as she arched her back off the thick comforter. “My favorite thing to think about when I touch my clit is you going down on me, licking your way around my wet pussy.” Her fingers sped up their undercover rotations. “As soon as I saw you with that beard I wanted to feel it scratching against my inner thighs as I came.”
Hypnotized by the sight before him and entranced by her soft alto voice, the hotel could have burned down around them and Hank wouldn't have been able to move from that spot.
“Do you want to taste me, Hank?” Beth withdrew her hand from underneath her dress, holding two fingers apart from the rest. Bringing her hand up to her mouth, her pink tongue slowly slid up one side of her middle finger before she sucked it into her hot mouth. Millimeter by millimeter she pulled it from her glistening red lips. “Because I taste good.”
Hank looked at the pointer finger, wet with her own juices, that she held out to him. For the first time since he’d been a teen, he worried about coming in his pants. Fuck, what this woman did to him. He took an unsteady step forward until his shins banged against the bed frame.
She grabbed his pants and made quick work of his belt. “That's it, come give your wife what she needs.”
Effective as a bucket of ice dropped down his boxers, her words froze his hot lust.
Pulling Beth up from the bed, he pushed her toward the bathroom. “We. Are. Not. Married.” Speaking those words hurt more than they should.
“Whatever you shay, honey.”
Once inside the marble-covered room, he busied himself with getting the water ready while she hung back in the doorway. A cold shower would jolt her out of her intoxication.
He yanked open the glass door and twisted the water knob all the way to the blue side. Maybe later he'd get a chance to take one too. God knew he needed it. The water rushed out of the large, round showerhead, splashing against the bottom of the gray marble floor.
Closing the door, he snatched a towel from the shelf and wiped his hands. “Okay, it's ready. Why don't you…”
As soon as he turned around, the words died in his mouth.
Beth stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a sheer black bra and lacy panties.
Gripping the cool marble countertop to steady himself, he took in a fortifying breath. What he couldn't do was pry his eyes from her.
Five feet, nine inches tall in her bare feet, she had legs that went on forever. They weren't sticks either. No. She had the strong, limber legs of a woman who embraced the power of her body. His gaze traveled upward over her narrow hips and flat stomach. He spotted a tattoo started above her right hipbone and went up her rib cage: a golden phoenix. The crisp detail and vivid colors of the yellow-and-orange bird with its wings spread as if about to take flight attested to the amount of time and money involved in getting the tattoo. If he ever figured out how to form words again, he'd have to ask her about it.
Her small, round breasts were veiled behind the see-through lace of her black bra but her dark-brown nipples, puckered into hard points, extended outward, calling him an
d pulling him closer. Two simple gold rings hung from a silver necklace fastened around her long neck.
He remembered the rings from that summer night so long ago. Her parents' wedding rings. She never took them off. That and an unbuttoned pair of jeans were all she'd worn when she'd lain back on the plaid picnic blanket. Barely twenty, she'd found him alone at Lake Harvey with a six pack of cheap beer, nursing his wounds from yet another breakup with Amanda in their on-again, off-again premarital downward spiral.
He'd been looking for a soft landing. She'd deserved more. He'd stopped them just in time, telling her it was the right thing to do. The same thing he needed to do tonight.