“Oh, shit.” His breathing was frankly asthmatic, his excitement palpable. “Show me.” As an afterthought, he added, “Please,” and it sounded an awful lot like begging.
“You want to feel?” said the vixen wearing Uma’s body.
“Yeah, yeah.”
She dropped to her knees in front of him, bringing their chests together. He followed orders so well. The thrill of being in charge ran through her veins like electricity.
Uma’s voice was a combination of eager and condescending as she said, “Go ahead, Ivan. You can touch them.”
He surprised her, because although his hands shot up, rather than go straight for the prize, he clasped her arms, ran his fingers lightly up them, over her shoulders to her neck, then forward to her jaw. He clasped her gently, one hand cupping her ear and the other under her chin as he bent his head and dropped a kiss on her mouth. A wet swipe of lips and tongue across her cheek to her neck, and back to her face, her lips. He made a lost little noise before dropping his hands, one to clasp her waist, the other, finally, her breast.
His fingers pinched and she yelped.Fuck.He kept surprising her, this man, tender and harsh, playful and helpless. So different from Joey, whose need to control had turned sex into a performance—contrived, choreographed perfection. It had been good for a while, but quickly turned hollow.
Ivan was an animal first and a man second, and by letting Uma lead, he was tamping down those natural instincts. But like a caged feline, he couldn’t seem to help nipping every now and then.
Am I playing with fire?she wondered.Mistaking a lion for a kitten?Maybe, but it was too good to stop.
Ivan’s palm settled over her, warm and rough and a little disorganized. It was so massive covering her breast that she felt small there for the first time ever.
“Oh, Christ, Uma. Christ,” he breathed into her mouth just before she bit his lip. He jumped, and his hands spasmed against her body, clasping and tightening. “I gotta touch your skin. Not this.” He pulled at her shirt. “You, Uma. I wanna feelyou.”
Ignoring her frightened inner voice, Uma grasped his hand and led it down, beneath her top, to place it on her breast, over her bra. He squeezed once, brought his other hand beside it, and before she fully understood what he planned, he’d pulled both cups down. Only her shirt kept her from full exposure.
She groaned his name before he put his mouth over hers again, swallowing her words and distracting her from what else he was doing.
He was tweaking her, taking those hard points and flicking them. He pulled away, bent down, and bit Uma through her shirt, right above the nipple, in a way that was so possessive she felt it, a clenching ache deep inside.
He moved his head down a couple of inches. “You’re beautiful, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasped out and sucked hard, right through the fabric.
Uma fisted his hair in her hands and pulled him against her, letting her eyes fall closed with a quiet “ah.” It was too much and not enough. Again and again he pulled, nuzzled, bit, and sucked, all the while peppering the air with little grunts that were out of control and sexy as hell. Finally, she urged him over to the other breast, and he went to work there.
Before she knew what she was doing, Uma tugged his head away and unbuttoned her pants. “Take off your shirt,” she whispered, and he did, clumsy in his hurry. She shifted back to her knees and crawled forward until their chests were pressed lightly together, hot skin to damp cotton.
“Fuck, it’s good,” he groaned, and he was right. It was amazing. Too much. So close to being perfect.
He grabbed her hips, and Uma could feel his excitement when he pulled her harder to him. “I’m so fuckin’ turned on with you, Uma. So fuckin’ worked up. How’d you get me like this?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t…me.”
He squeezed her hips, ground them together, and then reached out, found the opening in her jeans, worked his hand inside, and cupped her. “Oh,fuckyeah.”
“Take off your pants, Ivan.”
19
Uma had never seen Ivan do anything as quickly as he whipped off those jeans.
He hadn’t changed since she’d last seen him, but still, his body took her by surprise. It wasn’t the muscles or the prettiness of all that pale skin that got to her. It was howrealhe was. As if Joey had existed on some other, more ethereal level, but Ivan was right there. With her, solid and true.
What am I doing?part of her wondered. And in the back of her mind, it was clear that she was an idiot, because no matter how hard she worked to convince herself otherwise, this couldn’t be just about sex. She wasn’t supposed to be liking a new guy. She was supposed to be avoiding men, not falling right back into bed with the first one to come along, especially not in this temporary town.
I can’t stay. Can I?
“That bad, huh?” he said, kneeling again in front of Uma.
“What?”
“Get my pants off, and everything screeches to a halt. Guess you don’t like what you see this time. Was hopin’ I’d convince you to take yours off too.” He grinned.
