“Yeah, I did. You tickled the little guy’s imagination.”
“Are you fishing? The little guy’s not so little any longer. I’m not sure he ever was.”
He chuckled deeply, a shade wickedly, and then he began to move. She rose to meet him, felt the rhythm change as urgency overtook him. She matched it, let him know that her confession didn’t make her fragile. She was powerful, resilient, in or out of his hands, but she liked being in them, liked their deft touch, their insistence on her pleasure, the heat they left in their wake.
Her fingertips walked up and down his spine, splayed across his back, felt his muscles bunch. She pushed her fingers through his thick thatch of hair much that way he did when he was thinking…or exasperated. She palmed his tight ass and hugged him with her knees. When he rocked her so hard that only the bunched pillow behind her kept her from bouncing against the headboard, she surprised him with a quick move that levered him onto his back and put her in the catbird seat.
“Before I’m concussed,” she said by way of explanation.
Sullivan grasped her hips. “Hey, I’m all in.”
Being on top was a novel experience for Ramsey. Jay liked to cover her, either hovering or from behind. She wasn’t ignorant of other positions, only untried. She felt the faint pressure of Sullivan’s fingertips, urging her up. She rose, resumed the rhythm that he had begun. Leaning forward, she invited him to cup her breasts, and hummed her pleasure when he took her up on it and his thumbs passed over her stiff and sensitive nipples.
She watched the play of tension and anticipation in his features, the hooded stare, the catch in his breath, the thrust of his lower jaw. He arched his throat, his back, pressed his shoulders into the mattress, and gasped or groaned something unintelligible as he came, and he still had the presence of mind to slip one hand between their bodies, flick her clitoris like his finger was a battery-operated toy, and make her lose her mind.
Ramsey collapsed, closed her eyes, and repeated the wordsOh, Godas if they were her mantra. It felt like a long while before she tried to move, but even then, he told her to stay where she was. She did, and still joined, she managed to stretch. Later, but not too much later, she fell asleep.
20
Sullivan managed notto wake Ramsey when he slipped out from under her and then out of bed. She was still sleeping when he returned from the bathroom, but now she was sprawled on both sides of the middle. Even on a king mattress she took up a lot of room. Carefully, he moved an arm then a leg closer to the center line and made space for himself. He turned off the lamp and climbed in. He wasn’t one for cuddling. Sometimes it seemed that the bed wasn’t big enough for him on his own, let alone with someone joining him, yet when Ramsey rolled into his space, he didn’t move away, and when she flung an arm across his chest and bumped him with her knees, for all that it was out of the ordinary, it wasn’t precisely outside his comfort zone.
He slid into a surprisingly easy sleep and woke six hours later alone in bed. But not alone in the house, he realized. The shower was running in the bathroom and Ramsey’s clothes were still on the chair. That meant she’d probably emerge wearing his shirt. Goodie.
Sullivan got up and made for the closet, picked out a pair of gray low-rise trunks, a clean tee with Baby Groot silk screened on the chest, and his favorite pair of sand washed jeans, slipped barefoot into a pair of loafers and headed for the kitchen. He hadn’t made it to the door when Ramsey entered from the bathroom. For just a moment she was surrounded by a cloud of steam. He forgave her for using all the hot water because she was indeed wearing his shirt.
“Don’t change,” he said when she moved to the chair.
She looked up, gave him a crooked smile. “Just looking for something for my feet. I noticed the slate floor in your kitchen. It’ll be cold.”
“Nope,” he said. “It’s heated. Same as the bathroom.”
“Oh.” She looked back over her shoulder at the bathroom. “And here I was thinking it was the shower that warmed it up.” She caught the pair of white athletic socks that Sullivan tossed her from the closet and sat on the edge of the chair to put them on. “Thanks. I have a feminist’s aversion to being barefoot in the kitchen.” She stood. “Cap’n Crunch still on the menu?”
“Sure, unless you’d like something else. I have eggs, steel cut oats, clementines. I can make French toast. Pancakes, if you’d rather.”
Dramatically, she asked, “You cook?”
“Don’t get excited. That was my entire repertoire.”
“Coffee? Half and half?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“Then lead the way.”
He did. In the kitchen, he pointed out a stool at the breakfast bar for Ramsey and took out two Fiestaware mugs, one sunflower, one poppy, and set them on the counter. He showed her the carousel of coffee pods. “What’s your poison? I’m warning you, I don’t have any flavored coffees.”
“Suits me. I’ll have a Dunkin.”
He plucked one out, set it in the maker, added water, and pressed the flashing orange button. “You decide about breakfast?”
“Just cereal, please.”
“Sugar high it is.” He bent, pulled out the box from under the counter and set it on the bar. He removed two Fiesta bowls, this time plum and scarlet, and let her chose her color. By the time he got out the milk and the half and half, the first cup of coffee was done. He slid the cup toward her along with a napkin and a couple of spoons. “Anything else? Sugar? Sweetener?”
“No. I’m good.” She opened the cereal box, poured his and hers, added milk to her bowl, and then set the box in front of her so she could read about the Captain’s adventures while she ate. When she saw Sullivan was staring at her, doing nothing to hide his amusement, she waved him off. “Old habits,” she said, and continued reading.
Sullivan turned on the small screen counter TV to a twenty-four-hour cable news channel, kept the volume low, and sat on the stool beside Ramsey.
