Thigh High Read online

  She nodded. “So folks don’t get motion sickness on them?”

  “Depends on how sensitive the person is. But with a two-story home the second floor moves a little more. You’re not afflicted, are you?” Warm concern drenched her, and she felt absurdly pleased and excited to be able to tell him no.

  “I’ve got a rock-solid stomach onboard. I’ve never felt anything but happy to feel the roll under my feet. Considering I didn’t grow up around boats, that’s pretty cool, huh?”

  “Pretty cool.” His grin was warm and promised warmer. Her body responded with slick heat, and moisture pooled in her panties.

  “It’s late,” she said, checking the color of the lightening sky. “Or maybe I should say, it’s early. I’m bushed.” She yawned, unable to hide it.

  Since she hadn’t had a job in six months, she’d finally come around to her natural sleep rhythm and had begun to sleep in later and later. But still, she’d been up for hours now and dawn was fast approaching.

  He opened his car door and nuzzled her hair as she slid into the seat. “We’ll look for the thong together after we get some sleep,” he said, his voice throaty with steam.

  A thrill of anticipation chased down from her head to her pussy. “Are we doing that together too? Sleeping, I mean.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “If you’ll have me.”

  “I’ll consider it,” she said with enough spark to keep him guessing.

  Barkley jumped into the backseat and curled up to sleep immediately. “Funny,” Daniel said, “he usually demands the front passenger side to himself.”

  She clipped her seat belt into place while Daniel crossed the front of the car to climb in behind the wheel.

  No sooner had he buckled in than he grabbed her hand again to set it to rest on his thigh. Under her palm, the rough denim heated while his muscle felt firm and hard. She squeezed lightly.

  “I’d like to see the inside of your float home, Daniel. I’ve never been in one before.” Better his place than hers. Company on the yacht would be a huge mistake.

  He slanted her a glance that melted her. “If I show you around in there, it could take all night.”

  “Good, I like all-nighters.” Once she got started taking care of this itch, it could take awhile. Six months was a lot of time to make up for.

  After that, she couldn’t think of a thing more to say. The atmosphere in the car turned quiet and soft and felt like expectation.

  Warm, gentle anticipation. The best kind.

  Her stomach sent thrills of desire up to her chest, and she decided Daniel was a slow, careful lover. She sometimes liked rockets like any other woman, but tonight wouldn’t be about rockets. Tonight with Daniel felt slow. Quiet.

  Promising.

  She settled into her seat with a sigh, her nipples hard and scratchy under her newest lace bra. Barkley snuffled in his sleep in the backseat. “Think he has any idea of the trouble he’s caused?”

  “Since his brain’s the size of a walnut, or smaller, I doubt it.” He twined his fingers with hers and moved their hands to her lap. The pad of his thumb found her pulse and circled there. Her heart rate jumped, but his hand was warm and gentle. Soothing her with easy promise.

  Oh yes, tonight would be all about slow.

  To help speed things up she thought of pulling his roving thumb to her crotch. Her pussy creamed and pulsed with need, her clit plumping as he teased the delicate flesh at her wrist. She shifted to widened the space at the top of her thighs.

  Daniel, damn the man, didn’t take the hint.

  The dashboard lights glowed red, giving the object of her lust a devilish glow. His eyes gathered the red, and she imagined sparks of fiery need deep in their depths. If he didn’t touch more than her wrist and hand soon, she swore she’d unzip her shorts. Maybe then he’d get the hint.

  He turned into the short drive that led to the parking area for the marina. As they traveled the length of a playing field that ran alongside, she pulled her thoughts to more mundane things. There wasn’t much she could share about herself, but she remembered something.

  “I wanted to buy one of these cars a few months ago.” Before her life had exploded. “But I was turned down for a loan.”

  “You’re living in a yacht the size of Texas and you couldn’t swing a car loan?”

  “I’m, ah, yacht-sitting.” The lie everyone had agreed on only felt a little wrong. “It’s just as well about the car because I found myself unemployed shortly after being turned down.”

  He grinned and winked. “Then I guess you’ll be around for a while. Things do have a way of working out for the best.”

  She chuckled and turned her face to her window so he wouldn’t see the glow he’d put in her cheeks, or the guilt in her eyes from the lies she’d already told. There would be more, too, she was sure of it.

  Her belly jumped with worry. She’d never been a stone-cold liar, and she didn’t expect to be able to keep it up for long. The best she could hope for was that they’d tire of each other before the truth became awkward.

  “Think we’ll be able to find the thong tomorrow? I need to get it back.” If it was anywhere the sun could catch at the diamonds it would be picked up, if not as a curiosity by a child, then as a fabulous find by a discerning adult. The diamonds were of such quality any woman who’d ever gazed in a jewelry store window would see the truth.

  Her belly sank.

  If word got out that an honest-to-goodness diamond-studded thong had been found at the Dallas Road oceanfront, she’d have to get gone. For good.

  She glanced at Daniel, and her desire ticked up a notch.

  So what if the truth came out first thing in the morning, she’d have this time with him now.

  He pulled the car into his parking spot at the top of the docks. Barkley jumped into her lap from the backseat and put his front paws on the armrest to look out the window. His back paws dug into her naked thigh.

  Daniel trotted to the passenger door and opened it. Barkley, true to his name, set off down the ramp at a dead run, voicing his joy at heading to his own bed.

  “I used to yell at him to shut up, then I realized I was making as much noise as he was. Most of the time, my neighbors tune him out.”

  A chorus of other barks responded to Barkley’s, and she chuckled. “I wondered why there was such a racket every morning at this time.” Now she knew all the dogs on the docks welcomed him home.

  He closed the car door and slipped his hands to her shoulders. “If I don’t do this soon, I’ll lose what little mind I have left.”

  “You’ve lost some of your mind?”

  “Shut up and let me kiss you.”

  She looped her arms around his neck, cupped the back of his head and pulled him to her. “About time, Mr. DJ.”

  His lips were hot, hard and demanding. More demanding than she’d given him credit for. Daniel may be a gentle name, with no hard sounds or harsh syllables, but it said nothing about the man’s potency. Nor did his soft eyes and his I’m-so-fuckable voice.

  No, no. Daniel was a great kisser, full of gusto and hot demand that fired each of her cylinders into rocket launch mode. Rocket sex? Oh yeah, he knew rocket sex.

  And she felt liftoff.

  She had no idea where she’d come up with the slow sex scenario, but she was dead wrong.

  Someone groaned, whether it was her or him, it was loud enough that they pulled apart, locked gazes and went back for more, this time with Daniel lifting her against the car so he could press his hardness against her softness.

  And soft she was. And wet, and open.

  And needy.

  Six months’ worth of needy.

  “Get me to a bed, Daniel. Now.”

  He swooped her into his arms, and she heard another groan. “Am I too heavy?” But she didn’t want to get down, didn’t want to have to walk down the ramp.

  And especially didn’t want to get to the bottom of it where she’d have to decide between right and left. And right and wro
ng.

  Turning right would mean going to his place and his bed.

  Turning left would mean another lonely night in the Boondoggle’s master cabin, thoughts whirling as fear built.

  As for right and wrong: She knew it was wrong to sleep with a man she’d just met. But with Daniel it felt right in places she hadn’t explored in too long.

  In the end, she didn’t have to walk the ramp because he said, “That wasn’t my groan, it was Barkley growling.”

  Sure enough, there he was, sitting patiently at the top of the ramp. His stubby tail swept the dirt, eyes bright, head cocked to one side. Tonight was unusual and he seemed to know it.

  “He wants his routine back. Going out to the vet in the middle of his night has confused him. He’s waiting for me to hit the sack, the way I usually do.”

  “Usually? This is usual?”

  “Not at all, Frankie, not at all. But I hope it continues long enough for all of us to get used to it.”

  She nuzzled the spot between his earlobe and his shoulder. He smelled of warm flesh and good man, and she couldn’t resist a lick.

  “Keep that up and I’ll stumble.” At the bottom of the ramp, he turned right toward his float home. So much for her right or left, right or wrong quandary.

  Her heart hammered, and she licked him again to see if she really did have the power to make him stumble.

  Barkley scampered ahead of them, hopped onto the deck and disappeared into his doghouse.

  Next time she tasted Daniel’s neck, she gave his earlobe an experimental suck. This time, it wasn’t a groan she heard, but a growl. And Barkley was nowhere to be seen.

  4

  Daniel set Frankie down on deck, next to the barbecue. The sky was rife with stars failing against a dawn-pink sky, the air spiced with the sea and soft quiet.

  She kept her arms looped around his neck. He slid his palms down each side of her rib cage to hold her hips. He squeezed, happy to find she was womanly where he wanted. Too many bone racks had wandered through his bed, and he liked a woman with flesh. Frankie was perfect. A package of taut womanly curves that fit into his hands as if she were made for him.

  Her face tilted up to his, eyes gleaming in the pearly dawn light, full of mystery and come-get-me.

  “I don’t know anything about you. Where you came from, where you’re going, or why you’re here with me,” he said, avoiding the trap of falling into her eyes. Patting himself on the back for his quick thinking, he left the leading statement where it lay between them.

  “I’m here for the same reason you are.” She stretched up and kissed him, her lips soft, yearning and ripe. She tasted of coffee and need, and he lost all the questions he thought to ask.

  “Just so we’re clear, it’s been a long time for me. Life’s been hectic and I’m a touch…raw. Best bet here is to let tonight be about tonight,” Frankie said, “with no promises for tomorrow.”

  “Works for me.” He hadn’t missed the neat sidestep she took around his curiosity, but he was so hard and she was so pliant, he let his body, and hers, be in charge.

  Besides, Frankie was doing something with her tongue under his ear that had him lifting her to waist high.

  Need swamped her as Daniel hauled her up to his waist. She wrapped her legs around him and let him carry her through the door and into the living area of his home. An impression of masculine efficiency flashed by, but checking out the decor would have to wait. He took her straight through the kitchen to his bedroom at the front. The drapes were already drawn, the bed turned down.

  She worked on his buttons while he walked her, straddling him, to the bed. Her fingers worked fast, because even as shaky as they were, it had been far too long, and all she wanted was the feel of his hot flesh under her palms.

  In ten seconds she got it. “Oh, you feel good,” she murmured as she slid her hands under his shirt. She cupped his pecs and sighed with the rightness of his smooth skin. A sprinkling of hair between his pecs narrowed to his waistband. Silky, springy hair. She shuddered as she ran her fingers through the heated silk. She grinned in the dark. “I love chest hair.”

  “Good.” He released her and she plopped onto the bed. He followed her down, but before she could settle he straddled her hips, pinning her into the soft mattress.

  Vulnerable, she caught her breath, aware of her mistake. She was here with a stranger and no one in her life knew it. Big-city smarts had faded to horny stupidity in the face of six months of abstinence.

  But Daniel wasn’t into hurting her, she realized in a blink. He wanted her naked. He copied her rapid work at buttons and whipped her shirt as wide open as his. “Front?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He found the catch to her bra and clicked it, then swept the cups off her. “Dark, like I thought,” he said as he palmed her. “Big, full nipples.”

  She moistened at the admiration in his gaze, the slide thick and wet between her legs.

  He positioned her nipples in the apex of two fingers. With quick squeeze-and-release manipulations, he brought each nipple to hard in record time.

  Oh yeah, this man knew his way around a breast. To show him how much she liked what he was doing she flung her hands up toward the headboard and arched up into his palms.

  Encouraged, he squeezed and plucked, sending arrows of heat to her dripping pussy. “Oh, that’s good,” she said on a tightened huff of breath. She squeezed her thighs together for the little comfort she could find from the aching need.

  He balanced on his heels and undid his belt buckle. She held her breath while she watched the smooth play of his hands and fingers. No turning back now.

  Thank God.

  She sat up and palmed his ribs while she found and sucked one of his nipples, then the other. He caught his breath and stilled. She nipped the flesh lightly. “Yes, do that.”

  She delighted in his responses to every lick, every suck of her lips and tongue. Her belly tightened with anticipation.

  He slid off the bed, yanked down his jeans then kicked off his sneakers. Then he stood and let her look her fill. And her fill was what she’d get. The man was spectacular. Fully erect and thick, his penis would fill her and then some. She felt her inner muscles quake as the message zipped from her eyes to her brain and down to her weepy pussy.

  “I’m going to have to be very ready.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  She just bet he would.

  “Now I want to see you. Strip out of those shorts, Frankie, and show me your wet, tight, lickable pussy.”

  Her hands stalled on her zipper. She swallowed. “Oh.”

  “Never been kissed?” His eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store. She wanted to be everything he hoped for.

  “Not very well.” Fact was, she’d been shy and awkward and the whole thing had seemed forced anyway. As if Blaine was doing what he thought he should instead of what he wanted. Which had been to shove himself inside, root around for a moment then pull out to shoot all over her belly. He liked to see the mess. That is, if he got the condom off in time.

  She always thought he’d seen too much porn and got off more on the cum shots than the act itself. She was already more turned on with just a few touches and kisses from Daniel than she’d ever been with Blaine.

  Daniel’s warm palms on each knee brought her back to bed, to the here and now and what they were doing.

  “We’ll see if I can do better.” His voice stroked like rough suede down her spine. She melted under the intensity in his gaze.

  “Do you like…doing that?”

  “Say it.” Desire filled his voice, his eyes, warmed through his palms and burned the flesh of her knees. “Say what it is that you think I like doing. Say it.”

  She thrilled at the soft command. “Do you like licking pussy?”

  “Strange question, but yes, I like it. Love it. You’ll come, I promise. If I’m really good, you’ll come more than once and then I’ll get to slide all the way home and we’ll both go
off like rockets again.”

  She couldn’t form thoughts let alone words, so she unzipped as quickly as she could and let him help her out of her shorts and panties.

  Then he spread her legs to indecent and settled at the foot of the bed.

  From this angle all she could see was his incredible focus. She wanted to watch his face as he studied her, but shyness washed through her so she stared at the ceiling instead.

  Stars twinkled where there shouldn’t be any, and then she realized he’d stuck the Big Dipper over the bed. Glow in the dark stars reflected their stored light. She smiled at the whimsy and liked Daniel even more. “You’re making me see stars,” she said.

  “Jeeze, and I haven’t started yet.” His humor eased its way through her shyness, and she felt her body bloom open.

  “I like you, Daniel.”

  “I like you, Frankie.”

  The bedside clock ticked into the silence. “Are you going to start now?” she whispered.

  “I’m trying to catch my breath. You’re so beautiful, Frankie, I’m not sure I can do you justice.”

  “Now you’re teasing me.” She raised up to her elbows and looked between the vee of her knees. Daniel grinned back at her.

  “No, this is teasing,” he said. He dropped his face to where she waited.

  Daniel felt pretty good about how he’d kept the awe out of his voice. He often depended on humor to hide his real feelings. Fear of the microphone, fear of losing his train of thought and fear of losing his audience were all kept at bay with jokes and light talk.

  But this woman scared the hell out of him, and there weren’t enough jokes or humor in the world to help him fake it.

  He could see she was nervous, maybe shy. But she’d made it clear what she wanted, and she wanted a night of good sex. He already wanted more, but for now it was enough to give the lady what she wanted. Tomorrow could take care of itself.

  She lay spread before him like a banquet, all pink rosiness, plump and oh-so-juicy. He lifted each of her legs and draped them over his shoulders. No need for finesse; he didn’t want to give her time to backtrack or shy away.