Chapter Twelve: The Seduction
They continued dancing to the music, stopping to sip champagne every once in a while. Lisa hadn’t felt that way since…she couldn’t remember when…mellow, feminine, like she was the center of someone’s universe. JC made it seem as if nothing was more important than her wants and pleasures with all the sweet attention he paid her. She wasn’t sure if it was the champagne or the man making her feel giddy and wonderfully naughty. A man like JC, an attractive, talented, wealthy man who could have any woman he wanted, seemingly wanted her, a blind widow with four children. It was something from a fairytale. Things like that didn’t happen in real life, only in sappy movies and romance novels. With a happy sigh, she pressed nearer, placing her head on his shoulder.
JC adjusted his arms to hold her closer. She was melting into him and it felt so good. His lips found her temple and place a soft kiss on her skin. “Comfortable, honey?” he asked in a low tone, not wanting to disturb the quiet mood.
“Mmm…yeah…” she purred.
One of her hands slipped beneath the collar of his shirt and stroked the vulnerable flesh of his nape with feather-light fingers. He shivered slightly; she knew that was one of his hot spots. But the torture didn’t stop there. Lifting her head, she placed a damp kiss on his throat above his medallion, then blew lightly on it to cool his skin. The hands at her waist tightened in reaction. He was about to protest when she shifted her upper body away from his until he felt her hands sliding up his chest to find the buttons of his shirt. She was going too slow, her fingers fumbling – he just wanted to tear it open so he could find out what was coming next. No sooner did he complete the thought when she made an impatient sound. Deceptively strong hands gripped the front tails of his shirt and yanked them apart. Buttons popped and went flying.
“Hope you’re not too attached to this shirt,” she muttered before her lips and tongue created a path across his collarbone.
“Umm…I can always buy another one,” he told her. Damn, he’d set the stage for seduction, but he was the one being seduced! Tunneling his hand beneath her hair, he wrapped it around the back of her neck and urged her up into a hot kiss. With her opening readily to him, his tongue thrust between her lips to tangle with hers. She tasted of champagne and Lisa. She was giving as good as she got and he gave his all.
Lisa’s hands learned the contours and textures of his chest her eyes could not see. There was a sprinkle of hair above his suddenly studded nipples that thinned to a small trail until it reached low on his taut belly. The hair hadn’t been there at all when they were teenagers. His chest was well-muscled without being bulky. His skin was warm and smooth.
JC dragged his lips across her cheek to her ear. “No fair, honey,” he growled. “I can’t touch you like that.”
“Yes, you can.” She gave her willing approval to losing her dress. She wanted to feel them skin to skin.
JC reached around to lower the zipper at the back of her dress. Skimming the sagging garment from her shoulders, he sent it floating over her curves to the floor. He leaned forward, placing kisses on her throat as he made quick work of her silky bra.
She turned her head to bury her nose in his soft hair. “Mmm…you smell as good as you feel and taste,” she murmured as the hands on her back urged her forward, breast to chest.
“I’m gonna lay us down, baby,” he warned before he lifted her and eased them down on the bed he’d prepared earlier.
She reached for his mouth again, instigating an urgent mating of mouth and tongue. Her hands were busy learning the contours of his lean ribs and strong back. His shoulders were deceptively broad and muscular for one so slight. Without sight her tactile exploration became twice as important. All her other senses had to teach her what she could not see.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he tenderly bit at her throat. “Like the feel of me, honey?” he demanded, his breath hot on her skin.
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed softly.
“You’re so beautiful…Skin like warm satin…” His hands moved to cup her breasts; they were fuller than he remembered. He palmed her hardening nipples much to her delight. “I could spend all night just touching you.”
“Please, don’t,” she protested. “I want so much more, JC. I want all of you.”
“You can have it all, Lisa. I’m all yours.”
He buried his face in the valley of her breasts, inhaling the baby powder clean scent of her skin. His lips began the journey along the slope of one breast to seek the pebbled peak. The flick of his tongue made her gasp. He rubbed the flat of his tongue over the bud repeatedly, making her squirm beneath him. When at last his lips settled around the nipple to suck, he was rewarded. Her fingers speared into his hair, massaging his scalp to encourage him. She objected when he lifted his head only to melew with pleasure as his tongue wrapped around her other nipple before suckling strongly. He was creating long forgotten sensations, things she never believed she’d ever feel again. Arching her body into his, she was dissatisfied when instead of flesh she encountered denim.
“You have too much on,” she complained.
Lifting his head, he chuckled. “Actually, so do you.” He left the bed only long enough to leave his pants and shorts.
Feeling the bed dip with his weight once more, Lisa reached out to encounter his heavy arousal. He groaned when her fingers wrapped around him, leaving her thumb to rub over the silky head. “Did that grow too?” she inquired impish. She hadn’t remembered him being quite so thick or long.
He grinned. “What can I say, honey? You make a big man out of me.”
Releasing her grip, she opened her arms to him. “C’mere, big man.”
JC didn’t hesitate. They shared long, slow, steamy kisses as their hands avidly covered all the flesh they could find. This time she was the one who wasn’t naked enough. All she wore was her little silk panties but even that was too much. His hand slipped beneath the elastic waistband and cupped her womanhood, finding her wet and ready.
“JC…” she moaned softly only to do it even louder when one talented finger entered her.
“Easy, honey. I’ve barely begun.”
A second finger joined the first. Pumping them in and out, his thumb repeatedly grazed her pleasure bud. She arched up encouraging his intimate invasion. He quickly brought her to a blinding release, relieving some of her pent up tension. He felt the little shockwaves rippling through her as he held her close, gentling her.
Raising her hand, she touched his cheek. “That wasn’t fair to you.”
He turned his mouth into her palm, placing a kiss in the center. “Didn’t I tell you to let me worry about fair? I’m pretty sure I have more experience waiting.”
“I am sure you have much more experience – period.”
He thought he’d caught a little note of hurt and disappointment in her voice. “None of them were you, Lisa,” he assured her with quiet honesty. “None of them were my wife.”
She was fairly certain she should be troubled at his words, but she could think of the reason why at that moment. Then his mouth was on hers and thought seemed unnecessary.
JC shifted so he could place a glissade of wet kisses from her breast to her belly button. He stripped away the scrap of silk that shielded her from his eyes, the last barrier between them. He noted a little bit of tummy that hadn’t quiet recovered from the birth of the twins and the faded stretch marks. He bathed them with his tongue, worshipping her with his mouth as if she were the goddess of fertility. He told her without words her less than flat stomach was beautiful to him
His tenderness brought tears to her eyes. In a world where sleek model beauty was idolized, a woman who had borne children with a bit of a belly was made to feel less a woman. The man making love to her had just let her know it was fine with him for her to be a mother and a sexual being at the same time. He was a rare wonderful male. “Oh, JC…”
He skated his mouth lower, along her thighs before urging them to part. He moved his shoulders between them, so he could drop kisses on her mound. Next he kissed the outer petals of her womanhood, causing them to bloom and offer him what he sought. She whimpered helplessly at the long lick from bottom to top, parting the tender folds with his tongue. He did this several times, learning the new flavor of her as she writhed, forcing him to clasp her soft thighs to hold her still for his possession. “I think you’re even more delicious now than you were then,” he told her before settling into feast. Coaxing the little pearl from its hood, he swirled his tongue around it. Her little sob of delight was all the encouragement he required to continue pleasuring her. She was so sweetly responsive he could play her body like a finely tuned instrument. Soon he brought her to peak and lovingly drove her over the edge.
“JC!” Lisa cried as her body exploded into rapture.
JC moved up her body, easing into her as she continued to shimmer with tiny tremors. She convulsed around him, sharing the aftermath with him. Waiting for her body to relax, he held himself still above her on his elbows. It felt so right to be a part of her, throbbing and expanding within her with no barriers. She had been the first girl he had ever made love to when he had no protection – and Scott had been the result. He was not against repeating that outcome – and this time he would be there for her every step of the way.
She finally stopped quivering and concentrated on the feel of him. So big and hot, stretching her nearly beyond capacity. “Mmm…you did get bigger…” she purred.
JC smiled at her words. “Or maybe you just forgot how big I am.”
Her hands slid up his chest to link behind his neck. “I don’t think I would have forgotten such a thing.”
“We had some great love, Lisa.”
“Yeah, we did.”
The admission made his heart swell in his chest. For the longest time, he felt she considered him as a dark time in her life. “I did love you.”
“I loved you too.”
Taking her hands, he began to move. At first, he rocked into her just enough to stroke her in all the right places. It was the slow and gentle he had promised himself from the first moment he believed he could win her again. It was like a whispered prayer, a joining of souls. He only wished she could see the love in his eyes. Lisa felt his heart literally reach out to hers with a sweet plea. In answer she wrapped her legs around the back of his so they were locked together as one. He lowered his lips to hers, offering his kiss and she accepted him eagerly. Ecstasy washed over them in continuous gentle waves when it came. They held on and let it take them, calling out the others’ names, then spent and breathless, the rested in each others’ arms. She sobbed softly from the beauty of it and he kissed away her tears, soothing and reassuring her until she calmed within his embrace.
Lisa sat in bed propped up by plump pillows, sipping another glass of champagne while the man beside her fed her chocolate covered strawberries. He was very meticulous. If she let any juice escape her lips, his tongue was there sweeping it away – and somehow that tongue managed to find its way into her mouth. She was feeling adored, well-loved and pampered.
JC was pleased when Lisa hadn’t reached for anything to cover her nakedness as they rested and shared their snack. It meant she was at ease with him. Every once in a while he couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her, her mouth, her neck, her shoulder. He simply couldn’t get enough of her.
With a sigh, Lisa laid her head back, reminiscing about how young JC had defined what made a good lover. He had been wise for one so young. A good lover couldn’t be selfish, he had told her. Selfish was one thing he’d never been in the lovemaking department. It seemed the man still adhered to that theory.
“What was the sigh for?” he asked, concerned she was having second thoughts.
“Mmm…just remembering a boy who knew what it took to be a good lover.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Only if you like being jealous of yourself.”
Too bad she couldn’t see his grateful smile. “I loved you so much, Lise.”
“I know, baby.”
He wondered if she even realized the endearment. She had never been as free with them as he had. She hadn’t called him ‘baby’ in nearly ten years. “Lisa?”
“Hmm?…”
He took the glass from her hand, setting it with his on the bedside stand with the strawberries. “Would you mind if I wanted to make love again?”
“You always were the ‘more than once’ kinda guy,” she mused. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you guys are supposed to roll over and go to sleep?”
He chuckled. “Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”
Opening her eyes, she found his chest and moved her hands up to the back of his head. She urged him forward. “That’s a ‘hell yeah!’,” she murmured before she kissed him.
Cradling her against him, he lowered them to the mattress. “My beautiful, sweet Lisa,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll never get enough of loving you.”