Country Roads(43)

She flung her arms up over her head and gave herself to his rhythm as the hot, tight longing deep in her belly wound tighter and tighter. He let go of her hip to flick a finger in just the right spot between them, and her orgasm blasted through her, bowing her up off the bed and digging her heels into his sinewy buttocks. He kept moving, driving her to another climax.

And then he went deep and still for a long moment before he bent backward and shouted his finish at the ceiling.

Julia closed her eyes as he slid out of her and gently shifted her so she was fully on the bed. She wrapped herself around the afterglow still pulsing deep inside her. She heard the whisk of a Kleenex from the box on the table, and then the opposite side of the bed dipped under his weight.

“Asleep already?” His deep voice came from very close, and she pried her eyelids open to find him lying on his side, his head propped on his crooked elbow as he smiled at her.

“Recovering,” she murmured, smiling back at him as she ran a finger along one of his strong cheekbones. She uncurled and fell onto her back. “I feel so good.”

“You look pretty darn good too.” He picked up a strand of her hair and brushed it over her breast.

She giggled and gasped at the same time as her nipple reacted to his erotic tickling. Then he dropped the hair and spread his hand over her abdomen, where it burned like a brand against her skin.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, flexing his fingers the tiniest bit so she felt their imprint. He stroked over her hipbone and down her thigh, then moved back upward until he feathered a touch along the bottom curve of her breast.

“Try your hardest. I can’t move,” she said, although in fact everywhere he touched sent ripples of sensual delight dancing over her skin.

For a moment, he let his palm rest on her breast. Then he draped his arm over her waist and pulled her up against him, nestling his face against her neck. She shivered as his breath fanned over her throat.

“Are you cold?” he asked, lifting his head.

“No, no. The temperature is perfect.”

Everything was perfect: the weight of his arm claiming her, the warmth of his body snugged up against her side, the bone-melting relaxation following a major orgasm. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner,” she murmured.

“Too much sooner and we wouldn’t have known each other’s names.”

That wasn’t what she meant, but she was struck by it. “That’s really weird, isn’t it? Here we are, stark naked together, and we know virtually nothing about each other.” His breathing changed rhythm, and she wondered what that signified. She tucked her chin down to try and see his face, but it was buried in the crazy tangle of her hair.

“Around here I feel like I know too much about everyone.”

“Mystery is part of the attraction. Sex is how you find out more.” Her eyes were closed, and she was rambling out of a sense of contentment and a desire to have his voice rumble in her ear.

“So what did you find out tonight?” he asked.

“That I got some details in my drawing wrong.”

“What drawing is that?”

“The one of you walking out of the river, holding a big fish. Claire asked me to donate it to the charity auction next week.”

That got his face out of her hair. “Didn’t you say something about it being nude?”

She nodded, knowing her eyes were brimming with amusement.

“You’re pulling my leg.” He sat up, pulling her with him. “All right, show it to me.”

“I wouldn’t really donate it,” she said, sliding off the bed and padding into the sitting room to retrieve her sketchpad.



He propped himself up on the pillows and enjoyed the view of madly waving red hair tumbling down toward the curve of her rounded bottom. She seemed to have shed her earlier attack of shyness entirely.

Waiting for her, he felt ease soak deep into his body. With Julia, he didn’t have to be the responsible brother or the respectable mayor or the do-good lawyer. It was a welcome respite, if a brief one. He couldn’t expect someone like Julia Castillo to hang around Sanctuary for long.

She walked back in, already flipping the pages of her pad. Turning the book around, she held it in front of her body as she came across the bed on her knees.

He reached out to take it from her, but she drew back. “Nope. You have to look from the right distance.”

“But you’re covering up my favorite sculpture.”

She blushed adorably. It always surprised him that he could embarrass her. She was so fiercely sure of herself in some ways, and so vulnerable in others. He focused on the drawing, and felt both awe and laughter expanding in his chest.