as he could be with
his pants still on.
He uttered a muffled curse against
her lips, reaching down to fumble with his jeans. She slid her hand into the
back, over his firm butt, as he finally pulled whatever he was looking for out
of his pocket.
A condom. Seeing it made her want to
rip his remaining clothes off— now .
"Hurry," she urged him.
Groaning, he got up, shoved the rest
of his clothes off, put on the condom. He was back on her, sliding in her, a
second later.
She hadn't had sex in a long time,
and he was large. The stretch would have been painful if he hadn't been so
patient. He eased in a little, drawing out, and then teased her with a little
more, over and over, until she was mewling with need. She was beyond turned on,
and then he slipped his hand between their bodies and pressed his thumb right
where she needed it.
Too much.
Not enough.
She relaxed and tensed at the same
time, and he thrust all the way into her.
Crying out, she grabbed him and held
on.
"More?" he asked in a low
rasp.
"You have to ask?" She
wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed up against him.
"If we aren't careful, we'll
fall," he warned.
"Then fall." She tilted
over so they toppled off the couch.
He twisted so she landed on top of
him, then rolled to be back on top. "This is better. More room."
He made use of the space, spreading
out over her, rolling around with her.
A sweaty tangle of limbs, she lost
all sense of where she ended and he started. The intensity rose, climbing
higher with each caress—each hot kiss—until she thought she was
going to burst.
And then she did. She cried out, head
spinning, seeing stars, hearing him moan and stiffen a moment later.
Une grande passion , her grandmother would have called it. Eyes closed, Gwen tried to catch
her breath. She didn't expect a great passion ever, much less one with Rick.
She smiled. She liked it. A lot.
"That's a happy smile," he
murmured, easing to one side.
"Don't let it go to your
head."
"I'm in no danger of that with
you." He traced her lips with his finger. "Besides, I'm fairly
pleased too."
She opened her eyes.
"Fairly?"
"Maybe more than fairly."
He kissed her. "I just didn't want it to go to your head either."
Chapter Nine
"That's not acceptable,
Desmond," Elizabeth said into the receiver, slamming her mug on the
counter so hard that Camille was surprised it didn't shatter. "Give me a
different answer."
Camille sipped her tea, trying to tap
into the calmness the teabag wrapper had promised. She should be used to this.
Her mornings had been the same all her life: having oatmeal at the kitchen
table while her mother yelled at people on the phone to force them into
interviews.
At least she had dinner with Dylan to
look forward to. He'd had to fly to New York to meet with his agent and editor,
but they were having dinner when he got back.
It was just a friendly dinner, she
told herself, not want to blow it out of proportion.
But she couldn't help it—she
grinned every time she thought of it.
"If you want this in the New York Times , you'll have to pick a
date already," her mother yelled. "Do you think I just slap my work
together? It takes time to craft an outstanding interview."
Camille's grin faded in the wake of
her mother's unpleasantness. She didn't get it. Weren't you supposed to attract
flies with honey? But this confrontational style worked for her mother. Even
weirder, everyone spoke highly of her.
Of course, that may have been because
they were kissing up to her. Elizabeth Bernard was a journalistic wunderkind.
If someone had told her that at
twenty-eight Camille would still be living at home under her mother's thumb,
listening to Elizabeth's abuse, she'd have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
She hated being there, for more reasons than she could name. She stirred her
oatmeal. It'd congealed into an unappetizing grayish-brown mass.
Elizabeth tossed the phone aside.
"Well, that wasn't helpful in
the least."
She watched
Jessica Anya Blau
Barbara Ann Wright
Carmen Cross
Niall Griffiths
Hazel Kelly
Karen Duvall
Jill Santopolo
Kayla Knight
Allan Cho
Augusten Burroughs