Dance with Me, page 19
I nod in understanding. “Your parents are older than mine, so I’m trying to picture my grandmother, who’s in her seventies, chasing after my little brothers, who are five and eight. She’d do it, make no mistake, but she’d be exhausted. They’d run her ragged.”
Marisa points her fork at me in agreement. “Right? I had to convince them that Jaden living with me was the better solution. I have another older brother, but he’s single and lives in Denver. I’m here. I work with kids when I teach dance. I have the room. I’m a financial planner, for God’s sake, I know how to budget, and I’m secure. Etcetera.” She grimaces. “I think they felt like they’d be failing my brother.”
“That’s so sad,” I say with a frown.
“Plus, they needed to be able to mourn.” Her voice has gone very soft. “They lost their son. They deserve to grieve, but I know they wouldn’t want to do that in front of Jaden.”
“And what about you?” I ask, my voice equally soft. “Do you allow yourself a chance to mourn your brother?”
Her face flushes prettily. “I do. It helps that my parents take him often. Gives me a break, gives them time with him, and I get to have some alone time. To reminisce.” She scoffs and picks up her wine. “Or cry or get drunk or scream in a pillow or whatever.”
“I’d think you have to do all those things for a while, yeah?”
“True.” She sips her wine, then takes a breath as if bolstering herself, pulling herself back from the seriousness. “But it’s been great. I always wanted kids. I still hope to have another one or two. And he’s my brother’s kid. My nephew, my blood. I love him more than life.”
I suddenly want to know so much more about her. Everything. I want to know everything. “Tell me about your brother. What was his name?” I reach for the wine bottle and top off our glasses.
“Matt. Matthew. He was forty when he died. His wife, Sheri, was thirty-five.” Marisa takes a deep breath, and I can tell this isn’t a subject she broaches a lot. That being said, it also feels like one she wants to. She doesn’t look sad. In fact, she looks kind of radiant. Bright eyes, a soft smile. “He was my protector. He looked out for me. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and he never let any guy even close to me.” Direct eye contact then as she says, “Which was fine by me, since I liked girls.” We both chuckle at that. “He was funny and kind and helpful and smart and just a really, really good man, you know?”
“Sometimes seems hard to find those.”
“It really does, but he was one of the good ones. I want to make sure to raise Jaden to be like that.”
“Well, from what I’ve seen, you don’t have anything to worry about.” True, I don’t really know. I’ve been around Jaden exactly three times. But he’s a good kid. I feel like you can tell when a kid is a good kid, and I definitely get that vibe from him. And it feels important to tell Marisa that.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Does he ask about his parents?”
“Not a lot. But he’ll randomly say something about them, like he did when we drove you home. He’ll tell a stranger his parents are in heaven or that they’re watching over him. My mom tells him that all the time, and I’m not sure he gets it, but it seems to comfort him.” She sips her wine, swallows. “He has nightmares, though.”
I clench my teeth and make a face because the thought of a tiny human as adorable as Jaden screaming out in terror in the dark is almost too much. “Oh no.”
“Yeah. He’ll wake up screaming for his mom and”—she waves a hand in front of her body—“he gets me instead.” A deep breath in and a loud exhale follow, and I can see her uncertainty all over her face.
“I still say he’s lucky to have you. And time will help, don’t you think?”
“They have gotten less frequent. And he has a great therapist, which is probably at least part of why.”
And then I’m just looking at her, at this big-hearted, warmly caring woman, and I feel my own heart swell up with whatever it is I’m starting to feel for her. She glances up at me, smiles, and gives herself a full-body shake, like she’s trying to escape the heaviness of the topic.
“Anyway,” she says. “Are you ready for dessert?”
I hold her gaze and let the double entendre hang in the air between us before I nod.
I see exactly when she catches it because her cheeks get pink again, and I decide in that exact moment that making this put together, supremely confident woman blush is one of my favorite things in life.
“Come with me,” she says, her voice suddenly very low and husky. I follow her into the kitchen because I am a smart girl.
She pulls a bowl of strawberries from the fridge, then slices two biscuits that look homemade in half and sets the bottoms in small bowls. As she spoons strawberries over them, she asks me to get the whipped cream from the fridge, and I’m delighted to see it’s one of those spray cans that I loved so much as a kid. “Oh my God, I love this stuff.” And before she can comment, I spray a little on my finger and eat it.
Marisa’s eyes have gone slightly hooded, but she blinks rapidly and clears her throat and sets the tops of the biscuits on the strawberries. I hand her the whipped cream, and she sprays a generous amount on each dessert in a cute little swirling shape. And then, without missing a beat, she sprays a little more on her fingertips, turns quickly, and smears it on my lips. I don’t even have time to be happily surprised before she’s chasing it with her mouth. With her tongue.
I hear my own breath catch in my throat before I feel it, and Marisa makes a sexy humming sound before deepening the kiss. It feels like this is what the entire evening has been leading up to. Like all the conversation was just stalling. The combination of the sweet whipped cream and the heady taste that I’ve grown to understand is just Marisa is almost too much for my body to handle standing up. Thankfully, she seems to read my mind and pulls away just far enough to look in my eyes.
“I can’t wait anymore.” I feel her hand slide down my arm and grasp my hand. “Follow me.”
“Anywhere,” I say.
She turns back and over her shoulder, mischievous glint in her eye, and orders, “And bring the whipped cream.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sex with Marisa is going to be intense, in the best of ways. I can tell that immediately. Her bedroom is fairly large, her bed neatly made and color coordinated in greens and yellows and so many pillows and everything looks soft and inviting, and that’s all I get to take in because my face is in Marisa’s hands and her mouth is on mine, and dear sweet Lord in heaven, how can anybody completely undo me with just a kiss?
I’ve never thought of myself as somebody who’s particularly easy, but right now? I would do anything she asked of me if it meant she’d keep kissing me. Anything. Crawl across the floor naked? No problem. Cluck like a chicken? You got it. Howl at the moon? How loudly?
Her tongue is in my mouth, and her hands are pulling at my shirt. I blindly find her waist with both hands and pull her in to me more tightly, so our hips collide. She lets go of a quiet gasp, and it thrills me that I’m having an effect. In the next moment, my tank is pulled up over my head, and I’m standing there in front of her in my white bra and denim shorts and nothing else. My heart is pounding, and my blood is rushing through my veins, and my center is throbbing so intensely, I wonder if she can sense it. If she can feel it under her hands.
She looks at me. Just looks at me. It’s nearing dark, but the curtains are open, and the ambient light from outside is enough for me to see her clearly. Her rich brown eyes follow the lines of my body, and I swear to God, I can feel them, feel them roam over me, over my shoulders, my chest, my nipples, my bare stomach.
“God,” Marisa whispers. “You’re so beautiful.” And then she reaches behind me and in an impressively swift flick, unclasps my bra and pulls it off. “So beautiful.”
I let myself bask in the glow of somebody being clearly attracted to me for one more moment before I say to her quietly, “You’re overdressed,” and I reach for her.
Underneath the black tank is a black bra, and underneath the khaki shorts are black panties, and when I’ve left Marisa standing before me in just those two things, I can hardly breathe. I’ve read a hundred times about a person taking somebody’s breath away, but this is the very first time I have honest-to-God felt it. Like she reached right into my lungs and simply stole all the air. She is, quite literally, the most breathtaking sight I’ve ever had the privilege of laying eyes on.
“My God,” I say, barely audible. “Marisa…”
She steps closer so she’s in my space. “I love the way you say my name.”
I lift a hand and slowly let my fingertips touch the skin on her chest, run them along her collarbones. She’s soft and smooth, and I can’t wait any longer to kiss her again. I slide my hand up and around the back of her neck, pull her head down to me, and kiss her. Hard. Push my tongue into her mouth. One of us whimpers slightly, and her hands slide down my stomach to my shorts, where she unbuttons them and lets them slide to the floor at my feet. We make short work of what’s left of undergarments, and then we’re both naked.
My mind sends me a flash of the little fantasy I had the other day about the possibility of standing naked with Marisa, and I must grin without realizing it because she tips her head and asks, “What?”
I wet my lips, my focus glued to her gorgeous bare breasts, full and round, her nipples brown and hard and begging for my mouth. “I’m just remembering how I fantasized about this. About seeing you naked.”
“Yeah?” She’s clearly amused. “And…?”
I force myself to meet her gaze, and I hold it for a moment before I whisper, “My imagination didn’t even come close.”
I hear the breath leave her lungs, and then she’s on me. Literally. In a flash, I’m on my back on her bed and she’s above me, her knee between my legs, her tongue pushing into my mouth, and I can’t get enough of her. I wonder if I’ll ever get enough of her.
We’re kissing so deeply, I’m so focused on her mouth, that I’m almost startled to feel her hand close over my breast. Knead it firmly. Zero in on my nipple and tug. A sound comes from my throat, and Marisa switches to the other breast, the other nipple, back and forth until they’re so hard they’re almost painful. In the best way. I decide to return the favor and find one of her breasts. They’re larger than mine, and they fill my hands perfectly. Her nipples are already at attention, and I slide myself under her a bit so I can take one into my mouth and suck. Hard.
She moans and it’s so damn sexy, so I do it again to the other one. Back and forth. Back and forth. When I stop to glance up at her, she’s watching me, watching my face, and we lock eyes. It’s deep and intimate and speaks of things I’m not sure I’m ready to handle yet, let alone even think about.
She pushes herself up, so her knees are on either side of my hips, and she looks down at me with a smile and a glint in her eyes.
“What?” I ask. “What’s that look?”
And she stretches to her right, and when she straightens up, she’s got the can of whipped cream in her hand.
“We have props. Did you forget?”
I totally did, and sweet baby Jesus on a skateboard, if there has ever in my thirty-four years of life been a sexier sight than naked Marisa Reyes straddling my nude body with a can of whipped cream in her hand, I have no idea what it could possibly be.
The hiss. The cold hits my nipples. I gasp.
Marisa lowers herself slowly, her eyes locked on mine. Her tongue comes out and takes a swipe at the whipped cream, and my nipple gets impossibly harder. I watch as her mouth closes over nearly my entire breast and it’s like there’s an electrical wire that runs from my nipple down to my throbbing center. Every pull from Marisa’s mouth, I can feel between my legs, and soon I’m squirming beneath her. I’ve lost control of my own hips, and they push up toward her, straining for some kind of release.
I slide my hand down her stomach, my fingers itching to touch her, and oh my God, she’s soaked. But the second I touch her, her body freezes. I glance at her, and there’s something in her eyes I can’t identify.
“What?” I ask softly. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she says, and the only way I can describe her expression is sheepish.
“Tell me.”
“I haven’t…” She clears her throat and her eyes dart away from mine. “I haven’t been with anyone in a very long time.”
I smile, doing my best to make it reassuring. “Me, neither.” It’s true. I haven’t been with anyone since—
“Not since…” She catches her bottom lip with her teeth and grimaces a bit, like she’s waiting for me to call a halt to everything we’re doing.
I wait until she meets my gaze before I say, very softly, “Me, neither.”
Seems that was the right thing to say because her mouth crashes down on mine, and she kisses me. Hard and rough and dominantly and a rush of wetness floods my center. She pulls back and slides her fingers through my wetness, and my entire body arches, I can’t help it. I hear her gasp as her fingers touch me, slide around between my legs, and then they’re gone. Suddenly. My hips drop, and I’m about to cry out at the loss when I hear the hiss again. And then shocking cold against the most heated part of me makes me catch my breath.
Marisa’s hands are on my legs, and she lifts them both, drops them over her shoulders, and her mouth is on me before I have time to brace myself, and the sounds I make…I’ve never made them before.
Her tongue is everywhere. It glides around in the wetness and the whipped cream, slides through the folds, and pushes into me. Deeply. There go my hips again. Up, up, looking for anything to relieve the pressure building in my body. Marisa closes a hand over one of my breasts and pumps the nipple in rhythm to the movements of her tongue. I’m so close, but just when I’m ready to drop over the edge, she eases up, and my hips start to relax. This happens three times before it occurs to me that Marisa is doing it on purpose.
“You’re teasing me,” I manage to grind out between clenched teeth. I have fistfuls of bedding in my hands, and when I speak, Marisa glances up at me with that mischievous glint and pushes her shoulders so that my legs are higher, spread wide for her. Our gazes hold, lock, and she’s looking right at me as she pushes her fingers into me. “Oh my God,” I grind out and slam my head back against the pillows.
She knows she has me now. I can feel it in her movements. In the rhythm of her stroking tongue, in the speed of her pumping in and out of me, and it’s only another moment or two before she releases me to fly. Colors explode behind my eyelids as a cry rips from my throat, and my hips once again push up off the bed, taking Marisa with them. She grabs my hips with one hand, and she does a fabulous job staying with me as I come, a chunk of her hair clenched in my fist, my other hand flat against the headboard above me, pushing me into her as firmly as I can.
I am boneless.
I am soaring.
I don’t know how long it lasts, to be honest. Time becomes meaningless. All I’m aware of are the contractions and spasms in my body, and every single place Marisa is touching me. I come down slowly, my breathing ragged and my limbs like jelly, and without looking, I know that Marisa’s fingers are still deep inside me, her tongue is still pressing against my wet flesh but no longer moving, no longer exploring. I let out one more moan and open my eyes, and she’s looking at me. Watching me. Gently, she removes her tongue but leaves her fingers where they are.
Her smile is radiant as she says, “Wow.” One simple word, but it goes right through me, straight to my heart, and I don’t want to think about that, but also can’t help it. “That was something to see, can I just say?”
“You should’ve been in my seat,” I say, my voice hoarse. “That…I just…” I shake my head, at a complete loss for words.
“The whipped cream was a good call, if I say so myself.”
“Holy shit, yes,” I say with a laugh and cover my eyes with one hand.
“I’ve never done that before,” she says.
I pull my hand away and meet her gaze again. “Me, neither,” I whisper, and what the hell? What is happening here? Marisa and I are saying things and doing things, and this is the second first that we’ve admitted to. I shake my head a little, and her smile grows.
“It is a little sticky, though,” she says as she rolls her lips in and licks them, scrunches up her face as if trying to feel her skin without using her hands.
I keep my eyes on hers for a beat before saying, “Maybe we need to shower together, then.”
Her eyebrows climb up slightly. “Maybe we do. Of course, then I’d have to move.” And with that, she gives her fingers a wiggle, sending an electric charge through my body and making me gasp.
“Only long enough for us to get to the bathroom.”
She seems to debate this for a moment, then finally nods once. “Acceptable.” But she takes her sweet time slipping her fingers out of me, and she watches me the whole time.
This woman is going to be the death of me. I just know it.
I grab her hand and lead her to the bathroom.
* * *
Why I thought I could sneak into Grandma’s house early Saturday morning to shower and dress for work without her knowing, I have no idea. My grandmother doesn’t miss a trick. She’s also up before the birds. So it shouldn’t surprise me when I walk in the side door into the kitchen, and there she is, sipping her coffee with a look on her face that’s a combination of amused and knowing, barely containing a grin. But it does, and I let out a little squeak when I see her.
