“Yes, yet. You can’t control when I orgasm.” The nerve of the man.
He ran a roughened hand from the swell of her breast to the curve of her hip. “I most definitely can,” he assured her, arrogantly confident. “And you’re going to come twice.”
He kept her hands pinned above her. Then, when she didn’t think she could take another second of torture, a hard, single thrust had him firmly where he belonged.
“Oh, my God,” she cried out, shaking with pleasure.
Ryan was far from finished illustrating exactly how much control he had over her. He waited for the tiny spasms of her inner muscles to subside, then began a slow, deliberate attempt to restimulate them—with resounding success. He drew the tip of one breast into his mouth, then the other. The harsh, guttural sounds he made as his movements quickened and deepened soon had her on the edge of a second orgasm she hadn’t known was a possibility. His hips tightened. His fingers clenched around her hands. He dropped his chin. Another thrust, a muttered expletive, and he came—at the same moment she did.
He remained inside her, both of them too tired and satisfied to move, although he was careful not to let his full weight fall on her, but carried it in his forearms pressed to either side of her head. The bed was too narrow for them to lie side by side. He kissed her, as slowly and deeply and thoroughly as he’d made love to her. If he continued to kiss her that way, a third orgasm was definitely on the table.
She had no idea what was happening between them. She did know that never again was she going to tease him about his level of control. He’d proved himself. Splendidly.
Except for one crucial detail.
“Oh, my God,” Elizabeth said, repeating herself, but for an entirely new and unwelcome reason.
*
Ryan
“The words areright, but the tone seems off. What’s wrong?”
Because Ryan couldn’t imagine. The sex had been as amazing as he’d known it would be, to the point he’d begun to ponder various ways in which he could make her beg for it twice in one night. Since she’d been as engaged as he was, the chances she was experiencing regret seemed remote—although not off the table.
She pushed at his chest. “Condoms can leak.”
The horror of that possibility had him forgetting about another round of sex and withdrawing in haste. Unfortunately, the condom didn’t feel the same sense of urgency.
He swore.
“What?” Elizabeth demanded, digging her elbows into the mattress and struggling to sit up.
He braced his forearm across her chest to keep her from wriggling around. “Hold still. We’ve got a slight problem.”
She’d figured out what had gone wrong. A hint of hysteria crept into her voice. “Do youthink?”
He reached down and retrieved the spent condom, and pinching it closed, held it aloft. Relief and panic duked it out while he weighed the odds for disaster, but he tag-teamed logic into their battle so Elizabeth wouldn’t freak out alongside him. “False alarm. I’ve got it.”
He carried the condom into the bathroom and disposed of it. When he returned, he settled into the single bed so that she was half on top of him. He pressed her head to his chest and combed his fingers through her tangled curls, working through the knots. “Depending on where you are in your cycle, there’s only about a twenty percent chance of you getting pregnant.”
“I know the odds. I’m a social worker. That’s not the point. We should both know better than this. We’re not teenagers.” She jabbed him with a finger. “And the proper expression is ‘us getting pregnant,’ not ‘you.’”
“Fair enough. I don’t want a pregnancy any more than you do, regardless of how we choose to phrase it. But let’s not borrow trouble over something that’s not likely to happen,” he said. Since she was a social worker, she knew what their options were. If the worst did occur, he’d tell her what the zygote’s makeup consisted of and they’d deal with it then. That was one DNA string he planned to get snipped as soon as he could, and the current situation merely confirmed the necessity, because bringing another Cienetti into the world was not going to happen. “Are you in the danger zone or not?”
He could almost hear the wheels in her head spinning as she calculated the days. “Not. But I’m going to pick up the morning-after pill as soon as the pharmacy opens on Monday, just to be safe. I’ve got seventy-two hours.”
Thank God, they were on the same page.
“Then,” he said, taking her hand and placing it firmly on his growing expression of interest, and helping her slide her fingers up and down as a less than subtle reminder of how much fun they’d been having, “there’s no sense in stressing about it. Why don’t we get back to more important matters?”
It didn’t take much convincing. Elizabeth was as forthright about sex and what pleased her as she was about everything else. If anything, she was downright bossy in bed. He’d never been especially good at taking orders, but for her, he’d make an exception.
Much later, long after she dropped off to sleep, he lay awake in the dark and played with a lock of her hair, twining it around his finger.
He had no intentions of leaving her alone yet, although he planned to be gone before sunrise. He didn’t give a damn who knew they were sleeping together, but since it wasn’t his professional reputation at risk, that wasn’t his call to make. She had to work with the Grand school system’s superintendent and the local school board, none of whom were known for their liberal ideas. She was an Easterner—that was already one strike against her. He’d come back right after breakfast and help her pack up.
His more immediate concern was what the sleeping arrangements would be after she moved to the house. The sex was shaping up to be off the charts—just thinking about the soft little panting moans that erupted from her when she came was an instant hard-on revitalizer—but she was right about them keeping their relationship outside of working hours strictly to that.