Wicked Pleasures Read online

  Renae leaned back, bearing against him. “Oh, I think I have an idea. But if it’s all the same to you, I think I could do without repeating the beginning of the last time.”

  He chuckled against her back then thrust two fingers deep inside her slick opening. Renae gasped, the chaos swirling inside her gaining momentum. Her eyelids drifted closed and she felt a peculiar type of heat suffuse her muscles.

  “Mmm…so tight…so wet.”

  Will twisted his fingers as he withdrew them then thrust them back up, stretching her muscles, readying her for him.

  It was eight o’clock on a Monday morning and Renae was about to have sex with Will on his couch. The total sinfulness of the act set her nerve endings on fire and made her take a look at life through slightly askew glasses. She was normally so responsible, so focused. But one depraved grin from Will and she was calling in sick and stripping naked so he could have his way with her.

  So she could have her way with him.

  Reaching between her legs, she decided she’d had enough foreplay. She wanted to feel him inside her now. This instant.

  She was slightly surprised to find him already sheathed as she grasped his hard girth and guided the knob of his arousal to her dripping entrance. He slid his fingers from her and replaced them with his erection, nearly driving her straight over the edge with the first thrust.

  Oh, yes… This was definitely better than work. Better than being a responsible adult living a responsible life. The utter recklessness of her actions left her feeling powerful and different and…alive, for the first time in so very long that she wanted it to last and last.

  Will seemed to tune in to her needs as he slowly withdrew, drawing out the action so that she was aware of every beat of her heart, every wash of blood through her veins, every molecule of oxygen she pulled into her lungs. He placed one hand at the small of her back and the other on her hip, holding her still when she might have bore back on him. Then he entered her again just as slowly, torturously, filling her to overflowing, making her feel as substantial as a puddle of melting hormones.

  She heard a long, low moan and realized it was her own as sweet, unbearable pressure built up in her lower abdomen. A pressure that spiked with each of Will’s skillful strokes. The feel of his white leather sofa was soft under her knees and palms, the heat of his flesh hot against her backside. She wanted—needed—him to increase the pace, her mind suspended between sensation and a desire for release so intense she lost track of time and place. Will moved so that his right foot was on the floor and he continued his slow strokes…in…out…in…out.

  Renae’s breath hitched high in her throat, making her think she might never take another normal breath again. Then the hand at the small of her back slid to her other hip and his grip increased enough for her to be aware of it. Just as she registered the change, he thrust into her to the hilt, his rhythm not only increasing, but his strokes growing more powerful, demanding. She arched her back and bore back against him. He held her still as he thrust deeply again and again, creating a kaleidoscope of color on the back of her eyelids, launching her into a parallel world that was pure sensation and fundamental human need. With each of his thrusts, her breasts swayed and the slap of his flesh against hers grew louder, challenging the volume of her low moans.

  “Christ, what you do to me.”

  Will’s words foretold his crisis and precipitated hers, the tension in her exploding, the chaos taking over her body and swirling and swirling around, her stomach convulsing, her lungs straining to take in a breath. But rather than stop his movements, Will increased the tempo of his strokes, his groan mingling with her moan.

  And making Renae wish he would never stop.

  THREE HOURS LATER Will lay with the back of his head hanging over the foot of his bed while Renae lay crosswise across the mattress, her legs entangled with his. He’d barely had had any sleep for a good twenty hours, and then he’d put in a grueling twelve-hour shift at the hospital during which he’d treated no fewer than seven teenagers apparently involved in some sort of gang dispute, and four car accident victims, one of whom had been life-flighted in. But damned if he felt tired. Sated, maybe. Horny, definitely. But not tired.

  Even as he grinned like a fool, he thought there was something wrong there. While sex had always been important to him, he’d never felt such an insatiable need to have it with one woman for long, uninterrupted hours without a break. But he’d be damned if even after three hours and countless orgasms he didn’t want to roll Renae over and have at her again.

  He lifted his head and zoned in on her pert, supple backside. The hell with turning her over. He’d take her like that.

  The bedding rustled as she turned her head to look in his direction, her flushed, smiling face mirroring what he felt.

  “Wow,” she said.

  Will had a hard time swallowing as he let his head loll back over the side of the bed. “Quite definitely wow.”

  He was aware that Renae was trying to free her right leg from where it was pinned under his, but she wasn’t making much of an effort and he couldn’t seem to scare up the energy to allow her the freedom. Instead she rolled over and he watched through half-lidded eyes as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

  “You know I’m not a lesbian, don’t you?”

  Will’s brows rose. “Pardon me?”

  She made two attempts before she was able to both balance herself and push her hair from her face. “Tabitha and I are just roommates. We’re not a couple in the romantic sense. In fact, I guess you didn’t realize it but Tabitha has a girlfriend named Nina, who lives with us, too.”

  Will made a face and shifted until his head was supported by the mattress. “Well, there goes my favorite fantasy.”

  She smiled in his general direction.

  Will pulled in a deep breath then let it out slowly. “I sort of guessed as much. I mean, if you were a true lesbian, you wouldn’t have slept with me, much less stuck around following our…unfortunate beginning.”

  The mattress began to shake although Will heard no sound. He realized she was laughing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged and folded his arms under the back of his head. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose every now and again even homosexuals desire sex with those they normally wouldn’t. But if you were truly gay, after my…Quick Withdraw McGraw routine, as you so rudely put it, well, a true homosexual probably would have shaken her head and left, her belief in the opposite sex’s inability to perform confirmed.”

  Renae’s laughing presumably took so much of her sapped energy she could no longer support her upright position. She fell solidly back to the bed, making Will’s head bounce. When her laughter finally subsided, she repositioned herself until she was stretched out next to him. They weren’t touching, but for some odd reason Will felt closer to the woman next to him than he’d felt to another person in a long, long time. He almost finished that thought with the words “if ever,” but ignored them, not about to go there.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re narrow-minded?” she asked, reaching for a pillow off the floor and bunching it under her head.

  Will tried to steal the pillow. “I’m not narrow-minded. I’m subjective.”

  Renae swatted his hand away from her pillow. “Which means?”

  Will finally gave up on the pillow and, using his feet and hands, grabbed his own from the other side of the bed. “Meaning I see things the way I want to see them. If I chose to see things the way you see them, then, well, my lesbian fantasy wouldn’t hold any water now, would it? Because a true lesbian wouldn’t be attracted to the opposite sex no matter how sexy.” He waggled his brows at her. “Which brings me back to my sensing that you weren’t truly a lesbian.”

  He watched as she twisted her lips. “You have a convoluted way of thinking. But at least it takes you where you need to be.” She turned her head to look at him. “Tabitha is a lesbian, however.”

  Will found the energy to tur
n to his side and prop his head on his hand. “Do tell.”

  Her green eyes sparkled at him.

  “Maybe my lesbian fantasy doesn’t have to die a slow and torturous death after all.”

  She pulled the pillow from behind her head and whacked him with it. After she was settled again, she fell silent for a long moment, apparently mapping out the tiny lines in the ceiling.

  Then she finally said, “So…tell me about the resident.”

  7

  ONE MINUTE WILL FELT like he was drifting on a warm ocean wave with nothing more important to do than stay afloat, the next a big white shark had come out of nowhere and made a beeline for his privates.

  “Uh-oh. Wrong question?”

  Will suddenly found it difficult to swallow. “No…no. Not so much a wrong question, really, as the wrong time.”

  Renae rolled to her side to face him. “Well, seeing as whenever we’re together we’re in bed, when would be the right time?”

  Will couldn’t bring himself to look directly into her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Never?”

  And just like that all the humor was drained out of the moment for him.

  Oh, he didn’t mistake himself for an angel by any stretch, but it had been a good long time since he’d viewed cheating on a girlfriend as acceptable behavior. Well, maybe not so much acceptable as understandable. There had been the time in med school when the hot anatomy teacher had offered to give him a tour of her own private anatomy and to demonstrate her considerable knowledge of the male anatomy, and Will had been loath to refuse the offer, despite that he was dating a fellow student at the time. And another occasion when a close friend of another girl he’d been dating had let spill her fantasies about him, and he’d found recreating them in reality momentarily irresistible.

  But all that had transpired years ago when he’d been young and brash and a slave to his libido. Surely even he had grown up a little since.

  He drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. Explain then how he’d been able to talk to Janet on the phone for a good half hour the night before, offering a sympathetic ear to her complaints about the hotel staff and the loss of her notes. Renae and their shenanigans had not even entered on the fringes of his mind, just as when he was with Renae, Janet didn’t even rate a passing thought.

  He grimaced at the thought.

  The bedding rustled and he looked at where Renae was lying on her stomach, her chin buried in the middle of her pillow while she considered the wall-to-wall carpeting. Will couldn’t resist a visual sweep of her gloriously bare body, from her tanned feet to her rounded rump to her smooth shoulders and dark blond hair.

  “You and the resident have a good sex life?” she asked.

  Now there was a question. “Actually we don’t have a sex life. At least not one to speak of…yet.” Curious how the “yet” almost didn’t seem connected to the rest of his sentence. It was more of an afterthought than a given.

  He watched her brows raise then she turned her head on the pillow and smiled at him. “None?”

  He shook his head.

  Her smile widened and he had the feeling he was going to regret letting that particular cat out of the bag. “Well, then, there’s really no need for the guilt written across your face now, is there?”

  Will blinked at her, as if bringing her into sharper focus would have the same effect on her words. “Pardon me?”

  She shifted until she lay on her side again, wonderfully unconcerned with her nakedness. “There’s a point in there somewhere. Would you like me to explain it to you?”

  There were a lot of other things he wanted her to do but he supposed he really should start with that. “Mmm. Yes, I would.”

  “Well, you’re feeling bad because you’re in bed with me while we discuss the resident.”

  “Go on.”

  “My point is that if you’re not sleeping with her, then you’re not being unfaithful to her.”

  “Interesting point.” That did absolutely nothing to erase his feeling of guilt.

  “No, really. Think about it. Until the both of you commit physically, well, then it’s impossible for you to be physically unfaithful.”

  “So following your reasoning, a man about to go to the altar is free to do what he wants until he utters the words ‘I do.”’

  She laughed. “No, silly. An agreement is implied then. An engagement.” Her eyes widened. “There’s no ring involved with you and the resident, is there?”

  “No.”

  “Whew. Thank God. You scared me for a minute there.”

  “Yes, well, consider what you’re doing to me.”

  She pushed up onto her elbow and looked at him. “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

  “No,” he lied. “The fact that I’m discussing it with you is a cause of some concern, though.”

  Her eyes danced with light. “Because I’m the other woman.”

  “Because you’re lying naked in my bed.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, very definitely ‘ah.”’

  She twisted her lips, emphasizing how very full and kissable they were. “Would you like me to leave?”

  Surprisingly their conversation had momentarily impacted Big Ben’s control over Will. But as he looked at the pert tips of Renae’s breasts, the smooth skin of her stomach, the neat triangle of hair between her legs, Ben was quickly reasserting his dominance.

  “No.”

  “So you want me to stay then?”

  “No,” he said just as quickly.

  She laughed. “Well, since I’m not about to hide in your closet if, when and until you decide, maybe I’d better go.”

  “No,” he said again, gripping her arm when she might have rolled off the other side of the bed.

  He gazed into her face, thinking of how incredibly sexy she was. How inappropriately irresistible. While he may have been unfaithful to women before, even the anatomy teacher and the friend of his ex hadn’t managed to keep his attention for longer than a couple of hours.

  But Renae…

  It was going on the fourth hour of his second sexual tryst with her and not only wasn’t he tiring of Renae Truesdale’s company, he wanted more of it. Of her.

  “I’ve got an interesting question for you,” he said quietly.

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t you think it a bit odd that you’re not jealous of…the resident?” He winced at following Renae’s lead and calling Janet “the resident” rather than referring to her by name. But Janet wasn’t the topic of conversation right now. Rather Renae and her curious behavior were what interested him.

  “Jealous?”

  “Mmm. I mean, for all intents and purposes I’m dating someone else. And while I might not have had sex with her…yet,” he forced himself to add, “I’ve wanted to.”

  “And because of that I should be jealous?”

  “Well…yes. Wouldn’t that be the normal human reaction to the situation?”

  “Depends on your definition of normal.”

  He conceded the point. “So yours differs from most everyone else’s then?”

  “Maybe it isn’t the definition so much as the circumstances. And the circumstances in this particular situation—”

  “Our situation.”

  “—are that I knew you were involved with someone when we began having sex.”

  “Mmm. But that doesn’t explain why you’re not jealous now that we’ve surpassed one-night stand territory.”

  Her laughter, which usually inspired in him lustful thoughts, now seemed to rub him the wrong way. “I wouldn’t classify what’s going on as a long-term relationship, Will.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

  She remained silent for long moments, the smile slipping from her face as she openly considered him. “Would you? Classify this as a relationship?”

  “Well, there lies the dilemma, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  He sighed heavily and ran his
hand over his face. He needed a shave, a shower. But he couldn’t seem to scare up the energy for either.

  He looked at where Renae’s belly ring glinted up at him, calling his attention to her supple abdomen, her smooth flesh. He idly wondered how he even had the energy to think about taking up where they’d left off.

  “Of course you’re not following me,” he offered up. “Simply because I don’t know where in the hell I’m going with this, either.”

  The uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his gut had him worried. He supposed it was only natural considering the situation he’d put himself in. It was guilt, plain and simple.

  He glanced at the woman next to him. Then again, it could be something else entirely.

  “Are you seeing anybody?” he asked.

  RENAE FELT LAUGHTER bubble up from her chest.

  Will and his obvious struggle with morality was nothing if not the cutest thing she’d ever witnessed.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  He waved his hand. “I mean, I know we’ve already established that you’re not involved with your roommate. But is there…a man anywhere in the picture?”

  “Hmm. A man.”

  He really was having trouble with this, wasn’t he?

  Renae propped her head on her hand. When she’d agreed to play hooky from work—something she’d never even thought about doing before, much less did—to spend the day in bed with Will, the last thing she would have expected was this peculiar conversation.

  “If you’re asking if I’m dating anyone, my answer would have to be no.”

  “Engaged in a harmless flirtation?”

  She laughed. “No.”

  “Talking to an old flame on the phone?”

  “No.”

  “Fixed some poor sap in your sights?”

  “No.”

  He looked strangely relieved and disappointed by the news simultaneously.

  “I’m currently man-free.” She reached out and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “Mmm. Of course.” He turned his head to look at her. “And you’re truly not jealous. Not in the least.”