Coming Undone

CHAPTER TWELVE

P.J. PLUNGED HER HANDS into Jared's hair, held him fast and kissed him as if her life depended on it. And maybe it did, because she'd never felt quite this way-all hot blood, pounding pulses and nerve endings that arced and snapped like a downed power line. Ever since that ended-way-too-soon smooch in the salon she'd been primed. Beyond primed, really. And that business in front of the mirror had merely been gasoline on the fire.

In public.Dear God, she'd been ready and willing to get naked and do the hump-de-hump with Jared Hamilton, the star of her girlhood dreams, in the middle of an upscale department store. His sexual experience was clearly lightyears beyond her own.

But, man, oh, man, was she ever prepared to play catch-up!

He ripped his mouth free. "Wait:no:wait," he panted. "We can't do this." But his hands gripping her bottom flexed and kneaded and pulled her in, undulating her against a hard-as-hickory baton that pushed beneath her rucked-up skirt and settled between her legs to tell a different story.

A story that had her body singing the give-it-to-me song. She licked her lips and nodded earnestly. "Uh-huh. We can."

"God, yes, maybe." He drew in a deep breath. Blew it out. Then his heavy-lidded eyes, which burned with green fire between dense, tangled lashes, cooled the tiniest bit. "But we do it my way."

Her own eyes narrowed. "Your way doesn't include things like whips or chains, does it?"

"Nope."

"Anything painful?"

A rusty-sounding laugh escaped him. "No pain, baby-only pleasure."

"Well, alrighty then. But I want more kisses."

"Oh, I'll give you kisses."

Why did that sound almost like a threat?

She didn't have time to pursue the question because Jared, true to his word, lowered his head and kissed her again. He kissed her with such adroitness, with such skill, that she was barely even cognizant of being carried across the room. All she knew or cared about was that his mouth was hot and his lips exerted an exciting suction and his tongue set a languid, carnal rhythm that drove her to the edge of sanity.

That caused her breath to hitch and her lips to cling helplessly.

That made her arms drop limply to her sides even as her heels dug into his muscular rear to hold him in place.

The dressing room's acoustical-tile ceiling took a sudden twirling spin when he lowered her onto the day bed in the corner. He came down on top of her and, linking their fingers, pressed the backs of her hands into the thin coverlet on either side of her shoulders. Pushing up onto his forearms, he flung his hair out of his face. Several strands promptly fell forward again and his dark eyebrows snapped together, patently displeased with the insurrection.

P.J. wanted to laugh out loud. Given the slant of his lower lip, the streaky disheveled hair refusing to conform to his command and those broad shoulders in their richly textured heavy-cream-colored cotton, she thought he looked like a sulky fallen angel. She half expected monstrous feathery wings to unfold and rustle with disgruntlement.

Lifting their connected hands, he hunched a shoulder and bent his head to swipe the fallen locks out of his way with his raised forearm. They fell right back out of alignment. His mouth still retaining its sullen cast, he shrugged and resettled their twined hands back onto the spread, staring down at her.

"Frigging hair," he growled. Then his gaze sharpened on her and it was as if every bit of his concentration suddenly refocused. "God, you're sweet."

She grinned up at him. "Aren't I a peach?" she agreed, wiggling pleasurably beneath him. "And you're-oh God, Jared, you're so hot."

His mouth finally crooking up, he settled a little deeper atop her. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." It gave her palpitations just thinking about it. "All that's missing is Josh Turner crooning from the stereo." At his baffled look, she sang in the lowest register she could manage:

"Baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low. Put some music on that's soft and slow."

In her conversational voice she admitted, "'Course, it's not quite the same when I sing it. He's got that wonderful deep voice going for him. And okay, it's a couple of years old. But ever since the first time I heard it playing on the radio I've thought of it as the ultimate makeout song."

"Well then, baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low."

Laughing, she disentangled her fingers from his grasp to cup the back of his head and pull him back down for another kiss. One touch of his lips, however, and her laughter faded as jangled nerve endings that had temporarily settled down jitter-danced back to life. He'd lowered his head to comply with her unspoken demand for his mouth, but a space of several inches still separated their upper torsos. Finding the distance unacceptable, she moaned and lifted to press her breasts against his chest.

As if someone had kicked the slats out from under him, he collapsed on her, thrusting the hands he'd been using to prop himself up into her hair. His sudden weight drove the breath from her lungs, but she didn't care. Breathing was overrated. His mouth was savage, passionate, and, loving it, P.J. dove headfirst into the madness.

For several long minutes she burned out of control. Her skin felt hot and tight, her pulse pounded in her throat, her wrists, her nipples and deep between her legs, and her only thought was that she wanted to tear Jared's clothes off and rub her body all over his. She'd been turned on a few times in her life. Never, however, had she experienced anything close to this level of unrestrained need. She felt as if she'd literally die if she didn't get naked with the man soon.

Jared seemed every bit as crazed. His fierce kiss pushed her head into the mattress, his hands gripped rather than seduced and he breathed like a bull maddened by a matador's cape.

Then he suddenly raised his head and pushed up on his palms. Breath sawing in and out of his lungs, he hung his head and stared down at her. After a moment he cleared his throat. "We've gotta slow down or in about four minutes there'll be nothing left but a pile of ashes."

Notslowing down seemed like a better plan to her. She'd never been the recipient of a burning-out-of-control-until-there's-nothing-left-but-the-ashes kind of passion. It sounded exciting. "And this would be bad because:?"

"Because our first time ought to last more than a couple of minutes."

She was marshalling an argument for a longer, slower second time when he lowered his head and kissed the side of her neck. "Because I wanna watch you come undone," he murmured into her ear, his voice a harsh growl that raised a fine wash of goose bumps down her entire left side. Moving a little lower, he used his lips, his tongue, to even more devastating effect. "But I can't do that if I'm racing to the finish line, can I?" he demanded. "And I'm dying to watch you come, P.J.-at least once, maybe two or three times-before I really cut loose."

Okay, it was official, she was about to have an orgasm from his words alone. She would have sworn that wasn't possible but his firm, I'm-in-charge mouth that was lightly sucking, licking, biting its way down her throat was almost redundant.

Well, maybe not.

She clenched her thigh muscles to keep from squirming and cleared her throat even as she tipped her head back to give him more room to maneuver. "Hearing a lot of words here, Hamilton. Where's the action that goes with it?"

Oh, thank you, thank you, Jesus, for not letting my voice crack.It was bad enough she had the chest of a fourteen-year-old boy without sounding like one as well just when she most needed to sound like a woman.

"You want action, honey? I can give you that." Jared's hands left a wash of heat the length of her throat and across the expanse of her chest, which was bared by the wide peasant neckline of her red dress. He stroked its gathered edge. "Did I tell you how much I like this dress?" he murmured. Long fingers lazily brushed back and forth, back and forth, from the crest of her nearly bared shoulders to the spot where his fingertips met at the bow between the slight rise of her breasts. Then they glided back up her to shoulders and his eyelids drooped and his head lowered, allowing his lips to follow the trail his hands had forged.

Pushing up on her elbows, P.J. watched his fingertips pinch the drawstrings that held the bodice together between her breasts.

"I've wanted to do this all day," he said. And, his gaze on the slender cords of fabric in his hands, he pulled the ends, slowly untying the bow as if he were about to unveil a great work of art instead of a barely there set of boobs.

The neckline widened in a V down to the smocking that hugged her midsection from beneath her breasts to her hips, where the skirt, which under ordinary circumstances would have fallen to calf length in three tiered flounces, was bunched above her knees. Only her nipples preserved her modesty-and that by the barest of margins. Distended with arousal, they hooked the bodice in place. She watched Jared gaze at them as if weighing the merits of scooping the soft red fabric to the far side of the thrusting points. Apparently deciding to leave her covered, he rolled off her onto his side.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he reached out to smooth his free hand up her thigh. Slowly he bent his head over the cotton that covered her left nipple. Almost before she had time to register his mouth's amazing warmth and dampness, he looked up, met her gaze, and sucked. Hard.

It was like being hotwired to lightning and, breath exploding from her lungs, she arched into his mouth. Unharnessed power shot straight through her from the nipple he worked with such craft and skill to the tight, wet, aching spot deep between her legs.

Elbows melting out from under her, she found herself flat on her back once again, thighs sprawling wide until her right knee nudged up against his hard stomach. It occurred to her then that she was just lying here accepting everything he did as if it were her due. Thinking to offer a little reciprocal attention, she tried rolling to face him.

"No." His hands, gentle but firm, held her in place and his lips upped the suction on the damp fabric rapidly turning transparent over her nipple.

Omigawd, Omigawd.It took everything she had to pull herself back from the edge long enough to pant, "But you're doing all the work."

He mumbled something she didn't catch. "What?"

Raising his head, he shot her a wry smile. "Sorry. Talking with my mouth full. I said I'll get mine in due time. But if all those prep schools I got bounced out of taught me nothing else, they at least drummed one rule into my head. Ladies first."

He bent his head over her again, but this time he tugged on the little cap sleeves until they slid off her shoulders. "Well, look at this," he said, gazing down at her breasts, which had escaped their tenuous imprisonment, and at her arms pinioned to her side by the narrow sleeves he'd pulled midway down. "A two-fer. Your breasts all bare and pink, and a little light bondage allowing me do whatever I want with them." His gaze flashed up, pinned her in place. "With you."

Blushing, she tried to free her arms. The neckline with its loosened drawstring gave her some leeway, but still she could only widen the distance between her arms and her torso an inch or two before the material held firm. She began plucking at the midriff smocking in an attempt to tug the bodice to a point where she had a prayer of shedding it.

Rising onto his knees, Jared threw a leg over her hips to straddle her, effectively pinning the dress in place. "You claustrophobic, baby?"

"No."

Easing down to make room for himself between her legs, he lapped her shallow cleavage, gazing up at her as he did so. "Then why not just go with the flow?"

"You said you weren't into chains."

"And you don't see me using any, do you? I just want to make you feel good. And you've got such sensitive little tits I think we ought to see if I can make you come just by playing with them."

"What?" A laugh escaped her, but to her embarrassment it cracked right down the middle. "Of course you can't!"

"Bet I can. They're so responsive."

P.J. snorted. "They're so little they barely exist," she said flatly, giving the tiny offerings under discussion a disgusted look. Being flat on her back sure didn't improve their stature.

"The hell they don't. They're nearly a handful and that's all I need. They're gorgeous, so quit putting them down." He licked his way up the slight slope toward the center of her left breast. "And these aren't little at all, are they?" He blew on her nipples before pinching them between his thumbs and forefingers.

She bit her tongue to keep from mewling like a cat in heat. But God, that felt good! And he was right. She rather liked her nipples-they were the most prominent part of her boobs. Pale pink protuberances that thrust skyward from puffy areolae, they were quite long when cold or excited-and God knew they were excited right now. Not to mention really, really receptive to the way he kept alternating the force of his clasp on them from the lightest pressure to an almost but not quite painful compression.

He seemed to know it, too. "I think all your nerve endings in these babies are right on the surface." Giving the morsels in his fingers a tug, he lightly bit first one tip then the other.

A single quick, hard contraction deep between her legs made her cry out.

"Jesus." Jared clenched his teeth to keep his head from blowing off his shoulders. "You really did get off. Not a real big one, maybe, but an orgasm's an orgasm." Oh, man, he was hanging by a thread here. Moving up her lithe body, he planted a fierce kiss on her lips. "Again," he demanded the instant he came up for air. He was determined to concentrate on her pleasure. He had to in order to keep from burying himself in her receptive body with one savage stroke and driving toward his own satisfaction like a freight train jumping the tracks. It wasn't only that he prided himself on being a thoughtful lover. He never relinquished control. Never.

Well, okay, eventually he did. But not until the last possible moment.

And he wasn't about to let little Priscilla Jayne Morgan be the exception to his rule.

He was hard-pressed to keep that affirmation in the front of his mind where it belonged, however, as he slid his hand up under her dress and finally brushed his fingertips against the lacy panties stretching the thinnest of barriers between him and a little slice of heaven. They came away damp with her arousal and it didn't matter what he did to keep hold of the situation-he could feel his grip slipping another degree.

"Again," he repeated in desperation and insinuated his fingertips beneath the scalloped hip band. The next thing he knew they were sliding between buttery feminine folds.

"Oh!" Her hips arched up off the bed.

He sucked for a breath he hoped would actually penetrate beyond the superior lobes of his lungs. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the feel of her hot flesh beneath his fingers. He feathered the slippery little nugget of her clitoris, then stroked his fingers downward. When he reached her opening, he gently circled the ring of muscle guarding her entrance until her thighs began to clamp down on his hand and restlessly spread apart, close around him and sprawl open. Then he eased his forefinger inside.

"God," he breathed, and it was a benediction rather than a curse. Bowing his head, he rested his forehead against hers. "You feel so good," he whispered. "So hot and wet. So tight."Very tight, now that he'd mentioned it. The way that molten sheath clamped around the single digit he'd slipped in her you'd think nothing larger could possibly fit. He raised his head to stare down at her. "How long has it been for you?"

"Huh?" Her eyes slowly focused. "I don't know, a year? Maybe two."

And he'd float an educated guess here that she hadn't exactly been working the bars on a nightly basis before that. Or that her version of working them had meant singing onstage with a nice, wide protective gulf between her and a club full of interested men. "Sweet," he murmured and kissed her.

She kissed him back with the boundless enthusiasm that made her Peej and his tongue soon developed a synchronized rhythm with the finger he pumped in and out of her. When she began making little squeaky noises and thrusting her hips up off the bed, he flattened his palm against her plump, wet cleft and ground the heel of his hand over her clit.

She went off like a rocket.

Then she went limp, her beautiful rump hitting the spread, her legs sprawling akimbo and her arms flopping heavily to her sides. With a final lingering pass up the creamy furrow of her sex, he slid his hand up to stroke her stomach. "You still breathing?"

A faint sigh was his only response.

"O-kay." Propping his head in his hand, he looked down at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her pretty bottom lip had gone slack and her eyes were closed. Her breasts were bare but her skirt still covered her to midthigh. White lace panties pooled around her right ankle, and he vaguely remembered her thrusting them down to give his hand more room to maneuver.

It occurred to him he hadn't gotten to view what he'd been touching. He was just starting to contemplate inching up her skirt and seeing what sort of damage he could do with his tongue when she crawled up out of her indolent sprawl. Climbing onto her knees, she gave his unsupported shoulder a shove and knocked him onto his back. She swung a leg over his hips and settled astride him, for an instant simply sitting squarely on his dick.

He stared spellbound up at her bare breasts, pleasure firing every atom of his being. Showcased by the red cotton hug-her-ribs smocking and the now drooping top she'd slid her arms from, they were all subtle curves and projectile nipples. Tearing his gaze away, he looked past them into Peej's determined amber eyes.

"You've got too many clothes on," she said and pointed to his shirt. "Take it off."

He unbuttoned his shirt down to where the skirt of her dress billowed over his lap. She looked down the length of her nose at him and daintily grasped two fistfuls of fabric to raise it out of his way. He unfastened the last button and pulled the tails from his waistband. Crunching up, he shrugged it off his shoulders, wrestled it down his arms and shook it free. He lowered himself back on the bed.

Her hands immediately smoothed over his bare pecs and, electrified by her touch, he looked up. P.J. was watching her fingers slide over him.

"You've got a gorgeous chest," she said dreamily without lifting her gaze from her hands, which she used to outline his collarbone before trailing along the bony ridges of his shoulders. "Great shoulders."

Then she scooted down his body to trace her fingers along each muscle of his stomach. "Reallygreat abs." Lying flat between his spread legs, she bent her head and kissed his stomach while her hands unbuckled his belt and dealt with the button on his waistband.

He jerked, his hands reaching for the silky fall of her hair. "P.J."

"It's okay," she whispered and lowered the zipper on his jeans.

No, it wasn't. He had to get control here or things were going to go to hell. Fast. "I'm kind of on edge, baby." And her breath on his fly threatened to shove him right into the abyss.

"Excellent." Her hand disappeared into his pants and his hips shot off the mattress when he felt her fingers clamp around his cock.

"Holy shit! Holy fucking sh-" Air hissed through his clenched teeth. He had to take charge here quick.

But God, it felt so good and he wanted so bad to see her hand on him.

A wish that was granted when she took advantage of his raised hips to yank his Levi's down around his thighs. His dick sprang free to point at the ceiling and she promptly wrapped it once again in her competent little fist.

Looking down, he saw its head push through her grip as she began a stroke that ended at the very root of his shaft. Oh, God, oh, God. He had to get a handle on this before he embarrassed himself. He was a glacier peak, he told himself, impregnable and remote.

Yeah, right.

He was fucking Mount Vesuvius. Ready to blow.

"I'm not going to last," he admitted as his hips instigated a rhythm that pushed him in and out of the snug tunnel her palm and fingers formed. He fumbled for his wallet in his sagging back pocket and, wrestling it free, fished out his lone rubber. She thrust out a peremptory palm and he slapped the condom in it.

The minute she had him suited up and her dress removed and sent sailing over the side of the bed, he grasped her nearest thigh and urged her to straddle him. He held her full, firm ass in both hands while she slowly impaled herself.

The feel of her wet, muscular heat slowly parting to accommodate his length and the sight of him disappearing inside her had him sucking for breath. She lowered herself in careful increments and he had to grit his teeth against the urge to slam her down with one powerful jerk of his hands and thrust of his hips. "Aw, Jesus, Peej. You're killing me." The control he took such pride in was hanging by a thread, and to distract himself he released her butt and raised his hands to toy with her nipples.

A wordless exclamation exploded out of her and she dropped the last couple of inches, seating him fully inside her. "Oh!" She blinked startled eyes at him.

"Yes,"he said fervently and ground up into her.

"Oh," she said again, only this time it was with a duel syllable, ohmigawd-this-feels-so-goodrising inflection. Bracing her hands behind her, utilizing the power of her strong runner's thighs, she rose up his length then sank back down. Rose up and sank back down.

And oh, God, he was too close. Close to losing his mind. Close to coming like a fire hose.Have to see to Peej's needs first, his last remaining brain cells insisted even as he thrust up into each descending slam of her hips.Gotta get her over. Still determinedly manipulating her right breast, he brought his right hand down to delve between the wet folds that rose from where she engulfed him. He ran his thumb up and down the slippery cleft before zeroing in on her clitoris.That he plucked in concert to the firm tugs on her nipple and the rhythmic slaps of their bodies meeting and retreating.

"Jared?" Passion-blurred eyes stared down at him and he felt the beginning ripples of her orgasm gathering force. "Oh, God,Jared? "

Thankyouthankyouthankyou."That's it, baby," he panted. "Come for me." He gentled his touch between her legs, firmly gripped the pink spike of her nipple. "Please, Peej, I need you to come, because I don't think I can hold out any long-"

His breath exploded from his lungs as she contracted around him, a beautiful furnace-hot wet-velvet clenching fist that emptied his mind and shattered his control. The last thing he saw was P.J. clutching her breasts and throwing back her head, a hoarse moan purling from her throat. Then his eyes blurred and he was a fucking machine driving for his own satisfaction. He pounded, pounded, pounded up into her. Then, shoving deep and holding there, he roared out her name and came.

And came. In jet after jet of scalding sensation. Until, exhausted, he collapsed back onto the mattress.

Slowly his vision cleared and he stared up at her perched astride his hips like some wet-dream equestrian mastering the English saddle.

Then she melted atop him like a Dali watch, resting her head on his chest as she made subtle adjustments to find the optimum position. "That was amazing," she said in her raspy voice. "You really know your way around this sex stuff, don't you?"

He wrapped one arm around her waist and curved his free hand around the warm swell of her left buttock to hold her close, wanting to stay inside her as long as possible. "It helps to have the right partner," he replied, pressing a kiss on the top of her head. A contentment he'd never known radiated from his heart clear out to his fingers and his toes and he turned his cheek to rest against her shiny brown hair. "How'd you get to be so damn sweet?"

"Hmm?" she murmured. Then he felt her lips tilt up against his pectoral. "I told you, I'm a peach."

"I'm serious. You were dragged from pillar to post, didn't have a single advantage and never got a day's nurturing out of your old lady in your life. But not only are you a rising star in an impossible industry, youare a peach. You're funny and warm and kind. Your band loves you and I've heard more than one roadie say you're the nicest performer they've ever worked for. So how did you get to be such a sweetheart?"

She'd been wiggling around, but now she stilled. "Umm," she said nonchalantly. But an instant later, a warm drop slid across his pec and down the curve of his ribs to the sheet.

His heart slammed in his chest and his head jerked up, chin dipping to look down at her. "Are you crying?"

"Hell, no," she said gruffly, but another drop slid down his ribs.

"Ah, baby, don't do that. I'm sorry. Was it what I said about your mom? I didn't mean to upset you."

"No!" She rubbed her wet eyes against the swell of his chest then lifted her head to look up at him. "No, you didn't. That was one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me."

Aw, hell. Shewas sweet-giving and open and talented and an all-round better person than he.

And he had a feeling he was so screwed.

He didn't doubt for a moment that tomorrow he'd regret letting his guard down. Yes, sir, tomorrow he was going to have a stern talk with himself about professional ethics. Once again he would gather his defenses. Rebuild his walls.

But for today he merely tightened his arms around her.