A Father's Promise (Intimate Moments) Read online

  “That I haven’t gotten to kiss you once since I arrived.” He released her hand and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  Sydney’s arms had nowhere to go but around his neck. “You noticed that, too?” Sydney smiled at his mouth before placing her lips against his.

  Chapter 8

  Sydney couldn’t resist the temptation of Ellis’s mouth a moment longer. By the scorching look in his eyes she would have to say he had reached the end of his tolerance too. With the touch of his mouth and the sweep of his tongue, heat assaulted her body like an inferno.

  Strong arms pulled her closer and she uncurled from her position in the corner of the couch to practically stretch out on top of Ellis as he twisted sideways and lay back, taking her with him. Her arms clung to his neck as she continued to meet the thrust of his tongue with slow swipes of her own and breathless abandonment.

  Someone moaned, and she couldn’t tell if it was Ellis or herself. It didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was the feel, the taste of Ellis. She had never wanted like this in her life. His mouth was promising her things she had never dared dream.

  She shifted her hips and felt his arousal, long and hard, press against her thigh. This time she was positive it was Ellis who groaned. The tip of her tongue traced his upper lip before her teeth gently nipped at his fuller lower one. His arms tightened around her. She raised her head and, using her arms to support herself, she stared down at him. The look in his gray eyes had gone from scorching to predatory.

  He reached up and buried his fingers in her hair. “Witch.”

  She pressed her head against his fingertips and arched her neck. She felt his mouth skim down her throat. “Was that a compliment?” The way the word witch had tumbled off his lips it had sounded like a cross between a prayer and a curse.

  Ellis arched his hips against her thigh, letting her know exactly what condition he was in. “Only a witch could make me ache so badly after one kiss.” His fingers slipped to the base of her skull and his thumbs moved to below her jawbone and tilted her face upward, giving his searching mouth wider access to her throat.

  She matched him ache for ache, only hers was a soft warm liquid ache pooling at the junction of her thighs. Wanting him to know that he wasn’t the only one who felt painfully aroused, she said, “That would make you what...a warlock?”

  Ellis pulled back from tracing the V at the base of her throat with his tongue to glance up at her. “Are you aching, Sydney?”

  She closed her eyes. She had never before asked a man to make love to her. The all too few times she had been with a man it had just seemed to happen. Ellis wasn’t going to allow her to casually slip into a relationship with him. He was going to demand her full undivided attention. “If I tell you I am, will you make it go away?”

  “Eventually.” Ellis chuckled softly against her throat as he released her jaw and lowered his hands to her waist. “But first I’m going to make you ache some more.” With a tender tug he jerked her farther up his body, until his mouth was in a direct line to her breast. “You want to ache some more, don’t you, Syd?”

  She kept her eyes closed as she felt his warm fingers start to undo the buttons running down the front of her blouse. Her breasts grew heavy with anticipation and her nipples hardened against the lace of her bra. Ellis had never touched her there. The warmth of his fingers brushed against the curve of her breast, making her tremble. “Oh, I want all right.” She wanted so badly, she was about to shatter into a million pieces.

  The last of her buttons came undone and Ellis pulled the blouse from the waistband of her jeans. The silky material fell to each side of his chest, giving him a clear view of her breasts covered in an emerald green bra. Strong, blunt-tipped fingers reached up and toyed with the front clasp on the bra. “You’re going to have to open your eyes, Syd.”

  “Why?” She didn’t want Ellis to see the need that would be clearly visible in them. Wanting him was one thing. Needing him was something totally different.

  His fingers traced the edges of the lace across the top of her breasts. “I want you to see me take my first taste of you.” His fingers took another path, this time they skimmed her nipples, causing her to jerk back.

  Her eyes flew open in shock and she glanced down. Her gaze slammed into Ellis’s. He had been watching her face, not her breasts which were suspended in her bra not six inches away from his mouth. His face looked taut and flushed with desire, yet he hadn’t really touched her. He wanted her to watch him as he touched her.

  Her whisper trembled with excitement and embarrassment. “You want me to watch?” She had never watched before. Satisfying the urges of one’s body was done under the covers and in the dark, not with two seventyfive-watt bulbs burning on either end of the couch and without a blanket in sight.

  Ellis locked gazes with her as he lifted his fingers once more and released the front clasp of her bra. “I need you to watch.”

  She felt her breasts swing free, the lace tugging on her swollen and hard nipples. She swallowed the sharp cry that filled her mouth. Her arms trembled as she held herself above his waiting mouth.

  Ellis’s hands were tender as they brushed aside the lace and cupped the two pale mounds. Rough thumbs grazed her nipples, making them quiver in need. His breath bathed her skin in its warmth. “You’re beautiful, Sydney.” His lips reached for one of the nubs. “Are they ready for me to taste them?”

  She gazed at him in anticipation. Ellis wanted her to watch and she was drawn more by the excitement of his request than the need to close her eyes in embarrassment. “I...”

  He reached up and captured the nub deep in his mouth.

  She felt herself jerk and she arched her back, thrusting herself deeper into his mouth. Her eyes closed in ecstasy as Ellis’s teeth tenderly pulled on the bud.

  “Open your eyes, Sydney.” Ellis’s thigh inserted itself between her legs.

  The hardness of his thigh between her legs caused a moan to rumble deep in her throat as her hips slid against him. “Why?” A tingle of pure pleasure shimmied from her nipple down to the wet junction between her thighs.

  Nimble fingers unsnapped her jeans. The rhythm of her hips matched the gentle tugging of his mouth on her nipple. Everything seemed connected. Her pounding heart echoed his breathing. His soft groans reverberated the rhythm of her hips. Why hadn’t she realized before that making love was a well-orchestrated dance?

  The heat of his palm pressed against her abdomen and slowly slipped beneath the waistband of her jeans and her silk panties. Fingers burrowed through curls and stroked her moist center.

  Ellis released her nipple from between his lips. “Sydney, look at me.”

  A trembling “Why?” was torn from her throat before she clamped down on her lower lip with her teeth. She opened her eyes and glanced down at him because she was fearful that he would stop the wonderful, marvelous things he was doing to her body. His eyes were no longer gray. They were burning silver.

  Ellis increased the rhythm of his fingers as her thighs moved farther apart. The tip of one of his fingers slipped inside and out of her with every thrust of her hips. “I’m going to be watching your eyes when you climax.”

  She never heard of such a thing. Why would he want to watch her as she climaxed? “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to, Sydney, just feel.” Ellis cupped her one breast with his free hand and squeezed the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. When her hips arched in response, his finger slipped all the way inside, making her want more.

  Much more.

  She felt the tension coil and twist as she thrust her hips faster and harder against his hand. She had reached the center of the vortex Ellis had brought her to, yet she couldn’t look away from his eyes. He held her gaze as the storm within her broke and she was hurled over the edge. Deep within her she could feel the tiny contractions signaling her release, gripping him tightly.

  As the last of her climax faded she closed her eyes in mortifica
tion and allowed herself to finally collapse against Ellis’s chest, burying her face in his shirt. Humiliation didn’t even begin to describe what she felt.

  Ellis had just given her the most mind-shattering sexual experience of her life and he was still fully clothed. Not one button on his shirt was undone. His shoes were off, but that was because he had taken them off before he had given Trevor his bath. If she was able to move, she would find some deep dark hole to climb into.

  “Are you okay?” Ellis’s voice was raspy and uneven as it feathered against her ear.

  Both of his hands were slowly rubbing her back as if she were fragile and would shatter at any moment. She had news for him—she had already shattered and he had witnessed it all within her eyes. With her ear flattened against his chest she heard the thundering of his rapid heartbeat. His arousal, which surely had to be past the aching point, was still pressed into her hipbone. No, she wasn’t okay. She was humiliated. Two of his buttons pressed against her cheek as she mumbled into a third one, “I’m sorry.”

  Ellis’s hands stopped in midstroke. “For what?”

  “For...you know...” She couldn’t bear to look at him, so she weakly waved one of her hands into the air. Her experience with men might not be what most twenty-eight-year-old women’s were, but she knew Ellis should have been with her on that incredible journey he had just taken her on.

  He reached down, cupped her chin and forced her to look at him. “No, I don’t know, Sydney. Explain.”

  Mortification flooded her cheeks. If she had the energy, she would have fled the room. As it was, she still couldn’t feel her knees, let alone stand up and run. Her hand fluttered helplessly once again into the air. “You know, you didn’t...” She couldn’t think of a proper way of completing that sentence.

  “I didn’t what?” Ellis refused to allow her to bury her face back into his shirt.

  “You know...” The flood of embarrassment heated her face as Ellis continued to stare at her. He was waiting for an answer and by hell he was going to get one. “You weren’t... satisfied.” She nodded her head as if she was some slow-witted pupil who just thought of the right answer. “You know what I mean....”

  Ellis chuckled until she glared at him. It took him a moment to catch his breath and then he asked, “Is that what you were sorry for?”

  “What did you think I was sorry for?” Ellis wasn’t slow or thickheaded. What else could she possibly be sorry for?

  “Old insecurities die hard, Sydney, that’s all.” Ellis cupped her face and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “What old insecurities?”

  This time his kiss landed at the corner of her mouth. “Later, my love. I’ll tell you later.”

  My love! Ellis had called her his love! When he tried to kiss the other corner of her mouth, she turned her head and landed a direct kiss of her own.

  He chuckled. “You didn’t think we were finished, did you?”

  “Finished?”

  Ellis gave her a kiss that not only rekindled a couple of the sparks she had thought were fading, but lit a few new ones as well. “Sydney, Sydney, Sydney.” Warm and insistent lips placed tiny little kisses all over her face. “That was only the first inning.”

  “First inning?” She tried to capture his roaming mouth, but he was too quick for her.

  “You know what they say about first innings.” Ellis’s teeth playfully nipped at her earlobe.

  “What?”

  “There’s eight more to follow.”

  An hour later, Sydney stood under the warm pounding spray of the shower and tried to relax. She couldn’t. She was still waiting for the second inning to begin. Ellis obviously wasn’t in a hurry to restart the game. Or maybe the anticipation was part of his game plan.

  He had teased away her embarrassment with gentle kisses that hinted at even greater pleasures yet to come as he had refastened her bra and redone her buttons. They had locked up the house together and climbed the steps hand in hand. He had walked her to her bedroom door, kissed her until she nearly melted at his feet and then asked her if there was a lock on her door. She had skidded her fingers down the buttons on his shirt and told him yes, but she wasn’t planning on using it—at least not to keep him out. He had captured her wandering fingers, opened her bedroom door and gently nudged her inside with the promise of joining her soon.

  She had nervously paced her room, listening to the sound of Ellis taking a shower across the hall. Mental images of him standing under a pounding spray had had her nearly hyperventilating. She had pictured broad shoulders, muscular thighs and a chest worthy of her undivided attention, for at least an hour or two. Suds and water had been running in rivers down his body.

  A stirring of heat had had her cursing both her imagination and Ellis. She had turned into a wanton woman.

  As soon as he left the bathroom and returned to his room, she had dashed across the hall praying that a bracing shower would cool her down.

  Her prayer had been in vain. She wasn’t cool. Heck, she wasn’t even warm. She was hot and aching.

  With a rueful shake of her head she grabbed the pink netted shower puff and squirted it with the bottle of shower gel. The scent of raspberries filled the steamy air as she started to lather her body. She jerked in surprise as the net brushed against her still hardened nipples and heat rushed through her. What in the world had Ellis done to her body?

  With warmth coiling its way deep within her abdomen and slowly settling at the junction of her thighs, she quickly finished washing and stepped out of the tub. The thick yellow towel was soft against her skin but she hardly noticed. What held her attention was the scent of Ellis’s aftershave still clinging to the air and the sight of his small travel case sitting on the back of the toilet.

  The black leather case was opened and she could see the various items he had brought. His aftershave bore an expensive designer name. Shaving gel, razor, toothbrush and toothpaste were common brands. They were all masculine things and it reminded her that Ellis was the first man to share this bathroom with her. Her father had a bath connected to his room and this had always been her private domain, except during the occasional visit from Aunt Rose. There was something so intimate about Ellis sharing her space.

  She raised her leg to the rim of the tub and rubbed it with the towel. There was something else that caught her eye in Ellis’s bag. A bottle of no-tears baby shampoo, a tube of bubble-gum flavored toothpaste and a small toothbrush with Bugs Bunny on the handle. Trevor’s things. Ellis wasn’t the only new male in the house.

  Seeing Trevor’s personal items reminded her that Ellis’s first and foremost reason for being here was his son.

  She slowly hung up the towel and slipped into the white chenille robe that hung on the back of the door. With fingers that shook, she tied the belt, took off the shower cap she had donned to keep her hair dry and hung it on the hook by the tub. Sighing heavily, she turned and faced the mirror.

  Steam condensed on the reflective surface, but it wasn’t enough to obscure the view. Suddenly she saw what she had been afraid to see—a woman on the brink of falling in love. The wonder and excitement were clearly in her eyes. So was the pain to come.

  She picked up her hairbrush, turned from the mirror and left the room. She glanced down the hall to where her father’s room was and then back to the closed door of the guest bedroom. Ellis and Trevor’s room. She paused, then walked firmly down the hall to her own room. The one thing she had learned from the accident that had taken her mother and blinded her father was to live for today, for tomorrow might never come.

  The thought of spending all of her savings or charging up her credit cards just because tomorrow might never be was ridiculous. But the thought of taking a lover and savoring every moment with him was something else entirely. Ellis would be heading home soon enough. For now, she wanted to make each day and every night a memory.

  She stepped into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Ellis would come. He said he would come later a
nd she believed him.

  Her hand holding her brush was raised and halfway through its first stroke when his low voice startled her. “You look like a little girl all barefoot and in that oversize robe.”

  Her gaze shot to the big comfortable chair she had positioned in front of the window. Dressed in a T-shirt and boxers, Ellis slouched down and sank into the chair’s depths, hidden in the shadows created by the small light on her bureau.

  She forced her hand to complete the stroke of the brush and start another one. She had seen what her wild and curly hair looked like in the mirror in the bathroom—as if she had jammed it all under a plastic shower cap, which she had. She was surprised he hadn’t run in horror when she had entered the room.

  “I’m not a little girl, Ellis.” She wanted to dispel any notions he might have on that score because she definitely didn’t feel like a little girl. In fact, she was having some big-girl fantasies where he was concerned.

  Ellis grinned as he stood up and walked toward her. “I know.”

  The heat in his gaze confirmed that statement as he gently took the brush out of her hand. “I like it when you leave your hair down.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her around.

  She was surprised when he started running the brush through her tangled hair. “I—I put it up in a ponytail because it’s easier when I work,” she said, stammering nervously. She never had anyone besides her mother or a hairstylist brush her hair. It felt strange in a good way. It was a very intimate gesture.

  Ellis’s hands were gentle as he worked the brush through her curls. “It looks dark now, but when the sun hits it I can see the red highlights.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and crinkled her nose at him. “Don’t remind me. It’s a lot calmer now than when I was a little girl.”

  Strong fingers wove their way through the wavy curls as if he were memorizing the texture. His gaze followed his fingers. “What, the curls or the color?”

  “Both, but mostly the color.” The intensity of his gaze caused her to take the brush out of his hand and back away. She didn’t want Ellis to see what she saw when she had looked into the mirror. She placed the brush on top of the bureau and moved away from the light. “Is Trevor okay?”