Borrowing a Bachelor. Karen Kendall

Really dumb that I still think about it now, at age twenty-four. But I guess it’s still a sore spot.”

      “It’s not stupid,” Adam said. He gave her the second drink. “Kids can be incredibly mean.”

      “You have no idea,” she said, taking another big gulp.

      He almost advised her to take it easy, but he’d already offended her once and was unwilling to repeat the offense. “Oh, I do have a good idea. I got picked on a lot in junior high.”

      “Really? Why?”

      He shrugged. “I was a small, nerdy kid with glasses and braces and a bad case of acne.”

      Surprise crossed her face. “Yeah?”

      He nodded. “Yeah.”

      “But you’re gorgeous,” she blurted. Then blushed. Then gulped more of her drink.

      It was his turn to blush. He felt color searing his face. He’d filled out, gone to a dermatologist and lost the braces by his sophomore year in high school. “Uh, thanks, I guess.” He covered his discomfort by burying his nose in his own drink.

      “I embarrassed you,” Nikki said. “I’m sorry.”

      “Well, I laughed at your backside,” Adam said. “So I guess we’re even, huh?”

      She dimpled and leaned forward to set down her cup on the cocktail table. Her robe gaped open as she did so, and his gaze fell straight to her spectacular breasts—what his buddy Devon would call her “luscious golden Winnebagos.” The idiot.

      Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was temporary insanity. Or maybe—

      “I’d never, ever make fun of your front side,” Adam croaked, as she noticed where his gaze was fixated.

      She instantly put her hands up to tug the edges of the robe together.

      “Please don’t,” he asked softly.

      She froze.

      He tried a smile. “They’re so beautiful. Like the rest of you.”

      She swallowed, hesitating. Then, blushing furiously again, she tugged the lapels of the robe open. And then, to his stunned disbelief, she removed the pasties on her nipples and let her breasts spill out to greet him.

      The air went out of him so fast that his lungs almost collapsed. His mouth gaped open like a grouper’s.

      D cups. Perfect, high and round and cherry-capped. Fair? No, this was incredibly unfair. Because Adam wanted to touch them in the worst way. His palms itched, he wanted them so badly. He was afraid he was going to start panting like a dog. He was crazy; he shouldn’t have brought her here. He needed to be studying for the exam on Monday. Where was his legendary hard-won focus?

      “Are you okay?” Nikki asked. “Because you have a very peculiar expression on your face.”

      He groaned. His woody was back with a vengeance.

      “Adam?”

      “Look,” he said. “Nikki, don’t take this the wrong way…but the expression on my face is lust, pure and simple. The fact is, sweetheart, that I’d like to fu—uh, screw you into next Friday.”

       5

      NIKKI CHOKED. “OH!” she said once she could manage the words. A tingle spread down her spine and intensified between her legs.

      “Er,” Adam responded sheepishly, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe the words had come out of his mouth. “Sorry. That was probably a little uncensored.”

      “Yeah…but I liked it.” She smiled at him.

      “Did you?” He stared at her intently and then upended his drink as she nodded.

      Adam set down the cup, ditto the ice pack, and got to his feet. He wiped his hands on his jeans as he crossed the carpet to where she sat; her nerves grew taut and the tingle between her legs intensified. She stopped breathing as he came to a stop in front of her.

      “May I?”

      Clearly, he wanted to kiss her. Nikki tilted back her head to look up at him and examined that chiseled, beautiful mouth of his. It was firm and masculine, but also sensual. His lips weren’t full, but she liked the lines of them, the way they curved, the way they smiled. She imagined how those curves would fit to her own lips, fantasized about how they would feel against hers.

      He bent his head, gazed into her eyes. Would he put a finger under her chin to tilt her head back? Would he take her whole face into his hands? She waited in anticipation.

      But she was wrong. Adam didn’t kiss her. She gasped as instead his fingers grazed her breasts. His hands were cold from the drink and the ice, but since the rest of her was inexplicably hot, the sensation was erotic.

      He lifted her breasts and held them as if they were precious, then rubbed his thumbs slowly over the nipples.

      She forgot all about kissing. A moan escaped her and she pushed them farther into his hands, a wordless request for more.

      Adam’s breathing quickened and the pupils of his eyes dilated, went darker.

      Her gaze dropped from his to the formidable bulge now straining against his fly, and his hands tightened on her flesh, kneaded. He continued to tease her nipples, rubbing circles around them and flicking them gently as the sensations drove her half-crazy. Small sounds came from her throat that she couldn’t control, and he seemed to like that.

      “Lick them, Adam,” she said. “My breasts. Please…”

      He dropped to his knees between her legs, needing no further invitation. He pushed the robe from her shoulders and squeezed her breasts together, taking both nipples into his mouth at once, playing them with his tongue, and then sucking hard.

      Pleasure tore a series of whimpers from her throat and he groaned against her body, the masculine sound plucking answering strings inside her.

      Adam pushed her back on the bed. He slid his hands down her body, from her breasts to her rib cage and stomach, all the way to the V of her legs, where he stopped to play a little. She sucked in a breath as those clever thumbs of his circled the damp fabric at her mons, but avoided touching her where she was wild to be touched.

      He pushed her legs up onto the bed so that her heels rested at the edge, her feet dangling down. He spread her thighs and then dipped under her G-string to explore.

      Nikki bucked as his fingers slid cleverly under the fabric, stroked her, and then zeroed in right below the tiny heart-shaped patch of hair.

      “I have to see,” he whispered, and slid the tiny panties to the side.

      For a moment, there was only silence.

      She lifted her head and looked through her own knees at Adam’s face, which was a study in boyish awe.

      “I’m gonna have a heart attack,” he said in strangled tones. “Pun intended.” And he stroked the little heart of hair with fascination, lust and an odd tenderness.

      Her thighs quivered, and he dipped lower, slipped his fingers inside her while still manipulating the eager little nub right below the heart.

      Her whole body began to shake with unfulfilled sexual tension. “Please,” she whispered, hoping that he’d put his mouth on her. But how did she ask a stranger to do that?

      He didn’t, just as he hadn’t kissed her. But he did do blissful things with his fingers, with his thumbs. She was climbing, spiraling, wanting… She lifted off the bed in a mortifying frenzy of need. “Yes,” she said. “Yes…more. Do it. Do me!”

      He laughed softly and obeyed.

      She splintered into orgasm, losing control of her mind, her body and her dignity without caring. “Adam,” she