When The Lights Go Out.... Barbara Daly

his throat. “You shouldn’t believe anything you hear in that kind of phone call. The truth is, I barely have enough nerve to cross the street on a Don’t Walk sign.” Her eyes shifted away. “Can we just do it?” she asked him. “Fast?”

      He’d done his best to behave responsibly, but he wasn’t campaigning for sainthood. This time when he swept her up into his arms, she felt as light as cotton candy. Her tiny squeal only intensified the suddenly purposeful sensations thudding through his body. “Yes and no,” he said, carrying her toward the promising-looking door ahead of him.

      “The other way,” she said, trying to whirl him back around behind the sofa. “What do you mean, yes and no?”

      Keeping a tight grip on her, he changed direction, shoved a door open, gratefully observed a sea of white that showed up even in the near-darkness and laid her down on it.

      “Yes, we can do it. Just not fast.” Sinking down beside her, he moved his mouth across hers tentatively, no more than brushing her lips, seeking their shape and form. They were full, firm, warm, sweet—and already opening to his touch.

      The kiss knifed into him so deeply he wanted to groan, but he couldn’t. She’d seized him too tightly, her hands working his nape and her mouth seeking his with unmistakable hunger.

      That did it. He told his conscience to take note of the obviously consensual nature of this event and to go to its own room at once, and then he accepted the kiss and returned it in full measure.

      WAS IT POSSIBLE THAT HER dream of being a desired, beloved wife and mother might actually come true? Not with this man, unfortunately, who was just her therapist, but was she alluring after all, capable of attracting a man who would make the dream a reality?

      Two long years of nothing, which included, of course, the year with Sven, which was worse than nothing, because she had someone who was doing nothing. And here, at last, was a lifeline. Max must be an incredibly well-educated psychiatrist because he could kiss like no man she’d ever kissed, which admittedly hadn’t been many, but she suspected she could kiss a thousand men and not enjoy it any more than she was enjoying this kiss, starting with the first electrical shock of contact. His mouth feathered over hers, then the two of them drew together with the inevitability of magnets. She shivered when his tongue flicked into the corners of her mouth and then tentatively moved inside her. The sensation whipped through her body, knocking out her ability to think or reason.

      She writhed against him, dizzied by waves of pure animal wanting. She slid her hands around his neck to steady herself, then across his shoulders, down his back. Feeling his muscles clench beneath her touch only made her dizzier. His hands went to her waist, tugged her T-shirt upward and, with it, the camisole she wore beneath. It seemed absolutely essential to get him out of his clothes, too, but when she felt his lips against her bare breast, she lost interest in everything except what he was doing to her, outside and in.

      His lips demanded and promised, took and gave. Her head fell back, and with a moan she resigned herself to savoring the feel of them, the sensations in her breasts as he caressed them, circling her nipples with his tongue, then tugging them into his mouth. There suddenly seemed to be plenty of time. She wasn’t even close to losing her nerve. Just her mind.

      Her breasts ached when he slid down between them, slid farther down. Last time she’d noticed, she’d been wearing a skirt. What had happened to it? But a second later she was delighted it had vanished. His fingertips stroked the silk of her panties, and a few strokes later, they seemed to have disappeared, too, and his mouth moved against her stomach, down through the mound of curls, generating the white-hot heat that flamed inside her. She arched her back to make the wonderful thing he was doing to her easier for him, so easy he would never stop, not even when, eventually, she begged him to.

      But that moment never came, while Blythe did, over and over, crazed by the touch of his tongue, his lips, his smooth, firm fingertips, until at last she had ripped his black briefs off his body and convinced him to thrust himself inside her.

      The resulting frenzy of mutual plundering left them crossways on the bed, her straddling him, his head and feet hanging off. As he pounded into her, she flipped them over so that he was on top. He thrust into her again and propelled them into the footboard, which obligingly fell off. They crashed to the floor on top of it.

      From beneath them came the unmistakable sound of a broom handle knocking against the ceiling of the apartment below, the universal sign to quiet down. It distracted her just enough to allow a fleeting concern that Max was still conscious, but all her senses told her the only part of him she cared about at the moment still plunged into her and withdrew, plunged and withdrew. If it was merely a neurological impulse at work, she didn’t care; it felt just as good. If he stopped, then she’d worry about restoring him to consciousness.

      But he didn’t stop, didn’t even pause. A driving force built up more intensely inside her with each thrust. She was going to explode. With a shriek, she did, spasms shaking her from head to toe, tentative at first, then escalating so ferociously that she collapsed against him, wet with sweat, having barely enough energy left to observe that he still had plenty.

      “The footboard wasn’t holding up anything structural, was it?” His voice was rough, although his mouth wasn’t as it nibbled at her neck. “We’ll resume play on the field.”

      She emitted a small moan of protest as he rolled himself off the flattened footboard, picked her up in his arms and deposited her onto the tangled sheets. His skin was hot. “You’re burning up,” she said, stroking his chest. “You need to cool off.”

      “Someday.” His arms tightened around her.

      “I have an idea,” she whispered, sliding out of bed, feeling him try to tug her back.

      “A kinky one?”

      “I have a personal fan,” Blythe said, starting to search the darkness of her closet.

      “Me.”

      She turned to direct a smile at him, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re going to be a bigger fan in a minute.”

      “I’m already a bigger fan. Come back to bed.”

      But she’d found the battery-operated fan and turned it on herself as she took it back to the night table. “There. How’s that?”

      “Ahh, ohh,” he moaned, and he must have stretched out his arms and legs directly out to his sides, because when she tried to climb in beside him, the only room in the bed was on top of him. “A dream come true.”

      “Uh-huh,” she said as she settled herself over him, melting like frosting on a hot cake.