What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(95)
Jase’s hand followed the path of the necklace down the valley between Laurel’s breasts. “Jade is okay, but I prefer pearls.”
Her shoes had come off on the way to the bedroom, the lilies Lolly had woven into her hair were now crushed beneath them on the sheets, and her beautiful wedding dress was now just an ivory heap beside the bed. But the pearls—the long necklace and the heavy antique earrings—had remained.
Jase lifted the rope and started winding it in a lazy circle around her right breast. He was playing with the pearls, she realized, decorating her breast.
His voice deepened. “Tell you what, babe. You’ll never want to give these sweet beads back to Lolly when I’m through with them.”
Laurel watched him maneuver a second row within the first, but she was too tired to react. “They’re hers, Jase. I just borrowed them back for the wedding.”
“We’ll see.” He circled her breast one more time, then another.
Laurel took a deep gulp of breath when the edge of his thumbnail touched her nipple. “I’m glad Doug was able to make it to the wedding. It was n-nice to meet him.”
Jase smiled at the stutter in her voice. Good. But he wanted more than awareness from her. He wanted her burning hot.
He twisted the rope and moved to her left breast, laying down a careful first row. “Nearest thing I have to a brother.”
Laurel’s head was swimming. The familiar heat was racing through her veins. Jase carrying on a seminormal conversation with her while he wrapped her breasts in pearls was incredibly erotic, like a French movie she’d seen, where the heroine’s sophisticated lover paused a couple of times for a puff on a cigarette while he was making love to her.
He ringed her breast again, and she could feel her passion rekindling with each pearl he nudged into place. She tried to rise, but he pressed gently down on her shoulder.
His voice was guttural. “Not yet. Artist at work.” He circled Laurel’s tightening nipple a third time, then draped the last of the pearls down to her stomach.
Damn, she is beautiful, like a pagan love goddess. He gazed at her for one long moment, at her pale, luminescent skin, her gray eyes turned to smoky slate, her swollen lips, the long strand of beads, the barbaric pearl earrings. He swallowed hard and his eyes narrowed. Taking her face in his palms, he covered it with soft, tender kisses, working his way down across her throat to her beaded breasts, sucking first one turgid nipple, then the other until they gleamed with moisture.
Laurel gasped as the air-conditioning hit her warm, wet nipples, slamming her sex drive into high gear. Her breath came in quick, shallow pants. She was on fire.
“Jase…” Her voice was a feverish whisper. She grabbed at his arms, to pull him closer, but he pressed on her shoulder again.
“Not yet, baby. Trust me.”
He unwound the pearls one round at a time, rolling them against her tender skin, then let them fall in a loose line down toward her belly.
“Jase…” Her voice was thready. She couldn’t keep up her end of the conversation. She didn’t even remember what they’d been talking about.
His hand pressed against her shoulder yet again.
“Not yet,” he repeated.
He moved the line of pearls down to the darkness at the juncture of her legs. A rush of desire rang in her ears and thudded along her veins. “Now, Jase, I’m ready! Now! Now! Now!”
His voice was a soft whisper. “That’s the idea, baby.” He separated her weeping folds with one hand and lifted a single shining pearl with the other. “This is for you, Laurel, only for you.”
He moved the bead against her, pearl on pearl until, with a high-pitched, sobbing cry, she spasmed into his waiting arms.
Then, with the hard line of the pearls still rolling between them, he entered her.
And they were one.
About the Author
Jeanell Bolton is an active member of the Austin chapter of Romance Writers of America. She has three children, one husband, and one dog. She lives on five glorious wooded acres in the boondocks of Georgetown, Texas. In past lives, she has been a teacher, an activist, an artist, a journalist, and a chorus director, but she is now settled into writing about deep, dark romances that end up happily ever after, which is how it always should be.
Learn more at:
Facebook.com/Jeanell.Bolton
Look for Jeanell Bolton’s next novel
WHERE THE HEART LEADS
Available Spring 2015
Chapter One
Moira drove into the asphalt lot across the street from the yellow brick building and swung her six-year-old Toyota into a marked space.
Panic crawled up her spine.
It’s just another audition, she told herself. You know the routine—you’ve been auditioning since you were a kid. No big deal. You either get the part or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s always another audition around the corner.
But this wasn’t Hollywood or New York—it was small-town Texas, and she wasn’t a kid trying out for a role as the main character’s tagalong little sister anymore. She was an adult, twenty-six years old, and she was auditioning on a three-month trial basis to be herself, Moira Miranda Farrar, with no safety net whatsoever. The Bosque Bend Theater Guild had hired her to direct their upcoming production, and if she could pull it off, they’d keep her on permanently.