No Holds Barred Read Free Page B

apartment’s master bedroom, very Zen functional and aesthetically pleasing with its pale sand-washed walls, dark oriental rugs that would chase away the chill of the flagstone floor on winter mornings and porcelain fixtures. Small bamboo wind chimes hung from one of the cedar ceiling beams. Candles sat in wall niches around the room and would provide added light when the sun stopped illuminating the room through the glass doors that led to a walled garden complete with a waterfall and pond. The shower was separate from the large round sunken tub in the center of the room but you could see a glimpse of each in the cheval glass angled opposite them.
    Her stomach growled and she grabbed a fluffy white towel and the bottle of shampoo-body wash she’d pulled from her knapsack. Jake Truhorn might think everyone looked great after an orgasm but she suspected he had a warped sense of humor. The three styling products it took to keep her curly hair manageable had melded her hair into a sticky mess, her makeup had dissolved and she had raccoon eyes. It was all coming off.
    It was time he faced the reality of what forty-one really looked like. She hung her fluffy white bath sheet on a peg outside the shower, stepped into the pale stone enclosure and adjusted the water coming out of the sunflower shaped head. She squirted gel into her palm and started sudsing from her hair down and blessed the day she’d found the all-in-one product years ago while backpacking through Europe. Jake would have been a kid.
    Well, he wasn’t a kid now and she wasn’t twenty. But her body ached like she was every time she imagined sex with him. And that hadn’t happened in a long time. Jake hadn’t forgotten an important part of sex. How to play. He hadn’t lost his passion for life or what he did. That was part of his allure. Of course, the fact that he was dead sexy didn’t hurt.
    She toweled off in the shower and walked naked to the mirror over the sink, giving it a good swipe with the towel. Her hair was already waving around her face, caramel highlights disguising the few gray hairs she did have. She had a Sicilian grandmother to thank for both her hair and her strong bone structure. Hell, her entire structure including her generous breasts and hips. Not to mention the little rounded belly that no amount of exercise had ever flattened.
    The days were still warm so, going with the “commando” dress code for the week, she slipped a yellow knit sundress over her bare skin. The soft, clingy fabric brushing against her breasts and hips almost made her purr and anticipation puckered her nipples. Her fingers shook as she fluffed her hair and slicked on some gloss. Opening the door she closed her eyes as instructed to tell him she was ready. She felt body heat and smelled a woodsy soap that definitely wasn’t hers.
    “Jake?” She trembled when he put his hands on her shoulders. He slipped behind her and tied something velvety soft and dark around her eyes, cutting off any light. His voice beside her ear was just as velvety and dark.
    “People say you eat first with your eyes but you don’t. It’s the smell that triggers your taste buds, your memories.”
    She remembered the sand-colored carpet, so soft beneath her feet as she shuffled along beside him until he stopped and pulled her down to sit on a pillow, her elbows coming to rest on a smooth, flat surface. She was in the living room—the pillows were turquoise and gold, the long, low coffee table, black.
    He held something at mouth level and she could feel the slight chill of his fingers.
    “What do you smell?”
    She inhaled. “Salt—and water. I smell the sea. Oyster?”
    “And the lady wins a taste. Open your lovely mouth, Ella.”
    Ella opened, felt the edge of the shell on her lips and anticipated the musky saltiness on the back of her tongue, then swallowed the small orb, the liqueur. “ Ummm ,” she breathed when she felt his tongue at the corner of her mouth slip through the