Sudden Pleasures by Bertrice Small Page B

remain celibate for two years? She could go back on the pill. There didn’t have to be any babies. But from the fire they were igniting in each other it was obvious that they were eventually going to have sex. Why not? Then Ashley shook her head. What was she thinking? This was to be a business arrangement, and here she was thinking with her cunt and not her brain. Still, Ryan Finbar Mulcahy was some kisser! And he was probably something else in bed.

    He apologized after dinner, but Ashley would have none of it. “We’re crazy to think we can do this with no sex,” she told him. “You left me weak-kneed, and I gave you a hard-on. We’re attracted to each other, much to my surprise. We only just met, Ryan, but there is definitely something there.”
    “It’s lust,” he said.
    “I know,” she agreed, “but what’s wrong with a little lust between two consenting adults? We’re getting married, after all. Unless there is someone else.”
    “There is no one,” he said. “What if you got pregnant?”
    “I’ll go back on the pill,” Ashley replied. “You may be a Catholic, but I suspect you don’t object to the pill.”
    “You’d do that?” The brown eyes he turned on her were making her hot.
    “Sure. I’ll call Dr. Sam on Monday. I suspect you’re like all the macho men—you don’t like condoms. If we both get a clean bill of health, and you abide by my rules, then we can’t rule sex out of the equation.”
    “Rules?” He raised an eyebrow.
    “Look, all I ask is that if you’re screwing me, you don’t do other women. Okay? I certainly won’t be doing other men.” Except, of course, my two boys on the Channel, but that’s not really real so it doesn’t matter, Ashley thought. And maybe I won’t need them if you’re as good as I think you’re going to be.
    “Seems reasonable,” he agreed.
    “And I’d like to hold off until the wedding,” Ashley said. “Or at least until we’ve both been given a clean bill of health.”
    “That’s fair,” he murmured, “but we could play a little, couldn’t we?”
    They were on the porch, and he was sitting on a wicker settee while she paced back and forth in the half-light. Reaching up, he pulled her into his lap.
    “Hey!” Ashley said, surprised.
    “I can’t seem to help myself,” he admitted. “All my life I had this picture in my head of the ideal woman for me. She would be petite. Blond. Helpless, and I would be her savior. You don’t quite fit the bill, do you?”
    “I guess I don’t,” Ashley agreed.
    “But one look into those big green eyes of yours, and all I could think of was getting into your pants,” he said. “I feel like a lecher, but damn it, you excite me!” His hand fumbled at the back of her shirt, seeking her bra snap.
    “It’s in the front,” Ashley said, reaching to undo the bra herself. “Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but a guy six feet and a hundred inches tall, with a face like a model, wasn’t on the agenda. You excite me too. And there’s nothing wrong with good old-fashioned lust, Ryan Mulcahy. Just so long as we understand each other.” She undid the top two buttons on her shirt.
    His hand slid eagerly in to cup a breast in his palm. He sighed, feeling the soft weight in his hand. Opening her shirt fully, he pushed it off her shoulders and stared at her breasts. They were large, but not big. And they had nipples like blown roses. “God, these are beautiful,” he said, and he began to kiss them.
    Ashley sighed with pure pleasure. It had been several months since a man had made love to her. But oh, Lord, she knew it couldn’t go much further. He was a passionate man, and she, for all her calm exterior, was a passionate woman. It would take very little to put them in a very compromising position. She could already feel his penis straining against the fabric of his slacks and her butt. But still, she closed her eyes and sighed again as his lips moved over her chest and up her throat to