Free Breath on Embers by Anne Calhoun Page A

teasingly, she complied. He watched in the mirror as blond strands lifted then tumbled against her cheeks, her open mouth, her neck, her shoulders and breasts.
    “Nice,” he said. “Model it for me.”
    She blinked once, heated and slow, then one corner of that perfect lush mouth lifted just enough to let him know she found this amusing as well as arousing. Well, good. He already owned her body. Now he was after her soul, and laughter was as good a way as any to gain entrance there.
    Her gaze locked with his, she tipped her chin down so her hair tumbled into her face and spread her legs to either side of the chair’s hard seat. She braced her hands between her opened thighs and leaned forward. The position was pure Playboy coed and thrust out her breasts and ass, emphasizing curves but hiding her sex from view. Her pink nipples stood out between the pale corset and her blond hair. The colors of innocence wrapped around pure sin.
    “I’m still not sure yet,” he mused.
    She got smoothly to her feet and turned the chair so the seat faced the mirror to his left, then put one knee on the seat, her hands on the straight back, and arched her back. In the mirror to his left he saw her ass, teasing glimpses of her pussy and the long seam hugging the back of her thigh and calf. The look she shot him through her messy hair made his cock throb in his jeans. He shifted, and cleared his throat.
    “You look warm,” she said. Then she dropped to her knees in front of him, tugged his shirt free from his pants, and pulled shirt and sweater over his head. “Better?”
    Getting naked wouldn’t relieve the heat pumping through his veins. The view in the mirror held his full attention, the swell of her ass below the laced-up corset, the white stockings and those pert little bows. “Keep going.”
    She smoothed her hands down his chest and abdomen to his belt. Each restrained breath lifted her breasts until he didn’t know where to look. Plumped breasts. Curvy ass. Wet mouth.
    Thea, on her knees for him, again.
    She had his belt undone, zipper down, and her hands in his jeans to work them down when he took her chin between thumb and forefinger and tipped her face up to his. He searched her gaze, alert for any sign she’d disappeared, leaving only her body behind. Her dark eyes glowed like a hot spot after a fire. Electricity jolted through him, bent him forward to kiss her.
    It was hot and wet and supercharged. His tongue stroked over hers before he pulled back to tease her. He soothed each sharp nip to her lower lip with a deft swipe of his tongue, making her mouth swollen and wet. When he pulled back her eyelids drooped, but she tugged his jeans down enough to release his shaft.
    “Slow,” he said.
    Her red, wet mouth captured the tip of his cock, then she took him at his word, moving up and down his shaft. His heart pounded against his sternum as he shamelessly watched her suck him, pulling her hair behind her opposite shoulder for an unrestricted view of her on her knees, mouth and body working together to pleasure him. Saliva slicked his shaft as she went down, down, down, swallowed, then hollowed her cheeks on the trip up.
    He thought he might go out of his mind.
    “You know what would make this better?” he said, working really, really hard to sound like a dispassionate observer.
    She paused, and rather than looking up at him, turned to the mirror. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight, then she wrapped pale, slender fingers around his shaft, shook her head no, and licked the tip.
    “A little more white ribbon,” he said, and waited until her gaze met his. “Around your wrists.”
    He watched the image burn through her consciousness. Eyes widening, pulse picking up at the base of her throat, a little hip shimmy that let him know the idea aroused her, too.
    “I’m sure we can find extra ribbon somewhere,” Thea said, and closed her lips around the tip of his cock.
    “Good ribbon,” he said, rendered nearly