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  Soon she was struggling, her thighs beginning to tremble with the unaccustomed exercise, her clit aching with the orgasm that was so close she could taste it. And just when she thought she would have to stop, have to find another position, Paul rubbed his hands up her legs and used his thumbs to spread her pussy even wider, and said, “That is the sexiest thing I have ever seen.”

  And she came, pushed past endurance by his touch and his words and the look on his face.

  She shuddered and tried to keep moving as wave after wave of shivering pleasure broke through her, but she finally had to stop because it felt almost too good each time her swollen clit brushed against the crisp curls at the base of Paul’s cock.

  “Stella, baby, look at me,” Paul said firmly, and she lifted her eyes to his just as he snapped his hips up into her. His hand caught her neck, holding her under his fiercely sensual gaze when she would have leaned away. And he moved again and again, faster and faster, and it felt almost bruising but so good, so real.

  She felt herself coming again and wondered if she was dreaming. But Paul’s grip on her neck and thigh was too solid to deny. Her climax hit, spreading through her sweetly just as he pulled her down to drive his cock as deeply as possible in her quivering pussy. She could feel him coming too, throbbing to a stop inside her, and they milked each other to a breathless finish before Stella collapsed on top of Paul’s heaving chest.

  They didn’t move until a strange, wet lapping sound alerted them to the fact that Beau had discovered Paul’s forgotten cup of coffee.

  * * * * *

  “You know how when you’re a kid, you ask your parents for a pony, and you don’t get it but it’s like this ideal thing that stays in your head? Even after you don’t exactly want a pony anymore, you’ve moved on to other things?”

  Paul shrugged and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “This is probably not the time to tell you about the pony I had when I was a kid.”

  “Probably not,” Stella agreed, thumping his broad chest affectionately before laying her head back down on it. She loved the way Paul’s arm automatically fit itself around her shoulders, as if they had been designed for snuggling just that way. “Because for those of us who never got the pony, which you realize is most of us, this is kind of a thing. You want it, you don’t get it, you know you never will and eventually you convince yourself you never really wanted it. But the thing is, you still did want it, deep down.”

  “Are you about to call me a pony?” He ruffled her hair as he spoke, lazily combing his fingers through the fiery strands.

  “Yes, exactly. This feels like what I always imagined it would feel like if one day I woke up, and my parents said there was a surprise, and I looked out the window and there was a beautiful white pony with a big red bow tied around his neck.”

  “I am not putting a bow around my neck,” he cautioned her.

  “No, silly, not around your neck.” Reaching beneath the sheet, she gave him a friendly squeeze, earning a whimper and a chuckle. “Seriously, it’s just…like something you’ve been told your whole life is just a fantasy, and you’d convinced yourself it was one of those things that just doesn’t happen in real life. And all of a sudden it actually happens. That’s what last night felt like.” She realized after she said it that this confession might be a little too much to disclose quite so soon, but Paul seemed to take it in stride.

  “This morning pretty much felt that way too, sweetheart.” His fingers had drifted again, and he was petting the very edge of her breast where it met her rib cage.

  “See, and you keep saying stuff like that too.”

  “I mean it. I’ve meant everything I’ve said. Since we’re reminiscing, do you remember the capstone project we worked on?”

  “Of course.” She remembered it like it was yesterday. The semester before their last in the program, because both of them were overachievers, she and Paul had spent hours with two other students working on a thesis-level cohort project. She had loved every minute of it, and it had not escaped her attention or Don’s notice that a big part of her enjoyment centered around talking with Paul. At the time, she had mistaken Don’s jealousy for a deeply romantic emotion instead of the very well grounded fear that it truly represented. Don had been passionate, in his way, and she thought it would be the passion she had always dreamed of. Never dreaming, of course, that when she really did find it, she would do so with funny, thoughtful, drama-free Paul.

  “That was the worst and the best time for me. I saw you and talked to you almost every day. But I knew you were marrying that dick in another few months. I used to imagine all kinds of things, you leaving him, me punching him right in the face. Bending you over the desk in the study room at the library and just fucking like rabbits.”

  “You were the one who made the group start working in the Student Union instead because you said the rooms at the library made you claustroph— Oh.”

  “Once I’d pictured it, I just couldn’t think of anything else whenever we were in there.”

  “I had no idea.” She craned her neck to look up at him with a little frown. “I must have been an idiot.”

  “No,” Paul corrected her. “I was just very, very careful not to let it show. But that wasn’t the worst part.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No. The worst part was when we would just start talking, and we’d both get so absorbed in that, and I would forget all about the sex part. I missed those talks more than anything.”

  Stella realized she was crying, but made no effort to stop the tear that was tracing a path down her cheek. “Me too,” she said simply.

  “I almost called you. After your divorce, I mean. And then when I heard you were back in town four years ago, I almost called you right then. But I felt like I was setting myself up for disappointment. I had kind of been comparing other women to you for years at that point. I was afraid if I met you again and you weren’t what I remembered…but you were. You were more. I was so dumb. You’re better than I even imagined.”

  He ran out of words, stared at her with a wrinkled brow that Stella longed to smooth out with her fingers. Then she remembered there was no reason not to do that, so she did it. Something she had thought about so very many times when they were younger.

  Stella had always felt guiltier about little impulses like that than she had about sexual fantasies. She had known even then that it was far less dangerous for an engaged girl to daydream about fucking somebody than it was to daydream about comforting him. Assuming, of course, that the somebody wasn’t the girl’s fiancé. But she had made a promise, and accepted Don’s ring. Invitations had been sent, presents had already started arriving. And she confused Don’s intensity with the passion of true love. If only she had been smarter, braver…but the time for “if only” was past.

  Then she laughed, and Paul’s forehead furrowed again but in puzzlement. “You know what this means?” she asked, resting her chin on his chest and looking up at him with glee. “I’m your pony.”

  After a moment, Paul joined in her laughter. “It’s true, you are.” The gleam in his eye grew devilish, and he rested a finger against her laughing mouth as he continued. “So when do I wake up and find you on my front lawn wearing nothing but a big red bow around your neck?”

  The End

  About the Author

  After earning two graduate degrees, practicing law awhile and then working for the public school system for over ten years, Delphine finally got a clue. She tossed all that aside and started doing what she should have been doing all along, writing novels! In hindsight she could see the decision was a no-brainer. Because which sounds like more fun? Being a lawyer/special educator/reading specialist/educational diagnostician…or writing spicy romances?

  When not writing or doing “mommy stuff”, Delphine reads voraciously, watches home improvement shows, noodles around with html and css coding, and plays computer games with her darling (and very romantic) husband. She is fortunate enough to have two a
bsurdly precocious children and two rotten but endearing rescued mutts.

  Delphine and her family are all Texas natives, and reside in unapologetic suburban bliss near Houston.

  Delphine welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

  Tell Us What You Think

  We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at [email protected].

  Also by Delphine Dryden

  Snow Job

  Truth & Lies 1: How to Tell a Lie

  Truth & Lies 2: Art of the Lie

  When in Rio

  Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

  www.ellorascave.com