He returned her smile with one of his own as his hand glided over her breast, spreading the soap over the plump flesh and her tight nipple. "You're looking awfully… satisfied."
"For now," she replied impudently, knowing it wouldn't take much for her to want him again, even after those two amazing orgasms she'd had in the kitchen.
He chuckled, the deep, male sound echoing in the cubicle. "You're determined to wear me out, aren't you?"
She lifted a brow. "Are you complaining?"
"Not at all, sweetheart." He crouched down in front of her, letting the water drench him completely as he trailed the sponge down her legs, then back up again, his hands and fingers following the same path. "I aim to please."
Nudging her knees apart, he leaned forward and slid his tongue along the folds of her sex, delving deep. She gasped and tangled her hands in his hair, pulling his mouth closer, opening her legs wider. "And, oh, do you ever please me," she murmured, then groaned as he added just the right amount of pressure and gentle suction to that taut bud of flesh still tender from previous climaxes.
Heat flashed through her, along with a liquid desire that spiraled straight down to her core. Just that quickly, just that effortlessly, he kindled an intense, wanton need within her.
God, she was so easy when it came to this man.
And she embraced every single minute of it.
Ever since her first sexual experience in college, she'd blamed herself for her lack of any physical response when it came to intercourse. She thought things would be different with Jason, but when she'd failed to derive any real pleasure from their quick encounters, it had only reinforced her belief that she was frigid. Then, when she'd discovered the intimacy issues between her mother and father and how it had affected her parents relationship, she'd seriously begun to wonder if she just wasn't destined to follow in her mother's path and would forever settle for mediocre sex.
Now she knew better. Ben had shown her that she wasn't the one with the problem, but that the men in her previous relationships had been all wrong for her when it came to physical intimacy. It was all about compatibility, chemistry, a strong attraction, and equal parts give and take. Especially that. She'd come to learn that her former partners had been much too selfish, and she'd been far too passive.
Not anymore. Now she knew what hot, mind-blowing sex was like, and she'd never settle for less again.
Those thoughts disintegrated from her mind as Ben's mouth continued to tease and torment her, his tongue gliding rhythmically within her soft, swollen flesh along with the trickle of water from their shower. His touch sizzled like lightning over her nerve endings, and when her legs began to tremble with the onset of her climax, he curved his big hands around to the backs of her thighs to help keep her upright as she gave herself over to the lust and ecstacy rushing through her body, pushing her higher, then higher still before letting her free-fall back down to earth.
When she opened her eyes again, it was to find that he'd risen to his full height, his eyes blazing with pure male arrogance and his long, thick erection prodding insistently against her belly. He layered his warm, pliable lips overs hers, and she tasted herself in his sweet, soulful kiss.
When he finally lifted his head moments later, she released a soft, sensual sigh. "Mmmm, that was nice. Very nice." Reaching between his thighs, she wrapped her hand around his shaft and nipped at his bottom lip. "I have to say that it's a huge relief to know that I'm nothing like my mother when it comes to sex."
He blinked at her, his expression suddenly wary. "Excuse me?"
Okay, that had just slipped right out without her really thinking through the impact of her comment. Judging by the uncertain look in Ben's eyes he obviously had no desire to think about her mother and sex in the same sentence. Yet, there was just enough curiosity lingering in the depth of his gaze to give her the fortitude she needed to explain, to divulge the secret she'd kept for so long to the one person she trusted the most. Ben.
That in itself was a huge revelation, and she exhaled a deep breath to settle her suddenly racing heart. "My mother isn't very fond of sex."
He digested that for a second, then asked, "And you know this how?"
"Because I had the unfortunate luck of overhearing a very heated argument between my mother and father." Needing something to keep her hands busy while she talked, she took the sponge from his hands, reapplied a generous amount of liquid body wash, and began scrubbing his shoulders and arms.
"I'd just graduated from boarding school, and when I moved back home for the summer before starting college, I realized that my parents were sleeping in separate rooms, which I found odd, but of course I didn't say anything." As she ran the sponge over his broad chest, the warm water from his showerhead rinsed the suds down the length of his body.
She concentrated on his taut abdomen, keeping her gaze cast downward while she took her trip back into the past. "But one day I came home early from visiting a friend and heard loud voices coming from the master bedroom. My mother was accusing my father of having an affair, which he openly admitted to, and I remember him saying to her. 'Can you blame me? You won't let me touch you and we haven't had sex in over fifteen years. There's no intimacy between us, yet you've made it clear that if I file for divorce you'll make sure I can kiss my political career good-bye; Then he stormed out of the bedroom and literally ran into me. Both my mother and father knew I'd heard everything, and that's when my mother decided I was old enough to know the truth."
Ben tucked his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her gaze back to his. "And that was?"
Touched by the tenderness in Ben's eyes, she went on. "My father left the house and my mother sat me down and told me that three years after I was born she got pregnant again, but five months into the pregnancy she miscarried. She ended up hemorrhaging so badly that she had to have a hysterectomy and couldn't have any more kids. After that, she said she had no interest in sex. She didn't want it, didn't need it, and she had no desire for it. And judging from what I heard, that translated into her not sleeping with my father anymore."
Ben visibly winced. "I can't even imagine. I'm not one to condone affairs outside of a marriage, but a part of me can understand why your father did it."
She nodded in agreement. "Me, too. Physically and emotionally, he wasn't getting what he needed from my mother. So, since my mother didn't want a divorce because she liked the social aspect of being married to a politician, and my father didn't want to tarnish his reputation with a nasty separation, they came to a compromise. They would stay married for my mother's sake and my father's career, and out in public they'd pretend they were a happy couple. Since my mother didn't want sex, she allowed my father to maintain his affair so long as he kept things discreet, which he has."
Ben looked completely taken aback by her parents' elaborate cover-up. "That's quite an arrangement."
"I suppose it works for them for whatever reason, but it's obvious to me that neither one of them is happy. My father has been with the same woman all these years, a paralegal at a law firm here in Chicago who understands the rules, and somehow accepts them to be with my father." She slid the soapy sponge down his thighs, then automatically worked her way back up to his chest. "As for my mother… now that I'm no longer the main focus of her life because I have one of my own, she spends her days with her rich, affluent friends, and drinks way too much at night when she's alone. She'd never admit that she has a drinking problem, but even I can see that she's abusing alcohol in order to deal with other issues in her life. I've tried to talk to her about it, and so has my father, but she refuses to get any help."