Chapter 5 #3
“Darlin’, you can.” He let go of her hair, took a deep breath and stepped back.
She felt the strain, the monumental effort it took.
She held onto his arm, felt the solidness of his muscles, the heat of him through his shirt.
The room felt warm and she felt a flush rise.
She dropped her hand as if her hold on him was connecting her to a heat source.
“I want you. Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s not about what I want to hear. Besides, you always want me. I always want you. That’s nothing new. Not likely to change. What about the rule, the understanding we have?”
“I’m the one who made the rule. I can break it.”
He shook his head, but there was a small crinkle at the corner of his eyes as if he could only stop his mouth from smiling, but had no control over his eyes.
She lifted her chin, then clenched her hands to stop herself from putting them on her hips.
She stood naked and felt another flush with the awareness.
Not that he was looking at her naked body. He studied her eyes, her face, without a hint of his gaze wandering.
She continued, “Because I want to feel connected to you. I want to be honest—I want us to be honest. I can’t …”
She shook her head, unsure what to say next under his stare, unsure if he knew what she meant. And if she were honest, unsure of exactly what she meant because none of that excused her behavior in the face of their rule.
There was a good reason for the rule forbidding an intimate relationship between them.
“Damn.” He spoke her next thought. Then he pulled her back in and held her, stroking her bare back and nuzzling her neck, burying his face in her hair.
It didn’t matter that he was fully clothed.
She ran her hands over his hard rippling muscles, pressed her hips against his arousal, full and irresistible.
A shock of energy and scorching heat zinged through her like an electrical shock, only this shock left shudders of pleasure in its wake and the need for more. She pulled him closer.
He resisted. “Hey babe, I need to get these clothes off.” He took her arms from him and pushed her back toward the bed.
He whipped the belt from his pants and dropped it on the floor, then in one motion unsnapped his jeans and stepped out of them.
The instant his pants dropped he pulled his shirt over his head, not bothering with buttons.
Before she had a chance to react or move, he stood before her naked and magnificent, hard and scarred.
She knew his scars, had seen them before, but the sight of the one low on his belly like the curving gouge of a knife tightened everything inside her into a knot of grief as she imagined what he’d been through.
He reached out a hand and touched her hair.
Before he pulled her to him, she stepped into the protective circle of his strength.
When she felt her skin touch his all along her body, she shivered.
Pressing herself close she put her arms around his torso, reveling in the feel of his body in her arms. She touched her cheek to his rough unshaven one and breathed in his maleness, the sweat and the motor oil from tinkering with the kid’s engine, his musky skin, and the fresh soapy scent of his hair because he didn’t bother using shampoo.
One of his hands bunched in her hair as he nuzzled her neck and the other stroked her back from the top of her spine down in a slow arc over her ass, outlining the crack and then cupping her against him.
A jolt of pleasure lit up her center and she moaned like a violin being played by a master. And she had been.
Lost in her body’s demands and desperate to quench the desire, she was surprised when he spoke. Surprised at the husky gentleness of his words.
“Will you let me make love with you, Shana?” He lifted his head away and lifted her chin to face him, and the deep burning intensity of his hazel eyes struck her. The air was sucked from her lungs as if he took it all, wanted it all. But she wanted to give everything to him.
“Yes, you know—”
He cut her off with his mouth. He covered hers, biting her lips, caressing them with his tongue and possessing every part of her lips and tongue and mouth with his.
The world at large disappeared. The bedroom, the bed, the beach shack, all disappeared into the black void until her entire physical world consisted of only him and their two bodies touching.
She sensed only his mouth on hers, his moist lips and the mingled taste of everything he’d consumed, the faint tinge of tequila.
When she pressed her hips against his he groaned, then wrapped an arm around her and half lifted her, half pushed her onto the bed under him.
She moved her arms to hold his face in her hands as he allowed his weight to press on her.
She opened her legs and pushed her hips again, watching his eyes and the tension in his jaw and the bead of sweat on his temple.
And the smile of sweet torture as he bent his head and closed his eyes, holding himself still for a moment to regain control.
“You in a hurry, girlie?”
She gave a soft chuckle and said, “It has been a while.”
He grunted in return. Then he lifted himself and slid his entire body, so that his mouth hovered over her breasts.
Ecstasy held his face when he looked up at her, and wonder and giving and strong melting emotions, so strong.
She pushed her hips at him and pulled on his shoulders to touch her, to take her. She wanted nothing more in this life.
He lowered his mouth to take her right nipple in his teeth and laved it with his tongue. A shot of stinging pleasure zinged straight from her nipple to her center and she called out and squirmed without thought, her hands in his hair, caressing this beautiful, wonderful man.
When she thought she would have an orgasm with one more flick of his tongue he lifted his head and, tracing his hands down her body, he slid further toward her center.
She protested the separation of their bodies with a desperate whimper until he lowered his hands to her thighs and pressed them apart further. And then he lowered his head.
The first touch of the tip of his tongue on her clit caused her to clench into a spiral of ecstasy.
She called out his name in a stifled moan and gripping his hair in her fingers, letting the heat and spasms of pleasure roll through her like the pearly gates of heaven had parted and let loose a thunderstorm of euphoria.
* * *
Dane clenched down on the spasm of need running through him and gripped her hot round ass in his hands, pulling her to him and drinking her in, every last drop of her essence making him drunker than any alcohol and bringing him to ecstasy more effectively than any drug ever dreamed of by a pharmaceutical company.
He sucked and licked and listened to her moans and felt himself on edge, pumping until he ripped his face from between her legs, rose up and immersed himself inside her with a loud groan of satisfaction and triumph.
He plunged, and watched her glowing face as drips of sweat fell from his temple.
He lowered his mouth and captured her full lips in his teeth, and felt her shuddering as his own final surge took him over the edge in gush after gush of release and drove him to nowhere he’d ever been before.
* * *
Dane lay awake. Strangely alert, not out of professional necessity, but out of raw fear.
He was exhausted, physically and emotionally spent.
The elation of possessing her, feeling her in his arms even now, spread an indescribable warmth through him.
But in its wake came the dreaded realization that it was all temporary.
It would all disappear—sooner than later.
She wasn’t his. She didn’t belong to him even as he pretended otherwise.
He hadn’t fooled her anymore than he’d fooled himself.
He didn’t own her.
And the sin of it was that he wanted to, and badly. God help him. Or maybe He ought to help Shana.