Chapter 42
Roman
He’d said he wanted a drink but when it came to it, Roman couldn’t let go of her. Everything he’d craved since the gut-churning worry of the handgun and drugs episode was wrapped in the circle of his arms. He forgot the state of his clothes, his desire for a shower, his tiredness. Holding Elenie against him, Roman’s need for her eclipsed it all.
She was everything.
His body, already smoldering, began to burn. He lowered his mouth, pressing his lips to her neck just below her ear. Elenie tilted her head for him, wordlessly asking for more. He slid his hands up her thighs, expecting his fingers to find lace, cotton, elastic. Higher and higher they inched, bunching the denim, but there was nothing. Just her satin smooth skin underneath his shirt. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Roman froze.
“Dear God, Elenie,”
he rasped.
“What are you trying to do to me?”
“Everything was covered in beer—oh!”
She broke off as he spun her in his grasp and his mouth fell on her lips, tasting and taking.
Her tongue slid over his. Both demanded, both gave. Her instant heat and her passion sent his own racing higher. There was desperation in the hitch of her breath.
Roman grasped Elenie’s hips and lifted her onto the countertop. His hands tugged at the buttons on the shirt she wore.
His shirt. His fucking shirt. He never wanted her to wear anything else.
Scattering kisses against the bare skin he uncovered, his lips followed the path of his fingers. When the denim hung loose from her shoulders, he drew back to take in her naked body with greedy eyes. Her curves, her stomach, the triangle of dark hair between her legs. He needed to touch and taste them all. Run his fingers over every inch of her and read her like Braille. He bent his head to her breasts. Drawing one nipple into his mouth, he teased its tightness with his tongue.
Elenie let out the most delicious breathy moan he’d ever heard and, right there, he lived only to make her do it again. She arched her back, giving him all the access he needed, and he pulled her closer to his mouth. The denim shirt fell from her shoulders into a pool of blue on the countertop.
“Oh, yes . . . so good. I love that. Don’t stop.”
His hardness was a physical pain of the best kind. He pressed against her center, eyes closing when the steel shaft of his erection lodged blissfully between the cushion of her thighs. Roman’s mouth traveled blindly to her other nipple, flicking and sucking. One hand fisted in her damp hair while the other, fingers spread across her back, drew her even closer toward him. He reveled in her gasps. So sexy, so enticing.
Pulling back just enough to drag his shirt over his head, Roman threw it onto the floor. His gaze never leaving hers, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and took a condom from inside the leather folds. Sliding the wallet onto the counter, Roman scooped Elenie up into his arms—her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck—and carried her to the couch.
“Fuck, I want you. I have wanted you all night.”
He took her lips again, swallowing her reply, and when he felt the frame bump the back of his calves, he sat down heavily on the couch cushions. Elenie straddled him, knees on either side of his thighs. Roman groaned as she rocked against the hard bulge in his jeans, her warmth surrounding him.
He wondered when he’d be able to take her slowly, play with her body in all the ways he wanted to. The desperation to bury himself inside her grew to an unbearable level but he refused to give in to it.
Taking her mouth, he kissed her again, his hands in her hair tipping Elenie’s head to the perfect angle for him to sweep and plunder until they were both breathless. She dragged his lower lip between her teeth and traced it with her tongue. She owned him with her every touch. He worshipped her with his response.
Roman slid a hand between their bodies, dipping past her stomach and inching between her legs. He found her wet and hot around his fingers. Elenie inhaled against his mouth. She rolled over his denim-caged hardness, her chin lifting, eyes closing. He stroked her again and again. Dipping deeper, thumb skating gently across her most sensitive peak. Her thighs clenched and trembled. His thighs clenched and trembled. He ached to give her more.
With a hand on either side of her waist, Roman lifted Elenie off his lap. She made a small sound of protest, her eyes glazed, her lips swollen. So fucking tempting.
“Lie back,”
he growled.
Her eyelashes lowered slowly, hiding her expression. When they rose again, her irises glittered like molten rock.
“Why don’t you lie back?”
she suggested.
Roman’s breath locked in his throat. Elenie was often so guarded, so careful to fly under the radar, that it was easy to forget she wasn’t shy.
Without breaking eye contact, he lay back against the cushions. His heart crashed inside the cage of his ribs when she climbed astride him. He couldn’t hold back a graveled grunt as her core settled over his hips. “Fuck—”
Her hands traced the muscles of his abdomen, the planes of his chest. He twitched and jerked beneath her touch, his breath coming harder. Clenching his jaw, Roman fought to lie still enough to let her explore.
“Your body is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,”
she murmured and he felt ten feet tall. Elenie lifted dazed eyes. They were deep pools of stormy gray.
“Why do I want to sink my teeth into you? I think there must be something wrong with me.”
His husky laugh caught in his throat when she leaned forward and flicked her tongue over his nipple. His hips bucked under hers, his hands grabbing at her waist.
“Ah, yes . . . That’s—”
Her hot little mouth closed over the firm pebble she’d created, sucking him like he’d sucked her. Sparks burst over the surface of his skin. She reached for the button of his jeans, sliding the zipper down with difficulty and releasing the pressure on his aching cock. Elenie’s cool fingers slid into his shorts and closed around his hardness. She moved her hand up and down his shaft. Roman’s eyes rolled. Every muscle bunched and quivered.
Her touch was magic. Nothing had ever been this good before; never had someone played his body with such mastery.
With every stroke, she kissed him. Teasing brushes of her lips over his nipples, his collarbones, the curve of his biceps. She dragged her teeth up the column of his neck and bit down lightly just beneath his ear, like a racy little vampire. Her bare breasts pressed against his chest and it was all too much.
Roman reversed their positions with a growl and surged to his feet. Pushing his jeans and his shorts down in one impatient movement, he kicked them off and left them in a heap on the rug. In seconds, he’d grabbed and ripped open the foil packet of the condom and rolled it over his length.
He locked eyes with Elenie. There was something so intense in her expression but it disappeared before he could examine it. She reached for him, even as he parted his lips to question her.
“I need you,”
she whispered.
Roman lowered himself over her.
“You have me.”
Taking most of his weight on one elbow, he threaded the other behind Elenie’s knee, opening her up to him. He paused at the entrance to her warmth, dirty words falling like flattery from his lips.
Her eyes fluttered shut as she moaned and pulled him closer.
“Yes, Roman. Just there. I . . . ah—”
Her words trailed away as he pressed slowly home and slid into her heat. She arched against him.
They moved together, push against push, stroke for stroke. Her softness the perfect fit for his angles. Nothing else mattered. There was nothing but her.
“I want to be so deep,”
he ground out, rasping the words into her neck.
“I can’t get close enough. You feel incredible. God, Elenie!”
He tried to remember every traffic violation he’d written up since his return just to distract himself from the way she gripped him as he moved inside her, but it was impossible.
“More, Roman. More.”
Her breathy gasps drove everything else out of his head.
Elenie closed her teeth on his shoulder and he shuddered, utterly destroyed. She clenched and bowed beneath him, her hips grinding into his as she climaxed. Roman, gripped by the waves that pulled her under, came in surges that wracked his body, emptying himself inside her.
They were both left gasping in the wake of the storm.