Chapter 32 #2
I was the one who closed the distance, brushing my mouth to his in a kiss that started soft, tentative.
I’d intended it as a way to express my gratitude, because words were failing me just now, tangling on my tongue before I could shape them into anything coherent.
Instead, just as had happened at the clinic, we ignited at the touch, the spark catching and blazing into something neither of us seemed capable of controlling.
His arms tightened around me, and I pulled him closer, threading my fingers into the thick silk of his hair.
A faint shudder ran through his body as I licked the seam of his lips, as if he was using every shred of his formidable control to hold himself back, to keep from consuming me whole.
Sexy, noble man.
To clarify my position on that particular issue, I shifted, swinging one leg over his thighs and settling myself in his lap, where I got ready confirmation that he wasn’t immune to this heat sparking and crackling between us.
The hard length of him pressed against my core, and a bolt of pure need shot through me.
Pausing, I pulled back just long enough to take his face between my hands. “Rios.”
His gaze burned into mine, pupils blown wide with desire even as concern flickered at the edges. “We don’t have to—”
“I know.”
“You’ve been through a terrible shock.” His voice was rough, strained with the effort of doing the right thing even when his body was clearly voting for a different course of action.
Impossibly, the corner of my mouth twitched upward. “I’m thinking perfectly clearly right now.” To emphasize the point, I rocked my hips against him, grinding down in a slow, deliberate motion that had his eyes nearly rolling back in his head.
Those eyes dropped to half-mast, heavy-lidded and dark with want, and his hands grabbed my hips, seeming torn between pressing me closer and unseating me entirely. “Are you sure about this, Counselor?”
I gave him the only truth I could. “You’re the only thing in my life that makes any sense at all right now.”
Rios surged up with a speed and strength that stole my breath, and my arms and legs automatically tightened around him in response.
Not that he was about to let me fall as he turned and settled us back on the bed, all that warm, hard, muscled weight stretching out over me in a way that made me feel deliciously trapped.
His eyes burned into mine, serious despite the desire etched in every line of his face.
“Tell me to stop at any point, and I will.”
But I wouldn’t stop him. I wanted this. Wanted him. Wanted to lose myself in sensation and forget, at least for a little while, everything that was crumbling around me.
In answer, I kissed him again, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the press of our lips, whimpering as his tongue swept into my mouth in a claiming that sent heat pooling low in my belly.
His hips ground against my center, and the friction was maddening.
I needed so much more than this layered friction.
I was desperate for skin on skin, to him inside me filling all the empty, aching places.
My fingers closed over the hem of his t-shirt, tugging it up so I could finally get to the hard planes of muscle I’d been fantasizing about since I’d seen him shirtless on the boat next door.
He jerked his mouth away from mine only long enough to drag it over his head in one fluid motion, tossing it to the floor without looking.
Then he did the same to me, stripping off my t-shirt and the plain white bra beneath.
His curse was reverent as his gaze raked over my exposed skin before he lowered his mouth to take one budded nipple between his lips.
I muffled my cry, my back bowing off the mattress as I bucked for more pressure, more of that delicious friction.
His tongue circled and flicked while his teeth grazed just hard enough to send sparks of pleasure-pain shooting straight to my core.
It had been so very long since I’d let anyone close enough to touch me like this, and even then, it had never been this consuming, this overwhelming.
Maybe because I struggled to trust people—men in particular.
But I trusted Rios.
He lavished so much delicious, focused attention on my breasts—alternating between them, sucking and licking and nipping until I was writhing beneath him—that I hardly noticed he’d worked his hands between us to unfasten my jeans until that big, broad palm slid beneath the fabric of my underwear, his fingers cupping the growing heat.
My head fell back on a moan that was probably too loud, too revealing, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
It was too much sensation and not enough, all at once.
I widened my legs as much as the denim would allow, arching into the touch, inviting more. Begging without words.
And, oh, he gave it, dragging one blunt finger through my folds, gathering the wetness he found there before circling my clit with it and then doing it all over again, over and over, building a rhythm that had my hips rocking to meet him, chasing the pleasure he was doling out in carefully measured increments.
I gasped his name, equal parts plea and demand, past the point of pride or pretense.
“Need more, pretty girl?” The endearment, combined with the rough edge to his voice, sent another wave of heat through me.
“Yes.” At my hissed admission, he finally slipped a finger inside me, and the stretch and fullness made my inner walls clench greedily around him.
My body clenched, desperate for more as he began to thrust, in and out, his thumb finding my clit and circling in time with the movement. One finger became two, and the fullness was almost enough. Almost. But not quite.
“Let go for me, Madden. I’ve got you.” The words were both permission and command, his breath hot against my ear.
On a cry that might have been his name or might have been something more incoherent, I broke apart, trusting that he’d keep his word and wouldn’t let me fall as pleasure crashed over me in waves that seemed to go on and on.
He eased me down slowly, gentling his touch as the aftershocks rippled through me, then stretched out beside me like some giant, contented cat, that sensual mouth twisted into an unmistakable look of male satisfaction that should have annoyed me but somehow didn’t.
“Better?” His voice carried a thread of smugness that definitely would have annoyed me under other circumstances.
I lolled my head toward him, my limbs heavy and loose in a way they hadn’t been in longer than I could remember. “It’s a start.”
Those eyes gleamed with humor and renewed heat. “Only a start?”
Digging deep, I mustered sufficient muscle control to roll toward him, hooking a finger in the waistband of his jeans where they rode low on his hips. “This was not a one-sided proposition.”
“It can be. I’m not expecting—” He started to protest, ever the gentleman, but I wasn’t having it.
I pressed my lips to his in a deliberate bid to shut him up, to end this ridiculous notion that I was some fragile thing that needed to be handled with kid gloves.
When I pulled back, I held his gaze. “I appreciate this noble streak of yours. That you want to be absolutely sure that I’m sure, that I’m not making a decision I’ll regret tomorrow.
I am sure.” I brushed my mouth over his once more, softer this time.
“I want you in my bed, Rios. I want you in me.”
He stared at me, searching my face with an intensity that felt like being read at the cellular level, looking for long enough that my heart began to sink and brace for rejection, for him to decide I was too broken, too complicated, too much trouble.
But apparently he finally saw whatever he’d needed to see, some confirmation that this was real and wanted, because he pulled me closer again, his kiss deeper this time.
Neither of us spoke after that as we slipped into the wordless, timeless dance of stripping away the last barriers between us—jeans and underwear discarded in a tangle of fabric and fumbling fingers.
We explored each newly exposed inch of skin with hands and mouths, learning the geography of each other’s bodies, the places that made breath hitch and muscles tense.
He left me only long enough to dig a condom from his wallet—a moment of practicality that somehow made this more real, more intentional—and sheathe himself with hands that weren’t entirely steady.
And as the moon rose high above the ocean beyond the window, painting the room in silver light, he positioned himself between my thighs and slipped into me in one long, smooth stroke that had us both gasping.
We followed the pull of our own tide, building and cresting and building again, chasing it with increasing urgency until we finally broke together, pleasure crashing over us like waves against the shore.