by Trish Wylie
Adam leaned down and grazed his lips over hers. ‘You do that to me too.’
Sliding her hands up his muscled arms and over his broad shoulders, she listened to his rasped intake of breath and smiled in amazement. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
It made her look beyond her own physical reactions to his. She could feel exactly what she did to him. It was hard, hot and pressed against her hip. But more than that his breathing was ragged, his body was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration, his muscles trembled where she touched—and Roane was shaken by how badly she wanted to keep doing all those things to him.
But only if he would keep doing it back to her…
‘Show me.’ She made the request more confidently, her palms sliding down over his chest and lower still—the need to take him in her hands so strong she shook from head to toe.
With a sudden move that caught her off guard, he removed her hands and pinned them above her head—the submissive position ramping up her desire several notches. He could take her if he wanted to and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Why didn’t that scare her the way it should? If anything it made her more excited than she’d been before…
‘Say it.’
Removing responsibility from him if she got emotionally involved and had her heart broken the way she inevitably would. Roane bit down on her lower lip and saw his thick lashes lower as he watched the telltale movement.
It was already too late for her. ‘Yes.’ She had to pause to clear her throat, her heart pounding with a mixture of trepidation and agonizing arousal. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
When he lowered his head to kiss her again Roane fully expected ferocity from his kisses as a reaction to her surrender; sizzling fire that would wipe every thought from her mind and make her forget the aching in her chest. But his full lips brushed hers in a feathery caress that both amazed and terrified her.
It wasn’t enough, not after he’d made her take complete responsibility for what was about to happen. Her fingers threaded forcefully into his short hair and she bit his lower lip with a growl that stunned even her. Since when had she turned into such a wanton woman in the bedroom? She hadn’t known she had it in her.
Adam groaned, his arm tightening into a steel band around her. When he kissed her again she forgot to breathe. Endlessly the kiss went on, his heart pounding heavily against her breasts as her fingers tightened in the soft spikes of his hair. Nothing had ever felt so right in her entire life. Making love with him wasn’t a mistake; she knew it with all her heart.
His mouth left hers to blaze a hot path down her throat, making her arch and moan with complete abandon.
‘You’re so damn beautiful.’ Adam mumbled the words before capturing one peaked nipple in his mouth again.
Roane cried out, arching into his mouth as her hands cradled his head to hold him in place. Each flick of his tongue drew another gasp or moan from her. When she dropped her chin to look down at him she was transfixed by the sight of his head bent over her. He had his eyes closed, was making low growling noises that suggested he took as much pleasure from what he was doing as she was receiving. He made her feel beautiful. It was the most amazing feeling.
He transferred his attention to her other breast.
Roane had to touch him. So she slid her hands over the back of his head, down the taut line of his neck, skimming across his back while she marvelled at the play of muscles and heated skin slick with a cooling sheen of moisture. Then over his lean hips, up his sides, across his broad chest, back over his shoulders—in a restless, almost frantic exploration that only made her want more of him.
Because he was still holding back. All of his incredible strength of body and spirit held in careful check. Her heart pounded, ached, twisted, she arched upwards with each pull of his hungry lips. Still not enough. More. It echoed so deep inside her she thought she might die without it.
Roane moved her hands back to his hair and pulled his head back from her breast, claiming his mouth while revelling in the glorious slide of his body against hers.
He reached down and pushed a long finger inside her, drawing another moan from her that mingled with his groan of frustration. ‘You need to relax for me or I’ll hurt you.’
‘You won’t. I know you won’t.’ She prayed she was right. He was just so big…
When he eased open her legs to form a cradle for himself he shifted over her, leaning his elbows on either side of her head so she could see how much effort it was taking for him to hold back in the straining of his shoulders.
He kissed her long and slow, then rested his forehead on her shoulder and balanced on one arm while he guided himself to her. As he slid forwards the first inch Roane tensed, gasping at how amazing the intimate invasion felt despite the stretching her body had to make to accommodate him.
When she gasped he tensed, his voice rough. ‘Relax.’
She took a deep breath and let it go—he slid an inch deeper and froze, staring down into her eyes as if she was the only thing he could see. ‘Again.’
Nothing had ever felt as incredible to her as the excruciatingly slow slide of his body into hers. When he slid deeper she struggled for breath. He rocked forwards and the movement drew another gasp from her lips—Adam’s head lifting sharply in reply and his large body frozen over hers.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No.’ Her voice was breathless. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘You’re so damn tight.’ His voice was strangled. ‘You should have told me—’
‘Please. Take me, Adam.’ She heard the pleading tone to her voice and moaned at how desperate she sounded. ‘You were right about my fantasy. I want you to take me.’
To make her point she pushed her heels into the mattress and lifted her hips, forcing him deeper, a low moan leaving her lips. It was apparently all the proof he needed to slide home in one sharp thrust, both of them moaning in unison when his pelvis hit hers.
Adam kissed her again, his mouth claiming hers and drinking deep as he started to move. It was making love in the truest sense and Roane felt the difference with each and every touch, emotion rising up inside her and spilling out of the corners of her eyes before she knew it was happening.
But by then all she could do was hang on tight to him as he rode her hard and slow, then harder and faster—as if he couldn’t stop himself; each deep thrust drawing her closer and closer to the same ecstasy he’d already given her. He didn’t release her lips, taking her cries and feeding her his groans. Only when the universe exploded around her again—even stronger than it had before—did Roane tear her lips away to cry out his name with the sheer unmitigated joy of how it felt.
Adam’s shuddering groan was muffled in her shoulder, his body statue-still for a long moment as he pulsed inside her. Then he collapsed on her. For a long while he stayed there, dragging deep breaths of air into his lungs while Roane fought to control the hot tears streaming from the corners of her eyes into her hair.
He must have felt the change in her, because his head lifted and his gaze searched her face.
‘Are you okay?’
God, why was he so obsessed with the idea of hurting her? She allowed a sob to break free since it was pointless trying to hide it when he already knew she was crying. ‘Yes. I just. I had no idea.’
She sobbed again and smiled tremulously at him, letting the tears fall unhindered. ‘I didn’t know it could be like that. Why didn’t I know?’
One large hand cradled her cheek, his thumb brushing the tears away as he rumbled his reply. ‘Because it’s not always like that. I told you this was rare.’
Had he? Roane didn’t remember. But being told didn’t make her feel any better. If anything it was worse. What if it never happened to her again? What if Adam was the only one who could make her feel that way? How could she ever have a relationship with someone else and not feel as if something was missing?
Dear Lord. What had she done?
Was love enough
on its own without this? Because with Adam there was this but there could never be love. He wouldn’t stay—he didn’t have it in him. He was as free on the ground as she was in the air. But she was only capable of that freedom because she was grounded. She knew where she belonged in the world, where she was happiest. It was on the Vineyard. The one place Adam had left behind him twelve years ago and had never once been tempted to revisit. There was no future in Adam. Not for her. But she’d known that when she made the decision to sleep with him, hadn’t she?
So why did it hurt so much?
She turned her face towards his shoulder and let the first racking sob loose. Adam shifted his weight, circling his arms around her and drawing her close.
‘Come here.’
Roane curled into him, her arm tight around his lean waist as she tried to get closer still, as if she could draw from the strength of his body and make it hers…
She felt his lips press against her hair. ‘I’ve got you.’
It was the very thing that scared her most.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE SOBBED IT out, then quieted and finally fell asleep in his arms. Adam couldn’t remember anything ever affecting him the way those tears did.
He seriously contemplated hunting down the guy who’d left her feeling less than she should after she’d trusted her body to him. He doubted there was more than one given her level of inexperience. Not that he’d managed to complete the act—at least not properly—Adam knew that now. A man who left a woman feeling as unfulfilled as she’d been deserved at least one well-aimed swing, Adam felt.
One of the driftwood logs he’d found on the shoreline crackled and spat sparks into the air. When Roane had fallen asleep he’d slept with her, lulled into the kind of peaceful, dreamless slumber he hadn’t experienced in well over a decade. But when he woke up a couple of hours before dawn he gently extricated himself from her and went for a walk to clear his head. Not that he was leaving her. He knew he didn’t want her to wake up and feel as if it had been a one-night stand to him. She was worth more. And Adam was nowhere near done with her. If anything he’d only got started.
So he walked the beach the way he used to when his insomnia first started at nineteen, randomly collecting pieces of driftwood that eventually became a big enough pile to make a fire near the rocks outside her house. Sitting on the soft sand staring into the flames was as good a place as any to figure out what had happened. And what he was supposed to do about it…if anything…
At thirty-three he’d had his fair share of great sex. Not that he was promiscuous—only a fool would be in the age they lived in and Adam was no fool—but then neither was he anything resembling a saint. But he’d never had an experience that lived up to the description of making love quite the way it had with Roane either. He’d never been a woman’s first lover the way he knew he was for her. It brought out a possessive streak in him a mile wide…
The thought of being the one to show her all she could feel only to walk away left him feeling ridiculously angry. But it wasn’t as if he could stay. Thing was, if what had happened was difficult for Adam to understand with experience, then how overwhelming must it have been for Roane with virtually none?
She was just so very—delicate. Not in a weak way. He smiled as he thought about how sassy she could be when riled. Nope, definitely not weak—delicate and soft and innately feminine; all things he found incredibly sensual. When she let down her guard and Adam saw glimpses of the passionate woman inside it enthralled him. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to step into her head and see the world through her eyes. He wanted to discover all her secrets, was hungry to learn it all.
Maybe that was part of what happened? She’d engaged his mind in a way no other woman had. Like a puzzle he had to unravel. By doing so she’d intensified his physical reaction to her. That made sense to him.
Then there was the way she’d looked him in the eye and told him she trusted him. ‘You won’t. I know you won’t,’ she’d said when he’d told her he’d hurt her if she didn’t relax. So much faith in a man she didn’t know. So much belief in him. Maybe that was part of it?
After a long time spent staring alternately into dancing flames or out over the ocean, Adam finally had to admit that part of his frustration lay in the inevitability of hurting her emotionally. He would. He knew that now and was regretting it in advance.
‘Nickel for them…’
Adam jerked his head up and found her standing a few feet away. She’d dressed in a long white nightdress with a soft-looking cowl-necked sweater on top, long sleeves hanging below her wrists. She was ghost-like, surreal and so beautiful she made him ache to have her again. And that was rare too. Usually taking what he wanted was enough to dull the need in him. But he wanted her bad; again and again until the need was dulled if that was how it had to be…He didn’t care how many times it took.
He held out an arm. She stepped forwards and accepted the silent invitation, sliding her smaller hand into his. Then Adam leaned back against the rocks and settled her across his lap; circling her with his arms. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder as if she’d done it hundreds of times, tilting her chin up so she could examine his face.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
Adam looked down at her without lowering his chin, ‘You thought I’d left.’
He didn’t make it a question and she acknowledged the fact by nodding. ‘I did until I saw the fire.’
‘What woke you?’
‘I got cold—I don’t usually sleep naked.’
‘You should stay naked all the time.’
‘Not really an option.’
‘Pity.’
When he moved a hand to her thigh her fingers toyed idly with one of the leather bands on his wrist. ‘What woke you?’
He shrugged, his gaze travelling to the ocean. ‘I don’t sleep so good. I haven’t in a long time.’ He glanced down at the top of her head. ‘Active mind.’
‘Ah.’ She nodded. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t do a good enough job of tiring you out, then.’
‘No.’ But he knew she needed the reassurance so he added, ‘I slept six hours. That’s a record.’
‘I’m glad.’ Leaning back against the support of his arm, she looked up at him with sparkling eyes.
Adam studied her face for a moment before looking back out to sea again. He felt her gaze on him and then she snuggled into his shoulder and took a deep breath. ‘I love the ocean. It’s good for the soul.’
Something they agreed on, Adam silently admitted, especially when it came to the stretch of ocean they were looking at. When he’d been his most troubled he would sit on the sand while he thought things through. When he’d first been sent to live with his father, new stepmom and half-brother it had been his hideaway. It still had the ability to calm him, even now, his mind wandering to details the way it so often did.
‘You know the Indians called the island Noepe? It means “Amid the waters.” Something to do with the conflicting tidal currents they could see offshore. It wasn’t till the English got here that it was called Martha’s Vineyard…’
Her head nodded against his shoulder and he heard the smile in her voice while her fingers continued to play at his wrist. ‘I did know that. I even have a quote about the island for you to add to your collection.’
‘Go on.’
‘“Everything that ever happened on earth has happened on the Vineyard at least once. And some things twice…”’
‘Who said it?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’ The leather she’d been toying with caught her attention. ‘Are these friendship bracelets?’
‘That’s what some people call them, yes.’
‘You have friends?’
Adam briefly squeezed his arms in warning. ‘Very funny. They’re from people I know in New Orleans. We worked together on a rebuilding project.’
The words brought her chin up, her gaze flickering over his face. ‘You stayed after Katrina?’
/> Adam nodded. ‘Lots of folks did. I still go back. Coming through something like that ties you together in a way nothing else can.’
‘Were you hurt?’ The fine arch of her brows wavered on the question so he could see her concern.
It lowered his voice to a deep rumble. ‘I was one of the lucky ones.’
Nodding, she dropped her chin, her gaze falling on a spot at the base of his throat and her hand lifting from his wrist to capture what she saw. ‘What are these?’
‘Which one are you looking at?’ There were two on the thin strip of leather fastened around his neck.
Roane turned it towards the firelight. ‘It looks like a little tooth on a blue stone in—pewter maybe?’
‘Silver. A shark’s tooth.’ He smiled with meaning when she glanced up at him from beneath long lashes. ‘For strength and stamina…’
She rolled her eyes, her fingers moving to the second one. ‘And this? It’s beautiful.’
He felt her turning it over to look at each side in turn. And he knew what she was seeing; antique silver—one side set with an eight-pointed star, the other with an intricate pattern of interweaving circles.
‘Open it,’ he told her.
‘It opens?’ She was already lifting her other hand and when it opened Adam could hear the surprised delight in her voice. ‘It’s a compass—a perfect little miniature compass. Where did you get this?’
He’d thought the pilot in her might appreciate it. ‘It was my great-grandfather’s—on my mother’s side. He was a schooner captain, sailed up and down the coast for most of his life when the Vineyard was still a busy harbour. As the second son he could do what he wanted until his brother died and he had to give it up.’
While he explained the history behind it Roane moved her head, leaning back against his arm and looking up at him with a curious expression. ‘Are you making this up?’
Adam lifted a brow. ‘Do I strike you as a big fan of fairy stories?’