McLain's Law

by Kylie Brant

  Their tongues mated, their tastes meshed and their mouths twisted together, desperate for more. One kiss blurred into the next and the next, lips parting only to change the slant, to get closer, ever closer. This was the urgency she had wanted from him, needed from him. No one had ever desired her like this; she hadn’t known she was capable of inspiring more than insipid passion from a man. But there was no mistaking the bucking of Connor’s heart, the tensing of his muscles beneath her clutching fingers.

  His tongue incited her own, searing her with his heat. It succeeded in igniting her passions, exciting her unbearably. She was used to wildness in nature; she recognized it in others. She was not familiar with feeling it herself.

  He tunneled his fingers through her hair and held her still for the almost desperate quality of his kiss. Touching her was a fantasy. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t taste enough. He brought his jean-clad knee up between her slim thighs and swallowed her inarticulate moan.

  Michele felt herself spinning in a vortex of sensations. Her hands began to roam restlessly, feeling the muscle and sinew through his shirt. He evoked electric pleasure with his mouth alone, and she felt as though she would shatter from his kiss.

  Connor moved then, rolling them both so that they faced each other. Both hands skidded between them, touching her, moving over her figure restlessly. He unbuttoned her blouse, his fingers clumsy. His throat grew tight as her undergarments were revealed. She wore only a pristine white lace teddy beneath, and his hands faltered to a stop.

  His chest heaved as he fought for control. At the rate he was going, this was going to be over too quickly, and he didn’t want it to be that way. He needed to see her writhing and frantic beneath him. But he was going to have to exercise some control, somehow. He didn’t want her ever to forget the taste of their passion, the tang of their desire. He wanted her always to remember how it had been between them, to somehow imprint himself on her mind and memory.

  Michele felt slow heat suffuse her at his intense regard. Her hands went to his shirt, fingers quickly moving buttons through buttonholes, anxious to touch bare skin. When the shirt was loose, her hands moved up his torso slowly, savoring with almost sybaritic pleasure the feel of him. Her fingers kneaded his taut muscles testingly, loving the feel of sheathed strength there.

  Both lost their breath at the first contact of hair-roughened skin against silk-encased breasts. Her blouse and his shirt were lost in a quest for freer movement. Michele sighed and arched her back, forcing a firmer contact. Behind the silk and lace, her nipples tautened into pebbled crests, unbearably sensitive, aching for his touch. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t feel enough. Her fingers slid to his sleek back, pressing him nearer. She wanted to press until they were absorbed together, a part of each other.

  Shy hands stole to the waistband of his jeans and managed to undo the brass button before Connor’s whole body jerked in instant, heated response. He pulled away from her, breath heaving in and out. His face had a light sheen of perspiration. Never had he looked as hard, as pagan, as intense.

  He closed his eyes tightly. Every time he felt her sweet hands on him, he felt all his good intentions go up in smoke. He stripped her of her jeans and socks, even removed his own socks, but he left his jeans in place, hoping the barrier would prove an effective shield to her questing hands.

  As Michele’s lips were pursed to protest the inequity in their attire, he lay down next to her again, sealing her mouth with his until they both forgot all thought and concentrated instead only on sensation.

  Connor peeled the straps down off her arms and then tortured Michele by going no further. Instead he brushed his lips along the lace border, kissing her shoulders and upper chest. He rubbed his face against her throat, and Michele shuddered, his whiskers abrading wonderfully.

  Finally, when Michele thought she would go mad with longing, he hooked a finger in each strap and slowly brought the teddy low enough to expose her breasts. She arched toward him immediately, mutely pleading for his lips, but Connor took his time appeasing her. First his tongue had to draw tantalizing circles around her areolae, then bat playfully at the nipples. Then he drew one carefully into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, not touching her anywhere else.

  Ribbons of desire unfurled deep inside Michele at his teasing, and her hands were frantic, eager to reciprocate. Connor withstood her petting and stroking of his muscled shoulders and chest until she began to pay particular attention to the brown masculine buttons hiding beneath the curling chest hair. At his indrawn breath, she was certain of a reaction, but her pleasure was short-lived. Her hands were captured in his own and drawn to his mouth so a kiss could be pressed into each palm. When he didn’t release them, Michele’s eyes opened quizzically.

  Connor’s searing regard was unmistakable, as was the meaning of his next words. “Such sweet, soft hands,” he murmured, rubbing them against his cheek, “but so distracting. Now where can we put them to keep them out of trouble?”

  “What are you doing . . . Connor . . . ?” Her question ended on a moan as he used one hand to stretch both hers above her head, then ducked his head to take advantage of the breasts arched up toward his lips. She lost all sense of what she was saying while his mouth ravaged gently, teasing her nipples to bead more tightly, then suckling deeply from each one. Colors cascaded past her tightly closed eyelids, the colors of passion. Her breathing was jerky when she became aware of Connor placing her fingers around the headboard of the bed.

  Immediately she let go and reached for him, but he captured her wrists and inexorably drew them up again and replaced them. “No,” he murmured against her lips. “I can’t think when you touch me, and I sure can’t hold out. Now be good and leave your hands here.” He paused to kiss her deeply before lowering his head to her neck. “Or I may have to use those handcuffs after all.”

  “I want to touch you, too,” Michele gasped, but she didn’t have the will to disobey his erotic command. “You’re not being fair.”

  “There’s nothing fair about your effect on me,” he reminded her shakily, thrusting gently against her, so that she could feel his urgency held in check by the worn denim. “Or about your ability to turn me into a randy sixteen-year-old, with a bad case of raging hormones and an even shorter fuse.”

  “You must have been an extremely precocious sixteen-year-old.”

  “Not—” he paused to lightly nip, then lave one shoulder with his tongue “—as precocious as I intend to be right now.” Then his teasing deserted him as he ground his mouth against hers, his tongue thrusting surely, signaling his intent. “I want to make this good for you,” he continued, his voice a guttural rasp.

  “You do,” Michele moaned in response. “You are.” But her body quivered in response to the promise implied in his words. And her hands stayed exactly where he had placed them.

  Satisfied that his wishes would be carried out, Connor concentrated instead on baring the rest of her body to his avid gaze. As he removed the teddy, he kissed each inch of skin he bared until he pushed the fabric down her long legs and out of their way. Her skin was fair, her breasts high and firm, her waist sweetly indented, and her hips gently curved. He pressed a light kiss on the dark fleecy delta between her legs, and Michele jerked involuntarily.

  Then he embarked on an erogenous journey of discovery, touching and kissing every inch of her. Michele twisted restlessly beneath his touch until the sensations produced by his skimming hands were indistinguishable from the desire humming through her veins. Tendrils of heat threatened to become a conflagration as each light kiss and touch sent shards of pleasure through her senses. His hands were questing, soothing her to his touch and inciting her to fever pitch. His mouth was hungry and untiring, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

  Then his touch went again to the softness between her thighs, and Michele’s legs tightened reflexively, her eyes flying open. The sight of Connor’s tousled golden head so near her body’s most intimate secrets was devasta
ting to her senses. His peridot eyes were glittering with passion and savage fire, and he held her gaze as he touched her again, his face tautening even further at her audible moan. But still she denied him, something inside her retreating from the intimacy. “No, Connor,” she whispered, even as her back arched. His thumb had found the heart of her desire and started a rhythmic pressing, and his other hand kneaded her stomach lightly.

  “Yes, Michele,” he contradicted her gently. “Tell me yes.”

  But the power to speak, to concentrate at all, had quickly fled. Michele forgot her earlier reservations about the intimacy of his touch as his continued stroking and seeking hands worked their magic on her. Her thighs loosened without conscious decision, and Connor pressed them apart, adjusting them to suit himself. He lingered on her silky thighs, satin-smooth to the touch, before moving between them, slipping down on the bed and taking her in his mouth.

  This time he used her body’s involuntary bucking to grasp her hips and pull her closer to his mouth. Michele’s hands came down to him, to push him away, to make him stop. Instead they stayed to linger, to rake through his hair, to press him even closer. Never had she experienced such razor-sharp pleasure, pleasure so intense it threatened to rob her of her sanity. She was buffeted by a storm of sensation, and Connor was at its center, pulling her into the vortex, forcing her to let go of reason and live only for her senses.

  Connor’s mouth caressed the secret core of her passion, his tongue stroking gently, driving her to maddening arousal. He drank of her body’s nectar and forced her higher. Michele felt as if she were teetering on the brink of sanity. She fought the sensation, afraid she would shatter into a million pieces if she let go completely. She was unaware of her own voice keening, chanting his name, but Connor heard it. It drove him to push her further, higher, urging her to let go, let it happen, let it happen . . . .

  He tasted the wild heat of her while she spun out of control, his name on her lips, her fingers tangled in his hair. As gratifying as it was to hear her satisfaction, to taste it on his tongue, it had a more electric, immediate effect on his groin. Every muscle in his body was tensed with arousal, and his manhood was aching for the relief Michele had so recently enjoyed. But Connor couldn’t help trying to stretch the anticipation out a little longer, and he silently cursed his own rampaging lust, trying to get it back under control.

  “No more . . . Connor . . . I can’t . . . .” Michele’s voice was trembling as she caressed his face, and he stopped his gentle stroking of her still quivering flesh. He rose to lie directly over her, his denim-clad legs lying between her own, his hips pressed directly over the part of her that had most recently been pleasured by his mouth. Michele gasped at the renewed fever that just the feel of his throbbing manhood could bring. She flushed at the sight of his partially clad body lying over her nude one. There was something slightly decadent in the sight.

  But the eddies of sensation that were still rippling through her made her incapable of embarrassment. What she felt, remarkably enough, was impatience to feel that sleek, muscled body pressed completely against hers, with no barrier between them. And an overpowering need to see him shaking with satisfaction, as she was.

  When her fingers brushed his burgeoning desire straining against the zipper of his jeans, Connor felt as though he would jump right out of his flesh. And when she tormented him by lowering the zipper slowly, tooth by tooth, he felt each fraction of descent along his entire rigid staff. His breath came out in a gust when finally his pants were loosened and her tender hands were caressing his throbbing manhood, pulsing painfully behind black cotton briefs. He closed his eyes tightly as she fondled him, fighting back the waves of satisfaction that threatened to overcome him.

  Michele pushed the heavy denim from his hips, and Connor shimmied out of his jeans and kicked them off without leaving her. His briefs were next to go, and he groaned aloud when Michele touched his hot flesh for the first time. He ground his teeth when her fingers wandered the length of him, marveling at the velvety-steel that was his desire. His manhood was as strong and bold as the rest of him, thrusting forth proudly from its nest of hair. But when she lowered her lips to him, his hands came up to thread through her hair, simultaneously cursing and praying at the rapturous feelings brought about by her curious tongue. Michele flicked her tongue over the velvety tip, licking away the drop of pearly liquid that had appeared there. And then she found herself in Connor’s arms and flat on her back, with Connor pressed intimately against the cradle of her hips.

  “No more teasing, Princess,” he said, his voice throaty. He reached for his jeans and fumbled with the pocket until he pulled out a foil wrapper and impatiently moved away to protect her. Michele was unable to tear her eyes away. She was as surprised as he to see her hands push his aside and slowly roll the sheath over his throbbing shaft.

  But when she would have lingered, Connor took her hands in his, threading their fingers together as he slowly rolled them so that she was again on her back, with his broad torso looming over her. Her hands still captured tightly in his own, he drew them over her head and brought his chest down and rubbed it over her breasts, driving them both crazy with the friction.

  The assault on her senses was almost too much for Michele to bear. She wouldn’t have believed it possible to want again, so soon, so much. The feel of him pressed so closely against her was heaven and agony. She wanted him closer, part of her, then wondered wildly if even that would be enough. The pressure of his hardness against her sent pleasure ricocheting down her spine.

  Connor ground his mouth against hers fiercely, helpless against the hunger taking over inside him. It had never been like this, so fierce and hot and wild that he felt as if he would die if it ended and explode if it didn’t. He wanted mom of her, all of her, and he let go of her hands to race his own down her sides. But her hands went on their own adventure, touching him, stroking him, until his skin was like wildfire, his passion raised to a fever pitch.

  He shifted so that he was pressed against her sweet softness, clenching his teeth against the need to lunge into her like a savage. He needed to regain control. But opening his eyes to look at her was the last thing he should have done. Her eyes were dark charcoal, and the slumberous passion he read in them ignited him even more. A wild hungry groan was pulled from his throat, and he kissed her hungrily, cupping her hips in his palms. His mouth went to her breast even as he surged into her, urged on by her slim thighs wrapping around his waist.

  Michele was burning with need, a writhing mass of nerve endings. She welcomed the heavy rolling of his hips, bucking beneath him, sobbing in her quest for fulfillment. Connor gave one last powerful surge, and then her cries of satisfaction mingled with his own hoarse groan. In the aftermath of their passion they clung to one another, shaking from the fury of the storm that had swept them to oblivion.

  It was a long time before either of them was able to think about moving. Connor finally became aware of Michele’s choppy breathing and rolled them both to the side, unwilling to let her go completely. He had never experienced such heady pleasure with any other woman, and he stared at the ceiling bleakly, wondering what the hell that meant.

  He couldn’t afford to let Michele Easton too close; he knew she was poison for him. And he was no good for her. His short marriage to Tricia had proven just how little he had to offer a woman, especially one as elegant as Michele. Even though he now knew that she hadn’t grown up wealthy, hadn’t had the privileged background he’d assumed, he was still right about the kind of woman she was.

  Classy. Refined. Cultured. Much too high-class to get caught in the revolving door of Connor McLain’s social life. She was better suited to a man with a life like hers, a white-collar professional who could afford to shower her with all the things she deserved. Someone like James Ryan.

  Connor’s mouth flattened even as he thought of it. Something primitively savage in him wanted to shout a vehement denial to that claim, to assert that she was in his arms right now,
by God, and no other man would ever lay a hand on her. But that was treacherous thinking that used all his body parts other than his head.

  He closed his eyes as his arms tightened around her. He wasn’t going to kid himself here; he knew there was no future for them. Michele was wrapped up in his life right now. She needed him for the moment, with some nut on the loose threatening her. As long as he kept in mind that she would be gone from his life when hers got back to normal, he could handle this. He could, he asserted surely. There was no reason why they couldn’t enjoy each other until that happened.

  Michele’s heartbeat and breathing gradually returned to normal, but in some way she felt she would never be the same again. This wild experience was probably common for Connor; she had the feeling that he rarely lacked for female companions only too happy to share this with him. But it wasn’t normal for her.

  Even now, with her hunger twice satisfied, it was curiously seductive to be held so close to his hard body. With his gold hair he resembled a lion, she suddenly thought whimsically. He certainly moved with a feline grace, and his body, with its sleek padded muscles, had the same leashed power. She moved her hands over his powerful torso now, finally able to fulfill her desire to touch him without restraint. The hair on his chest was several shades darker than that on his head. It spread luxuriously, becoming scarcer on his stomach, only a ribbon of hair arrowing down below his navel. She explored that area now, too, regretful that she had neglected it on her previous explorations. One adventurous finger twirled teasingly in the mysterious indentation.

  Connor felt his newly regained ability to breathe endangered once again. He was astounded at his body’s insatiable appetite for this woman, who currently seemed embarked on a dangerous journey. Already he could feel himself hardening in instant response, and he didn’t know whether to be pleased or to groan in dismay.