by Bella Andre
But instead of giving them to him, the dark-haired kid flicked open a lighter and started to light one.
Connor had the back of the kid’s neck in a death grip so fast, the kid dropped the almost-lit firework to the sand.
“Anyone ever told you why these are illegal?”
The kid shrugged, still trying to act brave. “Let go of me.”
“This one,” Connor said, not letting go of the boy as he picked up the charred remains of one of the fireworks, “usually blows off a finger or two.” He picked up another wrapping. “But this one.” He whistled low. “This one is a real beauty. Has a tendency to pop open from the back and explode in your face. Usually blinds you, although sometimes, after enough surgeries, if you’re lucky you don’t go completely blind.”
“Shit, man,” the scared kid said to his friend, “you said these were safe.”
Deciding he’d done all he could to scare them, Connor let the bolder kid wriggle away.
“This old dude is just trying to scare us. He’s probably making this stuff up.”
Connor shrugged and said, “It’s up to you if you want to find out for yourself,” but the kids were already running up the beach, leaving the fireworks behind.
He picked up the wrappers, then turned around and crashed into Ginger. He had to drop the fireworks to grab her rib cage to keep her from falling. They stood like that for several seconds, both of them breathing hard.
She looked mad as hell. “You scared Josh and his friends half to death, Connor.”
“Good.”
“They’re just kids.”
“Doesn’t mean they can get away with acting stupid.”
“That’s what kids do, Connor! They make mistakes and they learn from them.”
“Since you already know everything, why don’t you tell me what happens if the mistake is too big? If one of these fireworks takes something away from them, something they’d never thought to lose? What then?”
Her hands moved to his face, holding him still, calming him as she would a wild animal.
“I know how bad it must have hurt. How bad it still does. But it’s going to be okay, Connor. One day soon. It has to be.”
A violent boom of thunder in the dark sky above them was their only warning as rain began to pour down on them.
“At least now you don’t have to worry about fireworks anymore.”
“Not that kind, anyway,” he said, then bent his head down to hers.
Her lips were soft, so damn soft that he wanted to devour her, starting with her mouth and running down to her breasts, but even so, he was working like hell to get hold of himself, to stop before things got really out of control.
And then, her tongue moved against his, and he was a goner.
Sparks of heat worked through him as she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his head down closer to kiss him, her tongue moving in time with his, her breasts pressed against his chest. She moaned softly against his mouth and all he could think was that she felt so good in his hands, just the way a woman should feel, soft warmth instead of sharp bones and harsh angles.
As his hands moved over her hips, to her waist, you would have thought four days was four years, he wanted her so bad. She gasped when his fingers found bare skin at the base of her shirt and he wanted to forget his vow to stay away from her, wanted to forget everything but pleasure.
But even as his extreme passion for her threatened to take over everything else, he knew he needed to give her one last chance to walk away.
“We shouldn’t do this. I don’t have anything to give to you, Ginger. Nothing at all.”
Ginger couldn’t catch her breath. Connor seemed to know her body better than she did. He knew just where she wanted to be stroked, just how she wanted to be kissed. Four days of pent-up longing overflowed inside of her as she breathed in his scent, earthy from the wood he’d been working with, as clean and fresh as the cold rain on his warm skin.
Somewhere through the fog she’d heard him say they should stop, that he couldn’t make her any promises. But she didn’t believe him. Not way down deep in her heart.
He needed her. Needed her to wrap her arms around him and show him someone cared. She couldn’t run, couldn’t turn her back on him.
“Take me back to your room. To your bed.”
But instead of doing what she’d asked him to, he simply brushed the pad of his thumb against her lower lip. She realized his hands were shaking—my God, had anyone ever wanted her this much?—and she pressed a kiss onto the scarred skin covering the tip, her tongue swirling as she sucked him in between her lips.
“I promised you I wouldn’t do this,” he said, his voice hoarse. Rough with desire.
“I don’t want your noble vow, Connor. I want this. I want you. I’ve never felt this way with anyone else. I want to explore it. Please, just for one night, don’t be the hero.”
He groaned, said, “Only you would ask me to do that,” and then he was kissing her again. She threaded her fingers through his to pull him through the driving rain, up the stairs. On the porch, he picked her up, carrying her through the living room, up the stairs and kicking open his bedroom door. He put her down on the floor, making sure there was a slow slide of her body against his the entire way.
He reached for the hem of her shirt and with painstaking slowness he raised the thin, wet cotton up over her stomach, then her rib cage, and finally, over her breasts. Her pants came off next, just as slowly, and she relished every single sensation.
The roughness of the fabric against her sensitive skin.
The gentleness of his hands.
The heat from his body, which singed her in the most delicious way.
And then she was standing in front of him in nothing but her bra and panties and even though she’d been practically naked that first night, this felt different. More real, somehow. Real enough that all the insecurities that had been chasing her for thirty-three years decided to take that moment to race into the bedroom and wind themselves around her, whispering vicious things about wrinkles and cellulite.
She thought she’d outrun her past, the years of self-hatred. She was stunned to realize she’d been wrong.
She wanted to push away from him, hide herself behind a thick cover, but then he said, “God, you’re beautiful,” and the reverence in his words worked like magic to strip away her fears, the conviction in Connor’s voice making Ginger believe, for the very first time in her life, that she truly was beautiful.
He swept his thumbs across the upper curve of her breasts, where they swelled over her bra cups. “You’re so soft.”
Pleasure rippling through her at his gentle touch, Ginger closed her eyes and arched her back slightly into his hands, her own hands finding his hips so that she could hold herself steady on increasingly unsteady ground. He slid one strap off and then the other. With nothing to hold up the lace, her nipples popped over the edge, into his waiting hands.
“So perfect.”
His thumbs circled the tight buds, tightening further at his teasing caress. Her entire being was focused on two square inches of skin. She’d never felt pleasure so exquisite, never knew her breasts could be so incredibly sensitive. Connor’s erection pressed hard against her belly and she felt an answering warmth between her legs.
“For four days I’ve had your taste on my tongue. And I’ve wanted more. So much more.”
A thrill shot through her in the same moment his mouth came down over her nipples. Cupping her breasts, he pushed them together so that he could easily move from one to the next, laving them with long, soft strokes of his tongue.
“Connor,” she moaned as she arched herself even closer to his incredible mouth.
At the sound of his name, he took one of her nipples between his lips and sucked it into his mouth, his teeth gently scoring the sensitive flesh. One hand still cupping her breasts, the other moved to her backside, splaying one butt cheek and dragging her tighter against his shaft as he slipped one t
high between hers.
As he moved his attention to the other nipple, her arousal grew so intense that she couldn’t help but grind herself against the hard column of his leg. He encouraged her with his arm, helping her move in perfect rhythm to his tongue and lips on her breasts. And then, his fingers were on her belly, moving swiftly toward her wetness.
And then, sweet Lord, his fingers found her clitoris. She opened up her legs for him as she rocked against his fingers, wanting desperately for him to keep touching her, just like that, right there, where it felt so good. She was so close, just on the verge of breaking apart into a million little pieces, when he pulled his hand away and took a step backward. Away from her.
The loss of his heat, of his touch, felt like ramming straight into an iceberg.
But then, it hit her what must have happened. She reached out to him. “Did it happen again? Your hands, did they go numb?”
He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists. “No. I could feel you. Too well.” He winced. “I can’t control myself around you, Ginger. I’m too rough. I’m going to hurt you. God, I don’t want to hurt you.”
She could barely believe what she was hearing. Was he really apologizing for wanting to make love to her so badly that he was losing control?
“I’m tougher than I look.”
She needed to let Connor know how much she wanted this, that she was desperate for his fingers and hands and mouth on her. Fast or slow, she didn’t care. All she cared about was the pleasure of touching and being touched by him.
Reaching behind her back, she undid her bra and let it fall to the floor between them. “I loved what you were doing to my breasts,” she said in a hoarse voice before stepping back from him and stripping off her panties.
Boldly taking his hand, she placed it onto her mound, trembling as his rough fingers made contact with her heavily aroused skin, full with desire.
“I loved what you were doing right here too. Do it again, Connor. Take me higher, take me all the way over the edge.” She went on her tippy toes and whispered into his ear, “And don’t worry about me. I can handle you.”
He moved her so fast from standing in the middle of the room to flat on her back on the bed that she lost her breath. A heartbeat later, his head was between her legs, his mouth replacing his hand. Crying out, she arched up into his lips as his tongue slid into her wetness, then up to her clitoris, then back down the length of her labia. His hands held her hips steady as she forgot how to breathe, how to think, how to do anything but feel.
And then, oh God, there it was, a higher peak than she’d ever climbed before, and she was exploding beneath him, her body wracked with spasms of ecstasy. Through it all, he continued licking and sucking and plunging with his tongue, never letting up, not until he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure from her body.
Tears pricked her eyes, not just from the pleasure, but from the intense emotions that Connor’s care with her body stirred up. The way he touched her, kissed her, stroked her, made her feel beautiful.
Special.
“I didn’t know,” she said when she could finally speak. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
Running kisses along the insides of her thighs, then up her belly and her rib cage, he found her breasts again with his hands and mouth.
“I need to be inside you.” His eyes held hers in the near darkness. “Now. Before I explode.”
Together they yanked off his pants and pulled off his shirt until he was levered over her, completely naked.
Ginger was sure that nothing and no one had ever felt this good. She wanted to touch and kiss every inch of him, take her time exploring his perfection. But those explorations would have to wait, because he was pushing her thighs apart with one knee and lifting himself up her body so that the head of his penis was pressed up against her open folds. And then, before she could take her next breath, he was inside her, in one long stroke.
“You’re so tight,” he groaned, going completely still as her body stretched to accept his thick member. “So wet.”
She could feel him throbbing against her womb, her body answering with more wetness and fluttering way down deep in her belly.
“Please, Connor,” she begged, not knowing the right words to ask for what she wanted, but knowing it was waiting for her just the same.
But those two simple words were magic, because a moment later, he began the long, slow slide out, then back in. Out. In. Out. In. Over and over again until she was delirious with desire and the peak that she’d crested only minutes earlier was, amazingly, back within reach.
She pulled his face down to hers so that she could show him with her kisses how much this lovemaking meant to her. That it was everything she’d been waiting for. That being with him was so much more than anything she’d ever felt before.
And as they kissed, he grew bigger still inside her until that moment when she felt her hold on her body give way again to another mind-blowing orgasm and he was throbbing and pulsing inside of her, pushing harder, higher, deeper as they both came.
Panting hard, her skin still slick from the rain, but mostly from the intense heat they’d generated, Connor shifted their weight so that his back was on the mattress and her head was cradled against his chest.
One of his arms over her hip, one leg wound against her, exhaustion swept over her, the perfect kind of tiredness that came from having given all of herself. It was similar to how she felt after an all-day painting marathon, but far more special.
Because she wasn’t alone.
Connor breathed her in, the delicious scent that was so unique to Ginger. Her name said it all; sweet and spicy mingling together in the perfect package.
He hadn’t meant to attack her like that. Hadn’t meant to bury his face in her breasts, between her legs. Hadn’t meant to pound her hard into the mattress. But he hadn’t been able to help himself.
It was the first time he’d ever completely lost control with a woman.
And yet, as he lay there with Ginger warm in his arms, he knew it had been about more than just making her come, more than loving the feel of her soft flesh in his hands.
She was so incredibly beautiful, inside and out. He’d felt her surprise when he’d said as much to her, and he’d wanted so badly to erase all those years of fat camps, all the horrible things her husband had done to her. He knew he’d never find the words, but here in his bed, in the dark, he could show her how special she was.
Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths to try to steady his heartbeat, counting backward from one hundred to let her fall asleep, but somewhere around thirty, he was kissing her again and she was responding by rubbing her breasts against his chest. Wanting to go slower this time, he kissed her along her forehead, her cheekbones, her chin, then her neck and collarbones. His hands ran softly over her breasts, to her waist and hips.
Rolling her over so that she was lying on top of him, he said, “You make me crazy, Ginger,” his voice rough with desire, and then she was grinding against him, bringing him back in record time.
“You. These.” He cupped her breasts together, then closed his eyes and tilted his face up to rub himself on her like a lion would his mate. “There are no words,” he finally said a moment before he sucked one taut nipple in between his lips.
She arched her back to give him better access to her breasts and he was laving both breasts at once, his tongue darting, his teeth lightly scoring her nipples, his stubble brushing against her flushed skin.
He could feel how ready she was as she rocked into his erection and then he was pushing up into her again, sounds coming out of their mouths that they couldn’t control, and everything was connected, his mouth on her breasts, his hands on her hips as she rode him faster, harder, his desire for her growing bigger, stronger than anything he’d known was possible. And then, she was crying out, slamming herself against him as she reached the pinnacle and started to fall.
Her orgasm was so sweet he swore he could hear the angel
s sing as she came, and then he stopped trying to hold on to his self-control and gave himself up completely to pure pleasure.
Minutes later, with Ginger’s curves pressed up tight into him, her breathing soft and even as the storm raged above them, Connor fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in two years.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SNIPPETS OF the previous night slowly came to Ginger as she woke up. Remembrances of intense pleasure. Connor’s mouth on her. Moaning—screaming—his name as she came. And then as she grew more fully awake she realized that she was in his bed, and he was still there with her, his large arms holding her tightly against him.
He was running the tip of his fingers over her hips, the small of her back, the side of her breasts. But she hadn’t yet tasted him with her lips, her tongue, and now it was what she most wanted, so she put her hands on his chest and said, “I want to give you pleasure.”
He groaned and shook his head. “Sweetheart, I don’t know if I can let you—”
This time she finished his sentence with a kiss, pushing him flat on his back on the bed.
“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered as she ran kisses down his face, his shoulders, his chest. The deeply ridged muscles on his stomach rippled and tightened as she brushed her fingertips over the peaks and valleys.
His erection bumped into her forearm and she shifted her attention lower, to his impressive penis. Her mouth watered and she didn’t think, she just did what was natural and bent over to taste him. Her hair brushing against him made him groan again and then she was pressing her lips to the soft, hot skin stretched across the head of his cock. She’d never thought the word before, but it was the perfect description for his magnificent erection.
His hands threaded into her hair, helping her take him deeper. She was amazed by how sexy this was, how good it felt to give him such deep pleasure. She moved her mouth slowly back up, then down him, once, then twice. With every stroke of her tongue, he grew bigger, harder. And then, she was on her back on the bed and he was driving in between her thighs, and she was crying out his name.