"Like this," he said. "I'll hold you."
And he lifted one of her thighs, draping it over his shoulder, pressing more deeply with his mouth and his tongue, stroking her relentlessly, tasting her, making her cry out and quiver and sink her nails into his shoulders.
He made her come again and again. It went on and on. He loved knowing he could give her this, that he could make her as crazy for him as he was for her.
Finally, he worked his way up her body, loving the taste of her breasts, wet and soft, her nipples sweet and so hard.
"You're perfect, Grace," he said, his face buried against the side of her neck. "I've dreamed about you too many nights to even count, and you're absolutely perfect and so beautiful. You take my breath away."
"You're beautiful," she insisted.
And he laughed, feeling as if he were absolutely on top of the world.
He still had her pinned against the wall, but she was straining against his body, writhing, rubbing herself against him. He had indeed made her ache.
"Are you trying to torment me?" she asked.
"Maybe I am." He pressed his erection against the softness of her belly. "Payback for the island. It's a miracle I didn't take you there."
"You seemed quite capable of resisting me," she said, kissing him deeply now. Great, gasping, desperate kisses.
"No," he said. "Not at all. I was dying to have you. And I'm going to. Right now."
He reached for her thighs, lifted them, hooked her legs around his hips and slid against her, back and forth against the wet, swollen opening of her body, thinking he might manage to tease her a bit more.
They both gasped. She looped her arms around his shoulders, found some leverage from the wall at her back and the hold she had on him with her legs, and angled herself up to him.
He was right on the brink then. Right there.
"Are you really going to make me beg?" she asked.
"I don't have the strength."
He slid inside her barely, testing, measuring at first, and then once he was sure she was ready, he let go of all that iron self-control. Gave in to all the sensations bombarding him.
Grace, he said, over and over again in his head and maybe to her, as well.
He could feel her body working to accommodate him. All those little contractions deep within her, her body gripping and releasing, holding him so tightly, trying to find room for all he had to give her.
"Am I hurting you?" he said tightly.
"No. I just… It's too much."
"You're too much," he muttered against her lips. "You did this to me. You."
"No. It's you," she said. "It's all you."
She slid her legs even farther apart, arched her body against his, and he sank so deeply inside of her. She held him tightly within her, squeezed him, burned him, drenched him.
He was lost. Just lost.
He couldn't resist the sweet, hot fire any longer. The feel of being inside of her, stroking in and out, going deeper, striving for that point where he simply ceased to be, where there was no more him, and her and they were one, in a way that no one could ever deny.
"You're mine," he said fiercely. "You belong to me. You always have."
She held on to him so tightly, for that hard, fast, wild ride, and she gave herself to him, beautifully. Holding nothing back. Clinging to him and moving with him and crying out his name.
Her climax seemed to ripple through her and straight into him. He shuddered so deeply he wasn't sure how he could stand it and still hang on to her and stay on his feet.
They hadn't used a condom, so there was literally nothing between them. They were skin to skin. Heat and fire and need.
"Take me," he said. "Me."
And she did.
When he came inside her, he was so turned on by the idea that she would carry just a bit of him around with her forever. For an instant, he thought about doing this with no precautions at all, thought about the idea of making her pregnant, seeing her with his baby growing inside of her, a bond between them, that could never, ever be broken.
"Grace," he said raggedly.
"I know," she said, soothing him now, kissing his neck, his jaw, his cheek, his mouth. "I know."
* * *
Grace had tears seeping out of her eyes when it was over. He didn't seem to notice at first, with all that water raining down upon them.
Who would have guessed that water could be such an erotic thing? But it made his body, which was so impressive all by itself, that much more touchable. Her fingers slid so easily along his skin. Along all those lovely muscles. She liked tasting the water on him, tasting his wet skin, rubbing up against it, loved the water on her, too. It made her feel so absolutely bare and at the same time, caressed all over.
It made her think of the island. Of being with him in the rain, there against the tree, when she'd wanted him so badly already, and he'd been so strong, so invincible.
She couldn't quite believe what it had been like to finally be with him. So raw, so intense, so powerful.
He'd claimed her. Primitively. Forcefully. Told her she was his. She shivered a bit now, just remembering the words, the feeling. How delicious it was to be his. She couldn't imagine ever wanting to be anything at all in this world but his. If she could just have that, she'd be the luckiest woman alive.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yes."
She could still barely find enough oxygen to satisfy her, couldn't get it inside of her body fast enough. Her heart was still thundering, as was his. His shoulders were heaving with each deep, harsh breath. She was still pinned against him and the wall. He was still inside of her somehow.
Her legs had turned to mush. They were so heavy. Her body sagged against his, totally at his mercy. Her face was buried against his shoulder, and she couldn't have moved an inch, not if her life depended on it.
He eased his upper body back, enough that she could breathe a bit easier and she could see him. Water cascaded down him everywhere. She wanted to kiss it off his mouth, drink it off his body, as he'd drunk from hers. When she'd opened the shower door and seen him standing there, so magnificently naked, she'd wondered if she might collapse in a puddle right there on his bathroom floor. It seemed she'd waited forever for him to pull her inside, pull her against him.
Although she understood his reticence. She'd seen just a bit of the hurt in his face, the way he'd suffered that day as well. Seen the confusion, the need, the fear to believe that what he wanted so badly was truly standing right there in front of him. After all, she'd felt that way so many times about him.
He kissed her mouth, her cheek. "I think it's time we made it to the bed."
And she shivered yet again. She wouldn't have believed it was possible to want him again so quickly. Not as blown away as she'd been by the first time. But there it was. He mentioned a bed, and she was ready. Eager. For everything he had to give her.
He gently separated himself from her. She hung on.
"I swear, I'll fall down if I don't have you to hold me up."
So he lifted her, carried her to the vanity and set her down on top of it. He shut off the shower and grabbed a big, blue towel. She went to take it from him, but he wouldn't let her. He dried her himself. Slowly. Sensuously. Rubbing the cloth against her and kissing her. Then rubbing some more.
"There," he said, then grabbed another towel.
When he went to dry himself, she took it from him, shaking her head back and forth. Kissing his wet chest.
"I want you just like this," she said.
He hesitated, and then she saw that dark, dangerous glint come into his eyes.
"Is that all right?" she murmured, still drinking from his skin.
"Grace, you can have me any way you want me. You might kill me one of these days, but you can have me."
"You said something about a bed?"
He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the soft sheets. She pushed him down flat on his back and just admired him for a long
moment.
"You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen," she said, and she could have sworn he couldn't have looked any better. But he fought a grin and lost, and it seemed she'd actually made him blush. And she was dazzled by him all over again.
He reached for her, would have drawn her against him, but she pushed him back down onto the bed.
"You said I could have anything I wanted."
"And I meant it." He took her breast in the palm of his hand, cupping it, stroking it with his thumb. "Do you really not want me to touch you?"
"I want to touch you. And kiss you. All over."
"You want to torment me," he said, stroking her still.
"Maybe. I want to make you tremble for me. And shudder. And shake. And beg. All the things you make me do."
"You do, sweetheart. Believe me, you do," he said softly. "But if you feel the need to prove the point, be my guest."
She stroked. She teased. Kissed and licked and rubbed her breasts against him, and he did as she asked. He lay back and let her. Groaning at times, shaking, shuddering, swearing. She found out exactly what he liked – everything. And what she liked – everything, as well. He was amazing to touch, and it was amazing to think of him as hers. He was so very big, so powerful, so controlled, so amazing when she took him to the point where he just lost it.
She loved the way his body felt against hers, the way it moved, the sureness of his touch, the confidence in it. The need. He made her so greedy, so very alive.
She'd explored nearly every bit of him, except the big, throbbing part of him between his legs. That, she'd merely teased, a glancing touch here and there, just to hear that sweet catch in his breath when she did it. There was the merest sheen of water left on his body. A bit in his hair, but most of it smeared by the touch of her hands and brush of her body against his. And he tasted so clean, his skin so hot.
She nudged his legs apart and knelt between them, wanting to taste him there.
"Grace?"
She leaned over him, wondering where to start. "You said I could have anything I wanted."
She felt him tense, found him fascinating. His skin – there – was so soft. Like baby skin. So delicate. She rubbed her cheek against him, the tip of her nose, and was rewarded with a shudder.
His hands were clenched into fists by his side, and he swore softly as she teased, barely touching him with her mouth, her tongue. Every muscle in his body went even tighter than before.
She touched him even more softly, slowly. And when he moaned a bit more and his hand tangled in her hair, she gave him what he wanted, what she'd come to crave herself. Him. Inside of her. Like this.
She had to struggle to take him, just as her body had struggled the other way. He was just too large, but he felt so right, too. Hot and slick and big. She found herself greedy now, as well. Could not get enough.
He tasted so good. She wanted to take him so deep, give him so much, and there was a place between her legs that was suddenly so achy, so empty, a place only he could fill.
His body started to move, thrusting gently beneath her. She sucked harder. He shuddered, swore, groaned.
"Grace, you're going to have to make a decision. Now."
She knew what he meant. A decision about how she wanted it. How she wanted him.
"Because this cannot go on," he said. "Not like this."
How did she want it? She loved the whole idea. Of what he was going to give her and all the possibilities for how she could have it, have him.
She lifted her head, found him lying there, his dark eyes no more than dangerous slits, his jaw rock-hard, all the muscles in his body trembling.
"Now," he demanded. "You decide. Or I will."
She shivered herself. At the command in his voice, one barn of a need every bit as strong as hers.
She rolled over onto her back and pulled him to her. Her thighs fell apart and he was right there, so deep up inside of her in an instant. Every bit as powerfully as before. Just as tight. Just as hot. Just as overwhelming.
He lay there heavily on top of her, still somehow, and he kissed her again and again and again, just letting the heat rush even higher between them, the urgency, too. She wrapped her arms around him. Found his back was straining, a fine sheen of perspiration running down his spine.
Finally he lifted his head and said, "I'm afraid I'll crush you. You're so delicate, sweetheart. Are you sure you want it like this?"
"Yes I want to feel your body on top of mine. Hot and heavy. Surrounding me. Inside of me. Everywhere. I don't want you to hold anything back at all."
He looked skeptical, worried.
She took it as a challenge. "I could make you lose control," she boasted.
"I know you could," he admitted.
And it was only then that she felt the full weight of his body pressing down upon hers. The bulk, the heat. Her bare breasts pushing up against his chest. All those lovely muscles in his flat stomach, his thighs. He had her surrounded. He was everything she could see, everywhere she could reach. And he was moving inside of her, steadily, then strongly, then urgently.
It was everything she'd never understood about being with a man. Everything she'd thought was nothing but silly, sentimental songs and carefully scripted scenes in a movie made to look like things no one had in real life. It was that first giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought that a boy was attractive. A first kiss. First embrace.
It was magic and power and raw, sexual need, and everything. Just everything.
He took her out of her body, out of his world. To a place where all she could do was feel. Where everything was so much more intense than it had ever been, than she'd ever imagined it could be.
And all she had to do was hang on to him. Just hang on for that wild, wild ride.
* * *
"I've never felt anything like that in my life," she confessed later when he was lying sprawled on his back with her curled against his side. He'd tugged a sheet over the two of them, to ward off the chill when the air conditioner kicked on, and he had one arm around her, lazily stroking up and down her back.
"Never?" he asked.
"Nothing's ever come close," she said. "I suppose you find that hard to believe."
She was thirty-one years old, and she felt like a novice with him. He was obviously so experienced. He'd shown her a completely different side of making love. An incredible mix of love and sheer skill, of experience, patience, determination and eagerness to please. She knew she'd pleased him, as well. But a part of her thought there must have been so many other women, so much more experienced than she was.
"It's never been that urgent for me," she said. "That overwhelming. That necessary."
"For me, neither, sweetheart."
She pulled away from him, just enough that she could look at him. He seemed deliciously tired and so very relaxed, still so gorgeous. That was part of it, of course. He was absolutely gorgeous, and at forty-three he was most definitely a man in the prime of his life. He'd probably spent decades pleasing legions of women who'd come before her.
"You don't believe me?" he asked, clearly offended.
"I think women must have been crawling all over you from the time you hit puberty, and I have trouble believing you were discouraging them."
"Oh."
"There must have been so many women."
"None that mattered," he insisted.
She frowned at him. "You just know exactly what to say, don't you?"
"You think I'm feeding you a line? Are you really that inexperienced, Grace?"
She colored profusely.
"You are," he said, a goofy grin coming across his face.
He looked pleased, she thought. Pleased?
"You can't think it's always like that," he said. "You have to know how incredible it was."
"For me."
"And for me." He took her chin in his hand, turning her face to his. "Don't you ever doubt that. You're it for me, Grace. There'll never be another woman in the
world to come close to you, to what we have together."
And if that wasn't enough, he set out to prove it to her. There in the darkness that settled in around them, in the quiet and the comfort of his bed.
* * *
Chapter 14
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Every time he woke her, he told himself. One last time. By dawn, that wonderful sensual storm of the night before had eased, and in its place, his conscience was giving him hell. All those insurmountable obstacles he'd always seen between them, the ones that had been seared away last night by the first touch of her in his arms, were creeping back into his head.
Last night, he'd pulled her to him and stripped off her clothes, vowing that there had to be a way, that he would find it. And in the cold light of day, he hadn't found anything except what he'd wanted, what he'd taken that she'd so generously given, what he wanted to take still.
Which meant if he had a decent bone in his body, he would leave her alone now, would take this time while she was still asleep to think about what he had to say to her, what he owed her.
But he would never have his fill of her, would likely never have more than this. He woke for the last time to find her sprawled on top of him, her body warm and soft and absolutely limp, draped over him like a blanket. Her head was on his shoulder, her hair spread out across his chest, one of her thighs tucked between his, her toes, somehow cold, inching along his leg. He captured that foot between his legs to warm it and wondered how she managed to stay warm without him, wondering if another man would warm her this way.
His hand stroked lightly through her hair, and she murmured, "Mmm. What time is it?"
"Early."
She lifted her head just enough to press a kiss over the top of his heart. "We don't have to get up, do we?"
"Not yet. Go back to sleep. I remembered I never fed you last night. I was going to grab breakfast for us from a little shop around the corner."
Maybe if he wasn't lying naked beside her, he could clear his head. Think. Plan. Find the nerve to come back and confess. Get ready to see the look of disgust and likely hatred in her eyes. Especially after the way they'd spent the night. The lines they'd not just crossed, but obliterated. There was absolutely no excuse for that, except that for the first time in his life, he'd absolutely lost control. He'd pushed his sense of what was right and fair totally aside and simply taken what he'd so desperately wanted for so long.
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