That’s what he wanted.
He surged again. Easy…easy…easy…and—God.
Before he knew it, she’d swallowed him up to the base and the blinding pleasure blocked out the rest of the world—except for the sudden emotion that hit him in a blinding wave.
She was so beautiful. So earthy and sexy, with her head tilted back, swollen lips parted and glazed eyes half closed. So freaking incredible that he couldn’t get his mind around his good fortune.
And he was so lost in her that nothing could ever be the same again.
The emotions kept coming, choking him up and forcing him to twist up his face in a vain effort to hold it all back.
“What’s wrong?” she cooed, nuzzling his cheek with her kisses. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“That’s it—nothing’s wrong.”
“Is that bad?”
“Just unexpected. You’re a gift. The greatest gift. I hope you know that.”
Her mouth found his again, opening wide and her tongue thrusting deep, but not before she murmured in his ear: “I love you, Sandro. I love you.”
They found their languid rhythm, and there was only this: their cries in the night, her swiveling hips filling his hands as they moved together, and the indescribably perfect friction of his body sliding within hers.
Their surroundings came slowly back into focus.
She was on the huge bed now, her body stretched across silky white linens. Drowsy and drunk with pleasure, her lips curled in a smile, she stretched her arms toward the headboard, equally aware of the arch of her back and the intensity of his avid gaze on her. All her senses were heightened, and she experienced everything in vivid detail: the cooling sweat between her breasts…the musky scent of their satisfaction…the sweetly delicious ache between her thighs.
Making love with Sandro had done nothing to quench her desire for him.
If anything, the lust burned hotter than ever inside her.
Propping up on one elbow, she studied him from beneath her heavy lids and reached out to beckon him with her free arm.
“Come here,” she murmured.
“In a minute.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at you.”
There was no need to ask if he liked what he saw. He stood by the side of the bed, staring down at her, his eyes bright and his face dark with desire. He’d ditched his shirt at some point, revealing a taut torso with every ridge defined and every hard muscle lovingly carved. Even the scar from his injury intensified his rugged appeal.
A strip of sleek black hair collected between his dark brown nipples, traveling south to where his unbuttoned pants gave way to black boxer briefs. Behind the underwear strained a heavy erection that made her squirm with renewed need.
As she watched, his gaze slid over her body, lingering on her lips, the stiff peaks of her nipples, and the cleft between her thighs.
He went utterly still, except for the slow heave of his rib cage, thinning lips and tightening jaw.
After several beats, his scalding gaze flicked back up to her face.
Her heart slowed to a hard thud, and they stared at each other, neither moving.
“It didn’t help, did it?” she asked.
“Making love?” He shook his head. “It made me want you more. I didn’t think that was possible.”
He didn’t exactly look thrilled with this development, which made a shadow flit across her heart.
“You said no regrets,” she reminded him.
A lazy smile curled one edge of his mouth. “Oh, I don’t regret anything.”
The velvet caress of his voice ran over her skin, making her shiver. It might have been wiser to try to hide her rising lust, but there was no way she could manage it. She’d never been able to rein in the way he made her feel, which was unreasonably alive. She had lived perfectly well when she was alone, yeah, but she could only soar when she was with him.
“Touch me, then,” she said.
He started with her face, tracing curves and ridges, exploring bone structure. Unraveling, bit by bit, she let her neck lean back, and those long fingers trailed down her throat and paused in the valley between her breasts. This, naturally, made her breath catch and her blood surge until her lips, nipples and sex throbbed with arousal.
The gleam in his eyes was wicked, and she was wicked, too, because there was something vulnerable and illicit about being spread naked before him, and she loved it. Reveled in it.
“Don’t stop.”
Twisting at the waist, she watched as his dark hand swallowed her paler breast, stroking and massaging until she crooned with pleasure. The contrast between his strong fingers and her soft flesh was unbearably erotic.
And then he reached between her legs.
She cried out, undone by the intimacy.
It was more than the relentless glide of his slick fingers that stunned her. It was the way his gaze latched onto hers and held, demanding that she look at him, and nowhere else, as he drove her to orgasm.
“Sandro,” she gasped, writhing against him.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
Easier said than done. “Sandro—”
“I’m wondering, did we make a baby tonight?”
“No.”
His expression was unreadable. “No?”
She undulated without shame. There was no time for it. No room for it. Every atom in her body concentrated in that point of contact between them, making it hard for rational thoughts to form.
“I’m on the…on the…on the pill—aah, God.”
The wave crested and crashed over her, eased back, and then came again, harder. Propped up on both elbows now, she rode it out with his fingers inside her, prolonging the ecstasy, and his gaze riveted on her face. She had the feeling he was determined to milk every last expression, breath and mewl out of her, until only a shell was left.
She didn’t mind a bit.
Nor did she mind when he kept that possessive hand on her engorged nub, marking his place, while he worked on freeing himself from his boxers with the other. She glimpsed his erection for the first time, and she saw, with a dizzying burst of clarity, that it was long and thick, with a plump head that was ruddy with blood.
He crawled over her, nudging her legs apart with one of his knees. She opened her thighs and arms for him, and he settled his weight on her.
“But you like children,” he continued, easing inside her again, slowly…carefully…as though he knew how her body stretched to accommodate him and didn’t want to hurt her, “don’t you?”
“I love children.”
The beginnings of a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he lowered his head, positioning his mouth until it was a breath away from hers.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Sky.”
“Hmm.” The conversation stalled as his hips began to swivel. “Later.” And then his tongue filled her mouth.
“Go to sleep. Get some rest,” Sandro told her. “You’re tired.”
She was lying on her belly now, stretched out next to him, her head pillowed on her folded arms. Only half of her face was visible, but he only needed that half to see the drowsy warmth in her eyes and the way her cheeks plumped with a slow smile.
“I’m not tired. I’m happy.”
He was on his side with his head resting on one palm. With his free hand, he traced circles on her bare back because his skin was hungry for hers and he’d spent way too much time resisting the impulse to touch her.
It was now three-fifteen, and the only illumination came from the weak moonlight filtering past the closed drapes. The night was almost over with little actual sleep having been done, and if Skylar was tired, it was his fault because he was the greedy bastard who couldn’t keep his hands off her. Still, she’d been through a lot in the last several days, and he needed to remember that now that she was officially his to protect and treasure.
“You can be tired and happy at the same time,” he pointed out. “Go to
sleep.”
She ignored the directive.
Typical.
“Are you happy?” she wondered.
He damn sure was. What other explanation could there be for the blossoming light inside him, as though he’d swallowed the sun?
“You have no idea.”
Her smile widened to a grin just before her eyes drooped closed, and he thought maybe she’d let go enough to drift off, but there was more on her mind.
“What now?” she asked softly.
Several answers were on the tip of his tongue, starting with pressing issues like: now we figure out how to braid our lives together; or now we figure out what to tell Nikolas. But once he’d opened his mouth, he discovered that there was really only one thing he needed to know, even if the subject—which, by the way, was incompatible with her going to sleep and getting some rest—twisted his gut into a sickening knot.
He thought he was ready to hear it but, on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to understand it.
Still. There was no time like the present.
“Maybe now you could tell me…about Tony.”
Her lids flicked open, revealing a worried gleam in her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Was he sure he wanted to hear about how she’d loved his perfect brother before she’d loved him? How, if things had worked out differently, she could now be his sister-in-law instead of his woman? Or maybe he should be the one confessing right now, starting with how his sorrow over his brother’s death only took him so far, and if he had the choice of a live brother who might still have a chance with Skylar, or a dead brother but Skylar here, vibrant and alive in his life and in his bed, he wasn’t sure which he would choose?
Was he sure he was ready to face any of that? Yeah, sure. Just like a PFC on his first deployment was ready for an exchange of fire with the enemy.
But he was supposed to be the brave type, and he wasn’t good with vulnerability, so…
“Yeah,” he said.
Nodding, she rolled over and sat up, propping herself on the pillows and pulling the linens to cover her bare body. The gesture hit him hard, like a rejection, which was ridiculous. There was no need to feel like Adam being expelled from the Garden of Eden’s sensual beauty, he told himself, but the foreboding stayed with him.
“I volunteered to provide medical care for some of the service dogs,” she began. “I met him that way.”
That old familiar tension ran up and down his spine, tightening his muscles. “I know. He told me.”
“He was handsome. He made me laugh. He flirted—”
Given Tony’s way with women—easy and natural, a regular thrill to behold—Sandro could just imagine. The mere idea of his perfect brother charming and seducing Skylar sat on the back of his tongue in a lump, sour and indigestible.
“—and then he came back the next day to ask me out. So I said yes.”
All very fascinating, but when would she get to the point?
“You loved him,” he said flatly.
She shrugged helplessly. “I was swept up in the excitement of it. And everyone loved Tony—”
There it was. The story of his life with its silent corollary: Why can’t you be more like Tony? Why should Skylar be different from anyone else he’d ever known, including his parents? Why should this one person prefer Sandro when no one else ever had?
He nodded, sickened by the slow shrivel of his heart.
“—but I didn’t love him enough, Sandro. Not the way I should have.”
He felt his brain contract, trying to make that sentence work to his benefit, but he couldn’t manage it. He was a soldier; linguistic and emotional nuances like that were lost on him, and this subject was too important to let anything get lost in the translation.
“You’re going to have to spell that out for me, Sky. I’m not the touchy-feely type.”
“It means that I let the relationship go way further than it ever should have.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you want me to tell you the truth, you probably shouldn’t bite my head off.”
That settled him down in a hurry. There was something about her quiet reproach that made him feel like a slime-trailing slug. As a sign of how far he’d come in the last several days with her, he gave it to her straight.
To his surprise, it wasn’t that hard to get the words out.
“I’m jealous.”
She stilled, her eyes widening. “What?”
Peeling back the layers of his soul, he discovered, wasn’t so hard when Skylar was the one listening. “Don’t get me wrong. I was used to being jealous of Tony. I lived with it every day of my life. Anything I could do, he could do quicker and better. Skateboarding. Grades. Girls. West Point. He was always the example I could never live up to. Do you get that?”
She nodded.
“That was fine. I was used to it. It made me work harder. No problem—”
“Sandro—”
“—until the night I met you and realized he’d already claimed you first. That wasn’t okay because I wanted you. I wanted him gone, and it wasn’t friendly competition or sibling rivalry. For the first time in my life, I hated my brother. I couldn’t look at him. It made me sick, Sky—”
“Shh,” she said, reaching for him.
Maybe now wasn’t the time for this conversation, after all. Too many things were still raw and fragile, especially their new relationship. And anyway, Tony was gone and they were here, together, and the past couldn’t hurt them unless he let it.
He wouldn’t let it.
So he peeled the linens down her body and out of his way, revealing engorged breasts with those dark and jutting nipples, and the labored heave of her rib cage.
Looking at her stopped his heart. Every damn time.
Planting his hands on her hips, he pulled her until she was flat on her back with her legs hooked around his waist. Then he leaned in, kissing her hard and deep while he took his erection and, with a single thrust of his hips, drove home.
Home.
Skylar was home for him, and somehow he’d known it all along.
Panting now, he laced their fingers together and held them back over her head as he set a frenzied pace that had her face twisting with rapture.
“You belong with me,” he told her, breaking the kiss just long enough to stake his claim, once and for all. “You’ve always belonged with me.”
“I know,” she said.
“I don’t see why this couldn’t wait till the sun was up,” Sandro grumbled.
“Because we were awake anyway, and they’re kittens. We’ll just check on them, make sure they’re okay, and go back to bed for a while.”
“Back to bed, did you say?”
Here, Sandro paused on the step below hers, shooting her a grin over his shoulder. It was still dark, with only a console lamp in the foyer to light their way, but light enough for her to see the wicked glint in his eyes.
She, naturally, melted into a puddle of simpers and blushes.
Seeing this, Sandro turned all the way around, pressed his face into the valley between her breasts, where the silky edges of her robe came together, and breathed deep. That was bad enough. But then he slid his lips up and down the sensitive column of her neck, planted his hands on her butt and pulled her closer.
To her credit, she did try to resist.
“Sandro,” she gasped, angling her head to give him better access to a sweet spot. “Will you—aah, God. Will you focus, please? Focus! We have animals to check on.”
With that, she slid her hands up between them and shoved the unforgiving slab of his chest. He backed up, muttering.
“The kittens are fine,” he said reasonably. “If anyone needs your attention right now, it’s me.”
“I am so not impressed.”
“And I’m freezing my ass off. The bed is warm.”
That made her laugh. “No one told you to come.”
He gave her a dark look as he took her hand to
lead her on their slow descent to the first floor. “I’m coming. That’s the best way to make sure you’re quick about it. Plus, your leg is still a little shaky. I don’t want you to tumble to your death down the stairs. That would ruin my chances of getting laid again.”
“You’re such a compassionate lover. You’ll have to give me a minute. I’m choked up.”
“Smart-ass.”
As soon as he hit the bottom, he turned to grab her around the waist. Laughing, he swung her around like a little girl, and their mutual giddiness soon dissolved into a kiss…a sigh…a croon…
“Looks like we interrupted something, man.”
The unexpected and unwelcome sound of Mickey’s sarcastic voice made them jump as though they’d been zapped by a taser. They broke apart. Sandro set her on her wobbly feet, hanging onto her elbow until she was steady. She turned within the circle of his arms and took a quick swipe at her hair, which felt like an electrified rat’s nest. Behind her, Sandro cleared his throat in the gaping silence.
Oh, God.
It was as bad as she’d feared.
Mickey and Nikolas, both still in their pajamas and robes, were right there in the doorway from the living room. Luke sat, mewling, in Mickey’s lap, while Nikolas held a squirming Leia against his chest and tried to keep her away from Skywalker, who was perched on his shoulder and glaring down at the kitten with a beady and suspicious eye.
An endless beat passed, during which Skylar was excruciatingly aware of Mickey’s amused grin and Nikolas’s dropped jaw.
She and Sandro recovered and scrambled for a cover story at the same time.
“We were just checking on the animals—”
“We were thirsty—”
“Well, we were going to have a drink after we fed the animals—”
“And I was a little hungry, too, so we thought a snack might be—”
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