The end of the sliver poked through to the surface, but no matter how hard he squeezed, the rest refused to budge. He tried to pull it out, but his fingers were too thick and blunt.
“I gotta use my teeth,” he said before lifting her palm to his mouth.
She gasped when his breath caressed the center of her hand, but it had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the current of want, of need, ofdesirethat arced between them.
Using the sensitive pads of his lips, he located the splinter. Then he grabbed hold of it with his teeth, and as gently as he could, as slowly as he could so as not to break it off, he pulled it from her tender flesh and turned to spit it on the ground.
“Ohhh, that feels a million times better,” she whispered, which made him contemplate the millionotherthings he could do to her that’d feel even better than that.
He lifted his eyes to her face, and when their gazes met, electricity jumped in the air around them, sparking, sizzling, washing over them in voltaic waves until she gasped and he…throbbed.
For a while they just looked at each other. Wanting each other.Awareof each other. Poised to take the next step together, but neither of them moving a muscle. Maybe because it felt so big.
Finally, through trembling lips she said, “You can live a hundred years and never reallyliveone minute if fear of whatcouldhappen, whatmighthappen prevents you from goin’ after what you want. Tonight, I wantyou, Bran.”
She didn’t give him time to respond. She didn’t give him time to argue—not that he would; he was past that. She grabbed his ears, went up on tiptoe, and dragged his head down for a kiss that was so hot it burned away his ability to think, his ability to reason, his ability to do anything but meet her lick for lick, nip for nip, and stroke for deep, wet, penetrating stroke.
Chapter 18
9:37 p.m.…
Maddy may have been the one to initiate the kiss, but it didn’t take long—two seconds, maybe—before Bran was leading the way.
He was the kind of kisser who reveled. The kind of kisser who took his time. A hedonist. A glutton. Amaster.
She let herself surrender.
“Bran,” she whispered when he came up for air sometime later—two minutes? Ten? Time had ceased to exist in its usual state—and kissed the corner of her mouth. Her nose. Her cheeks. Her chin. Peppering her with quick, biting caresses that were as much about the need to claim every inch of her, brand every inch of her, as they were about pleasure or lust.
Her whole body was humming. His kisses alone were better than any full-on sex she’d ever had. Her skin was sensitized to every brush of his fingers, every touch of his lips, every warm sweep of his breath.
“Say it again,” he murmured, nuzzling her ear. His teeth gently tugged on her lobe until her eyes crossed and her toes curled from the thrill of it. “I love it when you say my name.”
“Bran,” she said huskily, giggling and moaning when the pressure on her earlobe increased. A gentle nip, a soft warning that he was barely keeping himself in check. She knew what would come next. Knew he would let the raider, the conqueror, theplunderergo free.
She wanted that. Oh, how she wanted that. To be raided. To be conquered. To be plundered and made his. His…woman.
Just for tonight, her conscience warned.
But she wouldn’t think about that. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she was determined to think about that tomorrow.Tomorrow is another day.
“Again,” he moaned, reaching around to palm her ass.
Turning her face into his, she was pleased with the throaty, sexy sound of her voice when she whispered softly, “Bran.”
“Fuckme,” he moaned, pulling her tight against him, forcing her up on tiptoe. He ground her swollen sex against the steely rod of his erection, and the warm sea breeze at her back underscored just how hot he was against her front. A living flame. And like a moth, she sought to fly even closer.
“I think that’s our agreement, right?” She caught her breath when he dipped to grab her knee and lift her leg high around his waist, opening her to him, to the bump and grind of his hips as he stroked into her, rubbing, rubbing,rubbinghis hard length against the seam of her shorts and the distended bud of her clitoris. Sensation sizzled. Friction fizzed. Nerve endings rejoiced and begged for more.
“Yesss.” The word hissed from between his lips, circling sensuously inside her ear. “I feel how hot you are for me, Maddy. Are you wet too?”
“God, yes,” she admitted even though it shocked and titillated her to do so. She’d asked for this.Demandedit actually. And she’d be damned if she allowed any inhibitions to stop her from enjoying every single second.
She was determined to do whatever she could, whatever it took, to make this something he’d never forget. To make herself stand head and shoulders above the crowd of women he’d had before her. To make him think twice about abandoning what they could have together if only—
Whoa there, sister, her conscience cautioned.If that’s what this is all about, then you better stop it right now.
Of course anything else her conscience said was drowned out by the low sound of approval that rumbled from the back of Bran’s throat. “Good,” he whispered, still stroking, still teasing. “I want you wet. I want you so wet you drench me when I put myself inside you.”
