He covered her mouth with his, possessively and urgently, and, God, she wanted him to. It was a mystery to her how she’d held out for this long without throwing herself against him and clinging. Tending his wound had been sheer torture from having proximity to his body but no intimacy with it, allowing herself only to touch but not caress.
His torso was sculpted with muscles tightly encased in skin nicked with scars, each one of which she’d yearned to kiss. She’d wanted her cheeks and lips and breasts to know the feel of the hair that dusted his upper chest. It was different in texture from the sleek, narrow band that started below his navel and disappeared into the loose waistband of his jeans. She’d imagined it fanning out over the flat plain between his hipbones.
Twice, as she’d applied antiseptic, he’d teased her about blowing on him to ease the burn. When her face was close enough to feel the heat he emanated, had he sensed how tempted she’dbeen to do just that, to blow gently and then press a kiss on a tender spot?
And now, as his tongue went in search of hers, she realized that her rigid self-control hadn’t contributed one whit of happiness to her life. Her guardedness against having too much emotional involvement with someone hadn’t alleviated the pain of her tragedy at all; it had only kept her cemented to it.
So, heedless of consequences, she looped her arm around his neck and drew him down even as her back arched up to bring her breasts in contact with his chest, a move that seemed to surprise and delight him.
She didn’t see his smile so much as felt it against her lips. Through smoochy kisses, he mumbled, “My animal magnetism got the better of you, didn’t it?”
That was such a Mitch thing for him to say, a bubble of joy expanded inside her chest. She nipped at his teasing lips with her teeth until, with a growl of arousal, he seized her mouth again.
He kissed with passion and heat and longing, one kiss melding into another in an evocative continuum until they were starved for breath. Their lips parted, each of them gasping, then he kissed her one more time, deeply and dearly, before breaking it.
He cupped her face between his hands. His eyes roved over her features, pausing on each one, studying it as though adoring it, memorizing it. He spoke her name on a sigh. “I want to keep going with this more than I want to keep breathing. But not if you’re going to beat yourself up over it afterward.”
“I won’t. I’ve already crossed the line.”
“When we kissed outside the café?”
She shook her head to the extent that his cradling handswould allow. “When I walked into the waiting room and saw you standing there.”
He exhaled a sound of disbelief and looked at her as though waiting for her to qualify the statement in some way, then, realizing that she wasn’t going to, he gathered her to him and hugged her tightly.
“Careful,” she said, “you’ll open your wound.”
“That won’t kill me. But I’m going to die if we don’t finish what we’ve started here.”
He lowered his head and burrowed his face between her breasts. She was still wearing the creamy blouse that had made him drunk on dirty thoughts, but he didn’t know until he rubbed his face against her breast that she’d removed her bra before going to bed.
Under the silky fabric, her nipple was already hard. He opened his mouth over it and sucked, while his hand sought her other breast, squeezing, reshaping, gently pinching the tip.
Her legs were shifting against his, and he realized she was pushing off the covers that he’d lain on top of when he’d joined her. Once the covers were bunched at the foot of the bed, he took in those long ballerina legs from the red toenails all the way up to an insubstantial pair of panties.
At the sight, his breathing turned harsh. When he hooked his thumbs into the scrap of stretchy lace and pulled it down to the middle of her thigh, he stopped breathing altogether.
But only for the length of a single heartbeat. Then he moved like quicksilver, clawing at the back of his T-shirt and pulling it off over his head, ripping the rivets out of the worn buttonholes of his jeans, shoving them down past his butt, then stretching out on top of her.
Panties now banished, hips and limbs made adjustments. Hers invited him to press up and into the spreading space between her thighs, which he did, until the head of his cock was justthere.
Then, with one thrust, he was inside her. Deep, but not deep enough. It wasn’t deep enough until he was fully imbedded and he could grind against that part of her that was rubbing up against him in supplication.
He levered himself up, hands planted on either side of her head, trying to get the angle perfect and knowing he’d achieved it when her breath caught and she reached up to link her fingers around the back of his neck.
Then he began to move in a primordial rhythm, in concert with her, until their mutual intensity created a friction that sparked a swift climax. She cried out first, and then his entire body went taut, straining with intent, withholding nothing.
When at last it ended, they held as they were, his head bowed over her, she staring up into his eyes with wonder, both of them close to disbelieving the passion that had erupted and overpowered them.
Gradually, her fingers relaxed, her hands slid off his shoulders, and then her arms dropped listlessly to her sides. He lowered himself onto her. He kissed her eyelids, her cheekbones, her lips, which were curved into a satiated smile. He rested his forehead against hers and exhaled a long breath through his mouth.
“God, I’ve missed fucking.”
Against his stomach, he felt hers tighten and vibrate with a small laugh. “So have I.”
He raised his head to better see her. “So you haven’t…?”
“No.”
