“The logical thing to do,” he agreed, breath tickling the hair on the back of my head. “Practically our sacred duty, don’t you think?”
“Can’t ignore a sacred duty.” I dropped the bills and turned around as my heart hammered. We both looked at each other and chuckled nervously.
After a rumble of thunder, he reached for my face, fingers gently trailing down the hair that framed my face, tucking a tendril behind my ear with a trembling hand.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Stop thinking, analyzing, and second-guessing. It’s just us.”
“Just us,” I whispered in agreement. His face was so close. Our breath intermingled. “Don’t think.”
“That’s right. Don’t think...”
His hands cupped the back of my head as his mouth came down on mine. His kiss was soft and gentle, achingly slow. Pleasure rippled through me, and an unbidden moan escaped. Seb’s hands tugged at the hem of my shirt, questioning, and before I could think—ornot think—I lifted my arms above my head and allowed him to take it off.
His heavy-hooded gaze roamed all over my skin. My heart hammered wildly against my rib cage when he lightly traced his finger down the valley between my breasts. Barely a touch at all, but it caused battalions of goose bumps and made me shiver.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, letting his hand fall away while he licked his lip and blinked for a moment. Then he reached over his shoulder and pulled his T-shirt over his head, tossing it aside. His bronzed chest lifted and fell hypnotically under my gaze.
With increasing urgency, we stripped off the rest of our clothes. Shoes, shorts, underwear... it was as if the very fabric was burning our skin, forcing us to get rid of them as fast as humanly possible.
There.Both of us naked. Once I kicked away my shorts and got over the shock of it, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Difficult not to. His erection proudly jutted out between us.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
“Is that agoodJesus or abadJesus?”
“You’re practically a work of art,” I said appreciatively.
His low chuckle sent a rush of pleasurable chills over my skin. “Well, then. High compliment, coming from you.” He slid anarm around me to pull me in closer, and I felt his heavy length pressing against my stomach.
So much warm skin... I faintly smelled remnants of the day, soil and mosquito spray, and, underneath it, just Seb. I was going to lose my mind.
He held me against him and looked down at me, a halo of wild, blond waves floating around his face. “It’s always been you,always,” he whispered. “Tell me you want this, too. Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I whispered desperately.
He groaned, then his mouth captured mine again, possessive and reckless. He kissed me like he was worried all of this could disappear without warning, like I might get washed away with the deluge of rain that poured against the cottage windows. He pressed me up against the archway separating the living room from the kitchen, hands exploring everywhere. The curve of my waist. My hips. My breasts.
When he slipped his hand to stroke between my legs, I gasped so loud, I startled him. But it felt too good to waste time being embarrassed. So I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him, hot and hard and velvety, and he groaned with pleasure. At least for a moment.
“Stop, stop,” he begged. “This is going to be over before it even starts.”
I released him reluctantly, a little drunk with power, but that was quickly eclipsed by the same desperation that I’d felt in his kiss. “Please. I’m dying.”
He slung an arm around my back and lifted me off the floor like I weighed nothing. My legs automatically curled around his hips, and for a moment, I didn’t know if this was how it was going to happen, up against the wall. Some feral part of me wanted that. But he grunted and carried me several steps away, into my bedroom, nearly running us into the chest of drawers when he struggled to turn on my bedroom lamp while I kissed his ear.
“Jesus,” he repeated several times.
He set me on the bed. I lay back as he kissed his way up my legs, pausing at my knees to look me dead in the eyes. Did he want my permission? He slipped a hand between my knees, and my legs fell apart to accommodate him. Then his tongue roved between my thighs, and my body arched against his mouth, desperately trying to get closer as every flick sent jolts of pleasure through me.
It was both overwhelming and not enough, and I wound my fingers in his hair and tugged him upward. “Need you. Now. Please.”
He crawled above me, every muscle flexing, and briefly sucked one of my nipples into his mouth as he headed northward, making me gasp. My legs wound around his hips, inviting. And when his lips found mine, tasting me, he pushed my hands over my head and held me in place as his weight came down on me.
One moment, I felt the pulsing heat of him urging against me, and the next, he pushed inside me.
We both sucked in sharp breaths and held them. He didn’t move again—not right away. And I was so thankful, because it was overwhelming. He was too big, or I was too small, or maybe I just wasn’t good at this and needed an instruction manual. Everything inside me seized, and I needed a moment, which he somehow intuitively understood. Both of us peered into the dark space between us to see where we were joined, as if we could hardly believe it.
“Goddamn,” he said reverently, pulling back to look at my face with slitted eyes.
