Slowly, he kissed his way down her legs, from the incredibly soft skin of her inner thighs to the sensitive spots behind her knees, then over her toned calf muscles, until he was pressing soft kisses to the arches of both feet. With his hands, he massaged her muscles, making her moan from the pleasure of his touch. He could have spent all night working his way back up her body with his hands and mouth, finding all of the spots he’d missed on the way down, but when she took his hands in hers, he let her pull him back up over her.
Her kisses made him dizzy enough that she easily rolled them over so that he was on his back and she was gorgeously naked over him. Silently, and with intense focus, she began to work open the rest of the buttons on his shirt. When she had the fabric completely open, instead of moving it off his shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss over his heart.
Jack had never known a woman as beautiful, as intelligent, as gracious as Mary. And he’d never known lovemaking like this before, either. Because with every kiss, with every touch he and Mary gave each other, heart was as important as heat.
That kiss over his breastbone was the first in a sweet path of damp heat she made across his chest, neck and jaw, until she’d made it high enough to cup his face in her hands. When she rocked into him and they moaned into each other’s mouths, he was too greedy for another one of her beautiful climaxes to even think about taking things further.
“Again,” he urged, following his words with caresses that had her eyes closing as she levered up over him again to rock closer, faster, harder against him. And as her breath hitched and her hands gripped at his forearms, she was so heartbreakingly beautiful that he knew she really was an angel.
His angel.
Jack could have listened to the sweet sounds of her releases all night long and might have done just that had she not reached for his belt buckle. The light brush of her fingertips over his abdomen was almost too much to handle by that point, and he had to tense every muscle in his body to keep from losing control as she finally pulled the leather open and slid down the zipper.
She didn’t tease him as she stripped the rest of his clothes and his shoes and socks away, but when her elegant hand came around him a beat later, a hard hiss of air whistled out from between his clenched teeth.
Jack wanted their lovemaking to be as much an equal adventure as everything else they did together, but he was too close to the edge to let her keep touching him like that tonight. In one quick move, she was back beneath him, her hands in his on either side of her head as he kissed her.
For a week, Mary had clearly believed she needed to fight what was meant to be, and Jack had worked to hold on to his rapidly disintegrating patience until she felt that she could give herself to him without reservations. But now the time for waiting was long past. And yet, even as she whispered to him that she was protected and she lifted her hips to welcome him into her, in the moment that he moved between her legs, Jack wanted to stop everything so that he could tell her how much she’d already come to mean to him.
But for tonight Jack knew he’d have to use his body to tell her everything he felt in his heart, instead.
The pleasure built with every stroke, with every thrust, with every kiss. Damp skin against damp skin, heated breath over aroused flesh, they were perfect partners in passion.
And as they moved together, with desire driving them higher and higher, Jack knew that every breath, every dream, every prayer had led him here, to the warmth of Mary’s arms around him.
* * *
The velvet coverlet and sheets lay tangled around their bodies as they held tightly to each other, still breathing hard, Mary’s head cradled in the crook of Jack’s arm. Outside her bedroom window the rest of the city was sleeping. Warm and safe in her bed with the most wonderful man she’d ever known, sleep should have finally come to claim Mary, too. But so much had happened tonight, much more than just lovemaking that had left her breathless. It would be a long time before she could settle down enough to get some badly needed rest.
Tonight she’d trusted Jack with her body, but though that might have been enough for another man, she knew Jack wanted much, much more.
He wanted her to trust him with her heart, too.
Not just for one night but forever.
For a few hours, she’d been able to drop her guard and allow desire to take the place of decisions. Jack’s touch, his kisses, had brought her fully to life in a way that no other man’s had before him.
Come morning, she’d have to decide if she could let what was between them continue to grow…and risk letting herself fall in love with him.
She’d known from their very first kiss that making love with Jack would be wonderful. But nothing could have prepared her for the extraordinary sensations of his mouth moving across her skin, the sensuality of his hands caressing her…or the perfection of coming together with him until she lost hold of where she ended and he began.
Nothing could have prepared her for the wonder of feeling as though he was her very first, her only.
And nothing could possibly have prepared her for the way the heart she’d been so careful with had opened wide with reckless abandon.
Fortunately, looking at their entwined fingers resting over his chest helped to calm her racing heart. As if he could read her mind, he lifted their hands to his lips and softly, slowly, kissed each of her fingers.
Raising her gaze to meet his, she was hit with yet another shock: Jack wasn’t hiding a single emotion from her. And—oh God—what she saw in his eyes echoed what she felt in the deep, secret part of her heart she thought she had locked down, sure it was the only way to prevent ever being hurt again.
Through the haze of her post-pleasure brain, Mary couldn’t lie to herself: From that very first moment he’d spoken to her, from the very first press of his lips against hers under the mistletoe, had she ever had a choice about falling for Jack Sullivan?
Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, Mary tried to move from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I promised you I’d be patient,” he reminded her softly. “I’m not going to break my promise.”
Didn’t he see that just because he hadn’t said the word love aloud, it didn’t mean his body, his expression, his heart beating steadily and hard against hers, weren’t saying it to her even now?
Mary had been on her own for all of her adult life and had carved out a successful career in a supremely difficult field. Yet, as Jack held her on her bed, she finally had to face her own weaknesses…and accept just how far and deep her fears ran. Fears that had plagued her since the day she’d walked away from everything she’d known as a teenager.