Big Sky Mountain - By Linda Lael Miller Page 0,102
they’d attained a rhythm, he increased the pace, then slowed it, now driving into her, now withdrawing almost completely.
His control amazed her, given that she’d lost hers with the first kiss.
Soon, Kendra was flailing in the grasp of an undulating, rippling climax so intense that she thought she might actually die before it ended.
Hutch murmured to her and she saw the muscles tighten along his neck and upper arms as he plunged through the final barrier and let go, giving a low, ragged shout as he spilled himself into her.
Afterward, they lay side by side in the soft grass, still breathing hard, and a soft breeze rippled over them, like a blessing.
The sky and the tree tops, out of focus before, slowly regained their color and shape, but they blurred a little, too, because Kendra’s eyes were full of tears she couldn’t have explained.
Hutch raised himself on one elbow, looked down at her face, brushed the moisture from one of her cheeks with the side of his thumb. But he didn’t ask why she was crying and Kendra was glad, because she couldn’t have explained that the things she was feeling were so big, so ferocious and so wonderful that she wasn’t sure she could bear them.
He kissed her softly, briefly, this time offering solace, not passion.
They were silent for a long time, recovering, drawing themselves back together like the scattered pieces of a pair of jigsaw puzzles.
Kendra was the first to speak. “You brought a condom,” she observed with a little smile.
“Just the one,” Hutch replied. “Damn it.”
She laughed richly, freely, openly. For the first time in a long while, she felt whole.
Her joy was bittersweet, though, because she knew it couldn’t last.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KENDRA’S WELL AND thoroughly loved body thrummed with residual ecstasy as she slowly, carefully put her clothes back on, determined to come away looking as though she’d never taken them off in the first place. Hutch, wearing his jeans again and shrugging into the shirt he’d discarded earlier, grinned at her.
Things like this, she thought, were so much easier for a man.
All men had to do was tuck in their shirt and zip up their jeans and they were good to go, with nobody the wiser. She, on the other hand, probably had grass in her hair, and her French braid was coming undone. And even if she got her clothes and hair right, her eyes surely glowed and her cheeks were flushed, too—both sure signs that she’d just had the best sex of her life.
Fortunately, Madison wouldn’t pick up on the signals. But Opal might.
Hutch walked over to her, undid the braid completely, and ran splayed fingers through her hair, letting it spill down over her shoulders.
“That’s better,” he said, quietly grave. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
Kendra raised her hands, meaning to gather her hair back and replait it, having momentarily forgotten that the rubber band she’d used to secure it was lost somewhere in the grass, but Hutch stilled her, his thumbs moving in small circular caresses against her palms.
“I left the house with a braid,” she told him as her normal state of quiet agitation overtook her again, “and I’m going back with one.”
Hutch chuckled. The way he was touching her made her regret that he’d brought only one condom. With him, once had never been enough; in the old days, they’d often made love for hours at a time, falling asleep in each other’s arms and waking up to make love again. And he’d already made her want him again just by touching her and standing so close.
His body was hard and hot and unequivocally male, and she could still feel the weight of it, the power and the thrust, and her own sweet victory found in complete surrender.
“Kendra,” he said. His tone was raspy.
“What?” she all but snapped, flustered.
“Your hair looks fine the way it is. In fact, it looks more than fine.”
She was looking around for the lost rubber band by then, but in vain. “Opal will guess—”
Hutch rested his hands on either side of her face, so she couldn’t turn her head away. “Opal has already guessed,” he said, amused. “Why do you think she offered to look after Madison so we could leave the house?”
Kendra ached with embarrassment. Of course he was right—Opal was no fool and the ploy had been a pretty obvious one, too—but on the inside, she was still soaring. Besides, for all her jitters, that reckless part of her remained very much in charge. “Awkward,”