Cat's Lair(43)

He had no other way to tie her to him, but he had this. This he was good at. He might say and do the wrong thing, but he would tie her to him this way. He moved in her and the earth moved around him. He bent his head to her breast, suckling hard, using the edge of his teeth and feeling the hot wash of spiced honey bathing his cock as he plunged into her over and over.

She came again and then again, gasping for breath, her eyes shocked and dazed, which only spurred him on. He whipped his arm under her hips, lifting her more, pounding deep as fire streaked up from his legs, burst through his thighs and took his cock in a crowning storm. Her body clamped down, a vicious vise around him, locking there as he emptied himself into her, the friction bordering on pain. The scalding heat triggered a powerful quake in her, sweeping through her entire body, a long, hard orgasm that seemed as if it might never go away.

He took a breath, his hair damp, his body covered in sweat, but for once in his life, he was completely sated, limp and relaxed. He let himself cover her smaller body, resting on her soft curves, feeling her heart pounding every bit as hard as his own. He was heavy, too heavy for her, and he levered himself up, staying buried in her.

They were locked tight, their bodies connected and he wanted to stay there. He pushed at her heavy fall of hair. She didn’t look at him. She kept her face turned away and her eyes closed tight. He felt the little hitch in her breath. She was going to cry, and this wasn’t about pleasure or need, this was something altogether different. This was about shame.

“Don’t.” He ordered it. Meant it.

Her hands curled at his shoulders. She exerted pressure. He didn’t move. He decided on honesty.

“I’m trying to think of something to say that will help you understand what’s going on, baby, but all I can think about is how much I love being inside of you. You’re scorching hot and fucking tight, wrapped around me and I feel like I’m in paradise. I don’t want that to end. Tell me how it feels to you.”

Little aftershocks were still going off and he felt every one of them. Her muscles squeezed down with hot greed, still trying to milk him.

“This isn’t me.”

“It’s you, Cat. This is you. You don’t just like sex – you love it. You have more passion in your little finger than most people do in their entire bodies.”

“I’m naked on the kitchen floor.”

“That’s right, baby, and it was heaven. I want to do you in every fucking room I have. Outside. Inside. Hell, on the roof.”

“This isn’t me,” she denied, biting her lower lip.

He leaned down and licked along her lip to soothe the sting. The action set off another series of aftershocks and she gasped.

“This is you, Catarina. It was you wanting to please me when I told you to get on your knees. You didn’t have to, but you wanted to.”

He saw the truth on her face. She had wanted to. He leaned closer and brushed his mouth over hers. “I bet my taste is still in your mouth. You wanted all of it, didn’t you? You didn’t want to stop.”

A single sound slipped from her throat. Her lashes fluttered.

“It wasn’t about what you could get from me. You knelt in front of me and you were wet, dripping wet with your mouth around my cock. That was you. All you. There’s nothing wrong with being that person. In fact, you should be rejoicing. People go their entire lives without ever having what we just had.”

“I don’t want this to be me. I want to have love in my life. I want to be loved. I don’t want to be the kind of person who uses a man for sex and has him use me.”

He framed her face again and brushed a kiss across her lips. “Baby, here’s a little newsflash for you. There’s no way in hell a man could be with you and not fall in love.”

9

CATARINA sat in the very comfortable chair on the front porch of Eli’s ranch house. She was still warm from the bath he’d run for her and snug in another one of his very expensive flannel shirts. He took care of her. She had to admit that whether she wanted to or not.

Lying on the kitchen floor, totally naked, she’d felt humiliated that she’d jumped him again, and this time it was far, far worse than the last time because she really was addicted to the taste of him. And to his body. And to her absolute mortification, she liked rough sex. On the floor. In the kitchen.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes to try to ease the headache she couldn’t quite get rid of. Her skull felt far too tight, as if it no longer fit inside her skin. The worst was knowing Eli knew the truth about her. She had wanted to kneel at his feet. She liked his hands hard in her hair, guiding her mouth. She liked the low, almost soft voice that carried absolute command when he told her what he wanted.

She groaned softly trying to get the sounds of her own moans and pleas out of her head. In her wildest dreams she’d never imagined ending up bare naked on the kitchen floor, wild and out of control.

She knew if she’d been with Rafe naked on the floor, it would have ended very differently. Instead of holding her the way Eli had he would have left her lying there, uncaring that she was upset and confused. Uncaring that her body felt a little bruised and battered, although very sated.

Eli had taken the time to talk to her. He’d been honest, maybe even brutally so, but he did it in a way that made her feel she mattered and he just wanted her to understand and accept who she was. He obviously didn’t think something was wrong with her.

He had been gentle, carrying her through to the bathroom, running her a hot bath, telling her to clean up and he’d bring her another shirt. He had done the dishes and made fresh coffee by the time she was out. Then he carried her out to the porch and told her to take a little break, he’d be out soon. Rafe wouldn’t have done any of that.

There was no sound, but she knew the instant Eli stepped through the door onto the porch. “I brought a couple of beignets to go with coffee, Kitten,” he said, and bent to brush a kiss across her mouth. He put the coffee and small plate of dessert beside her on the little end table and then pulled up a chair behind her.

“What are you doing?” She glanced over her shoulder to see him sprawled in a chair, his legs splayed out and around her chair.