moaned low in her throat. Already he could feel the waves of ecstasy swelling inside her as she writhed beneath him.
There was no holding back, no gentleness in the way he took her. Her body responded to his with a wildness that stirred his blood to the point that he forgot everything but the flesh around his flesh and the body clinging to his. He wanted to be inside her... inside her forever, to absorb her into himself and to be absorbed into her at the same time.
She cried his name as a shattering release trembled through her. The uncontrollable pulsing flowed into his body until her tremors became his, the pressure building toward an explosion that tore an animal growl from his throat as he spilled himself inside her.
A precarious silence filled the room, like the lull in a violent storm. Spent and exhausted, he lay on top of her, still inside her, not wanting to pull away and feel the consuming desolation of loneliness. As his labored breathing slowly quieted, his pulse calming to a degree, he felt her jerk sporadically beneath him, and he knew she was crying.
Fear and guilt sliced through him like a knife. Quickly he withdrew from her, rolling onto his back and taking her with him. He cradled her against him as if she were a child, smoothing the damp hair from her face, near to tears himself, tears of self-loathing.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry."
She sniffed loudly, taking a quivering breath. "You didn't hurt me."
He kissed her cheek, her mouth, her tears salty on his lips. "Don't cry, Caroline. I'm sorry."
"Jason," she said, her voice shaky, lifting her head to look into his eyes, "you didn't hurt me."
The sincerity in her voice did nothing to allay his fears. He touched her cheek with his thumb, wiping away the tears that clung there. "The baby...."
"The baby is fine," she assured him with a tremulous smile.
She kissed him lightly on the lips, and he wrapped a hand around her head in an automatic gesture, instinctively eager to deepen the kiss, damning himself for wanting her again. She pulled away and he released her.
"Then why are you crying?" he asked.
She settled beside him, her fingers burrowing in the hairs on his chest, her breasts soft and full against his side. The pressure began to build between his legs again as his breath grew thick.
"Why?" he asked, fighting the desire awakened by her feminine form pressed so intimately against him.
"I don't know," she said with a sigh that he could only interpret as contentment. "It was so... perfect, so devastating. Besides, I'm always on the verge of tears these days. I can't explain."
Her hand on his chest became more demanding, massaging him in a way that stirred him to renewed hunger. Grabbing her hand, he brought it to his lips, kissing it softly. "Caroline, don't "
His voice fled him as she moved her leg over his, pressing her womanly curves against him. She wanted him again, and he wanted nothing more than to oblige her, but the fear congealed inside him, now that he could think clearly again. "I might hurt you, Caroline."
"You won't hurt me, Jason. It's all right," she assured him, kissing the hollow at the base of his throat, rubbing her hand over his sensitized nipple.
"The baby," he said thickly, running a hand caressingly down her back, over her hip, between her legs.
Caroline gasped at the fire that blazed through her body at his touch. She'd never wanted anything as badly as she wanted Jason right now, and she knew that he wanted her as well, even before he rolled her onto her back and pinned her to the bed.
"You make me crazy," he murmured, his voice and his face hard with passion, his hands all over her, eliciting the sweetest responses from her willing body.
This time he held back, controlling himself with an iron restraint until she'd reached fulfillment, before finding his own release.
Caroline fell asleep with a smile of contentment on her lips, knowing they had crossed an important threshold. A closeness, an intimacy that went beyond the physical, had fused them together. Tomorrow they would start anew. Tomorrow he would tell her he loved her, and they would begin to build the kind of home their child needed and deserved. Tomorrow....
But in the morning when she awoke, he was gone and the room echoed with an empty longing that reduced her to tears once