The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,30

said. “Please.”

She could not refuse him.

“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me how you wish me to touch you.”

He showed her, his hand gentle on her wrist. Her touch was hesitant at first, but he said, “Harder,” and she increased the pressure of her fingertips, enjoying the way her touch seemed to make him helpless and gasping.

Though they had often kissed and caressed each other that final, golden summer, she had never touched him thus before. The way his hips jerked and the hard length of flesh in her hands pulsed fascinated her, and she caressed him gently between her fingertips, learning the texture of him, the heat.

She explored him further, moving to his upper thighs, stroking gently along the space where his legs joined his body, brushing against the lower part of his belly. But the hoarse sounds of pleasure he made encouraged her, and when her hand finally closed again around his arousal, he drew a ragged breath and flushed darkly.

Then he settled over her, and the weight of him on top of her felt like a homecoming. He trailed kisses down her throat, to the sensitive peaks of her breasts, to her belly which made her smile because it tickled a little, and then lower still, gentle kisses and strokes and licks, and she said his name in a voice that was not her own.

His slipped between her legs, resting on his elbows. She made a sound; he murmured something against her stomach, gentling her, and then his dark head moved lower, and he pressed his lips to the skin of her inner thighs. Her limbs quivered, and her head moved on the pillow. Then he kissed the soft opening of her body.

The intense pleasure ripping through her made her arch her back and cry out. He continued to lick at the folds of her flesh until she went limp, and then he kissed his way back up her body.

She reached for him, wanting to hold him close, wanting the scrape of his rougher skin against her own. He breathed heavily as he pressed his face against her shoulder.

“Are you sure, Miranda?” he asked. She stroked his hair and it must have been her voice that said yes and yes and yes.

Then he lifted her hips between his large hands, he settled himself on his knees between her legs. She felt the hard length of him against her thighs, and though in the small part of her brain still functioning she thought she ought to be afraid, or hesitant, or nervous, she felt nothing but desire.

He held himself at the opening of her body for a moment. Then he leaned down and kissed her, a kiss she could sink into, a kiss she could drown in, and then slowly, his gaze never leaving hers, he thrust himself inside her.

She could not quite muffle a sound of pain. He cursed. His face was flushed, his eyes half closed as he held himself rigid above her. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead, and she reached up and brushed back a damp lock of his hair.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

He said her name and thrusted, his hips pounding heavily against hers. She held him close, stroked his back, whispered soothing, meaningless words to him. She was beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond even desire. All she wanted was for him to make her whole again, to fill the empty places in her heart that marked all the losses she had ever known.

After awhile, the pain receded, and when it had gone the desire returned, a hot, luscious thing suffusing her entire body. He moved more quickly now, his breath hissing out rapidly from between his clenched teeth.

Thrust for thrust, breath for breath, she matched him, until her head tossed on the pillow and she said his name on breathless pants. He bent his head and kissed her, and was still kissing her when she arched and cried out her release.

Above her, he made a hoarse sound deep in his throat and went very still, holding her so tightly she could not breathe. She cradled his head against her shoulder and stroked him gently, trying to tell him with her touch what she could not say aloud.

She loved him. She had never stopped loving him.

She held him close as his breathing finally slowed and the sweat dried on his back. They did not speak. After a while he rolled off of her and got to his feet, leaving