Finally, just as he was certain she must have changed her mind, he saw the lights of the jeep topping the rise a quarter of a mile away. And she was there. Everything inside him responded to that sight. His chest tightened with emotion, and his erect c**k throbbed in thankfulness. The damned thing hadn’t relaxed since she had walked out the door more than a week before.
He held his position on the porch, his arms crossed over his chest as the jeep pulled into the driveway and turned around the circular drive. The engine had no sooner been turned off then the door was opening and there she was.
Her long, red-gold hair flowed around her, unbound, as wild as the passion that burned within her. She was dressed simply in clothing that he figured would take no more than six seconds to tear from her body. A light cream-colored sundress and leather sandals. Four seconds max, he revised.
She moved slowly to him, stepping up on the porch, her eyes dark with emotion.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I can’t wait, Jared. No matter what. No matter how long you want me, I can’t wait.”
He drew in a hard, determined breath as he glanced away from her. He couldn’t say what he had to say while staring into those beautiful eyes.
“I can ease the desire for you without this sacrifice…”
“No.” Tears thickened her voice as pain resonated in it. “We tried that, Jared; it only made it worse. Don’t you understand? It’s not the need for release. It’s not the arousal. It’s you. Just you. I need all of you, not just a little bit… I need all of you. You love me, Jared. I know you do. You have to.”
He turned back to her, the emotional storm riding within him as unfamiliar as the tears filling her eyes now.
“Love you?” he questioned her roughly. “No, Kimberly. This isn’t love. This is a part of my soul that rips out every time I have to let you go. But by God, I won’t let you give up everything you’ve fought for like this. It’s only five years.”
She shook her head slowly, a single tear falling from her eye, breaking his heart.
“Five years that I can be warm beside you. Five years that I can laugh with you, that I can love you. Five years versus something that was my mother’s dream, but never mine. I want you, not the curse that estate has become.”
He should have argued further, he thought. He should have made her see exactly what she was giving up, but he couldn’t fight past his need to hold her, to kiss her. His need to shelter her and hear the screams he had every intention of f**king out of her.
He reached out, his body clamoring to take and take until he was so sated he collapsed in exhaustion. But nothing could still the need to give until he saw her eyes fill with happiness, with satisfaction.
His fingers touched her cheek gently.
“Be certain,” he whispered. “Because I’ll never let you go, Kimberly. It would kill a piece of my soul to ever have to let you go again.”
Her hand covered his, pressing it to her lips as her lips caressed his palm with a butterfly touch.
“Do I have to tie you down and rape you, Jared?” she asked him with a tearful smile. “Or are you going to tie me down and love me?”
“No restraints,” he vowed as his arms went around her and he swept her against his chest. “Just me and you, Kimber. Me and you and the fires that are going to explode around us.”
Kimberly gasped at the heat and warmth of Jared’s body as he carried her into the house and up the stairs to his room. He didn’t exactly walk; his movements were too quick, too filled with purpose for such a sedate pace. But neither did he rush.
Her lips moved to his neck as he stared up the staircase. Her teeth nipped at his flesh, her tongue soothing the ache as a broken growl left his lips. She wanted to give him the pleasure he had always given her. She wanted to consume him, wanted to melt so deep into his body that she never had to worry about being apart from him again.
Finally, he was pushing his way into his bedroom and laying her on the bed as he stared down at her, his gray eyes turbulent with the swirling shades of gray that colored his eyes.
She propped herself up on her elbows, watching as he undressed. He tore his clothes from his body, dropping them carelessly onto the floor until every hard, muscular inch was revealed to her avid gaze.
“Are you attached to that dress?” he growled then.
She glanced down at the dress in surprise. “It’s just a dress.”
“Good.” He reach for her, his hands hooking in the neckline, and before her amazed eyes, he tore the fabric from her body.
Laughter welled inside her and would have escaped her throat if he hadn’t covered her lips with his own, coming over her as he pressed her back to the bed, his legs pushing demandingly between her thighs.
“I don’t know how long I can wait,” he whispered between the kiss. “I’m dying for you, Kimber. So damned starved for you that I feel as clumsy as a callow youth.”
“Never clumsy,” she panted as his hands framed her br**sts a second before his lips moved to her hard, aching ni**les.
Pinpoints of rapturous sensation began to tingle over her body as his mouth covered one distended tip. His mouth drew on her with a hunger she couldn’t have imagined. She thought she had known him at his most passionate, his most aroused, but she had been wrong. This was Jared, raw, unconcerned with control, but no less intent or powerful for it.