And he’d made that happen to her. He felt proud. He grinned against her thigh, rubbing his lips across her silky skin.
She pulled on him and he moved up her body, lying next to her on the bed. She turned, her eyes half lowered and a small, happy smile on her lips. She pushed his shirt up and he removed it, tossing it on the floor, holding his breath. She ran a hand over his hair and down his face. She brought her mouth to his and kissed him slowly and for several minutes there was nothing but her lips, her tongue, the blood pumping hotly through his body, the snap of the dying fire, and the lowering light of the cabin as the sun moved somewhere else in the sky. Her warm skin was pressed to his and Jak had never felt anything better. Never.
Without taking her mouth from his, she unbuttoned his jeans, and slid her hand inside, gripping him, rubbing him. He groaned, his lips breaking from hers as he opened his eyes. She was watching him and for a minute, their gazes stared as her hand kept moving. It was almost too much, too much . . . closeness when he’d had none, too much pleasure when he’d only ever given it to himself. Too much, too much. He couldn’t believe this was real. He thought it must be a dream. Please don’t end. Please don’t end. He broke their gaze, squeezing his eyes shut as she kept stroking him, up, down until he jerked and shuddered, pleasure bursting over him like he was one of a thousand falling stars, streaking toward the earth below. But he wanted to fall, because when he opened his eyes, she was waiting.
His breath slowed, the world coming back together in small pieces, the crackle of fire, the light, the cold wetness of his pleasure, the feel of Harper’s hand moving up his stomach. He opened his eyes and she smiled at him, kissing him once, softly, quickly.
They’d mated . . . but they hadn’t. He knew they had not done the thing the animals did when they mounted and thrust. The way he’d thrust into his own hand when he thought about mating with a woman he wanted to call his own.
“What?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”
For a minute he wasn’t sure he could speak, so taken over by what they’d done, by the way they were still lying together, her mostly naked, her hand moving over the scars on his chest. “Do humans . . . mate in all kinds of different ways?”
She smiled, a sweet one, her hand moving to another scar, her finger going along it. “Yes, I suppose so. It’s not called mating for humans though. It’s called sex. Or making love. There are different terms too, but those are the best ones to start with, I think.” Then her smile turned to a frown, when her finger moved to the part of the scar on his ribs that the wild pig had made. He didn’t want her thinking about him fighting with wild pigs right then—or ever actually—and so he turned a little so her finger fell away from that scar. Her gaze met his and she said, “We didn’t make love though. That’s”—her eyes moved to the side and then back to his—“different. It’s when—”
“It’s when a male mounts a female and thrusts inside her.” He paused for a moment. He wondered if she wanted to do that, but wasn’t sure he should ask. He wanted to. He could feel his body hardening just thinking about it. That had never happened to him before—getting hard right after he felt the rush of pleasure that made his seed burst from his body.
“Yes, that’s right.” A blush moved up her neck, and it confused him after what they’d just done. I said things the wrong way, that’s why, he thought and felt a little bad, but that feeling wasn’t as strong as the happiness he felt at having her in his arms, of whispering to each other as her hands ran over his skin. “We didn’t make love, but we touched each other intimately, and that’s a very special thing. To me, it is anyway.” She looked down, so he couldn’t see her eyes and that blush that had moved up her neck, stayed in her cheeks now. He couldn’t understand why she was acting shy talking about it, when they’d just done it.