I freeze at his words, and he nods. “Let me take my time.” Gazing up at me from his knees through those thick, dark lashes, he looks less like a lover and more like a man at worship. “Let me love you, Mia.”
At the sound of my name on his lips, I shudder. The muscles between my legs tighten in a pleasure and ache so intense, I sway toward him without meaning to. He gives each leg the same torturous treatment he gave my breasts—a skimming of his lips. A tease. He’s sampling me like wine, and I want him to swallow me whole.
With nothing more than the slight pressure of his fingertips, he leads me to turn so my back is to him. I feel him at the backs of my thighs, the wet heat of his breath followed by lips so soft my knees buckle and he has to tighten his grip on my hip to help me steady myself. Then slowly, so slowly I want to beg, his lips follow the path halfway up the back of one thigh and then the other. He’s not kissing me, but his lips move against my skin, and gentle puffs of air lead his mouth one aching centimeter at a time, as if he’s whispering his way to the top of my thighs.
Only when he reaches the lace of my underwear does he finally use that hand at my hip to draw my panties down. They drop to the floor, and I step out of them, but before I can turn, his hand returns to my hip, his grip more aggressive than before. This time his mouth is open—hot, wet, and firm at the top of my thigh. He sucks, and I cry out. In pleasure. In pain. In desperation. He releases, then sucks again harder—marking me and ruining me in ways that go far deeper than this skin.
When he pulls back, my skin feels cold where his mouth was. He turns me slowly and rises to stand in front of me, releasing my hip and holding his good hand up for my inspection. His fingers tremble like every inch of me, inside and out.
“Do you see what you do to me, Mia?” he asks, and a surge of power rushes through me. “Do you understand why I can’t walk away from you, even when I should?” His eyes are heavy with lust, his words laced with something else entirely—that desperation I’ve gotten used to seeing. That fear of hope.
Instead of letting my heart crumble for him, I focus on his shaking hand and bring it to my mouth. I press a kiss against his open palm. “I don’t want you to.”
His hand finds my jaw again, then his fingers thread into my hair. He tilts my head to the side, studying my face.
I suck on his bottom lip and push his boxer briefs down over his thighs. His hips buck toward me, and I’m filled with such a rush of power, practically dizzy with it. I find him between our bodies and wrap my hand around his length. He gasps against my mouth. It takes my breath away to be this close. To touch him like this.
He cups my breasts, squeezes, teases one nipple, then the other, until I’m making sounds I don’t recognize—moans, whimpers, pleas for more. He lowers his head and draws me into his mouth sweetly, sucking softly. I tunnel my fingers through his hair and let my head fall back as the heat takes over my body like liquid that starts at my fingers and toes and fills inch by inch inward. I’m nothing but heat, and the need to be more, to feel more, pulls low in my belly and presses against the muscles between my legs.
He guides me to lie back on the bed and follows me, resting on his elbows and framing my face with his hands. When he settles between my legs, I gasp and swallow hard. We’ve been here before. Done this before. And yet this is all new. We’re both bare tonight, our excuses left behind in the back seat of his Mustang. Our defenses have been left at the gravesite where we watched Brogan lowered into the earth.
He shifts his hips, stroking against my entrance. His neck strains and his jaw tightens. “You’re sure?” I lift my hips in answer and he pulls away. “I’ll be right back.”
He leaves the room and returns with a condom. He stands