tracing the indentation her teeth had left in his swollen lower lip. Raindrops in the mouth of a man dying of thirst.
His fingers dove into the wet tangle of her hair to cup her head against retreat. He held her to the force of his passion the way others held torture victims to a flame. He would extract everything he wanted, and more, from her.
What she wanted, she would have to fight him for.
Nick yanked her hair downward, forcing her mouth open to him. He searched the velvet darkness for the words she spat at him in that husky, honeyed voice, but found only a whimper of pleasure. One hand released its hold in her hair to dip downward past her waist to palm the curve of her ass.
Fingers flexed, he ground her hips against him, and brought her to judgment before the hot, hard length she had wrought.
Her low, guttural groan of appreciation sent a sympathetic shiver through the muscles of his back.
She wound her slim arms around his neck and rocked her pelvis against his with a violence that nearly unmanned him. His hands were on her apron then, each grabbing a side and rending the fabric in twain with one brief rip of protest.
He felt her grin against his lips as he shoved his hand beneath the wet fabric of her tank top and found her naked breast. The flesh was moist and cold to the touch, her nipple as cool and hard as a pearl. He rolled the aching bud until it was heated with blood and then caught it between his thumb and forefinger.
He drank her gasp, filling his lungs with her exhaled pleasure. Their breath came in abbreviated pants, unable as they were to inhale with mouths fused in an angry, devouring embrace.
Delicate fingers trailed down his chest and pulled the wadded fabric of his shirt free of his pants. He jumped at the contact of her hand on his bare skin, pulling away from the intensity of the sensation her fingertips created as they played over each taut abdominal muscle.
One quick, silky flick and her cold fingers slid against his hot, pulsing flesh. Breath caught in his throat when her palm grazed the head of his cock.
Power leeched into the rain-slicked fingers wrapping around him, gliding all the way to his root, tightening as they pulled upward with infuriating leisure.
The building roar burst from him, and he broke their kiss to stare into eyes as feral as blue flame. Her eyelids were heavy, half-open and dazed.
Savage pleasure rampaged through him at the sight of her kiss-swollen mouth, more satisfying than blood on a battlefield. She had been branded by him, rubbed raw and pink by the stubble of his jaw. Marked by his teeth, his lips. Lust pounded a primal drumbeat through his veins as he imagined scraping similar patches on her stomach, her breasts, the insides of her thighs. A victory sweeter than any he had ever known.
And he had known many.
He stripped her hand away from him and grabbed her beneath both slippery thighs, hooking her knees over his hips. Her ass came to rest on the guardrail, the ocean below her surging as if in response to her proximity. The panties tore far more easily than the apron had. The red scrap darkened to crimson before the waves swallowed it entirely.
His fingers skimmed up her thigh until they found the dark curls beneath her skirt.
He claimed her mouth and her sex simultaneously. Both hot. Both wet. Both wanting for his cock. He wanted to bury himself in her until kingdom come. Fill every space. Own every want. Coax every sigh. Wring from her every scream of pleasure.
Parting the folds of her flesh, he drew the ample moisture upward with long, luxurious strokes, grazing the tight bud with his thumb much the same way he had her nipple. His tongue mirrored the fluid flicks, plundering her mouth with no less abandon.
Protracted moans shortened into mewls of pleasure. Her hips bucked against his hand. Her eyes squeezed tight as if against waking from a dream. Her pulse quickened beneath his fingertips. He could taste the building orgasm mingling with rainwater on her lips.
Shock descended upon him for the second time in his life when she grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away, pushing him back by the shoulders at the same time. A wicked smile creased her face as she slowly, deliberately reached for his belt and unfastened it, followed by