by Maisey Yates
It was strange to look at him like this. To fully appreciate the man he had become.
She remembered the young man, that twenty-year-old that had completely captured her teenage heart. She remembered all that had attracted her to him then. His unique sort of attractiveness that bordered on pretty, that had appealed to her in a way no other man ever had. And then there were his tattoos, which took him just to the edge of threatening.
That softness was all gone. What might have been called pretty at one point had hardened. The lines around his mouth, around his eyes, changing things. The added firmness to his jaw. The slightly more austere set of his mouth.
All of that worked to appeal to the woman she had become now. He had been perfect for her then, all she had wanted. All she could imagine. But she was different now.
So was he. Somehow he was just the right kind of different.
There was a deep sort of magic to that she didn’t want to question. One that made her feel off-kilter and terrified and exhilarated all at once.
“You’re doing it again,” he said, his voice husky.
“What?”
“Thinking. Way too damned much for a woman who should just be waiting for a kiss.”
“Then make my brain stop working.”
He flexed his hips forward, his hard cock brushing up against her hip as he brought his head down next to hers, brought his mouth a mere breath away from her own.
He just stood like that. Frozen. Not closing the distance, not making the move. Teasing her. Tormenting her. Without words. Without touch.
It was so wonderful and awful and she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to lift her hands and grab his face, force him to close that distance. But she also wanted to see what he would do. Wanted to surrender to this experience. To surrender to him.
Finally, lightly, ever so lightly, his tongue traced the seam of her lips.
She let her eyes drift closed, her entire body shivering as he took small, indolent tastes of her mouth, completely unhurried, seemingly unaffected by the heat that was currently threatening to consume her where she stood.
He was cool. Controlled.
She was melting.
Then he moved his hand, his thumb once again placed at the center of her lower lip, where he pressed down, parted her mouth and took advantage of the forced invitation.
He kissed her. All consuming. Drugging. So deep she felt like he was reaching places in her soul never before touched.
She couldn’t think. Not now. She could only feel.
The hot, dynamic man up against her front, the hard, immobile door at her back. Trapping her against this man that would surely consume her. Destroy her, leave her spent, drained of everything she had if she but gave him the chance.
Suddenly, somehow, that wasn’t so terrifying.
The idea that she could pour out all that she was into him, and leave herself some sort of empty vessel to be filled as she was now.
To rebuild herself, brick by brick.
To create a new Sabrina. A braver Sabrina. One that wasn’t so lost in what other people wanted. So torn apart by what they wanted her to do. By who they wanted her to be.
She wanted what she had said to him to be true. That she was living a life she wouldn’t change. Because if that was true, then perhaps she was enough. Then perhaps the decisions she had made so far were enough.
Perhaps they weren’t so bad, and perhaps she wasn’t either.
He kissed her until she was shaking, until her core had turned to molten lava sending a destructive, honeyed heat through her body that was as sweet as it was deadly, reducing her limbs to water where she stood.
Unbidden, her hips began to roll against his, seeking satisfaction for that deep, hollow need that was building there. And he responded by pressing all that delicious hardness against her. They were lost. Right then and there, against the door of her house, caught up in a good-night kiss that was really just a beginning.
She had told him that it was too cold out here for him to do any sort of taking, but now she questioned that. Because now, she felt nothing but heat. Nothing but desire. The cold had nothing much to do with what she wanted to happen next. Or what she thought should wait. She was lost totally and completely in her need for him. In her need for what might happen next.
For that oblivion. For that re-creation of Sabrina that she was so certain could come with a proper flick of his wrist. With the invasion of his body in hers.
The first time had been simply that. The first time. In her mind she had made it all about getting that first time finished. Finding a way to reclaim what he had stolen from her. Getting it out of the way so that it was no longer hanging over her head.
This time was something else. Something different.
It wasn’t about the novelty of sex, about finally losing something. This was about finding something. Oh, how she needed it. Desperately.
“Inside,” he growled.
She nodded, reaching into her purse with shaky fingers and pulling out her keys, unlocking the door and releasing it.
As soon as they were both inside, as soon as that door was closed behind them again, he pulled her back into his arms. She dropped her purse onto the floor, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging to him as he kissed her with a deep sort of passion that overtook everything. Overtook sense. Overtook reason.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, drew her tightly up against his body as he kissed her, as he took them down to the floor of her living room. Not caring that it was hard wood, and that it was biting into her shoulder blades, and was most certainly doing the same to his knees.
“Liam...”
“I can’t wait anymore,” he growled, his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth as he wrenched her shirt up over her head and then went to work on her bra.
“Condoms,” she mumbled, her own clumsy fingers tugging at the edge of his shirt before managing to get it up over his head.
“I have one.”
“You do?”
“I made sure to grab one the last time I used a gas station bathroom. And it hadn’t been sitting in my wallet for longer than a couple of hours. Safety first.”
She blinked. “Classy.”
“I didn’t want to be without the next time this happened between us. I didn’t want to stop.” He paused for a moment. “If that bothers you...”
“It was for me?”
“Hell yes it was for you. Do you think I want anyone else? I don’t. I can’t even remember anyone else.” He kissed her neck, kissed her collarbone. “I don’t want anyone else. I haven’t been able to be with anyone else since I saw you. Since I saw you again. You think that was going to get better once I had you?”
“I thought that was the idea behind...having me.”
“Hell no. The idea behind having you was to be able to have you as many times as I needed to.”
She trembled beneath his touch, as those large, callused hands moved to cover her breasts, thumbs skimming over her nipples before he let his fingers glide down her midsection, her waist, to the closure on her jeans.
He made quick work of those, and her underwear, leaving her totally bare to his voracious gaze.
Except for her socks.
“Cute little fuzzy socks,” he said, kissing his way down her inner thigh, pressing his mouth to that tender place on the inside of her knee, then down her calf, down her ankle. All the way to her gray sock that had jaunty, fleecy snowflakes on it.
She felt suddenly childish, and not near enough woman for a man who was quite so much as he was.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t compare yourself. Don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t do whatever the hell it is you’re doing. Just stop.”
She clamped her knees together as he looked up, and she felt
suddenly self-conscious about his view. He reached up and grabbed hold of her hand, drawing it down to his lips. Then he nipped one of her fingers. “Don’t,” he said, his tone full of warning.
She shivered, letting her knees fall open again as he moved his hands down to the edge of that sock.
Slowly, with all of his attention focused there on her foot, he drew it off. She shivered.
Then he moved his attention to her other leg, pressing a kiss to her knee, her calf, her ankle. And then focused his attention to the next sock.
She didn’t know why it was erotic. She had no clue at all. Except that perhaps it was just all that attention. All that focus. Given to the most mundane of tasks that she herself had performed approximately five thousand times.
The removal of socks, of all damn things.
And he was turning it into something new. Something earth-shattering. Something she would never do again without thinking of him.
Those rough fingertips skipped her ankle as he removed the final sock, and cast it down onto the floor, leaving her completely naked now.
Though, frankly, the socks had done nothing for her modesty anyway. But it was a more naked feeling to be without them.
Then he reached up, grabbing hold of her knees and spreading them, parting them slowly, deliberately.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “This was what I wanted to do back then. And this was what I wanted to do all night after our first time.”
He reached up, sliding the edge of his thumb along the crease in her most intimate flesh. She was wet, so wet for him, and with the way he was looking at her she couldn’t even be embarrassed. Dimly, she felt like maybe she should feel embarrassed.
Except no. She had purposed to be selfish. For her own pleasure. For her own needs. She was going to take it.
Not that he was going to leave her much of a choice.
He was like a man possessed, a man on a mission.
Being the focus of Liam Donnelly’s extremely intimate mission made her feel like the luckiest woman on earth.
He moved his other hand between her thighs, one thumb on each side of that sensitive bundle of nerves there, moving just around where she needed him most, teasing, tormenting, building that sensation of being hollow, aching for his possession.
She was ready to beg him. Oh, how she was willing to beg.
There was no such thing as pride. Not here. Not when it came to this.
But it didn’t make her feel weak. Instead, it made her feel strong. Because she knew that this man, this strong man, was willing to prostrate himself before her because of what her body did to him. Because as weak and needy as he made her feel, he also made her feel strong. Because his own need was written there, across that hardened, world-weary face.
She had been a virgin. He was her first experience of this kind of intimacy. But she wasn’t his.
And yet, somehow, she had captured him. Captured his attention.
It would be tempting to write off what she felt, the intensity of it, because of her inexperience. But if that was the case, then his must not count either.
And he was no virgin.
He had a wealth of knowledge and experience, had likely welcomed countless women into his bed, and still, he was desperate for this. Desperate for her. After going all this time without sex because of her.
It was singular. She knew that with confidence.
She felt powerful.
Even as she trembled.
She watched as he undid his jeans, took them off, retrieved his wallet with the condom a minute before rolling it onto his glorious length and returning to her body.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “Sorry.”
She didn’t know what he was apologizing for until he dipped his head and kissed her, curving his arm around her waist and lifting her butt off the ground as he positioned himself between her legs, that thick blunt head reaching the entrance to her body.
That he thrust into her. Deep, hard and without preamble.
She gasped as he filled her, arched herself against him, stunned by the still unfamiliar sensation of the invasion. Aroused by it too.
For some reason, tears sparkled in her eyes as he swore, as that large hand squeezed her ass and brought himself down more deeply inside of her.
She had a hard time understanding how something so raw, so animalistic and...dirty in some ways...was also beautiful. Transformative.
But it was. It was somehow everything. Just like the man himself.
He shuddered, lowering his head, pressing it against her neck. And then, he began to move inside of her, his body a symphony of movement and muscle that played over her like a classical piece. Winding itself around her, creating a need that it soothed just as quickly.
She was filled by him. Transported. Both wholly connected with her body and somehow separated, lifted above it as well.
She rolled her hips against him, taking him deeper, not afraid, not nervous like she had been the first time. If it hurt, she was all right with that. If the floor was a bit uncomfortable, a bit too hard, then she welcomed it.
How else would she withstand the pure joy, the intensity of the pleasure, without a bit of pain to balance it all out?
Because surely she didn’t deserve something so incredible. Something so powerful. Something with the ability to shift the very foundation of her being. Emptying her out and filling her again.
But then, she was past the point of worrying whether or not she deserved it. This wasn’t about what she deserved. Wasn’t about what he deserved.
It was just about the simple fact that on some level she felt as though her body had been created for this. Created for him. And his for her.
Then somehow, the moment she had seen him there at Grassroots Winery when she had been a seventeen-year-old girl she had known he was the answer to those empty places inside of her. That he was the fulfillment of it. Of that quickening heartbeat, of all those tender promises that had begun to bloom inside of her untried body.
Yes. She felt that with certainty the transcendent logic. That transcended everything.
This was right.
It was him. And it was her. Them together. As it had always been meant to be.
That certainty burst through her like light through the trees as her orgasm flooded her with warmth, with beautiful, transformative, awe-inspiring pleasure. Wave after wave of perfection that made her cling to him, cry out his name, made her feel like she was flying into a million pieces, held together only by the powerful strength of his arms.
He shuddered against her, that big body coming apart, his muscles trembling, shaking. She feared he might shatter too, and if that happened, there would be nothing holding them together. Nothing at all.
After that, they simply lay there. On the floor that was much too hard, breathing in gasping, broken sobs.
Then he gathered her to his chest, pulling her against him as he picked them both up, carrying her into her bedroom.
He laid her across that pink comforter that had embarrassed her the first time. Had made her feel like she was announcing her inexperience.
She didn’t mind now. Didn’t mind at all that it represented her resolute solitude since he had left.
Didn’t mind that it telegraphed clearly that he was the first man ever to share the bed with her.
Because she was happy about it.
She wanted it to be him. Only him.
Maybe her brain was in an orgasm fog. Maybe she was a little bit muddled. She honestly didn’t care.
Right now, she had been stripped down to her essence. Nothing but feelings. Tomorrow, she knew the dread would creep back in. The hard lessons learned. The things that made it difficult for her to be this vulnerable with another person. But for now, i
t was eradicated by her pleasure.
By the intimacy of his skin against hers, of laying in her bed naked with a man, pressing her entire body, forehead to forehead, chest to chest, their bare legs entwined with each other’s.
Yes, right now she was lost in that.
Tomorrow she would be found, she was sure of it.
But she wasn’t looking to make it happen any faster than it had to. Not in the least. Not at all.
She had fantasized about this. Falling asleep with him. Probably, she had fantasized about that more than she had fantasized about sex back when she had been seventeen. Mostly because she had been a little bit fuzzy on all the details about sex.
She was not fuzzy on those details anymore. But this was the first time they had fallen asleep together.
She let that warm her heart as her eyelids began to get heavy, and as she drifted off.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LIAM AWOKE WITH a start. It took quite a few moments for him to work out where the hell he was, and why he was lying on a pink bedspread.
Then, it hit him with the force of a freight train.
Sabrina.
He had gone back to Sabrina’s house last night. They’d had sex on her living room floor. And then he had carried her into her bedroom where she had fallen asleep. He had woken her up at some point, and they had made love again before falling back to sleep.
He had never slept at a woman’s house before. He had never spent the night with one.
He wasn’t a man who had relationships. Wasn’t a man who had ever wanted to get involved in any kind of entanglement.
It was too messy. And since he didn’t want forever, not even a short-term relationship, he had never seen the point.
But he and Sabrina had reached an agreement last night, about doing this until the tasting room was finished, and so he figured somehow, this was all right.
Except Sabrina was not in bed. Which meant he was just sitting there sleeping underneath a pink blanket for no reason.
He sat upright, not bothering to get dressed as he walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.
Sabrina was standing there, her back to him, nothing but a T-shirt covering her curves, barely concealing her ass. Yeah, waking up to a woman wasn’t so bad. Particularly when it was her.
