Since he showed no signs of stopping her, she took her time feasting on his gorgeous body. She licked her way across his collarbone, sucked at his neck hard enough to leave a mark, nibbled the sensitive spot beneath his ear.
His chest heaved with ragged breaths. It stunned her to realize that she was having such an effect on him. She pulled back a fraction and met his gaze. He looked like a warrior, like the man he might have been two centuries earlier. His cheekbones were sharp slashes of color, and the thrust of his clenched jaw gave testament to the immense restraint he was exercising.
Heat flooded the secret places between her thighs as she realized that when the dam broke, the resultant flood would devour everything in its path.
She kissed him softly, learning the flavor and contour of his lips, his mouth. His hands went back to her breasts, and he kneaded them slowly, pausing now and again to tug at the nipples. When he did that, fire shot like a hot wire directly to her womb, making her squirm restlessly.
The ache in her sex urged her to press closer to the thick ridge of male flesh beneath the zipper of his jeans. He had to be hurting, but he let her set the pace, despite his flagrant arousal.
They kissed for hours it seemed. She was drunk with pleasure, hovering on the knife-edge of an unrealized orgasm. All it would take was one touch on her sensitive flesh, but Ethan had allowed her to remain mostly clothed.
He rested his forehead against hers, his hands on her back, his thumbs tracing the edges of her tank top. “Were you really kidding the other night when you suggested I make love to you?”
She played with his ears, making him move restlessly. “No. That was for real. But you were so shocked, I backed off.”
He chuckled roughly. “I was shocked. But I was also damn interested.”
His irises were so dark they appeared black. She ruffled his shiny, straight hair. “I’m glad.” There was more she wanted to say, but she still felt a need to protect herself. Loving Ethan had been a painful experience in the past. And like a child who has been burned on the stove, she was wary and fully cognizant of the danger to her heart.
He slid his hands beneath the back of her tank top and toyed with the clasp of her bra. His face was buried in the curve of her neck. “Will I seem unmanly if I tell you I’m a bit scared?”
The self-deprecating humor in his voice touched something deep inside her. Tenderness replaced lust for a moment, or at least cohabited with it. “Why?”
She felt him sigh, his big, solid frame vibrating with the depth of it. “After four long years, we’ve finally reconnected. I like having you back in my life. Tonight seemed familiar—good, really good.”
“But?”
“But I’m afraid that if we do this, things will change. And I don’t want to lose you again.”
Her heart sank. He wanted to have sex, but he wanted to maintain the status quo. Not quite what she was hoping for. “Change can be good,” she whispered, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
She understood his reservations. Heck, she could write a book on the subject. But unlike Ethan, she was no longer satisfied with the comfortable and familiar. She was willing to take the risk, willing to gamble a pleasant present for a fairy-tale future.
He took her face in his hands, his gaze sober. “You’ve always been special to me, Jane.”
She ignored the dart of pain. Sometimes it took men longer to say the words. “Don’t be afraid of me, Ethan. Of this. I promise you won’t be sorry.”
And then her hands went to his belt.
Ethan felt ice-cold and burning hot at the same time. His hands were clumsy, his throat tight. At no other time in his life had he felt such a violent need to get this right. Jane deserved to be cherished. He wanted to convince her in deeds, if not in words, that she meant the world to him. If he tried to wrap it up in pretty sentences, he’d come off looking like an idiot. But he could show her.
Carefully, monitoring every nuance of expression on her face, he flipped open the fastener on her bra and lifted the lacy fabric and her top over her head. The resulting view of Jane’s breasts hit him square in the chest with a jolt of lust that left him breathless.
She was a woman at the peak of her beauty, smooth, soft, ripe. Her nipples were a pretty pinkish brown, tightly furled at the moment, begging to be nibbled.
He did just that, his hands splayed on her back as he bent his head and sucked gently. Jane squirmed and groaned, increasing his discomfort. His jeans felt two sizes too small, his dick crammed painfully against his boxers and an unforgiving metal zipper.
But he shoved his own physical aches away and concentrating on giving pleasure to Jane. It was no hardship. She responded to his touches and caresses with natural sensuality. He paused again to return to her lips. And every time he did, she kissed him eagerly, sending his arousal one notch higher.
Finally, he pulled her tight to his chest, feeling her breasts crush against his torso. It was almost enough to soothe the beast within him. But when she wriggled her crotch against his aching cock, he was a goner.
Next he attacked her belt. He had it unfastened and out of the belt loops in seconds. When he moved to the button on her jeans, she tried to help him.
But in their current position, he couldn’t undress her the way he’d like to. He kissed her nose, her chin, her lush, sweet mouth. “I want you in my bed, sweetheart. Any objections?”
She smiled at him, her eyes cloudy with arousal, the color of a stormy lake. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He stood up, with her still in his embrace, his hands slipping under her butt to steady her.
“Ethan. Your back.”
He panted, urging her legs to tighten around his waist. “Screw my back.”
He carried her down the hall as fast as he could. The grip he’d kept on his control was fraying at the seams. He wanted her naked and beneath him.
He lowered them both to the bed, not bothering to toss back the covers. The light from the hallway was illumination enough. He fumbled at the opening to her jeans, while she did the same to his.
Their hands stilled at once, and he heard her giggle. She shoved his hands away. “Time management, Ethan.” Then before he could protest, she rolled away, got on her knees, and ripped her pants down her hips. Her socks and shoes were next.
He dragged his own jeans off, taking a few seconds longer than Jane had, simply because he was struck dumb by the sight of her wearing nothing but tiny lavender panties. His throat dried even more, and he knew he was a goner.
He took his boxers off, as well, in the interest of efficiency. When Jane’s big blue eyes widened as she surveyed his dick, he decided the decision was the correct one. He was painfully hard. The last time he’d had sex was several months ago. It might as well have been years. That was how eager he felt, how desperate.
He took her hand and tumbled her off balance onto her back. Then he straddled her hips on his knees and looked down at her. Her skin was soft and pink and warm, her waist narrow, her legs the stuff of fantasy.
At the moment, her thighs were demurely pressed together, but he’d caught a glimpse of her lovely rosy sex in the transition.
She bit her lips, still eyeing his bobbing erection. “Do you have a license to carry that thing?” she asked wryly.
He barked out a laugh. No other woman he’d ever known could make him feel sexually ravenous and amused at the same time.
He stroked the head of his erection, spreading the drop of fluid over his taut, supersensitive skin. Her gaze locked on every motion of his hand. And the more she watched, the more his penis swelled. He got off on seeing that wide-eyed fascination. Some weird rush of caveman-inspired testosterone made him want to impress her. Jane. The woman who’d always been in his court. Except for that one time he made a fool of himself.
He shoved the unwelcome memories away. The past was past. Tonight was all they had, all he wanted. He scooted off her and moved toward her feet. He leaned back on his heels and ran his hands from her knees
down to her ankles. Gently, ever so slowly, he tugged her legs apart.
Her thigh muscles tightened instinctively, but she relaxed after a split second. Hot color rushed from her throat and flooded her face. Her long-lashed eyes were glazed with hunger, but he also saw uncertainty in the way her teeth mutilated her bottom lip.
When he eased her ankles even farther apart, her chest rose and fell in a choked exhalation of breath. She was exquisite. His hands trembled as he ran them upward along the sleek curves of her inner thighs.
When he touched her clitoris with a teasing fingertip, she groaned and twisted restlessly on the sheets, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. He ran his finger down the moist cleft at her core, not easing inside, though he wanted to . . . badly.
Keeping the pace leisurely was a mammoth challenge. But he didn’t want to rush. Not with this. Not with Jane. She was too precious to him.
He moved to his belly, sprawling full length and kissing his way from one of her narrow, classy ankles up to her glistening sex. The scent of her made him dizzy. He was torn in a million different directions, wanting it all. It was a gluttonous feast for a starving man.
He tasted her with a light flick of his tongue, and she went wild. His hands clamped down on her upper thighs, holding her immobile so he could pleasure her.
The intimate flesh was hot, slick with her arousal. He licked her slowly, keeping her poised on the brink, deliberately not allowing her to come. He was determined to give her as much as she could handle. Maybe more.
Her voice was shaky, weak. “Please. God, Ethan, I can’t take any more.”
“Oh, I think you can,” he muttered. He bit down gently on her clitoris and then suckled her as her climax roared through her to the accompaniment of her keening moan. He thrust his tongue in her vagina, feeling her release, sweet as honey, on his lips.
She had barely come down to earth when he rolled on a condom, positioned himself between her thighs, and centered the head of his aching cock at the entrance to bliss. “Look at me, Jane.” He growled the words.
She focused on his face, licking her lips. The sight of her pink tongue made him shiver. When she remained mute, he nudged her intimately with his prick. “Tell me you want this.”
Her hands came up to stroke his flanks. “I want you,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong. In his muddled head, he realized there might be a distinction between his words and hers, but it was enough that she was in agreement.
“Thank God.” He entered her slowly, though it practically killed him not to shove deep and hard. Her passage was snug around his cock, almost virginal. But he knew she had been with other men.
The knowledge barely registered. He didn’t care. She was his now. He drove deeper, feeling her muscles squeeze him. The sensation was indescribable. He was fucking Jane. His Jane. For a moment, a blinding wave of tenderness threatened to derail his lust. The poignant moment struck at his heart. He wanted to make love to her so thoroughly and so often that she would understand how special she was, how utterly unique.
She wrapped her legs around his back and tilted her hips. He gained another inch. Now he was buried to the hilt, his lungs screaming for air. Until that moment he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. Looking at her beneath him was like looking straight into the sun. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He’d never seen anything so lovely.
She put her hands on his shoulders, her fingernails biting into the flesh of his forearms. “Ethan.” The single word was barely audible, but he heard her plea.
He eased out of her and then thrust like he wanted to, a mighty flex of his hips that joined them irrevocably. Her strangled cry urged him on. He repeated the motion . . . once . . . twice. Each time he slid deep, her inner muscles grasped him and dragged him toward ecstasy.
He tried to keep up a rhythm, but Jane was having none of it. She played dirty, teasing his nipples, scoring his ass with her fingernails, dragging his head down to hers for a carnal kiss that zapped his strength.
And then he broke, lost to reason, lost to reality, his only focus the woman beneath him and the challenge in her sky blue eyes. He slammed into her again and again, his chest heaving, sweat dampening his forehead.
“God, Jane,” he cried out, and every bone and muscle in his body went rigid as he emptied himself over and over, caught up in a spasm of pleasure that bordered on pain.
In the final seconds, as he ground the base of his cock against her clit, he sensed that she came again. But he was almost insensate with the force of his climax.
In the aftermath, he slumped on top of her, weak as a baby. He felt her hands in his hair, her gentle fingers combing through the damp strands, massaging his scalp, easing the tension that had bound him from the first moment he saw her the night of the break-in.
Every day since then she had been in the back of his mind, smiling a challenge at him, waiting for him to process the weird mélange of feelings.
As he drifted into exhausted sleep, he rolled to his side, taking Jane with him. He knew things had changed. But it would take time to sift through it all.
In the meantime, Jane was in his bed. That was all that mattered.
Ten
Jane waited until Ethan’s steady snores signaled his unconscious state. She extracted herself from his embrace and, on shaky legs, made her way to the bathroom.
If she had known what sex with Ethan would be like, she might have quit being a coward a lot sooner.
Sweet, holy hell. The man was a freaking sex machine. Her thighs were sore, and her womanly parts felt as if they had been pummeled relentlessly. Which, if you looked at it literally, they had been.
She turned on the shower and stepped under the warm spray. As she ran the soapy rag over her body and between her legs, tingles of latent arousal reminded her that she was nowhere near being sated by Ethan’s lovemaking. Perhaps after a little rest she could coax him into a second round.
She was giddy with the knowledge that she was able to touch him at will, no longer hiding her fascination with his fit, hard body. The first moment his cock had entered her was emblazoned in her memory. The incredible feel of his thick, hot flesh penetrating her had been so universe altering, it was as if she were a virgin again.
Only this time there was wonder and joy instead of pain and lingering disenchantment. Ethan’s lovemaking was all that she had expected and more.
And the thing that struck her the most—the truth that she had suspected but not completely been sure of until tonight—was that Ethan was her one and only. He was her true love. The man she was meant to share her life with.
It was sentimental and schmaltzy and maybe even a tad over-dramatic. But there was no escaping destiny.
She stepped out of the shower and dried off with one of Ethan’s oversize towels, then decided to chance a look in the steamy mirror. It took only one swipe of her hand on the wet glass to reveal the sappy smile on her face. Dear God, she was actually glowing. How embarrassing was that? But she couldn’t seem to erase the grin.
When she tiptoed back into the bedroom, Ethan was still dead to the world. Poor man had been working fourteen-hour days all week. It would be cruel to wake him.
She slipped between the covers, careful not to dislodge the blanket and comforter from his shoulders. Her skin was covered in gooseflesh, and entering the snug cocoon created by his big body was like being wrapped in radiant heat.
She scooted close and spooned his back, but was shy about the last few inches. With her eyes closed, she tried to absorb the barrage of feelings—contentment topped the list. She didn’t know what would come of this. And she wasn’t naive enough to imagine that one night of sex led to happily ever after.
But she was determined to enjoy the moment. Being here, with Ethan, was more than she had hoped for. Maybe she would abandon the valentine plan . . . and maybe she wouldn’t confess. After all, fate had brought him back into her life without any help from her. So maybe she should simply go with the flow and be ha
ppy.
He muttered in his sleep. She took a breath and shifted across the small bit of space separating them. Now her breasts cuddled against his back, and her hips cradled his ass. Her heart made a funny little jerk, and her pulse skittered. Too much stimulation. How would she ever fall asleep? It seemed criminal to waste time when all she wanted to do was hold on tight to this incredible moment.
But she’d been working like a madwoman as well, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyelids open.
The next morning, Ethan kept perfectly still, giving himself time to process alien sensations. His head was groggy, his mental processes slow. The sluggish feeling reminded him of the aftermath of one too many drinks.
But he was fairly certain he was stone-cold sober.
And then it hit him. Jane. In his bed. All night.
The memories came back in a trickle and then in a rush, bombarding him with images that made his cock leap to attention. He and Jane had made love four different times, every one an off-the-charts, world-altering, explosive encounter.
He rolled carefully to his back, and breathed a sigh of relief. She was still there. Sometime in the night she had migrated to one side of his big mattress. That was a mistake on his part. He should never have let her get more than three inches away.
He glanced at the clock. It was still early. His internal body clock usually woke him before the alarm went off. And despite last night’s sexual excess, it still had. Carefully, he reached out and turned off the knob above the digital readout.
As much as he might want to, there was no time for another round of sex with Jane. He had to get to work. But he’d let her sleep while he got ready. No point in both of them cranking out early.
He did his best to ignore the flutter of panic ricocheting in his chest. If he could go face-to-face with armed criminals and come out unscathed, surely he could survive the “morning after” with Jane. But to be on the safe side, he’d give himself a little time to come up with a plan before he woke her up to say goodbye.
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