by Caro LaFever
The sensation overwhelmed him because he hadn’t prepared. He hadn’t anticipated.
He slumped onto her and the counter, his muscles trembling, his breath hitching in his throat.
Her magic hands slipped past his nipples and along his sweaty shoulders. “Lorne.”
Lornnnne.
“Aye?” he gasped.
“I want to have sex with you.”
Relief and glorious triumph raced through his blood, making him straighten so he could see her face. “I want to have sex with ye, too.”
Her smile was like no other smile he’d ever seen. On her or anyone else.
A smile of complete acceptance. A smile of want and desire.
A female smile aimed right at him.
Chapter 21
She lay on her bed, naked.
Lorne had seen her naked before. In bright, blazing light and he’d loved everything he saw. Yet, something about seeing her womanly figure in the soft light of dusk made her infinitely more desirable.
Ceri gazed at him, her hands lying by her side, her dark eyes wide, her sensual mouth open. “Are you going to join me?” she husked. “I want to see you naked, too.”
“Aye.” Taking in a deep, calming breath, he glanced down and began to unbutton his jeans.
It had taken them less than ten seconds from confessing their want for each other in the kitchen to getting into the bedroom. She’d hopped off the counter, grabbed his sweaty hand, and yanked him into her room. Before he could catch his breath, she’d thrown off her clothes as if she were throwing off a coat of armor.
Naked for him. Open for him.
He was in.
A shiver of uncontrollable joy and unsurpassable fear pulsed through him. He hadn’t made any mistakes so far, and he could see pure delight in his future. But there were minefields all around him. He could make a wrong move, or make her angry with one wrong word.
He’d done it before, he could do it again.
His hand stilled on the last button.
“What’s going on?” She shifted on the bed and sat up. “Are you changing your mind?”
Most men I’ve known haven’t been honest with me.
“No.” He glanced up at her and met her look with a steady one of his own. “I’m scared.”
Her mouth dropped open and then her gaze went misty. “Oh, Lorne.”
“Don’t cry.” His hands fell to his side and fisted. Had he already ruined this?
“Don’t be scared.” She stood.
His focus immediately switched to her body. Her amazing body. He’d seen hundreds of photos of naked women, but he’d never seen one alive and in front of him.
She was profoundly beautiful.
Her breasts were full, her nipples dark and large. Her waist slipped perfectly into her lush hips. Her legs were so gorgeous, her skin so white, her long, black hair a splendid contrast to the rest of her.
“I love how you look at me,” she said before walking to stand right in front of him.
Her breasts swayed, her hips swung.
Her mouth smiled, her eyes glowed.
Once more, he thought he might faint. She’d given him so much. A feast for his mouth, a feast for his eyes. He needed to give her something too.
“I love looking at ye, lass.” With a tentative move, he touched one of her nipples.
She sucked in a deep breath.
Glancing at her face, his heart flew high. “Ye enjoy that?”
“Yes, I enjoy that a lot.” Her hands reached up to touch his own chest again, his own nipples again. “Exactly like you enjoy me touching you.”
“Keep touching.” Dipping his head, he chanced another kiss. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and twirled around his own. He felt dizzy with the range of emotions flying through him, and the vast array of caresses a man could endure from a woman.
She broke the kiss and stepped back, tugging on his jeans. “Let me help you with these.”
In a flat second, he was naked for the first time as an adult in front of a woman.
He’d never thought of himself as a hunk. Doc was the hunk and he had others in his group of friends who were far-better-looking than he was. But he’d never thought about it for any great length of time. Doc’s suggestion that his riches would draw women had sunk into him like a dead weight. He’d come to accept that when he finally got a woman to go to bed with him, it would be because of the money and not the man himself.
“My, my.” Her gaze went over him like a laser. A swift, burning laser.
His heart twisted into a knot and he realized he really didn’t want this woman to go to bed with him because of his money. “Ceri. Ye don’t—”
“Have I ever said how beautiful I think you are?”
“What?” His hands dropped to his sides once more, aborting the attempt to hide his cock from her gaze.
“You are, you know.” She gave him a look of pure, hot lust. Even he, fool that he was in regards to women, could define that look.
“I am?”
Straightening, she peered at him. “You don’t think you are, do you?”
“I…” He closed his eyes and gave her truth, though it cost him. “No.”
“Lorne.”
Lornnnne.
Her hands started at his shoulders. “You’re lean, but your biceps are amazing.”
He kept still.
Sweeping her fingers down along his arms, she purred, a low thrumming sound.
He shifted on his feet, keeping his eyes closed, letting her seduce him into a trance.
She slipped her hands to his. “Your hands remind me of a Highland warrior.”
“What?” His eyes popped open in surprise. “What did ye say?”
A flush turned her skin rosy. Even in the dim light he detected the change. A strange feeling came over him, one he’d never experienced with a woman.
Teasing.
He felt like teasing her.
Astonishment filled him. She’d teased him once before, in the greenhouse, and he hadn’t been fazed, but he hadn’t found it any kind of fun. As a lad, he’d been teased far too much to regard the practice in that way. Yet now, much to his disbelief, he wanted to do this with her.
Something inside him now, something fresh and new and excited, wanted to tease.
He ducked closer, catching her gaze before she could glance away. “Are ye saying, lass, ye want me to go get my kilt and claymore?”
His heart clattered in his chest because this was a risk. A risk as fragile and terrifying as getting naked in front of her. Because he was taking a chance and stepping into a human activity he’d always thought completely mystifying and also frustrating.
She gaped at him before letting out a peal of laughter.
Her happy laugh.
Everything inside him danced. His heart, his hope, his own happiness. He’d done it. He’d successfully teased a woman.
Teased Ceri.
“No.” She let out a throaty giggle and laid her palms on the center of his chest once more. “I like you naked.”
Lorne wondered if she felt the thundering drum of his heart. He was going to try another tease. “You’re sure then,” he murmured. “Because I thought ye might enjoy playing a game.”
“A game?” Nudging nearer, her breasts brushed on his skin, making him shiver. “What kind of game?”
“I’m thinking I could be a lusty Highland lad and ye could be a high-and-mighty queen, playing with my affections.”
Ceri stilled and her head jerked up. Her beautiful skin flushed once more and her dark eyes peered at him in startled surprise.
“What?” He risked a grab, pulling her by her waist into the circle of his embrace. Whatever he’d said might be wrong, but he didn’t want to chance her drawing away. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Her curls swung over her shoulders as she shook her head in emphatic rejection. “It’s only I was thinking the exact same thing in the kitchen.”
Leaning back, he eyed her.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” Her fingers swept down along his abdomen taking his breath from his lungs. “We seem to be on the same wavelength for now.”
For now?
Before he could cudgel his brain around that comment, she went right to the heat of him. He gasped when she touched his straining cock, palming his balls with one hand while her fingers dallied on the tip. Lust ripped past any thoughts and landed in his gut with a hard slam. All the pitiful control he had on his body flashed away in a stunning slap.
Rearing back, he grabbed both of her hands and pulled them off him. “Stop. Bloody hell, woman.”
Her low laugh trilled down his spine. “You liked it.”
“Too much.” He stared at his cock, sure he’d never seen it this engorged and red. “Way too much.”
How was he going to manage this? The odds of him making a fool of himself once more were astronomical. After all, he’d lost his control when they’d been fully clothed and only kissed. What were the chances he was going to be able to carry this out with any kind of finesse?
“Shite.” He forced himself to meet her inquisitive gaze and tell her the truth. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do this without losing my control.”
Her gaze grew soft. “There you go.”
“What?”
“Being so honest it makes me want to cry.” Pulling her hands from his grip, she came back into his embrace.
“I don’t want to make ye cry,” he said in exasperation with himself and her. “I want to make ye happy.”
“Oh, you’re going to make me happy,” she sighed on his skin. “You can count on that.”
He leaned his head into the notch between her head and shoulder and whispered, “I’m scared again.”
Her fingers slid across his shoulders and spine, a gentle, smooth encouragement. “Nothing you do is going to be wrong. Anything you do is going to be right.”
Breathing her in, he breathed in his past, his present. Earthy and grassy and poignantly home.
Home.
His brain ran around the last thought like an out-of-control hacker trying to escape detection.
Home. With Ceri.
He went taut.
“I mean it. Now where were we with the inventory of your beauty?” Her hands drifted down to grasp his arse and pull him into her naked flesh. “I love this part of your body.”
The feel of her skin on his cock was indescribable. The combination of the scent of her and the feel of her made him throw his head back and groan. Any thoughts of anything at all flew straight out of his head.
“Mmm,” she responded. “Come to bed.”
“Condoms,” he croaked to the ceiling, using his last remaining brain cell.
Her grip tightened on his arse, and her body tensed. “Do you have some?”
The woman didn’t have any condoms.
That fact contradicted his initial impression of Ceri Llewellyn as a seductive menace. Doc’s claims sifted into his one brain cell and made him frown. “I have some.”
“Good.” She kissed the middle of his chest before nuzzling into him. “I like how you smell.”
“Ye do?” His frown dropped away and he glanced down at the top of her head in amazement. Although he’d left his jumper in the kitchen, his skin was still slick with excited sweat. A stray black curl brushed his jaw. Exactly as he’d estimated the first time he’d kissed her, she fit right under his chin.
“I do,” she said, lifting her head to meet his gaze and blushing.
He frowned in confusion. “What are ye thinking?”
“I…I…” Her eyes fixated on his. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?”
Her dark brows furrowed. “Because I would be embarrassed.”
“Got it. Then don’t tell me.” He understood that emotion well, and never liked it when someone pushed him to explain. Brushing his hands over her waist, he tugged her away. “Let me go get the condoms.”
“Okay.” She gave him a bright smile, relief in her gaze. And also something more. Something he couldn’t define and maybe she couldn’t either, even if he asked.
Bounding down the hall and into his temporary bedroom, he was back at the side of her bed in moments. He threw the dozen silver packets on the bedside table.
She laughed. Her sexy, husky one. “Do you think you got enough?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He eyed her, hoping this was all right to say, and got another bright smile. Taking courage, he tugged off the band in his hair and slipped under the covers with her, yanking her to his side.
So soft. A rich, fragrant, soft woman who fit exactly right. His cock ached as it hit and slid along her stomach.
“I might not last long the first time,” he forced the truth out once more. “But I’ll get better.”
She laughed, but before the hurt exploded inside, she smoothed her hands across his cheeks and looked straight at him. “Thank you for being honest. It means the world to me.”
His heart leapt.
Not his cock nor his lust. Not his formidable brain or his tightly-held emotions.
His heart.
He couldn’t process what that meant. Not at this moment, when he finally had Ceri in bed, and willing. He’d never been good at focusing on more than one thing at a time, and now was certainly not the time to attempt it.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
Happy to oblige, and relieved he didn’t have to examine the thoughts in his head, he leaned down to capture her mouth. Yet his last brain cell registered one more fact before it went dim with need.
She’d become a real person to him this evening. A human being who’d been lied to by men. Who’d been hurt. Who appreciated honesty.
Who wanted him. Only him.
He was impossibly good. Incredibly dashing and youthful and ardent.
Ceri took him in as if he was oxygen for her soul. Her hands gobbled him up—his broad shoulders, his tight, lean sides, his strong, ropey arms. Her legs twisted around his, tying him to her like vines around a sturdy oak tree.
“Ceri,” he groaned on her mouth before sucking her lips and sticking his tongue deep inside her.
Deep inside her.
In the faint reaches of her mind, something shuddered. With panic and need and hope.
Something she didn’t want to look at.
“Come over me,” she urged, wanting to only focus on this man and this bed.
Lorne dropped his head onto her chest, his hands tightening on her waist. The rich glory of his hair fell around her. Springy curls brushing her collarbone, warm strands swishing on her skin, brilliant color filling her sight, even in the dim light coming from her one window.
He froze, his body tensing along her side.
Her heart thudded to a stop, but not because he didn’t do what she asked. Rather, she knew instantly what he was feeling, and her heart responded to his doubt and fear. “Don’t be scared.”
Lifting his head, his gaze met hers. His mouth twisted in a wry grimace. “How did ye know?”
How did she know this man so quickly, so thoroughly? How had she come to understand him in a way she’d never understood a man before? How did she know when he told her something, it was true?
Lorne Ross is true.
That something, deep down, shuddered once more. She pushed it away with an impish smile. “Come on, Mr. Ross. Roll on top of me and I promise, I won’t bite.”
His brows rose and his eyes went sparkly. “Is that so, lass? Because I see something on your face that tells me to be afraid.”
“You’re a smart man.” Remembering what he’d done earlier in the evening, she wiggled her brows up and down.
His eyes widened before he threw his head back and laughed. The deep, gorgeous sound filled her small bedroom and slipped straight to the center of her tough, hardened heart.
She took in a startled breath.
Before she could figure herself and her feelings out, he moved, sliding across her with
his lean length. His hips butted on hers, his hard cock pressed on her soft belly. His hands slipped under her, lifting her torso towards his mouth. “I’m thinking,” he muttered on the side of her breast.
“What are you thinking?” she managed to croak as the lust rose inside, a flaming heat.
“I’m thinking I’m damned no matter how I go about this, so I might as well take my chances and proceed.” Zeroing in with his customary intense focus, his gaze lit on her nipples and he leaned down to take one of them in his wet, hot mouth.
Ceri moaned in stark need.
He hummed in clear delight at his genius and suckled her hard, driving shots of desire from her breast to her womb.
She moaned again, closing her eyes to his danger.
“Ye like it.” He smoothed his words across the tautness of one nipple before going to the other.
Cold reality and hard life disappeared in the face of his heat and delight. She let herself drift deeper and deeper into his thrall. Breathing in his lightning scent, taking in the touch of his mouth on her skin as he eased down her body, sipping her in as he would a fine whiskey.
“Ye are breathtaking.” His voice moved over her like a wave of male need. Male want. Male desire.
His lips whispered along stomach and hip and then slipped into the center of her. His beard brushed on her inner thighs, making her itchy with craving. His tongue did a gentle dance on her, a smooth lap of knowing. Just as before, he took control of her body and her want. Just as before, he gave to her, gave more than she could accept. And just as before, the combination of her excitement and her fear overwhelmed her.
No man had ever come close to the core of her. Not only her body, but something far deeper and far more fragile.
The threat cut through her like a fine, steel dirk.
“Lorne,” she panted, her eyes opening, a frantic edge in her tone. “You’ve already done this before.”
“Aye.” His head bopped up and he stared at her. “Is there some rule I don’t know that says I can’t do this for ye again?”
“You don’t have to,” she stuttered.
