He stilled.
“I think there’s one in my wallet,” he answered. “Shh, lay back, let me love you. I’ll get it when it’s time.”
Again he stunned her with his patience, as this time he made his way down her body with light nibbles and nips. Finally, parting her knees, he kissed back up her inner thigh, spreading her wide.
A long moment passed while her heartbeat raced.
“What are you doing?”
“Just…looking.” His voice was rough. “Ah God, Romy, you’re incredible.” He held her hips in his hands, lifting her body to his lips. When he tasted her, a shudder rocked her. Too soon, yet not soon enough, all at once. His tongue swept over her in tiny circles before spearing deep, her head falling back and a sighing, gasping, aching sound echoing from her lips. When he slid two fingers inside her and began to ply her body in earnest, the tension wound her up, and for a split second, she fought it, trying not to let the sensations sweep her out of control. Her hips lifted against his face, and her arms clutched at the bedspread as her back bowed.
“Please…” she begged, and he knew exactly what she needed; one big hand rode up to the flat muscles of her belly, holding her immobile, making her take everything he had to give.
Tonight, with sight just a memory, he filled every other sense until her body leaped off the bed and a shocked cry tore from her lips. Waves of heat and need spun out of control, and she held him tightly to her body, her fingers laced through his hair as the orgasm took her out of her senses.
“Oh my God,” she murmured as he stroked her slowly back down, the aftershocks still pulsing through her. She reached for him, but he took her hand in his, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
“Shhh. Do you know how beautiful you are right now? Your face is flushed and your eyes are glittering and your lips are swollen. You look like a woman who’s been loved senseless.”
“I wish I could see you.” She pouted, then continued, “I bet you’re magnificent when you come.”
His rough groan filled the room, sending another wave of heat through her.
* * * *
He watched her eyes close as she relaxed her head back onto her pillow. Of any of the things he might have expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them.
“You’re not shy at all are you?” he asked, leaning forward to palm one rose-tipped breast, teasing the nipple back to firmness.
“About sex? No. I grew up under stage lights. Dancers who tour together often form intense relationships, sometimes for the duration of an evening, sometimes for the duration of a tour. Sometimes for a lifetime. I’ve seen those relationships. I’ve always known going in which kind I wanted.”
As she spoke, she sat up, straddling him. She ran her hands over his chest. The sharp, tense heat that filled him when she wrapped her arms around his neck and drove her body tight to his almost made Stephen regret the words that spilled out.
“Which do you want with me?”
Her hands stopped stroking across his chest and her head came up, a frown stealing across her features.
“I don’t know. I feel like I need you, and I’m scared because I don’t want to have to depend on anyone.”
He saw the uncertainty in her expression, but then she folded her head onto his shoulder hiding her face. With a little pang of loss, he steeled himself to pull away. As much as he wanted to make love to her and to mate with her, he needed her to be fully on board with it.
“We don’t have to do anything more tonight,” he whispered into her hair, stroking a hand down her back.
“I want you—nothing’s changed.” Her lips found his collarbone, and the sweet kisses she swept across it inflamed him. He let her push him down to the bed.
“Since I can’t see you, let me get to know you with my hands.”
He lay back, let her explore his body with an exquisite thoroughness as his own eyes drifted closed and he lost himself in the sensations she gave him. A feather-soft touch skimmed his face before her hands slid down his chest.
“You’re very hairy,” she observed, wringing a chuckle from his tense abdomen.
“Thanks?”
“Lots of dancers wax. I like you better.”
Pride ripped through him: pride that she preferred him, pride that his bear genetics had predisposed him to a rougher appearance. Next to her he felt giant and rough, but the way she touched him exalted him. When lips closed over his nipple, lust burst behind his eyes and his already hard cock seemed to swell to the point of pain.
“Careful there, big guy.” She took him in her hand and stroked, making him gasp.
“Is there any part of you that isn’t huge?”
He laughed, then, but his laughter turned to a hiss as he felt the heat of her mouth closing over him. His eyes flew open, and he looked down to where she knelt between his legs. He learned a new lesson in self-control as her hair finally fell out of its knot and spilled across his belly, lighting a thousand nerve endings on fire.
“God, Romy.” Stephen tried to keep his hips still, but when she hummed around him he couldn’t help but buck into her mouth. She hummed again, taking him deeper and white-hot heat spread through him. Oh God, just like that…The heat was too overwhelming, too sudden, he had to push her away.
“Don’t you want…?”
He looked down the bed at where she perched between his knees, confusion clear on her face.
“Hell yes. But not tonight.” He reached for his pants, dug out his wallet, grateful to discover that yes, indeed, there was a condom in there. He wished they didn’t need it, wished he had told her what he was, that she was safe with him, but he needed her, now; that conversation would have to wait.
“I’m putting a condom on now—do you trust me?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in her voice, and she reached, finding his hand with her own, and helped him stroke it down over his shaft. Then she was back in his lap, kissing him fiercely. The sweetness of her kiss was breathtaking, and he knew no matter what happened, no matter what she decided she wanted once she knew the whole truth, he was giving himself to her now—he would be irrevocably hers. She bit down on his lower lip, wrenching a groan from him. Spilling her backward out of his lap, Stephen followed her down to the bed and pressed himself to her entrance.
“Now, Stephen.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he sank into welcoming heat, stunned.
For a moment, everything stopped, suspended, and then she shuddered against him, rocking her hips up to invite him deeper. He found her clit with his fingers, stroked and rubbed, finding the rhythm and pressure she liked best. Before he knew it, she was driving herself up against him in time to his thrusts and he was trying not to lose his mind. He pressed his lips to the fluttering pulse in her throat, loving the taste of salt on her skin, that beautiful sensual taste and scent that was his Romy.
“Stephen, I need…”
“I know.” And he did; her body was speaking to his in a language older and deeper than simple lust, her soul calling to his, inviting him into this mating dance. He shifted his weight, changing the angle so that he dragged against sensitive tissues on each slow stroke, still teasing at her clit with his fingers.
The cry as she came pierced into him, shattering his control. Her body shook and tightened down, detonating what felt like a nuclear event along the line of his spine. His hips snapped forward and her name exploded from him in a roar.
He was lost in her; he was found in her.
His breath came back to him in waves as he stilled inside her body. Slowly, he pulled himself back, a smile tilting his lips up at her whimper as they parted.
“Stay.” Her voice trembled as she said it.
He looked down at her; lashes fluttered low on her cheekbones, making her look fragile and beautiful.
“Of course.” He went to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, then came back to find her curled up on the bed. He spooned himself behind her, loving the way she felt in his arms.
�
�How long will you stay?” she mumbled, and he realized she wasn’t talking about tonight.
“As long as you want me. As long as you’re safe.” He kissed her shoulder, his eyes drifting closed.
He listened until her breathing grew steady. As long as she wanted him. As long as she was safe. He wanted forever, but he’d take what he could get. As long as she was safe.
Chapter Nine
Romy could feel the early morning light on her eyelids, and just like every morning since she’d learned her blindness was permanent, she felt a brief glimmer of hope that maybe today she’d wake up and find it was all a dream. But when her eyes opened and nothing appeared in front of them, that hope snuffed out again.
This morning, the loss was all the more poignant when she felt the warm, solid body beside her. Stephen. They’d had sex—no, made love—the night before, and she’d asked him to stay. She rolled toward him, feeling the muscular arms and chest beneath her fingertips. Without seeing him, she couldn’t really comprehend the scale of the man, except that he felt huge: brawny, muscular in a way that made her think of a lumberjack, a man whose body was shaped and hardened by hard physical labor. His features, when her fingers skimmed over them, felt refined, handsome. Dear.
She didn’t understand what exactly had happened in the woods the night before, but she knew there was more to the story than just bumping into a stranger. There had been a menacing undertone to the way Stephen had talked to him.
“What’s the matter, love?” His voice, which had reminded her of a contra bassoon the day before, sounded even deeper, more rumbling in the early morning.
“Nothing.” She shook her head, leaning over him to kiss him. The kiss was sweet, and when his hand came up to cup the back of her head, the intensity and heat flooded her. Before she knew it, he’d rolled her onto her back and his body was rolling against hers, bringing it to fierce, lush life. She sighed and opened her body to his, urging him wordlessly to take what she offered. His huge erection pressed heavy against her thigh and more than anything she wanted to take him inside her, let him make love to her until everything spun out of control and she lost herself in the riptide of orgasm. Memories of the night before buffeted her senses and sent a shard of need piercing through her.
“I can’t.” He pulled away, rolling off her.
Her body ached with the sudden loss of his warmth and the hunger that had flared between them.
“Don’t stop, Stephen, and don’t make me beg.” She swung a leg over him, trapping him beneath her. “Please.”
“Romy, we need to talk before we go any further. Last night was…special, I wouldn’t normally…”
“I don’t care, Stephen. I’m on the pill and I’m clean, so unless you have some sexually transmitted disease you need to protect me from, I need you inside me now.” She growled with the intensity of it as she tried to line him up at the entrance of her body, but he was stronger, and he had her back on her back and underneath him in a flash.
“No sexually transmitted anything. I’m clean. That’s not what this is about. God help me, you are hell on a man’s control.”
She loved that he felt it too: this overwhelming need to be close, the need to lose control with her. Making love with him was primal and satisfying and like nothing she’d experienced before.
“I haven’t told you everything about me.” He warned as the tip of his cock slid just inside the entrance to her body. Not enough. She pushed upward with her hips, taking him another inch.
“So? We can cover favorite colors another time.”
She recognized the moment his body took over for his brain, the dam bursting inside as he rolled his hips and his body filled hers to aching, overflowing fullness. Like that, lover, never stop.
“I can’t stop this now, Romy. I’m never going to let go.” His words echoed her thoughts as his body set hers to a driving rhythm, his lips finding hers in a lush, sweet kiss that sent a thrill down her spine.
“I don’t want you to.” She gasped, her head rocking back.
He bit and licked his way down the column of her neck, and then traced with his teeth along the tender skin over her collar bone. Every time he touched her, a new emotion welled up, and when his hand slipped between them and rubbed the underside of her clitoris, coaxing her toward release, she felt the heat crash into her, bringing with it an orgasm so fierce she could only hold onto him as the shudders racked her body.
“Mine,” he whispered into her ear, driving his body into hers in deep, hard thrusts that brought her back to the edge as he hit some sweet, perfect spot high inside of her.
“Please…God, Stephen, again.” She groaned against his chest and his lips seized hers, absorbing her shout. When he pulled his head back into his own wordless shout, she quaked and arched, taking him into her heart as surely as she took him into her body.
* * * *
“Brown,” she said decisively as he came back from the bathroom where he’d started the shower. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to the shower, setting her down on steady feet, marveling at how her well-trained muscles instantly stabilized her.
“What about brown?” he murmured, pulling her against his body and under the spray, watching as she turned her face into it and soaked her hair.
“Favorite color. Or, it is now. Since I can’t see any of them anymore, it might as well be.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the color of your hair, and your eyes, and this beard, and you make me feel so good.” She tweaked at the hairs on his chin, making him chuckle. She stood on tip-toes, kissing him gently.
“Mine is green,” he confessed. “Winter is harsh, where I live, but when spring comes, everything is green and it’s so damned beautiful.”
“I bet.” She sighed, reaching for the soap. Romy rolled it between her hands, that delicate jasmine scent surrounding them. Setting the soap down, she stroked the lather over the hair on his chest. Stephen’s nipples swelled and puckered as her fingertips brushed over them, and he responded immediately, growing hard again.
“Already?” she teased, reaching down to grasp his cock between her slippery hands.
“With you, I’ll always be ready.”
“Mmm. There is definitely something to be said for hot vacation sex and a guy with a quick recovery time.”
Her words hit him like a punch to the stomach. Hot vacation sex? Like hell. She was his mate.
He shook his head, pushing her hands away from him. He hadn’t told her yet. He hadn’t told her anything, and as long as they were naked together, he wouldn’t be able to.
“Romy, I’m sorry. I promised I’d stay, but before we do this again, we really, really need to talk, so I need to get out of here.”
The soap would itch as it dried, but he didn’t care. He stumbled out of the shower, pulling a towel around him. He dried his legs and chest and threw on his clothes, rushing for the door.
In the hallway, he pushed the button for the elevator, but nothing happened. He pushed a few times, just needing to get the hell away, but again, nothing happened.
Swearing under his breath, he reached for his pocket to call the front desk before he realized he’d left his phone in his room once he’d realized he didn’t have signal anywhere on the island.
“Stephen?” Romy came out into the hallway wrapped only in a towel. Dripping wet and the sweetest temptation he’d ever seen.
“Fuck.” His head sank back against the wall, his hands buried in his hair. “Just leave me be, Romy.”
“Come back inside. We’ll talk.” She held the door open.
“I can’t, not now, I’m sorry. If I go in there with you, and I touch you, I’ll lose my head—both heads—again and then we’re right back where we started.”
“I don’t think that’s such a bad place to be. Please, let’s not do this out in the hallway. Come inside.”
“No!” He roared the word.
Another door opened and a couple walked out into the hallway, g
iving them a strange look. The woman pressed the elevator button, and of course, for her, it worked. When the elevator door opened, he followed them on board.
“We’ll talk later, Romy,” he told her as the doors slid shut, blocking out his view of her beautiful face and the stunned expression on it.
Chapter Ten
Stephen had no idea where to go. He rode the elevator down to the lobby, confused and aching to take it right back upstairs to his mate.
“It won’t work for you.” Myron called from the entryway when he paced back toward the elevator. “It only goes to the third floor, and you don’t need to be anywhere near the third floor right now.”
“Fine.” He bit off a growl. She was just trying to help. He knew she was a card reader. A useful skill at times, but all the card readers he’d ever met were puffed up with their own sense of righteousness. He paused, knowing any moment she’d tell him what to do next. With those cards spread out in front of her, she could hardly stop herself. And here it comes:
“The cards say you need to go for a swim. Have you been to the lake yet?”
“Why would I go there?” he snarled, turning on her.
“Don’t growl at me, Bonsaint.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Go on, go cool off.”
Stephen shoved his way past the front door, running smack into Cemil, the younger Rowan brother.
“Stephen?” Cemil steadied him with a hand on each shoulder. Stephen saw the moment the empath realized what was going on, and brushed Cemil’s hands away.
“Don’t touch me. I don’t want you in my head.”
“You know, the longer you wait to tell her, the harder it will be for her to accept you.” Cemil’s usually gentle voice had an edge to it. “She’s not as fragile as you believe.”
“Butt out, Rowan.” He growled again as he walked away, heading south toward the lake.
When he got there, he stripped down quickly, moving toward the water. It was too warm to truly be comfortable for him in his animal form, but he didn’t care. He let loose the bear within, felt the familiar stretch and ache, and then dove. The water was amazing, rushing around him as he went as deep as possible before he needed to surface for air.
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