“I think that’s our agreement, right?” She caught her breath when he dipped to grab her knee and lift her leg high around his waist, opening her to him, to the bump and grind of his hips as he stroked into her, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing his hard length against the seam of her shorts and the distended bud of her clitoris. Sensation sizzled. Friction fizzed. Nerve endings rejoiced and begged for more.
“Yesss.” The word hissed from between his lips, circling sensuously inside her ear. “I feel how hot you are for me, Maddy. Are you wet too?”
“God, yes,” she admitted even though it shocked and titillated her to do so. She’d asked for this. Demanded it actually. And she’d be damned if she allowed any inhibitions to stop her from enjoying every single second.
She was determined to do whatever she could, whatever it took, to make this something he’d never forget. To make herself stand head and shoulders above the crowd of women he’d had before her. To make him think twice about abandoning what they could have together if only—
Whoa there, sister, her conscience cautioned. If that’s what this is all about, then you better stop it right now.
Of course anything else her conscience said was drowned out by the low sound of approval that rumbled from the back of Bran’s throat. “Good,” he whispered, still stroking, still teasing. “I want you wet. I want you so wet you drench me when I put myself inside you.”
He didn’t give her time to answer that thoroughly wicked comment, instead catching her mouth in a kiss so drugging it left her dazed and confused, unable to concentrate on anything other than the terrible ache between her thighs and the friction he was providing that just…wasn’t…quite…enough.
She needed bare flesh on bare flesh. She needed fingers and tongues and lips and teeth and…his cock. Holy hell, she needed his cock. The hard column of flesh that pressed insistently against her, the steely rod of pleasure that promised so much more to come.
Put yourself inside me now! she wanted to scream. But all she managed was “Bran, I want…”
“What?” he said against her mouth, nibbling on her top lip. He sucked the sensitive pad between his teeth and laved it with his hot tongue as if demonstrating how he would suck and lick other parts of her. “What’d’ya want, Maddy? Tell me.”
“Should we go to the ranger’s station first?” she asked even though she dreaded the time it would take to walk there. Time when his hand wouldn’t be kneading her ass and working her over his throbbing hardness. Time when his skilled mouth wouldn’t be showing her the wonderful world of kissing without limits or reticence.
“No time for that,” he said.
Great minds…
“But, where—” That’s all she managed before he dropped her leg and pushed out of her arms. Her body ached with the loss. Her womanhood throbbed for friction that was no longer there. And she was so dizzy she had to thrust out a hand to steady herself against the metal skin of the lighthouse.
Bran leaned around the lighthouse and yelled, “Girls! Rick! Eyes on the entire perimeter for a while, okay? If you see anything, and I mean anything, yell at the top of your lungs! I gotta duck into the lighthouse for a bit and take care of something!”
Maddy didn’t hear Rick respond—I gotta take care of somethin’? Really? Does Bran think he’s foolin’ anyone with that?—but she should’ve known the girls wouldn’t stay quiet. Which was why she just shook her head and waved off Bran’s curious look when Donna hollered, “Yo, Miss Maddy! Way to go!”
Later, she might blush at the thought that Rick and the girls knew she was the “something” Bran had to take care of. But right now, she had to concentrate to keep up when Bran grabbed her hand and led her along the base of the lighthouse. She made it three steps, three wobbly steps before her traitorous knees gave out on her.
Weightlessness.
That’s what she experienced when Bran scooped her into his arms. She barely had time to marvel at his strength, at the easy way he carried her despite his injured leg and the fact that she was a far cry from a size two, before he bent to move the weapons from the spot atop the sleeping bag. Carefully propping them against the wall of the lighthouse, butts down, barrels up, he retrieved the sleeping bag, shook it out, and reached for the handle to the door. When he yanked it open, it made a deep groaning noise, its hinges rusty and tight from years battling the salty sea air.
This is it, she thought. This is the place.
The place where she’d finally know him. All of him. Know what made him gasp, what made him moan.
She squinted against the dimness to see the interior of the lighthouse was nothing more than a circular room with an uneven wood floor. It was empty of everything but a metal ladder that led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, behind which she assumed was the light fixture and all the mechanical whatnot. A gentle whirring drifted down from above. It grew louder when Bran kicked the door closed and they were engulfed in warm, humid darkness.
It wasn’t a featherbed with silk sheets. It wasn’t a hot tub with fragrant bubbles. But it was theirs. Their little hideaway. Their refuge from the world outside and any second thoughts about the repercussions of their decision. In a word, it was perfect. A place without place. A time without time.
“Maddy,” he whispered, slowly lowering her to the ground so that she was aware of every inch of him on the descent. The heavy muscles in his chest. The impossible hardness of his stomach. The thick length of him unabashedly throbbing and flexing against her.
Her world condensed down to this room. To the two of them. Right here. Right now. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but this man who was broken and bitter. Who was equally fearless and funny. Who could promise her nothing, but who meant everything.
“Say it again,” she whispered, her voice echoing softly in the dark when her feet hit the floor. “I like it when you say my name too.”
His Jersey accent did something wonderful to it. Making it harder sounding. Tougher sounding. Erotic sounding. When he said Maddy, she wasn’t a silly Southern belle. She was a temptress, a seductress, a siren.
“Maddy,” he said huskily, and she groaned, feeling passion fill her until it pushed against her ribs, her backbone, until her whole being ached with the enormity of it.
Then he was gone. Just like that. Her hands grasped at the darkness but came away empty. Her flesh chilled upon the absence of his intense heat. Then she heard the sleeping bag shush when it hit the wood floor. And suddenly he was back, herding her backward, using his big body and his superior strength to pin her against the wall. The metal was cool at her back as he reclaimed her lips in a kiss so lazy and long and thorough that by the time he allowed her to come up for air, she’d forgotten how to breathe.
“I wanna make this about you,” he said, leaving a string of kisses across her cheek and back to her ear. “Tell me what you want, Maddy. Tell me how you wanna be touched. How you wanna be kissed. How you wanna be fucked.”
With her eyesight gone, all her other senses were enhanced. For the first time she could hear the subtler bass notes in his sexy baritone, smell the lighter scent of suntan lotion underneath the salt water and Irish Spring soap clinging to his flesh, and taste the lingering flavor of a sports drink beneath the natural sweetness of his breath.
“Tell me all your fantasies, Maddy,” he continued, pressing his forehead to hers and running one finger down her cheek and over to her mouth so he could feel her swollen, parted lips. Feel her words when she finally gave them to him. “Tell me so I can make ’em all come true.”
“Bran,” she moaned. He shuddered when her breath feathered over his finger, like it’d burned him, but the pain was so good. The temptation to suck the digit inside her mouth, to take a part of him inside her, was too much. So she did exactly that and was rewarded when his uninjured thigh thrust between her legs, pushing high, lifting her on tiptoe. She rubbed herself against him even as she sucked.
“You’re so damned sexy,” he whispered before replacing his finger with his tongue, spearing deep over and over again. “Tell me, Maddy,” he insisted again. She was so wet she had to have soaked through her shorts and into his. “Tell me, damnit,” he growled when she didn’t answer him. He nipped her bottom lip. A warning. A gentle reminder that, when it came to this, he made all the rules.
“S-suck on my pulse point,” she stuttered.
He immediately obeyed, his hot lips closing over the spot on her neck where her heart hammered close to the surface of her skin. His hot tongue laved sweetly before he sucked deeply. And it was like an invisible string was connected from that spot on her neck to the swollen bundle of nerves between her legs.
“Touch me,” she rasped, running her hands over his big shoulders, amazed at the hardness of his muscles, at the density of his bones, at the smooth firmness of his warm skin. He felt exactly like what he was. A big, strong, very manly man. And everything that was female in her delighted in the differences between them. His hard to her soft. His rough to her smooth. His toughness to her tenderness.
“Where?” His voice was low and demanding. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
Everywhere. But he wasn’t an octopus. So she started with something she’d been dreaming about for months. “My b-breasts,” she managed, her breath catching when a low grumble vibrated at the back of his throat.
And then his hand inched beneath the hem of her T-shirt, his palm skating up her stomach, over her ribs. Higher. Higher. Ever higher. The calluses on his palm were wonderfully abrasive, adding one more delightful sensation to the already heady mix.
Part of her wanted to tell him, Hurry the hell up! Her nipples were so hard they hurt. Her breasts were heavy and aching for his caresses. But another part of her reveled in the exquisite torture. In the exquisite waiting and wanting and anticipation of—
“Good Lord,” she groaned when he cupped her right breast, plumping it high, his thumb rasping over the distended tip and creating a delicious friction even through the satin of her bra.
“You’re so fuckin’ sweet,” he said, reclaiming her mouth. His lips were swollen yet firm. His tongue bold and unapologetic.
“More,” she begged him, her hips moving of their own accord, thrusting over his thigh, seeking more friction. Faster. Harder. Her heart pounded. Her blood roared. She was a thing now. A being entirely comprised of want. Of need. Of hunger.
“I’ll give you more,” he promised. “I’ll give you everything.”
That’s exactly what she wanted. All of this. All of him.
Bran tugged her T-shirt top over her head. With a flick of his fingers, he unsnapped the front closure on her bra. “Damn,” he cursed.
“What?” she panted, barely able to think the words, much less form them. “What is it?”
“I wish it weren’t so dark,” he said as he cupped her breasts in his hot, callused palms. His thumbs reverently brushed over the painfully erect tips, and she hissed her pain. Her pleasure. “I wanna see you. I’ve dreamed of seeing you for so long.”
He caught her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and softly plucked. He should’ve been a musician, a surgeon, something that would make use of his crazy talented hands. The pleasure twanging in her breasts made her hips work faster over his thigh. The delectable friction was building to a fever pitch. Soon. Soon it would be enough.
“Describe them to me,” he rasped, alternately feathering his fingers over the hard points and gently pinching them. She was bombarded by sensation, by ever-burgeoning bliss. Close. So close. “Are they brown like berries? Red like cherries?” His voice was thick with passion.
“Pink,” she managed, though she hadn’t the first clue how her vocal cords were still working. “Light pink. Like cotton candy.”
“Mmm,” he hummed against her lips. “I bet they taste as sweet.”
And then he dipped his head to catch one taut peak between his warm lips. She moaned and speared her hands into his hair, pulling him closer, catching her lip between her teeth when his hot tongue rasped over her nipple.
“Delicious,” he murmured. “Just as I suspected.”
Maddy couldn’t respond. Her orgasm was barreling toward her at full speed now, sending pulses of pleasure down her spine, into her breasts, and through her womb.
Bran must have sensed how close she was. “Wait, Maddy. Shit. I wanna—”
“No!” she whispered deliriously when suddenly he was…gone. His lips left her breast with a suctioned pop. His thigh and the wonderful friction it provided vanished from between her legs. “Bran! Please!” She blindly reached for him, her searching fingers finding the impenetrable wall of his chest. The crinkly hair there tickled her palms. She felt her way up to his shoulders, digging her fingers into his muscles, desperate to pull him back to her.
“Shhh, Maddy,” he said, allowing her to draw him close. “I’m gonna get you there. But I wanna feel you come the first time. Please, Maddy. Let me feel you.”
“Hurry, Bran,” she begged.
She thought she heard him chuckle. Thought she heard him call her an impatient little minx but she couldn’t be sure. Her blood was pounding in her ears and every ounce of her attention was focused on the hand Bran snaked between their bodies. He popped the button on her shorts. Her zipper made a subtle scrrrrritching sound when he tugged it down.
“Yes,” she whispered when his long, thick fingers speared down the front of her panties. He parted her swollen folds.
“Fungule,” he moaned. “You’re so damned wet.”
“As requested,” she said, delighted to hear him growl before he reclaimed her lips, using his teeth and tongue to play with her mouth even as his knowledgeable fingers played with her sex. He strummed her clitoris again and again. Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing just right.
He definitely didn’t treat it like a go button. Oh, no.
“You like that,” he whispered into her mouth.
“Yes,” was all she managed.
“Do you want my fingers inside you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you—”
“Damnit, Bran!” She grabbed his head, biting his bottom lip in her frustration, in her urgency. “Yes, yes, yes!”
This time she was sure he chuckled. But the laugh died in his throat when he pressed one finger inside her. She’d waited so long for that kind of stimulation, to be penetrated, to be filled, that her body gripped him fiercely.
“Just let me—” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. She’d let him do anything. Including letting him work a second finger inside her until she was stretched and full. Nerves that had been crying out for stimulation got exactly that.
“Bran…” She breathed his name when he pumped slowly. And then her ability to talk eluded her when slow pumping became faster, harder. In and out. Over and over again. The wet sounds of sex whispered inside the lighthouse, sliding against the metal walls and inside Maddy’s ears.
“Now, Maddy,” he said. “Now, babe. I want you to come for me. I wanna feel it.”
He ground the heel of his palm into the top of her sex, abrading her clitoris while simultaneously reaching up with his free hand to pinch her nipple. The instant he did, Maddy did as instructed. She muffled her scream in the crook of his shoulder and went off like an atom bomb, her orgasm blowing wave after wave of sweet, exquisite ecstasy through her until she lost track of where she was. Who she was. What she was other than a thing that was pure, incandescent bliss…
Chapter 19
10:02 p.m.…
Bran went off in his shorts.
Or at least it felt like he did. His dick pulsed rhythmically when Maddy’s body clamped around his fingers until his knuckles rubbed together. Then again, the throbbing, insistent ache of his balls drawn up tight against his body proved he hadn’t pulled the fifteen-year-old-boy-copping-his-first-feel routine, after all. He was still fully loaded, locked, stocked, and ready to rock. In the timeless words of Mr. Mellencamp, he hurt so good.
“That’s it, babe,” he encouraged when he could find his voice. He wiggled his fingers in a come-hither motion, rubbing the rough patch of swollen flesh inside her. “Ride it out.”
And she did. For long, torturous moments.
“Dear Lord,” she said huskily when the last shudders of orgasm washed through her, her body easing around him, her hands relaxing their grip on his shoulders. She had turned liquid in his arms, sinuous, warm, so utterly soft in her repletion.
“I wanna taste you, Maddy,” he whispered in her ear. He only had this one night, and he needed to experience it all. No shortcuts. No exits. The entire journey from start to finish. All the sights and sounds and smells and flavors of it.
Close as they were, with his fingers still buried inside her, he had no trouble feeling the shudder that shook her small frame. For a second he thought maybe he’d embarrassed her with his crudeness, his unapologetic honesty. But then she planted a kiss on his jaw near his ear and whispered, “So what’s stoppin’ you?”
Maddy was everything he’d hoped she’d be. Sweet, receptive, passionate, and a little bit raunchy. And funny. Even in the midst of sex, she was still funny. And fascinating. The most fascinating woman he’d ever met.
What has she done to me? This Texas tornado in a teacup package?
But he knew.
She had wormed her way into his life, into his dreams, and into his…heart.
And there it was. The flash of insight nearly blinded him with its brilliance. All those feelings he had for her that went beyond friendship and lust, those feelings that were bigger, deeper, wider were really all just one feeling. The simplest and most complex feeling of all.
Love.
He loved her.
He was in love with her. Little by little, day by day, email by email, he’d fallen more. And it’d happened so slowly, so subtly, that he hadn’t understood until right now.
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