His scalp tingled with heat as he resumed kissing her, and she moved against him, fucking him, riding him, and his breath came in hot gasps and growls as he thrust at her, again, again.
They moved like that together for a few raw, feral minutes until her response began to change—until she was releasing hot, thready whimpers, her undulations slowing, growing more jerky, and he knew a powerful orgasm was about to flood her senses.
He held on to her tight as she let out high-pitched cries, her head again dropping back, eyes shut, lips beautifully parted.
And when she lifted her head, met his gaze in the dark, he kissed her hard—once, twice—trying to let her recover a little but still feeling the primal animal urge to fuck her brains out.
With rough movements, he carried her to the nearest flat surface among the pieces of furniture—a small dining table in the middle of the room—and as he laid her back on it, his mind only barely registered that she’d made it herself. Still inside her, he thrust wildly, over and over, needing her to feel him to her very core, needing to force all his hunger out and into her. Moving inside her, he closed his hands over her breasts through the thin fabric still covering them. He wasn’t gentle—he couldn’t be right now. He squeezed and molded them; he played roughly with her erect nipples, pinching, pulling, making her moan and sob as the coarse pleasure echoed through them both.
Finally, he yanked at the buttons holding the pajama top closed. He heard one of them land somewhere across the room and couldn’t have cared less. All he wanted was to get to those gorgeous tits at last, and then they were in his hands, flesh to soft, pliable flesh, and he massaged them in rhythm with his hard, wet plunges.
She cried out, moaning and sobbing, the sounds mixing with his own deeper ones. And when he bent over her, still fucking, fucking, fucking, to suck one beautifully engorged nipple into his hungry mouth, he groaned around it, tugged on it hard, and felt her heels dig into his ass as if to pull his dick deeper inside her. But that was impossible—he was buried to the hilt with each pounding drive. He sucked her tits with wild abandon, showing no mercy, no softness. Neither of them wanted anything soft right now, he knew.
When he hauled her up into his arms again, she wrapped back around him and it felt so damn good, just for once, to have this woman cling to him a little, make him feel like she wanted him. But that didn’t soften his raw instincts—she’d probably kick him out after this was over, after all. He felt like he had to take all he could get of her, right here, right now.
He needed a bed, or a couch, something that wouldn’t be hell on their knees—because he wanted to take her from behind now, as he had in Traverse City. But when she began kissing him again, he stalled in place—couldn’t see, couldn’t really walk—and the next thing he knew he’d stumbled into the stairs. They both went down with a thud, fell against the bottom steps together, on their sides; his erection left her for the first time in a long, ecstasy-filled while.
Their eyes met once more, the only light in the room coming from streetlamps outside, and her gaze remained as heated as he felt. They still didn’t speak—and on any other night, he’d have asked if she was okay from the fall, but he didn’t want to break this hot spell, give her a chance to start a fight. Instead, he reached for her hip as he rose up—and he firmly turned her over on her hands and knees on the steps, and she let him.
As he moved in behind her, though, he found himself wishing he’d gotten her out of that long pajama top completely—he yearned to have her naked body in front of him right now; he wanted to see the arch of her back, the curve of her ass, the muscles in her shoulders. So he found himself running his palms over her round bottom, up under the shirt, feeling the valley created by her waist, the smooth rise of her back following the slant of the stairs. He heard her sigh, just from those simple touches, and it sent a warm tingle down his spine.
But he wanted inside her again too much to linger, so he grabbed onto her backside with both hands, positioned his cock, and slid it in, smooth, deep. A guttural moan left her, and he felt it in his chest. And then he began to thrust again.
This had started as mindless, reckless fucking, but now he was able to think more, to feel. Every hot drive of his dick sent a burst of pleasure through his abdomen, up into his solar plexus. Low groans left him with each stroke as he drank in everything amazing about the moment: from her gorgeous body to her shockingly welcoming attitude, from the way the shadows fell across her form to the knowledge that they were doing it in a dark room without ever even having exchanged a word.
He gritted his teeth as he fucked her harder, harder, made her cry out with each intense thrust. He soon got lost in the pure, driving pleasure, lost in the hard, rhythmic plunges into her hot flesh. And then he was letting out low cries in time with hers, gripping her ass, hammering relentlessly, again, again, again—until . . . aw God, there it was, it was rising inside him, unstoppable, yeah, yeah . . . A ferocious growl sprung from his throat as the orgasm blasted through him, as rough and jagged as the sex itself, nearly rocking him off his foundations as he exploded in her sweet cunt.
God, yesssss.
In front of him, she went still, and he slumped over on top of her.
Everything was quiet but for the ticking of a clock somewhere. Then a car passed by on the street. They
weren’t
the only two people alive, after all, even though it had strangely felt that way for a few minutes.
Damn. Jake had thought what they’d done with Colt was intense, but this . . . this was somehow more; this was the most intense fuck of his life.
Finally, he forced himself up off her—he turned to sit on one of the steps, leaning back to balance his elbows on a higher one as he returned to himself, got some strength and brains back.
When she rolled to her side on the steps to face him, he waited for her to say something. And when she didn’t, he asked, “Aren’t you gonna tell me to leave or go to hell or something?”
A small breath escaped her. Then possibly the softest voice he’d ever heard left her lips. “No.” Just that.
“Are you okay?” He didn’t mean it in a smart-ass way—he sincerely wondered if she was all right.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“Just so you know, I didn’t come here to fuck you.”
“What did you come here for?”
“To yell at you.”
She raised her gaze gently to his in the dark. “Fucking’s better than yelling.”
The surprising reply made him grin. “Damn straight.”
Finally, she sat up on the same step as him and began to pull her pajama top around her.
He touched her knee. “Don’t.” When she stopped, looked over at him, he explained, “Your body’s beautiful and you don’t need to hide it, not with me.” Then he sighed, feeling a little guilty as he added, “And I don’t think you have buttons anymore anyway. Sorry about that.”
“I’ll live.”
He didn’t quite know what was going on here, but he liked her new attitude.
“So . . . why do you suddenly seem like you don’t hate me anymore?”
She sighed. “Remember how you said the sex in Traverse City was the best of your life?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think
this
is the best sex of
my
life. And it happened when you didn’t think I was somebody else. So it’s hard to be very mad.”
Carly wasn’t sure what had just happened to her. Except for the bestsex-of-her-life part. It had been entirely contrary to what usually worked for her—she hadn’t had the least amount of control. She could conclude only that the strange, stark hunger had finally built up so much that it had overridden her need for that with him.
“What were you going to yell at me for?” she asked.
“Mainly for . . . imposing your guilt on me, I guess. I really never did anything wrong to you, you know.”
She nodded quietly. And couldn’t deny it anymore. “I know.” Then she took a chance, one that probably felt riskier than it was, since to be turned down now, after all this, would be pretty devastating. “These steps are hard. You want to go upstairs? To my bed?”
She caught his small grin in the shadows. “Yeah—that sounds nice.”
It felt at once awkward and comfortable to retrieve her pajama pants, go lock the door, and then lead him up the stairs to her place. Not the least of which was because no guy had ever been in her apartment. It was a studio—kitchen at the far side, bed against the back wall, living area set up at the nearest end beside the steps.
She’d been reading a book in bed when all the buzzing had begun, and it lay open, facedown, on rumpled covers. Funny, this was her home, but after what had just happened, it felt as if she’d been away from it for much longer than just fifteen minutes—something in her had changed since she’d gone down those steps.
Ah, the best sex of her life—that was it. Something inside her felt refreshed, renewed, even elated—despite how uncertain she remained about him, and about herself and all her strange sex issues.
And then—oh boy. She’d been aware for a while now—since standing up, actually—that something felt . . . unusual between her legs, moister, stickier, than usual. And now, as wetness rolled down her inner thigh, she finally realized: It was semen. God.
She turned to meet his gaze. “Um, at the risk of bringing up an unpleasant subject, we didn’t use a condom.”
He shut his eyes, gritted his teeth. “Jesus. I was . . . overcome. Which is no excuse, but . . . that’s all I got. Sorry.”
“Are you . . . overcome often?”
He gave his head a firm shake. “The last time I didn’t use protection was . . . probably about five years ago, the last time I had a serious girlfriend.” He paused, sighed, then said, “You?”
This shouldn’t be embarrassing, but for some reason it was. “This is the, uh, first time I’ve
ever
not used one.” It made her feel inexperienced or something.
“Wow. That’s impressive,” he said as she walked to her bedside table for a tissue and tried to subtly take care of the messiness with her back to him. Then he murmured, “No wonder it felt so damn good.”
And it made her wonder . . . Was
that
why it was her best sex ever? Because there was no thin barrier of rubber between their bodies?
But no—that wasn’t it. It was more than that. Way more.
“Something to eat? Drink?” she asked, tidied up now and ready to change the subject.
She turned to him in time to see him shake his head. “I’m good. I just gorged on chocolate cream pie before I came over.”
She bit her lip, studying him. She was mostly naked, but he remained fully dressed—even having zipped up his jeans. So even despite his comment about wanting to look at her body, now that they were in the light, she went to her dresser, slipped on a pair of pastel striped undies, and shed the debuttoned shirt, exchanging it for a tank top.
When she turned back around, he’d made himself comfortable on her bed, laying propped up against the pillows, hands behind his head. “Did you build this bed?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“So, you make furniture for a living. That’s unusual.”
She nodded once more. “The craft was passed down to me from my dad.”
“Do you do it because you love it or because it’s one of those family things you got pushed into?” He was so blunt, no beating around the bush.
“Both,” she replied, joining him on the bed, lying on her side. Chilly beneath the ceiling fan, she reached for the quilt she kept draped across the end of the mattress and pulled it over her legs.
“Any regrets about it?”
“I find a lot of satisfaction in the work. So if I have any regrets, I guess it would be not taking a break and going to college before committing to the business. I haven’t . . . seen much of the world outside Turnbridge.”
Their eyes met, and he said nothing, but she could easily read his thoughts:
That’s part of your problem, isn’t it?
And of course it was.
But she knew plenty of people who’d lived their whole lives in Turnbridge who were still capable of having normal relationships, normal sex. So it hardly explained anything.
Just then, Oliver came trotting up the stairs. Unlike Carly, the cat wasn’t shocked by the sight of a man in the bed—he was too used to seeing people come and go in the shop. “Big cat,” Jake observed.
“Jake Lockhart,” she said, “meet Oliver J. Cattenstein.”
“Big cat with a big name,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning upward slightly.
She smiled softly herself, at a memory. “When he first came to live here at the shop, my friends teased me, said he was my business associate, and we decided he needed a professional yet catlike name.”
When Oliver jumped up onto the bed to nose around Jake, Jake absently reached out to pet him.
“So you don’t hate cats or anything?” she asked.
He flicked a glance to her. “No. Should I?”
She shook her head, pleased. “But some guys do.”
“Well, I’m not
some guys
,” he said, and the words resonated. Indeed, she was starting to think there was nothing very average about Officer Jake Lockhart at all. From his sexiness to his determination.
“So,” he said, his tone more cautious, “are we . . . friends now?”
She raised her eyebrows, a little surprised by the word, all things considered. “Friends?”
“What I mean is . . . if I ask you something personal, are you going to get mad and throw me out?”
Carly took a deep breath. Part of her wondered why he had to spoil this, this one moment since Traverse City when things felt almost comfortable between them. But then . . . the way they’d met, the encounters since then—she supposed it was inevitable that he wasn’t just going to stop being curious and let this go. He was a cop, and she’d known enough town cops to know they were naturally inquisitive, always trying to get to the bottom of things. “I won’t get mad. I can’t promise I’ll answer or be happy, but I won’t get mad.”