Enticing Interlude (Tempest #2) (24 page)

I was, too, and knowing it was the same exact way for both of us made me even bolder. I took off my tank, and he helped me shimmy out of the bottoms. Feeling a twinge of self-consciousness, I didn’t give him long to look. Besides he’d already done plenty of that in the mirror earlier. It was my turn now. I slid my hands down his body, reveling in the luxurious strength of coiled muscles and chiseled contours of the gorgeous male I had beneath my fingertips.

He shuddered as my hand brushed his rock hard manhood. He groaned, a deep moan that I felt between my legs as he lifted me by the shoulders, and pushed me back into the mattress, his body immediately covering mine. Deliciously blanketed by his warmth and urgency, his face came closer, and his mouth taught me the true meaning of ardent enthusiasm in a way I wouldn’t soon forget, his lips firm and insistent in their quest to devour me.

When he eventually lifted his head, I found myself gulping unabashedly for much needed air. Watching me, the corners of his mouth curled into a wicked grin that made my heart pound even harder with anticipation. I wondered what he planned to do next. This was nothing at all like it’d been with Richard. Richard had been an amateur in lovemaking compared to Justin. Plus Justin loved me. I saw it clearly in the warmth of his expression and I felt it in every careful caress. He was a dedicated lover, reading me and my responses, repeating at least once the ones that made me moan.

He brushed my hair off my shoulder, and traced his tongue across the line of my collarbone before he moved lower. His talented lips circled breasts that swelled under the expert attention they received. My fingers moved restlessly across his taut shoulders. And just when I thought I would die if he didn’t touch me there, he did, softly drawing his tongue over the aching nipples that had become as hard as he felt against my belly.

He eased back, watching for my response again as he rolled first one then the other nipple between his thumb and fingers. My head thrashed against the pillow, and I let out a ragged sigh which became a invitation to his mouth covering mine, his tempting tongue returning to lick, taste, and tease until I was near mindless and writhing with pleasure.

“Justin,” I begged, my head falling back as I arched beneath him. “I need you. Please.” My hands trailed down his back, finding his skin covered in the same fine sheen of perspiration I felt on my own. Only I was also wet and aching much lower, desperate to have him fill me.

I moaned when he placed the palm of his hand just where I needed him most, fingers sifting through the damp curls and circling that spot. A wave of pleasure crashed over me when he touched it, and I lifted my hips wanting to increase the pressure, but he withdrew. “Why?” I asked, blinking up at him and trying to focus on his face.

“I’ve got to be inside you, babe. I can’t hold out anymore.” He rocked back on his heels and reached for something on the nightstand.

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes, embarrassed, but at the same time incredibly touched that he had enough self-control to remember to use protection.

“I’m always safe.” He tore open the packet and rolled the condom down his impressive length. Our eyes met again, the message in his so elemental that my entire body flooded with heat. Putting his hands to the mattress on either side of my head, he lowered his face and kissed me hard and wet and deep. His mouth was a ravenous force now; his tongue relentless as it stroked and repeatedly filled mine. My moan turned into a drawn out needful cry that only he could satisfy. I drug my fingernails down the tensed muscles of his back.

He groaned, and I loved that his sense of urgency seemed as desperately out of control as mine.

“Justin, I can’t…I’m going to…”I couldn’t say anymore. My heels dug into the mattress. I shifted beneath his weight, my hands dropping to his tight ass, and I squeezed. Instead of doing what I wanted though, he eased back and looked at me. He was making me wait for it. I knew that as soon as I saw his lips spread into a smoldering smile. And then he gave it to me, and he gave it to me nice and slow, sinking into me inch by delicious hot inch until he was so deep inside of me that he possessed me, my body and my soul.

He groaned his approval as I sighed his name. The emptiness inside me disappeared and I felt a fullness and a connection to him, to this man and this man alone, that I’d never felt ever before. Something rare and beautiful and warm bloomed inside of me. And I knew even before he settled into a rhythm that swiftly took us both to that place, passion’s pinnacle, where breaths are stolen, where pleasure was given and received and magnified by a thousand, that nothing in my life would ever be the same ever again.

Afterward, after she rocked my world and rolled my heart and remade it hers, I took my face out of her neck, wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

I was never going to let her go.

Never.

Her curves pressed into my side, her flowery scent drifting lightly in the air, the soft caress of her hair against my skin.

This was right. She was right. Everything was right with us right now.

“I love you,” I breathed like a promise, bending my neck to kiss the top of her head.

I felt her smile against my chest. “I love you, too.”

My heart skipped a beat.
Holy hell.
I didn’t think I was ever going to get used to hearing those words from her. My heart had swelled several times over just since that first time that she’d said them. And lower down something else was growing. Again.

I’d never wanted a woman more than I wanted her. I knew it was because I’d never really been in love. Sure I’d been guilty of using those words carelessly in the past. But this was different. For her, I wanted to fill those words with memories and meaning. I wanted to show her that I meant them. I wanted to prove to her how I felt in every possible way I could imagine.

And much more primitively, I wanted to be joined to her again, and again, marking her so deeply, so indelibly, that she’d never be able to erase me from her mind or her heart.

I hauled her on top of me, fisted my hand in her hair and brought those luscious lips back to where they belonged. As soon as my mouth touched hers she admitted me. I swallowed her sigh and moaned with her when our tongues began to dance in a sensual rhythm again. She tasted like Florida sunshine, fresh and vital. I felt something profound and pure shift inside. Bridget Dubois brought light and color and sound to an existence I never realized had been so shadowed and drab and muted.

The velvety points of her nipples scored my skin as she wiggled, and her smooth legs and the press of her softly weighted curves on top of me brought that wild passion raging right back to the surface. I was ready to release it again. “Bridget,” I called out low.

“Mmm, Justin.” She eased back, breaking the connection of our mouths. Her lips were wet and swollen and her eyelids were seductively half lowered. She was the most provocative thing I’d ever seen. Darkened eyes on me, she slid into position, rocking herself against me.

“Temptress,” I growled and flipped her immediately over onto her back. Bracing above her, I could feel the blaze in my eyes as they burned into hers. “You ready for me?”

She reached for me, dragging my face back down to hers.

“I’m taking that as a yes.” I breathed the words against her lips. She shivered.
Oh hell yes
. I grabbed another condom from the nightstand, tore it open, and rolled it on. Hands back on either side of her head, I brought our mouths together again, plunging my tongue between her lips, filling her mouth at the same time that I plunged deeply inside her.

I immediately pulled almost all the way back out and then went back in. No teasing. No foreplay. Harder and faster this time. Fire clawed its way through my veins, urgency tightening every part of my body.

“Justin.” She tore her mouth from mine. “Oh, Justin. Yes!”

I felt it, the rhythmic clenching of her release, so good, so impossible to resist. I came with her, holding nothing back, an explosion of ecstasy slamming me.

Seconds later, still shuddering from that sensual onslaught, I framed her face. My hands trembled. I kissed her lips, her forehead, and then her cheeks. They were noticeably wet and salty. “You ok, babe?” I felt concern narrow my eyes and tighten my gut. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No.” She shook her head side to side on the pillow, her long hair tangled and damp, but beautiful. “It was just so good, Justin. You’re so good.”

With the words of her endorsement ringing in my ears, with the salty evidence of her praise on my lips, something in my heart broke loose and became completely hers. I pulled the sheet over both of us tucking her into my side where she was always meant to be.

My heart full of him, a thoroughly unfamiliar contentment coursing through me, I tucked my chilled hands into my hoodie pockets and swung my legs setting the porch swing in motion again.

After we’d spent the entire night together, I’d snuck back into my room just as the sun had begun to creep over the horizon. Justin had been right behind me. Fully dressed for the morning, he had stood over Carter’s bed, waiting until I was safely under the covers in mine before he had gently shaken my son awake.

My body flushed with heat remembering everything we had done. There’d been no sleeping. We’d been awake, talking, touching, and kissing. He had even made love to me one more time, right before he’d escorted me back across the hall.

Carter’s appealing laughter ringing out across the front lawn brought my thoughts back to the present. My son’s nose and cheeks were rosy from the cold, his eyes sparkling in the mid-morning sunlight. He’d been lit up from within like that all morning. He loved it out here. He loved helping, being near the animals, and loved being a part of a family.

So did I.

He threw the ball again, and Sam, barking and tail wagging, tore off after it.

“Can I join you?”

“Sure.” I looked up to take the mug Rheta offered me before she took the seat beside me. My eyes returned to Carter as I blew over the top of the steaming tea.