Like a bashful girl, she twisted away until her face was in three-quarter profile, draped in dark hair. Chris cupped her cheek and urged her back to center. Her deep brown eyes were wide, luminous, filled to capacity with doubt. The curtain of her unbound hair softened each feature until he could nearly imagine her carefree and happy. The pressure gone. The fears banished.
With his vow of patience and control renewed, he brushed the hair back to bare her throat. He eased nearer, muscles trembling. She tasted of the desert and a sheen of salt. But beneath lay sweet woman. He kissed, licked, suckled softly at that sensitive skin. Rosa tipped her head back with a moan. Her fingers found the caps of his shoulders and dug deep. The taut ache in his cock kicked up a notch.
But still he took it slow. If Chris had a plan at all, other than keeping from embarrassing himself like a teenager with his first girl, it was to leave her wanting. He would tease. She would demand more. And then she wouldn’t be so afraid.
It was a good plan, in theory. The way her nails gouged his flesh, however, made it maddeningly difficult.
Needing a moment to breathe, he whispered in her ear, “Will you answer something for me?”
Her fingers went still.
“¿Qué?”
“Shall I undress first, or you?”
The look on her face was comical, but Chris didn’t laugh. He was too busy appreciating how seriously she considered his question.
“You,” she said at last.
“Will you do the honors or me?”
Now she smiled. The vixen inside the hesitant, wounded woman was coming out to play. God, he hoped so.
She leaned back along the blanket, all athletic curves and gorgeous midnight hair. “You. I think I’ll watch.”
“Determined to make me work for this, aren’t you?”
“All good things require effort.”
Grinning, breathing as evenly as he could, Chris stood. The cave was no bigger than a king-size bed at its base, but a conical roof meant he could stand without having to stoop. He started with his shirt. Inside he was laughing at himself as he undid each button. Chris Welsh, male stripper. But the look in her eyes made him feel like the most potent, desired man on the planet. Hell, maybe he was.
He shrugged out of the shirt, glorying in her gasp. Her gaze was a prairie fire, heating all of his exposed flesh. He balled the shirt and tossed it toward her. Rosa brought the fabric to her nose and inhaled—an intimacy that stole the strength from his knees.
She smiled at him and licked her upper lip. “Turn around. I want to see your back.”
Chris shivered. The bandage covering his fresh tattoo had itched like hell that evening, so he’d removed it before settling in for the night—smiling as he did when thinking about stubborn bravos. The mark would still be slightly reddened, but it was still hers. She had claimed him.
He clenched his jaw and swallowed. Patience. Strength. He needed both now to give her the satisfaction of making demands. There would be no taking on his part, not with a woman who had endured so much. Only giving. He had never been so selfless—could only hope he was up to the task.
“Go on,” she whispered.
To say he was as unhurried with his boots and jeans would be a lie. He was losing it. His stiff cock was a compass needle pointing due north.
He was just about to pull off his shorts when Rosa edged forward and grabbed his hands. “Let me,” she said.
“Damn.”
Her laughter was as much a gift as her trust. “Got that right.”
Clenching his molars, Chris braced for her caress. She hooked her fingers inside the waistband. A gentle tug. Then a rougher one. She never touched his skin, just the underwear, but her agitated breath fanned over his upper thighs—then across his freed cock.
He grabbed her wrists and knelt, pushing her back. “Enough,” he ground out.
The smile shaping her dusky lips was more confident now. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be a saint. Maybe he wouldn’t have to hold back—just hold on. With a little more time, she would join him. His Rosita would not break.
“
Ay
, you’re beautiful,” she whispered up from the blanket.
Chris looked down at himself. He was just a man on his knees, but Rosa’s passionate intensity made him feel like a god. And he couldn’t ever remember being so hard, so ready for a woman.
“Your turn.” Cupping the backs of her calves, he pulled until her legs, spread-eagled, bounded his. “Shall I undress you?”
“Sí.”
No hesitation. He could’ve shouted his relief.
Instead he turned to the serious task of removing her clothes while maintaining his control. He started with her cargo pants, mostly because he didn’t trust his dexterity to last. He worked at the belt, two buttons, and zipper until he bared her flat, taut stomach to the lamplight. He couldn’t resist bending close enough to dip his tongue into the shallow well of her belly button. She jackknifed, giggling.
Chris pulled back, his face slack with wonder. “You’re ticklish?”
“Shut up,
cabrón
.”
“You are.”
He tugged her cargoes down past the gorgeous slope of her hips, then all the way off. But he did so just to return to her stomach. Rosa pushed at his head. He caught her wrists and held them clear. Starting with the elastic edge of her plain panties, he licked up to her navel. Again. Then again. She fought him, her laughter a whirlwind in their cave, until she gasped for mercy and cursed in Spanish. Only his fear of doing further harm to her recent injury kept him relatively gentle.
She was breathless by the time he stopped, and too dazed to see that he’d undone half her shirt. He nuzzled upward from her stomach, kissing, licking, tasting his way toward her breasts.
“You play dirty,” she said against the top of his head.
“I like that you sound pleased.”
“I don’t know what I am right now.”
He looked up from where he’d opened the last button. “You’re breathtaking.”
“I’m just Rosa Cortez.”
Chris stilled. “Do I need to spell this out to you?”
He sat back, still stark naked and fully aroused, and pulled her up to a seated position. His hands more edgy now than when fighting off beasts and raiders, he smoothed her shirt from one shoulder. The skin he revealed to the light was smooth and light brown, like caramels or coffee with cream—a decadent pleasure made real again, here in the time of change. He kissed it, just lip against skin. Then again, again, down her lithe arm as he stripped her bare.
“You’re breathtaking,” he repeated against the sensitive crook of her elbow. “You play at being the untouchable Madonna, but I know the truth. You really are. You have more experience with sex than a woman should be forced to know. But at my touch and my kiss, you tremble.”
He smoothed the other sleeve off her arm. She shivered. Her nipples were hard points against her functional white tank top.
She was staring at him now, as if trying to dig inside his head. “Cristián?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for this.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, grinning. “I’m trying to hold on here.”
She flicked her gaze to his throbbing erection. “You look like it. Shouldn’t we do something about that?”
“Oh, I plan to. But not yet.”
“Chris, you don’t—”
“Shh,” he whispered, slipping the tank top up over her head. “Let me take care of you. Trust me, okay? I got this.”
She was smiling again when she lay back against the blanket. But Chris had lied. The sight of her naked torso—marred only by the bandage he had applied—nearly undid him.
Go slow. Be careful. Make it good.
Shit, he hadn’t ever asked so much of himself.
And it had been years since he’d seen a woman so beautifully exposed. Sex since the Change had been furtive and base—always ashamed, mostly clothed or done in the dark. Rosa was . . .
glorious
. Her breasts were small and proud, with pale brown areolas surrounding hard, tempting nipples. Her skin was luminous.
Had she ever willingly displayed herself like this to a man? If so, it had been a rare event. The toned, athletic cut of her abdominal muscles and graceful arms were a delicious contrast to such feminine softness.
So were the bullet scars that marred her shoulder, her lower left hip, her upper thigh.
Chris had to shut them out. He couldn’t think about the pain she’d endured—not and curtail an impotent rage. The past was the past. And the longer he waited, reveling in the sight of her, the more fidgety she became. He wanted to indulge his senses, but the delay gave her time to think. To reconsider.
So he gave them both the pleasure they wanted. His mouth watered as he leaned nearer and suckled one pert nipple. She arched from the blankets with a surprised cry. Her hands cupped the back of his head, fingers tunneling, before sliding down his nape to his shoulders. There her fingers became reverent. Blood hammered in his ears. He couldn’t breathe—didn’t want to. Just feel.
He moved to her other breast and paid homage, palming that slight weight. Rosa wiggled beneath him. She panted, making furious little noises in her throat. Chris smiled against her nipple and licked, nibbled, sucked deep. Again she reared off the blanket, sending a jolt of fire down to his cock.
He could smell her arousal now, which dragged him down, down to where her panties remained a scant barrier. She seemed beyond noticing when he stripped them off. Her hands kept working at his shoulders, scraping and tightening. Each spike of sweet pain lanced at his control. But he held on, if only for the promise of tasting her.
He could tell the moment she knew his destination. Tension returned. Her breathing quieted. “Chris . . . I—”
“I said, I got this.”
Her inner thigh was impossibly soft. He kissed her again and again until her tension dissolved.
With infinite care, he spread her thighs. She fought him for every moment—not physically, but in her mind. He could practically feel the war between desire and fear. Why he needed to push her like this was probably something too sadistic to analyze. But when she was spread to him, open, vulnerable, her body humming with an electric intensity, the answer was so clear. Her trust was for him alone. A heady aphrodisiac.
He knelt between her legs and tasted. Rosa groaned. She writhed so much that Chris spread his hands wide on her inner thighs and pressed her into the blanket. The implacable cave floor and his tense, splayed fingers held her lower body still. He feasted. He teased and explored. He dipped his tongue inside, senses flooded by the scent and taste of her need. Fierce, breathless cries filled their retreat, ratcheting his desire to an unbearable peak.
Concentrating on the knot of tight nerves, Chris dedicated his mouth to her first orgasm of the night. He circled his tongue, nipped with his teeth, sucked hard. Rosa was lost to a babbling rush of Spanish. He found the rhythm she liked and kept at it, circling, circling, until her spine went taut and she unleashed a stark cry. He held his mouth against her quivering center until the storm receded.
“Come to me, Cristián,” she gasped.
It was more than he could take.
“Tell me I can fuck you,” he grated out. “God, Rosa. I need—”
“
Sí.
Do it.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Chris crawled up Rosa’s body, kissing, tasting. One plunge and he was inside her.
After such phenomenal pleasure, she thought she could stand his body on hers. The warm glow still permeated every muscle. She should’ve been relaxed and blissful, but the moment he slid up and pushed inside, everything went cold. She detached, as she always had. If she closed her eyes, she could almost float up to the ceiling and watch him ride her.
Maybe he won’t know, if I move and moan. No one else ever cared.
The practiced sound escaped her lips before she could stop it, and he froze above her, his body locked. “What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?”
No. The men who had come before did that. But they had stolen the pleasure from her, leaving too many bad memories. Much as she wished it could be otherwise, much as she hated it, she tried to smile because it wasn’t his fault. She was broken.
She almost lied, but the passionate honesty written plainly across his beautiful features called the same from her. “It’s . . . it doesn’t feel good.”
“Me?” He was already pulling back, even though tremors shook him from head to toe. He should have been driving on, heedless of her desires. That lifted some of the tight band across her chest. “I’m doing something wrong?”
“No.” Each word felt torn from her, so difficult to speak through a throat gone thick with old dread. “Maybe I just can’t—”
“Shhh.” Though the move obviously cost him, he withdrew completely, easing beside her on the nest of blankets. “We’ll figure out the problem. I’ll fix it.”