Page 17 of Wrong Turn

His heartbeat picked up beneath her hand, his breath flowing slightly faster.

She was grateful to be looking into his kind, dark eyes as she felt her own arousal, an unfamiliar throb, almost a pain, between her legs. She could feel him too, a thickening at their joined hips. She could almost see their blood heating in the darkness.

Arousal was an unfamiliar, slightly scary sensation. She’d lost that feeling to Kwon, when she was just a child, and it had never visited her so strongly before.

Cruz lowered himself slowly, and she followed. He sat cross-legged in the sand, and using his hands, he showed her that she was to sit on his lap, facing him, her legs over his, their bellies touching. “This is called theyam yub,” he whispered, his voice husky. “A sacred position.”

Her former stiffness and clumsiness gone, Lei sank into his lap. The tight confines of the tubelike spandex dress felt binding and ridiculous, so she peeled it up.

Cruz helped, lifting the garment off her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her breasts sprang free and peaked in the cool night air as she breathed deep in relief, dropping the garment. Moonlight shone on the pale rounds of her chest. Cruz’s eyes traveled over her, lingering there a moment, before they returned to hers.

In his gaze she saw anticipation, and delight in her beauty. Nothing more. Nothing that felt intrusive or demanding. Nothing that required anything of her or would take anything from her that she didn’t want to give.You’re beautiful, his gaze said.I want you, of course. But that is all it is.

Lei reached for the edge of his shirt and eased it off, up over his head, baring his upper body as well, and she looked her fill at him.

He was sparely and beautifully made, perfectly proportioned in the way of an athlete who builds muscle from the practice of his art. His narrow waist flared up into a smooth, wide chest, his nipples were small dark coins, and his collarbones a visually pleasing rack from which the swell of his shoulder muscles rose. His neck was a column bisected by the fluttering of the pulse in his throat, and the tiniest wind off the water blew a black curl against the shell of his ear.

“Ah,” she said. “You’re beautiful.”

“As are you,” he breathed, and brought his arms down around her waist, drawing her close and tight, so that their pelvises touched. She embraced his shoulders. Their hips aligned, and their skin touched from waist to shoulder.

Lei expected the sex to begin, but it didn’t.

Instead, he wriggled her intimately close, just holding her for several breaths, and gently, he rested his head on her shoulder. It felt heavy, a weight of trust.

Very carefully, she lowered her head to rest on his firm, meaty shoulder, too. She shut her eyes. She breathed with him, enjoying the friction of his hardness against her panties, the length of their touching skins, the perfect alignment of their hearts and breath.

She was still in her body.

The victory of it flushed her with a swirl of delicious feeling. His scent filled her nostrils, drugging and delicious. His heart rate jumped in response to hers, and their pulses thundered against each other—but there was no other movement.

She had to taste him.

Lei lifted her head just the slightest bit to lick the lobe of his ear. He shuddered beneath her as if struck by lightning.

He tasted so good: salty and nourishing, as if tasting him fed her.

She wanted more but restrained herself as he lifted his head and slowly, so slowly, licked the tiny wound Joao had made on her neck.

A thrill zipped through her and the feeling between her legs seemed to heat and pulse with her pounding heartbeat. She was burning, on fire, and only he could put it out. She wriggled impatiently and reached for the button on his pants.

“Settle,” he breathed against her throat. “Stay in the moment. This is not like anything you’ve ever done before or will do again. This is all there is.”

Was he telling her they wouldn’t have sex?

Disappointment and frustration warred with a tiny flicker of relief—but regardless, Cruz was in charge. She struggled to accept his words, to restrain herself, to relax.

Gradually, she settled back into his embrace, and laid her head on his shoulder again. Their faces almost touched as they breathed each other’s air. She was melting, spreading across his hard chest, over his shoulders, her body going boneless, a spill of warm honey puddling in his lap.

At last he moved—stroking his hands up her back, from her buttocks, up the base of her spine to her shoulders and back down again, kneading, pressing, and molding her against him. Slow, deliberate, deep, the sensation was exquisite, a seated massage. She could feel the edges of herself: under his hands she was slender, firm, and supple, as if he were creating her as he shaped her. Lei sighed, a deep sound of fulfillment, as he cupped her bottom in his hands.

Wanting to give back, Lei touched his head. She ran her hands and fingertips again and again through the soft tight curls of his hair, from the roots to the ends. His head fell back, his eyes shutting in pleasure, as, using only her fingertips, she massaged the precious sphere of his skull. She ran her hands over the smooth hard planes of his face, fingers brushing the sculpted mouth she longed to kiss—and back up into his scalp she went, digging her fingers into the pressure points on his head that an EMT friend of hers had shown her could bring relief from pain.

Goosebumps erupted all over him at her touch, and finally a groan of ecstasy escaped him. He wrapped both arms around her and crushed her close. That sound made her arch her back, pressing ever closer, his face almost between her breasts.

She couldn’t help moving her hips against his hardness, craving more of that friction.

Cruz grasped her by the waist and pushed her back and away. Their bodies weren’t touching at all now, but for her hands stabilizing herself at his shoulders and her legs over his. Lei whimpered at the loss of contact.

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