Page 58 of Heart of Danger
Mac had felt lust plenty of times, he knew exactly what it was and what happened to him when it struck. There was this matrix, this pattern and he was intimately familiar with it, followed it, every time. It worked and he realized it had never occurred to him that there was something else.
It was something learned by rote, followed instinctively, like a playbook. ABC.
See a woman who wasn’t a dog, didn’t smell, had all her teeth, sniff her out and if she was up for it, tell his dick to rise and stay up. And it did, of course. It always did. He never had to think about it. Never had to feel about it.
Fucking was fun, good sweaty exercise. The aftermath …not so much. It was true that Mac had perfected all the get-out-of-Dodge-fast moves and wasn’t often caught in bed in a post-coital glow. He wasn’t looking for love and neither were the women, just some fun in bed and that’s what they got. No more, no less.
That was sex.
This? This was something else. Something infinitely more powerful, overwhelming, something that hadn’t even crossed his horizon in thirty-eight years of living.
He looked down for one second at Catherine’s beautiful face. He had a soldier’s ability to grab impressions in a second and in that split second before he kissed her he marveled again at just how fucking beautiful she was.
Huge light gray eyes with that dark blue rim around them, reflecting all the light in the room in silvery flashes, pale perfect skin, high cheekbones rounding down to a firm little chin and right there the world’s most delectable mouth, soft and puffy and quivering.
Shit.
Her whole body was quivering, shaking, he could feel it in his hands, against his chest. She was what? Scared? Of him?
Fuck that.
He fisted his hand in her soft, shiny dark hair and plunged into her, like a high diver going off the deep end. A very, very deep end. Like he was falling endlessly down to the bottom of the world with nothing to stop him.
Oh,right. There was something stopping him.
Clothes. His, hers.
Shit, they had to be gone, right now, because anything standing between his skin and hers had to go. Now.
He’d undressed plenty of women in his time but this stumped him because he had no idea how he could undress her when his mouth refused to leave hers and his hands were filled with warm woman and had no desire to lift away, none.
Her mouth—oh God. Soft and warm, tasting like wild honey. He held her tightly against him so he could feel her all along his front and it was like electricity buzzing against one side of him while the other side of him was in coldest outer space.
For a second, he wondered how he could get to a place where he was being touched by her all over, front and back, head to toe, but the laws of physics were a bitch and wouldn’t let him. But by Christ he wanted it.
They broke for a second, two microns of distance between their mouths, Mac pulled in a deep breath, pulled her back to him and latched onto her mouth like a dying man. If he were dying, her mouth would revive him, no question, her tongue alone gave him jolts like those patches reviving dead men. The hand holding the back of her head slid down and his fingers touched petal-soft skin. He ran a finger along her neck while he bit her lower lip and felt her vibrate, felt her tongue flutter.
Fuck, fuck. Not only her tongue. Felt her sex flutter! Felt her muscles pull hard from her stomach to her groin and felt his dick lengthen at the same time in answer.
He wasinher, in her head, could barely distinguish between his arousal and hers, AND knew he had to be in her body too, right now, or die.
“We have to get our clothes off,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I know,” she whispered back and licked his lips.
His dick swelled even further against her belly, one strong, almost painful pulse and it was either be in her or go crazy.
He was used to moving fast.
In the field you were fast or you were dead, one or the other. He was fast. And he was fast now, movements precise and quick as if he were field stripping his gun, something he’d done a thousand times until his hands knew the movements better than he did.
This was something like that, only he’d never stripped a woman like this, fast and rough. Someone who looked like him had to have a little finesse but—whoa—there was no finesse in him at all, just a sort of fiery desperation.
Fast, fast, fast.
Her sweater and bra, his sweatshirt, tee. He was kissing her again before they hit the floor. Everything else could be done while kissing her, without leaving her mouth because that was how he was breathing, living—through her mouth.
He was trembling. Mac didn’t tremble, not any time, not under any circumstances, but here he was, shaking, wanting to jump out of his own skin. Or hers, because at odd moments, like a flash across his consciousness, it was as if he were in her skin, not his.
