Page 59 of Guilty as Sin
He wasn’t in any danger of losing the mood. It would take a freight train to do that. But she might need some kissing and touching and loving first, so he did it, and she forgot to laugh and was wrapping herself around him again, and saying his name again, too.
When he slid inside her at last, he had her forearms in his hands, and then his hands were moving down her arms, because he had to thread his fingers through hers, had to feel her that way, too.
It was all good. Until she wrapped her legs up high around his waist. And stiffened.
She stayed like that. She was holding her breath, too. Holding herself still.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“My… my leg,” she gasped. “I just need to…” She unwrapped her leg, but she was still absolutely tight under him, and not in a good way. “Never mind. Please.”
He’d already rolled to his side, though, and felt for her thigh. Her muscles were rigid, her breathing loud. “Sorry,” she said, sounding agonized. Her leg, her psyche, he couldn’t tell which. Both, maybe.
“No worries.” She was massaging her thigh, and he added his touch to hers, digging in just a little, stroking slow and long, rubbing the ease back into her leg and, he hoped, into her mind. “We’ll get to it,” he promised. “We’ve got all night.” He felt a rough spot marring the skin. “This the place? You really did hurt it.” It was more than a strain. That was a wound.
“Yes. But it’s better. Muscle spasm, that’s all. Too much running in the mud.” She laughed, a husky sound, wrapped her arm around his neck, and pulled his head down for a kiss. “Start over?”
“Mm.” His hand moved up her body, settled on a breast, because he wanted to feel it again, and because she loved it. “What way would feel better? What wouldn’t hurt?”
“Oh.” She took a breath. “Uh… from behind. No, uh, stress on my leg. Would that work for you?”
He had to smile, and then he had to kiss his way over her cheek, across to that sweet spot below her ear. “Is that a trick question? Turn over, baby. We’ll see how it feels. If you want to stop, if it hurts, we’ll stop. I promise.”
A sigh, and she was doing it. His roving hands found her dropping onto her elbows, drawing her knees up under her. She was rocking back and forth like she needed something, and he knew what it was.
Did it work for him? When he was kissing his way down her spine, drawing his fingertips down it, hearing the breath she sucked in for a different reason this time? And later, when he was inside her, with one hand flat on the mattress and the other one hauling those gorgeous hips back hard? Yeah, you could say it worked.
He took the slow road, and that was all good. He tuned in to her body like it was his, felt every curve, and took every breath with her. When it felt good, he knew it, and when it felt better, he knew that, too. And when his hand trailed all the way down her spine again to that wonderful indentation just above her tailbone, and she shivered? A flash of lightning at the window, and he saw her there beneath him, all ivory curves, saw himself stroking deep inside her, and it was almost over right then.
His thumb was still rubbing that indentation, and when she turned liquid under him, he slipped his hand around in front, found her sweet spot, and felt her shudder and surrender a little more.
He barely knew what he was saying, but he was saying it anyway. “Yeah. That’s it. Give me some more of that. Come on, baby. Give it to me.”
“Jace.”Her hips moving back into him, her voice muffled, like she had her face all the way down, pressed into her hands. “Please. Oh, please.”
He could swear he felt her convulsions before they arrived, and the darkness came on him like thunder. He was plunging deep inside her, and she wasn’t hurting one bit. She was winding up higher and higher, and then she was letting it all go.
Sweetness and heat. Honey and silk. And he was gone.
You could say it took her a while to recover. Or you could say it took an eternity.
Jace got up after a minute, and she could tell he was feeling his way to the bathroom. She needed to get up, too, and put a nightgown on. In a minute, she would. The power was still out, but it would come back. He’d see her leg, and he couldn’t see her leg.
Right now, though, it was dark. Somehow, she was getting up herself, andnotgoing into the dressing room. She was finding her way into the bathroom instead, her hand hitting his chest as he came out. His hands came out instantly to grip her upper arms, to steady her.
“Hey,” he said. “All right?”
“Mm. Yeah. Want to take a shower with me? Warm up?”
The breath of his laugh, low and soft. “Another trick question. Never been so grateful to be on city water.”
Finding the faucet, getting the temperature right. Stepping into the tub, his hand still on her arm, nothing but careful, aware, still, of her leg, as if he felt, somehow, what she did. His strong arms wrapping around her from behind, pulling her into him. His big hand smoothing her wet hair back from her cheek, kissing her there. She found the bottle of liquid soap, pressed down, inhaled the scent of orange and ginger as it escaped into the warm steam, and squirted some into his palm so he could rub it over her. Then turned slowly in his arms so she could return the favor.
No words now, because they didn’t need any. Sweet and warm and strong. Touching and kissing and loving. Finding the towels, afterwards, and rubbing him dry while he did the same for her, then finding their way back to the big bed, showing grayish-white in the shadows. Pulling the covers back, climbing inside with him, and shivering until he wrapped one big arm around her, pulled her back against him, and warmed her with his body until she relaxed. Until she slept.
Sometime in the night, he woke to find that the rain had stopped, and it wasn’t fully dark anymore. Not dawn, either. Then it got dark again, he heard somebody coming up the stairs, and he sat up fast.
Weapon.
