Page 24 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
Just at the moment, she hastened to add to herselfmentally.Shewasn’t a pirate to steal and keep what didn’t belong to her.
“Good enough?” The corner of his mouth quirked up with a little too much intensity.
He cared how she answered.
She knew it was just because he’d been rejected before, not because he specifically cared about her opinion. But her nervousness evaporated at the thought of undoing some of that old damage that had left novisible scars, unlike the crescent beside his eye.
“You make my heart race,” she admitted. “Maybe not as fast as light, but faster than I can catch my breath.”
His own breath seethed out in a hoarse curse and he hauled her up against the breadth of his chest for another scorching kiss.
With only her thin nightgown as a barricade between their heaving chests, his skin was hot and her nipplesas hard as carved crystal. The silky material slithered under his hands as he held her up to his devouring mouth, and his curse this time was both impassioned and impatient.
“Take it off,” he growled as he finally spun her toward the bed.
She sprawled across the mattress, doing a bit of devouring of her own with her hungry stare. Oh, he wassofine with the wild toss of his hair and the leanglide of his muscles as he stalked toward her.
“You first,” she challenged. “I want it all.”
He smirked at her, toying with the closure of his pants. “You gave me a hard time about being undone before.”
“Well, nowyouget to givemea hard time.” She reached out to trail her fingertip down the front seam.
He shuddered, and all the muscles of his abs bunched tight—including the bulge whereher fingers paused. She ticked her fingers up the rippling eight-pack then down again to flick the seal of his fly. The closure split wide, releasing the swell of manly flesh she’d been thinking—okay, fantasizing—about since seeing his butt.
She choked on a muffled exclamation.
Aw yeah, they wereverycompatible.
With taut anticipation, she closed her grip around his erection. It had beenso long… Not his cock—although that was plenty long—but since she’d had one in hand. Even before getting abducted by Blackworm, hooking up in Sunset Falls, Montana, had sometimes been more trouble than it was worth. The hikers, hunters, and cowboys who’d passed through town were always up for a one-night stand, which had been fun for a while, but maybe she’d gotten lazy about finding satisfactionfor her heart as well as her body.
Notthat she was seeking anything from this ex-pirate captain beyond this night, she reassured herself hastily.
Even if he seemed to havemorethan enough to last the night
Holding lightly to his cock, she pulled herself upright and knee-walked across the mattress to face him. With the boost of the mattress, she was almost eye to eye with him despite how tallhe was.
The intensity of his half-lidded gaze was nearly as bright as the plasma charges from their blasters at the firing range had been. “It’s been only my hand for too long,” he murmured. “Yours feels better.”
She shook her head, not sure she believed him after seeing him with theGrandy’s engineering officer. She scowled to herself; maybe dropping his pants for an alien vampirewasproofhe’d been as needy as she felt now. She wasn’t sure if the internal thought made her a bitch or a fool or just someone who’d been lonely more often than she cared to admit.
But she had her hands full now. She stroked him once, watching the expressions flicker across his face as she learned what he liked. The way his hips canted yearningly into her hands told her he liked everything, and the darkeningflush across his cheek made the crescent scar at his temple shine silver in the low bedroom light.
He leaned forward, but instead of giving her another of those irresistible kisses, he lowered his head to set his teeth against the side of her throat. Her head listed helplessly to one side, giving him full access to the vulnerable pulse at her throat. He nipped his way along the straining tendonand licked into the hollow of her throat once before returning to the tender spot below her jaw. She shivered when the gentle suction of his mouth made her blood throb as if he was calling directly to her heart.
Her heart was part of her body, she reasoned, and it deserved to feel good too. And while the universe might be vast and mostly unknown to her, she wasn’t dumb enough to fall for kisses—nomatter how irresistible they might be.
“May I?” His fists bunched in the hem of her nightgown, lifting the edge inexorably higher. A whisper of air—not cooler, hotter if anything—breathed through the juncture of her thighs.
When had she locked her fingers in his hair again? She was holding him so tight, she must be hurting him, but he never made a noise. She forced herself to release him andlifted her hands straight up. “Please do,” she murmured. What she meant of course wasplease do me.
But he took his time, as if he had an eternity to strip her. She squirmed impatiently as he lifted the hem to her crotch and then her breasts and then over her head, breathing heavier with each revelation. Each rasp of his breath and inching drag of the silky fabric chafed on her skin until shewas trembling with desire.
When the nightgown was almost free of her outstretched hands and bound around her wrists, he twisted the material once in his fist, holding her strung up tight before his hungry eyes.
She gasped and swayed toward him. “Wait…”
He stilled. “Too much?”
