Page 70 of Ship Wrecked

His groan might have been ripped from the center of the earth, and his big hands clutched her hips in a near-painful grip. But he didn’t move. Not a millimeter.

“It’s okay,sötnos.” Glorying in the pleasurable stretch of his body inside hers, she rocked her hips once. Twice. “You can let go now.”

“Can’t. You move.” He ducked his head and buried it in the crook of her shoulder, his panting breaths hot against her neck. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

Grabbing his chin, she forced him to look at her. To see her certainty. “You won’t. Fuck me as hard as you like.”

The vein in his temple was pulsing with alarming violence, but he still didn’t move.

“C’mon, Peter,” she murmured, then slid up almost the entire length of his cock, until he was barely inside her. “I’m a big girl. Throw me around a little.”

He finally lost control.

His nostrils flared, his hands squeezed her ass with bruising possessiveness, and he shoved her back down on his dick with a snarl.

Before she even had time to gasp in pleasure, he’d begun bucking his hips, fucking her with such ferocious power that all she could do was hold on. Each impact jolted through her like a thunderbolt, and gods above, it even felt like lightning. Electricity arcing. Power gathering.

Dimly, she heard herself panting. Clinging to his shoulders, she arched back and spread her legs even wider, until her inner thighs ached at the strain.

She wanted him so deep she’d still feel him in a month. So deep he’d never leave.

“Changed... my mind.” His gravelly words barely sounded human. “First time... inside you again. You’re... coming... on my... cock.”

He licked his thumb and pressed it to her clit, and with each slap of flesh against flesh, the rough pad of that thumb rubbed against her. Again and again and again, mercilessly.

He was thick inside her, hot beneath and around her, his hold inexorable, his thumb so fucking talented, and she let her eyes flutter shut as the pleasure built and built within her.

She was panting harder now. Whimpering. The hand squeezing her ass disappeared, only to land firm and heavy on her nape. Using his hold on her neck, he hauled her against his chest, so tight her breasts scraped against him with every ruthless stroke, so tight she could barely breathe, and he claimed her mouth in a bruising, unapologetically carnal kiss.

His lips were greedy, his tongue demanding immediate entry. When she opened to him, he sucked her own tongue inside his mouth, and he tasted like sweat and mint and pussy.

Then he wrapped her ponytail around his fist and tugged hard.

Without warning, she convulsed again, her body racked with pleasure and clenched tight around his plunging dick, and he swallowed the breathy cry from her lips.

“Thank”—he groaned into her mouth—“fuck.”

While she was still shuddering, he gave one last violent buck of his hips, ripped his mouth from hers, and shouted hoarsely as he finally came, the same strangled word ripped from his throat over and over again as he shook in her arms.

One word. Her name.

It sounded like a prayer.

Late that night, after they’d had dinner, made love for a second time, and showered together, Maria pulled the bedcovers over both of them and flopped down on his chest.

He wheezed for a moment. “Holy shit, woman.”

“You’re tough.” She patted one broad pec, then played with some of his dark hair there. “Suck it up,skitstövel.”

After shaking his head at her, he twisted a bit to reach the bedside lamp and turned it off. “Cruelty, thy name is Maria.”

They hadn’t actually discussed whether they’d sleep in the same bed. They’d simply... not separated. Even though Maria hadn’t spent an entire night with a lover since discovering her ex’s other life in London.

It was a fool’s act. Until she knew for certain he could commit to her the way she needed, she should maintain a healthy emotional distance. Keep the sex purely physical. Watch and wait and evaluate.

In the end, though, it hadn’t been so much a conscious decision as an instinct. A visceral urge to huddle against his warmth and allow him to see her vulnerable in sleep, a sudden certainty that pushing him away would feelwrong. Obeying that reflexive conviction, she’d followed him to his bedroom, to his bed, without a word of protest.

And that was a fool’s defense, making a dangerous choice and declaring it unthinking. Inevitable. Out of her control, so whatcould she do, really? What could she do but open herself up to someone else whose intentions she didn’t entirely trust, much as she cared for him?

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