She looked at the laptop. Forty-two percent. That was a fact, the place she felt safe. During one conversation she’d downloaded forty-two percent of her email, and those emails would contain situations she could manage, emotions she could handle.
There was nothing factual or manageable about the way she felt with Keenan. The whole situation, the bar, the night air, the unfamiliar language and terrain, wasn’t fantasy, either. It was more real than either fact or fantasy, simmering deep in her core, heightening her senses. Lighting her up.
Her hand was steady when it reached out and closed her laptop, severing the connection to her life, half a world away. She neatly stacked The Iliad on top of the laptop. Keenan held her gaze as he held out his hand. Puzzled, she handed over the laptop and book, the gesture oddly out of place, a gentleman offering to carry her books, but she went along with it. In the elevator he reached out with his free hand and stroked down her arm to her hand, weaving his fingers through hers. Again, gentle, the move matched by a slow pace down the hall. He let go of her hand to slide the key card into the door and open it for her.
It was all completely out of character, until the door closed with a thud at the same time Keenan’s fingers closed around her wrist, muscle and bone that was for all practical purposes as strong as steel when it halted her progress into the bedroom.
Then he yanked, pulling her stumbling back toward him. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he was using a fraction of his strength, but all her animal body knew was the bolt of crazy hot lust that shot through her when she came up against his hard body.
The impact didn’t even rock him back on his heels. She looked up into his face, saw the thin line of his lips in his beard, the veneer of calm over his eyes totally at odds with his hard cock, currently pressed against her hip.
Using his body he maneuvered her to the bed. The incomplete friction of his body against her struck sparks as he moved, until her breathing was erratic, shallow. Then he pulled her wrist between their torsos and around, spinning her so she faced the bed. She had time to draw one startled breath before he guided her down to the mattress, their entwined arms clamped at her waist partially breaking her fall, then used some combination of hand and hips and legs until she was lying facedown, his legs between hers, the weight of his torso pressing her into the bed.
She turned her face to the side, watched his hand leisurely reach up and set the laptop and book on the nightstand, blocking the clock’s red display. He’d done all that while holding her laptop and The Iliad. Oh dear God, yes.
With his free hand he gathered her hair and swept it to one side, then tipped her head forward, baring her nape to him. For long minutes he used his mouth on the sensitive nerves there, starting with breath and lips, then adding tongue and teeth when she softened and heated under him. Frissons of pleasure trickled along her nerves, the heat and pressure of his cock against her ass a constant presence compared to the alternating textures of soft lips, bristly beard, and the occasional nip of teeth.
By the time he’d finished she was pliant under him, her body hot and loose around a tight coil of need low in her belly. “Let’s see if you like the game as much as I did,” he whispered.
One-handed he unfastened her belt and button, then curled his fingers into her waistband and panties, then tugged her jeans, panties, and shoes right off and tossed them to the floor. He pushed up her shirt up to expose most of her belly. It should have felt awkward, bared from the waist down, spread to him. It should have looked awkward, when Keenan, still fully dressed and in total control of her body, leaned forward to press a kiss into her belly, just below her navel.
Her first thought was that he was shockingly flexible. The bumps of his spine stretched against his shirt as he slowly kissed his way down to the soft mat of hair covering her sex. Then he paused, his hot breath so close to the sensitized flesh she knew was slick and ready for him. He waited, the hot caress of his breath maddeningly close to her clit, until her body, taut with longing, lifted toward him in a pleading movement.
He shifted down, using his shoulders to keep her open for him. She couldn’t look, couldn’t bear the intimacy of his mouth between her legs. The darkness heightened her other senses. Sweat, and the scent of her musk. The hotel’s silence. She even thought she could taste the heat simmering just below a boil as she ached for the touch of his tongue to her clit.