I crossed the room and slipped my arms around him, laying my head against his back. I half expected him to tense, but he’d been waiting for me.
Jimmy was taller than me, so my cheek pressed to his shoulder blade, my breasts at his rib cage, my hips just below his. I spread my palms against a firm, flat stomach. His heat pulsed through the soft, worn material of his T-shirt.
We’d embraced like this dozens of times. It brought back so many memories, as did the faint scent of cinnamon that wafted from his skin. If I closed my eyes, I could convince myself we were kids again, before we’d hurt each other, before we’d killed. Or at least before I had.
I’d never loved anyone the way I’d loved Jimmy Sanducci. I doubted I ever could. I’d trusted him utterly, believed in him completely, wanted him with that crazed burn of bursting teenage hormones. When he’d broken my heart, he’d broken it forever. I would never be able to trust, or believe, or love quite like that again.
Even with him.
CHAPTER 27
“Jimmy,” I began.
He spun and kissed me. There was nothing gentle about that kiss, nothing of our childhood except the flavor. Jimmy tasted like danger—always had.
His tongue plunged, mine met it halfway, and they tangled. My hands swooped under his T-shirt. His skin seemed to scald mine, and I only wanted more.
I traced my palms over the ridges in his stomach, moaning when the muscles clenched. I wanted to lick them as they rippled, feel the movement with my tongue.
My thumb circled his navel then traced lower, slipping below his belt and caressing the smooth hot head of him.
He arched and his hips advanced and retreated, advanced and retreated, rubbing my thumb over and back, over and back. Memory flashed, illuminating a path we’d blazed many times before.
I used my fingernail on his tip, nothing more than a tickle, but he gasped, capturing my breath into his mouth. Once we’d lain for hours, nose-to-nose, staring into each other’s eyes, breathing each other’s breath.
I wish we could stay like this forever, I’d whispered.
Even then, Jimmy had kissed me and said nothing at all.
His long-fingered, clever hands rode my hips then swept across my stomach. I was hot, but he was hotter. When his skin touched mine I half expected steam to rise.
I tore off my shirt, tossing it aside and drawing his dark head nearer. He filled his palms with my breasts and despite the admirable size of his hands they over-flowed his grasp.
Though my skin was as dark as his, in the moonlight I seemed carved of marble, his fingers like onyx. He stared at my chest, his hands, tilting his head, watching the candles flicker gold across the stark white globes and tendrils of black.
I knew that expression. He was wondering where he’d left his camera.
“Later,” I muttered, and cupped my palms over his knuckles, showing him what he already knew.
Together our thumbs slid right and then left, right and then left across my nipples. My head fell back, and he feasted.
My hands clenched in his hair then slid to his shoulders and held on. As he suckled, my knees weakened. Without support I would fall.
Memories flickered through his mind before he cut them off. Jimmy had become almost as adept at keeping me out as I’d become at not seeing in. Right now I had no desire to see his secrets or the past. The only desire I had was for him.
His erection pressed against my belly, pulsing and alive. I wanted to climb up high, hook my ankles behind his back, and welcome him home. I’d lifted myself onto my tiptoes, begun to slide my leg up his. Only then did I realize he still wore all his clothes, and I still wore half of mine.
“Off.” I tugged at his zipper.
He lifted his head, mouth glistening, eyes glazed. An instant later, he began to return to what he was doing, and I scraped his stomach with my nails.
His breath drew in on a hiss. “Sheesh, Lizzy,” he said, but he focused.
I stepped back, and my fingers went to my own zipper. “Race you.” I yanked it down as he reached for the hem of his shirt.
I beat him. I usually did, even when I wasn’t ahead by a T-shirt.
He kicked away his jeans, and I held up my hand to keep him from tackling me. I wanted to look at him for just a minute. Who knew if I’d ever get to look at him this way again.
Sanducci had a beautiful face. His body, long and lean, a runner’s body, glistened like copper beneath the moon. Because he was a breed and could heal most everything, there wasn’t a single scar to mar his perfect flesh.
Soft, dark curls dusted his legs; an equally dark trail led from the matt of hair between his thighs to his navel. I let my gaze wander higher, across his toned chest and biceps. His shoulders were broader than his hips, but not by much, his muscles taut not bulky.