Her mouth chased his, hungry and wet, as her arms embraced his neck. She whimpered and gasped for air. “Now. Now. Oh.”
When all his energy started to push down into his groin, Carter fell back, watching in breathless wonder as Kat continued to pull it from him. She lifted and fell, she demanded and begged, she swiveled and tightened, she thrust and grasped until, with a furious bellow, Carter shattered into her. Carter’s neck corded as his orgasm blasted through him like a rocket and smothered his entire body in white heat, her name leaving his lips with an agonized moan.
Bright lights blinded him, while his body twitched and shuddered beneath her. He held tightly, praying she would secure him to the earth and keep his heart from stopping altogether. She squeezed around him, milking him. He threw back his head with a cry of almost painful pleasure. “Sweet Jesus!”
“Wes,” she screamed out, coming apart, bucking, and writhing in his lap. “Wes. Oh God. Oh God. I love you!”
With a giant flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder, the room was plunged into darkness.
27
As they came to a gradual stop, still wrapped around each other, their heavy, labored breaths filled the living room, illuminated only by the still roaring log fire. Carter’s eyes opened slowly as Kat’s words rang around them.
Like a statue, Kat remained on his lap. Her knotted arms stayed around his neck with her face pressed against his. Carter’s brain moved at a thousand miles a minute, and he was damn sure he could feel her heart pounding in time with his.
He moved his thumb minutely, touching the delightful dimples at the bottom of her back, and took a deep breath. “Peach—”
“Shhh,” she interrupted in a quiet, anxious voice. He could feel her shaking her head next to his. “Just. Shhh. Don’t say anything.” He made to move his head so he could look at her, but she held him fast. “Don’t move. Please.”
Confused, he continued to hold her in the same position, cocooned in her warmth. He exhaled raggedly in aggravation when she kept silent and still. Why the hell was she so quiet? Did she regret saying those words to him? Maybe it was a simple impulsive thing inspired by the amazing sex they’d just had.
Maybe she didn’t mean it.
Astonishingly, Carter’s heart paused at that particular thought.
“Kat,” he whispered. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook.
Carter swallowed hard. He heard her sniff and tried to move his head to look at her, but she was too damned strong.
“Kat,” he admonished. “Look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I—I can’t. I shouldn’t have …”
At the sound of the words, he gripped her wrists from around his neck and pulled them away, keeping her body close to him with his hand on her cheek. His gaze wandered over her face in question. He saw she was crying, her face pained, and immediately a huge rock of discomfort lodged in his gut.
He smoothed her damp hair from her face. “What shouldn’t you have done?”
If it was a slip of the tongue—so to speak—then he wanted to hear her say it. As masochistic as it sounded, if Kat had said those words and not meant them, he had to know. He wanted to believe her, truly, but so many things in his mind made him doubt her words. He hated that there was any doubt at all, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been programmed that way: to be suspicious and untrusting. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying his damnedest to rid himself of the uncertainty coursing through him.
Kat stared down at where they were still connected. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Carter slumped and watched her wipe at her tears. He let his hands drop to his sides in defeat. The warm postcoital sensation inside him turned cold.
“It’s all right,” he said in a rough voice. “It happens.”
He had no idea if that was true, but he wanted to make her feel better.
“What happens?” Kat pressed her palm tenderly in the center of his chest, tracing the cursive black ink with her fingertips.
Keeping his eyes on the flickering flames in the hearth, he answered: “I’m sure people say stuff like that a lot. You know, when they get carried away in the moment.” There was a second of complete silence where Kat tensed in his arms. Lightning lit the room sporadically.
Carter’s eyes fluttered closed when her hand touched his chin, bringing his face around to hers.
“You think I got lost in the moment?”
He shrugged.
Kat shook her head slowly from side to side and cleared her throat. “I didn’t get carried away, Wes.”
His name never sounded as good as it did when she said it. He held her stare, searching for any hint of a lie, but all her beautiful eyes told him was the truth.
“You didn’t?”
Her head continued to shake, as she mouthed silently, No.
His chest heaved, as he tried to regain thought and the ability to speak. “Wh—” His throat closed around the word. He swallowed, and tried again. “If you weren’t caught up in the moment,” he muttered, “why are you sorry?”