Vaguely, she was aware of an infinite litany of guttural groans echoing in her ringing ears, but she wasn’t sure whether they came from her or the man arching into her.
One of his hands dropped from her hips and slid between her thighs. It found the tight bud of her sex and rolled it between his fingers. White-hot lightning speared from his fingers into the throbbing ball in the pit of her belly. She arched and bore down, screaming as the pressure exploded. Tingles swept up and out, morphed into shudders that ripped through her body from toes to scalp.
As the tingles and shudders engulfed her, liquefying muscle and bone, she was vaguely aware of movement, of rolling. And then Rawls was above her, the heavy muscles of his shoulders bunched, his face taut, neck corded as he thrust into her.
She focused on the flushed rigidity of his face, the blind urgency in his eyes, and the tingles exploded again, sweeping through her with even more force than before. As the tingles reached her head, white static took over her mind and then she was flying and crashing, his raw, breathless shout echoing in her ringing ears.
What might have been a millennium later, she returned to awareness under the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
“What?” she asked.
Since opening her eyes was too much effort and her limbs had fallen into that post-gratification lethargy and refused to move, she sighed with contentment and cuddled into the sweaty masculine body splayed out beneath her. He must have rolled them again while she was out of it. As beds went, he was hard and narrow and hot and altogether perfect.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice raspy and strangely solemn. Fingers slid through her hair, untangling the strands before trailing down her face to cup her cheek. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A smile threatened. Since it was a stretch of the imagination to call her the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, he must be in what was generally referred to as the postcoital glow. Why that tickled her, she had no idea.
“You find that funny?” he asked, curiosity in his voice.
“No.” She opened her eyes, letting the smile spread across her lips. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Sweet?” He shook his head and leaned down, brushing a soft kiss across her lips. “There’s nothin’ sweet about it. It’s pure fact, darlin’.”
Sure it was . . .
But she let the statement pass unchallenged. If he wanted to see her that way, who was she to contradict him?
He brushed another, slightly firmer, kiss across her mouth before pulling back to scan her face. “You.” He leaned in and brushed another kiss across her mouth. “Are.” Another kiss. “Beautiful.” This time he pressed the kiss into her forehead, his lips lingering. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?” Pulling back to study her face, he absently stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles.
She laughed, turning her head to kiss his fingers. “Aren’t you the one who told me, and I quote, ‘You’re too damn thin’?”
“You are, and we’re gonna do somethin’ about that.” He trailed his right hand down her side until he reached her midriff, where he stopped to stroke the indentations between her ribs. “But that does nothin’ to distract from how beautiful you are. Hell, once you get some meat on those bones, you’ll be the most gorgeous woman in the world. Every other poor female on the planet will fade into the woodwork by comparison.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes, but that light, fluffy blanket of contentment filled her to overflowing.
“You don’t see it, do you? How special you are.” His arm slid around her waist and tightened. “That’s just one of the things I love about you. Your complete lack of ego.”
Shaking her head slightly, she smiled up at him. “My ego’s as healthy as the next girl’s. I guess I’ve just been more worried about my insides than my outsides. So I’ve never paid much attention to—” Abruptly the rest of his words kicked in and she froze.
Did he say what I think he said?
“Wh-wha—” The question was strangled beneath a wave of giddy anticipation. “What did you say?”
“That you don’t see how special you are?” The hand on her face slipped down to her chin and lifted her head. “That you don’t have an ego?”
The smile he laid on her was full of bland innocence.
“Not that, the other.” She breathed shallowly, a sense of stillness rising from within her. Expectation swelled, along with the certainty that her life was about to change irrevocably.
The expression on his face shifted from innocent to grave.
“What? That I love you?” The admission emerged as solemn as a vow.
The breath left her in a rush. “I think I love you too.”
He fell back to the bed, chuffing out a breath that was half laugh. “You think?”