Penny’s provocative words did nothing to hide the unguarded swell of emotions hovering in her green eyes. Rafe knew the same emotions stirred in his. Sure, lust burned through his body, turned his kisses a bit harder and his touches more brazen. He needed to feel her wrapped around his cock as much as he needed his next fucking breath. But it was his need for her, for her concerned gazes and loving caresses, that sent him on a ride like no other.
Never once had he needed a woman so bad. She was beautiful inside and out, her insecurities making her as desirable as did her stubborn, Jack Russell determination. To have witnessed both made him one lucky bastard. She was a complication in its truest form—and he didn’t give a hundred fucks.
His “The less complicated, the better” motto had smacked into a five-foot-two-inch redheaded roadblock and shattered on impact. It hadn’t sent him running in the other direction. He wasn’t deterred. He’d dug in his heels and started thinking the kind of what-ifs he had no fucking business thinking.
For the first time in his life, Rafe hadn’t been scared out of his mind at the thought of spending the rest of his life with a woman.
No, with Penny.
It took seeing her pale and weak, watching her fight demons in her dreams from which he couldn’t save her, to realize he had so much more to lose than he ever thought.
“Rafe. Please.” Her whispered moan ripped him from his thoughts and straight into her eyes. With a groan, she canted her hips toward his hand.
He nearly slid into her body right then but knew the second he did, he’d be a goner. The selfish bastard in him wanted the sight of her coming carved into his retinas.
With his cock heavy and hard between his legs, Rafe focused on Penny. He slipped his fingers through her drenched folds and swallowed her soft gasp with his mouth. Careful to avoid the sensitive nub of her clit, he mapped out the area with touch alone. The lift of her hips and her hot, breathy moans encouraged him to slip one finger into her tight sheath, then two.
She squirmed beneath him, fingers digging into his shoulders as he caught one nipple tightly between his lips and fucked her with his hand.
He curled his fingers into her body, groaning when he felt her flex around him. “I need to taste you so goddamned bad.”
“God yes.” Her breath hitched as she opened her legs to admit his wide shoulders. Eyes hooded in arousal, she watched him settle between her thighs. Spread before him, open and unguarded, she offered herself to him with no reservations. No barriers. He didn’t take his eyes off her as his tongue took its first slow swipe.
Her taste exploded on his tongue. He couldn’t get enough. The wet walls of her body tightened around his fingers with each lick. He didn’t relent, keeping it up until her body arched into him and her whispered plea reached his ears.
He needed to hear her come.
With a twist and push, he pumped his fingers in and out of her pussy. He licked, flicked, dragged the tip of his tongue to her clit. The hands in his hair tightened, holding him close. He didn’t need the help or the encouragement, but the smarting tugs made him ache to be inside her even more.
“I want to hear you come, Red,” he whispered against her body. “Let go, baby.”
Alternating between soft and firm, slow and fast, he kept up the pace until with a rough tug on his hair, she came. The sweet burst of her arousal flooded his senses, and he rode it with her until the last of the quivers eased through her body.
In the dim light of the hut, her porcelain skin glistened with the pink glow of satisfaction. She looked like a woman thoroughly ravished—and he was nowhere close to being done. He trailed a path of kisses over the slight curve of her abdomen and the peaks of her breasts.
At her mouth, he shared her sweet taste with a slow thrust of his tongue. “I need to verify the whole condom situation.”
“I’m safe and protected,” she said, verifying what she’d told him in the jungle. “The shot works wonders.”
“I’m clean, too. But I’d understand if you don’t want to—”
“I do,” she said quickly.
When she brushed her hand against his jaw, Rafe turned and took the pad of her thumb in a gentle bite. “Say the words aloud, Red. Plain and clear so we have no miscommunication.”
“I’m saying I want more. I want you. You’ve already given me one spectacular orgasm; it would be a total shame not to go for another.” She slid her hand down to his aching cock and flashed a grin. “And at least one for you, too, of course.”
Goddamn, this woman was something else.