She lifted her hips and let him pull off the borrowed boxers. “Good,” she said around the edge of a kiss. “I hope you do.”
Dare stepped out of his jeans until they were both nude. He didn’t know what tomorrow might bring, so he wanted nothing between them tonight. His fingers dipped between her legs. “Aw, you’re always so ready for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she rasped, thrusting against his hand.
“I’m laying you out this time,” he said, pushing her back onto the dark gray covers. He helped her scoot up the bed until his body hovered over hers. “Nice and slow,” he said, staring into her eyes as he rolled on a condom, settled his weight on top of her, and pushed his cock into her *. “Nice and fucking deep.”
As he penetrated her inch by hot inch, he could’ve come from the expression on her face alone. Rapt, almost anguished, and with something that looked a whole helluva lot like affection in her beautiful eyes. Forehead to forehead, his fingers knotted in her hair while hers dug into his shoulders like he was the anchor in her storm. Fuck, he wanted to be that, too. Like he hadn’t wanted anything in a long time. Maybe ever.
His hips snapped against her, driving his cock hard and deep on a series of demanding, punctuated thrusts. She gasped and moaned his name on each stroke, her eyes falling closed and her mouth falling open so that they breathed each other’s air.
“Look at me,” he said, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. “Look at me while I take you.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You make me feel . . . oh God . . . better than I’ve ever felt in my whole life.”
Which made him realize he felt the same way.
It was, without question, the first time that fucking became laden with emotion for him. Despite all his lays, fucking had always been about the physical release, and maybe an hour or two of companionship, too. Not about emotion. Never about emotion. Maybe that wasn’t surprising, given the way he’d lost his virginity a million years ago, but a part of him had figured his wiring had just gotten crossed somewhere along the way. And he was fine with that. More than, actually. Because emotions were nothing if not messy. Losing his mother and brother had taught him that.
Haven’s hands grasped at his back, her movements becoming desperate, needy. He could feel her core tightening around him, clamping down. He ground himself against her clit, moving faster, harder, needing her to come.
“Oh, oh, God, Dare,” she cried as the orgasm rocked through her.
The minute it did, Dare let himself off the leash. He grasped her arms, pushed them against the mattress next to her head, and held her down as his hips swung hard and fast and rough against her, their skin slapping, the bed groaning, the wetness from her orgasm slicking his way. He worried he was holding her too tight but couldn’t let go, couldn’t back off, until finally he was coming inside her, coming hard, seeing fucking stars.
Seeing fucking everything.
HAVEN LEARNED WHAT peace was that night. She found it in Dare Kenyon’s arms. It quieted her mind, eased her worries, and gave her some of the best sleep she’d had in years—despite the fact that Dare made good on his promise to want her, and take her, again and again. Or maybe even because of it.
Her body was sore and her muscles were tired and her skin felt a little tender from his hands and his mouth and his hips and the burn of his stubble. And she would cherish the feeling for the rest of her life.
Because she couldn’t imagine finding someone like Dare again. Someone who she could trust without question, someone who she could reveal her darkest parts and deepest desires to, someone who made her feel beautiful for wanting things. And who gave those things to her with such incredible generosity and passion.
Not to mention someone who’d grown up in some of the same hell she had. Maybe even more. She’d been absolutely blown away by what he’d shared with her as they’d talked yesterday, and everything he’d gone through only made her respect and admire him more. And care, too.
Oh God, who was she kidding? She was falling in love with him.
Maybe had already fallen in love with him.
No doubt she’d been beyond na?ve to think she could open herself up this way to a man and just keep it about the physical experience—an item or ten she checked off her life to-do list.
His arm around her stomach, a big hand cupping her bare breast, Dare stirred behind her. The clock on the nightstand read five-fifteen as the dim light of morning spilled through the window next to his big bed. It had stopped raining a few hours ago. “Why are you awake?” he said with a voice full of gravel. A really sexy voice, especially accompanied as it was by the erection growing against her butt.
“Just thinking,” she said, her voice quiet.
“’Bout what?”