His lashes lower, relief showing in the way his shoulders ease, the way his expression softens, telling me that this amazing, powerful man was that on edge over me, confirming what I’d suspected. I hurt him today. “Kayden—”
I never finish the sentence. His fingers tunnel into my hair and his mouth slants over mine again, tongue licking, caressing, tasting, his hands now at my waist, moving, touching, and suddenly it’s just not the time for words. I need what he does, what I feel and sense he craves. Body against body. Passion meeting passion. And I stop holding back. I meet his kiss with a demand of my own, with hunger. I savor and use his touch, his taste, to try to drive away the fear that lives inside me, the fear that I can’t deny. Not when it’s what drove my hesitation earlier today, not when it haunts my every waking moment. Fear of losing him. Fear of this being our last kiss, our last touch, our last taste. It has me tugging his shirt up, urging him to remove it. It has me pressing my hands to his warm skin. He feels the same; it’s on his lips. It’s in the way he tears away my clothes while I tear away his. And when our clothes lie on the floor, he gazes at me for several intense, emotionally charged moments that I swear steal my breath, and then as I’ve become accustomed to, he scoops me up and starts walking.
I curl into him, my hand settling on his chest, his heart thundering beneath my palm. Because of me. This man, who I called beautiful, who I thought was too perfect to be real, is affected by me in every way that I am by him. All the emotions, all the desire I feel, I don’t even question him sharing. Nor do I discount what a gift it is for two people to share that same intense reaction to one another. Or what it is like to feel safer with him than alone. I never thought I’d ever feel that—and with that realization, splintered pieces of the past, the damaged parts of my life that formed that opinion, promise to reveal themselves.
He settles me on the mattress, the sweet weight of his body on mine, his hips spreading my legs, the thick pulse of his erection between my thighs. His elbows frame my face, his lips close, his breath a warm trickle on my mouth and cheek. And then it happens, the way it happened that very first night together. We linger there, breathing together, being together, feeling every inch of each other where we touch, and where we soon will touch. Slowly, he pulls back, those blue eyes of his hot with desire, with love. They meet mine and I am naked, inside and out, in every way with this man.
He rolls with me, settling us on our sides facing each other, his hand cupping my backside, his shaft settling between my thighs. “No spankings,” he says. “Nothing to prove, Ella. No point to make. Just us.” His lips brush mine, a seduction and a tease that still manages to be a promise. No, many promises that manage to be both erotic and romantic. Sexy and sweet. And then he is kissing me again, a slow, sensual slide of his tongue against mine, which I feel in every part of me as his fingers lightly caress my nipple, then the side of my breast.
I moan with the sensations rolling through me, with the way he feels so much a part of me, the way I know he wants to please me, to love me. Things no other man has ever made me feel. Even before I knew my past, I knew Kayden was different, a part of me in ways I didn’t understand. His hand slides down to my hip, his lips trailing my jaw, finding their way to my lips. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
“Everywhere, please,” I whisper. “But right now I just want you inside me.” I can feel him grow harder between my thighs, and I grow wetter. “I need to be that way with you right now.”
“You won’t get any resistance from me, sweetheart,” he promises, lifting my leg to his hip, his teeth giving my lip a gentle tug, his tongue licking a soothing, seductive line over my bottom lip before he presses inside me.
My breath lodges in my throat, my fingers flexing into his shoulders with the feel of him stretching me and slowly inching deeper and deeper, until we are fully connected, bodies melded together.
“Is this what you needed?” he asks, with that low, gravelly sexiness in his voice.
“Yes,” I say, barely finding my voice. “Oh, yes.”
“Like I need you, Ella.” He cups my backside, pulling me more snugly against him. “You understand that, right? I need you.”
“I need you, too, Kayden,” I whisper, and he swallows my words, his mouth coming down on mine, hot with a demand that says “you are mine, you belong with me.” And he belongs with me. It is a powerful taste and feeling and I press against him, trying to get closer, to get more of everything and anything that is this man.