“Jared, please.” Her voice broke and she hated it.
He shifted behind her, and the thick shaft that had been grazing her outer lips pulled back to nestle at her entrance. Starla seized both his wrists in a death grip as he gave her an inch, no more. She tried in vain to push back on him, but he only kneed her thighs wider, giving her less room to maneuver. She hated him right then, even more so when he pulled back and resumed his leisurely thrusts along the seam of her sex. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Enjoying myself,” he said sweetly.
“You’re trying to kill me.”
Kisses fell along her left shoulder, behind her neck, around to the right shoulder. “Never.” Just when she wanted to scream, he pulled back again, playing his tormenting game with her, and slowly, oh so fucking slowly gave her his entire length as her fingers clenched on the straining muscles and tendons of his wrists. But no sooner had he taken her to the hilt than he pulled all the way out again. As he left her, the wet sound of her spasming body was almost forlorn, and she wanted to curse at him.
“You feel too good,” he rasped, the hard edges of his teeth making her nerve endings sing as he scraped them along the side of her neck. His beard tickled so much, she tried to squeeze her ear to her shoulder. He only lifted his hand to grasp her jaw and hold her in place, wrenching a gasp from her, sending shivers through the part of her that was dying for him.
Undulating her hips against his groin, she taunted him. “Too much for you, cowboy?”
With a growl, he claimed her again, thrusting so high, so deep, she couldn’t cry out because he had just driven the breath from her. “I’ll show you too much.”
Fuck, he did. He settled deep and rode her hard, rode her flat against the mattress, and when she squirmed, he only kneed her legs wider and rode her harder. Sweat slicked their frenzied movements against each other. His hand clenched a fistful of her hair, and he bit her on the neck, nibbled up to her ear, sighed endearments there that only made her heart soar higher.
Perfect, he was so perfect—the exact balance she hadn’t known she’d been looking for: the roughness she loved and the sweetness she’d always craved but never found. It didn’t have to be one or the other. She could have it all. With him, she could have everything.
Chapter Twenty-three
She wrung him empty, her beautiful body taking everything his had to give and demanding more. And when he came, she followed, biting blankets to stifle her cries and milking every ounce of energy and every iota of resistance from him along with his come.
“Oh baby,” she sighed, that lovely sigh that wasn’t so much coming down as drifting along. Jared kissed a line down the back of her neck as he gently pulled away, leaving her warmth and softness and feeling strangely like he was leaving the only place he’d ever belonged. “That was…”
“I know,” he murmured, making quick work of disposing the condom so he could crawl back in bed beside her as quickly as possible. She hadn’t moved except to pull her arms underneath her body. Was she cold? Just in case, he tossed the comforter over her gloriously naked body. One sleepily grateful brown eye peered at him through the tangle of her blonde hair.
“I’ve never…” After a moment, her hair puffed out with her sigh and the eye he could see closed. “Jesus, it sounds so corny.”
Under the covers, Jared stroked a hand down the smoothness of her back, feeling the grace of her curves and allowing his fingers to knead wherever they pleased. “Tell me.”
“I’ve never felt this way. You don’t have to lie to me or say the same thing, but please, can you not say ‘thank you for your honesty’ or anything like that, because I really don’t think I could—”
“Starla. It’s okay. I’m right there with you.”
“I shouldn’t even go there. Things are so crazy—”
“That they are.”
“—but you’re amazing, and if I do anything to fuck this up, please just remember that I don’t mean to.”
“Can I say something?”
She took a deep breath, blew it out. “Okay.”
“When I found you, I definitely wasn’t looking for you. I wasn’t looking for anyone. But now that you’re here…there’s nowhere else I would rather be. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”