“Yes. It’s just…” She heaved in a deep breath. His hand rose and fell with the movement. Her heart was pounding so hard he could see her breast quivering with each rapid beat.
All the muscles in his body were tensed to take a step back, end this, when she spoke. “It’s all messed up in my head,” she said. “Can I…?”
“Whatever you need.” The screaming voices in his head could just sit down and take a number. He’d been waiting for this for years. Another few minutes wouldn’t matter.
She reached out and put her hand on his hip, right below his waistband. He could barely feel her touch through his jeans, and maybe imagined her thumb rubbing over his hipbone. He ran his fingertips up her breastbone, then back down to hook in the V-neck and the front of her bra. Exerting the smallest pressure imaginable, he coaxed her a couple of inches closer, bent his head, and kissed her again. He kept his mouth soft, enticing rather than demanding, and was rewarded with her lips parting under his.
The tentative touch of her tongue triggered something in him, too. Time kept slipping like a stripped gear. Riva as a teenager. Riva as a grown woman. Himself as an angry, hot-tempered young cop, trying manhood on for size in a way he’d never expected, even resented. He’d been out of alignment since the diagnosis.
Then Riva closed the distance between their bodies, and everything snicked into place, key in lock, bolt shot home, brain shut down. She was going for this, all in. No regrets. No hesitations.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and spun them around, backing her into the door. “Shh, shh,” she whispered as the wood thudded against the frame. “Ow. Hard. Door is hard.”
He winced and pulled her a little closer. “Right. Sorry. I got a little carried away there.”
“There’s a nice, soft bed right over there,” she said.
He caught the edge of the duvet and gave it a big flip. Throw pillows scattered to the wind. Riva toed out of her boots, then knee-walked to the center of the bed, then turned and reached for him. He hastily got rid of his own footwear, then knelt on the bed in front of her.
It seemed as natural as breathing to weave their fingers together, palms cupped up. He bent to her, capturing her mouth with warm, tempting kisses, waiting, waiting, until his hand lifted involuntarily and slid into her hair, capturing the strands against her jaw. The other hand, still joined with hers, slid around her waist to pull her closer. He kept on kissing her until her fingers tightened in his and her free hand started to roam, trembling and hesitant at first, then gaining confidence to tug his shirt free from his jeans and flatten against his side.
Her touch was searing. Electric. It wasn’t always easy to be naked in front of a woman; between the appendectomy scar and the port scar, this moment usually brought things to a screaming halt for a moment. Still, it had to be easier for him than it was for Riva. He broke contact and reached behind his head to yank the shirt off. Her eyes widened, her gaze skimming over his chest, but she didn’t ask, just swept her own shirt over her head, leaving her hair in tousled disarray.
He used chest and hands and hips to urge her down onto the mattress. Stretching out full-length against her was like taking serious voltage. He’d never been more aware of body contact. He pressed his erection into her hip, tucked his knee between hers, and went back to kissing her.
By the time he’d finished, her mouth was hot and soft and open, smearing messily against his as her body lifted infinitesimally into his. Determined to discover what she liked, he trailed his lips along her jaw to her ear. What would make her purr, gasp, arch into him? He wanted to know, had to know.
She went still when he brushed his lips over her ear, tipped her head to the side when he closed his teeth on her earlobe, but the press of his tongue to the soft skin just below her ear made her shudder, then sigh. She was ticklish; a light touch on her ribs made her squirm, but when he firmed up, it was like her entire body went molten. Her thighs had parted a little more, giving him room to roll more closely into her body. Instead, he kissed his way down her torso, his mouth hot and open and wet around the edges of her bra, then her navel, pausing at her belt.
He looked up the soft curves of her body and found her staring down at him. “Turn over,” he murmured, working consciously to make it a suggestion, not a command, or an order.
She looked surprised, a little hesitant, but did. Maybe putting her body in his hands had become automatic, but he didn’t take it for granted. Instead he shifted up her body, keeping his thigh between hers and draped himself over her back. He swept her hair away from her nape and pressed a kiss into the vulnerable skin.
Beneath him, her body went still, something he noticed when the soft give and take they’d developed halted. Suddenly, he was breathing into tense muscle and locked joints.
Interesting. Fear or desire? He did it again, this time lingering so his breath washed over sensitive nerves, adding a tiny edge of his teeth. A full-body shudder, then a low moan and she went soft under him. While he watched, a shiver raced over her shoulders and lifted the tiny, delicate hairs on her nape.
A feral surge of desire swept through him, canting his hips until he was grinding against the round curve of her ass. To regain his control, and torture them both, he repeated the kiss on every bump in her spine from her nape to the top of her tailbone. When he reached her bra strap he unfastened it, nudged it aside, and went back to dropping kiss after kiss down her back until he’d reached her jeans.
“Turn back over,” he said.
She did, her hair spreading over her face until she pawed it back, then pulled off her bra. He didn’t want to stare, but found he couldn’t help himself. Her skin was so pale, the tips of her breasts a dark rose and peaked. She shifted, spreading her legs, making room for him to settle between them. Involuntarily he pushed against her, the movement tidal, deep. He took his weight on one arm and teased the skin above her waistband with his other hand, keeping his kiss as light as his touch. He traced her hipbone, her ribs, then swept up to cup her breast.
She wrapped both arms around his neck and arched into the touch. Again, his control nearly failed him when she wrapped her leg around his hip and pulled him closer, the quick rise and fall of her abdomen brushing against his, heightening the sense of constriction in his jeans.
Then her hands were between them, working away at her button and zipper. He sat back, helped her get her jeans off and discard them on the floor by her bra, leaving her bare from head to toe. Cold air swept over them as he lost the plot for a second, again caught up in the simple beauty of her body.
“You too. Please.”
The words were almost inaudible, but she was with him. He unbuckled his belt, unzipped, got through the awkward moment of getting jeans and boxers off over his erection. Naked in front of her, the moonlight picking out the stark red scar from his port, the thinner, older scar from his appendectomy. But she wasn’t looking at those. Instead her gaze skimmed like warm silk over his shoulders, his arms, his abdomen.
She was looking at him.
“Come here,” she said.
He settled against her, letting the feel of her bare skin against his wash over him and be distinct data points. Her bare thighs against his. His cock, trapped between her soft stomach and his. Her nipples, tight little points against his chest. Her hands, one at his nape, the other at the small of his back. Her pulse was pounding in her breast again. He kissed her, ignoring the need throbbing in his cock, soaking in the texture and taste of her mouth, the sensation of having Riva under him.
Don’t get too carried away, said voice of reason in his brain. Right now you can pretend this doesn’t mean anything. Hell, you’ve been pretending that for years. But you go any further, and you’re in uncharted territory.
Tearing himself away from temptation, he shifted to one side and skimmed his hand down her torso, following the curves he’d seen only in his fever dreams. His mouth hot and open over her, he stroked the trimmed curls covering her mound, then dipped his fingers into her folds.
The first touch made her shudder, lift, spread, opening her so his fingers delved into slick, swollen folds. He groaned, rested his head on her forehead, and closed his eyes as he dipped into slick heat, circled her opening, then trailed up in search of—
There. She arched. Her fingernails, short as they were, bit into his shoulders. He circled the tight bud, ruthlessly focusing on her response to hold back his own primitive instincts, but nearly lost it when she started to gasp. He covered her mouth with his own and kept a steady pace, watching her muscles tighten, her body quiver, and the pretty pink orgasmic flush bloom on her face and throat. She was tender and strong and earthy, fully present in her body. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder and biceps, her hips lifted into each stroke, and he was lost. Her release looked less like letting go and more like annihilation.
The orgasmic tension in her muscles slowly slackened. Her hands released their grip on his shoulders. She stared up at him, eyes wide, defenseless.
So that’s how it felt to cross the line and jeopardize his career. He’d just have to pretend a little harder, when he got home.
But right now he wasn’t home, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat, because for the first time since Riva had reached for his hand to write her phone number on it, she was soft and relaxed against him. No tensed muscles ready to fly, no conflict in her eyes. Heart pounding, body aching, he bent his head and rested his forehead against hers.
It felt so goddamn right.
“Ian,” she whispered. Her hand drifted down to his hip. “What about you?”
It might literally kill him, but he shifted to the side. “There’s no rush,” he said, though it cost him. He was as aroused as he’d ever been. “We don’t ever have to do that, if you don’t want to. I’m going back to my room to make some notes,” he continued over her soft protest. “You should get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
He got out of the bed and snagged his clothes from the floor. When he left her she was sitting upright, the sheet and duvet clutched to her chest, hair tousled, glaring at him.