CLAIRE had barely the span of a second for her breath to catch before the kiss blotted out all but the rough press of his lips covering hers. There was no question, no testing measure of restraint, and her acceptance was scored in the willing give of her mouth as she opened beneath the demand of his lips. Moaned around the claim of his tongue and reveled in the tightening band of the arms holding her to him.
Ryan knew the truth and still he’d come back.
His mouth slid over hers, hot and hungry.
He’d come back because he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. Not because of some misplaced sense of guilt or obligation. But because of mutual attraction.
Liquid heat sizzled through her veins, slid through her center and sensitized her flesh. Her mind blanked to all but the seductive experience, making her fingers tingle and twinge with the need for contact.
Shared breath passed between their lips in intimate exchange. A swirling caress of warm and wet, drawing deep until it filled and stretched the empty hollows within. Lingered. Then escaped, only to be taken by the other. After so many years without intimacy, Claire shuddered at the base sensuality of it. Felt her womb tightening with the need for more.
The need for Ryan.
She wanted him. Wanted his strength and desire penetrating her completely, infusing every cell of her being.
Her hands moved desperately between them, climbing the fabric of his shirt, clutching at his shoulders, his neck, then delving into the thick silk of his hair.
He broke away from her lips only to work his way down her jaw to the tender skin beneath. A scrape of teeth shot lightning through her core and she moaned at the sensation. Was stunned by her body’s near betrayal in its utter surrender after all the years of refusal to stir.
“Do you have any idea,” Ryan growled against her throat, the vibration of his voice sending chills skittering across her skin, “what a mistake it would have been not to tell me how long it’s been for you?”
Eyes pinched shut, she didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want him to, either. “Ryan, I’m sorry.”
“You would have been.” His tongue ran the length of the tendon in her neck in a deliberate, slow, back-and-forth caress that had her hips seeking his.
The hot burst of his breath rushed across the cool damp trail he’d laid and she groaned beneath the sensual wash.
“You don’t understand.” His hold tightened as a muttered curse ground out against her pulse point. “The way you respond to me…I wouldn’t have held back. I wouldn’t have known to. And the way I want you…”
Another low growl behind her ear. “I had you on the table. Open to me.”
Her heart stalled and her skin pebbled from tip to toe.
“It wouldn’t have been gentle, Claire.” His voice deepened, the words coming like a rough-tongued caress against the most sensitive parts of her body. “It wouldn’t have been slow.”
A pleading moan escaped on her next breath as seductive images bombarded her mind, Ryan over her, thrusting hard, penetrating the last defense of her heartbreak, and she quivered with the need of it. “Oh, God, yes.”
Unyielding stone met her shoulders and she realized with a start they were still outside. Under the cover of Ryan’s secret garden, a mere foot from the mammoth front gate and little more than that from the point where stone ended and the wall became a tangle of densely grown cypress.
Breathless and crowded against the column behind her, she met the dark blaze of Ryan’s eyes. “You make me forget where I am in the world.”
Ryan hardened to the point of pain and beyond the point of further delay. Planting one hand at the rock pillar above her head, he leaned into her, fitting his body to hers in as many places as contact could be made. Mouth to mouth, chest to breasts, her hips tipped to take his thigh in a snug fit. His groin seeking relief in the plane of her flat belly. “You’re with me.”
She trembled beneath his touch, the beaded points of her nipples rubbing across his chest with each ragged breath.
Damn, that was good.
Aching as he hadn’t ached in too many years to remember, he molded the palm of his hand to the firm curve of her hip. Circled back to shape her bottom, and then followed the tuck and curve of her body up to her breast. Leaning away, he took the weight of her softness into his hand and brushed the hard tip with a slow sweep of his thumb.
A featherlight pant tickled across his lips, tortured his entire body. Another brush of her nipple and her hips rocked out to meet the press of his thigh. She was so needy, so desperate.
So incredibly sexy.
He wanted her flesh in his mouth. Between his teeth, responding to the flick of his tongue.
Skimming down, he caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it up to expose the ripe swell of her breast, the berry tip.
His mouth went dry.
How had he missed that she hadn’t replaced her bra?
Catching her between his lips, he drank in the muted cries that rained upon him at the swirl of his tongue.
“Do you feel this, Claire?” he asked, letting his lips brush the engorged flesh with each word.
“Mmm,” came her aching reply. But he wanted the words.
“Tell me.”
Her fingers tightened over his shoulders, her pants coming faster, making her nipple rub his lips in time with each straining breath. “I feel you…I need you.”
He rewarded her with an openmouthed kiss that drew hard, making her moan again.
It wasn’t enough to quench his thirst for her pleasure. Not near.
Rising again, he shifted left of center to give himself more access to where he wanted to be. Finding that sweet spot at the base of her neck, he circled the delicate hollow with his tongue and let his hand run down the center of her body. Over her belly to where those gauzy pants hung low at her hips. Slipping his fingers inside, he brushed the neat strip of hair at her sex, took the skip of her pulse against his lips, and then curved his fingers into her slick feminine flesh.
Soft and wet. No panties. His pain moved beyond the sweet torture of restraint, allowing room for the guilt of how they’d left off earlier. She’d rushed to get dressed because of his response to learning she was still his. As though, intended or not, it weren’t a gift. A claim it shamed him to want.
“Ryan,” she gasped, jolting at the intimate touch she’d gone so long without. Her knees pressed closed against the invasion of his touch, but he palmed her smooth thigh.
“Open for me. Like this.”
Blue eyes deeper than the ocean peered up at him as she gave herself over to his command. Her weight shifted and she allowed him to guide her leg to notch at his hip.
And then his fingers were slipping through her, back and forth, holding contact with that bit of flesh that made her writhe for him. Pant. Plead.
He brought his mouth back to hers, parting her lips with the press of his tongue, and pushed a single finger inside her. She was wet and hot and tight. And God, yes, those silky walls were clasping around him in rhythmic strains as he slid in and out of her, stroking deep until she was so close he could feel her body bow taut against him. Her breath stopped as she hovered at the brink. Ready to come apart for him.
In and out. She hugged him tighter.
“Oh, God. Ryan. Please…”
The slam of a car door and muted chatter of a couple beyond the gate ripped him back from the haze of seduction, had his head jerking up as he silently cursed his poor choice of location.
He hadn’t been able to wait to touch her.
“Don’t stop…I can’t…” She shook her head, her whispered pleas washing his neck with her need, making it his own.
Claire’s body pulsed with desire nearly fulfilled. Her heart raced and her breath held. She was so close. Already there. Caught in the force of a wave where the crash was imminent.
“Breathe, kitten,” he growled against her lips.
Ryan’s erection nudged hard and thick at her hip, his lips brushing hers as he thrust inside her, first with one thick finger, and then stretching her to take two.
She gasped at the straining pressure. Spasmed around the next thrust as sparks of wild hot sensation shot across her skin, drew back, deepened, built, centered. Pulsed hard and pushed her over the edge in an explosion of white-hot pleasure.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” His mouth covered hers, catching the low keening cry she couldn’t contain as the world around her went up in flames, turning her body to cinders.
Catching in the wind, she spiraled skyward. Light. Soft. She was finally free.