All the Way (26 page)

One thing she could always count on from Blake—he never failed to push her boundaries at every level. That’s
why
he was the right man for her, even if her confused heart still resisted surrender.

Finally she understood the truth that whispered from her heart. That love was more important than anything else. It ran through her, the deepest current of life, so sacred it defied proof or explanation.

That’s what Kenny had taught her, at his family reunion weekend the summer Layla had turned thirteen, when innocence still rang through every note in her voice and love could conquer all bad things. Even boogiemen waiting outside their tent, which had been propped in a clearing at the edge of some woods. Their tent sat in a row beside ten others, in the freshly mowed field on his family’s vast farm in central Ohio.

Layla had slipped out of the tent, where she’d tried to fall asleep next to Robby but woke at every crackle, noise, owl hoot. She’d shivered as the damp night descended, and headed for the fire where Kenny, her mother and Uncle Rex were the last people yet to retire for the evening. Uncle Rex dozed, the white strands in his dark hair and beard burnished golden-red by firelight.

Kenny leaned against a sturdy log, Layla’s mother between his legs, supported by his chest, a happy smile tucked into the corners of her lips. She’d fallen asleep, too. Only Kenny remained awake, looking up at the sky thick with stars, raising a beer to heaven like a toast to God for all things good. He took a swig, set it aside, and gazed down at Layla’s mom. He wrapped her tight in his embrace and whispered things that made Layla blush with discomfort and awkwardness. Things too precious to be overheard, but which made a lasting impression on her mind nonetheless. Promises. And she’d believed.

However long she lived, Layla would never forget the look she’d caught in his eyes when Kenny stared down at her mother, a soft glow of something otherworldly, out of reach for Layla, but so encompassing in its tenderness that an exquisite connection formed between all three of them in that moment. Layla knew it as love.

She’d approached the fire then. Kenny looked up and smiled. A different emotion came into his eyes. Maybe they sparkled, instead of glowing. The look was just as devoted and irrefutable as what he felt for her mother. Layla smiled back.

“What are you doing up so late, Punkin’?”

Though she balked at the childish nickname, she secretly adored it. “Can’t sleep.” She shrugged, bit her lip. She wanted to ask him something she’d overheard from the grownups, whispers and speculations, then dismissals. “Kenny, are you and my mom ever going to get married?”

He smoothed back a few strands of silver-flecked dark hair that had escaped his ponytail, then scratched his sideburns and smiled thoughtfully. “If we do or if we don’t, that doesn’t make you any less my Punkin’.”

Layla nodded. A grin of relief slid onto her lips. Still, she felt confused. “But isn’t that what people in love do? They get married?”

“Some do. Sure. You bet I’m crazy about your mom. But anymore, marriage seems too much about courts and legalities and proof of purchase, you could say. Love is more sacred than all of that. It’s between you, the one you love, and God. Deeper than ink on paper. There’s something magic about it. Something vows can’t capture, only silence, maybe. Nighttime.
Firelight.
And holding on real tight.”

As fate would have it, holding on tight to Kenny had transferred from something physical to something spiritual in the wake of his death. Layla still felt a connection with him, alive in the times she remembered. In her memory his eyes still glowed with love for her mother, still glittered with affection for Layla. They would forever.

These were the few feelings Layla retained that had always flown in the face her need for logical explanations.

But perhaps some mysteries weren’t meant to be discovered or solved.
Perhaps some needs ran so deep as to subvert definition. Just to defy the strict duty she’d based her life upon.

Like her feelings for Blake.

When he had looked down at her, half an hour ago, and that glow had come into his eyes…something had shifted inside Layla.

The expression on Blake’s face, the feelings shimmering in his eyes, had perfectly reflected what she’d always dreamed of—that a man would look at her with the same utter devotion as Kenny had revealed when he’d gazed at her mother that distant summer night beside the fire.

Which was why she’d lit candles in her bedroom before coming outside. And why she would wait for him here in the hammock, facing the carriage drive, tuning her ears to distinguish between the drone of night sounds and the boisterous clamor of Harley pipes.

“Mind if I join you?”

Layla froze, startled, then struggled up from the hammock. “Blake? I thought you’d left. I took a shower so I’d feel better. Then I looked everywhere for you. I didn’t see your motorcycle, so I thought you’d gone for a ride.”

“The weather called for chance of rain, so I moved the motorcycle into the garage. I wouldn’t have left without telling you,” he said quietly. Layla caught his subtle reference to what he’d considered his “mistake,” leaving her without saying why.

She sighed, her heart stretching with pleasure. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

He looked so handsome, she thought, his face illuminated beneath the bright heavens. Shadows glided along the angles and planes of his features. A breathtaking effect. As she met and held his focused gaze, a blush seeped into her cheeks. With Blake surrounded by a cloak of shadows, she standing awkwardly beside the hammock, they looked like lovers meeting in secret.

Layla welcomed the arousing notion. She hoped Blake would, too, because within the swell of her newfound inspiration, she imagined getting lost in his eyes, relaxing in his arms, delivering each other fierce pleasure…slick and sweaty, tangled sheets and tongues, entwined naked bodies, moving cries…all night long.

He strode forward. “Want to lie out under the stars with me for awhile?”

“Sounds romantic.” Her shy smile turned coy. “But I had something else in mind.”

“Really?” He stepped closer. “Now I’m intrigued.”

Following her sensual instincts, nervous but determined, she slid her hand over his chest, trailing her fingertips up the side of his neck as she walked into his arms. “I think we should follow up on that idea you had earlier.”

His voice pitched to a husky tone. “My idea?”

“That we should make up for lost time.” Rising onto her toes, she breathed against his lips, “I want you, Blake.”

“Then I guess there’s one thing left to do.” He cupped her face with both hands. “I’ll meet you halfway.”

“Halfway to—?” Her gaze dropped to his mouth.
“Oh. Yes.”
Oh, yes.

They met in the middle, mouths half-open and hungry.

Within seconds of feeling her tongue dance with his, a sound of longing escaped Blake. His clothes became too tight, his body demanding freedom. It felt like a match head was scraping across every nerve until he burst into flame, body and soul flaring with desire.

Nothing came close to this. Only with Layla did he see fireworks, white-hot flashes, and hear thunder rocking the heavens as the earth trembled around him. This chemistry, whatever this was that he found with her, took hold of him and made him crazy with yearning. This need.
This burning.

She pulled him down to the hammock and he followed willingly. It swayed to the rocking of his hips against hers. His tongue couldn’t dive deep enough, couldn’t sweep thoroughly enough or get close enough to everything she was to him.

Inside. He needed to be inside her. But he hadn’t waited all this time just to lose himself in lust. He wanted to lose himself in her.

“Not here,” he managed, pulling his lips away from hers. He dragged his mouth over her throat. “Upstairs. Now.”

“Blake, I want you,” she murmured.

“I know, baby. God, I know.” He couldn’t keep away from her luscious mouth. Their tongues tangled. They set a rhythm that made his cock throb. His hold tightened. Feeling her nipples harden against his chest, he instantly craved the taste of her skin, imagined filling his mouth with her breasts, the peaks hard and aching, like he was.

He couldn’t begin to think of everything he wanted to make her feel. With his mouth, his tongue, his hands. So long…this had been building inside him for so long. But not here. Not where he had to contain himself, without a closed door to conceal his groans and the creak of bedsprings and her cries of ecstasy. And without a condom.

“Damn.”

“What?” she whispered, her breath scorching the side of his neck as she explored him with her lips.

“We need to get off this hammock. Before I explode.”

“Mmm. Isn’t that the goal?”

“The goal is, the night we make love I want to be able to touch you and not have to stop and think about anything else. I want to wake up in the middle of the night with my arms around you, turn you over and slide inside you.”

“Who says we have to wait until the middle of the night?”

“The protection I have stashed in an overnight bag upstairs.”

“Oh.” Her eyes flared. “Then what are we waiting for?”

“I’ll throw a leg over to keep this thing steady, and you climb out.
On the count of three.
One…two…”

Layla leaped when he said three and they ran through the front door of the house and up the stairs like teenagers whose parents just pulled out of the drive for a night out.

He left her only long enough to scrape his duffel off the floor and launch it onto the nightstand, so protection was in easy reach. It landed with a thump on the antique wood surface. Their heavy breathing restocked the air with sound.

Turning, he practically dove for her where she knelt near the edge of the mattress.
His fingers sank into her hair, scraping it back from her face as his mouth crashed down on hers, a heavenly crush. A possessive claim.

Frantic, sizzling promises tangled in their kiss. The heat of his mouth branded her. He wanted her molded to him, every part of her naked, for him alone.

Damn it, Desanto. Slow down.
You’ve waited forever for this. A lifetime.

But his mouth continued to consume her. Feeding off her kisses, his tongue delved deep. He wanted to explore the deepest places inside her, body and soul, where no one else had been. A place only he could reach and then claim as his own.

He wanted to conquer every long hour of every night of the past year he’d been without her. Yet he couldn’t bring her close enough.

He tasted her moans, swallowing the first cries of accumulating passion.

Insatiable longing sent his blood barreling through his veins, pooling in his groin. His tongue surged inside her mouth as he crushed her against him.

He felt out of control, fighting the irresistible force roaring through him to surrender to the drives of nature and sex and the hunger for release.

Painful need.
Consuming desire.
Both too powerful to contain.

He broke away just before giving into the raw, animalistic greed to take her under him and pound into her with relentless drives.

Chest heaving, he reduced his ravaging kisses to light sips of her lips. Then he pressed his mouth to her forehead and fought the slight trembling in his hands.

The deep ache for her that he’d carried so long inside him would never be assuaged with a single rush of savage passion.

Clasping her face in his hands, he grasped for the slim threads of sanity remaining. They pulled him back from the brink of his lust-crazed abandon. “Damn, baby,” he murmured against her hairline. “I want to do this right. Not rush through.”

“I like you in a hurry.” She tipped her head back, the weight cradled by his palm. Their gazes held. The spark of inflamed passion lit her eyes. “Don’t stop, Blake.”

He groaned as a battle for control waged inside him. “Layla, I’ve waited too damn long for this. I can’t get carried away.” He smiled slightly. “Or you’ll find yourself pressed up against the wall, your legs clamped around my waist as I grind into you.”

Her violet gaze stilled with frozen fire. “Next time, then?”

“Hell, yes.” He groaned again. “Anything you want. But not the first time. I want to be the best thing you ever had.”

“You already are.”

Blake stopped breathing.

Something unexpected shimmered deep in her eyes. It wrapped around his heart. Could he stay forever bathed in the emotion he saw there? He wanted to, almost as much as he wanted to feel himself enclosed within the wet sheath of her body.

At last Blake felt the burden of their attraction—the weight he’d carried for the past year—finally ease as his hands sifted through the glossy strands of her hair. His eyes didn’t leave hers. The volcanic heat of their chemistry simmered between them, controlled only by his intention to make this last. Otherwise, who knew what sparks and explosions would erupt when they came together for the first time.

The quiet collected. Shadows moved over them, sliding alongside the orange glow of candlelight he realized was flickering beside them. A sensual touch he appreciated, wishing he’d thought of that. The silence thickened with waiting, lust tugging deep in his gut, suspense hovering on his tongue. He was so ready learn her taste, to savor her. “I’m going to kiss every inch of you.”