All the Way (27 page)

Why that sounded like a warning, he couldn’t explain, but the abrasive edge to his tone caused her nipples to tighten. They beaded and strained against her tight shirt, taunting him. She coaxed, “Then what are you waiting for?”

“This.”

Framing her face with his hands, he lowered his head by slow degrees, until his lips melted with hers. Blake kissed her.

He kissed her with light brushes as soft as the wings that seemed to lift his heart until it soared in the beauty of this moment. The only first time they would ever have. He wanted to remember every second. Savor every touch, memorize each sensation.

Starting with her mouth surrendering to his.

His lips lightly grazed across hers, tender sweeps, open-mouthed and coaxing. His mouth courted her. The tip of his tongue licked at the seam that barred his entrance. She inhaled. Her soft lips yielded to the slick probe of his tongue.

Using only his fingertips, he tilted her head to give him the perfect access to her mouth. He drew his touch lightly over her temples, cheeks, under her chin and jaw where her pulse throbbed chaotically.

“Do you know what you do to me?” she whispered, her words like tiny bursts of steam against his face.

“Whatever it is, it can’t come close how you affect me. I don’t even have to touch you or look at you. Blindfolded, I could still pick you out of a crowd. The second you came near me I’d know it was you.”

“How?”

“I—” Blake chocked on his breath as she separated his shirt from the waist of his jeans. “I’d know your scent instantly.”

“You’d recognize the way I smell?”

“Sure.” Under the tickle of her exploring fingers, the muscles of his stomach tightened and rippled. Soon his belt hung loose, quickly yanked free of its loops. “Maybe it’s because of your eyes,” he continued, swallowing hard, “but you smell like violets to me—fresh, as if they’ve just been picked after a misty rain. Wet and thick with scent. You smell dark, velvety, touchable…purple.”

Her hands paused. “Purple? How can someone smell like a color?”

The corners of his eyes winced. “I can’t explain
how
. You just do.”

He desperately wanted her to keep exploring, touching, undressing him. He soaked up the tension, the slight trembling of her fingers. Those tremors revealed that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. But her attempt at control told him they would ease into this together.

The top button of his fly slid free as Layla encouraged him to continue. “Okay, so I smell like
purple
.” She muffled a sound, resembling a giggle. “What else?”

He frowned. “Never mind. I sound stupid.”

“No.” Her voice lowered to a sacred hush. “I’m listening, Blake. Tell me how you would know me apart from any other woman.”

“If I could only touch one part of you to make sure it was you, I’d touch your hair.” Lifting his fingers, he sifted through the thick fall. It saturated his hand with silky warmth, heavy in its inky dark weight. Yet how light the individual strands were as they drifted through the spaces between his fingers. “Warm, thick, your hair is midnight in summer. I’d know you the moment I felt your hair across my palm.”

“Not my lips or my hands?” she asked as she pressed both to the plane of his stomach. His fingers clenched around her hair, trying to get a grip before he lost control and took her down to the sheets. Her breath turned into a blazing torture against his navel. The thin trail of hair leading down, disappearing beneath his half-open fly, became a conductor, the heat of her breath traveling from his belly to his cock. He hardened painfully. “Not my mouth or my tongue?” she persisted.

Her exploratory taste left him gasping. “Uh-uh,” he managed. Then added quickly, “But I’m not complaining.”

A strange flutter, like the sensation before panic, quivered beneath the place where he felt her smile against his taut skin. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not stopping. I don’t want you to, either. What else would you know, besides my scent and my hair?”

“I’d know you because of what happens inside me when you come close.” His stomach tightened again as she drew her mouth down, incrementally. His last three buttons were freed. He ground his teeth at the unholy temptation of her mouth so close to where he throbbed with unspent need. “My body responds to you.”

“So I see.”

Reaching inside his jeans, her hand closed around his hard length. Breath seethed through clenched teeth as he insisted, “But it’s more than that.”

“Show me how much more.”

Before he could reply her mouth was on him, moving, bathing him in moist heat. Drenched in luxury he moaned as her tongue swirled around his head and her lips wrapped around his shaft, a tight circle of pressure that made him dizzy, insane with need. God, he wanted to explode.

Air gushed from his lungs. Three words trailed behind. “Not. Like. This.”

“Blake—”

Within seconds he’d pulled away from her, shed his shirt, shucked his boots, and returned to taste his name on her tongue.

His kissed her down to the mattress, exploring every facet of her mouth, all the places he’d been denied, his tongue sweeping with thorough possession. He devoured her unspoken secrets.

His hair fell like a curtain to shield their faces. She’d released his ponytail. Her nails made sexy tracks across his scalp as she combed through his free-flowing strands. He felt an urgent pressure, her fingers at the back of his skull, and almost lost it.

Blake’s tongue delved as deep as he could thrust. His body covered her. His face tilted over hers in an all-consuming angle, letting her know exactly who she belonged to. Possessiveness spiked his blood and drugged him with its erotic power.

His—she was finally
his
.

To touch and taste and make love to until they collapsed in the haze of sated lust. Though Blake doubted he’d ever get his fill of Layla. Not even after a lifetime.

Yet this first time…it meant everything to him.

Something that would live inside him for the rest of his life. One moment at a time, touch upon touch, building to bliss.

With Layla he would create heaven. Right here, holding her in his arms. No place left to go but into each other.

Something about the way Blake’s kisses delved deep enough to touch her essence, or the way his hands caressed her as he removed all her clothes, followed by his tongue mapping every inch of her skin as though he could taste the claim his hands had laid to her—the drawn-out pleasure of it all made tears ache behind Layla’s eyes.

His mouth roamed over her slowly, tongue swirling around the peak of each breast, nipping, tugging until she dug her hands into his hair and squirmed with pleasure. The softly worn fabric of his jeans rubbed against her as he slid one leg between hers and nudged her thighs apart. Then he shifted his body, settling in the cradle of her thighs.

Against her naked inner thigh she felt the cool metal buttons of his fly contrast with his hard, hot length jutting from the opening. His silky hair slipped through her fingers as he took his mouth away from her breasts and kissed a scorching path down the center of her body.

Gliding her hand along his shadowed jaw, she tried to tip his chin up. He didn’t budge. His mouth remained pressed to her belly. Only his gaze lifted. Their eyes met. A sultry look of seduction engulfed her.

She swallowed. “Blake.”

“Yes, baby?” Hot drifts of air slid across her stomach. His mouth continued to slide lower.

She tried to urge him up toward her. “Come back. I don’t want to stop kissing you.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” A warm current of air stirred the trimmed, triangular shadow covering her mound. “First, there’s something I need to know.”

The light rasp of his callused palms smoothed along her thighs as he spread her open. His hair hung forward, framing his handsome face and glowing green eyes that stared at her with a teasing, wicked glint.

“Wh-what is it?” she struggled to ask as his head dropped between her thighs.

“I need to know if you taste as good as I remember from last time.”

“Oh…
oh
,” she moaned as the tip of his tongue teased her swollen folds just above her opening. Then with one bold stroke he swept up to her clit and flicked. Once.

“Mmm—you do. Now I’m going to taste you over and over.” He licked twice. “Until you’re too weak and satisfied to tell me to stop.”

“Blake…
yes
…”

Layla threw her head back and surrendered to pleasure. All her focus narrowed on the place where his mouth moved on her. His tongue began with slow, patient glides that made her hips rock, a gathering rhythm. Steadily he increased his pace until she shivered uncontrollably. Tossing, thrashing, she was helpless against the exquisite pressure building inside her.

“
Yes
. Don’t stop,” she cried.

“That’s it, baby. Come for me.”

While his tongue swirled in swift circular motions, his mouth closed and captured the sensitive peak. Persistent suction urged her higher, where the air thinned and she gasped for breath. Layla soared as he drove her toward her fast-approaching climax. His mouth worked. Pressure built, bliss just out of reach. Fever mounted, his tongue dancing her nearer to the edge, closer, lighter, faster.

Almost there…
“Yes, right there!” Her body arched, tightened, narrowed on the brink of bliss. “Blake…God—yes!”

Then pleasure burst. Layla shook apart until she came completely undone. Her sex throbbed against his tongue with a prolonged release. Her hips rocked involuntarily as his mouth coaxed every last ripple of sensation from her.

A half-moan, half-sigh escaped through the wistful smile curving her lips. After dropping kisses to her thighs, abdomen and breasts, Blake lifted the warm weight of his body from her, then the mattress.

The scent of carnal excitement saturated the air. Her blood drifted sluggishly through her veins.

Blinking heavy lids, she focused on the shadow-darkened room and found Blake’s profile stunning in candlelight. He’d shucked his jeans and boxer-briefs, and now he stood naked, tanned skin gleaming in the flickering orange light as he reached into his duffel. He set a small box on the edge of the nightstand, tearing off one square from the contents. Then he turned to her.

She looked up into his face, which blurred until she blinked hard. “Blake,” she whispered.

He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her hip, and reached out to brush the hair back from her face. As he tucked it behind her ear, his thumb drifted across her cheek. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“I would know you, too.”

A line of curiosity formed between his eyebrows.

“The way you said you’d know me…I’d know you, too, apart from anyone.”

A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “That’s a relief.”

“I mean it, Blake.”

The smile slowly melted from his face. He went still.

“If you were half a world away,” she continued, “I would still feel you.” She took his hand and placed it over her heart. “Right here inside me.”

A new emotion burned in his eyes when, after a few moments, he finally moved. He rolled on a condom.

Positioning himself, he settled his weight between her thighs. She welcomed him openly.

Arms straight and muscles rippling, hands flattened against the mattress, Blake suspended himself above her. She felt the smooth head of his shaft probe her entrance. He looked down at her. “When you’re near me,” he said, “even in my arms, I still can’t bring you close enough. I’ve wanted this for so long…to be with you, inside you…”

Gazing up at him, emotions pooled along her lashes. Her lips parted.

A wordless invitation.

Layla memorized the look on his face, in his eyes.

Awe and reverence, pure and vulnerable need.

A penetrating hush seemed to suspend time. Shadows gathered and tightened around them, urging them together at last.

Slowly, Blake sank inside her.

Capturing her with his gaze, he brought himself into her gradually, letting her adjust to his size. Then he thrust. Retreating, he thrust deeper. He repeated the motions, slow, slick and sensual, hinting at the bolder rhythm to come.

“You feel incredible,” she murmured.

“So do you, baby. So good. Better than I imagined.”

His blazing green eyes roamed over her naked body beneath him with the same possessive claim his hands had laid to her. He remained straight-armed and suspended above her, the leverage intensifying the friction of his movements.

She appreciated his control, the tense interplay of muscles rippling along his body, working into each commanding move. Once he became fully embedded within her, his hips met hers with steady thrusts. Her palms coasted up his arms, her fingertips tracing the planes of his powerful chest.

But she wanted him closer. “I want to hold you.”

The lines of concentration around his eyes softened. “Layla, if I wrap myself around you now, I don’t know if I can make this last.”