Embrace The Night (31 page)

He slid his hands to cup under her breasts, holding them and sweeping his thumbs over her nipples. Quickly, in short little strokes that sent darts of pleasure shooting down to her belly and beyond. When he bent to kiss one of them, so tight and sensitive, his mouth warm and his tongue sleek, she nearly cried aloud at the sensual feel of his lips and heat closing around her, sucking and tugging and drawing her into his mouth.

Since he’d walked out of the shower in a towel—no, since she’d seen him from behind as he stripped off his T-shirt—she had wanted to touch him, to really explore the sculpted muscle, the ridges of his belly, the slender line of dark, silky hair that led down to his waistband. Her hands flattened over the warmth of his skin as he lifted from her breasts and looked down at her. The heat in his eyes, the intensity as he gazed down at her for that moment made her stomach flip and flutter again. Then he scooped an arm around her waist to pull her up, flush, hard, against him, her breasts crushed against his hard chest as he nuzzled her neck…and slipped his hand beneath her cargo pants.

Oh…yes…His fingers found the right place, her warm, ready, slick place—and Sage gasped into his shoulder as he tore open her fly, yanked down her panties, to give him more room to move. The cool air over her belly and upper thighs contrasted with the heavy warmth of his palm, settling over her. Simon’s breath heated her temple and she felt his lips moving against her cheek, speaking or maybe gasping soundlessly, as his skillful fingers slipped in and around her, teasing the tight, swollen core. The pleasure built, tightening through her body, and she shifted urgently, tasting the faint salt on his hot skin, her eyes closed, her body taut and ready…

“Simon,” she said, shifting, trying to shift away from him, wanting to feel him over her, in her, one with her. “Wait…wai-it…” she gasped as his fingers moved faster and more expertly, his mouth covering hers as if to drown out her arguments.

He murmured something unintelligible in her ear, low and rough and exotic, sending deeper shivers down into her core. His tongue slid out, curling into the deep, sensitive part of her ear and she shuddered, trembling against him, reaching for the waistband of his jeans. “No…Simon…wait…” she gasped, trying to ease away, trying to hold off on the rise of pleasure. She tugged at the edge of his fly and the top button popped open.

“Sage, no…” he said, lifting his mouth from where he’d been kissing the corner of her jaw. He stilled, pulling up and away, and rolling his body from her…though his hand remained there, over her, as though he couldn’t bear to let her go.

His rough breathing filled the room, filled her ears, her body thrummed and hummed and she was full and throbbing. “No,” he said again. And moved his fingers, gently and languorously, and nearly tipped her over the edge.

Sage stiffened, closing her eyes against his sensual argument. “No, Simon, don’t pull away from me.” Her words came out breathless, even more so when he found that right spot, the perfect spot, and did a long, slow stroke three fingers wide, down and over and up and back. “Mmmph,” she groaned, but shifted sharply so that his hand fell away. “Please.”

He pulled away and collapsed next to her on the blanket, head half tilted back against the wall, breathing rough and heavy. At last…they were getting somewhere. She was getting to him.

She reached for him again, her hands smoothing over his belly, noticing the way his dark skin shuddered and leapt at her touch. His hair had come mostly undone and fell in a sheen against his cheeks and curved at his jaw, brushing his shoulders. He appeared wild and erotic and, with his full lips half parted and his eyes closed as if to gather control, the very expression on his face made her belly shiver.

“Sage, really,” he said in a low, desperate voice. “It’s your first time…not here, not in this dusty place. Not now. Not with
me
.”

“Yes, with
you,
” she said, giving a tug at the flap of his jeans. Another button popped undone. His eyes flew open.

She met his gaze, unwavering and purposeful, and in the golden glow of the flashlight her mouth went dry at the heat…and anguish in his eyes. He ate her with them, but it was torture. She read it there.

“You don’t
know
me,” he said desperately. “You can’t.”

“I know enough,” she said, leaning toward him, reaching for his jeans once more. The third button gave way with a dull snap, and she looked up at his face, her heart beating hard as she readied to pop the fourth button. “I know I can trust you, that you’ll do the right thing, that you’re smart and kind—”

His laugh, short and bitter, stopped her as his hand closed over hers, halting her fingers. His mouth twisted hard and angry, his eyes squeezed shut. “You don’t fucking know me, Sage,” he said in a dark, grating voice. “I’m none of those things. You’ll be better off—”

“You are to me, Simon,” she said, talking over what was surely going to be yet another reference to damned Theo Waxnicki. Did he have any idea how much that ticked her off? She yanked roughly at his jeans, dislodging his grip, and his hips jerked a bit as the fourth and fifth buttons popped.

“Sage,” he groaned, heartfelt and agonized. From deep in his chest.

She stopped and looked down at him. He’d still not opened his eyes, and now he had the back of his arm resting over them…and,
holy cats,
was that a trickle of a tear gleaming down the side of his temple? From the corner of an eye?
Simon?

Her anger faded. He wasn’t just being an ass. He was frustrated.

His mouth still flat, his body rigid as if he dared not move…God…what did he think?

She paused, putting her hand square on the center of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath and the rampant beating of his heart. “It’s one damned thing if you don’t want me,” she managed to say, her anger leaking out a bit. Then Sage suddenly became dry-mouthed from fear that he
didn’t
…that she’d been wrong, read him wrong, pushed herself on him. After all, she really didn’t know anything about men. She hadn’t even known Theo was in love with her. “But if you want me as much as I want you, Simon…please. I want you. I want you to be my first.”

And my last.

But she dared not say that. Not…now.

His arm moved and his eyes opened, and she saw that they did glisten and her heart seized up again. But his gaze held her. “It’s a mistake, Sage.”

“Not for me.”

“If you
knew
—”

“Simon, the only thing I know is that I want you, now, and if you don’t, then you need to say something
right the hell now
. I’m not a damned child. I’m a
woman.
And I know what I want. And it’s you.
Not
Theo.” She bent forward and pressed a soft, light kiss against his lips. “If you really don’t, then I’ll leave you be,” she breathed against his mouth.

He released his lungs with a
whoosh
and his hand went around the back of her head, pulling her close as if he wanted to inhale her, to devour her. His tongue, stronger and harder and deeper than before, his hands tight and yet gentle. “Sage, I do…want you,” he whispered over her lips, then something in
caló
that she didn’t understand. Then, soft and desperate, “More than you…know. I do.”

“Then stop being noble,” she said, which for some reason garnered another laugh from him. Another humorless bark. “And make love to me.” She reached for his jeans and yanked open the last button.

And slid her hands down into the heat there, finding the heavy length of him. He made another guttural sound, and then, as if surrendering, he sat up and pulled her to him for another kiss, holding the side of her face. She smelled the musk of herself on his fingers, there on her jaw, and the scent excited her even more.

In moments, he had his jeans off and they lay again, now completely skin to skin, legs twining, mouths busy, hands busy. She lifted, stroked, explored his heavy erection, noticing the way every movement caused him to react—to tense, to shift and shudder, to sigh and to stroke her more intimately, driving her desire higher and higher, her chest flushing and her body tensing. She sighed and writhed, her breasts tight, her core tighter and pulsing, and he stroked and teased, leaning forward to take her nipple in his mouth, flickering over it with his tongue as his fingers found her spot.

Her breath caught as she climbed, tightening, heat and pleasure rising, his mouth and fingers busy, coaxing, leading…and then she dragged in a last breath and jerked herself away. “No,” she gasped. “I want it all, dammit, Simon. Give me all of you.” She reached blindly and closed her fingers around him, feeling the dull throb of pulsing blood beneath her touch.

“Sage,” he gasped, then dissolved again into that sensual language, breathing deeply, as if fighting himself. But then he opened his eyes.

Looking down, he searched her face again. A lock of his hair had caught in the trail of the tear at the side of his face, and his eyes, though hot and ready, examined her for a last minute change of heart. “I…are you sure?”

“Please, Simon, please,” she said, and opened her legs, shifting beneath him.

Some of the tension eased from his face…at last, at
last
…as he held himself up over her. His mouth relaxed from that awful, rigid state and became sensual again. His eyes softened and even his jaw seemed to shift. His gaze burned over her, and she saw how much he really did want her. Right there, in his face, he could no longer hide it.

The very expression made her hot and shivery and ready.

He reached between them and guided himself to her. She felt him hesitate once more, and she squeezed the arm he used to hold himself up, and then…he moved. Slowly, carefully…she felt the stretching inside her…but it was a beautiful stretching and she wanted more of it. She shifted, moving up impatiently, wanting it over—and suddenly he filled her. There was a sharp pain and she winced, and he froze, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at his concerned face, his wide eyes and tense mouth and she smiled and said, “Beautiful.”

She moved, because it was apparent that he was still worried for hurting her…and then his lips softened and he began to move himself…faster and longer, slowly at first, and then when her own eyes grew wide and her mouth parted in little, grasping sighs, his rhythm increased and she tried, clumsily, to meet his, and he laughed a little, but then they met it…synchronized…and it was, oh, so perfect…the slide and the deep strokes, his fingers there between them, to help her along, and when she gave that last sound of triumph…blasting over the top…he gave a hard groan and yanked himself away, twisting to the side, and matched her gasp with a deep one of his own.

And they lay there, damp and hot and twined, sprawled on a thin blanket and an old quilt that had a sudden wet spot, in the shadows of a dusty, gritty attic…while a whole city of people searched for them below.

When she came back to herself and realized all of this, however much time had passed later, Sage couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Something funny?” Simon asked, picking himself up and looking at her. His gaze was wary, as if he expected her to scramble away from him, as if he were a little rodent.

“Yeah,” she said, reaching to touch his shoulder…that beautiful, square, powerful shoulder. He
was
gorgeous, all that rich, dark hair falling in his face, plastered to his neck and throat, and those sleek muscles everywhere. “After all those nights in the bedroom, sharing a bed, when we could have done this a little more comfortably…we had to pick a dusty attic while we’re on the run for our lives.” She laughed again.

But he didn’t seem to find it funny. “Yeah.”

“Simon,” she said. “It was a joke. An irony.”

“Sage, you deserved better than this to be your first time.”
And it should have been someone better than me.
He didn’t say the words, but she read it in his eyes.

“Well, I don’t know how it could have been any better. Simon. Don’t most people have a smile on their face afterward, instead of a grimace?” Her heart sank. Maybe he hadn’t enjoyed it. Maybe it had been…what had Theo called it once, when they were watching a movie? A pity-fuck?
Oh God.

His expression changed and that heat came back into his eyes. The one she recognized, the one that wasn’t a lie. “It couldn’t have been any better,” he said. And she knew he meant it, and a rush of pleasure flowed back into her belly. “For me. For you…I’m not so sure.” And he smiled, a sort of wavering smile that touched her heart.

What had damaged this man so deeply that he had to hold himself back like this? To be so resistant to happiness?

And why had he pulled away at the last minute? “You pulled out…of me,” she said. “Before you…uh…”

“You’re ovulating,” he said, his voice flat again. “It was the best I could do to keep you from getting pregnant. And it might not work anyway.” He turned away, rubbed his eyes. “I almost forgot. I almost didn’t make it…I almost lost my mind, Sage. I’ve never done that.”

She was ovulating. A sudden little flicker of…something…warm? Filtered over her. She could get pregnant.

“It’s my body and I didn’t even think of it,” she said honestly. “I mean, who doesn’t want a baby? Even people who don’t live in Falling Creek. Babies are…miracles.”

He looked at her, nodded slowly. “I know. But, where I come from, it’s different. It was different. And responsible men from my time never had sex without trying to prevent pregnancy unless they’ve planned otherwise. With their partner.”

“Preventing pregnancy?” Such a foreign idea.

This brought another smile from him. “I know it’s odd…but that’s the way it was.”

She opened her mouth to speak again, but he raised an imperative hand suddenly. And tilted his head to listen, and then fairly leapt to his feet, naked and sleek and, oh my God, if she weren’t so worried about what had prompted him to do so, she’d gawk at the beauty of him.

“Holy Mother of God,” he whispered in such a voice that had her scrambling to her feet. She hurried over to the window. “Is that what I think it is?”