In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2) (20 page)

She applied just a little more pressure to his groin, where he’d placed her hand over his rigid erection. Even through the thick denim and the underwear he wore, she could feel his penis pulsing and straining eagerly toward her touch.

It seemed body and mind weren’t in accord for Beau. His manner was reluctant, but his body wanted her. Even with as little sexual knowledge as she had, she recognized the signs of lust and desire, and it gave her an infusion of badly needed confidence.

She didn’t know how to be a siren. A temptress out to seduce a man with body and words. But she was about to get a crash course, because there was no way she was passing up the opportunity to see Beau Devereaux naked, beautiful. And hers. At least for one night.

Her possessiveness surprised her. The fact that she wanted to lay claim to this man, put her brand on him so others would know to back the hell away or incur her wrath. Who knew she could be so jealously greedy? She quite liked this undiscovered side of herself.

More than her powers were now unleashed and operating at inhuman speeds. Her sexuality was unfurling like the petals of a flower in spring. Her body ached for this man. Her soul ached for him. The touching of two hearts, two spirits, becoming one.

A stuttered hiss escaped his lips and she glanced up to see his jaw tight and quivering, his eyes closed, head thrown back even as his pelvis lifted, arching into her touch greedily.

“
Do
you want me, Beau?” she whispered, the words catching in her breathy excitement. “Because I want you—this. I need you. Right here, right now.” She paused for a microsecond, held her breath and then said, “Please.”

It was too close to begging for her liking. Yes, she was pampered and spoiled. She readily admitted that. But she had pride. And the truth was, she’d never had to beg for anything in her life. This was completely new and foreign and she was fraught with uncertainty even as her pulse raced in delicious anticipation of having Beau’s body above hers, inside her, feeling the hardness currently filling her hand and nearly delirious with wondering how he would feel sliding into her most intimate recesses.

“God, yes I want you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Have mercy, honey. You’re killing me here. There is no need to ask me to give you what you want—what you need. If you’re sure—if you are absolutely
positive
that I am what you want, then I am more than happy to comply with your sweetly worded request.”

She moved her hand up his muscled body and curled it around his nape, pulling him down to her mouth, desperate to feel his lips on hers again. Then she shivered, imagining his mouth on other parts of body. Her breasts . . . the throbbing, clenching lips of her vagina.

It was simply too much to process all at once. Her mind was alive, brimming with erotic images of the two of them, tangled up, moving as one. Him coming inside her, on her, marking her as though he owned her.

Chill bumps erupted, doing a tantalizing dance over her skin. Her nipples puckered and her breasts were heavy and aching, swelling with need for his touch. She was suddenly impatient, wanting to be skin on skin, no barriers between them.

“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me what to do. How to do. How to please you. I want to see you, Beau. Take your clothes off. Please.”

This time the please wasn’t her begging. It was a demand of lover to lover. She shivered delicately again. The word
lover
had never had such an impact on her, because she hadn’t experienced the essence of having a lover. Of being someone else’s lover.

Beau rose up from the bed, nearly tearing his clothing as he stripped down to his underwear. Then, as if sensing her heightened excitement, he took his time with his underwear, inching it downward to expose his thick, distended cock, inch by delicious inch.

He was a feast of pure alpha male and she wanted to touch and explore so much that she didn’t even know where to start.

“Now you,” he said in a gruff voice. “Sit up on the edge of the bed so I can help you. You aren’t going to get so carried away that you hurt yourself. I must be insane for agreeing to this. You were
shot
for God’s sake.”

She was poised to launch an argument, but he leaned over her on the bed, his arms on either side of her body, his mouth just inches from hers, even as he slowly began divesting her of her clothing. Before she knew it, before she even acknowledged
how
he’d been able to do it so quickly without her registering the fact, she was naked, and he still loomed over her, his gaze raking over her, his expression absolutely intense.

“You may have instigated and you may have had to talk me into this, but that’s the extent of your control. This is my show now and I’m going to take my sweet time showing you just how much I want you. Which means we do things my way. And you’re going to lie there and not do a damn thing to put strain on your stitches while I do all the work.”

Oh my . . . She swallowed hard, her heart nearly leaping up her throat. He nuzzled his mouth against her jaw and nibbled his way down to graze his teeth over the delicate skin just below her ear.

He nipped, followed it with a leisurely swipe of his tongue and then he fastened his mouth and sucked gently until her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. In fact he had to catch her as she swayed precariously and that had nothing to do with the pain medication rendered earlier. Beau was a hundred times more potent than any drug.

She leaned her forehead on his chest, the top of her head grazing the underside of his chin, and she inhaled deeply, absorbing his scent, enjoying the feel of her skin against his heart. She also got a prime view of his straining erection and she gasped softly.

Unable to stop herself, she pulled slightly away and let her fingers wander aimlessly down his midriff, trailing through the brisk whorl of hair at his groin. He went completely still when her hand brushed up the length of his cock. She was fascinated by the fact that he was utterly rigid and yet the skin, stretched so tightly, was like velvet over steel.

She pressed inward with her thumb, finding the plump vein that ran the length on the underside of his erection, and traced a path upward, surprised when moisture suddenly welled and beaded at the tip, slipping onto the tips of her fingers like silk.

Her hand left him and she lifted her index finger to her mouth, wanting to know what he tasted like. Beau let out a groan that sounded as though he was experiencing extreme pain, and yet when she looked into his eyes, they burned fiercely with pleasure and desire.

He looked like he was about to eat her up and devour her whole and she wanted it all and she wanted it now. She was simmering with impatience, wanting to experience everything she’d read about but had never gained firsthand knowledge of. This was like . . . a fantasy, a scene from the sexiest book, only it was
real
. And it was happening to her!

Sending him what she hoped was a sultry look of invitation, she slowly reclined back and stretched her arms over her head in a symbol of submission, hoping it would drive him as wild as he was driving her.

His eyes glittered dangerously, raking over her body like a blowtorch. Immense satisfaction marked his features at her acquiescence, her obedience to his demand that she lie back and allow him to do as he wanted.

He crawled slowly and deliberately onto the bed, over her, straddling her body with his own. When he’d slid to just below her waist, he dug his knees into the mattress and sat upward so he looked down on her, his beautiful, muscled body like a work of art draped over her skin.

He skimmed a hand over the bandage on her side, frowning slightly as he examined it. She was determined that he not change his mind and decide she was too “injured” for sex so she arched upward, deliberately drawing his attention to her breasts instead.

It worked because his gaze immediately smoldered and his hand moved from her side and over her breast. He added his other hand to the other side and pushed them toward one another before leaning down and running his tongue in a swirling motion around one nipple and then the other until they were rigid, straining peaks, begging for attention. His mouth. His lips. His tongue. She wanted him to suck, wanted to feel the delicious tug that she instinctively knew would blow her mind.

As if reading her thoughts or perhaps his restraint was wearing down, he tugged one puckered ridge between his teeth, gently grazing the ultrasensitive nub and then sucking the entire areola into his mouth.

She emitted a strangled cry, arching up, her hands flying to his head, holding him firmly against her so she didn’t lose the exquisite suction. A growl rumbled through his throat, almost a purr of pleasure that gave her delicious satisfaction.

Her fingers dug through his hair, reveling in the sensation of so much skin-to-skin contact. Her senses were ablaze, consumed by fire.
His
fire.

He very quickly discovered her pleasure points, knew just how to make her insane with the need for release. He discovered places she hadn’t realized were erogenous zones as he conducted a very thorough head-to-toe perusal with his hands, his mouth and his tongue. God, his tongue.

She was mindless, boneless, helplessly sliding further and further into sweet oblivion. So many times she’d thought she’d simply break apart and float away and yet he always seemed to know the exact moment to pull her back, preventing that free fall into space.

She was ready to scream, to beg him to give her relief from the ever-increasing tension, boiling, simmering, stoking and fanning until she was a seething cauldron of ecstasy. Just as she reached her breaking point and parted her lips, trying to draw in enough oxygen to voice her plea, he raised his head from his sensual exploration of her throbbing clitoris, dug his fingers into her hips, roughly nudging her thighs apart with a knee and thrust into her with one forceful lunge.

Her lungs caught fire as pain burned through her swollen passageway. Beau froze, his entire body going rigid as he stared down at her in shock. Her eyes were wide as she stared helplessly up at him as she processed the bombardment of conflicting sensations snaking through her body.

She didn’t know how he managed it, but he leaned down, so carefully and tenderly, and leaned his sweat-beaded brow against her forehead.

“Ari. Honey. Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered back, shock still reverberating through her body and mind.

His lips curved into a half smile. “You didn’t know you were a virgin?”

Her hands wouldn’t remain still. They glided up and down his arms and up the slope of his neck, her enjoying every bulge of muscle, each hard ridge.

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, giving her head a small shake.

He groaned. “I need you to be still, honey. I’m trying very hard to rein myself in, but if you keep that up, I’m not going to be able to hold back.”

“I didn’t think it would really hurt,” she said, stilling her hands and body so she was in complete accord with his. “I mean in books it never hurts. It’s always this glorious . . . thing. I honestly figured the whole hurting thing was a myth to discourage girls from having sex too young.”

He feathered a kiss over her furrowed brow and let out a sigh. “I ripped in to you with all the finesse of a rutting bull. Of course it hurt.”

She gave an experimental wiggle, gauging the now not so burning sensation. Or rather the burn was still present, but it was a
good
burn. She rubbed against him like a cat, locked her arms around his neck and then raised her legs to loop over the backs of his, solidly linking them, keeping their bodies connected so there was no question of him pulling out.

He was right where she wanted him to be and she wanted the edge back. That flying sensation, the about-to-catapult-right-over-the-edge free-falling spiral of need, want, lust and desire, all inexorably wound together in a seamless, never-ending chain.

“Okay now?” he asked, an edge to his voice that told him her movements had done to him precisely what he was doing to her. The wait was agonizing for them both.

“Yeah,” she whispered against his neck, turning her mouth to nuzzle and inhale. She began to nibble at his throat and then ran her tongue over the slight bristle of his evening shadow as she worked her way upward to his jaw and then she licked and scraped her teeth on a path toward his ear and when she sucked the lobe into her mouth, he let out a long hiss and he finally,
finally
moved.

She let out an honest-to-God moan when he withdrew with agonizing slowness, but the genuine tenderness in his care of her was utterly heartwarming.

“Hold on to me,” he husked out.

His hands slid down her curves, plumping and molding her breasts, weighing the slight swells in his palms before continuing their downward trek. They skimmed her sides, slid underneath her hips and then he cupped her behind and lifted her, adjusting the angle so that this time when he entered her, he went deeper, touching parts of her that caused her eyes to widen and her mouth to round into an O.

A really
big
O. Corny pun absolutely intended.

“I think I just figured out what a g-spot is,” she said in wonder.

His chest rumbled with laughter and his teeth flashed as a grin widened his face.

“I feel like a virgin as well,” he said in a rueful voice.

She reared back, planting her head deep into the pillow so she could look at him. “Not to completely mimic you but why on earth would you say a thing like that?”

He smiled again and playfully tugged at several thick strands of her hair, wrapping the tendrils around his fingers while squeezing her behind with his other hand, both gestures of obvious affection.

“Because this is the first time sex has been
fun
.”

He sounded as confused as she was about sex, which was pretty hilarious given she had zero experience and he’d probably been around the ballpark more than once. Surely a man wasn’t this great at sex without a lot of practice.