Shooting Starr

belly quiver. “Caty, are you sure about this?”

“Yes…I’m sure.” Her words gasped softly against the base of his throat. Her fingertips were tucked into the waistband of his jeans, too, he realized then, and he groaned when he felt them slide around to his back, warm on his skin. “Are you?”

Laughing, groaning, he leaned to kiss her. Then drew away with his hands still poised on the fastenings of her jeans. “There’s just one thing…”

“Yes?”

He didn’t know how he managed to say the words. He was hard…hurting for her, in a way he’d never hurt before, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth and his heart pounding so it seemed a miracle he could even stand. But he mumbled, “I didn’t bring you here for this…”

And as he did the light came on. His conscience, shining into the darkest reaches of his soul. And he knew it was true, what he’d told himself and her. Because one thing he knew-if he’d had seduction on his mind, he’d at least have made damn sure he was ready for it.

At the moment, though, he didn’t know whether to be relieved that his motives were pure or ashamed for his unpreparedness. Breath and nerves and heartbeat bumped around inside him like birds in a cage as he kissed aside her murmured assurances. “No-what I mean to say is, I don’t know if I have anything. It’s been a while…”

He felt her stillness…and deep inside, her shivering. After a moment she whispered, “Are you sure you don’t-”

“No-I have to look. Just a sec…” It took only a little more than that, and he held his breath while he walked her the few steps to his dresser and opened the top drawer. While he rummaged blindly in the jumble of odds and ends and loosely folded underwear, he felt her hands on his back, felt her fingers drawing patterns up and down his spine. He laughed painfully. “You might not want to be doing that…just yet.”

Her mouth was busy exploring his chest, kissing…laving…nibbling…tasting…but she murmured something indistinct and firmly shook her head.

Weak in the knees, his mind fogging, he wondered dazedly whether that meant she had confidence in him, or simply didn’t care whether he had a condom or not. Which he couldn’t see as being in keeping with her character; Caitlyn hadn’t struck him as the reckless type. On the other hand, she was stubborn. He’d noticed that when she set her mind on doing something, she went ahead and did it, and didn’t count the cost.

“Got one,” he muttered, and his belly went hollow with relief as his fingers closed around the small foil packet.

I wonder, Caitlyn thought as tears of thankfulness squeezed between her eyelids, what I would have done if he hadn’t had one… Thank God she would never have to know.

Laughter woven with whimpers shook her body as she lifted her arms around his neck. He lowered his mouth over hers and she felt the button on her jeans give way. Denim scraped roughly over her hips, and his hands followed, a light but slightly catching caress, like satin. Where they touched, her skin sizzled and burned as if she’d passed through fire. Her heart thundered when she pulled away from his kiss; her breath staggered drunkenly while she wriggled the jeans down to her feet. Before she could step out of them, though, C.J. grasped her buttocks and pulled her hard against him, and her breath left her body in a gasp of utter shock…and purest joy.

Soaring, weightless, she threw her head back, and his mouth closed, hot and demanding, on her proffered throat. While he arched above her, his arms lifted her up and into him, and her legs parted and went around him as if they belonged there, just as they had before.

No-not as before. Now there was nothing between her and excruciating, overwhelming sensation-nothing at all. His hands stroked and molded the nerve-rich places on her buttocks and the back of her thighs. The hard ridge of his jeans abraded her swollen, tender places. Heat roiled in her belly and pulsed between her thighs. Darkness swirled around her like velvet.

She was sobbing when he laid her down. Frightened by that-she’d never made such sounds before-she writhed, bewildered and cold, until she felt his body stretch out alongside hers and his warmth flow over her like breath. She remembered the silkiness of his skin and wanted it touching her…all over. His mouth was hot and feverish on hers, but her breasts were cold, hard, aching. Her belly quivered. Her pulse pounded in places far distant from its source.

She reached for him, whimpering. His hands stroked, stinging, over her thighs, and moved them gently apart.

Prepared for his weight, wanting it so desperately, she knew a moment of surprise when she felt only the silky tickle of his hair instead. Briefly it feathered over her belly and thighs, like cool water on her parched skin… Then his mouth touched her. Sensation drove through her like a shaft of steel.

She uttered a high, shocked cry. Her body bucked…arched…but his hands were firm and strong on her thighs and his mouth so incredibly, exquisitely gentle. Her body clenched-everything inside her seemed to buckle, collapse, fall apart like a house of cards. Great sobbing gasps tore through her chest, and as she reached for C.J.’s warm, comforting body in the darkness, she was whimpering incoherently, “Please…please…”

When she surfaced, she was lying on top of him, with her cheek on his sweat-damp chest and his heartbeat a muted drumming in her ear. Her body still throbbed and quivered, that terrible shaft of sensation only shards now…bright little stabs of pleasure-pain quietly twinging in far-off places.

She drew a long, shaken breath…and fury washed over her. Struggling to raise herself within the circle of his arms, she pounded on his chest with clenched fists. “Why did you- I wanted- You-”

His arms tightened around her. His chuckle gusted unevenly in her ear. “Easy…easy…”

“But I wanted-”

“You wanted…to be in control. Didn’t you?”

Had she? Somehow, that seemed irrelevant to her now. She felt strangely bereft as she stared dumbly down at him in the darkness. Then she felt his hand curve around the back of her head. He drew her to him and kissed her deeply.

“I wanted that, too,” he whispered. “And now you are. I’m all yours, sweetheart. Do with me what-”

She stopped him with her mouth, laughing, her nose bumping into his and her breasts brushing his chest, and he thought about how much he’d wanted to do just this-laugh with her in his arms. Now it seemed a gentle torment.

She lifted her head and made a happy, growling sound in her throat, then slowly, slowly eased her full weight onto him, bringing her knees up alongside his ribs and sliding her body over his in a lazy, all-over caress. She felt like the softest velvet…the lightest down.

He held himself still…except for his hands, which he allowed to skim over her back from shoulders to buttocks, torturing himself some more. When they reached her bottom-he couldn’t help it-they paused…asked…

But she denied him, chuckled softly and scooted backward, trailing kisses. He groaned, fearing what was coming. Her control was one thing; his was very much in doubt.

She must have known that, because after her lips had left kitten tracks across his abdomen, she moved quickly back astride him, nesting him excruciatingly in her damp feminine softness. He groaned again-he couldn’t help it- and whispered, “Sweetheart-”

She leaned down to kiss him. “I want you, too…inside me. But I…don’t know if I can…this way. It’s been such a long time…”

And so, in the end, it was neither her control nor his, but a mutual joining…and not an easy one, nor painless- she was tight and he was hard. It had been a long time for him, too, but somehow the more satisfying for that.

As they laughed a little, dazed and giddy, he drew her down to him and raised his knees behind her to make of himself a cradle for her body, and holding her close, touching her everywhere he could, began to rock her, slowly at first, mindful of her tenderness.

His mind was full of her. Images of her, in all the ways he remembered: fairy princess, woodland sprite; pointing a gun at him; glaring silver-eyed from the back of a police car; lying bandaged and bruised in a hospital bed; sun-dusted and blind, picking wildflowers. But the memory that came to him most clearly-fierce and tender in his mind-was his own impression from way back then, almost at the beginning: she’s real.

Yes…real. Her femininity warm and pulsating around him, her body strong and supple in his arms, her lips