'The bigger they are…' she told him, and unhooked his slacks. In an automatic defensive gesture, his hands covered hers.
'You're serious.'
She drew back far enough to look at him just as the first slice of lightning lit the sky. The flash leaped into her eyes as if it had always been there, waiting. 'Deadly.' With her eyes on his, she caught the zipper of her jumpsuit between her thumb and fingers and drew it down. 'You're not getting out of this room until I'm finished with you, Nathan. Cooperate, and I'll be gentle. Otherwise…' She shrugged, and the jumpsuit slithered tantalizingly down her shoulders.
It was too late, much too late, to pretend he didn't want to be with her, didn't have to be with her. The game she was playing was taking the responsibility and the repercussions away from him and onto her. Though it touched him, he couldn't allow it.
'I want you.' He brushed her cheeks with his hands and combed his fingers through her hair as he said it. 'Come upstairs.'
She turned her face so that her lips pressed into his palm. It was a gesture of great tenderness, a gesture that bordered on submission. But when she looked back at him, she shook her head. 'Right here. Right now.' Jackie pressed her open mouth to his, leaving him no choice.
She tantalized, tormented, teased. Her body curled itself around his, and her lips were quick and urgent. They lingered on his, drawing in, drawing out, then sped away to trace the planes and angles of his face. His blood was hammering. He could feel it, in his head, in his loins, in his fingertips. Her hands were unmerciful… wonderful…as they roamed over him.
No hesitation. She didn't know the meaning of the word. Like the storm that whipped at the windows, she was all flash and fire. A man could get burned by her, he thought, and always bear the scars. Yet his arms banded around her, holding her hard and close as he fought to maintain some control. She was driving him beyond the limits he'd always set for himself, away from reason, away from the civilized.
That was his own breath he heard, fast and uneven. That was his skin springing moist and hot from a need that had grown titanic in mere moments. He was pulling the material from her shoulders with a gnawing demand to feel her flesh against his. And it was with an insatiable greed that he took it.
'Jack.' His mouth was against her throat as he tasted, devoured. More… he could only think of having more. He'd have absorbed her into him if he'd known how. 'Jack,' he repeated. 'Give me a minute, will you?'
But her mouth was just as greedy when it came to his. She only laughed.
He swore, but even the oath caught in his throat. He was tearing the jumpsuit from her as they slid to the floor.
She couldn't make her fingers work fast enough. Jackie pulled and yanked to strip the last barriers of his clothing away. She wanted to feel him, all of him. As they rolled over on the carpet, her skin was on fire from the friction of flesh against flesh.
She'd thought she would guide him, coerce, cajole, seduce. She'd been wrong. Like a pebble in a slingshot, she'd been flung high and fast, no longer in control. But with some trace of reason, she knew he was as lost as she.
Desire held control, steered by a love only one of them could admit. But in the lamplight, with the storm reaching its peak, desire was enough.
Wrapped together, they rolled mindlessly, each searching and finding more. The capacity for intense concentration was inherent in them both, but neither had used it so fully in the act of love until tonight. The clothes they'd discarded tangled with their naked legs and were kicked heedlessly away. Rain, tossed by a restless wind, hit the windows like bullets but was ignored. Something teetered on a table as it was jolted, then thudded to the carpet. Neither of them heard.
There were no murmured promises, no whispered endearments. Only sighs and shudders. Neither were there tender caresses or gentle kisses. Only demands and hunger.
Breath heaving, Nathan moved above her. Lightning still flashed sporadically, highlighting her face and hair. Her head was thrown back, her eyes clear and open, when he took her.
Perfect. Naked, damp and dazed, Jackie curled into him while that one word ran around in her head. Nothing had ever been so perfect. His heart was still pounding against hers, his breath still warming her cheek. The rain had slowed, and the thunder was only a murmur in the distance. Storms passed. Some storms.
She hadn't needed the physical act of love to confirm her feelings for Nathan. Lovemaking was only an extension of being in love. But even with her vivid and often far-reaching imagination, she'd never known anything could be like this.
He'd emptied her, and he'd filled her.
No matter how many times they came together, no matter how many years they shared, there would never be another first time. Her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around him, she savored it.
He didn't know what to say to her, or if he was capable of speech at all. He'd thought he knew himself, the man he was and the man he'd chosen to be. The Nathan Powell he'd lived with most of his life wasn't the same man who had plunged so recklessly into passion, giving and taking with greedy disregard.
He'd lost all sense of time, of place, even of self, as he'd driven himself restlessly, even abandonedly, into her. The way he had never done before. The way, he already understood, he would never do again. Unless it was with Jackie.
He should have taken her with more care, and certainly with more consideration. But once begun he had lost whatever foothold he'd still had on reason and had cartwheeled off the cliff with her.
It had been what she'd wanted-what he'd wanted-but did that make it right? There had been no words, no questions. He hadn't even given a thought to his responsibility or her protection. That had made him wince a bit even as he stroked a hand through her hair.
They'd have to talk about that, and soon, because he was going to have to admit that what had happened between them was going to happen again. That didn't make it permanent, he assured himself as his hand fitted possessively over the curve of her shoulder.
'Jack?'
When she tilted her head to look up at him, he was struck by such an unexpected wave of tenderness that he couldn't speak at all. Lips curved, she leaned closer and pressed them to his. It took no more than that to have the embers of desire glowing again. The fingers that had been stroking her hair tightened and dragged her closer. Limber and sleek, she shifted onto him.
'I love you, Nathan. No, don't say anything.' Her lips nibbled and rubbed against his as she sought to soothe more than to arouse. 'You don't have to say anything. I just need to tell you. And I want to make love with you again and again.'
Her hands had already told him as much, and now her mouth was moving lower, nipping and gliding along his neck. His response was so immediate it stunned him.
'Jack, wait a minute.'
'No more complaints,' she murmured. 'I ravished you once, and I can do it again.'
'Thank God for that, but wait.' Firmly now, thinking only of her, he drew her away by the shoulders. 'We have to talk a minute.'
'We can talk when we're old-though I did want to mention that I'm crazy about your carpet.'
'I've grown fond of it myself. Now, hold on,' he said again when she tried to squirm away from his restraining hands. 'Jack, I'm serious.'
She let out a huge and exaggerated sigh. 'Do you have to be?'
'Yes.'
'All right, then.' She composed her features and settled herself comfortably. 'Shoot.'
'I'm already doing it backward,' he began, furious with himself. 'But I don't intend to make the same mistake again. Things happened so quickly before that I never asked, never even thought to ask, if it was all right.'
'Of course it was all right,' she began with a laugh. 'Oh.' Her brows rose as realization struck. 'You really are a very good man, aren't you?' Despite his grip on her shoulders, she managed to kiss him. 'Yes, it's all right. I realize I look like a scatterbrain, but I'm not. Well, at least I'm a responsible one.'
The tenderness crept back unexpectedly, and he cupped her face in his hands. 'You don't look like a scatterbrain. You may act like one, but you look beautiful.'
