“You…” She seemed incapable of putting her thoughts into words.
“There’s isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you,” he said, as honest as he could without scaring her off with the unvarnished truth. “We can return it all to your bungalow tomorrow,” he said, brushing her hair off her forehead and then letting his hand trail down to curl around neck, his thumb resting on her throat. “But you belong to me.”
Her eyes widened.
“Tonight,” he added, to ease the unsteady flutter of her pulse.
Thank God she didn’t object, because his newfound possessiveness was just beginning to assert itself and he didn’t have control of it yet.
He wondered if he ever would.
But for tonight he didn’t try to rein it in. And with it at full roar, he led her into the bathroom where he turned on the shower jets, letting the water turn hot and the room steamy as he stripped away her clothes and then threw off his. She gazed on him, and one hand reached out to trail him from collarbone to navel. His heart slammed against his ribs, his flushed cock twitching as it stretched toward her touch.
Before she got any unwise ideas, he hauled her into the shower with him, and let the water fall over their entwined bodies. When he thought he could let her go for a moment, he reached for the shampoo bottle and poured some into his palms, then washed her hair, his fingers gently tracing the contours of her skull.
He wanted to know everything about her, the delicate rims of her ears and the shallow groove at the back of her head, just at her hairline. When he tipped her face back to wash the suds away, he couldn’t help but press his mouth to the tender skin under her chin and she shivered, blinking owlishly at him when he wrung the extra moisture from her hair by fisting light handfuls and squeezing out the excess.
Released from his hold, the ribbons of hair sprung into delightful waves and curls, and when she made some comment about her need to tame the stuff, he shut her up with a kiss to her mouth, water running between their lips and over the tips of her breasts.
Soap came next, and he washed her with meticulous care, despite her blushes and her weak attempts at pushing his investigating hands away. “We have to get you all cleaned,” he said against the outside of her thigh as he kneeled at her feet, and then he used his tongue and she was quiet except for whimpering moans. Her fingers curled in his hair and he smiled against the yielding softness of her intimate flesh and gave her a long, sucking kiss that made her knees buckle until he had to prop her peachy bottom in his hands.
Afterward, he leaned her against the tiled wall and made quick work of his own washing up. With a towel wrapped around his hips, he took his time drying her body, rubbing cloth over each limb and along every crevice until she was pink everywhere and panting and trying to clutch at him to bring him even closer. Laughing, he swatted her lightly on that delectable bottom, and when she swayed into him, swatted again, laughing harder at her pouting lower lip.
That required kissing, so there was a long interlude of lips and naked limbs pressed tightly together until he swung her up in his arms and took her to bed.
The sheets were cool against their fevered flesh and he started off by kissing her again, his mouth exploring the tickly feathers of her lashes and the downy softness of her brows. He kissed between them and her eyes opened, the midnight mystery of them causing his breath to stutter in his lungs.
Of all the women who might have been the one to reach him, it was her, Lilly, with her hidden secrets and her buried hurts.
She called to the masculine core of him, and he knew he was made to hear her broken whispers and to treat her unhealed wounds. Though she might not require his strength, he would always offer it, a freely tendered currency that he hoped she would someday accept.
As her due.
Now, though, he offered tenderness and pleasure and silent messages. See what we are. See what we can have together. See what has been missing all our lives.
But then it was even too much for Alec. He realized he couldn’t look into her face without giving in to the urge to confess all he felt, so he turned her to her side, spooning her and burying his face in her damp hair to absorb his mouthed promises.
His thigh pushed between hers, holding her open for him. His hand slid into the space he’d made, and he touched with care, his thumb separating the full layers, finding the swollen center. She jerked back, and his cock pressed into another furrow, causing them both to gasp with new sensation. Murmuring reassurances, he spread her seeping moisture all around her intimate flesh, exquisitely painting every surface. When she was panting, her body squirming in such a way that had his cock leaking too, he breached her tender opening, two fingers sliding in a meager inch.
She tensed and he lightly bit the side of her neck. Her body bucked, his fingers slipped inside to the second knuckles, and he massaged her deep inside, patiently preparing her for his cock. It ached like a bitch, wanting what it wanted, but he ignored the low throb and continued to stroke and caress the heated channel.
But then Lilly made a noise low in his throat and grasped his wrist. “More,” she said.
With a laugh, he bit her again, kissed the spot, then reached for a condom. In moments he was entering her in slow increments, and he could tell she was fighting the pleasure even as she reached for it. He buried his face in her hair again as he began
