* * * * *
Keara was drunk and floating, dizzy and breathless, her body soft and wet and pulsing. But she needed more. She needed it all. She needed Shane, naked, over her, in her, around her. Shaky fingers worked the buttons of his shirt, greedy with the need to feel his chest, smooth, bare, warm.
She felt so much. She felt shaken with the extent of her need for him, knowing this would not be enough.
She almost couldn’t remember why she was leaving this man, except she knew it was important and she didn’t really have a choice. She longed to ask him to come with her back to LA, but before the words could even form in her head, she knew how stupid they were. Of course he wouldn’t leave Kilkenny. His career, his family, his life were all here. If he’d wanted to leave he would have gone with Trista.
So this night had to last the rest of her life, had to fill the emptiness her life would be without Shane in it. Her throat quivered and ached and she slid her hands inside his shirt finally, over hot sleek skin. Her fingers played in the silky patch of hair, her palms brushed over the hard bones of his shoulders. Strength and security and honor emanated from him.
She pushed his shirt back off his shoulders and tasted the skin of his chest with her lips and tongue, sliding lower, until she kissed the quivering flesh of his belly below his navel. She fumbled with his button and zipper, and he helped her reveal the throbbing, hot erection beneath. Her mouth watered and opened instinctively to taste him, to take him in and she breathed through her lust for enough patience for him to stand up and get rid of his pants and underwear.
Her eyes drank in the sight of him, long, hard, thick, and her hands reached for him. She rose to her knees on the bed and he let her stroke him. She loved his rough moan. She tested the weight of him, of his heavy balls, bent her head to suck him in.
His low growl inflamed her, his hands in her hair sent a barrage of sparks over her body, and pleasure swelled inside her, almost unbearably sweet.
“Keara, God, your mouth. Suck me.” He groaned. “Suck me, just like that.”
His voice splintered and her body burned, her mouth loving him, her hands admiring him. She wanted it all. But he pulled out of her mouth, and stood, holding himself, panting.
Now she was the one who moaned, her lips swollen, mouth aching for more.
“Inside you,” he muttered, and he pushed her down to the mattress with a dominance that thrilled, yet with a gentleness that moved her. The knowledge that this man had all that inside him—the overriding need to protect not just ones he loved, but everyone, and the strength and courage and conviction to carry that out—made her feel like her heart was going to explode.
He twisted and turned her body out of the formfitting dress. She wore no bra and her panties had already disappeared. He cupped her breasts, stared at them reverently, kissed and licked and nibbled them until sensations sparked over her body, pinpricks of pleasure racing over her, her nipples glowing points of pleasure, a hot aching need building between her legs.
His body inside her felt right. Perfect. Complete. They fit together, they moved together in an intimate, dazzling rhythm. Their quiet sighs and the sounds of their slick bodies moving together filled his dusky bedroom. She felt safe. She felt desired.
She felt so much.
He took her higher, sliding a hand between them to find her clit, to make sure she came again, and she loved him for that. He found the exact place, rubbed with a sure and perfect touch. Inside her, he thrust deep, filling her almost to the point of pain, a sweet pain. Everything drew up inside her tighter, higher, to a sharp point of ecstasy, and then even higher yet, higher than she’d ever been, so high she was scared. And then she burst and shattered and shuddered, clinging to him with her hands, her teeth sinking into his shoulder.
They pressed through their orgasms together, long, blinding, wrenching spasms, until they lay wrapped around each other in perfect intimacy and saturated rapture. She pressed her mouth to his shoulder where she’d bitten him, and when she felt wetness there she realized she was crying.
She felt so much.
Chapter Eighteen
She was getting away later than she’d planned because Shane had dropped her off at Maeve’s apartment at five thirty in the morning. They’d both been exhausted, emotional, totally in denial. Shane looked at her with tired and shadowed eyes as he laid his hands on her shoulders and gently kissed her goodbye, and she could tell his smile was forced.
And she did the same. She wanted to throw herself at him, into the protection of his arms, and stay there forever, and she had to physically stop herself from doing that. She felt as if his body was a magnet pulling her to him with a powerful, irresistible attraction but she had to resist.
She had to go home.
Jayla was working in the store, so Maeve came to the back where they’d parked the rental car the night before. Keara slammed the trunk down where she’d stowed her stuff, and dusted her hands together. Maeve regarded her with steady look, and the affection on her face made Keara’s heart swell up again and ache. Maeve opened her arms and Keara walked into them and hugged her frail body. She was always so energetic and vibrant, it was only when holding her like this that it became so evident she was aging and fragile.
Tears gathered and prickled in her eyes and she squeezed them shut briefly, before drawing back and smiling
