Nothing had mattered but his touch, since that day. The stroke of his tongue against hers as he took the right to fuel her lusts and to sate them. The feel of his arms suddenly surrounding her, his fingers burrowing into her hair as hers slid into the cool, silky strands of his as well.
She needed this. She was starved for it. The buildup was destroying her senses, her control. The pleasure was sensory overload. How could one woman bear the tingles of erotic electricity racing through her veins and prickling over her nerve endings? It made her want to scream. Made her want to rub against every inch of him and feel more of it. Like a cat. Like a sex kitten, eager for more.
“Damn you! You steal my mind,” he growled, jerking his lips from hers only to move along her jaw to the delicate shell of her ear, then the sensitive nape of her neck.
“Let me steal it more,” she whimpered, pulling at his shirt, desperate to bare his flesh. “You’re not teasing me again, Kell. Not this time. You have to finish this.”
She was desperate to feel him over her, inside her. As her head turned, her lips seeking his, she couldn’t stop the mewling little cry of need that fell from her lips.
But it got results. It got his hands gripping the hem of her shirt to pull it over her breasts before he tore free of her kiss to jerk it over her head.
His shirt went next, courtesy of her hands gripping the edges and pulling, jerking, tearing the buttons free and leaving the material hanging on his broad chest.
“Fierce little vixen, eh?” It was a statement. The tone was an erotic thrill of desire that pierced her womb.
“Very fierce.” She panted, moving back as her fingers went to the snap of her jeans and she toed her sneakers from her feet. “Get naked, Kell. Now.”
Naked came quickly. He sat at the edge of the bed, watching as she released her jeans and began pushing them over her legs.
His boots were untied and jerked from his feet in seconds.
As her jeans passed the lace of her panties he was pushing his over his hips, disposing of them and his underwear and socks in one fell swoop.
Before her own jeans passed her ankles he was lifting her to him, bearing her to the bed and fighting her for the supremacy of being on top as their lips came together once again.
Short little cries fell from Emily’s lips as he used his larger, stronger body to hold her in place, sprawling between her thighs, his hands anchoring her wrists to the mattress as his lips ravished hers.
This wasn’t the previous, slow, determined seduction that Kell had employed each time he touched her. As though each touch had to be controlled, each kiss calculated.
There was nothing calculated here. This was pure male hunger.
“You’ll do as I say.” He suddenly tore his lips from hers, his voice ragged, determined. “Promise me, Emily. You’ll follow me. Swear it to me.”
Her head thrashed on the bed.
“I can’t lose you. Not you, Em,” he groaned then. “I can’t live through it again. Sweet baby. Don’t you leave me.”
Before she could question him, before she could do more than glimpse the pain burning in his eyes and feel it echoing in her heart, his lips were moving along her collarbone, then to the mounds of her breasts rising above the lace of her bra.
“Sweet ecstasy framed by silken lace,” he groaned as he leaned back to stare down at her, his gaze going to the hard points of her nipples beneath the lace. “Have I mentioned, darlin’, how much I love those pretty breasts, those sweet little nipples?”
“Kell—” She protested the pain raging in his expression.
“I look at you, and I see peace. A slice of heaven.” He released her wrists, his fingers moving between her breasts to the clip that held the lace cups secure.
His face was filled with hunger, and not just sexual. She could feel it. See it. A need that transcended sex and moved into the soul.
As the cups of her bra slid free of her flesh, his lashes drifted lower, the green of his eyes glittered behind thick black lashes.
“I need to love you,” he whispered then. “Soft candlelight. No danger. No worry. Just me and you.”
“You can have that—now.” Her breathing hitched as the backs of his fingers smoothed over one tight nipple. “I don’t need candles, Kell. I just need you.”
“I know why your father needs to protect you.” He bent to her again, his lips feathering above her nipple. “You touch everyone, Emily. You touch a father’s heart. A stranger’s loyalty, and the soul I never knew I had. You touch it, and you remind us of all the innocence we’ve lost in the world.”
Emily shook her head. “I’m not innocence, Kell. I’m just a woman.”
“Sweet innocence,” he said, denying her words. “So pure and bright. Like a living flame.” His head lifted, his gaze piercing hers with a sense of desperation she couldn’t describe. “Keep me warm, just like this, always.”