Another sweet, plaintive moan had him pressing his cheek to hers, and he noted her eyes were squeezed shut with enough force that lines fanned from their corners. He kissed her there, and then leaned around her to sweep his tongue across her lashes. “Relax.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Both of his hands cupped her breasts now, and he played there, gentle on the full flesh, and less so on the tight buds. As he plucked them, her head fell back against his shoulder, but there was nothing boneless about her body. Even as he saw the flush of arousal suffusing her face, he could feel the fine tremors shaking her tense frame.
“Noah…”
“You have a seventy-gallon hot water heater, we have plenty of time.” A quickie wouldn’t be enough for either of them, would it? Him, to exorcise the fantasies with real-life Juliet sex, and for her, didn’t she deserve a prolonged reintroduction to man-woman pleasures?
But her body was getting more rigid by the moment and then he saw her teeth bite down on her bottom lip. This wasn’t making her bloom, he realized, it was making her hurt.
Shit. How long since she’d let herself have this little taste of life? She was reaching for it and battling against it, both with such force that she was shaking with the dueling purposes.
And then Noah knew.
Juliet wouldn’t have orgasmed on her own. Not by her own hand, not with some naughty-girl toy. Not when her husband was dying, not while she was grieving, not ever in…
Years?
For himself, he wanted to play with the possibilities of that for hours. For her, he was going to have to give her a fast, ruthless push over the brink.
The gangster inside of him grinned, but he told the bad boy to settle down. This could be his single chance at her climax and he was going to let her fly solo.
With the fingers of one hand still rolling a berried nipple, he shoved the other into the shower spray to rinse off the soap, then brought it down between her thighs. He didn’t take it slow, she was needy enough. Instead, he speared his middle and forefinger between her swollen layers to trap his quarry.
She froze, every muscle tight. Like her heart, this little organ was beating too, rising toward his touch and hungry for what he offered. In his fantasies he spent hours getting to know this sweet morsel of flesh, but now, he accepted he might only have these few moments.
Wrapping her with his left arm, he used the middle finger of his right hand to draw a snug circle around the stem of the hard bud. All her muscles tightened, her spine as stiff as if he’d lashed her to a pole. But her support was his body behind her, her bond his left arm circling just below her breasts, her instrument of torture the firm ring he drew around her with his finger.
On his next pass, new wetness met the tip of his long digit. He jolted, heat rocketing through him at the slippery sign of her surging desire. Without thinking twice, he brought his finger to his mouth, sucking off the flavor of her, sucking her essence into his mouth.
She whimpered, and he glanced down to see she was watching him, her face flushed and her blue and green eyes wide and trained on his mouth. Oh, yeah. He dropped his hand and dipped it in her softness again. Then he lifted his finger to her lips, offering to feed her that distinct proof of life. “Try it,” he urged her. “It’s as good as your next breath.”
He painted her lower lip and his blood burned again as her tongue crept out to taste. He rubbed the rest of the liquid arousal along the velvet surface and saw her flush deepen.
“My turn,” he said, his voice hoarse as he lowered his hand. “This next taste is mine.”
Seeking the lush well inside her, his fingers brushed her erect clitoris, and just with that small nudge, she flew. With a low moan, she pressed back against him. Her shoulder blades dug into his chest, her back bowed, and the cheeks of her ass tightened along the length of his cock.
He would have lost it, surely should have lost it, but to his eternal shock, his instinct to support her writhing body overrode the sexual demand pounding in his blood.
Miracle of miracles. Maybe he was noble Noah after all.
She moved through shudders, to tremors, to the sweetest little shivers, and he went along for the ride with her, his finger easing up on her sensitive flesh as she quieted. Then she turned in his arms and buried her face against his chest.
“Baby.” He backed her into the shower spray again, intent on keeping her warm now that her climax had passed. His hand caressed her shoulders and she shivered again, her face still hidden. Shit, was she crying? Under where she pressed, beneath his skin, his sinew, and his skeleton, beneath all those protective layers were four aching chambers that twisted and squeezed at the thought of her tears.