Neal stared back, and Mary could feel the hesitation in his hands and the muscles of his body.
“I want to help you,” she explained. “I want to know what happened to you. But you don’t have to tell me until you’re really ready. I know who you are. I know what you are to me.”
He gave a great sigh of his own. His gaze softened, and Mary could feel some of his tension ease.
Not the important tension, though, and when he bent to kiss her again, she pressed herself against him like a cat in heat, unable to resist the demands of her own body.
He kissed her again, as her lips had been longing for, no less urgently than the first time, and she fumbled at his jacket buttons, desperate to put her hands against his skin.
They had to break the kiss to shimmy out of clothing, and Mary regretted her simple nightgown not because it wasn’t sexy enough—slipping it off was a whisper of sensuality that she’d never expected—but because there weren’t enough layers to it. She hadn’t anticipated how much fun it would be to undress another person, or how exciting it was to peel through layers of clothing to find the skin beneath.
Once her nightdress was off, Mary paused, and Neal stared for a long, mesmerized moment, holding the thin cotton garment in his big hands. The night air chilled goosebumps onto her flesh despite feeling flushed and hot, and Neal gave a groan before tossing the gown to the floor and crushing her back to him for another of their long, deep kisses.
“It’s not fair!” she laughed at him when her mouth was free. “I have so much clothing still to get through.”
Neal was as impatient with it as she was, and the task was hastened, tie, shirt, and undershirt thrown aside with zeal. His scuffed shoes were wrenched off without untying, and the pants were shimmied off to the floor until they both stood in only underwear.
Mary could not keep herself from staring. His briefs did nothing to hide his impressive desire for her, and she wond
ered if her inescapable dampness showed on her simple cotton underthings.
They were at the door of her bedroom now, and the sounds of the room were the unending insects of the tropical night, the tapping of rain on the roof, and their own breath, ragged and eager.
“Do come in,” Mary said at last, feeling suddenly shy.
Chapter Ten
Neal felt as if he’d won some kind of lottery, and he mistrusted his luck, even while Mary’s earthy, curvy beauty stunned him into silence.
The roundness of her hips, the softness of her shoulders—it wasn’t just his maned wolf that Neal had to wrestle down. Everything about her brought out animal lust and desire in him. He had to struggle to keep his urgency in check, fearful of hurting her, of losing control and not treating her with the care and reverence she deserved.
When she invited him into the sanctity of her bedroom, he went willingly, and instead of wrestling her down onto the bed the way he wanted to, he sat, and drew her into his lap.
There was no hiding his lust for her, no tempering the physical part of his need, but Neal forced his hands to be slow, and his kisses to her neck were whispers, not the bites he was so tempted to make. He teased around her breasts, lifting them, stroking them, defining their shape and softness, then finally brushing a finger across her nipples and delighting in the deep groan of need she gave.
She squirmed in his lap, driving him mad with the touch against his cock, and he feared he would embarrass himself before they even got out of their underwear.
He didn’t realize that he’d frozen, trying to fight down the need that was rising to a fever pitch, until Mary pushed him back on the bed and slipped out of her underwear.
He stayed still while she wrestled him out of his own, lifting his hips to help her.
They both gave a gasp when his erection sprang free, Neal from the sensation of it, Mary in delight, as far as Neal could tell.
Then she was straddling him, drawing down on him, and Neal had to worship her swinging breasts and sweet flesh. She was slick with moisture, and beautifully, impossibly tight around him, each cautious stroke she made bringing him deeper into her eager folds.
Neal let her ride him, drowning in the incredible sensation of her skin and the honeyed smell of her, until he could bear it no longer. He reached up and rolled her over, never decoupling.
Sprawled beneath him, Mary’s eyes were soft and glowing in the dim light of her bedside lamp. Her blonde hair tangled over the crisp white pillow like waves, and Neal had to reach out with one hand and trace the shape of her face, already so unexpectedly dear to him.
“I never thought I’d find you,” she said softly, and even her voice was intoxicating.
“I never… “ Neal couldn’t find the words, too overwhelmed by smell and sight and sensation.
He wasn’t sure if he had ever stopped moving, but now he was thrusting again, slowly, deliberately. Every movement was carefully controlled. He was painfully afraid of losing control, of losing her, and he wasn’t prepared for her writhing moan of pleasure as she crested toward orgasm.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, and Neal could not have if he tried.
Her blissful sound of climax drove Neal out of his mind, and he only became aware again of himself as someone separate from Mary when the urgency merged into release and faded at last into gasping, grasping satisfaction.