“Do you mean can I still have children? Yes.” Relief swept away the concern from his expression, but she shook her head. “But do I want to? I—I don’t know.” It was a truth she’d never admitted aloud. “It may have happened ten years ago, but the pain, the fear, the grief, the terrible emptiness...” She pressed a palm to her stomach. “I’ll never forget it. And I’m terrified of suffering that again. I don’t want to. Losing another child...” She turned her head away from his penetrating stare. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Reagan. Sweetheart. Will you look at me?”
Several heartbeats passed, but she returned her gaze to him.
He circled a hand around her nape, a thumb stroking the side of her neck while the other hand continued to cup her face. “You don’t have to explain or justify anything to me. I get it. After my parents and then Melissa died, the thought of loving another person only to lose them to illness, fate or death paralyzes me. They don’t give out handbooks explaining that one day that person might be snatched unfairly from us. No one prepared me for that, just as no one prepared you for the fact that you might lose your baby before you had the chance to hold him or her. And because no one did, we only get to dictate how we deal.”
He stroked the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, his gaze softening.
“Do I think you would one day make a beautiful, caring and attentive mother who would love your child as fiercely as the most protective mama bear? Yes. Do I believe you deserve to know the feeling of cradling a child in your arms, smelling their scent, hearing him calling you Mom? Yes, sweetheart. You deserve all of that and more. But I’m the last person to tell you you’re wrong for being afraid of it. And Reagan...?”
He paused, his scrutiny roaming her face, alighting on her mouth, nose and finally eyes. She felt his tender survey like caresses on her skin. “If no one else has ever told you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the loss of your baby. I’m sorry the boy—because he’s not worthy of the title of man—you believed would stand by you abandoned you instead. I’m sorry that you felt deserted by your family. And I’m sorry no one told you that in spite of—no, because of—your life lessons, you are even more precious.”
The need to reassure him that he, too, deserved more trembled on her tongue. Ezekiel deserved a woman who adored him beyond reason. Who would be his soft place to land as well as the rock he leaned on in times of trouble. The thought of him alone, with the heart he so zealously guarded as his only companion, saddened her more than she could vocalize without betraying emotion either of them would be comfortable with.
So instead, she rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Tried to convey her gratitude for his compassion and kindness. Attempted to relay everything she was too confused to say aloud.
Immediately, his lips parted under hers. His hold on her cheek slid into her hair, and his fingernails scraped her scalp, arrowing shivers of heat directly to her breasts, belly and lower, between her thighs.
Sorrow and hurt morphed to heat, kindling the desire inside her that never extinguished. Not for him. For Ezekiel Holloway, she was a pilot light that never went out.
His groan vibrated against her chest, then rolled into her mouth. She greedily swallowed it, the emotional turmoil of the last hour spurring her on to drown in him and this overwhelming pleasure that bore his personal stamp of ownership.
“Ray.” He moaned her name, but his hands dropped to her shoulders as if to push her away. “Sweetheart.”
“No,” she objected. Stroking her hands over his hips and up his back, she curled her fingers into his shirt. Held on and pulled him tighter against her. “I want you. I want this. Don’t deny me, Zeke,” she said.
Demanded.
Pleaded.
His gaze narrowed on her, studying her. After the longest of moments, he shifted, spinning them around so she perched on the hood of the Jaguar and he stood between her spread thighs.
He flattened his palms on the metal beside her, leaning forward until she placed her hands next to his and arched her head back.
“I won’t deny you anything,” he growled.
Then his mouth crushed hers.
He hated the words as soon as he let them slip. Wanted to snatch them back. They revealed too much, when he should’ve been protecting his tender underbelly from exposure.
But with lust a ravenous beast clawing at his insides, he couldn’t care right now. Not when her tongue dueled with his, sucking at him as if she couldn’t get enough of him. Nipping at him as if she wanted to mark him. Licking him as if he were a flavor that both teased and never satisfied.
He should know.
Because as he sucked, nipped and licked her, all three were true for him.
This woman... Goddamn. She was ruining him with her sinful mouth, wicked tongue and hungry moans. Even now, he couldn’t remember another’s kiss, another’s scent. Another’s touch. And that traitorous thought should anger him, fill him with guilt. And maybe later it would. But now? Now, all he could do was dig his fingers through her hair, fist the thick strands and hold her steady for a tongue-fucking that had his dick throbbing for relief.
Nothing else mattered but her and getting inside her.
With fingers that were miraculously steady, he swept them over her jaw, down her throat, lingered on the scar that carried such traumatic memories for her and lower to the simple bow at her waist that held the top of her wrap dress together. He tugged on the knot, loosening it, and didn’t hesitate to smooth his palms inside the slackened sides to push the material off her shoulders and down her arms to pool around her wrists.
Reagan started to lift her arms, but he stilled the movement. Instead, he gripped her wrists and pulled them behind her back. Trapped by her dress and his firm fingers, back arched, she was a gorgeous, vulnerable sacrifice for him. Only, as he lowered his head to drag his tongue down the middle of her chest to the shadowed, sweetly scented valley between her breasts, he was the one eager and willing to throw himself on the altar of his need for her.
God, he couldn’t get enough of her taste. That honeysuckle scent seemed entrenched in her smooth, beautiful brown skin, and he was a treasure hunter, constantly returning for more.
Tracing the inner curve of her breast, he couldn’t resist raking his teeth over it and satisfaction roared through him at the shiver that worked through her body. He’d earned a PhD in the shape and map of her body in the last few days, and yet, every time he discovered a new area that caused her to quake or whimper, he wanted to throw back his head and whoop in victory. He’d never get tired of eliciting new reactions from her, of giving her new things to shatter over.