“Look at me, Cleo.”
She turned her face, her eyelids feeling heavy and hot as she gazed up at him. Sweat beaded his brow and his nostrils flared as he struggled for breath and stared down fiercely into her eyes. His jaw was tight with effort as he rammed inside her, veins straining against his neck.
“I want to watch when you come,” he said heavily, his voice hot and broken with desire. All the while he kept thrusting and thrusting and thrusting inside her. “I want to see your pretty face when you come for me.”
Her eyes widened as she reached the tip, the point, that painful second before release. “Now, Sebastian, now!” she cried.
With one last thrust he drove his cock straight home. Cleo clutched him tightly while he shuddered, his face contorted in ecstasy, and be it heaven or hell, she would follow him. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her sex against his hardness ever so slightly, and with that fleeting touch, exploded into a million pieces.
Fucking awesome.
No other words could describe her.
And now Sebastian didn’t give a damn if he was being a real pussy for wanting to hold her. But he did, he wanted—needed—to hold her as much as he’d needed to fuck her. He gathered her into his arms and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. It was odd, the way the burning, fiery desire he’d harbored for years now felt like something else. Something fuzzy, warm. A feeling as alien to him as cuddling a woman after he’d screwed her. A feeling he’d thought was solely exclusive to wimps, gays and girls. That life-is-beautiful sort of crap. It was inside him now, and damn it, it felt good.
And Cleo, in his arms, felt even better.
His thoughts darkened when he remembered she would be going back to take care of those freaking old geezers tomorrow. She would fly back to Seattle, leaving him behind. But he couldn’t let that affect him because tonight…tonight she was his. And for the life of him, he would be content with that.
For now.
It had been…
No. Cleo dared not even think it.
She should not think these things, for her brain was still clouded and hazy, not working properly—short-circuited. But try as she might, she couldn’t stop the sting in her eyes and the feeling of having experienced something painfully beautiful. She sniffled softly when the tears came and prayed a silent prayer that he wouldn’t notice. His hold tightened around her and he bent his head, pressing his brow to hers.
“What is this?” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face upward. Cleo shyly met his gaze, acutely aware of her stinging red eyes and silently cursing herself for being so weak in front of him, so weak in front of a man who could break her as easily as a twig under his feet. “Why are you crying, Cleo?”
She bit her lip because frankly, she didn’t know.
“Bas, are you making her cry again?” Luella asked, clearly concerned.
“Mind your own business,” Sebastian snapped, glaring at her over his shoulder before he turned back to Cleo and tenderly rubbed his thumbs along her cheeks. “Don’t cry, Cleo.”
His concern tightened around her heart like a fist.
Staring into his eyes, the color of polished onyx, blazing with need and longing as he looked back at her, Cleo finally realized why she was so afraid of him—and why she wanted to cry. It wasn’t him actually, but what she felt because of him. Hate. Pain. Want.
And so much love.
It was impossible to explain these strong, conflicting emotions with the same simplicity as she could explain something like a rainbow. Cleo couldn’t understand them like she could understand the rightness of one plus one being two. She couldn’t predict the outcome of an experience such as this like she could predict the outcome of a division or multiplication.
These feelings rioted, blended, mixed…and she could no more explain them than she could explain her own existence and meaning in this world. It scared her, the sheer intensity and power of her emotions, for she knew they had the power to lift her to the skies. Or destroy her completely.
“You regret this, don’t you?” Sebastian asked gruffly.
“No, Sebastian, I don’t.”
He pressed his lips to hers softly, tenderly. “If I hurt you, I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said, reaching to cup his hard, square jaw with her palms. She knew it the second she stared into his eyes, for she saw her heart right in them—she still loved him. Achingly. Deeply. And all these years, she always had. Yes, it hurt. He angered her, hurt her…and she still loved him.
“I’m sorry baby, for everything,” he breathed as he pulled her to him and crushed his lips to hers.
She melted under his lips, under the pressure of his mouth urging hers to open for him. Her hands settled on the back of his neck while she met the thrusts of his tongue equally with those of her own.
She trembled in his arms before he pulled back, for the first time noting they were still naked. “Stay here,” he whispered.