Against such a breathy request, he exercised no willpower. He squeezed his eyes shut and withstood her curious caresses until he couldn’t bear anymore. Then he lifted her hand off him and satisfied them both with a fervent kiss.
“My turn.” One of her arms was still bent behind her head. Her breasts rose off her chest, perfect domes crowned with delicate, pink crests. He covered each with a hand and squeezed. “Too hard?” he asked in response to Rusty’s change in facial expression.
“Too wonderful.” She sighed.
“That night I kissed you...here...” He touched the curving softness of her breast.
“Yes?”
“I meant to make the mark.”
Her sleepy eyelids opened wide. “You did? Why?”
“Because I’m mean, that’s why.”
“No, you’re not. You just want everyone to think you are.”
“It works, doesn’t it?”
She smiled. “Sometimes. Sometimes I’ve thought you were very mean. Other times I knew you were feeling a lot of pain and that being deliberately mean was your only way of coping with it. I think it goes back to your days as a POW.”
“Maybe.”
“Cooper?”
“Hmm?”
“Make another mark if you want to.”
His eyes darted up to hers. Then he moved above her and kissed her mouth thoroughly while his hands continued to massage her breasts. He brushed her wet and swollen lips with his mustache before dragging it down her neck, nipping her lightly with his teeth as he went. He kissed his way across her collarbone and down her chest until he reached the upper curve of her breast.
“I’m responsible for the bruises on your bottom. Then the passion mark. I guess in a primitive way I wanted to brand you mine. I don’t have to put a mark on you now,” he said, moving his lips lightly over her skin. “You belong to me. For a little while, anyway.”
Rusty wanted to take issue with his choice of words and tell him that she would belong to him for as long as he liked, but his roving lips emptied her mind of the correct phrases. He kissed every inch of her breasts, avoiding the nipples. Then he licked them all over and at once, like a greedy child with a quickly melting ice-cream cone. When Rusty didn’t think she could stand any more, she clutched handfuls of his hair and pulled his mouth directly above one of the achy, stiff peaks.
His tongue flicked over it, lightly, deftly, until her head was thrashing from side to side. He used his mustache to tickle and tease. When he closed his lips around her nipple and surrounded it with the scalding, tugging pressure of his mouth, she cried his name out loud.
“Oh, baby, you’re nice.” He moved his head from one side of her body to the other. His mouth was ravenous, but tender.
“Cooper?”
“Hmm?”
“Cooper?”
“Hmm?”
“Cooper?” She curled her fingers around his ears and pulled his head up even with hers. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
He avoided looking at her by staring at a spot beyond the top of her head. “You know what.” She wet her lips anxiously. “Why did you...withdraw...before...?”
She felt apprehensive and disappointed, just as she had earlier when, at the last possible heartbeat, he’d cheated her out of the ultimate high, that of feeling him come inside her.
He became perfectly still. For a moment she was afraid she’d made him angry and that he was going to leave the pallet. After a long, tense moment, he cut his eyes back to hers. “I guess you’re due an explanation.” She said nothing. He released her name on a sigh. “We might be here for a long time. I don’t think either of us wants or needs another mouth to feed.”
“A baby?” Her voice was hushed with awe. She played with the idea of having a baby and didn’t find it repugnant at all. In fact her lips formed a winsome smile. “I hadn’t thought of that.”