Why had she insisted on provoking him, even knowing the danger? But she couldn’t look away from the tight, barely leashed need on his face and the thick jut of his erection as he joined her on the bed. Pushing her legs apart with one insistent thigh, he dragged her shorts off. Then he groaned, thumbing her turgid nipples through her swimsuit.
‘A one-piece?’ he murmured. ‘Just kill me now.’
A chuckle rose up her torso at his look of consternation, but then strangled in her throat as he lifted the swollen flesh over the top of the suit and traced his tongue around one yearning peak.
‘Tell me if it hurts...’ He growled as he gathered the hardening peak between his lips.
‘It doesn’t!’ she gasped as he suckled with unbearable tenderness.
She rose off the bed as the drawing sensation arrowed into the molten spot between her thighs, the ache intensifying.
She squirmed and writhed, the pleasure too much and yet not enough as he feasted on one nipple then the other.
She grasped his head to drag him closer and dislodged the glasses.
He swore softly and levered himself off the bed. ‘Wait there. And take that damn one-piece off. I need to get my lenses in,’ he said. ‘I’ll be damned if I do this blind.’
She lay on the bed, trying to gather her wits, or what was left of them. But her panting breaths only made her feel more light-headed, more disorientated.
She should call a halt to this—forget the harsh sadness in his eyes when he had told her about his past. But something stopped her, and she knew it was a great deal more than just the promise of having the desperate hunger finally fed.
She still lay there, the emotions churning in her gut, her heart pummelling her ribs when he returned. The glasses were gone—the intimidating erection wasn’t.
She drew herself into a sitting position. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t...’
‘I think we both know it’s too late for that,’ he cut her off, then grasped her wrist and dragged her off the bed until they stood toe to toe. She’d lost her sandals on the way into the house, her bare toes sinking into the deep carpet, but his urgent erection was nowhere near as overwhelming as the turmoil in his eyes.
He cupped her cheek with a shocking gentleness that weakened her knees. He threaded his fingers into her hair and the loose knot tumbled down.
‘We need this,’ he said.
She opened her mouth, wanting to deny it, but then he placed his mouth on the pummelling pulse by her collarbone. The protest lodged in her throat as he dragged off her shirt... And the words that would release her from the silken web imprisoning her refused to come.
He peeled the suit from her body in one forceful glide.
In the half-light of her granny’s cottage at nightfall, her body had been sheltered, obscured, but here the glaring sunlight spotlighted every flaw, every imperfection. But he didn’t seem to notice, his urgent hands stroking her to fever pitch.
At last he found her sex and began to torture and torment with insistent fingers.
He sank to his knees and cupped her hips before prising her legs apart. But a position that should have made him less dominant only made him more so as his gaze locked with hers and his tongue trailed up the inside of her thigh.
She shivered, sinking her fingers into his damp hair. She shuddered as he lapped and lathed, finally parting the curls hiding her sex to lick at her clitoris at last. The swell built, staggering in its intensity, shattering the last of her resistance and charging through her body on a tidal wave of stunned pleasure.
As the brutal orgasm subsided, she stood, shaking, exhausted. He rose to his feet to tower over her. ‘It’s too late to escape me, Red. You’re mine now, in the only way that matters.’
She should reject the brutal cynicism, the claim of ownership. She would never belong to any man—but she no longer had the strength to resist it.
Pressing her back on the bed, he climbed over her. Scooping up her legs, he lifted her knees, spreading her wide open for the brutal invasion. He anchored the huge erection deep in one slow, mind-altering thrust, impaling her to the hilt.
Her body contracted, struggling to adjust to the thick invasion, while dragging him deeper still as she clung to his broad shoulders. He began to move in a harsh, relentless rhythm, his breathing as ragged as her own.
The pleasure rose again with brutal speed, furious, overwhelming, rushing towards her on another wave. Her fingers dug into broad, sweat-slicked muscles, trying to concentrate on the physical. But the turmoil in her chest refused to subside as the tsunami bowled over her again, and she heard him shout out as he collapsed on top of her.
Katie lay dazed for what felt like an eternity, Jack’s shoulder digging into her collarbone.
She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out again, waiting as the serene wave of afterglow faded into something hollow and deeply unsettling.
Groaning, Jack pulled out of her at last. She felt the loss of connection instantly. After gathering the last remnants of her sanity around her, the flight instinct that had deserted her so comprehensively minutes ago returned in a rush. She edged to the side of the bed.
He’d torn the swimming costume when he’d dragged it off her, so she scooped up the shorts. Embarrassment heated her cheeks as she tugged them on, forced to wear them without underwear.
‘Hey, where are you going?’
The gruff voice behind her had her glancing over her shoulder.
He reclined in the bed, the white sheet lying low on his hips, one arm slung behind his head, the other flat against his stomach, a watchful, questioning light in those crystal-blue eyes.
Her thighs twitched and her sex pulsed, making her aware of the soreness where he had plundered her so convincingly.
‘For a walk,’ she said, desperate to get away from him and the brutal feeling of connection.
He wasn’t the boy who had been scarred by a violent stepfather. He was a forceful, dynamic and scarily controlled man who was going to become a father himself but had no intention of becoming part of his child’s life. Perhaps his past explained why he didn’t want to be a father, but it also meant he was less likely to change his mind.