Sure fingers cupped her breast, then tugged at one hard peak and hot need arrowed down to her sex, the desire erupting like a volcano.
‘Wait, Coop.’ She wrenched herself free. ‘Please, stop a moment. I need...’ She sucked in a breath, her lungs on fire, alongside the rest of her. ‘I didn’t come for this.’
Did she?
But as his heavy-lidded gaze met hers the heady rush that had been lapping at her senses ever since the car had pulled up to the house surged.
‘So what?’ He clasped her hand, and headed for the staircase.
He took the stairs two at a time. She could have resisted, could have told him no, but instead she found her feet racing to keep up with him.
He led her into a wide room on the first floor, with a huge four-poster bed draped with gauzy white curtains, and double doors that opened out onto a veranda.
He tugged her into his arms. ‘I want you,’ he murmured, his voice so low she almost couldn’t hear it above the distant sound of the ocean, and the pounding in her eardrums. ‘You want me.’ His gaze dropped to her midriff. ‘We’ve made a kid together. Why shouldn’t we do this?’
She couldn’t find a coherent response as the desperate desire to be touched, to be taken in that wild way only he seemed capable of, consumed her.
He jerked off his T-shirt, kicked off his jeans, and then wrestled off her clothes before lifting her, naked and yearning, onto the bed.
Her hands splayed across his wide chest, sank into the blond curls of hair across his nipples. She had to slow him down. Get her mind to engage.
Ruby had warned her not to get distracted, not to fall straight into bed with him. And here she was, less than an hour off the plane and already naked and willing.
‘Shouldn’t we think about this?’ She struggled to hold him back, but the question broke on a soft sob as he cupped her mound. Blunt fingers probed the slick flesh, gliding over the perfect spot.
She bucked, cried out, pleasure radiating across her skin.
The light in his eyes became feral in its intensity. ‘You’re soaking wet, Ella. What’s there to think about?’
Her breath rasped out as he stroked her into a frenzy, caressing the burning nub. Then rolled her over onto her stomach. Raising her hips, he positioned her on all fours, the thick erection nudging her entrance.
‘I’ll be gentle.’ He lifted her hair off her neck, cradled her body with his to nip her shoulder. ‘I promise.’ Her heavy breasts swayed and he captured them, holding her steady. ‘Now tell me you don’t want this as much as I do?’
‘You know I do.’ She moaned, stretched unbearably, as he plunged. Her pulse thundered like an express train in her ears.
Need and desperation pummelled her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, the coil yanking tight inside her as he began to move. Pulling out, thrusting back, going impossibly deep, the rhythm torturously slow but steady, relentless, stealing her breath. Her hands fisted in the bedclothes, her body battered by the building waves of pleasure. Sure fingers squeezed her nipples, then he reached down, to open her folds and touch the too-sensitive nub of her clitoris.
Pain and pleasure combined as he shot her to peak. The titanic wave crashed over her as his rhythm built and accelerated. She heard him shout, getting even bigger inside her, before the hot seed pumped into her. He let her go at last and she collapsed onto the bed, her body shaky, her mind dazed, her heart pounding against her ribs with the force and fury of a wrecking ball.
She rolled away from him, feeling stupidly fragile. ‘You didn’t use any protection,’ she murmured.
‘Not much point now. That horse has already bolted.’ He whispered the words against her ear as his forearm wrapped around her waist and his body cradled her. ‘You okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I? I was trying to be gentle but I got kind of carried away towards the end.’
She shook her head, struggling to talk round what felt like a wad of cotton wool in her throat. ‘No. It felt good.’ And scarily intense.
One large hand cupped her breast, his thumb grazing the sensitive nipple. She flinched, the stiff peak too tender for attention.
‘I’m sorry.’ His thumbs drew back, to trace slow circles around the areola, avoiding the tip. ‘The plan wasn’t to jump you straight off. But I’ve missed you.’
‘The plan...’ She lurched onto her back, dislodging his hand. ‘You planned this?’
‘Yeah. I guess so.’ He propped himself up on an elbow to look down at her, his gaze roaming over her face. ‘Why? Is that a problem?’
‘I don’t know.’ She tried to gather her thoughts and make sense of them, while the rush of afterglow still pumped through her system. ‘I just thought...’
‘What? That this wouldn’t happen?’ He brushed his fingers across her forehead, tucked the tendrils of hair that had escaped her updo behind her ear. ‘Honey, I figure whenever we’re on the same continent it’s sort of inevitable. So why fight it?’
It wasn’t the answer she had been looking for, the one she thought she should have wanted. But as soon as he said it she knew it was the truth.