But if he didn’t let it wash over him, the primal urge from seeing her perfectly round behind in the air, her hips waiting for his grip, he would be fine.
In his calculations, however, he didn’t account for the intimate physics of human joining, hadn’t recalled that when he slid into her from behind, he would not find space but even more profound joining. He had forgotten in his drive for distance that the position would only carry him deeper.
But still he held back, biding his time, patient without grace, as he stoked up the growing tension in her body again, building her to a crescendo once more, edging her closer and closer to another collapse.
Nearing the point where he could either continue to see to his woman and lose himself or direct all of his focus to holding back, he released one hip with a caress of farewell before reaching his hand around her to once again cup her mound. The move drew her closer, tucked her body tighter in the protective arch of his own as his thumb found the sensitive bud at the apex of her opening, bringing a tendril of tenderness to their tireless dance that sweetened and thickened the joining, even as he sought to bring them both the escape of climax.
They could not get closer, he reasoned, if they both fell apart.
But the increased sweetness between them only deepened the pleasure of the experience. Rita reveled in it, arching her back and crying out, unconsciously deepening his access as she shattered around him again. Her inner muscles spasmed in powerful waves, the pull and tug of them drawing him further still. A surge of final need thickened his shaft within her, locking him in place as he spiraled toward the inevitable and impending death of everything that he had been before her.
His climax destroyed him, as if his sole purpose in life—the very reason he had been put on this planet—had been to give her this moment. To love her.
And because his body, still pulsing with tremors of pleasure, still beating and throbbing inside hers, wanted only to ease further into her, he did not pull her close to hold and cushion her comedown.
He couldn’t, not when his own protective barriers were down, his system rocked as it never had been before. He was exposed to her in this moment, as vulnerable as the sanded Ferrari because he could not separate the one-of-a-kind experience he’d just had with her from the her herself.
Neither did he allow himself the reprieve of falling back against the warm stone to breath deep and look at the stars overhead while she snuggled in beside him, as his instincts urged him to do.
Instead, he painstakingly withdrew from her, gentle even as he was thorough in his distancing. Their bodies resisted separation, held on to each other like lovers lingering at a train station.
Her small sound of protest at his leaving pierced his chest, but as the transcendent bliss of having her cooled, it was replaced with resolved contrition.
He had had her once, and he could never risk it again. Not when just a single taste tempted him to stop fighting, to let down the barriers, reveal everything he held within inside and give her the power to compel him—to twist him to her will.
And if not her, then anyone who wanted to get to him through her.
In having her, he had created that doorway. There was no way things would go back to being as simple and smooth as they had been up to now.
He should never have brought her here in the first place.
He should have heeded Rafael’s advice and taken greater strides to avoid being alone with her.
Obviously, it was too late for that wisdom now; andshouldsandoughtswere a weak man’s nostalgia. The breach had already occurred, but the damage could yet be controlled. He simply need not do it again. Now that he had tasted the ambrosia of NECTAR, now that he knew that she held within her a wellspring of the sweetest elixir, however, the task would be easier said than done.
It was saying something when losing a priceless Ferrari to a sandstorm was the least of an action’s consequences.
Constructing an invisible wall between them, he reached for her hand and kissed the back of it, smiling a smile that did not reach his eyes, and said, “I’m afraid that our stone heater here is running out of fuel, so it’s time to bring our lovely little party to a close.”
Eyes wide, filled with confusion that battled hurt, she stammered, “O-okay.”
He felt her baffled sting as if it were his own, but could not allow the situation to go any further. It was better for both of them that this fire be doused now—and thoroughly.
The success of their partnership depended upon them not developing feelings for each other. They could never get close enough that they introduced the opportunity for betrayal. Acquaintances could not hurt each other. Could not be used against each other.
Looking away from her, freeing himself from the shame and sting of her bewilderment, he reached for the phone that lay cold on the warm stone. He dialed quickly, calling their pickup and a change of clothes with efficiency that only highlighted how foolish and unnecessary a risk this little excursion had been. He should never have broken the seal, neither of her innocence nor on his ignorance of what it would be like to be inside her.
He had made love to his wife when it had been entirely avoidable, and now, inevitably, given the nature of their situation, nothing would ever be the same.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DESPITEBEINGPOSSESSEDof a mind powerful enough to send her to Berkeley at sixteen and to create some of the world’s most innovative vehicles, postcoital etiquette was an area in which she had no basis of knowledge.
For example, she had no idea if it was normal to feel not pain or awkwardness or shock in her body, but a relaxed liquid joy, as if the muscle of her happiness had flexed to its utmost tension before letting go with a sigh.
She wanted to curl into Jag, not to go another round—though a giggly part of her insisted that wasn’t a bad idea—but because she wanted to bathe in his scent and fall asleep in his arms.
He, on the other hand, seemed more interested in getting them home.