This had to end. He saw what she wanted from him; he wanted it too. But there was too much potential for it to go wrong. For him to actually earn the Beast moniker. Not toward her, but if anything happened to her...it was a chance he just didn’t think he could take.
They weren’t going to find a way to some sort of Hollywood version of happily-ever-after. That had never been the kind of man he was.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he wanted this last night, this time with her in his arms so he brought his mouth down on hers. Angled his head so that he could kiss her slowly and deeply. He took his time wanting this kiss to be enough to keep him satiated for the rest of his life. Even though he knew one kiss would never be enough.
Her hands moved up his shoulders, her fingers pushing into his hair as her tongue rubbed over his, and then she sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth. She tasted of absinthe and that extra special flavor that he had only tasted when he kissed her. He’d tried to re-create her in a dish, but it wasn’t possible.
These feelings that stirred in him when she was in his arms came only from Indy. There was no way to replicate it on the plate or in his life. He knew that.
Fuck.
He turned so that she was between him and the wall before he realized what he was doing and started to step back.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to trap you.”
She put her hand on the side of his face, rubbing her finger along his jawline. “I don’t feel trapped with you. It’s okay.”
Those words made him feel—fuck, he wasn’t able to think of anything but white-hot passion. He shut down the other thoughts in his head. Hell, he was going to get his rocks off...except when had making love with Indy been about just a long, hard orgasm? It hadn’t. It couldn’t be. Indy was too deeply embedded in him for sex to be just getting laid.
Which should have been a red flag from the very beginning, but in his arrogance, he’d thought he could control it. Hell, hewascontrolling it.
He brought his mouth down on hers again as his hands swept down her, finding the hem of her flapper dress and then pulling it up her body where it got wedged between the two of them and he left it there, as he could feel the bare skin at the tops of her thighs. He swept his fingers higher to her panties, before pushing them underneath and then slowly sliding the underwear down her legs. He didn’t bother tossing it to the floor, just left it at her knees so he could caress her nakedness.
She shifted back and forth, and he realized she was working her panties down her legs as he took one full cheek of her butt in his hands, running his finger along her crack as he deepened the kiss even more. He was hungry for her as if it had been years instead of days since he’d had her.
His erection was full, straining against the zipper of his pants, and he knew if he freed himself he’d be inside her, and he wanted this last time to take forever. He wanted to draw out the passion. So he pulled his hips back and dropped to his knees between her legs. The scent of her arousal enflamed him and made him harder.
His blood felt like molten lava as it flowed through his body. Her hands were in his hair as he parted her nether lips, revealing her clit. He breathed on it, then licked her. She moaned and her hands tightened in his hair.
He opened his eyes, trying to memorize everything about her in this moment. The dark curly hair that protected her femininity. The birthmark at the top of her left thigh right where her pubic area began. The way her hands lifted from his head and then landed again as he drove her higher and higher.
He drowned all of his senses in Indy. He let every part of her essence sink into his mind. He listened carefully to her breathing and the tiny moans she made, the sounds getting closer and closer to the moment when he knew she’d orgasm.
His own body was on fire, and it was only the fact that he’d had a lifetime of keeping himself in check that he could wait. He wanted this. He liked when she came before him. Liked tasting the passion in her and then driving her wild again in his arms.
Tonight though, it was more poignant, as this was the last time he’d taste her like this. The last time he’d hear her voice getting deeper and her sighs turning into longer moans until her legs flexed as her hips drove forward and she tunneled her fingers into his hair holding him to her as she cried out his name and came in his arms.
He looked up her body, craning his head so he could see her arched against the wall in ecstasy and he knew he’d never forget this moment or this woman. But for the sake of both of their souls he had to leave her after this and never come back.
The energy coming off Conrad was intense, and she couldn’t read anything but the lust and desire...but she knew there was more. Something had changed between them. She knew that he must feel it too. If only she still believed in fairy tales, then she would tell herself that this was the beginning of forever.
But she lived in the real world where their past baggage didn’t easily disappear, and sometimes the emotional wounds of childhood couldn’t be cured with a new love. She slid down the wall, crouching in front of him. He looked at her but he didn’t speak, and she could tell from the look on his face that he was in sex mode. She’d seen that passionate intensity too many times to mistake it for anything else.
She reached for the buttons of his shirt and her fingers fumbled with them, making it hard to undo them. The emotions of this moment, the feeling that this might be the last time she was alone with him like this overwhelmed her, and she cursed under her breath before she took the two sides of the shirt and pulled until the buttons burst and his shirt fell open.
She didn’t look at him as she pushed her hands into the opening, tried to ignore those thorny branches that encased his torso, feeling the ridges of those old scars. But she couldn’t ignore any of it. These were the things that made Conrad the man he was. Made him the man she liked—when was she going to feel comfortable with this admission. The man she loved.
Since he was making love to her like it was the last time, she wanted this. Wanted to admit to herself that she loved him and take this moment and make it into everything she’d ever secretly wanted and always believed she couldn’t have.
His pectorals flexed as she ran her fingernail over his left nipple and then down the side of his body. She leaned in closer, biting his nipple and then licking it before following the path her finger hand taken with her mouth.
She took her time over the ridged indentation of his abdomen and then lower where that thin line of hair led to his cock. She saw his erection pressing against the fabric of his trousers and it made her hotter and wetter than his mouth had. She reached down to stroke him through his pants. Then she found the tab of his zipper and started to lower it, but he brushed her hands aside, did it himself. He stood and she frowned at him until he took off his pants and underwear and then sank back down on the floor against the wall.
“Shirts are easier to replace than pants,” he said.
She smiled at him. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“No need. Just climb on top of me and make love to me, Indy.”