“He’s gone?” Damon invited when she didn’t continue.
“Yes. He was a firefighter.” Haley took a breath, knowing she should stop but taking a chance all the same. “First responder.”
Damon let that linger in the air for a few minutes, his hands returned to that chakra at her lower back. When he pressed the flat of his hand against it, Haley wanted more, far more, than just this massage. “He died in the line of duty then.”
“Yes.” Haley found herself nodding. “You might remember the day,” she added, wondering at her impulse. She was never confided this much in anyone but something about Damon invited her trust. Maybe his massage was at root. She swallowed. “September 11.”
“2001,” Damon said quietly and his hands paused for a moment before he resumed. His voice was husky when he spoke again. “I remember.”
The apartment seemed to fill with understanding and a kind of communion that had become unfamiliar to Haley. Her apartment felt golden and warm to her, not practical like it usually did. A haven, not just a place to sleep.
Because of Damon and his touch.
She knew then that she had to convince him to stay. He would finish the massage and, if she didn’t act, he’d just leave. Maybe forever. She knew she couldn’t bear that, not after this.
She wanted more, and she wanted it enough to ask for it.
“You were here in the city, too?” Haley asked.
“Just about a mile away, at my mom’s house.” His hands continued their seductive moves. “You must have grown up in New York, then.”
“Mostly. I was a teenager when my dad died. My mom never liked the city so she took us all back to Illinois afterward.”
“And your big brother still became a firefighter.”
Haley smiled. “Yes.”
“I guess the inspiration was stronger than the warning.”
“You could say that. Or you could say that the acorn never falls far from the tree.”
“Your dad would have?”
“Yes.”
Damon’s hands worked over her with much less pressure, back to the lightest level of stroking, and Haley knew it was now or never. When his hands were just above her waist, she abruptly rolled over to her back. Damon froze, but his right hand still ended up cupping her left breast. The nipple tightened, right on cue, and his gaze flicked to it, then back to her mouth and to her eyes.
He didn’t seem to know what to do.
She knew he would err on the side of being a gentleman.
That was the last thing Haley wanted. She reached for him, sliding her hands up his arms to his shoulders, savoring the hard strength of him.
That was apparently all the invitation he needed. He bent and captured her lips with his, even making a little groan of satisfaction when his mouth locked over hers.
Three
Damon had been determined to resist temptation, but when Haley reached for him, he was lost. Her expression was sultry, her skin glowing and warm, her lips parted and her hair loose—and her breast was in his hand. He was only human. The way her nipple tightened before his eyes sent a jolt through him. There was no way he could have refused the kiss she offered.
Her lips were soft and firm, her fingers locked around his nape, holding him closer. He could have drowned in the sweetness of that kiss. His arms were full of her curves and there was way too much denim in the way. He stretched out over her, pinning her to the carpet and loving how she moved beneath him, as if she couldn’t get enough contact between them. He felt her wriggle and realized she was getting out of her clothes, then he caught the scent of her arousal.
Warm, wet, and inviting. It nearly finished him. Her hands were on his jeans then, working at the fastening and he broke their kiss while he still could.
“Haley,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “If you want to stop, now’s the time.”
“I don’t want to stop,” she said with heat. “I want all of you and I want you now.”
It was the last thing he would have expected her to say and it set him on fire. Damon kicked off his jeans and ran his hands over her smooth curves. He kissed the nipple that had seduced him, then suckled it, liking how she arched her back and moaned a little.
“They’re kind of big,” she said, referring to her breasts as if she’d apologize for them.
“They’re perfect,” he replied between kisses, meaning every word. “Lush. More than a handful.”
“Oh! I thought you’d like fit women.”
“You are fit,” he replied, stoking her length and feeling the muscles beneath her curves. “But a woman, too.” His fingers eased between her thighs and the slick heat he found there made his heart pound in anticipation.
“The couch makes a bed,” she gasped, but Damon didn’t care.
“Screw the bed,” he growled, not wanting to wait, not sure he could. “The floor is fine.”
She started to laugh, but his fingers moved against her, sliding over her until he found the hard bud of her clitoris. She gasped aloud when he caressed it, seizing him with both hands, her nails digging into his shoulders. She rocked her hips when he slid two fingers inside her, rubbing herself against his hand in ecstasy.
Damon knew he’d never seen anything as hot as her raw need.
He wanted to be the lover she never forgot.
He braced his weight on his elbow, enjoying the sight of her pleasure as he teased her. She blushed like no one he’d ever known before, the rosy heat starting on her cheeks and spreading over her breasts, like a wildfire beneath her skin. She looked like a different woman than he’d met at the hospital, a much more impulsive and sensual one, and he was honored to see this side of her.
She whispered his name and bucked her hips, as if to encourage him to hurry.
“Slowly,” he reminded her as he eased another finger inside her. Her lips parted in a gasp and she arched her back. “Very slowly.”
“You’ll kill me.”
“Probably not, and even if I do, it’s only fair.”
“Fair?” She had that adorable look of confusion again.
“You’ve been driving me wild since I got here.”
She blushed more deeply, her eyes sparkling with delight, then Damon eased down her length. He flattened his hands against her thighs and bent to close his mouth over her. Haley moaned and shivered, but he didn’t let her go. He held her down and ate her leisurely, taking all the time in the world to slide his tongue slowly over her, to trace little circles on her clitoris, to graze that taut bud with his teeth until she gasped and shuddered. He coaxed the heat within her to build, then backed off, starting again and again.
It wasn’t unlike massage, a very intimate style of effleurage that stroked and soothed and stimulated at the same time. He didn’t rush and he felt her responding to his touch vehemently as if she’d never been pleasured like this before.
Maybe she hadn’t.
Maybe he was the first to go down on her.
That only fed Damon’s determination to make it special. Her entire body grew taut and all he could smell was her arousal mixed with the scent of the lotion. She was writhing beneath him, on the very cusp of orgasm for what seemed like a thousand years.
“I can’t make a sound,” she whispered in desperation. “My neighbors! The walls are thin and they can’t know...”