He released my hands and turned them so that my palms were facing down. He curled my fingers around the bedsheets, indicating that I should hang on, then he moved my thighs wider apart as he settled in.
“Goddess,” he hummed into my most personal private space before he put his mouth on me. It was everything. He used his lips, teeth, and tongue in a sensual assault that had me arching my back and begging for something that sparkled just out of reach.
“Please, I need—” I stopped, unable to form a fully coherent sentence.
“Let it come, Annabelle,” he demanded.
“What about you?” I asked. I felt myself going under but clawed my way back. It didn’t seem right. I was the initiator; I should be making him fall apart first.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “We have all night.” Then he put his mouth on me again and wooed me with an undeniable skill. The feeling was so exquisite; I couldn’t fight off the ripples of pleasure that started low and deep and spread through my entire body from my toes to my hair in delicious wave after wave. I closed my eyes and rode out each one until, satisfied, Nick planted one last kiss on me and slid back up my body, settling his hips in the cradle of my legs.
He was watching me with a self-congratulatory grin, and I would have balked but, really, what would be the point? The man had wrecked me, positively wrecked me, and he knew it.
I looped my arms about his neck and pulled him down so I could look him in the eye. Then I kissed him, long and lingering. When I ended the kiss, I pressed my forehead to his and asked, “Can an orgasm make you stupid?”
He chuckled low and deep, pressing his face against the side of my neck. Feelings were bubbling up inside of me, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding him close while hiding my face. I felt a tear prick the corner of my eye, hot and wet and full of all the emotions I was feeling but couldn’t say. It wanted to spill, but I blinked it back. He’d said no crying at the end, but I believed it would be a deal breaker even now.
“I’ve never experienced that symptom,” he said. “But I’d be willing to give it a go, so I could weigh in with some empirical evidence.”
This time, I laughed. I rolled out of his arms and opened the top drawer of my nightstand. A girl should always be prepared. I grabbed a condom out of the box and tossed it over my shoulder. He caught it in midair. The grin he sent me was positively wicked, and I felt an answering thrum in my core. Oh, this man.
He made quick work of putting on protection and then he was rolling me back under him. I could sense he was looking for a signal from me that I was ready. I didn’t know how to wave him in any clearer than to wrap my legs around his waist and decisively invite him in. He looked down at me in surprise and I grinned. He sucked in a breath.
“Definitely a goddess,” he growled and then slid into me, pushing against the muscles that were still swollen and flushed. The pressure felt glorious, and I let out a gasp and arched into the feeling of him, filling me. I readied myself for a wild ride with him setting us in motion. There was none, however. Instead, he held himself perfectly still as if he was afraid to move.
“Nick?” I whispered. He was so still, I was afraid he’d hurt himself.
“Sorry, I just . . . I can’t breathe,” he said. He shook out his left hand as if trying to get the feeling back in his fingers. “I just . . . damn it . . . I don’t know if I can—”
I could hear the anxiety in his voice. I knew that if Nick bailed on me now, I would likely never get him naked again. Also, it would become one more obstacle on his path to recovery.
Obviously, I wasn’t a doctor, so I hesitated to say what I suspected, but I genuinely believed that the symptoms Nick was exhibiting weren’t precursors to another stroke but rather he had a case of severe anxiety manifesting in panic attacks.
I’d seen it before. Several times in the months following my mother’s death, my sister, Chelsea, had been convinced that she was having a heart attack. After several doctor’s visits, including a few trips to the emergency room, we discovered she was having panic attacks.
“How can I help?” I asked. I ran my hand up and down his spine, hoping to soothe him.
He heaved a deep breath. He pulled back to look at me. His hazel eyes practically glowed with unsatisfied lust. He looked like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, wanting to jump but terrified of what was in the deep dark water below. Understanding hit me with the precision of a hammer.
“This is your first time since . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to kill the mood by using the s word.
“Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m trying to get my bearings.”
I smiled. He was trying so hard to keep his cool. I leaned up and kissed him quick.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just breathe together and see what happens. Come here.”
We stayed entwined, but I pulled him down so his weight settled against me. I looped my arms about his neck, holding him close, and Nick pressed his forehead against mine. Together, we began to breathe. I had done breathing exercises with Chelsea, so I knew to inhale for eight, hold it for four, and then exhale for eight. Nick matched his breathing to mine, and I felt the tension ease out of his body. He settled in against me, his nose pressed against my neck, his hands cradling me gently as if I was the most precious thing in the world to him.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Time ceased to mean anything. My entire world became him, just him.
When he pulled away, his face was clouded with a feeling I knew all too well. Shame. I had suffered bouts of it after both of my divorces, feeling like something was wrong with me. That I was defective. I could see the same self-loathing in his eyes right now. I couldn’t let him feel that way. Not about this. Not about me. Not about us.
Before he could get away, I dug my fingers into his hair and kissed him. Then I rolled him, so he was on the bottom and I was on top.
“What if you just relax and I do all the heavy lifting?” I asked.
He looked uncertain but his gaze was all heat. “Well, I can’t argue with the view.”
There was something incredibly powerful about being the one in control, much like he had been with me before, and I reveled in it. I splayed my hands on his chest and I made love to him as sweetly and as gently as I could until I noticed a sheen of sweat on his brow and his teeth were gritted.
“How are you feeling now?” I asked.
“Like I’m about to die the sweetest of deaths,” he said. “Totally worth it.”
He sat up and pulled me in tight, then he put one hand on my lower back while the other slipped in between us and with his thumb he caressed me in an insistent circular motion that made everything zero in on that pressure point. I lost my sense of rhythm, my powers of speech, and my balance.