“I feel the same way. I want to be out of purgatory… I want to live.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Shifting his hand to the nape of her neck, Darius drew her to him—and when they were close, he held her there. Just in case she wanted to change her mind. She didn’t. She was the one who finished the distance, and their lips meeting once again was the most natural thing in the world.
Yet she was the one who ended their connection.
He kept his disappointment to himself as she returned to the bowl—
Anne came back with the little towel, pushed the covers off him, and placed the cloth on his abdomen. As his six pack tightened reflexively, he looked down his body. On the far side of her hand, behind the fly of the cargo pants that really needed to come off because they were dirty and carried a whiff of gasoline and house fire and lesser blood… his erection was oh, so obvious.
And she saw it, too, her stroke over his stomach stilling.
She had to know what she’d been doing to him, though.
Opening his mouth to say something, he promptly lost his voice as she swooped that hand towel right across his waistband. And went back. And forth.
At his hips, his cock punched at its confines.
Without another word, she went back to the bowl—and this time, she left the terry cloth in there. Turning to him, her eyes locked on his.
“I think I’ve washed everything I can get to.”
“Mm-hm,” he said. Because he didn’t trust his voice.
“I’ll just… take care of your pants then.”
Darius closed his eyes and arched back into the pillows. “Oh… God… yes.”
He kept his lids shut because there was no way in hell he was going to make it through the sight of her undoing that button and that zipper—not without coming all over the place. And as it was, just the sensations of tugging and pulling were enough for him to have to fight for control: With every shift, his erection was getting friction, and his mind conflated and confused the sensation until it was her hand on him, not the underside of the fly—
Darius moaned as he felt a cool rush and a delicious release of the constriction.
Anne’s exhale was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. “I want to touch you—”
“Please,” he groaned as he rolled his hips.
As his eyes popped open, there was no closing them, not with what he saw, not with what she was doing: Her hand circled his erection in a grip, and the sight of her fingers on his shaft, below his head, holding him…
Darius bit his lip—then realized his fangs had dropped down. Hiding that shit quick, he concentrated on Anne. And what a thing to focus on. She started in slowly with the stroking, and with a surge of lust, he pulled her to him so he could have her mouth. Entering her with his tongue, he imagined it was her core that he was licking into, and after that, he didn’t think much. It was all about what she was doing to him, the up and down on his arousal, the slick kissing, the softness of her breasts against his pecs as she rested on his chest.
Except then he had to stop her. Covering that talented hand of hers with his own, he groaned. “I’m going to come.”
“Good—”
Before he knew what he was doing, his body moved on its own, rolling over in a surge and taking her with him so that he pinned her with his weight. Staring into her eyes, he was breathing like he was running for his life as he moved her hand out from between them. And just so she was sure it wasn’t because he didn’t want her, he growled and kissed her harder, sweeping his arms around her—except he kept his hips back, and when he finally eased off her mouth, his voice was nothing but a rasp.
“Not until I’m inside you.” As her eyes flared, he shook his head. “There’s no rush. I’m more than willing to wait. But I will not come until I’m inside you.”
For a split second, he thought he might have come across as pushy.
But then she bit her lower lip, closed her eyes… and arched into him as if she were imagining him mounting her properly, entering her, filling her up.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Darius. Inside me…”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Back when Anne had been down in the kitchen, teaching the butler the difference between a flush and straight, she had found herself wondering how the night would end.
Darius coming home with those burns had not been it, for sure—but beyond that, she wasn’t entirely surprised to find herself with him more than half naked and her so hungry for him that she wasn’t thinking about anything other than the sex. This stopping, though, and its reason, was unexpected—
You already love him. Do not try to talk yourself out of it.
The mysterious voice came from somewhere inside her, and for a moment, she couldn’t understand what it was, why she was hearing it. Yet the words were familiar, as if they’d been spoken to her all her life.
They were also the truth and they galvanized her.
She was in love with him. And she didn’t want to end this here.
As the realizations hit, she instantly negotiated with the conclusions: Too early, too soon after Bruce, too much…
None of that was persuasive. And if Darius didn’t want to orgasm before he was inside her? Well, there was a solution to that.
Aware that she was being impulsive, but driven by a need she was not going to argue with, Anne untucked her shirt, and didn’t waste time with the buttons. She swept it up and off her head. And yeah, wow. The way he looked at her breasts in the modest cups of her nothing-special cotton bra? It was like it was the first time he had seen a naked woman.
“Anne.”
As he sat up, his abdominal muscles were ridges under his skin, and the sight of his arousal lying up his stomach, so thick and hard, made her desperate in a way she hadn’t ever been about anything: His sex was her obsession in an instant, a lock-in that she didn’t want to get free of, a choice that was inevitable—and not because of any outside force, but because of an inner conviction that there was an eternity for her in this moment, this chance to be with him.
And time wasn’t forever for mortals.
“You’re beautiful,” Darius said as he reached forward.
His hands trembled as he caressed her through what covered her, and then his lips were on her throat, her collarbones… her sternum. Spearing her hands into his hair, she held him closer to herself, and he nuzzled at her as he unclasped the front of the bra. When her breasts were bare to him, he licked and sucked on her, the sensations magnified to such a point that she felt the contact all over her body, not just on her nipples.
Splitting her thighs, she welcomed him to her, his erection a hard length that rubbed against her core through the tangle of her skirt. Desperate to be totally naked, she felt like everything was moving so fast, and yet it was too slow. She wanted him inside her now, she wanted that orgasm from him filling her up, she—
“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarius…”
Darius’s head ripped up and looked at the door as she did the same.
Down somewhere on the first floor, someone was singing: “Daaa-aaa-rrriuuusss… Dariusss, Da-da-dariiiiusss!” Pause. “Da! Da-da-da-d-da-d-d-daaaariusssss… where are you and I need a Baaaaand-Aid!”